My other Shoes are Manolos

so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye

2009-01-02T10:51:00.002Z

So I'm not going to shut this blog down or write a long shmaltzy goodbye post. That's because my little wordpress experiment may not work out and I'll be back at blogger in a month's time. Which is, by the way the amount of time I'm giving to my new wordpress blog www.whereimcallingfrom.wordpress.com

I really don't know what I'm hoping this will achieve. But hey, can't blame a girl for trying. (And yes, I can too still be called a girl)

So, I hope to see you here. But don't remove shoefiend from your blogrolls just yet.

tata.

ps this is my 402nd post.

tata bye bye see you

2008-12-29T14:11:00.002Z

I keep changing my header picture hoping it will inspire me to blog. But nada. I think I'm bored of this blog. Of the name, the layout, everything.

All those who think moving to a new space will help, say aye. Those who don't think it will change anything, and that I should shut up and get over myself, keep it to yourself.
So long 2008.
See you in 2009. Or not.

We two Ours 18

2008-12-22T10:15:00.001Z

A friend recently sent me an email with the subject line. “And you thought one was bad.” The mail contained a link to an interview with Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar from Arkansas. Loving couple, realtors and parents to 17 children. That’s right — 17. As in a prime number following 16. As in a number following 16. As in Josh, Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jeremiah, Jedidiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, Johannah and Jennifer. I almost fell off my chair when a clip from a previous interview showed the couple tell their children (and millions of other Americans) that they were expecting Duggar 18 in 2009. I watched with mounting disbelief as the show host interviewed the couple and their brood of seven girls and 10 boys, asking them if they had picked a name for the next addition to their clan.
Jim Bob struck me as a little smug, as only a man who has successfully sown his seed 18 times can be. But it was Michelle who caught my attention. For a woman who had spent the better part of over two decades either pregnant, giving birth or getting pregnant, Michelle seemed worryingly cheerful. Chipper even. “Why would anyone in their right mind have so many kids?” I thought as I forwarded the link to friends. “They’re nuts,” I told myself. “And she needs a haircut.” After all, it’s one thing to find yourself pregnant with triplets, quadruplets or sextuplets, but it’s quite another to churn out kids like they’re going out of style along with pleather leggings and then say it’s God’s will. Seventeen kids in 20-odd years seem less ‘a blessing from up above’ and more ‘what happens when well functioning reproductive organs are put to use repeatedly sans contraception’. Now some might say, ‘What’s the big deal?’ After all, the world record for the most number of children is at 69. The mother of all these kids was the first of two wives of Feodor Vassilyev, a peasant from Shuya, 150 miles east of Moscow. In 27 confinements, this nameless woman gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets. How interesting that while Daddy’s name has survived all these years, all we know of the poor woman was that she was Biwi no 1. Closer home, our own grandparents effortlessly spawned offspring in the double digits. Again, it looks like the ladies had little to do but grin and bear it. As one friend’s grandmother succinctly put it, “He would come home from work and we would do it. And then I would be pregnant.” Nine times. In our ‘We two Ours one’ world, we tell ourselves that we place the limit at one or two children because we can give them more attention. While that may be true to some extent, I also think it’s because we can’t be bothered to have more kids. Children are expensive, time consuming and want to watch Sponge Bob Square Pants just when they’re going to announce the winner of American Idol. So, if it’s alright for some of us to decide to have none, one or two children, shouldn’t it be okay for others to have as many as they want? Is it alright to use words like crazy and sex-starved when discussing people with large families? Are they selfish for burdening an already crowded planet with more children? Is it fair to question their choices or ask them to consider adoption instead? I’m torn between filing the Duggars under ‘C for crazy’ and ‘N for it’s none of your business’. But maybe if people are putting their lives on TV shows and in the pages of a book, I can question their decisions. 17 Kids & Counting! premiered on TLC (The Learning Channel) in October 2008 while The Duggars. 20 and counting is in a good bookstore near you. ‘...and counting’ — That means there could be more on the way.

This piece appeared here.

6am

2008-12-19T16:36:00.006Z

Her favourite time of the day. Her husband is still asleep, soaking his pillow with drool. The new neighbours upstairs have not started moving their furniture around, trying to find the perfect spot for their Poang chair. The house is dark, quiet and the heating comes on with a reassuring hum. She makes herself the first coffee of the day and sits down on the battered red sofa, tucking her feet beneath her, letting her mind inhale the silence.

At first, she is not quite sure she even heard anything. She ignores it, but then it comes again. A shrill scream for help. And another. And another. A woman. The word beats against the double glazing repeatedly, begging to be let in.

She cannot move. She knows she should do something. But what? Wake up her husband? Open the doors and look outside? Call the police? What could it be? A mugger? A chain snatcher? Marital discord? A... rapist?

What could she possibly do? The woman outside is getting angry now, as though she knows people are sitting inside their homes on their battered red sofas, sipping cold coffee, pretending like they don't know what to do. Pretending they cannot hear. Her calls for help are longer, coarser, louder. And then her voice breaks. It is tired. Or she knows no one is going to come.

The light comes on. Her husband walks in, rubbing his crusty eyes.

'How long have you been sitting here?'

'I don't know.'

'What were you doing?'

'Listening.'

Kaarthikai for Dummies

2008-12-12T18:25:00.005Z

Thank God for tealights.

Between your legs the whistle blows

2008-12-07T08:41:00.001Z

Everyone loves to give advice. EVERYONE. In Mumbai, our bai used to tell me on how to make sambar, ignoring the fact that she was Maharashtrian and I was a south Indian. The lady at the salon, who wields that little spool of thread, likes to tell me how to shape my eyebrows (and, that it’s not a sin to wax certain areas). My husband likes to tell me how to arrange the contents of our fridge and dishwasher. Get knocked up and the advice increases proportionately to the size of your stomach. So you can just imagine how much advice a woman carrying sextuplets gets in her ninth month. So when I ‘fell pregnant’ as one friend said, as though my bump was some kind ebola virus I had caught, everyone had some words of wisdom to pass on to me.
“Listen to only good things. It will make the baby happy.” “Don’t watch violent films.” “Listen to shlokas.” “Don’t watch English films or listen to English music.” “Don’t walk so fast.” “Don’t walk at all.” “Don’t wear jeans.” “Don’t cut your hair when you’re pregnant.” And after the baby was out, of course there was more to come. “Only breast feed.” “Don’t look nice so soon after the delivery. People will cast an evil eye.” “Don’t drink cold water. The baby will catch a cold.” “Don’t keep carrying him all the time” some say before scooping my wailing son into their arms. But the best advice I received was just a few hours after my baby was born. There I was, lying in bed. Sore, bewildered and wondering if they administered nitrous oxide post delivery. Wondering when I could get up to pee, what was for lunch and why on earth there were so many people in a room the size of a supply cupboard. And then, in breezed a family friend. Let’s call her Aunty X. Aunty X is lovely. She brought me fresh snacks every week when I was pregnant. She made me kozhakattais and seedai. She was responsible for about three kilos I gained in my last trimester.
So Aunty X cooed at the baby before, snapping “Keep your legs together.” I raised my head a fraction of an inch and gave her an uncertain look. Surely it was too late for that? I mean that advice would have been fine before I got pregnant, but what was the use of keeping my legs together now? “Keep your legs together, or all the air will enter your body. Through down there.” she whispered. All the air? So my vagina in addition to being a human Suez Canal was now a vacuum pump? Aunty X spotted the bewildered look on my face. “I know what I’m talking about. Keep your legs together now or else you’ll be sorry later. You’ll be full of wind and air and then there’ll be whistling.” Whistling? As in the ‘put your lips together and blow’ kind? Aunty X lowered her voice conspiratorially “Whistling…down there. When you sit down you’ll hear this ‘feeeeeeeee’ sound. Now be a good girl and put your legs together. Have you fed the baby?” Of course, being the good Indian girl I am, I listened to her and did as I was told. Now I wish I hadn’t. I should have let all the wind in and taught myself to whistle show tunes. My home could do with some extra income in these credit crunching times and I’m sure Evita could have used me in their chorus line.

****

This piece appeared here.

in april

2008-11-24T18:58:00.002Z

'you have too sunny a disposition to write fiction'

oh well. that explains everything.

2008-11-17T08:41:00.003Z

'No. This just won't do' she thinks as she scans the room.
She doesn't want her thinking that the house is a mess. That the newspaper is always left lying next to the bed, its sheets tangled in passionate embrace with her bra. That the grout in the bathroom hasn't been dealt with in weeks. No, months. Years, if she's totally honest. But who is these days?
She can just imagine her finger gliding across the mantelpiece, leaving behind a clear pathway banked on either side by dust. She can see her peeking in to the kitchen cabinets and the fridge, her well-trained eye noting items well past their expiry date. She just knows she is going to look at the drain hole in the shower and grimace at the quagmire of soap scum and hair.
'No, it just wouldn't do' she thinks and sets about cleaning up. First impressions are everything she decides as she wipes down countertops, sweeps the pine floor and fishes out her push up from the sports section.
As she plumps the last cushion, the doorbell rings. Just in time.
She opens the door, a smile on her face.
'You must be Ilia. Would you like to start cleaning up the kitchen first?'

It's amazing how easy it is for a 28 year old woman to hide behind a 5 month old baby

2008-10-30T18:59:00.002Z

So here it is, I've been a mother for 5 months now and I'm already using the baby as an excuse. Who am I kidding, I've been using this baby as an excuse even before he was born. Even before he was conceived. My son is the reason I'm always tired. Though of course my mother (who returns home next week) is at the moment his primary care giver with me filling in the evening entertainment slot. My son is the reason I feel irritable and happy at the same time. He's the reason why I reach for that second hobnob. And the third. And the fourth. And then finish the entire pack. He's the reason, I tell myself I haven't written anything in the last six months (and let's be honest, posts on the state of post breastfeeding nipples and my own version of rock-a-bye baby don't count).

I tell myself that I will write when the writing comes. As though the writing will arrive unannounced in a snazzy suit one evening carrying my favourite flowers with a smiley greeting of "So shall we begin?"

I tell myself that I've been through a lot I deserve this time to do nothing, watch Oprah and read new age novels about American women who spend a year discovering themselves through meditation and tagliatelle.

I tell myself a lot of other crazy things too - like I'll write again when I've lost my baby weight... let's be really, really honest, that could take a lot lot longer.

So why I am not writing? I'm afraid to... a possible interest in my half finished manuscript was later rejected by a publisher. Of course, rejection is to be expected and it would have been very presumptuous of me to presume that I would never have to face that. But it's hard to get over... and it's hard to want to get over it. It's easier to stay scared. It's easier to not write anything. It's easier to not have to think about writing.

I'm not writing because I tell myself I don't know where to start. All my characters seem distant. All my stories seem limp and insipid. My old writing seems stilted.

I'm not writing because it's easier to just load another round of laundry, do another round of dishes or take the garbage out.
I'm not writing because it's just easier to blame the baby.

a song for deepavali

2008-10-27T07:56:00.002Z

not really...but here goes anyway...

rock-a-bye baby drooling on my shoulder
when did you get to weigh as much as a boulder?
when your drool breaks my shoulder will too
rock-a-bye baby i'd like a new pair of shoes.

Happy Deepavali every one!

28

2008-10-16T07:26:00.006+01:00

Belongs to a decade that no longer allows you the privilege of individual candles, each representing a year. Unless she gets a really large cake. One that she will have to bake herself. And that just means more birthday cake for breakfast, late afternoon and midnight snacks for a week. 28 is also not a 'special' year like 18, 30 or 60, so no joint numeral candles. Instead she has to pick out the numbers separately. There is a 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 7 and a 9. But no 8. She stands before the rack of wax numbers, conflicted. A year up or a year down? Or just a 2? Or no candles at all? Or should she get the lotus that blooms and blares out Happy Birthday on the banjo? Perhaps the universe is telling her not to expect much from this year. That it's going to be another hazy 365 days that she will look back on a few years from now and not be able to remember much from. Why celebrate it at all then? Why bother bringing in another 12 months of bland work days, weekends cleaning the fridge and restocking it, taking bags of plastic bottles and newspapers to the recycling plant and looking for strands of white hair? She would skip 28 she decided. Yes, that was it. 28 was not going to exist. She slips the red candle in to her shopping basket and heads to the till. Her melting birthday gift to herself would be another heady year of 21.

Maybe this will get me writing again

2008-10-12T10:04:00.002+01:00

Mslexia Women's Short Story Competition 2009

Judge: Helen Simpson

1st Prize £2,000
plus a one-week writing retreat* at Chawton House Library (accommodation only) and a day with a Virago editor**
2nd prize £500
3rd prize £250
3 other finalists will win £100 each
All winning stories will be published in Mslexia magazine and they will also be read by Carole Blake from Blake Friedmann Literary Agency.
Closing date: 23 JANUARY 2009

For more details, go here

Garden shed here I come...

2008-10-10T13:25:00.008+01:00

So our home has been taken over by the boot and his things. Any more additions (and by that I mean the boot's things, not another boot) and the sherpa and I will have to move in to the garden.

Interior design forecast for 08-09 is bright, quirky accessories....

the baby is optional...

questions motherhood makes you ask

2008-09-30T15:03:00.004+01:00

* when did i last wash my hair?
*did i brush my teeth this morning?
* is that the boot's snot?
* do they make post pregnancy bras with built in iron girders for support?
*if breast feeding burns calories can i eat all the chocolate hob nobs i want? no? why not?
*how many crying babies does it take to make you wish you'd taken a vow of celibacy? (Now this I know the answer to!)
*When will the baby wake up and can I make it to Fuerta Ventura by then?

The series in developing baby's intelligence

2008-09-19T10:40:00.002+01:00

Instruction manual for a musical, Made in China mobile.

"We are sure that all toys made by us will cause somewhat elicitation for the exploitation of baby's capacity.You will find that your baby is more clever and cute"

Indeed.

2008-09-06T03:28:00.003+01:00

So my 8 months of 'maternity leave' draws to an end. Tomorrow I return to London with the Boot. It's been a wonderful stay and as much as I look forward to going back to London, I'll miss Madras. Thanks to all my friends who cheered me up and took me out to lunch when I was feeling blue, who chauffeured me around town when I was fat and couldn't move, to the aunties who made me besan ladoos and payasam and contributed to the fat and to the wonderful Madras that helped me sweat the weight away... and most of all thanks to Amma and Appa who helped put the Boot to sleep, changed nappies, sang him silly family songs, found everything he did wonderful and fascinating when I was too tired to and generally took him off my hands whenever I felt an aneurysm coming on.

See you all next year!

The Boot celebrates his first Vinayaka Chaturthi

2008-09-03T11:08:00.001+01:00

and his mother reaps the benefits...

just to clarify things...

