Lemondrops and Norwesters

Bangalore Rains...Happy Lethargy

2009-11-09T21:10:00.005+05:30

Last time I wrote something like this, I was in Chennai, getting through life with a foul mood, a sad husband, a sadder maid, an almost pathetic office, the dust, the sweat, and the grind. But this time around, rains are making me pensive and happily philosophical…in a very pseudo Greek-scholar kind of way. As always, I’m not sure if my words make any sense. Now how pointless is that!

It’s been raining for the past 48 hours now…a quick pitter patter sometimes, a mad gush at other times, but soft hay needles mostly. After a lazy Saturday lunch comprising the archetypal Bengali khichoori, begun and maach bhaja, nothing much seems wrong with life. As Amitava makes cryptic phone calls to distant clients in places like Lillehammer and Fredrickstad and Londonberry City, I curl up with Eastwords, this absolutely amazing novel by Kalyan Ray. (Note to every reader: If you are looking for the most impressive portrayal of Shakespearean characters, Eastwords is your bet.) In Eastwords, you have an east meets west theme running across the pages like a finely-knit fabric, as a Puck, and a Prospero, a Sycorax and a Caliban, a Sheikh Piru and a Shukumari meet on the same platform, displaying some brilliant cross dressing. But more on the book, later. Back to my weekend interlude of happy lethargy. As I read Ray, there is a hint of a film song, wafting in from somewhere. Maybe it’s the Nepali watchman listening to a tacky Hindi number in his rickety radio. But isn’t that supposed to be strangely melancholic and beautiful? I don’t mean the ‘Dekha hai pehli baar…’bit in particular, but the rain, and the choppy radio transmission, and the dampness…with a sudden glint of sunlight from somewhere?

I must be senile. Or else, why would I be so blatantly confused? The lethargy continues, and to add to it, we have a muri-adda to attend in the evening. Now this is extremely ethnic to lazy Bengalis like me…I don’t expect the whole world to understand. So, as the afternoon gives way to a mauve evening, Amitava and myself, saunter over to this friend’s place, and we have the muri-adda, with shingara, and jilipi, and peyaj-makha muri. If non-Bong readers are wondering what these are, just a note of clarification…these are all extremely cheap but delectable Bengali snacks that any pot-bellied, self-esteemed Bengali would vouch for. At the risk of sounding myopic and parochial, let me say, I loved this muri-adda after a real long time. A welcome break from our usual whiskey and vodka-sloshed weekends. Long live lethargy…long live muri!

So What Do I Write About?

2009-10-28T22:45:00.005+05:30

After a real long time, I thought I’d write about something. After all, there are so many changes around me…the workplace…the life…the weather…the people…I know I’ve already mentioned these before.
So what do I write about? My new place? How I have painstakingly decorated it with potted plants, and ethnic lampshades, and Madhubani paintings?
Should I write about how the old man next door has the hots for Varalakshmi aunty down the road? How the neighborhood chick runs around with the neighborhood hunk and makes out frequently? But that would sound so pseudo Shobha De…and I would hate that.
So what do I write about? The saffron and gamboges cushion covers? My new Lemon high heels? Am I turning into a wannabe? Or a ‘me too’ socialite? No…I am just trying to find the right kind of thing to write about.
Maybe I should write about the floods in Karnataka, or the Maoist uprisings across the eastern states, or Australian cricket’s dirty tricks, or RBI increasing interest rates. Am I becoming a pop philosopher? No…I am just trying to find the right kind of thing to write about.
I should probably write about my reality. How I wake up at supernatural hours, supervise the maid, run to get the office transport, sleep all the way to work, with my iPod playing ‘six feet from the edge’ in my ears, work like there is no tomorrow…come back home, supervise the cook….if he is not around, make my own instant noodles, call up Amitava, wherever in the world he is…my life is kind of sad…isn’t it? And who’d want to hear about that?
I’d rather talk about the cucumber green chikankari kurta I bought…and the wonderful party we had last weekend when Amitava was around…the Irish and the Scotch whiskeys we served…the orange-flavored vodka that I gulped down and got brutally abused by Amitava for drinking so fast…the Romanian Chicken I cooked (I’ll send you the recipe Ketchie)…the delicious Black Forest that friends got for us…how I completely, totally, absolutely enjoyed reading Chetan Bhagat’s ‘Two States’, how Dukey, the friendly Basset Hound in the neighborhood is friends with me, and sometimes scares the shit out of me when he stands up on his hind legs…life seems a lot saner this way.

My Realizations This Week...

2009-10-08T23:33:00.003+05:30

And they are:
1. The heavens are conspiring against me because I have to entertain the maid at 5 in the morning.
2. Therefore, no matter how hard I try, keeping my eyelids split wide open becomes an impossible dream after 11 at night.
3. I am vaguely in love with cappuccino…I know I have been hit by this realization before.
4. Office ethics is still a nascent culture amongst Indian corporates, no matter where you work.
5. Coming back to an empty home sucks.
6. Pati Patni Aur Woh is the cheapest junk on national television.
7. I have an unfinished Murakami on my bedside table.
8. I might end up working this weekend.
9. I might want to try some Mexican recipe by the end of next week, for Amitava’s homecoming ;).
10. I can actually switch off the bedroom lights and switch them back on to write this crap.

What the Sky Said...

