Some years ago, a novel was published by that name. For now, it seems to sum up the manner of the season, the way in which life works for people around me. The Bengalis are celebrating Durga puja, while the Gujaratis are busy with Navaratris, with the Tamilians stacking up their kolus for the same occasion. And shops have huge sales; people are buying like mad and everyone wants new clothes and new gadgets and new jewellery and new cars, since everything is being made available at tempting discounts.
In the middle of all this expenditure, there comes a need for sustenance. While traditionally each day of the nine-day period of Navaratri mandates a different kind of food offering to the gods – especially Devi – mithai rules. In good South Indian style, the naivedhyam will have something sweet to it, be it fruit or payasam or pongal or whatever. I am still trying to work out whether sugar substitutes are allowed, apart from the fact that I have not followed the usual family custom of providing that offering every morning after a bath and lighting the lamp. My mother used to, even if it was just a katori of sweetened milk that she had available and often included chocolate, apples and fruit cake on her puja thali. I have not had the time or the mindspace to manage it, though I do remember I should, usually when it is too late.
Some of my friends take a day off from food during this time. Sometimes even many days off, though they will make up for the abstinence during the evening and very early morning. I like the idea of fasts Indian style, especially what I know of the way the Gujaratis and Konkanis do it. Friends of mine will not eat regular food on whichever particular day they fast. Instead, they munch their way through what I would categorise as ‘junk’ – chips, sabudana vada, sabudana khichdi, usal and more, all made with ingredients that are heavily fried in oil and are redolent with salt and spices that, on normal-diet days, would horrify my doctor and nutritionist. Others concentrate on fruit, crunching their way through bowls of papaya, mango, grapes, chikoos and citrus, washing it all down with water, limbu paani or chaas.
My mother never fasted, not that I know of. She refused to allow me to do so, even when I used the argument that it was not only good for my figure and my digestive system, especially my amoebiasis, but was also a common bonding glue – I had little in common with people I went to college with, so maybe this would help to find some ground that we could share. But it was verboten, which was perhaps good for all of us, since I left not just college but the country soon after and had very little to do with anyone I had met in class.
And after the fasting comes the feasting. For years friends have been asking me to take a walk into the small streets in the concentratedly Muslim areas of Mumbai, after dark, during Ramzaan, when the food is divine and the ambience special and unusual. I haven’t yet. Maybe one day, when I have tamed my pet amoeba, my nerves and my tastebuds, I will.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Dancing in circles
It’s getting to be that time of year again, when all of Mumbai goes crazy. I am sure the virus attacks various other parts of the country as well, especially Gujarat and Rajasthan, but for now my own city is in focus. The festival of Navaratri is on, in full swing, as commonly stated, and the noise levels are blasting through the roof in many parts of town. For the most part, people have started making the revelry a sarvajanik one, gathering in huge vacant spaces to dance the night…or at least as much of it as the local authorities will allow…away to the syncopated sound of synthesised beats. Where I live, the sounds are barely discernible, a marked change from even just a few years ago, when my parents’ bedroom echoed with the rhythms of dandiya and sleep was at a premium that we non-participating folk could never afford.
It was even louder when we lived in South Mumbai, on top of a huge apartment block perched at the highest point of a hill. It had a fabulous view from all sides – in fact, we often said that even my bathroom had the best view this side of the world! It was set bang in the middle of an area densely populated by Gujaratis, for whom the festival and the dance has special significance, and the celebrating went on all night, with no ‘quiet time’ rules to stop the clamour. From about 7:30, when the sun was truly down and the lights went on, until long past our collective bedtimes, the tinny, electronic wail of synthesisers and regular thump of disco drums would batter past the window glass, covered with thick brocade curtains and heavy blinds, straight against our vulnerable eardrums.
And the views from every balcony and window would include whirling skirts, glittering fairy lights, long buffet tables, strobes, car beams and mirrors…always mirrors reflecting millions of tiny images of dancers spinning around the circle, bobbing and weaving to the beat of traditional music, revamped and rejiggered with a Bollywood twist. Falguni Pathak wailed along with other famous voices, the same tunes ringing in various pitches with the words changing according to the fad of the time.
Today, nights are strangely silent, even boring. But I can – if I really wanted – catch the action on the channel my cable television provider has saved for the local telecasts of events. So when I do my dose of surfing before going off to bed bearing small cat, I see glimpses of my own past in full colour. Thankfully without the deafening decibels.
It was even louder when we lived in South Mumbai, on top of a huge apartment block perched at the highest point of a hill. It had a fabulous view from all sides – in fact, we often said that even my bathroom had the best view this side of the world! It was set bang in the middle of an area densely populated by Gujaratis, for whom the festival and the dance has special significance, and the celebrating went on all night, with no ‘quiet time’ rules to stop the clamour. From about 7:30, when the sun was truly down and the lights went on, until long past our collective bedtimes, the tinny, electronic wail of synthesisers and regular thump of disco drums would batter past the window glass, covered with thick brocade curtains and heavy blinds, straight against our vulnerable eardrums.
And the views from every balcony and window would include whirling skirts, glittering fairy lights, long buffet tables, strobes, car beams and mirrors…always mirrors reflecting millions of tiny images of dancers spinning around the circle, bobbing and weaving to the beat of traditional music, revamped and rejiggered with a Bollywood twist. Falguni Pathak wailed along with other famous voices, the same tunes ringing in various pitches with the words changing according to the fad of the time.
Today, nights are strangely silent, even boring. But I can – if I really wanted – catch the action on the channel my cable television provider has saved for the local telecasts of events. So when I do my dose of surfing before going off to bed bearing small cat, I see glimpses of my own past in full colour. Thankfully without the deafening decibels.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Print perfect
This morning I went to a sort of pre-preview of an art show that opens soon in Mumbai. Since the newspaper I work for wanted to give it some coverage, and I sounded vaguely knowledgeable on the subject, I was dispatched, and got there before 10:30, my heels throwing up tiny sprays of water as I got out of my car and dashed into the gallery through a wonderfully grey drizzle. I found the lady I was there to see and was summarily dispatched to take a look at the work on show. And, if I didn’t have a conscience, I would have walked off with at least one smuggled out under my kurta, never mind the rather unsightly and sharp-edged bump it would have created.
The exhibition was part of a collection of oleographs and lithographs belonging to a gentleman from Kolkata. In my family, while the concept was not unfamiliar, works of this genre were always looked at with a certain degree of contempt, as ‘calendar art’, with stout women who looked singularly unintelligent and fairly unrealistic albeit fervent portrayals of mythological, historical and nationalistic themes. They seemed somehow too brightly coloured, too detailed, even too cheesy, for lack of a better word. But today, I was charmed.
Especially by two pieces. One, I have not yet stopped talking about. It shows the Draupadi vastraharan, the stripping of the Pandava queen by a Kaurava villain. She is obviously horrified, but stylisedly so, her feet planted just so, her face grimacing in a very ye olde filme way. Sort of like Theda Bara or Fearless Nadia would have done if she was being so publicly stripped for celluloid posterity. Her sari flows in a vivid mithai pink wave, in real fabric, perhaps georgette or chiffon, dotted with neat rounds of zardosi work – which also finds place on other costumes in the same print. The whole looks like film still, movement captured in a frame, with the villain looking amazingly like the hero of a South Indian potboiler. Shamelessly, blatantly, I asked the gallery lady, a sweet person with a mercifully good sense of humour, to convince the owner that I would give it a good home, and she laughed. The owner, when I asked him, was even more amused.
The other piece I would have taken home if I could was as charming, though more subtle. It was a delicately tinted work of an adolescent Krishna, lounging gracefully, a tiny smile edging its way out of his eyes and on to his lips. It could have been a young girl semi-lying there at an al-fresco picnic, soft colours and a sense of playful peace emanating from the picture. I have not said anything about that one to anyone; perhaps I want it too much!
I looked at the whole show carefully, doing two rounds. But only these made my acquisitive instincts bristle. Now I need to work on the owner to sell them to me. Do you think he would? Or does he feel as connected to the prints as I do?
The exhibition was part of a collection of oleographs and lithographs belonging to a gentleman from Kolkata. In my family, while the concept was not unfamiliar, works of this genre were always looked at with a certain degree of contempt, as ‘calendar art’, with stout women who looked singularly unintelligent and fairly unrealistic albeit fervent portrayals of mythological, historical and nationalistic themes. They seemed somehow too brightly coloured, too detailed, even too cheesy, for lack of a better word. But today, I was charmed.
Especially by two pieces. One, I have not yet stopped talking about. It shows the Draupadi vastraharan, the stripping of the Pandava queen by a Kaurava villain. She is obviously horrified, but stylisedly so, her feet planted just so, her face grimacing in a very ye olde filme way. Sort of like Theda Bara or Fearless Nadia would have done if she was being so publicly stripped for celluloid posterity. Her sari flows in a vivid mithai pink wave, in real fabric, perhaps georgette or chiffon, dotted with neat rounds of zardosi work – which also finds place on other costumes in the same print. The whole looks like film still, movement captured in a frame, with the villain looking amazingly like the hero of a South Indian potboiler. Shamelessly, blatantly, I asked the gallery lady, a sweet person with a mercifully good sense of humour, to convince the owner that I would give it a good home, and she laughed. The owner, when I asked him, was even more amused.
The other piece I would have taken home if I could was as charming, though more subtle. It was a delicately tinted work of an adolescent Krishna, lounging gracefully, a tiny smile edging its way out of his eyes and on to his lips. It could have been a young girl semi-lying there at an al-fresco picnic, soft colours and a sense of playful peace emanating from the picture. I have not said anything about that one to anyone; perhaps I want it too much!