2008-08-13T03:48:00.002+01:00

breast feeding is NOT the most satisfying thing i have ever done. it's pretty boring, sometimes painful, my butt cheeks fall asleep and the entire process makes me feel like a very large, unattractive jersey cow. now, eating an entire packet of chocolate digestive biscuits by myself... that's pretty satisfying.

cut grass and kutchi ice

2008-08-13T03:37:00.005+01:00

when i'm in london i miss everything madras...the sun, family, friends, vazhaithandu, clothes drying on a line in our kollapakkam, milk cookers that stand in as roosters with their early morning screechy cock-a-doodle whistles, bad tv, the thwack of newspapers hitting the floor as delivery boys do the rounds, the reassuring thud of the nightwatchman's stick as it hits the neighbouring compound walls.

that i've been in madras for the better part of the year and i miss london. the sherpa, the quiet, my blue elephant and mouse, bad tv (i missed an entire season of big brother gasp!!!), my desk, the fat squirrels in the garden, that lovely blue the sky is in summer..and my home. my desk, the very uncomfortable couch and the fireplace with the brass frame thingy that keeps falling off...

i'll be back in london in less than a month. and i'll probably be wishing i had a milk cooker.

happy birthday to madras

2008-08-07T02:24:00.003+01:00

So, some very cool people are getting together and celebrating 369 years of the city with photowalks, photography exhibitions, open mic sessions and much more. Head over to Chandroo's site for more details about events, venues and timings. I've had to skip all the photowalks Chandroo and gang have organised these last seven months due to a)morning sickness b)laziness and c) my inability to photograph anything without i)red eyes b) being off centre... I will definitely be there at the sessions at Vanilla which is so close to home that I can jump over a compound wall and be there... the rest of you who are free from caterwauling babes have no excuse. See you there!

the writing is on the wall

2008-08-04T03:49:00.000+01:00

(Woodlands Hotel Wall. Reads: Dogs, do not urinate here)

long distance drishti*

2008-07-27T03:46:00.002+01:00

'You look terrible...look at those dark circles under your eyes. You were fine till yesterday... Ssss... your forehead is so hot. It's all kannu*... what else can it be? You were glowing I say... everyone has been saying that. Why, even your Chitti in Delhi saw those pictures you sent her and went on and on about how healthy you looked. I'll tell Anbu to buy a big pooshnikkai in the evening. "

'Yes, yes you're right' she agrees nodding her head in agreement 'It's all kannu'. And eight appams, four kozhakattais and three mullu murukku. And two servings of arisi uppuma.

*drishti,kannu - evil eye

look in to my eyes...and made up rhymes...

2008-07-21T03:31:00.002+01:00

Can I hire this guy to hypnotize the baby to sleep? My own beseeching requests seem rather ineffectual...

Apart from not knowing how many days old the baby is (Nurse: How old is the baby? Me: I think about 40 days... could be 50... Amma, how old is the baby?)my other failings as a new parent include not remembering a single song or nursery rhyme. I refuse to Google for them, since I'm sure they'll come back to me at some point of time, and so till then I make them up...

Incy wincy spider climbing up the spout
down came the rain and washed away his brussel sprouts...

Hush now baby don't you cry
mommy's going to buy you A Pocket Full of Rye
and if that pocketful of rye isn't funny
daddy's going to buy you From here to Eternity
And if that movie doesn't end quick
Mommy's going to buy you Moby Dick

and in other news... Aardvarks spotted on Old McDonald's farm... what noise do Aardvarks make anyway...

long before that pregnant dude on Oprah

2008-07-01T11:16:00.002+01:00

Shyam has passed on the Page 123 tag to me, so here goes.

These are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

The book: The Pregnant King by Devdutt Pattanaik. (Read a review here)

The extract:
'I am Sumedha, a Pujari from Pratishthana,' he said.
Simantini noticed he was tall with fine wavy hair falling on his shoulders. His shoulders were broad and he was thin, with sunken cheeks and full lips.
'And hers?'

midnight cowgirl and my last post about 2am feeds

2008-06-30T15:57:00.007+01:00

things to do at 2am when feeding a very small creature

a kegel exercises (read importance of kegel exercises here)

b wonder which phillip treacy hat shape one's chewed nipples most resemble. i'm inclined to go with no 3 at the moment (if i had a glue gun, some sequins and feathers on hand i'd even make a phillip treacy hat out of my nipples. (no reason why one can't be fashionable post delivery. also i promise this is the last time you'll be reading the word nipple on this blog.)

c more kegel exercises (i cannot stress the importance of this)

d try to remember all the lyrics of certain annoying ad jingles then desperately try to forget them.

e some more kegels (ignore this at your own peril)

make the most of what you have

2008-06-27T10:04:00.002+01:00

Emily Gravett, who yesterday won the UK's most prestigious children's illustration award, has revealed that her winning book was produced with the aid of rats' urine.

Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears is in fact dedicated to Button and Mr Moo, the rats, now deceased, which obliged the author by passing urine on cue.

They also proved indispensable for another task: nibbling away at pieces of paper, temptingly covered by Gravett with yoghurt, to create chewed edges and tooth-bitten textures for the book, which has the look of having been half-devoured by hungry rodents.

as i am currently in possession of a very small creature that produces copious amounts of pee and has a fondness for chewing things... i don't see why i can't win a major illustration award too.

See a gallery of the work here.

end of an era, etc

2008-06-24T04:28:00.006+01:00

After almost three decades subscription to The Hindu was cancelled in our home. The Times of India now lands on the floor of our veranda with a resounding 'thwack'.

**

After two months of ignoring it I looked through the pages of my notebook, filled with poor handwriting and attempts at doodles ('Yenna, nee periya DaVinci-nu neneppa?' Appa once asked before I snatched the book away). Attempts at writing did not progress much beyond a Pillayar suzhi. But surely that counts?

***

definition

2008-06-22T04:23:00.002+01:00

Kegel exercise: Contracting and relaxing of pelvic floor muscles with the aim of fortifying muscle tone and hopefully forever closing the portal door to Dimension X through which small creatures with viciously sharp gums escape and terrorise women at 2 am.

Wanted

2008-06-08T10:58:00.002+01:00

Detachable fake smile that emits tinkling laugh to mask grinding of teeth noise. To be worn when certain Mamis remember former lactating breasts that were as abundant as the Niagara Falls and then add 'tsk tsk paal porale unakku' (milk not enough for you.)

ps. thanks to everyone for their wishes! Boot and Shoefiend doing rather well.

Shoefiend Productions presents "Well, it sure felt like a bowling ball"

2008-05-30T06:55:00.001+01:00

Born to the Shoefiend and Sherpa on 28th May 2008 at 6am a baby boy weighing 3.4kg, known henceforth to the readers of this blog as The Boot.

my favourite quote of the week

2008-05-23T16:47:00.001+01:00

"Ovaries - I thought one had 700, like caviar"

From this article

interpret please/Spring Summer trends for CMs

2008-05-22T03:04:00.002+01:00

I'm in London. It's 2046 but I'm still 27(aren't dreams great?) I'm heading out to a friend's place for dinner and want to stop off somewhere and buy a bottle of wine. So I stop at a reasonably nice looking place and step in. Except when I step inside I'm in Moore Market. I figure, what the hell, there could be a wine shop in here somewhere. So I'm walking a long and sure enough there is a wine shop. So I open the door and find myself in what eerily looks like a large version of the cages they keep the chickens in at Lucky Chickens. Except the cage/wine shop is filled with students and they're all listening to Karunanidhi teach them calculus. Karunanidhi is wearing a red and white polka dot lungi, cut baniyan, trade mark glasses and rakish neckerchief.

may maadham

2008-05-11T14:10:00.005+01:00

slivers of darboos (watermelon), chunks of kirni (I don't know what it's called in English)liberally showered with sugar and left to chill in the fridge, mangoes - to be bitten in to skin and all every night juice trickling down chins and throats staining dresses and pillows, mangoes to be beaten in to milkshakes, mangoes to be made in to avakkai, mavudu and thokku, guavas, long, skinny, curly cucumbers, yelaneer, neer mor white like sea foam lapping against small floating islands of coriander, ginger and tiny black mustard seeds, panagham sweet dark and mysterious, water infused with vetiver roots left in an earthen pot, eau de cologne (yooodecalaan), sunday afternoon naps that often start mid morning, air heavy with heat, humidity and the hope that summer will not last forever.

(In response to this)

this weekend...

2008-05-09T16:05:00.002+01:00

I saw a promo for Pangea Day on Star World today and was intrigued enough to google it.

Pangea Day is on May 10, and is a four hour long event where 24 short films will be broadcast globally at main locations of Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro, in addition to being screened on TV and available online!

Head to the website for more info!

Mr. Burns

2008-05-05T04:24:00.000+01:00

That’s not his real name. She feels awful, christening him after a skinny, yellow hued, millionaire misanthrope from a cartoon. But it is the first thing that pops in to her head when she sees him near the broken bench taking small, measured steps. His skin a patchwork of brown, beige, pink and white each piece irregular and seamlessly merging with the next forming a quilt that is neither comforting nor welcoming. Even the baseball cap, shirt, trousers and sandals he wears look like they have melted. He scouts the area before settling down on a low wall, his body fitting snuggly in to its graceful, curved surface. He opens a greasy newspaper parcel and proceeds to eat some sort of mixed rice. Finished, he wipes his hands carelessly on his shirt, opens out the paper and proceeds to read it. He looks cool and relaxed unlike the other park loafers whose bare brown bodies look like parched river beds, irrigated only by small rivulets of sweat that dry up as soon as they appear. Perhaps Mr. Burns is used to the heat.

heat and dust

2008-04-29T11:31:00.002+01:00

she sits there and watches the grimy fan blades sluggishly displace the air and is reminded of those afternoons when the power would fail plunging the airless box that was vi c in to darkness forcing them to squint at the tattered maps bala miss used to teach them about the south westerly monsoons, arctic flora and fauna and the himalayas aware of the faint injustice of it all that lingered in the room along with the smell of kurma and sour curd rice unaware of irony

amateurs

2008-04-27T04:28:00.002+01:00

The park is full of them. Amateur photographers, lovers, plant waterers, walkers… the stone paved walkways and cracked benches are filled with dilettantes.

The camera phone appears to have opened the artistic third eye of almost everyone who can afford to own one. In the park, foliage is a favoured subject. I can understand that, the only other subject available in such abundance is necking lovers and surreptitiously taking pictures of them can only land one in hospital or a ditch. So every day, as I huff and puff my way through one more lap around the central green I see someone taking a picture of a leaf. Yes, just the one. Close up. Portrait. From a distance they look like plant therapists (or plant sniffers… does such a fetish exist?), examining their subject from all angles, murmuring to themselves. And then they look around, ensuring there’s no one there to catch them. Taking a picture. Of a leaf. Ha. But they forgot about me. I stealthily creep up on them and just as they click I emit a dry snort. The shoulders jerk, the hands tremble and the head snaps back. Deer caught in headlight eyes meet my amused gaze and a wan smile is offered.

Necking lovers seem to have discovered the delights of the camera phone too (though not in a way that could make them famous on hotdesiaunties.net) But years of having one’s picture taken at Shakti Studio on Luz Corner seems to have influenced our shutter bugs. So we have the surly faced artiste and a slightly nervous looking subject. The artiste insists subject find a suitable background to pose against. Since they’re in a park the usual choice is a group of trees (The bamboo shoots I find add a touch of Oriental exotic to the finished piece) or a bench surrounded by trees. Subject positions him/herself amidst shrubbery and stretches mouth in to a smile, eyes darting around in search of Gomathi Mami who would like nothing more than to tell their Amma what her precious off spring is up to in the name of Maths coaching class. Of course, this hurts the sensitivities of the artiste’s tender soul and forces him/her to goad the loved one in to doing better. “To the left, head down, open your eyes a little wider, don’t show all your teeth when you smile, push the hair away from your eyes, look happier, no no not so many teeth, pah! You’re so useless. Chee this picture is uvack, I will take another one. This time, hold that flower in your hand.”

And then there are the sad sacks. They like to secretly take pictures of Cuticura-dusted-tire-ridden Mamis too engrossed in conversations about Salman Khan’s prowess in bed to notice. If it’s a Friday and the Mami’s are walking around Kapaleeshwarar (no doubt still thinking about Salman) these photographers turn to the next best subject they have.
Themselves.

Of course, yours truly fancies herself a dab hand at photography too. I’m just smart enough to restrict my photographic adventures to our backyard..

home coming

2008-04-23T03:10:00.003+01:00

Indra sighed and walked away from the watchman and his snoring symphony over to the compound wall which had served as chair, ladder and look out point all through her childhood. It was hiding behind this wall she observed Chandru Mama at No 52 embrace the maid Selvi, as she hung clothes out to dry. It was on this wall she stood every summer (till Amma decided she was too old to be climbing walls) and flung stones at the Xavier’s mango tree, always missing the succulent fruits swollen with ripeness. When the neighbourhood descended in to power cut induced darkness Indra and her sister would rush out with a stumpy white candle each and light them along the wall, plunging their fingers in to the warm pooling wax as though sealing secret missives to far off kingdoms. Indra hoisted herself up on to the walls rough ledge and stared at the emptiness around her.
“It’s just a house Indra. Land, bricks and cement” her husband Madhav snapped when he found her going through an old photo album once the demolition date was set. “I don’t see what’s so terrible. You and your sister are each getting a flat, same size, same everything. What’s to cry about?”
Indra shook her head and wiped away the tears falling on old black and white picture of her family. She was standing on the bonnet of Appa’s Ambassador car, dressed as Gandhi for a fancy dress competition. How could she explain it to him? The house was a part of her: a repository of memories, secrets and dreams. There was the backyard tap she had hit her head on and needed sixteen stitches for. The bathroom she locked her grandmother in for a whole day when she shouted at Indra for disturbing her prayers. The hall cabinet where the cane that came out afterwards was placed alongside a corpulent laughing Buddha, porcelain dolls and the Johnson’s baby cream applied to the red welts that pushed their way up across her back. Her bedroom with its candy coloured walls and Formica cupboard covered in Mandrake stickers covered with posters of matinee idols. The living room with its wicker sofa set and mismatched cushions Indra curled up on each morning to drink Complan; and as she grew older Amma’s thick brown coffee. The giant rosewood swing she would push as Amma lay down and rested her legs swollen with arthritis. The uneven terrace floor she paced as she read history notes and clandestine, sulphurous love letters from the boy in Chemistry lab. The unused storage room that became a bedroom for those four days every month when the women were barred from using the rest of the house. She had slept, cried, trembled and laughed over its every square inch. How would Madhav understand when her own family didn’t? And they were the reason she felt the way she did.(clumsy)

It all started after Indra’s sister was born. Indra’s excitement on the day Amma and Appa brought home her newborn sister was short lived. Within the hour Appa shouted at her for not holding the baby properly, and inaugurated what would be years of fault finding and punishment. It was after her sister’s arrival that the canings began. Perhaps Appa wanted to beat out each and every one of Indra’s shortcomings, things he had always been aware of, but were now more obvious next to the perfection of her sister. The look in her father’s eyes when they gazed at her sister: the joy, pride, the love - he never looked at Indra like that. When he deigned to look at Indra his eyes would become slits of suspicion. With his coconut oiled thick hair, stocky body and fondness for bland food, Indra knew her willowy frame, stubborn curls and ability to eat pickle neat were looked upon with distrust. Indra was nothing like her father, or as she had often heard him say, ‘like anyone in his family’. Amma had none of Appa’s anger, but harboured something far worse - indifference. She had turned her back on Indra and looked to her second-born and garden - tender, young things that she could not be blamed for. They had kicked Indra out of their cosy inner circle and she found comfort in the house. Its seepage stained walls listened tirelessly to her, absorbing her hopes and dreams till they were saturated. Indra often caught a flash of jealousy in her sister’s face – as though she were envious of Indra’s freedom and the lack of expectation others had of her. Her sister was stuck in the coconut oil scented ring of their parent’s love and Indra appropriated the last bastion of refuge – the house - for herself.

