The Smiling Empress

And then there was one more piglet

2009-11-05T09:39:00.003+04:30

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

2009-05-07T19:15:00.016+04:30

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

2009-02-20T12:30:00.003+04:30

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

2009-01-26T16:44:00.004+04:30

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

2008-11-02T07:21:00.002+04:30

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

2008-10-27T01:33:00.004+04:30

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

2008-10-12T07:38:00.004+04:30

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.

An account of things

2008-10-06T14:47:00.002+04:30

In the past 25 days,

Average number of hours I've slept each night: 3

Average number of kilometres I've travelled to and from locations daily: 65

Average number of times I've heard the commands "Stand-by, roll, action" everyday: 55

Average number of times I've said those commands daily and been thrilled to be obeyed diligently: 25

Average number of times I've ignored, rejected and missed calls from friends and family daily: 12

Average number of times I tell myself that working so hard and long is a crime: 17

Average number of times I've eaten three full meals in a day: 0

Average number of times I've felt a surge of pleasure and thrill and excitement when setting up a scene, when seeing what magic comes from good composition, from reading great dialogue, from witnessing great acting: countless

Still alive

2008-10-06T14:43:00.003+04:30

You didn't think so, did you?!

Traveling

2008-09-13T07:06:00.004+04:30

I'm going off to Shimoga for shoots tomorrow and won't be back for another week or so.

My parents are leaving for out of town too today.

Player Boy left for Hampi last night.

I told Mama that we were a family of "baroudeurs*" (pronounced: bar-oodher). She said, "What bar, what blowing?"
I said, "It's French, not Tamil".
"Whatever it is, we are not a family of blowing anything in any sort of place that serves liquor", she replied.

And then I went back to sleep with an image of all of us sitting in Karavali bar and restaurant on the main road, blowing whistles and smoke rings.

Keep well all of you, especially you, Tooty-Fruity! Stay away from 'em windows and don't get blown off your feet (ha ha).

(But seriously, lock yourself up in a wind-free zone in the house)

(There's a hurricane in her city, that's why, in case you're wondering)

*Errant adventurers

'Round we go the mulberry bush

2008-09-10T14:43:00.005+04:30

It's been so long, no?!

Yeah, my mother's also telling me that at home. "I used to speak to you more often when you lived in France", she wails as I rush out of the house in the morning.

I'm making phone calls to my friends - the few who still talk to me despite me vanishing off the social circuit for more than two weeks - while I drive. Not because Bangalore Traffic Police has suddenly taken very kindly to drivers talking on cell phones, but simply because that's my only free time in which I can put on sidey accents and be silly and laugh loudly.

Speaking of Bangalore Traffic Police, I got pulled up last night on M.G.Road for making a U-turn where I wasn't supposed to make one. There was no board, apparently no cops or any other sign of forbidden U-turns. So I waited until the signal turned green at the M.G.-Brigade Road intersection and carefully made a U. One second later, from out of the darkness - literally - one bald moustached policeman wearing a funny green cap came bounding towards me and flagged me down. So I stopped.

"Driver's licence dhikao", he ordered in Hindi. "Yahaan U-turn nahin kar sakthe", he bellowed leaning purposefully into my open window.
"Sorry Sir, nanige gothirlilla", I answered, explaining in Kannada my ignorance. "There's no board that says so!", I protested.
"Haan, haan, you'll have to pay a fine. Go meet the sub-inspector!", he said. Then, as an afterthought, he leaned some more and asked, "Ok, now tell me what you will do, will you pay the fine or...?" and let his question meaningfully open-ended.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll pay the fine if your sub-inspector gives me the receipt", I said confidently, preparing to take out my purse and driver's licence before I got out of the car.

He accompanied me across the road and called out to another colleague. He then mumbled something about "sahebru" having gone out for coffee. Then he looked at me and said, why did you make u-turn where you are not supposed to? I said, sorry boss, no sign, not knowing, what to do, just come back to Bangalore (biting my tongue immediately after I said that last bit)
Where you were, he asked promptly.
Delhi sir, I lied promptly.
He then gave me the once-over and asked again, "Will you pay fine?"
I shrugged and said, yes sir, I will.
He hit his forehead and said, "Ayyo, hogamma..."
I was all "Huh? WHat?"
He all but pushed me away and said "Go on, go on".
I once again said I was sorry and walked away in a hurry.
Later I wondered why I said sorry. Maybe because I was being such a let down and not offering to pay HIM any money but instead was ready to pay the fine.

Anyway, so yeah, I've been busy, what with getting caught by police and all.

Then something else also exciting happened. I started working on fiction. Like scripting visual fiction. And will be directing it. And all that jazz. Good fun only it's turning out to be. I've made some new actor-type friends who are extremely fun and who are already quite fed up of my irritating penchant and love for details, colour tabs on excel sheets, my habit of hitting my forehead and strangely, the fact that I scrunch my nose and pout when I think. They want to make me a character in the serial. Like someone who'll come in only when comic relief is needed. I think they meant that as a compliment. But who knows.

My ink pen has started leaking profusely. I'm despairing. I own two very nice Parker pens and they are the only ones I write with everyday (yes, I'm a ten year old who cannot write with ball point). Each has a specific purpose and a specific place in which I keep them so interchanging them is really out of the question - the universe just won't allow it! And now, one is leaking very badly. I don't know what to do. I feel crippled.

Yesterday was a first for many things. But the saddest thing that it was a first for was that I fell asleep on my computer for the first time late in the night while working. I know it's like the cliché of hard work and no rest and all that, but it's true. I felt very sad for myself when I woke up at four in a panic because I hadn't finished what I was working on. Then I slept until eight and then woke up in a hurry and left home in a rush and Mama screamed again at me, "I haven't spoken to you in SO long!".

See, we've reached one full circle in this story. It's actually quite apt at the moment because I can't but help thinking that my life is going around in circles. But it's fun sometimes, especially at the curves, when you go "Wheeee" and let yourself be surprised by what's behind the curve.

Friday dressing

2008-09-05T11:53:00.004+04:30

One of the advantages of waking up early and singing for two hours before you leave for work in a hurry is that you have yourself a nice beginning to the day. You hum the raag all day and the lilting tunes haunt you, leaving you at peace with the world even as you drive in between reckless auto-drivers and clumsy gigantic buses. You feel at ease with yourself and don't care whether you're shoe colour matches your bag's, whether you should have worn black trousers with this red top.

One of the disadvantages of waking up early and singing for two hours before you leave for work in a hurry, having distractedly pulled out some top and some trousers from your cupboard and wearing the same clothes in a daze and barely seeing yourself in a mirror while only slightly emerging from the trance that music has put you into, is that you land up at work, walk around the entire office greeting and talking with colleagues and then a couple of hours later, AFTER everybody else has noticed but hasn't said anything out of politeness, you finally realise that your new once-washed shirt is torn. At the back of the sleeve. Huge enough to bare shoulder not in an understated fashion.

Sigh.

And I thought my colleagues still hadn't gotten over the hair thing and were staring at me pitifully.

Hair my woes!

2008-09-02T17:59:00.002+04:30

I think I might be growing bald.

No, no, this is not one of my paranoiac episodes or even those of my well-known melodrama, which I'm sure you're all missing by now, given as I've written here in the past week, less than the time I have watched the Bollywood hyped film Rock On, which merits all of one viewing and then one quick dismissal, as does Farhan Akhtar's voice in all the songs he effortlessly spoiled in the film.
So, no, this isn't one of those episodes. I am genuinely unfortunately painfully losing hair!

Each time I run my hands through my hair, in a moment of stylish panache - believe it or not! - I stare woebegone at a fistful of hair. In the bathroom, when I wash my hair, I stare gapingly at the locks that fall and flow down the drain. I brush my hair only to find that half of it comes out in the brush and the thinning tresses on my head seem less and less in need of any brushing at all. Dead Ashes, my new friend, who has a beard and thick curly hair, is telling everyone he has more hair than I do!

"Why oh why?", I moan sullenly at Mama.
"Malnourishment is one of the primary causes of premature baldness", she declares angrily. "If you kept your mouth shut and ate all that I lovingly make for you everyday, thus preventing any food wastage at home and put on a dozen kilos, your hair will automatically begin to grow back", she declares, making her case for home food, weight increase and home economics in one breath.

"But my hair looks and feels quite healthy", I plead, handing her one strand I just pulled out, to inspect. "See, it's all thick and black and shiny!"

"That's one less hair on your head, you do realise, don't you?", offers Player Boy helpfully. "Maybe you body just decided to help you in your process of plucking out your hair and so, is shedding hair in lumps so you don't have to take the trouble of pulling out each one singularly until the day you go completely bald".

"Bah, but how will I think if I have no hair left to pull out?"

"You have strange worries and concerns Empress", he shrugs and walks away from the conversation.

Helpless and sad, I decided that a hair cut was in order. If I was losing hair, I was going to do it in style and not sport a style that looked and felt like a rat's tail. So on Sunday, I jauntily set off for the nearest beauty parlour that advertised high end beauty products and charged a fee to match.

I came out with less hair, even lesser money and hair that would have looked better on a porcupine.

"Tsk, tsk", lamented Mama, "you paid all that money for this?!" she asked incredulously. "How are you going to face your students this afternoon?", she added concernedly.

Wiping away a tear, I tied a bandanna around it and went bravely to class.

All of yesterday, I hid under a dupatta at work and said that "Ih hab a really baaad cold" to whoever looked in my direction. I even wore sun glasses to complete the whole "unrecognizable" thing I had going for the day. But everyone who came in my path stopped and said, "Oh Empress! New haircut is it?!" So I gave up and threw away the dupatta and sunglasses and resigned myself to looking ugly. My boss suggested that maybe I should wear a bigger nose ring so it takes attention away from my bad hair. Another colleague laughed and asked, are you just having a bad hair day or is this how you're going to look now?

I took the day off today. No, I couldn't face them anymore than that with this hair.

And I decided to get it cut some more. Maybe this time, a little better.

So I took Mama and went to another salon and sat there under the merciless clips of another stylist's scissors. "Don't worry, I'll give you a smart look", she gleefully brandished her weapons behind my head, "A very different one!"

Smart I think went out with the locks that were swept off the floor under my chair. But she kept one half of her word: I look different all right. Mama took one look at me and spat out her laughter. "Did you need all this? Couldn't you have just begun to eat good nourishing food? That would so have been the end to your hair problems", she started off again.

"But it looks good from the back", she tried to console me.

GWAD said she still loves me despite the way I look.

Ray Of Light said it wasn't so bad, but that I should stop losing weight because now my nose looks too big o my face. She expertly evaded the hair question.

Nobody else has bothered to write back to me or call me with sympathetic messages.

My thick friends have become as thin as my hair has. Booooooo.

Papa just walked in and said hi and looked at me quizically and walked away. "You didn't notice anything?", I asked surprised.

"You seem to have a slight hair problem today, don't you?" he asked hesitantly. "But then, there's hardly any left, so it shouldn't be a problem for long, right?"

Starting tonight my diet will consist of four curry leaves, 2 carrots, lots of fenugreek and protein supplements. And for those who wish to meet me, make appointments in dark dingy bars at night time.

One late, one early

2008-08-26T05:10:00.002+04:30

Happy birthday to Pengwyn, who celebrated her 'appa burday on the 24th.

And Happy birthday again to GWAD, who turns 26 on the 27th:-)

I love August is the monthses of burrrdays, mine and many nice peopleses!

Ayuthaya

2008-08-21T15:25:00.008+04:30

I've been thinking a lot about my trip to Thailand these past few days, maybe because I'm planning an escapade for as soon as I have the money:-)

I was in Ayuthaya on a hot and sunny day. The whole town wore a look of destitution as every second temple I came across - one in practically every crossroad - stood in ruins. But something about the red bricked structures, the towering stupas and the moss-covered walls captivated me, disturbed me. The intense sun rays reflected off the ancient walls as I trekked up the ruins with sweat trickling down my back, forming uncomfortable wet patches on my t-shirt.

There was something so starkly vacant about this place, where for kilometres on end, one could only see grey-red temple ruins, broken statues of Buddha and strangely, locals who wore the same look of desolation as these old structures.

The experience was as uncomfortable as it was disconcerting. If stones could tell stories, the ones I would have heard that day would have been, I presume, painful, leaving a dull feeling of emptiness within.

Here are a few pictures:

One more birthday come and gone

2008-08-17T21:14:00.003+04:30

On Friday I was off work. Unofficially. But I was off work. I smsed my boss on Thursday evening at six o' clock and said, "I'm off for the weekend". He immediately smsed back and said, "Have a great weekend. But what time are you coming into work tomorrow?"

That's my job for you.

That evening, I picked up GWAD under torrential rains and we had planned to drive to her home, which is now a small 27 kilometres outside the city, so we didn't expect to get there in a hurry. But rains and bad roads in Bangalore don't really mix well, just as rum and tequila don't (and I know from experience) and so we were stranded on one road for more than two hours and we reached her house after a long, tiring and mind numbing three and half hours in my car.

Sleepover happened but with a drowsy Empress who was pressing the clutch up and down even in her dreams.

Friday was Independence Day. Radio stations all over the city kept blowhorning "What do you want freedom from today?!"
I called in thrice to three different stations to say, "My job" and nobody would listen.

On Friday evening Player Boy and I drove to the airport (27 kms again) to bid goodbye to a sad Inner Light and Tooty Fruity. For the first time in my life, I didn't cry while saying goodbye to either. Don't ask me why. I don't know. I might have been too tired to cry. I might have spent all my tears on crying over the disaster that is my show on TV. I might have wept all my tears on my job. But don't believe me when I sound melodramatic like that; it's after all just a job which is not pervading all aspects of my life.

Then, on Saturday I said goodbye to GWAD and this time I didn't even have the energy to drive to the airport. She wholly agreed and said that she was only glad to be leaving because of the traffic in the city. Ha, I said, you're going to leave this and go to Paris traffic! She hit her head and moaned.

That night, I went out with Susie-Q, Yellow Bellow Marsh Mellow and Deep to usher in my birthday, to Vaayu, an outdoor restaurant on the top floor of a high building mall in the city. The weather was perfect and as the evening went by, I managed to forget all the people who I was missing in the city and just threw up my legs and relaxed and sipped on those yummy White Russians.

Sunday went by slowly and calmly. Dressed all day in a lovely silk kurta that Papa and Mama gifted me, I felt regal. I got flowers too and Mama made kaaju katlis and fed me one everytime I crossed her path. One concert, one French class, one riyaz session and one scrapped dinner plan with family because of rains and traffic later, I'm sitting here.

I don't feel 26. I don't feel 18 either. At times I feel 5, at others, I feel 50. Is that good or bad?
I like my life. Rather. Sometimes I just hate it.
I hate my job. Although the real thing in it-making visual content-is what I love totally.
I love my friends and family. They love me back. Oooh, I might cry.
I love White Russians. And Blue Lagoons. And Peach Daiquiris. And simple Gimlets.
I could sing in my sleep if I wanted to. In fact, I do.
I do my own laundry. I cook. I love to drive but Bangalore traffic makes me neurotic.
I miss my friends who are far away. I gaze fondly at photographs for hours on end.
My mother grimaces when I throw spaghetti onto the kitchen tiles to check if they're cooked.
She thinks I'm a clueless teenager fit into the body of an underweight young adult.
Don't all our mothers?

So, really, looking back, I can see that my life is quite normal and so much happier than most people in the world can claim to have. I'm glad I had this extra year to figure this out and that tonight, I will go to bed older, wiser. I am now a part of the Gang of 26 like YellowBellowMarshMellow said yesterday:-)

The week of departures

2008-08-11T22:24:00.003+04:30

My heart sinks every time at the thought: three of my visiting friends leave this week to resume their lives abroad.

A part of me wants them all to stay back "indefinitely", like me.

A part of me wants to pack my bags and leave for similar shores.

Another part of me shudders at the heartache and heaviness I would have felt were I leaving too.

And as if to make things worse, all three of them leave withing 24 hours of each other. I realise that it is not speaking much of those friends who will actually remain in Bangalore, but it must be said that with these departures, a large void will form in my life, that I can't begin to think of how to fill. Waaaaaaaaaaa!

