The Winner Takes It All..

'Supersession' is a word that's been on my mind often these days. A little more frequently than is healthy, but then wallowing-in-self-pity provides such masochistic delight that I cannot quite stop myself from indulging in this exercise. I love the word 'wallow', for it paints visions of this great pool of soft, gooey, orange clay into which I sink as it engulfs me in its warm embrace. It's cathartic, this 'wallowing' exercise. If you ask me about the 'pain' portion of the masochism, I'll say that that the pain is trivial: a few sniffles here and there, a bit of something rising up your throat and occasionally your heart doing that weird somersault; but other than these, the pleasure is without doubt, oodles more than the pain, for seasoned masochistic 'wallowers' like me.

Now that the operation of supersession has been completed successfully, I suddenly woke up one day to an insane urge to find out the etymogy of this word that's successfully punctured the gung-ho of my committed-to- Hedonism life. Oxford English dictionary says 'supersession' is the replacement of a person or thing previously in authority or use. Not completely convinced, I sought a second and a third opinion from other websites. These, I found were more elaborate but in no way any more comforting. One gave the meaning as 'obliterate'. 'Obliterate' as I understand, is to wipe out. I had to actually look into the mirror when I read this one. Far from being wiped out, my mirror reflected an Aibee much increased in volume. The second meaning I found said 'To replace'. Well, this too was perplexing, because Aibee still remains very much in her old haunt, here under the mountains. She has till date, as far as I know, not been replaced, leave alone by a superior being, not even by a better version of herself. The third definition said 'To make useless'. This was not confusing at all. On the contrary, this was absolutely crystal clear. In fact I had been experiencing a feeling quite akin to it for quite some time now. So all it did was to make me dive into my wallow pool of self pity once more. Being rendered 'useless' or being decorated with this epithet is not at all nutritious for one's metabolism. It is wont to give you dyspepsia, dehydration and depression all at once, a dangerous syndrome. And worse, it tends to open the floodgates of self deprecating ruminations and then refuses to close them.

So I ruminated from deep down the bowels of my wallow pool: Now that I have been certified 'useless', should I attempt to dig out or fashion lateral ways of making myself useful? Or should I just let it be as has been ordained and continue to remain 'useless'?  The temptation to persist playing useless is very great. It's like playing the part of that peon in the public bank who sits at its gate, the one who is short and fat with a three day stubble, who spends his hours in fruitful pursuits like poking his ears with a match stick, scratching his ample paunch, taking an afternoon nap at nine in the morning with his mouth open and then taking a well deserved break from it all by digging his nostrils with his stubby fingers. Yes, I could do playing 'useless' quite easily (less the nose-digging bit).

But there are other angles to this 'supersession' ball game beyond the 'playing-useless' portion. That is the easy part. The difficult part is dealing with the entity called 'ego' which the creator has generously placed within every man's brain. What makes it worse personally for me is that I have quite a tagra one with a voracious appetite for the gourmet dish called 'achievement', a dish that is expensive and rare and difficult to source. Every now and then Ego sits down, places it's halfmoon spectacles at the tip of it's nose and pulling out its humongous bahikhata, takes an inventory of Aibee's achievements. For the last few years, the khata's pages have only a few sparse entries and hence Ego is underpaid and underfed. And when this hypoglycemic, slightly emaciated Ego surfs through the Yearbook of others' lives i.e. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and is subjected to a barrage of glossies of the near and not-so-dear ones flaunting their career advancements, corner offices, designer kids, topper kids, foreign holidays and the unkindest-cut-of-all, an all new washboard-flat tummy, the Ego has a breakdown and sinks into the wallow pit, with me in tow.

And from the depths of the wallow pit, I can't help but think: ABBA was SO right-
The Winner Takes It All...
The Loser Standing Small...

I hear Other Half yelling from the front porch: Heyyyyy, Aibee....come quick. Quiiiickkkkkk........!

The wallow pit doesn't let go easily, clinging, clutching...But his voice is insistent and I can sense the undertones of a deep delight and a happy excitement. So, I manage to heave myself out and totter to the porch.

Shhhhh, he whispers and points. Look!

I look. On the veranda, between the purple pansies and the sunlit calendulas, a Plum - Headed Parakeet is busily gorging on the bird seed that I strew every morning for the sparrows. I've been doing this for nearly a year, hoping that the wild parrots would come down from the mountains to my garden; but till now all that I've got are those rambunctious sparrows. Of course we have become good friends but this plum headed beauty is a surprise treat for me, a real treat. I watch enthralled as the beautiful bird pecks at my birdseed, the iridescent plum coloured plumage on its head reflecting the morning light in hues of magenta, red, blue and purple.

Behind me, the Dhauladhars are bathed in a thick blanket of pure white snow.

Another treat.

The Winner Takes it All......

Or does he?