Random Musings on a Rainy Afternoon

I am writing after a very long time. Life has been hectic, in a way Zoya Akthar and Nancy Meyers movies didn’t prepare me for. Even when I need a break, or take long naps, the urgency and relentlessness of life keeps my mind wide awake. No matter what happens, life goes on right! I feel like I am faking my way through life, and I realised that most adults feel that way; that made me feel a little better. It’s a slow, rainy, afternoon today and I thought I should write something, even though I didn’t have my keyboard with me.

I am at Ammammayaam. I’ve been spending more time here than at my home since Ammammai fell down and broke her hip. Time does slow down here, I’ve always felt that. Today, while walking aimlessly in the thalam I remembered, how I waited for quiet alone times like these when I was a teenager. Just so that I could sneak a phone call to my then-boyfriend. I am not really sorry about exploiting Ammammai’s poor hearing, but I do feel bad sometimes. I realised, while mindlessly scrolling through my phone, and aimlessly walking in the thalam that I don’t even remember the phone numbers I knew by heart. I can’t recollect most of the things we talked about. The only thing I distinctly remember is the caller tune he set for me to hear, I used to love it. But now I cringe a little at the song. It hit me how much I had grown up. I went from sneaking phone calls to a boy while my Ammammai made evening afterschool snacks for me to taking care of my grandparents when they were not at their best. 14-year-old Arundhathi would not have believed it if she had been told that she’d wise up and break things off with the boy she snuck phonecalls to, find love again and again but get disillusioned with it, and 12 years later, she’d be more worried about phonecalls rather than getting caught while making a phonecall. But life sneaks up on you like that and all you can do is roll your eyes and roll with it.