I looked at the whole show carefully, doing two rounds. But only these made my acquisitive instincts bristle. Now I need to work on the owner to sell them to me. Do you think he would? Or does he feel as connected to the prints as I do?
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Remembering Daniel
Delhi for me was all about mixing with a crowd that made me intensely uncomfortable and valued me very little for myself. They wanted someone else, not the ME that I was, with all my insanity, my giggles, my sense of the ridiculous, my strange accent and my frankness. So when Asra came into my life, her timing was perfect. She was like me in many ways, could understand what I said and why I said it and had the same craving for affection rather than usefulness. We did not have to talk much to communicate and could spend time laughing about all that was ridiculous, from wavy French fries to Delhi roundabouts to the drunks we dodged at various totally silly parties. She was a serious journalist from the Wall Street Journal; I was trying to make something of my own career on the Internet and beyond. We became friends.
And Asra brought someone into my life that I will never forget, all the sappy sentimentality and resale value attached notwithstanding. She sent me an email one day after she had gone back to the United States, asking me to talk to a friend of hers who couldn’t decide whether to live in Delhi or Mumbai on his posting in India. He, too, was a journalist from WSJ, and a really nice man, with a really nice wife who was a little careful with her English, Asra explained tactfully. And one morning, the man phoned. “Hi, I’m Daniel Pearl,” he introduced himself. Soon after, he was sitting in my living room, asking me questions about India, its culture and the two cities he needed to choose from, his glasses glinting with his enthusiasm, his clean-cut, amazingly young face alight with excitement at a new adventure. Formality and stiff tea drinking fast shifted gear into casual, feet-on-the-sofa friendliness. We had started becoming friends.
Daniel listened to what I had to say very patiently and with a smile on his face as I tried not to play favourites – after all, Mumbai was home for me, and Delhi was hardly a pleasant experience. Eventually, he took a list of telephone contacts from my little red book (with me, it would rarely be black) and left, his first stiff handshake now a warm shoulder hug. Soon after, he emailed me, saying that he and his wife, Mariane, had decided to live in Mumbai and that he would get in touch when they got there. I heard about Daniel from my friends – he had called everyone on the list and endeared himself to most. He liked Mumbai, and the city accepted him and his wife easily into its enormous and friendly fold. He was working hard, enjoying the heat of the city and the warmth of the people and felt comfortable, which perhaps he would not have been able to do in Delhi, he wrote. And I was glad. To me, he was someone I liked, not just for Asra’s sake, but for his own. A few months later, I met Mariane, too, when Daniel brought her to Delhi and out to dinner with me. She was shy, obviously unsure of her linguistic skills, extraordinarily pretty and totally adoring of her husband. They made a good-looking couple, and radiated a quiet contentment that was all about staying home and being a unit.
Daniel kept in touch with me at fairly regular intervals, telling me what he was up to and how Mariane was. It was a casual, friendly, vaguely affectionate correspondence, punctuated by an occasional phone call. Asra formed the third side of the bond between us, and it was a happy relationship all around. And then she moved for a while to Pakistan, the land of her extended family. Daniel and Mariane travelled there. Asra emailed to say they were staying with her and that Daniel was following up on a story lead, interviewing some local people who could tell him more about what was happening in that part of the subcontinent.
The rest, the world knows.
And Asra brought someone into my life that I will never forget, all the sappy sentimentality and resale value attached notwithstanding. She sent me an email one day after she had gone back to the United States, asking me to talk to a friend of hers who couldn’t decide whether to live in Delhi or Mumbai on his posting in India. He, too, was a journalist from WSJ, and a really nice man, with a really nice wife who was a little careful with her English, Asra explained tactfully. And one morning, the man phoned. “Hi, I’m Daniel Pearl,” he introduced himself. Soon after, he was sitting in my living room, asking me questions about India, its culture and the two cities he needed to choose from, his glasses glinting with his enthusiasm, his clean-cut, amazingly young face alight with excitement at a new adventure. Formality and stiff tea drinking fast shifted gear into casual, feet-on-the-sofa friendliness. We had started becoming friends.
Daniel listened to what I had to say very patiently and with a smile on his face as I tried not to play favourites – after all, Mumbai was home for me, and Delhi was hardly a pleasant experience. Eventually, he took a list of telephone contacts from my little red book (with me, it would rarely be black) and left, his first stiff handshake now a warm shoulder hug. Soon after, he emailed me, saying that he and his wife, Mariane, had decided to live in Mumbai and that he would get in touch when they got there. I heard about Daniel from my friends – he had called everyone on the list and endeared himself to most. He liked Mumbai, and the city accepted him and his wife easily into its enormous and friendly fold. He was working hard, enjoying the heat of the city and the warmth of the people and felt comfortable, which perhaps he would not have been able to do in Delhi, he wrote. And I was glad. To me, he was someone I liked, not just for Asra’s sake, but for his own. A few months later, I met Mariane, too, when Daniel brought her to Delhi and out to dinner with me. She was shy, obviously unsure of her linguistic skills, extraordinarily pretty and totally adoring of her husband. They made a good-looking couple, and radiated a quiet contentment that was all about staying home and being a unit.
Daniel kept in touch with me at fairly regular intervals, telling me what he was up to and how Mariane was. It was a casual, friendly, vaguely affectionate correspondence, punctuated by an occasional phone call. Asra formed the third side of the bond between us, and it was a happy relationship all around. And then she moved for a while to Pakistan, the land of her extended family. Daniel and Mariane travelled there. Asra emailed to say they were staying with her and that Daniel was following up on a story lead, interviewing some local people who could tell him more about what was happening in that part of the subcontinent.
The rest, the world knows.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Happy day
Yesterday was my birthday – and no, it doesn’t matter how many there have been so far. It was not a very eventful day; rather quiet, in fact, except for the phones that kept ringing. But it didn’t feel like I was older – that happened in December, when growing up suddenly became a priority and I took over as lady of the house when I was not quite ready to be one. What I really felt was old, tired to the point of exhaustion, fed up with all the strange tricks fate was playing on me and mine and definitely unable to cope with much more than was already on my plate. But that was a momentary lapse of sanity. A short while later, I was back on the bounce, masochistically wanting more to do and less time to do it in.
Some people are like that. Take Osama bin Laden, who wants to kill Americans, the more the merrier, the faster the better. Or Ghenghis Khan, who cut a sharp swathe through the lands and peoples he conquered, riding off into the sunset as a hero who not only ruled huge tracts of a savage land, but ate yoghurt to stay healthy as well. Or even Casanova, who laid down the ladies – in more ways than the obvious or the smutty – with a charm and panache that so few have yet been able to match that he is the buzzword of the art.
On the whole, birthdays have been fairly happy for me. One of my favourites is now family legend – maybe that is why it is one of my favourites, since it was too long ago for me to remember, but my parents always laughed so much when they told me about it that I giggled happily, too. It was a birthday party for me, the heroine of the piece, who was turning something below the age of ten. A young friend came, ate plenty of cake and then got into an altercation with me, the birthday girl, who was the only one authorised to fight with anyone on her special day. The little friend – male, of course, as you may be able to tell from his behaviour – threw a major huff and walked out, taking his present with him!
Birthdays are all about people, for me. Getting chocolates and diamonds is all very well; getting lots of them is even better. But what matters most is the good stuff: the love. I woke yesterday and wandered blearily into the kitchen, where my father gave me a huge hug – that set the day rolling with a smile on my face. The kitten came past and rubbed up against my ankles, rolled herself into my sheets and bit me wherever she could reach, which is her sign of trust and affection. And the breeze blew through my window, tugging at the sheers and sending a cool wave through the house. The jasmine bush outside my parents’ bedroom window sent clouds of scent into the apartment and the floors radiated light and the cool tinge of eucalyptus oil used to swab them. There were good things to eat, nice clothes to wear, a fond father o hug and a fuzzy kitten to cuddle. What more could a girl getting older ask for?
Some people are like that. Take Osama bin Laden, who wants to kill Americans, the more the merrier, the faster the better. Or Ghenghis Khan, who cut a sharp swathe through the lands and peoples he conquered, riding off into the sunset as a hero who not only ruled huge tracts of a savage land, but ate yoghurt to stay healthy as well. Or even Casanova, who laid down the ladies – in more ways than the obvious or the smutty – with a charm and panache that so few have yet been able to match that he is the buzzword of the art.
On the whole, birthdays have been fairly happy for me. One of my favourites is now family legend – maybe that is why it is one of my favourites, since it was too long ago for me to remember, but my parents always laughed so much when they told me about it that I giggled happily, too. It was a birthday party for me, the heroine of the piece, who was turning something below the age of ten. A young friend came, ate plenty of cake and then got into an altercation with me, the birthday girl, who was the only one authorised to fight with anyone on her special day. The little friend – male, of course, as you may be able to tell from his behaviour – threw a major huff and walked out, taking his present with him!
Birthdays are all about people, for me. Getting chocolates and diamonds is all very well; getting lots of them is even better. But what matters most is the good stuff: the love. I woke yesterday and wandered blearily into the kitchen, where my father gave me a huge hug – that set the day rolling with a smile on my face. The kitten came past and rubbed up against my ankles, rolled herself into my sheets and bit me wherever she could reach, which is her sign of trust and affection. And the breeze blew through my window, tugging at the sheers and sending a cool wave through the house. The jasmine bush outside my parents’ bedroom window sent clouds of scent into the apartment and the floors radiated light and the cool tinge of eucalyptus oil used to swab them. There were good things to eat, nice clothes to wear, a fond father o hug and a fuzzy kitten to cuddle. What more could a girl getting older ask for?
