Yesterday evening, I was buying some tomatoes to make rasam for dinner.
I remembered how I used to buy 3 tomatoes for 1 Re every evening in front of IIT Powaii (RK gate.. I think).
Srini and I were staying together for a month in the married students apartment in IIT-B.
My aunt Sarasa Dodamma had lent us her gas connection for a month, but we had no fridge.
We were also living on the money that dad gave me, since I was still doing my B.E., and Srini’s M.Des scholarship.
I was in Bombay doing my summer industrial training at GE, Worli Works.
This was a very pleasant time of my life, in a sense. It is nice to be married and still have minimal responsibilities and to be a student on an IIT campus.
It was also when I figured out, that Srini and I would never actually “be” together. He worked (or slept) at all the times I was at home and I worked (or slept) all the times that he was home.
I cannot recall the actual incidents… but I know I changed then in some way… and I did not go and try to visit Bombay again till my B.E. was over.
I think the pleasant trip was the short visit I made in Feb in the middle of the semester. I remember taking Mudduveerappa’s (out HOD) permission to go.
But I do remember buying tomatoes, each day’s tomatoes on that day and making rasam at home.
I also do remember that I used wear sarees a lot, since I thought that was what married women did. Also, I got a lot of sarees for my wedding.
As I look back on my life I have a lot of pity for the pain and hurt that I once experienced, a lot of surprise at the level of my illusions and ignorance and naivety and a lot of happiness about the simple pleasures of the past. Much of the pain and hurt that I experienced was rooted in losing my illusions.
Buying tomatoes was a happy memory.
Saturday February 9, 2008 – 09:33am