Tooty-Fruity, GWAD, Inner Light: don't goooooo! :-(

"Happy motoring"

2008-08-07T22:10:00.003+04:30

So they said to me at the car showroom, before I drove off in my oyster gray brand new car.

"Happy motoring"? In Bangalore? Who did they think they were kidding?

Anyway, the new car is here. It has plastic on its seats! And a power steering! And a CD player that works!

I feel really sad for the Maruthi van which is now resting in the garage. But I think her rest is well deserved and that the i10 is all set to cruise.

Jai Bangalore roads! Jai driving in India! Jai shelling out half my salary as EMIs. How they lie to you about adult life being fun, don't they?!

After the accident

2008-08-06T15:58:00.002+04:30

So I drove for a stretch, legs trembling and all, but not far before I felt I had to stop and stand for a while.

I reached the end of Nandidurga road where there was the usual long traffic signal. I stopped and decided that this was my chance to get out of the car and stretch my legs and maybe even check my front bumper for any damages that I might have missed in the hurried check I did at the accident site.

I pulled my hand brakes on, switched on my parking lights, left the engine running and opened the door to step out. So glad to feel terra firma under me, I took two steps outside, unthinkingly pushed the lock down on the drivers' seat and shut the door behind me while walking towards the front to check the bumper.

It is a good thing to be cautious while driving alone at night. It is a very good thing to reflexively push the lock down while getting down from your car. It is a good thing to leave all doors locked.

It is however definitely not a good thing to leave your keys inside and the engine running with all the above combined conditions.

So there I was stranded in the midst of a traffic signal locked outside my own car with no money, no phone, no keys and certainly no idea as to what to do next.

The only thing missing to dramatise the situation a leeetle more - for you'll all agree that I had not had enough drama for one evening - was rain. Which began slowly in the five minutes that followed.

Eventually, my brain lights flickered on and I crossed the street to the hardware shop across. I borrowed a think filament of iron or aluminium or whatever else, used a cutting plier to roll a loop on one end and went back to the car.

I had left my window slightly open, just about an inch, to allow air inside when I drive. I forced my hand in, pulled it out several times because it was, ummm, painful to say the least. I finally managed to force half my hand inside the car with the filament loop in it and adroitly managed to pull the old Maruthi van lock out.
(What I would have done had the lock been a more modern clicking-type one, I prefer not to wonder)

I threw the filament out on the pavement, sat back in my car and tried to inch my car ahead towards the policeman who had initially approached me with all intentions of yelling at someone who had randomly stopped her car in the midst of a traffic signal, but on seeing that there was a genuine problem, preferred to stay at his stand and man the traffic as indifferently as he had been doing earlier.

Except the car wouldn't move.

I was just about to burst into tears and bang my head on the steering wheel, when I saw that my hand brakes were still on.

I pushed them down and started the car, which spurted to life and groaned its way into the full beam lights ahead.

My right hand remains bruised in three places. One of the things that I have learned after last evening is that, whatever Mama might say and however much she moans about her children being thin and their limbs being "stick-like", it is indeed a good thing to have stick-like limbs. A fat-limbed person would still have been stranded opposite the gas station in the midst of traffic, facing rain, headlights, honks and wondering what to do with her stupidity.

Accident

2008-08-06T09:28:00.002+04:30

I was driving back from work last evening on Mosque Road. On reaching the end, a steep stretch at the end of which I intended to make a right, I stopped and pulled on the hand brakes to allow the free-flowing traffic from my left turn right onto Mosque road in quite the hurry.

I stood there lamenting angrily the haphazard ways in which the traffic opposite me was behaving when all of a sudden, a big expensive car lunged towards me and hit the front bumper of my car. For a second, I didn't know what had just happened and I was too shocked to even realise my car had been hit. It took exactly that long for the driver of the oncoming car to get out of his car and approach me menacingly.

I had my windows up, as is my habit especially while driving in the night, but for the slight opening to let a little air come in. He first gestured wildly, asking me to move back. I shrugged my shoulders helplessly having caught the two cars waiting in line behind mine. At this point, the driver widened his eyes, started screaming profanities at me and came charging at my side of the car.

I hurriedly pulled my window up and calmly looked out of the window at him, while he threatened and called me names. Soon, the cars behind me managed to extricate themselves from the line and move ahead. I backed my car down the car slowly, to reveal that, at the place where his car had banged into mine, there were substantial dents and scratches. On seeing the extent of the damages, our chap got even more furious and came hitting at my car windows.

I was not, let me say so at this point, reassured. In fact, I was shitting bricks, if shitting bricks is what it is like to feel like a cornered ant in a bell-jar facing the world's darkest biggest and red-eyed monster.

He banged some more and yelled some more (I now have a plethora of Kannada expletives to employ on people) and then fumed some more at the sight of his car. One of those times when he swayed to the other side, I quickly jumped out of my car, ran out and wrote down his car's licence plate number.

Right on cue, he came - a second after I had locked my door shut - and demanded what I intended to do with the number. I'd be damned if even I knew what I intended to with it: it just seemed like a good thing to do at that moment. I made some noises and then in a flash of coherence, I said to him that he should calm down and that I would give him my phone number and that we should talk later in the evening.

The mention of the words "talk" and "later" seemed to trigger in him a renewed fury that I wasn't prepared for. He continued to menace me and I was by then quite traumatised and didn't know what to say or do.

At that moment, the owner of the car, who I had noticed was in the back seat and was sitting quietly all through this drama, came out and approached my side of the car. "Just accept it was your fault and it will be the end of all this", he said in an eerily calm voice.

My temper and calm that had remained in my control until then threw themselves out of the same window that his driver had been banging on for so long. My fault, for sure, when I had my hand brakes on and wasn't even rolling back down, let alone be able to move forward up the slope! I exchanged a few rude sentences with the car owner who was on the verge of using some of his own choicest expletives in English this time. He flared up and held his palm to my face and said sternly, "Don't use 'hello' and 'listen' in that tone to me. I don't like it", I decided enough was enough and said, "So you don't like that? Maybe I should say fuck and asshole in that case, huh?"

He shook his head angrily, yanked his driver who was romancing my passenger door all this time back to their car and drove away in a fury, revving up the engine to make a point.

I took a moment to collecy my senses and then took the right and headed into the darkness calmly, while my legs trembled under the steering wheel.

If there's anybody out there who is even thinking that I should have done better than to swear at rude, unruly, potentially dangerous and rowdy strangers who go around banging their cars into others', hold that thought right there. Remember those choice Kannada expletives I learnt from the nasty driver? I feel much more courageous today to use them on you if I have to.

And one more birthday I can't wish in person!

2008-08-04T23:11:00.002+04:30

Picture Perfect turns a year older tomorrow and it's about time too!

Not because I've special plans for her birthday this year, but only because less than two weeks after hers, comes mine!

Happy birthday dearest sister! I want to bake you a cake too this year but Fed Ex just told me they don't do perishables. So instead, ask Happy Camper to give you the world's most crushing hug ever on my behalf! Have fun!

Raag-Anuraag

2008-08-01T10:30:00.002+04:30

I'm off to Hubli this evening, a small town in the north of Karnataka.

Last year, Sir had conceived and organised an innovative programme with a few of his students presenting famous raags, their sound-alikes and subtle differences in the ways in which to sing them. More than 200 people thronged the hall to listen to the concert, which was much appreciated by connoisseurs and critics.

At the time, I was in Deauville, with Southern Bride. Papa called me on my cell phone and made me listen to ten minutes of the concert so I wouldn't entirely miss out on the experience!

Tomorrow, the troupe will be performing in Hubli, presenting the same concept. This time round, I made sure I was going to witness it live. I've cancelled my French class tomorrow, much to the joy of my students.

I'm quite looking forward to the train ride in the night with the "anaahutharu" (I can't think of an apt translation to the word in English!) Inner Light, Ustad and Rahman. We might even visit Sir's own Guru's place in Dharwar. And of course, there will be the concert tomorrow evening. Full excitement only is happening:-)

A party before the weekend

2008-08-01T08:59:00.004+04:30

Last night was a fun night.

After giving it much thought, after having spent sleepless nights seething with rage at the incompetence, jealousy, inefficiency, meanness of my team at work and the resulting overpowering feeling of frustration and helplessness, I decided that it was time I stopped expecting this job to be anything more than it really is: something that will help me pay my rent, my car loan, fuel and the odd night-out that the busy schedule will allow me.

In light of that decision, I also told myself I should stop investing my blood and sweat for this. I realised that as long as I did correctly, neatly and efficiently the tasks that I was expected to accomplish as part of my job, I should be clear of any allegations of incompetence and inactivity. And so, when the editor I was working with yesterday stopped work at four to go out with a friend and asked if we could continue after six, I replied, "You can, I'm off at six". True to word, I packed bags and walked out of the edit studio at six, despite questioning looks as to why I was walking out on an episode that needed to be done that same night.

I drove to meet GWAD and together, we went to Windsor, that unassuming pub with beer that beats stuff in any other Bangalore pub and music to match. GWAD, to my surprise, claimed she had never been there, despite the place being literally down the road from college. I have vivid memories of having frequented the place as a college-goer and even of having gone there with her. But she is convinced of the contrary and was pleasantly surprised at how nice the place was.

We hung out there, lasting three pitchers between the two of us, while we waited for Inner Light and/or Player Boy to join us. There was a large table of college kids across the room from us and we sat there - me, dressed in a salwar kameez and she with her all braided and tied up, therefore looking like the ultimate aunty-jis - tutting and aahing and oohing at how young they looked and how carefree their lives were. GWAD almost, twice, walked up to those kids to bitterly warn them to "live it up now, because your lives will get so much more complicated later". I had to hold her down by catching her braid and pulling it hard so it hurt. Maybe not, but the intention was totally there.

Inner Light finally joined us after rehearsals at Sir's place and we ordered more beer. Then we cancelled the pitcher because GWAD suddenly wanted Indian Chinese food and so we decided to leave to go to some Chinese restaurant. Then we had a fight at the counter about who should pay. The bartender was very patient when he said to please sort it out at our table, would we? GWAD threatened to switch off the flat screen TV that was on for the people in the pub if he didn't take her card. He smiled and looked at me as if to say, is she serious? I nodded yes and then I turned to GWAD and said, I just got my new credit card today, I want to use it so badly, please please please let me use it? And I made sad eyes at her. She looked at me with admiration and said, Wow you've moved onto the next level Empress. You have a credit card! And in her dumbstruck wonder at people who have credit cards, she didn't even object when I slid her card out of her hand and pocketed it while I tended mine to the bartender.

Then, while she figured out how to turn the TV back on, the bartender and I had a quick laugh about how stupid that credit card story was and how gullible GWAD was.

We went to Chung's and begged them to serve us food even though it was closing time. For once, I was making decisions at a restaurant and in less than ten seconds, the waiter had our order. In less than five minutes, our food was on the table. In less than twenty minutes, we had had our fill and were burping garlicy burps and smelling of ajinomoto and spring onion.

We all trouped back home where Player Boy was already in bed. I dragged him out with the promise of opening a wine bottle. We decided to play something - Taboo I suggested. Too much brain work required complained GWAD. Cards were ruled out because we all only knew to play Monkey Donkey or some such game. Carroms was decided upon and so at half past midnight, I climbed the ladder to the attic in Player Boy's room and brought the board down and we were off clickety-clacking in the middle of the night.

Somewhere down the line, GWAD and Inner Light were nodding off to sleep and so the session came to and end. GWAD discovered I was scared of the dark when she saw that I slept with lights on bright enough to tell the difference between black and blue!

As I drifted off to sleep, for the first time in almost a fortnight, I wasn't thinking of work at that moment.

Multilingual

2008-07-30T22:31:00.003+04:30

Somewhere in the middle of losing my mind in sleepless labyrinths of work, I checked Sitemeter to see who has been reading my off-late rather inactive blog.

To my surprise and amusement, I discovered that I could apparently write in Italian!

The day of reckoning

2008-07-26T07:54:00.003+04:30

I moved back to India for music, first among other things.

I knew even back then that this journey towards a certain satisfaction that I aspire for from music was going to be a difficult one. But since I moved back, it has been especially difficult.

Today, I will sing to offer my thanks to my guru, my mentor, my maargadarshi, who has unfailing faith in me, showing it year after year by making me sing at the Gurupurnima celebrations.

Will I find the enchantress Marwa that I have hunted for two months now? Will I live up to my guru's expectations of doing justice to the raag and the taal? Most of all, will today's performance egg me on to pursue whatever it is that I'm looking for in music, or will it, on the contrary, fuel the nagging doubt that maybe Music does not want me as much as I do it?

Bombs

2008-07-25T21:28:00.003+04:30

This afternoon, there were a series of bomb blasts in the city that occurred in a span of about half an hour.

I was locked up in the studios, busily oblivious to anything that was happening off my set until we broke for lunch. One of the spot boys came running to us with his mobile phone - a rather fancy instrument that seemed incongruent in a rags-clad spot boy's hands - and told us animatedly that he had just received word about four bombs that went off in different parts of the city.

I immediately called the two dozen people in this city that I really cared about, made sure they were all safe - except that two of my dearest friends Tooty-Fruity and GWAD who are both here right now wouldn't pick my calls, leaving me panicky and restless for another couple of hours - and then went back to the yellow and red song and dance sequence I was shooting.

On my way back from the studio, where we had packed up earlier than expected due to these unforeseen and other foreseen production-related disasters, I marvelled at how empty the roads were on a Friday evening. The office car driver jested that there be a bomb scare every evening to clear traffic. I put out my head and enjoyed the cool after-rain breeze that symbolised Bangalore for me.

I can't believe that this city, my favouritest place in the world, Bangalore, is being threatened, and cannot imagine why anybody would hold anything against the place or its people. But more than panic, stress, anger or fear - all of which are reactions that the minds behind these scares are aiming at - I realise that most Bangaloreans are taking this new development just like anything else : in their stride.

We are a people who will embrace people from all over the country and the world and bend backwards to make foreigners feel at home here. We are a people that will speak every language in the world as well as our mother tongue. We are a place that is home to the most vibrant local/regional cultural scene as well as the most international ventures. We are a place that has the Adiga's cheap local flavour and the MTR's traditional fare, but also the Olive's exotic cuisine and the Ruby Tuesday's expensive menu. We are a city in which people are more chauvinistic about "their weather" than anything else. We are a city whose cool breeze touches and wins the heart of every outsider that comes here.

So what if a few bombs went off in Bangalore? The city will rise again tomorrow morning and stretch in the gentle morning sun and feel the cool breeze caress the horror away.

Numbers

2008-07-22T11:26:00.003+04:30

Ten days of continuous work; two weekends passing by under a myriad heap of work; 60 belligerent over-enthusiastic; sometimes-annoyingly deferent, most-of-the-times-irritatingly cloying contestants to be managed; one big showdown with colleagues (already) at work; two failed attempts at watching "Jaane tu ya na jaane"; sum total of 550 rupees lost therefore; one fun birthday celebrated; more than 48 hours today without sleep; two kilos melted into thin air; two good friends from phoren back in India on vacation; seven drop-outs from my French class; zero books read in this time; three more days to go before my Guru Purnima performance; my feeling of unpreparedness magnified by three hundred times; one new car in the offing; eight late nights at work; one dysfunctional cell phone; one nasty fall in the office stairway; four days of mad cramped intense shooting to come and lots of beer waiting at the other end of that tunnel!

25, going on 26 - part 2

2008-07-16T08:11:00.000+04:30

16) Make-up is an art that I underestimated; that I am no artist if that were the only art.

17) There's a reason Pressure Cookers are called "pressure" cookers.

18) Life does go on.

19) It definitely wasn't me; it sure was him.

20) Hair lost, does not grow back again.

21) It is hard to lose a true friend.

22) Santa Claus, fairy godmothers and soulmates never existed. Your father, your mother and he were just very good actors.

23) Don't trust the cynic in yourself.

24) You cannot, try hard as you might, salsa in a train that's moving up the mountains in Switzerland.

