Science and smuggling

(Sometimes you just like how a story you wrote for a newspaper turns out. Like this one. With all the hype and hullaballoo about the new machine at CERN and figuring out how the universe was created, people seem to have forgotten the human aspect, the gentle joys and laughter that went into the process. These are some of my memories of a time when life was simpler and softer...)

Arriving in a suburb of Geneva on Mayday was a kind of foretaste of what was to come for us in the time that we lived in the city. Everything was closed as tight as only the Swiss could do it, except for a tiny branch of a chain department store, where we found a couple of cans of petit pois and the last crusty loaf of bread that we grabbed from under the outstretched hand of a browsing housewife. We had just landed in the city – in the country, in fact – that was to be home to us for a while on a total holiday and had no idea what to find where and how, but we went about looking for it anyway, undaunted. Father was doing a stint at CERN, working on the cross-border SPS (the Super Proton Synchrotron) – the hot haute machine at the time – and we soon learned what life as a CERN family was all about.

Enmeshed in a gently strict but intense Baccalaureate programme at the local international school, I had little time to absorb or even understand that ethos of belonging to the scientific community, but various terms soon entered my vocabulary. SPS, of course, was one, the ring-shaped facility where Father did experiments studying the quark-gluon plasma and various other nuclear physics delights. The instant high level of respect we got in contrast to the way gastarbeiters or immigrants were treated was another. What was more fascinating to watch from a youngster’s perspective was the family’s varied biorhythms. Father was often asleep when I left for school or had gone out to work long before dawn cracked, since the tests were done around the clock and the team worked on a shift system. He told us stories of the people he worked with, like the Portuguese who admired a pretty girl’s behind with typical physicist jargon: “What an oscillator!”

Every now and then he had a full day off and we would all go grocery shopping. Meat in France was far better than that available in Switzerland; there was also Evian to be bought in carton-loads, since the water in Geneva ran right off the Saleve, limestone and all, and was hideous to drink, and then there were the wonderful potato chips that only the vast store just across the border had… Going through customs was a cinch for us. The car had a small round sticker on it that identified it was belonging to a CERN-ite and we waved and smiled as the bar lifted and allowed us to coast through from one country to the other. Perhaps the only time that the customs stopped us was when we were smuggling meat on one of our trips – it was rationed then, to half a kilo per adult, and we had about three kilos in the boot. But no, no danger, they waved us through after admiring Mum’s sari. The sticker was essential for Father, since he worked in France but lived in Switzerland and had to navigate the Duane many times a day in a long tunnel that was a special entrance to the research centre. It was almost Bond-ish, or even something out of Le Carre, with hidden eyes watching every move and monitoring each trip.

The SPS, which now feeds the brand new LHC (Large Hadron Collider) for the just-started experiment to recreate the Big Bang, was also where I did the main experiment for my biology lab for the Bacc. A few select mung beans were put into the ring and subjected to high-level magnetism, after which the beleagured seeds were coaxed to grow – which they did, dutifully pointing in the direction I had said they would when influenced neo-germinally by magnetic forces. I got a decent grade for it, too. And as he took me for a little permitted tour into the facility so I could see just where my seeds would be placed, Father explained how the new and hugely larger ring would be built, deep under the place we called home a long time ago.

Into the past

I had lunch with an old friend yesterday, someone I had not seen in ages, but have always been in touch with. As we sipped cold water, munched pizza and pushed our hair, blowing in the sea breeze, off our foreheads, we laughed and talked and generally caught up with each other. IT was a fun time, one that we promised each other we would repeat, and as we parted, smelling gently of fresh air and a little garlic, it was with a smile, a hug and a knowledge that we were on the same wavelength. Even though we had known each other for a long time, this was the first time we met on a 'social' basis, apart from long chats over the phone and the occasional meeting on the stairs of the office building or at her desk to which I would bounce to say a cheery hello, usually en route to somewhere else.

