Things We Said Today

First of the month, I call the local medical store to read out a list of meds for my mother. (Actually, this is the first time I'll be doing it so don't look at me like the I'm the world's most organised daughter.)

So I'm making a list, a master list of whatever she's likely to need at any point, so that I can just look at my phone instead of hunt for a name through the popped out pills on the ruins of a pad. Or, indeed, her medical file.

"Is this thing for your cholestrol or your BP?"

"The yellow thing is for the BP. I think. The other one is in the bubble-shaped thing."

I say a sharp thing or two about a wilful return to illiteracy that I am not proud of. I take the meds to her and ask her to clarify. She does, and I make my list.

As I continue making the list, I ask her, "What the name of that probiotic thing you have?"

I am losing words just as she is, and I know there's a word for it that I can't remember. 

No, it's not illiteracy.

 

'You are not alone'

Last night I watched a couple of things on TV - an event so rare it should be recorded here.

First, there was a brief glimpse of (I don't know which season of) KBC. This lady, after having reached the Rs. 20,000 threshold, was allowed to chat for a while with the Big B. She charmed everyone by saying how she has played and won KBC many times - once a day, in fact - in her mind.

Apparently she talks to the Big B every day while working out: they play KBC and he asks her questions and she answers, each answer the right one, until at the end of her hour or hour and a half she has her one crore. Then she stops, because one crore is enough for one day and there are more games to be played and much conversation still to be had with the Big B.

I was surprised and charmed and delighted by Pujaji's unselfconscious, frank confession not only to the world but also to the object of her daily speeches. I could never admit - not even now, when I am half-confessing - that I also talk to people I am never likely to meet in my life because they're dead or fictional or worlds away from my life. I can only imagine that I would pass out if I should ever happen to meet those dead/fictional/otherworldly people I'm such friends with in my head.

Then later, I watched X-Men: First Class. And where Michael Fassbender says, "I thought I was the only one" I said, with Charles Xavier, "You are not alone."

Oh yes.

'An Elephant with a Mozart Soul'

From a conversation between Errol Morris and Werner Herzog in The Believer:

WH: [...] And at the end, after having killed seven or eight or so coeds, hitchhikers, he killed his mother and put the severed head on the mantel and threw darts at it. And then there happened to be some leftover turkey in the fridge from Thanksgiving. And he called the lady next door, the neighbor, and asked—am I correct? Yeah, asked her if she would like to pick up the turkey leftovers, and she walks in and then he killed her as well, and put her in a closet. And then he fled in his mother’s car and crisscrossed the West until he ran out of money and ran out of gas. And in Pueblo, Colorado, he kept calling the police. [To Morris] You know better what happened there. I think they thought he was kind of gaga and didn’t believe him.
EM: He desperately tried to turn himself in to the police by making repeated phone calls from this phone booth. Now he would have had a cell phone. So I guess it’s easier now for serial killers to turn themselves in. And the police kept hanging up on him. They just—
WH: And he was down to his last quarter to make his last call, and then two detectives actually picked him up at this phone booth. I remember their names because they sound very German: Schmidt and Grubb. And Schmidt and Grubb took him to the police station, and what was smart of them was, they just randomly turned on a tape recorder and Kemper spoke for six hours, pretty much nonstop.

Via Linkastic which actually doesn't have the link! While you're there, do read the entire issue; it's a film special. Gah. You can't, obviously, because barring only this interview and another article, the rest is only for subscribers.

Previous post on Herzog.

It's not about the money

Waiting for the Fassbinder film to begin, I sneak a glance at the guy sitting two seats away from me. He has his laptop open and is doing stuff on it. His phone rings. He answers, continuing to tap away on his laptop.

'Achcha I got a mail from some _____, ' he says to the person at the other end. 'He said, cheque de. What cheque de? Means what?'

Some explanation forthcoming from the other end.

'Oh ho. Shah Rukh Khan, aa? Chek De!'

And to his friend sitting next to him, 'Film anta. Chek De. Punjabi.'

Enlightenment dawns.

PS: You'd really have to know how Telugu works for this to be funny.