It was Sunday evening. I was recovering from the aftershock of a migraine serious enough for me to wonder whether my head was still attached to the rest of me. But after two days of not being able to focus while watching television or reading or even looking into the refrigerator to see what could be done for dinner, I was fed up and needed entertainment. So I cautiously and very slowly, gently, skimmingly scanned the many newspapers we get, read the comic strips and the horoscopes and then needed more to do. The television was on and I had peeked carefully at it every now and then, wanting to see what was going on where, but afraid that the white flashes and blinding waves of nausea would come back to rock my as-yet-rather-unstable world. And then it suddenly cleared – my head, that is – and though it was still a trifle painful and more cloudy than I really liked, I could look at the small screen and its flickers without feeling shooting sparks of fire and brimstone clashing into my brain cell.
But there was fire on the box as well, a kind of fire that had burned its way through much of the entertainment world and its fans. On his over-hyped talk show, host Karan Johar was speaking to ‘item girl’ Rakhi Sawant. She was introduced with typical fanfare, but with a patronising malice that was her lot when anyone on the show spoke of her, which was almost every guest that had been featured. And she walked in with her back straight, her head high and her air-kisses positioned with perfect poise. As she sat – rather nervously on the edge of her seat, perhaps to keep her sari from creasing on the wrong fold – you could see the work that had gone into making her what she was at that moment: carefully coiffed, carefully made up, carefully dressed and carefully presented.
Then she started speaking and the careful mask split wide open. Behind it was a little girl, naïve, gullible, innocent, with an almost too-good-to-be-true air about it all. She was grateful, she kept saying, to be invited on the show, thanking Karan the whole time for the love and respect that he was giving her. She got that same love and respect from people when she did the Big Boss television reality series, she told him, and would always appreciate than and be for ever indebted for that attention that changed her image from a “cheap item girl” to a serious, talented, involved actress.
But is that how she was perceived? Somehow, after watching episodes of the Karan Johar show where guests and host alike pilloried Rakhi and made her the butt of their sarcastic ridicule, I don’t think so. They had done the same to Mallika Sherawat, who had been invited on the programme with director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and was her most polite and polished self, a product rather than a person. Rakhi, on the other hand, seemed to be just herself, Rakhi Sawant, a girl from what was possibly the wrong side of town trying hard to make good.
And, as that half hour that I watched before my head protested progressed, she certainly did make good. You could see Karan change his mind and get less patronising and more real, more apologetic about having been nasty about her. And you could see her being truly involved, genuinely believing in what she said, tears and laughter and all, with no pretenses and no artifice. In that, she was utterly charming, completely likeable, totally fabulous, a winner. She may have an image that no parent really wants for his or her child, but under the tarty costumes and lewd movements seems to be the soul of a child who craves affection, a girl who is just whatever she says she is. In that, Rakhi Sawant is, for me and for a lot of people who have wondered about her, a lot more worthy of respect and love than the politically correct, milk-and-water, politically correct diplo-bores that populate the entertainment world.
And I think Karan Johar and his ilk found out about that, when they least expected it.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Going green
I plan to go vegetable shopping on my way home from work today. While I hate going to the market, especially dressed in ‘nice’ work clothes and with ‘nice’ slippers on, I do enjoy buying stuff that is fresh and, very often, green. For me, that is in a way a bigger source of inspiration than a set of gorgeous food photographs or the smell of newly made ghee, which in itself is a wonder of olfactory bliss.
One of my earliest memories of being surrounded by vegetables in a market was perhaps when I was a small girl and my parents drove to the wholesale bazaar in midtown Mumbai. We were headed to buy an amazing – for our tiny nuclear family – amount of ten kilos of potatoes, mainly to fine-slice into rounds to dry on the terrace to make chips to fry to make our tummies very happy indeed. In the melee that was Byculla, with my hand firmly clutched in either a parent’s or a grandmother’s, I would watch bug-eyed as enormous mountains of brown-skinned spuds reached high over my head. And, once we were done, we would load the veggies into the back of the car and head home. A few days later, the processing would begin and we would take turns sitting vigil on the terrace, shooing away curious pigeons and getting distracted by soaring paper kites.
These days, our family has shrunk and the same chips are compromised on – we will eat the ones we can buy, instead of going through the labour of making them. We also take turns (more or less; Father does more and I do less) buying vegetables, choosing just what I can use when I do my main stint of cooking on a Sunday morning, and filling in any gaps later in the week. But we still make lists, fantasise (I do, at least) over what we would ideally like to buy, make and eat) and eventually allow for the vagaries of weather and stocks and get whatever we can.
My main requirement in making a list of vegetables to be bought is that there should be lots of green. Which means lovely leaves like spinach, red spinach, methi of various sizes and horseradish leaves, occasionally fennel, celery, bok choy and whatever else fits the general bill. Sometimes it is familiar, oftentimes not, and I will be found chatting with the vendor trying to make him or her understand that I need to understand what to do with whatever I was looking so interestedly at. At the small market near the house, most vendors know us and will allow for my idiosyncracies, later asking Father how whatever I had bought had turned out and whether he would be buying more of it.
I am very easily seduced by the novel, especially where vegetables are concerned. As a result we have eaten some very strange versions of the familiar, from very young and tender radish (which actually looks like a long thin bean or a thick blade of grass that may be green, purple or even white) to beans that have no discernible flavour but plenty of fibre to a melange of sprouts that are barely identifiable even with the help of the Internet. We seem to be healthy enough with a diet of this adventurous kind, even thriving on it. And Small Cat enjoys every moment of helping Father pick his way through the methi, clean the spinach and pod the peas.
So today I have my wish list ready. And the get-up-and-go to get up and go buy vegetables. Now if I could only find at least a little of what I really want…
One of my earliest memories of being surrounded by vegetables in a market was perhaps when I was a small girl and my parents drove to the wholesale bazaar in midtown Mumbai. We were headed to buy an amazing – for our tiny nuclear family – amount of ten kilos of potatoes, mainly to fine-slice into rounds to dry on the terrace to make chips to fry to make our tummies very happy indeed. In the melee that was Byculla, with my hand firmly clutched in either a parent’s or a grandmother’s, I would watch bug-eyed as enormous mountains of brown-skinned spuds reached high over my head. And, once we were done, we would load the veggies into the back of the car and head home. A few days later, the processing would begin and we would take turns sitting vigil on the terrace, shooing away curious pigeons and getting distracted by soaring paper kites.
These days, our family has shrunk and the same chips are compromised on – we will eat the ones we can buy, instead of going through the labour of making them. We also take turns (more or less; Father does more and I do less) buying vegetables, choosing just what I can use when I do my main stint of cooking on a Sunday morning, and filling in any gaps later in the week. But we still make lists, fantasise (I do, at least) over what we would ideally like to buy, make and eat) and eventually allow for the vagaries of weather and stocks and get whatever we can.
My main requirement in making a list of vegetables to be bought is that there should be lots of green. Which means lovely leaves like spinach, red spinach, methi of various sizes and horseradish leaves, occasionally fennel, celery, bok choy and whatever else fits the general bill. Sometimes it is familiar, oftentimes not, and I will be found chatting with the vendor trying to make him or her understand that I need to understand what to do with whatever I was looking so interestedly at. At the small market near the house, most vendors know us and will allow for my idiosyncracies, later asking Father how whatever I had bought had turned out and whether he would be buying more of it.
I am very easily seduced by the novel, especially where vegetables are concerned. As a result we have eaten some very strange versions of the familiar, from very young and tender radish (which actually looks like a long thin bean or a thick blade of grass that may be green, purple or even white) to beans that have no discernible flavour but plenty of fibre to a melange of sprouts that are barely identifiable even with the help of the Internet. We seem to be healthy enough with a diet of this adventurous kind, even thriving on it. And Small Cat enjoys every moment of helping Father pick his way through the methi, clean the spinach and pod the peas.
So today I have my wish list ready. And the get-up-and-go to get up and go buy vegetables. Now if I could only find at least a little of what I really want…
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Born free
I was at the salon this morning getting deliciously soothing things done to my hair when I overheard the conversation of a young mother in the chair next to mine. She looked to be in her late 20s, and had two sons of an age high enough for her to take them on vacation for a three-week period without domestic help in tow to deal with them. But she was bemoaning the fact that she would not have that help, saying that while she was delighted to spend days with her children and loved them very much, she was bored with the job of motherhood and needed a break, alone. Her older son, she was telling the hair stylist, was very attached to her, and she enjoyed that. But she would and could go only as far as reading him a story and tucking him into bed; the rest, the maid in charge of the boy would have to do.
Which is, in itself, rather scary for someone like me, who was brought up by fond parents with a little help from a grandmother. I rushed into this world early, impatient to go places and meet people and get things done, and was welcomes fairly heartily by both mother and father, or so I was told, though occasionally I got another version, depending on how irate or how affectionate they were being. Neither of them was what I wanted in a parent – especially at regular intervals as I was growing up – but I was nowhere near their vision or version of a daughter that they wanted either. But we managed, skidding along the good stretches and carefully navigating the bad ones, occasionally stalling at a speed bump that was too high or a pothole that was too deep.
The real problems came with being a child who was perhaps too close to her parents, and still is, in a way, even though one parent is no longer too close by to watch and wail. It happens that way with an only child, and a girl, who is almost always protected, cosseted, coddled and closed in, first by her sheltering elders, then by circumstance, then by her own ethical context. It is very difficult, beyond a point, to break boundaries or rules, especially since, after a stage, you start believing in them to such an extent that you do not see life any other way. Luckily for me, I have had a very liberal and liberated upbringing, one where there were no rules expect the ones I was told about, carefully explained and detailedly defined. But then the rules I made for myself became so strict, so controlled, so limiting, that to break them or even break out of them seems nigh-impossible today.
In that set-up, I had freedom to be whatever I wanted to be, however I wanted to be it. And that, today, is what I am. For which I thank my parents – bless their mad little hearts and minds – as often as I can. And maybe some day that young mother I encountered at the salon, when she herself grows up and learns what her rules are, will show her sons that same freedom.
Which is, in itself, rather scary for someone like me, who was brought up by fond parents with a little help from a grandmother. I rushed into this world early, impatient to go places and meet people and get things done, and was welcomes fairly heartily by both mother and father, or so I was told, though occasionally I got another version, depending on how irate or how affectionate they were being. Neither of them was what I wanted in a parent – especially at regular intervals as I was growing up – but I was nowhere near their vision or version of a daughter that they wanted either. But we managed, skidding along the good stretches and carefully navigating the bad ones, occasionally stalling at a speed bump that was too high or a pothole that was too deep.
The real problems came with being a child who was perhaps too close to her parents, and still is, in a way, even though one parent is no longer too close by to watch and wail. It happens that way with an only child, and a girl, who is almost always protected, cosseted, coddled and closed in, first by her sheltering elders, then by circumstance, then by her own ethical context. It is very difficult, beyond a point, to break boundaries or rules, especially since, after a stage, you start believing in them to such an extent that you do not see life any other way. Luckily for me, I have had a very liberal and liberated upbringing, one where there were no rules expect the ones I was told about, carefully explained and detailedly defined. But then the rules I made for myself became so strict, so controlled, so limiting, that to break them or even break out of them seems nigh-impossible today.
