It was afternoon, Tuesday. My head echoed every breath I took, making thinking a loud and nasty process. The back of my throat felt as if there was a large army of little ants scurrying around there wearing hobnailed boots and scrubbing away at my tonsils with medium-grained sandpaper of the particularly inefficient kind. My nose had feathers lining it that rustled ticklingly in the breeze of every inhalation and exhalation and my eyes teared every now and then, even though I was not watching a weepy movie or reading the chapter in the Little Women series when Beth dies.
By evening, Tuesday, when I got into the car for the ride home, my head was pounding, my eyes were watering constantly, my nose was coming off its moorings with my sneezes and my breath was coming out in whooping coughs that pulled hotly through my chest. Not again, I sighed painfully to myself as I tried to find a cool spot for my back to nest into in the back seat. “Didi, you are not well,” my driver told me, with masterly understatement. I muttered something that could have been rude if I had been able to think of it quickly enough and closed my eyes as we negotiated early-rush-hour traffic and copiously pouring rain.
“Baby, you are not well!” my father said as I walked in the front door at home. It seemed like something I not only knew, but had been told before, too. There was an odd familiarity to the phrase. I sat back on the sofa, trying hard not to feel as terrible as I wanted to, because worrying Papa was not on my to-do list. Grinning cheerfully and squashing sneezes before they could express themselves, I told him all about my day, managed to get through dinner and pudding and then debated whether I should admit I was not feeling well, or not.
“I am not well,” I agreed the next morning, when I woke up and sipped my green tea with the same feeling of batteredness as I had felt the previous day, but worse. After some small battle with my conscience for causing the aforementioned male parent more worry than he needed, I decided that maybe Papa knows best and I would stay home. That is when I really asked for trouble. Why is it that when you allow yourself to be unwell, you are given lots of advice, none of which you really want to follow? Drink chicken soup, Thereza ordered. Up your immunity, it’s too low, Anjali said. REST, Shivangi insisted. You really have to stop falling ill so often, Anita stated. Eat some chocolate, you will feel better for a while, Shyam said - perhaps the only sensible suggestion I got.
Papa clucked and fussed like the Mother Hen of the cliché. If I was asleep, which I had a distressing tendency to be whenever I closed my eyes, he would check my forehead or lean fondly over me to see if I was fevered and/or awake. I will make you some nice hot jeera-garlic rasam, he said, and got diverted by the phone ringing its piercing tune through our apartment. Go lie down, he ordered, and then insisted I get up for lunch or tea or whatever the time of day was. Finally, he sloshed out through the rain and wind to get garlic bread and the cutest little fruit cake he could find for me, his baby, insisting I eat it when all I could taste was woolly, sandy nothingness on my tongue. If I hadn’t known that it stemmed from love, involvement and worry, the situation would have given rise to Epic Family Battle # 12,000,000,000,001.
Finally, un-fevered albeit still wobbly, my knees, as mentioned previously, still not all found and reinstalled, I tottered back to work this morning. Since I am still alive, have all my limbs and seem to be whole in body, mind (appearances can be deceiving, remember!) and soul, people are not telling me what to do. Which to me signifies triumph: I won the battle against my pet virus, this time!
Friday, June 30, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Bug battles
There I was, minding my own business, floating along quite happily on the changing tides of life, when the virus attacked. I came home a couple of days ago with my eyes burning, my body aching and my skin sore and hot. Protesting valiantly between sneezes and coughs, I did eventually give in to paranoic paternal pressure and my own feeling of ow-ow-ow-blah and went to bed, with my huggy pillow, fuzzy blankie and an Aspirin (the drug, not the book) for company. Having been there for a whole day, I want out; I want to revel in the rain, marvel at the monsoon, soak in the sog - you know, all that good alliterative stuff - but there is one small problem: I can't find my knees. I seem to have left them somewhere en route to the Great Sweat that vanquishes fever and I now wobble about the house with a very odd sense of jelly between my hips and my feet.
Viral fever, my father said sagely. Viral fever, my driver told me. Viral fever, my friend cautioned me. And everyone told me what to do. They are still doing so and probably will continue to do so for a while yet. We will talk about what they have to say the next time we meet, at proper length, when my little germ and I are all set to face the big bad world again. For now, I go knee-hunting...
Viral fever, my father said sagely. Viral fever, my driver told me. Viral fever, my friend cautioned me. And everyone told me what to do. They are still doing so and probably will continue to do so for a while yet. We will talk about what they have to say the next time we meet, at proper length, when my little germ and I are all set to face the big bad world again. For now, I go knee-hunting...
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Sole survivor
I have some passions that are entirely hedonistic, kept, for the most part, to myself. But one – apart from chocolate - is widely known of, to the point that I have made friends with complete strangers because of it. I speak of that sole obsession of mine: shoes. Perhaps the only people who can understand how I feel are my father, who stoically creates space for my ever-growing collection of footwear, my friend Nina, who shares my passion from an acquisitive and aesthetic point of view, and my long-distance buddy Shyam, who has decided that marriage (to another woman, I must specify) will have to wait while he scouts the internet market for pieces that will keep me amused and entertained, mainly so that he will not have to do so, especially when he is supposed to be working.
Perhaps my fetish for foot-ware came from my mother who, bless her heart and sole, believed that every outfit must have slippers to match. Which explained her collection, albeit not too vast, of pretty, decorative, enviable, leched after sandals that I coveted until I grew into her feet, at which point, I tried them on every chance I got, which was often, when she was out and left her store of lipstick and chappals for me to experiment with. Of course, once I acquired some of my own, I usually forced her into putting on a pair that was perfect with her dress code for the occasion, often pushing her in and out of a dozen pairs, proclaiming that this red was too bright, that was too blah and that there was hideous. Being an understanding and fairly indulgent mother in these matters, she allowed me my way, though sometimes with a gentle grumble. And she made sure that I was well shod, one very memorable time digging about 22 pairs of vari-coloured Kolhapuris out of her bottomless suitcase because I had wanted a certain set I could not find where I lived at that stage of my life.
When I was very young, sandals were the norm. I was not overly active, but chic in romper suits, denim frocks and little A-line minis that were made with exotic materials (like paper), fabulous motifs (a sunflower in a pot, for one) and exquisitely crafted embellishments (a smocked yoke, for instance). With these clothes, sandals worked best, flat, double strapped, with buckles that a small girl with a total disdain for footwear could not easily take off. In school, a standard and very boring design of closed shoe was the norm, with light sneakers for variety to use during PE, which I hated with the same passion as I hated the shoes I had to wear for that course (a deep connection, mayhap?). When I was a teenager, and my independent thought processes came into working order, I discovered now only what fun footwear could be, but also how my feet could be slid into stuff that was distinctly worth having. It began slow - on a holiday in the northeast of India, I found a Chinese shoemaker who had the most gorgeous sandals that were a brilliant leafy green, high platform heels with a sloped stack and a very sexy ankle strap. I wore them as often as parents permitted and the need arose, swanning through parts of Europe and the US in my prized greens.
My mother was the perpetrator when she bought me perilously high sharply spike heeled slouchy black suede boots. I wore them to school as often as I could, tottering through the vast grounds from class to class. In college, I went back to flats, perhaps because the sprawling campus was set high in the mountains and I am subject to vertigo. And once I grew up and figured out that moderation was healthy, at least for the feet, I balanced delicately on small block heels, playing with colour and configuration rather than height. Today, I buy stilettos – my favourite being a needle-sharp pair in gold and diamante that I have not yet had the courage of need to wear – but generally stick my beleaguered feet into comfortable wedges that keep my equilibrium dignified. My last shoe-buy was a pair of woven lime green and yellow platform slides with a three inch spike heel that are a perfect replica except in colour of a pink and crimson pair I had serendipitously acquired two weeks earlier. I did, however, maintain my sanity by buying a mundane pair of sneakers, which made it all right!
So am I aiming to rival the once-famous Imelda Marcos with my collection? Certainly not, I retort indignantly when people ask, I still do not have any Blahniks or Choos or even Ferragamos in my shoe closet. Which reminds me, there’s a sale on at the mall at this well known international shoe store….
Perhaps my fetish for foot-ware came from my mother who, bless her heart and sole, believed that every outfit must have slippers to match. Which explained her collection, albeit not too vast, of pretty, decorative, enviable, leched after sandals that I coveted until I grew into her feet, at which point, I tried them on every chance I got, which was often, when she was out and left her store of lipstick and chappals for me to experiment with. Of course, once I acquired some of my own, I usually forced her into putting on a pair that was perfect with her dress code for the occasion, often pushing her in and out of a dozen pairs, proclaiming that this red was too bright, that was too blah and that there was hideous. Being an understanding and fairly indulgent mother in these matters, she allowed me my way, though sometimes with a gentle grumble. And she made sure that I was well shod, one very memorable time digging about 22 pairs of vari-coloured Kolhapuris out of her bottomless suitcase because I had wanted a certain set I could not find where I lived at that stage of my life.
When I was very young, sandals were the norm. I was not overly active, but chic in romper suits, denim frocks and little A-line minis that were made with exotic materials (like paper), fabulous motifs (a sunflower in a pot, for one) and exquisitely crafted embellishments (a smocked yoke, for instance). With these clothes, sandals worked best, flat, double strapped, with buckles that a small girl with a total disdain for footwear could not easily take off. In school, a standard and very boring design of closed shoe was the norm, with light sneakers for variety to use during PE, which I hated with the same passion as I hated the shoes I had to wear for that course (a deep connection, mayhap?). When I was a teenager, and my independent thought processes came into working order, I discovered now only what fun footwear could be, but also how my feet could be slid into stuff that was distinctly worth having. It began slow - on a holiday in the northeast of India, I found a Chinese shoemaker who had the most gorgeous sandals that were a brilliant leafy green, high platform heels with a sloped stack and a very sexy ankle strap. I wore them as often as parents permitted and the need arose, swanning through parts of Europe and the US in my prized greens.
My mother was the perpetrator when she bought me perilously high sharply spike heeled slouchy black suede boots. I wore them to school as often as I could, tottering through the vast grounds from class to class. In college, I went back to flats, perhaps because the sprawling campus was set high in the mountains and I am subject to vertigo. And once I grew up and figured out that moderation was healthy, at least for the feet, I balanced delicately on small block heels, playing with colour and configuration rather than height. Today, I buy stilettos – my favourite being a needle-sharp pair in gold and diamante that I have not yet had the courage of need to wear – but generally stick my beleaguered feet into comfortable wedges that keep my equilibrium dignified. My last shoe-buy was a pair of woven lime green and yellow platform slides with a three inch spike heel that are a perfect replica except in colour of a pink and crimson pair I had serendipitously acquired two weeks earlier. I did, however, maintain my sanity by buying a mundane pair of sneakers, which made it all right!
So am I aiming to rival the once-famous Imelda Marcos with my collection? Certainly not, I retort indignantly when people ask, I still do not have any Blahniks or Choos or even Ferragamos in my shoe closet. Which reminds me, there’s a sale on at the mall at this well known international shoe store….
Monday, June 26, 2006
The food of life
It’s raining at intervals outside. When it’s not, the air is hot, heavy and humid, hanging hugely over hapless heads (isn’t that a lovely bit of alliteration!) and just waiting to crash down with a lot of sound and fury signifying one heckuva thunderstorm. The heat crushes the appetite, driving you feel to an overwhelming desire for all things cool, from watermelon to mint sorbet, lemonade to iced tea. Food does not appeal much; all things to drink do. You aim for air-conditioning wherever you go, be it to a restaurant or a grocery store, a boutique or an office. And you go anywhere only reluctantly, knowing that you will sweat (trust me, women do NOT glow, they sweat like anyone else does) between your car and your destination, finally meeting up with whoever you are meeting up with, soggily, sweatily sticky. When it rains, you will be as soggy and sticky, but cooler, craving crackly-crisp crunchies touched with a whisper of chilli, steaming soup straight from a saucepan, baked beans with bacon and a baguette, chocolat chaude and masala chai….someone please pass me the sugar!
But whatever the weather’s whims, whether wintery or wickedly warm, our very own desi favourite for all seasons is a delicious blend of rice and yoghurt, a universal taste in this culturally and culinarily diverse country. It is known as dahi-chaawal, dahi-bhaath, mosaruanna, tairshaadam…pick a language and you have a name. It is eaten every day and during feasts, funerals and weddings alike, relished for breakfast, lunch or dinner, touted as the ideal soothe food and given a status on the Indian menu unmatched by the most heavenly kebabs, biryanis or mithais. Best eaten when made with fresh rice and yoghurt, there are many additions and accessories to make the dish ambrosial, taking it beyond a mundane end to a meal, elevating it to the echelons of manna from Mum’s kitchen.
This simple classic has earned its title as soothe food courtesy its ingredients. Rice is chock-full of starch, which calms the digestion and the nerves, warding off aggravation and blunting external irritants. Yoghurt is well known to contain tryptophan, a gentle and natural soporific and anti-ageing element – Methuselah, for instance, was known to eat yoghurt and lived to over 100 years old. It is also considered a route to heroism – Ghenghis Khan is said to have loved the cool white milk-solid, eating it in vast quantities as he swept fire and brimstone through much of Asia. Combine rice and yoghurt and you could be the next creator of nations, ruler of the world, master of human destiny…well, at least an easier person to deal with!
