DISGRUNTLED. And a bit of whimsy.

Okay, okay - I admit it. I am finally disgruntled. How come people visit my blog but leave no comments? The posts aren't that abstruse or nonsensical, even if I say so myself.

Why won't anyone post some comments? Is there nothing to be said? The last post that received a decent number of comments (of course half of the comments were my own!) was the one on exams!
I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. First just "write for fun and because it's almost like meditation, and so enjoyable anyway." And five days down the line, "Why won't anyone say anything?"
Oh, the irony of it!
Anyway, I'm going back to writing my wugga-wugga Statistics paper. Maybe it might "talk back to me."
-----29th April 2008

Wrote that above bit about a week ago. Today's the 3rd Of May. And I'm still feeling disgruntled. Not as much as before but I was quite smugly convinced that I would reach absolute "equanimity" regarding "non-responses" by this week. What a hope! There'll be more posts in the coming week. Well, at least one fresh one, which is jostling with another one to get "published" first.

Well, cheerio folks. Have a happy weekend….
Here it looks like a travelling tornado might go by any moment now. And yes, we apparently had an earthquake last week, on Friday. Somebody at the bus-stop said it was 6.2 on the Richter scale, and I had looked away embarrassed (in my head I'd said, "We wouldn't be standing here buddy, if that were a 6.2) but held my tongue. I slept through the earthquake though. Didn't feel a thing. Having gone to sleep really, really late - maybe half an hour before the earthquake hit (the ground rumbled and trembled at 5.37 a.m or so I heard, and read) - but I slept like a baby. Heard from Joe that he'd been having frightful dreams, and had been dreaming about a huge rumbling, hooting train, and he shot up awake, and felt the rumbling, and the trembling, and he was struck with horror thinking that a train was coming hurtling through his window (I think that's what he said). Namrata, when she felt the earthquake had greatly desired to go running outside, and feel the earth trembling beneath her feet. Ehren sounded just as excited about the earthquake. In fact he hollered across the road asking me whether I'd felt it, and I'd asked him, "Felt what?" Of course everyone was glad that it hadn’t been a “real” earthquake.

Apparently when I was 11 or 12 there had been an earthquake in Durgapur. But I had slept through that one as well.

As for the tornado warnings. We get them like clockwork every summer and spring. At least once. One thing I've never figured out is why they tell us to run down into the basement and stay there. Well - I get the "practical" side of it. But who's to say that anyone will be found after and if the rubble is ever cleared once a tornado does indeed fly by this sleepy town? Maybe one will be buried under the rubble and have to stay there with no smokes or drinks and no (terror of terrors) loo. Of course I don't know what I'd really do if a tornado did hit - but in the house that I now live (It is the best-est house on the best-est street - and this is the Absolute Truth) - the basement is certainly not a place to stay. The whole house (which is pretty old) will definitely collapse if a serious tornado does a pretty whirldance through our street. My whole street has pretty old houses...and most of them will probably disappear alongwith most of their inmates - because somehow I think almost all the eccentric inmates on our street will probably come charging down into the streets instead of staying down in the basement if indeed a tornado does come flying through. Or we might all get orange cones, and place caution signs all over - so that the tornado decides to leave us alone. I do think some of the inmates on the street might just do that…

I remember some 5 years ago – ‘round about the same time (almost exactly) a tornado warning had come through. I was staying in a delightful studio apartment at that point in time – having moved out of a Black Hole of a Dorm room where I’d spent the second year. My studio apartment was a little “sunken” into the ground, had huge French windows – which I never locked, and a porch. And since it was sunken – I could see the grass, the pretty flowers that erupted from the grass, the trees which had sprung lovely green shoots through the late Spring, and the early summer that had set in. And as I said, the door was always kept ajar when I was in the apartment, and was never locked even when I was out. In fact I had made it into a habit to make my exit and entrance by climbing out of the porch or leaping in. The studio had a bathroom the size of a royal Basket-ball field (well, almost). And a bath-tub (but obviously). And it had a walk-in closet where I did spend a considerable amount of time every now and again. It had a mini kitchen, and all the kitchen paraphernalia. It was a very well-kept apartment, and rent was cheap, and I’d done it up well, and after the previous Fall, and Spring which were rather ghastly – the apartment itself was enough to keep my head out of water, and the greyness which had been sweeping around.

