About a week ago I was driving myself home when my car was hit by a speeding taxi as I was waiting to do a U-turn. Though the damage was not too extensive to either car or myself – even though both of us were rattled and somewhat bruised and battered around the edges – the incident left me with a feeling of shock and, in some strange way, a new consciousness of my own mortality. In the few seconds that it took for the impact to be felt by all senses, from touch and sound to sight and, finally, outrage and anger, I felt somehow dissociated, as if it was happening to someone else, and that I was just watching from somewhere far above myself and the scene in general. It was only a couple of days later, when the aches and pains and consequences started making themselves felt rather painfully, that I realised just how much could have happened – to me, to the car and to whoever was involved with me.
But no one will let me say anything about it. My friends brush it off, as if it were nothing – which, honestly, is true – though a couple of them are obviously concerned about my well-being. Father seemed more concerned with the damage to the front bumper and number plate than to his only chicklet, who was not just shaken, but stirred into feeling fragile and needy. And my driver was torn between trying to figure out how to make his chariot look better and how far he could go in teasing me about being a typical woman driver who should get out from behind the wheel and stop being a hazard to myself and to the public at large.
For some strange reason, I – and so many others who have been in fairly minor scrapes like this one – need to know the answer to that eternal question: “What if I had died?” It may be macabre, ghoulish or any one of those wonderfully nasty words, but it is something that, if answered, will settle a lot of unwanted and unneeded mental discombobulation. Maybe it is a matter of ego, the assurance that I am important to those who are important to me. I do know what people will say. Father will shrug and ask what he could do apart from just accept it. One close buddy will say “Shut up, idiot!”, while another will tell me “I really don’t want to talk about it.” And a third will insist that he will be upset but that he will have nothing to be upset about, since nothing will happen to me. And the question remains: What if…?
Why is it that people need to know how others will feel if they died unexpectedly? All my friends – and a rather bloodthirsty lot they seem to be – have asked me this at one stage or another in our relationship, and I am always firm about it; I will indeed miss them and be most upset if they left me, but since this is a theoretical discussion, we do not need to go too far with it, right? Am I being squeamish or do I believe by avoiding the issue I will make sure that it does not happen? And what about me? Am I so sure that I may go through an occasional bump or two, but that nothing serious will happen to me? That I have a healthy set of responsibilities to handle and cannot possibly leave them to anyone else, so need to stick around? Or is it that my stars and my palm have said that I will be on this earth in my mortal form for some years yet, so the question is not even relevant?
Whatever the case, I am healing from this particular bump fairly quickly. So is the car. But I still need to know…
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Something to think about
I went off to the Nehru Centre yesterday to interview Tina Ambani. It was not a social report, nor a Page 3 kind of gossip piece, but a serious interview about art and the new Harmony show, the art promotional event that she has been hosting every year for 12 years now. When I got to the gallery, just about ten minutes away by car from work, there was a sense of controlled chaos, people bustling busily about with framed canvases and hooks, papers and rolls of sticky tape. And in the middle of the mess, unruffled and cool, was a lady in white, orchestrating the happenings around her with a gentle wave of a diamond-studded hand.
It was Tina Ambani. She posed for a camera, not pleased with its interruption, but knowing that it was part of the hype that she had so efficiently channelled to make her show known and taken seriously. Dressed in white, fabulous gems glittering, she had the air of knowing exactly what she was, who she was and what she was doing. Speaking to her added to that impression – I had seen her before, spoken to her before at a more social gathering, but had never really listened to what she had to say. And that was a whole lot of sense, stuff that showed that under the former-movie-star, socialite wife, one-time playgirl image was a woman of some substance, one who had made a passion into something that was constructive and commendable.
There are so many women like her just in Mumbai today. Some of them may be seen by the general public as flibbertigibbets, butterflies and dilettantes who flit in and out of various projects and causes because they have the right social profile at that moment in time and are the perfect image to create for then and there. But there are others who are genuinely involved in what they are doing, really truly concerned with the cause that they have chosen to promote and the way they go about doing that. Many of these women are wealthy, most attached to rich men – fathers or husbands – but a few have got where they are by themselves, on their own steam, with their own hard work and determination. Those, perhaps, are the women to respect and look up to. The women who are, as one magazine used to mandate, women of substance.
It was Tina Ambani. She posed for a camera, not pleased with its interruption, but knowing that it was part of the hype that she had so efficiently channelled to make her show known and taken seriously. Dressed in white, fabulous gems glittering, she had the air of knowing exactly what she was, who she was and what she was doing. Speaking to her added to that impression – I had seen her before, spoken to her before at a more social gathering, but had never really listened to what she had to say. And that was a whole lot of sense, stuff that showed that under the former-movie-star, socialite wife, one-time playgirl image was a woman of some substance, one who had made a passion into something that was constructive and commendable.
There are so many women like her just in Mumbai today. Some of them may be seen by the general public as flibbertigibbets, butterflies and dilettantes who flit in and out of various projects and causes because they have the right social profile at that moment in time and are the perfect image to create for then and there. But there are others who are genuinely involved in what they are doing, really truly concerned with the cause that they have chosen to promote and the way they go about doing that. Many of these women are wealthy, most attached to rich men – fathers or husbands – but a few have got where they are by themselves, on their own steam, with their own hard work and determination. Those, perhaps, are the women to respect and look up to. The women who are, as one magazine used to mandate, women of substance.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Breaking the past
Eating is one of the pleasures of life, even though cooking rates higher on the satisfaction scale. And over the past week, I did too much of the ‘eating-out’ thing or, at least, the eating-food-not-from-my-own-kitchen thing. Which made my stomach finally curl up and beg to be spared further torture. When I stopped my usual work-week frenzy to listen to what it – and Father, friends and weighing scale – had to say, I agreed wholeheartedly that the way I ate was not very good for me and, consequently, mine, since it tended to keep me rushing from dining table to loo at the most awkward moments and caused me to erupt with the most unladylike sounds just when I was trying to be well-bred and polite. As a result, I am resolved to stay far away from restaurants, fast food delivery outlets and friends who speak with fork in hand and persuasive tongue. For now, my lunch will be brought in by me and eaten at the right time with the right state of mind as a suitable accompaniment.
It is not that I do not enjoy the biryani, the grilled sandwiches, the kathi rolls, the kulfi, the khir-kodom and the French fries that have been an over-frequent presence on my desk through the afternoon. It is not that I have consumed vast quantities of any of these, or mixed them into a dreadful collation of calories that decimated whatever shape I take pride in owning. It is not even that any of it – or all of it, really – has affected my internal workings for more than a few hours, if it did at all. It is just that my nutritional conscience has been making its assorted noises and telling me that I have been a very bad girl and need to shape up – ha, ha, I didn’t need to be told that one – or ship out to a health farm or a military-style gym. And to detox my insides, asap.
So from going astray with a self-indulgent lifestyle of nibbling arbitrarily at bits and bobs that floated past and being easily influenced by calorie-unconscious friends who smile enchantingly and order food that is spelled s-i-in, I am now back to my rather austere diet of fruit and yoghurt, with an occasional dash of leftovers from home thrown in. My ankles are slowly deflating from their salt-swollen state, my mind is clearer since the time it was delightfully fogged by heavy sugar-dosage desserts and I am able to walk past the coffee machine every afternoon without needing to inhale a cupful of the swill it dispenses in order to keep awake long enough to write a semi-intelligent edit on the shortage of fish in coastal waters, the gender divide or why to pay attention to not paying attention.
But not everyone is like me. My friend, the one with forked tongue – well, sort of, since she wields a fork with alacrity and talks me into more food than I need to handle – finds me odd, since she believes that food should be eaten heartily and enjoyed thoroughly. Father occasionally fires a lecture in my direction, the one that speaks of nutrition and work levels and evenings that are all about being grouchy and over-tired. And my colleagues look at the ‘picnic’ set out on my desk and make disparaging remarks about apples, yoghurt and small containers of high-fibre foodstuffs. All this, as I happily chew my healthy way through my dainty lunch, relish every bite and then rattle through my work on my way out to a life that is all about more than just a job.
I like what I eat. And I like that I can eat it, without getting bored or light-headed. So for all those who eat too much Chinese food or sandwiches and chips or oil-laden Mughlai too often during the week, I am a happy camper with a happy tummy. And at the end of that occasional splurge meal, at least my jeans don’t need to be unbuttoned!
It is not that I do not enjoy the biryani, the grilled sandwiches, the kathi rolls, the kulfi, the khir-kodom and the French fries that have been an over-frequent presence on my desk through the afternoon. It is not that I have consumed vast quantities of any of these, or mixed them into a dreadful collation of calories that decimated whatever shape I take pride in owning. It is not even that any of it – or all of it, really – has affected my internal workings for more than a few hours, if it did at all. It is just that my nutritional conscience has been making its assorted noises and telling me that I have been a very bad girl and need to shape up – ha, ha, I didn’t need to be told that one – or ship out to a health farm or a military-style gym. And to detox my insides, asap.
So from going astray with a self-indulgent lifestyle of nibbling arbitrarily at bits and bobs that floated past and being easily influenced by calorie-unconscious friends who smile enchantingly and order food that is spelled s-i-in, I am now back to my rather austere diet of fruit and yoghurt, with an occasional dash of leftovers from home thrown in. My ankles are slowly deflating from their salt-swollen state, my mind is clearer since the time it was delightfully fogged by heavy sugar-dosage desserts and I am able to walk past the coffee machine every afternoon without needing to inhale a cupful of the swill it dispenses in order to keep awake long enough to write a semi-intelligent edit on the shortage of fish in coastal waters, the gender divide or why to pay attention to not paying attention.