2009-10-04T17:03:00.005+05:30

I am blue…a sad periwinkle…I deal with my sense of being blue, as a muezzin calls out from somewhere in the distance…the squirrels peek into the house from the branch of the pear tree…that girl down there, lying in her bed, is afraid to budge an inch, lest she experiences the cold bed on either side of her warm body. There is a nip in the air, and the girl has carefully tucked herself under a cream bedspread that covers her completely.
I am blue…and it’s five or so in the evening…the road in this quiet neighborhood lies like a dormant cobra…jet black from spurts of rain that it has had since early morning. And now the evening sun plays a game of ducks and drakes all across it…the leaves of the trees aiding the game and forming a tough myrtle canopy.
The girl blinks…and then squints…the sunlight’s got into her eyes…good…she’s finally moving out of her comfort zone. Now she stares at me. ‘Feeling lonely eh?'
‘Yeah I am…as if you care. The muezzin woke me up anyway…it’s not the sun…and by the way, I hate people asking me if I am lonely. It is a downright repulsive question’.
The girl shuts the window on my face, after this tiny interlude. She is going to tie her hair in a tight knot, light incense, make dinner, and wait for the man in the house to come back, tired after a hard day’s work. I know she is lonely, although she hated me asking her that. I watch her humming around the house in her sari…a dull salmon pink…she sings a folk song…much like the reaper.
My periwinkle gives way to black as the clock ticks on…I so completely hate this color. What’s with this black? So very cheerless!!!
- ‘What are you staring at? Yeah, I am lonely, and I am sad. I am aware of this daily ritual…me making coffee, and then dinner…drawing the curtains, switching on the lights, and waiting for him to come home…but I’m not sure if you have noticed…he never comes’.
- ‘Yes I have…I have noticed’.
- ‘Really? That’s a first. So…what do you suggest’?
- ‘Get a life. He is not reality. He’s never going to turn up’.
- ‘Life? Like what? Become something like you and rudely stare at young girls in their beds’?
We laugh. For the first time, I see her smiling. Suddenly, my own blackness stops bothering me anymore.

Updates from Bangalore

2009-09-21T15:27:00.003+05:30

I’m back… (Ignore the Schwarzeneggeresque nature of that line)…I’m back after months of frenzied moving and packing, after carefully doggy bagging a detailed life in Chennai. It’s been half a week and I’m still spending most parts of my in-between-job times, cleaning corners and emptying industrial packing boxes.
First things first…never shift after marriage. It’s toxic. It’s plain toxic. I mean previously, you could make do with a bunch of paperbacks, a dinner plate, a spoon, a tumbler, a bottle, a few clothes, a rin-bar, a dove, and some sunscreen. Now it’s two whole lives…that’s right!
But let’s hope the worst is over. The weather here makes me think positive. The man is overseas, attending to some official business. I am setting up the house, appointing a maid, appointing a cook, making friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood, identifying the gorgeous babe, earmarking the casual hunk, and taking note of the over-inquisitive aunties. My real job starts mid-week.
More on Bangalore life later (if I feel like)…ekhon ghoom peyechche…

What Spice Am I...Whew!

2009-09-01T17:11:00.004+05:30

You are Coriander! You're subtle. So subtle that people often forget about you. You are refreshingly clean and rather odd. You're often misunderstood. Your key word is "latent;" all your potential is wrapped up tightly until "BOOM," one day you're cilantro. Funky.

And I thought I was a fat red chilli...roasted hard! What a revelation!

And here come some more stunners:

You scored 50% on intoxication, higher than 12% of your peers.

You scored 0% on hotness, higher than 2% of your peers. (Ah well...)

You scored 50% on complexity, higher than 1% of your peers.You scored 75% on craziness, higher than 55% of your peers. (This I better hide from Amitava)

Go on, take the test yourself:

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/1869168367532779122/Which-Spice-Are-You

FLUX Big Time!!!

2009-08-28T12:01:00.003+05:30

And I thought I’d not blog again…at least not till the end of next month...not till I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Life is going through a transformation…hopefully for the better. FLUX is the buzzword. We are changing houses, changing jobs, changing cities…changing lives...well, almost. Whew! More on all of this later.

What forces me to blog today however, is Amitava’s startling desire to make breakfast on a weekday…his startling desire to make breakfast at all…his startling desire to enter the kitchen in the first place. I am too flabbergasted to react…but react I must.

It wasn’t anything extraordinary. But our man made cheese omelets and toast. Now mind you, however mundane and effortless that sounds, for me it’s a distinct sign of better days. Life, as I said, is definitely changing for the better. Hallelujah!

In Times of Swine Flu

2009-08-11T14:45:00.003+05:30

I don’t know if I am being politically incorrect here…but have you ever tried reasoning with a dimwit? Well, I am not sure if this is a meek attempt to achieve the impossible. Coz I have tried logic with a dimwit. And quite pointless to say, I have failed miserably.

What is it about dimwits? What is it about un-reason? What is it about the steady marriage between religion, blind belief, and stupidity? What is it about putting bona fide faith in an ambiguous All Mighty, without doing something about an issue, mortally?

Perhaps it is a coincidence that I am in the South of India; Chennai, to be precise. Situations like the ones I face on a regular basis, I force myself to believe, might have unfolded anywhere else in this country, India being such a sentiment-over-logic place. But however much I want to shake off any prejudices that some of my Tamilian friends accuse me of having, such situations affect my perceptions on South India quite inalterably. What remains are some bitter dregs…perceptions on the average South Indian character…conceited and completely closed to North Indian (whatever that is) suggestions.

