Whispering Loud!

It is his birthday tomorrow and today we had a pre-birthday father-daughter rendezvous. I and my father spent the first half of the day talking about Agha Shahid Ali and the second half in a hospital. We spotted miseries and we debated miracles; all with the same interest. I prize such days spent with him and like so many of them in the past, our today’s tête-à-tête is still running inside my head. In spite of being blessed with same age- same crazy friends for life, father still continues to be my best conversationalist buddy and the poise with which he balances his intellect with humour remains matchless. He has a profound insight of everyday life and an unparalleled art of crafting theatre out of ordinary.  Father had his bone scan today. For the past few days he has been playing week and timid, a trick to gain sympathy and thus avoid any hospice appointment.  Actually, he didn’t like the details of the scan given to him and thus he tried his best to escape it. He...

Work begins at 9 nowadays and it’s April! Every day one awakens to a gloomy morning, wondering whether the clouds intend on romancing the sky only or they wish to make some love to earth also. Blame it on the beautiful colours of beloved Earth; the clouds quite often betray the sky! Breakfast is a trivial meal as the more important task, every morning, is to decide what to wear? Oh, believe me; it takes an Einsteinian intellect to make such decisions. To be in spring and to have to choose between the woollens and the not-so-woollens is a predicament for a woman.  And, as sacrilegious as it could be, even after many reviews, we all end up in the layers of woollies. Sigh!  As if all of it isn’t enough to ruin a lady’s day, there are potholes on which we drive, vehicles, the drivers of which very seriously consider these potholes as roads and then, O Lord, there are people, the sons of Adam, the crown of the Creation...people like this man, I could have butchered today ...