The best way to make tairshaadam is the simplest. Rice, of whatever vintage – if it is old, it needs to be refreshed with a little water and a spell in a steamer or microwave; if it is fresh, fabulous! – is spiced gently with a little salt and whatever other seasonings you may like – I like cumin powder, some people prefer salt, others like sugar. Warm milk is poured in, and a dollop of yoghurt mixed into the whole. Allowed to rest in peace, it will set nicely in a couple of hours, perfect for a picnic, lunch at the office or pre-prep for dinner post-work. When you are hungry for it, if at home, you can do a tasty little splutter with a small drip of oil, a pinch of asafoetida, a scant teaspoonful of mustard seeds and/or chopped chillies, ginger, curry leaves, even cumin seeds, cashewnuts or whole green pepper. Eat it with (a spoon, of course, or your fingers for a more authentic taste) a crunchy like a potato ship, lotus root crispies, bhajias, papad or a good rice vadaam. Or just relish it with hints of tangy mango chutney, lime pickle, ginger lacha or a veggie of sorts, from spicy potato to astringent spinach to stuffed karela…
Now look what you did! I’m hungry!
But whatever the weather’s whims, whether wintery or wickedly warm, our very own desi favourite for all seasons is a delicious blend of rice and yoghurt, a universal taste in this culturally and culinarily diverse country. It is known as dahi-chaawal, dahi-bhaath, mosaruanna, tairshaadam…pick a language and you have a name. It is eaten every day and during feasts, funerals and weddings alike, relished for breakfast, lunch or dinner, touted as the ideal soothe food and given a status on the Indian menu unmatched by the most heavenly kebabs, biryanis or mithais. Best eaten when made with fresh rice and yoghurt, there are many additions and accessories to make the dish ambrosial, taking it beyond a mundane end to a meal, elevating it to the echelons of manna from Mum’s kitchen.
This simple classic has earned its title as soothe food courtesy its ingredients. Rice is chock-full of starch, which calms the digestion and the nerves, warding off aggravation and blunting external irritants. Yoghurt is well known to contain tryptophan, a gentle and natural soporific and anti-ageing element – Methuselah, for instance, was known to eat yoghurt and lived to over 100 years old. It is also considered a route to heroism – Ghenghis Khan is said to have loved the cool white milk-solid, eating it in vast quantities as he swept fire and brimstone through much of Asia. Combine rice and yoghurt and you could be the next creator of nations, ruler of the world, master of human destiny…well, at least an easier person to deal with!
The best way to make tairshaadam is the simplest. Rice, of whatever vintage – if it is old, it needs to be refreshed with a little water and a spell in a steamer or microwave; if it is fresh, fabulous! – is spiced gently with a little salt and whatever other seasonings you may like – I like cumin powder, some people prefer salt, others like sugar. Warm milk is poured in, and a dollop of yoghurt mixed into the whole. Allowed to rest in peace, it will set nicely in a couple of hours, perfect for a picnic, lunch at the office or pre-prep for dinner post-work. When you are hungry for it, if at home, you can do a tasty little splutter with a small drip of oil, a pinch of asafoetida, a scant teaspoonful of mustard seeds and/or chopped chillies, ginger, curry leaves, even cumin seeds, cashewnuts or whole green pepper. Eat it with (a spoon, of course, or your fingers for a more authentic taste) a crunchy like a potato ship, lotus root crispies, bhajias, papad or a good rice vadaam. Or just relish it with hints of tangy mango chutney, lime pickle, ginger lacha or a veggie of sorts, from spicy potato to astringent spinach to stuffed karela…
Now look what you did! I’m hungry!
Friday, June 23, 2006
It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad world…
My life is full of ‘to do’ and ‘to get done’ lists. There are lots of things that I would like to do, which many already know about, so why list them? There are others on my ‘must do before you get beyond it’ list, some still in the formulation stages. Topmost of all these: to be BAD! Not ‘bad’ as in Michael Jackson’s song. Not ‘bad’ as in New York street slang of some years ago, when being ‘bad’ was actually all about being more than ‘good’. Not ‘bad’ as in really mean and nasty, not nice, unfavourable, ad nauseum. And not even ‘bad’ as in sinful, wicked or evil. Just plain and simple ‘bad’ as in ‘not all good’. Unfortunately, my overall image, though tinted gently at the edges by moments of bitchiness and bratty behaviour, is generally clean, albeit mercifully not squeakily so. That would be truly, utterly, amazingly boring, wouldn’t it!
At the moment I aspire to be a villain (villainess?) in a soap opera. As I have said before, I am newly inducted into the Hindi television soap opera-watchers’ club, and have taken to it with my usual focussed passion – I watch only bits and pieces, have no idea what I am watching, what the story is, who the actors are, what various relationships are all about, what the situation is and why the characters are all behaving the way they are. But I am completely and utterly charmed by the ‘bad’ people, in whatever show it happens to be that I click in to.
In particular, the women who are ‘bad’ really make my creative cookie crumble. They are stereotypically rich and have a clichéd, OTT characterisation that is completely charming As they enter the scene - almost always when they are needed least - the cue music announcing their arrival sounds deep, dark, dire and deadly over the soundtrack. You are likely to first see the character’s feet, usually clad in sinfully chic shoes, toes meticulously manicured, ankle bracelets, toe rings and all other bling neatly in place. The camera moves up along a silhouette that may be slim, or otherwise, nicely clad in elaborate costume, be it a formally corporate suit or an over-embellished sari, or just a fashionably low-waisted and belted pair of faded jeans.
And then you get to head level. The hair is artfully coiffed, spun into neat curls that punctuate the otherwise straight locks, carefully gelled back to form a kind of skull-cap or simply left to hang sleekly bonded over the neck and shoulders. A ‘bad’ lady rarely has her hair neatly confined in an elegant chignon or tied back into a braid – that is for the much-maligned sati-savitri ‘good’ bahu, heroine or mother. Our favourite baddie swings her locks every now and then or flips them back with a well manicured finger for best effect, looking evilly at her victim of torment as she does. Those aforementioned locks will be streaked blonde, red or orange, whatever the latest look for the season may happen to be.
There will always be a smirk on the woman’s face, an all-knowing expression that hints of unpleasant secrets to be used for a spot of blackmail or a dash of skulduggery. Her forehead will be emblazoned with a bindi that says something loud but not very clear, soon becoming her identification as the show progresses through degrees of her badness. Her eyes will be heavily lined and shadowed, false eyelashes casting dark, spidery shadows over her scarlet-rouged cheeks. And her lipstick – you could write a poem about a bad lady’s lipstick. It will invariably be thick, glossed mirror-like, lined some inches beyond her natural lipline. With all this, she will have the most outrageous sense of jewellery-chic there possibly could be. Full suites of the shiny stuff, with earrings, neckpiece, bangles, rings, even hairpins…they all hang about her person like tinsel on the Christmas tree.
But the best part of a soap opera villain’s presence is the lines she is given to speak. They will be coated with sugar, laser-like in their single focus and aimed at the most virtuous of the characters in the entire plot. Each word is so laden with innuendo and acid that you expect it to drop into the scene and chew through the carpeting. And, without fail, she will, at least once in any episode that she is part of, say those vitriolic words, watch their effect and revel in the result. All set to that wonderful cue music.
Shall we hum…?
At the moment I aspire to be a villain (villainess?) in a soap opera. As I have said before, I am newly inducted into the Hindi television soap opera-watchers’ club, and have taken to it with my usual focussed passion – I watch only bits and pieces, have no idea what I am watching, what the story is, who the actors are, what various relationships are all about, what the situation is and why the characters are all behaving the way they are. But I am completely and utterly charmed by the ‘bad’ people, in whatever show it happens to be that I click in to.
In particular, the women who are ‘bad’ really make my creative cookie crumble. They are stereotypically rich and have a clichéd, OTT characterisation that is completely charming As they enter the scene - almost always when they are needed least - the cue music announcing their arrival sounds deep, dark, dire and deadly over the soundtrack. You are likely to first see the character’s feet, usually clad in sinfully chic shoes, toes meticulously manicured, ankle bracelets, toe rings and all other bling neatly in place. The camera moves up along a silhouette that may be slim, or otherwise, nicely clad in elaborate costume, be it a formally corporate suit or an over-embellished sari, or just a fashionably low-waisted and belted pair of faded jeans.
And then you get to head level. The hair is artfully coiffed, spun into neat curls that punctuate the otherwise straight locks, carefully gelled back to form a kind of skull-cap or simply left to hang sleekly bonded over the neck and shoulders. A ‘bad’ lady rarely has her hair neatly confined in an elegant chignon or tied back into a braid – that is for the much-maligned sati-savitri ‘good’ bahu, heroine or mother. Our favourite baddie swings her locks every now and then or flips them back with a well manicured finger for best effect, looking evilly at her victim of torment as she does. Those aforementioned locks will be streaked blonde, red or orange, whatever the latest look for the season may happen to be.
There will always be a smirk on the woman’s face, an all-knowing expression that hints of unpleasant secrets to be used for a spot of blackmail or a dash of skulduggery. Her forehead will be emblazoned with a bindi that says something loud but not very clear, soon becoming her identification as the show progresses through degrees of her badness. Her eyes will be heavily lined and shadowed, false eyelashes casting dark, spidery shadows over her scarlet-rouged cheeks. And her lipstick – you could write a poem about a bad lady’s lipstick. It will invariably be thick, glossed mirror-like, lined some inches beyond her natural lipline. With all this, she will have the most outrageous sense of jewellery-chic there possibly could be. Full suites of the shiny stuff, with earrings, neckpiece, bangles, rings, even hairpins…they all hang about her person like tinsel on the Christmas tree.
But the best part of a soap opera villain’s presence is the lines she is given to speak. They will be coated with sugar, laser-like in their single focus and aimed at the most virtuous of the characters in the entire plot. Each word is so laden with innuendo and acid that you expect it to drop into the scene and chew through the carpeting. And, without fail, she will, at least once in any episode that she is part of, say those vitriolic words, watch their effect and revel in the result. All set to that wonderful cue music.
Shall we hum…?
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Career choices
What do you want to be when you grow up? I still don’t know, even though I state very firmly to all those who doubt that I am all grown up now, thank you. Like every normal human being, at every stage of my life I have had different ambitions, each aiming at one focal point: to do what is fun.
For me, at six, fun was all about life around me. I made my share of mud pies, ate ants (or tried to before my horrified mother came to their rescue), fell out of trees, fought with my little friends and played with my toys. But there was one thing I really, really, really wanted to do: drive a road roller. Just outside the gates of the converted summer palace that was home to us, the streets were being repaved. A massive road roller, its enormous front wheel moving smoothly along the newly poured asphalt, clanked past at regular intervals. I watched, fascinated, along with a group of other small girls and boys, as the man driving it managed that beast so deftly, turning it just so, stopping just where the stretch of tar ended, flattening the spikes of rock under…err…wheel to create a nice, sleek roadway. It was an expression of power, of the triumph of man over machine, of…well, of something we all wanted very much to do ourselves. It felt like the ultimate in fantastical occupations. Even today, when I see and hear a road roller clank and grind its way through its job, I find myself sighing nostalgically for what might have been.
At 13, I wanted to be a potter. We were taken to a pottery workshop from school and given a chance to get down and very dirty indeed working on the wheel with wet clay. As spatters sprayed muddily over my protective apron, I felt that strange comfort that comes with holding and squeezing a soft, gooey substance, feeling it ooze, cool and moist through the fingers, smelling the minerals and the baking mud and the spiciness of hot paint. I made a clumsily lopsided ashtray for my mother, enjoying every second of the process, and wishing it would never end. Some years later, watching a master potter at work in his studio, seeing a piece grow and take exquisite shape under his experienced fingers, I found myself sighing nostalgically for what might have been.
At 15, I wanted to be a dancer. I was trained as one, with all the rigour and discipline that only Bharata Natyam of the purest style can provide. Each movement of every finger, casual and graceful and effortless as it seems, was an exercise in precision and perfection. And, much to my eternal satisfaction, it came so easily to me that I wanted that to be my life. I never bothered too much to hone my talent, but had a supreme confidence in it and in my own physical abilities. I knew that if I worked a little harder, I could be the best. Maybe that was my downfall – I didn’t value what I had, I was too sure of its power. Then, in a single, short, stunning moment, it was all gone, lost to injury and its repair. Doing dance critiques and helping others polish their skills was never quite the same, leaving me in tears of loss, despair and frustration. Today, when I watch younger dancers with my ever-critical eye, I find myself sighing nostalgically for what might have been.
At 21 I decided that being a chef was my goal. I researched Cordon Bleu courses, watched TV cooking shows and ate my way through various parts of the world. Along with my waistline, my need to cook grew. And I learned how, from the Frugal Gourmet, from Madhur Jaffrey, from my parents, from Granny’s old recipes, from friends, from anyone who could show me how. Today, with everything else I do and the current ambitions to be an editor and writer, I enjoy cooking even more, as a stressbuster, as a necessity, as a form of creative expression. I don’t sigh nostalgically any longer – I just go into my kitchen and grab my ladle…
For me, at six, fun was all about life around me. I made my share of mud pies, ate ants (or tried to before my horrified mother came to their rescue), fell out of trees, fought with my little friends and played with my toys. But there was one thing I really, really, really wanted to do: drive a road roller. Just outside the gates of the converted summer palace that was home to us, the streets were being repaved. A massive road roller, its enormous front wheel moving smoothly along the newly poured asphalt, clanked past at regular intervals. I watched, fascinated, along with a group of other small girls and boys, as the man driving it managed that beast so deftly, turning it just so, stopping just where the stretch of tar ended, flattening the spikes of rock under…err…wheel to create a nice, sleek roadway. It was an expression of power, of the triumph of man over machine, of…well, of something we all wanted very much to do ourselves. It felt like the ultimate in fantastical occupations. Even today, when I see and hear a road roller clank and grind its way through its job, I find myself sighing nostalgically for what might have been.