Friday, September 22, 2006
Stock taking
I was out for a meeting in the city this morning and decided to spend a little time stocking up for the house with odds and ends one never gets down to buying unless one is in the right place at the right time and remembers it all. So in the car I made a list and tucked it away so carefully that I still have not located it. After the meeting, I made my first stop at a fairly new shop that specialises in that manna from the kitchen: chocolate. I walked in and was stopped in my well shod tracks by a wave of aroma from the ovens – fresh bread, cake, chocolate and more chocolate. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I felt, and bought what seemed to be the whole stock. Without a single twinge of guilt, may I add!
From there, we drove to Crawford Market, a general melee of shops and hawkers located in a domed heritage structure. It teemed, even that early, with shoppers, all buying in bulk and at discount prices, which is why most people come there to find groceries from all over the world. I headed for my favourite grocer, who tells me what not to buy and gives me media gossip, news about his family and the price of the dollar all at once. This time he diverted me from Parmesan and into the softer realm of cream cheese, which I didn’t want, so didn’t get, unusually enough. We chatted informedly about different shapes of pasta, nodded sagely at a lady who insisted that a local make was the best and wondered if the situation in Thailand would affect the sales of coconut milk.
From there I headed for the paper products. Foil, weighing a veritable ton, stretched my arm even longer, while tissues and toilet paper tried in vain to balance it out on the my other side, along with mayonnaise, mustard and bullseyes. I examined heaps of cane baskets for our little cat to curl up in, but found none that would satisfy her exacting tastes. I looked for cashewnuts of a particular size for a special recipe and tasted a variety of raisins, each sweeter than the other. And I avoided the milling paathiwalas, the men carrying huge baskets who would, for a fee, heft your shopping to your car for you.
Finding the car in the chaos outside was easy. Finding a toy for the baby feline was not. I walked far along a very dirty and crowded street, for a change without anyone heckling me in any way - except for one chappie who insisted that I buy some very oddly shaped apples – to no avail. I looked into stores wholesale and retail, went in and out of smaller establishments and smiled coaxingly at what seemed like the entire male population of the area, but there was nothing that would suit the kitten. And, each time I said “ping pong ball”, I got stared at in a very odd manner, as if I had said something incredibly smutty on the wrong day of the week.
Finally, driver, car, shopping and myself were collected in the same place and we started back to work. I had all my chores done, though when I find that list I made, I will probably see something I had clear forgotten about. And though no ping pong ball has been acquired for our small beast, she will be very happy to have a whole new collection of very noisy plastic bags to play in!
From there, we drove to Crawford Market, a general melee of shops and hawkers located in a domed heritage structure. It teemed, even that early, with shoppers, all buying in bulk and at discount prices, which is why most people come there to find groceries from all over the world. I headed for my favourite grocer, who tells me what not to buy and gives me media gossip, news about his family and the price of the dollar all at once. This time he diverted me from Parmesan and into the softer realm of cream cheese, which I didn’t want, so didn’t get, unusually enough. We chatted informedly about different shapes of pasta, nodded sagely at a lady who insisted that a local make was the best and wondered if the situation in Thailand would affect the sales of coconut milk.
From there I headed for the paper products. Foil, weighing a veritable ton, stretched my arm even longer, while tissues and toilet paper tried in vain to balance it out on the my other side, along with mayonnaise, mustard and bullseyes. I examined heaps of cane baskets for our little cat to curl up in, but found none that would satisfy her exacting tastes. I looked for cashewnuts of a particular size for a special recipe and tasted a variety of raisins, each sweeter than the other. And I avoided the milling paathiwalas, the men carrying huge baskets who would, for a fee, heft your shopping to your car for you.
Finding the car in the chaos outside was easy. Finding a toy for the baby feline was not. I walked far along a very dirty and crowded street, for a change without anyone heckling me in any way - except for one chappie who insisted that I buy some very oddly shaped apples – to no avail. I looked into stores wholesale and retail, went in and out of smaller establishments and smiled coaxingly at what seemed like the entire male population of the area, but there was nothing that would suit the kitten. And, each time I said “ping pong ball”, I got stared at in a very odd manner, as if I had said something incredibly smutty on the wrong day of the week.
Finally, driver, car, shopping and myself were collected in the same place and we started back to work. I had all my chores done, though when I find that list I made, I will probably see something I had clear forgotten about. And though no ping pong ball has been acquired for our small beast, she will be very happy to have a whole new collection of very noisy plastic bags to play in!
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Jumbo woes
A female elephant called Roopkali was hit by a water tanker on the road in an eastern suburb of Mumbai recently. It lay on the road for hours, as people thronged the area, some trying to help, some gawking, some criticising, others inventing scenarios that could mean the worst case for the poor animal. Six hours later, the beast was in its new and hopefully temporary home at the animal hospital in Mumbai, being given the best care by the most qualified people who could save its life. With all her will, the elephant seems to want to get better, a friend who works there tells me, and is cooperating totally with her nurses and doctors. But she needs more help than is easily available – a crane to help her stand, since her back legs are badly hurt, medicines, food and, of course, all the love that she can get. Which is coming in a-plenty, since the elephant is a symbol of the Lord who has just left our city. And, more than anything else, people are responding to the huge, gentle, friendly animal who cries real tears when she is in pain or is grieving.
The hospital is a place I cannot go to, not after my last visit there. It was where I took my beloved baby, a lovely black and white three-and-a-half-year-old cat who had slept on my pillow since he was four weeks old. He was very ill, treated by many doctors, and finally needed more expert care than he would get at home. For ten days he was put on drips, given medication and examined carefully, his blood tested every day, his systems gradually failing. And I watched him go. Then, in one final, horrible stroke, I signed the form that would release him from the agony and send him to what is, hopefully, a far better place for him to be. He died as I held him, killed by a dose of potassium chloride and some other cocktail, injected into his collapsed veins. And then the light went out in my life. But now it has started coming back, after the darkness got blacker at the end of last year. Which is another story that does not need to be told right now…
The hospital in Parel, Mumbai, is a lovely place. My friend there, Saroj, handles the nutritional needs of all the patients, and smiles as each one recovers, even as she cries with each inmate that dies. For now, she tends to Roopkali, the elephant, finding her the best and most easily digested food, making sure that dinner is on time and locating people who can help disseminate a public appeal for help. Saroj is adopted by people who meet her and find her a kindred spirit – like me, for one – and becomes a combination of good buddy and den mother to them all, providing a shoulder, hankies, support and good advice. The rest of the crew at the hospital is as valuable to both the animals they look after and their owners, providing care and food and medical aid, as well as a whole lot of love that can be shared equally, no matter how many patients they have. I am sure there are problems and bad eggs in the vast complex, but I never met any.
For now, Roopkali is in good hands. The best available. With a little luck and help, she will be back on her feet, literally, soon. It is up to Mumbai to keep her there…and safe.
The hospital is a place I cannot go to, not after my last visit there. It was where I took my beloved baby, a lovely black and white three-and-a-half-year-old cat who had slept on my pillow since he was four weeks old. He was very ill, treated by many doctors, and finally needed more expert care than he would get at home. For ten days he was put on drips, given medication and examined carefully, his blood tested every day, his systems gradually failing. And I watched him go. Then, in one final, horrible stroke, I signed the form that would release him from the agony and send him to what is, hopefully, a far better place for him to be. He died as I held him, killed by a dose of potassium chloride and some other cocktail, injected into his collapsed veins. And then the light went out in my life. But now it has started coming back, after the darkness got blacker at the end of last year. Which is another story that does not need to be told right now…
The hospital in Parel, Mumbai, is a lovely place. My friend there, Saroj, handles the nutritional needs of all the patients, and smiles as each one recovers, even as she cries with each inmate that dies. For now, she tends to Roopkali, the elephant, finding her the best and most easily digested food, making sure that dinner is on time and locating people who can help disseminate a public appeal for help. Saroj is adopted by people who meet her and find her a kindred spirit – like me, for one – and becomes a combination of good buddy and den mother to them all, providing a shoulder, hankies, support and good advice. The rest of the crew at the hospital is as valuable to both the animals they look after and their owners, providing care and food and medical aid, as well as a whole lot of love that can be shared equally, no matter how many patients they have. I am sure there are problems and bad eggs in the vast complex, but I never met any.
For now, Roopkali is in good hands. The best available. With a little luck and help, she will be back on her feet, literally, soon. It is up to Mumbai to keep her there…and safe.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Male prerogative
I have a new admirer in the office, one who thinks I am attractive and who wants to get to know me better. He has suggested a glass of wine, dinner, anything, but insists that running around trees is not on his agenda at any time. For once, someone is straight, adult and mature about showing an interest in me. But it feels good and could be fun, if I had the time and mindspace to allow myself to let it develop. Which, unfortunately, I do not right now. It is, however, a refreshing change from the speechless, open-mouthed yokels that my world seems to be populated with.
Speaking of which, for many years I have had one of those stalking me. At first it was silly. Soon it got irritating. Very gradually, it got frightening. This man would stare at me at the station from which I commuted in to work, stare at me on the train most of the way there so I would be more careful about the seat I chose and the time I travelled and, then, to my consternation, he would be everywhere I went, from the service provider’s office I went to check my site designs on, to the small café I sometimes picked up lunch from to the bookstore I frequented. One day he was stopped and given a good talking to by a very large and very quiet friend, which deterred him…but not for long.
I spent a few years away from Mumbai and came back to life in the city with a certain unhealthy degree of cynicism in my emotional baggage. And there he was again, haunting my every footstep. But this time I ignored the niceties of my upbringing and brought out the cops. The chowkidars from the apartment building I live in turned up at the station to grab him and he hid, like the despicable coward that he was, behind pillars and assorted travellers. At work, the head of security arranged an ambush and he ran, like a scared little rabbit. And he called – on my home telephone, on my office line – and was told exactly what to do with himself. Finally, he started sending emails to my official address – which have been and will always be trashed.