Indra fanned herself with the embroidered edges of her sari. The sun was right over her head and she felt herself melting like her old wax candles. Indra smiled as she remembered the day she had married Madhav. She had leaned against this wall and wept as her life was loaded in to the new Maruti Appa had bought them. Her mother murmured a few harried words to her, distracted by the list of important things left to do: there were shiny new silver containers to distribute to the closest of family and friends, red and green blouse pieces to be given to the second tier of acquaintances, jewellery to be transferred to the bank locker and sacks of coconuts to give away. Appa had come up to Madhav with a distraught look on his face that bordered on pity and held his hand.
“She’s a very spoilt girl - don’t mind if she does something wrong.”
It was a tried and tested line, uttered on every wedding day real and celluloid for generations. It was at that moment Indra realised she was not crying at the thought of leaving her parents and sister. After all, they would have to visit each other. It was the sorrow of saying goodbye to her home. It was the knowledge that from that day onwards she would wake up in another room in another house, without the nagachampas to greet her. The familiar call of Shivaraman the vegetable vendor, the shrill whistle of their milk cooker, the suprabatham cassette that always jumped at the third stanza – none of them would make their way to her ears. Her tongue and hand would have to be retrained to recite and write out a new address. A new identity.
It had not been easy in Madhav’s house. It was her mother-in-law’s domain and had been for over thirty years. The oppressive dark brown cabinets, red velvet sofas and mottled mosaic floor depressed Indra and the more her mother-in-law clung to her power the guiltier Indra felt about denying her sister their home. Indra felt she should apologise, make things right and decided to bring the matter up on the occasion of the first Deepavali after her marriage to Madhav. Tradition dictated that Indra and Madhav celebrated it at her home. Or rather at her ‘parent’s home’ as her mother-in-law insisted she call it.

Amma as usual had been busy in the kitchen preparing lunch and distributing sweets and festival bonuses to servants, milkmen and cable boys, mindful as always of the social order and doling out her largesse accordingly. Appa and Madhav sat before the television watching an endless stream of movie songs and bad interviews with actresses who giggled and hair flicked more than they spoke. It was an easy way out of having to engage in the guarded, uncomfortable small talk that men related as they were, were forced to make. Indra and her sister were dispatched to give sweets to their neighbours and receive blessings from those Amma deemed worthy of doling them out.
“Don’t go to Neela’s house. She doesn’t have any children.” Amma instructed, as though the functioning of their reproductive organs could in some way be affected by another woman’s failed uterus. But they knew better than to argue and ducked as they passed Neela’s house. As they walked back from Chandru Mama’s house (where Indra had longed to ask after Selvi), adjusting their dazzling saris of copper sulphate blue and guava pink, Indra cleared her throat and began.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.” She began as the customary Deepavali drizzle sent all the children scurrying inside, leaving behind a mound of sodden empty firecracker boxes.
“Hmm. Tell me”
“I just wanted to say… well you know… it’s just that…”
“Indra please walk a little faster, I don’t want to get wet. Plus, there’s a Surya interview on TV at 11:00.”
Indra decided to talk to her sister after lunch. But Amma and Appa had made it unnecessary by announcing they were selling the house to developers who would build a set of luxury apartments. Apart from a considerable amount of money, they were receiving three flats – one for them, one for Indra and one for her sister. After lunch she and Madhav who was overjoyed at his good luck: a car and half a property from his father-in-law, left.

*

Trailing her fingers along the walls cracked face Indra walked to far end of the compound where the old garden shed stood. Indra rested the palm of her hand against its weather beaten door and pushed. It was always the stubborn one. The carpenter had taken the wrong measurements, and once it was up Appa refused to pay for it to be taken down and re-cut. After three hard shoves the door groaned open. Indra stepped in to its dark confines and the smell of rotting terracotta planters, monsoon soaked walls and rusty gardening tools shrouded her.

Indra sat down on a pile of ancient fertiliser bags. She hadn’t been here since she was thirteen and had failed a science mid-term. Fearing Appa’s wrath and the sting of his worn wooden cane she had come to the shed straight after school and hid beneath a sheet of tarpaulin. She only planned to stay for an hour to calm down and prepare for the inevitable. But after cycling home in the afternoon sun the cool, dampness of the shed put her to sleep. It was a stinging slap and her mother’s high-pitched cry of ‘Thank God!’ that woke her up. Amma wept dramatically while Appa looked on somewhat relieved, but angry. They had taken her inside where she was bathed in hot water and lovingly fed by Amma before sent to Appa and his cane. For some reason, the punishment that night was worse than usual – perhaps rage at the fact they had found her. Indra came down with a delirious fever, slipping in and out of consciousness for a week.

Indra picked up a broken pot and brushed the mud clinging to its base. The incident was over twelve years ago but she could remember it so clearly. Her cowering body, the manic almost otherworldly look on Appa’s face, the grunts that punctuated the rhythmic fall of the cane, the change in schools so that no one asked awkward questions. The family meeting where matters were discussed behind closed doors and after which it was referred to as ‘the accident’ – as though Indra had repeatedly fallen on her father’s cane out of clumsiness. It was the last time Indra was punished. The cane and the incident were dispatched to a place no one could see or speak of it. It was the family’s way of dealing with things. What they didn’t like they hid from sight or got married off.

Indra slid down and sat on the dank floor. They had shut her out once before, but she had been able to seek refuge in the warm embrace of her home. And now they had taken that away from her too. She curled her legs beneath her body, rested her head on the lumpy sacks of manure and closed her eyes. There was only one place left for her. Her family would know where to look.

home coming - i

2008-04-20T13:51:00.002+01:00

(Don't know how I feel about this story anymore... )

Indra surveyed the remains of what was once her home. The compound wall, covered in the swirls and arcs of paan sprayed graffiti and creaking front gate stood bereft without the house they were meant to protect. Unlike some of the other gates on the road that had flowers, ‘Oms’ and a heavy bosomed apsara worked in to the design, the black iron grills of their gate were thick, jail-like bars. Appa insisted that the severe design would deter thieves, trespassers and unwanted incense stick and sanitary napkin peddlers from entering the premises. Amma had hankered after an arched multicoloured entrance depicting a pot bellied Ganesha, his mouse and plates laden with sweets and fruit. But Appa vetoed the idea.
“That’s like telling thieves – Come right in sir! No obstacles for you here, Ganesha will let you right in.”
Of course, they all knew the real reason Appa said no was that novelty gates cost a fortune. Amma quietly acquiesced but never missed an opportunity to grumble about Appa’s tightfistedness behind his back. Every time Amma pushed open their gate, or passed their neighbour’s 12 foot, gilt-edged gothic monstrosity (a bit much for the modest 60’s bungalow it guarded), she would narrow her eyes and curse Appa. The fact that their gate was easily and constantly nudged open by itinerant cows attracted by the sight of the lush green leaves in Amma’s garden and did nothing in reducing the number of sales people and their persistent mid afternoon bell ringing made it even worse.

Indra rubbed her fingers against the gate’s ineffective latch before pushing the doors wide open. She raised her fingers to her nose and inhaled the sharp smell of rusted iron as she walked up to where the front door had once stood. Indra bent down to unstrap her sandals, but stopped herself when she realised there was no longer any need for that. There was no intricate, powdery white kolam; borders edged in red to leap over. No terracotta coloured floor tiles swabbed twice a day with hot water and salt, no faded rug to protect from mud. There was nothing. Even the rubble had been cleared away.
“It’s too big for just the two of us now that you and your sister have gone.” Amma said. “What will Appa and I do in such a big house? If we had a son then he and his family would stay with us. But we aren’t so fortunate. Do you know, just the other day in Madipakkam an old couple were strangled by their own watchman? It’s not safe anymore- it’s kali yuga after all.” Amma had recently taken to blaming everything – water shortages, the scantily clad women who danced in film songs, the price of onions – on this final, sin infested age of man that they were said to be living in. “Don’t worry. You and your sister will each get a flat. 3000 square feet with a veranda, kitchen-come-dining, everything. You can even choose the bathroom tiles,” she added as though that would make everything all right.

Indra looked back at the street she had grown up on. The mid afternoon June sun had evacuated it of the children, stray dogs and mobile ironing stand that usually staked claim to various segments of its tree lined length. Everyone was hiding behind ephemeral shields of sleep; the iron man and dogs curled up beneath the shade of his stand, the more fortunate spread out beneath fans or soothed by the cool whisper of split-level air conditioners. The construction workers who lived on the grounds of her old home were the worst off; makeshift cardboard and palm leaf shacks were all they could afford. Yet even they slept; legs poking out of gaping doorways like burnt match sticks. The afternoon silence was interrupted every four seconds by the security guard who sat snoring on a rickety green chair placed under the palm tree’s meagre shade. It was the only tree left standing; the red and white hibiscus bushes, jasmine vines and the yellow nagachampa were all hacked down before the demolition.

Indra stood before the watchman and felt a familiar angry depression swell up inside her. How could Amma let them do this? She had called those plants her children; named, fed, groomed and sung songs to them. Indra remembered how Amma hated plucking the flowers, sucking her breath in sharply every time she snapped a tender green stalk, as though she shared their pain.
‘Eh! Don’t smell them’ Amma would admonish Indra and her sister when they helped her gather flowers as children. ‘God should be allowed the pleasure of their fragrance first.’
The nagachampa had always been Indra’s favourite. Its branches caressed the balcony adjoining her bedroom on the second floor and for as long as she could remember it was their deep, intoxicating fragrance that lulled her to sleep every night and that she woke up to each morning. She was always aware of the sin involved in inhaling their sweet scent before the flowers were strung in to garlands for God, but would rationalise that short of breathing there was little else she could do. Now, apart for the single coconut tree the compound was stripped bare of greenery.
“Don’t worry. We are leaving the coconut tree, madam” the site manager had simpered “We are calling the building Palm Haven after all, how can we cut it down?”

fear of

2008-03-27T11:56:00.002Z

She is scared.

That before her breasts sag, before invisible crows place their feet in the wet cement that is her skin, before the first touch of grey settles in her hair, before she is need of a cataract operation, before she becomes the ‘one’ in the one in two women over fifty who get osteoperosis, before she officially becomes an Aunty to the twenty something who uses words like ‘tony’ in place of ‘posh’ (what on earth is wrong with posh?) before all these inevitabilities.

She is scared her hands will be the first to go.

Veined, mottled, worn, callused.

Old.

She cannot say for sure when the slow growing seeds of this phobia were planted, but she has hazy recollections of her great grandmother’s hands. Frail, white to the point of ghostly, covered in veins blue like the tributaries of a river, malleable. When pinched the skin would bunch together like a small ball of aata for a few seconds before deflating and joining the rest of her hand. She tells her therapist about this. But he rubbishes her theory and mumbles something about her mother. According to him everything is about her mother. She checks the diplomas on his wall one day when he is out attending to a phone call. He has obtained it through correspondence.

Her mother does not give her phobia any credence.

‘You’re just lazy. You don’t want to do anything, you don’t want to learn to cook or do needlework. Lazy. And you’re using some phobia-shobia nonsense as an excuse. So unfriendly also you have become, refusing to shake hands with Verma Uncle’s boy who came last week.’

The ‘boy’ was forty years old and had been digging his nose till the introductions were complete. How could she allow her carefully preserved hands to touch such a thing? God knows where else it had been.

‘And look how many creams you use. God gave us hands to do work, not to cover in expensive creams and gloves. How will I ever get you married if you are like this? Refusing to learn to cook and arrange flowers? Who will want you?’

She watched a show about a handicapped man with no arms who used his feet for everything. Driving, eating, cooking, dressing his children. His paintings sell for thousands. Inspired, she tried to do the same (trying not to think too much about how he cleaned himself after his morning crap)

‘What is wrong with you?’ her mother screams after an attempted coffee mug lift with her feet. ‘God has given you two good arms and hands and you are doing this? Chee chee! Why God, why did I have to get a daughter like this?’

She gives her seventy year old uncle a foot shake. A bad idea. Already gripped by senility he was under the impression she was trying to kick him. Silly old man. Why would she do that?

She goes without a fuss. It is all very quiet and dignified. Not at all like in the movies where a van comes and ugly men in white uniforms strap you to the stretcher and carry you away kicking and screaming. Oh no. Of course she was somewhat startled to see her therapist at the front door on a Sunday evening. But she didn’t see why she shouldn’t go with him. He had seemed so reasonable. Other than the little pin prick in her arm, the whole evening was very pleasant.

She isn’t exactly sure why she is here now. But she likes it. The room is clean, she is fed and bathed. And they give her gloves when she paints. Of course none of her paintings sell for thousands, but her mother always takes one home after her weekly visit. She is not over her phobia of ageing hands. But she can pick up a pencil with her toes.

maybe he was just after a treat

2008-03-25T05:23:00.003Z

tis the season

2008-03-22T06:06:00.000Z

for vadu maanga!

thwack

2008-03-22T02:37:00.000Z

She watches him swab the floor of the house. Tall, slender and long limbed he might have been a ballet dancer in another life. Or, from the way he scuttles across the floor with his rag and bucket of soap water - a spider. He calls her papa. She is thirty and has two children. But then her mother 'is the only Amma of the house'. She has nightmares that she is fifty and still called papa, a member of the coterie of women with silly names – Birdie Athai, Papa Chitti, Hyma Mami. (the last name always making her blush). She has tried to get him to call her Akka. But he will not. ‘No, you will always be papa to me’ he says with an almost toothless smile and cackle. Sitting on the divan she watches him go by with his grey rag and imagines his spidery limbs fractured beneath her slippered foot.

this morning

2008-03-18T13:27:00.001Z

The roads are blocked and traffic has been diverted to make way for His monstrous vehicle. My chariot is neither redolent with flowers nor pulled by devotees. It is yellow and black and manned by khaki clad Shekhar. He navigates his auto through the tiny back alleys that lead up to Mundakanniamman Koil with an ease and agility that belies the three wheelers rounded frame. I am reminded of a plump classmate whose chubbiness never came in the way when she danced. Perhaps it was her extra weight that added grace and to her movements. The elderly, women and children line the streets. The nightgown has usurped the nylon sari as the stay at home uniform of the middle classes. A neck hole, two arm holes, a zipper and a hem is all it takes to turn yards of floral fabric in to shapeless thing called a garment. A beating drum turns my attention to the man they have come to see – the utsavar of a nearby Ramar koil is doing the rounds.

Mundakanniaman’s darbar is full, her famous large rounded eyes glare at the throng of devotees who have come to beg for her favour. Under the shade of a large tree naagars of varying shapes and sizes fashioned out of black stone are anointed in a sticky mixture of milk, kunkumam and manjal. Coloured string, letters and other missives hang off the branches of the tree. A cat laps at a pool of milk, its pink tongue lost in the murky liquid that has pooled at the feet of two intertwined stone snakes. The gathering’s attention is suddenly diverted as Rama’s utsavar pauses outside the temple doors. All that can be seen from where I stand is His gleaming silver bow. It is as though we are all at some sort of heavenly red carpet event where fans fawning over one celebrity are suddenly sidetracked by the dazzling appearance of another. Guiltily they look away from the Utsavar and return their adoring gazes to Amman’s feet. Perhaps they are afraid to look in to her eyes.

