MISTRESS OF FALL

This sure is ‘dear diary’ stuff especially it literally happens to make me the ‘butt’ of many a joke which happens to be based on my rear end. And instead of relegating those to the back or my mind I have decided to take it head on …mostly like a bull by the horns. Wow! That sure sounds like a tough call and also a contradiction of sorts because I’m hardly a ‘tough call’ person unless I am pushed to make a choice between a deep abyss and an equally deep dark sea.

Without much ado here I go…people often recount in their diary the number times they kissed…the number of shoes they bought… the number of boy friends or girl friends they had…etc…eh!! Weighty emotional and psychologically motivating stuff…however, I am going to recount in this “dear diary” episode the times I fell down…oh! Not in love…but literally…

I am quite huge, i'm told, (at almost 5feet 8 inches and definitely not lean) and even though I should look ungainly…I don’t feel I am…besides the tricky part about being tall is …you can test if you are ungainly or not if you cannot dance…and I dance pretty well… (Good hand leg co-ordination, I use this to console myself not very successfully).However this factor of my height isn’t all that relevant to my come-a-cropper history, as much as I would like to pretend.

It all started with when I was a little baby. I suppose…when I used to fall a lot and mum thought it was cute to call me “tootsie”…THAT HOWEVER WASN’T ALL THAT CUTE WHEN I GREW UP…..thankfully it got amended to Toto…which is tolerable if not totally acceptable.

Early days yet…I remember I must have been a 3 or 4 year old baby…and my mum was sorting out the linen which intrigued me a lot and looked like a whole lot of nappies, primarily being white ( she has this fixation for white bed sheets leaving the bed covers colored as a sop to other people who liked variation….which unfortunately I must say has gotten transferred genetically to me too)…so I was poking my head into this giant chest of a thing that could have housed 4 of me at least besides the linen, chortling away merrily playing out the phrase ‘bottoms up’ to the ‘t’.Then suddenly I noticed a glossy Chinese umbrella stacked against the lid in an awkward position and thought … ‘why is the stupid thing not straight lying down instead of like that’. Being a neat freak from those early days…I pulled it straight …and to my consternation, Wham!!! The lid fell right on my head (which my mum calls a nut till date coz nothing happened).so half in and half out I got my first lesson in gymnastics trying to gyrate myself out from under the lid. Hearing the thud my mum came to investigate and to her horror saw what she saw as a beheaded tootsie…but when she lifted the lid I was as good as new …minus even a slight scratch from my skirmish. Unfortunately whenever this tale was told in social circles I came out more the ‘poke nose’ than the wonder baby. I found peace finally, when the name tootsie and the tale were permanently buried.

Then there was this incident when I had come to a cultural programme hosted in Merchant’s Chamber in Kanpur.Ours being an only girl’s school we were quite thrilled to get to see other students (pimple faced guys to be precise …the perfect romantic prince charming for 12 year olds) from other schools. You know what the say about girls from the convents…well we epitomized it all…gauche, shy, timid…and what not…Me and my three girl friends decided to dress up for the occasion and went to my friends place …off went the uniforms and on went the long midi skirts which were the height of fashion in those days (oh!! How I wish we had stuck to our uniforms... skirts which are a regulation 6 fingers above the knee) and not to miss the block high heels. I felt like a princess…only the end wasn’t as stately. My skirt belonged to my friend’s elder sister since I was a lot taller than her…and it was a lot longer for me. Hence I had to lift it up to let my twinkle toes show. Our seats were in the balcony squashed between a co-ed school and a pure boy’s school. In an attempt to walk straight I didn’t look at the carpeted floor and as you can probably imagine I fell…not on the floor as expected, but into the lap of one of the boys sitting there…and up I jumped up in the air like a shot…skirt and all….red faced ( I go really ruddy when I’m embarrassed).Only the guy stole my thunder as he went straight from pleasant pink to beetroot red in a space of five seconds flat. I stammered a shaky sorry and asked him of all the things whether I had broken his leg or something equally gauche to which he said with equal composure (or lack of it)…No! He was perfectly fine …
Like a tiny mouse I scuttled to my seat…but the evening was far from over for me or him and his friends kept on poking fun at him and making loud comments about how he got his first lap dance. Thank God I hadn’t started experimenting with make up then…or I would have had to deal with another embarrassment of being ‘over red’……my friends however thought that was the most ‘swell’ thing to happen…so romantic…it however did get me to be friends with the guy …my first from another school…I still am in touch with him and we have never really been able to live it down in our common friends circle…guess I was just glad of his sturdy size and that I didn’t have to bear the title of ‘bone breaker’ as well back then.

