Passing thoughts from a temporary housewife

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PBS has been showing ‘The Complete Jane Austen’ series as part of Masterpiece Theatre. It comes on Sunday nights and I am thoroughly enjoying the watching and re-watching of these classics. So far we have seen Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Sense & Sensibility is next week. The cast is not very drool-worthy (Colin Firth is the best of the lot), but it was fun to see P&P minus the pouting Keira Knightley; Jennifer Ehle made a much better Elizabeth Bennet in my opinion.

Spending time at home right now is very much like being in a Jane Austen novel. Like the ladies from her novels, I lead a life of leisure. I read, sleep, eat food cooked by someone else, take turns about the room and pretty much do nothing worthwhile. You can substitute the piano playing with television watching, and well, I don’t go for balls on a regular basis but otherwise I am pleasantly preoccupied. Makes me wonder why I struggled all these years. I should have figured out this scam earlier. Could have saved a lot of money on wrinkle-remover creams.

With mom in town, I am getting to eat stuff that I have yearned for but haven’t had the enthu to prepare. Avial for instance is one such dish; love it but cannot be bothered to make it. Olan, kaalan, pachadi, kootu….the list goes on. Mom dishes out something delicious every single day and I keep her happy by wolfing down the food faster than she can say puliyakuthupperi! Even leftovers taste fabulous. There is something to be said for day old maambazha kootan……it only gains in flavour. Seriously, I have never been happier to finish off leftovers.

Being at home with mom and dad is like being a teenager all over again. It’s totally surreal how I have slid back comfortably into being their baby girl. It happens every time they are here……..mom takes over the kitchen, dad starts thinking about repairs around the house and I take it easy. Of course, the flip side to this is that they feel the need to lecture and counsel me, just like they did when I was a rebellious teenager. Take for instance the other night when I had to go out for a business dinner. What time will you get home? Will you be home very late? Don’t drink too much. I will wait up for you. Arrrrgh! I think they can’t help themselves but man is it irritating to answer all those questions. Though, it would have been strange if they didn’t ask anything either.

Talking about a blast from the past, my friend AP was here on work last week and she stayed with us for the weekend. AP and I, we go back a long way. We were batchmates in BSchool, joined the same company from campus and shared a chummery in Pune for a couple of years. We even ended up in the same parent company for our second job but were in different business groups. We’ve stayed in touch but have only met once in the last 8 years. So it was an emotional reunion and as expected, we had a blast together. We talked non-stop on Saturday evening and then woke up early on Sunday to catch up on the rest of the talking. There was no awkwardness; we both had changed a lot since the last time we met but from the moment she walked into the house it was as if we were back in our Koregaon Park apartment. That’s the thing about close friends…you just pick up where you left off last. My closest girlfriend lives on the other side of the ocean and we haven’t seen each other in years though we write emails regularly. This weekend made me realize how much I missed not having my BFF in my life.

I can’t believe I have completed 3 weeks of my sabbatical already. It’s funny how time flies when you actually want it to stand still, but at the same time, a week feels like an eternity when you are waiting for something critical to happen. I am in that weird stage right now; I want time to be on fast-forward mode and yet have the opportunity in the future to rewind my life and regain all this time. Sadly though, life is not a television program I can record and watch at leisure. It’s all live programming for now and all I can do is arm myself with some popcorn and enjoy the advertisements.

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