Lizzy's OSs - The New York Chronicles OS 27 Up! - Page 16

Originally posted by: Elizabeth Darcy

Ash 🤣 Kya kamaal ka lappy hain teri! Maybe we should do the thing those extras in OSO did...'wah, kya laptop hai, wah, kya laptop hai'...but seriously, laptops can be so annoying sometimes 😡

Sorry for the delay guys! Here's OS 19.

A burrito is a wheat-based tortilla with some sort of filling, served with a sauce. Nupur's serving packaged burritos here though, she's just defrosting and heating them up. LOL one of the reasons I like writing her is that household-skills wise she's as clueless I was 😆

Disclaimer: Being a fan of KZK myself, my intention here is not to insult anyone in the serial. I just needed this as part of the story, and only thought it plausible that Onu and Gigi would not see it the same way we did. If this does offend anyone, my apologies beforehand.

--

Kasautii Soap Opera Kay.

Being Mrinal's closest friends - and being the only ones in her class to know about Asha Aunty's condition at all - Onu, Nupur and Jerry ended taking turns helping Mrinal look after her during a time when bedrest was all Asha Aunty was capable of doing. Arnab Uncle, her brother, insisted on moving in for a while to help her, but that didn't stop the children from trying to help...and as time went by he learned not to stop them.

For the most part, they'd managed to keep it a secret from Gigi: a tough call between Operation take-her-to-the-park, Operation watch-TV and Operation ask-her-to-get-groceries. The last one always worked the best because Gigi rarely ever got to handle money on her own, and each time they'd give her three green wads of dollars she'd skip out of the house talking about how "filthy rich" she was.

Usually one of them - either Mrinal or Jerry, who would take turns - would stay by Asha Aunty's bedside till the evenings (when Jerry would need to rush home), another would prepare soup for her to eat, and yet another would stay with Gigi till the worst was over. Mrinal now stayed in Gigi's room at nights in the off-chance that a nightmare would drive her to her mother's room.

It was important that they let her meet Asha Aunty only when they knew the older woman would be able to handle it. It was becoming hard enough already to explain the blood on the sheets, the constant bedrest, the frequent lapses into her own world, the swollen belly that made her look like she would give birth any moment. Asha Aunty was stubbornly holding on to the last thread of sanity she had left, just for Gigi. To have Gigi retreat to her shell would kill her quicker than the disease would ever hope to.

Today however, Asha Aunty needed to stay at the hospital, and Orindam Uncle allowed Onu and Nupur to stay overnight with Gigi, while Mrinal stayed in the hospital and Jerry stayed home, just so that his mother wouldn't start asking about his whereabouts too often. Of late he'd started taking trips to neighbourhoods around New York too, but he never told anyone why.

Tonight would have to be Operation watch-TV, while Nupur did a makeshift meal by defrosting a batch of bean burritos and serving them with salsa.

As with every evening he'd spent with Gigi watching a soap, Onu would say to himself empty your head, Rags, empty your head, remember: Asha Aunty is at Mamu's place, Mrinalini is at Mamu's place, Mamu wanted to take Gigi there too but he knows she won't like it much if her cousins aren't there...

Thankfully Gigi hardly ever asked because she was only too happy to let Onu stay with her.

Since February Gigi had taken an interest in watching a serial she'd taken to calling KZK because she found the abridged version of the title cooler and because she didn't really like the word Kasauti in the first place. She barely understood what they were saying most of the time - her Hindi being only slightly worse than her Bengali - but she liked their saris and all that vibrant colour, and had once proclaimed that she wanted to look like 'puchka-eyes' one day.

Aforementioned Puchka-Eyes happened to be the heroine, Onu discovered, who had a smile that looked like it had been washed with Nirma, and a boyfriend who owned a ridiculous looking beach shirt that should have by all rights been donated to the flea market.

"They stole your name, Rags," she'd said mournfully one day, "the guy doesn't even look half as cute."

Onu decided the only reaction to that had to be to blush.

"I think they tried to cut his chin into half but whoever was holding the knife chopped it sideways," she said, pointing to the screen, "Look!"

The Anurag on the screen did have an assymetrical chin and slightly crooked teeth, and Onu couldn't help wondering where the appeal lay. Probably in the open, obviously heartfelt smile and the high cheekbones? There again, the same could be said for the woman on the chadnatoola with him, who was wearing lipstick a shade darker than her skin tone, and for once admitted that Nupur looked way better than that. Even with the similarity in skin tone.

Great, he said to himself, Welcome to cuckoo-land, Anurag Ganguly. You just paid technicoloured bhootni a compliment.