But there was another person at the lunch table, too, someone I had known a long time ago and not met since. She was in closer touch with this person, and knew more about what had happened to all of us in the interim. He was a journalist at one point in time, and we worked at the same newspaper for a short while before our paths diverged, travelling routes fairly distant from each other, I would say. He had the same wild hair, the same smiling look in his eyes and the same laid back way of sitting, talking and reacting, as well as the same way of staring penetratingly at me (and her, I presume), as if to try and figure out what I was about after all these years. He is now a scriptwriter for television and is doing very well for himself, my friend told me, and seemingly happy with his life.

Well, perhaps our lives have not diverged that drastically. I also write for a living, more or less, and have a great deal of fun doing it. I think the difference is, apart from my being female and from a different kind of life in many ways, that I do not care as much for what I do. What matters to me, I think, is why I do it and how I feel in doing it, whatever 'it' may be. To me it is more important to be happy, satisfied and changing something in your life for the better, than the paycheck at the end of the assignment or even the name on the article. Does that make sense?

But what I found, in talking with my friend and our companion, was that I do not seem to be very ambitious. I do not want to write a film script or make a television show that is new and different. I do not want to be part of creating a newspaper that is well presented and edited and read - I just got out of that, remember! What I do want to do is enjoy whatever it is I am doing, with the end result, apart from the nice fat check, of course, being a sense of achievement, a sense of pride in having done something worthwhile, a sense of making people who see my work think of me with a certain feeling of joy. And whether it means writing a book or writing fortunes for cookies or even writing a brochure for a lipstick line, that is why I like doing what I do. Because, for me, it all happens.

A little left over

It’s funny how things end up. I had a fridge full of leftovers only this morning and now much of it has been transformed into just a few dishes full of deliciousness. And I do not speak as a conceited cook, but a very practical housekeeper. Since I hate wasting anything, I threw some of that spicy green chutney I got with the kebab takeway into a dressing for a potato salad, chopped the last couple of kebabs themselves into a sort-of-kind-of-maybe version of the famous Delhi speciality, butter chicken and introduced the little bit of potato sabji to the mouth-tinglingly chilli-spotted spinach and corn that lurked in the far corner of the bottom shelf next to the end of the banana bread. Which could probably go into a fruit-filled trifle that we could slurp up with ice cream, don’t you think?

My existence tends to be full of leftovers, of which only the edibles are saved; the rest goes into the trash. For years I have been able to get rid of the unusable bits and pieces that almost always make up a life. Photographs, emails, gifts, even memories are binned as soon as the person involved has made his or her exit from my small world. And while I do not really have any bitterness or even any feeling attached to those relics, I do occasionally pull the time shared out of my mental closet and check to see if those too can be thrown away. If they have some flavour left that will not give me the burps, they are packed carefully back into the box that they were stored in and shoved into the deep dark corners of my mind, where they rightly belong.

What bothers me, however, and prevents the cleaning and storage process of all these experiences is if part of it is left incomplete. Sort of like a box of peanuts all ready for grinding which never makes it to peanut butter. Or a pair of jeans that does not fit right any more, but will still be saved for that time of ‘just in case’ which, of course, never arrives. I hate people vanishing without explanation, however offensive and unwarranted the probable cause may be. I hate the explanations that always begin with “I don’t know why…” and end with “It’s not you, it’s me.” What is worse is a self-pitying, self-righteous silence and inaccessibility. And I hate knowing that all this will bug me, no matter that I know full well that I wanted to get out of something long before it ever ended and just never figured out how to close the book when there were still many chapters to read through. This works with jobs, with relationships, with book contracts, with any kind of agreement.

I wish life was like refrigerated leftovers. Then each phase of it would come to a logical conclusion, to be gently melded into something else that is far more useful or thrown away because it smells a little odd and leers at you when you peer into its container.

ATM blues

I am often teased for being occasionally inept with ATMs. When I worked in town, there was an ATM on the ground floor of the heritage building in which the newspaper office was based. It was all a fairly new concept at the time and many people, not just me, had problems with it. I could manage most of the time, but occasionally failed to get the door open - it had to be swiped with the ATM card and almost always stuck. Of course, that started it. I would surely bog up the ATM, people said, rather nastily I thought. And my reputation as such survived.