But not everyone is like me. My friend, the one with forked tongue – well, sort of, since she wields a fork with alacrity and talks me into more food than I need to handle – finds me odd, since she believes that food should be eaten heartily and enjoyed thoroughly. Father occasionally fires a lecture in my direction, the one that speaks of nutrition and work levels and evenings that are all about being grouchy and over-tired. And my colleagues look at the ‘picnic’ set out on my desk and make disparaging remarks about apples, yoghurt and small containers of high-fibre foodstuffs. All this, as I happily chew my healthy way through my dainty lunch, relish every bite and then rattle through my work on my way out to a life that is all about more than just a job.
I like what I eat. And I like that I can eat it, without getting bored or light-headed. So for all those who eat too much Chinese food or sandwiches and chips or oil-laden Mughlai too often during the week, I am a happy camper with a happy tummy. And at the end of that occasional splurge meal, at least my jeans don’t need to be unbuttoned!
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Taking it to heart
A letter came in to our paper that complained bitterly about a restaurant review that one of our food critics wrote. It was long and impassioned, the writer obviously very hurt and insulted about what the critic said about his food. While there were a few small holes in the review – after all, how much can you say in the little column space that a newspaper will give you these days – it was, for the most part, fair. But the style of writing was, like the critic – who happens to be a fun and funny new friend that I treasure – wry, tongue-in-cheek and very bright and clever. And it did say some nice things, albeit in a somewhat backhanded and oblique manner. Which was all perhaps a little too much for the restaurant owner to digest.
Writing food reviews is never easy. Ideally, the critic should visit the eatery at least three times, at different periods of rush, to find out what the service, décor, food and patrons are truly like, in moments of stress or moments of comfort. Then there is the menu itself, which could go into reams of typeface, fancy or readable, that must be decoded so that you can see the relationship, often obscure, between the listing and what actually appears on the plate in front of you. And then there are the externals that you need to look at – whether the place is in a salubrious neighbourhood, whether it is accessible, whether there is parking, whether environs are clean, whether the customers are…Of course, the most diligent food critics visit the kitchens, check out the produce and may even take a peek under the fingernails of the prep staff, but that could be paranoia and the effects of knowing too much that no guest would really want to know.
In a perfect world, no restaurant owner or staff will know who the critic is. While this does not mean wigs, hats and fake moustaches, it does mean a certain discretion in behaviour, not taking frantic notes during each course or nibbling small mouthfuls of each dish and leaving the rest for the leftover bin. All of which makes the multiple visits mandatory, so that the waitstaff does not get suspicious and the writer has a fair chance of being unbiased and being able to sample more from the menu than would be feasible in a single visit. But where, oh where in the modern journalistic world, is something like that possible? Who has the time, the leisure or, indeed, the budget to do so? Of course, going with other people makes the tasting more extensive, but it could be a good day or even a really bad one, making the review as good or bad from both points of view: the restaurant’s and the critic’s.
Over the past few weeks I have been watching a lot of food shows on television, from the nightmarishly tacky Hell’s Kitchen to the more aesthetic Made to Order to the extraordinarily interesting Chic Eats, and learned that while running a restaurant is no simple task, there is a way to make it fun for everyone concerned, from chef to client. Almost every upmarket eatery worth its spices has a tasting menu, while the more plebeian ones do not care too much for critics or what they have to say. Many of these reviews are genuinely unbiased, thoughtful and informed, written by invitation when the place opens and – which will admittedly come as a bit of a surprise for restaurant owners in this city, considering the way they believe that they are the gods who have produced ambrosia that is universally desired and relished – the feedback is taken seriously and changes made to the food on offer before the public gets a taste of it. Whatever comments are made, are considered, good, bad and unwanted, and all that can be done to be as universally appealing, is.
But that is something our letter writer perhaps does not understand, his cited vast experience in the business notwithstanding.
Writing food reviews is never easy. Ideally, the critic should visit the eatery at least three times, at different periods of rush, to find out what the service, décor, food and patrons are truly like, in moments of stress or moments of comfort. Then there is the menu itself, which could go into reams of typeface, fancy or readable, that must be decoded so that you can see the relationship, often obscure, between the listing and what actually appears on the plate in front of you. And then there are the externals that you need to look at – whether the place is in a salubrious neighbourhood, whether it is accessible, whether there is parking, whether environs are clean, whether the customers are…Of course, the most diligent food critics visit the kitchens, check out the produce and may even take a peek under the fingernails of the prep staff, but that could be paranoia and the effects of knowing too much that no guest would really want to know.
In a perfect world, no restaurant owner or staff will know who the critic is. While this does not mean wigs, hats and fake moustaches, it does mean a certain discretion in behaviour, not taking frantic notes during each course or nibbling small mouthfuls of each dish and leaving the rest for the leftover bin. All of which makes the multiple visits mandatory, so that the waitstaff does not get suspicious and the writer has a fair chance of being unbiased and being able to sample more from the menu than would be feasible in a single visit. But where, oh where in the modern journalistic world, is something like that possible? Who has the time, the leisure or, indeed, the budget to do so? Of course, going with other people makes the tasting more extensive, but it could be a good day or even a really bad one, making the review as good or bad from both points of view: the restaurant’s and the critic’s.
Over the past few weeks I have been watching a lot of food shows on television, from the nightmarishly tacky Hell’s Kitchen to the more aesthetic Made to Order to the extraordinarily interesting Chic Eats, and learned that while running a restaurant is no simple task, there is a way to make it fun for everyone concerned, from chef to client. Almost every upmarket eatery worth its spices has a tasting menu, while the more plebeian ones do not care too much for critics or what they have to say. Many of these reviews are genuinely unbiased, thoughtful and informed, written by invitation when the place opens and – which will admittedly come as a bit of a surprise for restaurant owners in this city, considering the way they believe that they are the gods who have produced ambrosia that is universally desired and relished – the feedback is taken seriously and changes made to the food on offer before the public gets a taste of it. Whatever comments are made, are considered, good, bad and unwanted, and all that can be done to be as universally appealing, is.
But that is something our letter writer perhaps does not understand, his cited vast experience in the business notwithstanding.
Monday, March 26, 2007
That just ain’t cricket
When I drove home last Friday, the traffic was unprecedentedly heavy. There were cars packed with earnestly talking passengers, buses were crowded and you could see commuters sardined into trains as they passed overhead on the various bridges we went under. And my driver was cheerful albeit cautious, citing statistics and caveats about whether the Indian team would win the match at the World Cup in the West Indies. People I knew planned to sit up all night to watch television, some hosted parties, others cut talking to their loved ones short, a few cancelled trips and took leave from work. Everyone was excited, agog, awaiting…
But Saturday morning was a different scenario. I woke up to scan the headlines in the four city papers we get and found that the results had not yet been reported. I will find out when the driver comes in, I thought, but then Father checked the Internet and told me that India had lost, rather ignominiously and humiliatingly. Almost blasphemously, I was glad. Along with various friends who understood and agreed with my point of view, I wanted our team to be booted out of the tournament, to take time off to figure out just what they were doing in the exalted space they occupied in the psyche of the general Indian populace and get down to earning it once more.
I am not a cricket fan, neither do I even pretend to like, understand or be intelligent about the game. But I am aware and informed enough about its various aspects, the players’ names and profiles and, most of all, about the basics of human nature. I have nothing at all against the cricket players we have in this country and know how talented some of them are. However, I have also seen them growing too fast, too suddenly, from mere minnows (a favourite word this World Cup) to arrogant, high-handed, overblown and puffed up men too aware of their importance and all too unaware of its transience.
Which is what almost everyone is like. It takes a rare personality to deal with the fallout of fame, a very unusually strong man or woman who will stay the same, no matter what changes life and its little conveniences. There are all the perks that work to turn the head, the psyche and the character around to something not so nice or so human – the sycophants, the gossip media, the groupies, the money, the adulation, the headlines, the endorsements, the fans and much more. And a perfectly good personality is ruined.
Does it happen to everyone? Obviously not. Those who begin with a certain degree of privilege don’t need the money or the name or the edge that keeps them looking for those. Those with a supportive and level-headed family can do it, too – not lose themselves in the clamour for a new identity. All it takes is a little self-respect, a little dignity, a little self-consciousness and a knowledge that only the hard work that got you there can keep you there.
Maybe that is what the Indian cricket team needs to relearn.
But Saturday morning was a different scenario. I woke up to scan the headlines in the four city papers we get and found that the results had not yet been reported. I will find out when the driver comes in, I thought, but then Father checked the Internet and told me that India had lost, rather ignominiously and humiliatingly. Almost blasphemously, I was glad. Along with various friends who understood and agreed with my point of view, I wanted our team to be booted out of the tournament, to take time off to figure out just what they were doing in the exalted space they occupied in the psyche of the general Indian populace and get down to earning it once more.
I am not a cricket fan, neither do I even pretend to like, understand or be intelligent about the game. But I am aware and informed enough about its various aspects, the players’ names and profiles and, most of all, about the basics of human nature. I have nothing at all against the cricket players we have in this country and know how talented some of them are. However, I have also seen them growing too fast, too suddenly, from mere minnows (a favourite word this World Cup) to arrogant, high-handed, overblown and puffed up men too aware of their importance and all too unaware of its transience.
