Flavours of my childhood rekindled

It has been a long long time since I wrote something for just the sheer joy of writing. Of telling you stories, of giving you a peek into me, my life, my journey so far. When you live an earning as a writer and editor, the blog that does not serve any professional purpose suffers.

Talking of change, I think moving away from Kerala, my roots have made me cherish what I have left behind. Call it the ramblings of a Malayali slowly going senile away from the homeland (also a Malayali who knows she will go senile if she moves back to her hometown too) If only there were less of a love-hate tussle, if only there were fewer contradictions, less conflicted emotions about taking a decision of moving closer to my land of birth.

My tongue keeps reminding me that I am growing older. The flavours I crave are no longer those from across the world - I enjoy them, but I don't crave them the way I now try to recapture the smells and flavours that lingered in my grandmother's and now my Amma's kitchen. Just as I began writing this post, I realised that this blog is filled with similar posts of yearning, something that was unconscious for long. But I no longer try to deny the power it has over me.

In the many years that I have lived away from home, subsistence cooking was largely anything that was easy to cook and tasty too. And considering that I have lived in western India and abroad more than in the south, the choice of easy ingredients available to me defined the cuisine I cooked. So there I was, mastering rajma chawal and an assortment of paneer curries, rustling up chicken dishes adapted from north Indian recipes than the flavours I grew up with. I had the reasoning down pat too - who is going to spend time grating coconut? Not me! Who is going to meticulously choose all the ingredients that go into duplicating mom's dishes? Not me. Unlike north Indian dishes that are redeemable and salvageable at most stages of cooking, I often found Malayali cooking a difficult art to master - forget an ingredient or two and you know it doesn't taste authentic anymore! And if it doesn't hit the high notes that your mom's and grandmom's cooking hit, then you'd rather not play that music, but invent some of yours. The benchmark then can be set pretty low.

Since I moved to Delhi over four years back, I have been trying to bring bits of my mother's kitchen into mine. When you marry into a Punjabi family, you think they would be impressed with your love for roti over rice, your expertise in whipping up dals and chhole than an avial or a koottukari. Not the case for me! At every family gathering, there would be a demand for a dish from my kitchen - and you know by now which direction the cuisine suggestions would point!

So there I was, on the phone with Amma every other day asking for one recipe after another. Initially, the flavour profiles were baffling and the fear of failing to reproduce them faithfully a big stumbling block. When did that ever deter the new family from sweetly requesting more Madrassi dishes? From the dosa breakfast that I was pretty adept at turning out, I graduated to the appams and ishtu. The crowning moment perhaps was when Amma asked me for my recipe for making chicken ishtu (stew). At home, we have always stuck to the veggies version, but here, I went out and improvised my own version, which till date is one of my fail-proof signature dishes. And then buckling under pressure, I made a sadya for Onam of 14 dishes (you better believe it!) for about 20 people! Yes, I had help, but I was the only one who knew what I was cooking! (Perhaps that helped too, that I wasn't serving it to discerning elders who'd nitpick on ingredients being out of sync! Instead I was serving a family who made me feel like I'd just won the Masterchef competition)

These days, I have found myself craving dishes that I have stayed away from for the best part of my childhood. Avial has entered my list of all-time favourite dishes (I can hear Amma's evil laugh and I told you so!) Parippu dosas and an assortment of upmas are weekend treats at my place now.  The joy of trying out new dishes, opening the lid off the vessel on the stove and inhaling deep to be transported back into Amma's kitchen - that's the subtle nudge and power of nostalgia.

The cuisine that tingles your tongue is often one that lies dormant in your blood till one day you wake up - older and wiser - more appreciative of the wisdom in your Amma and Ammumma's cooking style, their precise measures and the unwillingness to experiment or tweak it too much lest the flavours they sought to recreate every time were irreparably tampered.

There was a time that I had laughed at the rigidity and promised myself never to be sucked into that. But even as I experiment and tweak recipes to suit my kitchen and convenience, I go back to trying to do it atleast once just like Amma does it - it makes me feel closer to her, smell the smells that surround her and to earn the delighted smileys she sends my way through Whatsapp when I tell her my dish tasted just like hers!

The Man With Many Hats - The Book Review

Some books are a breeze, others are turgid and do not inspire the desire to read more than a few pages. Then there is another kind - one that makes you feel like a little child standing on her toes peeping in through a grimy glass to see what's going on inside the old spooky bungalow. For that child in every reader, the Selman mansion is a peek into an old world - an alien world that is ironically also vaguely familiar. The author Jael Silliman's words, descriptions and most interestingly the sketches that pepper her book become the guides to decipher the saga that unfurls at its own pace.

The Magen David sketched by Jael

I must begin this revew with a confession -fiction has moved over on my bookshelf for narratives and accounts that are outside the fictitious realm. There are few novels of contemporary fiction on my shelf currently, so this book is a departure. I guess I need to qualify that - for it is strangely not as much a departure from non-fiction because through her novel, Jael manages to draw a a rather compelling portrait of the Baghdadi Jews that made Calcutta( I chose it over Kolkata) their home centuries ago. The observations are inspired by reality, the colour and meticulous manner of her descriptions clearly show that they have been irrigated by experiences of her community. So much so, that as I read the tale of Morris Selman - the man with many hats (and personas over the years), I began simultaneously opening multiple pages up on my laptop, looking for the old haunts of Jewish Calcutta- Nahoum's Bakery and Magen David synagogue among others to read about them in depth. Jewish traditions have always been an enigma and this book is like a secret permission to watch a different world at work that I have normally no access to. Through her novel, Jael brings to life a community that is dying out, there were about 500 members left in Kolkata when Rachel was young. Today, the Kolkata Jews struggle to cobble a quorum together to conduct prayer services at the synagogue ( information I gathered while reading this book), the numbers of other Jewish extractions across India are similar or even less.

The main character (arguably) of Morris Selman, the man with the many hats, embodies a strange dichotomy - of being larger than life while managing to come across as a troubled mortal being of flesh, blood and sinew. He is as generous as is miserly, as keen to please as to dismiss, as much a besotted selfless lover as a boorish, violent husband. Amidst all these contradictions, that he manages to straddle a space of his own is the success of the novel. Even as a mature Rachel takes over a great part of the mindspace of the author, leaving Morris alone to battle his old age and demons, the departure in the narrative in itself is symbolic - of the passing of his prime years, of him no longer holding the centre space in the lives and minds of his community, of a neglect that seeps in with time and accumulated misdemeanour.

However, in this saga of relationships across a lifetime, there are few images that linger on long after the book is over. Most daughters have experienced the innate need a girl feels to compare every man yo her father -measure him against the yardstick set for manhood early in life. I feel the fathers often win this bout, for there is a certain selfless love there that is tough to replicate. Through the book, I felt this conjecture of mine would be proven wrong, however the wisdom Rachel finds in hindsight felt like vindication to me. Rachel's band of friends, who stick by her through thick and thin are reasons why despite little family left in Kolkata, the city remains home even after years of making a home in other cities of another country.

All illustrations are done by Jael herself

Morris' many hats fit well with the many roles he plays out through his life. Each one more flamboyant than the other - like living out an image that sometimes is to the detriment of one's own sanity and peace. He lives and loves kingsize and sweeps regrets, which he appears to have periodically, under the carpet and move on with life.My biggest regret with this book is that somewhere along the story, Jael's story shifts to Rachel and her trials, leaving my curiosity about Morris and how life panned out for him through the decades after Sarah, Rachel and Jacob left him, unrequited. You snatch glimpses of the changed man time and again - the miserly grand dad, the fun-loving uncle to Rachel friends who pulls off unimaginable stunts, and the people who populate his later years, keeping his heart and soul together towards the end of the novel. But like a little child, one feels like wandering around the rooms of the haunted looking bungalow filled with interesting people and stories seeking Morris.

(Jael Silliman opted to self-publish her first work of fiction. You can find this book on: Doorstep Books, Amazon India, or Flipkart)

The Glass Cage They Built for Us

Mumbai is a city I have spent the best part of my journalism career in.. I have written about Mumbai a million times in my blog...ok, a million is an exaggeration, but I have written about my love affair with the city innumerable times. When I shifted homes, from Mumbai to Delhi, I stopped blogging. It was like Delhi had parched my imagination and the need to write. Well, I guess I am taking literary freedom again.

