At the turn of the millennium, when my son got admission into the M Sc (Industrial Chemistry) at IIT KGP, I thought he would follow the prevailing norms and end up in the US as a 'technical' son to me and that I and my wife would be leaning on each others' cold shoulders in our old age.
But I didn't factor in the gene-logic which in this case meant that after 5 years of enduring exams (mid-term, end-term and summer quarter) and unending vivas (little slam as well as grand slam), he would be as reluctant as Balaam's ass to face any more tests (GRE, GMAT, GATE, CAT, FAT, RAT...) but would take up a job in Hyderabad with the primary intention of getting married post-haste and settling down in life and propagating the said gene pool in his motherland.
So, when he joined his software developer job here in 2004, I thought I would gift him a Hero Honda bike and he would be sharing digs with his softmates in one of the thousand odd workingmens' hostels here. Another surprise was awaiting me when he declined to stay with folks who drink and smoke eating mutton-biryani and mirchi-bhajis all the time. Instead he decided to rent and stay in a 2-BHK apartment near his workplace. But of course no house-owner could coerce any of the Apartment Welfare Societies to take in a good-looking software bachelor as their co-tenant for reasons ranging from late-night revelries to the welfare of their virgin dot-products.
So, I had to sacrifice my wife by asking her to stay with him for the last one-year's service left for me at KGP. That meant that I had to once again start cooking for myself and eating alone after the lapse of 25 married years...deja vu.
The first six months were sort of high-living for me...in addition to boiling rice I was also making French Fries for lunch and dinner and dinner and lunch and lunch and dinner...I never had breakfast or snacks. I then got bored and skipped making French Fries replacing them with mango pickle and pickled mango and pickled mango and mango pickle...
Towards the end of my forced bachelorhood, one fine morning I got up and started walking to our attached-bathroom in Qrs B-140...a matter of ten steps contouring the double-cot. And found that I was lurching and leaning and heaving and hoving and swaying and slithering. The sensation was absolutely new and pleasant and continued for weeks...by then I was driving my toy-car to my 'workplace' and had the eerie feeling that my car also was zigzagging in a sort of fuzzy logic.
When I retired and shifted to Hyderabad to finally re-share my life with my wife and son, my son saw my random walk and took me to a doctor nearby. The chap was young and pleasant and as a matter of routine checked my BP and announced it read 200 / 120, good enough to knock any sane man down and flat for the rest of his vegetable life. And he gave me then and there two tablets of Loram - 2.5 and asked me to revisit him after two days...when he found that my BP came down to good old 100 / 70 or near about my normal. He then advised me to take one tablet in the morning for the rest of my life, such as it is; which I have been doing religiously...for, I don't want to be felled before my final fall.
Much backwaters have flowed up the Hooghly River during the last 7 odd years.
One evening last week I got up from my umpteenth catnap and was seeking my own name like the proverbial Alice:
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`I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; `I can't remember things as I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!'
`Can't remember what things?' said the Caterpillar.
`Well, I've tried to say "How Doth the Little Busy Bee," but it all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.
`Repeat, "You are Old, Father William,"' said the Caterpillar.
Alice folded her hands, and began:--
`You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
`And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'
`In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
`I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.' 
Father William standing on head
`You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray, what is the reason of that?'
`In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
`I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
Allow me to sell you a couple?' 
Father William somersaulting in the door
`You are old,' said the youth, `and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray how did you manage to do it?'
`In my youth,' said his father, `I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.' 
Father William having eaten the goose
`You are old,' said the youth, `one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?'
`I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father; `don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!' 
Father William balancing eel on nose
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-table.html
`That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.
`Not quite right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; `some of the words have got altered.'
`It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.
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So, as soon as my son returned from his office, I asked him to check my BP, which he did in the three kits at home...the battery-digital, the 220-volts-digital and the good old analogue sphygmomanometer:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2012/04/sphygmomaniometry.html
And they all read, more or less, 180 / 140, which everyone knows is as high as a typical Hyderabadi software developer on an extended weekend.
See you tomorrow with the rest of the story so far...
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