Which is what almost everyone is like. It takes a rare personality to deal with the fallout of fame, a very unusually strong man or woman who will stay the same, no matter what changes life and its little conveniences. There are all the perks that work to turn the head, the psyche and the character around to something not so nice or so human – the sycophants, the gossip media, the groupies, the money, the adulation, the headlines, the endorsements, the fans and much more. And a perfectly good personality is ruined.
Does it happen to everyone? Obviously not. Those who begin with a certain degree of privilege don’t need the money or the name or the edge that keeps them looking for those. Those with a supportive and level-headed family can do it, too – not lose themselves in the clamour for a new identity. All it takes is a little self-respect, a little dignity, a little self-consciousness and a knowledge that only the hard work that got you there can keep you there.
Maybe that is what the Indian cricket team needs to relearn.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Drinking it in
My wonderfully irascible boss firmly believes that I drink so much hot water because I have some kind of medical issue that mandates it. What he refuses to accept is that I like drinking lots of water and if I drank regular chilled water from the fountain, I would be very cold inside, added to being very cold outside, especially since the place I work in firmly believes that frigid is the only temperature possible and acceptable for a bunch of hot-tempered journalists. So, for that very simple reason – that is, to defrost my iced fingertips and warm the cockles of not my heart but my neck, I swig the steaming stuff like it was, in a manner of speaking, going out of style.
But my aforementioned wonderfully irascible boss will not believe me. He says that if I was indeed that cold – we are talking thermometer measurement, not emotional degree of thaw – I could drink coffee, tea or even a little something alcoholic, which would serve to warm me up. Yes, so much that I would be steaming around the hall, unable to navigate or do any work, I generally reply acerbically. Ah, but you will do so very happily, another friend comments, with her usual manic giggle. At which point I stalk off with my button nose held high to get myself another mug of hot water and try and get back to work.
It is not that I am against drinking stuff that is all about nicely fermented grapes or whatever. It is just that for one, I do not enjoy the taste; for two, I do not enjoy the effect it has on normally fairly intelligent and coherent people; for three, I am sort of allergic to alcohol; and, for four, I far prefer to cook with it. All through college I have been designated driver, handed the car keys whenever we – my friends and I – have reached our destination for an evening out, and trusted implicitly to get them home in various states of stagger. So it became another reason not to go alcoholic, one that endures even today.
Getting drunk may not be my thing, but I have no problems if it is someone else’s. My only caveat: at least be a happy drunk. So many people I know not only get silly, which is a logical part of the game, but get morose and unhappy. As they get more pickled, they get sadder, gloomier, unhappier, sure that not only is the entire world against them, but that nobody in that world and beyond has any regard, leave alone affection, for them. The music that they listen to during this process reflects that, especially in India, when the upbeat rhythms of ear-friendly pop or Indi-pop gradually yields to the most dreary of oldies from Hindi films, where death, loss and desperation are the central notes and the evening – or the very early morning, as it inevitably will be by then – fades into deep, dire darkness of the foggy mind.
A good buddy of mine is a study in contrasts. As she osmoses the gin, she gets happier, brighter, more giggly. She also gets more obstinate and obdurate, refusing to listen to reason or sanity, liking where she is and very cheerful about it, too. Which makes it near-impossible to get annoyed or even remotely concerned, since she has an infectious laugh and comes up with the most outrageous stories peppered with that insanely catchy chortle. It has been some time since we spent time of this kind together, but it was fun while it was. And may she always be as joyous about life as she was then!
A toast to that!
But my aforementioned wonderfully irascible boss will not believe me. He says that if I was indeed that cold – we are talking thermometer measurement, not emotional degree of thaw – I could drink coffee, tea or even a little something alcoholic, which would serve to warm me up. Yes, so much that I would be steaming around the hall, unable to navigate or do any work, I generally reply acerbically. Ah, but you will do so very happily, another friend comments, with her usual manic giggle. At which point I stalk off with my button nose held high to get myself another mug of hot water and try and get back to work.
It is not that I am against drinking stuff that is all about nicely fermented grapes or whatever. It is just that for one, I do not enjoy the taste; for two, I do not enjoy the effect it has on normally fairly intelligent and coherent people; for three, I am sort of allergic to alcohol; and, for four, I far prefer to cook with it. All through college I have been designated driver, handed the car keys whenever we – my friends and I – have reached our destination for an evening out, and trusted implicitly to get them home in various states of stagger. So it became another reason not to go alcoholic, one that endures even today.
Getting drunk may not be my thing, but I have no problems if it is someone else’s. My only caveat: at least be a happy drunk. So many people I know not only get silly, which is a logical part of the game, but get morose and unhappy. As they get more pickled, they get sadder, gloomier, unhappier, sure that not only is the entire world against them, but that nobody in that world and beyond has any regard, leave alone affection, for them. The music that they listen to during this process reflects that, especially in India, when the upbeat rhythms of ear-friendly pop or Indi-pop gradually yields to the most dreary of oldies from Hindi films, where death, loss and desperation are the central notes and the evening – or the very early morning, as it inevitably will be by then – fades into deep, dire darkness of the foggy mind.
A good buddy of mine is a study in contrasts. As she osmoses the gin, she gets happier, brighter, more giggly. She also gets more obstinate and obdurate, refusing to listen to reason or sanity, liking where she is and very cheerful about it, too. Which makes it near-impossible to get annoyed or even remotely concerned, since she has an infectious laugh and comes up with the most outrageous stories peppered with that insanely catchy chortle. It has been some time since we spent time of this kind together, but it was fun while it was. And may she always be as joyous about life as she was then!
A toast to that!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
A wish for joy
Someone wished me a happy day a few hours ago, leaving me wondering why. Apart from crabbily demanding to know what I had to be happy about, I glowered blearily at them and then closed my eyes for a brief moment, hoping that the rest of the oh-so-happy world would stop grinning idiotically at me and leave me to fry in peace.
I am not a negative person, in essence. Nor am I any of the usual personality traits that could conceivably make me blue, glum or otherwise bad tempered. But sometimes I wake up that way and just need to be left be, so that I can indulge my feeling of being mean, nasty, grouchy, squabbly, annoyedly blah.
Why would I be that way? On a day that was all about sunshine and a cool breeze, chocolate truffles and mint jujubes, warm hugs and cool clothes? Simple. Because I want to be that way. It makes me happy. It gives me joy. It leaves me fabulously, self-indulgently, bathetically miserable, enough to find an astonishing amount of happiness in small things like a cuddle from Small Cat, a laugh from Father or a toothless smile from a wrinkled old lady hobbling across my path as I drove in to work.
And then I had to stop and think. What did I have to be miserable about, really? Actually, honestly, frankly, nothing. I have a loving and affectionate family of one and a half, lots of loving and affectionate friends, a loving and affectionate boss, albeit an irascible one, a job that seems to be affectionate enough to me and a life most would envy – with the perfect blend of warm and fuzzy and sparkly and inspiring. And, as I walked into the vast hall where I manage that aforementioned job, I was greeted with a brilliantly blinding smile from one of the office boys making a brief stop in his routine of chores to help me with the sliding pile of books that I was toting. I smiled back, something in me lifted out of the proverbial doldrums.
It is small things like this that make my day what it is – sunny and cheerful. So why did I need to be grouchy, crabby and so irritable? The thought surfaced again during our edit meeting, when the aforementioned (again) irascible boss chortled into his well salted beard at his own talent with linguistic acrobatics and my colleagues cracked the silliest jokes about almost nothing. And as I exchanged mild doses of gossip with a friend and sipped on my zillionth mug of steaming hot water, the last of the bad-temperedness vanished. I was myself again. Undaunted, unruffled, unfazed.
Maybe that wish to be happy did the trick!
I am not a negative person, in essence. Nor am I any of the usual personality traits that could conceivably make me blue, glum or otherwise bad tempered. But sometimes I wake up that way and just need to be left be, so that I can indulge my feeling of being mean, nasty, grouchy, squabbly, annoyedly blah.
Why would I be that way? On a day that was all about sunshine and a cool breeze, chocolate truffles and mint jujubes, warm hugs and cool clothes? Simple. Because I want to be that way. It makes me happy. It gives me joy. It leaves me fabulously, self-indulgently, bathetically miserable, enough to find an astonishing amount of happiness in small things like a cuddle from Small Cat, a laugh from Father or a toothless smile from a wrinkled old lady hobbling across my path as I drove in to work.
And then I had to stop and think. What did I have to be miserable about, really? Actually, honestly, frankly, nothing. I have a loving and affectionate family of one and a half, lots of loving and affectionate friends, a loving and affectionate boss, albeit an irascible one, a job that seems to be affectionate enough to me and a life most would envy – with the perfect blend of warm and fuzzy and sparkly and inspiring. And, as I walked into the vast hall where I manage that aforementioned job, I was greeted with a brilliantly blinding smile from one of the office boys making a brief stop in his routine of chores to help me with the sliding pile of books that I was toting. I smiled back, something in me lifted out of the proverbial doldrums.
It is small things like this that make my day what it is – sunny and cheerful. So why did I need to be grouchy, crabby and so irritable? The thought surfaced again during our edit meeting, when the aforementioned (again) irascible boss chortled into his well salted beard at his own talent with linguistic acrobatics and my colleagues cracked the silliest jokes about almost nothing. And as I exchanged mild doses of gossip with a friend and sipped on my zillionth mug of steaming hot water, the last of the bad-temperedness vanished. I was myself again. Undaunted, unruffled, unfazed.