In that set-up, I had freedom to be whatever I wanted to be, however I wanted to be it. And that, today, is what I am. For which I thank my parents – bless their mad little hearts and minds – as often as I can. And maybe some day that young mother I encountered at the salon, when she herself grows up and learns what her rules are, will show her sons that same freedom.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Feeling crabby
People call me a snob, not just because I write columns like this one, but because I am rather picky about what and how I eat. It is not that I will not get down and dirty because I am too snooty to get my fingers sticky-icky, but more that I am completely incompetent at tackling certain foods and would rather get my practice in without an audience. So if at speciality restaurants I avoid choosing, for instance, shellfish or snails or even cuts of meat, it is more my inability than my inaccessibility that is showing itself off.
Seafood, in particular, is a perfect demonstration of my lack of coping skills. It first got aired in public soon after I started working when, many years ago, I met a crab…a plateful of them, in fact. A friend had very fondly offered to take me to eat the “best crabs in the world”. Rather sceptical of that claim, but as enamoured of the creatures in most forms, I went along. Until then, my acquaintance with the crustacean had been of the American kind, very polite, civilised, sanitised and, frankly, fairly boring – all the meat is carefully scooped out and arranged back in for a wonderfully faux ‘crab cracking’ experience, with only the most intrepid and die-hard fans of the sweet meat demanding to go it themselves, crackers, claws and all.
So there I was, enthusiastic and clueless, waiting with a certain delighted anticipation for the treat I knew I was going to get, if only I did not eat my way through all the pickled onions and kill my appetite and tastebuds before then. The crabs arrived, held high on a platter by a friendly waiter. He set it carefully down in front of me, handed me a bib and a set of crackers and beamed proudly, encouragingly, waiting for me to dig in. I looked at the crabs, the crabs, had they been able to, would have looked back at me. I looked at the waiter, then at my friend and then at the restaurant manager, all of whom were beginning to look back at me with some worry wrinkling their foreheads. The crabs were taken back, the shells cracked to some extent, and then returned to me. I was ready to burst into tears, but reached for a pickled onion instead.
What ensued is a long and painful story. Suffice it to say that I slunk out of the restaurant in complete disgrace, regarded with huge amounts of reproach by the friend, the waiter, the manager and, if they had been able, the crabs as well. But those had been eaten, with a considerable amount of help from the aforementioned friend, waiter and restaurant manager, while I sat and watched, helpless and almost in tears at my lack of participation and incapability to muster up enough courage to get cracking…in a manner of speaking, of course.
Things have not really changed since, mainly because I have been avoiding the subject of all things crabby…err...crablike for many years now. But today, at a crab-filled lunch, I watched carefully and fascinatedly as my friend cracked his way through his sunset-red crustacean, nibbling, sucking and picking with much élan, great skill and single-minded hunger. At intervals, he would spoon a small heap of crab meat on to my plate, its meat sweet under all the spice that the creature was cooked in. and, even as I enjoyed the stuff that I actually do like very much, I vowed to always eat it in the company of someone who could do all the dirty work for me. Or else get myself a new and hyper-efficient can opener that could act intermediary between me and much crabby eating.
Seafood, in particular, is a perfect demonstration of my lack of coping skills. It first got aired in public soon after I started working when, many years ago, I met a crab…a plateful of them, in fact. A friend had very fondly offered to take me to eat the “best crabs in the world”. Rather sceptical of that claim, but as enamoured of the creatures in most forms, I went along. Until then, my acquaintance with the crustacean had been of the American kind, very polite, civilised, sanitised and, frankly, fairly boring – all the meat is carefully scooped out and arranged back in for a wonderfully faux ‘crab cracking’ experience, with only the most intrepid and die-hard fans of the sweet meat demanding to go it themselves, crackers, claws and all.
So there I was, enthusiastic and clueless, waiting with a certain delighted anticipation for the treat I knew I was going to get, if only I did not eat my way through all the pickled onions and kill my appetite and tastebuds before then. The crabs arrived, held high on a platter by a friendly waiter. He set it carefully down in front of me, handed me a bib and a set of crackers and beamed proudly, encouragingly, waiting for me to dig in. I looked at the crabs, the crabs, had they been able to, would have looked back at me. I looked at the waiter, then at my friend and then at the restaurant manager, all of whom were beginning to look back at me with some worry wrinkling their foreheads. The crabs were taken back, the shells cracked to some extent, and then returned to me. I was ready to burst into tears, but reached for a pickled onion instead.
What ensued is a long and painful story. Suffice it to say that I slunk out of the restaurant in complete disgrace, regarded with huge amounts of reproach by the friend, the waiter, the manager and, if they had been able, the crabs as well. But those had been eaten, with a considerable amount of help from the aforementioned friend, waiter and restaurant manager, while I sat and watched, helpless and almost in tears at my lack of participation and incapability to muster up enough courage to get cracking…in a manner of speaking, of course.
Things have not really changed since, mainly because I have been avoiding the subject of all things crabby…err...crablike for many years now. But today, at a crab-filled lunch, I watched carefully and fascinatedly as my friend cracked his way through his sunset-red crustacean, nibbling, sucking and picking with much élan, great skill and single-minded hunger. At intervals, he would spoon a small heap of crab meat on to my plate, its meat sweet under all the spice that the creature was cooked in. and, even as I enjoyed the stuff that I actually do like very much, I vowed to always eat it in the company of someone who could do all the dirty work for me. Or else get myself a new and hyper-efficient can opener that could act intermediary between me and much crabby eating.
Friday, April 20, 2007
The wedding season
It was a very funny morning today. I got through most of my chores and then was idly reading the paper when I found that our own city lifestyle supplement was full of gossip, pictures and news about the wedding of the year…or is it decade? Logical, yes, since it is the focus of all attention, no matter how disinterested someone may be in the union of two over-exposed celebrities, but funny because just yesterday my wonderfully irascible boss had been characteristically rude about how a rival publication had produced a complete fluff issue on the same subject. Admittedly ours was not as fluffy and certainly nowhere near as gushy and sycophantic, but it was, all considered, focussed on the only subject most Mumbaikars are talking about, especially today: the wedding of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan.
It’s going to be an occasion to remember. And if this is all about keeping it quiet and restricted to family and close friends only, I am starting to wonder what ‘making a splash’ would be like! The section of the city it will all happen in has been given some special status by the authorities, by the media and, of course, by those who are invited to the various events, those who are not and those who wish they were. The people who live in the area do not really count, they just happen to live there, after all. And everywhere, from almost everyone, there has been an enthusiastic outpouring of good wishes and congratulations, almost as if the bridal couple were personally connected with each person who says something about them. I would, too, if I was not so irritated with all the hype and, I must admit, a little envious at the joy they seem to share.
I have met Aishwarya Rai only once, just before she won the Miss World contest. She had just won second place in the Miss India pageant and was sitting in the office of the editor of the magazine that sponsored it. I wandered in to clarify something for the website of the magazine, since that was what I did then, and found myself looking at this girl seated in one of the chairs inside that room. She was very fair, very slim, very small, with a radiant smile and a shy manner. I said a polite hello and wished her well for the competition that she would face shortly and got a smile and a few equally polite words in return. After she won the crown, and made progress into the world of Hindi films, I never saw her in person, but always saw that picture of her when her name was mentioned. And, over the years, as she giggled her way inanely through interviews and photocalls and red carpets and press conferences and hammed her way to heroine-hood, I wondered where she would find herself so many years later. And now she begins something new and exciting – will she win it, the way she seems to have won almost everything else that she has done?
Abhishek, on the other hand, was nothing special, the once that I met him. But he had the charm and polish a young man of his background and upbringing ought to have. He was in the office for a press conference for a film that he was starring in. the film sank, mercifully unseen by many, killed by the critics and audiences alike. But the young actor made his impact during his visit. Though he was rather overshadowed by the starry presence of Hrithik Roshan, a co-star, he held his own. He shook hands with a couple of young women on the floor, reducing them to puddles of ecstacy. He patted a few male sales executives on the shoulder, making them pull themselves up to their full heights and puff out their chests. And he had me – yes, cynical, world-weary, hard-nosed me – beaming fondly at him when he exchanged wisecracks and chuckles with me as we waited for the next journalist to interview him. Can he keep that charm and sense of humour for ever?
I wait and watch. And, like everyone else in the world who may know about the wedding, I wish them well.
It’s going to be an occasion to remember. And if this is all about keeping it quiet and restricted to family and close friends only, I am starting to wonder what ‘making a splash’ would be like! The section of the city it will all happen in has been given some special status by the authorities, by the media and, of course, by those who are invited to the various events, those who are not and those who wish they were. The people who live in the area do not really count, they just happen to live there, after all. And everywhere, from almost everyone, there has been an enthusiastic outpouring of good wishes and congratulations, almost as if the bridal couple were personally connected with each person who says something about them. I would, too, if I was not so irritated with all the hype and, I must admit, a little envious at the joy they seem to share.
I have met Aishwarya Rai only once, just before she won the Miss World contest. She had just won second place in the Miss India pageant and was sitting in the office of the editor of the magazine that sponsored it. I wandered in to clarify something for the website of the magazine, since that was what I did then, and found myself looking at this girl seated in one of the chairs inside that room. She was very fair, very slim, very small, with a radiant smile and a shy manner. I said a polite hello and wished her well for the competition that she would face shortly and got a smile and a few equally polite words in return. After she won the crown, and made progress into the world of Hindi films, I never saw her in person, but always saw that picture of her when her name was mentioned. And, over the years, as she giggled her way inanely through interviews and photocalls and red carpets and press conferences and hammed her way to heroine-hood, I wondered where she would find herself so many years later. And now she begins something new and exciting – will she win it, the way she seems to have won almost everything else that she has done?
Abhishek, on the other hand, was nothing special, the once that I met him. But he had the charm and polish a young man of his background and upbringing ought to have. He was in the office for a press conference for a film that he was starring in. the film sank, mercifully unseen by many, killed by the critics and audiences alike. But the young actor made his impact during his visit. Though he was rather overshadowed by the starry presence of Hrithik Roshan, a co-star, he held his own. He shook hands with a couple of young women on the floor, reducing them to puddles of ecstacy. He patted a few male sales executives on the shoulder, making them pull themselves up to their full heights and puff out their chests. And he had me – yes, cynical, world-weary, hard-nosed me – beaming fondly at him when he exchanged wisecracks and chuckles with me as we waited for the next journalist to interview him. Can he keep that charm and sense of humour for ever?
I wait and watch. And, like everyone else in the world who may know about the wedding, I wish them well.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
A fatal fascination
Somehow I – like so many others I know and many more than I don’t – have a morbid desire to read about all the gory and painful details about death, especially when it happens en masse. We scan headlines in newspapers and cover stories in magazines, surf television channels and keep up with updates and timelines and personal profiles and responses from friends and family. And we know, somewhere inside our rational selves, that we are being not just silly, but self-depressive as well. But the fascination never goes away, not unless a conscious effort is made to shoo it out of the mind. Which is easier said than done.
