It’s been a traumatic 24 hours for poor little Small Cat. There she was, happily asleep and occasionally waking to run madly up and down the living room and take a passing bite at Father or me when she was ruthlessly bundled into her carrying case and whisked off to the vet’s office. There, she was jabbed in the behind with a sharp object, put to sleep (literally, not the euphemism it usually is) and then cut open, some of her insides taken out and then sewn up again, bandaged tightly and sent home with us. Many of the people I know who know that this would happen spat angrily at me for depriving Small Cat of worldly pleasure and motherhood, while a few sagely remarked that it was the only way to go. For us, it was not a matter of choice. Small Cat was said (by the vet) to have a hormonal imbalance problem and would have become seriously ill with feline cancer if we had not taken these rather drastic steps to stop the process from ever starting. And, sooner rather than later was the route we chose, giving Small Cat and us the best option for her to lead a healthy, happy and fun-filled life.
So now the poor baby is recovering. Right after the operation yesterday late afternoon, we brought her back to the house and put her on the carpet to slowly wake up. But with the dogged (ha ha) determination so typical of Small Cat, she started wandering through the apartment long before her front legs, back legs, middle and head caught up with her sharp little brain. In a way it was funny, with her staggering blearily around looking for something only she knew she wanted, with us, Father and I, half a step behind her, watching protectively for obstacles that she may collide with, hurt herself, burst open her stitches, or goodness knows what else that could cause more trouble than it was worth the effort to do. She refused to stay put anywhere, wandering from the living room carpet to under Father’s bed to the corridor to my room. It was as if she was programmed to follow through with her usual routine of exploring the house, rushing from one space to the other and then, finally, falling asleep in one of her many favourite snuggle places.
And so to bed we all went, knowing full well that Small Cat would do whatever Small Cat wanted to do, and if she wanted us, she would make it clear and we would jump to her bidding. That time came soon enough. Just after 1 am, there was a feeble scratching on the bed near my head and Small Cat’s big ears and bigger eyes peeked at me through the darkness. She spent the rest of the night curled up against various parts of me, mercifully fast asleep and seemingly not feeling too much pain or discomfort. That began this morning. She has been walking – or tottering around the house on her own missions, insisting on going about her business without letting us do more than trail behind her making suggestions for her comfort, pleading with her to lie down and rest, every so often crying or whimpering in obvious distress. When it gets too much for her, she snuggles against my pillows and takes a nap, albeit a short one, but as soon as either Father or I leave her alone in the room, she wakes and wants to be where everyone, anyone else is. Her bandages are slowly rucking together and even as she gets more confident navigating her oft-travelled paths, we worry that a stitch may give, a tampered-with muscle may tear or something that should be firmly in place shift out of it and cause the little creature more pain.
So as we wait for the vet to arrive and check on Small Cat, we, Father and I, worry about the decision we took and the way our pet suffers as she recovers. We know we did the right thing. And with all her courage, her spirit and her obstreperousness, we are sure that Small Cat will soon be back to her madcat fits, her guerrilla attacks on us and her endearing hide-and-seek games.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Doctor doctor
Many years ago, when I was rather younger and less cynical than I am now, I heard a song that still rings in my head even today when the occasion fits. It was by the Thomson Twins and was called Doctor doctor. It had a neatly synthetic and syncopated rhythm, as did almost everything the group ever did, and while it spoke of various problems that I, for one, have not faced and do not face and, I hope, will never face, it keyed a response in me that was almost instinctive. And the identification has become so strong that every time I meet a doctor, I hear the song and vice versa.
And the last couple of weeks have been full of doctors visits, much as I dislike them. It takes a great deal to push me into a doctor’s office or even near a clinic or hospital and even more for me to look a needle in its eye (ooooh, now there’s a neat one!). but the vertigo got alarming enough for me to voluntarily (I know no one who knows me well will believe that, but trust me, it happened) ask, albeit tentatively, about a doctor and when he would make his appearance and so I finally went to see the chappie who visits the office. Yes, I admit I was kinda shoved into his room squeaking a little in protest, but I behaved thereafter, even accepting the cute little pills that he told me I should take.
Of course, that good behaviour stopped after the third or so day, when I wasn’t sure whether I was awake or dead, since the vertigo had me completely disoriented and the pills had me sedated to the point of not being sure whether I was asleep or dead. So I went to an old family friend, also a doctor, but a known devil, in a manner of speaking, who gave me a thorough examination, drew vast quantities of blood out of my rather deep-set and fragile veins and told me to behave myself (why do they always do that?) and take the medicines he was prescribing. Again, I behaved. Impeccably. Until I decided that I wanted a drug-free existence and cut the dose of more cute little pills (these were littler, so cuter) to minimal.
And even more good behaviour was shown in my change of routine. Instead of getting into my car and driving myself to wherever I wanted to be at any point in time – which I do manage to do sometimes, leaving the driver behind to play cards, gossip or sleep - I resisted any of my better impulses and either walked to wherever it was I wanted to be at that point in time, or waited for the driver to fetch the car, drive me there and then bring me back. All very boring and, to my mind, a total waste of time, energy and effort. So this morning, in spite of many protests that Father was making and, frankly, that my own instinct was yelling into my ears – they do not ring, I assured both doctors, they just stick out more than I like – I drove myself to the grocery store. It was an urgent errand I was on: I needed mozarella and mushrooms.
Yes, I know, I could have potentially and possibly harmed not just myself, but others around me if I had had a dizzy spell en route. I could have got disoriented to the point of not knowing where I was going. I could have caused much environmental damage by crashing into a tree or, worse, a garbage truck. And I would have lost not only my head and my cheese, but my nerve as well. I know all that. And I know I was stupid. Blame it on doctors and their cute little pills.
Better yet, blame it on the song.
And the last couple of weeks have been full of doctors visits, much as I dislike them. It takes a great deal to push me into a doctor’s office or even near a clinic or hospital and even more for me to look a needle in its eye (ooooh, now there’s a neat one!). but the vertigo got alarming enough for me to voluntarily (I know no one who knows me well will believe that, but trust me, it happened) ask, albeit tentatively, about a doctor and when he would make his appearance and so I finally went to see the chappie who visits the office. Yes, I admit I was kinda shoved into his room squeaking a little in protest, but I behaved thereafter, even accepting the cute little pills that he told me I should take.
Of course, that good behaviour stopped after the third or so day, when I wasn’t sure whether I was awake or dead, since the vertigo had me completely disoriented and the pills had me sedated to the point of not being sure whether I was asleep or dead. So I went to an old family friend, also a doctor, but a known devil, in a manner of speaking, who gave me a thorough examination, drew vast quantities of blood out of my rather deep-set and fragile veins and told me to behave myself (why do they always do that?) and take the medicines he was prescribing. Again, I behaved. Impeccably. Until I decided that I wanted a drug-free existence and cut the dose of more cute little pills (these were littler, so cuter) to minimal.
And even more good behaviour was shown in my change of routine. Instead of getting into my car and driving myself to wherever I wanted to be at any point in time – which I do manage to do sometimes, leaving the driver behind to play cards, gossip or sleep - I resisted any of my better impulses and either walked to wherever it was I wanted to be at that point in time, or waited for the driver to fetch the car, drive me there and then bring me back. All very boring and, to my mind, a total waste of time, energy and effort. So this morning, in spite of many protests that Father was making and, frankly, that my own instinct was yelling into my ears – they do not ring, I assured both doctors, they just stick out more than I like – I drove myself to the grocery store. It was an urgent errand I was on: I needed mozarella and mushrooms.
Yes, I know, I could have potentially and possibly harmed not just myself, but others around me if I had had a dizzy spell en route. I could have got disoriented to the point of not knowing where I was going. I could have caused much environmental damage by crashing into a tree or, worse, a garbage truck. And I would have lost not only my head and my cheese, but my nerve as well. I know all that. And I know I was stupid. Blame it on doctors and their cute little pills.
Better yet, blame it on the song.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Time management
Someone told me recently that if I managed my time differently, I would be able to get in more leisure and fun activities and so more rest. That would give me more time to de-stress and that, in turn, could lead to a reduction in the speed at which the world spun. Of course, to explain to my advisor that the world did not spin, I did, and that the vertigo that has been bothering me for too long was not about anything spinning, but a nasty feeling of disorientation and unbalance that left me not just bewildered but exhausted as well, seemed futile. Instead, I decided that I did need to figure out what was taking up so much of my time and leaving me in a state that was, to say the least, most unpleasant.
So I sat down by myself and did an audit. My personal life was stressful, I agreed, but not enough to get me all discombobulated and funny-headed. Food was perhaps my greatest concern, since cooking was something I insisted I would do, for the most part, since I truly enjoyed it and found it such a cathartic process. You could, for instance, cry happily into that pile of onions you were chopping without anyone being wiser to the fact of the matter that you were genuinely crying with grief and/or pain and/or frustration and/or whatever else may make you cry. You could take out all those pent-up emotions about everything from the boyfriend to the parent to the boss to the lack of brilliant red nail-polish in the market on a heap of beans or a haystack of shredded cabbage. Or you could get rid of all that suppressed anger and irritation as you pushed fresh garlic through the press and produced wonderful smells into the tiny puddle of extra virgin olive oil in your non-stick pan.
That was my Sunday morning sorted out. The rest of the week was more about heating up and finishing dishes that meant a few minutes of work while chatting with Father or Small Cat.
My commute was, for all purposes, about comfort. I did not need to drive myself – in fact, I was expressly forbidden to do so – and I knew my driver and his habits well enough not to be affected by any idiosyncracies or traffic snarls we may encounter. And all the noises that our ageing car made were part of the consciousness that I was in a place I knew. While sometimes the drive took longer than I wanted and I was completely focussed on getting home rather than hanging about waiting for the lights to change or for the thick stream of cars to move forward to wherever they were going that was on our trajectory, I knew that I would get there sooner or later, and without being muddies by splatters from passing vehicles or being squashed into a corner of an overcrowded compartment on an over-late train.
