Argent

[Old draft : 21/04/08 : Do not take time references seriously.]

As a kid, I used to have this great fascination for charm bracelets. It would be the only part of the then-tomboy me that really pleased my mum. She's always been this stickler for looking glamorous/pretty [and in recent times - ravishing :P] and seeing me look wistfully at those thin silver chains made her way happier than seeing me muck around in the mud playing football with the guys.

You can't blame me : I was in love with the concept and still am - getting a plaid little bracelet and putting one charm on it every birthday to commemorate the year gone by. Like collecting time in a vial, and offloading a year's worth of memories into an intricate piece of argent. And having it around your wrist to gift a sudden unconscious smile at an inadvertent glance.

Yesterday, I went to Karol Bagh, probably after two years. Strange how fleetingly perspective stays, as does childish excitement. As I walk through the dingy lanes, I see huge, 20 feet+ banners put up by jewelers, clothes shops, car mechanics, and er..pakodawallas. I know this place vaguely. I recognize names. Bu the facades evade me. My mum's talking to me, unaware I'm lost. I catch an exasperated sigh, and she steers me to a dilapidated staircase with a survivingly familiar stench. And suddenly, I'm the exuberant 9 year old again, the one who wanted an anchor on her charm bracelet, because her favorite restaurant had a sea voyage theme. I look at mum incredulously, and she says, " I thought you'd like a new one, in lieu of the old that broke." I gape, and then I grin, in a broken sort of way.
An hour later, I'm catching the sun in the story woven around my wrist. There's a miniature convertible, hanging for the Britain trip where my dad drove us around, trying his darnest to unlearn standard Delhi honking routines. There's a tiny hairbrush - "Since I nag you enough about your hair." A sole stilleto - " A reminder that beauty with brains includes beauty, and that is NOT chortling around with mud streaks on your face," and a traveling hat [for the vacation to Singa, Malaysia and Thailand, where my sister and I fooled around wearing touristy hats and orange paper umbrellas] glint gleefully. So does a little beer bottle crown - "Papa, Vasu!" she says, not realizing that my dad hates beer. ["Plus, it'll be you soon enough."]

We're walking back, and the streets are lit up, barely recognizable. Bright and agog, this could be anywhere. Unfamiliar faces, unchartered paths; and storehouses of memories might be locked inside the cupboards of those shops, tightly bolted- away from my sight. I'm beginning to wonder if this is the place I once knew, when I see another mirror. The corner park, and the tree I used to climb, fighting for sole rights to the top most branch. The by lanes are still filled with shady characters and swirls of smoke. And at the back of my cupboard, lies a charm bracelet with an anchor dangling from it lopsidedly. Broken, but yet quite whole.

Voices

"Can I have one earphone?"
"Yeah, sure."
"OYE! What is this?!"
"Afterglow. INXS."
"It is so slow... I thought you were a rap person. You look like a rap person. Orrr.. Hip Hop!"
"Um, no. Not rap. Not hip hop either."
"So you listen to Jagjit Singh then?"

"What do you keep on studying, ego and all? How to prove you're the best?"
"Vaidu, its called ECO."

"Yeah, so there was a question in my set that said - Where should a consumer go if dissatisfied with the District Consumer Forum? So I was gonna write National Forum, but I thought,'Vasu gets State Level certificates before National Level ones, and I wrote State Consumer Forum. Guess what, it was right!"

"Kabbadiwaaleyaaaaah, paper, paper. Raddi, puraane darwaaze, kursiyaan de. Purane bartan, pankhen de. Purane fridge, computer, laptop de.."

[watching a 6 year old and a 9 year old tumbling over each other, fighting.]
"I wish I was a kid again."
"Why? So that you could physically assault someone and get away without charges?"

"Oh, shut up. I watch Roadies as a case study in interpersonal sociological dynamics."

The Idiot's Guide to Hacking Into Your Younger Sister's Windows Account

1. Switch on computer.

2. Click on naive-younger-sister's Windows account icon.

3. Ah, you need to enter the password. Click on password hint.

4. Password hint says "Pass word."

5. Pause.
Ponder.
Think of your sister's favorite telly shows.
Hmm.
Recess, Hannah Montana, Lizzie McGuire, Drake and Josh.

6. Type in p-a-s-s-w-o-r-d and press Enter.

7. Bingo.

*

Power to thin brained simpleton siblings! :D