Obsessive Compulsive, but why Disorder?

A pattern is all I ask for!!

Monica (during yet another bout of her signature competitiveness): Look, you knew this about me when you married me! You agreed to take me in sickness and in health. Well, this is my sickness!

Chandler: What about the obsessive cleaning?

Monica: That's just good sense!!

Okay, there are some unexplained and horrendously weird things that I do. Or rather, I love doing. The above excerpt from Friends featuring Monica and Chandler (could there be a more funny guy!!) illustrates the maddening obsession of the wife with cleaning and control, and the husband's bewilderment because he fails to understand why his wife is the way she is. To start with, this is a regular scene at our home. The poor husband is driven to his wits end by my persistent beautification of our place, more so when it hardly needs any. Writing, reading, baking - all good and nerve calming, but just scratch the surface and out pops my crazy Virgo woman avatar. The story of the 'imperfect perfectionist'. Howsoever embarrassing this confession is, I must do it and do it here, out in the open. So here are some insanely stupid obsessions I harbour:

1. After vacuuming, I so much love the soft and dry-cleaned feel of the carpet that I avoid walking flat on it. It feels as if I am trampling on something beautiful, thereby mercilessly destroying a pattern. So, I just tiptoe, at least for a couple of hours till my feet are all twisted and achy, and I realise I might actually be on the threshold of acute mental disturbance. Remember Melvin Udall's funny walk in As Good as it Gets?

2. Everything in the living and dining area, including the kitchen has to be the way it is, that is perfect, before I finally retire to the bedroom at night. The sofa cushions have to be plumped and propped, the coffee table exactly in the center and there should be nothing sitting on the kitchen counter tops. The same applies for the times when we leave home for grocery shopping, or a walk or wherever else it is. So when I enter the apartment, it must resemble a page from Better Homes and Gardens.

3. When I take a shower, I must do the same for the bathtub and the walls. After all, they too need a bath! Ditto with the kitchen sink. After all the pots and pans are done away with, its time to scrub its stainless steel surface till I can see the reflection of my own face on it.

Again, while I cook, there should be no splattering of oil or masala on the spotless white stove surface. If there is (which cannot be avoided with Indian food), there I am with a spoon in one hand and a damp paper towel in another, stirring and wiping away to glory, all at the same time. That's some multitasking, I tell you!

4. I love bed sheets that have flowers on them, with a fresh meadow-like feel. But then there is a pattern in which they are to be spread - the heads of the flowers must face the headboard of the bed with their stalks looking downwards. After all, that is how we all stand, isn't it?! Reverse the pattern and someone would be up all night wondering about upside down flowers, hanging with all their might from their droopy little heads.

5. Straightening the rugs - I could do this all day and still never get it right. There are always angles and edges from where it looks uneven. The same goes for books and DVDs. May be Sam is right. It isn't the angles but my brains that are uneven and therefore run a huge risk of falling out from my head one fine day.

Of course, living up to my own crazy expectations becomes difficult at times. Sometimes this me flusters me to no end when all the days work boils down to arranging and rearranging objects. Believe me dear friends, how much ever I have tried to be indifferent and trudge on making my way through the already clean and organized apartment, I just can't. There's always some straightening and unruffling to do. Always.

Her 'Lateness'!

There is a typical unyielding, old womanish thing about me. I have this unusual tendency to remain quite indifferent to certain cult things during their peak and then get completely obsessed with them after their prime is long over. I have never had much of a chance to join in the carnival and celebrate being a fan at that hysterical moment. Quite Virgo like actually, and the word here my dear friends is 'anal-retentive'.
My love for the Harry Potter books, that have so rightly entranced me at last and from where most of the fodder for my imaginary kingdom comes, can best explain this. When the whole human populace, from kids to grandparents was wandering in the charmed world of Hogwarts, I would remain aloof and complacent in my mask of a serious seeker of literature. After all, Jo Rowling was a children's writer and I certainly had had my share of Cinderellas and lost treasures. My tirade against Pottermania was such that I would confiscate hidden Harry Potters from my bewildered students, who would otherwise never care to flip a page of any book. I still remember the time when they had given me nasty stares for ruining their winter break with To Kill a Mocking Bird. One of them had even had the galls to ask this outrageous question - "How can you ask us to read a book about rape?!" Anyway, so all this while I was a great admirer of the movies, but then who isn't with the cute kids, the lovely British accent and most of all the ever bewitching Alan Rickman. But it wasn't before the dreariness of a humdrum life had swallowed me up that I decided to humour myself with a little juvenilia. And lo! Another Pottermaniac was born.
Friends is perhaps the second most horrifying embarrassment of my life. Often my friends would give me that wide eyed, frightening look that almost blared, "You must be the only creature on planet Earth who doesn't care for a bit of Friends". The old woman in me found history's one of the most popular sitcoms 'too American' for her tastes. But nothing lasts for ever. And hence my swallowing of my own words. Today I can barely live through a day without watching one episode or a clip, even though I must have watched it countless number of times. It has become my panacea for all sorts of trouble, be it certain difficult people or just a bad hair day.
I shall wait for the day when, for once at least, I shall be less judgmental and be one with the crowd. Sometimes it pays to be a pukka Virgo. Thank God I had started my Austen when I was 13. Or was I late?

