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Now playing: J - Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
via FoxyTunes
Year 1986: Grade 6, I am the same shy, reluctant guy as I was in 1985. Unwilling to compromise on my eccentric solitude and simply unwilling (is not the word!) to do what others did, or what "others always do"?!
Day dreaming continues to occupy the realty segment of my reality... hope you understood that by now, provided you have read my previous post :)
But then, one day, barely a week after my Grade 6 Year began, I saw this beautiful girl pass by my class.
Since then, there was no looking back from Ms. Rao. She was new to Chennai and her dad had just got a transfer to this WeMo (WannabE MetrO) or WeBo (WannabE BOmbay) - (will write about that soon, someday).
No looking back from Ms. Rao until one fine day, during my 10th Grade, she slammed her door on me, during one first and last visit of mine to her place with an invitation to my Birthday Party :) I, for sure, had all that it took to become a successful politician, given my bashfulness interwoven with my ability to celebrate my birthday all by myself, including the invites! However all those dreams of the almighty to see me rule one of the "Pettais" fell flat on his own nose when I didn't pull off a DON act to win Ms Rao's South Canarese heart :)
Ratzliyubit (Ratz in my shorter version): Russian, for the feeling that you have for someone you once loved, but not anymore.
What a beautiful word and what a unique meaning... am sure no other language has a word to describe this feeling!
Forget Ratzliyubit, I don't even have the Rats or the Bits for Ms. Rao, never did I, for that was merely an infatuation (I was only getting CrUsHeD!)
I do have this Ratz for many though... many whom I loved from the bottom... of my heart, and now I drink anything bottoms-up in their distasteful memory. Here goes my obsession with the hashes and the numbers :)
My TOP 3 Ratzs
Ratzliyubit #1: Loved Mrs. Iyengar when she used to be Miss. Iyengar and my 3 years of effort to convert her to Nairism of Thampurati fame failed miserably as she used her impeccable capabilities of any Bharathiya Nari to call my "wait for a year for our marriage" bluff and chose to hold hands with one Mister Iyengar. Called me from Kerala one fine day to tell me, "Your mother thought she could stop me from marrying you and now I am in your state, on a honeymoon with another man, for your mom to know that there's plenty of other fish in the ocean."
I didn't know how to care for that nor did the Late Mr Nayanar, I am sure. But I wondered how that could have been true... not her marriage but the "plenty of fish"! Fisherfolk in Kerala, I heard, are always on strike because the fish never fall into their nets. Apparently the fish are on strike because the nets are not fish friendly. The Arabian Sea is on strike because Miss / Mrs Iyengar called it an "Ocean"!
Jokes apart, can we get a bit serious now? Thanks!
I was hurt and humiliated. That's when my friend Ratzliyubit came in to my life and started to replace my 3 year long love for my long lost love, gradually, like how Maniratnam's movie climax usually unfolds. The last I heard about her is that she immediately married after wishing me well (kinaru? may be!) to marry Mr. nGar and is blessed with 2 babies.
Ratzliyubit #2: As I think of the boys turned men turned husbands turned fathers, I take a good look at my little new born daughter and my best friend, my wife, and refresh my vows, to be a good husband and a father and a friend.
It's hard to ignore a head-turner of the opposite sex (if one is straight, that is!) but it's not hard at all to just admire / appreciate and move on.
Some men manage to get really compassionate and begin to lead a parallel life and a family, especially their friends' widows! Some fathers manage to physically abuse their children, say, by forcing them to eat sand for lunch, drink fruit juice flowing over the desk, dragging their kids by one ear across half a mile and so on...
Some men honor their life partners with unparliamentary language, the kind of language is of late, in vogue in our parliament. And some are cocktails. Actually, just tails. No Cock.
I choose to be different while, despite all the heavenly experiences I have had, chewing sand after school, I choose to also remember the good times I have had with my father, by law and by science. Therefore, I stop with Ratz and no hateful revenge or curses.
I wouldn't wanna let god have a long vacation!
Ratzliyubit #3: The Indian Army. They do what most men in the underworld shit bricks about - Staring at death in the eye, while we sleep in our blankets, safe and sound (snores included).
Ratz about the Indian Army because the very thought of fighting for the nation and dying for the nation in the name of mere selfish political interests and having to salute the "safed dhoti wallahs" seems highly self humiliating.
I go speechless when I hear rumours about Kashmiri women being raped day in, day out while the women in our families walk freely across busy roads and malls and office complexes.
I am sure we all have our own share of Ratzliyubits hidden somewhere or at least shelved for the D-Day...
ZANKYOV! for reading...
