Tag: Selfie

Nostalgia 6. Badge Of Honour.

My regular readers will be aware of one of my physical limitations that has bothered me for a dozen years now. It is called Right Ulnar Palsy and it makes it difficult for me to hold things tightly in my right hand. This caused two problems for me earlier today and the second one is this.

That is me with a stained white t-shirt unable to take a better selfie with my right hand.

The first one was what caused the yellow stains in the first place. I was eating mangoes as dessert for lunch. Since our cook was off on holiday today, our char cut the mangoes. Had the cook been there, she would have cut the mangoes without the skin and the stone completely scraped off and I could have simply had the fruit from a bowl using a spoon.

With the mangoes cut differently, I had to eat the mangoes like this:

After seeing the first slice being eaten if you go to 1.40 minutes, you will see how the flesh from the stone is consumed.

My ulnar palsy played up and the stone slipped out of my hand and fell on my t-shirt. That is the stain that you see on the first image.

Why nostalgia?

During my school days, as soon as the mango season started, the first classmate with a stained vest under the uniform shirt was given a badge of honour by the rest of the class. One of course had to deliberately stain the vest to earn this badge! I never did get the badge of honour though as, I could not afford to get the vest stained for fear of punishment from a martinet for a father!

Have you had some mangoes lately? How did you eat them?

Memory Trigger – 4. The Sweater.

20161106_162538

As expected, immediately after Diwali, Pune’s winter has set in in earnest and the minimum temperatures have been lower than normal so far. It was cold enough this morning for me to take out my sleeveless sweater to wear while sitting in the verandah. This sweater is a hand knitted made to measure one gifted to me by the mother of a very dear friend who is alas, no more.

I have written about Rajan here and here in my blog. Please read both the posts and go to the links given there, even if you had read them earlier. I did, this morning and decided then that I will write this post later in the day.

Rajan’s mother is a remarkable lady who had faced adversity with great fortitude and came out on top with grit and determination. My admiration for her is no less than what I had for Rajan.

Her gift of this sweater to me which came as a total surprise was such a perfect a fit that I had difficulty in believing that she had guessed my measurements and had not borrowed one of my other ones from my wardrobe without telling me. It has become my favourite sweater to wear as, it is a perfect fit and also very effective.

The onset of our winter acted this morning as a trigger to revive my memories of Rajan and his mother. It took me back to my early meetings with him, his generosity and affection for us and the many good times that we had had together.

Ps. My attempts at taking a selfie with the sweater on were flops hence the photograph of the sweater on the dining table!