Blaming a city and stereotyping it appears to be a favourite Indian passtime. So while Mumbai is lovely, Delhi is notorious. Mumbai fosters imagination, Delhi kills it. In Mumbai, my blog flourished because love flowed through words, while in Delhi, the posts have dried up.

I dust out the cobwebs away from this rarely used blog now to write in anguish... when something heinous as a gang-rape is reported and that too against a fellow journalist, it feels more personal. The first thought that went through my head is, It could have been me.. I have been in several situations myself. It was my fortune that I do not have to write this as a rape survivor. 

The truth is whether you are an urban woman or someone who has lived largely in rural areas, our freedom remains more or less circumscribed by our families. If your family believes you must be given the same opportunities as the boys, then you get it. Else, you merely appear to be the director of your life, in fact you are nothing but a mere proxy in it. Your wishes are meant to be countermanded, that is, if you have been taught or have learnt to wish for things. Choice remains a luxury for most that some among us (lucky ones) now take for granted. 

I have thought long and hard about why rape is perceived as the ultimate humiliation and the biggest dishonour that can befall a woman. 

1. Is  it because a woman is in fact another property of the family (not just a man). So vandalising her is akin to mauling at a family's wealth? 

2. How does forced intercourse 'de-file' her purity - what is the yardstick for female purity? 

3. In a society obsessed covertly with all forms of sex and sexual innuendo, why is it difficult to believe that aggressive male behaviour will never be restricted to slapping and beating up and not sexual violence? 

4. Why does a rape survivor have to bear the stigma of being defiled for her life while her rapists are at most treated like criminals and let off with a jail sentence? 

I do not believe that till the time our country is mature enough to realise that a woman is more than a beautiful face to yearn for or bounteous breasts to lust after or pinch or a shapely butt to surreptiously fondle or leer at, there will be little respite. 

As a journalist, I have been jeered, mauled, commented at and even stalked. I have however thought of these as merely nuisance and hazards of the job. It might be a negative end to this post, but I seriously believe that our generation might never enjoy the fruits of man-woman equality or learn to take individual freedom and choice for granted. But we can teach our future generations - inculcate in them the need to be better human beings, respect the other sex and not think of them as inferior or to be subservient and at their beck and call. It might take a few generations for India, but our country needs us to reform our generations. The day women decide to empower their girls not to take male aggression lying down and speak out and set deterrants, rapes, domestic violence and harassment will continue unabated. 

I usually don't find it easy to express myself through poems, but I wrote this one after the Mumbai rape case was reported. 

The Glass Cage

Build me a glass cage,
Scour the world to make it beautiful,
Carpets of fur, pillows of feather, clothes of satin,
Make me pretty and vain,
Oh and secure too,
Here's the gold lock with rubies studded. 

Build me a glass cage,
So you see me but can't touch,
 They say the roof can't be open to the skies,
Lest the birds swoop to wound with their claws,
The air could be poisoned,
So secure me in vacuum.

Build me a glass cage,
Confiscate the stones,
Build a bigger cage and another one.
Let my voice be drowned,
Let my wishes be damned,
I'm too pretty to be free,
Too precious to be left open,

May I make a plea?
If the cage is big enough, can She come in too?
We breed in agony,
We can wail together too..
Build Us a glass cage,
We know not how to want any more.

Delhi - Will you make Fraaaandship with me??

I just realised that 2011 for me began in Brighton, 2012 in Mumbai and now 2013 looks all set to begin in Delhi - my bags are forever packed and I'm always ready to go (but I have not travelled yet to celebrate New Year's anywhere) I'd rather be home ( mine or anyone else's and bring the New Year in quietly...and relatively soberly too! :)

2013 looks set to be a year like one I have not had before..it is true that I'm talking about 2013, a month after it is set in.. :) But then procrastination is the middle name these days..

So now I'm trying to make fraaaandship (friendship does not cover the hesitant overtures I'm trying to make) with Delhi...

• Taaak the talk...waaaak the walk...mix hariyanvi lingo into my English to mix in with the masses, while wearing boots and make-up for a quick run to the mall ( I forgot to mention my little handbag!) to fit in with the only seen-at-the-mall classes! ( I kid you...I couldn't really do that! Ok, the boots is true..they are really comfortable..but all the rest is not true! I hop to the mall mostly for movies, when I'm in my natty boots with my Uni sweatshirt)
• When you swear never to live in a city, be sure that the city is not listening and plotting to take vengeance...Delhi laughed its killer laugh when I landed bag and baggage, of that I'm sure.. I'm still quaking in my boots about Gurgaon's revenge - I had flatly refused to move to Gurgaon, wonder when that refusal will boomerang to thwack me in my face (someone up there is keeping a track of all that I swear I will NEVER do and ticking me off too saying NEVER SAY NEVER!) 
• From the best pubs to explore, I'm thinking homely barbeques to ward the cold...I am brrrr-ing away without central heating ( just in case you wonder how I can crib after braving England through two winters) 
• For a tie and dyed South Indian like me, Mumbai should have remained the final frontier, but then you realise that there is a big bad world out there ( read Dilli) - where the classes and the masses appear to be separated by a fort wall and a moat...I often feel that the Delhi that I see is not the Delhi that you see from a BMW or a Ferrari...similarly it must be very different when you look at it from one of those battered and dusty state buses that appear like sardine cans, packed to the hilt. 
• Can I woo you to my side by saying the food is a big lure? That once you get to Delhi, you live to eat and not eat to live?? Kulchas, Chhole, Kebabs, Moong vadas, Mattar Kachoris..and the list just goes on and on...
• That said, can I ask you to stay out of my face, Dilli? Polite request, don't punch me for that...Is it necessary for you to raise your voice, be rude because someone is taking three seconds more to take a turn? My eardrums still ring from the time you blasted them with a band because your nephew was getting married at midnight..

Every other day on Facebook, despite repeated filters and "I don't entertain strange friend requests" warnings that resemble "Keep away from this house, Dog inside" boards - I still get strange requests from people I haven't met, those who are 'acquainted' with me but I am strangely not, those who are serial Friendship Request dispatchers..

Today, I am sending out one for a change - Delhi - Will you make Fraaaaandship with Me?? 

I'll stay out of your face, just give me enough reasons to click Like on your current updates...

Malayaleeccentricities...Let's talk Food!!

I'm presently in the Kingdom of the Gods (of Malayalees), in the fiefdom of the Menons - we are meticulous book-keepers - or so I have learnt the ancestors were too in the service of the kings of Travancore-Cochin and Malabar. They were number jugglers, I don't fancy numbers at all - they juggle before my eyes. So I document words, practises and those things that make Malayalees uniquely Mallu - and sometimes only a Malayali can understand why it is strange. That's how we like it -little need to be said! And boo-yoo that we aren't much into experimenting with tradition, except when we are not in Kerala. Then we are game to try and re-mould our lives to suit any weather, palate or customs! :) So now for the time that I'm in Kerala, I'm going to attempt to write on Malayaleeccentricities

Our fascination with food, for instance, is not really all-encompassing. Yesterday I was making chicken curry, when Dad sauntered in into the kitchen. I believe I was making a Malayali-version of a simple chicken curry. However, in the absence of dry roasted coconut and a thick gravy, the snap assessment is that it is one of those experimental preparations! Sigh!!! Similarly, coriander leaves are as North Indian in garnish as curry leaves tempered in coconut oil are in this part of the world. Every time I chop a bit up for the fresh aromatic smell, I'm asking if I'm making a Mumbai dish!

Can you understand the lure of kappa (tapioca) boiled with just turmeric and salt with shallots and green chillies crushed in coconut oil again with a bit of salt? Even as I write this, there is a pool forming in my mouth - I have just put it on the list of must-ask-Mom-to-make! Its spicy, its bland, its tuber-y and its blah - ohhh but it is so Malayali. When friends well-versed with Malayali cooking rave about the kappa and meen curry (kappa with fish curry), I ask them if they have tried the humbler fare.

