MEMORIES ARE ALWAYS IN EXAGGERATED TECHNICOLOR...

Just when the black clouds gathered to send a bolt of thunder down...to warn those who had no business to be out on the roads about an impending thunderstorm...

I was in the throes of making elaborate plans for the day.... A movie, I decided was on the cards...the weather be damned..what were rickshaws for after all? And it was to be a family production...get my mom and her always gungho sisters together, lure them with the promise of a movie and lunch out... And as we stepped out, it was pouring as if there was a massive cleaning operation happening up in the sky...and buckets of mucky water were being splashed on us...

But then I was determined to relive the good old days of watching movies in theatres....the old fashioned way...come rain or shine.... So there we landed, dripping enough to make the theatre manager wonder what sort of dementia drive women to movies in a pouring thunderstorm ...In fact, my mom even apologised to the rickshaw driver for our lunacy...explaining to him how the tickets had unfortunately been booked in sunnier times..tipping him a twenty extra to hide the embarrassment of willing participation in her daughter's mission..

There you go...small town living...everyone deserves an explanation...no matter whether you will never see that bloke ever in your life again... But all this was forgotten as soon as I entered the theatre....like most ones in kochi, they too are named after women...set of three...Savita, Sarita, Sangeeta...trust Malayalees to come up with rhyming names for siblings....so what if they are theatres... Sangeeta is more like a preview theatre by any big city standard...seats about a seventy...has a tiny screen compared to its more preferred siblings...But to be fair, I have watched a lot of good movies here... Today too, I saw a very good one...Ruthu( Seasons)...Hope i spelt it right..( psst...for those interested, a film review can also be attached) But for me the movie wasnt the only attraction...

It was all about revisiting an old haunt... a swanky theatre complex of my childhood.....the popcorn stalls looked the same...no tampering with layouts here....the coffee machines were new...different from the huge coffee filters kept then...but otherwise, it looked like I was in a time warp....The huge elephant's head carved in wood looks a hundred years old...and its still there where it hung from nearly 25 years ago, my first memory of the theatre..the woodden balustrade...the chandelier...nothing has changed... The ticket rates were a hoot...40Rs ticket - the best of the best on offer...printed on cheap purple paper....My nostalgic nose couldn't have been tickled more... Walk into Sangeeta and you realise why they still charge the same...The red carpet running through the length of it, hadnt been changed since the time I toddled through there blackmailing my dad to get me peanuts to keep quiet through the climax.....the seats looked the same too...narrow, uncomfortable with woodden handles.....a raddiwala's treasure trove in these days of plush multiplex comfort.. But I put it all down to those oft quoted 'walks down the memory lane' and sat down...

And as the movie began, and the lights dimmed..started the real live action....Rats scampering up and down....with little animated squeaks to make their presence felt... At first, we laughed, till I felt a furry body scamper past my toes..or did I imagine it? I can't speak with total authority, but there I was watching the film for the next two hours with both my feet cramped into the narrow space on my chair.... And I realised I wasn't the only one....wonder if it was one of those creative minds watching the film who started mimicking the sounds of a tabby cat....for a while the movie was forgotten, half the audience had their feet up, waiting for the cat to advance...till one of them spotted the rat scampering across the theatre screen....and there was spontaneous laughter....

The film's director would have been crushed were he there...the scene was a teary one, that was to hold his viewers in its grip and here was a little puny rat stealing the thunder... Add cockroaches and a generous army of mosquitoes to the mix and we had quite a number of characters off screen too... I don't think I'd thought of rats and cockroaches back then....there were the popcorn packets and the other munchies to look forward too...and bottles of fizzy drinks to chase the fear of little creepy crawlies away....Or is it that all these theatres have now gone to seed? Dont know if the dirt and grime is more obvious to me now that I too am a visitor seeking the same rich colours- from the screen to the carpet...

The movie to be fair was a really good one...another one I'll be proud to claim is from Malayalam stables...But the 'holistic' experience I'd say was more memorable...

IN DAD'S OWN COUNTRY....GOD'S TOO :)

A trip through Kerala....to Malabar, my dad's land and a stop by in Triprayar...my mother's little dot on the map...seen through my Kodak lens.. Just testing my camera.... first pointed towards the sky...then downwards... The hyacinths floating across the river....painting even the river green, they hurry along with the currents but the glide is oh- so- beautiful....and when the purple flowers make an appearance, its prettier... You know you have reached Triprayar when you cross 'This little bridge over our own little Kwai' and across you see the majestic Triprayar temple....I sat on the steps of the temple, feeding the fishes....its called Meen oottu...one of my favourite rituals unique to the temple here.