So that was my travel sorted out. I knew where I was going and how and even approximately how long it would take me to get there. The comfort levels were a given…or taken, and that was fine by me and mine.
That left just one more factor that was a constant that affected a major part of my life. Work. Was I comfortable with that? Was it the kind of work I wanted to do? Was it the sort of job I was happy with? Was it the kind of job that was happy with me? I sat down to think….and still am.
So I sat down by myself and did an audit. My personal life was stressful, I agreed, but not enough to get me all discombobulated and funny-headed. Food was perhaps my greatest concern, since cooking was something I insisted I would do, for the most part, since I truly enjoyed it and found it such a cathartic process. You could, for instance, cry happily into that pile of onions you were chopping without anyone being wiser to the fact of the matter that you were genuinely crying with grief and/or pain and/or frustration and/or whatever else may make you cry. You could take out all those pent-up emotions about everything from the boyfriend to the parent to the boss to the lack of brilliant red nail-polish in the market on a heap of beans or a haystack of shredded cabbage. Or you could get rid of all that suppressed anger and irritation as you pushed fresh garlic through the press and produced wonderful smells into the tiny puddle of extra virgin olive oil in your non-stick pan.
That was my Sunday morning sorted out. The rest of the week was more about heating up and finishing dishes that meant a few minutes of work while chatting with Father or Small Cat.
My commute was, for all purposes, about comfort. I did not need to drive myself – in fact, I was expressly forbidden to do so – and I knew my driver and his habits well enough not to be affected by any idiosyncracies or traffic snarls we may encounter. And all the noises that our ageing car made were part of the consciousness that I was in a place I knew. While sometimes the drive took longer than I wanted and I was completely focussed on getting home rather than hanging about waiting for the lights to change or for the thick stream of cars to move forward to wherever they were going that was on our trajectory, I knew that I would get there sooner or later, and without being muddies by splatters from passing vehicles or being squashed into a corner of an overcrowded compartment on an over-late train.
So that was my travel sorted out. I knew where I was going and how and even approximately how long it would take me to get there. The comfort levels were a given…or taken, and that was fine by me and mine.
That left just one more factor that was a constant that affected a major part of my life. Work. Was I comfortable with that? Was it the kind of work I wanted to do? Was it the sort of job I was happy with? Was it the kind of job that was happy with me? I sat down to think….and still am.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Spinning round and around
I was at the clinic this morning getting various bits of me poked and prodded and spoken about and questioned until I was ready to get up, grab my new black slippers and make a mad dash for freedom. But the doctor was not only bigger and stronger than I was, but also someone I have known since I was a baby…or even before that, so being rude and unmannerly was hardly a statement of the way I was brought up or of my trust in him as a doctor. So I sat through everything, finally being jabbed by a very large and mercifully sharp needle wielded by a frighteningly young chappie who then proceeded to draw out a couple of gallons of my very dark red blood and then to compound the felony by handing me a small plastic bottle and waving me into the brightly lit bathroom. Having done the needful, I fled, shedding bottle and any vestige of the aforementioned upbringing in my wake.
So why was I undergoing this ordeal? Apart from the fact that for months – nay, perhaps even years - I have shied away from anything medical done to me, apart from a dispassionate recital of symptoms over the phone and a discreet packet of prescription meds delivered via courier to my door (which sounds amazingly like a seedy drug deal, but believe me it is far from it), I had real and good enough reasons, even from my rather biased point of view, to avoid anyone who may have been to a medical school with any positive consequences. They not only always made me feel more ill than I was at any point in time when I was constrained to see one of them, but they stuffed me full of nasty medication which compounded (he he he) the felony and made me feel even worse.
It all began a couple of weeks ago, when the world went around a little faster than it should have. Funny, I thought musingly to myself, it seems to have speeded up rather. And why is it changing direction every now and then? It wasn’t a matter of standing up too suddenly after tying my non-existent shoelaces or of bounding happily out of bed just woken from a deep sleep. It was a matter of sitting at my desk and talking on the phone and finding that my head was slowly falling off my neck. It was a matter of watching my often-irascible boss swaying gently on his rather large feet as he discussed the state of the nation, his fatherly instincts and the edit page of the newspaper with me. And it was a matter of sitting comfortably in the back seat of the car and wondering how soon we would fall off the cliff we were inching towards, backwards.
Ah, I probably was getting a cold, I told myself, and ignored it. But then the cold never arrived and the world still had a definite new spin on it. One day it got so bad that I listed seriously to starboard and had to stay home and hold on to the bookshelves and walls to navigate between feet. Rather startled – but not yet scared – I actually went to a doctor, albeit pushed squeaking, if not kicking or screaming, by a friend I like and respect, especially for her taste in lipstick and lunch. He alarmed me by making me lie down and prodding my tummy – frankly, I did not see the connection between my nicely soft middle and the state of my head, but I was not the expert. He then proceeded to talk to me about everything from the state of the newspaper to the state of the nation to the state of my emotional health to the state of my ears, reminding me somewhat of the aforementioned often-irascible boss. After a while, all of which time I was more focussed on getting back out to finish my work and go home than on what the doctor was all about, he gave me a proscription, told me I had to be a good girl and let me go.
Two days later I was truly swaying on my feet. When the dizziness faded, it would be overtaken by the cloudiness that the pills induced. As a result, I swung between a state of stupor where I felt nothing and a state of stupefied astonishment that the world should take on a whole new direction and a whole new style of movement. While I was interested in knowing more, I just wished, fervently, that it would stop and let me off.
(And then I went for a real check up, which is still in progress. But that is another story.)
So why was I undergoing this ordeal? Apart from the fact that for months – nay, perhaps even years - I have shied away from anything medical done to me, apart from a dispassionate recital of symptoms over the phone and a discreet packet of prescription meds delivered via courier to my door (which sounds amazingly like a seedy drug deal, but believe me it is far from it), I had real and good enough reasons, even from my rather biased point of view, to avoid anyone who may have been to a medical school with any positive consequences. They not only always made me feel more ill than I was at any point in time when I was constrained to see one of them, but they stuffed me full of nasty medication which compounded (he he he) the felony and made me feel even worse.
It all began a couple of weeks ago, when the world went around a little faster than it should have. Funny, I thought musingly to myself, it seems to have speeded up rather. And why is it changing direction every now and then? It wasn’t a matter of standing up too suddenly after tying my non-existent shoelaces or of bounding happily out of bed just woken from a deep sleep. It was a matter of sitting at my desk and talking on the phone and finding that my head was slowly falling off my neck. It was a matter of watching my often-irascible boss swaying gently on his rather large feet as he discussed the state of the nation, his fatherly instincts and the edit page of the newspaper with me. And it was a matter of sitting comfortably in the back seat of the car and wondering how soon we would fall off the cliff we were inching towards, backwards.
Ah, I probably was getting a cold, I told myself, and ignored it. But then the cold never arrived and the world still had a definite new spin on it. One day it got so bad that I listed seriously to starboard and had to stay home and hold on to the bookshelves and walls to navigate between feet. Rather startled – but not yet scared – I actually went to a doctor, albeit pushed squeaking, if not kicking or screaming, by a friend I like and respect, especially for her taste in lipstick and lunch. He alarmed me by making me lie down and prodding my tummy – frankly, I did not see the connection between my nicely soft middle and the state of my head, but I was not the expert. He then proceeded to talk to me about everything from the state of the newspaper to the state of the nation to the state of my emotional health to the state of my ears, reminding me somewhat of the aforementioned often-irascible boss. After a while, all of which time I was more focussed on getting back out to finish my work and go home than on what the doctor was all about, he gave me a proscription, told me I had to be a good girl and let me go.
Two days later I was truly swaying on my feet. When the dizziness faded, it would be overtaken by the cloudiness that the pills induced. As a result, I swung between a state of stupor where I felt nothing and a state of stupefied astonishment that the world should take on a whole new direction and a whole new style of movement. While I was interested in knowing more, I just wished, fervently, that it would stop and let me off.
(And then I went for a real check up, which is still in progress. But that is another story.)
Friday, July 20, 2007
In line with time
For a week or so now I have been working on a timeline – albeit desultorily, but don’t tell my irascible boss that part - for the anniversary issue of the newspaper I work with. And I find that life wanders about in strange circles, what went around coming slowly back at some time or the other in history. It reminded me of ol’ Santayana, who said something to the effect of ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’. And in the exploration of my own country and the people who have made it what it is, I found much to marvel at, a great deal to be proud of and, sadly, as much to hide my head in shame over. But that is a collective companion to any life, a country’s or a person’s. After all, we are all only human, each one of us as individuals and each one of us who make up a country.
We are all terribly proud of the fight we put up against the British to gain freedom, even though most of us were born long after this country became a free nation. Spurred on by Mahatma Gandhi and his faith in the power of non-violence protest, we cite him and his philosophy as a mantra even today. But we are slowly starting to see him not as the god that politics has made of him, but as a human being, a man, a husband, a father…and not a very good one, either. That was the premise of a story I was doing for the arts section of our paper, pegged on the release of a new film on the Mahatma, called Gandhi My Father, for which I was going to talk to a number of people who had been involved with films on the leader over the years. But eventually, like all stories do, it got turned into something slightly different – a chat with the director, who saw it all from his own point of view. It is a good story, a good interview…and a good film, I am told.
At the same time, another story has been grabbing eyeballs in almost every medium I may look at. This morning I drove past the main jail in the city and saw that the streets were practically clogged with TV crews, policemen and ominous-looking vans with no windows. It was all part of the long-drawn-out legal proceedings against the people responsible for the bombs that blasted their way through the city in 1993, killing so many and destroying so many more lives. All of those indicted – six have been given the death sentence so far – are Indians. A fact to be truly ashamed of, since I am also Indian, so are all those I work with and live with. We Indians should never have allowed such a situation to develop, where we are attacked by our own kin – ‘kin’ being a rather wider term than immediate blood-related family, of course. But we did. And we paid. And now they do.