For me, I first got really aware of this strange predilection when Princess Diana died in that horrific car crash in a tunnel in Paris. With many of my friends I, too, watched every moment of replay on television and every second of grief that her family went through. For some reason, we looked at the website dedicated to her memory every few hours, talked about what she wore and how she looked and that song, the original of which we could never listen to again without thinking of that tragic dying. Perhaps it was then that I decided that I would never ever be associated with a gossip publication, never ever be part of a genre that, in a way, contributed to the death of the princess so many people cared about.
Then, some years later, came 9/11, as it is known. I had just come home from work and was all set to watch a travel show on television, one that Father often spoke of with words of praise. But instead of the warm tropical waters of wherever and the exotic cuisine of wherever else, there were these images of something I could not every imagine would happen in real life. For a while I believed that it was a film, a fairly bad movie being telecast because its director was dead or perhaps it had just released somewhere significant. Only after I flipped channels and found everyone was showing the same horrific scene of a tower slowly collapsing into itself and a plane hitting the other building did I realise that it was actually happening, reality, not fiction, fact, not nightmarish fiction.
And in the weeks, perhaps months or even years, that followed that devastating day, I – and my friends – went back to the scene of that crime, reliving it as we read about how the various planes crashed, how people died, how the people responded in New York, in Washington, in Virginia, how the world was still reacting to what had happened so quickly, without warning. And, every year since, we all go back to that tragic place and stop to think about the people who died, the people left behind and the people who were responsible for the whole event that was, in totality, the phenomenon known as '9/11'.
It is almost like poking a bruise or picking at a scab. Even while it hurts, it feels strangely good, a sort of reaffirmation that the pain was nasty, and could happen again. Even while it heals, there is a bizarre need to know once again that it had been wounded, that there had been trauma. And maybe in that knowledge there is a surety that I – or you, as my friend – will never be responsible in any way for a tragedy of this kind anywhere, any time. Maybe all potential student killers on college or school campuses all over the world need that lesson now. And maybe we all need to remind ourselves at regular intervals that it could happen…to you, to me, to ours.
For me, I first got really aware of this strange predilection when Princess Diana died in that horrific car crash in a tunnel in Paris. With many of my friends I, too, watched every moment of replay on television and every second of grief that her family went through. For some reason, we looked at the website dedicated to her memory every few hours, talked about what she wore and how she looked and that song, the original of which we could never listen to again without thinking of that tragic dying. Perhaps it was then that I decided that I would never ever be associated with a gossip publication, never ever be part of a genre that, in a way, contributed to the death of the princess so many people cared about.
Then, some years later, came 9/11, as it is known. I had just come home from work and was all set to watch a travel show on television, one that Father often spoke of with words of praise. But instead of the warm tropical waters of wherever and the exotic cuisine of wherever else, there were these images of something I could not every imagine would happen in real life. For a while I believed that it was a film, a fairly bad movie being telecast because its director was dead or perhaps it had just released somewhere significant. Only after I flipped channels and found everyone was showing the same horrific scene of a tower slowly collapsing into itself and a plane hitting the other building did I realise that it was actually happening, reality, not fiction, fact, not nightmarish fiction.
And in the weeks, perhaps months or even years, that followed that devastating day, I – and my friends – went back to the scene of that crime, reliving it as we read about how the various planes crashed, how people died, how the people responded in New York, in Washington, in Virginia, how the world was still reacting to what had happened so quickly, without warning. And, every year since, we all go back to that tragic place and stop to think about the people who died, the people left behind and the people who were responsible for the whole event that was, in totality, the phenomenon known as '9/11'.
It is almost like poking a bruise or picking at a scab. Even while it hurts, it feels strangely good, a sort of reaffirmation that the pain was nasty, and could happen again. Even while it heals, there is a bizarre need to know once again that it had been wounded, that there had been trauma. And maybe in that knowledge there is a surety that I – or you, as my friend – will never be responsible in any way for a tragedy of this kind anywhere, any time. Maybe all potential student killers on college or school campuses all over the world need that lesson now. And maybe we all need to remind ourselves at regular intervals that it could happen…to you, to me, to ours.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Saying a fond farewell
No one stays anywhere for ever, not these days, at least. Especially in a professional environment, people keep moving around, wandering from job to job, finding new and exciting opportunities around every point in their overloaded resumes. And along the way there are partings, farewells, some good, some not so fond, others barely even noticed. Something like that last happened with someone I know just yesterday; top dog in his particular place and time, he suddenly took off for parts unknown with just a couple of days’ notice for all those who worked with him, leaving behind a shocked and rather stunned wonderment. And when he finally made his exit, I hear, it was not to the usual nicely orchestrated clamour of cakes being cut and hosannas being sung, but a silent slink out the front door that attracted only the attention of those in the immediate vicinity. Which is, in itself, astonishingly lax on the part of all those who should have known better.
Any professional farewells that I have made – and I have done my fair share of those – have always been done with a certain flair and drama. Perhaps the people I have worked with have been more fond of me that anyone was of my friend, or else my own personal colourful and flamboyant personality has made things more loud and obvious, I don’t know. But it has always been a story filled with avowals of endless love and promises to keep in touch for life. None of which actually happen, since a farewell scene is like the movies – all sound and fury signifying very little, if anything at all.
When I quit my first job, it was after the terribly meaningful time span of all of two weeks. It was a ‘mutual decision’, as the phrase goes, with my boss saying as grateful a farewell to me as I did to him. My colleagues, who probably did much to get rid of me, were all sympathetic, giving me small presents of sweets and hugs as I bounced down the stairs to find a taxi to escape the area. I knew that I was wrong for that job, as wrong as it was for me, and I had bigger, better and brighter things waiting, if only I knew where to look for them.
They found me soon enough. And, after some years of toil and troublemaking in the same wonderfully ancient building with a colourful history, I walked out one late evening bearing potted plants, dried flowers, chocolates, unidentifiable pieces of knicks and knacks and staggered homewards, wanting to cry but knowing that it would be the silliest thing I had ever done in my short working life.
Some day I will leave here, where I work for now. And there will be people who will miss me, who will be sad to see me go. In that, they will give me all sorts of memories to take with me, in various shapes and colours and smells, and we will all vow forever love and remembrance. And as each of us gets busy with a new life, some in the same place, some in new ones, we will slowly forget to keep contact, fading into our new and hopefully improved set of friends, colleagues and times to think fondly of. All of which I wish for the person who left yesterday….
Any professional farewells that I have made – and I have done my fair share of those – have always been done with a certain flair and drama. Perhaps the people I have worked with have been more fond of me that anyone was of my friend, or else my own personal colourful and flamboyant personality has made things more loud and obvious, I don’t know. But it has always been a story filled with avowals of endless love and promises to keep in touch for life. None of which actually happen, since a farewell scene is like the movies – all sound and fury signifying very little, if anything at all.
When I quit my first job, it was after the terribly meaningful time span of all of two weeks. It was a ‘mutual decision’, as the phrase goes, with my boss saying as grateful a farewell to me as I did to him. My colleagues, who probably did much to get rid of me, were all sympathetic, giving me small presents of sweets and hugs as I bounced down the stairs to find a taxi to escape the area. I knew that I was wrong for that job, as wrong as it was for me, and I had bigger, better and brighter things waiting, if only I knew where to look for them.
They found me soon enough. And, after some years of toil and troublemaking in the same wonderfully ancient building with a colourful history, I walked out one late evening bearing potted plants, dried flowers, chocolates, unidentifiable pieces of knicks and knacks and staggered homewards, wanting to cry but knowing that it would be the silliest thing I had ever done in my short working life.
Some day I will leave here, where I work for now. And there will be people who will miss me, who will be sad to see me go. In that, they will give me all sorts of memories to take with me, in various shapes and colours and smells, and we will all vow forever love and remembrance. And as each of us gets busy with a new life, some in the same place, some in new ones, we will slowly forget to keep contact, fading into our new and hopefully improved set of friends, colleagues and times to think fondly of. All of which I wish for the person who left yesterday….
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Finding a safe place
The newspapers this morning headlined horrific news: 21 people shot dead on a college campus in the United States. By the afternoon, that figure had climbed steeply to 33 and who knows how high it will go before the story is deemed a final report before the investigation starts. This kind of nightmare has been recurring over the past few years, getting to the frightening darkness it now has in huge leaps. Maybe death always did lurk on university grounds and in school cafeterias, who knows; now, it is a fact of life that needs to be dealt with, not just by the law enforcement authorities, but also by behavioural psychologists. And not just in the United States, but all over the world.
This sort of arbitrary killing is not unknown anywhere in the world. There is very little that pushes a human being past a critical point, when they start acting irrationally and dangerously. The frightening part of the story comes with time and thought – India has been absorbing so much from the West, particularly from that El Dorado known as ‘the States’; is this penchant for slaughter going to be the next cue? Think about it.
I was once a student in the US, with little care for my own safety. I never knew what it was to feel threatened or scared. None of my friends or acquaintances was unstable or irrational in any discernible way and all of them had a thick vein of sturdy common sense and practical reality running through them. In fact, as a protected, sheltered, fairly innocent baby of the pack, spoiled by circumstance and all those who knew me and kept pristine by my own unsuspecting, accepting personality, I never even dreamed that anything could happen to me, or even that anyone I knew could be in any way ‘bad’ or ‘misbehaved’, leave alone ‘evil’. That in itself kept me safer than I could imagine.
As a result I took risks that I never realised were risks. I would walk home from the lab at 2 am, uncaring that I had to go through a deserted car park and cross a road that was a direct feeder between a mall, known for its rather insalubrious bar scene, and an expressway ramp. I would drive back across the county to my apartment complex long after the traffic had eased into somnolence, not worried about headlights following me too closely or the car in front slowing down too much, too suddenly. And I would find absolutely nothing wrong in talking to a fellow student who was young and male and known to be a rover, long into the night in an otherwise deserted college building. It was not that I did not know the dangers of it all, or the stupidity of my own behaviour, but just the surety that nothing could possibly happen to me.
In that, it never did. Someone was watching over me, I knew, so I could be sure that I was safe, no matter the provocation I presented. But I never thought of this kind of horror, where someone could walk into a classroom and shoot for fun, out of rage, from an inner pain that broke through its walls without warning. Who knows why these people killed. That they did is an evil that first their families, then the nation, then the world will have to live with.
This sort of arbitrary killing is not unknown anywhere in the world. There is very little that pushes a human being past a critical point, when they start acting irrationally and dangerously. The frightening part of the story comes with time and thought – India has been absorbing so much from the West, particularly from that El Dorado known as ‘the States’; is this penchant for slaughter going to be the next cue? Think about it.
I was once a student in the US, with little care for my own safety. I never knew what it was to feel threatened or scared. None of my friends or acquaintances was unstable or irrational in any discernible way and all of them had a thick vein of sturdy common sense and practical reality running through them. In fact, as a protected, sheltered, fairly innocent baby of the pack, spoiled by circumstance and all those who knew me and kept pristine by my own unsuspecting, accepting personality, I never even dreamed that anything could happen to me, or even that anyone I knew could be in any way ‘bad’ or ‘misbehaved’, leave alone ‘evil’. That in itself kept me safer than I could imagine.
