A day to remember

People. Wonderful beings. Lately, I haven’t been able to write about anything at all. Not a time constraint. Mostly, a people constraint. It has been a really long time since I had new people in my life. People whom you’d recognize as makers of memories for a lifetime. For some while now, I have been interacting with the same set of people. Family. Friends. Colleagues. And the circle repeats. In other words, I feel stagnant. Life feels stagnant. Like, nothing is ever going to change from what it is now, or what it was a few months ago. A few months, I can see my life being right there. Stagnant.
Don’t confuse me to be depressed. I am happy in life. I am happy with my life. That’s right about my problem. Most people’s, factually. Complacency. The lack of reason to go beyond the comfort zone. Mind you, lack of reason, not lack of courage. If this is my happy zone, why would I even move a finger to change this, let alone break out of my comfort zone! That’s a great question to be thrown at every motivational evangelist!
Hoping to get an answer to the question, that soothes my soul, I am living on. And there comes the thought of revisiting the people of my life, who have been there, always through the complacency, the disappointment and the mere existence. In shorter words, I thought of visiting some family, who’d be glad to welcome me. Who else, but the grand parents! I always wonder, why are grandparents so attached to the grandkids? And vice versa. Why is it that, the middle layer is often ignored? Parents are not significant by design, to the whole structure of this bond!
The whole idea was to just pay a quick visit, and spoil their lunch with my kitchen experiments. Simple agenda – roughly am hour’s business. But when has punctuality ever worked there! I stayed a comfy three hours, and rejoiced my time there, till it was time for their routine afternoon nap. Surprises come in the form of ‘semiya payasam’ and ‘paanakam’, while I thought thatha would be too old to be around in the kitchen! Not to forget, the impeccable memory of patti, listing down the songs she had asked for last time. She was planning to ‘remind’ me, lest I forget to take the disk with me! And I thought they were 80 and old and weak!
The honest criticism on the cooking was the cherry on the cake! I was taken aback by their bluntness! Come on, grandparents are expected to say ‘Wow!’ whatever you cook/dance/sing/draw/say or even think! You are the apple of their eyes, but criticized. How fair, duh! Adding to the endless surprises was this one huge article in the newspaper that was related to the company I work for. That stumped me. I know he knows where I work. But I quite didn’t expect him to relate it to me everytime he saw my company’s name.
Topping it all, the one sentence she called out to him, ‘Aval kuzhanthayakkum. Neengale pannungo ..’
Being complacent with life.