Just like that, I have had plenty in my life to be proud of, to marvel at and to hang my head in shame over. And so have you. It kind of goes with the territory of being a living, breathing, reacting, acting human being. Don’t you think so?
We are all terribly proud of the fight we put up against the British to gain freedom, even though most of us were born long after this country became a free nation. Spurred on by Mahatma Gandhi and his faith in the power of non-violence protest, we cite him and his philosophy as a mantra even today. But we are slowly starting to see him not as the god that politics has made of him, but as a human being, a man, a husband, a father…and not a very good one, either. That was the premise of a story I was doing for the arts section of our paper, pegged on the release of a new film on the Mahatma, called Gandhi My Father, for which I was going to talk to a number of people who had been involved with films on the leader over the years. But eventually, like all stories do, it got turned into something slightly different – a chat with the director, who saw it all from his own point of view. It is a good story, a good interview…and a good film, I am told.
At the same time, another story has been grabbing eyeballs in almost every medium I may look at. This morning I drove past the main jail in the city and saw that the streets were practically clogged with TV crews, policemen and ominous-looking vans with no windows. It was all part of the long-drawn-out legal proceedings against the people responsible for the bombs that blasted their way through the city in 1993, killing so many and destroying so many more lives. All of those indicted – six have been given the death sentence so far – are Indians. A fact to be truly ashamed of, since I am also Indian, so are all those I work with and live with. We Indians should never have allowed such a situation to develop, where we are attacked by our own kin – ‘kin’ being a rather wider term than immediate blood-related family, of course. But we did. And we paid. And now they do.
Just like that, I have had plenty in my life to be proud of, to marvel at and to hang my head in shame over. And so have you. It kind of goes with the territory of being a living, breathing, reacting, acting human being. Don’t you think so?
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Hot about Harry
All the world is a-buzz about Harry Potter. The last book in the series – or so JK Rowling maintains for now – will be released soon - tomorrow, actually - and pre-booking has been phenomenal, the news has it. Now there are fears that the pages have been leaked on to the Internet, which means that some spoilsport somewhere will announce how it all ends and who dies…or doesn’t. And there will be a great deal of sound and fury, signifying less than usual, about who should have done what to who, when, how and why. By that, I do not mean more than a degree of piracy and hijacking of a manuscript that has, so far, been so carefully guarded.
But be that as it may, what matters more is the phenomenon that is Potter. Harry Potter. I first met him some years ago, when the first book was released. The publicity and hype were low key, especially as compared to what it is today, and all I had to do was to walk into a book store, any book store, and pick up the volumes I wanted…which was all of them that had been published until then. Gradually, I accumulated more, until the sixth one, when the hype caught up with me. I ignored it, at first, then got interested, then, just before the book was released into the market with lots of noise about pre-booking of copies and who would get what with it for free, I logged into a shopping site on the Internet and got my own copy. It was bought at a price lower than those commonly known, and I felt rather chuffed about that.
And then the book arrived, much to my delight. Happier were various friends at the office, who preferred to pop the bubbles on the plastic wrap rather than read what was swathed in it. So to a chorus of snap-crackle-pop, I started reading…but was not happy. By the time I got to the end of the thick and unwieldy volume, I had become rather bored, fed up of the darkness and, more, of the time it took for it to get light again, if it ever did, that is. Harry spent too long being morose and heartbroken and all that bad stuff, and while I was not against that sort of thing in a book of this ilk, I did not really want to spend so long over it. When Dumbledore died, I figured that everybody would weep – both in the book and those who were fans of all the characters – and they did, so even the reactions were predictable and thus boring.
I figure there will be more of that in this, purportedly the last in the series. Two major characters will die, said JK Rowling when she announced that she was done writing the Harry Potter novels, and I know that there will be tears and grief at unprecedented levels when that finally happens. People will comment on the Internet and in print, flooding the airwaves and cyberspace with chat about what did happen, what should have happened and what should happen if Rowling is persuaded by legions of loyal fans to continue with the fun and games of her series. In all this, people seem to have forgotten that this is just a fictional saga, albeit a fascinating one, and not a particularly profound one loaded with literary merit either. It is well written, yes, readable, absolutely, but classifiable with the greats of English literature? Hardly!
By tomorrow noon-time, people will have read most of the last book. And will be talking about it. There may even be details of what happens, who dies and Harry’s fate available for discussion in chat rooms, review boards and on trains, planes and automobiles all over the world. And while it may take me a few days to catch up with it, since my copy will arrive via courier, which can be unpredictable in schedule, I will know, at long last, what happened to Harry. And so, probably, will you.
But be that as it may, what matters more is the phenomenon that is Potter. Harry Potter. I first met him some years ago, when the first book was released. The publicity and hype were low key, especially as compared to what it is today, and all I had to do was to walk into a book store, any book store, and pick up the volumes I wanted…which was all of them that had been published until then. Gradually, I accumulated more, until the sixth one, when the hype caught up with me. I ignored it, at first, then got interested, then, just before the book was released into the market with lots of noise about pre-booking of copies and who would get what with it for free, I logged into a shopping site on the Internet and got my own copy. It was bought at a price lower than those commonly known, and I felt rather chuffed about that.
And then the book arrived, much to my delight. Happier were various friends at the office, who preferred to pop the bubbles on the plastic wrap rather than read what was swathed in it. So to a chorus of snap-crackle-pop, I started reading…but was not happy. By the time I got to the end of the thick and unwieldy volume, I had become rather bored, fed up of the darkness and, more, of the time it took for it to get light again, if it ever did, that is. Harry spent too long being morose and heartbroken and all that bad stuff, and while I was not against that sort of thing in a book of this ilk, I did not really want to spend so long over it. When Dumbledore died, I figured that everybody would weep – both in the book and those who were fans of all the characters – and they did, so even the reactions were predictable and thus boring.
I figure there will be more of that in this, purportedly the last in the series. Two major characters will die, said JK Rowling when she announced that she was done writing the Harry Potter novels, and I know that there will be tears and grief at unprecedented levels when that finally happens. People will comment on the Internet and in print, flooding the airwaves and cyberspace with chat about what did happen, what should have happened and what should happen if Rowling is persuaded by legions of loyal fans to continue with the fun and games of her series. In all this, people seem to have forgotten that this is just a fictional saga, albeit a fascinating one, and not a particularly profound one loaded with literary merit either. It is well written, yes, readable, absolutely, but classifiable with the greats of English literature? Hardly!
By tomorrow noon-time, people will have read most of the last book. And will be talking about it. There may even be details of what happens, who dies and Harry’s fate available for discussion in chat rooms, review boards and on trains, planes and automobiles all over the world. And while it may take me a few days to catch up with it, since my copy will arrive via courier, which can be unpredictable in schedule, I will know, at long last, what happened to Harry. And so, probably, will you.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Rubbing it in
Various friends of mine swear by massages. One of them likes his feet done after a long walk; another swears that the hand massage during a manicure is the best thing since chocolate was invented; a gal-pal tells me that if it wasn’t for the head massage she gets at the beauty salon, she would be a limp rag worth less than an old sock after it has been chewed on by the neighbour’s four Rottweiler puppies. And someone I know, mercifully long-distance, tells me with that particularly lascivious wink-wink-nudge-nudge (yes, it works well over email, trust me) how the full body massage at the place down the road from where he lives is just to die for – that he still lives is a matter of great wonder to almost all of us who know him, even vaguely.
I have never been able to deal with even the concept of a massage. After many months over years of physiotherapy to repair a bum knee and ankle, the idea of hands other than my own – and that of a very select few who have passed the requisite tests to get to that stage – touching me is truly shudder-inducing. I didn’t even like my mother oiling my hair, though I would take it because it was my mother and she seemed to like it more than I did. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the hug-stuff as much as anyone else; I would just rather avoid the kneading, rubbing, no-pain-no-gain feeling-up that a massage, especially a therapeutic one (and why else would people do it?) involves.
I have watched massages being done with a certain repulsed fascination. At the salon, where I am having strange things done to my hair, turning it from wild to controlled or streaky faded brown back to an even darkness, I have seen women having their arms and calves expertly manipulated. There is that well-greased slap and tackle-the-cellulite knead, the skin softening, exfoliating rub-down and the smoothing-soothing moisturing steps that make sounds akin to glutin-rich pizza dough being punched or linoleum being cleaned with a very soapy mop. And then there has always been the sight of usually-flaccid calf muscle or, worse, flabby upper arms wobbling under the onslaught of hands that are not doing it with any passion or perversion, just doing a job.
The yuck-factor apart, a massage is supposed to be all about relaxation, about de-stressing, about rejuvenation. My scant experience is massage as pain, perhaps worse than what had caused the massage to be done at all. At the physiotherapy centre at the local speciality hospital, there were wails of woe and gasps of great agony renting the curtains between treatment cubicles. That, in itself, was all more painful than the torture that they – and I – went through at the hands of the doctors and therapists. To me, it is the sound effects that start the repugnance flowing; I never really got past that stage to go through the actual process itself.
But after many years of persuasion and even more reassurance from friends, doctors and beauticians, I allowed myself to undergo a foot massage during a pedicure. It was not the ‘full treatment’, as the girl at the salon put it, but just a sample of what I could do to help myself and my feet (as if they were separate entities) look and feel better than the rather ragged state I was in at the time. I went through the entire procedure, but in attenuated form, and found myself actually enjoying it – the warm soapy foot-bath, the soft soapy lotion, the tingling bubbles of the spa jets…and then the beautician picked up my foot to rub it down with an oily unguent. That was the end of any state of relaxation I could have achieved. Every nerve on end, I just wanted it to end.