It never ceases to amaze me how much these narrow streets contain: overflowing dustbins, Honda City’s that stick out and yet seem at ease parked outside a store that makes dance costumes and a dreadlocked man who looks stoned. Amma points out the tailor who used to make blouses for her in college ‘For Rs. 1.50’ and the crumbling old flat she lived in for a year after my grandfather retired.

Appar Swamy Koil is deserted in comparison. ‘You should come here during Pradosham’ Amma says as she notes my eyes sweeping the forlorn courtyard, her voice a tad defensive. I have been here once before I tell Amma on an equally deserted day for a friend’s Veena recital. I remember sitting with her family, teacher and Nandi for forty minutes as she fumbled her way through Rara Venu Gopala and other songs. Inside a young mother lights earthen lamps before Durga, the latter’s features eroded by time. She tries to control her daughter - a small bundle of powder, cheap silk and saamandhi.

I wonder what her mother is praying for.

question

2008-03-14T05:25:00.000Z

What is the English word for nappasai?

Women's Poetry Competition

2008-03-12T10:20:00.002Z

Mslexia has announced its annual Women's Poetry Competition. This year's entries will be judged by Carol Ann Duffy. Poems may be in any style, of any length, on any subject. Sequences will be judged as separate poems.

Prizes

1st Prize £1000

2nd prize £500

3rd prize £250

22 other finalists will win £25 each and all winning poems will be published in Mslexia. There's an entry fee of £5 that allows you to enter up to three poems.

Closing date: 25 APRIL 2008

Poems from women of any nationality from any country will be accepted.

For more details of rules, eligibility etc click here.

rationing

2008-03-11T13:09:00.002Z

Nagalakshmi lowered herself on to the cracked red oxide floor and stretched her legs out before her. She leaned against the rusting iron frame of the bed and slid a hand in to the dusty space that lay beneath, searching for the small jar of Tiger Balm. She found it behind the rear leg of the bed, slowly pulled it out and unscrewed the shiny hexagonal lid inscribed with foreign lettering. It was a daily ritual; one of many minutiae of her life that was dragged out for as long as possible to fill up the seemingly eternal hours after lunch and before nightfall. Nagalakshmi inhaled the familiar, overpowering smell that emanated from what was left of the stiff orange balm that clung to the glass walls of the jar. Her finger scavenged about inside the jar before extricating a tiny pea sized dollop which she split in to two smidgens and rubbed in to the sagging skin that covered her knees.
The balm was a precious commodity. But unlike the small box of saffron that sat on the top most shelf of Nagalakshmi’s kitchen and came down only important festival’s it was a daily treat.
Both were gifts from Nagalakshmi’s niece as was the cordless telephone and microwave. The girl was a thoughtful child, always bringing her a little something when she returned from abroad. The phone was useful (though initially on noticing the absence of coiled wire Nagalakshmi thought it was broken) but the microwave scared her. It flashed and groaned loudly and needed special vessels. And what use did she have for it anyway? Her one ring stove took care of all her cooking needs. But she kept it all the same, storing surplus provisions in it and using the top as a makeshift shelf for her prayer books. When her niece visited, Nagalakshmi was careful to empty out the microwave of grains and pulses and clean it.
“It’s so very useful” Nagalakshmi would tell her “I don’t know what I’d do without it.”
Yes, her niece was always bringing her useful gifts. Mostly. But she didn’t visit as often as she used to, so it was important that perishables were made to last for as long as possible.

It would be another six months before her niece arrived. Nagalakshmi leaned against the cot and reached for the tiger balm again. Her knees still hurt. She looked inside the jar at the meagre remnants and satisfied herself by deeply inhaling its scent instead.

indha vaaram!

2008-03-06T01:46:00.003Z

30 vagai...

kurma
idli
podimaas
payasam
poli
kozhakattai
dosai
kalandha sadam
kesari
vaththal
thideer samaiyal

pala vagai...

vaandhi
bedhi

meanwhile

2008-03-02T01:46:00.001Z

They formed a formidable fortress around me the day after my wedding; an impenetrable and inescapable wall of silk saris, diamonds and withering jasmine. The women of the family — aunts, sisters, cousins and friends had cornered me with an expectant look on their faces. I had been forewarned of this: the not so subtle interrogation about the night before by those who had suffered a similar fate. Apparently, these mouths that fluently and piously intoned the Lalitha Sahasranamam were also capable of spouting SJ Suryah style dialogues. I cringed, waiting for the first missile.

“When are you opening your gifts?”

Eh? Gifts? Clearly, materialistic pleasures had gained the hierarchical upper hand that day, and so, without further ado we all sat down to an afternoon of present opening with all the restraint of a post birthday five year old high on a sugar rush.

With the wedding season and summer heat looming large, the invitations have been piling up at home and there’s nothing I like more than perusing and passing judgement on these increasingly tome like missives (we received one the other day with pops up and seven inserts. The only thing missing was a musical greeting). I’m particularly interested in those lines inserted that deal with the receiving of gifts, presentations and good old fashioned cash. These insertions vary from the direct and slightly rude ‘No gifts and presents’ to the more polite ‘Please gift the couple with your blessings alone’ to the somewhat ambiguous ‘Grace the occasion with your presence only’. Why do people do this? And, more importantly, are we expected to respect the wishes of our hosts and turn up empty handed, hearts full of love and blessings or should we arrive armed with the mandatory vanilla envelope?

Those who decide to follow a hosts instructions and turn up sans gift often run embarrassing risks. There’s nothing worse than showing up empty handed at a wedding reception and finding a long line of guests ready to shower the couple with their blessings and a deluxe casserole set. Except perhaps finding out that the bride has lost ten pounds since you last saw her, a time frame during which you’ve had triplets and discovered the benefits of eating brownies for breakfast.

I believe gifts serve a purpose. They help bridge the awkward transition from saying ‘Congratulations’ and complimenting the bride’s svelte appearance through gritted teeth to being asked to pose for a photograph. Always wait to be asked. Without something tackily wrapped in shiny reflective paper to hand over, one can end up looking like a cheapskate who just wants their photo taken before running off to eat. Secondly, gifts also help you stand out in an ocean of guests. For example, ten rupees in the envelope the wedding invite came in tags one as a miser. Or recently divorced from Heather Mills McCartney.

I’ve often wondered why some families have a ‘no gifts’ policy. It can’t be that they eschew materialism and are all for a more ascetic approach to life, other wise they’d encourage their children to elope and have register marriages instead of the multi crore shenanigans weddings are today. I think it’s all an attempt to sidestep vicious bad gift karma. Think about it, we’re all guilty of having palmed off coconut Ganpathis and novelty singing trout to newly weds. And in order for the universe to remain in a state of equilibrium its only fair that this behaviour comes back to bite us in our backsides in the form of alarm clocks cleverly disguised as footballs or — what an idea — vases in the form of flowers!

Of course, every now and then there’s a wedding invitation that takes your breath away, and it’s not just because of their innovative use of glitter and Lord Ganpathi. A few years ago, a friends friend sent out invitations to her nuptials with a little card inserted that said (and I summarize) ‘As we are young and irresponsible, please don’t gift us things for our new home. We’re likely to break, lose or never use them. Instead, money (preferably cash) will help us start our lives on happy, solvent note.’ While some gasped and shook their heads in despair before putting back the Mickey Mouse photo frame they had hoped to palm off, I couldn’t help but marvel at the couple’s cheek.

I’m all for gifts — good, bad and tacky. They provide hours of fun to those opening them, help build up an ample arsenal of gifts to throw at other hapless couples and most important of all, they keep at bay your Aunt’s nosey questions about how many moles your other half has. And I don’t mean of the rodent kind.

(This piece appeared in today's edition of the NewIndPress Sunday magazine)

she wonders 2

2008-02-27T12:09:00.002Z

The villi (they are all villis, no villains) has lied to an old friend of hers who happens to be a married man, that she has blood cancer. The man marries her. Apparently he feels sorry for her. Fake blood cancer lady has a kalla kadhalan. When wife no 1 realises second wife has no cancer she tries to prove this. However blood cancer lady is romba ushaar and so suddenly claims her blood cancer has been cured and then proceeds to fake a pregnancy, thereby managing to maintain a hold over man. When wife 1 realises pregnancy is fake and finds proof of this, fake blood cancer and fake pregnancy lady fakes a miscarriage! And so on and so forth.. why wife 1 did not say tata to husband when he came home with fake blood cancer wife remains a mystery. Perhaps that is the tamizh kalacharam every one is talking about.

She wonders

2008-02-27T11:45:00.002Z

Do schools still have Moral Science lessons? Is there still a Music hour? Are children forced to learn Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram and write essays on Cleanliness is next to Godliness? Do canteens still sell vegetable puffs and bread channa so greasy the oil soaks right through the paper plate? Are uniforms still as unattractive as they were all those years ago? Is there still English I and English II? Do class seven students reading the unabridged version of Twelfth Night still giggle when Lady Olivia falls in love with Cesario? Do Book Depot Aunties still insist on being called Ma’am even though they don’t teach? Did teachers still yank at long oiled braids when homework hasn’t been done? Does ‘Fingers on your lips’ still echo through cobwebbed corridors? Do knees still carry the imprint of sand and gravel stone? Do dispensary sanitary napkins still look like balls of cotton wrapped in gauze? Do fingers still carry the stains of Royal Blue ink? Are Schaeffer pens still waved imperiously in the faces of Reynold bearing mortals? Do March Past and Mass Drill still strike terror in the hearts of the fairest of the fair? Do students still cheer as half days are announced when school correspondent’s die? Do notebooks still slide surreptitiously in to bags as the clock hands inch towards the end of a day? Is chapathi kurma still looked at longingly by children who are sent idli molagapodi?
Do all these things seem wonderful only because they are all so long ago in the past?

sunday afternoons are for tags

2008-02-24T09:47:00.000Z

Or at least that's what I tell myself before doing this tag, surnotes has handed over. Also, I have twenty minutes to go before bugging Amma for some more coffee.

A -Available?
For?

B-Best friend:
Don’t have just one

C-Cake or Pie?
I’m greedy, so both

D-Drink of choice:
Leo Coffee

E-Essential thing used everyday:
Soap

F-Favourite colour:
Maroon

G-Gummi bears or worms:
Gummi bears. The yellow ones

H-Hometown:
Madras

I-Indulgence:
Blank note books

J-January or February:
February. One month closer to summer

K-Kids and names:
Undecided

L-Life:
??

M-Marriage date:
June 7th

N-Number of siblings:
1

O-Oranges or apples:
Oranges

P-Phobias:
Heights

Q-Quote:
Unquote?

R-Reason to smile:
Creature Comforts

S-Season:
Autumn. Crisp, fresh and filled with some of my favourite colours.

T-Tag three people:
Whoever wants to take this up?

U-Unknown fact about me:
I used to have a blanket addiction as a child

V-Vegetable you do not like:
I am very

W-Worst habit:
Hair fiddler

X-x-rays you have had:
Chest?

Y-Your favorite food:
Vengaya aracha vitta sambhar, urulaikizhangu curry, avakkai sadam suttai appalam

Z-Zodiac:
Libra

"Kamala"

2008-02-20T07:14:00.002Z

See, there she is, at my daughter’s wedding. No, no not that one, this one. Dressed in the magenta sari. One side border. Was so friendly with everyone, even Periamma who is so hard to please had something nice to say about her. She seemed like such a nice girl you know. No trace of the arrogance and conceit that they later said she possessed. Or - and I tell you this only because I know you won’t tell anyone else – an abnormal sexual appetite. Who could tell by looking at her? Can you imagine? In a girl from such a good family too. But of course, one never knows what truth there is in rumours like this. People are always making things up. I am only telling you what I have heard. Her poor parents. 100 sovereigns gold! Even her anklets. Chitti says that that is why the marriage didn’t last…tying Goddess Lakshmi to one’s feet like that. The catering bill itself was Rs. 3 lakhs and her bridal makeup Rs. 40,000. She’s not the most photogenic girl as you can see. See, there she is at the reception. All that money spent and she was back in her parent’s home in two years. They say he came home one day and found all sorts of dirty things on the computer – pictures and all. Chee chee. And she would talk for long hours on the phone with his friends when he wasn’t there. But who knows the truth? I remember that even as a little boy he was prone to telling tales. Anyway he was the one who wanted the divorce. I met her mother at Swamiji’s Ashram a few months ago. Poor woman had become half of what she used to be. And who can blame her? She pretended like she hadn’t seen me, perhaps she felt bad, seeing that I’m related to him. But why should she feel bad? So I went right up to her and said hello. She was very vague, said the girl was in Bangalore working for a software company. Have another bonda. And some chutney. I didn’t tell Mami he had already remarried. She might feel bad. I’m sure the girl will get married again soon. And why not… so common these days. Best let her choose though. I called up his mother. She’s my cousin on my father's side. Well she listens to everything I had to say and then tells me ‘I don’t ever want to hear her name mentioned again’! Imagine! As though she couldn’t say that before I told her everything. Don’t mention her name! As though that will cancel out two years of marriage and erase the girl's very existence. But see, here she is in my daughter’s wedding album. Whether I say her name or not.

Telling tale

2008-02-18T08:17:00.000Z

My companions giggled nervously as we approached The Music Academy. Its parking lot, usually overflowing with vehicles and people on performance evenings wore an uncharacteristically forlorn look. And we weren’t even that early for Attakalari’s evening performance of Purushartha, a multimedia dance production described as ‘a unique blend of Indian movement idioms and Japanese digital and sonic arts’. Where was the city’s enthusiastic dance audience? Did they know something we didn’t? As we handed over our tickets and stepped inside the auditorium, we looked around trying to see how many seats were filling up. ‘Give it another ten minutes’ a friend said, so we turned our attention to the performance bills that had been thrust in to our hands at the entrance. We needn’t have worried, for by 7:30 the lower circle of the hall was almost full, the air alive with the buzz of pre-performance anticipation, air kisses and ‘excuse me’s as tardy rasikas trod on feet.

Roughly translated in to ‘the meaning of being’, the hour long production explored the Hindu concept of ‘the objectives of human life – dharma, artha, kama and moksha’ through Attakalari’s unique blend of kalaripayattu, yoga, bharatanatyam mudras and other contemporary dance forms. Not that I would have necessarily known this had I not read about the show before hand. For though based on an ancient concept this Indo-Japanese venture made no obvious references to the underlying philosophy at all. Instead, Jayachandran Palazhy, Artistic Director and Choreographer and Kunihiko Matsuo, Music Director and Interactive Technology Director presented an abstract work, set against stark, often bewildering visuals and set to contemporary Japanese noise music.

‘Are those sperm?’ a friend whispered in to my ear at one point when the stark white background on to which everything from geometric shapes to mysterious blue ripples and scenes from popular cinema (Thillana Mohanambal? Helen!) to shots of desolate bus stops and even the performers on stage, was covered with small, wiggling commas. ‘Do you have any theories?’ another whispered ‘Mine have all been shot to pieces’. The guessing games soon came to an end though, as we became mesmerised by the dancers and their lithe, agile bodies that leapt and rolled across the stage. The female dancers, some so slender they looked like they might snap in half picked up their muscular male counterparts with effortless ease, wrapping them around their slender frames like pythons before setting them down again. In their minimalist white layered tunics the dancer’s were hypnotic. It didn’t really matter if they were telling a tale or not though some of the themes such as love, lust, separation and meditation were more apparent than others. The music ranged from a topsy turvy countdown to chants to strange high pitched noises. If anyone hoped for a finale that revealed some hidden secret or inner meaning, they were in for a disappointment as the show ended with an abrupt ‘Stop’ and lights out.