As a result I took risks that I never realised were risks. I would walk home from the lab at 2 am, uncaring that I had to go through a deserted car park and cross a road that was a direct feeder between a mall, known for its rather insalubrious bar scene, and an expressway ramp. I would drive back across the county to my apartment complex long after the traffic had eased into somnolence, not worried about headlights following me too closely or the car in front slowing down too much, too suddenly. And I would find absolutely nothing wrong in talking to a fellow student who was young and male and known to be a rover, long into the night in an otherwise deserted college building. It was not that I did not know the dangers of it all, or the stupidity of my own behaviour, but just the surety that nothing could possibly happen to me.
In that, it never did. Someone was watching over me, I knew, so I could be sure that I was safe, no matter the provocation I presented. But I never thought of this kind of horror, where someone could walk into a classroom and shoot for fun, out of rage, from an inner pain that broke through its walls without warning. Who knows why these people killed. That they did is an evil that first their families, then the nation, then the world will have to live with.
Monday, April 16, 2007
In with the new
A lot of India has been celebrating New Year over the weekend. As Tamilians, we did our thing on Saturday, with food and a certain amount of fun, a certain oddball reverence and some semblance of tradition, though skewed to suit our fairly modern attitudes. But, what with it being a working day on April 14 and with crises of work reaching their usual weekend crescendo, and my own inability to handle both work and my portion of home-chores without forgetting trivialities such as how much water to put into khichdi or when to turn off the gas under the ghee, it was a bit of a rush and the pother overtook the good sense and planning.
It all began the previous evening, when I was getting the kheer ready. It came out perfect, with the right consistency, the right amount of rice, the right proportion of sugar, the right number of threads of clotted cream and the right sprinkling of saffron, touched by a tinge of wholly unconventional nutmeg thrown in for devilment. The planning for the khichdi and the kadi, the crunchies and the afters was superbly timed and prepared for, with some sudden eventualities allowed to occur if they absolutely had to. The new tribal-craft bedspreads I had bought at an exhibition and was hoarding were taken out and put in the bedrooms, ready for use the next morning when the beds were made. My clothes were decided on and Father’s wardrobe examined for anything new that he could wear. Even Small Cat was included, with a swanky new collar ready to be clicked into place around her pretty little neck.
And then, like the world according to Murphy, things went left of centre, in their usual unpredictably crazy way. When I woke in the morning, I was still bleary with lack of sleep because I had been battling a persistent mosquito who did not understand the implications of “shoo”, repellent ointment or bug spray. Then, just when I was starting to think about taking out the sari I was thinking of wearing, I found that I had to drive myself to work and, between that fact and the other that the time I would be in the office would be long and frazzled, I chose the safe and comfortable option of jeans and a Tshirt instead. When I was headed to get that pressed and neat, the iron rebelled and refused to work. Finally, I just left, muttering direly to myself and thinking nastily about how this would be the perfect day for the car to choke or another taxi to get suddenly and painfully intimate with my little chariot.
Mercifully, the car worked fine, humming cheerfully and undauntedly along. The work day was long and arduous, with more than my usual share of editing done to my own satisfaction, and I managed to get out at a respectable hour, with time enough to go home and make dinner. Now there was a less happy story, which will need a little patience and time to tell, apart from a whole lot of my well-stored sense of humour.
It began with the khichdi. The rice and dal was picked and ready - bless Father – and I started it cooking, along with a judicious handful of spices and a prayer. Then I got the bondas ready to cook – spinach, paneer and potato balls with a coating of gently tangy besan batter. They came out perfect, as expected. The khichdi was perhaps rather too well done, but the resultant gruel was delicious. Unfortunately, when I was ghee-frying the nuts and raisins for the kheer, I forgot about them and we got somewhat charred bits of charcoal dotting the pale gold of the payasam in our bowls. And stuck in our teeth. But the piece de resistance – to which Father exhibited a strange resistence - was the kadi. Having made it only once before with the expert guidance of Madhur Jaffrey in constant attendance (in the shape of a book, not in person, I must hastily add here), I had little clue, but decided to wing it. Wing is about right. It was absolutely delectable where taste was concerned, but could perhaps be better used as a means to stick together old books that were falling apart. If reinforced concrete was used to stick together paper, of course! Father has made his acerbic remarks on the subject, but I maintain that if his eyes had been closed, he could have thoroughly enjoyed the taste and never mind the look!
But we ate, we chatted, we thought fondly of Mum and played with Small Cat, who burped happily after her snack of a new brand of cat-treats. And we all believe that the New Year will be a good and happy one. As we hope it will be for everyone else in the world.
It all began the previous evening, when I was getting the kheer ready. It came out perfect, with the right consistency, the right amount of rice, the right proportion of sugar, the right number of threads of clotted cream and the right sprinkling of saffron, touched by a tinge of wholly unconventional nutmeg thrown in for devilment. The planning for the khichdi and the kadi, the crunchies and the afters was superbly timed and prepared for, with some sudden eventualities allowed to occur if they absolutely had to. The new tribal-craft bedspreads I had bought at an exhibition and was hoarding were taken out and put in the bedrooms, ready for use the next morning when the beds were made. My clothes were decided on and Father’s wardrobe examined for anything new that he could wear. Even Small Cat was included, with a swanky new collar ready to be clicked into place around her pretty little neck.
And then, like the world according to Murphy, things went left of centre, in their usual unpredictably crazy way. When I woke in the morning, I was still bleary with lack of sleep because I had been battling a persistent mosquito who did not understand the implications of “shoo”, repellent ointment or bug spray. Then, just when I was starting to think about taking out the sari I was thinking of wearing, I found that I had to drive myself to work and, between that fact and the other that the time I would be in the office would be long and frazzled, I chose the safe and comfortable option of jeans and a Tshirt instead. When I was headed to get that pressed and neat, the iron rebelled and refused to work. Finally, I just left, muttering direly to myself and thinking nastily about how this would be the perfect day for the car to choke or another taxi to get suddenly and painfully intimate with my little chariot.
Mercifully, the car worked fine, humming cheerfully and undauntedly along. The work day was long and arduous, with more than my usual share of editing done to my own satisfaction, and I managed to get out at a respectable hour, with time enough to go home and make dinner. Now there was a less happy story, which will need a little patience and time to tell, apart from a whole lot of my well-stored sense of humour.
It began with the khichdi. The rice and dal was picked and ready - bless Father – and I started it cooking, along with a judicious handful of spices and a prayer. Then I got the bondas ready to cook – spinach, paneer and potato balls with a coating of gently tangy besan batter. They came out perfect, as expected. The khichdi was perhaps rather too well done, but the resultant gruel was delicious. Unfortunately, when I was ghee-frying the nuts and raisins for the kheer, I forgot about them and we got somewhat charred bits of charcoal dotting the pale gold of the payasam in our bowls. And stuck in our teeth. But the piece de resistance – to which Father exhibited a strange resistence - was the kadi. Having made it only once before with the expert guidance of Madhur Jaffrey in constant attendance (in the shape of a book, not in person, I must hastily add here), I had little clue, but decided to wing it. Wing is about right. It was absolutely delectable where taste was concerned, but could perhaps be better used as a means to stick together old books that were falling apart. If reinforced concrete was used to stick together paper, of course! Father has made his acerbic remarks on the subject, but I maintain that if his eyes had been closed, he could have thoroughly enjoyed the taste and never mind the look!
But we ate, we chatted, we thought fondly of Mum and played with Small Cat, who burped happily after her snack of a new brand of cat-treats. And we all believe that the New Year will be a good and happy one. As we hope it will be for everyone else in the world.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Idol chatter
I was watching American Idol last night and must confess that even though I normally do not like reality shows, and hate the hype associated with them, in particular, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I have seen it before and find my opinions more or less spot on with the entirely obnoxious but very percipient and funny Simon Cowell. While I like Randy Jackson and his enthusiasm, Paul Abdul’s wishy-washy, always-Miss-Sunshine remarks are hardly constructive, albeit encouraging to the contestants who will, a few seconds later, likely be squashed flatter than the proverbial pancake by Cowell. And the music is always fun, be it the totally besur yowling of those who are normally eliminated or the finesse of the final ten…or six…or three.
Yesterday was Latin night. The ‘mentor’ was the diva herself, Jennifer Lopez, who was surprisingly normal, even though her voice was much weaker and tinnier than her recordings or music videos show. But she had a vitality and warmth that transcended that possible flaw, her smile lighting up the screen and her hands expressing more than her words did. And when she finally performed, the pyrotechnics and backup dancers notwithstanding, she was spectacular, that famous curve of bottom and sexiness of every move adding magic to the fairly mediocre.
But more than that, what was amazing was the lack of spark and spunk from the singers who were vying for the title. With songs from Santana and Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine dominating, it was a blah evening, all the passion and fire that Latino music has completely lacking. Where Gloria would have set the stage and the audience smoking with her vocals and her moves, none of the contestants managed that, no matter that they were all, for the most part, not bad at all. Why? Perhaps they were self conscious. Perhaps they were awed at the 15 minutes they got with La Lopez. Or maybe they were just tired of acting something they were not, and hoped that the music would do the trick instead.
But fortune has a way of smiling on the brave, or at least on bravado. Sanjaya Malakar, considered the worst singer but perhaps the most charismatic, managed to pull off a performance that was his best and one of the better ones of the evening. All without a kinky hairdo, even though he did throw in a few shy smiles and seductive sideways sneak-peeks while he sat on a stool and crooned his love song. It worked. He was still in, while a more sexy, lively, bouncy number did little for the girl who sang it, getting her booted out of the contest, as a matter of fact.
There has been a great deal of debate about Sanjaya and his continued presence on the show. People have threatened to fast until death and Cowell has said that he would quit if the boy won. And for some reason he keeps sliding through to the last few. Is it the minority vote, as many believe? Is it the persuasive power of Howard Stern? Is it his ever-changing coiffeur? Or is just sheer luck of the draw, when other people have been so much worse than the half-Indian youngster with the HAIR?
Whatever the case, Sanjaya is making it big, laying the basis of a future in showbiz even if he does not win the contest. If he does, more power to his notes – there better be, since he could do with some strength to his rather reedy voice – and to his ilk. And, of course, it will give India a new chance to claim another son, never mind that he hardly qualifies as being one!
Yesterday was Latin night. The ‘mentor’ was the diva herself, Jennifer Lopez, who was surprisingly normal, even though her voice was much weaker and tinnier than her recordings or music videos show. But she had a vitality and warmth that transcended that possible flaw, her smile lighting up the screen and her hands expressing more than her words did. And when she finally performed, the pyrotechnics and backup dancers notwithstanding, she was spectacular, that famous curve of bottom and sexiness of every move adding magic to the fairly mediocre.