25) The lady in the Nirma advertisement of our childhood days did not ever put washing powder in her head; she simply was tapping her temple to show she was using her brains.

25, going on 26

2008-07-15T14:01:00.003+04:30

Twenty-five things I've learnt, one for each year I've completed in my life:

1) Park a car in an alloted parking space and don't pay, but never park a car in random spaces. The ticket for unpaid parking in alloted spaces is so much lesser than parking in random places.

2) Eating ice-cream when you've just brushed your teeth with minty toothpaste can make you hurt very badly.

3) You are either born to walk in heels or not.

4) Whenever possible, run to a park and swing on the swing-set there and have little children laugh at you.

5) Many things can be successfully used to mix with vodka and make unexpectedly good drinks.

6) Tea is not one of them.

7) Love does not come in bright shades of pink.

8) There are real people - they don't just exist in books - who look beautiful straight out of bed.

9) I am not one of them.

10) When you want to get your hair cut in a foreign land and you don't speak the language, make sure you at least have fairly decent drawing skills.

11) On the chance that you don't, buy a head scarf that you can use for the next few months.

12) Don't wear previous summer's swimsuit if you have lost weight in the year that passed. Strange things will peep out of strange places if you do and strange people will look at you strangely.

13) Don't use call waiting on your phone if you don't know how to put the first call on hold. Turns out you'll be complaining about person 1 to person 1 when you think you are talking to person 2.

14) Saving receipts and bills of any and every purchase because you might need them at some point in your life very soon becomes boring.

15) You can clean your purse and throw out all those used bills, but doing the same with old used cheque tabs is a criminal offence.
(I'm not kidding. You have to keep used cheque tabs upto ten years before current date, in case of any legal dispute)

To be continued tomorrow...

It's pouring outside and I saw two cockroaches today, so I can't sleep!

2008-07-15T00:27:00.003+04:30

Only my second week at work and I already feel overworked.

It also doesn't help that more than ten people in my entourage have told me that they think I lead three different lives, going by my schedule. One of them was a medical professional who patiently explained to me the concepts of "useful work" and "useless work", the latter being external stimuli that trigger stress, anxiety and other such negative reactions. The former, an equally potent harmful element when present excessively, is apparently something that my life is full of : lots of physical, emotional and mental "work" or activity that I might find extremely rewarding and fulfilling and therefore don't experience stress from it, but is nevertheless the cause for a fundamental imbalance in my system.

Fundamental imbalance! Sounds scary, doesn't it? But I promise you, I'm not about to cut myself up with a knife or anything.

I might, however, consider a stomach transplant going by the way the one I have currently refuses to keep anything in for more than an hour.

But we'll see...

Especially since buying a new stomach will come in the way of my Recent Big Plan : buying a new CAR! And we all know - we all being whoever has ever driven in Bangalore traffic - that having a functional ac-equipped, music system-equipped car as against a 22-year old van that has neither of the above and that rattles and jolts is so much more preferable to having a stomach, whose side profession is to make gurgling noises when cheese has been eaten.

More on that later.

Scary thing : someone typed the name of the show I'm working on and landed here! I've read some serious stuff about what happens to people blogging about their jobs and so this is where I stop. It's a pity though, because there's so much to share, but maybe I'll create a password protected blog elsewhere to write about that.

Other exciting things : we celebrated YellowBellowMarshMellow's happy birthday in tish-tosh Kosmos, which was as expensive as it was vast. The place was huge, fairly crowded, had a good dance floor and played super music and mostly, a good time was had. We saw a local celebrity who is linked to the show I'm working on and Tooty-Fruity and P-Deep got very excited and insisted on taking pictures with him. Their friend (me), they told him, was doing that show and he replied that he had heard of it, could he meet me? I got all nervous - again because I wasn't sure how far my company would tolerate me talking to influential people like him in the business in social conditions (and might I add, fairly well-supplied with alcohol) such as that night. So they went back and told him I was shy and I took a picture of him with them instead.

Furthermore (how very academic this word sounds!), GWAD is coming home! Ufff, I'm so excited I can't even speak! I've already made a plan for every weekend she's going to be here and we've decided to celebrate both our birthdays in style before she leaves in August!

And two days after GWAD arrives, Inner Light arrives, finally putting an end to his four-month torture period of knowing he was going to be back home for Guru Purnima, but not being able to tell his parents who he plans to surprise! We're picking him up at the airport, pulling an all-nighter before we drop him at his doorstep at seven in the morning.

So that's pretty much what's keeping me happy and busy these days. There was something else that I intended to write about here, but it's two in the morning and I can't seem to wrap my mind around it. The imbalance in my system is there all right : why in hell do I remember birthdays, names and faces of people who barely matter to me when I can't remember important things likeWhat to Write on the Blog Today or even When you Write about Work on a Public Domain, You can Get Fired.

Explanation

2008-07-09T09:48:00.001+04:30

The net at home has refused to function for over four days now.

I feel, to say the least, crippled and I am going through Internet Withdrawal symptoms.

One reality versus another

2008-07-01T22:18:00.004+04:30

Is it disloyal of me that, on my first day of work in a company that principally makes entertainment and reality shows, I kept thinking of my other company back in France and wishing I were there instead?

Emotional infidelity at work. Who would have thought me capable of such a sin?!

"NOTHING happened, I promise!"

As the stark reality of what exactly reality television entails and what most of commercial television broadcasting means hit me, I dearly hoped I would go back one day - soon - to making documentary films. Ironically, today was also the day that Boss and I mutually decided that I would stop altogether my collaboration with my previous French employers.

I promised him however - in fact, yelled it to him several times in the conversation lest he have missed some part of it due to some bad international call connection - that the moment I got bored and tired of my situation here, I would run back to him. Boss shrieked with pleasure when he heard that, exclaimed that he would have a red carpet ready and a permanent supply of champagne.

Okay, maybe not. But he did say that he would welcome me with open arms back into the company ranks.

So India, my new job, my music, my family, my whole life, I'm giving this a serious shot now. The way things are going right now, the alternative seems so much more tempting. But I'm willing to give it a genuine chance before writing myself off as a hopeless NRI at heart.

And to start off, I'm going to kick some serious ass producing a show featuring wannabe versions of Karnataka's most popular film hero Rajkumar! They're going to sing like him, act like him, dance like him and look like him!
What?! You don't know why I'm so excited? Here, check this and this out!

New beginnings

2008-06-30T22:11:00.004+04:30

A day before I begin my new job, I feel sickly. I woke up this morning with a rather high fever and feeling tired, having stayed up/only half-slept all through last night because of asthma. For the first time since I came back to India, I stayed home and was hand-fed by Mama with rice and her yummy pepper rasam. Yesterday, when I woke up, I literally croaked when I tried to speak. Mama then concocted one of her magic potions and I got all revved up on that and went and taught a marathon class after that. I even went out and had a nice evening with friends, lasted the whole evening without feeling terribly sick, but on the drive back and while watching the finals of the Euro Cup, wheezed quite uncontrollably. This morning, I woke up shivering and feverish, with body aches and headaches that would have been worthy of a marathon runner.

(Now that you're all done being sad for me, I can move on and write about other slightly interesting things.)

I am however so terribly looking forward to starting the job tomorrow! Although my job is something that I have qualified for and have experience in, I will be doing something entirely different in that I have never worked in fictional programming. In this company, I will be working on reality shows, on feature magazines and on entertainment shows. Mindsets will be different from what I have been used to: in documentary filmmaking, people are always ready to make personal compromises given that the economy is a severely reduced one, people have the patience and the energy to last a project through several years, people are - at the cost of making blanket statements - in general more dedicated and passionate about their art and care lesser about the business that is documentary filmmaking.

What I will be doing come tomorrow will, in most aspects, be the exact contrary. For starters, I will be handling budgets that run into hundreds of thousands per EPISODE. I have previously handled these huge figures for entire films, but having this kind of luxury is something I have to get used to. And as far as preconceived notions go, about the entertainment industry, I believe that it will be so much more disenchanting than what I have seen so far, in spite of how discouraging and disillusioning documentary filmmaking can be.

I'm hoping, most of all, that the new job will give me the opportunity to do something meaningful in my own capacity. Whether it is to bring a touch of quality and taste into regional television or to launch an ambitious national magazine, I have a rosy picture and ambition of what can be done.

Call me a dreamer, call me a wishful thinker. But this dreamer, starting tomorrow, will once again start dreaming in technicolor, 16/9, maybe time and again in HD, definitely once a week in film and sometimes in black and white!

Birthday holler!

2008-06-27T23:13:00.002+04:30

To Player Boy,
with love and affection.

At 22, he is no longer the chubby pink yummy baby brother that I wanted to mash and pinch and eat with my next meal; no longer the quiet patient brother baby whom I could pull around for entertainment with him lying on his back on the floor; no longer the rash adolescent whose idea of a steady cricket coach was a sister who was willing to observe him for hours on end hitting the "hanging ball" and no longer the argumentative annoying kid whose sole purpose in life, it seemed to me, was to snatch the remote control from me and change channels only to irritate me.

At 22, however, he is still the caring younger brother who, when called at eleven in the night and asked if he could pick me up from the other end of the town, will don a sweatshirt over his pyjamas and come; who still tells you his best and worst secrets in the knowledge that they are safe and that in sharing them, he is safe; who will grow his hair really long and pierce his earrings despite repeated protests from parents and when secretly told that I liked his style, will immediately announce it publicly at every occasion possible; who will wait for me to come back from a holiday late at night, just so he could share his birthday dinner with me.

For all the fights and the bloodshed and the action we've missed out on in the past five years I've been away, there's a truckload of camaraderie and love that we've gained. And I wouldn't trade that for all that lovely black curly hair that you chopped off and that I loved so much!

Happy birthday to my dearest thambi paapa:-)

My mind is exactly as this post is - all over the place

2008-06-24T12:53:00.006+04:30

Yesterday was Papa's birthday and I had baked a cheesecake for the occasion, substituting the original ingredients with things that I could find in local supermarkets. So my cheesecake consisted of Parle G biscuits instead of Petit Lu biscuits or Graham's Crackers; vanilla essence instead of vanilla sugar or plain vanilla; Ricotta cheese made in Auroville instead of cream cheese or fromage blanc, fresh cream and sugar. And I daresay the substitutions worked well and the cake turned out to be quite delicious. Now, you can stop drooling all over you keyboard. I promise to make you some, a) if you buy me a year's supply of red wine and chocolates and/or b) if you can find me cool places to hang out in in Bangalore, because this city has no more such places and that is very very sad.

Tomorrow, we're off to Hampi, the 15th century town of ruins from the Vijayanagar Dynasty era. After several failed attempts to gather the whole group that is currently in town and plan a trip to Gokarna, Kerala, Hampi, Kodagu, Kodaikanal, Yercaud - all destinations and schedules were one by one ruled out for as many reasons as there were people involved in the plan! - we are finally making a short trip with just four people. The currently unemployed Tooty-Fruity, P-Deep and myself and one other, Idiot-Hic, the only one who could extricate three days' leave from his employers will therefore be driving towards Bellary, up north in Karnataka and spending the rest of the week there.

This break before I start working is a welcome one - my traveller's itch set in practically only after two weeks of being in Bangalore and the extent of travelling I was having was from north to south of the city - and perhaps, it will provide me with the much needed recul I need from things as they have been since I returned home. I am also hoping fervently that a break from trying to sing Raag Marwa - that elusive enchantress - will help me rejuvenate myself in my riyaaz, that has off late been off colour at best and listless at other times. Music does that to me so often, but for all the times that it makes me feel hopeless and frustrated, there has been the one odd time that has made me feel so ecstatic that makes me go back to it again and again. This is the Absurdity in my life, I now know.

And before I sign off, I'd like to demonstrate just how much of a challenge teaching French to my class is going to be :
- Nine out of the 30 students I have confessed to being "poor in languages" while introducing themselves.
- Four of them chose French over German because they thought it was the easier of the two. Ha!
- Only ONE of them rated their English Grammar to be "good". Not "excellent", but good.
-One of them has attempted learning French before and has given up less than half-way through.

But to compensate for their lack of knowledge of grammar concepts, they
- wouldn't believe me when I told them I was only 25.
- listened to every word I said and did not beg me more than thrice to teach them bad words and insults in French and
- promised to treat me to Sunday lunches at the Chandrika hotel

All in all, I think, we're going to get along just fine.

There is mention of autodrivers, Lord Nayarana (the deity, not some high court judge) and idli-vada. Continue reading at own risk

2008-06-20T21:48:00.006+04:30

So I got a lot of flack for posting in French and not even giving a hint about what it was supposed to mean.

Then, someone else asked me why I wasn't writing as often as I did, which was when I realised that while I lived in France, I posted here practically everyday. Why I don't do that here is probably because half the times, the page takes so long to load that I forget I have a post to write and go about other non-virtual business and actually lead a life here. Also, lots of things I have been feeling off late have been rants and negativity ridden things which I'm venting by yelling at the autodrivers who stick their hands on their honks with Fevicol (Dum laga kai haisssa) and by those others who whizz into your lane without indicator or anything else, causing you to brake suddenly, throw your arm out of the window and say, "Hello Boss, indicator haakidre aakaasha bhoomi mele biddu hogatha ree?" The auto driver in question will turn, enraged at whoever is daring to address these rude words to him, then see me, don't know what to do or how to react, mutter something under their breaths of which I can invariably only catch the "Thuu" and sputter their engines back onto damage mode.

So yeah, all that rant is not being vented here and is being preserved exclusively for use on my most cherished autodrivers.

Anyway, I'm all upbeat today because I have been excited about starting teaching tomorrow. All day, I have been prancing around the house and screaming to my mother, "I start to tee-eeach tomo-ro-o-oh", "I start to tee-eeach tomo-ro-o-oh", and my mother has been like, "God get this woman out of the house please?". Like, literally, this one time, she threw her hands up in prayer and said "Narayana!" and repeated her prayer. And her utterance of "Narayana" reminded us both of the movie "Dashaavathaaram" that we watched yesterday and we laughed and laughed imitating the Japanese babe speaking accha tamizh in Jap accent. Totally cool!

Then, in the evening, on a sudden inspiration, Mama said we could take her instruments (veena) to get them repaired. I, who have been coaxing Mama to take up playing the veena again for two years now, jumped at the opportunity and scooted her off to the music man's house. It was a milestone really, to get her to do this and I'm all thrilled about it! Playing the veena was once akin to breathing to her and that she stopped in order to take care of aging parents and growing children has remained, I think, her biggest sacrifice.

On our way back, stuck in bumper to bumper traffic (you Amreekans, you don't know anything about bumper to bumper. All you people on 101 complaining about 5 o' clock traffic in the Bay Area, come to the Mekhri Circle junction/underpass at six thirty in the evening, we'll show you a proud bumper to bumper traffic jam that's really worthy of it's name!), amidst all the cantankerous cars, gleaming high beam headlights, irritated and stressed men and women all around us, we saw one small boy riding a cycle, carefree, with about ten big balloons attached to his seat and soaring colourfully, high above the noise and the melée. He had such a detached and carefree air! We both burst out laughing immediately. The sight of a little boy riding a cycle with balloons was just what we needed to put us back in a good mood!

Back home, I had a long conversation with GWAD, who wants to come whistle in my class tomorrow. It's a good thing she lives 7000 kms away right now.

And now I'll go, because I have to still decide what I am going to wear for tomorrow's class : I have to find something that's not too warm, that doesn't scream "informal", that is not at the same time too formal, that is classy, that will make them take me seriously, in short, something that will make them immediately like me and vote me their most favourite teacher in the world. Yes, I'm convinced that my choice of attire for the first few hours of the students' initiation into French will be entirely consequential to their language skills and more than convinced that it will be proportionally related to the number of idli-vadas that they will treat me to at the neighbouring Chandrika Hotel.

Et comme ça, on va m'appeler "Madame"!

2008-06-17T09:49:00.003+04:30

Le weekend prochain, je vais donner mon premier cours de français à des débutants.