Similarly, in north Kerala, especially Thrissur - during Onam, there is a traditional breakfast made from steamed yellow plantains. Well, there is no recipe to share, because it is just ripe plantains -steamed till it nearly oozes out of the skin. It is steamed either as a whole or after chopping into bits. It is served with the skin on - what the blessed soul that gets to eat it has to do is use just two fingers artfully to peel off the steaming skin and then crush two huge pappadams( the Kerala variety, mind you, which is differently from the poppadums and the appalams and the Lijjat papads you might be used to) and make it into a mouth-wateringly maserated mess ( when I begin to alliterate that means the nostalgia is at its peak!) before popping into your salivating mouth. In several households, there is puttu (steamed rice cakes) kept on standby for the more snooty or fastidious! However, in my family, pazham and pappadam is the tradition - we would be crazy to try and experiment!

 I don't know if the reason it is only served during Onam is to keep some kinds of 'dishes' exclusively to herald Onam festivities. I cannot see the reason why it can't be convenience food for hassled mothers to dish up to their kids. But even on days when Amma was struggling to get us all ready and prepped to school before grabbing her bag to head to work, she never gave us the pleasure of savouring an out-of-turn pazham-pappadam!!

And then I think of our daily fare - not the glorious avials, kottukaris and the other sadya fare. The regular stuff made at home - the theeyals and the thorans and the mezhukkupurattis(this literally translates into vegetables sauteed in a bit of oil!) -the unglamourous, unlauded cousins - ask any Malayalee about their personal favourites and trust me, while they will be impressed by your knowledge of puttu-kadala and avial - they will secretly be craving their Amma's simple mathanga-pulingari or a vazhappindi or vazhakkoombu thoran (that's made from the different parts of the plantain - nothing goes to waste) or even the muringila thoran (drumsticks leaves)...That smell of hot hot coconut oil and curry leaves and mustard tempering in it is infinitely more blissful than the smell of jeera tempering in ghee!

Like there is a good name and a pet name that are distinctly different among Bengalis and 'good' clothes and 'home' clothes among most middle class Indians - Malayali food also has 'home' food and 'guest' food classifications. I'd say it is a distinctly discriminatory practice where we, the Malayalis decide what the non-Malayali will love and savour. The rest we pack it away to enjoy when there are no guests around our dining table. We discriminate and how - call it our Malayaleeccentricity!! :)

Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan!!

Its 8.30 in the morning and my heart is racing. I have less than 48 hours left in the city. In 2009, as I was surrounded by crates and carton, I remember feeling this sense of panic - a mild ache in the heart along with the sense of disquiet about what could be in store!

This parting is a bitter-sweet one. This is the third time I'm bidding adieu to this city without knowing if I will be back. As a young adult of 22, Mumbai had appeared forebodingly huge to comprehend. But a career as a journalist that took me across the length and breadth of the city set me off on the love-hate relationship. In the span of a year, I  had moved from a bare apartment to a small one-room tenement within that span. In hindsight, cunning house-brokers, heartless landlords and how a trainee's salary stretched so much and no more were the biggest takeaways of this time. Food was mostly rasta takeaway- dosas, sandwiches and hot hot oily Indian Chinese and fruit plates - the dishes might not appeal to my palate anymore, but then the pleasure of  paying for it with the few rupees that was my honest sweat provide that extra zingggg and taste to the memories. A year and a half later, I left happy - sure in my cocky head that Mumbai is not for me, such big cities were not for small lives.

You never know how much a city has ingratiated itself into you till you leave it. And then, every little chink, every irritation appears minor - trivial even. The chaos of the traffic is forgotten when the memories turn mellow with longing, the ravages of rain and the pocket handkerchief apartments are forgiven. All that remains in the memory is vignettes of the city that allows everyone to claim a piece of it as their own!

I returned in 2005 - no longer cocky, a bit broken- needing a haven to heal. That's when I realised how fortuitous big city living is when all you need is a bit of obscurity, some space from prying souls and time to contemplate and regroup. Big cities let lost souls slip into their cracks and keep them safe and anonymous.

The next time I packed my bags and bid adieu to Mumbai was in 2009. UK was calling and I was once again back on the student mode. I left a happier soul, not worried about where life was taking me. There was a world to conquer out there..sights to be seen, beaches to leave footprints behind on.. I came back to Mumbai this time realising that I was truly in love with the city.

I'd lived for over a year in an amazing beach town of England, but the hustle and bustle of an overcrowded, dirty metropolis lured me back. There were practical considerations but the emotional connect was unmistakeable. I still hate the pocket handkerchief existence..But this city still smells freedom, independence and dignity to me.

I'm forsaking my beloved city again - will the third time perhaps be the final time?? Somewhere the heart sinks...I have cribbed about it, wished to move away where I can stretch my arms and legs and not have to bump into walls or furniture, swore till I was blue when I was stuck in a traffic jam waiting for Ganpatis to walk their way into the sea...I want to believe I will find my way back, time and again to reminisce about the lovely days spent here - just the way you never forget your deep love.

To date, I'm yet to find the city where my heart has set down anchor. I wonder if the vagabond that I am will ever find a place to call home for the rest of my life. But Mumbai - you are under my skin. I shall return..that's a promise!

Ayyo Amma Madrassi!!

I hate being called a Madrassi!!

The promos of the new Rani Mukerji film Aiyyyyaaa, suggests it is about the Marathi mulgi wanting to marry a Madrassi ladka, while resorting to obscene gyrations in skimpy clothes to suit the Madrassi fantasy of feminine allure while screaming Pullingum and Streelingum and everything in between just makes me want to scream my frustration from the rooftops!!!! And dare you say, develop a sense of humour! I'd say say that to me after you get your facts right!

We of the races of the brown skinned,  do not all trace our lineage to the unimaginatively homogenised population of brown/black/dark skinned men and women. The depictions are always of resplendent nine-yard silk sarees, a yellow cloth bag and white 'lungis' and of course a couple of 'Ayyo Ammas' thrown in for good measure. We are all stamped with the royal seal of being the citizens of the erstwhile Madras.Even if your history is strong enough to help you argue that Madras was also the name of the Residency that comprised of five princely states encompassing a larger geographical area than the city, I'd still tell you to go back and read up on how even in the days of the British Raj, Mysoreans and Hyderabadis would have killed if they were all clubbed with the Madrassis!!!

The region called South India or Dakshin Bharat of today comprises of four states not one. Our scripts differ, our languages differ and if you ask any 'Madrassi', they will probably be able to identify the region from which the other Madrassi ( as you tag us) is from with microscopic preciseness!!

Now, that we have set the tone for the post, let me clarify - this isn't a rant! We have so much to rant about which have already been ranted about - The Ayyos, the Ammas, the Rajnikanth jokes (which I must agree we also louuuve to participate in), the Nariyal and Nariyal tel jibes. But amidst all this, I was trying to see what are the points of commonality that could make me look the other way, when someone calls me Ohhh you Madrassi!

Guess what I came up with - FOOD. Food is the greatest unifier ever. I was looking at international cuisine and I realised that every region has its own cuisine and what we call Italian - could be Roma, Napolitan, Sicilian and what not. Take Chinese food for instance - (Ahhh not those made in oily unclean woks in your neighbourhood by the Bihari boy, who came to be a cleaner at the neighbourhood kirana shop! ) - the spicier versions can be from Sichuan, Manchurian is in fact a regional style of cooking from Manchuria and not all that is red and batter fried!

Coming back to the Madrassi point I was making, I was explaining it to someone very dear but very ignorant about 'Madrassi ways' that there is no South Indian/Madrassi khana or food category! 

Malayali cuisine is leaps and jumps different from Tamilian or Kannadiga fare. The fiery Telugu fare is a class apart! Now this led to the interesting twist in the tale - the ignorant posed the next question - so whose cuisine is idlis, dosas and sambar? Now you have me stumped!! In Kerala, we make doshas, in Tamil Nadu dosais, Kannadigas do dosas too!! Hmmm...I can tell you a madrassi sambar from a Malayali sambar and the kannada or telugu saaru.  A sambar without coconut oil tadka isn't kosher in Kerala - try serving that in any of the other three states and the finicky nose would shrivel up quicker than you can say sambar! But then come to think of it, these are all the culinary interpretations of multiple chefs speaking four different languages to cater to the palate of four different brown-populations!! Similarly an idli by another other name would taste just as divine with coconut chutney, sambar and the podi (known to the uninitiated as gun-powder!) The taste of the podi might differ, but the concept is the same - the rendering different.