But more than that, what was amazing was the lack of spark and spunk from the singers who were vying for the title. With songs from Santana and Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine dominating, it was a blah evening, all the passion and fire that Latino music has completely lacking. Where Gloria would have set the stage and the audience smoking with her vocals and her moves, none of the contestants managed that, no matter that they were all, for the most part, not bad at all. Why? Perhaps they were self conscious. Perhaps they were awed at the 15 minutes they got with La Lopez. Or maybe they were just tired of acting something they were not, and hoped that the music would do the trick instead.
But fortune has a way of smiling on the brave, or at least on bravado. Sanjaya Malakar, considered the worst singer but perhaps the most charismatic, managed to pull off a performance that was his best and one of the better ones of the evening. All without a kinky hairdo, even though he did throw in a few shy smiles and seductive sideways sneak-peeks while he sat on a stool and crooned his love song. It worked. He was still in, while a more sexy, lively, bouncy number did little for the girl who sang it, getting her booted out of the contest, as a matter of fact.
There has been a great deal of debate about Sanjaya and his continued presence on the show. People have threatened to fast until death and Cowell has said that he would quit if the boy won. And for some reason he keeps sliding through to the last few. Is it the minority vote, as many believe? Is it the persuasive power of Howard Stern? Is it his ever-changing coiffeur? Or is just sheer luck of the draw, when other people have been so much worse than the half-Indian youngster with the HAIR?
Whatever the case, Sanjaya is making it big, laying the basis of a future in showbiz even if he does not win the contest. If he does, more power to his notes – there better be, since he could do with some strength to his rather reedy voice – and to his ilk. And, of course, it will give India a new chance to claim another son, never mind that he hardly qualifies as being one!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
A day to remember
Tomorrow is the fateful day, Friday the 13th. While I do not have anything even close to triskaidekaphobia, I do find it rather interesting that the number 13 should have such negative connotations in so many people’s minds. For me, it has always been a number associated with change, with fun and with a whole lot of growing up.
When I was about 13, we lived in a wonderfully situated apartment block in the very posh part of South Mumbai. High on a hill and edged by the sea on three sides, with the best view of Marine Drive from my bathroom window, it was on the 13th floor of a 14 storey block. That was a time in my life when everything was bright and colourful and sunshiney, with nothing really wrong beyond essays that needed to be written, a closet that never stayed clean and obstreperous adolescence that was hard to deal with all around. I was, on the whole, a fairly decently adjusted teenager, without the usual angsts of spots, crushes and horrible parents. It was more about wanting something I could not identify, needing to find some kind of rootedness apart from my parents and looking for a self that I still had to define.
The 13th floor was a fabulous place to grow up, which I did, in almost every way possible. It was an enormous apartment, with huge French doors at either end of the endless living-dining space, the large balconies hanging high over a steep cliff dropping down the hill. From there I watched the year go by, from the chill and breezy days of winter, when women made pickles and papads on terraces below us to the madness of the Ganpati immersion and the wild thunderstorms that rattled the windows and sparked fire over the ocean. And it was on the 13th floor that I learned to hate pigeons, to love the scent of the night queen blooms and to think about life, the universe and everything in between.
When I read about luxury hotels eliminating the 13th floor in their counting and people who refuse to step out of their homes if the 13th day of the month happens to be Friday, I giggle gently to myself and remember where I came from and what made me the person that I am. And I add to that what my stout-hearted friend and colleague said this morning when I reminded him what date tomorrow was: “So? It comes too often for it to be special!” He is right, isn’t he!
When I was about 13, we lived in a wonderfully situated apartment block in the very posh part of South Mumbai. High on a hill and edged by the sea on three sides, with the best view of Marine Drive from my bathroom window, it was on the 13th floor of a 14 storey block. That was a time in my life when everything was bright and colourful and sunshiney, with nothing really wrong beyond essays that needed to be written, a closet that never stayed clean and obstreperous adolescence that was hard to deal with all around. I was, on the whole, a fairly decently adjusted teenager, without the usual angsts of spots, crushes and horrible parents. It was more about wanting something I could not identify, needing to find some kind of rootedness apart from my parents and looking for a self that I still had to define.
The 13th floor was a fabulous place to grow up, which I did, in almost every way possible. It was an enormous apartment, with huge French doors at either end of the endless living-dining space, the large balconies hanging high over a steep cliff dropping down the hill. From there I watched the year go by, from the chill and breezy days of winter, when women made pickles and papads on terraces below us to the madness of the Ganpati immersion and the wild thunderstorms that rattled the windows and sparked fire over the ocean. And it was on the 13th floor that I learned to hate pigeons, to love the scent of the night queen blooms and to think about life, the universe and everything in between.
When I read about luxury hotels eliminating the 13th floor in their counting and people who refuse to step out of their homes if the 13th day of the month happens to be Friday, I giggle gently to myself and remember where I came from and what made me the person that I am. And I add to that what my stout-hearted friend and colleague said this morning when I reminded him what date tomorrow was: “So? It comes too often for it to be special!” He is right, isn’t he!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Pizzas and peanut butter
I was talking to a friend recently about food – what else! – and found that pizza had features large on the lunch menu. And it took me way back to the time when I was in college and always hungry. It was many years ago and I had just moved to a campus in the gorgeous Rocky Mountains. In the coed dorm where I had to stay for a year, I met all sorts of people, from unclad Norwegians who helped name my rubber plants to the college Casanova to a Boston Brahmin with incredibly bad breath. And along the way I made friends who taught me an alternate way of food, stuff that was not light, lite, healthy or high-fibre, had plenty of calories and fuelled the system for the hard days that we all had to go through.
Perhaps highest on that list was pizza. Every occasion that counted - which meant every excuse that could be invented – mandated a call to the nearest pizza delivery service, the more coupons we had for it, the better. At one point in time my roommate and I had 22 people in our room, scattered over bunkbeds, desks, chairs and the floor, all munching on pizza and talking non-stop with their mouths full. Smoking and drinking alcohol were not allowed in our small space, since both of us and the plants had various allergies, but bad jokes about bananas and minor jousts with forks were permitted, if the provocation was strong enough.
And whenever we had these dos, there would be leftovers. The hosts got to keep them, unfortunately. Or was it fortunately? With my terrifically Tam-Bram snobbish upbringing I quailed rather when it came to the question of very cold and very stale pizza, but my roommate thrived on it. I remember waking one very cold winter morning to find her standing by the open window watching the fat while flakes cover the lawns, while she munched happily on a day-old slice and sipped from a steaming mug of instant coffee. When I asked what in heck she was up to, even as icicles formed on my sleep-sagging eyelashes, she turned and offered me a bite. The piece wilted in her hands and whatever hunger I may possibly have felt at that hour wilted, too.
But the same girl also taught me about some pleasures of this kind of instant food. She would sit on the floor by the miniature refrigerator I had and smear lettuce leaves with sharp mustard, rolling them up and crunching into the tunes with great enthusiasm. For a long time I looked and shuddered, but one day I was goaded into taking a bite. And now I know just how wonderful fresh crisp lettuce with spicy yellow mustard can be! Then there was the peanut butter and celery thing – this was before I got allergic to peanuts, but after I had discovered a passion for American celery, which was large, tender and most delicious just by itself. My roommate would open the jar of extra-chunky peanut butter that I hoarded, grab a few sticks of celery from the fridge and do the dip-and-eat routine with almost cow-like devotion to the chewing. Soon she had me doing it too. And while I keep my distance from peanuts these days, I find that tahini or cream cheese does the trick equally well for me when teamed with lush green sticks of crunchy healthiness.
But old cold pizza still will not make me want to indulge. This is one genre of leftover I would rather leave over.
Perhaps highest on that list was pizza. Every occasion that counted - which meant every excuse that could be invented – mandated a call to the nearest pizza delivery service, the more coupons we had for it, the better. At one point in time my roommate and I had 22 people in our room, scattered over bunkbeds, desks, chairs and the floor, all munching on pizza and talking non-stop with their mouths full. Smoking and drinking alcohol were not allowed in our small space, since both of us and the plants had various allergies, but bad jokes about bananas and minor jousts with forks were permitted, if the provocation was strong enough.
And whenever we had these dos, there would be leftovers. The hosts got to keep them, unfortunately. Or was it fortunately? With my terrifically Tam-Bram snobbish upbringing I quailed rather when it came to the question of very cold and very stale pizza, but my roommate thrived on it. I remember waking one very cold winter morning to find her standing by the open window watching the fat while flakes cover the lawns, while she munched happily on a day-old slice and sipped from a steaming mug of instant coffee. When I asked what in heck she was up to, even as icicles formed on my sleep-sagging eyelashes, she turned and offered me a bite. The piece wilted in her hands and whatever hunger I may possibly have felt at that hour wilted, too.
But the same girl also taught me about some pleasures of this kind of instant food. She would sit on the floor by the miniature refrigerator I had and smear lettuce leaves with sharp mustard, rolling them up and crunching into the tunes with great enthusiasm. For a long time I looked and shuddered, but one day I was goaded into taking a bite. And now I know just how wonderful fresh crisp lettuce with spicy yellow mustard can be! Then there was the peanut butter and celery thing – this was before I got allergic to peanuts, but after I had discovered a passion for American celery, which was large, tender and most delicious just by itself. My roommate would open the jar of extra-chunky peanut butter that I hoarded, grab a few sticks of celery from the fridge and do the dip-and-eat routine with almost cow-like devotion to the chewing. Soon she had me doing it too. And while I keep my distance from peanuts these days, I find that tahini or cream cheese does the trick equally well for me when teamed with lush green sticks of crunchy healthiness.
But old cold pizza still will not make me want to indulge. This is one genre of leftover I would rather leave over.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
A laugh a minute
When I was very young, my parents introduced me to the wonderful world of comics. They kept me amused for hours, until I actually learned how to read and figured out what was going to happen long before it did happen. Which kind of spoiled the fun a bit, except that by then I was too busy discovering more new and exciting comic strips that brought back that amusement and giggles.
Perhaps I began with the age-old standards, comics than truly set the standards (ha, ha!) for me. I was introduced to characters like Little Dot, Lotta, Richie Rich and Caspar the Friendly Ghost, and decided that they were ‘people’ I needed to have in my own life. For years I looked everywhere for friends like this, and occasionally found someone who was close, at least in character. And they are still with me, even though I rarely read the comics these days.
Then I was shown the racks where Charlie Brown ruled. Living in a small town in Germany then, which had just one bookshop that stocked anything in English, I managed to accumulate as many Peanuts compilations as were available there. So I read through the entire roster of Charlie Brown’s adventures, identified closely with the fussbudget Lucy and danced my way into a world that was populated by the madness of Snoopy and the Red Baron, Shroeder and his passion for Beethoven, Linus, Woodstock and everyone else who made life so much fun for me and my generation.
Then came the advent of a new set of characters – all from the Asterix and Obelix series. I had the whole set, some bought in stores, others ordered for me from the publishers by my parents. The comic books were all in German, and astoundingly funny – and, in some ways, as hilarious in English, especially since I knew where the original puns came from – and while the newer plots published more recently have been more political and less regional, they have not lost their original quality. Perhaps the best part of the stories was that some of my schoolfriends of the time were also fans, so we could all talk about it and giggle happily in school. I was even given a set of brilliant orange plastic figures of the main cast by a friend who, if we were all much older and more worldly wise, may have had serious designs on my virtue.