Ca me fait drôle de penser qu'il y a exactement dix ans, j'arrivais chaque matin à cet immeuble bâti en briques rouges, dans cet espace d'apprentissage qui laissait rêver, qui formait et qui m'a poussée vers un ailleurs que j'ai fini par adorer, par aimer avec tout mon esprit et coeur.

Vous connaissez bien l'adage anglais : "Absence makes the heart grow fonder". Eh bien, quatre mois après avoir quitté la belle France, j'y retournerai cette semaine en mots, en imagination et en esprit. Je parlerai à mes élèves de la douceur de Nantes, de l'élégance et le charme de Paris, de la beauté sauvage de Bretagne, de la gentillesse des gens du Sud, tout en m'en servant comme excuse pour remémorer ces années de ma vie qui me sont si chères!

Avant que je ne m'emballe avec toutes ces belles idées, je devrais peut être me rappeler qu'enseigner le français, c'est aussi apprendre - dans ce cas ci, à des adultes - à se désinhiber, à s'apprêter à faire des grimaces et à montrer ses dents afin de prolonger les voyelles...puisque, je l'adore cette langue, mais alors, la parler correctement nous fait ressembler à une bande de singes essayant de faire un spectacle de mime! J'ai prévu alors pour mon premier cours de faire faire à mes élèves des pratiques de théâtre - des exercices vocaux - qui aident à mieux articuler les sons avec l'aide des grimaces!

J'espère seulement que, avec tout le boucan qu'on va faire pendant ce cours, les autres classes sont situées loin de nous!

Today, we're talking about yesterday's food extravaganza

2008-06-16T17:15:00.003+04:30

My Sunday began really well.

"Do you want to come out for breakfast with us?", cheerily enquired YellowBellowMarshMellow into the phone. Sush-i was with her, having hopped over to our area after attending morning mass.

"I can't", I wailed, "I've to wait for the maid to come by", I continued to explain.

Unperturbed, Sush-i announced, "In that case, we'll bring breakfast to your house and you can make us coffee".

Sush-i and MarshMellow came barely half an hour later, bearing masala dosas, chutney and one red flower in hand. They gave me the red flower, placed the masala dosa on the table, rushed into the kitchen to get plates and then with surprising rapidity proceeded to tear off the dosa wrapper and dig in.

Once the dosa had been consumed with several umms and aahs to punctuate the steady chomping, I produced the freshly made filter coffee and all of us drank it with the satisfaction of a fat paunchy pink pig rolling in fresh wet mud.

PlayerBoy woke up late, went out for breakfast with a friend and came back armed with eggs and chilis. "Please make me omelettes for breakfast", he asked politely.

"Didn't you just have breakfast?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes, but that was dosas. I want omelette too", he answered, pleadingly.

So, I made some omelettes. One saltless, one with enough salt and one with too much salt, said PlayerBoy.

The highlight of the morning was that all of them - Sush-i, MarshMellow and PlayerBoy refused to drink my milkshake that I had made out of Papaya and Banana. "It looks like sambar", PlayerBoy declared, making a face that would have made me think that I had just served him a cobra's heart or something.

Later that afternoon, I made lunch. I made some rice in the cooker and planned to make Lime Rice of it. I squeezed the lemons, cut the chillis, fried the peanuts and mustard seeds, added the turmeric and went on to mix the whole thing with the rice.

The rice turned a familiar green-yellow colour, spotted with brown peanuts and decorated with the occasional green of the chillis and the coriander. I made some last-minute salt revisions and called out to PlayerBoy to get him to taste it.

"Yeowww, it's bitter", he cried.

"What?!", I asked, surprised. "How can it be bitter?"

"You tell me!", he responded, eyeing the large pan full of rice that I had just mixed. "How are we going to finish all of that?!", he moaned.

"Is it bitter or is it sour?", I asked, preparing myself to taste the rice.

"What's the difference?", he asked.

I patiently explained to him that bitter was like neem and sour was like lemon.

"Ah, then it IS bitter", he confirmed.

I ate a mouthful and realised it was indeed bitter. I cursed the pressure cooker that had a piece of lemon in its water and that had run into the rice that I cooked. I cursed my plans to make enough rice to last lunch AND dinner. I cursed the Universe in general some more and cleaned the kitchen, put the bitter lime rice in a serving dish, tidied the counters and closed the door behind me.

When Mama called on her way back from Chennai, I ordered her to bring back rotis and curry for dinner.

PlayerBoy went out for lunch and I had icecream.

I still have to figure out what to do with a whole serving dish of lime rice. Want, anybody?

Walkers

2008-06-12T21:56:00.004+04:30

It all began when someone in my extended family remarked to Mama, "Oh ho ho, it seems like you are putting on all the weight that your husband and children are losing! How nice and chubby you look!"

Mama, whose favourite animal is the elephant, did not take kindly to the term "chubby". She fretted about her size for several days, resolved to stop eating rice altogether and went on with her housework, which she claimed and actually is enough physical exercise for two people.

Then one evening, Player Boy, while clamouring for her lap to sleep on in front of the TV, called out to her and said, "My dearest aane-mama, come here please?" Love the animal as she might, her being called an elephant was the last straw in her mental battle against physical weight and at that moment, she made a decision to lose all extra body weight.

So she started religiously cutting down on her intake of rice, eating wholewheat products, resisting all temptation of desserts and sweets - which probably was the most difficult for her, knowing how she loves her post-meal sweet. Papa who has had the good fortune to be blessed with a body that doesn't grow an ounce heavier than 52 kilos would sit at the table and guiltily down a spoonful of rich icecream or payasam filled with nuts and raisins, and Mama would flee from the room lest her resistance crumble and melt like she imagined the creaminess of the icrecream melting in her mouth.

But more than anything else, what she hoped fervently would show sizeable results were her evening walks. Every evening, after having finished her housework and cooking, she would set out around the neighbourhood, walking rapidly, criss-crossing the streets, discovering new alleys and setting record timings for covering the block. It's an adrenaline rush, she would declare on returning home, flushed.

Papa soon realised that this was how she intended to spend all her evenings and at a loss to figure out how else he could spend time with his wife, began to walk with her. You don't need to lose any more weight, Mama would sternly admonish. People will once again ask me if I'm rationing food to you to keep you so thin, she complained. Not so easily deterred, Papa continued to go along on her walks, determined to show is wife that it would take more than a few extra kilos to ward him off.

And so it was that my parents were seen for almost a year at nightfall, silently but brusquely traversing the tree-lined streets of the neighbourhood. Other neighbour uncles and aunties would cross their paths - dressed in dhotis and salwar kameezes and wearing Nike shoes the "my son sent for me from America" - and would linger in their paths wishing to exchange more than a crisp hullo, but Mama and Papa would move on like the road roller that was called in to tar the same roads. Although I suspect, Mama would resent the comparison to the road roller.

At the next family event, true to expectation, relatives were telling Mama that she was looking paper-thin. The same aunts who had called her rotund were now jealously moaning that her blouses looked so loose on her. Why does she want to lose so much weight now, like she can become a Bollywood actress at this age, they whispered nastily to one another.
Mama glowed in her new-found healthy fitness and slimness. She readily gave her successful weight reduction methods to genuinely curious relatives and solemnly nodded at anyone who waxed eloquent at the need to "maintain a healthy weight at this age".
Papa would stare into empty space, grabbing a second helping of icecream, as all this weight-reduction talk flitted vaguely above his grey head.

Objective having been achieved, Mama slowly began to reduce her dosage of physical exercise, until, recently, she completely stopped her evening excursions out in the neighbourhood. Oh, that next-door aunty was becoming a nuisance, she complained when I asked her why she stopped walking, She keeps following me and insisting that she walk with us, but she huffs and pants so much after the first five minutes!
And she talks so much, Papa added quietly.

Now, Mama looks a little too thin for her age and height. But she is gloating in her then newfound and now comfortable thin look.

Papa, although happy at his wife's new avatar, having caught the walking bug, is now completely at a loss to know what to do with his evenings. He refuses to go out alone and walk lest he be caught by that neighbour-aunty who talks too much. With no Mama to keep him company and also given that he started walking only to keep HER company, it didn't make much sense in his head to leave her at home and spend an hour outside by himself. But his feet were itching for the walks, his bony body aching for the exercise after a whole day seated at a desk.

Recently he found the solution to all his problems. Mama stayed home in the evenings. So he would stay home too. But he also wanted to walk in the evenings. He therefore simply decided to combine the two, and start walking AT HOME.

Every evening, after dinner, the house therefore is bustling with activity. Mama walks to and fro the kitchen and dining room, clearing the table, cleaning the kitchen etc. And in the meantime, Papa walks - a little too rapidly for comfort in a HOUSE - from the dining room to the living room to the hall and back to the dining room. For about half an hour, the rooms downstairs are abuzz with energy, with Papa's occasional comment on something that happened at work, on Mama's steady commentary about phonecalls she made and received and my laughter at Papa's "exercise".

Just when I thought things had reached the limits of ridiculousness, something happened this evening to prove me wrong. Mama, who has been feeling guilty for having gotten Papa hooked to a habit that he didn't require, decided to join him in this nocturnal habit of walking the rooms in the house! So for about half an hour Papa walked in and out of rooms while Mama sat watching him. Once he was done, she got up and walked in and out of rooms, while Papa sat at the table. And all along, I sat and laughed at the both of them.

On their 33rd wedding anniversary, I can't think of anything else to say but this : when these two said "I will walk with thee for the rest of your life" while they took their marriage vows, I think they took it a little too literally.

Happy wedding anniversary my dears!

Parental pressure

2008-06-11T00:15:00.002+04:30

I park the car and turn on the parking lights just inside the main entrance to the IISC campus. Visitors have to sign in the visitor's book and enter their times of entry and exit along with the name of the person they are visiting.

There is a long queue of about four cars ahead of me who are waiting to do the same. The traffic on the road across looks menacingly crowded and still. The clouds are looming up above, grey and pregnant.

Mama, who is in the passenger seat, sighs loudly. "How annoying this formality is", she declares, two minutes into the wait. "Can you not just reverse and swerve to the right and speed past these cars and hit the accelerator until you reach the main road, like Batman in that Batman movie?", she asks, the expression on her face a mixture of dead seriousness, annoyance and impatience.

My mother, ladies and gentlemen, who now wants me to be a superhero. A superhero who drives a 22-year old Maruthi Van and who, incidentally, today, was wearing blue heeled lady-like slippers.

Relative bashing

2008-06-08T19:24:00.000+04:30

I've been meaning to write for a while now, but I can't think of anything to say. So I'm putting up something I wrote quite a while back about an incident that happened almost a year ago.

---------------------------

My extended family is quite a circus troupe. When they're at their best, which is rare, the most they elicit from me is amusement. But the rest of the time, they are all plain annoying and make my blood boil when I hear of them, am forced to interact with them or even just tolerate their presence.

Mama exasperatedly shushes me up every time I groan or complain loudly about my uncles and aunts. But over the years, she has given up on "taming" me and has, I think, accepted my limits to tolerating their nonsense. I am these days, at my best, saccharine polite or most of the times, plainly indifferent to their presence, conversation and inquisitive questions. One uncle of mine especially has a reputation of poking his nose where it does not belong. His younger son being my most favourite cousin has nothing to do with him and has everything to do with how much the son is different from his father.

During my trip to India last summer, I cleverly avoided the normally forced visits to uncles and aunts' houses, using one huge family get together as the occasion to see them all at once in one evening and get done with the obliged courtesy meeting. Of course, meeting the whole jing-bang in one go meant concentrating the effort and the teeth-gritting into a few hours and smiling politely at nonsense questions like, "Aiyyyooo, you don't get paruppu there? How do you survive?" or worse, "Are there any Iyengars in France? Who do you talk to if there are none?"

On that evening, the aforementioned uncle pulled me aside and started to quiz me. First he said he would like to organise a family evening (again!) in my honour (!) before I left the country. I politely declined, saying that I anyway didn't have the time. He called a few cousins-in law who were hovering nearby and declared that I wanted to host another family evening before I left. When the cousins in law lost interest in the conversation and wandered off to hide behind pillars to escape any more forced polite conversation, the uncle turned back his now undivided attention to me.

"So, tell me Empress, how much do you earn there?"

My parents both brought me up with the basic tenets of politeness and courteousness and one of those tenets was, never ask anybody how much he or she earned. But obviously, those tenets my parents stood by were unheard of in the rest of the family, for my uncles and aunts think it their absolute right to question me on anything and everything starting from what colour bra I wore under my shirt to how much money I am sending back home. (When they heard that I wasn't sending back home any money, they talked about it in shock for five weddings that followed that fateful declaration)

I laughed nervously, searching desperately in my mind for a line that would be polite yet dismissive of his query. I said something about being comfortable in my job.

"Ohoho. Comfortable-a?", guffawed my uncle. "Would that be about 80-90 thousand INR roughly?"

I laughed again and looked around frantically for Mama or Player Boy, hoping someone would come to my rescue.

"Because, you see, here in India nowadays, everrrybody earns that much. And salaries are going higher and higher. Even least qualified people will get atleast 50 thousand now. My sons themselves are earning very well, see?", he went on. Just when I thought I was going to be saved after all, seeing him careen over a potential boast-talk about his sons, he regained his balance, and said, "So tell me ma, how much?"

"Why do you want to know uncle?", I said, as sweetly as I could manage.

"Ooooh, just to have an idea ma", he replied with false indifference.

Not finding the energy in me to resist any more and deciding to give him exactly what he wanted, I said, "All right then. I earn minimum wages in France. Like construction workers and coolies no? Like that. In fact, that box of chocolate I brought back for you and your family are the cheapest I could find in the supermarket." And I laughed, pretending to be embarrassed.

The uncle gaped at me, while he was trying hard not to show his pleasure at my incapacity to earn five-figure salaries! Abroad, at that!

It was right about then that I pictured him and some random other relatives meeting in Papa and Mama's absence and him announcing for everyone to hear, "You know, their daughter, the one in France. She only earns this much. Paavam. And to think that we all thought she was so brilliant". Then all my other relatives would sadly nod their head in acquiescence and secretly congratulate themselves on getting their daughters married off to NRIs with five-figure DOLLAR salaries, or better, at having sons who do MBAs or BEs and who go "abroad" on projects every nine months.

Later that evening, the same uncle drew my mother and me aside and tauntingly remarked to Mama that, all right she had brought up a daughter who had spent several years abroad and who could speak a foreign language and all, but what was the use if all she earned was minimum wages? Mama, who had heard by then from me about the whole inquisition episode, threw back her head and laughed heartily and then when she got her breath back, simply asked, "Oh is that what she got you to believe?" and walked away.

I, who was expecting a "Sigh, what to do, it's their life" kind of response, was stupefied. I hurriedly followed her but not before I took one good look at the uncle's perplexed and defeated expression.

Unfortunately for him, he did not get to allay his curiosity about my actual salary for the rest of my stay in India.

Learning again

2008-06-05T22:24:00.004+04:30

This morning, I sat in front of Sir and learnt a new raag after five whole years.

The two hours that I spent in his presence nullified - for most part of the day at least - all the existential questions I have been asking myself about my move back to India in the past few weeks. And the happiness I felt during those two hours and consequently for the rest of the day is just indescribable.

Like most of what I go through with music is.

And the icing on the cake today was that not only did I get to chauffeur Sir around, but we spent the evening listening to Ustad - my gurubandhu - giving a full-fledged two-hour professional concert, that was brilliant from beginning to end.

Finally, I think it's only fitting that Sir decided to teach me Marwa, the raag that embodies restlessness and dissatisfaction; the raag that denotes turmoil and the raag that expresses the "perpetual quest" in one's existence. My quest in life has only just begun - with the job question out of the way, I can concentrate on more important and consequential things in my life now.

Employed

2008-06-04T22:26:00.001+04:30

I know I shouldn't count my proverbial chickens before they hatch, but what the hell, I already "celebrated" by buying Mama a sari with my yet non-existent salary.

I think I might have a job.

Now excuse me while I go run touch wood, cross fingers and unjinx anything that I might have jinxed.

Ten years back in time

2008-06-03T07:13:00.003+04:30

I started observing teachers teaching French at the Alliance Française in order to start teaching myself.