On this subject- a delicate clarification - if you are in Kerala, you can ask for and get a sadya. ( That's a traditional Onam sadya in the photo alongside!) Go to Madras and ask for one, and you might draw a blank unless the person you asked this of  is a Malayali (which is a pretty plausible possibility anywhere in the world!). Sappadu in Tamil Nadu is verrrrrrry different from the sadya in Kerala. Comparing the two might be like comparing mozarella cheese and mascarpone cheese!

So the other day I made rasam and then ran to the nearest Udipi and picked up vadas - medu vadas to you, uzhunnu vadas to me and udad vadas to some! And then plopped it with that yummmmm sound into the boiling rasam..Left it there for about half an hour, ladled it into two steel bowls and in three minutes flat, the bowls would have looked unused were it not for that lingering smell and a stray bit of kari-patta that was ignored..And the satiated tummy sent a placatory message to the seething brain - 'No one knows which of the four South Indian cooking moghuls made the rasam or the vada. But whoever did, created a widely replicated masterpiece.'

So if you swoon Ayyo Amma you Madrassis and how you cook this, I'll probably be benevolent enough to smile at you and pass you another bowlful of yumminess. For the rest of the time, I'd say forget it and pass you a Social Studies text book to get your history, geography and general knowledge up to speed!!!

Intimate Whispers By The Seaside

The sea is violent - Im here to see her anger, feel her pain as she rolls in the waves to break the will of the stones.

I am perched on the stony ledge - perched at a spot that arrogantly mocks her- 'Dare you touch me. I shan't move, make me melt if you can'.

With each passing minute her anger grows. I can sense her channeling her inner tides - they in turn feed off the demons she nurtures in her heart. With each roar, she spews foam and froth. Every mad rush to break herself against the stones ends in complete disintegration. Each attempt is a mini-defeat. After each defeat comes the rallying of the spent force, a strategic withdrawal only to return, the emotions once again bundled into untidy waves of ferocity.

I am a mere speck, two eyes on an inanimate rock, the heart that throbs to tell the story. The book on my lap shows tell-tale signs of moisture - did the waves that tried to maul the rocky ledge leave behind a trail of tears?

I doubt it. I think water seeps through the cracks in the ledge, soaking it slowly like the pages of my book. And before I know it, stones could struggle loose from its bondage, the ledge would turn a fickle guard against the marauding sea.

I roar my pain out, but the waves outshout me. The saltiness of the sea water droplets mingles with my tears - I now have a bit of the sea within me.

The half read, much soaked page mocks me - have I finished judging who the winner is?? The ledge has lost its rigidity, the sea has shattered a million times to be whole again. And I?? I live half soaked, half dry to tell another tale.

(Photograph taken at Mumbai Marine Drive by dusk) 

The Fight Against Cancer

My family has a terrible secret in its closet...Everyone knows, but few acknowledge, we all seek solace in the medical truth that it is not hereditary...

Today I lost another family member to cancer...

Dad's brother - the one closest to him in age.

A death in the family is a jolt in multiple ways - you worry about the impact it has on family members, you wonder about the impact it has on those older than the one dead - its an alarm of your mortality too. No one wants to admit that death scares them. That unknown abyss that we plunge into leaving behind all our loved ones, our responsibilities, our dreams, hopes and aspirations.

This is the third member of his closest family that has succumbed to cancer. My grandfather on Dad's side, his oldest son and the second one - my two uncles- out of a family of 9, three deaths due to cancer is already an odd of 1 in 3.


My last meeting with my uncle was in April this year. As he gave me my Vishu kaineettam, he smiled as if he knew a secret none of us did and said he does not see much life left in him. He wasn't diagnosed then, I remember telling him to not think negatively. He smiled then and said I know. He was a good astrologer, perhaps he believed the planets were unfavourable. I find it difficult to live by horoscopes. But then his prediction rang in my head as I got the call this afternoon saying he's no more.

The day my uncle was diagnosed, I remember feeling a gut-wrenching fear. The patterns are the same, the writing is on the wall. Everyone in Dad's family has a weak stomach - they are prone to acidity, stomach cramps and living life on Gelusil and other antacids. Ulcers and stomach ailments are usually brushed deep into the medical charts as no one wants to compromise on the spice in their food or a change to their diet. Two brothers in two years - the pattern is a little too frequent for comfort. I have realised with a sense of disquiet that my young-at-heart father is now feeling age catch up with him - perhaps when you lose people you grow up with, that sense of passing time is inescapable.

Could we have done anything to keep my uncle alive for longer? The rational head says he died before the pain and suffering got the better of him. He died within three days of the realisation settling in that it was not chronic stomach ulcers that were the cause of his illness but cancer that had eaten into his stomach and liver.

Many in my family seek solace in leaving it all to destiny. Was there a way the cancer could have been detected at an early stage, giving him a better chance to seek cure? Death does not wait for anyone, sure it does not, but how do those that are touched by death but have to continue living embrace the finality of it? How do you learn to continue living a new life after thirty five years of togetherness? I fear for the living, the dead as they say are in a better place, where no suffering touches them.

For the living, the scars and regrets last their lifetime.

I wish there was a way of beating hereditary predispositions. I wish there was a way of not having to constantly brace for errant mutant cells that corrode organs and then slowly sound the death-knell. For a while at least, I know, every little niggle, every hint of pain comes with the paranoia of whether I'm ignoring warning signs from my body, whether Dad is from his.

We don't have a choice, do we?? We make the best of what's in our control - just cock our ears to what our body is trying to tell us perhaps?? And even as we do it, give our best to bringing that smile on the face of our loved one..leave a lot of happy memories that like helium balloons float around, bringing smiles even through tears.

Here's a toast to all those who have gone ahead, watching us from there.. Hope you all are together, hope that we have a home to come to, when we eventually make our way there some day.


 

The Smell of Freedom

Hello bloggies,

Its been ages, wonder if at least a few of you who added me on your subscription list remember. I have been a bad bad girl! I make these wild announcements of Life 360 and what not and then disappear without a trace. My friends, Lazy Pineapple and R's Mother have been sweetly coaxing me back but trust me, it wasn't lack of inspiration or lovely encouragement that kept me away. 

It was work! ( Now where have you heard that excuse before?!!) 

But since June 21st, the day I published my last blog, I have been places, done things and unlearnt a few truths, gone on the backfoot, stretched myself a little too much for comfort, had one too many bumps and bruises and what not...

So much to tell you, so little time.. The coming months are likely to be hectic too according to my zodiac forecast, now why is it that when I'm looking for doomsy forecast, I turn to the Hor(ror)scopes??

Its one hour to midnight my time and I'm determined to ensure that my next post is logged in for 13th September. Why the 13th if its not Friday?? Well, 13 is still a 13...wickedly mysterious, vaguely discomfitting and when combined with Friday, positively ominous..

However, there is something the horrorscopes missed...The smell of Freedom..

After months of letting my work, think my thoughts and key my words, this evening I broke free... when I sealed the envelope on the courier that contained my blood and sweat of two months, there wasn't a sense of bubble burst that I felt, it was more like a sigh of the freed!

Am I rambling today? Kind of like all over the place?? Well that's a peek into the real me..the me behind the facade of Journomuse..I'm a rambler, and especially when I'm free of fetters, of worries of having to sound sensible and precise. For the last two months, that is what I have tried to be...precise, error-free and dot-on-time. Now I have the time, there are no deadlines to chase and time is my buddy. And from somewhere nearby, the smell of freedom wafts by..

And do I have a twitchy nose?? Like a little puppy, I'm going to chase the smell down.. It smells of treats of little bite sized bitter chocolate, of time for books and big mugs of coffee, for secret browses through guilty pleasures...lots of fun and laughter..and snuggling under the blanket not having to wake up if I so please... It's the life! :)

Now that also means you shall hear from me more often...there have been a few travels...some new experiences... I shall tell you about it all...for now, sit back and smell that smell...that smell of Freedom...

