18th Birthday

I must say that i don't remember much of what happened during that time but I am just penning it down so that i never forget what my friends did for me and a lot of firsts that happened. It was the time of 'Tathva' in college and i ended up being on the dance team. It was just after test 2 in s1 when i was down with high fever. Incidentally that was the first time, and now surely the last time, i ever visited our Health Centre. The doc on seeing my condition advised me to skip the exams and do makeup exams but the thought of staying in college even for a day after my endsem exams was quite revolting. So she prescribed some very strong antibiotics and told me not to stress myself. So i did do as was told to me. By the end of the exams i was back to my normal self and the next week started a hectic schedule ( now come to think of it, it was nothing compared to Ragam) with classes and dance practice.

Now a new problem arose. My fever was long gone but i felt tired like anything even by just walking and i had those gut-wrenching pains. Initially i had those only when i danced during practice but the more i strained the more painful it was. I called it quits then and went to bed just to awaken the next day with the pain three-fold. I got dressed and decided to ignore it and get on with my life. But it did not seem that easy. Even walking proved difficult and returning back from college i was glad that my friend was there with me and she literally put me to bed on reaching hostel. I decided to contact my usual escape-route and told him to book my tickets home that weekend and told him specifically to not tell our parents and worry them. Instead of getting some soothing words he literally blew away and told me to talk to mom first before booking anything. I talked to mom and dad and after a lot of persuasion from me they finally allowed me to be in college till the weekend.

This indeed was a twist to my friends who were planning a birthday bash for me. Since i would not be available to give a treat on my birthday i gave everyone an ice cream each two days before my birthday on the 13th.I packed and was ready to leave on the eve of my birthday on the 14th. So i had to celebrate my birthday with my friends around six hours earlier than they would have expected. There was my entire close friends set in my room- people i already knew from home and my new friends there. The cake was spared of any damage it would have suffered on my face or any other's. After all i had a train to catch. I was also spared of the famous, or should i say the infamous, GPL. That was purely a consideration on my health. After a blast with everyone and getting a sweet present of which i had no idea i left for home. On my way home at exactly midnight i get flooded by calls from family and friends. It was kind of an embarrassing situation since i was travelling by train and my phone kept on ringing but there is always a solution. I put my mobile on vibrate mode and continued answering them. After all i do disturb people at midnight with phone calls and it was revenge time and i did not want to be the spoilsport!

I reached home thinking i could just sleep off the entire weekend but my family had other plans for me. I could not get forty winks before my mom pulled me to a place i am terrified of- HOSPITALS. It just sends the creeps down my spine. I knew what their answer would be. First on the list was a blood test. The old and the young (in my family) alike know how terrified i am of needles. I have had just 2 blood tests in my entire 18 years of life and both times they were not event-less needless to say. And finally hugging my mom, closing my eyes and clenching my teeth i went through the ordeal. The tests were normal. Well what did they expect? Anyway in spite of it being my birthday i was not spared any medical procedure. A first of many sorts were in store for me. A girl who was petrified of preliminary tests was asked to take a scan, x-ray and what not. Seriously, it was high time that the doctors accepted that they had no clue as to what exactly they were looking for. Not only was my birthday spoilt but also Diwali (17th). With 3 days of hospital life, i had had enough for a lifetime. All this while my friends were worried about me that they flooded me with get-well-soon messages and i called one of my roomies on Diwali night. After all it was her birthday the next day and my mom was definitely not going to allow me to stay up till 12 thanks to my health. So i called her up earlier and wished her and in turn she was telling me what all was happening in college, how much fun they were having and how worried they were of me. After a long phone call of jokes and facts and truths i hung up and decided to go to bed not wanting to think about anything in my life.

And finally on the 18th the doctor finally admitted that he had no clue as to what was wrong. And then came the highlight of the day, the doctor had the nerve to suggest a surgery to know the reason behind my fatigue. I must say that my tongue just got stuck in my throat but i was able to utter that i would be leaving that night for college and that i would not be back for another two months. The doctor's disappointment was evident on his face and so was my joy on release from the hospital. Going under the knife was the last thing in my wish-list for my birthday. All the plans i had when i was coming home was shattered. I was so disappointed in my weekend that i ended up going home the next weekend too missing my first ever Tathva in college. When my mom asked me to come home i never knew that she had other schemings. In fact that week she had been to other doctors for second opinions and God knows how many other opinions. The first time i spoke to her itself i made it very clear to her that i would go only to our family doctor for i trusted him and he very well knew my phobia of needles and always diagnosed me correctly with almost a 100% record of not sending me for any tests whatsoever. But only after a harrowing weekend with me in the hospital that my family remembered my favourite doctor. And as always he was very sweet and told my mom that all the tests were not necessary and that it was just an overdose of antibiotics that i had taken from our dear HC and that it was not supplemented with vitamins... Well so much for the surgery i guess.