I am now in complete and utter disgrace from almost the whole tribe of women and many men that know this sorry tale. They tell me I am a lost case, one that should be cast out of humankind, one who cannot have the rudimentary brain to realise that I can have a good thing when I feel it. I bow my unmassaged head in shame even as I slink away on unmassaged feet with my unmassaged hands in my pockets and the unmassaged rest of me gleeful at the prospect of escaping the massage and all those who press it upon my uninterested person.
I have never been able to deal with even the concept of a massage. After many months over years of physiotherapy to repair a bum knee and ankle, the idea of hands other than my own – and that of a very select few who have passed the requisite tests to get to that stage – touching me is truly shudder-inducing. I didn’t even like my mother oiling my hair, though I would take it because it was my mother and she seemed to like it more than I did. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the hug-stuff as much as anyone else; I would just rather avoid the kneading, rubbing, no-pain-no-gain feeling-up that a massage, especially a therapeutic one (and why else would people do it?) involves.
I have watched massages being done with a certain repulsed fascination. At the salon, where I am having strange things done to my hair, turning it from wild to controlled or streaky faded brown back to an even darkness, I have seen women having their arms and calves expertly manipulated. There is that well-greased slap and tackle-the-cellulite knead, the skin softening, exfoliating rub-down and the smoothing-soothing moisturing steps that make sounds akin to glutin-rich pizza dough being punched or linoleum being cleaned with a very soapy mop. And then there has always been the sight of usually-flaccid calf muscle or, worse, flabby upper arms wobbling under the onslaught of hands that are not doing it with any passion or perversion, just doing a job.
The yuck-factor apart, a massage is supposed to be all about relaxation, about de-stressing, about rejuvenation. My scant experience is massage as pain, perhaps worse than what had caused the massage to be done at all. At the physiotherapy centre at the local speciality hospital, there were wails of woe and gasps of great agony renting the curtains between treatment cubicles. That, in itself, was all more painful than the torture that they – and I – went through at the hands of the doctors and therapists. To me, it is the sound effects that start the repugnance flowing; I never really got past that stage to go through the actual process itself.
But after many years of persuasion and even more reassurance from friends, doctors and beauticians, I allowed myself to undergo a foot massage during a pedicure. It was not the ‘full treatment’, as the girl at the salon put it, but just a sample of what I could do to help myself and my feet (as if they were separate entities) look and feel better than the rather ragged state I was in at the time. I went through the entire procedure, but in attenuated form, and found myself actually enjoying it – the warm soapy foot-bath, the soft soapy lotion, the tingling bubbles of the spa jets…and then the beautician picked up my foot to rub it down with an oily unguent. That was the end of any state of relaxation I could have achieved. Every nerve on end, I just wanted it to end.
I am now in complete and utter disgrace from almost the whole tribe of women and many men that know this sorry tale. They tell me I am a lost case, one that should be cast out of humankind, one who cannot have the rudimentary brain to realise that I can have a good thing when I feel it. I bow my unmassaged head in shame even as I slink away on unmassaged feet with my unmassaged hands in my pockets and the unmassaged rest of me gleeful at the prospect of escaping the massage and all those who press it upon my uninterested person.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Face off
After a hectically overloaded and very late day yesterday, I decided to slow down a little this morning. So I read the newspapers before I had a bath, played a little with a very sleepy Small Cat and eventually left home later than usual. En route here, I decided that it would be wise to finish my errands before I went to work, since I had not that much to do anyway. So my trusty steed, steered by my trusty driver, took me to the mall, where I was decanted and told to hurry up, I was obviously still tired and had to get to work soon so that I could leave at a decent hour. Dutifully nodding, I trotted into and out of a series of stores that were, mercifully, delightfully, comfortably, half empty.
I started with the counter of a well-known cosmetics brand. The girl, rather startlingly heavily made up, stared pop-eyed at me, even as I stared as pop-eyedly back at her. She must take her face off at night and put it on the next morning, I idly speculated, as I gauged the depth of her foundation, eye-shadow and lipstick. Since there was no other customer there and I probably looked like a potential big spender, I was soon surrounded by a gaggle of highly made-up young women, all chirping at me about their various products. But, in spite of being rather groggy even after doing my own face and being in the car for about an hour, I was prepared and managed to ignore most of them to ask only for what I wanted with a certain steely determination and resolve.
I began with my requirement for an eye-liner. Black, twist-up, no other, I demanded. The girl first stared at me, her eyes a-pop, as previously described, and mouth ever-so-slightly ajar. I smiled patiently at her and repeated my request. She suddenly woke up out of her stupor and reacted, albeit slowly. And she produced every colour but the one I wanted and tried very hard to persuade me to try all of them. Still being painedly forbearing, I tried again, to no avail. I was directed to another counter and another brand and went through the same spiel. Nope. No go.
No way. No black eye-liner of the ilk I had in mind. Leave your name and number and we will get back to you, one of the china dolls promised. I have done so many times. I did so again. I do not expect to hear from anyone about my eye-liner ever again.
Then I trotted over to a counter which displayed products that I have used often, though I have never bought them locally. I stared sleepily at the range, which seemed to stare sleepily back at me. I looked at cleanser and moisturiser, toner and corrector, and various other bottles and tubes of various other products I have never used and would probably never use. The girl in charge, also highly made-up, offered me testers, brochures and her personal consultation, while I backed away slowly, my patient and forbearing smile never fading. The floor was starting to fold upwards, slowly rolling towards me – an artefact of a persistent headache and exhaustion all mixed up together. I shook my head at her, saying I was just looking and walked away.
But my business was with the counter next door, which had products that promised me that even short-term use would make me look and thus feel younger and more radiant by the day. Younger I was not sure I wanted to look, but more radiant would always be desirable. After all, too few hours of too restless sleep and my inevitable habit of taking myself and my life too seriously were making sure that any radiance that I may have was slowly fading into baggy eyes and creased forehead. I had to change that before it got unchangeable. And since I tend to believe in promises made through beautifully-filmed television commercials, I bought what I was told would be more than merely effective. Clutching my little bag, vaguely and strangely remotely irritated about not getting what I wanted and not really energised enough to look for whatever I have always said I would look at (from long-lasting kiss-proof lipstick – which at least would not come off on Small Cat and make her more colourful than her little self already was – to an under-eye gel that vowed to delete any vestige of dark circles, to a foam cleanser that eliminated any trace of clogged pores and dead cells) I floated away in search of cat food.
Which I didn’t get either. But that, my friends, is a story best told when I am more grounded.
I started with the counter of a well-known cosmetics brand. The girl, rather startlingly heavily made up, stared pop-eyed at me, even as I stared as pop-eyedly back at her. She must take her face off at night and put it on the next morning, I idly speculated, as I gauged the depth of her foundation, eye-shadow and lipstick. Since there was no other customer there and I probably looked like a potential big spender, I was soon surrounded by a gaggle of highly made-up young women, all chirping at me about their various products. But, in spite of being rather groggy even after doing my own face and being in the car for about an hour, I was prepared and managed to ignore most of them to ask only for what I wanted with a certain steely determination and resolve.
I began with my requirement for an eye-liner. Black, twist-up, no other, I demanded. The girl first stared at me, her eyes a-pop, as previously described, and mouth ever-so-slightly ajar. I smiled patiently at her and repeated my request. She suddenly woke up out of her stupor and reacted, albeit slowly. And she produced every colour but the one I wanted and tried very hard to persuade me to try all of them. Still being painedly forbearing, I tried again, to no avail. I was directed to another counter and another brand and went through the same spiel. Nope. No go.
No way. No black eye-liner of the ilk I had in mind. Leave your name and number and we will get back to you, one of the china dolls promised. I have done so many times. I did so again. I do not expect to hear from anyone about my eye-liner ever again.
Then I trotted over to a counter which displayed products that I have used often, though I have never bought them locally. I stared sleepily at the range, which seemed to stare sleepily back at me. I looked at cleanser and moisturiser, toner and corrector, and various other bottles and tubes of various other products I have never used and would probably never use. The girl in charge, also highly made-up, offered me testers, brochures and her personal consultation, while I backed away slowly, my patient and forbearing smile never fading. The floor was starting to fold upwards, slowly rolling towards me – an artefact of a persistent headache and exhaustion all mixed up together. I shook my head at her, saying I was just looking and walked away.
But my business was with the counter next door, which had products that promised me that even short-term use would make me look and thus feel younger and more radiant by the day. Younger I was not sure I wanted to look, but more radiant would always be desirable. After all, too few hours of too restless sleep and my inevitable habit of taking myself and my life too seriously were making sure that any radiance that I may have was slowly fading into baggy eyes and creased forehead. I had to change that before it got unchangeable. And since I tend to believe in promises made through beautifully-filmed television commercials, I bought what I was told would be more than merely effective. Clutching my little bag, vaguely and strangely remotely irritated about not getting what I wanted and not really energised enough to look for whatever I have always said I would look at (from long-lasting kiss-proof lipstick – which at least would not come off on Small Cat and make her more colourful than her little self already was – to an under-eye gel that vowed to delete any vestige of dark circles, to a foam cleanser that eliminated any trace of clogged pores and dead cells) I floated away in search of cat food.
Which I didn’t get either. But that, my friends, is a story best told when I am more grounded.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Off the rails
Tomorrow is one year since the bombs went off in trains all over the rail network in Mumbai. It was a dreadful night, circumstances that I hope never get repeated as long as the city exists. I walked through the front door of my home and found the television news blaring photos and sound bites of the blasts. And, as I asked Father what was going on, the telephone rang. It was a close friend in London, crazy with worry about whether I was safe. She had, of course, in the panic of it all, forgotten that I no longer commuted by train and wanted to be sure that I was in one piece and well. I was, obviously. The bombs had gone off when I was on my way home by car, and neither my driver or me knew anything about what was going on. The news over the next few hours and days kept us informed.
