Crushes, life after 27

I am 27. That makes me old to have been smitten by a few crushes. It also makes me old enough not to write about crushes. The age also affords me the luxury to indulge in the warm remniscing of my crushes with fond nostalgic eyes. Affectionate feelings for the crushes don’t translate positively to the process of crushing, in itself. I am scared of the uncertainty involved. Every crush has changed me, mostly for the better. Any change, though is painful. Some crushes made me a better speaker(somewhat!), some others a feminist. At the least, it has made me a more rounded person than before. One of the most heartwarming incidents was when, a crush said I've been trying too hard to be an asshole and perhaps, I wasn't one. And I really did believe her.
To think of it, who are crushes?To me, these are examples whom I wish to emulate, by whom I am smitten and are better examples of humanity than me. They are myself, I see in the future. But, I am scared of change and by extension, I am scared of developing a crush. Age, one assured oneself granted immunity against crushes. The receding hairline, one supposed repelled the women I admire. And a wit, which only I think can even be called wit!
But, strikes it does every time, with a vengeance. Even, at this age.  Initially, one just laughs it off. After all, isn’t all this for the teens? Like waiting for a message, sounding nervous when you meet the person. You assure yourself, “No, I am not nervous. This wasn’t how it was the last time, when being crushed”. And indeed it wasn’t like this, the last time a crush happened. Because, every crush is different and it is exactly why crushes, by definition are so attractive. Yet, I can slowly find myself opening up to her, one message at a time. Revealing the silliness of me, which isn’t guarded by anything better in the first place.  I am now scared and concocting theories of how this can’t be a crush and how it is a logical impossibility. And to be fair, my theory is logically sound too.
But, when were crushes dictated by logic?

TSG

TSG

New four lane, six lane, eight lane highways have changed the nature of travel. Chennai to Bangalore is all I know which houses an A2B in between and multiple toll plazas. The villages on the road pass by in a blurr as tiny unwanted dots on the way. My grandfather lived in one such village on the Trichy Madurai highway. Viralur Agraharm. Just another nondescript village with a few houses nearby and where power cuts are the norm. Another village where commonsfolk converse about the Thiruvizha (village fest), an illegal liaison in a neighbouring street and the latest scheme by the government.

Mr. T S Gopalakrishnan (TSG as he liked being called!) was a government school teacher who worked in a number of schools in the locality. Perfectly run-of-the-mill till now. Till you know his father from a Pudukkottai agraharam was a lorry driver. And his wife worked as a teacher in various schools, sometime as far as tens of kilometres. Surely, agraharam maamis were supposed to be grinding batter for the morning dosaai and making the best kaapi in the village.

My grandfather, TSG was a perfectly unreasonable man for most part. And believed in doing things which he was not supposed to be doing. Like driving two wheelers immediately after surgeries, opening small scale industries near home! The upside of him opening the small scale industry was I used to meet all the unmarried girls in the town who came to work here. I was only 8 then.

After having lived a full life till 80, he passed away last year. And I went to his home (or mine?) to clean the remaining things. And it was one of the most heart wrenching chores I’ve done in recent times. Every hook around the home carried a story. Like the new bathroom he built near home a couple of years ago because my cousin could not go till the end of street for defecation. Or the peacock feathers(maayil rakkai) that he must have collected from the backyard for me because I will be home for summers. For the best part of their retired lives, my grandparents spent the year waiting for us to come during the summer. Oh, and I used to complain about how boring days were in the village. How I wish I could have been a better child!

The things that people leave behind also allows us a peek into their lives. The choice of the marriage invitations that he thought he should save in the cupboard or the rather “useless” notes of his son that I had to painfully discard was such a poignant experience.

Some losses are painful. Some others continue to be so.

About the house, it now looks like this. The lamp remains, but the light is off.