If Attakalari’s Purushartha was stark, abstract and at times puzzling then Anusham’s production Ganga was a dazzling 180 degree turn. Choreographed by L Narendrakumar the sixty minute performance staged at Bharath Kalachar was back by popular demand, and it was easy to see why the production was so successful with audiences.
A riot of colour, Ganga was a joyous and exuberant mix of bharatanatyam, folk dance, music and storytelling. The dance drama was a montage of life along the banks of the holy river, the festivals celebrated in her honour, Buddha’s enlightenment and scenes from the life of Shankara and Kabir. A sprightly boatman acted as narrator and led the audience by the hand from one enactment to another, singing and dancing along the way.

My favourite piece was the reenactment of Lord Shiva’s taming of the mighty river. The battle between the haughty Ganga - four dancers dressed in shimmering sequined shades of blue - and Lord Shiva was a thrill to watch, and even though I knew that the outcome was inevitable I couldn’t help but secretly root for the river to put a dampener on Shiva’s plans. Unlike the rest of the audience, perhaps too mature to openly ‘ooh and aah’, two little girls dressed in their best pavadai sattais sitting in the row before me had no compunction in showing their admiration. Completely enthralled by the costumes, smoke effects and infectious music they were on the edge of their seats for most of the performance. But no one could contain their admiration at the finale and Periyathambi of Koothu-p-pattarai’s acro-asanas.

It would be impossible and wrong to compare the two performances, as both were so varied in style, content and theme. While Purushartha let the audience interpret the piece for themselves, Ganga used more traditional storytelling techniques that left no room for doubt. What was common to both though was their ability to keep their audiences transfixed throughout and talking long after the curtains had come down.

Thirunelveli halwa for my Valentine

2008-02-14T15:34:00.003Z

Everyone's writing triolets at Ammani's, so I thought I'd join in. Mine, is quite bad, and the triolet took a turn for the worse when I couldn't think of many things that rhymed with halwa. Oh well. Happy Valentine's!

I made you Thirunelveli halwa
On our last Valentine
Singing songs from Jalwa
I made you Thirunelveli halwa
While you were out bonking Alpa
So I added a pint of turpentine
I made you Thirunelveli halwa
On our last Valentine

yes yes of course

2008-02-07T10:27:00.000Z

She wished she wasn’t so nice. Why was she so nice? From where did this need to please arise from? Good girl. If you’re a good girl I’ll give you this chocolate. This new dress, this new jewellery set, a good name in the family. The last was the most useless of all things she had been offered in return for her goodness. She hated the way her head nodded involuntarily in agreement to every request, statement and command. Of course I’ll make bajjis for everyone. Yes, yes I agree, she shouldn’t be wearing such revealing clothes at her age. She was a cow she decided. A boom boom maadu that shook its gaily painted horns at one and all.
She envied the women in the mega serials she watched every evening. Not the stupid innocent daughter-in-laws, fat and well fed on curd rice and naiveté, draped in printed nylon saris and round bindis who got duped and tricked by everyone. Oh no. While others tsked and gasped at their machinations, she secretly cheered on the mother-in-laws, sister-in laws and mistresses. The villis. The vamps. She yearned to be more like them in their garish embroidered saris, matching jewellery sets, barely there blouses and bindis that spread across their foreheads like poisonous trees. Yes yes, poison your husband. Push your sister over the edge of the balcony. Steal that baby. She spent her afternoons formulating cutting, witty repartees that she would throw in the faces of those who mocked her. She had plotted ways of wreaking revenge on the Periamma who called her fat and the cousin who won over others with her charming ways and flouncy hair. Yes, today would be the day she broke free of her need to please. She would do as she liked. She would leave her hair open after 6 in the evening, not wear a petticoat beneath her nightie and insist on having onion sambhar next ammavasya. Yes, as soon as she finished her niece’s science project she would learn to say no.

Food for arthropods, protective shields that ward off the evil eye, welcome mats or road side art?

2008-02-03T04:14:00.000Z

They are often the first sounds of the day. Under the jamun coloured sky a gate opens, groaning and creaking, protesting at being woken up so early in the morning, Water is splashed from a chipped plastic bucket, not poured, not sprinkled but splashed. Handfuls scooped out and flung against the dusty earth before one’s home. And then a silence, punctuated by the shuffle of feet and the occasional jin-chuk of anklet bells. The length of this silence varies. It depends on the mood of anklet wearer, what day of the week it is, what month it is, auspiciousness levels and whether kaavi is to be added or not. During certain months, a subtle, unspoken rivalry comes in to play. Designs become more elaborate. Arabesques, curlicued flowers and chariots spill out on to the street. Adept hands turn bland rice powder in to menageries bursting with peacocks, butterflies, elephants and leaping fish. Without measuring aids pullis are spaced with military precision and then looped and joined together in an elaborate version of connect the dots. Like imperious rulers ordering about their court artisans, some women stand guard urging the hand that creates to go further, try harder and be more imaginative as though their glory is somehow reflected in these creations. But unlike monuments dedicated to lovers, portraits and poetry that are preserved for posterity, these works of art are ephemeral and will not live to see the next day.

The Floating Lord

2008-01-29T10:44:00.000Z

We enter through the gate opposite Leo Coffee, insignificant in the surge of arms, legs and braided hair that whip the face if one gets too close. I stumble through the small opening in the wall and all I can see are people. Pressed against one another, buying and selling packets of puffed rice, scolding children, acting truant, laughing, chatting, glaring and protesting. I frequently look up in to the grape black night sky for respite before training my eyes on the moving swirl of humanity. We edge close to the wall, my mother holding my hand as though I am 7 and not 27. But I do not resent this, I am grateful for her fingers entwined around mine, aware that if I let go I might get swallowed by a mouth that might spit me out in some unrecognizable form. We reach the wall and look down the steps that lead to the edge of the tank. Every square inch is occupied by a sari, dhoti, paavadai or trouser clad bottom. Large, small, sagging and compact. Callipygous.

We crane our necks and look around the tank and spot an unoccupied section of steps. It is not too far a away and we are soon over the wall, pulling articles of clothing that have ridden up back in to place. Carefully we make our way to the last and broadest step and begin the walk around the tank. Along the way, female hands steady us and voices shout out warnings ‘Be careful’. Another voice, male and angry shouts out ‘Make way’! We look over our shoulders. A long line of men pulling a thick rope march towards us. Behind them, their Lord slowly bobs up and down on the surface of the water. He is seated majestically on a covered float that is draped with lights, flowers and bare-chested men who are singing His praises. We scuttle up the stairs and stand at an appreciative distance, letting Him pass by before we resume our journey to the vacant steps.

By the time we reach our destination, the Lord has navigated to the other side of the tank. We settle down and wait for our paths to cross again, passing the time by pointing out landmarks, catching up on street gossip and nudging each other slyly when women in particularly interesting blouses with windows, doors and skylights walk by.

The tank serves many purposes. Home to a flock of geese (ducks?) and schools of fish that fight over the puffed rice some throw. A messenger carrying people’s desires, prayers and hopes in the form of lamps set afloat on its rippling skin. A gigantic foot sauna to those who dip their feet in and disturbingly, a source of drinking water to others who greedily drink from it.

While many are there to seek the Lord’s blessings, some appear to have come for an evening out. Women’s faces scrubbed with turmeric shine resplendently and take on an other worldly glow under the lights. Some children are dressed in their best attire. Twins in identical clothes that perhaps still smell of air conditioned shops while there is more than one man who has brought out his sandal wood coloured silk kurta. Some of course haven’t bothered to dress for the occasion, like the group of children still wearing crumpled school uniforms with tattered ribbons in their hair. They cling to the striped walls like baby monkeys shouting out to one another, lost in their own make believe world.

We wait for the float to pass us by once more, and this time study Him closely. Bejeweled and loftily carrying his vel, surrounded by admirers, fish and ducks (geese?), the floating Lord meets our gaze before moving on. It is my first time theppam and I wonder whether the divinity radiates from the Lord outwards and bathes the audience or comes from within the people and shines on to him.

(probably couldn't find it, because I misspelled it :P) (callipygous:Having beautifully proportioned buttocks)

afternoon in the park

2008-01-28T04:46:00.000Z

The woman wears a lime green sari and a scowl that suits her acidic six yard garb. There is a whiff of Cinthol in the air as Nylex Nalini passes by. Does she bathe before coming to the park? Is each lap a sacred perambulation around a garbha griha *of bamboo trees, sleeping men and young lovers who spend more time texting one another than touching? She remembers a friend of Amma's, a woman who would go marching up to these tanned Laila-Majnus and ask them in a loud grating voice if they knew how hard their parents worked to educate them and why they were wasting their youth on love. Yet another woman marches past. Her curly hair tamed in to a tight braid, dupatta starched and pinned in a ‘V’ – a look more suited for a school girl rather than on a woman of 50. ish. In their uniformly baggy shorts, soft veshtis* and tired looking Tommy t shirts the men rarely attract her attention. Except one. He wears his Jockey boxers as shorts and struts about. She wants to tell him what they are meant for, but is scared he will say ‘I know’.

* garbha griha - womb chamber in a temple
* veshti - dhoti

afternoons

2008-01-24T06:04:00.000Z

The two boys cycle up and down the street, the smaller of the two sitting pillion. He clings to the larger boys back like a small monkey, his eyelids scrunched together to keep out the intrusive afternoon sun that knocks with a hot, insistent hand. After a few lazy laps the smaller one begins to whine and complain. It’s his chance he insists, his turn to navigate their ship. The larger boy ignores him, choosing instead to introduce a swaying motion to his pedaling so that the cycle careens, left right left right. The smaller boy is silenced temporarily; distracted by this new trick but soon starts up again. His pleas get louder, a tinge of annoyance and anger slipping in to the occasional ‘Anna’, picking at the striped back before him and flailing his legs out in petulance. The larger boy finally relents and gets off. He watches silently as his friend struggles on to the cycle with shorter chubbier legs. After a few slips and slides, the small boy sits triumphantly on his throne and beckons the other to sit astride with a jerk of his head. The older boy looks at him a moment before throwing back a careless ‘tsk’ and walking away.

It was a dark stormy night...

2008-01-18T02:35:00.000Z

My favourite Peanuts strips were the ones where Snoopy banged away at his typewriter sitting on top of his little red dog house. His stories always started with 'It was a dark stormy night and suddenly...'

Well if you've managed to go beyond that first line, take a look at this. Or, if flash fiction is more your thing, check out this. Actually, just check out the entire site. I wish I was in Bombay.

(Link via Spaniard)

Save Dedalus Books

2008-01-18T02:05:00.000Z

Dear book-lover

The Arts Council UK is poised to disinvest from DEDALUS BOOKS – a successful, 25-year-old independent literary publisher.
Dedalus pride themselves on taking on good writing that slips through the cracks of conservative corporate publishing.
Disinvestment will put Dedalus out of business.

If a petition can help, please sign it:
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/petitions/dont-let-dedalus-die.html

(Link via email from my former writing instructor)

2008-01-16T02:45:00.000Z

Her bangles jangle all the time. Bangle. Jangle. How is it possible that something she once took so much pleasure in has become such a nuisance? They didn’t even match. Oththai padai and rettai padai. ‘You must not remove them until your delivery’ her mother-in-law had said. ‘The sound of the bangles is music to the child in your belly’ another Mami had informed her. A friend tells her otherwise on gchat ‘In the olden days these paati’s made us wear them so when they sat outside the bedroom at night they could tell from the noise the bangles made if husband and wife were up to no good’ Olden days. No good. The very same no good that had brought her to this state. State. Not solid, liquid, or gaseous but strangely amorphous. Neither here nor there. ‘Unless the bangles break themselves don’t take them off. Don’t accept any more bangles from any one after this. Or coconuts’ How odd, she thought, that strangers might come and offer her a combination of bangles and coconuts. ‘Listen to good things. Don’t watch foreign television. No English movies.’ She pictures herself watching Aastha TV with her contraband coconuts. As she waddles to the kitchen she slams her hand against the wall leaving in her trail two red crescents made of glass. Oththai padai and oththai padai.

Dayavu seydu kadavai moodavum*

2008-01-11T10:33:00.000Z

I wake up every day in London to a silence that school teachers term 'pin drop'. Silence and darkness. In Madras, each day starts with sunshine, a woman(who sounds like my class xii chemistry teacher Manoja) asking people to 'Please close the door' of the lift in the apartment next door, the watchman and vegetable vendor arguing over whether the latter did or did not close the compound gate behind him the previous day, milk cookers and pressure cookers whistling and letting off steam, vessels clanging, far off strains of sun tv (yes, that early!!) and the soft swish of a thodapam against tiled flooring. Each sound distinct in the swirling cacaphony that is our street waking up. I don't miss the silence at all.

(*Advance apologies if I have misspelled anything in the title)

Seduced at the Barbican

2008-01-06T14:33:00.000Z

It is that which we should eschew before marriage and participate in only after tying the knot, and even then only to procreate and not for pleasure. We are told not to look, not to touch and certainly not to do. Growing up, sex is often a topic shrouded in mystery, presenting itself in various guises that can leave one confused. For children of the 80s, television and cinema were poor sex ed teachers using flowers rubbing against each other, shaking palm trees and striking lightening as confusing class room aids. Contraband Penthouse and Playboys smuggled in to school bathrooms were more amusing than enlightening and the advent of VHS and satellite television found my pre-teen self and sister instructed to cover our eyes when confronted with scenes of a violent or sexual nature. Of course I would follow my parent’s orders but like most other children my age, curiosity would get the better of me and I would peer through the tiny cracks between my fingers and guiltily watch what was taboo.

It’s funny how that feeling of guilt can lie dormant for so many years, only to resurface when I purchased my ticket for the Barbican’s exhibition Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now. The fact that I was asked to provide ID for a show meant for those over 18 years did not help assuage these feelings. I was 13 all over again. Having proved I was indeed old enough to vote, buy alcohol and view sexually explicit art, I embarked on a two hour long journey through sculpture, ceramics, paintings, photography, audio and video installations that covered over 2000 years of sex from Ancient Greece to present day Manhattan.

As I entered the first viewing gallery I was assailed with anxieties - what would other people think – a single woman at an exhibition about sex? A pervert surely. How much time should I spend studying a ceramic plate that depicted a Grecian man fondling his young male lover? But then such questions of propriety seemed misplaced in this no holds barred look at sex and my fears slipped away as I observed the air with which the other visitors approached the exhibition. A German man described the marble sculpture Sleeping Hermaphrodite from the Galleria Borghese in Rome to his companions with a scholarly air, two female pensioners discussed in detail the merits of late 15th century paintings that explored divine and mythological love and others wandered about in curiosity. In retrospect, sharing that space with a group of strangers was much easier than doing so with a group of friends.

From brooches measuring no more than an inch in length and breadth to Jeff Koons’ iconic blow ups, size most certainly did not matter here. The exhibition’s 300 pieces were divided chronologically and thematically, starting off with a large cast of a fig leaf commissioned especially to cover the modesty of Michelangelo’s David to spare Queen Victoria any embarrassment during a private viewing. It was perhaps the most innocuous of the lot.

