Doing? Not much!

Yesterday I dropped by the newspaper office where I worked until fairly recently and found that a lot of people who vowed that they would quit are very much still there and working as hard as ever, as unhappily as ever. They all came to chat and try and find out what I was doing these days and they all got the same answer - nothing much, just taking time off. Whenever I say that, people listen, smile and get that expression when they are thinking 'Oh, yeah, she just doesn't want to tell us!'

But I would tell, really, if I had anything to tell. For now, I am writing and cooking and cleaning and reading and generally finding my feet after over-doing it for too long. Maybe this is what the whole process of 'finding myself' is all about. I have not gone off to the Himalayas to meditate and smoke strange weeds and have not become a hippie or even chosen to live in a village doing good deeds, but I am in a tentative state of discovery, of learning what I want to do and, more importantly, why I want to do 'it', whatever 'it' may be, and not anything else. There is, as I was just telling a close friend, no hurry, no sense of desperation to get something done, to pelase someone, to fit in, to change to suit someone or some situation. At least, if I don't want to, I will not, except for family. Which is the ideal state of existence, don't you think?

But this, I know well, is utopia. And utopia never lasts too long. I know one day, not too long from now, I will be back at work, slaving over a hot keyboard, trying to get something done in too short a time and at too intense a pace. It was what made me what and who I am and it is what I need almost to sustain that self that I have become. But until then, I enjoy every moment of being me...and the journey of finding out just who that is.

Stored in the past

By the way, just for the record, I hate dusting.

That said, I was wandering about town yesterday, with not much to do and plenty of time to do it in. So I drifted into a couple of my favourite stores, looking for something, but looking at everything. I didn't find what I wanted, but found a lot more that was interesting, if I had been looking for it, or even looking to acquire it. Undaunted, I went further, walking down the uneven pavement and exacerbating the pain of a hurt foot, but pleased with the fact that I was out in the fresh (as it may be) air, with no deadlines breathing down my neck and no mobile phone ringing, no text messages coming in and no place to be except where I wanted to be. Being in that Mumbai state of mind, I walked into the age-old Khadi Bhandar on DN Road, still looking for what I had been looking for and not especially hopeful that I would find it, but in the onward-ho mood nevertheless.

The first thing that struck me was the beautiful light. You find it only in places where the building is old and cracking, the sun shining through dirty windows battles the fluorescent light from dingy bulbs, where the lovely old tiled floor is overlaid with peeling linoleum and dust sparkles in the drafts like thousands of tiny diamonds. In fact, it was the dust that grabbed my attention - and my sinuses - as I trotted about the vast store, manned by very sleepy staff and mired in a bog of outdated systems and typically Indian-government-style lethargy. While I didn't find what I was looking for - and still am - I did find some other treasures, from hand-milled soap to fresh honey, gorgeous handloom silks and beautifully printed fine cotton. But all of it was dreary, depressed, from the people behind the counters to the way in which the goods were stacked and displayed. A huge pity, since there is so much that can be done to make what is essentially part of our valuable heritage into quality retail at not very high prices.

In contrast, the Bombay Store (I noticed that the local fanatics who insist that our city should be linguistically at least nativised have spared this place) has learned its sales lessons well. The old, dusty, musty, fusty institution that was once Bombay Swadeshi Stores is now upmarket, smart, globally self-conscious and very very with it. It displays Indian-made clothes, jewellery, furniture, leather and handicrafts of every function for the home and person in a user-friendly, hip, happening and buyable way. The attendants - in spite of their often rather shaky English - are quick and helpful, using training and charm to wangle sales. The customers are tourists, locals and expatriates alike, and there are plenty of them. And though the price tags are a little higher than at the government-run store, they are deserved for the service and presentation - which makes all the difference, when you think about it.

This country is a fabulous one, one that I am proud to belong to, with all its flaws and foibles. But I wish the powers that be would take their responsibilities more seriously. Khadi Bhandar, for instance, is part of our heritage and can be used so effectively and proudly to show off what this country and its people can create. Why not channel some of that pride in 'Incredible India' into making it more a store of today than one that is mired in the dust of the ages? I would be proud to shop there then...once I stopped sneezing, that is!