Maybe that wish to be happy did the trick!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Paying attention
There is a story in almost every paper in Mumbai today about how not paying attention is being paid attention to. It’s all about mind-wandering. And it is, the researchers studying it insist, too common to be ignored any longer. It is more than just forgetfulness and not due to a problem like ageing or senility, but just the mind taking off to parts known and unknown, exploring side streets and little gallis on the way, finally perhaps coming back to the road that was originally to be travelled.
My mind wanders all the time. It begins with a multitasking mentality, one that comfortably has four windows open on the computer, each with a completely different word file to be played with – edited or written or just read. I hop between writing this blog and plugging my weary way through readers’ letters to cleaning up an astonishingly long document for a magazine project to an edit on, this time around, paying attention to not paying attention. But just because I am doing so much, all at the same time, it does not mean that my mind is not focussed on any one of them, just that my mind is wandering into and out of each one. It is not so much an attention deficit, as an attention divisive action. I am, honestly, truly, genuinely, paying attention to all of it.
Life is like that for me in every aspect. Sundays are the epitome of that phenomenon called multitasking, aka that ability that allows the mind to hop from one to the other through to a tenth matter at hand, each as important and as necessary as any. There will be four or five books in various stages of my reading them all over the house. There will be two cutting boards on the kitchen platform holding different vegetables in different stages of processing for different recipes. There will be laundry going on, even as clothes are being sorted and folded away. And even as all this happens, Small Cat will be clamouring for attention as Father goes through his shopping list and a friend calls to catch up on our lives and tell us what she is doing. So it is not surprising that in the middle of any one conversation, my mind takes off to a warm and fuzzy place where there is no need to answer, no need to make any decisions and no need at all to speak…
It is not surprising that the mind wanders, especially when doing all things routine or dreary. It is the mental equivalent of knitting or shelling peas while watching a soap opera on television. Or talking on the phone while shopping for onions. Or playing with Small Cat while dusting the bookshelf. Or dreaming wonderful dreams while reading email…
Hey, what was I saying? Sorry, I lost track. Guess I was not paying attention….
My mind wanders all the time. It begins with a multitasking mentality, one that comfortably has four windows open on the computer, each with a completely different word file to be played with – edited or written or just read. I hop between writing this blog and plugging my weary way through readers’ letters to cleaning up an astonishingly long document for a magazine project to an edit on, this time around, paying attention to not paying attention. But just because I am doing so much, all at the same time, it does not mean that my mind is not focussed on any one of them, just that my mind is wandering into and out of each one. It is not so much an attention deficit, as an attention divisive action. I am, honestly, truly, genuinely, paying attention to all of it.
Life is like that for me in every aspect. Sundays are the epitome of that phenomenon called multitasking, aka that ability that allows the mind to hop from one to the other through to a tenth matter at hand, each as important and as necessary as any. There will be four or five books in various stages of my reading them all over the house. There will be two cutting boards on the kitchen platform holding different vegetables in different stages of processing for different recipes. There will be laundry going on, even as clothes are being sorted and folded away. And even as all this happens, Small Cat will be clamouring for attention as Father goes through his shopping list and a friend calls to catch up on our lives and tell us what she is doing. So it is not surprising that in the middle of any one conversation, my mind takes off to a warm and fuzzy place where there is no need to answer, no need to make any decisions and no need at all to speak…
It is not surprising that the mind wanders, especially when doing all things routine or dreary. It is the mental equivalent of knitting or shelling peas while watching a soap opera on television. Or talking on the phone while shopping for onions. Or playing with Small Cat while dusting the bookshelf. Or dreaming wonderful dreams while reading email…
Hey, what was I saying? Sorry, I lost track. Guess I was not paying attention….
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
One for the birds
Small Cat has a love-hate relationship with birds. She will stop whatever she is doing – be it chasing a bug, ambushing Father, chirping at me about her plans for the day or sleeping sacked out on her back on the once-cream sofa cushions – to stare piercingly at the offending fowl when it lands on the awning-roof outside any of our windows, and then chatter her teeth and make keening, protesting noises. If she is perched out on the air-conditioner, protected from any kind of danger by a neat metal grill that creates a small balcony, she will stand up on her hind legs and try and grab the bird – to no avail, of course. And if you give her a feather, she will chase it and bite it and mangle it, as if it is the bird that she really wants to get her paws on and claws into, leaving most of it intact albeit barely recognisable, the rest tucked nicely into her fat little tummy.
Cats and birds go together like French fries and burgers, pizza and college dorms, Tom and Jerry, the Roadrunner and Wylie Coyote. Some years ago I had a very handsome black and white tom, who had his big green eyes fixed firmly on a family of hoopoes that lived in a tree that drooped over my garden. I never thought he would do anything about it. But slowly, day after day, he managed to slither his way up that tall trunk, grab first the babies and then the parents and devour all of them. At least, I think that’s what he did, judging from his rather smug and satisfied expression at the end of the adventure. I never saw him do the dirty deed – or deed, since the family had four members – but my parents did, and told me that he scuttled off into the park behind the house with the birds hanging limply from his mouth and then came back licking his chops and shuddering with gentle burps.
One night - or early morning, as it actually happened to be – the cat was out on his usual routine of fighting, playing and prowling. He came back, as was the habit, a while later, the bell on his collar jingling, his squeaks gradually escalating into a demanding yowl. This time, though I had woken up when the jingle filtered into my fast-asleep brain cell, his vocalisation sounded different. When I blearily opened the door, he bounded in, charging into the bedroom and on to my bigger-than-double bed, with what seemed suspiciously to be a furtive gleam in his eyes. I followed hastily, some instinct telling me that he was up to something that was no good at all. And I was right. He sat there, figuratively tying a napkin around his neck and polishing up a knife and fork, as he got set to tear into what looked to me to be a very dead pigeon. It was. The rest of the story can be known without its telling, but what I remember best is the only words I could come up with at the time: “Do you realise that it is 4 am!?”
I do not like urban birds very much, not those that I see most regularly around the apartment block where we live, at least. Mostly mynahs, parrots, pigeons and crows, I sometimes spot the occasional kingfisher, its brilliant plumage in shades of glittering blue shining jewel-toned and gorgeous in the tiny moment it flutters around the plants outside the windows. Upstairs, in the stairwell leading to the terrace, lives an owl, Father tells me, not too large, but happily settled in its snug and rain-sheltered nook. And the kite that sits on a ledge on the bank building next door preens and screeches some weekends, dropping by from wherever it normally soars for a short but spectacular visit.
For me, birds are natural, lovely, elegant creatures, in their natural habitat and familiar element. All I ask is that they stay there.
Cats and birds go together like French fries and burgers, pizza and college dorms, Tom and Jerry, the Roadrunner and Wylie Coyote. Some years ago I had a very handsome black and white tom, who had his big green eyes fixed firmly on a family of hoopoes that lived in a tree that drooped over my garden. I never thought he would do anything about it. But slowly, day after day, he managed to slither his way up that tall trunk, grab first the babies and then the parents and devour all of them. At least, I think that’s what he did, judging from his rather smug and satisfied expression at the end of the adventure. I never saw him do the dirty deed – or deed, since the family had four members – but my parents did, and told me that he scuttled off into the park behind the house with the birds hanging limply from his mouth and then came back licking his chops and shuddering with gentle burps.
One night - or early morning, as it actually happened to be – the cat was out on his usual routine of fighting, playing and prowling. He came back, as was the habit, a while later, the bell on his collar jingling, his squeaks gradually escalating into a demanding yowl. This time, though I had woken up when the jingle filtered into my fast-asleep brain cell, his vocalisation sounded different. When I blearily opened the door, he bounded in, charging into the bedroom and on to my bigger-than-double bed, with what seemed suspiciously to be a furtive gleam in his eyes. I followed hastily, some instinct telling me that he was up to something that was no good at all. And I was right. He sat there, figuratively tying a napkin around his neck and polishing up a knife and fork, as he got set to tear into what looked to me to be a very dead pigeon. It was. The rest of the story can be known without its telling, but what I remember best is the only words I could come up with at the time: “Do you realise that it is 4 am!?”
I do not like urban birds very much, not those that I see most regularly around the apartment block where we live, at least. Mostly mynahs, parrots, pigeons and crows, I sometimes spot the occasional kingfisher, its brilliant plumage in shades of glittering blue shining jewel-toned and gorgeous in the tiny moment it flutters around the plants outside the windows. Upstairs, in the stairwell leading to the terrace, lives an owl, Father tells me, not too large, but happily settled in its snug and rain-sheltered nook. And the kite that sits on a ledge on the bank building next door preens and screeches some weekends, dropping by from wherever it normally soars for a short but spectacular visit.
For me, birds are natural, lovely, elegant creatures, in their natural habitat and familiar element. All I ask is that they stay there.
Monday, March 19, 2007
An officer and a gentleman
About a year ago, I said a long distance goodbye to a man who was with my father in school. He had become my father figure when I was alone and unhappy in Delhi and stayed a dear friend as life became brighter and easier. And he gave me his family, too, mainly his wonderful – and, as is the norm with most friends of mine – and delightfully mad wife, who is still and will always be a very special part of my life.