As I sat in the class and observed the young teenagers who did everything but try to learn a new language, who constantly giggled and threw things at each other, who made faces at the teacher when her back was turned, who flirted with each other, who held hands with endearing puppy love, I thought about the same young kids we were when I started learning French.

The huge almost irresistible urge I had to go back in time and kick our annoying teenage asses was quite surreal:-)

But I also wanted to go back and be those carefree stupid clueless young things we used to be. Sadly though, as I walked out of the room in the break, two fifteen year old boys made way for me and said, "Sorry ma'am" when they were blocking my way. Try hard as I did, I couldn't for the rest of the hour, shake off the "adult" tag I had been thrown just then.

Of birdies, eagles, albatrosses and father-daughter relationships

2008-06-01T21:02:00.004+04:30

Today, after several years, I resumed my position as my father's caddy during his weekly golf game.

Growing up, we at home knew that if anything had to be planned for a Sunday, we would have to do it only for evenings after 5 p.m., for before that hour, Papa would be away on the golf club, hitting balls with his irons and woods. Mama would always joke that Papa's first love was golf, his second love was his Maruthi van, third love was teaching German and that she probably stood a close fourth on her lucky and his generous days.

Somewhere between the age when my Sundays were spent loafing around the Seshadripuram, Guttahalli, Windsor Manor, Pipeline road, Serpentine road areas on cycles with boys and when weekday evenings became times that needed to be spent with friends, buying goodies or hair-clips, I realised the need to earn some pocket money. The kids in our household were far from being spoilt; money was hard to come by in those days and we were taught to value every penny and work hard for it. That was also the age when we were reading about the Famous Fives and the Secret Sevens and were admiring their very English lifestyles and the fact that they earned their allowances by running errands and doing odd chores at home.

Very soon, I was offering to wash Papa's car in the mornings, sweep the outside veranda for Mama, fetch groceries from across the road, iron Papa's shirts and so on.

My preferred task was however spending Sundays with Papa on the golf course as his caddy. I remember the first few times when he patiently explained the game to me - that was the first time I had heard of the term "albatross" and the same evening, Papa had pulled out the Encyclopedia to show me a picture of the bird. I remember him trying to show me the difference between using a wood driver and an iron club. "The woods, when used correctly", he had said, "drive the ball further". "But you never use a wood!", I had wondered, perplexed. "I did say 'correctly'!" Papa would answer, with a twinkle in his eye and a sheepish smile on his face.

For almost two years intermittently, I was Papa's caddy, who, by the end, was able to hand him his preferred clubs for specific shots without even needing him to ask for them.

Today, I went back to resume that role on the golf course. Papa's handicap had remained pretty much the same. When I commented on it, he grinned and said, "You see, it's not my fault. I always tell the ball exactly where it needs to go, but it never seems to listen to me!" He had new clubs, ones I didn't recognise, but the way he arranged them in his cart hadn't changed. His partners were different; the people he used to play with had switched allegiances to other clubs I learnt.

What however was most fulfilling was that, after all these years, caddying for my father, I find, is still the best way to get to spend time with him.

As we walked off the 18th hole and headed towards what he jokingly refers to as the 19th hole - the bar - he met an old friend of his, who wondered aloud at my presence. "She caddied for me today", Papa explained, "And my game improved significantly", he added, smiling at me.
"You think I can borrow her for my next game then?" the friend retorted, laughing.
"Oh no! Bring your own daughter!", exclaimed Papa, drawing me to his side, and awkwardly giving me a half-hug.

At that moment, I decided to make this as regular a routine as our schedules will permit us. I am naming myself Papa's Exclusive Caddy. Except that, I should maybe wear my glasses when I go there next on the job, for I probably help improve Papa's game by just being radiant and lovely on the golf course, but I sure can't spot balls when they land. They should just take that particular sub-task off the caddy's must-do list. Apart from that, I'm a pretty fine caddy, really.

When the city went bad

2008-05-30T01:00:00.003+04:30

Tooty-Fruity and I made impromptu plans to go to The City.

We were sitting in her house in the afternoon after having drunk vanilla milkshake and then mango milkshake and both of us decided to brave the distance, the heat and the traffic and head out. Tooty-Fruity's new house is so far away beyond the Hebbal flyover - milestone that used to mean outskirts of city when we were younger - that she kept saying it felt like she lived in the suburbs. We took out my white 22-year old Maruthi Van (it is as old as Player Boy and it still runs better than he does, he he!) and went in the direction of Frazer Town.

We found our way into Ulsoor and went straight to lovely hidden alcove Ambara, where I spent next month's salary on clothes. Then, while we waited for Sush-i, who also made impromptu plans to come join us straight from work, we walked in that place they call a park around the Ulsoor lake. We saw one man, self-consciously speaking into a mike in front of a TV camera and laughed at him. But we turned our backs to him before laughing.
Then, we caught one slimy man staring at my breasts unashamedly. I stared back and he only defiantly continued to stare at my chest, because maybe he hadn't noticed I was glaring at him, what with his eyes all set some 12 inches below my face level.

Sush-i came and soon, we headed in the direction of Pecos, that favourite hangout joint that was once the place to be. After meandering around in the windy lanes around Brigade Road to find parking, after getting lost looking for Garuda Mall and after finally reaching dark, dingy, smoky Pecos, we sat and ordered beer.

Tooty-Fruity started lamenting about how The City was no longer someplace that she recognised, let alone a place that she loved. She exclaimed horrified at the traffic, at the crowds and at the lack of peaceful places to hang out in. Sush-i, who has been here one month more than either of us, nodded wisely and said, "This is the way it is".

Then we all started complaining about our lives in general, our love lives in specific and the rather dismal lack of direction in both. The mood got very depressing. There wasn't even any music playing in Pecos, we bemoaned. We sipped silently on our watery beers and ate our masala peanuts, which were the best thing of the evening. Until the gobi manchurian came.

Idiot-hic joined us, both to drink watery beer and to lament life and Bangalore city that was.

Then, like good children who get home before the dark sets in, we left the area at half eight.

Then, much like the surreal horse that clippety-clopped its way across the street in front of my car earlier in the afternoon, we inched forward, at that same pace, all the way from Bellary main road to Hennur main road, covering a distance of ten kilometres in all of one and a half hours.

By the time we reached home, we were both exhausted, wary of being yelled at by our parents and just so fed up of the traffic. I think I am going to dream of truck rear signs that read "OK - Horn Please".

But as I sat down to check mail and write this blog, I got thinking, what is it about Bangalore that, despite all it's (spilling) ills and terrors, still makes it feel like home. My mind went back to this evening at Pecos, when Sush-i, Tooty-Fruity, Idiot-hic and I were sitting, after almost five years, TOGETHER. I realised then that this is the city that brought us together, that kept us together. This is where my people will come back to, wherever they go, for however long. This is the place my friends call home. And so this will continue to be the place I also call home.

Seasons a' changin

2008-05-28T13:43:00.004+04:30

All morning, I had errands to run in the crowded city centre, and the sun ruthlessly shone, making me wet my t-shirt, my face look like I had sprinkled water on it and the old Maruthi van-with no air conditioner or a music system - I'm driving seem like a furnace.

I reached home at two and pulled in in front of the house. Two minutes later, I step into the house and the rain comes down in buckets.

I think the lovely Monsoons have arrived here!

Pick up

2008-05-26T17:24:00.004+04:30

Tooty-Fruity arrived today at the new and very fancy Bangalore International Airport.

P-Deep, Sush-i and I had decided to go surprise her at the airport, along with her parents.

This morning, in the excitement of seeing Tooty-Fruity after exactly a year, Sush-i woke up at 5.45 a.m., thought it was an hour later, showered, rushed to the bus stop where we were supposed to meet up and then realised - after frantically calling me repeatedly - that she was an hour early for the rendez-vous.

She trudged back home to catch a bus back an hour later.

I walked down the market street from home to our rendez-vous spot, in the hopes of finding something like this to take as a welcome gift for Tooty-Fruity.

She would totally have loved it. She would also have been one hundred percent embarassed to have us as her friends. But she loves us all the same, and we love her too, which is why we wanted to get her this special garland.

But as luck would have it, I found only simple strands of flowers strung together and we couldn't downsize to that extent, could we? A garland welcome had to have some aplomb after all.

P-deep (this boy's name keeps changing on this blog!) came and picked us up at the airport and we drove down the marvellously large and uncrowded road to the new airport. When we reached the airport, while Uncle was off buying us entry tickets into the visitors' area, Sush-i, P-deep and I ran away to a bouquet store we had spotted in a corner.

We entered the shop and inspected the nicely presented bouquets on the stands. One looked better than the other, in lovely colours. We quickly eliminated all of them saying, this was too elegant, that was too pretty and that other one was just so perfect. "None of them is sidey enough", we lamented, as the store attendants looked at us perplexed.

Then we spotted the yellow marigold garlands that hung down from all the walls of this newly inaugurated shop and Sush-i and I looked at each other, grinning. "Can you cut us a piece of this garland, please?" we asked, trying hard to suppress our mad laughter.

The attendant, not even wanting to comprehend, handed us the pair of scissors and said to go ahead. P-deep climbed a table and cut us a generous piece of drying yellow-orange marigold garland, that we looped together and made our dear friend a Welcome Back Home Garland!

Aren't we just the queens of sidey-ness? And what pride we take in it. Grin.

Classifieds

2008-05-25T21:57:00.004+04:30

I was scouring the newspaper for job vacancies and was actually circling interesting advertisements in red pencil (like they did in old Hindi movies, sequence which would no later than ten minutes be followed by one in which the hero would come rushing into the front door with a paper rolled up in his hands, shouting, "Maa, mujhe naukri mil gayee ma" and then the ma in question would proceed to make mithai and distribute in the mohalla. Hee he he!)

The job ads soon got boring so I went to the matrimonial section. You won't believe me if I told you how many Tam Bram parents are out there looking for a suitable bride. And how many of them are looking for "fair" brides and "girl(s) "who is(are) domestically trained".

On reading, more and more incredulously, about how easily people will shed all sense of political correctness when it comes to bride/groom hunting in India, and especially in Chennai (which is where The Hindu has most of its readership), I realised that I am by these standards, a very very eligible suitable bride. I cook, I clean, I sing.

Except, of course, I am brown. Right now, dark brown.

And I speak better French than Tamil. Well, at least I write better French than Tamil, which I cannot write at all.

And I sing Hindustani classical music, upon hearing which most Chennai maamis will do a double gasp and pull their sari pallus around their abundant bosoms and fret about how more and more of "Tamil penningal" were being "let loose" and getting "influenced by these Hindi-kaaras".

At the end of 40 minutes of my Classifieds perusal, I had come across 3 marriage proposals by 40+ divorced men looking for brides "caste no bar", "should want to be a homemaker"; more than 3 dozen Iyer proposals looking exclusively for Iyer brides, "other sub-castes need not apply"; and sadly, no interesting job vacancy.

Except maybe the one in the "General" category that said, "Come to Dubai, Visa no problem, good looking women only should apply".

Later when Mama called to check on us, I told her, "Ma, mujhe naukri naheen mili".

Equally filmy in style, she replied, "Phikar math karo beti. Bhagwan tumhara bhala karega".

Then we dropped the filmy dialogue drama and she asked if I had finished A, B and C chores and I asked her to list all the items of the ten-course meal that they had in the temple today.

Friday night in

2008-05-22T20:45:00.002+04:30

I've been so busy with production meetings with the theatre group, trying to negotiate my position and pay for another job, oddly, also in the theatre milieu, trying to maintain a steady riyaz routine and travelling from one end of the city, which seems to take more time than all of the rest put together.

Mama and Papa have been on a temple visiting spree all week. Their absence has meant that I am in charge of the house and as few days as I have been here, I took to the household running like a fish to water. Nothing has changed in Mama's maniacal cleaning methods and processes, her inexplicable need to buy X litres of milk and not Y (even if they remain unconsumed in the refrigerator) and the fact that when the boss is away, the maid, Mama's little helper, decides to take a vacation too. Which not only meant that I had to sweep and swab the whole house the exact number of times as Mama and her helper do everyday, but also that I had to juggle work, meetings, phone conferences etc with wet floors and dustpans.

The folks are going away again on Friday and Saturday, to another temple far enough so they cannot come back the same night. PlayerBoy and I have the house therefore to ourselves , and promptly enough I decided I was going to throw a party. Mama begged and pleaded that I go with them, because, ironically, they're praying apparently for me (I'm pretty sure the main prayer goes, "Oh Lord, please let her get married in the next three weeks"). But I was determined to stay away from temples, especially if it meant giving up on an opportunity to cook for people!

So, Sush-i, Idiot-Hic, Deep and Not-So-Deep are coming for dinner tomorrow night. I'm so excited about it; I went to three different "gourmet" stores to shop for ingredients, making sure I got the exact right ones!

(I wonder if I should list the menu here)

(I think I will)

So, there's going to be Taboulé. There will be Gobi Manchurian. There's also going to be a pie. There will be Kerala rotis with a Malaysian peanut-based sauce that Picture Perfect and I had in Mountain View once and that she recently sent me the recipe for. And the "plat de résistance" is going to be Spaghetti in pink vodka sauce cooked with corn, pepper and asparagus.

To finish off, there will be Tiramisu. Which I have to make tonight if we want to eat it tomorrow. So I'm off to "monter à la neige" some eggs and dip some biscuits (Parle G, for lack of a closer match to the originally used Boudoir or Lady Fingers!) in coffee mixed with rum!!!

Can you tell just how happy I am to be cooking again?!

Crushed

2008-05-20T00:30:00.004+04:30

My things arrived late tonight after an excruciatingly long wait at the Customs office all morning to clear the items.

It's been one of those days when everything seems to be so horribly painful and burdensome and the thoughts that prevailed almost all day were regretful ones about why ever did I have to leave my life in France.

This was bound to happen sooner or later, this don't-know-what-I'm-doing-in-India-missing-France-and-an- independent-life phenomenon. But I expected it to happen when things looked bleak, when it seemed like there was no hope. What's strange is that this mood has hit me suddenly, and most unexpectedly, and considering things are going so well - I'm having a great time just being at home, singing, meeting friends, enjoying the Bangalore rains and mangoes - I shouldn't want to complain. I even have a job offer, an exciting albeit financially absolutely non-lucrative one.

Well maybe it's just that. Realising that here in India, if I want to stick to visual/performing/cinematographic arts, things are never going to get better than this.
I worked in France making documentary films knowing very well that the economy was a reduced one and that I would never make the proverbial million. I worked for the longest time on minimum wage, but that was enough for me to live life the way I wanted there.
Here, the thought of earning less than 20,000 rupees a month for a job that will require an average of ten hour days, including weekends; that of having to combine no less than three jobs to earn a living that will allow me to live independently and that of realising that maybe this isn't going to work at all : it's all just hovering irritatingly around my head.

So, when I stood in the oppressing heat across the street from the Customs Building, I found myself wondering, in a very surreal moment, what in hell I was doing there.

And further so, when my things finally were delivered home at eleven thirty p.m. by two drunken men who had called me incessantly from seven p.m. onwards, I took one look at the boxes I had, in pain, packed so carefully and something in me snapped. When the rest of the household had gone to bed, I started unpacking them slowly.

To my horror, in the plastic cases that I had reserved for the most fragile possessions - expensive wine glasses, elegant mahogany coloured ceramic mugs, blue and white glazed pretty plates, handmade tajine that was a gift from Mamie - I found nothing but powdered articles. My handwritten "fragile" hung loose from the lid of the case.

I threw out all the broken fragments one by one and since I couldn't bear to look at any more of my things that now lie downstairs in a dustbin, crushed like so many of my once-upon-a-time dreams, I came upstairs to be the Smiling Empress.

Questions

2008-05-18T17:40:00.003+04:30

Ones I've been asked since I returned to Bangalore, in order of most frequently asked and/or most likely to irritate me and elicit no response other than polite laugh.

1) WHY have you become so dark?
My mother, when she saw me first, threw up her hands helplessly and exclaimed, "Oh my God, kaaka maari karuppe ayirkiye di! (You have become black like a crow!) Now, I have to wash you twice over with bleaching powder!