Calamity Jane, that's me!

It's not that I am especially clumsy or especially inept. Not more than most, at least. But I do have some very strange accidents that, in retrospect, are very funny. This time, it is no better or worse than it normally is. I dropped a pakad, that tong-thing used in every Indian kitchen, right on the most tender part of my foot. It would normally not have been so bad, but for the fact that I had already hurt that foot and had just gone through the arduous and painful process of having it checked and X-rayed and more. So this was, in a way, adding not just insult, but aggravated assault to injury and causing me more anguish than was worth it for me. And when that darn thing fell, it impacted the only unbruised part of a blue-tinged foot with the sharpest part of the metal instrument, pulling an agonised yowl out of me, enough to wake Small Cat from her morning nap, startle the maid who was cleaning under the cabinets in the living room and grab Father's attention away from whatever he was doing. I sat on a chair near the kitchen, holding a piece of ice against my foot and thinking up the most blue-tinged words that I could think of - unfortunately, 'Heck!' was the best that my traumatized mind could come up with at that moment, even though I know lots of far more interesting noises.

My former irascible boss called me Calamity Jane. And, in my own way, I suppose I am. I do things with a certain panache that is not easily beaten. Like the time I cracked a wrist bone while making popcorn - I did it by bashing it against the microwave overn I was using, but that part of the story somehow gets second billing. And once I was put in a splint to support aforementioned wrist bone, I gave myself a mind concussion by bashing myself on the forehead with it as I turned over in bed while waking up the next morning. Don't even go there. The next time I got concussion was in Delhi, when I was leaving to go to work, and the cleaning lady emerged unexpectedly from the bushes to give me a fright and I knocked myself out with a very hard contact between my temple and the corner of the car door...

And, of course, there was the time I hurt my foot - not this one, the other one; like most people, I do have two - by falling up the stairs walking into a boutique I frequently shop at. It was only three steps, but I fell twice, first landing rather hard on my knee and then sliding onto the wrong side of my foot and bending the toe and ankle rather unnaturally. Perhaps the most painful part of that particular story was having to sit at my table in a tony restaurant about an hour later with my rapidly swelling and darkening foot and ankle in a dish of ice.

So the saga of the pakad is not unusual for me. It all goes with the general territory of being ME. I only wish I wasn't such a pain-full person to have around!

Govinda gela re!

Krishna was born and now he has gone off to whatever adventuring he has left to do in today's world. It was Janmashtami over the weekend, the time when the Blue God was born. We celebrate in this country by eating a lot - which we do for almost every festival there is - and making a lot of noise. Strangely, it was quieter here this year than it has been in previous celebrations, making me wonder if I had the day wrong or whether there was something amiss or whether it was just that people are now starting to see sense and tone down public displays of affectation. As they hoist themselves and their teams up the human pyramids to break open the handi tied high above to get the prasad and the money, some triumph, others die trying, but there is a lot of sound and some fury, signifying another event that has given way to crass commercialism.

My native cynicism apart, I do enjoy the ocasional festival. And celebrate in my own way, tweaking the traditional to create something new that will become tradition for Father, Small Cat and myself. So yesterday, instead of the usual festive lunch of shaadam and murukku and seedai and neiyappam, vadai and fresh-churned butter from the home kitchen, we adapted a little. We did have seedai and neiyappam but bought both from the neighbourhood South Indian store, and we did have shaadam, but with some changes. It was fun cooking, as it almost always is for me, and it tastes good, or so the family reviews said.

We ate pongal, a wonderfully squishy blend of dal and rice and spices and veggies all cooked together, with a dash of ghee, accompanied by bonda made of leftover alu-methi wrapped up in a crisp coat of adai maavu - leftovers, but given a new avatar. We crunched through the seedai and chewed on the neiyappam, with homemade javarsi (sabudana) payasam to add interest, with lots of raisins and cashewnuts to make it better. And then there was some raita, some banana chips and some pickles, all to round off the meal. We lay around like anacondas after that, digesting.