My first memory of meeting Gurbir, as the man was called, was when I was in India on a break from college. We were headed for Ladakh, the kingdom in the Himalayas, and wanted a little extra from the trip, which we were told that the army could help us with. So, since Gurbir had been – or perhaps still was, at the time – with the Indian army, he knew someone who could give us what we wanted. We met him and his family at his club, shared a happy lunch and lots of news and advice and then went in our different directions.
Many years later, I was alone and he was willing to be my more-or-less guardian. I spent many hours in his garden, playing with his dog, chatting with his wife, exchanging jokes, puns and information with him. Gurbir became the parent I was missing, in lieu of my own, but with a detachment and distance we both liked and respected. And we had fun together, going to polo matches, plays, dance performances, book readings, exhibitions and lunches and dinners, all with lots of laughter and warmth involved.
And then, like so many people in my life over the last year, he went away. Permanently. I had left Delhi some time before, and kept in only sporadic touch. But he was still that memory associated with love and lots of sunshine. He went at a time when I couldn’t mourn, when my own grief at losing my mother a few months before was too intense for anything else to add to its flavour, so it was a quickly camouflaged albeit disconcerting new hole in my psyche that was quietly and quickly locked away for me to think about later.
And later came a short while ago, when I was in Delhi for a brief holiday. A friend and I dropped in on his wife, still in the large old house set in its spacious garden. She was as affectionate and delightfully crazy as ever, her hug hard and warm as it had always been, her eyes sadder but still with that sparkle of wicked laughter and joie de vivre that was so specially hers. That evening, I finally mourned for my friend, watching a tiny flame flicker up in a small silver lamp, reading his last letter to his wife of so long, exchanging mutters with his multi-gene dog in the garden. As I cried, his dog licked my chin; as I battled with missing him, my friend held me; as I remembered all the time we had shared, his photograph smiled gently, fondly, at me.
Gurbir was, in every way, an officer and a true gentleman. And I wish he was still on this earth, just as he will always be part of my history.
My first memory of meeting Gurbir, as the man was called, was when I was in India on a break from college. We were headed for Ladakh, the kingdom in the Himalayas, and wanted a little extra from the trip, which we were told that the army could help us with. So, since Gurbir had been – or perhaps still was, at the time – with the Indian army, he knew someone who could give us what we wanted. We met him and his family at his club, shared a happy lunch and lots of news and advice and then went in our different directions.
Many years later, I was alone and he was willing to be my more-or-less guardian. I spent many hours in his garden, playing with his dog, chatting with his wife, exchanging jokes, puns and information with him. Gurbir became the parent I was missing, in lieu of my own, but with a detachment and distance we both liked and respected. And we had fun together, going to polo matches, plays, dance performances, book readings, exhibitions and lunches and dinners, all with lots of laughter and warmth involved.
And then, like so many people in my life over the last year, he went away. Permanently. I had left Delhi some time before, and kept in only sporadic touch. But he was still that memory associated with love and lots of sunshine. He went at a time when I couldn’t mourn, when my own grief at losing my mother a few months before was too intense for anything else to add to its flavour, so it was a quickly camouflaged albeit disconcerting new hole in my psyche that was quietly and quickly locked away for me to think about later.
And later came a short while ago, when I was in Delhi for a brief holiday. A friend and I dropped in on his wife, still in the large old house set in its spacious garden. She was as affectionate and delightfully crazy as ever, her hug hard and warm as it had always been, her eyes sadder but still with that sparkle of wicked laughter and joie de vivre that was so specially hers. That evening, I finally mourned for my friend, watching a tiny flame flicker up in a small silver lamp, reading his last letter to his wife of so long, exchanging mutters with his multi-gene dog in the garden. As I cried, his dog licked my chin; as I battled with missing him, my friend held me; as I remembered all the time we had shared, his photograph smiled gently, fondly, at me.
Gurbir was, in every way, an officer and a true gentleman. And I wish he was still on this earth, just as he will always be part of my history.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Holding fort
It was a three day long art camp at an old restored fort in Rajasthan that is now a heritage hotel. I was sent there to interview a group of artists for a website for a publishing group and was rather reluctant to do so, mainly because I found it very difficult to get up so early in the morning in those days. But I managed and handed over the keys to my car to be parked later on to the security guard, even as I unloaded my overnighter and joined the crowd in the gallery. There were people matching names I had only heard spoken aloud with awe and faces that looked as sleepy as mine, but with a more august (or July, as it was then, I think) presence. And as we piled into the bus to head out of the city for the home on the hill, I could feel the start of a resigned camaraderie that had to last us three days.
But as the drive wound on and the sun climbed hotly higher, the air-conditioning got fiercer, the mood lightened. There was laughter, some embarrassed because of the vaguely blue humour that elicited it, some hearty and full-bellied, some dutifully reactive. And there was, from one far corner of the large, long bus, a harmonic chorus of snores from a painter with a strong Bengali accent and a shy smile, but very little comprehensible English. I sat baking in the sunshine as my hands slowly froze into frigid claws, smiling vaguely and sleepily at an elderly bearded artist who, all through the duration of the camp, tried very hard to make suggestions that bordered on not just the indecent, but slid into the clichéd and deadly boring very fast.
The bus finally got to its destination, the base of the low hill on which the old fort of Neemrana perched. The yellow stones merged gently into the arid landscape, dotted with glints of glass and flagged with a single scarlet banner defiantly streaming from the highest tower. Parapets interrupted the line of the building that strained up towards the sky and birds twitched in lazy arcs overhead. A convoy of flat carts trundled towards us, pulled by large and bell-draped camels, the one that I looked at staring back at me with a decidedly wicked gleam in its eye. We all clambered on, then jerked and jolted our way along the narrow winding path to the fort, getting off at the enormous wooden doors studded with metal black and shining with the touch of time and a hundred invading and homecoming hands.
Inside, the old structure had been carefully restored, its ancient interiors now a series of comfortable and modern guest rooms. Mine was on the highest terrace, tiny but exquisite, with all the mod-cons in a compact space. I had to negotiate various sets of steps, cross an open and frightening parapet and hop across a gap in the wall that, to my vertigo-sensitive mind, was as wide as the Rift Valley. And when I got there, the wind blew my hair into wild corkscrews and the sun kissed my nose, leaving behind a new freckle. Never mind Yusuf and Sunil and Paresh and Anjolie waiting to be interviewed as they worked magic on canvas. The place to be was here, right here, only here…
But as the drive wound on and the sun climbed hotly higher, the air-conditioning got fiercer, the mood lightened. There was laughter, some embarrassed because of the vaguely blue humour that elicited it, some hearty and full-bellied, some dutifully reactive. And there was, from one far corner of the large, long bus, a harmonic chorus of snores from a painter with a strong Bengali accent and a shy smile, but very little comprehensible English. I sat baking in the sunshine as my hands slowly froze into frigid claws, smiling vaguely and sleepily at an elderly bearded artist who, all through the duration of the camp, tried very hard to make suggestions that bordered on not just the indecent, but slid into the clichéd and deadly boring very fast.
The bus finally got to its destination, the base of the low hill on which the old fort of Neemrana perched. The yellow stones merged gently into the arid landscape, dotted with glints of glass and flagged with a single scarlet banner defiantly streaming from the highest tower. Parapets interrupted the line of the building that strained up towards the sky and birds twitched in lazy arcs overhead. A convoy of flat carts trundled towards us, pulled by large and bell-draped camels, the one that I looked at staring back at me with a decidedly wicked gleam in its eye. We all clambered on, then jerked and jolted our way along the narrow winding path to the fort, getting off at the enormous wooden doors studded with metal black and shining with the touch of time and a hundred invading and homecoming hands.
Inside, the old structure had been carefully restored, its ancient interiors now a series of comfortable and modern guest rooms. Mine was on the highest terrace, tiny but exquisite, with all the mod-cons in a compact space. I had to negotiate various sets of steps, cross an open and frightening parapet and hop across a gap in the wall that, to my vertigo-sensitive mind, was as wide as the Rift Valley. And when I got there, the wind blew my hair into wild corkscrews and the sun kissed my nose, leaving behind a new freckle. Never mind Yusuf and Sunil and Paresh and Anjolie waiting to be interviewed as they worked magic on canvas. The place to be was here, right here, only here…
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Slate of hand
A friend of mine has beautiful hands. Spare bones under surprisingly soft skin, with long fingers and well-kept nails, the kind of hands that would do a great job soothing a frazzled nerve or two or even making them buzz with a new life. They would probably work brilliantly stringing pearls onto silk or folding a sari into intricate pleats or even shaping chocolate frosting to form delicate peaks and valleys. Or in tickling a kitten or rolling up a roti or leafing through an old manuscript or unbuttoning a shirt or sifting through a pile of photographs. But I digress from the main subject here and have, I hope, managed to make my friend blush…
Hands are indicators of a life lived, interestingly or routinely. My hands are rough, calloused by dish-washing detergent, my fingers tipped with tiny hard spots created by a daily dose of bashing at a keyboard. They have the most intricate network of almost-visible scars and dark lines of scabs, all to the credit of Small Cat, who likes to chew on her slaves for fun, her sharp-ended paws locked into skin as she does so. There are small blue spots of bruises earned from playing with the feline and being gripped too hard, bumping into woodwork and bashing into the edge of the metal shelves at work. And they speak of stories written, meals cooked and hugs given.
The hands that I perhaps know best just by their function belong to my hairdresser. She tunnels her fingers with their brightly painted nails into my hair, digging under the strands to examine my scalp, lifting and feeling each lock to decide on what to do with it during that session. She will gently massage my head, parting the hair in sections, testing it for weight and texture and finally giving it a gentle tug before sending me on to the next stage in the routine. She knows, by just a touch, what I have been doing to my head and how to fix it.