When I was a child, I had fond memories of fishes... that came to nibble on the rice being dropped....Tiny little squiggles they were then...then you could stand on the lowest step and feel the fishes nibble on your feet as you dropped the little bits of rice...Now they are huge fat little monsters and there is even a little bar that prevents you from walking till the last steps....I couldn't capture the fishes but see the rumble of the waters as they flap their fins... And then I got distracted by the view across the river.....My dad dreams of building a little house by the river here...Now so do I...nestled among the coconut groves...with the gentle breeze and sunny skies...And the break over....our car chugs on....destination: Arakkuparambu in Perinthalmanna in the picturesque and forest covered Malappuram district of Kerala..Along the way...at all the temples visited, I once again saw an art, they say is dying...typically Kerala - the temple art is practised by trained local artists who used only vegetable dyes to produce this....in most temples, the centuries old art lies mold ridden and ruined...neglected..unfortunately photography is not allowed inside the sanctum sanctorum where I have seen some of the best works... The journey continues, northwards....Malabar is a blur as we speed along...But the greens change hue...its deeper, the contrasts starker...the terrain gets hilly...and as we climb up one and go down the others, I realise why this is God's favourite nook in the whole universe...his own land....

The Sunlight streams through foliage, painting some green, yet others greener..while the thickets embrace darkness.... Thats a little abode created for snake gods...another kerala touch...the sarpakkavu at Dad's tharavadu temple.. Behind the sarppakavu are rubber trees....where little drops of white rubber go drip drip into little coconut shells all year long... The little green lane...off the oft trodden track.. Anywhere you turn and press the shutter, you find a frame... Red bricks....the little building blocks of memories for any true blue Mallu... after incessant rains, the ground had turned slippery....the green of the moss in stark contrast to the weather-stained red bricks... And just as I turned the corner...there far below, nearly half a hill down lay a pond...Even as my feet tickled to dip my feet into it, came my father's nostalgic description....'When I was a child these steps used to lead to the coldest pond in the whole universe...' That little child is now 63 years old, but the enthusiasm in his voice - ageless. It was my first trip to dad's land....discovering a little patch of the soil...lush, steeped in history..

MULTICULTARALISM - NOW WHAT'S THAT?

Every time I used to mention a name from school at home as a teenager, I remember my grandmother asking me what religion my friend belonged to. She used to say that making out one's religion or in many cases caste was difficult - everyone had modern names. I would then wrack my brains and sometimes get it right, most often I would have no clue.

What do you do when you have a Roshni George or a Hira Yusuf as classmates? But the truth is that wasn't a question we actively sought an answer to. It was never a 'cool' question nor did it really ever matter...Now was that 'secular' thinking...

I didn't think of it that way then, but just the other day a friend's dissertation had me thinking. The questions weren't all that comfortable..They were on multiculturalism...And the worst is when you are standing on a majority perch, talking about 'multicultarism' and minority sentiments and trying to objectively analyse how one felt about it. It sometimes comes out as pontificating..and to some answers of mine, I myself thought, 'Heck, what do you know about it?'

To me the black and white baseline about being secular is about not thinking of a person's religious background or upbringing the first time I meet them...and maybe then broaden it to respect, appreciation and even accepting and adopting 'slices of life'.

After all for Indians, isn't culture a huge fat melting pot...and multi-cultarism a word that has never been segmented and differentiated? Hasn't India over the centuries, allowed every religion it encountered some living space and a lot of growing space...and with its teeming millions guaranteed followers too?

So when did the questioning begin of whether the fabric of this nation is still secular? To a pointed question on whether I thought India's secular fabric was at threat, I wrote NO...Is that naivete? Aint I right when I say its a narrow perspective that extrapolates incidents which did momentarily threaten India's secular fabric to represent a general view.

For I dont believe there has been a complete polarisation of communities, but a distrust that has finally been fed and fostered by political parties who have built and rebuilt their votebanks on it. The turning point in Hindu-Muslim relations was definitely the Ayodhya issue followed by the riots in Mumbai, which was further aggravated by the Godhra riots. Nor can we blink out the Anti-Sikh riots or the Kandhamal violence.

Why is the word 'minority appeasement' so dirty in its slant? I don't think I did a good job of that questionnaire, because I have not thought these questions through in my mind. Am I seeing my country through pink curtains and a soft focus lens? Or is it that an urban existence inures me from encountering bias? My name never merits a second double check, I know of friends who are bitter about living in a country where very often their name goes against them. Despite hearing about these, I still believe this does not hold true by and large...Am I wrong in still believing my nation is secular? Or Wonder if its the theory of relative existence?