The problem with Indian festivals is that they follow each other in over-quick succession. Just when your waistline is normalising after one, the next arrives and you have more adjusting to do of strings and buttons and zippers. For me, I have Ganesh Chaturti mid-next week to think about, with its glorious sweets and savouries and a whole lot of communicating with my favourite god.

Lizzie hunt

A friend of mine is back in the country after some months away and is sorting out her house and her things. Even though her housekeeper was in charge while she was gone, and her room was shut and locked, something did manage to sneak in. And now, even as I write this, about two days after she returned, she has not yet been able to find the intruder and expel it. The creature that invaded her sanctum is a lizard, a messy character who left his scat around for her to find it and panic. For some funny reason she - like many others in her family (are phobias inherited?) - is deadly afraid of lizards; I have known her to shriek and stand on top of a large cedar chest to avoid being in close proximity to the space that one may have inhabited. And I have even been part of a great lizard hunt in her living room - she was on the aforementioned chest, her aunt, who was visiting, was on a sofa, while the housekeeper rushed hither and yon with a broom in one hand and a kitchen towel in the other. I stood there and giggled; not very useful, I know, but the best I could think of to do at that particular moment.

I am not afraid of lizards, but I do draw the line at spiders, worms and other creepy crawlies. the tale of my mother and I slaying a cockroach is almost legend in our family - we stood at one end of a vast living room and threw slippers at it. After we ran out of slippers and anything else that could possibly fling at the poor thing, it rolled over on its back and died, presumably from either boredom or hysterical laughter at our madness. Mother ran screaming away from the smallest cockroaches; I am not afraid of them, but I do not like them at all and would prefer to run rather than stand and shake hands...any one of the many hands it has.

What frightens me are moths and butterflies, most flying insects, in fact. Not because they are nasty in any way, but simply because if I flailed around in trying to avoid them, I could make contact with them, which could damage their fragile wings and bodies, which means that they would need to be killed or I would have to watch them dying. Yuck. I would rather run, screaming or squeaking, take my pick when the event arises.

Today there is a lot to be afraid of in our world. Apart from the obvious fears like earthquakes and bomb blasts, car crashes and murderous attacks, life is all a matter of trust. And trust is so easily betrayed, most often by the people you never expected to be nicknamed Ben, Ben Arnold. The fear really comes in when you become untrusting, when you will not accept, when you do not have the courage to see yourself and those around you for what they really are.

A lizard is a lizard is a lizard. It is what it is. And while my friend hunts to find her little pet, I giggle gently to myself and try and learn another lesson about fear and how to trust yourself not to be afraid.

Pet peeves

We were at the vet's clinic this morning picking up Small Cat's medicines, when we met another small cat who needed medical care. She was younger than ours, just about nine months old, and sitting calmly in her basket, her tummy neatly wrapped in a bandage. She did not say much - ours would have yowled high opera or cowered and shivered - and did not flinch when I patted her gently on the head and gave her a feather I had found for Small Cat to play with. She just looked up at me, and blinked slightly rheumy eyes and lay back. Her family - an older lady with a girl in her maybe early 20s - were obviously very wrapped up in her condition, fussing gently and eagerly absorbing everything we had to say. After all, since we had had Small Cat for two years already, we were the experts, right?

It is only after you go through an experience that you realise how little you actually know, because then, when other people ask you the same questions you had before the experience, you understand the place you once came from. The lady's big concern was what we fed Small Cat. Her cat, you see, did not drink milk and refused to eat fish. We smiled. We knew what that was about. Small Cat had put us through the same worries, except that since I had been a cat owner before, I knew that the myths about cat-hood may have had some base in reality but, for the most part, they were really only stereotypes stretched into those myths. Cats do not always like milk. Cats do not always like fish. Cats do not always like the place and not the people. All myths.

Small Cat herself is a little spoiled brat, whose every whim and fancy is catered to, even if it means waking up and staggering blearily around the house at some unearthly hour of the night because she wants only her favourite biscuit and not what the dish has in it and she needs her paw held (in a manner of speaking) as she chews her ration-for-the-moment of a few stalks of wheat grass. I do not doubt that the little cat that we met this morning will be like Small Cat, indulged and pampered to the point where she takes her owners for granted and absorbs all the love and care she gets from them...and gives it all back with trust, ambushes from behind the door and lotsof biting and scratching. It is her catly right and duty, isn't it?