Then there was this funny incident when I had gone for a vacation to my maternal uncle’s place and he had taken us on a trip to the Hazaribagh Tiger Reserve. Three Kids and two couples.....My sister Deirdre (Pinky), brother Rohan and myself. I being the youngest used to tag along everywhere with them like a tail. Unfortunately I had a tail of my own trailing me…my falling or should I say failing luck!!!
Being in unchartered territory we decided to be brave and explore…the small narrow trail around the guest house in the reserve. We were walking single file…first Pinky then me and finally Rohan bringing up the rear. Suddenly we heard a commotion from behind …I could faintly make out my mum screaming something to me and as I turned my blood curdled and I froze stopping Rohan in his tracks. The hugest elephant( it looked huge from where I stood) I had ever seen…was pelting down the track at top speed…I don’t know what that can be for an elephant , but from my diminutive size it looked like mount Everest suddenly getting up and running to crush me almost at F1 speed. Just as suddenly as we froze all three started to run…unfortunately in single file…I was just following Pinky’s footsteps with terror in my heart and the thundering sound of death in my ears. Suddenly I didn’t see Pinky anymore and the next instant I knew I was lying face down in a ditch sprawled across her…and then a heavy weight was upon me squashing the breath out of me …and I thought…that was it…14 years of life squashed out of me like Heinz tomato ketchup…only then I saw the elephant supposedly crushing me, thunder past us with a happy mahout sitting atop. My elephant was Rohan!…we were a human sandwich.And I got to be the lettuce and mayonnaise while poor Pinky bore the brunt of it all with baldly scraped knees and elbows. It was ironical how afterwards we had to sit on the same elephant to go and take a ride to the waterhole to check out Tigers we never saw because they were supposed to be highly ‘Shy’ animals. I guess I don’t fall myself only but bring the falling luck to my companions too. So I guess Forewarned is forearmed…although I don’t know how that should really help.


Sometimes I’ve been the perpetrator of someone else falling…which is kind of sad for not everyone is blessed with a nice rear cushion to comfort the fall. This one is worth mentioning…
Once I went with my mother for vegetable shopping (haven’t told you all this but I have a fetish for neatly stacked fresh vegetables…which is why I used to accompany my mum on her shopping errands without the generally required bribes. I just love the smell of mint and glossy green chilies or capsicum…and the maroons of beetroot and onions…to me its like a palette of color and a bouquet of smells…each beautifully combined with each other to make the truly exotic).She was bending over and examining cabbages stacked up at in one vendors shop and told me to keep watch for any straying cyclist or cow coming too close. I as usual was high on the veggie smells that to me can beat the axe effect anyday.
A little commotion and I looked behind to see this big brambly bull charging at us. I screamed to my mother who turned in haste and fell into the pile of cabbages and couldn’t get up for they kept rolling under her. The bull passed by without even sniffing disdainfully at us. What an anticlimax!!!…the poor vendor came to my mum’s rescue because I couldn’t manage to pull her up by myself. She offered to pay for the damage done…which were several broken and split cabbages…but manfully he was more concerned about her wellbeing…I ofcourse got a earful for snickering in the beginning.
Fortunately or unfortunately I went through the same situation some years later… the cabbages replaced with some really hard potatoes and a bull replaced with a very pregnant cow that could barely sidle past me…let alone butt me. One thing however remained constant…the snickering!!!! Ofcourse this time it wasn’t me but the vegetable vendors who found the sight of my ungainly sprawled figure pretty amusing…but no harm…by then with my history of falls I had learnt to laugh at myself.

