And then there was one more piglet

My niece, tall, pretty and wide-eyed, was born on 3rd November. It's been 2 days since I've been "upgraded" to "aunt" status (Empress chithi, she'll call me soon!) and I still can't put a finger on what I'm feeling, apart from an overwhelming sense of love, happiness and gratitude. That's three fingers already, you're thinking I know, but there's so much more that I'm feeling that it's hard to convince me that's that's all it is.

Isn't it crazy how there's a little "bout de chou" in another corner of the world that I still haven't met, barely seen photos of, haven't held in my arms, have no idea what she's looks like when she's asleep (or awake for that matter), how her voice sounds or what her apparently soft head must feel like against my chest or shoulder...and still, I already know, certainly, more certainly than anything else in my life so far, that I love her to bits. That I will hug her and sing for her and read for her and buy pretty things for her and take her out doll shopping and later, take her out dress shopping and accompany her to the hairdresser's and help her do her homework and teach her to make pies and be her favourite aunt (so what if she has only one for now?) the whole world.

Welcome to this crazy world, little 'un. You've won all our hearts already with your easy charm; Life can't be too bad for you. We won't let it be.

Daya Ghana...if obsession had another name

I haven't fallen for any song as I have for this one in a long long time...

Anyone - if there are any readers around still - capable of telling me what this Marathi song means exactly?


http://www.box.net/shared/0ilcqnbfxp

Lately been having a life

February has been a month that's been quite cool. Maybe mostly because I have been working relatively less, finishing early-ish (which is to say between 11 and midnight) and as a result have had the time to not just call and speak to friends but even meet them physically, get drinks together, catch movies and all! Who would have thought it possible?! Mama certainly didn't and still comes rushing up the stairs on mornings when I don't have work and I choose to stay in bed and will say, "Are you SURE you don't have to shoot today? Do you want me to check with the taxi driver if he has forgotten to come pick you up?"

GWAD and Ray of Light were in town and we spent part of the weekend doing nonsense things like we used to in college. We went back to Ray of Light's apartment which used to be our adda in college after almost 5 years and bring back memories, it did. But before having a near-flop sleepover (because Time can change many things but it will NEVER, in my opinion, change that GWAD will keel over and roll herself into a sleeping bundle at the stroke of midnight), the three of us went shopping all over town. It was Valentine's Day and we went into three crowded Bangalore malls looking for tickets to a movie that we wanted to catch later that evening. In one of those malls, some phone company or other was hosting a singing contest for lovers who wanted to sing romantic numbers to their girl/boyfriends and win prizes. And so for a moment, we stood up on the third floor, peering downstairs at the ground floor arena where the crowd had gathered to cheer. And every Kannada number that was chosen, I would clap and cheer and begin to sing enthusiastically standing next to GWAD. Very soon, GWAD turned and looked around us, looked me up and down and whispered to me, "You know, of all the people around here, ask anyone and they'd put you down as the most unlikely person to know ALL these numbers, tune and lyrics, and even more unlikely that you'd actually sing them loudly in public". That's me, ladies and gentlemen. Put me in La Cigale in Paris and hum along tunes by Brassens, Juliette Greco or Noir Désir, or put me in a crowded Garuda Mall and I'll clap hands and gladly do karoake for Rajkumar songs.

That done, we later went to get drinks and catch the movie "Luck by Chance". Drinks were great - beer and Bacardi breezers with oily Channa Batura and an apology for a pizza that came with Amul cheese and three pieces of onion on it - and the movie was even better. For those of you who are Bollywood fans but will enjoy a critically funny look at itself, please go watch it at once. It's quite evidently a woman's film, done with much irony and humour.

I watched another movie, "Dev D", by Anurag Kasyap, which I thought was very stylishly done in parts, but then the movie became so much about form itself rather than its story. I also found it quite irritatingly self-indulgent, the director rather shamelessly using the movie to showcase his avant-garde-ness or whatever else you want to consider Kashyap is. But to its credit, the film had some enjoyable sequences.
If I were Kashyap, I would also have rethought my cast, especially the young teenager who plays the role of Chanda, who I thought cannot act to save her life. Abhay Deol obviously got all the talent in his family if one were to compare him with his cousins and uncle. He is brilliant, subtle and exudes a strange charm on screen.

