The Case of A Mysterious Disappearance

If you are receiving this message, that means you have been named in the will of those dear and near who needs to be intimated about my recent bereavement.Atleast it feels like death..

I am bitterly hurt to inform you about the mysterious disappearance of my companion of 2 very long years - my mobile, the virtues of whom I'd waxed eloquent about in just my last post.. After the physical and technological abuse it has been through at my hands,I have always known this day has been long in the coming, but that does not reduce the blow that has been dealt on me.

Even as I continue to grieve, I know I have to move on. As a part of that, I have already arranged for a new companion to join me. I have not yet got over the fact that my SIM card chose to elope with my mobile phone. So I have decided to expel both and all their sweet memories from my life- however involuntarily...

Even as I mourn inconsolably, I realise that the practical chores of living have to continue...And all I need to do is look around my once massive, now completely devastated home lovingly called 'My Addressbook' to know that rebuilding my life after this unexpected desertion will not be easy..

That they went away heartlessly, with an 'out of sight, out of mind' swagger,completely switching themselves off and rendering them totally untraceable just adds insult to injury. In my defense, I did go around like the hapless companion that I was, in my demented state of mind, from shop to shop, restaurant to restaurant, every where that I had even thought of stepping in in Brighton, seeking to know if anyone had any information. But they seem to have had the conspiracy much earlier...And it was a near flawless execution to give the devils their due..

My sighs and sobs continue unceasingly. All I hope and pray is that this fate not befall any of you....

In mourning,

Journomuse

Wordsworth's Daffodils

My Sony Ericsson P1i has been my constant companion over the last two years....And every day these days, as I walk down from my University residence towards the Library or my class, it quietly pops out of my pocket and nudges me to use it to capture how beautiful my campus looks, fresh out of its winter slumber....

Some of you might have seen the glorious snowscapes that I had put out in December last year....Now it's time for the Spring Collection....

 

I'm sure this is the sight that inspired Wordsworth two centuries back to write his wonderful poem Daffodils...

I wander'd lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host, of golden daffodils; 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the Milky Way,

They stretch'd in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay: 

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they 

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay, 

In such a jocund company: 

I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Mama's Cookbooks

Psst...These days I'm in the throes of writing my term papers before the D-day for submission- April 19. But after every 250 words, my thoughts freeze. I hate academic blarney, for want of another word...And like a guilty child, I come back to my blog to write things I don't have to reference or attribute to someone else or write in a way that if it were to take the form of a person, it would be appear a stuck up frigid creature...Yuckkk..the thought revolts, so here I am creating my pet posts - which makes me feel infinitely better about going clack clack clack on my keyboard...

So like I was telling you I am so bored with my essay, I have turned in desperation to God's gift to poor students who don't have access to television in Britain...the BBC iplayer.. A friend who is the best chef amongst us is a fan of Raymond Blanc, the French chef who says 'Voila' more times than I can count coherently. So there I am at the stroke of midnight, watching him whip up a mouthwatering souffle and parfaits and lots of other yummy thingummies...Just looking at those dishes, I'm sure I have put on a stone or more...But do I care, we live vicariously don't we?

But that's not the point of the story I have to tell you at this moment...As I sit watching this show, I wonder if my kids will ever get a cookbook like my mom keeps...or if they will be given convenient internet links to such archived programmes on a flash drive or maybe if I'm more benevolent a collection of my favourite youtube videos burnt on a CD each so that the kids don't fight over my years of internet research.

They shall be born unprivileged...They won't have a cooking aficionado for their mother...

What they shall inherit is a mother who is a master of short cuts...Of quick fix recipes...who has little readily purchased boxes of everything that her mother would whip up from scratch ...who is happy to use tomato purees and ginger garlic paste and lemon juice from a bottle..They shall have a master forger, who scans recipes she sees or reads for anything and everything that can be substituted with things at hand or things that involve zero human effort..

Mama's cookbook was different...Written in her very prim and proper handwriting, in English and Malayalam, depending on where she sourced it from, neatly in a hardbound diary...She used to have a notebook earlier that grew tattered. My mother too was definitely not one of those, who knew when they were born that their life was dedicated to cooking...I remember long conversations late into the night about how she had never had to cook till much later into her marriage, as there were always others in the family to do that, while she went to work at a bank. Later, when she started travelling to parts of the world where Papa was posted, she used to tell me about how she would be quivering at the thought of Papa bringing his friends home for dinner. The simple soul that she is, for her, a guest means someone for whom a special effort needs to be taken, even if it is a family we are really informal with. So out would come the best crockery and serving ware and her cookbook. 