Now let’s come to the point. There is an outbreak of Swine Flue in this country (The pigs finally got back to us, after humans spent centuries feasting on honey glazed ham, yummy sausages, and roast suckling pig). India being such an obscenely populated country, it has become a pandemic already. But people who want to save themselves from Swine Flu have their jobs cut out. Fight with dimwits!

Sample the following conversations with dimwits:

Conversation 1:

Human: Hey! I see you have fever, a running nose, cough and cold. You should stay at home and not come to office.

Dimwit 1: Who are you to tell me to stay at home?

Human: Well, just wanted you to exercise some social responsibility. That’s all!

Dimwit 2: I think this Swine Flu thing is much over-hyped. It has been done by the media to promote Tamiflu and encourage people to do tests which cost ten thousand bucks.

Conversation 2:

Human: What are you doing to save yourself from this outbreak?

Dimwit 1: It is the holy month in the Tamil calendar. Nothing is going to happen. Have faith in God.

I give up. For the obvious possibility that I might die of Swine Flu soon, consider this as my last post. Also consider this as an appeal to everyone to weed out dimwits.

Completely random, a bit depressing, but that’s okay!

2009-08-06T16:36:00.003+05:30

I made cheese cake last night…after returning home at a very rare seven in the evening. I am surprised by the sudden enthusiasm. Maybe I am a little relaxed than normal…my folks are here; Ma’s taking care of the cooking…and so I have time to make indulgent cheese cakes.

I don’t know why I gave my readers this piece of completely useless information. Especially because, it kind of gives them the wrong impression that I cook when I am happy and I cook when I am sad. That’s not it. That’s not it at all. I just shared the cheese cake story (Someone teach me the definition of a story…this is painfully dumb) due to lack of a better snippet.

Now the depressing part…I fought with Amitava for the whole morning over Skype, cried in front of my computer, skipped lunch, moved around with red bloated eyes, a bloated face, and a strawberry granita…an apology of an anti-depressant.

And after all the natak, I am hopelessly sleepy…coffee is not helping. I want to rush back home, ignore inquisitive parents, curl up with a book, and catch-up on some sleep.

Again, I am clueless why I am writing all this at all. Ignore it people. Just some random thoughts of a depressed-to-death-and-back woman. IGNORE!

I So Want Life To Work For Me…Complete Relativity

2009-07-28T17:26:00.004+05:30

I don’t want those dark and lonely corners curling up in the living room when I am home from work…that occasional lizard gleefully licking up monsoon bugs…I don’t want them there.
I want the old fat lady in a tambola-print saree to come and clean up the darkness, and the loneliness, and the helplessness everyday…with efficient fingers…cleaning every detail…with the strong detergent.
I want the cook to prepare a fine Bengali meal…complete with dal, some big green lemons for the racial flavor, plain rice, and spicy river fish.
I want to write this book…I don’t quite know on what…maybe on how to kill hypochondria…and how to dream right.
I want the yellow lights in the room to work…neon lights make me sick.
I want to stop making transactions and concentrate on relationships…
I want superannuation!
I so want life to work for me!
Wonder what that man across that dusty half-brick pavement would say!
Something like ‘I am tired of thinking about food everyday…where should I get my food from? The posh idly place? Where they throw the left-over stuff after ten in the morning?
Or should I wait outside the gate of that house that has that bright red car with shiny silver wheels? I so want life to work for me!’

How I Love Getting Scared!