You know how Freedom smells to me...how does it smell to you??

Write in, let me know...I'm waiting..Blogging is fun when you tell me too..and then we shall discuss and maybe the next time I smell Freedom, I shall smell a bit of your favourite smells too..

PS: That photograph was taken on one of the journeys to South Mumbai...watching the Sunset by Marine Drive, that's some experience..that smells like freedom too...:)


Much love,

Coffee Tales Poured Fresh!

So a couple of days of working out of coffee shops and don't I have tales to share with you -

This post therefore will be in the form of three vignettes - quick shots like nicely brewed espressos...

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So there I was, trying to race towards a deadline - at yet another coffee shop, the one at makes you go Brrrrr at their pricing and even worse iced-offerings...but they have comfortably spacious nooks where no one absolutely disturbs you and so I think I like a few of their outlets.

The target was a piece of roughly about 800 words.
The time available - half a day.
The time flippantly wasted on Facebook, mails and assorted menu dilemmas - 1.5hours
Time wasted pouting over a very very very bad Iced Italian Lemonade - 30 minutes
Time left - Roughly 2 hours (that is if the project needs to be in the blue and not red as per cost against time calculations!)
Words finished 1.25 hours later - 250 ( Brain Freeze from Yucky Lemonade, Content Constipation from not  healthily ingesting the concept before beginning to abuse the keyboard of my netbook and general I'd-rather-just-walk-about-doing-some-absolute-velapanti!)

Each time I look up from chuckling over a cheeky Facebook post or a lovely blog post I strayed over to read, I'd see a pair of eyes watching me - kind of like with that 'where do I know you from' familiarity! So, highly immodestly, I must admit here, that I do (very very rarely of course) get these looks  from die-hard news fans or from people who think I look like a certain hook-nosed, slightly obese Hindi actress! And there I was thinking, Oh ho, my cover is blown, he must be wondering where he knows me from...Continuing to look busy, I pretended work!

This had been going on for about the first two hours that I'd spent at the Brrrrrrr....aaaa...with just about half an hour left for me to finish the deadline, a voice piped up from over my head -

Excuse me, can I disturb you?
I look surprised, as if I hadn't registered the presence yet, as say Yes?
Are you busy?
Yes I am, but go on, tell me
(Here the cue is, where do I know you from? or something along similar lines)
Ehhhh..see, I'm basically getting tired of waiting and I don't know till when I have to wait. You have been here for a while and I thought I'd ask you if maybe I could come over there and sit and maybe talk to you?
(*Uhuhuh...like really?! goes the brain...he was all this while looking at a nice intro-line to start smarmy-talk?)
Ohhhh...no, I'm sorry, I'm swamped with work and a deadline. (*nose earnestly back into the document and fingers fly over the keyboard. Constipated content jam eases miraculously, thoughts flow in a straight gush straight from the brain kind of via blue-tooth onto the screen)

In under ten minutes - the remaining 550 words were typed, checked over and dispatched to the client and confirmation received too of the receipt!)

Bags are packed and out of the Brrrr....aaaa - who wants a smarmy chat up after an awful syrup masquerading as a Lemonade??


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The second snippet is kind of gushy...its about how impressed I am with Cafe Coffee Day's The Lounge concept. I was at their The Lounge recently, which has a plush, relaxed plump sofas well spread out look. And the best part was their food menu. For once, your choice is not one pre-packaged mayonnaise dunked sandwich over another, that appears shrivelled within the glass cases that separates the coffee bar counter from the seating area. What you get is a cute tick-and-you-get menu filling form, along with the Menu itself. So if you are feeling adventurous, like I always do, to make your own sandwich or roll, then they let you feel good about yourself.

So I had a chance to say NOOOO to the bane of my life- icky mayonnaise and also got to choose a nice crusty multi-grained baguette, with a spicy mustard dressing for some Oriental Chicken. Clever cooking and even better idea, I say, of giving the customer, the option to choose their meal the way they want! For roughly just 20 per cent more than what you pay for a shrivelled, pre-packaged, ketchup-mayo smothered sandwich, here is art on a plate. I was so impressed that my greed got the better of my usual instinct to photograph my plate before I sink my knife and fork in. This is however, the remains of the day! :) A splendid working morning spent in a comfy sofa, overlooking a busy road - occassionally looking at harassed looking IT employees in and out of a techno-park nearby and chuckling at my relaxed work-day!

(Psssst, not an advertorial..just a happy tummy, yummy coffee - happy customer, ting ting ta ding)
____________________________________________________________________________

When I was a fly on the wall - and can't help overhearing the earnest conversation -

Three wise men, sitting at a table near mine discuss health problems - one has hovering close to the danger-line blood-sugar levels and the other two believe the cholesterol menace is a far more dangerous existential angst. The common solution is cutting down on rice and potatoes!! None of them can remember how many weeks it has been since they have touched rice or indulged in potatoes. The sardaar in the group reminds his two friends how it is more difficult for him since Punjabis have 'aloo' in just about anything they can conceive of as a 'well-balanced' meal. Predictably, the discussion veers to age and it turns out one is 28, the other 34 and the third just touching 30!

And to think, you'd have thought these were post-forty cribs if not of those in the decades after that!

And now, here's the LoLoLoL bit - as the discussions continue, the boy at the coffeshop approaches their table with two creamy cold coffees, one suspiciously topped with cream or ice cream and two slices of double chocolate cake!!! Rice and potatoes are OUT, but who said anything about chocolate, cream, butter and tons of sugar??!! Right?

The Coffee Shop Culture

I am the generation of Doordarshan and Chitrahaar that evolved into DD Metro and MTV and then embraced cable television wholeheartedly... When I was in school, it was phone numbers that were exchanged, emails weren't all that common and computers were the luxury of a few ( ahemmm, I'm one of the few who did have a desktop at home that had Lotus on it. I also practised my fledgling DOS commands on it and felt thrilled when the machine responded to my commands with the 'right' answers that I had been taught to expect. Dad soon brought back MS office software from the Gulf for us and soon enough, I felt much like a computer geek, ready to conquer the world ahead of my peers.)

 By the time I was doing my post-grad, the in-thing was to share email ids, re-draft resumes with our email contacts added to our address and phone numbers. Any incoming mail into the inbox made us felt wanted, cherished and remembered. Mails would be checked every alternate day and the sense of immediacy we felt then was something to be cherished. Today, my mails are delivered to my phone, moments after the sender dispatched them. And today, I marvel over how people still do send postcards and letters to keep the craft of writing intact. In fact, I can't remember writing anything longer than a few words on a cheque in months if not years. I digress as usual..So getting back,  Greeting cards got replaced by FREE e-cards...Clever messages could be sent for free and the roaring business that Archies cards had at a relatively huge shop near our college kind of took a massive hit to its business.

Till then, going to an ice-cream parlour was the idea of spending time or treating friends. In Kochi, there was the Caravan ice cream parlour - the first one to serve sophisticated ice-creams and sundaes. It was a treat to receive permission from my mom to go there with classmates for someone's treat. It meant being an adult, taking a bus from where I stayed, getting down at the stop nearing Caravan and walking with my head held high and money that Amma had given me earlier in the morning, jiggling in my purse. Asking for the bill and then taking money out of the purse is a rite to adulthood. Much as I hate to have to go through that ritual now that I am a 'fully-matured' adult, while growing up - being allowed to behave like adults held so much thrill. Having the bus conductor, the waiter treat you the way you have seen them treat your parents makes you feel like you have finally arrived on the social scene..

McDonalds was our dream treat while in college and I'd often pamper the kid in me by ordering the Happy Meal. I must say I had a fancy collection of Happy Meal soft-toys and other collectibles. I couldn't be bothered to feel embarrassed about standing in line behind a bunch of kids, scrambling for those very toys that the twenty year old me was eyeing. I don't think the concept of stepping into a coffee shop for coffee existed in my lexicon till I began working.

I was talking about visiting coffee-shops with a friend, when she told about how her mom refused to have a seventy-bucks coffee at the newly opened Barista near her house in Delhi, more than a decade ago. Her brother had just received his first appointment letter as a new graduate and taking his mom to the swank new Coffee Shop was his way of declaring he had arrived and how. But a horror-stricken middle class mom refusing to touch the scaldingly priced coffee would have been a personal nightmare.