For the record, she hasn't yet given me that whitewash.

There's a thing called the sun, and there's this place called the Tropics where I just went and came. I spent all of, I think 3 weeks in all in the tropical region including Hawaii, Singapore and Thailand. And I mostly went hiking and surfing and swimming. So slightly impossible it was for me to remain untanned.

Parpeed when he first saw me exclaimed, "Uzho, so much tan! Tan tana tan tan!" and did one little jig. He can be mad like that.
Idiot-hic told me he noticed only yesterday that I was black.
One random cousin told me I have a "very even tan" that makes me look like Bipasha Basu, especially with my high cheekbones. It was news to me that I could look even slightly like her, and of course, that I had high cheekbones. Do I?

2) You have lost so much weight!
This phrase will be slapped onto my face the minute I enter a room or a house, and they will all stand there waiting for me to respond somehow.

I laugh.

Then they turn to my mother and say, "Why has she lost so much weight?", to which my mother will once again throw up hands helplessly.

Classic, however, is the aunt's declaration. After having remarked rather loudly that I have lost weight and that I am much thinner than any of her daughters and daughters in law, she nodded her head as if deep in thought and then turned to my mother to say, "It is better like this. I always used to think she was very fat earlier."

I wanted to make aunty-jam out of her after having thulped her. Instead I laughed again.

3) What are you going to do now?
They will ask me that question and keenly listen, expecting me to tell them that I have a job, have to start soon etc etc. Instead I shrug and say, "Yeah, I've to look about a job now".

It totally shakes up their world as they knew it. Did I get fired, they ask, more eager for the gossip than out of concern for me. Why did I quit the previous job if I wasn't fired, they want to know. I give rather vague answers; I don't want to discuss my life with people, especially if they are extended family members.

Later I see them talking in hushed tones. I'm sure half the family thinks I got fired from my previous job and that's why I had to leave France and move back. I mean, who does crazy things like quitting cushy dream job and moving back to hot crowded India for Music, huh?

4) Have you started "looking" for her?
Question directed at my parents, while I am standing right next to them, but will be completely ignored like I were invisible.

My mother will sigh and say, "She won't let me". Then the great aunts and company will swoop down on me and give me a half hour lecture about how I'm already old, too old for the marriage market and if I don't hurry up, nobody will "give their son" to me.

"But wait until she has gotten back her original colour", they will say cautiously to Mama, who is by now slapping her forehead and lamenting that her one daughter refuses to give her a grandchild and that her other daughter refuses to give her the joys of performing another wedding ceremony.

So full of drama and social drama-baazi my life has been this past week, that I sat at home all day today and sang, read and showered in that order.

But then, some random family came visiting. And so it was, rinse, repeat and there was a highlights telecast of all above questions and reactions.

Pfffft!

2008-05-16T02:46:00.003+04:30

It's quarter to four in the morning here and I'm still sweating it out - literally - making final corrections and adding one line here and taking one line off there on my CV.

Being back on the job market is exciting in many ways. But when you realise you have to click open Photoshop and QuarkXpress and make three different versions of your CV for three very different potential employers, the excitement misses a step and comes tumbling down the stairs in your head.

Just so you know, the number of fonts unavailable on my Mac with QuarkXpress is now up to SEVENTEEN! And what do you know, the first fifteen of those UNAVAILABLE fonts were my first choice for the text on my resumé!

Now, excuse me while I go back to realigning paragraphs and rephrasing sentences just so that they will fit IN ONE LINE.

Dinner party

2008-05-14T23:24:00.002+04:30

I just came back from what was an extremely fun evening at Tooty-Fruity's house. Her mom, R-aunty, had called Sush-i, Parpeed, Idoiot-hic and me for dinner and we had all shamelessly landed there with starved stomachs in order to do justice to R-aunty's culinary expert skills.

Tooty-Fruity stop reading here. Or you will just hate us.

There was fish curry, mutton biryani, Jeera rice, paneer butter masala, aloo curry, rice and rasam and wheat halwa. Each dish would have fed a batallion.

I had taken vintage wine - a 2002 Côte du Rhone - but which on opening we found had turned. Parpeed and Sush-i said, "heh, what rubbish. It is wine. It is fine" and sort of half-heartedly laughed at their own sad joke and drank it.

Oh, there was Sourashtrian Omelette too, which was so totally cool! I'm going to make that for my next party whenever and wherever!

Then, some Bacardi and some Johnny Walker was opened. S-uncle kept pushing the bottles towards us and so we drank, because we have to listen to our elders.

R aunty kept serving into our plates. Sush-i took two breaks and during the break, she sized up the remaining dishes she had to taste and one could see the mental preparation going into making that place in her tummy.

Parpeed protested weakly each time he was served and then relented because, "he saw all these dishes going further and further away from his reach between now and when he leaves for Amreeka" and so, he would go on to take second helpings too.

R-aunty looked very happy to have so many hungry people to feed.

Brownie the brown fat dog wagged her tail and nestled against legs and rolled down on the floor begging to be scratched and then played hide and seek.

When we were all done with dinner and Parpeed had declared he was so sleepy he doubted he could stay awake enough to drive home. I offered to drive up to my house, offer was taken immediately.

Then, Brownie the brown fat dog wagged her tail some more and jiggled her stomach. Sush-i and I made elaborate sleepover plans in the HUGE room that is Tooty-Fruity's and Parpeed began to mentally make a list of dishes he wants cooked during the weekend I take over R-aunty's kitchen and cook for all of us rowdies.

There was some talk of dirty-coloured underwear as birthday gifts, how silly and funny we were as sixteen-year olds and then we counted the number of days until Tooty-Fruity gets here:-)

The real Bangalore

2008-05-14T08:31:00.003+04:30

People who've known me for a while now will also know that I have always wanted to be involved in Theatre, in whatever capacity. When I was younger, I used to crave to audition for English plays in the city but Mama, having been part of the then thriving Kannada theatre scene in her college days had some very indelible impressions about how Theatre groups were not a fit moving crowd for a young growing girl, and therefore would not let me.

In college, I made up for the lack of "acting" in my life by participating extensively in public speaking, elocution and any other activity that came close to theatre. I also binged on plays that were put up in nooks and corners of the city, be it an amateur production or a professional Royal Shakespeare Company that came down every once in a while, sponsored by the British Council, and setting up elaborate decors on the grand stage of Chowdiah Memorial Hall. There was also the rare Girish Karnad production or the Naseeruddin Shah monologue show that I used to hungrily buy tickets for and drag friends and family with me to watch them, sometimes more than once.

After all these years, my enthusiasm for theatre has not diminished ever so slightly and what's more exciting is that my return to Bangalore has - almost as if on cue - been accompanied by some very interesting propositions for me to be involved in the performing arts domain.

I have officially enrolled as part of a group of performing artists in the city, who come together from diverse fields - various kinds of dance, martial arts, mime and theatre - to promote performing and visual arts. The idea is to conceive shows, put them up first in the city and later, tour with them given the chance to, all through which the objective is to reach a symbiosis of arts on stage, while telling traditional, mythological and folk tales for the contemporary urban audience. However, the more interesting and perhaps challenging aspect is that this group of people intend to survive of their art and therefore, while the chief objective remains to promote any art form, the equally important one is to make money off it .

It has taken some time for the performers - who have been used to dire conditions and performing for a nickel's worth - to accept the idea that we intend to run this show like an other business, with an economic model and profits and losses, without however forsaking the quality of our "product".

Last night, I met with the core production team of the group which included three other men. Two of them who were meeting for the first time, discovered that they knew several friends in common, and started talking loudly and laughingly about one particular friend. About three minutes into the conversation - which was as classic and eloquent as they come, so rarely these days, in Bangalore - I discovered I knew the lady they were talking about too!

Until then, I had sat there feeling a vague discomfort wondering what, if anything, I was going to contribute in this meeting or the whole enterprise for that matter, in comparison to the men in front of me who were all successful businessmen, creative artists and marketing professionals all put together! Like a child who had been excluded out of a game until then and who was suddenly thrown the ball, I caught it and gleefully, we continued talking about her and other radio, advertising, film related things in the city.

Last night was representative of one of the several things I love about this city. We sat at the Catholic Club, one of the old, upper middle-class urbanised hangouts in the city. There was a chilly breeze in the open air restaurant area we were sitting at. Around me were men who had lived all their lives in Bangalore and knew all there is to know and all that matters in this city. These were the real infrastructure of the city : one who had contributed to the start of AIR (the radio station)'s English segment and then had moved on to the advertising business, and another who had juggled with journalism, advertising, theatre and then had finally ended up making a very successful business of building extremely expensive eco-friendly houses! Between them their network covered almost the whole of Bangalore's cultural arena and they spoke poetically and funnily - it was like a leaf out of a Wodehouse or a Maughum, in turns - about people and incidents. Although these men would never appear on Page 3 of any local newspaper, I knew that these were the real artists, the real celebrities and the people who make the city throb in the way it does.

At the end of the evening, I was smiling to myself remembering the story of how, back in the seventies, one of them, Zaan, had smuggled chimney stokes into the heavily guarded premises of AIR. When the security guards somehow found the sharp iron implements, he was called into the Director's office and was questioned as to why he had brought them into the studios. "But we're performing Hamlet tonight, Sir!" he protested. The Director looked at him quizzically.
"We couldn't find swords anywhere in the city. So we brought these rods to produce our fight sounds with", he said. And thus began the tradition in AIR of using fireplace implements to produce sound effects.

I decided that that's the kind of small history I also want to be part of.

The baby has come!

2008-05-13T11:36:00.002+04:30

E-moon-uelle has, after a little over nine months' of wait, finally given birth to a baby girl!

A week earlier when I had written to her asking if the baby had yet arrive - the due date given to her was 2nd May - E-moon-uelle had written back saying that the unlike people around her, namely Souther Bride who moved from Paris to her true home, the South, and me, who moved, well, practically everywhere, her baby seemed to want to stay put at her residence, in her tummy.

We were all sending emails back and forth asking if she had come yet, had there been contractions yet, had the hospital still kept her bed and so on and so forth. We were all concerned for our friend and we were probably as impatient as she was to actually see the little one pop out.

E-moon-uelle is now a mother, thus officially making her the first one in our "clan" to cross the threshold into the big confusing world of adulthood, with real responsibilities and another being to love to shreds.

And seriously, it's tearing me apart that I'm not in France and therefore not tell myself that, "Oh, next weekend, I'll just take the train up to Paris and see E-moon and the kid". All of my (two) French readers, you guys better make that trip for me and take lots of pictures and send them out soon! And give the mother and the baby-flower a tight squeeze for me!

If only the buses here were cleaner, more frequent and better networked

2008-05-11T09:09:00.003+04:30

This is the story of how all my savings and earnings are going to be spent paying autorickshaw drivers who will ply me from one end of town to another.

Yesterday, I went from the North of town, where I stay, to the South, where the extended family was getting together to condone the passing on of my grandmother (my dad's aunt). Then, I took a rickshaw back to the North and then headed East, where I had a meeting.

Together, I had spent more on autorickshaws than I did on flowers and fruits for the bereft family, dinner and some healthcare products I picked up on the way. My stomach twisted each time I handed 100 rupees notes to the "I-know-Hindi-too" kind of proud Kannadiga auto drivers who weaved in an out of congested heavy traffic, not removing their hands from the honk for more than three seconds at a time.

When Papa saw my expression at the end of the day, he smiled understandingly and said, "We'll see about you buying a car very soon, ok?"

I think he also meant "Hang in there for a little longer. It's only been two days" but I don't know how much I can handle of these auto rides. I feel like a traitor. I, Auto Rani, whose business alongwith Picture Perfect's and Tooty-Fruity's, the autodrivers survived for so many years on, have decided to forsake their kingdom.

I have decided I do absolutely urgently need a car in Bangalore.

Rain welcome!

2008-05-09T10:22:00.002+04:30

After a series of delays, first in the Bangkok airport which, by the way, has NOT A SINGLE duty-free shop or cafe once you've cleared the security check - everything is before - and if you're like me, meaning paranoid about not making it through security in time even if your flight has announced a delay of one hour and you clear security before even thinking about other things like getting breakfast, then you'll just have to spend two and a half hours in a cold steel environment that has all of three cold steel chairs to sit on.

My second delay was in Madras, where I met Ray Of Light and we both literally "hung out" at the airport until the second call for security had been announced. By that time, I was already jittery and so Ray Of Light pushed me into the "passengers only" section and left me there. Two minutes after I cleared security, they said the flight had been delayed by ten minutes.

We departed at the time it was scheduled to land in Bangalore. I had arrived in the land of Indian Stretchable Time.

When I did land in Bangalore, it was raining like the Monsoons had already arrived! I smiled to myself at the thought that I couldn't have asked for a better welcome than with the typical Bengalooru Sanje Male, while I eavesdropped on the airhostess waxing eloquent to some passengers in the front about how, once you've lived in Bangalore it's so difficult to live elsewhere in India because the city spoils you so.

After booking my taxi at the prepaid services, I stepped outside the airport only to find it packed with people with and without trolleys of luggages, all trying to shelter themselves from the rain. My taxi driver yelled out to me, "just hang on for a few moments, until the rain subsides and then we'll be of" he said. Meanwhile I was getting jostled right and left by people who didn't take it kindly that I had two big bags and a very big backpack that was occupying the place of atleast three people who were then getting wet in the downpour.

I resisted a few moments and then yelled back at the driver. "Can we not make a dash for it?"

"I'm game, if you are Madam" he said sportingly.

And so backpack on back, luggage on trolley, we both ran out of the airport towards his car, which was parked "not very far" according to him, but far enough so we were both bone wet by the time we reached it! He shoved both me and the bags into the car with rapidity and in less than a minute, we were off.

One hour later, I reached home, where Mama was tense and waiting with bated breath, for I was by then already 3 hours late.

As she helped me bring in my bags, she smiled and she said, "See, you brought the rains with you! Our summer is already getting better"

Homeward bound

2008-05-07T11:04:00.002+04:30

After what seems like AGES spent being a nomad and checking in and out of endless hotels and cheap bungalows; after tanning enough to resemble the neighbourhood (my neighbourhood, in Bangalore) crow, after swimming and snorkelling and sort-of learning to dive; after learning a dozen rudimentary phrases in Thai; after writing no less than 45 postcards with love and then figuring out - in THAI - how much postage went on for which country; after living on the world's best fresh fruit juices because the stomach lining could handle only one solid meal in this otherwise beautiful country and after dreaming several dreams on an isolated paradisiac island about going back home to begin a new life, I am, tomorrow, headed back to Bangalore.

That island that was isolated was called Lanta. It had all of two dozen fishermen families, a handful of guesthouses and less tourists than I could count on my fingers. I had a wooden bungalow with bamboo walls and mango-wood floors. The toilet was a western-styled one, but it had no flush. They had no plastic mugs either to do the needful. What they did have was a polished coconut shell and a tap of running water. The bungalow also had a television set and one channel that was set to HBO. Go figure!

The sea was green and the beach was 3 kilometres long. The morning after I got to Lanta, I ran along the deserted beach. Right in the centre of the white sands, I saw a dilapidated shack that called itself Freedom Bar. Heh, I thought to myself observing the coconut leaves and thatch that was falling apart, This is what happens when one wants to open a hip bar on a deserted island.

That same evening, at sunset, I walked back towards the other end of the bar and lo and behold, the bar had come alive. Playing Bob Marley and Dave Mathews Band and seating some very high young gentlemen who called kindly for me to join them. I declined both, their drinks and their joints and walked on.

One other day, I got another massage. The lady who ran the parlour came and stood at my feet while one of her girls was kneading my skin. She took one of my legs and stroked it and said admiratively "Beeyoootiphul!' I smiled, gritting my teeth at the pain her employee was inflicting on my hips. She then asked, "Which country?" I replied that I was Indian. She lay down my leg with the utmost care and gave what sounded like the most regretful sigh to me, and said again, "Beeyootiphul".

