Piercings and Mid-Life Crises – I

We landed in Delhi on the morning of Christmas Day last year. By late afternoon, we were sitting with the parents at a prominent jeweller’s, examining earrings. Early in the new year, Amma was to be led kicking and screaming to a ‘big’ birthday, and Appa wanted to buy her ‘something nice’ to ease the pain.

I too was in a mood of atonement for Amma had told me almost as soon as I put foot in the house that it was all because of me that she was no longer colouring her hair, and that was why she looked so old! Never mind all the years she has let flow under various bridges.

How we got from Amma’s ears to mine is still somewhat shrouded in jet lag. But there I was, getting a helix piercing. No, I didn’t know it was called that till a few seconds ago when I looked it up.

As soon as the jeweller’s assistant blew the hole into my upper ear, I knew it was all wrong. The pain was e-x-c-r-u-c-i-a-t-i-n-g. I finally understood terms like seeing stars, blinding white light, seeing my life flash before my eyes... But I’d proudly demanded ‘Both!’ when, earlier, he’d enquired which ear I wanted done. There was no question of backtracking now.

Repeat stars, white light, life flashes. I was whimpering with pain. In between the life flashes, I saw scenes of me sneering at people with multiple piercings, on the ears or elsewhere. I’d sneered all through the time when such things were fashionable – at least twenty years ago.

Then I got a tattoo, another object of previous sneers. And began musing – for five years – on where I’d get a piercing done if I were ever to indulge myself. Most parts of the ear, which was the only organ I could contemplate getting pierced, were so very Punjabi. Then I remembered a photograph of my great-grandmother with a great big gold clasp in her upper ear. It kind of slam dunked it all together. And now the deed was done. Little did I realise, the forty minutes or so of sleep I’d grabbed in the plane the night before were the last I was going to achieve for a long time. A very long time.

I do not sleep on my back. The new earrings had butterfly clips which poked into me and jolted sharp jags of pain into my head every time I turned my side. And I could not touch them for the next three weeks. And it was rapidly turning into the worst winter Delhi had ever seen, read caps were needed 24/7.

On New Year’s Eve, we went for dinner with some very old friends, the ‘old’ marking only the duration of the relationship. The friends’ son and our son were like Jai and Veeru in school, except that their song was ‘Tu tu tu, tu tu tara’. (That was pure vendetta!) And since the son was not there, his friend was doing all he could to make me not feel his absence. Abrupt hug – wait, not my ear, you idiot! – monosyllabic replies, the works. He did shove some mulled wine my way though.

Soon enough, the conversation trended towards my new aural acquisitions. I could almost forget the pain the blasted things were causing.

Then, from somewhere, the son’s friend found some more words: ‘Are you having a mid-life crisis?’