Anyway, to get back to the tornado. So a tornado warning had come through. Outside the weather had really cracked up. Huge gales were blowing and howling. It was hardly past noon, but the sky, if it didn’t look black certainly looked ominous. Rain jets spurted through – but quite obstinately I refused to shut the Glass door. I sat there with my coffee and music and cigarettes, and my notebook – when the thought hit me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go walking near the river. And without wasting another second, I slipped my sneakers on, a long black raincoat (which belonged to my mum, and was some 20 years old – but as good as new. It makes me look like a detective or straight out of The Matrix when I wear it – even now. I always find myself wishing I were a few inches taller when I put that raincoat on), grabbed my packet of cigarettes, and a lighter, and made my way out of the porch.

Off to the river it was!

And the wind blew. And the rains blew into and across my face. Some folks whizzing by in their cars gave me “looks” and I grinned my toothy grin at them or gave them my blank impassive stare or glare as the fancy and mood caught me. I don’t know what scared them more – the grin or the glare. And I walked on. By the time I got to the Walkbridge over the river, I wasn’t really wet but fairly damp and soaking. Every now and again – I had felt that I would be blown away – but that didn’t happen. I, of course poo-poohed the idea of a real tornado ever coming through.

So there I was walking along the overbridge. The river looked nicely swollen. Not too much. And not too little. There were pretty currents whirling around in it, and the banks were covered in fresh, sprightly lime and laughing green grass stalks and shrubs, and the huge trees rose just a couple of feet further along, and completely overtook the landscape. That bridge and the river and the trees and the little train station across – makes this part of my town look almost European. Especially if you look across and catch sight of all the church steeples, and the famously Ugly but Grand County Court House. I surveyed my surroundings – only the rain sprays shooting into my face made it sort of difficult to keep my eyes open. At one point I remember thinking that I’d lost one of my contacts – but it had merely been dislodged with the rain jets. By this time of course my hair was completely plastered all over my head – so at least my hairmop wasn’t obstructing my view.

I lit a cigarette after some moments, and it got rather drenched in barely 17 seconds – but I didn’t care. I still puffed at it valiantly, and it didn’t go out on me. Finally after maybe a little over 33 minutes or so – I got up. The wind was still lashing around. But there really wasn’t much rain, or so I kept telling myself. It was just that the rain sprays were getting swept around in the gales. I walked around on the bridge for another some seconds, and finally walked back home. Not so much walked to be honest as much as forcibly pushed, and prodded, and hastily bumped along by the wind.
So I made it home pretty quick – even though it was uphill from the river.

As soon as I got near my porch to make my entrance – I spotted a head bobbing up and down near the stairway. And it looked like a familiar head. I was just about to go in from the proper entrance – when the head along with the body came out. And there was Beth.
“Where in heaven’s name were you?”
“Taking a walk by the river. Why?”
“Don’t you know a tornado warning has come through!”
“Ah…you don’t say.”
(And of course these were the wonderful days when I didn’t have a phone. I was quite relieved not having one, until my bro’ sent me his old phone through the mail!)

Beth and I walked back into my studio. I dropped in through the porch. I guess she did the same or walked through the proper door, down the stairs, and left turn. I don’t remember. I made some more coffee, and we had some cookies (biscuits. Biscuits – for crying out loud!). I put on some music. The rains were coming down without too much wind whipping around. At least that’s what I remember. I sat right near the Glass Door (French Windows/Glass doors – they’re the same thing) of course , looking outside, and steadily smoking and sipping my coffee. Beth was seated across near the foot of my bed or on a chair. And she gurgled with, “Shilps. It may not be the best thing to be sitting right in front of the window you know…”
“Ha-ha…maybe we should go and hide in the dryers or the washing machines.”

At that we laughed some more. There was some quiet conversation that bounced off the silence, some faint glass-bubble music playing in the background (I have the feeling it was Beth’s Jack Johnson cd), and then some time later Beth made her exit through the proper doorway. I went back to pottering around.

And the tornado went off to sleep.