At 13, I wanted to be a potter. We were taken to a pottery workshop from school and given a chance to get down and very dirty indeed working on the wheel with wet clay. As spatters sprayed muddily over my protective apron, I felt that strange comfort that comes with holding and squeezing a soft, gooey substance, feeling it ooze, cool and moist through the fingers, smelling the minerals and the baking mud and the spiciness of hot paint. I made a clumsily lopsided ashtray for my mother, enjoying every second of the process, and wishing it would never end. Some years later, watching a master potter at work in his studio, seeing a piece grow and take exquisite shape under his experienced fingers, I found myself sighing nostalgically for what might have been.
At 15, I wanted to be a dancer. I was trained as one, with all the rigour and discipline that only Bharata Natyam of the purest style can provide. Each movement of every finger, casual and graceful and effortless as it seems, was an exercise in precision and perfection. And, much to my eternal satisfaction, it came so easily to me that I wanted that to be my life. I never bothered too much to hone my talent, but had a supreme confidence in it and in my own physical abilities. I knew that if I worked a little harder, I could be the best. Maybe that was my downfall – I didn’t value what I had, I was too sure of its power. Then, in a single, short, stunning moment, it was all gone, lost to injury and its repair. Doing dance critiques and helping others polish their skills was never quite the same, leaving me in tears of loss, despair and frustration. Today, when I watch younger dancers with my ever-critical eye, I find myself sighing nostalgically for what might have been.
At 21 I decided that being a chef was my goal. I researched Cordon Bleu courses, watched TV cooking shows and ate my way through various parts of the world. Along with my waistline, my need to cook grew. And I learned how, from the Frugal Gourmet, from Madhur Jaffrey, from my parents, from Granny’s old recipes, from friends, from anyone who could show me how. Today, with everything else I do and the current ambitions to be an editor and writer, I enjoy cooking even more, as a stressbuster, as a necessity, as a form of creative expression. I don’t sigh nostalgically any longer – I just go into my kitchen and grab my ladle…
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Romeo must die!
There will soon be a law against what they familiarly call ‘eve teasing’ in Mumbai. Maybe even all of India. Which puts a whole lot of men out of business on the streets, on various forms of public transport, outside stores, in markets…even driving along the city’s crowded roads. So what will all those ‘roadside Romeos’ do once the law is in effect and taken seriously, which a lot of laws in India are unfortunately not? A search for alternative professions boggles not just the mind, but credibility as well. Here are a few ideas:
Call centre executive: The place many young people frequent these days, especially late evening, is the call centre. They do not ‘hang out’, they do not drink and dance and get doped, they do not make out with their significant others of the night and they do not act rowdy and be destructive. What they do, really, is work, late into the wee hours. Call centres are currently hot job options, a place to make money without too much physical exertion, network with people all over the world and get that coveted foreign accent without spending any money to travel abroad. The Romeo who stands at bus stops and street corners discussing the qualities and suitability of various passing women would do good at the job.
Soap opera extra: For some strange and hilarious (to my friends, who know me well) reason, I have been watching night time soap operas on Indian television. I am still totally mystified by the acrobatics of the plots and the actions of various characters involved in various good or bad – and never the twain shall meet – activities and I have no clue why who is doing what to whom, when and how, but I am completely fascinated by the genre. One aspect that strikes me every evening is the number of people milling about in the background of any crowded scene. They walk past, come in and out, just stand there doing little, or gather around the central character when cued to do so. What has me in giggles each time is the amount of exercise one single person gets in the process. The girl in the red shirt, for instance, walked past behind the hero and his heroine at least four times in one short span (maybe three minutes), while the man in the suit came in and went out four and a half times (the last time, he stayed in, perhaps because the scene faded into a commercial break). The Romeo who hangs around outside a shop, peering in every now and then, even opening the door a few times, would do good at the job.
Journalist: Working for a newspaper or magazine is all about investigation. Of course, like some fresh new products, you can get your report so dreadfully mixed up that a solstice comes one day before schedule, a Sneha commits suicide because a Neha is depressed and gutsy winds and hummid weather precedes the onslot of the monsoon season. Which is perfect for our hero, Romeo. He is always interested in the depths of an issue, peering deep into a passing woman’s cleavage, peeking into the ladies’ compartment of a commuter train or working hard to get a one-on-one…interview, that is, of course. The Romeo who lurks in the urban murk for his target (victim?) would do good at the job.
There are so many directions Romeo can go to get a new life. Some of them are even ‘respectable’, taking him out of the seedy status of being a ‘roadsider’ and making him more legitimate. After all, with the new law threatening his very existence, he needs something to do that can ideally channel his talents, don’t you think?
Call centre executive: The place many young people frequent these days, especially late evening, is the call centre. They do not ‘hang out’, they do not drink and dance and get doped, they do not make out with their significant others of the night and they do not act rowdy and be destructive. What they do, really, is work, late into the wee hours. Call centres are currently hot job options, a place to make money without too much physical exertion, network with people all over the world and get that coveted foreign accent without spending any money to travel abroad. The Romeo who stands at bus stops and street corners discussing the qualities and suitability of various passing women would do good at the job.
Soap opera extra: For some strange and hilarious (to my friends, who know me well) reason, I have been watching night time soap operas on Indian television. I am still totally mystified by the acrobatics of the plots and the actions of various characters involved in various good or bad – and never the twain shall meet – activities and I have no clue why who is doing what to whom, when and how, but I am completely fascinated by the genre. One aspect that strikes me every evening is the number of people milling about in the background of any crowded scene. They walk past, come in and out, just stand there doing little, or gather around the central character when cued to do so. What has me in giggles each time is the amount of exercise one single person gets in the process. The girl in the red shirt, for instance, walked past behind the hero and his heroine at least four times in one short span (maybe three minutes), while the man in the suit came in and went out four and a half times (the last time, he stayed in, perhaps because the scene faded into a commercial break). The Romeo who hangs around outside a shop, peering in every now and then, even opening the door a few times, would do good at the job.
Journalist: Working for a newspaper or magazine is all about investigation. Of course, like some fresh new products, you can get your report so dreadfully mixed up that a solstice comes one day before schedule, a Sneha commits suicide because a Neha is depressed and gutsy winds and hummid weather precedes the onslot of the monsoon season. Which is perfect for our hero, Romeo. He is always interested in the depths of an issue, peering deep into a passing woman’s cleavage, peeking into the ladies’ compartment of a commuter train or working hard to get a one-on-one…interview, that is, of course. The Romeo who lurks in the urban murk for his target (victim?) would do good at the job.
There are so many directions Romeo can go to get a new life. Some of them are even ‘respectable’, taking him out of the seedy status of being a ‘roadsider’ and making him more legitimate. After all, with the new law threatening his very existence, he needs something to do that can ideally channel his talents, don’t you think?
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Like cats and dogs
I have had a lot of pets in my time. Some were easier to take care of than a cat or a dog, like my Kashmiri pet rock, a pair of rubber plants called Horatio and Willibald and Teddy the Bear. I felt truly, deeply, madly about each object of my attention that I fostered, lavishing on them the same sort of love and care I did on myself. Oftentimes I smothered them with over-the-top extravagance. And I got a lot in return, mostly unquestioning, silent affection and steadfast loyalty and companionship.
It all began when I was very young. My parents gave me Teddy, a hairless and very huggable stuffed bear with brightly buttoned eyes and a cheery smile. He was occasionally pushed aside for Polly, a baby doll with a squishy middle who made strange noises when she was squeezed. But Teddy always came back to prime position, taking over my pillow and my heart easily. At regular intervals, Teddy lost bits of himself to my grubby loving. His arms were stitched back carefully, his nose patched on again, his eyes stuck into their places every now and then. Today, he sits in a bookshelf just above my bed, his button-eyes glinting with a secret knowledge of my history, holding court with his acolytes – three trolls, one big and bald, the other two shock-mopped and bug-eyed – nestled against his spread-wide arms.
Years later, when I was a young adult, I got KPR. He (since I was a girl, pets had to be a ‘he’) was smoothly oval, with a slightly flattened surface and a tiny dent on one end that was perfect for his function: to crack nuts. We were on holiday in Kashmir and my parents had bought a bagful of walnuts for me to munch through. On a walk in the snow-topped mountains, I found KPR - Kashmiri pet rock to the mystified. His surface glittered in the sun, sprinkled with molecules of mica…or was it diamonds? His rounded side showed a slim streak of paler stone and his tiny dip, belly-button-like, had a special gleam that could have come from years of smoothing by glacial movement. I liked to think so, at least! KPR came back to Mumbai with me, and was carefully placed on the bookshelf in my bedroom. He and I chatted many hours…and then I went back to college. KPR was last seen cuddled against the giant cactus that lived with us since perhaps before I was born. I hope he has a good owner now.
In college in Colorado I acquired two rubber plants, which was one step up in the pet-evolution process for me. They were alive, they grew, they did respond to various stimuli, I knew. As my roommate and I carried the pots into our tiny dorm room, we attracted a great deal of attention. People stared, then clustered around to find out what manner of exotica was wandering the halls. The plants were not overly large, but their dark green, fleshy leaves and their owner – me, with big, kohl-lined eyes and a long braid – added to the aura of eastern mystery that was so unusual in the remote reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Soon, and regularly thereafter, I had a crowd in the room, all wanting to meet me and my plants. We held a solemn meeting to christen them, but almost all names suggested were rejected. My green friends just did not look like Sofia, Fred, Fidel or Savaranola. They needed a cachet that was unique, very un-plant-like. (A later sprig would be a plant called Robert, a name of provenance not understood by many, but familiar to listeners of classic rock, Led Zeppelin style.) After much to-ing and fro-ing and cross chatter, a Norwegian dorm-mate came up with the perfect titles. They had a touch of tough Teutonic straight-backed-ness to them and worked great for me…and my plants. The bigger one was Horatio; the runt, Willibald. They stayed with me as long as I was in Colorado, and now live with my best friend and her monster-cat. I visit them whenever I can.
Since then I have had a cat. He was a lot more fun.
It all began when I was very young. My parents gave me Teddy, a hairless and very huggable stuffed bear with brightly buttoned eyes and a cheery smile. He was occasionally pushed aside for Polly, a baby doll with a squishy middle who made strange noises when she was squeezed. But Teddy always came back to prime position, taking over my pillow and my heart easily. At regular intervals, Teddy lost bits of himself to my grubby loving. His arms were stitched back carefully, his nose patched on again, his eyes stuck into their places every now and then. Today, he sits in a bookshelf just above my bed, his button-eyes glinting with a secret knowledge of my history, holding court with his acolytes – three trolls, one big and bald, the other two shock-mopped and bug-eyed – nestled against his spread-wide arms.
Years later, when I was a young adult, I got KPR. He (since I was a girl, pets had to be a ‘he’) was smoothly oval, with a slightly flattened surface and a tiny dent on one end that was perfect for his function: to crack nuts. We were on holiday in Kashmir and my parents had bought a bagful of walnuts for me to munch through. On a walk in the snow-topped mountains, I found KPR - Kashmiri pet rock to the mystified. His surface glittered in the sun, sprinkled with molecules of mica…or was it diamonds? His rounded side showed a slim streak of paler stone and his tiny dip, belly-button-like, had a special gleam that could have come from years of smoothing by glacial movement. I liked to think so, at least! KPR came back to Mumbai with me, and was carefully placed on the bookshelf in my bedroom. He and I chatted many hours…and then I went back to college. KPR was last seen cuddled against the giant cactus that lived with us since perhaps before I was born. I hope he has a good owner now.
In college in Colorado I acquired two rubber plants, which was one step up in the pet-evolution process for me. They were alive, they grew, they did respond to various stimuli, I knew. As my roommate and I carried the pots into our tiny dorm room, we attracted a great deal of attention. People stared, then clustered around to find out what manner of exotica was wandering the halls. The plants were not overly large, but their dark green, fleshy leaves and their owner – me, with big, kohl-lined eyes and a long braid – added to the aura of eastern mystery that was so unusual in the remote reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Soon, and regularly thereafter, I had a crowd in the room, all wanting to meet me and my plants. We held a solemn meeting to christen them, but almost all names suggested were rejected. My green friends just did not look like Sofia, Fred, Fidel or Savaranola. They needed a cachet that was unique, very un-plant-like. (A later sprig would be a plant called Robert, a name of provenance not understood by many, but familiar to listeners of classic rock, Led Zeppelin style.) After much to-ing and fro-ing and cross chatter, a Norwegian dorm-mate came up with the perfect titles. They had a touch of tough Teutonic straight-backed-ness to them and worked great for me…and my plants. The bigger one was Horatio; the runt, Willibald. They stayed with me as long as I was in Colorado, and now live with my best friend and her monster-cat. I visit them whenever I can.
Since then I have had a cat. He was a lot more fun.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Scent of a woman
Many years ago, when I was still a grubby (that being the bon mot) little schoolgirl, life was fun and easy. For the most part, anyway. I never had to worry about how to get home when it rained too much, for instance; the school would contrive. And if the school was stuck on that score, my parents would ride in to the rescue. Ditto with lunch, grazed knees and unrequited crushes. As I grew up, I did most of my own rescuing and managed to stay alive and well, most of the time. But the days of yore have stayed with me and probably always will.