There have been others rather braver that that creepy character. One chappie at work stood for many months and stared at me over the cubicle partition, never saying anything and shying away if I smiled. Another, who has known me and worked with me for years, prefers to stand at a distance and smile idiotically, making very stupid monosyllabic or completely irrelevant conversation. And yet another gets completely incoherent when he speaks to me, the end of his sentence entirely unconnected with the beginning.
In this context, my new admirer is indeed novel for the situation and the environment we all function within. His behaviour is his prerogative, as it is all the others’. As for me – I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. After all, a girl can’t get enough attention of the right kind, don’t you think?
Speaking of which, for many years I have had one of those stalking me. At first it was silly. Soon it got irritating. Very gradually, it got frightening. This man would stare at me at the station from which I commuted in to work, stare at me on the train most of the way there so I would be more careful about the seat I chose and the time I travelled and, then, to my consternation, he would be everywhere I went, from the service provider’s office I went to check my site designs on, to the small café I sometimes picked up lunch from to the bookstore I frequented. One day he was stopped and given a good talking to by a very large and very quiet friend, which deterred him…but not for long.
I spent a few years away from Mumbai and came back to life in the city with a certain unhealthy degree of cynicism in my emotional baggage. And there he was again, haunting my every footstep. But this time I ignored the niceties of my upbringing and brought out the cops. The chowkidars from the apartment building I live in turned up at the station to grab him and he hid, like the despicable coward that he was, behind pillars and assorted travellers. At work, the head of security arranged an ambush and he ran, like a scared little rabbit. And he called – on my home telephone, on my office line – and was told exactly what to do with himself. Finally, he started sending emails to my official address – which have been and will always be trashed.
There have been others rather braver that that creepy character. One chappie at work stood for many months and stared at me over the cubicle partition, never saying anything and shying away if I smiled. Another, who has known me and worked with me for years, prefers to stand at a distance and smile idiotically, making very stupid monosyllabic or completely irrelevant conversation. And yet another gets completely incoherent when he speaks to me, the end of his sentence entirely unconnected with the beginning.
In this context, my new admirer is indeed novel for the situation and the environment we all function within. His behaviour is his prerogative, as it is all the others’. As for me – I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. After all, a girl can’t get enough attention of the right kind, don’t you think?
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Gas trouble
There is a petrol strike on in Mumbai, the city of many dreams, a few nightmares and the average day. Which makes these days less nightmarish, especially when commuting to work is concerned. Ever since my father won our long-standing battle and I drive to work in mercifully air-conditioned comfort, I have blessed him for his infinite wisdom, but cursed a whole lot of other people, from my own chauffeur to the zillions of taxi drivers who get in our way to the hundreds of other hurdles that make the ride of about 40 minutes over an hour long. Yesterday was thusly, since people don’t seem to have caught on to the idea that perhaps a car needs something called petrol to make it go and if they had filled up like sensible people (my father, for one) did on the weekend, they would be home and not as dry in the tank as they probably were today, when there was far less traffic and so more driving comfort!
(Whew! Having got that vastly over-extended sentence off my mind, we can now progress.)
I first started driving when I was about 13, during a family crisis in the smallish city that was once Pune, about two or three hours away from Mumbai via the new expressway. It was the first time I was behind the wheel by myself (not on a parental lap) with the engine on and I was terrified, but had the bravado of the new teenager who had angsts coming out of her jeans pockets to carry me through. So I revved up and jerked to a rather ignominious halt as my foot lifted right off the clutch too soon. My father smiled patiently, told me all over again what the process was and we tried again. This time, I took a couple of hops and then stalled. It felt very Jessica Rabbit, with none of the seduction or charm, just a Bugs Bunny-ish version of the vamp.
The driving lesson progressed, with minor mishaps, and soon I was older, my father was wiser and we both got along better in the front of the car. On my first foray out of the driving lesson area of Mumbai and on to the main roads, I managed to get on the wrong side of the bus without mowing down any of the passengers getting on and off and, to my eternal shame and horror, just avoided running over a school-mate as he crossed the road at the same time I did, he on foot, me with one foot down a little too hard on the wrong pedal. Gradually, it came to driving test time and I passed without too much trouble, except that I was advised not to drive so fast and to make sure I had someone in the car with me until I accomplished that.
Today, our family has one small rule: Let the woman drive, or else she will be carsick, especially on long and winding roads. Or she will sit next to you and squeak if you come anywhere near any other vehicle, even within six feet of it. Or else, with steely determination, she will grit her teeth, clench her fists and generally be so stoic that it makes you want to give her the keys, the wheel and the car itself. If it had petrol in it, that is!
(Whew! Having got that vastly over-extended sentence off my mind, we can now progress.)
I first started driving when I was about 13, during a family crisis in the smallish city that was once Pune, about two or three hours away from Mumbai via the new expressway. It was the first time I was behind the wheel by myself (not on a parental lap) with the engine on and I was terrified, but had the bravado of the new teenager who had angsts coming out of her jeans pockets to carry me through. So I revved up and jerked to a rather ignominious halt as my foot lifted right off the clutch too soon. My father smiled patiently, told me all over again what the process was and we tried again. This time, I took a couple of hops and then stalled. It felt very Jessica Rabbit, with none of the seduction or charm, just a Bugs Bunny-ish version of the vamp.
The driving lesson progressed, with minor mishaps, and soon I was older, my father was wiser and we both got along better in the front of the car. On my first foray out of the driving lesson area of Mumbai and on to the main roads, I managed to get on the wrong side of the bus without mowing down any of the passengers getting on and off and, to my eternal shame and horror, just avoided running over a school-mate as he crossed the road at the same time I did, he on foot, me with one foot down a little too hard on the wrong pedal. Gradually, it came to driving test time and I passed without too much trouble, except that I was advised not to drive so fast and to make sure I had someone in the car with me until I accomplished that.
Today, our family has one small rule: Let the woman drive, or else she will be carsick, especially on long and winding roads. Or she will sit next to you and squeak if you come anywhere near any other vehicle, even within six feet of it. Or else, with steely determination, she will grit her teeth, clench her fists and generally be so stoic that it makes you want to give her the keys, the wheel and the car itself. If it had petrol in it, that is!
Monday, September 18, 2006
Book learning
A few months ago, I was closely associated with a book that made a little bit of a noise, more than most other projects that I make part of my life. It is now out, launched with some fanfare in various parts of the world and I thought this would be a nice forum to write about it, especially now that all that I felt about the process of creation and introduction to the rest of the world has faded into a little box in my mind that will be opened only when I am no longer stirred by its contents.
The book, published by Mumbai based India Book House, is called Lights Camera Masala, in a deliberate and cutesy twist to the conventional. It is essentially a collection of photographs supported by reams of text – or perhaps the other way around – all nicely packaged into a fun, gimmicky, attractive and noise-making whole. It is, as you may have figured by now, all about Hindi films, from the POV of two would-be filmmakers, who set out to discover just how mad the big bad world of Bollywood can be. It has a pouting Abhishek Bachchan on the cover and in various avatars on various pages inside, but it does satisfy almost every woman’s (and many men’s) need for male pulchritude with some mind-blowing photos of the very dishy John Abraham, along with some other representatives of the huge industry that is India’s very significant contribution to world cinema.
It all began some years ago when the publisher showed me her catalogue. At the time, she pointed out a listed book that had a leaping Hrithik Roshan on the cover and I told her I wanted to be part of the process of getting it to bookstores. It was many months later that she called again and said that it was all going to come together and would I be involved, as editor. I had been working with a Bollywood website for a couple of years and was keen to put the knowledge I had gained through that experience to good use – producing a result that would look good on my resume.
It was, in most ways, a fun assignment, albeit an excessively hectic one, though only in fits and starts, somewhat like the egg that the curate is said to have eaten. I finished the core of the editing just before I changed jobs, then more of it after my mother died, and the final proofs when I was deep into what I moved on to. And there were problems that I couldn’t even start enumerating – money, sponsorships, deadlines, language, captions and, in a stunning last minute bombshell, even the entire concept of the book that had been created, which clashed dreadfully with the original plan. In the rush to keep job, sanity and editing standards intact, we managed to keep out tempers cooled, our egos subdued and our opinions to ourselves and brought out a book that is, to say the least, well worth the effort.
It isn’t as if there are no mistakes. Or no hard feelings. Or even no hurts. But, in spite of all the problems involved in creating something that blends the talents of so many people, Lights Camera Masala is a book I am proud to meet and include in my inner circle of accomplishments. Do read it!
The book, published by Mumbai based India Book House, is called Lights Camera Masala, in a deliberate and cutesy twist to the conventional. It is essentially a collection of photographs supported by reams of text – or perhaps the other way around – all nicely packaged into a fun, gimmicky, attractive and noise-making whole. It is, as you may have figured by now, all about Hindi films, from the POV of two would-be filmmakers, who set out to discover just how mad the big bad world of Bollywood can be. It has a pouting Abhishek Bachchan on the cover and in various avatars on various pages inside, but it does satisfy almost every woman’s (and many men’s) need for male pulchritude with some mind-blowing photos of the very dishy John Abraham, along with some other representatives of the huge industry that is India’s very significant contribution to world cinema.