While growing up, the Indian Coffee House and its other local versions were our ideas of coffee shops. The liveried waiters bringing us cutlets and coffee in chipped cups and saucers was a great idea of eating out. It was a treat reserved for my birthdays. By the time Baristas and Cafe Coffee Days arrived on the scene, we had learnt that coffee-shopping was a mark of sophistication. The ability to differentiate between an espresso, cappucino and latte was a declaration that you are worldly and a force to be reckoned with among your peer group.

However, the truth is, most of us knew the cheapest priced burgers on the McDonald's menu and on the Barista boards. The idea was to be able to talk about having a McDonald meal or a Barista coffee. It didn't really matter that you had the most expensive one.In fact, by the time Costa Coffee made its presence felt in India, hanging out in coffee-shops had become a rite of passage for school and college-going kids. The bakeries of Kochi now wear a tired, shabby look. On every other corner, there is either a coffee shop or an ice-cream parlour. Most offer free wi-fi and the luxury of whiling away time without being asked to vacate like from your nearest busy Udupi hotel. Unlike the Udupis, where the number of customers served translated to profits, coffee-shop chains made money from frequented patronage and as hangout joints.

Today, on a Monday morning, I'm seated in a cozy Mocha, waiting to catch up with a friend for lunch even as I get some work done in the three hours before I meet her. The fact that there is no wi-fi currently available at this coffeeshop is a downer, but I'm armed with my own internet dongle. We cannot afford to be disconnected from the cyber-world for long. So we make our own provisions for wi-fi now.
Someone gets me a beautifully brewed cup of chai along with some bun-muska. As I munch on breakfast and compile my to-do list for the day, I realise ek post toh banta hai. After all, life as we have known it is changing fast. One chronicle of the lost times and the new life we are forging is necessary. However, I am one to embrace change. There is little that is not good and lots that can be bettered. So here is to Coffee Shop Culture and working out of them and not being bound to stuffy, cribby offices... :)

Have a happy week my bloggies ( shortened version of blog buddies ;)

Travels Again!

So travels begin again...

Hopefully not a long break, I should be checking back in by next week.

By the way, talking of travelling, how do you spend your time during your travels??

I must admit I haven't travelled by train since the initial days of my career. Then train was the only viable option for the pocket. A few years down the line, the weighing of options began - Air travel won hands down - anyone who has worked in the media or as a journalist would know, how difficult it is to get leave. So travelling from Mumbai to Kochi by train would mean losing at least 50-52 hours of precious one- to at most- two weeks of leave. So then my air travels began.

I think I would have travelled more by bus and plane than by train. Having an NRI father meant, we were weaned on air travel. As a child, I remember being scared of planes crashing over the vast vast ocean my little eyes would see from the plane window. I think this was around the time of the Kanishka crash ( if my memory serves me right!) Imagine the plight of my mother, travelling from Kochi to Cameroon, when I was just one and later to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, with a precocious seven-year old, a fidgety, highly clingy two-year old old and loads of luggage. Amma still shudders at the thought of what trauma those flights would turn out to be. Keeping the ever-bored older brat and snivelling younger one in check. Amma had one rule - never to allow her kids to be a nuisance to fellow travellers.

Every time, I travel in flights filled with kids, I think back to those times. Parents these days are so indulgent. On my flight from Mumbai to Bangalore recently, there was a little rascal sitting behind me ( sorry about sounding completely non-maternal, but the kind of kid that makes you wonder why people are so dying to procreate!) The kid did not have a low register, everything needed to be said at the highest pitch. The parents were like character actors in his personal drama. The kid would not stop talking for thirty seconds at a stretch. I am usually the kind who loves kid banter and can engage them in conversation for hours on end. But give me a kid like this and I'd hunt out socks and stuff it nice and tight to keep them quiet. So well, the parents didn't believe in any form of censure. So there was the brat, shouting at the top of his lungs to just about everyone, talking about everything from the seat-belt to when they would be served, to his nursery rhymes. The father didn't have enough clout to get the child to be seated before the take-off and could be heard pleading with the steward asking him to use his toughest tone to convince the boy to sit down!! Need I say how the rest of the trip went?

But the best time to travelling is late night flights. I can rarely sleep on flights. On long international flights, I watch back-to-back films - in fact, it is my most favourite passtime. I look forward to long haul flights for the chance to catch up on several films. Though I usually have a book or two in hand, I find myself rarely reading on international flights. So much to do and there's always a steward or stewardess coming up, offering you a drink or a snack. However, on domestic flights - with mostly only those stewards turned vendors to turn to - I normally seek refuge in my book. Mine is often one of the few reading lights that remain on, much to the irritation of my fellow travellers. There is however one thing that can keep you entertained, if the book you are reading is not entertaining enough!

The most hilarious part for more, about taking a late night flight is identifying the various categories of snorers around you...

Some are gentle gurglers - you feel like going awwww, they must be really tired and want to get them a blanket to keep them snug and warm.

There are the robust hooters - you can't miss them, its a shrill hoot and travels across aisles and windows and pierces your ear drums at regular intervals.

Then I have identified the steam rollers - a bit imaginative of me to think that if they were to be a machine, there would be steam emanating from all that mechanical energy being generated..

And finally, my favourite - the sleep musicians - the hardened snorers, who have perfected a medley of tunes - a range of wind-tones that go from the gurgle of the stream to the wheezing of the car engine starting every morning in your neighbourhood.

The only kind I'm scared of is the one where the person appears to be choking in their sleep, as if someone has a couple of fingers pressed to their throat!

Do you have any favourite mode of entertaining yourself while travelling?? Tell me, tell me, I'm all ears...:D

Clearing the Clutter....

Mere Pyaare Blog Saathiyon,

This letter is to you, you and you, who read my blog faithfully - whether I'm spouting the inane or the profane or the profound. Don't worry if you don't follow me all the time, I don't either. (Shhhh..but that's a secret, let's keep it between us, shall we?)

My poor blog has been moaning and groaning, whining and pining...but I, like the heartless, cruel Cinderella's step-mother left it, untended - without even a notice.

I think that is the problem with being your own employer and employee...I can't crib about my Boss because that's me. Bosses are meant to be cribbed about, because it is usually their inefficiency that creates the pigeon-statue situations in life.. You know what I'm referring to, don't you?? Sometimes you are the pigeon, other times the statue situation! Bosses get to play pigeons more often than the employees...But then, what if you are the Boss..Unsavoury thought! So for now, let's leave that aside...

I can't crib about my commitments being neglected by my inefficient employees, because that's me too...I'm the peon and the maid and the content-writer and the accountant...And occasionally, just occasionally, when someone asks, I proudly don my BOSS hat..they don't need to know that the peon, maid, content-writer and accountant of the company hats have been neatly hidden under the BOSS hat, do they??

Last few weeks have been a flurry of hectic travel-  dal-roti ka sawaal and thodi si masti.....Ohh, and have I mentioned I have somehow turned into a para-dropper in my own life - which means, there is little slack time cut for emergencies, so when an unplanned travel or a hard-to-say-no-to assignment comes along, I'm usually just sweeping everything off from my cluttered table, making a mess of the floor and then sitting pretty on the desk, looking like I have all the time in the world for that task!!! Yes, I agree it is not the way to go, but I have been planning to get myself a time-day-week-year planner, which I haven't gotten around to..More importantly, once I buy the planner, Murphy's law is likely to ensure I have little to do..and empty pages on the time-day-week-year planner might mock my vella-panti or jinx my rather pretty flow of work/assignments...See, sometimes superstitions just sneak in!

So now, I have decided I won't make lofty announcements like Life 365 ( eating humble humble pie!) but shall try to implement a Life 365, without any baand, baaja or announcements!!