The section Under Lock and Key looked at how our predecessors reacted to what they perceived as obscene. Works from the Gabinetto Segreto (Secret Cabinet) in the Archaeological Museum at Naples and the former Secretum in the British Museum were on display in this section and included an 18th century Arabic manuscript illustrating 10 men having rather innovative group sex, phallic pendants made of amber and a tintinnabulum (bronze windchime) that featured a winged phallus. I must admit that it took me a good five minutes before I could figure out why the piece was included in the exhibition at all, so artfully incorporated was the organ in flight. While the Ancient Romans seemed to openly embrace sexual acts of all kinds, works excavated from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum were deemed too explicit for prevailing sensibilities. Those sent to Public and Private collections were placed under restricted access so that ‘the eyes of the innocent (women and children) and the corruptible (those lacking education and social standing)’ were shielded. It’s funny how all these years later and such decisions are still being taken by the moral police on behalf of the public.

What’s an exhibition on sexuality without a look at Mughal Miniatures and some mention of the Kamasutra? Though after watching Andy Warhol’s Blowjob, there was something almost blasé and detached about the expressions on the faces of the Mughal men and women participating in the rather acrobatic unions. Though the detailing was exquisite the images appeared antiseptic and asexual to me. In stark contrast, the Japanese Woodblock prints or Shunga works on display in the adjacent room portrayed the sexual act in detail: enlarged and engorged forcing a far more visceral reaction from the viewer.

The exhibition also charts the advent of photography and its impact. Some images required viewing through special two eyed apparatus embedded in the wall and tapped into one’s inner voyeur. The video and photo installations on the second level brought out similar feelings, heightened by darkened corridors and piped in choral music, the strains of which could still be heard when viewing Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrayals of bondage and Nobuyoshi Araki’s series on sexual organs. These last two rooms were definitely not for the faint hearted. For those with more subtle preferences, the fluid lines of Gustav Klimt’s sketches and Rodin’s watercolours were of a more intimate nature while a series of tenderly erotic sketches by JMW Turner’s showed that even the most respectable of landscape artists had sex on their minds.

Some could ask what is the point of an exhibition like Seduced. Titillation aside, what purpose does it serve? Isn’t it obscene and vulgar? Personally, the exhibition made me think about why we accept explicit music videos with a shrug but shut down art exhibitions like Clits, Tits n Elephant Dicks at the Jehangir Art Gallery on grounds of obscenity. I was forced to confront my own feelings, pre conceived notions and moral judgements about sex and what is right and what is wrong. Graphic as it was, Seduced was an open, mature look at one of the most basic and beautiful of human acts. Intimate, discomforting, explicit, subtle, arousing and shocking. A lot like sex itself really.

An edited version of this appeared in the arts section of today's NewIndpress Sunday Magazine.

no loose ends

2008-01-02T12:29:00.000Z

She has been cooking all day, steadily filling up the freezer and refrigerator with labelled Tupperware boxes. The grinder whirs loudly, crushing hundreds of individual grains of rice into a submissive idli batter. She has finished vacuuming all the rooms (and behind the sofas), dusted, scrubbed away at the mould clinging to the corners of the shower cubicle and unclogged all the drains of hair – human and canine. She has done the laundry, ironed her husband’s work shirts and packed the children’s gym bags. The sheets have been changed in all the bedrooms and her son’s Geography project sits finished on his table. She stops for a coffee break and watches her usual mid morning chat show. The obese mothers of promiscuous thirteen year old girls are crying in to handkerchiefs and wondering where they went wrong. She is strangely comforted by these scenes, safe in the knowledge that it will never be her sitting on an uncomfortable chair crying to the nation. She looks at the clock and switches off the television. The children will be home from school soon. She makes their tiffin and places the casserole, glasses and jug of juice on the dining table before loading the dishwasher. The dog is sleeping. She fills its bowl with food and another with some water. As she completes each task she ticks it off her mental check list, pleased with herself, with her efficiency. She showers briskly and vigorously, hoping the scrub she uses will slough off all signs of domesticity.

She pauses in the hallway and checks her reflection in the mirror before writing the note out in her rounded handwriting.

Gone out for milk. Don’t know when I’ll be back.

She looks at the note for a moment and wonders whether to sign off. She realises that they will not recognise her handwriting and neatly prints her name at the bottom.

She waits a moment, her tense shoulders relaxing as soon as the three beeps of the dishwasher call out, indicating its job is over. She picks up the small suitcase and steps out the front door.

new beginnings

2007-12-30T11:23:00.000Z

Buoyed by the optimism of January, the new year always feels like a crisp, blank page I can write anything on. Here's wishing all of you a fantastic 2008. I hope the optimism lasts all through the year.

Merry Christmas everyone!

2007-12-24T19:23:00.000Z

He pushes his feet in to the scuffed black boots before styling his beard with Brylcreem. Brylcreem. Like she couldn’t have been more original this year. He couldn’t wait for tomorrow when he could shave the damn thing off. Tomorrow. It seemed like such a long way off. All those houses, all those gifts, all those chimneys to get down. And those reindeer, farting in his face and pretending like they had no control. The ministry had rejected his application for a car. Again. Environmentally unfriendly they said. As though all that methane was good for the planet. Sure, there were days he thought of quitting but the perks were good. 364 days a year off. Free milk and cookies on the one day he had to work. Some would even say he was famous, not in a Paris Hilton kind of way, but still. You shouldn’t complain so much he tells himself as he settles down in the sleigh. Life could be worse. You could be the Easter Bunny.

"I wouldn't even piss on this"

2007-12-19T12:01:00.000Z

It was one of Mohammed's favourite things to say when creatives showed him work that was below par. That, and 'BOLLOCKS'.

I remember the day I joined Enterprise Nexus. I was 21, had spent a year in advertising and had never heard of the man. My CD at the time couldn't believe it. 'You haven't heard of Mohammed Khan? Have you had your head in the sand all these years?' he asked incredulously.

But in a way, not knowing anything about him made my life easier. I wasn't scared of Mohammed, I never got nervous about showing work to him and I didn't tremble in my seat whenever he walked by. I hadn't heard the stories about how he reduced senior, award winning art directors to tears or how he once tore a layout and scattered the shreds of paper from the second floor landing to the level below. I still don't know what truth there is to these stories, perhaps no one other than Mohammed does.

I learned a lot about MK in the two years I spent at Enterprise. That to receive praise from him was like nothing else. (He once blew kisses at me over a layout and called me a genius. Bliss) That to have him sigh in disappointment over your work was much worse than to have him yell at you. That he could be avuncular, flirtatious, witty and scornful all in the span of half and hour. That you could spend all week painstakingly writing headlines for a campaign but he could whip his pen out and write 4 headlines in 5 minutes that you could spend a lifetime trying to craft and not come close to. That writers must use proper pens and write on beautiful paper. That poor grammar and typos showed that one didn't care about their work and there was nothing worse than that.

They weren't all good moments. I have to admit there were times when I hated him. When it was 3am on a Saturday and I was at work writing lines while I imagined him tucked in bed sleeping soundly. When he made me rewrite an entire campaign only to decide afterwards that he liked the original one better. When he made me write down a recipe that his cook dictated over the phone for one of his friends . I really did hate him that time.

While I still do the occasional bit of freelance I have moved on from advertising. But Mohammed's rules of writing still stay with me today. I write all my first drafts long hand with a proper pen on nice paper. One can and must edit, edit, edit and edit some more. One can always do better and must strive to. And most of all, that one must enjoy writing.

Enjoy retirement Mohammed.

(Errors noted, and corrected.)

3 cashmere socks ... my true love gave to me

2007-12-18T16:04:00.000Z

The tree looked forlorn without the gaily wrapped Christmas presents huddled around its base. She surveyed the living room; the carpet littered with shreds of wrapping paper, cracker halves and long snake like strands of curled green ribbon. They were all outside, he was teaching the children how to ride their new bicycles. They had already tired of their other presents. She sipped her sherry and stared down at the socks. A set of three. Pink, blue and yellow. Cashmere. Socks. Socks. Socks. She repeated the word over and over again in her head till it lost its meaning. It was like a joke out of one of those awful romcoms she used to watch. She picked up the leather bound first edition she had gotten him. The leather bound first edition she had driven four hours North to procure. The leather bound first edition she had to wait an extra two hours for while the antiquarian bookstore owner ate his lunch. Socks. 8 years of marriage and three children. Socks. Was he really that obtuse? Or was he trying to tell her something. Were the socks some kind of scrambled, coded message that she was supposed to decipher? What did they mean? ‘I don’t love you anymore’ ‘I’m having an affair’ ‘What do you expect, you’ve gained 30 pounds in the last 2 years’ ‘I’m an idiot’. He had been overjoyed with his present of course, and hadn’t even had the grace to look ashamed or sheepish or anything when he handed over his present to her. After he left the room she had rummaged about inside the socks, turning them inside out, vainly hoping that there was something inside – a locket, a ring… something. But they were empty. She shivered. The flames of the fire meekly flickered in the later afternoon light. She stood up and walked towards the grate, book and bottle of sherry in hand, muttering her husband’s name over and over again till it too lost all meaning.

mid day melodrama

2007-12-10T15:17:00.000Z

My 2008 diary arrived in the post today. I used to order my annual diaries from Tulika, but to my great disappointment they have discontinued their Celebrate India series, forcing me to turn elsewhere. Last year, in Brussels I purchased a ridiculously overpriced Herge Diary filled with gorgeous reproductions of line drawings, coloured illustrations and Tin Tin covers reprints from the master’s drawing board. This year I went with something from Mslexia, a writer’s magazine I subscribe to. Small and compact, the Mslexia diary comes packed with submission deadlines for prestigious writing competitions, guidelines and other handy information.

So today, I filled in reminders of birthdays and anniversaries in the year to come. There were the regulars – siblings, parents, in-laws and best friends. New entrants – people I’d met in the last year or so who have come to mean a great deal to me, and then there were those I left out. Friends I am no longer in touch with, people I have slowly drifted away from over the years. It saddened me for some reason, not including them in the diary. Leaving a dated box empty was all it took to exclude them from my life.

Lost in retell

2007-12-09T08:47:00.000Z

Growing up, my father would often remind me that I came from a family of illustrious Sanskrit scholars. Whether this was to make me work harder at my conjugations and declensions or to take the language more seriously than as an easy means of scoring high marks, or to impress upon me our family’s academic lineage, I still do not know, but the weight of this legacy often made its presence uncomfortably felt. My father himself was a student of the language, and Kalidasa was quoted over our dinner table as normally as the price of onions was bandied about in other homes; and, it was not uncommon to see my father leafing through a yellowing, tattered copy of Abhignana Shakuntalam with a satisfied smile on his face. One of his favourite passages in the book, however, was by the German poet, Goethe.

“Would’st thou the young year’s blossoms
And the fruits of its decline
And all by which soul is charmed
Enraptured, feasted, fed,
Would’st thou the Earth and Heaven itself
In one sole name combine?
I name thee, O Sakuntala ! and all at
Once is said”

Luckily, modern retellings of classical stories are supposed to be unfettered by the ghosts of the past. So, it was with an open mind that I set off to watch Little India, the Trestle Theatre Company’s interpretation of Shakuntala’s and Dushyanta’s romance, and their son Bharata’s search for his father many years later. Trestle is known in the UK for its masked, highly physical performances often staged in collaboration with a diverse range of artists, participants and organisations on a local, regional, national and international level. Though not a masked production, this re-imagining of Shakuntala’s story was born through collaborations with the Indian theatre company Little Jasmine and incorporated elements of kalaripayattu, konnakol or vocal rhythms and a series of bharatanatyam hastas.

Shakuntala was played by the lovely Audrie Woodhouse whose lithe body and expressive eyes seemed well suited for the role of the part celestial forest nymph. Though she nimbly executed the kalari movements there was a sense of everything being told to the audience many times over — through dialogues, kalari and mudras — so much so that some scenes plodded along. Sartaj Garewal’s Dushyanta was comical at times, shouting out dialogues and executing a series of Bruce Lee like kung-fu moves. The play bill claimed that Garewal was an exponent of Fujian White Crane Kung Fu and apparently he was rather eager to prove this to be true. Unfortunately he chose to show us his prowess at rather inopportune moments, such as after the death of his father, pounding his fists against the stage floor while executing what appeared to be martial art push ups. Ashwin Bolar completed the cast as a Bharata who spends much of the play on all fours, skulking about in corners, coveting his father’s ring and then subsequently losing it in the river in a manner not unlike but not half as compelling as Gollum. (Yes, yes Shakuntala is the one who loses the ring, but this is a modern retelling and such things may be overlooked)

But it was difficult to over look other things. The dialogues seemed to have taken inspiration from a 1970s potboiler (“You mean my father is alive? You lied to me?” “He is dead to me!”), the mudras were sloppily executed and the kalari seemed to have been incorporated willy nilly (At one point Dushyanta engages in a kalari tussle with the recently spurned and pregnant Shakuntala.) And save for a few strobe disco lights and the sound of traffic piped in when Bharata ventures to the big bad city in search of his father the ‘modern’ angle was all but missing for me. This is a shame, for the story is ripe for retelling with characters facing predicaments modern day audiences can relate to — a single mother, an absent father and a rebellious teen. But it felt as though mere lip service has been paid to these themes. I couldn't help but wonder how the story would have fared had it been set on a gritty council estate.

Watching the story unfold on stage I was torn between the urge to cringe and laugh, and succumbed quietly to both temptations in turns. And sadly it wasn’t just me. I watched the play with an audience of hip, South London teenage drama students who sniggered frequently and not so quietly. And it would be unfair to blame it on callow youth, for I watched A Disappearing Number (on the life of the mathematician Ramanujan) with a similar audience, but they were spellbound and awed into silence by a superior act.

Like A Disappearing Number though, the sets of Little India were simple and innovative and deserve mention. Comprising predominantly of a canvas slung between two posts that served variously as hammock and hovel, at one point it sweetly transformed into the ring swallowing fish.

No doubt, Trestle was well intentioned in its efforts but good intentions do not necessarily translate in to a good production. One wishes Trestle had focused more on the story for though myths are often simple tales at heart, they can be rather tricky to tell, and Little India lost its essence under all those kalari kicks and rhythmic vocals. My theatre companion that evening, a noted classical dancer had a wry theory about this: “It’s another border raid: you want something different, but your coffers run empty, so you just plunder the next village or kingdom or art form and carry away bounties, often, beauties you don’t know what to do with except display them — and your cleverness! Then you end up making a spectacle of yourself instead of a cross-form, cross-art spectacle!”

Perhaps the next time I want a retelling of this story I will return to my father, a late Sunday afternoon and his yellowing copy of Shakuntalam. Thankfully, some spaces are still inviolable.

****

This appeared in the Arts section of today's Newindpress on Sunday.

If you read one thing today then read

2007-12-07T09:08:00.000Z

This profile/interview by Jabberwock of my favourite author, Anita Desai!

Raymond Carver's Principles of a Story

2007-12-06T16:57:00.000Z

I've been struggling lately... What's a good short story? Is it ok to offer the reader a glimpse into a world and then draw the curtains just when they're getting interested? Can you do that with every story?

My writing group suggested I go back and re-read the stories I've written till now in an attempt to identify patterns and problems. A bad idea. It's left me even more confused and makes me wonder - is there a point to any of these stories? Can I even call them that?

Then I do what what is the last (and sometimes first) resort... I google: How to write a short story.