2009-07-20T15:55:00.002+05:30

Scribbler inspires all over again. So here I am, writing about similar things…my obsession with the supernatural, this time. Of course, Scribbler says she’s scared to watch any horror flick. For me, the equation is a tad different. I love watching horror flicks. And I love getting goose pimples all the way from the stem of my receding hairline till the tip of my bruised and broken toe nails (Bruised and broken because today, someone at work ran a whole god dammed chair across my feet…however incredible that sounds…talk about corporate back-biting and competition…this is physical assault folks!).
Anyway, horror for me is a stress-buster, an anti-depressant, and an aphrodisiac. When I watch horror movies, I prefer being alone. I will do a lot of inane things like shut the doors and windows, use a chair from the dining table as a defense wall between me in the room and the ghost in the television set etc. (Lest the ghost a la The Ring just pops out of the screen). Needless to say, my husband gets uber exasperated when I begin such unadulterated dementia…but that’s the thrill of it…don’t you think?
Going to the loo, I agree, is a huge challenge after The Grudge kind of movies, where the spirit kills indiscriminately. Every single person dies…I wonder what the spirit does after that…die of sheer boredom and lack of better sense? You need at least one living soul to scare the hell out of…what say?
Come to think of it, going to the loo in the dark is a mind-blowing challenge any day, irrespective of whether you’ve watched The Grudge or not. Even if going to the loo can be somehow managed without severe damage to self-esteem, coming back to the room is a horrendous nightmare. I get this absolutely ridiculous idea time and again that the bored spirit is going to whack me, suddenly block my way, or on a more aggressive note, pull out whatever is left of my hair (at the end of a tough corporate week).
Something as mindless as Vaastu Shastra made me do something more mindless than the movie itself. We had gone to the forests of Karnataka yet again. The bungalow was eerie, to put it mildly. I suddenly recalled the horror in Vaastu Shastra and suggested that all of us should move together, and sleep in one room at night. There was a newly married couple who had traveled with us then, with bags of Kamasutras and dreams of achieving sexual sublimity. They haven’t forgiven us till date, I ‘m sure.
I remember another incident back at the in-laws…when I was supposed to be this low-key, soft-spoken, newly-wed, coy bride. The house is huge, replete with Belgian architecture; sprawling verandahs where you can spot a frail shadow in a white saree even during breakfast. The loo is at one end of the verandah (I’m genuinely sorry how most of these stories have something to do with the bladder). Too embarrassed to admit that I was scared, I went to the loo alone one night. My husband, being largely insensitive for most parts of my two and a half year old married life, didn’t realize that I might want him to wait on me outside the door. My father-in-law however guessed that I might need help. The sad part of the story is that I didn’t know he would be waiting. The moment I saw a dark form outside the door, I let out an earth-shattering scream with flaring nostrils and tightened knuckles, letting go of the mild coyness that I had promised to exhibit. The next action, I still don’t believe I did it, and it happened in a jiffy…I picked up a broom from somewhere and rushed at the figure. By then the larger family of aunts and uncles and cousins and cousins’ children had gathered around the place, and someone switched the lights on. I don’t think I have it in me to describe the pained embarrassment of the moment. My father-in-law, poor man, was flabbergasted, having been threatened with a broom by a should-be-shy bride. Everything of course, dissolved in mad laughter, and the story became quite a legend.
There are many more such thrills and horror movie-influenced moments in my life. I’m afraid if I don’t stop, a lot of you would know many more embarrassing details of my life, which I’d rather not divulge otherwise. So, for sanity’s sake… adiós!

Shock-proof

2009-06-23T17:11:00.012+05:30

This post should have been written quite a while back, when I was still reeling under the general shock of ‘thaeer sadam’ (Curd rice), ‘HR’ (pronounced hetch R), ‘where’s your native?’ and such atrocities. However, I thought I'd write about them anyway for the record, if not for anything else.

The following are a few instances when I was shocked out of my wits during my years in South India (Now that is an ignorant term…I should say, in Bangalore and Chennai). I’m sure you don’t have a clue. Let me explain.

Sample the following shockers. Most of these shockers cannot elicit a response. They are too shocking, and in most cases, I was dumb with amazement. On a few occasions, I have formed an opinion. The sections in bold, are my inputs.

1. ‘Where’s you’re native?’ First of all, this is incorrect English. It should always be ‘Where do you come from?’ This is a question that’s been bugging me since I moved to Bangalore. Later on, the question chased me till Chennai, and has stayed with me ever since.

2. ‘You are a North Indian?’ No, I come from East India, if you ask me. From a place called Calcutta, which has now been renamed to Kolkata. Kolkata is the capital city of West Bengal, which is one of the states of India. The map of the country seems to have dissolved into nothingness beyond Andhra Pradesh.
3. This is Bhanupriya from Hetch R. The moment you cross Orissa, ‘H’ becomes ‘Hetch’.

4. 'Why don't you learn Tamil'? Because I speak Hindi, which is the national language, and English which should be spoken all across the country. You have a problem? 'But I had to learn Hindi when I was in Mumbai. Why don't you learn Tamil in Tamil Nadu?' Oh, but you didn't learn Marathi. Both Marathi and Tamil are regional languages.

5. ‘Hi, I am Savitha’. That’s right. The Savita from Delhi, or Mumbai, or Kolkata, or Pune, or for that matter any other place in the world, becomes a ‘Savitha’ in the south of India. South Indian logic is that ‘th’ is the soft pronunciation. ‘Savita’ without the ‘H’ is much like ‘Beta’ with a sharp ‘T’ which is wrong. Okay, let’s agree for a change.
Now there is this place down the road that serves decent food and you also get live music over the weekends. So what’s it called? Ladies and gentlemen, it is called ‘Khaana Ghaana’. Now why that ‘h’ in ‘Ghaana’? Is it a piece of Africa? Does the removal of ‘h’ in ‘Ghaana’ make it a sharp pronunciation? How can you pronounce ‘Gaana’ sharply? Beats me.

The other day, a Bong friend called up...he knew about my general intolerance towards the unnecessary 'H' in Tamil English. The following bit is in Bengali:

"Aami ekhane Vellore-er Golden Temple-e eshechchi...bujhli? It says 'way to Dharshan'!" Bongs, stop doubling up with laughter!

6. ‘Satyajit Ray is a great director? Is he so famous?’ As famous as Balachander? No comments.

7. ‘Sean Penn won the Oscars. Great actor…what do you say?’ Oh but he is so subtle. Actors should be like Shivaji Ganesan. No comments.

8. King Lear? Never heard of him. The story that you tell me sounds like a Tamil movie. No comments.

And the hits just keep on coming. By the time I leave Chennai, if I ever do, I will be shock-proof. That’s a promise, to whoever is listening.

Vocab Invaded by the Techno-modern Symptom?