Perhaps what lingered longest was the smell. Little girls smell wonderfully of puppy dog, mixed in with sugar and spice and all things nice. That aroma gets blended with a ‘tester taste’ of Mom’s perfume, scented talcum powder and the fragrant sachets tucked into the closet where the small frocks and pretty Tshirts are stored. Added to that is the gentle pong of sweat cooked up while playing ‘House’, giggling about boys, bras and bumps on the chest and furtive peeks into the steamy world of American afternoon television soaps, where a kiss is part of almost every scene and heavy breathing mandated by the script.
And there is another smell that is very special to a schoolgirl in Mumbai. Monsoontime is the season for outdoor physical activity, most schools insist, since the weather is cool and the sunstroke factor low. So as soon as the rains begin, or threaten to do so, schoolchildren – segregated according to their gender - are herded into groups, driven or crocodile-walked to the nearest playing field and let loose. There is some supervision, a coach cursorily giving instructions, lots of water, even more mud and dozens of flailing limbs, the melee spiced with much yelling, some laughter, a few tears and fervent battles. And an atmosphere that can almost be felt, rich with the ordure of pre-adolescents who have spent a while in intense exertion.
For me, at the astonishingly snob school I went to in this city, it was all about football, the game that is, at the moment, a la mode. Since we didn’t have our own ground, we had to rent one that happened to be on the main road through the elite part of town. Which meant that we would be gawked at by people we knew, or our parents did, which added to the overall embarrassment of running around in short shorts in the middle of the city in the afternoon. But once we were covered with gloopy, gunky, gluey mud, redolent of rainwater, sweat and assorted pollutants, we didn’t care. Even the fondest mother would not be able to sniff her daughter out from the general chaos, we believed - never underestimate the power of the maternal nose, I learned as I grew up. But we all knew one thing and were oddly proud of it: we ponged like a mixture of old socks and stale asafoetida.
The aura we emitted was summed up succinctly by a sibling who collected us from the playground to drive us home. Brother of my then-best-friend, he had just learned how to drive and did us an extraordinary favour in an incredibly lordly way by picking us up en route home. My buddy and I clambered soggily giggling into the backseat of his old and admittedly battered car (and it wasn’t even his, it was his mother’s!), our dripping behinds nicely separated from clean upholstery by a wad of newspapers and a large plastic raincoat. Pointedly, the young man rolled down his window and deflated our youthful egos swelled with the triumph of being on the winning team with one acid-laden remark: “You stink!”
Perhaps what lingered longest was the smell. Little girls smell wonderfully of puppy dog, mixed in with sugar and spice and all things nice. That aroma gets blended with a ‘tester taste’ of Mom’s perfume, scented talcum powder and the fragrant sachets tucked into the closet where the small frocks and pretty Tshirts are stored. Added to that is the gentle pong of sweat cooked up while playing ‘House’, giggling about boys, bras and bumps on the chest and furtive peeks into the steamy world of American afternoon television soaps, where a kiss is part of almost every scene and heavy breathing mandated by the script.
And there is another smell that is very special to a schoolgirl in Mumbai. Monsoontime is the season for outdoor physical activity, most schools insist, since the weather is cool and the sunstroke factor low. So as soon as the rains begin, or threaten to do so, schoolchildren – segregated according to their gender - are herded into groups, driven or crocodile-walked to the nearest playing field and let loose. There is some supervision, a coach cursorily giving instructions, lots of water, even more mud and dozens of flailing limbs, the melee spiced with much yelling, some laughter, a few tears and fervent battles. And an atmosphere that can almost be felt, rich with the ordure of pre-adolescents who have spent a while in intense exertion.
For me, at the astonishingly snob school I went to in this city, it was all about football, the game that is, at the moment, a la mode. Since we didn’t have our own ground, we had to rent one that happened to be on the main road through the elite part of town. Which meant that we would be gawked at by people we knew, or our parents did, which added to the overall embarrassment of running around in short shorts in the middle of the city in the afternoon. But once we were covered with gloopy, gunky, gluey mud, redolent of rainwater, sweat and assorted pollutants, we didn’t care. Even the fondest mother would not be able to sniff her daughter out from the general chaos, we believed - never underestimate the power of the maternal nose, I learned as I grew up. But we all knew one thing and were oddly proud of it: we ponged like a mixture of old socks and stale asafoetida.
The aura we emitted was summed up succinctly by a sibling who collected us from the playground to drive us home. Brother of my then-best-friend, he had just learned how to drive and did us an extraordinary favour in an incredibly lordly way by picking us up en route home. My buddy and I clambered soggily giggling into the backseat of his old and admittedly battered car (and it wasn’t even his, it was his mother’s!), our dripping behinds nicely separated from clean upholstery by a wad of newspapers and a large plastic raincoat. Pointedly, the young man rolled down his window and deflated our youthful egos swelled with the triumph of being on the winning team with one acid-laden remark: “You stink!”
Friday, June 16, 2006
It’s in the stars…
A former boss, editor of the paper I worked for at the time, never let me go further into the large and cacophonous office than the door of her room when I came back from a lunch out...until she had read her favourite section of the afternoon tabloid I invariably carried back with me. “What? No paper!” she would exclaim in a very shrill and distressedly sharp blast, on the days when I didn’t have the aforementioned publication with me. Not because she wanted to know what the top story of the day for the city was. Not because she wanted to know who had hit the headlines in the latest scandal of the day. Not because she wanted to know what shares were going up or down. But purely because she wanted to know what was going to happen to her that day. For her, reading her daily horoscope made it all worthwhile!
And the things are truly addictive. I begin my day with a scan of what the stars foretell for my zodiac sign. To make sure, I also check what the day is to hold for my sign following the Indian system, which is always somehow diametrically opposed to that in the star charts followed by western predictors. If one says I will find money coming to me, the other cites an upswing in expenditure. The first will promise me rekindled romance with an old flame, when the second assures me that the state of my love life is in the doldrums, with no action and no fire. A will swear that domestic dispute is possible while work goes smoothly, but B will insist that peace is not on my professional agenda, while my personal existence is happy.
I like what I read sometimes, even though it may not promise me the happiest of days. “Emotional upsets will make your day difficult, but you find stability and balance at home with close partners.” Which is, for me, a fairly ideal state of being – go home and relax, it tells me. But then there is the “Professional success is all yours, but make sure that you are seen and heard to enjoy it fully.” That makes me stay at work, instead of heading for the first train out of town. On the other hand, I worry, since “You are accident prone today, so take extra care, especially when working.” Oops. Is that smoothed out with “Health will be excellent today – you will feel and look better than ever”? I wonder…
I should actually stop wondering and worrying about my day/week/month/year as prognosticated in print. After all, once upon a long ago time, I was assigned the job of producing the page of the newspaper that carried the horoscopes and the comics – which seemed very suitably juxtaposed as two elements of a whole spelling entertainment coexisting in a limited space. And it was a hoot. Most days, the comics came in before the horoscopes, being part of the package a syndication service provided us with. Then, when the ’scopes were finally available, they needed to be edited, often even translated from obscure grammar and mysterious spelling into more structured, comprehensible English. Sometimes, when the astrologer who did the work for us was not able to deliver, I scrambled, juggled and, on a few memorable occasions, made them up. Of course, my manic, imaginative, wildly creative predictions were usually reined in and made sober and thus credible by my features editor of the time, who was routinely heard to protest, “You can’t say THAT!”, much to my irritated frustration.
Under these circumstances, how can someone believe a horoscope published online or in print? (Whether these bits of illogical and unscientific nonsense can be taken as gospel in any form, verbal or written, is up for debate.) Who knows – after all, what the stars foretell could actually be a nicely formulated figment of a sub-editor’s creativity, rather than a carefully calculated result of a certain alignment of planets! Think about it.
And the things are truly addictive. I begin my day with a scan of what the stars foretell for my zodiac sign. To make sure, I also check what the day is to hold for my sign following the Indian system, which is always somehow diametrically opposed to that in the star charts followed by western predictors. If one says I will find money coming to me, the other cites an upswing in expenditure. The first will promise me rekindled romance with an old flame, when the second assures me that the state of my love life is in the doldrums, with no action and no fire. A will swear that domestic dispute is possible while work goes smoothly, but B will insist that peace is not on my professional agenda, while my personal existence is happy.
I like what I read sometimes, even though it may not promise me the happiest of days. “Emotional upsets will make your day difficult, but you find stability and balance at home with close partners.” Which is, for me, a fairly ideal state of being – go home and relax, it tells me. But then there is the “Professional success is all yours, but make sure that you are seen and heard to enjoy it fully.” That makes me stay at work, instead of heading for the first train out of town. On the other hand, I worry, since “You are accident prone today, so take extra care, especially when working.” Oops. Is that smoothed out with “Health will be excellent today – you will feel and look better than ever”? I wonder…
I should actually stop wondering and worrying about my day/week/month/year as prognosticated in print. After all, once upon a long ago time, I was assigned the job of producing the page of the newspaper that carried the horoscopes and the comics – which seemed very suitably juxtaposed as two elements of a whole spelling entertainment coexisting in a limited space. And it was a hoot. Most days, the comics came in before the horoscopes, being part of the package a syndication service provided us with. Then, when the ’scopes were finally available, they needed to be edited, often even translated from obscure grammar and mysterious spelling into more structured, comprehensible English. Sometimes, when the astrologer who did the work for us was not able to deliver, I scrambled, juggled and, on a few memorable occasions, made them up. Of course, my manic, imaginative, wildly creative predictions were usually reined in and made sober and thus credible by my features editor of the time, who was routinely heard to protest, “You can’t say THAT!”, much to my irritated frustration.
Under these circumstances, how can someone believe a horoscope published online or in print? (Whether these bits of illogical and unscientific nonsense can be taken as gospel in any form, verbal or written, is up for debate.) Who knows – after all, what the stars foretell could actually be a nicely formulated figment of a sub-editor’s creativity, rather than a carefully calculated result of a certain alignment of planets! Think about it.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
How to get rid of a man
It’s rather like gaining weight – it’s easy enough to get a man, but very hard indeed to get rid of him once you, as a thinking woman, have decided you don’t want him any more. Of course, ‘thinking’ may be a moot point in the descriptive, but it is indeed the case a lot of the time. And there is another important aspect to consider – as a ‘thinking’ woman, once the thinking has actually happened, very often you decide you don’t want to get him in the first place, at which stage the entire argument is not worth the paper it is printed on.
But having acquired a humanoid of the male persuasion for whatever reason, you go through the well-known and tried and often tested series of activities, from conversation – generally a futile endeavour – to co-existence callisthenics – ditto, much of the time – sometimes within legally defined relationship parameters. And then you are all done. You don’t need him any more. You don’t even want him any more. But there are problems that ensue. You cannot throw him out like the Wodehouse-described worn out shoe or old tube of toothpaste, and you cannot possible hand him over to the bai, the closest orphanage or the neighbourhood stray dog, the way you normally would do with leftovers of assorted kinds. And you cannot be polite and well bred and ask him to please leave the house and, to make life easier later on, to leave behind the keys to the front door, the safe, the car and the closet on the study table on his way out. It is just not DONE that way, you see. He could do anything from cutting up your favourite silk undies to boiling the pet cat (drastically inspired by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, perhaps?) to putting your pictures on porn sites on the Internet to claiming spousal support (does the name ‘Nick Lachey’ ring a bell there?). Or he could just refuse to go, which would make life a trifle awkward where dinner party introductions are concerned – ‘Yes, well, that thing on the couch is…was…my husband/boyfriend/significant other.’
Legally, today, it is far easier for a woman to divorce her husband for undisclosable undefinable reasons, all neatly clubbed under the sub-heading of ‘incompatibility’. For a woman who can support herself financially, it works great. If pre-nuptial agreements have been signed, it gets even better, since everyone’s interests are nicely protected and packaged into ‘his’ and ‘hers’, sort of like the bathroom towels that match the bedspread and coordinate with the paintwork. But what happens to whose women who don’t have anywhere to go and no way to acquire it, whether ‘it’ is a hotel room or a flat? One such lives the life of Riley in a huge South Mumbai apartment paid for completely by her husband’s employers. She enjoys every privilege she gets, from swanky cars to plush international holidays. The price for her: infidelity, abuse and more restrictions than Scarlett’s whalebone stays. But she pays it, albeit not very cheerfully, since she gets the cherry, never mind the taste of the cake it tops. Why doesn’t she get rid of her man? What! And lose all the perks?
Is it worth the anguish? Yes, say a lot of women. One of this sisterhood has gone through a lifetime of married un-bliss with a man who is alcoholic, neglectful and, to add the proverbial insult to the injuries she suffers, sexually confused to boot. She has caught him out with other women and, unpleasantly, blindingly traumatically, with another man as well. But she is still there, in that house, with him. Why won’t she get rid of him? Simple: What will people say? The backlash from the allegedly modern society she is part of daunts her. After all, she wants to belong, has worked long and hard to belong and in part has married her husband as part of that process. And being married to this man, however painfully so, keeps her belonging.
Speculatively speaking, getting rid of a man, especially one who is not worth keeping, is easy. Anything is possible, short of murder, and even that can be done without too much difficulty, especially in a country where killing is as simple a task as pulling a trigger and then leaving the party. But over the years, women all over the world have found that the most convenient way to free themselves of an unwanted man is to make sure you have the wherewithal to do so and then leave him. As easy as pie – that way, you eat it and have it, too!
