Ingenuity at work

After a too-short nap to while away the hot afternoon, I woke up to the results of A’s latest project. A jam bottle, complete with silvery sand, coral, sea weed and a few tiny black and white, striped fish that seems to thrive so well in the Lakshadweep islands. The mouth of the bottle was tied with an ordinary polythene bag with holes punctured in it. A miniature aquarium and a perfectly proportioned one at that!!!

Being a city girl, I was dumbstruck at how anyone could have managed this; that too in the short time that one took to take an exploratory walk. A, forever mindful of the gaps in my childhood experiences of the kind, decided to show me the contraption he had used work the miracle.

It was very simple fishing device. A thick long piece of wood, a long piece of cloth that had two ends tied to the wooden piece while a third end was held away from the piece of wood to make a makeshift triangle-shaped net. All one had to do, according to him, was to find a rock pool and scare some fish into the area where the net was held.. And hey presto… you had bagged some fish!! I was so impressed with his ingenuity that I decided to take a closer look. And hey presto, the net seemed to have a neat frill along one edge. Realization, though slow, did dawn; he had found some lady’s blouse to use as a net!!! And from the looks of it, it belonged to a pretty gargantuan lady at that!!! So now we have some poor lady wandering the island blouseless!!

GENERATION "GAP"

Its 9:30 pm the night before Vishu. Hubby and the not so little mite in tow, I enter Brand Factory in search of new clothes. I am dead on my feet after yet another crazy day at work, hubby dear is tired out after the long drive back from Kozhikode, and Appu wasn’t too happy at being denied some popcorn at what he felt was a reasonable time of the night.

Mindful of the fact that I was perilously close to facing a revolt from the two men in my life, I quickly grabbed two shirts off the rack and tried them on Appu. They fit!! Thank you God!!!. Now I just needed to find a pair of pants that fit and we could all go home.

Sooner said than done. I should have realized that things could never be that simple!! Not in my life at least!!. We simply couldn’t find trousers that fit!! Appu, fortunately or unfortunately, has a waist that resembles that of a wasp but with the legs of a giraffe. As if that wasn’t enough, he was mortified at being asked to change tens of shorts, pants and other doo dads in the middle of the floor. Of course, the fact that he had his underwear on, or that we were practically hidden behind all the hanging clothes did not lessen his distress.

The last straw came when we asked him to go look in the mirror and see if he liked the one he had on. He angrily walked off, me anxiously following (in case he decided to walk out of the store itself). The scene that met my eyes had me laughing. Appu, hands in his pockets was turning this way and that, busy admiring himself in front of the mirror!!!

At the counter, the saleswoman, who seemed to be having a bad day herself, told me she would only bill my purchases if I had a card!!! Biting back a scathing retort to that, I meekly handed my card over and we were finally done!!!

Next day we only woke up after the household help had rung the bell long enough to wake up everyone in the building. After lots of rushing about and viewing the “Vishukanni” it was time to dress Appu in all his new finery. And I got the shock of my life………… Did that shirt actually have a rip down the front? Visions of the shelling I was about to get from everyone flashing across my mind’s eye, I fearfully felt the “rip”; only to realize that it was actually backed by differently colored material. The whole shirt was a miniature version of the currently fashionable inside out clothes. Looks like I am woefully behind in keeping with the current kiddie fashions!!!