Purba Ray needs no introduction but I wouldn’t be done out of an opportunity to express my admiration for this stellar blogger.

I came across  Purba’s blog  A-Musing over a year ago. Her exquisite wit combined with her absolutely delightful language mixed with a ‘Oh So Rare!’ penchant for calling a spade a spade had me tied into knots. I will never be able to extricate myself from her spell, I know that- because I don’t want to be. Her magic is potent; her spells are powerful. Once sold, you stay sold.

She is not only prolific, she also consistently maintains spectacular quality. Her humor is never stale; her punches are never weary. For a humor writer, these are not easy standards to maintain consistently. Purba vaults over these benchmarks as effortlessly as a Cheetah going 90miles and hour. All in a day’s work, you know?

To have Purba on my blog today is a delight that defies expression. All I can say- with all sincerity- is, “This is a landmark for me. I am ecstatic that a star lends her presence to my humble abode”.

Thank you for this pleasure Purba!

Without further ado then, let me get out of the way and let you soak in the magic this lady conjures up! Feel free to admire- and freer to express!

 What do you do when you lose something? You start looking for it, right? Searching for things I’ve misplaced is my favourite cardio. I jump high, I stoop low, I move up and down the length of our apartment at frenetic pace, not once but many times, hoping that the offending object that had the temerity to get lost will finally show its face. I then add some strength training to my search routine – lifting mattresses, sofa cushions, moving dressers until rivulets of sweat start trickling down my back. I behave like a woman possessed till I find the ‘missing credit card’ nestling peacefully in the deep cavernous folds of my skirt’s pocket.

God forbid if I can’t find the misplaced article! Being a great believer in equality, the size or the value of the ‘missing one’ is immaterial to the intensity of my grief. My heart turns to lead as I constantly think back of the good times I had with my now missing hairbrush. How she was always there when I needed her, running her soft bristles through my hair in silence. I wonder if she’s doing okay, if she will ever forgive me for my carelessness. In the solitude of my thoughts I seek her forgiveness.

All the things I have lost and never found have a special little compartment in my heart.

The reunion is of course a different story. Like the tiny stub of my eye-pencil that I’d misplaced way back in December revealed itself to me under the covers of the bed. Oh, how I hugged it. Then I put it in my box and forgot all about it.

Lesson no.1 – If you want a woman to remember you for always, get lost and stay lost!

What does your husband do when he can’t find his car keys for the 456th time?

He looks at you with lost puppy eyes. After all, the wife is the family’s very own Google. Just type in the damn thing you’re looking for and she’ll comb through the World Wide Web and find it for you, no matter what. She will repeat the same search operation – a combination of cardio and strength training. Only this time it comes with sound effects so powerful that the husband stands cowering in a corner with his head drooping.

It gets worse when he keeps those ‘very important documents’ in such a safe place that even he can’t find it. He looks at you again with those lost puppy eyes. Only this time you stand smouldering in a corner and giving him the silent treatment. It works. He breaks down and promises to make you the sole undertaker of all things consequential. This time you’re Mozilla Firefox – you recall past history, make a quick inventory of all his favourite ‘hiding places’ and raid them and return triumphantly flapping those documents in your hand.

Lesson no. 2 – Never trust your husband’s memory. Always make him write down the exact location of his safe places and make sure you never apply this rule to yourself.

The kids are fast learners, especially when it comes to learning from their Dad. Every time they can’t find their report card, id-cards, library cards, the lucky tee that has not seen the washing machine since the day it was born – they just scream the magic words, MAAAAA. Strangely this ‘mom knows everything’ stance is adopted only when she has to be deployed as a search locator. For everything else it’s – what does mom know?

Interestingly, when it comes to your own things, like your favourite pen, that perfume for special occasions, your stash of gift-wrapping papers, your chandelier earrings, that pretty clutch in jade and the 50 Shades of Grey that you’d carefully hidden in a ‘very safe place’, your daughter will always know its exact location. It’s as if she engages in mental telepathy with them. The only problem is when you want them, they are always missing because why bother keeping those damn scissors from where you’d taken them and make life less challenging for Mom?

Now do you realize the immense responsibility of being a woman! Besides the mandatory caring, sharing and nurturing, she not only has to search for stuff that she has lost but also for things that her family can’t find. She not only grieves for her missing items but also for stuff that her husband and kids left behind at airports, resorts and cabs. Every colour, every touch induces a new bout of nostalgia in her. She feels the softness of the leather of the handbag she’s just bought and sighs – remember my sexy pair of gloves with lace trimmings that your dad threw in the garbage chute “by mistake”! She then looks at her husband with soulful eyes and shakes her head in resignation.

Lesson no. 3 – A woman may forget the mistakes she has made but she’ll never let you forget the mistakes you’ve made. And since we are apostles of self-sacrifice for the sake of the well-being of humanity, we are willing to make mistakes for others to learn from them.

See how tough it is to be a woman! We spend our entire lives either grieving for things we left behind or searching for something or the other – be it love, the meaning of life or the missing keys.

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