When I was in college in the United States, my friend Karen had me meet her favourites – Opus the Penguin and his friends from Bloom County. I was already tuned into the world of animals with Garfield, and had been reading Calvin and Hobbes and trying to understand the American political commentary of Doonesbury. But my favourites remained: Beau Peep, Hagar the Horrible and, of course and always, Peanuts. Many of the creators of the strips are now gone to that funny-house in the sky, though their work still endures in reruns and memories. Today, I still read the comics in preference to going through all the hard news and deeply meaningful editorials that are necessary for me to deal with a day at work, but now it all happens at top speed. I still turn to the comics page in whatever one of the four newspapers we get at home and log into my favourite comics site online as soon as I can. My preference now leans towards things catly, and I check in on Mutts, 9 Chickweed Lane, Kit ’n’ Carlyle and Rose is Rose – the last for its charming vignettes of a young family – regularly.
But somewhere along the way I miss my old favourites. And some day I will catch up with them once again and find out just what Charlie Brown, Little Dot, Asterix and Opus are up to. Then, my funnybone may just wake up to do its familiar little wiggle of joyful excitement.
Perhaps I began with the age-old standards, comics than truly set the standards (ha, ha!) for me. I was introduced to characters like Little Dot, Lotta, Richie Rich and Caspar the Friendly Ghost, and decided that they were ‘people’ I needed to have in my own life. For years I looked everywhere for friends like this, and occasionally found someone who was close, at least in character. And they are still with me, even though I rarely read the comics these days.
Then I was shown the racks where Charlie Brown ruled. Living in a small town in Germany then, which had just one bookshop that stocked anything in English, I managed to accumulate as many Peanuts compilations as were available there. So I read through the entire roster of Charlie Brown’s adventures, identified closely with the fussbudget Lucy and danced my way into a world that was populated by the madness of Snoopy and the Red Baron, Shroeder and his passion for Beethoven, Linus, Woodstock and everyone else who made life so much fun for me and my generation.
Then came the advent of a new set of characters – all from the Asterix and Obelix series. I had the whole set, some bought in stores, others ordered for me from the publishers by my parents. The comic books were all in German, and astoundingly funny – and, in some ways, as hilarious in English, especially since I knew where the original puns came from – and while the newer plots published more recently have been more political and less regional, they have not lost their original quality. Perhaps the best part of the stories was that some of my schoolfriends of the time were also fans, so we could all talk about it and giggle happily in school. I was even given a set of brilliant orange plastic figures of the main cast by a friend who, if we were all much older and more worldly wise, may have had serious designs on my virtue.
When I was in college in the United States, my friend Karen had me meet her favourites – Opus the Penguin and his friends from Bloom County. I was already tuned into the world of animals with Garfield, and had been reading Calvin and Hobbes and trying to understand the American political commentary of Doonesbury. But my favourites remained: Beau Peep, Hagar the Horrible and, of course and always, Peanuts. Many of the creators of the strips are now gone to that funny-house in the sky, though their work still endures in reruns and memories. Today, I still read the comics in preference to going through all the hard news and deeply meaningful editorials that are necessary for me to deal with a day at work, but now it all happens at top speed. I still turn to the comics page in whatever one of the four newspapers we get at home and log into my favourite comics site online as soon as I can. My preference now leans towards things catly, and I check in on Mutts, 9 Chickweed Lane, Kit ’n’ Carlyle and Rose is Rose – the last for its charming vignettes of a young family – regularly.
But somewhere along the way I miss my old favourites. And some day I will catch up with them once again and find out just what Charlie Brown, Little Dot, Asterix and Opus are up to. Then, my funnybone may just wake up to do its familiar little wiggle of joyful excitement.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Brave heart
For some strange reason that she never tells us about, Small Cat has an odd way of dealing with things that are new and potentially – to her little mind – threatening. When the front door bell rings and she knows (with finely honed catly instinct) that it is not one of us, she scuttles from wherever she is at that point in time and leaps on to a chair at the dining table. Hiding under the tablecloth, she peers out to see what or who is asking for entry, her big eyes circular and her ears set back in alarm. Once the visitor has come and gone, she will cautiously hop off the chair, sometimes persuaded by our coaxing, and cautiously investigate any traces of the person who has come and gone.
Over the months that Small Cat has been with us (or we have been hers), she has become rather braver, even though she has her moments of determined and single-minded scuttle to positions under cover. Yesterday, for instance, she emerged from her haven to take a closer look at the piles of plastic and cardboard that the electricians – who were there to do some work in the house – had brought in. And that is not all; she has been closely monitoring the work of the gardener as he repots and prunes the plants, she supervises the maid doing the dusting every morning and insists on checking the toes of a family friend, never mind that he believes that he is allergic to cats.
Small Cat’s bravery does not stretch too far. When I had been away for a week or so and came back with bags and baggage, she took one look at me and my suitcase and fled, tail low, back low, ears low, apprehensions high. It was a while before she would deign to accept my advances, and stayed at a ‘safe’ distance watching with round eyes before she suddenly realised it was me, the person who gave her dinner and cleaned her catbox. Then she was her usual mad self, leaping out at me in her much-loved ambushes, following me around the house as I got things done in the morning and demanding a cuddle when she felt the need for one.
But we all have fears and are never sure how to deal with them. I have spoken of how I knew that there were no lions under my bed, but was too afraid to look to see if there were or not, because I was sure that they would get me if they were seen. So I spent many irrational years of my life not doing what could have saved me all that anguish, just because I was afraid to. In the same way, I know people who will not step on cracks in the sidewalk, because something nasty would happen to them. And I know that few of them have read about how Christopher Robin would hop over the pavement to make sure that the bears at the zoo didn’t get him!
A wise woman once told me that you should confront your fears so that you can see how small and silly they are. I have often taken her advice, whether it is an interview I am dreading or a sure knowledge that something is going very wrong in my life. It has usually been true that the fear is real and needs to be handled with a great deal of courage, fortitude and determination, some support from those who care about you and who matter and a whole lot of chutzpah. Just like Small Cat shows when she has got over the first instant alarm reflex.
Over the months that Small Cat has been with us (or we have been hers), she has become rather braver, even though she has her moments of determined and single-minded scuttle to positions under cover. Yesterday, for instance, she emerged from her haven to take a closer look at the piles of plastic and cardboard that the electricians – who were there to do some work in the house – had brought in. And that is not all; she has been closely monitoring the work of the gardener as he repots and prunes the plants, she supervises the maid doing the dusting every morning and insists on checking the toes of a family friend, never mind that he believes that he is allergic to cats.
Small Cat’s bravery does not stretch too far. When I had been away for a week or so and came back with bags and baggage, she took one look at me and my suitcase and fled, tail low, back low, ears low, apprehensions high. It was a while before she would deign to accept my advances, and stayed at a ‘safe’ distance watching with round eyes before she suddenly realised it was me, the person who gave her dinner and cleaned her catbox. Then she was her usual mad self, leaping out at me in her much-loved ambushes, following me around the house as I got things done in the morning and demanding a cuddle when she felt the need for one.
But we all have fears and are never sure how to deal with them. I have spoken of how I knew that there were no lions under my bed, but was too afraid to look to see if there were or not, because I was sure that they would get me if they were seen. So I spent many irrational years of my life not doing what could have saved me all that anguish, just because I was afraid to. In the same way, I know people who will not step on cracks in the sidewalk, because something nasty would happen to them. And I know that few of them have read about how Christopher Robin would hop over the pavement to make sure that the bears at the zoo didn’t get him!
A wise woman once told me that you should confront your fears so that you can see how small and silly they are. I have often taken her advice, whether it is an interview I am dreading or a sure knowledge that something is going very wrong in my life. It has usually been true that the fear is real and needs to be handled with a great deal of courage, fortitude and determination, some support from those who care about you and who matter and a whole lot of chutzpah. Just like Small Cat shows when she has got over the first instant alarm reflex.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Putting on the glitz
I am a firm believer in bling. The bigger the better, but with a certain taste attached. And while I would never advocate the kitchen-sink look, I do appreciate and occasionally indulge in a certain amount of the shiny stuff, when time and circumstance allows. And I do like a bit of OTT myself, at least once in a while, with a piece or two making that special statement that cannot but prove that you have ‘it’, whatever that ‘it’ may be. But there are rules to any bling, large or small, which must be followed; unless, of course, you want to look like the faux jewellery counter at the corner bania shop, with absolutely no connection to anything spelled D-i-o-r or even j-o-o-l-r-y.
I was at the mall today looking for cat food and various other sundries when the friend who had come with me got distracted and wandered off. Keeping one eye firmly on her movements, I watched people with the other, perhaps looking rather strange, but undaunted by the even stranger sideways glances I was getting from the spotty young man who had been trying to sell me some kind of smelly stuff – or stuff to make me smell of something apart from clean female and baby powder, I am not sure. In the waiting boredom was my companion, so I drifted a little left, peering at the cases of jewellery presumably tastefully assembled to show off a lot of nicely illuminated shine.
There were bracelets and bangles and rings and necklaces and earrings and other bits and bobs that seemed to be of mysterious function that was beyond my comprehension. And there were a few women, accompanied by patently bored men, who stood there trying things on, surfing, as it were, through the display and, occasionally, examining the results in the too-small mirror provided for that purpose. At some stage, one lady put on a ‘full set’, which consisted of a series of very shiny chains cascading down into her ample cleavage, with a pair of earrings that started at the tops of her ears and draped down into her neck. And a pretty young girl with a small silver ring in her nose draped a long and baubled necklace around her slim waist, adding to her charms considerably, much to the appreciation of four young men at a nearby counter who had become somewhat distracted by the sight.
I have been bling watching for a while now, fascinated by the range of faux jewels available and the panache with which they are worn. Television soaps – that I was riveted by a few months ago; the charm has worn off now – are perhaps the biggest consumers of ‘paste’, as it was once called, with everyone from the servants to the memsahibs decorated in swathes of the stuff. I was even more ensnared by the fact, reported in some gossip magazine, that a lot of the jewellery used by the saas-bahu types was made of – hold your breath – paper! While I figure that one out, I will go ogle some more of the glitter that is available in the store down the road from home…
I was at the mall today looking for cat food and various other sundries when the friend who had come with me got distracted and wandered off. Keeping one eye firmly on her movements, I watched people with the other, perhaps looking rather strange, but undaunted by the even stranger sideways glances I was getting from the spotty young man who had been trying to sell me some kind of smelly stuff – or stuff to make me smell of something apart from clean female and baby powder, I am not sure. In the waiting boredom was my companion, so I drifted a little left, peering at the cases of jewellery presumably tastefully assembled to show off a lot of nicely illuminated shine.