When I began to take an interest in cooking, purely academic, I would love leafing through Mama's handwritten, well thumbed stained pages searching for the recipes of the meat cutlets and chicken biryani that she makes. And like any proud child, I'd say no one cooks like my Mama...The best part of her cookbooks would be the Good and V Good she'd have jotted on the right side of the name of the dish if she has experimented with it....I'd sometimes thumb through her books to check how many had received such honorary mentions...Later on, when my secretarial skills improved vastly, I remember jotting down some good recipes for Amma as they were being shown on TV....But she always kept written copies of the recipes. 

I remember trying to make my own cook book very early when I began college. I thought every girl had to do that as a rite of growing up. But somewhere soon, I think the project was quickly abandoned. Today, I have a trusted few websites and the google search engine where I enter the ingredients that I suddenly feel like combining, and there it throws up miraculous permutations and combinations of what I can rustle up with them...

Suffice to say, I shall have no scrapbook of cooking exploits....I'm told I can ensure that no one goes hungry for lack of anything edible to eat...I shall take that as a compliment...My recipes are rarely conventional, so have instant names. And then are instantly forgotten too, the moment the last bite is done...Rarely is any recipe revisited - either due to distinct disinterest or because the ingredients used the first time around have been used up...

This post makes me want to put together a book of my quixotic recipes...but even then I'm sure I won't have the patience to write it by hand anymore...I have become so accustomed to the keyboard....My cookbook might be a printed one, with copies saved on my laptop in case I misplace the hard copy.....

Look at the lexicon, hard copies and soft copy, typed and double spaced, with appropriate pictures copy pasted from the internet....

So clinical, so calculated....The smell of love is missing...and Mama's handwriting...that personal touch that makes it a treasure to be bequeathed and cherished.....

Antique Hunting in Covent Garden!!

On my last trip to London, I had some time to kill. So I took off by foot to Covent Garden..

For those familiar with Mumbai, the Covent Garden Market is a beautiful, extremely well maintained version of the Crawford Market in VT. The structures look very similar...The Market layout is pretty much the same..The comparison unfortunately has to stop there...

This is an antique hunter's paradise...Some stuff is exorbitantly priced. I guess anything sells in the name of antiques....

Some others seemed to be having a cranky day...told me not to take pictures, I guess they realised I wasn't the kind to splurge the pounds...

The musicians in the open restaurant area were a delight to listen to....They make the atmosphere just so festive...

And there was just so much colour and tinsel and glitz to please my eye...

Coasters with the name of most traditional pubs in England...When I first landed here, I wondered why most of the pubs were named Hares and Hounds or The Wellington or weird ones like the Slug and the Lettuce ( Why would you want to drink at a pub named that??). In every nook and corner of England, you would find one of these. I realised later that these were the English way of doffing their hats to pubs older than their entire family history in their area.

These telephones, I have always had a fascination for them. The first telephone I remember at my father's house, was a big black one, even fatter than this, and it used to be such an effort to put your finger through the right hole and dial the number...If you managed to dial five numbers right, what a sense of achievement it gave!!

If I had had a dress on, I might have purchased a set of these to dress up for the evening to have a spot of tea with scones!!

The British know how to preserve their history...Guess they have been doing it right for a long long time....If you are in London and have some time on your hands, it's a delight to roam around this tiny market which has open air eateries and road side entertainment and a lot of old junk to rummage through...

'Indian' Bahu, Brazilian Beefcake and Bollywood Jhatkas...

Living on a university campus with 'friendly strangers' can sometimes be a harrowing experience. But on the whole, it's crazy fun....And at other times, like I found out, it  can be an eye-opener...


A two-hour conversation with my Angolan flat mate and I felt like the Brand Ambassador of Bollywood who got to bask in the adoration of an enthusiastic convert, without having to put any effort to give her the spiel on jhatka...

I had no clue that in the living rooms of tiny apartments in Luanda, Angola, the favourite past time was watching Brazilian prime-time soaps.... ( Portuguese is the language spoken in both Brazil and Angola..so the love for these Latin American Soaps in distant Angola..)And not just watching them, but agonising over them and even praying for the story line to change to suit their favourite characters is the chief past time for the young and the old...And Bollywood songs provide the spice to liven up their lives...

Guess how I found out...

Here I was in my flip-flops walking down rickety English stairs like a rampaging elephant, in search of food for my grumbling tummy when I heard lusty singing from the kitchen....By now, I know who that can be...but today, the tune seemed vaguely familiar....So I sneaked up into our kitchen cum dining cum everything a.k.a common room and there she was...moving her JLo hips ( I think JLo would have a complex if she saw her!) in what can only be called a jhatka that would have Mallika Sherawat go green with envy....And when I moved closer there she was, at the stove, her back to me, her hips grinding, and Kajra Re playing...