2009-07-16T18:20:00.005+05:30

I visited a school the other day…over some absolutely aimless project that I am into. But since this visit would keep the innumerable cheques from bouncing at the beginning of any given month, I trudged along reluctantly.
Unfortunately or otherwise, I overheard bits of alien conversation between the kids, once I was there. They had weird hand-gestures, tongue movements, and the Lord Almighty knows what else. (I’m sure I sound like a sickeningly pious and parochial old hag) To top it all, they looked at me as if I was the only thing the dinosaurs left behind. How encouraging!!! Do I want to go back to school? Definitely not.

Based on the behavior of school kids these days, I have conjured up an imaginary scenario that could well play out sometime soon. Here goes:

A normal conversation over Zingbomb (The new Dragon Well Chinese Tea-based aerated drinks launched by PepsiCo…available at all school cafeterias for 100 bucks…300 ml):

Kid 1: 'Aw, fuzjit! She’s such a butter face!'
Kid 2: 'The new girl? Yeah she is ugly!'

Note: Don’t know the meaning of "fuzjit"…just picked it up from one of those random conversations that I overheard. However, after extensive research, I found out, "butter face" just means "but her face". Meaning, her body is sexy enough…but her face! Also, sixth-standard kids are mature enough to start analyzing women. Revelation! All I could do when I was 12 was read Nancy Drew, treating it as adult literature.

Kid 1: 'Anyways. Don’t have much time for women. Dad’s gonna put my a** on fire if I don’t perform this semester. Last time was an epic fail man!'

Kid 2: (Guffaws)

Note: "Epic fail" signifies a mistake of such gargantuan proportions that it’s almost legendary.

Kid 3: (Going forward to meet Kid 1…handing him some Chiptech...blue potato chips launched by Lays…available at all school cafeterias for 50 bucks…per packet) 'What an Orz man…I am so ruined. I lost all my project papers!'

Note: "Orz" is a Japanese emoticon of a man pounding his head on the floor. The o is the head. The r is the arms. The z is the legs. Used to symbolize the emotion of frustration.
This could actually go on. But I just decided to give my scenario a "wtf". My research says "wtf" is profane for print. So let’s not analyze.

Note to My Husband – This is All I Need

2009-07-02T19:13:00.008+05:30

This might be an extension or a near-repetition to my ‘I Like’ post. But I need to settle scores right now. Redundancy in my blog posts is not a concern at this moment. He called me materialistic on my face, after I wanted nice orange Ajrakh curtains for the windows. Right…that’s how mean he is when I refuse to make an extra bull’s eye for the Sunday breakfast. So here’s a list of things (explained visually) that would make my life quite complete. Who needs a sad corporate life, away from parents, with gluttonous, food-centric husbands, bull’s eye, and Ajrakh curtains, when I get any of these?

Toast and juice for breakfast

Amazingly frothed cappuccino

A sit-out at one of Neemrana's forts

A drive down a lonely mountain road

A log hut in the woods

An attic full of absolute nothings

A view of the snowfall at Central Park

A Japanese garden by a bookshelf
Umm...so, I'm materialistic...any issues?

Rains, MJ, and Absolut...a Different Weekend

2009-06-30T11:07:00.005+05:30

Just the other day I was telling my husband, how nice it would be if it rained mindlessly for a while…if the pigment and shamrock greens of the land merged with the russet horizon…and all this while we would sit by the window, sip a cup of Castleton Caddy, and munch on some buttery popcorn.
This was just a near-utopic picture that I was trying to conjure up, to momentarily escape reality. I never realized an off-season Santa Claus was eavesdropping. And so my wish came true…almost.
While we went on a drive by the coastline this Saturday, the skies opened up. There was no popcorn…I dug into butter scotch candies instead. There was no Castleton Caddy…we celebrated the sudden downpour with a couple of pepper Absoluts. But I’ll forever remember the drive by the coastline, the plump nimbus brigade meeting the grey waters of the Bay of Bengal, and The Man in the Mirror playing in the car radio.

It’s not such a big deal that I should write a post on it. But it’s just a different weekend we spent after a real long time. Feels good.

Childhood: Lost and Forgotten

2009-06-20T19:00:00.005+05:30

Here comes Scribbler’s tag again…and so I write once more, as per her request. But if you ask me, I don’t have specific memories like Scribbler does. Childhood for me has been a set of vague and beautifully melancholic moments…the kind KG was talking about the other day…moments that make you feel nicely weepy, and you enjoy rolling in that melancholy, realizing how oddly fascinating it is.
I am not sure if I am able to explain myself to any of my readers. If you want it simply, of course there have been those days when I would painstakingly accompany my dad to the robbarer bajaar just to pick up a Bikram aur Betaal comics, a cheap yo yo, or a pair of red sunglasses with a lion sticker in the middle, on the way back home. Ma would scream and make my hidden agenda quite public. But I would unabashedly accompany Baba again the following Sunday. Then there were days when I would feed the crows my share of bread and Druke’s orange marmalade, just because I was bored with the same old Tiffin Ma would give me every day. Once I puked on myself (however impossible that sounds; people usually aim at neighbours)…I was in the nursery class, and a compassionate nun sent me home with only my skirt on…can you beat it? Then there was this one instance when I chased a hen…for whatever paranormal reason…got pecked big time by the hen in return…this was in a remote place called Amarda…wherever that is.
My biggest childhood memories of course revolve round my sickening fixation with the supernatural…my loyal attachment to Ramsay horror shows. I would stay put in front of the television, watch the horror shows, and invariably roll down the bed, carrying with me the mosquito net and the paraphernalia, or squiggle in between my parents in the wee hours of the night, completely delirious with fright.
The beautifully melancholic parts of my memories however, pertain to all my vacations in school…when I used to visit my dad in North Bengal, where he was posted. If it was summer, I remember sitting in the backyard, by an old swing and an old well, counting martins, and thinking how lucky or unlucky I would be. If it was winter, I remember running for the quilt after lunch, ready for a siesta, smelling the sun in the warm quilt covers. Sometimes my grandmother would send some tetuler achaar (sweet tamarind pickle…I thought I should translate this one…way too remote for my non-Bong readers), and I would wallow in its tangy taste, gazing at the squeaky clean sky from the bedside window.