Sushi and I are planning to go shopping for handicrafts and leather slippers in a crafts exhibition this weekend. Sushi has been celebrating her birthday since the end of January (she gets depressed at the thought of her birthday being just one ONE day, so elaborate plans were made to celebrate the Sushi Birthday Season) and so I plan to bake her her promised birthday cake on Sunday.

A year and a day ago, I left France. Yesterday and the day before, I've been thinking about the last few days I spent in Paris with Southern Bride, P'tit Lu and other friends before I left the country. It has moved me beyond words on two occasions and thankfully I was alone then. I've been wanting to call and speak to these friends for so long but just haven't found the right moment.

Today, I stayed home in the morning and after what has been ages, I helped cook lunch. We're having guests over and I was warned to "stay at home" and "behave decently". I'm not sure I should take offence to that warning. I don't really mind because right now, I'm very happy my puliyaval has just the right tanginess to it and that my jamoons are a splendid golden brown and are fluffily floating around in thick sugar syrup. Life seems rather buoyant right now!

The disappearing act

I guess I've lent new meaning to the term "falling off the face of the earth". Fall I did, once from a bike, once from a chair and technically a third time from my bed in these three (almost) months but that's the extent of physical mishaps that have befallen me since I last wrote here. Unless of course I count the car accident that I was in early on Christmas day which resulted in 55,000 rupees worth damages to my car and a realisation that I could be level-headed and practical even in a state of panic when at four in the morning my car runs a flat after the tyre explodes causing me to swerve out of control and crash into three large stones by the side of the pavement.

But enough already, now that I have managed to rake in enough sympathy to prevent you all from screaming and scolding me for neglecting the Empress so long.

So much to tell you all and fill you in on. Cliche aside, I really can't figure where to begin. So I think I'll probably tell you the story in chapters. Maybe perhaps from somewhere in between.

There's that job that's going really well and where I'm learning and doing so much that it's drained out the slightest will in me to quit and shift to Big Bad Corporate World. Those guys from there are still in hot pursuit of me though. So I finally learnt the trick and am playing hard to get. I'm letting them think I'm very interested to work for them but that they're not interesting enough people. I told them that I'll get on board as soon as they have an exciting enough deal for me although all I'm considering really is that job as an alternative were I to be utterly hopeless about finding any other as a freelancer in the creative business of TV or film. So they're scrambling all over the place to make themselves look good. It's rather amusing. I see now why so many people in this world prefer not to talk straight and lead others on in false hope.

My schedules have been so tight and hard that I've lost sight of all my friends. I haven't met or spoken to most in ages but it's not that I don't think of them. I think of them all the time because everyday, I have so many things that I would like to share with them. So I started keeping a book - in lieu of this blog accessing which is not such a given task when shooting in remote hilly regions of Karnataka or undeveloped outskirts of Bangalore - in which I write letters to many of them. There's stuff for Tooty-Fruity, for Southern Bride, for GWAD, for Reddy-Steady, for Curly Angel, for Picture Perfect, for Mama, for Inner Light...One day, I will also post these letters. Maybe.

Last year this time, I was head on in preparitives to leave France. I was saying goodbyes, wrapping up work projects, closing whole chapters of relationships... A year later, I no longer feel vulnerable. I'm happy I chose to come back to India although I wish India and France could be neighbours so I could meet all my French friends more easily. Maybe not both countries; if my friends could just move an ocean to the east, things would look so much better!
I hadn't imagined that my job coming back here or that working in media in India would stimulate me to this extent. I'm so involved, driven and rewarded by it that it's made me a better professional than I ever was. What being back here has also done is that it's encouraged me to care more about my city, its people, my country and its people. How I articulate all this in the future will only depend on me; but I guess I'll get there eventually. People need to care to be able to change things and I believe more and more strongly that it's upto our generation to kickstart this change.

I'm beginning to find writing this increasingly difficult, because, like I said there's too much to tell. So before it transforms into a vacuous rambling, I'll stop but I promise to write often this month and the next.

Oh, and watch this Norwegian film called "Reprise". It reminded me, for various reasons, of my college friends and the kind of conversations we used to have, that I cried that night in bed thinking about that movie. No, I must have cried thinking actually about my friends. I miss you all so much!

Oktoberfest

In Munich, where the "real" Oktoberfest happens every year, beer parties and festivities begin in September, as early as the second week.