He had to admit she had some awesome background music whenever she entered though...the slight mehfil-quwwaali type feel...

"What's his full name?" Onu asked.

"Anurag Basu," Gigi said, her eyes still glued to the TV, "The scary female he's marrying got a name that suits her though."

Ewww. Anurag Basu sounds like me getting married to Nupur and taking on her name afterwards.

The thought was enough to make him want to throw up Nupur's burritos even before she started serving them.

Think of the devil and the devil would arrive, and so did Nupur's burritos. "What's the scary female called?" she said, flashing a smile that looked eerily like Puchka-Eyes' Nirma teeth and holding a dish out to Gigi.

Gigi's nose wrinkled in an effort to recall. "I think it was Cow-Molika. Which I think fits."

Nupur's eyes widened, "Gigichick, what does that even mean?"

She smiled, obviously proud of her language skills: "Molika is queen, right? So, um, yeah, queen she is. Queen of cows!"

Nupur grimaced. "It's Komolika and it means lotus."

Gigi looked like she was going to throw up Nupur's burritos.

Onu shook his head. In some ways these two were just like each other...and in others so different. They felt so strongly about the relationships they had, so strongly you could almost taste their need. But unlike Gigi, Nupur would never let you know how hurt and vulnerable she could really feel deep inside; for her it was a matter of personal pride to keep her deepest desires, her darkest fears, locked in. Gigi couldn't pretend for nuts. What she felt would show and there wasn't a thing she cared to do about it.

Nupur had learned the ways of the world, and much as Onu wanted her to be the person she sometimes was when she goofed up innocently and made up for it with a smile that could make you melt...she was fast leaving that person far behind.

Seeing Gigi go down that path would break their hearts, even Nupur's. Though she would never, ever let you know.

They exchanged a look behind Gigi's back, a look that spelt sadness and resignation. And then Nupur turned to her again, her face changing immediately to a smile she did not feel.

"So...Beach Boy now likes Cow Queen? I thought..."

"No!" Gigi hissed back, as if raising her voice would stop the action onscreen altogether, "Beach Boy's marrying Cow Queen because his mom said she wouldn't eat till he dumped Puchka-Eyes!"

"And where's Puchka Eyes now? Why isn't she at the wedding venue sending him curses that would turn both him and Cow Queen into anteaters?"

"Oh she did that already."

By this time, the scene had shifted to the girl in question, who had left milk boiling in the stove till it overflowed. Bet you got that habit from my Ma, Puchka Eyes!

Before they knew it a doctor was turning to the girl's mother, telling her that the girl was pregnant.

Nupur looked like she was going to throw her own burritos up.

"Now Gigichick, don't go asking me what being pregnant is, you're not old enough ye-"

"Oh of course I know," Gigi replied nonchalantly, "that's what Mom is now, isn't she?"

If there was ever a moment two people could have hated themselves for things they couldn't stop, this was it.

--

April 12, 2002

Mishti,

I guess Gigi's trying to rationalize it the best way she can. Like you and I did, ne? We made excuses for why Kaka was acting the way he was...right uptil the day we were so caught up in our own problems we couldn't see how much he was suffering. But I see what Asha Aunty's going through now...I see that huge weight on her belly and know there's nothing we can do...and I've never felt this useless in my life.

Sometimes I wonder if despite what we're doing, she knows. I don't know...tonight she held tight to me and asked me not to leave, and I hugged her back. We stayed that way till it was time for her to go to bed.

It hurts. Keeping things inside like this hurts...because I'm so used to letting things burst out of me. Nupur has a better time with it because she's her father's daughter...he's the master of the Poker Face, and Nupur's been learning it from him since she was in her nappies.

But I'm me. I can't be her and I'm happy I'm not. You are, too...aren't you?

Motu.

P.S. Watching KZK made me hungry.

P. P. S. Imagine me making the same mistakes that the Anurag in THAT serial made...letting someone ruin you for something that was beyond your control -- no, I don't think I'd be that selfless, not even in love. And don't go around telling me that's what I did by going to jail, we both know it wasn't. I was helping out a friend and that's that.

P. P. P. S. You have to see it to believe me. The hero says he looks into the heroine's eyes and sees love. Well I look into her eyes and I see puchkas.

P. P. P. P. S. And potato mix.

P. P. P. P. P. S. And meetha-khaara sauce. And one-two peanuts. Okay, I'm stopping now.

P. P. P. P. P. P. S. Seriously, no more.

P. P. P. P. P. P. P. S. Bye. Really. Final for today! Going now! Like NOW! Bye!!