But having acquired a humanoid of the male persuasion for whatever reason, you go through the well-known and tried and often tested series of activities, from conversation – generally a futile endeavour – to co-existence callisthenics – ditto, much of the time – sometimes within legally defined relationship parameters. And then you are all done. You don’t need him any more. You don’t even want him any more. But there are problems that ensue. You cannot throw him out like the Wodehouse-described worn out shoe or old tube of toothpaste, and you cannot possible hand him over to the bai, the closest orphanage or the neighbourhood stray dog, the way you normally would do with leftovers of assorted kinds. And you cannot be polite and well bred and ask him to please leave the house and, to make life easier later on, to leave behind the keys to the front door, the safe, the car and the closet on the study table on his way out. It is just not DONE that way, you see. He could do anything from cutting up your favourite silk undies to boiling the pet cat (drastically inspired by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, perhaps?) to putting your pictures on porn sites on the Internet to claiming spousal support (does the name ‘Nick Lachey’ ring a bell there?). Or he could just refuse to go, which would make life a trifle awkward where dinner party introductions are concerned – ‘Yes, well, that thing on the couch is…was…my husband/boyfriend/significant other.’
Legally, today, it is far easier for a woman to divorce her husband for undisclosable undefinable reasons, all neatly clubbed under the sub-heading of ‘incompatibility’. For a woman who can support herself financially, it works great. If pre-nuptial agreements have been signed, it gets even better, since everyone’s interests are nicely protected and packaged into ‘his’ and ‘hers’, sort of like the bathroom towels that match the bedspread and coordinate with the paintwork. But what happens to whose women who don’t have anywhere to go and no way to acquire it, whether ‘it’ is a hotel room or a flat? One such lives the life of Riley in a huge South Mumbai apartment paid for completely by her husband’s employers. She enjoys every privilege she gets, from swanky cars to plush international holidays. The price for her: infidelity, abuse and more restrictions than Scarlett’s whalebone stays. But she pays it, albeit not very cheerfully, since she gets the cherry, never mind the taste of the cake it tops. Why doesn’t she get rid of her man? What! And lose all the perks?
Is it worth the anguish? Yes, say a lot of women. One of this sisterhood has gone through a lifetime of married un-bliss with a man who is alcoholic, neglectful and, to add the proverbial insult to the injuries she suffers, sexually confused to boot. She has caught him out with other women and, unpleasantly, blindingly traumatically, with another man as well. But she is still there, in that house, with him. Why won’t she get rid of him? Simple: What will people say? The backlash from the allegedly modern society she is part of daunts her. After all, she wants to belong, has worked long and hard to belong and in part has married her husband as part of that process. And being married to this man, however painfully so, keeps her belonging.
Speculatively speaking, getting rid of a man, especially one who is not worth keeping, is easy. Anything is possible, short of murder, and even that can be done without too much difficulty, especially in a country where killing is as simple a task as pulling a trigger and then leaving the party. But over the years, women all over the world have found that the most convenient way to free themselves of an unwanted man is to make sure you have the wherewithal to do so and then leave him. As easy as pie – that way, you eat it and have it, too!
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Just say NO!
Many years ago, it was the reigning phrase in the United States, and referred primarily to drugs and their abuse. For me, it has been an essential part of my life, ever since I was a very small child, which is when I learned how to express my opinion in firm and clear tones. Which, at that age, tended to be shrill and squeaky, but still firm. Even today, my father insists, I say NO with the same obdurate fervour, perhaps not as shrilly, but often as squeakily, refusing whatever it is almost before I know what it is.
NO is a good word for all seasons. It works well for me, as long as I know how to use it. And, as I have grown up, I have learned that saying no is not always the right decision. So I now think a moment, then I say what I think should be said at the time and place, and think a little more before saying the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ that I need to for the situation. Here are some useful pointers that do it for me. There are, of course, lots more that I can’t even start listing. If I did, someone would say NO, don’t!:
If you are offered a job that you don’t really want or need, say NO. Rider: The money or add-ons may be tempting, but if you are good, another better offer will come your way soon enough.
If you are given work that does not fit your original brief and does not excite you in the way your work should, say NO.
Rider: There are always alternatives. So find them, let people know, and get to work – the work you are passionate about.
If you are offered food or drink or a ride by a complete stranger, say NO.
Rider: If there are people you trust with you, and/or it is a situation of major stress (a flood, a medical emergency), saying yes may be the right decision. But, in general, NO is good.
If you are on a diet and have already eaten your ‘indulgence’ calorie count, and someone offers you a luscious chocolate torte, say NO.
Rider: Do you need to diet, or is that extra flab just PMS water weight? If they push you, saying yes may be good for you – stress can lead to weight gain, you know!
If you are offered a flyer or brochure as you walk past someone distributing them, say NO.
Rider: Most people who take these pieces of paper throw them away after a cursory glance. Why not see if you are interested before taking whatever it is? And if you are indeed interested, you would probably know about it anyway.
If you are offered a time-share vacation through a mobile phone text message, say NO. Rider: I can’t think of any, since most of these are scams with lots of hidden T&C that apply, as the message will say. Those same terms and conditions are the ones that stick you in a morass of EMI and IOU. You work those out!
If someone you don’t want to know too well tries to get intimate with you, say NO.Rider: If you want to know them better, it’s your call!
Whatever, whoever, wherever, whenever…always remember that it is your decision. If you want to, say NO! You can always change your mind later, especially if you are a woman. It’s in your genes, your right
NO is a good word for all seasons. It works well for me, as long as I know how to use it. And, as I have grown up, I have learned that saying no is not always the right decision. So I now think a moment, then I say what I think should be said at the time and place, and think a little more before saying the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ that I need to for the situation. Here are some useful pointers that do it for me. There are, of course, lots more that I can’t even start listing. If I did, someone would say NO, don’t!:
If you are offered a job that you don’t really want or need, say NO. Rider: The money or add-ons may be tempting, but if you are good, another better offer will come your way soon enough.
If you are given work that does not fit your original brief and does not excite you in the way your work should, say NO.
Rider: There are always alternatives. So find them, let people know, and get to work – the work you are passionate about.
If you are offered food or drink or a ride by a complete stranger, say NO.
Rider: If there are people you trust with you, and/or it is a situation of major stress (a flood, a medical emergency), saying yes may be the right decision. But, in general, NO is good.
If you are on a diet and have already eaten your ‘indulgence’ calorie count, and someone offers you a luscious chocolate torte, say NO.
Rider: Do you need to diet, or is that extra flab just PMS water weight? If they push you, saying yes may be good for you – stress can lead to weight gain, you know!
If you are offered a flyer or brochure as you walk past someone distributing them, say NO.
Rider: Most people who take these pieces of paper throw them away after a cursory glance. Why not see if you are interested before taking whatever it is? And if you are indeed interested, you would probably know about it anyway.
If you are offered a time-share vacation through a mobile phone text message, say NO. Rider: I can’t think of any, since most of these are scams with lots of hidden T&C that apply, as the message will say. Those same terms and conditions are the ones that stick you in a morass of EMI and IOU. You work those out!
If someone you don’t want to know too well tries to get intimate with you, say NO.Rider: If you want to know them better, it’s your call!
Whatever, whoever, wherever, whenever…always remember that it is your decision. If you want to, say NO! You can always change your mind later, especially if you are a woman. It’s in your genes, your right
Monday, June 12, 2006
Kiss amiss
Starlet Rakhi Sawant has been making a lot of noise in the Indian press. She seems to make a point of doing so whenever she has the slightest excuse, but this time around she is making a point that is greater than seems obvious. She was forcibly kissed at a party, making a photo-op a situation of personal discomfort and embarrassment.
Start at the beginning: Who or what is Rakhi Sawant? She burst out of nowhere with her out-there skin show and sensuous moves, making waves with the very steamy Mohabbat hai mirchi from Chura Liya Hai Tumne, stealing all the thunder from her co-stars with one wiggle of her shapely hips and her minimalistic fashion statement. Whatever she did before that seemed inconsequential. And whatever she did after that, the tag was hers for keeps: Item Girl. Even a fairly substantial role (such as it could be in a production starring family favourites) in Farah Khan’s Main Hoon Na did nothing great for her image as an actress, especially because she was completely overshadowed by the lead stars in the film (Shah Rukh Khan, Sushmita Sen, et al).
But Rakhi has made sure that she stayed in the spotlight with her act, albeit not her acting. She shed clothes, perfected the pout and honed those hip-slides to occupy centre stage in dance shows, item numbers and music videos that used sex as bon mot to sell mediocre tunes and lyrics edging towards the unmentionably vulgar. And she did hit it big with audiences in small towns all over the country - with an occasional B-Class venue thrown in - clamouring for more.
Rakhi has also learned the surefire route to a certain brand of success is via that adhesive substance called ‘controversy’. She got her share in many ways, recently for her costume – or lack of it – at a show she performed in a small town in rural Maharashtra, but had her colleagues supporting her. This time around, she finds herself in a rather spicier soup, shown with every salacious detail on national television and as still photos in every newspaper worth its page 3 rating.
It started out harmlessly enough. She was at a birthday party where the focus was Mika, a singer, brother of more famous music man, Daler Mehndi. With one eye firmly on the camera, Rakhi, dressed in a short, backless red dress, kissed the birthday boy on the cheek. If that had been the end of it, it would have been nothing more than the norm. But the man, presumably filled with cake, good cheer and general high spirits, grabbed the actress/dancer and kissed her on the mouth with what looked on film to be passionate fervour. To give the lady full credit, she seemed to be fighting him off. Adding insult to injury, compounding the felony, Mika did it twice over, Rakhi says; later, his bodyguards beat up her friend who came in as the avenging Sir Galahad. A lawsuit is in process, according to the media.
Perhaps the most discordant note in the whole drama is the reaction that this sordid little incident has elicited from various people in the glamour world. Many who would find Rakhi’s clothing perfectly de rigeur in their own wardrobes, feel that she invited trouble because of it, and because of her already raunchy reputation, that she asked for a response with her harmless peck on Mika’s cheek and overtly ‘available’ presence. Did she? Doesn’t any woman, whatever her appearance, have a right to say a loud and clear ‘No’? Can she not be outraged by a violation of personal space and standards of behaviour? Just because Rakhi Sawant has the confidence to dance semi-clad and give herself a ‘sex-kitten’ image, is she up for grabs when she doesn’t want to be?
I don’t think so. Do you?
Start at the beginning: Who or what is Rakhi Sawant? She burst out of nowhere with her out-there skin show and sensuous moves, making waves with the very steamy Mohabbat hai mirchi from Chura Liya Hai Tumne, stealing all the thunder from her co-stars with one wiggle of her shapely hips and her minimalistic fashion statement. Whatever she did before that seemed inconsequential. And whatever she did after that, the tag was hers for keeps: Item Girl. Even a fairly substantial role (such as it could be in a production starring family favourites) in Farah Khan’s Main Hoon Na did nothing great for her image as an actress, especially because she was completely overshadowed by the lead stars in the film (Shah Rukh Khan, Sushmita Sen, et al).
But Rakhi has made sure that she stayed in the spotlight with her act, albeit not her acting. She shed clothes, perfected the pout and honed those hip-slides to occupy centre stage in dance shows, item numbers and music videos that used sex as bon mot to sell mediocre tunes and lyrics edging towards the unmentionably vulgar. And she did hit it big with audiences in small towns all over the country - with an occasional B-Class venue thrown in - clamouring for more.
Rakhi has also learned the surefire route to a certain brand of success is via that adhesive substance called ‘controversy’. She got her share in many ways, recently for her costume – or lack of it – at a show she performed in a small town in rural Maharashtra, but had her colleagues supporting her. This time around, she finds herself in a rather spicier soup, shown with every salacious detail on national television and as still photos in every newspaper worth its page 3 rating.
It started out harmlessly enough. She was at a birthday party where the focus was Mika, a singer, brother of more famous music man, Daler Mehndi. With one eye firmly on the camera, Rakhi, dressed in a short, backless red dress, kissed the birthday boy on the cheek. If that had been the end of it, it would have been nothing more than the norm. But the man, presumably filled with cake, good cheer and general high spirits, grabbed the actress/dancer and kissed her on the mouth with what looked on film to be passionate fervour. To give the lady full credit, she seemed to be fighting him off. Adding insult to injury, compounding the felony, Mika did it twice over, Rakhi says; later, his bodyguards beat up her friend who came in as the avenging Sir Galahad. A lawsuit is in process, according to the media.
Perhaps the most discordant note in the whole drama is the reaction that this sordid little incident has elicited from various people in the glamour world. Many who would find Rakhi’s clothing perfectly de rigeur in their own wardrobes, feel that she invited trouble because of it, and because of her already raunchy reputation, that she asked for a response with her harmless peck on Mika’s cheek and overtly ‘available’ presence. Did she? Doesn’t any woman, whatever her appearance, have a right to say a loud and clear ‘No’? Can she not be outraged by a violation of personal space and standards of behaviour? Just because Rakhi Sawant has the confidence to dance semi-clad and give herself a ‘sex-kitten’ image, is she up for grabs when she doesn’t want to be?
I don’t think so. Do you?
Sunday, June 11, 2006
No elbow room here, folks!
A slim and pretty girl sat next to me on the train the other day. With a sideways, typically female glance that lasted maybe one scant second, I had seen her clear skin, neat paisley-printed kurti and delectable woven tote that, if this story had not panned out the way it did, I would have demanded to know the provenance of. The unkempt toenails on woefully dry feet should have given me a clue, but commuting by crowded trains and uncertain taxis in the maddening metropolis that is Mumbai tends to dull your aesthetic receptors a trifle.