But, compared to a lot of people, my record with ATM machines is pretty clean. I left my card in one only once and that was an emergency situation, where I had to deal with a crisis at work after a sudden phone call that pulled me away from the machine when I was just done taking out money. Of course, the bank charged me for a new card, but also upgraded me and never had me pay for that. Which all worked out for the best in the end. And ever since I remember, I have been using one of these facilities for everything from depositing money to taking it out, transferring it across accounts and making sure that all transactions were as they should have been.

So why am I moaning about these things if they work fine for me? Simple because the ATM I went to today misbehaved. I did everything it told me to, from feed in my card and then my password number, to specifying what service I wanted to access and whether it was indeed me. Short of giving the powers-that-be a retinal scan and DNA sample, I did it all right. But then it spat the card back out at me and said the machine was not working. At which point I stormed out of there and stomped away, saying some very rude words to myself.

Of course, the annoyance had a deeper root than the obvious. I knew the teasing, which had faded into almost non-existence after so many years of doing well with ATM machines and cards, would make a comeback that would have anyone sizzling a bit at the gills. And thus is is indeed.

Size doesn't matter

(Who says you need to be working with a newspaper to write for it? I wrote this for the paper I was with before I decided to go on sabbatical, and it was published a little while ago. I was going to delete it, but then I kinda liked it...)

For an audience, Indian art tends to have no format. It is truly free expression, with so many styles and formats that the average critic would be hard-pressed to find words to describe it, briefly and completely. From traditional realistic art to the more modern abstract works of today, from the tiny miniature paintings of the north to the massive installations of contemporary artists, there has been no real unifying thread and no particular trend that can be easily identified. However, with the growing international popularity of new Indian art and ever-increasing exposure to global ideas, many artists in this country have been experimenting with scale, line, form and, of course, style.

And with the growing need to explore and a new freedom that comes from spiraling market prices and a surety of finding a buyer, comes a new way of thinking: BIG. There is space to dream and an awareness that somewhere someone will want to acquire the work, and artists spread themselves, fairly thick on the ground. Consider Jitish Kallat, for one, whose works are self-confessedly ‘monumental. A few months ago he revealed Aquasaurus, a seven-metre-long water tanker made of the same kind of bones that he used for his Autosaurus. It was awe-inspiring in its scale, living up to Kallat’s reputation for enormous works (Artist Making a Local Call, Public Notice II, 365 Lives) created with contemporary issues, social comment and a dash of humour in the thought process behind it. The viewer has options – to try and find perspective from outside the piece, or to stand within it and explore its various aspects.

There have been many others, old and new. Many years ago, MF Husain painted his cavorting horses for a wall of a research institute in Mumbai. Ravinder Reddy’s big-eyed heads take up plenty of room in various corporate houses, while Navjot Altaf’s very large flame-orange sculptures can displace a good-sized truck. Pakistan-based Rashid Rana, who showed at Chemould Prescott Road some months ago, covered huge expanses with his digital print composites – Offshore Accounts, for instance, spread across two walls, angled together. Reena Saini’s Walls of the Womb at Galerie Mirchandani & Steinreucke occupied an entire room, the work spanning the walls, the floor and a verriere.

But even with this immense scale of creative inspiration, artists do rein themselves in, committing to another set of boundaries that, in their own way, test their skills. Ironically, many of those who now need whole galleries to show off their creative talents, have – and still do, on occasion – limited themselves to more practicable spaces. For instance, Kallat has taken part in the Miniature Format Show (Sans Tache gallery), as have many others. From one extreme to another?