And I find this.

Ps. I am still confused but at least now I have some very inspiring three by five cards up on the wall.

silly

2007-12-04T11:11:00.000Z

The squirrels here are different from the ones back home. Back home they are tall, lean and hungry. Their long whip like tails flicking about, decorated with three white stripes. Here they are short and rotund, their bushy tails sans decoration resembling my father’s shaving brush from long ago. The squirrel outside my window would not look out of place in a top hat and coat, monocle perched precariously, gold fob peeking out. He is unmindful of the fine, steady drizzle and the pigeons that hobble-bobble around him. Perhaps he is looking for his lost white stripes.

just another random memory

2007-11-28T11:59:00.000Z

When I was in class 6 I had a mathematics teacher called Usha Aggarwal Miss. She terrified me. Usha Miss was convinced I was a makku in mathematics and took great pleasure in conveying this opinion in front of the entire class. Convinced she was right, I decided my only course of action was to fall sick five minutes before maths class was scheduled to start. Headaches, stomach aches, dizzy spells – there was no ailment to large or small for me to suffer from. Of course I didn’t fall sick every day, just once or twice a week. I would inform Usha Miss of my predicament in a well rehearsed trembly voice. If it was a good day she would imperiously flick her hand at the door and it would take all my strength not to skip out of the classroom to the school infirmary. If it was a bad day my pleas would be ignored and I would be directed to the blackboard and asked to solve sums.

The infirmary consisted of a series of dank, musty rooms furnished with little other than beds fitted with maroon rexine mattresses. On some days all the beds would be full and I would be told to sit on a corner stool while other girls lay still on their backs. We weren’t allowed to talk to one another but through silent signals we conveyed our relief. Reciting Wordsworth, remembering the year the Battle of Panipat was fought, marking mountain ranges, rivers and areas with high rainfall on outline maps of India – we had all evaded our demons.

My favourite bed was one that faced the double doors leading to the busy main road. Fitted with window panes that had not been cleaned in decades, it offered a hazy, cobwebbed view of the outside world that never failed to thrill me. Buses, autos, men and women all passed by propelled by the need to be somewhere and do something important. To my 11 year old self they all seemed so grown up and glamorous. I remember thinking ‘One day I will be out there, with places to go and things to do. I’ll be free.’ I would then close my eyes and imagine this older self, breathing in the smell of wilting cotton balls and medicine far past its expiry date. If only my grown up self had known that adults have no infirmary rooms to escape too.

I stopped running away from maths after class 6 thanks to a series of kinder teachers who didn’t think I was a makku. I also learnt that one could sit in the middle rows of the classroom and be invisible.

It’s funny though. All these years later I can still smell the medicine and see the maroon rexine beds… but for the life of me I cannot remember what Usha Aggarwal looked like.

Finally, something other than a phone bill

2007-11-21T11:23:00.000Z

Look what arrived in the post today.

A copy of 'From There to Here: Sixteen true tales of Immigration to Britain' and an invitation to the launch party.

(Falstaff, please note presence of a computer. Charu, I tend to write all first drafts longhand.)

And look at the first story.

Those interested can purchase a copy here.

'A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'

2007-11-20T13:58:00.000Z

Finally.

And a nice view doesn't hurt.

After writing at the dining table, on the sofa, in bed, on trains and buses I finally have a space to call my own. Of course, I have acquired this space in what one could call a dry spell. Writing I mean.

bus stop hallucinations

2007-11-19T20:03:00.000Z

She does not know how long she has been waiting at bus stop C. Her feet are numb, her forearms ache and her palms burn at those places the twisted carrier bag handles meet flesh. It is early evening. Or late afternoon. She cannot tell. The effort required in lifting her arm and pushing back a woollen coat sleeve to look at her watch is daunting. The sky is inscrutable, a shade of purple interior design magazines like to call Aubergine. Aubergine. How sexual, exotic and desirable they make the squishy brinjal sound. She enjoys these little mental detours. They take her mind off waiting for the bus and wondering how long she has been waiting. Minutes, hours, days…. Weeks? Why is no one looking for her if she has been missing for weeks, waiting for the H17 at bus stop C? It has been raining for some time now. The wind tugs the hard pelts of water about on an invisible leash so that every now and then a droplet or dozen lands on her face. Mixing with the tears. She is not crying because she is sad. Oh no. It is the wind. It stings her eyes and makes them water. She makes no attempt to wipe the tears away, opting to produce a few of her own so that passers by get startled when they see her: a woman with plastic bags in her hand crying at the bus stop. Has she been alone at the bus stop all this time? Of course you have silly, who wants to share a bus stop with a crazy crying woman? This means there is no one to ask when the bus will come. Perhaps the bus has come and gone and she, intent on startling passers by and wondering about the sexuality of aubergines (colour not vegetable) has missed it. Perhaps it slipped away as she stared at nothing just as he had crept away while she slept. He did leave you a note she reminds herself, it wasn’t as though you woke up and he was gone. A note. And his toothbrush, a half empty box of Wheetabix and the garbage. She still had the note, toothbrush and box of Wheetabix. The garbage she had to throw away after a month. ‘It stank’ the neighbours complained. They were probably still upset about their cats. It had been an accident. She hadn’t meant to. There she went again. ‘Focus’ she tells herself, ‘you’re here to catch the bus’ and wonders what colour the interior design magazine would call the block of red trundling by.

Question

2007-11-19T13:23:00.000Z

In a recent edition of the Guardian Book Club podcast with Jeanette Winterson, the author tells a story from her early life. On revealing that she had fallen in love with another girl Winterson was issued an ultimatum by her mother: stay and be straight or leave the house. She chose the latter, and as she walked out of the house her mother called her back. Winterson, thinking that perhaps her mother had changed her mind turned around only to be asked

"Why be happy when you can be normal?"

The interviewer John Mullan and the audience laughed spontaneously, and so did I. But later on when I was thinking over it, I realised that it's a question we are all asked and often ask ourselves. Not overtly. Not aloud. But quietly. And persistently. It's the raised eyebrow when we tell people our choices. It's that moments hesitation before we take decisions. The tone of disapproval in conversations. Why are you doing this when you could do that and be safer?

mid blog crisis

2007-11-15T11:10:00.001Z

obviously i am having issues with my blog. from retro martini swigging typists to a serpent that says 'blog?' instead of ... I don't know... 'hisss?' I guess this is the blogging equivalent of getting a tattoo. or a red sports car.

freelancing

2007-11-13T12:05:00.000Z

I am seated in another's chair
Brushing away strands of his silvery hair

I am bored so I chew my nails
and throw the crescents in a pail

It's not yet lunch but my stomach rumbles
thinking of luscious raspberry crumbles

My ideas have been turned in to turd like lumps
who shall save me from this dump?

shoeflower

2007-11-09T10:39:00.000Z

I don’t know what it was that made me think of them, but yesterday as I washed up after lunch at the kitchen sink and looked at the Autumn leaves swirling down to the ground I was reminded of the small cement patch at the rear of my house in Madras that Amma calls the garden. It’s had its ups and downs over the years, the malli took off spectacularly for a while and the parijatham has been going strong for some years now. But I will always associate my mother’s garden with the hibiscuses that flowered there. Bright red, palest orange with whitish centres, baby pinks. Every morning they’d be plucked - some still buds – by my mother before neighbours and early morning ramblers could snake their hands over our compound wall and pluck a few for themselves. The buds would be dropped in water and those that had bloomed would be placed in a bowl set aside for her daily prayers. After they had wilted they would be preserved and every weekend the dried, blackened petals would be boiled in water and the sticky goop produced be added to the shikai that was pounded in to our heads by Meenakshi, our diminutive but freakishly strong house help.
When I moved to Bombay there was no place for a garden, not even a small patch of cement in our first apartment. The second was no better but the living room had a massive window that was fitted with an ugly grill our where the landlord had left behind some potted plants. Taking that as a sign, I decided to turn it in to a garden of sorts. For one the creepers and hanging baskets hid the ugly grill while still offering a tantalising glimpse at the old crumbling Parsi mansion opposite our flat. There was a plant nursery on the grounds of the mansion and one of the first things I bought there was a red hibiscus plant. I can still remember my joy at the first signs of a bud. A great achievement for someone who had in the past managed to even kill a money plant. My hibiscuses were small and petite, not big and blowsy like the ones that grew in my mother’s garden. They hardly ever produced enough goop for a shikai bath but every morning I would open the window while I had my coffee and check to see if there were any flowers for my prayers.

I still can’t think why I was reminded of them yesterday. I hadn’t thought of them before. Not in three years almost. And now I can’t stop thinking about them.

Beyond the headlines

2007-11-03T14:03:00.000Z

In this week's Travel section of Mint.

i like bunnies... but you gotta admit these are funny

2007-10-29T16:20:00.000Z

the bunny suicides. not for bunny lovers.

moving

2007-10-26T16:29:00.000+01:00

Having recently moved house (yes, again)I had to undergo the rather painful job of packing, cleaning, unpacking and cleaning some more. As I ripped apart the many, many boxes we lugged with us I wondered how I would answer the standard question asked of celebrities in inane magazines "What is the one thing you would take with you if your home burned down?" Not exactly the most cheerful thought I agree, but hey, it was raining and cloudy and I tend to get like that when the weather is on a downward spiral.

So what would I take? Most of you are thinking 'Her shoes'. No, not really. I mean I really love them but most of my shoes are replaceable. Not my clothes, no wardrobe means new wardrobe. My notebooks perhaps with my many scribblings and doodlings? Probably. But what about all the irreplaceable seemingly meaningless bric-a-brac that crowds my existance? The little post it notes my sister wrote me years and years ago that I have saved? Those black and white photographs of my mother when she was about six? That letter. What about my sambhar stained copy of The Best of Cook and See? My stuffed mouse (not a 'real' stuffed mouse) who has been by my bed side since I was 9? The more I thought about it, the more I worried. I'd need another moving truck to get everything I wanted to save in a fire out of there. Traumatised by this notion I went and checked that the fire alarm was on.

So I ask you, what would you save in a fire?

smells like kate moss

2007-10-17T13:13:00.000+01:00

I kind of get the whole 'buy Stella McCartney/Karl Lagerfeld/Victor & Rolf for less' thing. Some women want to feel like they're wearing designer clothes without having to fork out the down payment for a small house. I find it a lot harder to understand 'let's queue outside H&M/TopShop from 5:00am to buy aforementioned clothing lines' but then maybe some people think it's a fun thing to do. Or maybe they're addicted to recreational drugs. I also understand using a celebrity for endorsing your brand, though I personally have never wanted to go out and buy Himalaya Herbal Oil because Govinda tells me to.

But what I really don't understand is celebrity 'designed' clothing and perfumes. The idea that by wearing an outfit Kate Moss 'designed' you will somehow be magically transformed in to Kate Moss is a preposterous one, yet so many people buy in to it. Are women that unhappy with the way they look and smell? I want to meet the people who are buying Heidi Klum inspired bags from Accessorize, Penelope Cruz's favourite jacket from Mango and Shilpa Shetty's perfume (imaginatively called S squared) and ask them WHY? Desist! Stop trying to look like these women, you never will. Even with reconstructive plastic surgery. And stop buying their perfumes. They all smell terrible, I know this as I am constantly sprayed with Love Kylie and Covet every time I walk by the perfume counter of a department store. Whatever happened to classic scents? The ones our mothers wore and that we sneakily spritzed on to ourselves when she was out. Anais Anais, Chanel No 5... even the overpowering 80s power trip smell of Opium is better than smelling like Britney Spears(eww btw). And are these women's lives really so much better than ours that we aspire to them? Let's see, a supermodel in an on again off again destructive relationship with a cokehead musician, a ex pop princess who shaved her head off and frequently walks in to public urinals barefoot... why do we think they have it better than we do?

Me, I'm sticking to the Opium. The shoulder pads I assure you have been relinquished.

rani muthu

2007-10-16T14:17:00.000+01:00

Every birthday her father would tear the small grey square of paper from the daily sheet calendar and hand it to her. She would stare at the line drawing of Lord Muruga, beatific smile and Vel in place. Nalla neram, rahu kaalam, raasi palan. She would fold it and place it in her diary. She is too far away from home this year. There is no sheet. Only a memory.

(ps. I googled for rani muthu, and found this post by neha mami!)

Handicap

2007-10-15T10:19:00.000+01:00

It had been holding him back all his life. He was sure of it. It was the reason why he never had any friends in school, it was why his college applications were rejected – each and every one of them, it was the reason why he couldn’t find a bride. His name, he decided, was the reason why he was an unhappy, unsuccessful, single, balding, wedding caterer. 35 years old and all he had to show for it was a long list of complaints from families whose weddings he catered. Why were they all so sure it was his badamkheer and akkaravadisal that had caused the food poising? And it wasn’t his fault that he had misplaced the list of food allergies the groom suffered from; the swelling didn’t show that much in the reception pictures. He sat up suddenly, a difficulty given his stomach (but what was one to do with so much leftover food?). He would change his name. Yes, that was it. All the other successful caterers had powerful, impressive names. Mountbatten Mani. Arusuvai Natarajan, Nalabhagan Narayanan. He would take on a new name. No more of this change I to Y and add another S he’d been trying all these years. He would get a brand new name. One that made people stand up in respect when they heard and read it. One that would make stupid fathers think twice before rejecting his offer of marriage to their bucktoothed daughters. Oh yes. A new name. One that had no connections with his old life. Stalin Sundaramoorthy? Haryana Hitler? T. Nagar Tipu? Maybe a combination? Tipu Stalin? He felt powerful just saying the name out loud. He got up and waddled towards the kitchen. Yes, his life would be different. But first, a cup of badamkheer.

hibernating

2007-10-12T15:12:00.000+01:00

So around this time last year I quit my job. Actually around this time last year I was in Madras on an extended vacation celebrating the fact that I had quit my job. Anyway, it’s been a year. I wish I could say that things are just where I thought they would be one year later. That I’m thoroughly convinced I made the right decision. That I write prolifically from morning till late afternoon every day. I can’t think of a third one to make it sound nice. See what a failure of a writer I am? But I think the first two are enough. There are days when I wonder if I did the right thing. Perhaps it was arrogance to assume I was anywhere near good enough to quit a well paying job to write full time. When I see other people surge ahead in their careers I look at my notebook of jottings and think, that’s all I have to show? There are hours, days and weeks when nothing happens. Nothing moves. I am in the midst of such a time. I tell myself it is the winter, that once I’ve adjusted to eternally grey days I shall start again. But what if I don’t? What if all there ever was was 9 stories and nothing more. See I can’t even tell the truth… seven stories and two basic ideas. Maybe it was all a mistake. And maybe it is the first step. After all, these are the first words I have written in two weeks (not counting emails, changing my facebook status and some freelance copywriting I’ve been doing. Sell out!)

overheard on the all stations to moorgate last evening

2007-10-09T09:44:00.001+01:00

Violet haired girl with many piercings and a Care Bear backpack (you can't make these things up) gets on the train at Hadley Wood. Her phone rings.

"No, I don't want to meet Alex, he's a twat. No offence an all. Just don't like im"

Conversation at other end (CAOE)

"Yeah but... no I don't want to"

More arguing on whether to meet with friend and Alex the twat. Sudden sharp intake of breath.

"What she slapped you?"

CAOE

"Where? Around the face?"