She sat, at a comfortable distance from me, kept at bay by my own woven leather bag. But in the aforementioned trains of Mumbai, distance never stays comfortable for more than a station’s length, if that, on a very lucky day, especially when it as hot and humid as a pre-monsoon morning can get. The compartment soon filled up, fast becoming a battleground of large, stressed, perspiring and thus fragrant women. The girl next to me had, perforce, to move closer. My bag took up residence on my lap; hers went above into the luggage rack. More women barged in and demanded their mite of space. I edged as close to the window as possible, the girl edged almost on to my lap, the lady beyond her moved closer…and so it went.
You would think that in such crushed confines people would tuck in their various limbs and try and minimise contact with other people who were equally hot, sweaty and frazzled. My neighbour was certainly not trained at that school. She undid her hair, combed it through, did it up again and then relaxed, knees apart in the most woefully unladylike manner, her paper spread, her arms, ditto. At irregular but rapidly concurrent intervals she dug her rather sharp elbow into my rather soft side, wakening a tickle-nerve I didn’t realise I had. With every nudge, I inched even closer to the window, twisting silently, subtly sideways to avoid the attacks. Meanwhile, various pages of the tabloid she was so carefully perusing slid their way on to my knee, draped themselves over my shoulder and scraped against the tender sunburn of my arm. Gradually, her smart leather handbag slid towards me and jabbed one corner into my thigh every now and then, whenever she turned a page of her paper.
I edged away as far as I could, accenting my actions with frequent glowers sideways at the girl. Any admiration of her taste in totes had faded by then. In fact, I could only be grateful that the large bag, too, however elegant, was not part of the drama, prodding me in some other unmentionable part of my anatomy. No glare, movement or pointed comment to a friend sitting near by helped. I was wedged in, flailed by elbow, bag and newspaper, all at once and each with its own assault. For a while I was given a respite, when she folded up the newsprint to do a number puzzle, sat up straight and leaned forward. My friend and I exchanged dark looks and an acerbic mutter, none of which seemed to make any difference to the girl, who proceeded to add insult to the injuries she had already inflicted by fishing out her mobile phone and chattering away to someone at the other end of the line in a loud, stentorian, very bass voice. The torture finally ended when she got up to get off, unfortunately at the same station as I did.
Why, oh why can’t people learn to keep themselves to themselves? Or is the idea of private, personal space such an alien one? If I know it, why doesn’t everyone else?
She sat, at a comfortable distance from me, kept at bay by my own woven leather bag. But in the aforementioned trains of Mumbai, distance never stays comfortable for more than a station’s length, if that, on a very lucky day, especially when it as hot and humid as a pre-monsoon morning can get. The compartment soon filled up, fast becoming a battleground of large, stressed, perspiring and thus fragrant women. The girl next to me had, perforce, to move closer. My bag took up residence on my lap; hers went above into the luggage rack. More women barged in and demanded their mite of space. I edged as close to the window as possible, the girl edged almost on to my lap, the lady beyond her moved closer…and so it went.
You would think that in such crushed confines people would tuck in their various limbs and try and minimise contact with other people who were equally hot, sweaty and frazzled. My neighbour was certainly not trained at that school. She undid her hair, combed it through, did it up again and then relaxed, knees apart in the most woefully unladylike manner, her paper spread, her arms, ditto. At irregular but rapidly concurrent intervals she dug her rather sharp elbow into my rather soft side, wakening a tickle-nerve I didn’t realise I had. With every nudge, I inched even closer to the window, twisting silently, subtly sideways to avoid the attacks. Meanwhile, various pages of the tabloid she was so carefully perusing slid their way on to my knee, draped themselves over my shoulder and scraped against the tender sunburn of my arm. Gradually, her smart leather handbag slid towards me and jabbed one corner into my thigh every now and then, whenever she turned a page of her paper.
I edged away as far as I could, accenting my actions with frequent glowers sideways at the girl. Any admiration of her taste in totes had faded by then. In fact, I could only be grateful that the large bag, too, however elegant, was not part of the drama, prodding me in some other unmentionable part of my anatomy. No glare, movement or pointed comment to a friend sitting near by helped. I was wedged in, flailed by elbow, bag and newspaper, all at once and each with its own assault. For a while I was given a respite, when she folded up the newsprint to do a number puzzle, sat up straight and leaned forward. My friend and I exchanged dark looks and an acerbic mutter, none of which seemed to make any difference to the girl, who proceeded to add insult to the injuries she had already inflicted by fishing out her mobile phone and chattering away to someone at the other end of the line in a loud, stentorian, very bass voice. The torture finally ended when she got up to get off, unfortunately at the same station as I did.
Why, oh why can’t people learn to keep themselves to themselves? Or is the idea of private, personal space such an alien one? If I know it, why doesn’t everyone else?
Friday, June 09, 2006
Here comes the rain again…
I think I need a refresher course on that one. “Raining on my head like a memory” is the part I remember best of the Eurhythmics song. And here, in the big bad city that is Mumbai, memory is indeed long. It rained cats, dogs and various other creatures only last week, sending local Mumbaikars into a tizzy about flooding, getting home on crowded trains and drowning in open manholes. And everyone re-invoked the omnipresent spectre of the nightmare that was July 26 2005, with its unprecedented flooding, house and hill collapses and destroyed homes. More, people got another chance to throw stones at the much-maligned local civic authorities, who didn’t quite function up to par last year, making an awful situation even worse.
So this time around, when it rained, admittedly rather violently, last week, there was much ado about what seemed like a bit of an anti-climax, especially when it stopped. The weather had been hot and steamy and sweaty, and then there was this blast of fresh, cool air blowing away the summer fug, pulling people out of the sinkhole of lethargy and discontent many had sunk into. The breeze blew out the smog, the pollens and the blues, the rain washed clean streets and grimy roofs, showing off the colourful paint of homes that had not been seen since it had been applied. Even as commuters cursed and drivers darkly, direly muttered about road conditions, the city rejoiced, revelling in the rain. By the end of the second day of ominous clouds gathering and letting go their heavy loads with little warning, there was a low-toned chorus of “Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day…”
And then, just when post-mortems and cross-examinations were being done, the clean-up moves criticised and the city’s municipal commissioner pilloried, the rain did, indeed, go away. For about a week now, the atmosphere has become heavy and oppressive once again. Move more than an eye, and you are drenched with the fluids from your own pores. As it pours out, laden with salt and tinged with the grime from the pollution-glommed air, you exchange notes on how much you sweated yesterday as compared to your personal sweat factor the day before and you agree with your neighbour at home, on the train, at work, wherever, that it couldn’t possibly be worse in that enticing destination called Hell. Now we all wish it would rain!
But then, remember the old saw about life being greener on the other side, whichever side that may happen to be? Rain and you want sun; sun and rain is longed for. If you have both, there will be a rainbow – and you will probably complain about the pot at the end of it being filled with tadpoles instead of gold!
So this time around, when it rained, admittedly rather violently, last week, there was much ado about what seemed like a bit of an anti-climax, especially when it stopped. The weather had been hot and steamy and sweaty, and then there was this blast of fresh, cool air blowing away the summer fug, pulling people out of the sinkhole of lethargy and discontent many had sunk into. The breeze blew out the smog, the pollens and the blues, the rain washed clean streets and grimy roofs, showing off the colourful paint of homes that had not been seen since it had been applied. Even as commuters cursed and drivers darkly, direly muttered about road conditions, the city rejoiced, revelling in the rain. By the end of the second day of ominous clouds gathering and letting go their heavy loads with little warning, there was a low-toned chorus of “Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day…”
And then, just when post-mortems and cross-examinations were being done, the clean-up moves criticised and the city’s municipal commissioner pilloried, the rain did, indeed, go away. For about a week now, the atmosphere has become heavy and oppressive once again. Move more than an eye, and you are drenched with the fluids from your own pores. As it pours out, laden with salt and tinged with the grime from the pollution-glommed air, you exchange notes on how much you sweated yesterday as compared to your personal sweat factor the day before and you agree with your neighbour at home, on the train, at work, wherever, that it couldn’t possibly be worse in that enticing destination called Hell. Now we all wish it would rain!
But then, remember the old saw about life being greener on the other side, whichever side that may happen to be? Rain and you want sun; sun and rain is longed for. If you have both, there will be a rainbow – and you will probably complain about the pot at the end of it being filled with tadpoles instead of gold!
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Bye bye, baby!
A young colleague and friend will soon be leaving this office, going off into the blue yonder on a new adventure which, I hope, will bring her great joy and applause. It is not going to be an easy transition for her; it never is, even if you are moving on to something bigger and better. Somehow it is worse when it is a job that you move in and out of, even though you know well that it is not going to be for ever and ever, and that people you meet during your time employed there are not true-blue, never-to-be-forgotten friends. It still leaves a pang, a burst of tearfulness that is easily induced and more easily stemmed, and a feeling of being lost, rootless, strangely abandoned (even though you are the one doing the abandoning!).
But it is funny how you get attached to a job that is not too happily attached to you, though its attachment on your resume is well worth the lines of carefully chosen font it is printed in. My friend had a not-too-thrilling time in this organisation, even though she found a vast new forum for her work and thoroughly enjoyed meeting people, reading, writing, interacting, absorbing, exploring a world that, for her, was new and exciting and yet amazingly, universally familiar. She leaves here with some memories of strife, angst and struggle, nicely balanced by others of success, praise and several experiences worth saving in her life bank.
Going into a new job is always a frightening prospect. Will you manage to keep the post, by doing well, impressing the right people, staying true to yourself all the while? Will you make a mess, fail yourself and your employers, ignominiously slink out the door as furtively as possible when your tenure comes to an abrupt halt? Or will you play it safe and achieve a bland, middle-of-the-road professional existence that needs no effort and mandates no intensity of energy or involvement? What will your reception be like, especially from people you will work with and compete against? Will the cafeteria food be edible? Will the bathrooms be clean? So many questions, with each answer throwing up a host of new doubts…
Before you get into a new job, you have to leave the old one. That in itself is a long-drawn-out process. It starts with making the decision to leave, spurred by whatever that last straw is – could be a mean-minded boss with an ego the size of the building; perhaps a schedule that is far more than merely punishing; or maybe even a temptingly seductive offer from somewhere else. Questions are thrown at you relentlessly – why are you going, where are you going, how much are you going for, what will you do next, ad infinitum. Then you have the series of chats with various people up and down the hierarchy, backed by the barrage of advice, suggestions and other inputs from friends and colleagues alike. Finally comes the acceptance, at which stage there are forms to be filled in, hand-overs to be done and signatures collected certifying that you are bona fide leaving the company and are allowed to go, your dues (or at least the promise of) clutched in your sticky little hand.
Then comes the truly difficult part. The people you formed some sort of bond with have to be left behind. The once-boss who is now a staunch friend. The colleague you shared lunches and office gossip with. The buddy who brought you chocolate when you were blue and with whom you could exchange silly text messages that people to whom you forward them actually believe. Your last few days at work are a blur of farewell meals and ‘Remember when…?’s, totally useless presents and mad bouts of giggling, frantic networking and gathering of phone numbers, addresses and final words of wisdom. At the door there will be hugs, awkward and warm, mixed with nostalgia, promises to keep in touch and avowals of love and eternal remembrance.
And then, a month or so down the time-line, you will find all these little bits and pieces littering your home and your mind and throw most of them out…
But it is funny how you get attached to a job that is not too happily attached to you, though its attachment on your resume is well worth the lines of carefully chosen font it is printed in. My friend had a not-too-thrilling time in this organisation, even though she found a vast new forum for her work and thoroughly enjoyed meeting people, reading, writing, interacting, absorbing, exploring a world that, for her, was new and exciting and yet amazingly, universally familiar. She leaves here with some memories of strife, angst and struggle, nicely balanced by others of success, praise and several experiences worth saving in her life bank.
Going into a new job is always a frightening prospect. Will you manage to keep the post, by doing well, impressing the right people, staying true to yourself all the while? Will you make a mess, fail yourself and your employers, ignominiously slink out the door as furtively as possible when your tenure comes to an abrupt halt? Or will you play it safe and achieve a bland, middle-of-the-road professional existence that needs no effort and mandates no intensity of energy or involvement? What will your reception be like, especially from people you will work with and compete against? Will the cafeteria food be edible? Will the bathrooms be clean? So many questions, with each answer throwing up a host of new doubts…
Before you get into a new job, you have to leave the old one. That in itself is a long-drawn-out process. It starts with making the decision to leave, spurred by whatever that last straw is – could be a mean-minded boss with an ego the size of the building; perhaps a schedule that is far more than merely punishing; or maybe even a temptingly seductive offer from somewhere else. Questions are thrown at you relentlessly – why are you going, where are you going, how much are you going for, what will you do next, ad infinitum. Then you have the series of chats with various people up and down the hierarchy, backed by the barrage of advice, suggestions and other inputs from friends and colleagues alike. Finally comes the acceptance, at which stage there are forms to be filled in, hand-overs to be done and signatures collected certifying that you are bona fide leaving the company and are allowed to go, your dues (or at least the promise of) clutched in your sticky little hand.