Thailand has been a lot of fun. Although travelling and travelling alone in Asia is quite different to in Europe or anywhere in the West, this experience has been thoroughly enjoyable. Except maybe for the one time I refused to go into a shady building that the tuk-tuk driver was asking me to go into (because he claimed he would get a commission or a reduction on the gas he needed for his vehicle) and so, he called me a buffalo! Really!

I do want to come back to this country, to explore the North and maybe other neighbouring countries like Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam. And I hope that one or more of my friends will be convinced enough by my photos and tales to accompany me then.

I'm not carrying back much in the guise of souvenirs. Just a few trinkets here and there for people who they reminded me of more than anything else. What I am carrying back with me is the tremendous satisfaction of having done this trip that I have wanted to do for so long, having managed to stuff in so much variety to my stay here and having enjoyed it to such a great extent.

The most important thing that I am carrying back however, is - after much thought, reflection, imagination and projection - the content feeling that I am, after all heading back Home. Home, with its grime and dust, with its tender morning breeze, with its traffic jams and massive malls, with its loud fruitsellers and thin dark flowergirls, with Mama's kai gukke on a lazy evening, with the smell of freshly ground coffee beans from around the corner of the road, with second hand bookstores that I used to know like the back of my palm, with people I will desperately want to hide from, with people that I can't wait to meet again, with so many things that are so familiar to me, but also, now more than ever, so many things that are going to be new and exciting!

From Bangkok to Bangalore, thus began the journey!

Under-booked!

2008-05-02T09:24:00.002+04:30

I have been going through books at a pace that is amazing! So far, I've read three books of which two were bought here in Thailand! I'm running out of things to read - yesterday, on the bus, out of desperation, I read the most rubbish novel I've ever read called "The Day After Tomorrow" by The Clever Guy Who Knew How To Con His Publishers Into Publishing Shit. I don't want to spend money on buying more books and more importantly, I cannot carry them back with me on the flight due to airline weight restrictions on bags.

I hear you saying, you're in Thailand, do other stuff, not read. I totally agree. I don't want to read when I can be diving or snorkelling or swimming or trekking or rock climbing. But I do like my book to read to sleep, or book to read on the bus or book to read while waiting for the bus which comes two hours late ( or I arrive two hours early for, depending on which way you look at it).

So the task for the afternoon is to find second hand bookstores in Krabi which will exchange my three books for three used ones that I haven't already read.

What a Thai massage does to you

2008-04-30T16:50:00.002+04:30

I went for a pretty arduous hike this afternoon, after having spent the morning on the beach, running, walking and swimming.

(Yes, someone has to teach me to just relax and do nothing when I'm on holiday)

The hike was to a waterfall called Nam Tom Na Mueng. Yeah.

After the hike, which was quite strenuous, I was feeling rather tired and decided to get a Thai massage.

So I went in to one of the massage parlours, agreed to pay bhats for an hour's massage with herbal oil and proceeded upstairs.

The masseuse who was assigned to me was called Neio (I imagine that's how it's spelt). SHe spoke to me exclusively in Thai and I understood every word of what she said.

She lay me on my back and then requested me to stretch my legs and put my hands behind my head. That done, she sat at my feet and began to apply pressure on my legs, mainly my calf muscles. The pressure was just right and I was already enjoying it. That went on for a while.

Then, she parted my legs and began working on my left leg. She thumped my calf muscles with her fist several times and then, applying oil on the entire leg, proceeded to massage the leg forcefully. I cannot describe to you the various vigorous movements her hands performed on my leg, but it should suffice to say that it felt like I was sitting in a vibrating chair that had special leg features.

Just when I thought it was over, when she had stopped hitting/thumping/applying force, she parted my legs. I was surprised, to say the least.

(From here onwards, the blog will contain several terms and expressions that might force people to think of sex, but you have only my word to believe that nothing about the massage was sexual in nature)

She promptly went on to seat herself in between my legs. Then, she pushed my left foot to the left so it was touching the ground laterally. Ummmm.
She did the same to the right. Then, she pulled it toward her and then pushed it toward me. So far, you say, timid.

Then came the real blower. She placed her foot just under my crotch, placed her other leg under my left leg and then, suddenly, yanked my left leg with all her force, resisting her own body against my crotch! And the surprise by which I was taken at this development hardly prevented me from relishing the stretching in all those muscles.

She did a couple more such acrobatics and then went on to do the same ones to my right leg.

When she was finished with both legs, she spread my legs further apart and knelt in between them at my feet. She then carefully place both her palms just under my hip bones and stood up on her toes, so she was arching her entire body's weight on mine. She stood still in that position for about three minutes. And then, again.

She took a break, said something and pointed to her tummy. She came back with a snack. For herself, not for me.

She settled herself on one side and folded one of my knees up in the air and placed the same foot across the other leg. With all her force, she pushed the knee towards the ground and my body yielded supply to the pressure. Same thing, other side.

Again, I was made to spread my legs and this time, she got me to fold my right knee in a V on the ground, so both my legs together looked like a triangle. Placing herself at my feet, she pushed against the folded knee while holding on to my left foot.

This done, she got me to lie down on my back. She started by elbowing me thoroughly all over the back's surface. She then pinched me at various points. She also did, at several moments, that typical "clapping" routine in a Thai massage, which sounds like you're applauding but feels like someone is punching you.

She once again placed herself on me, her knees on my buttocks, her palms on my shoulders and then with equal sudden deftness, launched herself into an arch on me.

She then worked on my arms and then my head.

She finished it all off by rubbing my feet very gently and then, very harshly. Lastly, she got me to sit in a lotus position and positioned herself behind me, cradling me in her arms and then went rocking back and forth.

That was the end.

In a daze, I wrapped the towel secure me and stood up. I found my clothes, wore them and pulled up my bag. I then looked around for my socks and wore them to.

Then, like the fitting finale to this entire episode, with as much ease as the inspiring masseuse had managed to relax most muscles in my aching body, I went and slipped on the first tiled stair of a twenty-step long staircase, thus hurting my leg and back quite painfully.

Points to ponder :

1) Where I can take lessons in Thai Massage

2) Where in Bangalore can I get such massages on a daily basis

3) Would Mama and/or Player Boy allow me to practise these routines on them. God knows both of need these massages so badly!

4) Is there a sin such as enjoying Thai massages too much, that I got punished for when I fell down the stairs

Sawat di Kha

2008-04-28T19:05:00.003+04:30

Hello from, yes indeed, the Land of Smiles, where everyone, starting from the immigration officer who asked me twice if I was sure I wasn't of Thai origin to the dirty young fellow who followed me half a kilometre to sell me a bottle of water, smiles. One exception to the smiling people must be my hotel receptionist in Bangkok. All she did was practically throw the key to me and muttered something in Chinese/Thai to herself.

Just so you know - and you must - the immigration officer was the first in a series of people who laughed and pointed to my eyes and said "smoll ayes" and then pointed to themselves and proudly said, "rike us". In all that eye-dentification to themselves (he he, I'm carrying some remnants of the PJ-king that is Happy Camper!), I would have thought that I would have been less innocuous as a tourist - a "farang" as they call us here - but sadly, no. I've been as followed, pestered, touted, sollicited, guided and helped rather patronisingly as the other goras that Bangkok streets are teeming with.

But I'm not complaining at all. Maybe just a bit about the heat. But then, today I escaped the busy polluted crowded streets of Bangkok to come to Nakhon Si Thamarrat, a southern province, where the people and the weather seem just a tad nicer. However, the city does not seem to have any taxis, not at the hour I reached the bus terminal at least. After refusing a dozen times, a kind but rather annoying gentleman on a bike who offered to taken me "home, where he had a taxi", I had no recourse but to start walking in the direction that I thought was downtown. Halfway down the street I had started on, I was forced to put my bags down because there's only that much weight-lifting one can do on an empty stomach (cf.later) A car stopped by my side and I recognised a lady in the passenger seat, who also travelled in the same bus as I had. There was a young man in the driver's seat. In the back seat were several young girls, about four or five. The young man and the lady in front gestured and spoke to me hurriedly but kindly in Thai. They signalled me to get into the car, not caring where I needed to go. For a moment, I considered whether this might be a brothel-runner, a pimp and her girls in the car. Then, ever-trusting Empress won over the dramatic-Empress and I hopped on to the back, proper hitchhiker style. They dropped me safely to the hotel that I had reservations in, but not before I had had to write down the name of the street and enunciate the name of the hotel several times. When they arrived in front of the hotel, I gestured wildly from behind (it was an open car, like one of those half-matadors we have in India) and they all laughed and repeated the name of the hotel, no doubt pronouncing it correctly and amused at my attempts at Thai.

Don't tell my mother that I accepted a ride from practical strangers, ok?

But that was only today. Previously I did highly touristy things like walk hours in the Ko Ratanakosin area in Bangkok, the "island" which houses the palatial grounds as well as some of the most ancient, biggest and most ornate Buddhist temples of Thailand. Then, I walked around in awe and open-mouthed wonder at the jetsetting brightly lit shopping complexes in and around Siam Square. Teenage boppers were staring down at me at my uncool dress sense - I was wearing uncharacteristic travel capri pants and a nondescript t-shirt - while they redid their make-up in the fluorescent lights in street corners.

The following day, I escaped the rush of Bangkok - or so I thought - by going up north to Ayuthaya, a town that is home to several historical ruins. I had to travel in a third-class train; with the works - rattling ceiling fans, wooden seats, toilet odours halfway across the compartment - for about an hour and a half. I thought I was being smart by getting an early start to the day. By the time I reached Ayuthaya, it was eight in the morning, but the heat was already being cruelly felt. By the time I had visited two temple ruins and walked up and down the ruins like a child let loose in a park, I was thinking really pitiful thoughts about myself and seriously considering cutting down my planned ruin visits from four to just two. I persevered however and was justly rewarded, for the latter two temples and ruins that I visited were breathtaking.

Later in the railway station, waiting for my train back to Bangkok, I mirthfully laughed inside, as I saw innocent tourists arriving then, for a historical trip around the town. I gladly let one German couple keep my bottle of water they had taken a sip out of.

Back in Bangkok, true to tourist spirit, I headed straight towards the Lumpini Night Museum. But first, I walked inside the park. The strangest thing caught my eye there. About two dozen men were practising Tai-Chi beside the lake. The park was quiet, a far distance from the busy Rama IV road that led up to it. The birds by then were resting. The sun had just about set and there was an enthralling luminosity about the place.

And there, as I watched the men, entranced, slowly but deftly and adroitly make curvy swift movements with their limbs, I felt a peace take over. Here I was, alone, in a strange land, where most people don't understand my words let alone my thoughts, where I had to put in twice the effort as normal to get the smallest thing I need, but I was happy and at peace.

As if to jolt me from the hypnotic trance the Tai-Chi performance had induced in me, a small grey dirty-haired smelly boy came and patted me on my hand. He held out a chilled bottle of water to me and pointing at my sweaty t-shirt, said something. I turned to him and showed him my other hand, with which I held my already full bottle of water. He laughed sheepishly. I smiled at him, pulled out a ten baht note and bought his water anyway.

How can buying water be a waste, I asked myself, as I stepped out of the park and crossed the street to rejoin the masses in the blue and yellow-lit night bazaar.

P.S. I have hardly written a tenth of the experiences I have had so far. So people who know me in real life, please remind me and pester me to tell you other amusing anecdotes, lest I forget!

Cf. Later

2008-04-28T19:04:00.000+04:30

In the previous post, I forgot to mention what that "later" was referring to.

So, I travelled on an empty stomach, because I discovered this morning, an hour into the bus ride, with twelve more ahead of me, that I get sick in high buses.

I have travelled in high buses before. Several times. But never have I gotten sick, throwing up the breakfast that I had. Or for that matter, previous night's dinner too.

So I starved. Because it seems that the Universe cannot just stand it that I can have four days in a row without having stomach and/or digestion problems.

That's all that was about.

And I thought Singapore was just one busy modern sky-scraper-filled city

2008-04-24T11:30:00.003+04:30

While reading up on things to do in Singapore, I had vaguely read an article about an island that you could take a ferry to. But since I had only three days in the city, I had figured that time wouldn't permit me such detours from the concrete jungle that is Singapore.

On my first day of visiting the city, I walked practically everywhere. From the City Hall towards the Esplanade; from Somerset Street to Chinatown and back. At first all I saw were big grey buildings. Then, I soon turned into lanes that housed some of the most gracious colonial standings from the British years, all colourful and elegant. The parks that surrounded these buildings were all carefully pruned and so perfectly symmetric everywhere I looked. The only "messy" or even mildly haphazard thing about the city I saw was in Chinatown, and don't we know that us Indians and Chinese can create mini-countries of our own in foreign lands?!

By the time I was back at Pengwyn's place, I was quietly musing about how this city can be the most convenient and the most organised in the world, but that I wouldn't want to live here. Pengwyn wholeheartedly agreed on the phone that this place hadn't yet felt like home after a year. And before I knew it, while I was trying to lure the elusive sleep, I started to look for that "getaway" island I had previously read about.

Pulau Ubin - sounds very much like a North Indian Rice Dish, no? - was that island.

This morning, I headed out at seven, early enough for the weather to actually feel pleasant. After having studied three separate maps and corresponded street names and stations, I had figured out a long but inexpensive way to get to Changi Point. Once there, the wait for a bumboat to fill up to twelve passengers (I could have paid for twelve passengers had I wanted to leave earlier than we did!) put me into a reverie : I sat on the ferry deck, watching the rain fall into the sea and the coconut palms sway gently to the wind.

The island itself is rustic and so removed from the hustle-bustle of the mainland. Hardly anybody will speak to you in English; the few inhabitants are natives who fish, and off late, tend stores that sell various smelly seafood dishes, cold drinks and rent bicycles.

This morning, there was a downpour. Several groups of people stood at the Visitor's Centre wondering whether to proceed with their hikes or bike rides, as the volunteer there gave us pessimistic shrugs about the weather and how it wasn't going to get better. I watched hesitantly as one group decided to come back tomorrow and another huddled around a tree, watching the skies.

By this time, I was fairly wet and had to do something about it, whether or not I was going to go ahead with my planned hike. So I walked up to one of the minimal shops that lined the road and signalled "umbrella" or "raincoat". The man sold me a plastic bag large enough to fit my whole body in it and with a whole for my head. It was pink!

So wrapped in pink plastic, I started walking towards Chek Jawa, the wetlands where they promised we could see a whole lot of marine biodiversity. Hiking in the rain was very much fun and especially because I was alone, I could laugh loudly every time I placed my foot in a deceptively huge puddle of muddy water. Taking pictures of the magnificent sights that met the eye, however, in the rain, was not so much fun.

The rustic, green, tropical island was indeed a solace from the civilised air-conditioned world of Singapore. It's a pity I didn't have company, for the island offers campsites and picnic spots and other such fun things to do with friends. (Pengwyn, you should so totally plan a weekend there!)

When I started heading back, after having hiked a good three hours to the wetlands and to the beaches in the north of the island, the rain stopped. For a moment, I considered going back to the beach and sitting there for a while. But getting back dry while I could seemed more tempting and I yielded.

Back at the ferry station, I headed straight towards the Chinese man who had sold me the raincoat. Even in all that rain and slush and discomfort, I had earlier noticed that he was selling tender coconut. I made him cut one open like they do in India. He went one step further and cut the base flat, so I could place it on a table and not have to hold it in my hands! He then gave me a sharp-edged hollow spoon to carve the coconut out of the shell, once done with my drink.

That might have been the highlight of my excursion, if it weren't for the Mud Lobster, the Beetel Leaves, the Mangroves and the Coral I had seen earlier.

Singa-Pura, the land of the lion

2008-04-23T04:34:00.003+04:30

Here after an excruciatingly long, cramped and vegetarian meal-less couple of flights.

So far, I've seen the airport, which I've liked.

Heading out today on my own to see downtown, the touted Esplanade and the City Hall, and maybe walk around Little India. Little India, from the pictures in the brochure I picked up while waiting for the endless queue at Immigrations to reduce, looks like a leaf out of French Pondicherry, with quaint and coloured houses.