But I have been closer to such violence than I would normally like to believe. Many years ago, soon after I started working, Mumbai became a target of terrorist bombings. This was in 1993, when I was still discovering parts of the city that was my home, from a new perspective. I knew it as my parents’ daughter, I knew it as a schoolchild, I knew it as a student on break from college away. But I was learning it as a young working woman, and that education came from walking around, talking to people and wandering in and out of stores and cafes. That day, I was in a store in Flora Fountain, buying a T-shirt for Father, the day before we were leaving the city for a short vacation. As I walked out of the shop with my package, there was a dull ‘boom’ sound. Soon after, people started running.
I was puzzled. There was no taxi to be had, for some strange reason, but I was close enough to the newspaper office I worked in at the time to stroll back, albeit purposefully. I got there and to my desk and then started hearing the stories. Friends of mine – reporters and photographers – rushed in and out, giving me bits of information. It was more than enough to terrify me. Father was to have been near the Stock Exchange building at the time, or so I believed. Mum was worried into anger at home. There were no mobile phones then – or not as popular as they soon became, so I couldn’t get in touch with my father, and neither could my mother do so. But all was well and he arrived at the office soon after that.
We got into a train heading for where we lived and stashed my packages on the rack overhead. There was a certain level of fear that we could smell, even as a few people filed into the compartment and found seats. One man looked up and demanded to know whose that large black bag was – it was not actually something I owned, but I was in temporary possession; I did not explain that to him, just saying that it was mine. Someone else sat down opposite us and looked furtively around, clutching his small handbag close to him. And three men stood near the door stopping anyone who looked like they did not have business in the first class section from getting in.
The ride home was swift and uneventful. Mum greeted us with more relief than the situation actually deserved. And we left the next morning for a week-long trip. But the events of that day, unfolding through television reportage, the newspapers and long-distance phone calls from friends in the office over the next few days told us what a horror story the situation really was. We were in far-away Bangalore while Mumbai reeled under the shock of the attacks, but we felt the same shock and fear that our neighbours back home did.
And then, last year, it seemed as if it was happening again. Once more, we as a city and a people have bounced back. Reams written about made it seem as if Mumbai could manage anything. Mumbaikars can, we proclaimed with pride, survive any disaster. But we need to learn from it, each time. Which makes me ask: Have we learned anything at all?
But I have been closer to such violence than I would normally like to believe. Many years ago, soon after I started working, Mumbai became a target of terrorist bombings. This was in 1993, when I was still discovering parts of the city that was my home, from a new perspective. I knew it as my parents’ daughter, I knew it as a schoolchild, I knew it as a student on break from college away. But I was learning it as a young working woman, and that education came from walking around, talking to people and wandering in and out of stores and cafes. That day, I was in a store in Flora Fountain, buying a T-shirt for Father, the day before we were leaving the city for a short vacation. As I walked out of the shop with my package, there was a dull ‘boom’ sound. Soon after, people started running.
I was puzzled. There was no taxi to be had, for some strange reason, but I was close enough to the newspaper office I worked in at the time to stroll back, albeit purposefully. I got there and to my desk and then started hearing the stories. Friends of mine – reporters and photographers – rushed in and out, giving me bits of information. It was more than enough to terrify me. Father was to have been near the Stock Exchange building at the time, or so I believed. Mum was worried into anger at home. There were no mobile phones then – or not as popular as they soon became, so I couldn’t get in touch with my father, and neither could my mother do so. But all was well and he arrived at the office soon after that.
We got into a train heading for where we lived and stashed my packages on the rack overhead. There was a certain level of fear that we could smell, even as a few people filed into the compartment and found seats. One man looked up and demanded to know whose that large black bag was – it was not actually something I owned, but I was in temporary possession; I did not explain that to him, just saying that it was mine. Someone else sat down opposite us and looked furtively around, clutching his small handbag close to him. And three men stood near the door stopping anyone who looked like they did not have business in the first class section from getting in.
The ride home was swift and uneventful. Mum greeted us with more relief than the situation actually deserved. And we left the next morning for a week-long trip. But the events of that day, unfolding through television reportage, the newspapers and long-distance phone calls from friends in the office over the next few days told us what a horror story the situation really was. We were in far-away Bangalore while Mumbai reeled under the shock of the attacks, but we felt the same shock and fear that our neighbours back home did.
And then, last year, it seemed as if it was happening again. Once more, we as a city and a people have bounced back. Reams written about made it seem as if Mumbai could manage anything. Mumbaikars can, we proclaimed with pride, survive any disaster. But we need to learn from it, each time. Which makes me ask: Have we learned anything at all?
Monday, July 09, 2007
Wah, Taj!
So the Taj Mahal has made it to the list of the magnificent seven. The Seven Wonders of the Modern World, that is. Over the past few months we have been hearing, seeing and reading little else. The campaign to get one of our tourist treasures on that list – never mind who made it and how significant it really is – has been long and sustained, with text messages, emails, newspaper reports, magazine articles, advertisement hoardings, television teasers and much more exhorting all and sundry and everyone else in between to send in a neat little SMS to vote for the Taj to be part of the illustrious roster. Never mind that someone – quite a few someones, actually – made a boatload of money on the very concept of making the public feel that a vote, aka an opinion, would make the difference. And, after all the hype, it has.
My last visit to the Taj was some years ago, en route to Delhi. We stayed at a hotel not too far away from the famous monument and managed to find two rooms – one for the parents, one for my soul sister who was visiting from the United States, and me. While the room itself was a standard hotel chamber, the bathroom had Karen and me awed. It was in shades of the most exotic greys and blues, seemingly an underwater ambience, complete with deep tub and bidet and, strangely enough for India and even a multi-star hotel, it all worked swimmingly well…until very late at night, when I woke up with an urgent need to use the loo. I switched on the light and walked into the bathroom, which was still plunged in perfect darkness. Suddenly, just when I was hopping about saying rude things in what I fondly imagined to be an undertone so as not to wake Karen, the light flashed on and I found myself face to face with the creature of all my favourite nightmares: a rather large red spider. It looked beadily at me, I looked saucer-eyed at it and we both fled, hopefully in opposite directions, though I had my eyes closed at that point and couldn’t be sure of that fact. Of course, I did manage to develop a wonderful case of constipation from that day on, until I got to my own bathroom in my own home.
Very early in the morning, rather bug-eyed since that little late-night encounter, we were roused and shuttled off to the Taj Mahal. It was still night, half an hour or so before the sun was scheduled to rise. Then, as we stood on that magnificent marble plinth, it did, slowly, gently, a round orange-pink orb that moved gradually upwards from its resting place over the horizon. And with fabulous beauty, each tiny chip of gem embedded in the walls of the building flashed fire, sparkling in tones of silver, god, red and green, the delicate marble of pearl tracery and gorgeous white marble of the main structure glittering icily in the growing light. Blasé as we were after years of city living and with all the cynical of still-young minds sharpened by many nights of television news detailing death, destruction and delusion, we still gasped, gaping, as that poem of love carved in stone came alive to greet another morning.
And today it is on a list that a new generation of people has devised. Does that make it another form of expression of a love that transcends time and space? Does the will of Shah Jahan to make the tomb of his wife the most beautiful mausoleum ever built still hold credence today? Or is it all about making a buck from the memory of the past? My cynical mind did not let me send a sms to vote. But it does exult in the fact that something from my own country has won attention and accolades, once again.
My last visit to the Taj was some years ago, en route to Delhi. We stayed at a hotel not too far away from the famous monument and managed to find two rooms – one for the parents, one for my soul sister who was visiting from the United States, and me. While the room itself was a standard hotel chamber, the bathroom had Karen and me awed. It was in shades of the most exotic greys and blues, seemingly an underwater ambience, complete with deep tub and bidet and, strangely enough for India and even a multi-star hotel, it all worked swimmingly well…until very late at night, when I woke up with an urgent need to use the loo. I switched on the light and walked into the bathroom, which was still plunged in perfect darkness. Suddenly, just when I was hopping about saying rude things in what I fondly imagined to be an undertone so as not to wake Karen, the light flashed on and I found myself face to face with the creature of all my favourite nightmares: a rather large red spider. It looked beadily at me, I looked saucer-eyed at it and we both fled, hopefully in opposite directions, though I had my eyes closed at that point and couldn’t be sure of that fact. Of course, I did manage to develop a wonderful case of constipation from that day on, until I got to my own bathroom in my own home.
Very early in the morning, rather bug-eyed since that little late-night encounter, we were roused and shuttled off to the Taj Mahal. It was still night, half an hour or so before the sun was scheduled to rise. Then, as we stood on that magnificent marble plinth, it did, slowly, gently, a round orange-pink orb that moved gradually upwards from its resting place over the horizon. And with fabulous beauty, each tiny chip of gem embedded in the walls of the building flashed fire, sparkling in tones of silver, god, red and green, the delicate marble of pearl tracery and gorgeous white marble of the main structure glittering icily in the growing light. Blasé as we were after years of city living and with all the cynical of still-young minds sharpened by many nights of television news detailing death, destruction and delusion, we still gasped, gaping, as that poem of love carved in stone came alive to greet another morning.
And today it is on a list that a new generation of people has devised. Does that make it another form of expression of a love that transcends time and space? Does the will of Shah Jahan to make the tomb of his wife the most beautiful mausoleum ever built still hold credence today? Or is it all about making a buck from the memory of the past? My cynical mind did not let me send a sms to vote. But it does exult in the fact that something from my own country has won attention and accolades, once again.
Friday, July 06, 2007
The wild life
When I was much younger, about nine years old, we were on a short visit to Athens – Greece, not Georgia or even Ohio. There I met a lot of what would later form an integral part of my being, literally and experientially. First on the list was that delightful stuff called spanakopita, a gorgeously delicious ‘sandwich’ of filo pastry, spinach and feta cheese, all fabulously spiked with garlic and just a touch of pepper. Then came the monuments – the Parthenon, the caryatids, the columns (that was the time I was learning about styles of architecture and spoke of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian in a tone that even IM Pei and Le Corbusier would envy), the steps…everything that was ancient Grecian and, regrettably, needed urgent archaeological attention.