Bangalore however, in its characteristic vacation-like-retired-life pace, takes its time to follow. And so it was that only on the 1st of November did the Bangalorean version take place and a whole lot of rollicking song 'n dance drinking partying fun it was!

The organisers had to circumvent several new laws that forbade serving alcohol and having live music in the same place, but had found very clever ways in which to do so. Hosted at one of the city's leading posh hotels, they'd declared it a "private party" that they justified by having a "by invitation only" entry.

Once in though, the guests were treated to great beer, an even greater ambiance that was helped by the presence of over forty musicians who flew in from the state of Bavaria and who regaled the enthusiastic youngsters but also the many uncle-jis and aunty-jis present with traditional German folk songs and classic rock numbers.

Deep, Susie Q, Dead Ashes, Player Boy and I had one table for ourselves throughout the evening. While Deep and Player Boy plunged headlong into the drinking by helping themselves to one litre mugs from the very start, Susie Q, Ashes and I began more cautiously. That however didn't prevent us from prancing around the crowded room looking for "random hot-looking" boys to dance with. Ashes offered to dance with me and two minutes into the jig, I stopped and asked, "What moves are these?" To which he laughed and laughed and broke into a strange shakey version of some dance that I'm sure has a name. Or it would have one, at least in his head.

Then we all got up on the bench. We all meaning practically the entire hall. More singing and dancing and cheering happened from up on the benches. Soon, there was no more beer anywhere, not at the bar nor on the tables. So instead of complaining, the crowd took the party to the next level: we all got on top of the tables and continued to sing and dance.

People fell. More importantly, Susie Q and Ashes fell and hurt themselves. Somehow, we got the bench and the table upright again and rickety as it was, got up on the table again. Then Player Boy fell. Helpful German neighbours kept asking him in German if he was all right to which he kept saying, no, he would not be driving back. It was all very good fun, during which I discovered I understand more German than I give myself credit for.

Having nursed all of one mug of beer throughout the entire evening, I was the most sober person at the table, which by now had been divested of the tablecloth, the empty mugs and bore instead shoe prints and chappal marks. To make up for my well-behavedness of the evening, I encouraged Ashes to steal an untouched full mug of beer from the table behind us. He stole it and everyone drank it.

Then we went to have dinner before the hotel would throw us out. Susie Q was persuaded she was eating curd rice while she picked the pasta in cream sauce from her plate. Ashes and I gulped down dollops of some Bavarian dessert which was sinfully delicious and Player Boy tried hard and failed more miserably each time to convince us that "he was all right".

Downstairs, after the party crowd had dissipated, we strolled into the coffee shop and ordered coffee. Amidst nonsensical conversation that revolved around filter coffee, hairy boys and strong handshakes we all revelled in the warm feeling of an evening well-spent in good company.

Or maybe that warmth was just all that beer.

The month that has been

The month of October has been about exciting shooting schedules and tremendous creative work on a fiction show.

It has also been about the closing down of one of my shows that I was directing. The channel claimed it wasn't making enough money on it and therefore saw no reason to continue airing it. Notice I'm not boo-hooing about it even one bit? That's because there's only that much you can be passionately driven about making a reality show and there's only so much you can actually appreciate working with an uncooperative team that's resistant and resentful to feminine presence, let alone leadership, on the floor. And also, there's only this much that you can get excited about having to shoot an episode on Thursday, edit it in one day and deliver it for broadcast on Saturday, uplinked to satellite from another city.
So yeah, I'm glad that show was closed down, even if it meant adios to my stint as director of a reality show.
(In a rare jobless moment, I googled female directors of reality shows in India and only one other name came up!)

October has also been the month of surprisingly late and consistent monsoons in Bangalore. The month has been colder than usual October months in Bangalore, the city has been wetter and greener. The time has been nostalgia-inducing and has made me crave so much more for younger days, for friends to be geographically closer, for sisters and other friends to have lives which would bring them to India.

This has also been the month in which I quit my job. Several issues I have with my company and the way its people function and treat each other have remained unresolved despite my repeated observations and demands. The company is a place that makes me physically uncomfortable. So I figured that such a place with such negative energy definitely didn't deserve me, or should I put it somewhat less arrogantly, that I certainly deserved better.
I'm going now to be a freelancer working in television and probably grappling around to find other sources of income in order to pay the luxurious life I lead in which I eat four meals a week and drink four drinks an evening:-)
And of course, there's the car's EMI to think of.