Gone are those winters, and the alluring smell of sunshine. These days, all we think about is work, money, promotions, and sometimes, well just sometimes, global warming. Kids play with mindless gizmos. The good old tales of a petni or a kimbhooth (Bengali names for two ghost varieties) do not fascinate them anymore. Maybe, forty years from now, a kid, if asked about childhood memories, will talk about how he had a whale of a time, listening to music on his dad’s Mac...or better still, how he drank all the sugarcane juice, stuff that his dad had saved to make alternative fuel!!!

I Like...

2009-06-15T14:43:00.011+05:30

Since life is gradually careening out of control, I thought I’d paint the ideal picture and keep reminding myself that this is what I need to go back to. It is a list of apparently inconsequential things…but for my benefit, and on Scribbler’s request, I decided to pen it down.
I like:
1. Fries of all sorts (Yes, it’s a pity that my list had to start with food…I have become an incorrigible glutton after marriage)
2. Dark clouds and the smell of a norwester
3. Getting under the blanket in a dark room when it’s raining cats and dogs and pigs and horses outside
4. Sun-kissed windows, with soft cream curtains
5. Winter afternoons
6. Rubbing my feet on the carpet on such winter afternoons
7. Late night movies with popcorn
8. Coke…plenty of it
9. Pudina Cha
10. Lebu Cha
11. Lemon and Gin
12. Beer on a hot sunny afternoon
13. Beer anytime
14. Money plants and sunrays on the leaves
15. Long drives to nowhere
16. Sea-breeze
17. Beef-steak by the beach
18. Smell of lemon
19. Squashing silver fish in between torn yellow pages of old books
20. Conversations with my father
21. Bitching with my mother
22. Johnson’s Baby Lotion
23. Wildlife
24. Wildlife tours
25. Horror flicks
26. Cheese
27. Pedicure with aroma oils
28. The smell of candy floss at the Calcutta Book Fair
29. The distant cry of a kite...up in the sky

30. Making travel plans

31. Heavily frothed cappuccino
32. All the Oxfords, the Landmarks, and the Higgin Bothams in the world
33. Pot-pourri
34. Evening skies
35. Smell of baked confectionaries
36. Barbecue on a moonlit night
37. Jacaranda
38. Neem trees on breezy mornings
39. Crispy clean pajamas for the night
40. Mint
41. Junk jewelry and boho pants to hide the flab
42. Friday evenings (This is the most obvious…why isn’t it there in your list?)
43. Kalyan Verma’s photography (http://kalyanvarma.net/)

44. Steve Martin movies
45. Dark chocolate
46. Mustard paste
47. Ham
48. The hard ‘thush’ of newspapers at doorsteps in the mornings
49. The Banana Boat Song
50. Taking off my contact lens at the end of the day

Now that’s a completely incongruous and lengthy list…don’t know where it’ll take me.

Thought I’d follow it up with a list of dislikes too…just to give it a feel of completion

2009-06-16T14:03:00.003+05:30

I passionately dislike:
1. Chennai summer
2. Power cuts
3. Curd rice
4. Loud Tamil songs (completely over the top)
5. Moral policing
6. Jasmines and payals (I’ve had an overdose of it)
7. Smelly men with hoarse voices
8. Smelly women with hoarse voices
9. Cooking on weekdays
10. Cruelty to animals
11. Poaching
12. Exercise (Well, I should be doing it ASAP)
13. Vegetables
14. Pep talk from laws, in-laws and outlaws
15. Khushwant Singh
16. Monday mornings
17. Tuesday mornings
18. Wednesday mornings
19. Thursday mornings
20. Hypocrisy in any form
21. Long hours at work
22. Project Managers
23. Rajnikanth
24. Waist flab – that jiggles
25. No money to go on a world tour
26. Choosing what to wear to work – we should have uniforms to avoid this shit
27. Good girls who don’t swear
There are a lot more. Will keep adding, as and when I remember.

Chennai Rains

2007-07-30T17:19:00.003+05:30

Another thing I hate about the city...after a hot April, a hotter May and the hottest June, we've just got a fresh season....Chennai rains! I wake up in the morning, and boy! things couldn't get worse. The roads are a complete slush story...the trees are green allright...but our car? Seeped in a mud slime. And all this is just after half a milimetre of rains? Can there be a more grim beginning to an already blue Monday morning?

And then the beetles and the butterflies...what is it about the rains that ushers in such colour and a dull drone? It's hard to keep these creatures off my cold ham sandwich at the breakfast table. But let me not be biased against Tam-land this time....I don't blame Chennai for the flies.