Loud and clear

I walked down to the grocery store this morning and noticed that the local Ganpati pandals are getting simpler in external design. There were two of them that I passed, one at the end of a cul-de-sac leading to the neighbourhood garden and the other at the entrance of the shopping complex through which I needed to walk to get to the store I was headed for. Where every year I have seen the path to these little enclosures within which the Elephant god sits for a few days all decorated with buntings and elaborate light arrangements, this time it seemed strangely bare, with bamboo scaffolding, a few advertising banners and some coloured lights. The deity is nice closed off to the public gaze, swathed in curtains and draperies, the entrance concealed behind very heavy fabric. The organisers used to charge for entry, but now I think that is not allowed by law, but who knows what scams people come up with to make money!

But the most annoying thing about these pandals, apart from the traffic around them and the crowds hanging about, is the noise that they make. The large enclosure in the cul-de-sac was oddly quiet - maybe the festivities happened only in the evening, who knows. The one near the plaza was blaring devotional songs with a very filmi flavour, at top volume. The music was not bad, not overly nasty or tacky, but the noise level was all that and more. As I walked past, trying to peek into the curtained space to see what the fuss was all about, I had to plug my ears or else cringe and feel assaulted by the sound. As I was anyway.

Making all that noise as a sign of devotion is peculiarly Indian. Where many rituals from all over the world use music and loud chanting and even yelling to bring worshippers closer to thee, oh Lord, it is perhaps only here that we channel the populist vote and grab attention, eyeballs and eardrums with speakers blaring and no one especially concerned about issues like noise pollution and deafness. Perhaps in this country of so many billion people, all needing divine intervention, we need to make a lot of noise to be 'seen', who knows!

Say a little prayer...

...for me, for you, for the world. Today is Ganesh Chaturthi, one of the most looked-forward-to days in the Hindu calendar. At least, in my part of the world - Maharashtra, where I was born, where I live and where I am rooted, and the south of India, where my heritage lies. We, as a people, believe in the Elephant God as the destroyer of evil, the benefactor of the good and the protector of the innocent. He blesses every new adventure and watches over every old venture. And He appeals to everyone, with His pot belly and His good cheer, His generosity and His childlike humour, His wisdom and His sagacity. His special day is about prayer and food, with all His favourites being dished up at the altar before being eaten by those who worship Him.

For me, Ganpati, Ganesha, Gajanana, whatever name He may have, is all about new beginnings. While I am not a woman of any great faith in any particular deity, I do believe in a higher power, and Ganpati is a good way to visualise him, being round and happy and yet very, very wise. What He advised works well: Leave the old behind, the bitterness, the anger, the hurt and the pain, and move forward into a new day, a new feeling of anticipation, a new start of a brand new adventure. Trust what you are being given, be it love or friendship, feelings or freedom, and go forward with bright eyes, a light heart and a happy state of existence. That is the lesson that we were taught in our school texts and that is the same lesson that the so-called gurus of the modern urban world are teaching us now. Instead of looking to them for direction, look within, I was always told, and you will know what to do, when to do it, how to do it and with whom to do it.

I think for me the 'whom' has always been most important. Because that is the only part that I cannot keep a firm eye on. Who knows who comes into your life and what role they play, until they are actually there, playing it! I find that those who really matter are those who stay with you, no matter what happens to them and to you. And when you discover one of those special people, reach out, hold on to them and treasure them, like a very wise woman I knew told me. If you are willing to let something or someone go without too much of a fight, that thing or person was not too important anyway; they do not matter as much as you believed.

I have found very few people like that in my life. One or two have always been with me, but I never knew them until very recently. And now that I know which is dross and which pure gold, I know which I should, as my friend said, treasure. It is one of the lessons you learn from Ganpati, too, the God of all things bright and beautiful, big and small, wise and wonderful. After all, as the holy book said, "The Lord God made them all".

To write or not?

When people find out I am taking time off from a full time job, they suggest - almost all of them - that I should write a book. So many of my friends and contemporaries have been doing just that for years now and I think they are very brave. As for me, a book is a brilliant idea, but for some reason I have never wanted to write one. It is just not my thing, as I keep telling these people. When would I have the time - now, I am told, now that I do not have to go through the routine of getting set to go out every morning and coming back late every evening, with no energy, even if I had the inspiration, to do more than just wiggle my fingers at Small Cat and wonder if I can stay awake long enough to see at least the start of CSI.