Toil and turmoil

The world is in a rum state these days. Lots of upheavals and messes and imbroglios that don't show any signs of being sorted out. Many of these are made worse by the media in this vast and wonderful country of ours, with the Indian penchant for melodrama overtaking good reportage and any standards of programming that may have been part of the world of news at any time. The todo they made over the Arushi Talwar murder case was incredibly tacky and insensitive. The fuss they have been making about the badly handled matter of Kenneth Haywood and his exit from India is execrable, the same footage looping endlessly while the commentators talk on with amazing banality at the whole incident. The Niketa Mehta abortion story got its spice from TV audiences and reporters pushing microphones into the faces of the parents-to-be, the doctors involved and - I am sure if it had been at all possible - the fetus long before it was born. And the Amarnath land issue would not, I am firmly convinced, be as nasty as it seems to be if the media had not blown it up beyond actual fact.

But then television in India is like that only, as they say. They present the facts somewhere inside the thick layer of masala that coats them, pushing the proverbial envelope so far that it drops off the horizon of reality and becomes the staged drama of a reality show instead. Is that the fault of the media or the people who give it so much importance? Sometimes I really wonder.

Winner takes all

Everyone knows that Abhinav Bindra is a winner. He showed it by bringing home the gold medal that he won for shooting a perfect score in Beijing. But he showed in perhaps even more in his mien - that cold, unflappable, focussed way of responding to everything, be it the actual moment of winning or the stupid questions that the media (especially the Indian TV channels) flung at him or his meetings with the political biggies in this country, from the President and Prime Minister to the various functionaries whose attentions he has been subjected to.

Mnay say that the reason he won and, more importantly, the reason he was able to develop that winning ambition was the financial support he had without really asking for it. His father, a fairly successful businessman, was able to give him everything he needed to reach his goal, from his own shooting range at home to specialised training abroad when he needed it. He had a psychologist, a trainer, even what could be called a life coach, someone who helped him develop a certain blinkeredness in achieving that winning personality, literally. Bindra's own psyche allowed that distance and coolness to mature, no matter that he seems to have parents who are exuberant and far more outgoing than he himself is. Maybe he is shy, reserved, preferring to save that bubble and brightness for a very select circle that he chooses to know.

That same selectiveness labels many as snobs. Maybe most people have seen Bindra as a snob too. But does that matter? After all, snob or not, he is a winner!

Ships in the night

Last year was a rather varied one. I lost one potential friend and found another who had never been lost. I think it was more than fair exchange, since the one I lost wasn't worth keeping and the one I found again has been part of my world for so long that it was not complete without it. I also discovered many hidden strengths in many people, especially in myself - loss did not matter as much as I thought it would and not at all (except ego-wise) as compared to the stunning impact of previous losses. And new discoveries were indeed worth all the anticipation, all the imagination, even all the irritation that had gone into finding what should have been there all the while.

Somewhere along the way on this journey, I made new friends, too, in people I never expected to know. Artists who still keep in touch, never mind that I do not publicise their work. Gallery owners who make sure that I know what is happening in the spaces they manage, even if I am not interested in writing about the works displayed there. Fashion designers who tell me excitedly about new lines they are creating, without ever thinking that I could or would buy them. Fun stuff, great stuff, the stuff of future novels almost!

Like the work of a gentleman with a Bengali name, but based in Gujarat: Amar Dutta. I have two of his designs, both kurtas. One is a deep purple, long, with the most exquisite embroidery in the tiniest and neatest stitches ever - you could not tell the back from the front. The other is a creamy white, in cutwork silk, with extravagant sleeves, a touch of silver sparking the neckline. except that he seems to cater to very tall and slim women with no hips, his work is well worth acquiring, no matter the fairly high price tag attached.

I also added Bela Parekh to my wardrobe. Also not cheap, but worth the effort. The top I liked most is a swingy, cap sleeved little thing, which could be worn as a mini if I still had the legs for it. It is in lovely red teamed with a rather odd brown-grey that soumds unappetising but is actually very elegant.

