If you are thinking that you read the name wrong and I misspelt Miranda, you are wrong. You would not be incorrect though if you thought, "Hell, Belinda would be a better name!" Of course! Like I never chewed over it -- Belinda Sen, Proprietor -- how terribly fancy and fitting. But, as luck would have it, our names, like our lives, are not our choice. It came down upon me from my parents who, in this capital city were elite owners of the house I have inherited. They were colonial travellers from the east who decided to settle down in this glitzy, opportunistic city, but in a centre of their intellectual own. Most of us are Bengalis here and we love our fish. You know, the smell feels like the music off a snakecharmer's pipe, we are inherently drawn towards it, sucking in the idea of fulfilment. Anyway, that is not the point, though I am longing for lunch already.
I want to share with you, today, bits and pieces of my illustrious life, especially now that winter has dawned and there is a general celebration in the air, and what better way to feel lusciously rich than sipping my warm milk and storytelling under the sun? My father was a civil engineer and my mother, a teacher. They were lovely people, and one will be cruel to complain about how much they loved me -- a tad bit too much -- how else would I land up with that fizz drink of a name? Dad would play with nuts, bolts, screwdriver and wrench, while Mom would teach little children the tedious angles of geometry. Me? They made me undergo the no-school schooling. I am self-taught, and I credit my observation skills heavily. Erm, I forgot to mention I can't speak, perhaps that was one reason I was not put in a regular school. But one good thing that has happened because of it is that I always end up having a good laugh. Like now. Are you wondering where is this story heading? Look who's dumb!
When I became Mrs from Miss, it was legendary, our union. And when we had our children, our neighbours' eyes glistened in envy. We have triplets -- Mimi mirrors her mother, Mickey his father and the youngest, Mini, she resembles neither. As sole proprietor of our esteemed location, ever since the uneventful death of my Mr (aging is natural), I rent out our house to various sort of people. They think landlords are demons, or, in my case, because I cannot articulate, that I cannot see beyond the obvious, what they think, how they act.
It was just eleven months back that a full-bodied man took up the place. He was, unlike what he looked, very generous. But he kept the house quite unkempt and at the evil hands of the maid. She would keep the air-conditioning on all day through and bribed Mickey and Mimi into silence, to be with her all the time. Only Mini has got my brains. When the man returned in the evening, the maid would often also share a part of his dinner with my children. As if I was keeping them unattended! Mini stuck to me in our first floor marble glory. Who needed artificial cooling? He would have his morning tea in the verandah as Mickey and Mimi would play there and smile at them with the look of their old father.
I did develop a crush on him (sshhh!), he was quite nice to us too, Mini and me, bringing us gifts now and then. However, he liked to call us (for reasons one would never know) with sounds. Perhaps he thought that people who could not speak understood only sounds. I must confess here, an able-bodied man, with pumping muscles looked rather funny cooing sounds of childhood. There, the laughs I had promised you I had in my head! However, the crush on him gradually disappeared when he kept leaving the house dirtier and dirtier. I barred Mickey and Mimi from entering his premises and everything because suddenly sour. It was enough, and I decided to get him out and over a period of a month, paved into his window a horror story of sorts. How else could one get a perfectly-paying rented person out? Get into his mind, attack there! With Mini's help, we made various noises at peak hours past midnight and it was such fun to hear him on the other end -- calling for help on his phone. He left, the generous man, fears intact. My son and daughter on certain evenings miss his snacks, but a couple of renovation duties later, they have outgrown their love for him, such delight!
Two girls have joined in new. One of whom can't decide whether to like my children or not, while the other has again, whimsically begun to call them out whatever she feels -- Jelly, Julie and Pickle. Outrageous! I overheard the other one tell her, "Why don't you call them Jelly, Chilli and Pickle instead." I don't know how to react -- I apprecaite their distance, but such names -- they remind me the trauma of me being Mirinda. Our family sounds like a potpourri of on-the-table-top ingredients. But because they call me Mrs Sen and graciously allow me to be in all my silence, I have decided not to disturb them. Once I assigned myself to one of their blankets, unknowingly, I quite honour how they decided to give it up for my sake, as if I lack any. But true, anything new is more charming than the ragged rugs I have.
From my new blanket I can understand as I oversee their settling down process, neither are quite adept at it (as they think of themselves), taking sweet time to unpack and contemplating more moves over endless cups of tea and long, tedious discussions. Mickey (Jelly, Chilli or Pickle?) reported to me that she liked one of the girls more because she did not give her car a bath for three days now -- trust one robber to know another! I sit here, in their blanket and laugh.
"I don't like this house and the animals," said one.
"I don't like cat smell!" replied the other.
"But Jiggly-Wiggly look cute when they play, no?"
"Excuse me, that's Jelly, Julie and Pickle! And they trample on my car bonnet leaving behind kitten paw marks on the dust. See, star-shaped dust!"
"No, no. Jelly, Chilli and Pickle."
"This Jelly looks exactly like her orange mother. She feels like a 1.5 litre moving bottle of Mirinda!"
Girls these days are so uppity and non-loving of our furry feelings. I am giving in to their disregard for our kind just because of their blanket. And honestly, at this age, with a bowl of milk and fishbone being served during winter, I do not wish the girls bad. I will now merely sleep over the sadness of the smart one finding out why I was actually named Mirinda. Bong parents and their love, literally! But, Jelly, Julie and Pickle do sound kind of cute. Or, Chilli, whatever. Time to laze, meow.
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