The second weekend holiday went without much events with mom just revealing to me the doctors she had met in spite of me telling her that i was not going to spoil my weekend again and that i was not coming within a seven-mile radius of any hospital. Anyway in spite of all the mental and physical fatigue i must say that the birthday will remain close to my heart. After all it was proposed to be my first one away from home but it turned out to be something else. So enjoying an awesome cake from my friends and my favourite kheer at home, the birthday was two-fold happier for me. Setting aside all the unpleasant moments i will look back to 15th Oct,2009 as a special day and that would be due to my family and mainly my friends in hostel and all i want to say to them would be ' Thank you guys for making the day so special'.

Cooking Expeditions

It all started way back- the year, day and time i exactly don't remember. The entire family was all gung ho about me trying to do something in the kitchen. But the only relationship me and the kitchen ever had was me entering it once in a while to fix a snack for myself or mainly to get chocolates from the refrigerator. The earliest memory of me making anything was a lemonade for my dad and uncle. It turned out to be a fabulous lemonade that my uncle finally had to tell me not to show my anger on the lemon and that i had to squeeze the lemon pretty softly to prevent the lemonade from tasting sour. :-)

The next one had to be with Varun. Whenever grandparents were not staying with us, then mom left it on us to make our own evening tea. Age was definitely not a barrier in making tea as far as he was concerned! I took up the responsibility of making tea for both of us. When one day we had our usual fights i challenged him to make his own tea and thus my sweet bro tried his hand at cooking. He stood in front of the gas staring very hard at it. Come to think of it now, whether he thought himself to be the X Men or the Fantastic Four fire guy only God knows but it was as if he was waiting for the fire to just come from somewhere. All this while i was sitting there and laughing my stomach out. Finally after what seemed to be like an eternity of staring and laughing matches he had the presence of mind to ask me. After i helped him light the stove he managed to do things on his own...

Now after so many years the entire family which includes me, papa & varun decided that we will make life easier for mom and that was by making me enter the maidan-e-jung of kitchen! It all started by me helping her cut some vegetables. And guess what the first vegetable was...onions! I had read before that it is the odour of onions that is responsible for all the tears that one sheds while cutting it. I hinted that to mom and all that she could come up with was to stuff some cotton in my nose...PJ i know. Anyway, i cut 2 onions without much of any accidents (as i am generally prone to) i did finally end up with one. Cutting the third onion i was just checking how sharp the knife was and i soon got the answer to my question in return for some blood and skin. After cleaning my wound and having properly attended to it i continued with the cutting process and i realized that it was not such a good idea after all. The stinging sensation in my wound was so evident on my face that mom took the knife and continued with the rest.

So much for helping in cutting vegetables. But mom did say that i cut the vegetables so small and cute that it reminded her of her mom! So one medal! I decided to give myself the degree and graduated to the next level.

The next day i saw mom preparing dough for chapathi and it was my all-time wish to make round chapathis. So finally with everything settled with mom i settled into making gol gol chapathis. With flour all over me and almost 3 or 4 retries i finally managed to make one. That is when mom noticed that there were traces of flour in vessels kept at least a metre away from me! But i continued to make chapathis and finally ended up making perfect good-looking chapathis and i let my imagination run wild with that. I kept on commenting that one chapathi looked like an old man's face, the other like Varun's face and all. Well in short, me and mom had a blast making chapathis so much so that i ended up giving her demo of how messy a work could be done. Thus finally i made gol gol chapathis and aloo masala, though the masala was mainly done by my mom except me cutting and putting garam masala in it.

The next day i tried making dosa and i realized that eating dosas are much easier than making them.Finally i ended up making small cute ones that were of the size of my fist while my mom made huge ones. Such cooking expeditions continue till date and my mom is pretty worried with the sudden change in my attitude towards kitchen and she just has this weird doubt whether i will stop studying. All that i have to tell her is 'When did i ever start studying for me to stop? ;-)'