It all began some years ago when the publisher showed me her catalogue. At the time, she pointed out a listed book that had a leaping Hrithik Roshan on the cover and I told her I wanted to be part of the process of getting it to bookstores. It was many months later that she called again and said that it was all going to come together and would I be involved, as editor. I had been working with a Bollywood website for a couple of years and was keen to put the knowledge I had gained through that experience to good use – producing a result that would look good on my resume.
It was, in most ways, a fun assignment, albeit an excessively hectic one, though only in fits and starts, somewhat like the egg that the curate is said to have eaten. I finished the core of the editing just before I changed jobs, then more of it after my mother died, and the final proofs when I was deep into what I moved on to. And there were problems that I couldn’t even start enumerating – money, sponsorships, deadlines, language, captions and, in a stunning last minute bombshell, even the entire concept of the book that had been created, which clashed dreadfully with the original plan. In the rush to keep job, sanity and editing standards intact, we managed to keep out tempers cooled, our egos subdued and our opinions to ourselves and brought out a book that is, to say the least, well worth the effort.
It isn’t as if there are no mistakes. Or no hard feelings. Or even no hurts. But, in spite of all the problems involved in creating something that blends the talents of so many people, Lights Camera Masala is a book I am proud to meet and include in my inner circle of accomplishments. Do read it!
Friday, September 15, 2006
Shop hopping
I was at the mall this afternoon looking for a ping pong ball and found nothing that satisfied my needs. Maybe it was because I was generally in a not-very-nice mood, having started out the day that way, or maybe it was because of the heat, the sweat factor and the traffic that refused to crawl as fast as it should have if the cars on the road and their drivers had observed even a smidgen of the discipline that would have made life easier for everyone. But, be that as it may, I was not a happy shopper.
Why a ping pong ball? Simple. We have a small cat at home and she needs to be kept amused. One of her favourite toys is a wine cork, nicely dried of its alcohol content, which she bats around happily but tends to lose easily – under the storage chests, under the cupboards, under the bed, wherever. Then she proceeds to look at us reproachfully, make sad peeping sounds and then root about under the carpets looking for her lost plaything. We have tried bigger balls, bits of paper, foil and rolled up plastic and, while she plays with them all, she likes the cork best. Since we are rather restrained in our intake of all things alcoholic, we needed to find her something else, fast, and the ping pong ball met the criteria of being light, easily moveable and big enough to not be swept under low furniture.
But the mall was not the right source, I found. I walked into the large and noisy toy department of the lifestyle store in the mall and found that no one understood my requirements at first. Then, once I had gesticulated, explained and, eventually, glared, I had a host of uniformed minions rushing hither and yon bringing me everything but what I wanted. Finally, fed up with all the clamour, I hunted for the objects and found them, but in a pack of three, complete with ping-pong paddles and net. Now while I am most proud of our kitten and know that she is a clever little beastie, I realise full well that though she can do almost anything she sets her wee mind to, holding a paddle is not one of those marvellous tasks she can accomplish.
Mission aborted. I stormed away, ready and most willing – since it has been a week or more of nothingness in this aspect – to buy a pair of shoes. But I was put off by the crowds that thronged the stores to either shop or, more likely, enjoy the air-conditioning. But it was not a completely useless expedition for me. Even though I returned with nothing resembling a ping-pong ball in my various packages, I did manage to get myself a vast amount of pasta of various configurations. Our kitten may not be able to play with it, but at least it will give us the fillip we need to play with her!
Why a ping pong ball? Simple. We have a small cat at home and she needs to be kept amused. One of her favourite toys is a wine cork, nicely dried of its alcohol content, which she bats around happily but tends to lose easily – under the storage chests, under the cupboards, under the bed, wherever. Then she proceeds to look at us reproachfully, make sad peeping sounds and then root about under the carpets looking for her lost plaything. We have tried bigger balls, bits of paper, foil and rolled up plastic and, while she plays with them all, she likes the cork best. Since we are rather restrained in our intake of all things alcoholic, we needed to find her something else, fast, and the ping pong ball met the criteria of being light, easily moveable and big enough to not be swept under low furniture.
But the mall was not the right source, I found. I walked into the large and noisy toy department of the lifestyle store in the mall and found that no one understood my requirements at first. Then, once I had gesticulated, explained and, eventually, glared, I had a host of uniformed minions rushing hither and yon bringing me everything but what I wanted. Finally, fed up with all the clamour, I hunted for the objects and found them, but in a pack of three, complete with ping-pong paddles and net. Now while I am most proud of our kitten and know that she is a clever little beastie, I realise full well that though she can do almost anything she sets her wee mind to, holding a paddle is not one of those marvellous tasks she can accomplish.
Mission aborted. I stormed away, ready and most willing – since it has been a week or more of nothingness in this aspect – to buy a pair of shoes. But I was put off by the crowds that thronged the stores to either shop or, more likely, enjoy the air-conditioning. But it was not a completely useless expedition for me. Even though I returned with nothing resembling a ping-pong ball in my various packages, I did manage to get myself a vast amount of pasta of various configurations. Our kitten may not be able to play with it, but at least it will give us the fillip we need to play with her!
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Wet and wild
Just this morning the newspapers reported on the weather with unusual coherence. The monsoon is not over yet, not until the 30th of September, the Met office insisted, and the papers detailed where it would be soggy over the next few weeks. Don’t put your raingear away yet, everyone was quoted, but most of Mumbai takes that lightly – after all, after July 26 last year and a few other days this year, no one believes the weather people any longer. And it was a case of Murphy and one of his strange laws once again. With hardly anyone carrying an umbrella, it poured and still continues to do so as I bash away at my keyboard.
I was caught in the first of the storms – a series of which has been crashing over the city – this morning, all my plans gone totally awry. I had just finished having my hair done and trimmed, a neatly glossy curtain that is so unlike my natural growth swishing wonderfully down to the middle of my back. I paid at the front desk, gave my stylist a hug thank you and was pushing open the heavy glass door to exit when the heavens started the drum section rolling. There was a violent blast of thunder, bookended by a few intense flashes of lightning that sparked weirdly across the pink-tinged darkened noon skies. Even as I hesitated moving more than a toe over the threshold, the clouds let go and it POURED. I retreated, wise and unwilling, especially after an hour or so having my head bashed about and anointed by various presumably very expensive unguents.
My stylist refused to let me go. You get wet, I don’t care, she obstinately stated, but you leave your hair here. (It was a strange morning, as you may understand.) Since my hair and the rest of me are sort of rather attached to each other, I decided to let discretion play the better part of ruining my ’do and waited. It took about ten minutes for the rain to let up enough for me to consider walking in it. But there was another small problem to deal with – since no one believed weather reports, no one had brought along an umbrella! We scrounged around and I finally was lent a brolly by one of the staff, who knew me well enough to know that I would return it post haste. I sloshed my way to my car and started the drive back to work, returning the umbrella.
Of course, as with all things Murphy, when we drove away from the salon, the sun was shining brightly with nary a cloud in the sky.
I was caught in the first of the storms – a series of which has been crashing over the city – this morning, all my plans gone totally awry. I had just finished having my hair done and trimmed, a neatly glossy curtain that is so unlike my natural growth swishing wonderfully down to the middle of my back. I paid at the front desk, gave my stylist a hug thank you and was pushing open the heavy glass door to exit when the heavens started the drum section rolling. There was a violent blast of thunder, bookended by a few intense flashes of lightning that sparked weirdly across the pink-tinged darkened noon skies. Even as I hesitated moving more than a toe over the threshold, the clouds let go and it POURED. I retreated, wise and unwilling, especially after an hour or so having my head bashed about and anointed by various presumably very expensive unguents.
My stylist refused to let me go. You get wet, I don’t care, she obstinately stated, but you leave your hair here. (It was a strange morning, as you may understand.) Since my hair and the rest of me are sort of rather attached to each other, I decided to let discretion play the better part of ruining my ’do and waited. It took about ten minutes for the rain to let up enough for me to consider walking in it. But there was another small problem to deal with – since no one believed weather reports, no one had brought along an umbrella! We scrounged around and I finally was lent a brolly by one of the staff, who knew me well enough to know that I would return it post haste. I sloshed my way to my car and started the drive back to work, returning the umbrella.
Of course, as with all things Murphy, when we drove away from the salon, the sun was shining brightly with nary a cloud in the sky.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Shoe scare
My father just phoned, telling me that I have over 200 pairs of shoes. And that is not counting the left and the right individually, he assures me. I think it is a scurrilous lie. He just wants me to stop buying more. Which, frankly, would be an excellent idea, one that I need to think about seriously. You see, as I have said before, I kinda sorta maybe perhaps like shoes!
This crisis has arisen because of a small accident in our house. There is a history that needs to be explained: The back of my shoe cupboard is set against the wall on the other side of which is the kitchen sink. A few days ago, after a bit of a storm at the dead of night, with lots of thunder, lightning and wind, I came face to face with a tiny cockroach that scuttled behind the aforementioned cupboard after a mutually horrified look that passed between us. With a shudder, followed by a faint squeak, I hopped back into bed, resolutely avoiding thinking about the bug, which had no business whatsoever invading my sanctum. The next morning, still blearily asleep, I asked my father to liberally spray that area with insecticide, keeping small cat well away from my room. In the process, he discovered a mass of damp and mould that had seeped into the cupboard and ruined the wall, the back of the wooden box and a couple of my slippers in the process. Clean it, he suggested, of the small cupboard. I had been planning to, but between housekeeping and work, had never managed to find the time. Or maybe I didn’t really want to.