I cannot help but pause and mull every second day over the fact that my life seems and probably is, SO GROWN UP! Like, I have ADULT problems. Yuck! Those adults who only know how to count and who can only talk about "bridge and golf and politics and neckties". Shudder.

This month has also been a time of learning. As assistant director of a fiction show, I am learning so much right now; more than any other professional experience in the past three or four years. The experience is as exhilarating as it is humbling, but at every moment of doubt I feel a surge of confidence that this was what I was meant to do, because if I weren't, it would all not seem so clear to me.

So then this became the month where I asked myself if I was going to have to courage and the energy to stay in this money-less craft because I really badly wanted to, or if I was going to relent to the pressure of bank loans and the need for an independent lifestyle and take a corporate business job. Horrible thing this question of courage is.

I've decided I want to go to Banaras next year. I'll start with making a short two-week-ish trip there in winter and then decide if I want to go back there frequently. That city has music in its soul that beckons and lures. I want to let myself be seduced.

I read two books this month despite being so busy and I've realised that my reading and singing schedules don't go haywire much even when I work hard and long. Maybe the fact that I sleep an average of three hours everyday makes that slightly easier?

This month, last of all, is the month of Diwali. Tomorrow will be my first Diwali at home after five years! Mama bought me new clothes - she complained though that the pair of jeans I picked up was so faded that it didn't even look new! - and a stuffed brown dog with a big nose and black eyes. I called him Snout.

Happy Diwali to all of you. I hope that this month has been good to you too and that Diwali comes bearing light and warmth in your lives.

Family time

Yesterday was the first Saturday in ages that I spent at home. I cannot say I stayed at home away from work, because I was fielding calls from eight in the morning all through the day. Nevertheless the day was spent idling to the extent I could at home and spending some more time with Mama, Papa and Player Boy than I have been doing lately, which is just about enough time to say "Hi" and "Bye, I'll be home late"!

There's been a sudden transformation in Player Boy, which has blown me off my feet and totally staggered me: When I was singing last morning, he came up to my room and said, "You're singing off-note" and then, "There were a couple of places where you didn't sound very good". Like, you know, he was actually listening! And then he actually judged my singing quality! Him, my brother, whose idea of being polite when I sing is to storm into the room, yell at me for not shutting the door, slamming the door behind him and locking himself up in his room.

I asked Mama what raag I should sing, and, like she says nine out of ten times, she said, "Kedar". So I promptly went upstairs and didn't sing it and sang something else instead. Then, Player Boy brought me coffee while I was singing!

This makes me think that maybe absence does make the heart grow fonder and that there might after all be perks to staying away from home late hours and working like a donkey and not sleeping for days on end. Your coffee brought upstairs by your brother because he's pleased you're around at home tastes that much greater!

We all went shopping for clothes for Picture Perfect and Happy Camper in the evening. Mama and Player Boy selected shirts, kurtas and tops while I attended to phone calls. Then, like a great decider, I walked up to the counter, demanded to see which ones they'd selected and said, "this is OK, this isn't" in a firm final manner. I picked up some other clothes that I thought were better and Mama approved. Then I went to the Teens section in the shop and picked out a few tops for myself. Because, now that's the size I am : I wear a medium or a large from the teens section.

(Also, I wore one of Picture Perfect's blouses on the day we celebrated Vijayadashami at home and it was loose on me!)

Player Boy and I had golgappeys on the road and all the while he complained about his upset tummy. I explained to him that since his tummy was already upset, he might as well run the risk of eating on the roadside. We had a long argument about how that made no sense: forest fires seemed to be a major part of that discussion for some reason.

We came back home and both parents left to go drop off the stuff to the friend who was travelling to California. Player Boy left for an aunt's place where he was promised ice cream. Like I said, something's come over him: he's showing new interest in classical music, he's being nice to me when I sing, he's visiting family...the rains must have done something to his disposition!

I had dinner with a friend - a new one, but someone who I feel I've known all my life - at a place that I hadn't gone back to in more than eight years. The restaurant was open-air, the weather was great with just the slight breeze, there were candles in lanterns on the table and the food was not terrible. We spent the evening talking and then listening to music in my car in silence.

I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow: it's only when you have the time to relax that you realise how tired you have been. I felt the rolls of fatigue crush me under them and helplessly gave in to a dreamless seamless sleep.

Today, it's back to work.