But what I really discovered and that would stay with me for my whole life was a writer who made me laugh, and still continues to do so. We were walking down a main thoroughfare in Athens headed to meet Father, when Mum and I found a bookstore where we could spend a little time that we had to spare. It sold English books, a sign outside said, and we marched in, hand in hand, Mum to look for a newspaper (probably the International Herald Tribune, something I grew up on as an irregular part of my reading diet), me to just look. We were looked at, too, Mum in particular, with her exotically beautiful face and elegant silk sari.
Newspaper got, Mum decided that the child needed some erudition. Comics were fine, but they didn’t have any that I wanted or liked. So she trolled the shelves holding English books and came up with an author that she insisted I would like and that she and Father could read, too, without feeling like they needed to get back into rompers and mud pies. Our purchases were neatly packaged and we marched out to a chorus of cheery farewells. Later that afternoon, back in our room at our gemutlich little pensione above the bakery, sprawled against the oversized pillows and breathing in air scented with the fragrance of fresh baking from the ovens downstairs, I took a good look at the book. And, halfway into the first chapter, I was a confirmed and life-long fan.
It was The Bafut Beagles, a collecting trip that Durrell made to Africa, to the British Cameroon. It chronicled his adventures with the various animals he was brought by his team of local hunters, his ever-growing for the Dark Continent and his deep friendship with the Fon, the local chieftain. And even as I giggled, I was shocked by words like ‘pissed’, which I saw printed for the first time – Mum shocked me even more when she was so casual about saying “So? It is just a biological function, silly!” (At nine, everything was shocking.) But, more than just a book, it became, for me, a need. Even today I look for that elusive Durrell that we may not have in our collection, often finding that it is a reissue or something that has been renamed to suit a new market.
Over the years, I met various members of Durrell’s family, starting with his hilarious My Family and Other Animals. I progressed rapidly through Birds Beasts and Relatives and Picnics and Suchlike Pandemonium and then, via a veritable library of more-collecting-less-family volumes, into the hysterical Rosy is My Relative and The Mockery Bird, both works of fiction, mixed in with a heavy dose of conservation messages. I ended, more or less, since I had everything that I could buy by then, with Durrell in Russia, more or less a diary of an expedition to that country to film a television series. It all brought together laughter, life in the wild and living with animals in a way that made – and still makes – my heart and mind dance. And that was what reading, to me, is all about.
But what I really discovered and that would stay with me for my whole life was a writer who made me laugh, and still continues to do so. We were walking down a main thoroughfare in Athens headed to meet Father, when Mum and I found a bookstore where we could spend a little time that we had to spare. It sold English books, a sign outside said, and we marched in, hand in hand, Mum to look for a newspaper (probably the International Herald Tribune, something I grew up on as an irregular part of my reading diet), me to just look. We were looked at, too, Mum in particular, with her exotically beautiful face and elegant silk sari.
Newspaper got, Mum decided that the child needed some erudition. Comics were fine, but they didn’t have any that I wanted or liked. So she trolled the shelves holding English books and came up with an author that she insisted I would like and that she and Father could read, too, without feeling like they needed to get back into rompers and mud pies. Our purchases were neatly packaged and we marched out to a chorus of cheery farewells. Later that afternoon, back in our room at our gemutlich little pensione above the bakery, sprawled against the oversized pillows and breathing in air scented with the fragrance of fresh baking from the ovens downstairs, I took a good look at the book. And, halfway into the first chapter, I was a confirmed and life-long fan.
It was The Bafut Beagles, a collecting trip that Durrell made to Africa, to the British Cameroon. It chronicled his adventures with the various animals he was brought by his team of local hunters, his ever-growing for the Dark Continent and his deep friendship with the Fon, the local chieftain. And even as I giggled, I was shocked by words like ‘pissed’, which I saw printed for the first time – Mum shocked me even more when she was so casual about saying “So? It is just a biological function, silly!” (At nine, everything was shocking.) But, more than just a book, it became, for me, a need. Even today I look for that elusive Durrell that we may not have in our collection, often finding that it is a reissue or something that has been renamed to suit a new market.
Over the years, I met various members of Durrell’s family, starting with his hilarious My Family and Other Animals. I progressed rapidly through Birds Beasts and Relatives and Picnics and Suchlike Pandemonium and then, via a veritable library of more-collecting-less-family volumes, into the hysterical Rosy is My Relative and The Mockery Bird, both works of fiction, mixed in with a heavy dose of conservation messages. I ended, more or less, since I had everything that I could buy by then, with Durrell in Russia, more or less a diary of an expedition to that country to film a television series. It all brought together laughter, life in the wild and living with animals in a way that made – and still makes – my heart and mind dance. And that was what reading, to me, is all about.
The wild life
When I was much younger, about nine years old, we were on a short visit to Athens – Greece, not Georgia or even Ohio. There I met a lot of what would later form an integral part of my being, literally and experientially. First on the list was that delightful stuff called spanakopita, a gorgeously delicious ‘sandwich’ of filo pastry, spinach and feta cheese, all fabulously spiked with garlic and just a touch of pepper. Then came the monuments – the Parthenon, the caryatids, the columns (that was the time I was learning about styles of architecture and spoke of Doric, Ionic and Corinthian in a tone that even IM Pei and Le Corbusier would envy), the steps…everything that was ancient Grecian and, regrettably, needed urgent archaeological attention.
But what I really discovered and that would stay with me for my whole life was a writer who made me laugh, and still continues to do so. We were walking down a main thoroughfare in Athens headed to meet Father, when Mum and I found a bookstore where we could spend a little time that we had to spare. It sold English books, a sign outside said, and we marched in, hand in hand, Mum to look for a newspaper (probably the International Herald Tribune, something I grew up on as an irregular part of my reading diet), me to just look. We were looked at, too, Mum in particular, with her exotically beautiful face and elegant silk sari.
Newspaper got, Mum decided that the child needed some erudition. Comics were fine, but they didn’t have any that I wanted or liked. So she trolled the shelves holding English books and came up with an author that she insisted I would like and that she and Father could read, too, without feeling like they needed to get back into rompers and mud pies. Our purchases were neatly packaged and we marched out to a chorus of cheery farewells. Later that afternoon, back in our room at our gemutlich little pensione above the bakery, sprawled against the oversized pillows and breathing in air scented with the fragrance of fresh baking from the ovens downstairs, I took a good look at the book. And, halfway into the first chapter, I was a confirmed and life-long fan.
It was The Bafut Beagles, a collecting trip that Durrell made to Africa, to the British Cameroon. It chronicled his adventures with the various animals he was brought by his team of local hunters, his ever-growing for the Dark Continent and his deep friendship with the Fon, the local chieftain. And even as I giggled, I was shocked by words like ‘pissed’, which I saw printed for the first time – Mum shocked me even more when she was so casual about saying “So? It is just a biological function, silly!” (At nine, everything was shocking.) But, more than just a book, it became, for me, a need. Even today I look for that elusive Durrell that we may not have in our collection, often finding that it is a reissue or something that has been renamed to suit a new market.
Over the years, I met various members of Durrell’s family, starting with his hilarious My Family and Other Animals. I progressed rapidly through Birds Beasts and Relatives and Picnics and Suchlike Pandemonium and then, via a veritable library of more-collecting-less-family volumes, into the hysterical Rosy is My Relative and The Mockery Bird, both works of fiction, mixed in with a heavy dose of conservation messages. I ended, more or less, since I had everything that I could buy by then, with Durrell in Russia, more or less a diary of an expedition to that country to film a television series. It all brought together laughter, life in the wild and living with animals in a way that made – and still makes – my heart and mind dance. And that was what reading, to me, is all about.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
A gift horse that smiles
Don’t look a gift horse in the teeth, I was told many years ago, around the same time that I learned not to trust a Greek who bore gifts. Neither of them has been proved true to me, since the only horse I got close enough to look at the teeth of (forgive me, o Father, for the grammatical conflagration there) was not only friendly, but persistently blew down the front of my gorgeous and very designer lambswool sweater to express his obvious affection for me and the Greeks that I have met have all been wonderful people with no sign of any wooden constructions and no one called Helen in their ranks.
But today I was given something that, for me, was a true gift. For a long time I have been wanting a set of 13 books that all the literary reviews have been yelling about. I have read reviews of the baker’s dozen in even the most stodgy and traditionally-cultured publications that we get delivered to our home. I was once a die-hard fan of the books, their protagonist and their genre and used to own a few, which were unfortunately attacked by book-bugs and discarded when I was living in another city in another country in another time. A reissue brought them closer within reach, but the friendly next-neighbourhood bookshop owner was either ignoring me and my entreaties, or was so laid-back that he figured that I could wait until he was good and ready to cater to my rather demanding needs.
But I didn’t realise that a good turn done for someone some time ago would get me a payback. A friend and colleague had a birthday recently and had asked me months ago for some of the traditional South Indian dessert I make rather well, even though I say so myself. I had promised him some and finally grabbed the opportunity and the bottle of ghee with both hands, one also holding my trusty wooden ladle, and did the cooking I needed to. I managed to get it to him without anyone else doing a neat hijack – not myself, not Father, not anyone who saw that I had something special in my little baggie. He and his wife partook of some relish, he reported to me, and sang happy hosannas to my culinary talents.
And I got my just reward, as they call it, this afternoon. I walked past his desk and saw a copy of one of the books I had been asking for. It lay there and called ever so softly to me, asking me to take a closer look. I sidled up and poked at it with a finger. Then I picked it up and took a long and covetous look. I could not get to read it, he told me. He knew I liked crime/thriller/mystery fiction. I knew he knew. And we both did a little verbal and mental waltz, waiting to see who would speak first. I very coolly, casually said I had asked for the books, but they had not yet arrived. He bit. Do you want to review them, he asked. And you can have them all, they are bogging up my desk drawers.