That soul-searching debate apart, Father dear did the needful this afternoon. With a battalion of plastic bags, gloves (I hope) and some towels, he emptied the cupboard, cleaned it and each pair of shoes and packed everything neatly away again. Much to his satisfaction – since he can now happily pick a bone or three with me about it – he found many many many pairs of shoes, sandals and slippers that he (and perhaps I, if I was being absolutely honest) didn’t know I had. Some in a good state, some that cry for retirement, some that have little use in a climate like Mumbai’s average: hot, muggy and unbearable where the relationship between closed shoes and feet is concerned.
Whatever that may be all about, I hotly deny the statement that I have too many pairs of shoes for my own good. I disagree, for the record, of the count as well, and can assure not just Father dear but the general public that may read this that no one can have enough footwear. There will always be an occasion or an outfit that does not have anything to match it. Trust me. Being the proud owner of an unsubstantiated number of pairs of shoes, I know!
This crisis has arisen because of a small accident in our house. There is a history that needs to be explained: The back of my shoe cupboard is set against the wall on the other side of which is the kitchen sink. A few days ago, after a bit of a storm at the dead of night, with lots of thunder, lightning and wind, I came face to face with a tiny cockroach that scuttled behind the aforementioned cupboard after a mutually horrified look that passed between us. With a shudder, followed by a faint squeak, I hopped back into bed, resolutely avoiding thinking about the bug, which had no business whatsoever invading my sanctum. The next morning, still blearily asleep, I asked my father to liberally spray that area with insecticide, keeping small cat well away from my room. In the process, he discovered a mass of damp and mould that had seeped into the cupboard and ruined the wall, the back of the wooden box and a couple of my slippers in the process. Clean it, he suggested, of the small cupboard. I had been planning to, but between housekeeping and work, had never managed to find the time. Or maybe I didn’t really want to.
That soul-searching debate apart, Father dear did the needful this afternoon. With a battalion of plastic bags, gloves (I hope) and some towels, he emptied the cupboard, cleaned it and each pair of shoes and packed everything neatly away again. Much to his satisfaction – since he can now happily pick a bone or three with me about it – he found many many many pairs of shoes, sandals and slippers that he (and perhaps I, if I was being absolutely honest) didn’t know I had. Some in a good state, some that cry for retirement, some that have little use in a climate like Mumbai’s average: hot, muggy and unbearable where the relationship between closed shoes and feet is concerned.
Whatever that may be all about, I hotly deny the statement that I have too many pairs of shoes for my own good. I disagree, for the record, of the count as well, and can assure not just Father dear but the general public that may read this that no one can have enough footwear. There will always be an occasion or an outfit that does not have anything to match it. Trust me. Being the proud owner of an unsubstantiated number of pairs of shoes, I know!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Cooking by the tube
I just read an article in the Washington Post about how to learn how to cook from television shows. Which is not difficult, especially considering that that is how I learned most of what I know about food and cooking, with a little additional help from books, family, friends, websites and my own overly fertile imagination. And I still watch cooking shows – Jamie Oliver last night – and enjoy not just the food, but the people involved. There are so many different styles and cuisines being played with, making it all even better than a saas-bahu soap!
Perhaps my favourite when I was in college was the Frugal Gourmet. He taught me how not to wash mushrooms, how to tear lettuce instead of chopping it and that what makes a good chicken soup is the love that goes into it, not the vegetables, herbs and salt. He also suggested I could use lemon juice to make up for a deficiency in salt. And I did all of that and more, and loved it and the results. So did everyone who ate what I cooked up.
Soon I was hooked on to Madhur Jaffrey, who actually taught me how to make lump-free kadi, that wonderful golden liquid made of buttermilk or sour yoghurt, redolent with fenugreek, asafoetida and tiny pakodas a-crackle with ginger and chillies. Her rotis came out varied shapes, her dal sometimes looked lumpy and her curries were not more fiery than I or my digestive system could handle. And she was exquisitely neat, her cooking surfaces cleaned and her splashing not beyond my endurance.
Floyd on the other hand was messy, but carried watchers along with him. He walked the streets of wherever he was and ate whatever he found, with joy and a huge appetite. He cooked interestingly, with enormous amounts of spices and not much regard for finesse, and drank liberally, which made him funny, human, but best in small doses.
Oliver I watch because Oliver I read. His recipes are simple and make the culinary world easy to travel through, wandering through the Far East and India even in the making of a basic lobster sandwich. He touches my tummy with his deft handling of food and neat presentation and, most of all, his love for his family, wife, daughters, parents and friends.
Perhaps Anthony Bourdain is the best of my lot. He doesn’t cook a whole lot in how television shows, but goes all over the world eating his way through the strangest of foods. Last seen, he was in China, crunching on stuff I could never even look at, leave alone identify, and he truly enjoyed it all. And if he didn’t, he said so, in his characteristic bored-but-loving-it style and his maverick history.
In this kind of environment, India has come up with its own brand of television chef, too many to list comprehensively. There is Mallika Badrinath, who propagates the principles of low-cal cuisine, perhaps because it sells, for now. Kunal Vijaykar eats his way through the country, with a certain amateurish charm and casual table manners. And Sanjeev Kapoor, of course, the love of many an aspiring chef, has his audience captured and rapt with much practice, an everyday simplicity and deep dimples. And many more, whose names I cannot begin to remember.
Perhaps my favourite when I was in college was the Frugal Gourmet. He taught me how not to wash mushrooms, how to tear lettuce instead of chopping it and that what makes a good chicken soup is the love that goes into it, not the vegetables, herbs and salt. He also suggested I could use lemon juice to make up for a deficiency in salt. And I did all of that and more, and loved it and the results. So did everyone who ate what I cooked up.
Soon I was hooked on to Madhur Jaffrey, who actually taught me how to make lump-free kadi, that wonderful golden liquid made of buttermilk or sour yoghurt, redolent with fenugreek, asafoetida and tiny pakodas a-crackle with ginger and chillies. Her rotis came out varied shapes, her dal sometimes looked lumpy and her curries were not more fiery than I or my digestive system could handle. And she was exquisitely neat, her cooking surfaces cleaned and her splashing not beyond my endurance.
Floyd on the other hand was messy, but carried watchers along with him. He walked the streets of wherever he was and ate whatever he found, with joy and a huge appetite. He cooked interestingly, with enormous amounts of spices and not much regard for finesse, and drank liberally, which made him funny, human, but best in small doses.
Oliver I watch because Oliver I read. His recipes are simple and make the culinary world easy to travel through, wandering through the Far East and India even in the making of a basic lobster sandwich. He touches my tummy with his deft handling of food and neat presentation and, most of all, his love for his family, wife, daughters, parents and friends.
Perhaps Anthony Bourdain is the best of my lot. He doesn’t cook a whole lot in how television shows, but goes all over the world eating his way through the strangest of foods. Last seen, he was in China, crunching on stuff I could never even look at, leave alone identify, and he truly enjoyed it all. And if he didn’t, he said so, in his characteristic bored-but-loving-it style and his maverick history.
In this kind of environment, India has come up with its own brand of television chef, too many to list comprehensively. There is Mallika Badrinath, who propagates the principles of low-cal cuisine, perhaps because it sells, for now. Kunal Vijaykar eats his way through the country, with a certain amateurish charm and casual table manners. And Sanjeev Kapoor, of course, the love of many an aspiring chef, has his audience captured and rapt with much practice, an everyday simplicity and deep dimples. And many more, whose names I cannot begin to remember.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Of the wrong kind
The huge ghost that is now 9/11 is back to haunt us again, as it has done every year since 2001, when the World Trade Centre came crashing down in a cloud of lethal rubble. In contrast, in some strange manner, the other two equally deadly crashes – one into the Pentagon, the other into a field – has left an eerie emptiness that has little significance, even though memorial meetings are held and the bereaved still weep as heart-brokenly. Death has no measurable magnitude, but destruction does, and what happened in Manhattan overwhelmed humanity and continues to do so, especially since every excruciatingly moment of it was captured on film and beamed over television networks the world over.
For us, as Indians, that day has begun an inheritance that magnifies what we already had and will probably always have – a fear of being rejected, of being stigmatised, of being unfavoured. Because post-9/11 there was a wave, albeit not too unmanageably strong, of feeling against Asians, especially of Muslims, which still exists, now tempered to more ‘civilised’ levels. The ‘terror plot’ unearthed in the UK, planned on the lines of a much larger are far more terrifying and devastating 9/11 brought all the negativity back. But why? What is the point of the bias? Are all brown-skins, Asians, Muslims (at one time, after the Kanishka crash or Indira Gandhi's murder, it was the Sikhs) the bad guys?
In a way, the prejudice is justified. Sort of. After all, the proven villains of the terrorism piece are Muslims, from an Eastern country, people who have no compunctions blowing up planes, the innocent and themselves, all for a cause that, according to those who have studied and understood the true meaning of the religion, does not exist. (I have just finished editing a piece by a Muslim writer of some repute that demands to know what makes a Muslim kill, particularly because nothing in the Koran suggests he should or does condone it.) But then, as my editor point out, there is a reason, a justified one, for a certain degree of racial profiling to be done by security agencies, since there is a known set of parameters that define the terrorist in today’s world, and these groups fit.
But in a manner that I have never understood, the tag of ‘Muslim’ tends to cause eyebrows to rise along with hackles, and a cold distance to be established between people who could normally be close friends. It has happened to me often enough during my life in Delhi, when people who were in one moment very chatty and bonhomous turned, in the very next, into icicles, making me feel like a very bad smell, when they found that my own intimate circle of friends and family included those who were followers of – gasp – Islam. A buddy in Karachi and I often speak about this and wonder how people we know can behave thusly. After all, we wouldn’t, why would they? And they are part of the same social milieu, right?
