The universe does hear you, even if it answers oddly. Oddness seems to be following me around, both the ‘funny peculiar’ and the ‘funny ha ha’ kind.
I woke up this morning just before the rain began to fall. There was no gentle pitter-patter; the strong wind, thunder and lashing rain were quite in tune with my emotions when I had gone to bed the previous night. A new acquaintance had invited me to a party and then behaved in a manner I found inhospitable. On my way home, I sent a message expressing my feelings plainly. He replied with an apology. I thought I could leave it at that, but an injured ego takes some nursing. I was also famished after strength training and swimming, and the paltry nibbles at the cocktail party had not sated me. A snack of healthy homemade hummus roll and some comfort-watching on Amazon Prime helped me unpack my feelings; I decided not to dwell on someone else’s mistake. It would be best to let it go, along with the relationship that was anyway in nebulous territory.
The morning brought another apology, and I wondered whether flowers might follow. I am such a sucker for such gestures, for all my much-vaunted feminism. Flowers did arrive, a pretty and fragrant bunch. But they were from someone else, a woman who had invited me to speak at her book club about the book on TTK Prestige that I co-authored. The universe does hear you, even if it answers oddly.
Oddness seems to be following me around, both the ‘funny peculiar’ and the ‘funny ha ha’ kind. Recently, my friend Revathy made a hurried plan to see the film Batwara. The chance to spend time with her overrode my reluctance to sit through a sad film on the Partition. It turned out to be quite an okay film, and Shabana Azmi should definitely bag big awards for playing Mai, an old Hindu woman who wants to stay on in Lahore. What stayed with me was the film’s oddest idea. Mai is forced to share her family home with a Muslim family, refugees who have come from India. They try to force her out of her own house. And yet, over time, a bond develops between the woman and the people who tried to displace her. And they defend her against others who want to send her to India, a country she has never visited and where she knows nobody. Hospitality, it seems, can grow from the least hospitable beginnings. I had walked in expecting only sorrow and walked out thinking about how strangers make room for one another.
After the film, I remembered my shopping wishlist and forayed into a store. It was not as busy as usual, and I spent a long time choosing. There was a sale on, and with the help of a sales clerk, I found even more marked-down choices. At the billing counter, two female staff members remarked on my selection of clothes, and one of them asked where I had got them. I pointed to a rack, thinking there must be some doubt over the price. Within minutes, one of them went over, picked up a few tops and returned to the counter. The other girl nodded approval, and they set them aside.
It became apparent that they had picked the clothes for themselves. In response to my surprised look, they said they never get to shop when the sales are on, and this was a lucky break. I found myself smiling. I was quietly pleased to have been, without intending it, the person who showed them where to look.
Later, I mentioned it to my family. “What about the customers if the staff buys most of the good stuff?” I wondered.
“A sale is a sale. How does it matter to the store who buys the clothes?” opined my fashionista younger sister.
A few hours later, still chuckling over her practical comment, I sank into the recliner and started switching channels. I came across an episode of a sketch featuring an eccentric senior sales clerk who tries to keep for herself an item that a customer brings to the checkout counter; her attempts to stop him from buying it are hilarious. So, from the comedy of the ’70s to the reality of today, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
A pattern began to emerge when I thought of these episodes. An acquaintance failed at being a good host, while a woman I barely know sent flowers. Mai’s house was taken over by unwelcome arrivals who became, against all odds, a part of her life. The girls at the counter spend their days helping other people choose, and rarely get to choose for themselves. In each case, the person who was supposed to give did not, and the care arrived from somewhere else.
Most of us keep a mental tally: who invited whom, who owes an apology, who deserves the good stuff. Life’s ledger is messy, but somehow it balances out, and unkindness is offset by kindness from unexpected quarters.
- Sandhya Mendonca, author, biographer, and publisher at Raintree Media, offers a distinct female gaze of the world in this column. Her podcast, ‘Spotlight with Sandhya,’ is available on Amazon/Spotify/YouTube.