That is where the horse came in. I looked, smiled and took. Now I own 11 of the 13 books, all for the price of a little kitchen labour and a 600-word review. I think I need to light a fire under the friendly next-neighbourhood bookshop owner for the other two.
But today I was given something that, for me, was a true gift. For a long time I have been wanting a set of 13 books that all the literary reviews have been yelling about. I have read reviews of the baker’s dozen in even the most stodgy and traditionally-cultured publications that we get delivered to our home. I was once a die-hard fan of the books, their protagonist and their genre and used to own a few, which were unfortunately attacked by book-bugs and discarded when I was living in another city in another country in another time. A reissue brought them closer within reach, but the friendly next-neighbourhood bookshop owner was either ignoring me and my entreaties, or was so laid-back that he figured that I could wait until he was good and ready to cater to my rather demanding needs.
But I didn’t realise that a good turn done for someone some time ago would get me a payback. A friend and colleague had a birthday recently and had asked me months ago for some of the traditional South Indian dessert I make rather well, even though I say so myself. I had promised him some and finally grabbed the opportunity and the bottle of ghee with both hands, one also holding my trusty wooden ladle, and did the cooking I needed to. I managed to get it to him without anyone else doing a neat hijack – not myself, not Father, not anyone who saw that I had something special in my little baggie. He and his wife partook of some relish, he reported to me, and sang happy hosannas to my culinary talents.
And I got my just reward, as they call it, this afternoon. I walked past his desk and saw a copy of one of the books I had been asking for. It lay there and called ever so softly to me, asking me to take a closer look. I sidled up and poked at it with a finger. Then I picked it up and took a long and covetous look. I could not get to read it, he told me. He knew I liked crime/thriller/mystery fiction. I knew he knew. And we both did a little verbal and mental waltz, waiting to see who would speak first. I very coolly, casually said I had asked for the books, but they had not yet arrived. He bit. Do you want to review them, he asked. And you can have them all, they are bogging up my desk drawers.
That is where the horse came in. I looked, smiled and took. Now I own 11 of the 13 books, all for the price of a little kitchen labour and a 600-word review. I think I need to light a fire under the friendly next-neighbourhood bookshop owner for the other two.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Passing out
I just wrote an edit about the college admissions mess that is on in Maharashtra right now. Since there are so many students, so many examination systems and so few colleges that are reputed and desirable, not everyone gets what they want, few actually manage to steer into the ‘stream’, as it is called, that they deserve to be in. What is especially frightening for someone like me, who was never really part of the great and glorious ‘system’, except in parts – many bad, like the egg the curate should never have eaten – is that young people these days are doing better and better, as their increasingly higher marks show off, but they still seem to be not good enough. I wonder, does this pressure drive them into vocational training that they do not fit into, thereby creating so many sub-standard working adults, or does it drive them off the terrace, literally, pushing them into a suicidal situation that, often, there is no retreat from?
All that apart, school and college were fairly traumatic for me – in those aforementioned ‘parts’ – but never about the unending striving for something that was so tantalisingly out of reach. I did manage to do okay, graduated without too much strain - though there was plenty of stress for me and my family – and am now busy with a career that was serendipitous but just what I should have aimed for, more or less. But the favourite time of each phase in my education life was the leaving of it (if I am not wrong, somebody far more famous and wise said something like that long before I wrote it here!). I have never understood why people call it ‘passing out’, unless they are talking about the aftermath of keg parties and prom-night binges that are so common in the US and now even in India, but graduation is better known thusly in this country.
Perhaps my first and favourite graduation memory is when I was done with school in Switzerland. It was a very formal occasion and we all had to dress up to the nineteens for it. And after the ceremony was the graduation ball, on a boat in the middle of the lake – that was maybe the first all-night party I went to and, frankly, one of the most boring, since most people were either getting drunk, making out in various dark corners or just fast asleep at the tables in the lower deck because they were exhausted after a grinding few weeks of final exams.
The ceremony itself was formal, with all of us waiting in line to go up on stage, shake the principal’s hand and get a tiny roll of diploma. My parents were there and met all my friends and teachers, and I felt terribly adult in a gorgeous silk sari and heels. I walked with my classmates, all of unusually solemn and nervous, to the stage and was told, as I was given my little roll of parchment, that I looked like an ‘Indian princess’, which almost made me fall off my sandals and down the stairs. Soon after, my parents took me and my friend home to change for the ball and we giggled madly about who was wearing what that was not quite right. Typically schoolgirl stuff, but perfect for that time and place.
A few years later I was all set to graduate again, this time from college after an incredibly tumultuous and occasionally traumatic time through a graduate school course. I wandered with a friend through the college campus wondering where we would go next, both of us more formally dressed that we had ever seen each other. He wore formal trousers and a starched white shirt; I was in white and silver cotton, a modern version of the traditional salwar kameez. And we attracted more attention than we usually did, with parents of our various classmates and people we had never seen before stopping us and telling us how fabulously exotic we looked. There was a sadness in the pleasure – we had both made good friends during the time we had spent in the department and would miss not only all of them, but even the teachers, the classrooms, the window seat that I did most of my homework on, the students we had taught, the times we had fought and made up about the way a sentence was constructed…and, of course each other.
‘Passing out’ was as much fun as going into college. The kids who are trying to do both within the chaos that is the Indian system need to find out about this wonderful concept.
Passing out
I just wrote an edit about the college admissions mess that is on in Maharashtra right now. Since there are so many students, so many examination systems and so few colleges that are reputed and desirable, not everyone gets what they want, few actually manage to steer into the ‘stream’, as it is called, that they deserve to be in. What is especially frightening for someone like me, who was never really part of the great and glorious ‘system’, except in parts – many bad, like the egg the curate should never have eaten – is that young people these days are doing better and better, as their increasingly higher marks show off, but they still seem to be not good enough. I wonder, does this pressure drive them into vocational training that they do not fit into, thereby creating so many sub-standard working adults, or does it drive them off the terrace, literally, pushing them into a suicidal situation that, often, there is no retreat from?
All that apart, school and college were fairly traumatic for me – in those aforementioned ‘parts’ – but never about the unending striving for something that was so tantalisingly out of reach. I did manage to do okay, graduated without too much strain - though there was plenty of stress for me and my family – and am now busy with a career that was serendipitous but just what I should have aimed for, more or less. But the favourite time of each phase in my education life was the leaving of it (if I am not wrong, somebody far more famous and wise said something like that long before I wrote it here!). I have never understood why people call it ‘passing out’, unless they are talking about the aftermath of keg parties and prom-night binges that are so common in the US and now even in India, but graduation is better known thusly in this country.
Perhaps my first and favourite graduation memory is when I was done with school in Switzerland. It was a very formal occasion and we all had to dress up to the nineteens for it. And after the ceremony was the graduation ball, on a boat in the middle of the lake – that was maybe the first all-night party I went to and, frankly, one of the most boring, since most people were either getting drunk, making out in various dark corners or just fast asleep at the tables in the lower deck because they were exhausted after a grinding few weeks of final exams.
The ceremony itself was formal, with all of us waiting in line to go up on stage, shake the principal’s hand and get a tiny roll of diploma. My parents were there and met all my friends and teachers, and I felt terribly adult in a gorgeous silk sari and heels. I walked with my classmates, all of unusually solemn and nervous, to the stage and was told, as I was given my little roll of parchment, that I looked like an ‘Indian princess’, which almost made me fall off my sandals and down the stairs. Soon after, my parents took me and my friend home to change for the ball and we giggled madly about who was wearing what that was not quite right. Typically schoolgirl stuff, but perfect for that time and place.
A few years later I was all set to graduate again, this time from college after an incredibly tumultuous and occasionally traumatic time through a graduate school course. I wandered with a friend through the college campus wondering where we would go next, both of us more formally dressed that we had ever seen each other. He wore formal trousers and a starched white shirt; I was in white and silver cotton, a modern version of the traditional salwar kameez. And we attracted more attention than we usually did, with parents of our various classmates and people we had never seen before stopping us and telling us how fabulously exotic we looked. There was a sadness in the pleasure – we had both made good friends during the time we had spent in the department and would miss not only all of them, but even the teachers, the classrooms, the window seat that I did most of my homework on, the students we had taught, the times we had fought and made up about the way a sentence was constructed…and, of course each other.
‘Passing out’ was as much fun as going into college. The kids who are trying to do both within the chaos that is the Indian system need to find out about this wonderful concept.
All that apart, school and college were fairly traumatic for me – in those aforementioned ‘parts’ – but never about the unending striving for something that was so tantalisingly out of reach. I did manage to do okay, graduated without too much strain - though there was plenty of stress for me and my family – and am now busy with a career that was serendipitous but just what I should have aimed for, more or less. But the favourite time of each phase in my education life was the leaving of it (if I am not wrong, somebody far more famous and wise said something like that long before I wrote it here!). I have never understood why people call it ‘passing out’, unless they are talking about the aftermath of keg parties and prom-night binges that are so common in the US and now even in India, but graduation is better known thusly in this country.
Perhaps my first and favourite graduation memory is when I was done with school in Switzerland. It was a very formal occasion and we all had to dress up to the nineteens for it. And after the ceremony was the graduation ball, on a boat in the middle of the lake – that was maybe the first all-night party I went to and, frankly, one of the most boring, since most people were either getting drunk, making out in various dark corners or just fast asleep at the tables in the lower deck because they were exhausted after a grinding few weeks of final exams.