Then comes the truly difficult part. The people you formed some sort of bond with have to be left behind. The once-boss who is now a staunch friend. The colleague you shared lunches and office gossip with. The buddy who brought you chocolate when you were blue and with whom you could exchange silly text messages that people to whom you forward them actually believe. Your last few days at work are a blur of farewell meals and ‘Remember when…?’s, totally useless presents and mad bouts of giggling, frantic networking and gathering of phone numbers, addresses and final words of wisdom. At the door there will be hugs, awkward and warm, mixed with nostalgia, promises to keep in touch and avowals of love and eternal remembrance.
And then, a month or so down the time-line, you will find all these little bits and pieces littering your home and your mind and throw most of them out…
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
The numbers game
It came and went without so much as a whimper. I speak of 6-6-06, the date of the devil, a day that has occupied much media space ever since some bright spark somewhere figured it out and decided to kick up a storm about it. After all, it was stated in the Bible in Revelations:
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.
Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
In other words, 666 is not a NICE number. Ask anyone who does these little numerical tricks – you get many sent to you on email, like I do, I am sure. They told me, most recently, about how Pramod Mahajan was very 3-connected, how there are just so many times that you can count your blessings and that how, if you eat four peas, it is healthier for you than eating three-and-a-half, because four is a more propitious figure. There are so many of these things that can, eventually, probably be credited to Mercury being retrograde at the same time that Mars goes into trine with Jupiter and Saturn. Something of the kind anyway, which will be discussed later, another day, when the stars are in the right alignment for me to discuss it.
We have never been numerologically inclined. As a family, we once lived on the 13th floor of an apartment block in Mumbai. It had the most fabulous view, was well above the floodwater line and had an address that yelled all the right noises. And, as it was the much-dreaded 13, it worked wonders for us. We were a healthy, happy, hassled family, like every family should be, making money, enjoying life, squabbling and making up and having a blast. Somewhere along the way, the fact that we were based for so many years on the 13th floor became personal legend, a tale of good fortune instead of bad in many ways. Maybe that was because 13 actually adds up to 4, which is perhaps not a negative number, even without the sign in front of it? Can someone tell me about that?
Numerology is hardly a science, in spite of all the convolutions, calculations and complications that numerologists go into to prate their guruspeak. Add a letter here to your nameand take one away there and your fortunes change, they say. So if someone tells me – as they once did - that I should spell my name with a double mm and add an extra i, would I? Does the presence of that extra i make me a different mme? And if I become Ii, am not I the me that I was before the i took over my fate, but now mme? Does i become my magic number? Or did the
mm do the trick, if indeed the trick is done? And how do I know that the trick is done if I has changed to Ii and me is no longer the me I was but a new mme?
The mind boggles. And so does my keyboard. If I believed in numerology, I would probably change me into mme and I would now be Ii. But then, if I did believe in this stuff (which is not the same ‘stuff’ as the media has been yelling about all these days, believe me – and mme), I would also wear six amulets (six being my number, I am told), dress in colours as per the day of the week and go back into my house if I was headed out and met a single Brahmin on the way. And I would be a dreadful-to-spell Rammiya, double-m, extra-i and all.
But to most it is all not funny. It’s all part of the great game – the numbers game!
Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads.
Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
In other words, 666 is not a NICE number. Ask anyone who does these little numerical tricks – you get many sent to you on email, like I do, I am sure. They told me, most recently, about how Pramod Mahajan was very 3-connected, how there are just so many times that you can count your blessings and that how, if you eat four peas, it is healthier for you than eating three-and-a-half, because four is a more propitious figure. There are so many of these things that can, eventually, probably be credited to Mercury being retrograde at the same time that Mars goes into trine with Jupiter and Saturn. Something of the kind anyway, which will be discussed later, another day, when the stars are in the right alignment for me to discuss it.
We have never been numerologically inclined. As a family, we once lived on the 13th floor of an apartment block in Mumbai. It had the most fabulous view, was well above the floodwater line and had an address that yelled all the right noises. And, as it was the much-dreaded 13, it worked wonders for us. We were a healthy, happy, hassled family, like every family should be, making money, enjoying life, squabbling and making up and having a blast. Somewhere along the way, the fact that we were based for so many years on the 13th floor became personal legend, a tale of good fortune instead of bad in many ways. Maybe that was because 13 actually adds up to 4, which is perhaps not a negative number, even without the sign in front of it? Can someone tell me about that?
Numerology is hardly a science, in spite of all the convolutions, calculations and complications that numerologists go into to prate their guruspeak. Add a letter here to your nameand take one away there and your fortunes change, they say. So if someone tells me – as they once did - that I should spell my name with a double mm and add an extra i, would I? Does the presence of that extra i make me a different mme? And if I become Ii, am not I the me that I was before the i took over my fate, but now mme? Does i become my magic number? Or did the
mm do the trick, if indeed the trick is done? And how do I know that the trick is done if I has changed to Ii and me is no longer the me I was but a new mme?
The mind boggles. And so does my keyboard. If I believed in numerology, I would probably change me into mme and I would now be Ii. But then, if I did believe in this stuff (which is not the same ‘stuff’ as the media has been yelling about all these days, believe me – and mme), I would also wear six amulets (six being my number, I am told), dress in colours as per the day of the week and go back into my house if I was headed out and met a single Brahmin on the way. And I would be a dreadful-to-spell Rammiya, double-m, extra-i and all.
But to most it is all not funny. It’s all part of the great game – the numbers game!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Coming out the closet
If you have your breath bated for any salacious sexual revelations, bug off, this is a clean read!
Literally so, in some ways.
I spend a day every month sorting out the chaos that somehow attacks my closets on a very regular basis. It is not my doing, I swear, because I hardly ever go into some of those spaces. Well, I do, but not all of them, all of the time. But it is like a computer virus almost – it is usually slow but totally destructive, destroying any semblance of order and use-by dating that I may have managed to imbue my wardrobe with. So when I read an article in an international publication that talked about closets being the latest in lifestyle statements, I was – understandably, you will agree – thrilled.
I am not clothes crazy, honest.
(Those loud guffaws you may hear if you had the right sound card on your computer are just my father, clothes designers and assorted friends being rude. Ignore them.)
I just happen to like fabric and enjoy the process of creating something out of the swatches I accumulate. So I admit it: I probably have more than I actually use.
(‘Need’ is a different argument, trust me.)
In my room there are two large closets full of clothes, some locked into steel for the ‘going out’ sort of days every woman (and man, I say sternly, remindingly) has. These are mainly in silk and linen, carefully crafted and engineered after much argument and a sort of rudimentary but ruthless horse-trading – this cannot be done unless it is lined; I will take it only if it has the right stole; take off those dreadful buttons or I will take off without the outfit; ad nauseum. The other closet is home to everyday garments, some bought off the rack, others made for me. My bed is also a repository of clothes, from ratty pyjamas to flop around in at home to jeans of various colours and provenances to stuff that can be worn to work even on a slushy monsoon day.
Perhaps I am spoiled for choice?
No one I know would argue that issue, but I would. Be practical, I beseech you. You need just the right outfit for just the right occasion, after all. Can you really go to dinner at the Zodiac Grill, Mumbai’s swishest restaurant, in 15-year-old jeans and an oil-stained T-shirt? Can you go into work at a newspaper office dressed in a strappy silk crepe and silver net creation that has a Name signed on its discreet tag and mandates the accompaniment of four-inch diamante-studded spike heels? Could you possibly make Sunday lunch wearing your brand new satin lounging pyjamas?
Ha, ha! My laugh has more than a tinge of derision to it.
Suitability is ALL when it comes to getting dressed. Thus you need an entire panoply of garments, each for a specific purpose. Which is why you, as a thinking, feeling, sensible human being, need a whole lot of space to store those very same garments in.
Which comes full circle back to the problem of closets.
Methinks that, more than closets, a closet manager is more useful. Any aspirants for this vacancy? Remuneration and benefits as per market standards….
Literally so, in some ways.
I spend a day every month sorting out the chaos that somehow attacks my closets on a very regular basis. It is not my doing, I swear, because I hardly ever go into some of those spaces. Well, I do, but not all of them, all of the time. But it is like a computer virus almost – it is usually slow but totally destructive, destroying any semblance of order and use-by dating that I may have managed to imbue my wardrobe with. So when I read an article in an international publication that talked about closets being the latest in lifestyle statements, I was – understandably, you will agree – thrilled.
I am not clothes crazy, honest.
(Those loud guffaws you may hear if you had the right sound card on your computer are just my father, clothes designers and assorted friends being rude. Ignore them.)
I just happen to like fabric and enjoy the process of creating something out of the swatches I accumulate. So I admit it: I probably have more than I actually use.
(‘Need’ is a different argument, trust me.)
In my room there are two large closets full of clothes, some locked into steel for the ‘going out’ sort of days every woman (and man, I say sternly, remindingly) has. These are mainly in silk and linen, carefully crafted and engineered after much argument and a sort of rudimentary but ruthless horse-trading – this cannot be done unless it is lined; I will take it only if it has the right stole; take off those dreadful buttons or I will take off without the outfit; ad nauseum. The other closet is home to everyday garments, some bought off the rack, others made for me. My bed is also a repository of clothes, from ratty pyjamas to flop around in at home to jeans of various colours and provenances to stuff that can be worn to work even on a slushy monsoon day.
Perhaps I am spoiled for choice?
No one I know would argue that issue, but I would. Be practical, I beseech you. You need just the right outfit for just the right occasion, after all. Can you really go to dinner at the Zodiac Grill, Mumbai’s swishest restaurant, in 15-year-old jeans and an oil-stained T-shirt? Can you go into work at a newspaper office dressed in a strappy silk crepe and silver net creation that has a Name signed on its discreet tag and mandates the accompaniment of four-inch diamante-studded spike heels? Could you possibly make Sunday lunch wearing your brand new satin lounging pyjamas?
Ha, ha! My laugh has more than a tinge of derision to it.
Suitability is ALL when it comes to getting dressed. Thus you need an entire panoply of garments, each for a specific purpose. Which is why you, as a thinking, feeling, sensible human being, need a whole lot of space to store those very same garments in.
Which comes full circle back to the problem of closets.
Methinks that, more than closets, a closet manager is more useful. Any aspirants for this vacancy? Remuneration and benefits as per market standards….
Monday, June 05, 2006
Past imperfect
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. So said philosopher Santayana, whose first name was, startlingly, George (so prosaic, so son-of-the-rural-soil, so Beatle-ish!). So if you tripped over the area rug in the lobby today and promptly forgot all about it by the evening, it is very likely, as per this byte of philosophising, that you will trip over the area rug in the lobby tomorrow. And if you still don’t remember what happened the day after, you will do it again the day after that. Ad infinitum.
So how is the whole thing relevant here and now? I was watching something on TV recently and heard a group of young people in Germany being asked about Hitler, the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. “We do not know since we were never any part of it,” they said, hefting another round of beer as they spoke. But there is - or used to be – a real defensiveness in that country’s people when they discuss these issues. Very few people could talk about the not-too-long-ago past with candour and a straightforward, unselfconscious, guilt-free, dispassionate attitude.
Some months ago I was talking about this with writer Vikram Seth, whose latest book, Two Lives, is the story about a woman who lived through the Holocaust and was married to Seth’s great-uncle, an Indian. They lived in England and the time that shocked the world was never mentioned. But when Seth went to Jerusalem as part of his research into history, he was stunned at the strength of his own reactions, he said. As he scrolled through the archives looking for information that could help him write the story of his great-uncle and aunt, he was startled out of his thoughts by a German accented voice behind him, asking if he needed help. It was only a young student, perhaps 17 years old, offering his translation skills to the writer. Seth turned, feeling a violence that for him, he relates, was not just rare, but completely unexpected. It was a drastic knee-jerk (literally) reaction to the past, perhaps, one that made his leg spasm and bounce as it had never done before. It was not the boy, it was not the words, it was merely the sound – the lilt, the accent, the pronunciation - that had him display that brief whiplash of hatred, of a need to hurt and maim and destroy. Would he actually have done something physical, or even said something that could be as harmful? Probably not, not once the cloud of memories and the images they invoked had flown into modern-day reality. Which takes how long, after all? A few seconds?
Or does it? What is a hate crime against Indians living in Europe or the UK? Is that not the legacy of the past, revisited? What are skinheads all about? The past, once again, reborn into a new echelon of hatred? Dot-busting? Klan lynching? Man, as a social animal, should have evolved beyond such pettiness and negativity. Will he, as a species, ever do so? Who knows.
Which proves all over again that Santayana - George, as his family and friends may have called him – was right. People have forgotten their histories, and the past of their own people. So they will relive it…and so will the rest of the world.
So how is the whole thing relevant here and now? I was watching something on TV recently and heard a group of young people in Germany being asked about Hitler, the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. “We do not know since we were never any part of it,” they said, hefting another round of beer as they spoke. But there is - or used to be – a real defensiveness in that country’s people when they discuss these issues. Very few people could talk about the not-too-long-ago past with candour and a straightforward, unselfconscious, guilt-free, dispassionate attitude.
Some months ago I was talking about this with writer Vikram Seth, whose latest book, Two Lives, is the story about a woman who lived through the Holocaust and was married to Seth’s great-uncle, an Indian. They lived in England and the time that shocked the world was never mentioned. But when Seth went to Jerusalem as part of his research into history, he was stunned at the strength of his own reactions, he said. As he scrolled through the archives looking for information that could help him write the story of his great-uncle and aunt, he was startled out of his thoughts by a German accented voice behind him, asking if he needed help. It was only a young student, perhaps 17 years old, offering his translation skills to the writer. Seth turned, feeling a violence that for him, he relates, was not just rare, but completely unexpected. It was a drastic knee-jerk (literally) reaction to the past, perhaps, one that made his leg spasm and bounce as it had never done before. It was not the boy, it was not the words, it was merely the sound – the lilt, the accent, the pronunciation - that had him display that brief whiplash of hatred, of a need to hurt and maim and destroy. Would he actually have done something physical, or even said something that could be as harmful? Probably not, not once the cloud of memories and the images they invoked had flown into modern-day reality. Which takes how long, after all? A few seconds?