Ok, so I have the time these days. Do I have the inspiration? Well, I could come up with some. May even be fun. I could write about my own life, which I don't find especially unusual or interesting, but could make the stuff of great novels, in parts, sort of like the egg of the curate who, if you ask me, was a rather bad cook - or had one, I don't know which. I could put bits of it, nicely embroidered, into a steamy romance novel, with the hero a tall, dark, handsome and, very unlike reality, intelligent man who satisfies the wish list of any sane woman. But then why would he be single, right? If he was, he would be embittered and nasty, a commitment-phobe, gay, or just plain untenable in some way, be it via bad breath or bad karma. On the other hand, steering far away from my private life, I could write a travel-food book. How I Ate My Way Through Europe, or Eating With Your Fingers In America, or even Cooking In A Campus Apartment.

But today people want to read books that are deep, exploring the psyche and existentialist sensibilities of people. Very few choose - or admit they do - stuff that is fun, that doesn't do more than talk about scenarios with a few corpses, a kiss or two, some chasing through the dark streets of a big city and a couple of dragons, some magic and a love story, all included in the complicated and hilarious plot. That would be my kind of book, one that laughs at itself as much as it makes its readers laugh. One that has something serious to say, but not in any way that is serious or sledgehammer-ish or preachy or even dire. Few people read for the fun of seeing words jump through hoops, to find a new way of saying something old, to explore just what can be said when it is, in any obvious way, unsaid.

Be all that as it may, why don't I write a book? Because, frankly, I don't think I can. It takes a mind that is not trained to edit, to express what needs to be said. When you are more used to cleaning up other people's writing in a newspaper, a magazine, a website, a script or even a book, you see too much, you analyse too much, you dig too deep to just be able to say something simply and easily. You are always correcting yourself and finding hidden meaning in what you write, so you cannot just appreciate the beauty of language without making a special effort to do so by dissociating from your work. Which makes writing a chore, hard work, something that needs attention and some degree of pain. Which makes it no fun, no joy. Which makes it a no-no for me.

Back to the future

It's funny how small things remind you of things you did, wanted to do, or should have done. I was talking to an old friend this morning and he told me that I should make contact with someone who had floated briefly through my life. He saw this former acquaintance recently, but did not speak to him, and wondered why I had cut him out of my life so totally. We had been fairly good friends, he reminded me, with so much in common, so why not just make the first move and get back in touch?

But there are things in life that are just impossible. Once your ego is hurt, once your feelings are hurt, once your physical self is hurt, there is no going back to something that was or was becoming or even might have been. But it is very difficult to explain this one. I did meet someone I liked, someone I may have wanted to know for a long time. we had many common interests, from photography to art to food to writing to travel to people, to asking questions, to.... But, as I got to know him better, I started discovering that I really did not want to know him better. He had a strangely narrow view of life and its denizens and could not see beyond his own point of view. Few other people mattered and he stayed the centre of his own universe. We are all selfish in our own way, but perhaps this was my 'fault' - I wanted more if I wanted involvement. And if I didn't get it, well, I would try to make it work, if it didn't, I would find out what the deal was and if that didn't work for me, then it would not matter any more. I made that resolve many years ago and, this time, I even kept it!

I kept it without any qualms, no regrets and only one fleeting thought: that it could have been great fun. And, as I told my friend who said I should make the move, I am always open to friendships and knowing people, maybe even developing a relationship, whatever it may be. It is exciting, a whole new adventure each time. But if I have to work harder than I can and am willing to, if I have to give up what is important and meaningful to me, and I have to become someone I am not, I cannot do it. No fun, no point. Even though life is not all about fun, it also is about meaning and stimulation and caring and sharing. It cannot be one-way, it cannot be on any one person's terms, it cannot be compromise. Not for me, at least.

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....