Ask yourself a question, the way I ask it of myself. You do have discriminations, you and I both know and accept that. But which ones? And why? Is it a religion that you have a bias for or against, or a personality? A social group, or a type of individual? Is it a belief system that you cannot accept, or x, y or z’s thoughts and affiliations? Think about it.
For us, as Indians, that day has begun an inheritance that magnifies what we already had and will probably always have – a fear of being rejected, of being stigmatised, of being unfavoured. Because post-9/11 there was a wave, albeit not too unmanageably strong, of feeling against Asians, especially of Muslims, which still exists, now tempered to more ‘civilised’ levels. The ‘terror plot’ unearthed in the UK, planned on the lines of a much larger are far more terrifying and devastating 9/11 brought all the negativity back. But why? What is the point of the bias? Are all brown-skins, Asians, Muslims (at one time, after the Kanishka crash or Indira Gandhi's murder, it was the Sikhs) the bad guys?
In a way, the prejudice is justified. Sort of. After all, the proven villains of the terrorism piece are Muslims, from an Eastern country, people who have no compunctions blowing up planes, the innocent and themselves, all for a cause that, according to those who have studied and understood the true meaning of the religion, does not exist. (I have just finished editing a piece by a Muslim writer of some repute that demands to know what makes a Muslim kill, particularly because nothing in the Koran suggests he should or does condone it.) But then, as my editor point out, there is a reason, a justified one, for a certain degree of racial profiling to be done by security agencies, since there is a known set of parameters that define the terrorist in today’s world, and these groups fit.
But in a manner that I have never understood, the tag of ‘Muslim’ tends to cause eyebrows to rise along with hackles, and a cold distance to be established between people who could normally be close friends. It has happened to me often enough during my life in Delhi, when people who were in one moment very chatty and bonhomous turned, in the very next, into icicles, making me feel like a very bad smell, when they found that my own intimate circle of friends and family included those who were followers of – gasp – Islam. A buddy in Karachi and I often speak about this and wonder how people we know can behave thusly. After all, we wouldn’t, why would they? And they are part of the same social milieu, right?
Ask yourself a question, the way I ask it of myself. You do have discriminations, you and I both know and accept that. But which ones? And why? Is it a religion that you have a bias for or against, or a personality? A social group, or a type of individual? Is it a belief system that you cannot accept, or x, y or z’s thoughts and affiliations? Think about it.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Man style
A young man waiting to cross the road at the traffic lights this morning chewed gum with a certain fanatic devotion to the cause of ridding himself of his double chin, which sported the most spectacular collection of acne spots. And he glittered as he stood there, his various beads and baubles flashing in the morning sunshine, vying with the shiny decal on his T-shirt for my attention. In one ear he had two earrings; his hair floated over one side of his face and down his neck; his rounded belly strained at his stuck-on jeans. And chains that defied description cascaded down his front, one with a large Om on it, another sparkling with a diamante-laden cross, a third – perhaps the only one that was real gold – with a rudraksh. Just as I was about to lower my window and ask how airport security reacted to his collection, the lights turned green and we cruised on.
I know very few men who wear jewellery. Shah Rukh Khan did in a couple of his movies, Salman Khan wears hoops in his ears and bracelets around his wrist and almost every young male soap star has a tiny stud glinting on at least one earlobe. My father, in contrast, would really prefer not to wear even a watch, and disdains all forms of jewellery, be it a chain or a bracelet or a ring, all of which my mother always wanted him to have, if not actually hold.
But a whole industry has sprung up focussing on the concept of jewellery for men. Think about it, and what can they use? Especially on an everyday basis? Cufflinks? Today most shirts are buttoned rather than open cuffed. Tie pins? Most executives of the tie kind put on the stranglehold accessory just before going into a formal meeting of sorts. Chains? Normally part of the average Indian male anatomy – the ones around the neck and the psyche, of course. Bracelets? Ditto. Rings? Ditto again.
How much can you do with all that? Plenty, if the jewellery designers are to be believed. What would you do with it? You tell me!
I know very few men who wear jewellery. Shah Rukh Khan did in a couple of his movies, Salman Khan wears hoops in his ears and bracelets around his wrist and almost every young male soap star has a tiny stud glinting on at least one earlobe. My father, in contrast, would really prefer not to wear even a watch, and disdains all forms of jewellery, be it a chain or a bracelet or a ring, all of which my mother always wanted him to have, if not actually hold.
But a whole industry has sprung up focussing on the concept of jewellery for men. Think about it, and what can they use? Especially on an everyday basis? Cufflinks? Today most shirts are buttoned rather than open cuffed. Tie pins? Most executives of the tie kind put on the stranglehold accessory just before going into a formal meeting of sorts. Chains? Normally part of the average Indian male anatomy – the ones around the neck and the psyche, of course. Bracelets? Ditto. Rings? Ditto again.
How much can you do with all that? Plenty, if the jewellery designers are to be believed. What would you do with it? You tell me!
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Sole ambitions
I have been a very good girl lately, especially over the past few months. My favourite shoe store had a sale and did I go? NO! The chappie who makes shoes for me called me for a special sale. Did I buy anything? NO! Well, actually, I did, but I returned them, since they did not fit right. Everyone at work has been flitting back from an expedition to a local mall for a sale to end all; was I part of the flock? NO! So I am not only low on my stock of newbies, but also am owed a pair to replace the unfitting one. Not bad, huh!
People who know me know my passion for shoes as well. They probably also know about my feelings for cats, chocolate and much else, including life, travel, food and family, though perhaps not about my top secret recipe for banana bread and my liking for all things small, soft, wiggly and cuddly – I HATE soft toys, though, let me warn you! I may have inherited many of these preferences from parents and an odd friend or two (‘odd’ being the operative word here), but some have developed on their own, emerging from the primordial swamp of my own imagination and creative ferment, as it were.
One of these, nurtured by my mother’s style statement, is footwear. She had pretty slippers to match all her outfits and taught me how to be as coordinated and put-together. But perhaps she never bargained for my need to wear spike heels of the most delectably perilous kind, the sort that you cannot imagine running in but which work fine on your feet and your ego when you walk into a party or an office and everyone stares downwards.
Making that statement has never been important, but feeling that incredible power that comes with high heels always has. You can step on someone’s toes with a spike heel backed with a couple of tons of pressure on a tiny surface (yes, that is the case even though you may not weigh more than 50-something kilos, I am told). You can squash someone’s ego with the prettiest, funkiest, sexiest stilettos created by man guided by women. And you can flaunt a well-turned ankle, a honed calf, a set of perfectly shaped knees and a flirty skirt when they are all being stretched just so by the slant of a sharp angle from heel to toe.
Sigh.
My last shoe acquisition was a pair of deep red spikes that was, in essence, a tangle of leather thongs woven over a slim black heel. I have not worn them yet, but long to. They need to wait in line, since before them comes a totally ridiculous pair of gold, black and diamante cone heels, ruched purple satin stilettos and a completely unreasonable pair with gold and sparkles balanced on a high metal toothpick. Those, in turn, hang around in the wings behind a pair of cream ankle-strappers, pink and blue thongs and pale red suede slip-ins that begged to be taken home with me. There must be more, some even flatter-heeled, but I need to explore a bulging shoe cupboard to find out. Trouble is, I am not sure that once I open it, I will be able to ram it shut again.
People who know me know my passion for shoes as well. They probably also know about my feelings for cats, chocolate and much else, including life, travel, food and family, though perhaps not about my top secret recipe for banana bread and my liking for all things small, soft, wiggly and cuddly – I HATE soft toys, though, let me warn you! I may have inherited many of these preferences from parents and an odd friend or two (‘odd’ being the operative word here), but some have developed on their own, emerging from the primordial swamp of my own imagination and creative ferment, as it were.
One of these, nurtured by my mother’s style statement, is footwear. She had pretty slippers to match all her outfits and taught me how to be as coordinated and put-together. But perhaps she never bargained for my need to wear spike heels of the most delectably perilous kind, the sort that you cannot imagine running in but which work fine on your feet and your ego when you walk into a party or an office and everyone stares downwards.
Making that statement has never been important, but feeling that incredible power that comes with high heels always has. You can step on someone’s toes with a spike heel backed with a couple of tons of pressure on a tiny surface (yes, that is the case even though you may not weigh more than 50-something kilos, I am told). You can squash someone’s ego with the prettiest, funkiest, sexiest stilettos created by man guided by women. And you can flaunt a well-turned ankle, a honed calf, a set of perfectly shaped knees and a flirty skirt when they are all being stretched just so by the slant of a sharp angle from heel to toe.
Sigh.
My last shoe acquisition was a pair of deep red spikes that was, in essence, a tangle of leather thongs woven over a slim black heel. I have not worn them yet, but long to. They need to wait in line, since before them comes a totally ridiculous pair of gold, black and diamante cone heels, ruched purple satin stilettos and a completely unreasonable pair with gold and sparkles balanced on a high metal toothpick. Those, in turn, hang around in the wings behind a pair of cream ankle-strappers, pink and blue thongs and pale red suede slip-ins that begged to be taken home with me. There must be more, some even flatter-heeled, but I need to explore a bulging shoe cupboard to find out. Trouble is, I am not sure that once I open it, I will be able to ram it shut again.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Ganpati bappa morya!
It is the day we say goodbye. No, this is not another dreary, weepy, pathetically sad bit of writing, the way the last one was, perhaps, but a happy event that Mumbai celebrates with much sound and fury signifying a great deal to us locals. It is the day that Lord Ganesha, in his toweringly large sarvajanik avatar, leaves the community, the city and this worldly realm, dipping into the waters until his return next year. He has been worshipped for ten days in a public forum, with lights, music, prayers and offerings that could, actually speaking, finance an entire country, even a mid-sized one. And today, ten days after he arrived, he goes back to where he came from, his pot-belly awesomely full and his devotees wonderfully content.