On the rare occasions I am at the salon, I watch fascinatedly as the experts use their hands to bring beauty to others’. I have never had a professional manicure and will probably never do so, but I stare as it is done to various clients – the cleaning, the creaming, the curing…each step is like a little dance, its movements carefully choreographed to give the customer pleasure right through the process. And as they are massaged and primped and painted, I sigh with a certain envy, wanting to go home with hands as pretty and beautifully groomed, but knowing full well that it will never happen.
Once upon a life I had hands like that and used them well to express the emotions of a hundred heroines that I became on stage. Each nuance in gesture was a tale told, a facet of a woman bared to the audience. The red alta painted on my fingers and palm added fire and focus, becoming symbols of love and anger, devotion and grief, longing and living. Today, I have become a passive watcher, seeing her being lived in someone else’s hands, through someone else’s wordlessness. And then my hands get to work, typing out my feelings as I watch someone else’s unfold.
And my friend? Those hands tell a whole new story…
Hands are indicators of a life lived, interestingly or routinely. My hands are rough, calloused by dish-washing detergent, my fingers tipped with tiny hard spots created by a daily dose of bashing at a keyboard. They have the most intricate network of almost-visible scars and dark lines of scabs, all to the credit of Small Cat, who likes to chew on her slaves for fun, her sharp-ended paws locked into skin as she does so. There are small blue spots of bruises earned from playing with the feline and being gripped too hard, bumping into woodwork and bashing into the edge of the metal shelves at work. And they speak of stories written, meals cooked and hugs given.
The hands that I perhaps know best just by their function belong to my hairdresser. She tunnels her fingers with their brightly painted nails into my hair, digging under the strands to examine my scalp, lifting and feeling each lock to decide on what to do with it during that session. She will gently massage my head, parting the hair in sections, testing it for weight and texture and finally giving it a gentle tug before sending me on to the next stage in the routine. She knows, by just a touch, what I have been doing to my head and how to fix it.
On the rare occasions I am at the salon, I watch fascinatedly as the experts use their hands to bring beauty to others’. I have never had a professional manicure and will probably never do so, but I stare as it is done to various clients – the cleaning, the creaming, the curing…each step is like a little dance, its movements carefully choreographed to give the customer pleasure right through the process. And as they are massaged and primped and painted, I sigh with a certain envy, wanting to go home with hands as pretty and beautifully groomed, but knowing full well that it will never happen.
Once upon a life I had hands like that and used them well to express the emotions of a hundred heroines that I became on stage. Each nuance in gesture was a tale told, a facet of a woman bared to the audience. The red alta painted on my fingers and palm added fire and focus, becoming symbols of love and anger, devotion and grief, longing and living. Today, I have become a passive watcher, seeing her being lived in someone else’s hands, through someone else’s wordlessness. And then my hands get to work, typing out my feelings as I watch someone else’s unfold.
And my friend? Those hands tell a whole new story…
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Girl talk
I like being a woman. And I am glad to be one. When she dreamed of having a child, as almost every woman does, at least once in her life, my mother wanted a girl. My friend Bela-Chameli, fairly recently a mother, also thought more of a girl than a boy, and eventually had a daughter who now is the focus of her life. And on the few occasions I ever considered the matter, a girl child was the only choice for me.
But that is not the case with so many women who are part of the Indian population today. Recently there has been a spate of reports about new plans that the government has for dealing with the girl child, wanted or not. Special education schemes, special banking plans, special insurance packages and, best of all, special status for the baby who just happens to be born with a double dose of the X chromosome. All this, because the baby who is thus genetically gifted is deemed by fate and much of traditional India as unfortunate, undesired and, worst of all, unloved. She is often killed before she is born and as often after. Or she is thrown away.
What frightens me is that this is not a figment of some deep, dark and dire horror film script-writer’s imagination, but really truly part of today’s ethos in much of the ‘modern’, ‘civilised’, ‘educated’ world. Friends of mine shock me with the way they think in this matter, when they tell me stories of how it all works in their own families and, even more horrifyingly, in their own lives and minds. For me, to be a girl child was to be wanted, to be cherished, to be given the best, of not better, than any boy would get. For them, to have a girl child was anathema, a disgrace, an urgent need to try again and get it ‘right’.
I first heard this when a friend and colleague of mine was pregnant. She had worked with the newspaper group that I called home for as long if not longer than I had, and had taught me a great deal about coping with everything from fast food to commuting in the city we lived in. She and I would take off just after lunch for a quick walk around the block, determined to keep our waistlines trim and our minds from becoming filled with the cobwebs that infested the heritage building in which we spent most of our awake time. So when she announced that she was getting married and moving away, I was a little upset at losing a friend, though glad that she was doing what she had always seen as the personal aim of her living. As a middle daughter of three, with a younger brother to keep the family name going, she knew where her destiny had to travel to.
Then she told me that she was going to have a baby. While she insisted that it did not matter whether it was a girl or a boy, she also told me, over and over, that a male child would mean that she did not have to have another. I took that as a joke, a passing comment on the orthodoxy that we had often written about and lamented. But then it became said so often that I realised, albeit rather painfully, that it was true. It took a while for me to understand what it meant, culturally speaking, but when I did, she had already had the child and told me that she was so glad that it had been a boy, because otherwise family pressure would have been overwhelming. They would have been very disappointed in me, she said in a letter, telling me that she was relieved that she did not have to go through the process again, since she had done her duty the first time around.
That was some years ago. I have become a lot less sensitive about the subject and a lot more understanding of what my friend was all about and where she came from. But I still do – and will always – believe that a girl is the best thing to be. No matter that I am part of a culture that tends to believe otherwise.
But that is not the case with so many women who are part of the Indian population today. Recently there has been a spate of reports about new plans that the government has for dealing with the girl child, wanted or not. Special education schemes, special banking plans, special insurance packages and, best of all, special status for the baby who just happens to be born with a double dose of the X chromosome. All this, because the baby who is thus genetically gifted is deemed by fate and much of traditional India as unfortunate, undesired and, worst of all, unloved. She is often killed before she is born and as often after. Or she is thrown away.
What frightens me is that this is not a figment of some deep, dark and dire horror film script-writer’s imagination, but really truly part of today’s ethos in much of the ‘modern’, ‘civilised’, ‘educated’ world. Friends of mine shock me with the way they think in this matter, when they tell me stories of how it all works in their own families and, even more horrifyingly, in their own lives and minds. For me, to be a girl child was to be wanted, to be cherished, to be given the best, of not better, than any boy would get. For them, to have a girl child was anathema, a disgrace, an urgent need to try again and get it ‘right’.
I first heard this when a friend and colleague of mine was pregnant. She had worked with the newspaper group that I called home for as long if not longer than I had, and had taught me a great deal about coping with everything from fast food to commuting in the city we lived in. She and I would take off just after lunch for a quick walk around the block, determined to keep our waistlines trim and our minds from becoming filled with the cobwebs that infested the heritage building in which we spent most of our awake time. So when she announced that she was getting married and moving away, I was a little upset at losing a friend, though glad that she was doing what she had always seen as the personal aim of her living. As a middle daughter of three, with a younger brother to keep the family name going, she knew where her destiny had to travel to.
Then she told me that she was going to have a baby. While she insisted that it did not matter whether it was a girl or a boy, she also told me, over and over, that a male child would mean that she did not have to have another. I took that as a joke, a passing comment on the orthodoxy that we had often written about and lamented. But then it became said so often that I realised, albeit rather painfully, that it was true. It took a while for me to understand what it meant, culturally speaking, but when I did, she had already had the child and told me that she was so glad that it had been a boy, because otherwise family pressure would have been overwhelming. They would have been very disappointed in me, she said in a letter, telling me that she was relieved that she did not have to go through the process again, since she had done her duty the first time around.
That was some years ago. I have become a lot less sensitive about the subject and a lot more understanding of what my friend was all about and where she came from. But I still do – and will always – believe that a girl is the best thing to be. No matter that I am part of a culture that tends to believe otherwise.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Delhi belly
Being away from home always disrupts my food routine, but in the nicest way. and sicne I am for the most part responsible for my own kitchen, when I planned my brief holiday, I got the fridge stocked with enough to last Father the week and make me feel better, albeit long distance, about fibre, fresh veggies and the rest of that sort of good stuff. And I packed up my assortment of vitamins and make-up and got on that plane. Breakfast was served soon after take off.
At which point I almost got off. Though it smelled decent enough, with the sharp tang of tandoori spice cutting through the acrid whiff of newly perked coffee, by the time the cart came around, I was ready to jump out, even sans parachute. “Tea, please,” I asked with the timidity I feel only on planes during meal service, knowing that one inadvertently rude word can provide you with a lapful of steaming liquid or no access to the loo just when you are desperate enough to use a paper cup. And when the hot liquid was poured into my small plastic cup, I quailed; it was strong, it was brewed and it was the colour of tar distillate or furniture varnish. One sip was enough to jolt me out of the early-morning fug of sleeplessness that was mine at that hour of the day. The food, I shook my head mutely at.
In Delhi I was fed by friends who tend to get it right. Perhaps the nicest meal I had was a lunch that was simplicity itself – a plate of fine slices of smoked salmon, with a wee pot of sour cream and a handful of wonderfully tangy capers to add that special cachet. The array of chocolate at the dessert buffet did little to tempt my temperamental tastebuds, but the slices of delicious fish, soft and pale veined, peachy pink and gleaming, made my tongue do a happy tango with each bite.