There were bracelets and bangles and rings and necklaces and earrings and other bits and bobs that seemed to be of mysterious function that was beyond my comprehension. And there were a few women, accompanied by patently bored men, who stood there trying things on, surfing, as it were, through the display and, occasionally, examining the results in the too-small mirror provided for that purpose. At some stage, one lady put on a ‘full set’, which consisted of a series of very shiny chains cascading down into her ample cleavage, with a pair of earrings that started at the tops of her ears and draped down into her neck. And a pretty young girl with a small silver ring in her nose draped a long and baubled necklace around her slim waist, adding to her charms considerably, much to the appreciation of four young men at a nearby counter who had become somewhat distracted by the sight.
I have been bling watching for a while now, fascinated by the range of faux jewels available and the panache with which they are worn. Television soaps – that I was riveted by a few months ago; the charm has worn off now – are perhaps the biggest consumers of ‘paste’, as it was once called, with everyone from the servants to the memsahibs decorated in swathes of the stuff. I was even more ensnared by the fact, reported in some gossip magazine, that a lot of the jewellery used by the saas-bahu types was made of – hold your breath – paper! While I figure that one out, I will go ogle some more of the glitter that is available in the store down the road from home…
Thursday, April 05, 2007
The rabbit and the egg
I am a great believer. In almost anything that involves food and joy. Which means that I celebrate Easter with as much enthusiasm as I do Diwali, Eid or Hanukkah. I light candles, diyas and lanterns with equal fervour and stir up as mean a paal payasam as I do a Christmas pudding. But for me Easter has special memories, as a time when I was younger, slimmer, happier and madder (yes, that is possible, I assure you).
Many years ago, when I was a child and lived occasionally in Europe (as it was then, not EU as it is now), Easter was unusual, to say the least. With American friends in a German town, it became a mish-mash of local tradition and foreign festivity, with Easter eggs mixed up with willow branches, mixed up with ‘bunny gardens’ mixed up with daffodils. There was marzipan and chocolate, pies and pastries, fresh bread and the equivalent of hot cross buns. And lots of children running egg races and doing egg hunts, cheered on by adults wearing absurd bunny ears and hopping around looking totally ridiculous and entirely charming.
When, as a somewhat older person I took off to live for a while in the United States as a college student, I had a readymade family to celebrate Easter with. I was – and still am, I am assured – their ‘Indian daughter’ and had, once their children had gone off to various colleges, my ‘own’ room, decorated with textiles from home. I was included in all the festivals that they took seriously and went to church services with perhaps more curious delight than I had ever shown apropos a temple visit. And we ate, lots of delicious food of uncertain provenance – since most Easter feasts were pot-luck events – that was all relished and polished off to the last crumb at the bottom of the serving dish.
One very early and astonishingly cold morning, I went with my ‘foster mum’ to an Easter service on the beach. The Long Island shore is chilly at almost every conceivable time of the year. With cold winds blowing in and even colder water lashing the painfully pebbled waterfront, it was not the most joyous occasion I had ever attended, but it had an eerie beauty and a strange spiritual ambience that could never have been matched by the more sheltered – and far warmer – environs of a chapel. We stood there with hair, coats and (if possible) goosebumps flying madly about, our teeth chattering as the pastor sped through the service and the seagulls fluttered overhead. If ever there was a reason to swig the brandy served up at the reverend’s house later, the frost glittering at the tips of my eyelashes was it, but my allergies intervened and hot chocolate was my antifreeze.
What came after was more my style. My ‘family’ gave me more chocolate than I could eat in the hour after I got back to my apartment, and for a few days after that I gorged my little stout self on chocolate eggs, marzipan flowers and….but no, there was a hitch to my happiness there. I had as part of my loot a large-ish chocolate rabbit, beady black eyes and all, with all his fur (I presumed it was a ‘he’, since he had that somewhat lecherous glint in his sugar-candy eyes) carefully detailed in swirls of sweet brown stuff. Every time I reached towards him to take a bite, I imagined him looking reproachfully at me.
It got so finely balanced that I could not even break off a ear to enjoy my favourite food in its purest avatar. The rabbit sat on my work-desk for days, even weeks, still in his little clear plastic box, staring sadly at me – which could have explained why that term paper was so late – until I could take it no longer. A friend came over, I explained the situation to him and he zapped my rabbit in the microwave oven until he was a puddle of warm chocolate in a soup bowl. And, once his beady little eyes were taken out and thrown away, I managed to do the dirty – I spooned up that lovely pool of sweetness with all the relish of a starving woman deprived of chocolate for too long.
Which is the best way to celebrate Easter, methinks.
Many years ago, when I was a child and lived occasionally in Europe (as it was then, not EU as it is now), Easter was unusual, to say the least. With American friends in a German town, it became a mish-mash of local tradition and foreign festivity, with Easter eggs mixed up with willow branches, mixed up with ‘bunny gardens’ mixed up with daffodils. There was marzipan and chocolate, pies and pastries, fresh bread and the equivalent of hot cross buns. And lots of children running egg races and doing egg hunts, cheered on by adults wearing absurd bunny ears and hopping around looking totally ridiculous and entirely charming.
When, as a somewhat older person I took off to live for a while in the United States as a college student, I had a readymade family to celebrate Easter with. I was – and still am, I am assured – their ‘Indian daughter’ and had, once their children had gone off to various colleges, my ‘own’ room, decorated with textiles from home. I was included in all the festivals that they took seriously and went to church services with perhaps more curious delight than I had ever shown apropos a temple visit. And we ate, lots of delicious food of uncertain provenance – since most Easter feasts were pot-luck events – that was all relished and polished off to the last crumb at the bottom of the serving dish.
One very early and astonishingly cold morning, I went with my ‘foster mum’ to an Easter service on the beach. The Long Island shore is chilly at almost every conceivable time of the year. With cold winds blowing in and even colder water lashing the painfully pebbled waterfront, it was not the most joyous occasion I had ever attended, but it had an eerie beauty and a strange spiritual ambience that could never have been matched by the more sheltered – and far warmer – environs of a chapel. We stood there with hair, coats and (if possible) goosebumps flying madly about, our teeth chattering as the pastor sped through the service and the seagulls fluttered overhead. If ever there was a reason to swig the brandy served up at the reverend’s house later, the frost glittering at the tips of my eyelashes was it, but my allergies intervened and hot chocolate was my antifreeze.
What came after was more my style. My ‘family’ gave me more chocolate than I could eat in the hour after I got back to my apartment, and for a few days after that I gorged my little stout self on chocolate eggs, marzipan flowers and….but no, there was a hitch to my happiness there. I had as part of my loot a large-ish chocolate rabbit, beady black eyes and all, with all his fur (I presumed it was a ‘he’, since he had that somewhat lecherous glint in his sugar-candy eyes) carefully detailed in swirls of sweet brown stuff. Every time I reached towards him to take a bite, I imagined him looking reproachfully at me.
It got so finely balanced that I could not even break off a ear to enjoy my favourite food in its purest avatar. The rabbit sat on my work-desk for days, even weeks, still in his little clear plastic box, staring sadly at me – which could have explained why that term paper was so late – until I could take it no longer. A friend came over, I explained the situation to him and he zapped my rabbit in the microwave oven until he was a puddle of warm chocolate in a soup bowl. And, once his beady little eyes were taken out and thrown away, I managed to do the dirty – I spooned up that lovely pool of sweetness with all the relish of a starving woman deprived of chocolate for too long.
Which is the best way to celebrate Easter, methinks.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
All for love
Mumbai is a city that never sleeps. And, according to the papers, it has no place to sleep in. or sleep around in, as the case may be. There is, reports say, a severe shortage of anywhere to have that loving feeling, nowhere to do a canoodle or three, no space for a cuddle and smooch. Over the past few days, the morality cops have been clamping down on loving couples hanging around promenades, gardens and malls, picking them up and taking them to the police station for their crimes – which are nothing more than simple demonstrations of affection. Parents and lovers alike have been protesting, balancing the wave of criticism and carping that has been echoing through parts if the city.
There is nothing wrong with a little love, even if it happens to be in the wrong places. But sometimes the wonderfully warm and fuzzy feeling that needs urgent expression gets a little too heated, and broad daylight in a public space is admittedly hardly the place to express it. Sitting on the parapet of a sea wall and indulging in a serious make-out session can be dangerous – apart from the possibility of falling into the water, you could also fall into the ambit of a photographer’s lens and be seen in living colour by half the country as you get into a passionate clinch with your significant other. Which means that all your friends and family and assorted other associates could be witness to your demonstrations of TLC, which you may not really want to happen, depending on what you consider to be ‘private’ and ‘personal’, rather than the public screening of a semi-porn video.
So where do lovers go in Mumbai? Stories have been written on this matter for years now – in fact, I wrote one, too, many years ago, when the morality brigade first made its presence felt in the Mumbai that I knew as a ‘journalist’. I have seen couples being rather overly friendly on Marine Drive, one of the more scenic main roads in the city, and tch tch-ed at their plight. I have watched passionate pairs – with a certain sympathetic detachment, of course – dodging vigilant policemen in public parks. And I have heard about people getting caught in ‘the act’, as it were, in the conference room or elevator of the newspaper office I once worked in. Perhaps the most innovative of these amorous adventures came when a duo was doing ‘it’ on the terrace of our (I was a denizen then) heritage building and was seen - though I presume they did not know it – by the entire staff of the municipal corporation from the building next door; lunchtime entertainment for the masses, just what the makers of ‘family’ films would be delighted with, no?
A lot of young couples have nowhere to go, admittedly, for a little slap and tickle. So public places are their only recourse. But couldn’t they use a little discretion when they get there and get down to whatever they are doing? Or is this going to be the new behaviour to show off the liberalisation of a modern generation?
There is nothing wrong with a little love, even if it happens to be in the wrong places. But sometimes the wonderfully warm and fuzzy feeling that needs urgent expression gets a little too heated, and broad daylight in a public space is admittedly hardly the place to express it. Sitting on the parapet of a sea wall and indulging in a serious make-out session can be dangerous – apart from the possibility of falling into the water, you could also fall into the ambit of a photographer’s lens and be seen in living colour by half the country as you get into a passionate clinch with your significant other. Which means that all your friends and family and assorted other associates could be witness to your demonstrations of TLC, which you may not really want to happen, depending on what you consider to be ‘private’ and ‘personal’, rather than the public screening of a semi-porn video.
So where do lovers go in Mumbai? Stories have been written on this matter for years now – in fact, I wrote one, too, many years ago, when the morality brigade first made its presence felt in the Mumbai that I knew as a ‘journalist’. I have seen couples being rather overly friendly on Marine Drive, one of the more scenic main roads in the city, and tch tch-ed at their plight. I have watched passionate pairs – with a certain sympathetic detachment, of course – dodging vigilant policemen in public parks. And I have heard about people getting caught in ‘the act’, as it were, in the conference room or elevator of the newspaper office I once worked in. Perhaps the most innovative of these amorous adventures came when a duo was doing ‘it’ on the terrace of our (I was a denizen then) heritage building and was seen - though I presume they did not know it – by the entire staff of the municipal corporation from the building next door; lunchtime entertainment for the masses, just what the makers of ‘family’ films would be delighted with, no?