CAOE

"I can't believed she slapped you? where?"

CAOE

"No not that where, as in where? around the face? Did she slap you around the face? No I get that, but where? Around the face."

CAOE

"God I can't believe she slapped you around the face. Bitch. Who does she think she is? I can't believe that. You don't go slapping people around do you? No it's wrong, that's what it is. You don't slap people period. she's going to get slapped one of these days. I might do it"

It's hard to make me smile at the moment

2007-10-08T11:43:00.001+01:00

And it's even harder for an advertisement to make me smile. And since the latest Sony Bravia commercial has accomplished such a feat, I think it only fair I mention it (it's also a good excuse to blog, seeing I have nothing else to blog about). I've enjoyed the previous two winning Sony Bravia commercials, though I preferred the second to the first... some ad pundits waxed lyrical about the coloured balls one, going as far to say as they remember exactly what they were doing when they first saw the spot... really? to me the only thing worth remembering is when I last ate. But that's just me. The second spot I loved, because it reminded me of those 80s film songs where those colour bombs would go off as junior artists danced in the background while the hero and heroine did many costume changes(often to match the colours of the colour bombs)

But this commercial is sweet, goofy and like I said it makes me smile.

Who writes this crap

2007-10-04T11:28:00.000+01:00

And no I'm not talking about what appears on this blog, we all know who writes that.
Check out this website for a daily dose of bad writing. My favourite is the description of Tiramisu from some restaurant menu...described as 'the memorable rendezvous is made more comfortable by magic'. Indeed.

at the joo

2007-10-01T15:41:00.000+01:00

She stared at the creature, her eyes running over its long graceful neck covered in a jigsaw like pattern, the pieces not quite fitting together. The zoo was almost empty that morning. The wind blowing with a ferocity usually reserved for December, whipping the rain about on an invisible leash.

If only she had evolved from fish and not from monkeys she mused. Then she could have flip flopped about gasping for air when he took her away from home, insisting she be thrown back in her tank. But all she could do was fix accusing eyes upon the rapidly expanding bald patch on the back of his head as she served him dinner every night.

“Why don’t you go out today? Explore the city?” he had said that morning, leaving £30 on the dining table as he took his lunch box. “St. Pauls, Madam Tussauds – they have Shah Rukh and Ash there now you know” She had winced inside. Ash. As though he knew her intimately. More intimately than his own wife who he insisted on calling by her full name. Drawing out each syllable in that unbearable nasal twang of his.

But she had come to see the giraffe instead. When she told him where she had been it would annoy him, and that was reason enough. But she was glad she had come here. The faint smell of animal dung, popcorn and candy floss. The shrill squawks of brightly plumed birds and the grumbling retorts of the other animals. Why, if she closed her eyes she could pretend she was home.

The giraffe stood so still, she was unsure if it was real or not. She did that sometimes too. She would sit motionless on the sofa, convincing herself she wasn’t even there. That she just did not exist in this cold miserable excuse of a country. The giraffe looked sad. How she knew what the giraffe face for sad was she was not sure. But she knew. After all, how could anything be happy in this place? Giraffes. They were from Africa weren’t they? That’s where they were meant to be. Ambling along the … she racks her memory for 7th standard geography… pampas? No… steppes… plains. Something. Ambling along somewhere in Africa. Not fenced in, looking over a street somewhere behind Regent’s Park. Did its skin, intended for sub Saharan heat protect it from the cold? Or like her flimsy Garden sari, did it let the biting wind in? She wondered what would happen if she magically let the animal out, like they showed in the movies. The idea filled her with a sudden rage, why should she let the stupid thing out? It was dumb enough to let itself be caught and brought here. It could help itself. It wasn’t a child anymore. What excuse did it have to look so sad? The rage passed. She sighed and walked on, her legs shivering under her flimsy Garden sari.

Beyond the Infinite

2007-09-30T15:40:00.000+01:00

In A Mathematician's Apology GH Hardy said “The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.”

A mathematics professor of mine often echoed Hardy’s sentiments on returning scored examination sheets, "Your solutions must be beautiful, as should be the way you arrive at them."

Forget beautiful, my answers were barely fit for the circus freaks department. I struggled with mathematics throughout school and college, battling with imaginary numbers, arguing against the need for calculus and unable to predict when Ram and Shyam would meet should they decide to start running in opposite directions on a circular track from different points at varying speeds at the same time. No one could ever answer why they couldn’t agree upon a designated place at a predetermined time though.

So it was with some trepidation that I booked my ticket for A Disappearing Number, the latest offering from London based theatre company Complicite. Known for inventive productions with stories based on unusual subject matters Complicite’s latest offering takes as its starting point one of the most compelling collaborations of all time – that between prodigy Srinivasan Ramanujan, and the Cambridge mathematician G H Hardy who later called their involvement "the one romantic incident" of his life. Conceived and directed by the company’s Artistic Director Simon McBurney and with an original score by Nitin Sawhney the play is currently being staged at London's Barbican theatre.

Simon McBurney first came across Ramanujan’s story 11 years ago when writer Michael Ondaatje recommended Hardy’s memoir, A Mathematician’s Apology. “I read it and became very excited, because it wasn’t just about mathematics, but about the nature of the imagination,” McBurney told The Sunday Times “As I began to read more, I discovered that great mathematicians worked through an extraordinary sense of instinct and intuition and, above all, imagination – that mathematics was created, throughout history, by leaps of the imagination.”

A Disappearing Number began without preamble; there was no dimming of lights and no polite voice asking the audience to switch off cell phones. Instead a woman came breathlessly striding across the stage and began to write number series on a large blackboard. 1 4 9 16 25 … 1 2 3 5 7 11 … 1 2 4 6 8 … She proceeded to fill the board up with more numbers and formulae, some familiar from my wasted years as a student of mathematics. The squigglier the figures got the more my heart fell. Was the entire play going to be epsilons, integrals, sines and cosines? Similar thoughts were no doubt filtering through the minds of other members of the audience as nervous laughs and coughs broke out. Thankfully, our fears were unfounded.

A middle-aged mathematician desperate to make a difference sets off to Madras in search of inspiration from her hero, Ramanujan. Accidentally locked in a lecture hall for the night, a man mourns the death of his lover, left only with a series of enigmatic digits – her telephone number. It is 1913 and GH Hardy seeks to comprehend a genius whose work is influenced not by rigid logic but by intuition and spirituality. Said genius, Ramanujan feverishly pursues some of the most complex mathematical patterns of all time, whilst yearning for vendakkai stranded in the midst of a cruel English winter. “I’m not interested, really, in this story as one particular, specific touching tale,” McBurney says, “but in a rather larger metaphorical application of what it implies, of how creativity consumes you – how it’s an extraordinarily human activity, this absolute compulsion to understand, but at the same time this compulsion to understand can have tragic consequences.”

Elements of new media, classical dance, graphic art, live and recorded audio swirl about the simply designed sets. A revolving screen acts as a time machine of sorts, taking us from the present to the recent and distant past. There are moments when different stories play out together simultaneously, voices and lives overlapping. It’s an unsettling experience at first, but one soon gets used to the story’s arrhythmic rhythm.

It’s easy to see why Ramanujan’s life makes for such compelling storytelling. This is a mathematical genius who fails his exams and lost a college scholarship. Here is a man whose pursuit of numbers dictated that he embrace logic and yet chose the divine: claiming to take advice from the family deity Namagiri. It is a story of a humble Port Trust Authority clerk from Kumbakkonam who finds himself in upper crust predominantly white (and racist) Cambridge. It is about a devout Hindu Brahmin and an atheist Englishman setting aside their differences cultural and spiritual, for their common love of numbers.

Almost a century after Ramanujan set sail to England at the invitation of a fascinated GH Hardy, the story of their collaboration still enthralls. Last year, David Freeman’s off Broadway play A First Class Man received critical acclaim. The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt a fictionalized account of the relationship between Hardy and Ramanujan was published this year. Two films are in development: one based on Robert Kanigel's 1991 biography, The Man Who Knew Infinity; the second an Anglo-Indian venture, to be co-directed by Dev Benegal (English, August and Split Wide Open) and former Cambridge student, actor and director Stephen Fry.

Soon after the play commenced, an actor appeared on stage to tell the audience "I am an actor playing Alex. And she is an actor playing Ruth. But the maths is real. It's terrifying, but real." McBurney has taken on a theatrical subject many would find daunting and fashioned from it a brooding meditation on love, longing and identity. If only my younger self had known that beauty in numbers does indeed exist.

(An edited version of this piece appeared here, today)

night prowl

2007-09-25T21:42:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling cold so there's a cheap Ikea throw wrapped around me, which I am desperately trying to also cover my feet with. The washing machine is shuddering away in the background as though it too is cold . Every now and then it starts violently, perhaps it knows I'm nodding off in front of the screen. I can hear some of our neighbours, the creaking of floorboards and shutting of doors. A baby cries somewhere in our apartment block. My stomach growls. 'I just fed you' I hiss. It continues to protest.

Thank God BBC Radio 3 didn't commission me to write about my city at 11:00pm. It would have involved lustful speculations about chocolate hob nobs and frequent moaning about the cold. I am an old lady trapped in a not so young body. Instead they got Tessa Hadley to write about Cardiff. Hat tip to Anand for putting me on to BBC Radio 3 Arts and Ideas podcast.

R3Arts_ The Essay_...

2007-09-25T10:36:00.000+01:00

An old piece that wasn't published, and given that it is no longer topical, probably never will be. so, i choose to inflict it upon those who still read my blog. I hardly blog these days, so to those who still take the effort to come by, thank you.

Smooth alabaster skin, toned arms, pendant nestling seductively in the cleavage and a provocatively held fishing rod. Last week, the bar was raised for aspiring topless models everywhere when Vladimir Putin was photographed sans shirt while apparently fishing. I say apparently, because on showing the image to angling experts, I was told Mr. Putin was holding his rod incorrectly. This was no photograph taken by a cheeky paparazzo hiding behind bushes while the Russian Premier took much deserved time off from pondering over which oligarch to send to Siberia next. No, no. Mr. Putin seemed rather aware of the cameras, and I say this on studying his rather proud grin and the distinct way in which he thrusts forward his manly assets. Perhaps Playboy should consider him as their Ms. October?

While Mr. Putin was baring all in Russia, Heidi Klum and Britney Spears both appeared to have misplaced their shirts and bras in a campaign for Jordache Jeans and a spread for Allure magazine respectively. While Ms. Klum has just deposited baby number three with husband, singer Seal (known for regaling fans by balancing a ball on his head and clapping), no-hair-no-underwear Spears has two little boys with former husband K-Fed, whose name sounds like it should be painted across the side of a courier van. While Ms. Klum holds a riding whip in some of her pictures (didn’t you know, sporting equipment is the season’s must have accessory) Brit-brit seemed happy to keep her hands empty and crossed over her chest, making it all the easier to grab those chicken nuggets between shots. But the message was loud and clear in both sets of pictures – ‘Sure we’ve had kids but look how hot we are’. Klum annoyingly admitted to ‘eating everything and loving muffins’ and said that ‘running behind her kids keeps her healthy’. Great, the last thing we need is another crazy Hollywood diet. As if Atkins and the South Beach diet weren’t bad enough, men and women everywhere are now going to start gorging on muffins, procreating like rabbits and gasp, wear lederhosen.

The images have received mixed responses. While men stare gawping at Klum and spears apparently at a loss for words, women have been more verbal. New mothers complained especially, saying the images of Klum and Spears put pressure on them to lose weight, when all they really wanted to do was give their crying children Benadryl and see more pictures of bald Britney. ‘This is the last thing I need to see right now’ a new mother said ‘I just have to look at muffins and I put on an extra three pounds’. Ok the last line was from me, but I promise you these are feelings shared by millions of women everywhere. Women long for a simpler time, when motherhood meant trackpants with elasticised waist bands and muumuus covered in dried baby sick. This new Hollywood version of motherhood as propounded by the likes of Victoria Beckham and Liz Hurley is all about skin tight white jeans and pilates and is not doing the rest of us any favours.

Mr. Putin’s topless pictures seem to have garnered little or no opposition though. In fact, it has been greeted with much cheering from balding men of a certain age who can no longer hold back the overwhelming force of middle aged spread. Men everywhere have dropped their shirts and picked up a fishing rod. I saw one buying a pint of milk at the newsstand this morning. Mr. Putin, joins Tony Blair (hairy mobs - that’s man -boobs alert) and Antonio Berlusconi as the latest political pin up boy, though I doubt their pictures will be adorning female locker room walls any time soon.

Meanwhile, the South Block rumbles with rumours that Laloo Prasad Yadav has installed a state of the art gym, and is orchestrating a photo shoot clad only in a dhoti and milking his cows. A show of hands for who would like to see that one. Thought so.

To the idiots in the audience yesterday

2007-09-24T13:13:00.001+01:00

Why were you there? Why did you buy tickets to this sublime evening of music if all you were going to do was sit to my left, before and behind me and talk. Not whisper the occasional comment in your friend's ear. But talk. Animatedly. With hands fluttering about, so that the dim lighting caught the dazzle of the diamonds fastened to your bracelet and the varnish painted on your nails. What you were talking about I do not know. And why you couldn't conduct your conversation some other place is anyone's guess. When the person seated between us put his finger to his lips like a kindergarten teacher you kept silent for all of 5 minutes before starting again. What part of 'Shh' do you not understand?

Lady behind us, what IS in that infernal bag of yours? Your brains? Do you have rattle about in it for half an hour?

And all of you coming in late. What is it about 'Concert begins at 4pm' that you do not understand. Sure, they started 15 minutes late. But to come in after an hour! And then to glare at people as you step on their feet enroute to your seat, doesn't that seem a bit much to you?

And you there, two rows down. Actually, you and your entire family. Have you come to the wrong place? Did you imagine you were going to see KANK, SHANK or some other preposterously long drivel. Is that why you've brought along a large bag of popcorn, a family sized pack of Kit Kats and bottles of cola that annoyingly go 'Fzzz' when you open them. You, young man, with your arm around the girl's shoulder. Must you nuzzle her neck forcing her to break out in to a not so quiet giggle. Do you have to try on your friend's glasses and then say in a stage whisper 'I can't see anything.' Yet you forget that the rest of us can hear everything.

looking for a silver lining

2007-09-20T11:53:00.000+01:00

I know technically it's not winter yet, heck I don't think we're even allowed to call current abysmal weather Autumn. We are in limbo weather wise. But still, there's that definite drop in temperature, the sun has taken a holiday and I might as well stop waxing my legs. There are only two things one can look forward to in winter. One, is the ability to eat as many packets of chocolate hob nobs as one likes, secure in the knowledge that all sins will be covered by layer upon layer of thermals, woolens, jackets and scarves. Which leads quite naturally to the other thing to look forward to... shopping for winter wear. That is the high light of November for me: searching for the perfect coat, boots, gloves, sweaters and scarf. In fact it's all I can think about at the moment. Along with chocolate hob nobs of course.

In the current Style Issue of the New Yorker, Patricia Marx writes about shopping for winter clothing in New York City. Here is an abstract, you'll have to buy the issue to read it.

the cold addles my brain

2007-09-19T07:39:00.000+01:00

sink full of dishes
spider under my bed
socks split like brothers at a fair
but with no happy reunion in the end

the sirens call of hob nobs
late light and early dark
yellow stripes and pink polka dots
the spider's got my socks