Talking of clutter, this afternoon - my first free one in about two weeks, I sat down with two of my favourite handbags - the ones that travel with me the most. I upended the first one and my bed looked like a disaster zone. And then I thought what the heck, and turned the second one inside out too...Here's a small list of what you could find in my bags -

1. Mobile phone charger
2. Camera/phone transfer cables
3. Earphones
4. Portable music player
5. A 4GB flash drive
6. My bulky sunglasses cover with the sunglasses and cleaning solution and cloth in it
7. A notebook ( Yes, I still carry one around all the time, throwback to good old days of journalism, when I'd worry about having to take down a number or a quote and not having a piece of paper)
8. Three assorted pens - (two I have no recollection of how they sneaked into my bag, I swear I don't steal...By the way, one does not have a refill in it!)
9. A Book for the road...Currently it is Confluences ( For those interested in History and research, its highly recommended)
10. Body Shop Body Butter tub
11. Asda Hand Sanitiser - really possessive about my last bottle of cheap Asda maal! 
12. Two pairs of earrings
13. One broker bag-chain
14. One stole ( For those times in the theatre, when you suddenly feel cold and there's this stole to save you from freezing to death)
15. An invite for a wedding long over ( Don't know why I have it in my bag)
16. Three boarding passes ( they serve as book-marks. All my book-marks sit pretty in a drawer at home)
17. Two strips of tablets - Oakcet and Paracetamol ( not much of a medicine person, so must have forgotten them there after buying them!)
18. About ten receipts for purchases ( note to self: Store them in a shoebox. Second note to self: Maybe no, why tally it up and get heartburn?)
19. My battered wallet - the innards of this one is a disaster zone too, but can't be bothered to clean it up today!) 
20. A tampon bag ( must in every girl's bag, I say, you don't know when disaster strikes you or those around you!)
21. Two assorted half-empty sachets of tissues ( When I want one, I never get one..but they are there somewhere, now I have proof)
22. One tub of Orbit chewing gum
23. Two buttons - (one of a long-forgotten coat- I remember searching in vain for the extra one when the button popped and now, I realise, it had been kept here for safe-keeping)
24. Assorted keys on one key chain. ( Keys include those tiny ones of locks for suitcases too..Can't figure out where the locks are though!)
25. One bag of chana - ( I was munching on it on the plane and left it in the bag, half open - so three fourths of the content are loose cannons rattling about one the bottom of my purse) 
26. Assorted ticket stubs - of a Malayalam movie seen last week, passes to Turkish monuments and a scribbled upon ticket - Im a meticulously note-taker, only to forget about them five minutes after the notes are written!)
27. Maps - Istanbul, Aberdeen and Edinburgh ( This means the handbag hasn't completely been cleared out since September 2011!
28. Toothbrush - ( Ahemmm, less said the better about how many I unearth after every other travel!)
29. A bottle of perfume
30. Hairclips and assorted hair ties - ( never find one when you look for one, now I know where they were hiding)
31. A pack of tired looking wet-wipes
32. A hand-mirror ( my most favourite one, because it is my Eiffel tower memorabilia)
33. A packet of ear-buds ( Don't ask me why they were in my bag, beats me!!)
34. A bracelet that has lost one stone ( so can't be worn till I replace the stone obviously!)
35. The swipe-card to a hotel I stayed in Istanbul ( Guess I never returned it!)
36. About fifteen battered visiting cards of people I met - ( I haven't carried one since August 2009, but I never refuse to take one, if someone so much as places it on a table next to me)

And now you wonder why they say a woman walks around with her life in her handbag! 

( On travels, I usually also have my little netbook, fondly called Reddy because it is Redddddd in colour and my passport wallet too)...More the merrier I say...

Have fun and I'll write in from the various ports of call, 

The Brush with the Irreligious

It has to be a reflection of my mood and the thought processes resulting in the mood that I feel like posting on abstract thoughts - I call them abstract because there is no rhyme or rhythm to the flow of the thoughts. Just a strange twist in the road, that makes you stop, stare and then vocalise the impulses currently running through the nuts and bolts that keep your thoughts within the larger area of your head.

By now most people that read me occasionally or more regularly (which are a few loyal ones and I love you loads)know that I'm a Malayali from the red-red Kerala. Communism and socialistic ideals flow through the blood, however much we say our politics veer more to the right than the left, the culture of the Malayali society largely tends towards one that is shorn of devout religiosity.( There is a need for a big rejoinder here, like most communist states where the irreligious ruled roost for decades leading to the emergence of ultra-conservative religious patterns, Kerala too is seeing a disturbing trend towards a strain of communalism - worrying and thought-provoking!) The two biggest festivals of Kerala are Onam and Vishu - the traditional harvest and New Year celebrations - and these two festivals are celebrated across the world by Malayalis - irrespective of caste, creed and community. So these thoughts might have influenced my take on spirituality and the irreligious.

In our society, a lot of words are loosely used to mean the other - religion and spirituality is perhaps the best examples. A lot of people say "I'm spiritual" when they mean "I am religious" because "religion" somehow has a more conservative, narrow-minded connotation to it. However that does not justify how being religious can mean being spiritual. On the other hand, I believe there is a strong case to be made for being spiritual despite feeling irreligious. I think I'm increasingly turning spiritual and irreligious. So today, when I read a friend's message that said Spirituality is an appointment with yourself, I was thrilled.

I related to that. But somehow, the statement that appealed to the irreligious in me, somewhere presents a large contradiction. If you call spirituality an appointment with yourself, then isn't that kind of like an indulgence?? I deliberately take out the term self from before indulgence, primarily because indulgence too is an appointment with yourself. You indulge someone to gather some happiness for yourself in the bargain too!  It is the extent of pampering perhaps that differentiates indulgence from self-indulgence.

In India, where separating spiritualism from religion is considered next to impossible, we need to look for better definitions. Look at reason why people seek out religion? I have a simplistic reasoning. I consider it original because I arrived at it. I might be regurgitating what someone very very wise has said better, but in my space, let me present my take. We are conditioned from very young to crave a bigger power's benevolence - to watch over us, to hold our hand, to show us the right from the wrong. I think religion gives you the way to attaining the realisation that at the end of the path to enlightenment is the harnessing of your mental energy to make life's choices work out best for you. We are often happy to believe that the good that happens in our life is a fruit of our labour. On the other hand, no one wants to be told it is their idiocy that landed them in bad times. We'd rather believe in our naivete and think of bad times as tests set by a bigger power. So instead of setting two different question papers for the tests of life, you set one, make God the invigilator and the marker of your paper and dedicate good and bad performance to His tutoring.

Turning to God is in fact turning inwards, checking for resources within to pull yourself out. I believe my theory makes sense and brings solace to my search for meaning in life because I see God not helping those that leave everything to Him and do little about it. You don't really have to profess leaving everything to Him, but if you gather your inner resources together and work out a problem, you will feel the presence of a higher power guiding your decisions. That power is nowhere exterior, it could well lie within you. A bit of divinity, a bit of godliness - all within a soul that is not in an elevated sense of existence.

We live, we love, we desire, we crave, we anguish and pine - the positive emotions guide us higher, the negatives pull us down. However, the negatives are necessary to make the positives look incandescently bright. I think we cling hard to negative emotions like hate and disgust and hide behind morality ( often without inherently prescribing to it!) because the fear of a higher power or the worry of retribution is the safety mechanism some wise old men devised centuries ago to keep the flock in line. After all, a social animal is one that has the intense need to conform. If ten people do something a certain way, the eleventh one is intrigued to try the same formula because he knows it is tried and tested, it appears to have worked for ten, so why not for the eleventh and so on!

If you were to blame your mistakes on no one, but just dust yourself up and move on in just the same way you'd pat yourself on the back for a success and move on, then life will get easier. Why should we all adhere to the same structured sense of propriety or seek the customised logos that our social groups long to give us? Why do we need prototypes of dumb and dumber??

This is my brush with the irreligious but deeply spiritual. The Spirit in me is happy and at peace and my life, I'd rather was an experiment in the spiritual rather than the religious!!

An Open Letter to Parents

Dear Parent,

Every child has a lasting memory of their parent - lingering physical memories apart, they way they impact your upbringing, your thought process and also how you perceive your life and of those around you - that I think is the true essence of parenting. You don't need to be the biological parent of a child to be a good parent. What I mean is passing on your genes does not qualify as parenthood, it is what you do to nurture the child into an adult that reflects your commitment and skill as a parent. And they and they alone can qualify, in my eyes for the respect and consideration, that we believe every child owes their parents.