A lot of young couples have nowhere to go, admittedly, for a little slap and tickle. So public places are their only recourse. But couldn’t they use a little discretion when they get there and get down to whatever they are doing? Or is this going to be the new behaviour to show off the liberalisation of a modern generation?
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
A fool’s game
I have never been so pleased about April 1. It took a while for me to get down to being that pleased, since I have been looking over my shoulder with a degree of furtiveness to make sure that I am not caught unawares, as I usually am, by the day when practical jokes and smart aleck gags tend to be my lot. It is not that I am stupid or completely unintelligent; it is just that I never see it coming and get slimed…in a manner of speaking, of course. But this year it happened on a Sunday and I was nabbed by only one person: my father. And he knows how I feel about it, and was therefore exceedingly kind in yanking my leg neatly out from under me.
It was painless and easy, cashing in on one of my paranoias. Bugs. Almost everyone who knows me knows that I do the jump-and-run routine when a bug happens to cross my path…or doesn’t, in this particular case. I was groggily sipping at my morning mug of green tea with Small Cat rooting around under the dining table, when Father looked sharply up at a spot above my head and announced with much solemn seriousness: bug. In my usual poised and polished manner, I jumped…right out of my chair. I also ran…right out of the room. And when I peeked around the door to find out if aforementioned bug had been politely shown out the window, I found Father chortling, with Small Cat looking suspiciously as if she was muffling an attack of the giggles, sitting on the dining table and staring bug…err…big-eyed in my direction.
Happy April Fool’s, they wished me.
It hasn’t always been this kind. There have been moments of greater agony, when I have been left wondering what hit me, though not literally, thank god. People have told me about telephone calls that I could have been waiting for, given me presents that were actually useful (like glue - why?) and scared me with assorted wildlife, primarily bugs. So over the years, on April 1, I tend to start looking furtive, peek over my shoulder at the least provocation and jump higher than I normally would on any other day of the year. Every year I tell myself that I will have nerves of steel on that day, brace myself for whatever may happen and make sure that I am not at all surprised, startled or otherwise, by anything that anybody is likely to dish out.
I had all the steel ready and willing to go this year, too. But someone up there had a special surprise in store for me. The night before, as I was tidying my room, a large and curious moth fluttered a little too close for comfort. Being my usual brave self where small and fragile winged creatures were concerned, I shrieked and fled, strewing pillows, books and the air-conditioning remote in my wake. Small Cat sat sleepily up in her basket; Father looked up from his crossword and I screamed my distress in what I later replayed as a rather pathetic squeak. Chuckling and making unwontedly sarcastic remarks, the family went on an expedition of exploration, my demand being for them to catch the flying beast and send it on its way outside the house. I then sat myself on the couch and waited for the mayhem to subside.
After a while, I went to tentatively investigate. Father was putting off lights, while Small Cat rooted in a corner behind my planter’s chair and muttered enquiringly to herself. Soon after, she came galloping out of my room, in hot pursuit of the moth, which came to a fluttering halt somewhere near my feet. I did the jump-and-run routine with magnificent grace, leaping for my bedroom door while Father and Small Cat routed the moth.
So, in essence, the stage had been set for future fright, which happened successfully the next morning. Could you possibly blame me for becoming the April’s fool, once again?
It was painless and easy, cashing in on one of my paranoias. Bugs. Almost everyone who knows me knows that I do the jump-and-run routine when a bug happens to cross my path…or doesn’t, in this particular case. I was groggily sipping at my morning mug of green tea with Small Cat rooting around under the dining table, when Father looked sharply up at a spot above my head and announced with much solemn seriousness: bug. In my usual poised and polished manner, I jumped…right out of my chair. I also ran…right out of the room. And when I peeked around the door to find out if aforementioned bug had been politely shown out the window, I found Father chortling, with Small Cat looking suspiciously as if she was muffling an attack of the giggles, sitting on the dining table and staring bug…err…big-eyed in my direction.
Happy April Fool’s, they wished me.
It hasn’t always been this kind. There have been moments of greater agony, when I have been left wondering what hit me, though not literally, thank god. People have told me about telephone calls that I could have been waiting for, given me presents that were actually useful (like glue - why?) and scared me with assorted wildlife, primarily bugs. So over the years, on April 1, I tend to start looking furtive, peek over my shoulder at the least provocation and jump higher than I normally would on any other day of the year. Every year I tell myself that I will have nerves of steel on that day, brace myself for whatever may happen and make sure that I am not at all surprised, startled or otherwise, by anything that anybody is likely to dish out.
I had all the steel ready and willing to go this year, too. But someone up there had a special surprise in store for me. The night before, as I was tidying my room, a large and curious moth fluttered a little too close for comfort. Being my usual brave self where small and fragile winged creatures were concerned, I shrieked and fled, strewing pillows, books and the air-conditioning remote in my wake. Small Cat sat sleepily up in her basket; Father looked up from his crossword and I screamed my distress in what I later replayed as a rather pathetic squeak. Chuckling and making unwontedly sarcastic remarks, the family went on an expedition of exploration, my demand being for them to catch the flying beast and send it on its way outside the house. I then sat myself on the couch and waited for the mayhem to subside.
After a while, I went to tentatively investigate. Father was putting off lights, while Small Cat rooted in a corner behind my planter’s chair and muttered enquiringly to herself. Soon after, she came galloping out of my room, in hot pursuit of the moth, which came to a fluttering halt somewhere near my feet. I did the jump-and-run routine with magnificent grace, leaping for my bedroom door while Father and Small Cat routed the moth.
So, in essence, the stage had been set for future fright, which happened successfully the next morning. Could you possibly blame me for becoming the April’s fool, once again?
Monday, April 02, 2007
Powerless in pongville
It’s been, in a very special way, a very long weekend. After the manic rigours of the week, it was a pleasure to be home and function at one’s own pace, I thought, when I woke at my usual just-when-dawn-is-cracking time on Sunday morning. It had been a while since I had slept after 6 am, definitely in my own bed, and I got up groggy and unwilling, but unable to sleep any longer.
Pottering through the morning was normal. Sipping hot green tea, chatting idly with Father, feeding and indulging Small Cat, greeting the man with the milk, keeping an eye on the maid, sternly quelling any impulse the washing machine may have to make attempts to hop into the living room with its violent clatter…all that was part of the weekend for me, basics that the day would be incomplete without. I got through my usual day of household activity surprisingly smoothly, not even a stubbed toe to unwontedly punctuate my bustle. But I spoke to soon, methought. When I was done in the kitchen, I sat down for a few moments to read a newspaper…and that’s when it all went in the direction of disaster.
At 11:30 am sharp, the power went off. It is not something we are not used to, but it was an unexpected time. Load shedding to save electricity is a phenomenon of everyday life in townships just outside the city and we have all learned to live with it, albeit sweatily and occasionally grouchily. But the way things have been going in our area, if the power has not gone off by about 9 am, we do not expect it to go at all. I sat there trying not to move too much, Father wandered about saying how hot it was and Small Cat stretched out in a paper bag on the cool marble floor breathing heavily and flexing her claws. All part of what we already know and can live with since we have to.
But the unexpected, like trouble, tends to kick you in the behind when you can’t see it coming. Just when I had decided that a bath would do the trick, the water stopped. It was a problem in the mains, we were told, and there was no water to pump into the overhead tanks from where it would flow through our pipes (in a manner of speaking, that is). But tankers of water had been ordered and as soon as the power was restored, the pumping could begin. That was ok, understandable, not a problem. But a bath? Since there had been no warning, there was no water stored. So how could my bathroom, my hair and my self be cleansed?
I sat there and refused to get annoyed, since that would have meant a rise in my internal temperature and therefore a corresponding rise in my sweat factor (as the weathergirl of yore insisted on calling it) and thus general aura. We managed to get through lunch and some of the afternoon before I started smelling myself, a kind of gentle pong reminiscent of damp clothes and hair that had become soggy after a healthy set of aerobic exercise in a closed room with no ventilation. By the time the power was back, around 3:30 in the afternoon, I was not only wonderfully bad tempered, but feeling like I had spent some generations in a vat of particularly pongy cheese that was going rather off. I knew it couldn’t be that bad in reality, since both Small Cat and Father were still being sociable, and no one who had come to the door had keeled over with my emanations, but I felt like something that had crawled out of a swamp that held the most noxious primordial effluence.
It was a pleasure to stand directly under the high jets of a cool shower. And, as I washed all the sweat and imagined (for the most part) ordure out of my system, I thought fondly of the days when power and pong were nicely balanced in my small and happy world…
Pottering through the morning was normal. Sipping hot green tea, chatting idly with Father, feeding and indulging Small Cat, greeting the man with the milk, keeping an eye on the maid, sternly quelling any impulse the washing machine may have to make attempts to hop into the living room with its violent clatter…all that was part of the weekend for me, basics that the day would be incomplete without. I got through my usual day of household activity surprisingly smoothly, not even a stubbed toe to unwontedly punctuate my bustle. But I spoke to soon, methought. When I was done in the kitchen, I sat down for a few moments to read a newspaper…and that’s when it all went in the direction of disaster.
At 11:30 am sharp, the power went off. It is not something we are not used to, but it was an unexpected time. Load shedding to save electricity is a phenomenon of everyday life in townships just outside the city and we have all learned to live with it, albeit sweatily and occasionally grouchily. But the way things have been going in our area, if the power has not gone off by about 9 am, we do not expect it to go at all. I sat there trying not to move too much, Father wandered about saying how hot it was and Small Cat stretched out in a paper bag on the cool marble floor breathing heavily and flexing her claws. All part of what we already know and can live with since we have to.
But the unexpected, like trouble, tends to kick you in the behind when you can’t see it coming. Just when I had decided that a bath would do the trick, the water stopped. It was a problem in the mains, we were told, and there was no water to pump into the overhead tanks from where it would flow through our pipes (in a manner of speaking, that is). But tankers of water had been ordered and as soon as the power was restored, the pumping could begin. That was ok, understandable, not a problem. But a bath? Since there had been no warning, there was no water stored. So how could my bathroom, my hair and my self be cleansed?
I sat there and refused to get annoyed, since that would have meant a rise in my internal temperature and therefore a corresponding rise in my sweat factor (as the weathergirl of yore insisted on calling it) and thus general aura. We managed to get through lunch and some of the afternoon before I started smelling myself, a kind of gentle pong reminiscent of damp clothes and hair that had become soggy after a healthy set of aerobic exercise in a closed room with no ventilation. By the time the power was back, around 3:30 in the afternoon, I was not only wonderfully bad tempered, but feeling like I had spent some generations in a vat of particularly pongy cheese that was going rather off. I knew it couldn’t be that bad in reality, since both Small Cat and Father were still being sociable, and no one who had come to the door had keeled over with my emanations, but I felt like something that had crawled out of a swamp that held the most noxious primordial effluence.
It was a pleasure to stand directly under the high jets of a cool shower. And, as I washed all the sweat and imagined (for the most part) ordure out of my system, I thought fondly of the days when power and pong were nicely balanced in my small and happy world…
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