Or does it? What is a hate crime against Indians living in Europe or the UK? Is that not the legacy of the past, revisited? What are skinheads all about? The past, once again, reborn into a new echelon of hatred? Dot-busting? Klan lynching? Man, as a social animal, should have evolved beyond such pettiness and negativity. Will he, as a species, ever do so? Who knows.
Which proves all over again that Santayana - George, as his family and friends may have called him – was right. People have forgotten their histories, and the past of their own people. So they will relive it…and so will the rest of the world.
Friday, June 02, 2006
Hair and there
So much has been said and written about beauty care these days, for both men and women. And the joke that men do indeed take much longer than women to get dressed and ready for an outing is so old and tired that it is not worth repeating (which I just did, nicely neatly!). But think about it – how long do you, man, woman or anything in between, actually take when you are preparing for a day or night out?
Actually, the process starts long before the going out is thought of. In India particularly, beauty requires a certain hairlessness. Us Indian women cannot go forth without clean, smooth underarms, arms and legs, unlike the Europeans, who have enough sangfroid to carry even extensive growth off with casual chutzpah. And now even the men are self-conscious enough to want to be silky-skinned, without even pretending to need to be aerodynamically more efficient. So we go waxing, threading, depilating, epilating and otherwise defuzzing, never mind the cost and, more importantly, the pain involved.
I was at the beauty salon some time ago and found that the ratio of men to women was almost even. As I squeaked and winced and cringed my incredibly painful way through the process that threaded my eyebrows into their most-wanted shape, I watched the person in the chair next to mine with a certain furtive fascination. He – it was male, large and very hairy – was getting tiny hairs on the top of his chest pulled off, one by excruciating one, by a uniformed beautician with waxed thread held between her fingers. It hurt just to watch, even with my eyes watering copiously from my own pain. Once my own personal beautifier was done torturing me, I turned and blatantly looked at the man next door. He was, to my aching soul, a valiant warrior, braving nameless horrors in the timeless search for that elusive holy grail: beauty.
We all go through it at various times in our lives. The first time I had my legs waxed, many years ago, was decidedly memorable. I lay flat on a hospital-green sheet over a very hard mattress, wearing a fabulously ugly sack-like ‘frock’ that covered me from bosom to bottom, my legs bare, hairy and vulnerable. Using what felt amazingly like a steak-knife, serrations and all, a constantly-chatty lady with pencilled in bow-shaped eyebrows spread a sticky brown goo over my extended calves, pressed down a strip of cloth against it and yanked. I sat bolt upright, a scream starting to form somewhere deep inside me, my eyes tearing immediately, intensely. The pain was something I never imagined feeling, every pore of the skin on my legs awakened and alert, wary at the prospect of more. But the ‘more’ wasn’t too bad – the first pull had numbed every possible sense in my lower limb – until we did the first yank on the other leg, after which I had to be woken out of my rigour to go home.
Threading is another practical aspect of beauty that the mean-gods have invented just to punish us frail humans. Using a piece of dampened, twisted cotton, the threader pulls out one hair at a time from wherever – eyebrows, underarms, upper lip….shudder! – the threadee needs it. As each hair is tugged tortuously from its anchoring root, the stress that the threadee feels is palpable. There is a wince, a silent shudder, an occasional yelp as a little skin gets caught in the damp thread. Of course, there are alternatives – depilatories, for one, are less painful, but could cause allergies (if I were using them, they would, almost inevitably), epilators, which allow you to suffer pain in the privacy of your own home and lasers, which are more kind, at least on the nerves if not on the wallet. But that trend of thought goes into the logistics of beauty care, which is not the point, is it?
Beauty is not an easy business. As a doctor I one knew liked saying, “No pain, no gain.” He probably wasn’t talking about hair removal, stiletto heels or tattoos, but the basic truth still applies.
Actually, the process starts long before the going out is thought of. In India particularly, beauty requires a certain hairlessness. Us Indian women cannot go forth without clean, smooth underarms, arms and legs, unlike the Europeans, who have enough sangfroid to carry even extensive growth off with casual chutzpah. And now even the men are self-conscious enough to want to be silky-skinned, without even pretending to need to be aerodynamically more efficient. So we go waxing, threading, depilating, epilating and otherwise defuzzing, never mind the cost and, more importantly, the pain involved.
I was at the beauty salon some time ago and found that the ratio of men to women was almost even. As I squeaked and winced and cringed my incredibly painful way through the process that threaded my eyebrows into their most-wanted shape, I watched the person in the chair next to mine with a certain furtive fascination. He – it was male, large and very hairy – was getting tiny hairs on the top of his chest pulled off, one by excruciating one, by a uniformed beautician with waxed thread held between her fingers. It hurt just to watch, even with my eyes watering copiously from my own pain. Once my own personal beautifier was done torturing me, I turned and blatantly looked at the man next door. He was, to my aching soul, a valiant warrior, braving nameless horrors in the timeless search for that elusive holy grail: beauty.
We all go through it at various times in our lives. The first time I had my legs waxed, many years ago, was decidedly memorable. I lay flat on a hospital-green sheet over a very hard mattress, wearing a fabulously ugly sack-like ‘frock’ that covered me from bosom to bottom, my legs bare, hairy and vulnerable. Using what felt amazingly like a steak-knife, serrations and all, a constantly-chatty lady with pencilled in bow-shaped eyebrows spread a sticky brown goo over my extended calves, pressed down a strip of cloth against it and yanked. I sat bolt upright, a scream starting to form somewhere deep inside me, my eyes tearing immediately, intensely. The pain was something I never imagined feeling, every pore of the skin on my legs awakened and alert, wary at the prospect of more. But the ‘more’ wasn’t too bad – the first pull had numbed every possible sense in my lower limb – until we did the first yank on the other leg, after which I had to be woken out of my rigour to go home.
Threading is another practical aspect of beauty that the mean-gods have invented just to punish us frail humans. Using a piece of dampened, twisted cotton, the threader pulls out one hair at a time from wherever – eyebrows, underarms, upper lip….shudder! – the threadee needs it. As each hair is tugged tortuously from its anchoring root, the stress that the threadee feels is palpable. There is a wince, a silent shudder, an occasional yelp as a little skin gets caught in the damp thread. Of course, there are alternatives – depilatories, for one, are less painful, but could cause allergies (if I were using them, they would, almost inevitably), epilators, which allow you to suffer pain in the privacy of your own home and lasers, which are more kind, at least on the nerves if not on the wallet. But that trend of thought goes into the logistics of beauty care, which is not the point, is it?
Beauty is not an easy business. As a doctor I one knew liked saying, “No pain, no gain.” He probably wasn’t talking about hair removal, stiletto heels or tattoos, but the basic truth still applies.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Soap suds
I was talking to my friend and former colleague Shivangi in Delhi when the conversation veered from its framework of gossip, clothes and food into territory that, for me, is still new and interesting. I speak of that realm that is the food for many millions of minds all over the world: the television soap opera.
Well, to be honest, it is not entirely new. When I was in college, a family friend who was my local ‘mother’ introduced me to the phenomenon that was the afternoon staple in the country. It was called General Hospital and featured the trials, tribulations and torments of the people of Port Charles. There was, as is expected, a hospital involved, but it was essentially peripheral to the actual goings on in the TV show. It was chock-full of good people, bad people, love lost, found, re-lost and re-found with alternative partners at regular intervals of time. There was crime, detection and punishment, murder, embezzlement and larceny, everything to keep generations of watchers glued to their seats. And when Luke married Laura, after seasons of losing and finding her, it was rumoured to have been declared a national holiday, since so many people stayed home to savour each step of the walk down the aisle. I almost became one of them, except for a class that very inconveniently was scheduled at the same time as the great adventures of the folks down at Port Charles.
Somehow, others of this ilk, be it The Bold and the Beautiful, As the World Turns, One Life to Live or All My Children just didn’t have the same punch. From there, it was but a very short hop to nigh-time telly, most of it re-runs. Karen loved the wicked Jane Wyman manipulating her Machiavellian way through the bank accounts and families of the California elite in Falconcrest and I watched with her. We sat through a few spells of Dallas, but when Bobby’s abduction by aliens turned out to be a shower-stall dream sequence, it got too ridiculous for either of us. Soon, after much giggling and passionate argument about what should have happened versus what did, we got cable TV and switched off soaps. And, en route, switched to Soap, a wonderful parody of every possible permutation a soap opera writer could come up with, all with a hilarious twist.
Today, on Indian TV, soaps abound. Over the past few months, I have been slowly drawn into that highly coloured, over-dramatised, luridly creative world of the Indian ‘serial’. It is fun, absorbing and faintly reminiscent in every episode of something seen or heard of on American television. It all started a few months ago, when I was idly surfing channels, looking for some sort of distraction or cure for insomnia. I stopped at one on which a lady with an evil glint in her carefully shadowed eye was holding a gun pointed at a younger gentleman, while another young woman watched in horror. Many tears were flowing, though not from the gun-holder’s eyes. A commercial break shot the suspense to another planet and I switched to another channel, where a flamboyant chef was cooking up a storm. When that took a break, I went hunting for the shooting show, finally finding it after some trial and rapid fire error. The soap was Kkavyanjali, the young man was shot with blanks, his mother did the shooting and his wife was witness to the whole drama. Over the past few weeks, the young man did die (though not by his mother’s hand), the mother changed to a loving, nurturing type and the wife is marrying someone else. Oh, yes, there has also been a timeline jump along the way!
From there, I graduated to Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, Kasamh Se and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. While I cannot say that I am addicted or even a fan, I find the shenanigans of the various characters funny and relaxing. From childbirth out of wedlock to euthanasia, infidelity to joint family politics, killing, thievery and hatred, every aspect of human villainy is being covered, by a cast that often migrates from one show to the other – you could, for instance, find an aunt in one playing the mother in the other and a sister in the third, confusing the whole scenario considerably. In the end, I am never sure what I am watching and who has done what to whom, when, how and why.
But then, in the wild and weird world of soap operas, does it matter?
Well, to be honest, it is not entirely new. When I was in college, a family friend who was my local ‘mother’ introduced me to the phenomenon that was the afternoon staple in the country. It was called General Hospital and featured the trials, tribulations and torments of the people of Port Charles. There was, as is expected, a hospital involved, but it was essentially peripheral to the actual goings on in the TV show. It was chock-full of good people, bad people, love lost, found, re-lost and re-found with alternative partners at regular intervals of time. There was crime, detection and punishment, murder, embezzlement and larceny, everything to keep generations of watchers glued to their seats. And when Luke married Laura, after seasons of losing and finding her, it was rumoured to have been declared a national holiday, since so many people stayed home to savour each step of the walk down the aisle. I almost became one of them, except for a class that very inconveniently was scheduled at the same time as the great adventures of the folks down at Port Charles.
Somehow, others of this ilk, be it The Bold and the Beautiful, As the World Turns, One Life to Live or All My Children just didn’t have the same punch. From there, it was but a very short hop to nigh-time telly, most of it re-runs. Karen loved the wicked Jane Wyman manipulating her Machiavellian way through the bank accounts and families of the California elite in Falconcrest and I watched with her. We sat through a few spells of Dallas, but when Bobby’s abduction by aliens turned out to be a shower-stall dream sequence, it got too ridiculous for either of us. Soon, after much giggling and passionate argument about what should have happened versus what did, we got cable TV and switched off soaps. And, en route, switched to Soap, a wonderful parody of every possible permutation a soap opera writer could come up with, all with a hilarious twist.
Today, on Indian TV, soaps abound. Over the past few months, I have been slowly drawn into that highly coloured, over-dramatised, luridly creative world of the Indian ‘serial’. It is fun, absorbing and faintly reminiscent in every episode of something seen or heard of on American television. It all started a few months ago, when I was idly surfing channels, looking for some sort of distraction or cure for insomnia. I stopped at one on which a lady with an evil glint in her carefully shadowed eye was holding a gun pointed at a younger gentleman, while another young woman watched in horror. Many tears were flowing, though not from the gun-holder’s eyes. A commercial break shot the suspense to another planet and I switched to another channel, where a flamboyant chef was cooking up a storm. When that took a break, I went hunting for the shooting show, finally finding it after some trial and rapid fire error. The soap was Kkavyanjali, the young man was shot with blanks, his mother did the shooting and his wife was witness to the whole drama. Over the past few weeks, the young man did die (though not by his mother’s hand), the mother changed to a loving, nurturing type and the wife is marrying someone else. Oh, yes, there has also been a timeline jump along the way!
From there, I graduated to Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, Kasamh Se and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. While I cannot say that I am addicted or even a fan, I find the shenanigans of the various characters funny and relaxing. From childbirth out of wedlock to euthanasia, infidelity to joint family politics, killing, thievery and hatred, every aspect of human villainy is being covered, by a cast that often migrates from one show to the other – you could, for instance, find an aunt in one playing the mother in the other and a sister in the third, confusing the whole scenario considerably. In the end, I am never sure what I am watching and who has done what to whom, when, how and why.
But then, in the wild and weird world of soap operas, does it matter?
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