This stance might be a tad controversial - especially in the Indian context where becoming a parent is considered the pinnacle of existence - how you fare once you have produced your offspring is rather of less importance than having the numbers to brag about you 'having done your bit by society'. Just as how mothers bring up their kids is considered above criticism, no matter how neglected the child appears, the role of the father is largely seen as that of a provider. As long as he brings food to the table, fees for school and provides for other expenses - he is a good father. I beg to differ.

Upbringing is not just about providing four meals, clothes and an education. These are the bare minimum and in a country as poor as ours, we do believe if our bare expectations are met, then we have succeeded. But the educated, upwardly mobile middle class that I believe I am part of ( as also most of my blog audience), judging ourselves on a very narrow set of yardsticks and feeling we measure up needs to be reassessed. I have often heard a common refrain from several of my peers and elders - "We grew up with limited facilities and even more limited attention. We grew up fine". To this my question is - Did you? What is fine - well adjusted, rational or completely secure about your upbringing?? Don't you privately have regrets or nurse grouses for those times that you feel a bit of concentrated push or educated advice might have changed the course of your life??

More importantly, the age that you grew up in, the access to a lot of facilities were in the public domain. That meant that it was a more level playing ground for the masses. For the classes, who could afford private tutoring and an elite education, the story is largely different. But, rich families in your days never meant financially well off families with disposable cash. It usually meant landowning families that were self-sufficient and far above the 'we-have-four-meals-and-rarely-scrape-the-bottom-of-the-rice-bowl' families. But at the end of the day, the disparity and differences between the well-off middle class and the struggling middle class  wasn't as pronounced as it is today. I might be at the risk of over- generalisation, but a letter on a blog on complex issues of parenting can only raise points to ponder over. It cannot be exhaustive or conclusive.

Our country is wracked by duality - we want to maintain our core of Indian sensibilities while embracing Western values of parenting. What we are trying to do is adapt to a comfortable mix of both worlds that have now come to represent our lives. But in this hotch-potch, we rarely stop to think if we are sending mixed signals to our children? We are quick to critique those that are highly conservative and traditional in how they bring up their children - imparting old-world values that we grew up with and shielding kids from all those that we think is the assault of new-age life. However, after they start school and bring home views from their peer group, the discord in life at home and life outside creates friction and a sense of suffocation in the child. While many young ones these days are extremely adept at moving with the flow, there are several other sensitive ones who are crushed by expectations and mis-match that they see in their lives around them and in their own.

The current generation of parents juggle a number of hats at one time. Apart from being the father/mother of one or two children, you are also ambitious professionals, often juggling yet another social role of an activist or social worker/entrepreneur etc. You believe you have the roadmap to success for yourself and through you, a role model to set for what your children must achieve. Their care is largely left to people you pay ( with whom you are rarely satisfied) or with grandparents ( after all, weren't they the ones to insist you have kids soon after you got married? ). To this again, the question will be, but we were brought up by our grandparents, who brought our parents up as wonderful individuals. Now our parents are doing their duty. Do we realise how much the context of parenting changes with each generation? 

You might wonder, what brought this tirade about! These are musings, rather direction-less, but thoughts that emerged from a passing reference to someone dear to me as a 'rather ambition-less man'. In a manner of speaking, alluding to how he didn't live up to his potential professionally, which in turns also appears to taint his performance as a parent. His daughters are grown up today and are quiet and confident girls. Unlike most fathers of his generation, who were absentee parents in their children's upbringing, he was around to support, comfort and nurture. He was not one to reach home after the kid has gone to sleep and leave home before the child is awake nor were his weekends spent socialising or climbing the professional ladder. However, at the end of the day, he is branded 'ambitionless', an 'insufficient parent' and sadly 'a poor role model'. Why are we so harsh to critique others when we are far from perfect?

Finally, my question to you is, do  you think more of what all your parents provided you materially or how they contributed to influencing your personality and psychological stability and maturity?? Should parenting be about setting successful role-models and assuring financial stability or something far more tangible - materially intangible for sure, but tangible in other ways. Ways that matter? Who decides success in  parenthood? Isn't it time to revise yardsticks for yourselves and therefore for your peers too?? After all, you don't live in the age your parents did and your children won't be faced with the same choices that faced you.

Food for thought??

Sincerely,

A confused no-body!

Rukawat ke Liye Khed Hai!

Life 365 is going through fits and starts..I'm completely washed out..the heat has gotten to me and how. Hoepfully, I'll be back soon!! :) Till then, hope there are enough posts still of Word Sketches you need to catch up on!

Won't let the summer beat me down..but can't wait for the Monsoons to begin!!

The Unspoken Language

Ask a foreigner to imitate an Indian and he immediately does two things - flattens the way he speaks English ( much like how we might use the Chapati belan) and begins to move his head in an imitation of those clay-dolls  that moves its head and body in two directions, when set into motion!

My firang friends often ask me questions by exaggeratedly shaking their head. However, at those times, the joke is on them. For I don't realise that it is mimicry in action. We are so used to people talking with their eyes, face, neck and hands that when someone does it with mimicked exaggeration, you consider it par for the course and don't realise that it is a deliberate attempt. Often after failed attempts to elicit laughter, they ask me outright if they were shaking their head right, to either denote approval or denial. And there ensues a quick course in The Unspoken Language of the Indians.

It is funny how different parts of India have their own gestures for yes or no. But I have rarely had to explain myself to another Indian when I reply with only a nod and no syllables accompanying it. Need I repeat that that is never the case with my international set of friends. Much like an animal in a zoo that knows that something they did is like a magic trick that the crowd around your cage is waiting for you to repeat, I put on my best show face and exaggerate my already exaggerated reaction - a smile and a series of quick oscillations of the chin forward and backward - I want/I agree/yes, that's exactly what I mean. ( What the reaction means need to be understood according to context!! Go figure!)

So since observing and researching such behaviour is a favourite passtime of mine, I began consciously noticing how people talk the Unspoken Language. I like noticing people who are far far away from me, those who are visible but not within the audible range. So the conversations are left to my imagination and the game is to gauge the reaction from their gestures. Here are a few of the common and my favourites -

• Smack the lip, shut the eyes tight and make the smacckkkkkk sound to express how  delicious you found something ( you will be surprised at how many people actually do that without even realising the gesture in their hurry to express their pleasure over a dish!) 
• Yes - Mentioned earlier, but nods that oscillate your chin forward and backward - the quicker the movement, the more emphatic is the approval. Oscillate sidewards and thats a big No! 
• However, if someone is explaining a kind of tough premise and you aren't following it, the same movement needs to be slowed down along with the furrowing of the eyebrows to denote Perplexed Contemplation. 
• If the hands are moving like windmills, then be assured the explanation is on a mega-scale! Beware, the person explaining it might be doing it just to hide they have little content but lots of drama to offer. 
• Indians love using the arm to the chin to show "I am giving the bullshit you are spouting some 'serious contemplation' even if I might look like an actor using cliched expressions"
• The exaggerated wink with the accompanying idiotic laugh is many people's idea of making you in cahoots with some harebrained scheme or prank that is either being hatched or being played out! 
• Eyes in slits, nose flared and lips pinched is "Wait till I get you for this!" usually when your better half is having a field day at your expense in front of your friends but anything said at the moment will just make you look churlish!
• And the most Indian of it all, and this one is rather exaggerated - the right fist to the head that's slightly thrown back with eyes closed and a look of distress on the face accompanied often by a lethargic oscillation of the head sideways - I am feeling so sorry for myself, I am having a Meena Kumari moment/ the sweet drama of the situation needs to be acted out!

This list is inexhaustible. And it might be a fun game to invite more entries and adjudge among ourselves which of the gestures of the Unspoken Language Lexicon takes the cake!! 

I unfortunately happen to be a highly animated character - much like the navarasas taught in Bharatanatyam, every conversation with me is punctuated by my animated facial inputs to words. But I just realised, as you are reading this post, perhaps you tried one or two of the gestures I mentioned just to check whether that's how you'd express it yourself, didn't you??

Time for some honesty! Come on!! ( Shakes head in quick series of oscillatory forward-backwards - sign of encouragement!)


:) :) :) 


(Image Courtesy: 123RF)