Things that fall apart

Everything around me is broken, torn, bent, rent, shaggy, sloppy, unkempt, muddled, messy, dirty, overgrown, dried, dusty, rusty, loose, falling, leaking, shaking, crooked, withered, or old.

My computer table definitely shows symptoms of confirmed Parkinsonism. My laptop has senile dementia. My headset squeaks and my mouse has a mind of its own. My webcam has warning signs of hyperopic astigmatism. My internet connectivity is capricious, to say the least. My toner is always dry. My chair goes down whenever I sit on it – perhaps something to do with my weight, but I would rather blame the chair. A jumble of wires at my feet lies open like spilled guts and leads to nowhere in particular.

If I take a walk around my room, I see a DVD player that does not work, a defunct TV antenna that attracts static, a dozen pens that have run out of ink, a book rack that is overburdened, a dustbin that does not close, a fan that undoubtedly suffers from an acute bout of borborygmus, and at least two burnt-out bulbs.

My bathroom does not have a shower curtain. The flush makes banshee noises, scaring the bejesus out of whosoever has the temerity of touching the lever. The hand shower socket is loose and can leave an indelible mark on your head at any time. The washbasin gets clogged. The door only closes with a bang.

I step out of my room to see a digital clock that always runs 10 minutes slow. The last time I tried to correct it, its alarm started ringing at 2 AM for seven days in a row for no perceivable reason, each time adeptly clearing the cobwebs of sleep from my head. My mobile phone is carelessly thrown on the sofa where it gives desperate beeps of low charge. I shrug at its erraticism. I look out on to the balcony and see a withered curry leaf plant, my foliaceous elixir, threatening to die out on me.

My kitchen tap requires two grease-free hands to open it. The flex box fumes and sputters when there are more than two appliances connected to it. My fridge sounds like faraway thunder, not catastrophic but still threatening. My kitchen stove smells of gas and I am convinced there is a leak although the gas company vouches that it is safe. I run my hand through snack jars that do not close properly, a fruit basket that is falling apart, an oil dispenser that is too sticky, and kitchen cabinets that cannot remain open or closed.

I walk back and I catch myself on the dining room mirror. I see the light from the hanging lamps glinting off my fine gray hairs. There are blatantly perceptible crow’s feet around my eyes. And a new, perhaps not yet immediately noticeable, kyphotic stoop to my shoulders. I try to hold myself straighter.

“Can we dance, amma?” My 4-year-old asks, much to my surprise. My diligent readers might remember my daughter’s lack of fascination for anything that requires rhythm.

“To what song?” I ask.

“Mamma mia.” She replies without even a thought.

I walk quickly past my lethargic clock, my finally silent cell phone, I bang my bathroom door to shut out the shriek, I bend down and manually close the lid of the dustbin, walk past the burping fan to my demented laptop, kick away all the wires, and open iTunes. At least some things work.

And when we jump and dance and laugh, I almost do not notice the arthritic creaking of my left knee.