Then there was the stuff that my friend’s cook dished up. For me, there was fibre, leafy, green and delectable, fresh and fragrant as it came off the pan and on to my plate. Eaten with hot and fluffy rotis, it was delicious more for the way in which the cook, an old friend himself, urged me to eat more, frowning when I refused and beaming happily when I held out my plate for more. We chatted over the stove, bemoaning the lack of fat in my friend’s diet - and kitchen – and exchanging recipes and methods that did their gustatory magic every time that I visited.
One lunch at a Chinese restaurant in the centre of town was again memorable, more for the company than for the food itself. An old friend was host, and he smiled gently and affectionately across the table at me as we ate our way through a collation of noodles, spicy chicken, tender fish and dimsums that lit up my insides as they brought back memories of a dimsum festival in a strange city in a country that I was visiting for the first time. And as I swirled hot jasmine tea in my mouth to unglue my back teeth from the steely grip of caramel-coated cashewnuts, I thought of a small boat bobbing on the largest river in the world and people who had a wonderful history and an incredibly interesting present….
At which point I almost got off. Though it smelled decent enough, with the sharp tang of tandoori spice cutting through the acrid whiff of newly perked coffee, by the time the cart came around, I was ready to jump out, even sans parachute. “Tea, please,” I asked with the timidity I feel only on planes during meal service, knowing that one inadvertently rude word can provide you with a lapful of steaming liquid or no access to the loo just when you are desperate enough to use a paper cup. And when the hot liquid was poured into my small plastic cup, I quailed; it was strong, it was brewed and it was the colour of tar distillate or furniture varnish. One sip was enough to jolt me out of the early-morning fug of sleeplessness that was mine at that hour of the day. The food, I shook my head mutely at.
In Delhi I was fed by friends who tend to get it right. Perhaps the nicest meal I had was a lunch that was simplicity itself – a plate of fine slices of smoked salmon, with a wee pot of sour cream and a handful of wonderfully tangy capers to add that special cachet. The array of chocolate at the dessert buffet did little to tempt my temperamental tastebuds, but the slices of delicious fish, soft and pale veined, peachy pink and gleaming, made my tongue do a happy tango with each bite.
Then there was the stuff that my friend’s cook dished up. For me, there was fibre, leafy, green and delectable, fresh and fragrant as it came off the pan and on to my plate. Eaten with hot and fluffy rotis, it was delicious more for the way in which the cook, an old friend himself, urged me to eat more, frowning when I refused and beaming happily when I held out my plate for more. We chatted over the stove, bemoaning the lack of fat in my friend’s diet - and kitchen – and exchanging recipes and methods that did their gustatory magic every time that I visited.
One lunch at a Chinese restaurant in the centre of town was again memorable, more for the company than for the food itself. An old friend was host, and he smiled gently and affectionately across the table at me as we ate our way through a collation of noodles, spicy chicken, tender fish and dimsums that lit up my insides as they brought back memories of a dimsum festival in a strange city in a country that I was visiting for the first time. And as I swirled hot jasmine tea in my mouth to unglue my back teeth from the steely grip of caramel-coated cashewnuts, I thought of a small boat bobbing on the largest river in the world and people who had a wonderful history and an incredibly interesting present….
Monday, March 12, 2007
Coming home
I have spent the last week in Delhi, staying with a very close friend. How close? Close enough to see me first thing in the morning, my hair frizzed wildly around my face, my eyes bleary with sleep and no mascara and my smile pleading for that morning dose of steaming green tea. She is perhaps the only person who is allowed to lecture me on my rather erratic food habits and the only person who is allowed to tell me what I should do, never mind that I rarely will do it, especially if I see no reason to. Be that as it may, she allowed me to invade her home – and even invited me back soon – and managed to gallivant all over the city, steering me into stores and away from them, as the temptations may have been skirted or indulged in, making me a very happy holidayer at the end of the too-short vacation I had.
It started with a bad case of bronchitis and ended with a sneeze. Leaving Mumbai was not as hard as I thought it would be, particularly because I knew that Small Cat would be permitted to perch on the dining table during mealtimes and that Father’s fibre intake would drastically decrease in my absence. But we all needed the break and so I took it. I flew out one sunny and sweaty Monday morning, on a plane that was, unusually, just a few minutes late and packed with people going to the capital and parts beyond. I sipped excruciating brewed tea in an attempt – vain, I must admit, since I gave up after the first flavour-mote hit my tastebuds – to wake up enough to be civil to the stewardess and glowered at the gentleman to my side who tried to make friends. The food was dreadful, the papers were crumpled and incomplete and the air-pockets were frightening. And then we were there.
It was cool and breezy in Delhi, the epitome of a brilliant and beautiful spring day. Insulated in a large car with wonderful climate control, we drove through familiar territory to my friend’s home, stopping at the very place that my car would be parked on all my previous visits there when I lived in the city. It was almost like coming home, with a small difference: it was not ‘home’ for me any more; life and my existence had shifted focus to a new framework of servants, grocery shops and work stress.
It is always not-too-easy to start a vacation and even more so to end it. I had new balances of affection and bonds to deal with, even as I managed to make myself fit into an environment that was so evolved, but that had, in a way, stayed the same since I had left it all those years ago. My friend was still my friend, the affection between us deeper than ever, but she had moved on with her friends, as I had with mine, and we had adjustments to make and more to talk – and giggle – about. A few "What it ees?" and we were back to a childhood that we may not have shared, but we occasionally reverted to.
In that week, we managed to visit all our ‘favourite’ places, be it the deli in Jor Bagh or the boutique in Santushti that we frequented on Saturday afternoons. We fought over fudge at the Chocolate Wheel and debated the pork chops at Pig Po, tasted cheese and pate at the Steak House and sniffed spice powders at INA Market. And we shopped, almost like vacuum cleaners osmosing dust, at the Upasana racks in a new store that she had discovered. And I walked out of Tulsi the proud owner of a frighteningly expensive and amazingly beautiful kurta not available in Mumbai, the manager assured me.
And now I am home again, disciplining Small Cat, Father and myself, making sure the household slips smoothly into its routine with no sign of my absence showing in any way. It is almost as if I had never been away…if it wasn’t for the natty cat-prints on the glass top of the dining table, you would never know I had.
It started with a bad case of bronchitis and ended with a sneeze. Leaving Mumbai was not as hard as I thought it would be, particularly because I knew that Small Cat would be permitted to perch on the dining table during mealtimes and that Father’s fibre intake would drastically decrease in my absence. But we all needed the break and so I took it. I flew out one sunny and sweaty Monday morning, on a plane that was, unusually, just a few minutes late and packed with people going to the capital and parts beyond. I sipped excruciating brewed tea in an attempt – vain, I must admit, since I gave up after the first flavour-mote hit my tastebuds – to wake up enough to be civil to the stewardess and glowered at the gentleman to my side who tried to make friends. The food was dreadful, the papers were crumpled and incomplete and the air-pockets were frightening. And then we were there.
It was cool and breezy in Delhi, the epitome of a brilliant and beautiful spring day. Insulated in a large car with wonderful climate control, we drove through familiar territory to my friend’s home, stopping at the very place that my car would be parked on all my previous visits there when I lived in the city. It was almost like coming home, with a small difference: it was not ‘home’ for me any more; life and my existence had shifted focus to a new framework of servants, grocery shops and work stress.
It is always not-too-easy to start a vacation and even more so to end it. I had new balances of affection and bonds to deal with, even as I managed to make myself fit into an environment that was so evolved, but that had, in a way, stayed the same since I had left it all those years ago. My friend was still my friend, the affection between us deeper than ever, but she had moved on with her friends, as I had with mine, and we had adjustments to make and more to talk – and giggle – about. A few "What it ees?" and we were back to a childhood that we may not have shared, but we occasionally reverted to.
In that week, we managed to visit all our ‘favourite’ places, be it the deli in Jor Bagh or the boutique in Santushti that we frequented on Saturday afternoons. We fought over fudge at the Chocolate Wheel and debated the pork chops at Pig Po, tasted cheese and pate at the Steak House and sniffed spice powders at INA Market. And we shopped, almost like vacuum cleaners osmosing dust, at the Upasana racks in a new store that she had discovered. And I walked out of Tulsi the proud owner of a frighteningly expensive and amazingly beautiful kurta not available in Mumbai, the manager assured me.
And now I am home again, disciplining Small Cat, Father and myself, making sure the household slips smoothly into its routine with no sign of my absence showing in any way. It is almost as if I had never been away…if it wasn’t for the natty cat-prints on the glass top of the dining table, you would never know I had.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Spanish flying – finale
(I am off again, this time for a week. See you on the 12th of March! Adios!)
While there is so much more to remember and say about our trip to Spain, you must be as fed up reading it as I am of writing it. It was a wonderful time, with gorgeous weather, wonderful food and the warmth (and fire, sometimes) of being with family and friends in a country that was welcoming and encouraging. It invited me in to find out more, to explore, to learn all its secrets and discover new ones in every small town and ruined castle, each olive grove and secluded monastery. And in the adventure I found out more about not just a land I had never been to before, but also about myself and what I had evolved into.