I guess that was preparation for the mother of them all. I wasn’t even young or small then…and the embarrassment was manifold which is why I’ve never revisited the scene of crime till today. It was in Post graduation second year when I was in Bhopal…had purchased my new Action Lisa shoes which were the craze then…had gone out for lunch with mum and dad to the restaurant Kwality on New Market. Only I didn’t get to lunch there….because as soon as I entered the restaurant head held high regally…I missed the small step inside the door and was measuring the floor to the reception desk…sprawled literally like one of those pilgrims who goes for darshan at the siddhi vinayak (only they do it voluntarily and here I was paying homage to a receptionist who was trying her very best to keep a straight concerned face).All the waiters came running to my rescue and a restaurant full of eyes were focused on me…refusing help like a passionate suffragette supporter, I got up with as much composure and poise I could muster. I turned to my mum and dad who were shell shocked …and said with a frigid civility that would have rivaled that of the Queen Mother’s had she been confronted by Hitler himself… ‘Let’s go…we can have lunch elsewhere’…thankfully mum decided to and we went out never to turn back again. I however was a nine years wonder for my parents after that and this anecdote was pulled out of the hat at many a dull party much to my chagrin. Never wore those Lisa shoes again…eventhough it wasn’t their fault, just my inability to see what’s right under my nose.

My personal favorite however is when I surfed and skated on potatoes and chicken to go and watch Bold and the Beautiful. It was a hot afternoon in Jalandhar…the year 2000, I think. I had my regulation 2nd bath of the day( 4 baths in summers and two in winters…I know I will cursed by all those water conservation activists…but dad did the good deed and installed showers in all my bathrooms in a move to sop his and of course my conscience about that matter) just before lunch…and being over enthusiastic in doing so splashed around a good deal. some of the water had escaped from the bathroom into the passageway between the bedrooms…
it was almost time for my favorite serial Bold and the Beautiful (which I thought pretty mature and mature in those days…was graduating from pimple faced guys straight to the peppered grey heads with hot bedroom eyes…who seemed to epitomize charm and suavity among men…you know what I mean…the veritable Richard Gere’s and Clooney’s of the world).I loaded my plate with the fare my mum had cooked ( not wanting to come back for second helpings) …chicken curry with my favorite roasted potatoes fried rice and fried veggies. In the haste not to miss even a second of it I rushed towards mum’s bedroom where the TV was, forgetting all the water in the passageway.
I would have put a ace skate board champion and a surfer to shame with that skid…plate glass of water and all I skidded into the bedroom…like a grand finale to a fantastic play. Only it wasn’t quite right…I was riding the potatoes and had the chicken curry and rice all over my front…and to add insult to injury my dog, Pepper sniffed me nonchalantly, and picked off a chicken breast literally off my breast…
Mum came running to see what had happened…and literally roared with laughter at the incongruity of the scene…me sitting on some fantastically squashed potatoes…plate and glass tossed aside and Pepper at my feet eating the chicken happily…while the title music for Bold and Beautiful belted form the TV…not so beautiful eh!!!!

Apart form that I kept up the tradition in many a place in Pune too….pulled down a whole shelf in Crossword with my flowing dupatta…….after which I decided not to “flow” so much…..confined myself to wearing jeans and T shirts while shopping in potentially dangerous places like Tussorie or any other china shop. I’ve also created new record highs of falling maximum number of times down the hostel stairway…a huge score of 6 times during two years… (Fortunately for me I’m well padded all over)…and the record of dropping my Nokia 6030(am ardent supporter of that model…due to its indestructible nature) from the fourth floor window while hanging out of it talking to my friends is virtually unbeatable. It was a nine days wonder to me too how that phone survived such a fall…only to be lost in a clumsy mix up while traveling in an Auto rickshaw. Neighbours envy owners pride…lucky guy who got it!

Nothing with me or which belongs to me can be ‘Breakable’…And yet I’ve always marveled how I am so good with washing china and not breaking even a single piece while mum just has to stand near for it to be jeopardized. I guess we share the fall misfortune………I with my person…and her rotten luck with china and glass.

Nevertheless I am the unparalleled queen of fall…with many a more embarrassing tale to relate…as the journey continues…falling from mules, falling from trees, falling into swimming pools…falling into shops, falling into laps… falling out of taxis…falling into gutters…falling off the be..................


TO BE CONTINUED....................