The most appealing aspect of both these designers' work is that there is a very strong ethnic element to it, apart from the functionality of kurta-hood. They have used traditional craft techniques that are not often found in modern western garments that almost everyone wears these days, and that touch of mirrorwork or block-print or applique or threadwork is what makes it happen for me. When I shop for clothes - and most other fabric stuff - that is exactly what I am looking for. It becomes an identity statement, an affirmation of who I am and where I come from. Which is the secret to being sure of who you are and why you exist. I know. I doubt the people I don't know any more know!

Changing times

Well, it's kinda like this: I once wrote a blog with monotonous regularity and made sure that it was updated every day, rain, shine or life's little dramas. Then my workload at the paper I just quit increased and inspiration levels sank, which made the updates a whenever-possible affair. And now that I am home for a while, I decided it was time to restart what I had let go. Even if nobody reads this, it is a way to communicate whatever I want to say, when I want to say it.

And this time there is a slight difference. Where I once crafted my writing rather more carefully and made sure that it was spell checked and evenly punctuated and all that good stuff, now I am doing it directly online, which is a greater challenge. You make more mistakes if you are just bashing away, with the occasional feline walking nonchalantly over your keyboard or the mobile bings in a message just when you are stuck for things to say, which sends your spellings and your memory of what you had been saying far into the blue yonder...see now, I forgot what I was saying!

And all that apart, I no longer have to hear suggestions from anyone about what I should write and how. Nobody who is doing nothing with their lives that is of any use or joy to anyone else can tell me what to do and say, which many have tried, trust me, and not exactly succeeded. And whether I want to talk about people I used to know, people not worth knowing or people who should be part of my 'I-know' circle is my business. Yeah, sore point there. I dislike wofflers and cowards and anyone who does nothing to get what they want but talk endlessly about anything, no matter that the listeners are bored and being polite in at least pretending to listen! Another sore point. But leave those behind and get with it, right?

I am very getting with it these days. And loving it. The first thing I did when I was finally out of my job was to update the various address books I have. All extra numbers were deleted from my mobile and those zillions of scraps of paper with numbers scribbled on them were carefully checked for what I wanted to keep, the numbers transcribed into a stout diary and the fragments tossed. I found many people who were, effectively, ships that passed through my life and out for ever, some with a mild feeling of regret, many with a sense of relief. One or two I will talk about tomorrow. For now, I plan to take my sabbatical seriously and take a nap!

Back in business

For a while now, i have been thinking that I need to get back to writing this blog on a regular basis. I took off from a full-time job exactly a month ago and today seems the perfect day to celebrate - India's 61st Independence Day and a sign of my own freedom from a rather stultifying work routine. But, as Father always points out, there has been no break from working, not yet. I am at his computer every day, bashing out an article or trying to get past that dreadful feeling of not knowing what to write and how to get about writing it, since there is a deadline and an editor breathing heavily and passionately (though not affectionately) down your email link and occasionally sending you a nasty SMS to ask just when in heck you plan to deliver your copy.
Sigh. And I thought I was done with all that!
Quitting a job is not easy. Rationalising your need to get the paycheck isn't either. It was great to work at something you had no interest in, grouch madly at home that you really didn't want to work at that job and take home the money at the end of every month. It assuaged the conscience and made spending a taken-for-granted matter. Now, since there is no paycheck coming in regularly, and I am not really looking at one for a while yet (it does not seem to be looking at me either at close range), I get attacks of guilt if I long for a lipstick, a pair of shoes or a new diamond, but those are blended with a little voice with a chuckle in it that says hey, you don't have to wear shoes and put on your makeup and your jewellery and go out, you can swan around in your pajamas all day and feel happily fat and smug about being free.
Am I free, is something I ask myself at least once a day. I can plan my own day the way I want to, but I am also tied down by the routines of the maid, the driver, the various people who traipse in and out, Father's work, Small Cat's whims and fancies and the television I want to watch. And then there are the people who want work done, when they want it done, not when I want to do it. Yeah, at some level this is the life I asked for and managed to get for myself. But is it what I want to do long term? That is something I need to get working on now....