In the journey I saw so much that was exciting, yet so familiar. Each aspect had a fresh perspective, be it a gloomy hotel or a sun-baked wall in a ghost town. And it was all like a spread at a tapas bar – small tastes of everything, but more than you could ever be served at a gourmet restaurant with brocade tablecloths and far more than you could ever digest. Each colour, each vista, each flavour, each sound, each face…they all added up to a fabulous picture that, for some reason, has always been described in tourist brochures as ‘a taste of sunny Spain’ a cliché that is, surprisingly, so true.
Perhaps for me Spain is best thought of as brilliant – the light, the colour, the simplicity of it all, the essence of warmth and sunshine and brightness. As we drove along the highways and smaller roads to wherever we wanted to stop for the evening, we wound through endless fields of sunflowers, each bloom tilted to the sun in a vivid expanse of yellow, orange and brown. And, seemingly real until you got the right view, were the giant black bulls, standing upright and menacing in the midst of the scene. They looked ready and very willing to charge, steam and froth spewing from their enormous nostrils, their horns lethally pointed. Then you drove past them and found that they were actually flat, black-painted metal cutouts, advertisements for anything from a local beer to the tourism department, we heard.
And set against that golden light would be small farmhouses, some converted into tiny hostals and restaurants, calling in the hungry with wafting aromas and the pink-cheeked, sunburned lady of the house, straight out of Grimm’s fairy tale, smiling and nodding at the door. I ate fabulous frittata and even better gazpacho, the intense flavours of garlic, olive oil and fresh herbs lingering past the super-mint toothpaste. Almost as good was a deep bowl of fagioli zuppa in a Madrid bistro – it was thick, rich, warming and unforgettable.
One night we all drove up into the hills above Granada to watch a flamenco performance. Though it was carefully staged for tourists like us, we did get carried away by the passion, the fire, the rhythm and the brilliance of the dance, the music, the setting and the mood. Heels clacked on the wooden boards of the small stage, sometimes softly, almost silently, then louder, louder, drumming into our heads with a frenzy that was almost violent. Then, suddenly, the music wailed, keening from low to high, speaking of sadness, love, need and death. My stomach curled into itself as I huddled with my mother in the chill, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck bristling as I absorbed the fervour of the dance and its dancers.
This, for me, was Spain. This, for me, was an unforgettable summer.
While there is so much more to remember and say about our trip to Spain, you must be as fed up reading it as I am of writing it. It was a wonderful time, with gorgeous weather, wonderful food and the warmth (and fire, sometimes) of being with family and friends in a country that was welcoming and encouraging. It invited me in to find out more, to explore, to learn all its secrets and discover new ones in every small town and ruined castle, each olive grove and secluded monastery. And in the adventure I found out more about not just a land I had never been to before, but also about myself and what I had evolved into.
In the journey I saw so much that was exciting, yet so familiar. Each aspect had a fresh perspective, be it a gloomy hotel or a sun-baked wall in a ghost town. And it was all like a spread at a tapas bar – small tastes of everything, but more than you could ever be served at a gourmet restaurant with brocade tablecloths and far more than you could ever digest. Each colour, each vista, each flavour, each sound, each face…they all added up to a fabulous picture that, for some reason, has always been described in tourist brochures as ‘a taste of sunny Spain’ a cliché that is, surprisingly, so true.
Perhaps for me Spain is best thought of as brilliant – the light, the colour, the simplicity of it all, the essence of warmth and sunshine and brightness. As we drove along the highways and smaller roads to wherever we wanted to stop for the evening, we wound through endless fields of sunflowers, each bloom tilted to the sun in a vivid expanse of yellow, orange and brown. And, seemingly real until you got the right view, were the giant black bulls, standing upright and menacing in the midst of the scene. They looked ready and very willing to charge, steam and froth spewing from their enormous nostrils, their horns lethally pointed. Then you drove past them and found that they were actually flat, black-painted metal cutouts, advertisements for anything from a local beer to the tourism department, we heard.
And set against that golden light would be small farmhouses, some converted into tiny hostals and restaurants, calling in the hungry with wafting aromas and the pink-cheeked, sunburned lady of the house, straight out of Grimm’s fairy tale, smiling and nodding at the door. I ate fabulous frittata and even better gazpacho, the intense flavours of garlic, olive oil and fresh herbs lingering past the super-mint toothpaste. Almost as good was a deep bowl of fagioli zuppa in a Madrid bistro – it was thick, rich, warming and unforgettable.
One night we all drove up into the hills above Granada to watch a flamenco performance. Though it was carefully staged for tourists like us, we did get carried away by the passion, the fire, the rhythm and the brilliance of the dance, the music, the setting and the mood. Heels clacked on the wooden boards of the small stage, sometimes softly, almost silently, then louder, louder, drumming into our heads with a frenzy that was almost violent. Then, suddenly, the music wailed, keening from low to high, speaking of sadness, love, need and death. My stomach curled into itself as I huddled with my mother in the chill, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck bristling as I absorbed the fervour of the dance and its dancers.
This, for me, was Spain. This, for me, was an unforgettable summer.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Talking in my sleep
I am told that I talk in my sleep. That could be worrying if I was the worrying type, but most of the time I am alone in my room, apart from Small Cat, so it doesn’t really matter if I do have conversations – or monologues – that Racine or Shakespeare would envy. But various friends and my mother have told me, with an enviably and staunchly maintained straight face, that I don’t say anything I should not, even when I am so fast asleep that I wouldn’t know which planet I lived on.
Perhaps the last time I heard about what I said was fairly recently. You did say that, the friend I had been talking to on the phone insisted. I knew that was not true, because there was too much of a grin on my friend’s face, a suppressed bout of hysterical giggles that could be easily felt over the telephone line. I had been tired beyond imagination and while I have no memory whatsoever of what I had allegedly said (in true journalistic style I always cover my back), I know I could not have said THAT. Or the THAT which could be inferred from the insinuations and exaggerated account of my very unlikely mumbling.
But I do know that I talk when I am asleep, or at least when I am far enough gone as to not remember whether I did speak or not. My mother always told me I had long chats with someone she would have loved to meet, since whatever I came up with was so full of giggles and madness, but she never quite managed to tell me what it was that she had heard. She was too busy giggling herself. But she did say that much of it was in French, which would have been marvellous if I had known any French at the time!
My friend Karen has also said that I talk when I am fast asleep. While by the time I knew her well enough to do sleepovers at her house I was over the constant babbling stage, I did chatter when I was really tired, but had things on my mind. The last occasion we spent time together, I was on a thick mattress on the floor in her room, her large cat ensconced comfortably on my ankles on top of the comforter, both of us chatting desultorily to my friend as she sprawled on her bed. I had just arrived in Denver after a trans-Atlantic flight and was not sure which way was up, but we had so much to say and were determined to say it. Of course, I was asleep mid-sentence, but continued the conversation for a long time before she realised I wasn’t quite an active participant. Pushing me over on to my side, she managed to shut me up. But, a few hours later, I sat bolt upright, flinging aside cat and comforter and bashing my head painfully on a knob on her dresser. “What time is it?” I demanded, and then curled up again, hugging my pillow and telling the cat to shut up, he would wake the neighbours. Of course, though I had a pretty severe headache in the morning, I hotly denied asking any such happening.
I still have no clue why I do this, though I know I do. Maybe I have too much on my mind, or too much to say about whatever is on my mind, I am not sure. Whatever it is, if I provide amusement to whoever listens to any of my burbling, I suppose I should be happy. Now if only I could find out just what it is I said….
Perhaps the last time I heard about what I said was fairly recently. You did say that, the friend I had been talking to on the phone insisted. I knew that was not true, because there was too much of a grin on my friend’s face, a suppressed bout of hysterical giggles that could be easily felt over the telephone line. I had been tired beyond imagination and while I have no memory whatsoever of what I had allegedly said (in true journalistic style I always cover my back), I know I could not have said THAT. Or the THAT which could be inferred from the insinuations and exaggerated account of my very unlikely mumbling.
But I do know that I talk when I am asleep, or at least when I am far enough gone as to not remember whether I did speak or not. My mother always told me I had long chats with someone she would have loved to meet, since whatever I came up with was so full of giggles and madness, but she never quite managed to tell me what it was that she had heard. She was too busy giggling herself. But she did say that much of it was in French, which would have been marvellous if I had known any French at the time!
My friend Karen has also said that I talk when I am fast asleep. While by the time I knew her well enough to do sleepovers at her house I was over the constant babbling stage, I did chatter when I was really tired, but had things on my mind. The last occasion we spent time together, I was on a thick mattress on the floor in her room, her large cat ensconced comfortably on my ankles on top of the comforter, both of us chatting desultorily to my friend as she sprawled on her bed. I had just arrived in Denver after a trans-Atlantic flight and was not sure which way was up, but we had so much to say and were determined to say it. Of course, I was asleep mid-sentence, but continued the conversation for a long time before she realised I wasn’t quite an active participant. Pushing me over on to my side, she managed to shut me up. But, a few hours later, I sat bolt upright, flinging aside cat and comforter and bashing my head painfully on a knob on her dresser. “What time is it?” I demanded, and then curled up again, hugging my pillow and telling the cat to shut up, he would wake the neighbours. Of course, though I had a pretty severe headache in the morning, I hotly denied asking any such happening.
I still have no clue why I do this, though I know I do. Maybe I have too much on my mind, or too much to say about whatever is on my mind, I am not sure. Whatever it is, if I provide amusement to whoever listens to any of my burbling, I suppose I should be happy. Now if only I could find out just what it is I said….
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