The ceremony itself was formal, with all of us waiting in line to go up on stage, shake the principal’s hand and get a tiny roll of diploma. My parents were there and met all my friends and teachers, and I felt terribly adult in a gorgeous silk sari and heels. I walked with my classmates, all of unusually solemn and nervous, to the stage and was told, as I was given my little roll of parchment, that I looked like an ‘Indian princess’, which almost made me fall off my sandals and down the stairs. Soon after, my parents took me and my friend home to change for the ball and we giggled madly about who was wearing what that was not quite right. Typically schoolgirl stuff, but perfect for that time and place.
A few years later I was all set to graduate again, this time from college after an incredibly tumultuous and occasionally traumatic time through a graduate school course. I wandered with a friend through the college campus wondering where we would go next, both of us more formally dressed that we had ever seen each other. He wore formal trousers and a starched white shirt; I was in white and silver cotton, a modern version of the traditional salwar kameez. And we attracted more attention than we usually did, with parents of our various classmates and people we had never seen before stopping us and telling us how fabulously exotic we looked. There was a sadness in the pleasure – we had both made good friends during the time we had spent in the department and would miss not only all of them, but even the teachers, the classrooms, the window seat that I did most of my homework on, the students we had taught, the times we had fought and made up about the way a sentence was constructed…and, of course each other.
‘Passing out’ was as much fun as going into college. The kids who are trying to do both within the chaos that is the Indian system need to find out about this wonderful concept.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
On the curds
Many years ago I wrote a lot about yoghurt. Apart from anything else, I was charmed by the idea that Methuselah and Genghis Khan were fans of the soft white stuff and managed to live to ripe old ages with it as a healthy and regular part of their diets. It was also chock-full of tryptophan, that wonderful natural sedative, a component that promotes sleep naturally, easily, with no side effects and no chemicals (not the kind we speak to today, at least) involved.
Around the time I first went off to college in the United States, when I found myself alone and wandering the grocery aisles with little clue on what I needed, but knowing full well what I wanted, I found that the concept of non-fat yoghurt had caught on. It was, frankly, dreadful. It looked white, quivered and promised much, but it gave off a lot of water and tasted oddly dull. But the worst part was that it had the texture of talcum powder badly mixed into a paste and left your tongue feeling dry and somehow seared by something acrid. In contrast, the full-fat version, which I insisted I would stick to, was thick and rich, settling into the mouth with a cool, soft, luxurious feeling that I had found only in home-made dahi from whole-fat milk.
When I was much younger, still in school, my parents and I went to this small mountain village called Sihor. From there, we hiked up a couple of hours to the temple town of Palitana. We left the guest house where we were staying bundled up in jackets and scarves and walked long and hard and breathing heavily up the hill to the very top. From there, the barren hillside suddenly transformed into a veritable tumble of temples, large, small and barely-there, each a prayer in itself to the Jain monk or avatar it venerated. Marble roofs, elaborately carved, jostled for space with more stark and simple stone stupas. The entire hillside was a sea of shrines, one dwarfing the next, every one of them a song in stone. And there was a whole symphony there, with 256 or more of these little pagodas.
But even better than that awesome early-morning sun-rise view was waiting for us at the main archway, the entrance into the small city: a host of yoghurt sellers, touting their wares in piercing tones, one louder than the next. When we tried, tentatively, the creamy white milk set firm in shallow pottery dishes, we stopped at the first bite…savoured, and then demanded more. The earthenware had allowed water to seep out and kept the contents of the dish cool and fresh. The dahi itself was quite solid, sprinkled over with tiny shards of rock salt, amazingly energising and mercifully, wonderfully, superbly exactly what we needed to rejuvenate us after the walk up and before the walk back down.
And today, when I see all those plastic cups and cartons of yoghurt stacked on supermarket shelves, I remember that glorious winter morning on a hilltop…
Around the time I first went off to college in the United States, when I found myself alone and wandering the grocery aisles with little clue on what I needed, but knowing full well what I wanted, I found that the concept of non-fat yoghurt had caught on. It was, frankly, dreadful. It looked white, quivered and promised much, but it gave off a lot of water and tasted oddly dull. But the worst part was that it had the texture of talcum powder badly mixed into a paste and left your tongue feeling dry and somehow seared by something acrid. In contrast, the full-fat version, which I insisted I would stick to, was thick and rich, settling into the mouth with a cool, soft, luxurious feeling that I had found only in home-made dahi from whole-fat milk.
When I was much younger, still in school, my parents and I went to this small mountain village called Sihor. From there, we hiked up a couple of hours to the temple town of Palitana. We left the guest house where we were staying bundled up in jackets and scarves and walked long and hard and breathing heavily up the hill to the very top. From there, the barren hillside suddenly transformed into a veritable tumble of temples, large, small and barely-there, each a prayer in itself to the Jain monk or avatar it venerated. Marble roofs, elaborately carved, jostled for space with more stark and simple stone stupas. The entire hillside was a sea of shrines, one dwarfing the next, every one of them a song in stone. And there was a whole symphony there, with 256 or more of these little pagodas.
But even better than that awesome early-morning sun-rise view was waiting for us at the main archway, the entrance into the small city: a host of yoghurt sellers, touting their wares in piercing tones, one louder than the next. When we tried, tentatively, the creamy white milk set firm in shallow pottery dishes, we stopped at the first bite…savoured, and then demanded more. The earthenware had allowed water to seep out and kept the contents of the dish cool and fresh. The dahi itself was quite solid, sprinkled over with tiny shards of rock salt, amazingly energising and mercifully, wonderfully, superbly exactly what we needed to rejuvenate us after the walk up and before the walk back down.
And today, when I see all those plastic cups and cartons of yoghurt stacked on supermarket shelves, I remember that glorious winter morning on a hilltop…
Monday, July 02, 2007
The importance of being earnest
(Yes, so I do it again. I wrote this for the Sunday edition of the newspaper and where that was cut to fit the space available, this one isn't. And now I feel really old and, more frightening, old-fashioned. Talk about needing to update skills!)
The office has just been inundated by a veritable flood of young trainees. Chirping and chattering like sparrows all a-twitter about a new brand of birdseed, under the frivolous exterior they have a serious single-mindedness that is, in a way, frightening. They know it all, they say it all and they firmly believe that they can do it all. And they have their careers planned meticulously, working their ways into the departments they want to be part of, and aiming to get there with élan and enthusiasm from the opening phrase of the first meeting with prospective employers.
We were different. The average journalist, when I started out, was badly dressed, tentative in approach and hesitant in speech. Like I was during my first real job interview. The occasion made that unforgettable impression on me and the lady who spoke to me. I had been at a photo-shoot for a magazine that wanted me to model some very odd clothes for it, and was unexpectedly summoned – I cannot quite remember how, since it was before the age of cellphones – to meet the editor. So I turned up at the imposing office, dressed in full photographic makeup, high heels, a tasteful sprinkling of beads and baubles and a robe. To give my completely inexperienced self some credit, it was a very respectable robe that buttoned nicely up to the neck and could have been one of the chic smock frocks that is back on the catwalks today. The editor chatted with me, one eye furtively looking me up and down, perhaps wondering if I moonlighted as someone with a not-very-respectable dark-time job, and in the space of about ten minutes, had hired me for a salary that seemed astonishingly high to my naïve mind.
My second job interview was more typical, I know now. I was called to an office that I had only heard of, but never been to. With my propensity for getting lost, I started out with half an hour to spare and did a few U-turns and roundabouts, finally getting there with just enough time to park my car and register at the front desk. The gentleman I was to meet kept me waiting for 15 minutes or so, finally waving me into his room and pointing silently to a chair. He sat. I sat. He read through my resume and stroked his chin. I looked nervously at the rack of books above his head. He flipped to the third page for the second time and cleared his throat. I goose-bumped and subdued a nervous burp. He started talking, I stammered my first reply….not too long afterwards, he offered me the job. I took it.
From that historical perspective, today’s trainee is certainly a new species of bird. One that may be learning to fly, but has no hesitation in spreading its wings, clacking its beak and digging in its talons.
The office has just been inundated by a veritable flood of young trainees. Chirping and chattering like sparrows all a-twitter about a new brand of birdseed, under the frivolous exterior they have a serious single-mindedness that is, in a way, frightening. They know it all, they say it all and they firmly believe that they can do it all. And they have their careers planned meticulously, working their ways into the departments they want to be part of, and aiming to get there with élan and enthusiasm from the opening phrase of the first meeting with prospective employers.
We were different. The average journalist, when I started out, was badly dressed, tentative in approach and hesitant in speech. Like I was during my first real job interview. The occasion made that unforgettable impression on me and the lady who spoke to me. I had been at a photo-shoot for a magazine that wanted me to model some very odd clothes for it, and was unexpectedly summoned – I cannot quite remember how, since it was before the age of cellphones – to meet the editor. So I turned up at the imposing office, dressed in full photographic makeup, high heels, a tasteful sprinkling of beads and baubles and a robe. To give my completely inexperienced self some credit, it was a very respectable robe that buttoned nicely up to the neck and could have been one of the chic smock frocks that is back on the catwalks today. The editor chatted with me, one eye furtively looking me up and down, perhaps wondering if I moonlighted as someone with a not-very-respectable dark-time job, and in the space of about ten minutes, had hired me for a salary that seemed astonishingly high to my naïve mind.
My second job interview was more typical, I know now. I was called to an office that I had only heard of, but never been to. With my propensity for getting lost, I started out with half an hour to spare and did a few U-turns and roundabouts, finally getting there with just enough time to park my car and register at the front desk. The gentleman I was to meet kept me waiting for 15 minutes or so, finally waving me into his room and pointing silently to a chair. He sat. I sat. He read through my resume and stroked his chin. I looked nervously at the rack of books above his head. He flipped to the third page for the second time and cleared his throat. I goose-bumped and subdued a nervous burp. He started talking, I stammered my first reply….not too long afterwards, he offered me the job. I took it.
From that historical perspective, today’s trainee is certainly a new species of bird. One that may be learning to fly, but has no hesitation in spreading its wings, clacking its beak and digging in its talons.
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