Pre-holiday jitters

This morning I woke up with a throbbing migraine which is normally accompanied by an irritable temper. Although painful, I am quite used to such depressing days at least once in every fortnight. So here I am, sitting with a cold compress balanced on my head and typing away my frustration. And ginger tea isn't much of a help always. I need to vent it on somebody and who better than my mute, eternally tolerant blog. I wish I could fix these tormenting headaches with the 'swish and flick' of a magic wand. But unfortunately this is a real world that I live in, where mortals have to deal with pain that could be anything from a skinned knee to a broken heart. The cause of my ordeals are mostly my nerves, a bundle of gnawing raw nerves. Therefore losing my calm and being perfectly obsessive-compulsive comes naturally to me. With only two days left for the journey home, I should be thrilled, which I am. But what actually rules my hours now is my fretting and peeving over inessential trifles. It is quite a raging battle of the dos and don'ts, the will happens and won't happens inside me. Surely our apartment will not perish to the lakeside spiders who just crawl up and love making their tiny webs in our living room. I know my blooming geraniums won't die of Sam's friend's neglect, who actually is a very nice person. Why on earth should anyone, who breaks into our apartment, steal my cute decorative mug that says 'cat lover' out of all things! Also it isn't all that complicated to be a daughter-in-law, or is it? Whooop!!!
Before I come across as a complete raving lunatic, I must stop my worry marathon here. I wish I could borrow some steely nerves from somebody. I also wish 'obsession' didn't always have to come with its annoying twin 'compulsion'. Sigh!!

Baker's delight

Plum cake, one of my much prized initial successes as a baker

I came across this little piece of truth in one of the cooking websites - "Nothing is more attractive around the home than the smell of fresh baking". It has been a month and a little more since the baker in me has been on a full-throated song. I must have baked more than five cakes, completely mindless of the bursting calories, and thus jeopardizing our fitness routine and dietary resolutions. I have always enjoyed cooking but had never given much thought to the age-old, classic art of baking. The only baking that I had ever dabbled in before was the traditional American fudge brownie from the oh-so-convenient brownie mix. And that ain't much of a talent. So after reveling in the pride of a frequently complimented cook, the time had come to don the mantle of a real baker. I wonder why it took me so long to think about baking from scratch. May be because I am a little idiosyncratic, therefore the 'new' or the 'different' does not strike me immediately. Somehow I am always stuck with the old, repetitive pattern. There are many 'lates' in my life, including Harry Potter and Friends, both of which have become so crucial to my existence that without them my world would seem rather drab. Before I stray any further, let us get back to baking. So there I was, scouring through allrecipes.com for a simple cake, something that ran the least chance of being a disaster. I went for the orange cake for I wanted something exotic as well, and there I was beating eggs and grating orange zest. I had planned it as a surprise for Sam but the heady aroma of orange and baking gave it away. However the cake had turned out really well, the way cakes should be - moist and soft. Hurrah! With such a triumphant debut, there was no stopping me. I searched for variety and more flavours and ended up making them all - orange cake, chocolate cake, banana muffins, fudge brownies and even a plum cake. The trouble is, if I am good at something, I become obsessed with it till I have had enough of it and this is exactly the situation with my current baking spree. It just feels the most perfect thing to do.

What I love the most about baking, other than the hypnotism of the senses, is that it keeps my mind off from wandering away. I feel a soothing calm while baking, as if it was a healing process. The little swirls of aroma crawling out from the oven purge my mind of the buzzing monotone of life. At the end of a messy day, you know when you add eggs and butter to flour, it turns out perfect. And nobody can take this comfort away from you. Absolutely nobody.

Shopper's hullabaloo

So my spirits are as bountiful and colourful as my treasure trove. I have been desperately waiting for this time of the month. Just two more tedious months and off we go to India for that much needed break. Obviously my euphoria knows no bounds, so much so that I wouldn't even mind hopping into the shoes of an amateurish Mahima Chaudhry dancing to the tunes of yeh mera India. Being well aware, and often being the victim, of my restlessness, Sam had struck a deal with me that we would only start shopping once the dates are decided. I am finally allowed to obsess over lists and fret every moment of the day while browsing online stores. Mine is an interestingly diverse list that features almost everything imaginable starting from books, movies, home decor, cosmetics, shoes to even Hershey's chocolate brownie mix for my mum which I had quite conveniently forgotten during our last visit. After a meticulous online survey, I would visit the stores with a grumpy and ever reluctant Sam. In the archetypal male way he would only consider the purchase worthy once we would finally get back home, after all the hullabaloo would be over. I remember the last time when we had been to India, which also happened to be our first visit after an eight months' stay here, the situation was no different. We generally prefer shopping from Amazon (what would life be without it!!) for electronics and rarities like National Geographic documentaries and old books. Somehow the same delivery man would knock at our door every alternate day with a box, wearing a wide grin. Once he even complemented me saying, "Thanks! You keep me in my job"!
Shopping, be it for anything or anybody, has often worked as a purgative for me. In a strange way I love the feel of an exhausted body and a pair of aching feet which result from hours of pointless wandering in labyrinthine shopping malls. And during such times of prolonged shopping it feels so very festive and thrilling, more so with the excitement of going home and seeing your loved ones after a distressing gap of a year and more. Being an absolute shopaholic I play by the rules. While these purchases will contribute to others' wardrobes, I have plans to stock up mine once I get to scour through the bright and motley collections of ethnic heaven. God knows how miserable I have been every time I would grudgingly browse Orkut albums of friends draped in gorgeous Indian wear. And what's more, retail therapy can even cure the most horrible of jet lags!