They say the sea looks pretty under a dark cloud. I'm yet to find out. Leading a sad life 1200 miles away from home sure makes me yearn for some beauty. Then a visit to the seaside on a rainy afternoon is most definitely on the cards!!! Fingers crossed!

Life At Khivraj

2007-08-01T11:38:00.002+05:30

For those of you who thought this would be a Life-stops-at-Dehra write-alike (I am sure there is no such word) a la Ruskin Bond, you will be highly disappointed.
This is just an account of how I see the world at siesta time, from a dilapidated building in the heart of Tam land.
To come to the crux of the matter, I am hopelessly obese. As a last attempt to do a hocus-pocus on the adipose, I decided I‘d take the stairs to the seventh floor pantry, during lunch. Little did I know that taking the stairs would teach me such a lot, apart from the truth that adipose is here to stay.
The Ashok Leyland guys sit just outside our first-floor cubicles. When I move out for lunch, there is this sad guy in a blue uniform, swatting flies and making friends with the Chennai heat. I pass him and reach the next level. There is someone else sitting there and for whatever obscure reason, there seems to be a perennial line at his desk…must be some kind of a gold-mine fellow. I wonder if people are ever going to change…if they are ever going to run after money, if they are ever going to learn to make a propah queue, if they are ever going to learn to use deodorant in this stifling heat…but of course, they tell me, I haven’t faced true-blue Chennai heat just yet.
A couple of floors above that, there is this deaf and mute fellow, perceiving the world in silent terms. Everyday as I pass by, I see him happily increasing his network of similar people. It’s interesting to watch the fourth floor stairs, turn into a podium for a silent orchestra. Little would I know all this, if I had continued using the elevator.

There is really a wonder world beyond the known....its just a matter of stepping out and finding yourself through the organized mayhem of the macrocosm!

Bolpur...as we saw it!

2007-10-08T20:25:00.003+05:30

We saw her...almost apocalyptic, against the blue spring sky!
Gnarled and pregnant with yellow,
Are those flowers? I wonder, dazed by the mustard glow.
Maybe they are, my friend tells me.
Maybe they aren't, I reply.
Maybe, they are all the midday dreams that dissolve into an uneventful chai-time evening.
Maybe they are a confused blend, of all the blues of the sky and the greens of the land...
Are they really?
Look close...they have petals...so they are flowers after all...so much for your imagination!
But are they? Maybe they are a thousand pretty pig-tailed village belles, using the petals as a smart substitute for a purdah!
Maybe they are all the Prufrockian desicions, indecisions and coffee-spoon measurements, rolled into one!
OH STOP IT!!! They are just flowers...
Nothing big, nothing so galactic...but are they really?
Flowers with petals, stems and nectar? As prosaic as zoology?
I have strong doubts!
They are not just flowers...
They are the lights of a thousand silver glow worms,
They are the warm smiles of a hundred little children!
They are the ultimate colours of Basanta, and Bolpur...as we saw it!

Thursdays...Some Random Thoughts

2008-02-28T10:22:00.003+05:30

It's Thursday...the perfect day of the week when you feel partially low, because the weekend is still a day away. It reminds me of new age blues, of a rain-drenched afternoon, of a sad evening...the pink, the rose, the custom of the sky, of the prompt beep of a busy microwave, of the din of stupid squirrels on that huge neem tree in the backyard, of the warm smell of raw tea...of the lonely tear, of the humdrum low-fat dinner...no cheese for me, thank you. Then there will be the happy Fridays, the busy Saturdays and the how-quickly-it-got-over Sundays...till the week rolls back to the lone Thursday yet again.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

2008-08-13T22:07:00.003+05:30

It was my first ever darshan...of this oft-celebrated, much sought-after, doubtlessly omnipotent, and perhaps a little overestimated Lord of the Tirumala hills.
"You are a degraded non-believer, a blasphemous idiot...an embarrassing partner..." were the various reactions I got from multiple quarters, the last one coming from my husband.

Man! I gotta be kidding to mock the Almighty...the do-gooder, the sole strength, the all encompassing Venkateshwara. I was most definitely a worm of the lowest possible category, much to the chagrin of my family (read husband and in-laws).

After much debate, we set out on a Wednesday night...both of us quite drained out after a hard day's work. A tiring night journey followed, and we reach Tirupati at 2am.
Finally, some sleep, I thought, after our tempo traveler trundled into a hotel patio. Putting a sad period to my wishful thinking, the tour guide muttered, “Madam…downstairs at 2.30…go to ticket counter…line”… What? No sleep? Take that!

Note: People of similar disposition (similar to me I mean, please have a good sleep before feeling enthusiastic about Tirupati)

We reached the ticket counter at 3am sharp. There was a crowd, comprising religious fanatics, semi-fanatics, enthusiasts, and plain sleep-starved non-enthusiasts. On second thoughts, I think I was the only one belonging to the last category.
It took me days, actually months to realize what gargantuan sin I had committed to stand in a queue for a piece of paper at 3 in the morning. After much thinking, I decide to call it plain karma.
We drove to Tirumala soon after, and by 12 in the afternoon, we were in a caged-room, waiting our turn to pay a visit to the idol. The clock struck 1, and we rushed towards the main temple…like famine stricken Somalians, rushing for a stray helicopter full of food.
I finally saw Venkateshwara…starkly surrealistic behind a pale oil lamp. This was supposed to have been my encounter with ultimate divinity. However, my brain had stopped working. I was fighting for breath, for space, for relief, and for Venkateshwara knows what else.
It feels strange to live the ordeal on this post, all over again. When I think of the darshan, all I can say is, religion is a national obsession that India can perhaps do without. If paying homage to your god means running the risk of a stampede, if paying homage means fighting for air, if paying homage means having to stand in a queue beside a reeking sewage pipe for hours, the god’s must be crazy. I am happy as an apparent atheist. My belief in a super power lies within me.