Ganesha is this country’s favourite god. He is a child, in most of his depictions, one who is full of whimsical humour and good food, one who adores his parents – especially his mother – and always has mindspace for a good laugh. He gives and keeps giving, he protects, he blesses, he confers peace and goodwill. And he is lovable with his shape and size, akin to the fat-tummied laughing Buddha whom you pat for good luck. And though the generally accepted style is to use a capital first letter for all that pertaining to divinity, Ganesha is more plebeian and human in a certain very special way, being part of the masses who bow down to him in awe, in respect, in pleading.
In Mumbai, as in Maharashtra on the whole, the Ganpati festival is, in some ways, more important than any other such occasion. People save money, office vacation time and bonhomie for the ten days, gathering goodwill as they chant the name of the elephant-headed deity, sometimes through songs set to popular Bollywood tunes, sometimes through ancient verses recited sonorously over a sound system, sometimes through silent movements of the lips during a commute from one crowded venue to another. And before any action that needs a nod from above, be it a job interview or a college exam or a wedding, there will be a prayer to Ganesha, asking for his benevolence to be handed over in spades.
But with all this goodwill and good thought, when the Lord leaves, there is no sadness. There is dancing and singing, huge processions and loud music, laughter and a sure knowledge that he will soon be back, in about 12 months or so. After all, he is seen off and invited back, with a loud and fervent send-off of “Ganpati bappa morye, pudchya varshi laukarya!” (Farewell Ganpati, come back next year!)
Ganesha is this country’s favourite god. He is a child, in most of his depictions, one who is full of whimsical humour and good food, one who adores his parents – especially his mother – and always has mindspace for a good laugh. He gives and keeps giving, he protects, he blesses, he confers peace and goodwill. And he is lovable with his shape and size, akin to the fat-tummied laughing Buddha whom you pat for good luck. And though the generally accepted style is to use a capital first letter for all that pertaining to divinity, Ganesha is more plebeian and human in a certain very special way, being part of the masses who bow down to him in awe, in respect, in pleading.
In Mumbai, as in Maharashtra on the whole, the Ganpati festival is, in some ways, more important than any other such occasion. People save money, office vacation time and bonhomie for the ten days, gathering goodwill as they chant the name of the elephant-headed deity, sometimes through songs set to popular Bollywood tunes, sometimes through ancient verses recited sonorously over a sound system, sometimes through silent movements of the lips during a commute from one crowded venue to another. And before any action that needs a nod from above, be it a job interview or a college exam or a wedding, there will be a prayer to Ganesha, asking for his benevolence to be handed over in spades.
But with all this goodwill and good thought, when the Lord leaves, there is no sadness. There is dancing and singing, huge processions and loud music, laughter and a sure knowledge that he will soon be back, in about 12 months or so. After all, he is seen off and invited back, with a loud and fervent send-off of “Ganpati bappa morye, pudchya varshi laukarya!” (Farewell Ganpati, come back next year!)
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
When it’s over…it ain’t
I was away at the funerary rituals of my aunt last week and behaved very badly. With a brave face and steel in my mind, I stood close to where the sacrificial fire would be lit, all set to watch something I had not been able to look at when my own mother died in December last year. And I was past that immediacy of trauma, I told myself, and waited for the bricks to be arranged, the sticks to be laid, the dried cowdung cakes to be set just so, the chanting to begin. Then I fled, into the garden, clinging to my own composure by talking to a friend at work, two-plus hours drive away from where we were.
Later, when I was asked to play a miniscule role as a daughter of the family, I did, stone faced and rigid, staunchly holding on to whatever vestige of poise I had left of the vast store my mother had trained me to keep within myself. My father, as bereaved, if not more so, stood by me – as I did by him – the whole while, holding me as I finally cracked and wept against his shoulder out there among the shrubbery. It was a time we should not have had to relive…but we did, for my uncle’s sake, for the family, for us, in some strange way.
Death is not something you ever ‘get over’. The trauma of it all lingers, from the shock of that enormous loss, the pain of all the memories, the guilt of the overwhelming imbalance of the ‘not done’ as against the ‘done’. The scenes that you live through from the moment the person you lose has left you – or is on the way to doing so - until the time you come home again and bathe after everyone who has come to condole has gone get locked into a little box in the recesses of your mind and peep out at you just when you think you can look at them again without flinching. And, though the sharpness of the pain goes away, at least a little, it settles into a deep, incurable ache that you can never find a painkiller for.
Later, when I was asked to play a miniscule role as a daughter of the family, I did, stone faced and rigid, staunchly holding on to whatever vestige of poise I had left of the vast store my mother had trained me to keep within myself. My father, as bereaved, if not more so, stood by me – as I did by him – the whole while, holding me as I finally cracked and wept against his shoulder out there among the shrubbery. It was a time we should not have had to relive…but we did, for my uncle’s sake, for the family, for us, in some strange way.
Death is not something you ever ‘get over’. The trauma of it all lingers, from the shock of that enormous loss, the pain of all the memories, the guilt of the overwhelming imbalance of the ‘not done’ as against the ‘done’. The scenes that you live through from the moment the person you lose has left you – or is on the way to doing so - until the time you come home again and bathe after everyone who has come to condole has gone get locked into a little box in the recesses of your mind and peep out at you just when you think you can look at them again without flinching. And, though the sharpness of the pain goes away, at least a little, it settles into a deep, incurable ache that you can never find a painkiller for.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Animals in the news
Many years ago I wondered what it would be like owning a pet – not a human one. And I found out, when I had my first cat, and now my second. But, apart from a certain inherent empathy with felines that most women are said to have and I seem to have accumulated in spades, a series on cats on BBC television kept me entertained way past my then-bedtime for days on end, even though the final episode showing weird species rather put me off. All in all, it decided me: a cat was to be had. More, it showed me the charms of animals filmed, from tigers to snakes, though underwater shots sort of got me rather bilious and made me want to change to the most mundane of silly soap serials. Which, at the time, were not on my must-watch list.
From then on, it was a short step to Animal Planet, once it arrived in India. At first, it was all about a veterinary hospital in the UK and how animals were saved and lost and everyone cried either which way. Then it moved on to funny things that animals do, which suddenly vanished off its evening slot to reappear goodness knows when. Then it was two docu-films, that have been played so often that even our kitten at home has stopped looking up when the big cats on screen make familiar sounds.
The first is a film on two tiger cubs that are sent to a rescue centre in midwest America and grow up, on camera the whole time, to become fearsomely large, albeit still cuddle striped beasts. As they stagger around the house – sort of like our own little tiger cub – they are furry, funny, fabulous little animals that make you smile and worry. As they grow, and start eating vast amounts of very bloody meat, their baby-faced appeal reduces somewhat, though they continue to be fabulously desirable and magnificently beautiful. And, once grown, they are to be admired, watched, but not rough-housed with.
The other is a story of tigers being tended at a monastery in the Far East. Brought up in the company of monks and a few lay brothers, the big cats learn how to coexist with man, even as they are taught to get along with each other peaceably. It is indeed amazing to watch the enormous and glossy, healthy, well fed animals play like kittens with the head of the monastery and his acolytes, rolling in the sand, playing hide and seek among the rocks and splashing in the water like playful domestic pets rather than the fierce carnivores they actually are.
Many of the wildlife shows on television, be they Animal Planet, Discovery or National Geographic branded products, are wonderfully filmed and immensely interesting. And with each comes a different personality, the host or one of them, at least. ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve Irwin was probably, for me, the most intrepid, but the most irritating, annoying the big reptiles and being so high-energy and excited that it left no room for the wonder and awe that the animal kingdom tells tales of. And now the poor man is dead, killed by one of the animals he was so passionate about. He went as he lived, in the company of animals. He will be missed, even if I, for one, rarely watched him.
From then on, it was a short step to Animal Planet, once it arrived in India. At first, it was all about a veterinary hospital in the UK and how animals were saved and lost and everyone cried either which way. Then it moved on to funny things that animals do, which suddenly vanished off its evening slot to reappear goodness knows when. Then it was two docu-films, that have been played so often that even our kitten at home has stopped looking up when the big cats on screen make familiar sounds.
The first is a film on two tiger cubs that are sent to a rescue centre in midwest America and grow up, on camera the whole time, to become fearsomely large, albeit still cuddle striped beasts. As they stagger around the house – sort of like our own little tiger cub – they are furry, funny, fabulous little animals that make you smile and worry. As they grow, and start eating vast amounts of very bloody meat, their baby-faced appeal reduces somewhat, though they continue to be fabulously desirable and magnificently beautiful. And, once grown, they are to be admired, watched, but not rough-housed with.
The other is a story of tigers being tended at a monastery in the Far East. Brought up in the company of monks and a few lay brothers, the big cats learn how to coexist with man, even as they are taught to get along with each other peaceably. It is indeed amazing to watch the enormous and glossy, healthy, well fed animals play like kittens with the head of the monastery and his acolytes, rolling in the sand, playing hide and seek among the rocks and splashing in the water like playful domestic pets rather than the fierce carnivores they actually are.
Many of the wildlife shows on television, be they Animal Planet, Discovery or National Geographic branded products, are wonderfully filmed and immensely interesting. And with each comes a different personality, the host or one of them, at least. ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve Irwin was probably, for me, the most intrepid, but the most irritating, annoying the big reptiles and being so high-energy and excited that it left no room for the wonder and awe that the animal kingdom tells tales of. And now the poor man is dead, killed by one of the animals he was so passionate about. He went as he lived, in the company of animals. He will be missed, even if I, for one, rarely watched him.
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