ON A RAINY MUMBAI MORNING

Some Old posts...Never found its way on to the blog....Reposting them...

On a lazy Sunday cloudy morning, dragging my lethargy to work is done with the same sense of self sacrifice as service rendered to the nation..So ditch the daily routine of boarding a local train...(though on a Sunday, there's nothing as blissful as travelling in a train where you usually have the whole first class compartment to yourself ) And there I am, in a taxi gliding along Mumbai roads, still in Sunday slumber.... In no time, came the rains...perhaps to make me happy about my 'wise decision' to cab it... Rain it did and how...Pouring down in sheets so fine that in no time the windows misted....

Ramavataar Dubeyji, my driver for the day explained in exhaustive detail in that lilting Avadhi accent, why he was so careful on the road...the oil on the road made it tricky business in the first rains, cars could skid, but apparently it never happened to him, not when he was driving his black and yellow Fiat...nor now when he has bought his white and blue A/C Indica...He has been ferrying disinterested, impatient passengers like me for over twenty five years now..My occasional 'hmmms' were the only encouragement he needed...The rains created enough din to drown out most of his monologue....and then there was my book..

But no amount of thinking back, can help me figure out what made me ignore Dubeyji and my book, as we pulled up at the Linking road traffic signal...I made a neat little circle on my misted window and peeked outside...And I saw 'bliss' ....There she stood....a raggedy shaggy mass of arms and legs...hair plastered to her face..eyes hidden under the mess... I wouldn't have been able to smile with that glee at my most unguarded moment...

An Ode to the Rains was in progress....her own choreography, set to her own beats...but the rhythm so flawless...The windows misted again, to my irritation...and instinctively, I rolled down the window....The rain happily poured in...but my attention was fixed...Thats when she saw me...Her little eyebrows wiggled in tune with her beat....She knew she had me hooked..The flailings now even more exaggerated....

In no time, two impossibly little bodies joined my rag doll...the tiniest one had no clothes on at all..Just a huge pendant around her neck that settled well above a cutely rounded belly...all that she knew was to jump from left to right to left...with the little belly doing its own little jig...

Out of nowhere, came a little brown hand dripping water.... My little wonder bubble burst...

They were demanding their fee....I was fishing in my pockets for the baksheesh when my rag doll came running forward...and slapped the hand away from my vision...A

nother jiggle with a smile for me, hands going round and round asking me to roll up my window again....and waving my car on like she was the traffic policeman at that junction...Her dance was not on sale...and she wasn't going to let anyone make a quick baksheesh...

Three minutes...thats how long the signal took to turn green....Dubeyji's monologue was on, he didn't notice my distraction at all...I couldn't see my rag doll at all, the rear windows had misted up completely....

All that remained to remind me of that meeting was the water stain rapidly spreading across my kameez where the rain drops had settled to watch my rag doll's performance with me...

A NOTE TO SAY 'THANK YOU MUMBAI'

Fear of taking a leap of faith and the desperation to make it work were packed into my luggage...as I returned to a city I had forsaken four years earlier...

The upbeat cocky girl who had happily said 'good riddance' to this city with dreams in her eyes came back a tad broken in spirit...with the added burden of cobbling together a new life amongst strangers at a totally new workplace...

But Mumbai welcomed me back without reproaches...This time I sensed the warmth than the steely coldness of an uncaring metro where life runs as per the timetable of local trains...

Four years and roughly over three months to that (somehow seems longer than that) this time when I leave the city I have no bones to pick, just a lot of memories to sew up into a neat packet.. While sorting through what's now junk, once much loved -much coveted..

A story here, a gossip there, love given and received, muffled laughter to ensure neighbours dont knock at unearthly hours.. And now Im gearing up to leave all this behind. I wonder if im being thankless...

I had arrived with two suitcases of clothes and little else...And then I'd dug my heels..Wilfully putting down roots all the while telling anyone who bothered to listen that living in this city was a professional compulsion and life here a professional hazard.I don't think that any more. This time even nostalgia is humble.

Every trinket, every scrap gathering dust and every sheet smelling of stuffy suitcases and mothballs that left their smell behind - everything has a 'remember that time when you' tale to tell. My books are packed in plastic and assembled in cartons..All my little knick knacks bubble wrapped...

Two rolls of packing tape crisscross across four years...years that I took to stand up, steady myself and turn my head skywards...Till I finally mustered the courage to cut the strings that bound me to this restless city... Now my strings are in my hand, but I dont feel weightless...I leave a bit of me back with the 'junk' I'm discarding here... I will come back for it...