Phoonk: How RGV is Barking Up the Wrong Tree!

2008-08-27T16:54:00.003+05:30

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had an obsessive inclination towards the Frankestiens, the Count Draculas, all versions of Friday the 13ths (strictly for the birds) and off late, towards the desi Raats, Bhoots, and of course Phoonk.
Ram Gopal Verma (RGV) had impressed me slightly with Raat (1992), where we had a young Revathi getting possessed at the drop of a hat, sending a chill down any ready spine. Bhoot (2003) was even better, apart from the occasional overdose of completely demented sound effects. But Phoonk? What was this guy thinking?

We have a rich young couple (they almost always are, living in a duplex and driving a CR-V), two saccharine-sweet kids, and a nervous mother with a shaking head, to start with. The man in the family is a confirmed atheist until everything in his life turns topsy-turvy, and his daughter, one of the two kids, becomes possessed by some random spirit. Our brave man becomes a believer, gets hold of a thoroughly obtuse quack, and cures his daughter. End of story.

Would you pay good money to watch this? Well, until recently, I would, being oblivious of the total lack of control on the part of RGV. To begin with, it’s bad logic to transform the atheist of the plot into a believer. This is an open invitation to primitivism in a country which is already smitten by Senas and Parishads, and Vedikes of every possible kind.

Back to the rich couple. The man throws out a criminal couple in the middle of some celebration. The couple swears revenge. Unfortunately for the rich couple, the criminal couple knows black magic. Sad.

What follows is a ridiculous blend of The Omen (both 1976 & 2006), The Exorcist (1973) and every other cult horror flick possible. There is a crow that watches everything from a vague treetop, a delirious black magician who wreaks havoc on the kid, and by the end of it all, you wish the sound system of the theatre was non-functional.

For someone who has tolerated absurd horror flicks like Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter (1966) and I Eat Your Skin (1971), I would have soaked in the absurdity of Phoonk too, had a few things been set right. However, the RGV factory decided to spoil my party with a misplaced storyline, bad ideology and demented background score once more. As a result, my horror-hunger continues…

The Sardar in Me!

2008-10-16T17:38:00.004+05:30

Readers...please excuse, if this reads like a nefarious attack on Sardars across the globe...trust me, it's not. This post really is about the French classes that I am attending off late on weekends, and my complete incomprehension of the wonky language.
As kids, we have grown up listening to thousands of lame Sardar jokes, one of them being about Milkha Singh, the athlete. This is how it reads:
Milkha is resting after a win. Reporter approaches Milkha, and asks him "Excuse me, are you relaxing? (read Relac Singh)". Milkha with his proverbial Sardar brain replies "No, I am Milkha Singh" That’s the happy ending to this really sad joke. But the point remains; I am gradually discovering the Milkha in me…in the French classes.
I was over the moon when I enrolled at Alliance Francaise (I hope the spell check is working) last month. My long term ambition of learning a major European language was just getting fulfilled…wow! I was filled with absurd self-pride, having brought myself so far (Whatever this means).
So our classes started. The instructor made us sing French nursery rhymes to start with. Unbelievable eh? I even remember the lyrics…
“Bonjour bonjour,
coco salut,
je va bien,
merci beaucoup…”
It was just some elementary greeting song…and I went on like an imbecilic parrot…as they say “there are neurons, protons, and MORONS!!!”
Shell-shocked at my remarkable capacity to indulge in nonsense, I thought I should rise above all else and say something intelligent in class. So when the instructor asked “When you think of France, what are you reminded of?” “Da Vinci”, I bellowed. “Da Vinci is Italian”, the instructor snapped back. Eiffel Tower, I thought would be too plebian…Marie Antoinette, too esoteric…Bonaparté, too historic…so Da Vinci, it had to be. And that’s how my pride had to disappear.
In the next few classes, I tried my best to bring out the Newton in me. But Milkha kept peeping out. We were divided into groups to ask questions to each other in French, and nothing but French. I soon found out, not only was it that things were way beyond my comprehension; the others seemed to follow the ‘things’ just right. My 13 year old classmate comforted me… “Don’t worry Aunty. (aunty? You mean aunty? You really mean aunty?) It happens.” Sure.
With strained concentration however, I had started warming up to the idea that things would get better for me. I learnt to say “J’m’appelle Debanjana…et vous?” (“My name is Debanjana, what’s yours?”). With reinstated self-belief, I started ringing up every living well-wisher, to repeat the lines in French. More than me understanding French, French was starting to understand me. I was almost ecstatic.
Ecstasy switched to agony once more last week. We were practicing conversation in class as usual. The instructor asked me “Êtes-vous un ingénieur?” (“Are you an engineer?”) “No”, I replied, beaming with misplaced self-conceit. “Je suis indienne” (“No, I am Indian”). Milkha refuses to die!