To be busy , noisily.

 Right now, everyone is busy in this house. 

My parents are with me here, so they are busy. 

I am busy.My father is busy and my mom is busy too. My spouse who is normally busy in his government office, has come home and is busy . 

My father has bengali news channel blasting an animated discussion about a recent change of guard . But he is not listening. All the yelling and counter screaming is being broadcast. It dissipates in earnest to the general air of a placid bedroom. Rendering it volatile. Communal. Political. Vendetta roils in the air , coiling into corners like venomous snakes. He is busy folding his cotton towel. Smoothing out the creases . While Bengal burns . Not unlike the Roman emperor Niro . 

May I add, he is also hard of hearing. 

My mother is the eternal Bollywood fan . Her days begin with mournful love songs of Lata and others . "Mohe bhool gaye sanwariya "( my beloved has forgotten/ forsaken me ) the wails start pretty early. While a pretty dusk breaks over the green fields of Punjab, she mourns her Alzheimer ridden spouse. 

Quite aptly, my father has indeed begun forgetting. Years , events , details are blurring into each other. But he hasn't forgotten her. Not yet. 

Right now, Mohammed Rafi croons a lively shammi kapoor jiggly dance number. 

Sitting outside in the balcony, watching peacocks scuttling on the road , and hornbills sagely ensconced in high tree branches, her phone proclaims to the world " chahe mujhe koi junglee kahe" ( may the world call me a boor ) 

However, she remains chair bound , walking around with the aid of a walker . Slowly, dragging feet after feet , like a shadow, gradually melting away , feet first . 

My hubby after a long week, is lying prone on the cool tiled floor, slapping his chest.  Emitting a wheeze periodically. He is watching a slapstick comedy on his phone. Laughing. His laughter gets stuck somewhere around his diaphragm. It has to be brought out. Forcefully. Like a comical Hiemlich's manoeuvre.

 I am chasing a fly .A fly that won't die . After raucously replacing utensils on the shelves , after making countless teas  , as per varying tastes . 

Even tea making is an exercise in memory. One black tea , one green tea, one milk tea with mild sugar, one very milky tea with lots of sugar and one cup of lukewarm water. 

Even the accompanying snacks vary. The mild sugar tea has to be paired with one jam toast, the very sugary tea with two, lukewarm water with two sugar encrusted nice biscuits, green tea with salted ,oil free peanuts and the black tea is to be paired with whichever snack is most abundant.

The fly lands on my brand new cup. I wait for it to move. A dead fly and a broken cup do not go together. It lands on my nose .

I can't slap myself. Even if I want to. So I wait. 

As I continue to swat the black marble slab of the kitchen counter, I try to listen.

To my hubby's comic cacophony, to my father's impassioned speeches emanating from his phone, to Mohammed Rafi talking about unrequited love, and I can't hear anything.

An oriental magpie cheeps on a dead neem tree outside.

I walk , trance like, and watch the magpie. Fly swatter in hand .

Outside a house full of medley of noises .

All familiar. All strange. All inaudible. 

All at once.