oh I don't know- DRAMA?

More than two decades ago, in an unknown hospital in a dusty town Kerala, I was delivered. With the first scent of the drama that my life if going to be, my little self launched into a long, tortured cry which was mistaken by the doctors to be a normal slap-a-baby’s-butt-to-make her-cry cry.

Fast forward to now and here I am, a wearied woman who has seen all the lemons that life has to offer. Well, most of ‘em.

What’s wrong with this weirdo”, is probably what you are thinking. No, don’t hide it, it’s too late. Plus, unlike Sheldon Cooper’s mother, my mom didn’t get me tested. So I can never really be sure if I am not the very house of crazy. The thing is, drama pursues me no matter which corner of the world I go. My life has this very irritating habit of recreating worn out Bollywood clich’s just for the heck of it. I can see your raised eyebrow, so here’s an example. In my 20+ yrs, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve boarded a train without, um, dying. The rest of the time, I’ve had to run like a crazy woman, with sweat pouring out of me in buckets and my fifty thousand bags clutched to chest finally to get into the train in the nick of time. And just when I am about the flash the victory sign I realize there’s a good 15 minutes before departure.

Oh my public transport woes don’t end there. There was once when I ran behind a moving bus (like all good Indians do) and jumped into it. It was my first time and I was elated. Till I found out I was on the wrong bus. Imagine my embarrassment when after all this, oh I don’t know- DRAMA?, I had to make the driver stop the bus. I could FEEL the eyes of the entire bus on me as I got down. This is not the end either, my life decided that buses and trains weren’t enough and I should embarrass myself in international airports too. First things first, my family has this very weird obsession of carting things back and forth between countries. By my family, I mean my mother. So everytime we went to Italy, when my dad was posted there, our bags are filled to the brim with oyster pickles (yes, they exist), MUD POTS ( I am not joking) which my mom apparently HAS to have to make ‘authentic kerala fish curry’, and an assortment of Indian snacks and sweets. The worst thing is that we are almost always carrying more baggage than we are allowed. This results in a few frantic minutes of rearranging luggage (where we take out the excess baggage and stuff it into our handbags in front of the entire airline staff) praying we are let through.

The worst incident so far happened on a trip to Langkawi island (Malaysia). We reached the check in counter exactly 15 minutes before the gate closing. So we weren’t allowed to check in our baggage despite me procuring a few tears and begging them to let our precious bag in. The stone faced lady at the counter just printed our boarding pass and told us we could just take our cabin bags in. This resulted in us basically just sitting on the floor right there and emptying everything in our suitcase. I don’t know what people thought as they saw us stuffing undergarments (which seemed to have reproduced in the suitcase) into plastic bags. My beautiful red suitcase was left behind in the cold airport floor and we boarded the flight looking like a family from slumdog millionaire.

I am sure this is just a beginning of a lifetime of last minute luggage betrayal. Sigh

And this is just an extract from

of the volumes that make the drama in my life. Another section for another day…