With my mouth in a big O, I stood watching her feeling 'I don't care if I don't talk high about Bollywood numbers and am humming tunes from ColdPlay more often than not, but how dare you know about film songs from MY country without MY knowledge or more importantly, MY initiating you into it...'


And I guess sensing my presence, Lady L( haven't told her about this post, so I shall preserve her anonymity, just in case) did a royal 180 degree turn and stood with her hand comfortably resting on her jutting hip....And seeing my mouth still frozen in the big O, she wiggled her eyebrows wondering what had stung me...


So there I was pointing to her Youtube screen, where there was an unfamiliar scene on...and Kajra Re still playing on, asking her, 'How do you know this shit?'


And that's when the saga unfolded....


Angolans are crazy about Brazilian soaps, which are basically about love, lust, cheating, ditching and the step son's dilemma if his father's mistress' illegitimate child becomes his sister or if she is fair game...Now the Brazilians are intrigued by Indian exotica and especially our Kamasutra-esque dance postures that leaves very little for imagination, if the idea is to give a blatant 'come-on'...And I don't need to tell you about the wonders of a wet saree....well, I have just been informed that now, the Brazilians and the Angolans and every part of the world where there is Portuguese diaspora, are fans of pelvic thrusts and chest heaves in wet sarees.

Ok, did I digress? I guess no....I had to give you background masala, didn't I? 

Lady L sings Kajra Re in a Portuguesed fashion...it's wonderful to hear how for them, our poetry is a non-sensical grouping of os and aaas and uuuus....and by the time they break down the syllables as they hear it, a bloody post mortem has transpired on the shayari in the songs...Anyways, I shouldn't be petty about that...


But my curiosity was whetted...I had to know the storyline....And in no time, there I was, rolling on the carpet by the dining table, holding my stomach, half worried that I'd gag on my own laughter...


This is a miniaturised but descriptive story line...The son of wealthy Brazilian family stumbles upon the daughter of an Indian merchant ( read bania...and mind you, I'm being deliberately casteist..you shall soon understand why)....the girl is a mind-blowing Indian beauty, who reduces men to whimpering testerosterone pools with just a wiggle of her eyebrows and the sway of her hips behind her long flowing jet black hair...He falls in love, they have a lavish Rajasthani wedding at the castle of her father where elephants walk in straight lines and servants scamper about with their heads bowed low and turbans that seem to be bigger than their heads while everyone dances to Doli Taaro Dhol Baaje while smearing everyone else with colours like in Holi....

But the crunch comes when they can't consumate their marriage....For the father's astrologer has prohibited this, as the sun could cross into the lunar orbit ( or some such nonsense), as per the girl's stars spelling doom for their relationship...So the Brazilian groom knows it, his bride is kept in the dark...And now with the husband refusing the desperate advances of his nubile wife, she is now in a seething mass of frustrated desires....her saree drapes go lower, her blouses literally refusing to hold her assets in place, but her young Brazilian holds fast....Till the night that she dances to the Tawaif song that Rani Mukherjee croons for Aamir Khan in 'Mangal Pandey'...


Lady L knew the songs and I played Bollywood trivia by trying to guess the songs from the tunes...Should I say I failed miserably....And we ended up googling the songs....till realisation dawned like little light bulbs around my dumb head...


And as our Indian girl breached the Laxman rekha, wooing her man and having her wicked way with him, secrets start tumbling out of her royal closet.....She is pregnant by a Dalit ( now you know the casteist angle...imagine the Angolan trying to tell me about the merchant-Dalit caste problems!!!) and just as they were to elope, her father reveals her lover is a Dalit and the girl drops him like a hot potato...Right in time for a love-struck Brazilian to stumble along and the father decides to bundle her off to the Brazilian household...( What a global thinking merchant dad, isnt he?)


And this is just the main storyline...the Brazilian's father is in the throes of a major affair in Rio, his brother has an identity crisis...his sister is battling cancer...those are the side-stories I won't even go into right now....

Lady L suddenly perks up and asks me, So what does Eey Bagwen mean? And I say 'Whaaattt?'....and she patiently repeats, Eey bagwen...that's what that Indian girl keeps saying always....The coin drops and I say....Ooooooohhh, hey bhagwaan...that's like saying Oh, Lord!!


And then comes the next face...What about Arrrriiii Babaaji....Now how do I translate that?


By this time Lady L's soup is bubbling away, so is my stomach....But then, this conversation was priceless....


Who would have thought tying a nylon saree and shaking bountiful hips was the latest craze in far away Africa or that a  bored housewife in Rio knew about how a merchant's daughter cannot marry a Dalit in India or that in far away Brighthelm, an African girl cooks while Kajra Re and Tumhaari Adaon pe main waari waari was playing....


Bollywood Jhatke ki Jai.....Atiuttam Aanand....That's my new mantra!!!!