I've officially missed out on 22nd April 2008! I lost a whole day in my life; I went straight from 21st to 23rd. One whole Tuesday, gone!

I'm missing Picture Perfect and Happy Camper and their sunny kitchen and their warm red car and their happy presences.

Nothing else to write about. Considering I lost an entire day, you can't blame me for not having things to report.

The land where some things changed in me and some things didn't

2008-04-20T23:32:00.003+04:30

Strange things have happened to me since I came to the United States of America :

1) I'm inexplicably enamoured by this country, its nature and its people, thing that is surprising only because I was someone who touted indifference at best and dislike at worst to and of this country, before I had visited it. This change in me has only made me more aware of how often Life makes one eat one's words. So after eating my words and burping a smelly burp, I am now humbled and in awe of my own capacity to keeping an open mind. Or at least, opening up a closed one.

2) My hair has become straight. Just like that. With no explanation and/or preamble and/or gradual transformation. I woke up one day and there it was, all straight. Just when I thought I was beginning to like my wavy-curly hair. Thut.

3) I have become the newest anointed devotee of the Church Of Target. I will gladly stamp my foot and say "Hail Target".

4) I have also become an avid drinker and liker of Californian wines. Before all of my French readers begin to mutter "traitor" under your breaths, let me assure you that I still love my Graves, my Pessac and my Coteaux du Layon. But wine here is so much less of an air and so much more popular that it's refreshing.

5) My idea of using public restrooms has unalterably turned into an ideal : restrooms everywhere should have toilet seat covers. It should be made into a law. What if only I say so.

Actually, I know for a fact that I am not the only one who will support this law. Picture Perfect will too. She actually carries travel-toilet seat covers. That's the kind of land USA is : where they make travel size toilet seat covers that fit into a ladies' purse but will also make giant sized burgers that can feed an platoon of ravenous young men.

6) I had forgotten what it was to have a big sister around. As a little girl, who had no girl friends of her own age, I used to annoyingly follow Picture Perfect everywhere she went, with her friends. They were all very grown-up and were very cool in my eyes. I used to love being in their company, hoping that some of the coolness would rub off on me. Picture Perfect would irritatedly complain, just once in a while, about how I wouldn't leave her alone. But most other times, she took my hand and took me to movie theatres, badminton games and pyjama parties at friends' places.

In the past few weeks, I have once again followed her everywhere she went, taking part in her daily activities in this life of hers that, till now, was unfamiliar to me. As she showed me around the city with characteristic thoughtfulness and efficiency, as she introduced me to people they hung out with, as they treated me to several enjoyable and memorable outings, the one thought that remained with me throughout was, "It's like back in the old days : me following her everywhere she went and she, kindly and lovingly, putting up with all that I do and say".

Little has changed from when we were younger. She still calls Mama and complains to her about things I do she disapproves of. I still won't listen to her even when she is the Living Voice of Reason and Sanity. She still sternly remarks when I make pouting faces while reading or writing. I still pull out hair while thinking, knowing very well that it irritates her and she will promptly go, "Leave your hair, won't you!" and I'll just say, "Ptch" and go on. I still mess up lyrics and she'll still correct me. She'll reprimand me for not eating and sleeping properly and I'll haughtily reply, "You're one to talk!".

But most importantly, what hasn't changed is that she still thinks she has the right as my elder sister to yell at me, advice me and give me perspective. And that I still think that as the younger sister, I should allow her to, ask her to do so.

And so the yelling and the fighting and the loving and the laughing and the arguing and the irritating and the annoying and the singing and the talking will continue. For I think, as sisters and as family, we've all come of age. Somewhat:-)

Days close in

2008-04-18T11:02:00.002+04:30

I can't believe that my extended stay here in California with my dear sister and brother in law are close to being over. I said, about a month ago, that time flies. But where it goes, I still am at a loss to understand.

We had friends over for dinner tonight and Picture Perfect, Happy Camper and I cooked an Indo-Chinese meal together - Fried rice, Chow Mein and Gobi Manchurian. As I fried the cauliflower and grimaced at the amount of oil it was soaking in, I felt dull and heavy at the thought that this would probably be one of the last times we would be cooking a meal together for a long time.

My stay in California has been so much fun and filled with various discoveries and rediscoveries. New and exciting places to visit; fun things like wine-tasting, bike-riding, hiking; trips to interesting boutiques and shops in quaint cities and towns; cheap clothes to buy...there was never a dull moment.

But more than anything else, I cherish the fact that after all these years, I got to share the same roof with my sister, relations with whom, due to distance and circumstances, had grown less close than they used to be while we were growing up. My stay in California was the first time in almost eleven years that we were living together again, and I daresay that it was high time. Although like every leo and every sister worth the name, we caught onto the slightest opportunity to argue and tear each other's heads apart, the time that I had here and the chance I had to share parts of their life with her and her husband is precious to me.

Also, getting spoilt as the little sister never gets tiring :-)

I am a little sad at having to leave sunny California and the wooden deck at their house and the colorful tulips in their backyard. But I also am thrilled for the next leg of my travels - Singapore and Thailand. Meeting an old friend - Pengwyn, I even dreamt of seeing you again after all these years! - and then, escaping into the wilderness of tropical rain forests and blue-green waters in Siam...

Ah, there is still some excitement in store for me before I return to a staid and sedentary lifestyle in Bangalore. You think you sense a tinge of regret in that sentence? I think so too.

Now, saying it with pictures - Waikiki and Hanauma Bay

2008-04-16T19:58:00.008+04:30

Waikiki

2008-04-16T19:50:00.004+04:30

The beach whose name denotes two body parts in two different languages. One is "mouth" in Tamil. The other is an unmentionable in French.

Only I found that funny.

In Hawaii, many people do not speak French. So many people thought I was slightly mad because I burst out laughing every time someone said "Waikiki".

But that is a place where they also name roads "Wiliwili".

And they have fish that are called "Humuhumunukunuku Apu A-a".

Really, am I the mad one?

As an aside, in the Hawaiian language, on an average, more than half a word consists of vowels. I calculated that while I was swimming in the sea, trying to recollect the Hawaiian phrases I'd read earlier in the day.

And you thought Hawaii was going to be all play and no work.

Hawaii, where they speak funny words like "LikeLike" and "Mahalo"

2008-04-13T00:35:00.003+04:30

So far, in the island of Oahu, I've seen :

- Diamond Head, a cliff top, from inside the waters. The summit is imposing, the waters green-blue, the air humid but breezy.

- Tropical torrential rains, bright white sunlight soon after, rainbows.

- Peacocks, on busy roads in Haleiwa, on the way back from North Shore. But apparently, there are so many that we were the only ones fascinated by their presence. The locals were just standing on the roadside and pointing their fingers at us running after the birds to get pictures.

- A seal that we thought was dead, on the Sunset Beach on North Shore. Once again, we behaved typically touristy and took lots of pictures. Then suddenly, when I was wading past that cordoned area, the seemingly dead seal woke up, startled, when splashed with a violent wave of water. He looked around for two seconds, shook his beautiful whiskers at me, flapped his fin on the sand and without ado, waded away. By that time, I was frantically waving my hands to Picture Perfect, signalling her to get her camera to take his picture. If I weren't already half on land, people would have thought I was drowning.

- Lots of smiling people who ask us where we're from and then tell us that they think Indian women are among the best-looking ones.

- Two sunsets, one more beautiful than the other, but both making me feel very sad. Two is just bad enough, I couldn't stand to watch 42.

- Landscapes and seascapes that remind me of less-travelled villages in Kerala or Mangalore or both.

- Pineapple farms. Mango vendor stalls. Tender coconut sellers.

- Myself go from brown-skinned to dark brown-skinned.

- So many more things, but I'm getting yelled at for sticking my head in front of a laptop, when I should be getting ready to do slightly more interesting things like surfing or swimming or snorkelling. So I'll come back later when the house is asleep and I can get my daily fix of the internet.

I'm feeling guilty even as I write this

2008-04-09T10:51:00.002+04:30

So tomorrow, Picture Perfect and I will be headed to Hawai, where we will wear world-famous-in-India hawai type chappals because it will be so hot and sarongs and sunglasses and straw hats and sip on coconut water and pineapple cocktails. We will try hard (at least I will) to look sexy in beachwear and while Picture Perfect will succeed immensely, I will die trying.

Did I already mention that it will be hot in Honolulu? Mhuahahahaha.

And ooooh, I will get to surf after - what seems like ages - almost a year!

But just so you don't get the wrong idea and go ahead and picture some foxy lady on the beach, shaking her hair dry sexily, and carrying her surfboard under her arm, looking like it was the most natural appendage there, let me make it clear that that person, will not be me! I will be the person scrambling out of water, gleeful at having ridden one wave in all of three hours in the water and will be dragging the surfboard and kicking it and cursing it for being so heavy and my hair will be sticking all over my face.

So, if I bump into you, do feel free to yell. Because otherwise, I'll be having way too much fun for my own good!

"To Léon Werth, when he was a little child"*

2008-04-08T08:15:00.004+04:30

You know you haven't lost the child in you when you make an afternoon trip to Berkeley and end up in the Rose Garden. You sag your shoulders and mope a bit when you see that there are all of three plants in the garden that actually have flowers on them and the rest are waiting for sunnier times to give roses. Then, you walk across the street and through a tunnel, walking in which you shout random sentences and clap in glee when you hear the echoes. Then the claps themselves echo and you laugh aloud.

At the end of the tunnel, you find yourself in a green field, filled with young boys and girls lazing around, playing football and sliding slides and swinging swings. You gape in wonder, like you've landed in the Land of Oz. Then you run to a swing with excitement and turn back just a second to look at your friends wondering fleetingly if they know about an age restriction for that park. When they don't say anything, but just smile encouragingly at you, you rush to the nearest swing and sit down.

You swing your legs up and throw your body forward. You look back to watch your friends watching you laugh. You feel the breeze hit your face and you push some more. You swing up and down, you swing up and down. And you go so high that you think you can see on the other side of the sky.

* The title of this post are the words of Antoine St-Exupéry, in his foreword to the book, "Le Petit Prince"

Where bookworms are born

2008-04-06T20:47:00.005+04:30

We pulled into the Main Library in Palo Alto and as I stepped out of the car, I wondered at the large sprawling lawns and the "modern art" rusted iron sculptures placed at strategic and eye-catching corners and centres. How could anybody think that libraries are boring places, I asked myself again, incredibly, thinking about my little brother who wouldn't step into one even if his life were at stake. Picture Perfect guided me towards the main entrance and when we stepped in, it was magical.

The red carpet smothered our footsteps as we walked towards the New Book section. The typical blue-white light that the fluorescent tubelights emitted was deceivingly bright and our eyes took a while to readjust to the stimulus. The dull drone of the radiator and the innumerable computers placed at desks was the only sound we heard, apart from the occasion page that was turned or the irritating sound of legs and arms stretching at the adjacent reading table.

The silence that is so characteristic of libraries transported me back to my childhood, to my first trysts with libraries.

When we lives in Lakshmi Nilayam, I was the only girl of my age and the boys - who I had eyed with glee as potential friends but was soon disappointed - would scorn me out of their games. I thank them all to this day, because if it weren't for that little, short-lived unfriendliness they showed towards me, I would never have taken to reading like I did.

As a mere four-year old, I had flipped through all the cartoon books and childrens' magazines that were stocked at home. Mama would not always have the time to read me bigger persons' books, so I would take a book that I fancied and hobble up to Pati, my grandmother, and ask her to read it to me. Pati, for me, was the elegant regal woman, adorned with diamonds and silk saris, who knew all the things in the world there was to be known. But I didn't know and I didn't care that she was illiterate. So when she picked up the book, turned the pages speedily, looking at the rare picture in it and then closed it satisfactorily and started to tell me a story about Rama and Sita, I would listen unsuspectingly, not having a clue that Mark Twain wouldn't have known all his life who or what Rama and Sita were.

At bedtime, Mama would read me stories and when a word caught her attention, she would bend down to me, her gold chains tinkling in my face and their cold touch wakening me out of warm drowsiness, and show it to me. O-R-P-H-A-N, she would spell it out, as she made me visualise the way the word was written. She would sigh out of unconditional kindness that is typical of her, and explain that Tom Sawyer was an orphan and that meant he didn't have any parents and that he grew up with his aunt.

When I grew older, Picture Perfect would wait for me as I gulped down my evening glass of milk and wore my ballerina shoes and hurried to the front door to meet her. Then, she would hold my hands and take me to the main road, two blocks away from our house, where the nearest library was located.

Manjunatha Library was a strange library. The front of the store was a kind of department store, where the man stocked toffees, rice, sugar, toothpaste and other such things. A dirty grey screen half-separated the front from the back, where there were roof-high shelves, with books stacked neatly on all of them.

The "uncle" kept an account of all people who borrowed books from his library in an account ledger book. The "membership" account number was devised according to name and Picture Perfect's number was C 12. When he turned to the page that C12 was allocated, I would stand on tip toes to watch him note down the books we were checking out and the to-be-returned-on date. The rest of the page was filled with similar notes, but each was scratched out with a red colour pen to mean that the previous books had all been returned.

We would place the books we had borrowed previously and pay him the regulated 20 paise per book per day fee and check out the new ones. In summer though, when we didn't have school work and extra activities, Picture Perfect taught me to tear middle pages from old magazines and make paper bags out of them, with home-made glue. We'd take hundreds of such paper bags to Manjunatha Library and sell them to him in exchange for the books we borrowed that week. Once in a while, when Mama ordered us to bring back a coconut from the "library" both of us took childish pleasure in showing off the paper bag that the coconut would be wrapped in, to Mama.

The uncle grew very soon to trust us with his books and as a result, we accumulated magazines and novels from his library in the house. We would return those that we weren't thrilled about and keep those that we wished to re-read. He never once did complain and would instead, on occasion, tell us that he had a new acquisition, would we like to see it? As a result of this trust and our indifference, we ended up with so many boxes of books that were stamped "Manjunatha Library" on the front page, when we moved houses.

Later in my childhood, there were other libraries, big and small, but nothing that came close to the atypical Manjunatha. School and college libraries were awe-inspiring for the number of books they stacked but both the librarians were irritable stern shrill women, so my visits were restricted more to checking out only the books I really needed for reference work than to peruse through interesting unheard of books. That kind of leisurely activity was reserved for in the Eloor library near Safina Plaza, and that opened me out to a whole new world of books that I soon after went and bought copies of.

But at the top of my list of libraries during college, would be Blossom's Book House, although it wasn't a library. I remember that we would play hooky from college and troop into the then small square shop that was Blossom's. The young person who manned the shop during most of our visits, was also - strangely - called Manjunath. He was familiar with all of us and when we arrived armed with college bags and lunches, he would clear the floor for us and make room. Then, as we flitted about the cramped place, jumping over one another to snatch the prize find - a book that we had been coveting for ages - and as we ordered him to get "that one up there" for us, he would patiently smile and help us out without a word of complaint. On the frequent occasion that we would place a dozen books in front of him to buy and sad-facedly announce that we had money for only half of those, he would first give us a discount on most of them and then would helpfully say, I'll hide away this one until you come back the next time, with more money, ok?

Blossom's is now a three-floored sprawling bookstore. Manjunath has disappeared.

Back in the Palo Alto Main Library, as I ran my hands through the plastic-covered bindings of books across a shelf, I promised myself that I would visit Manjunatha Library, if only to see if it still exists, when I return to Bangalore. When Picture Perfect and I walked out of the library, armed with half a dozen books and DVDs each, we both squinted at the sunlight striking us from outside. Inside there, really, is a magical other world, I thought to myself.

A day well spent, but money, well, just spent

2008-04-04T12:00:00.002+04:30

It seems that the best cure to a cold and a fever and feeling lousily is to go shopping. And not just anywhere, but to Market Street in San Francisco.

You wake up early in the morning with a heavy head, a blocked sinus and nose and a steady cough. You think you could slide back under the covers, when you realise you have an official meeting in the city today.

You go for the official lunch meeting and order soup and struggle to finish half the bowl. Your lack of appetite could be something that most people would envy, if only that were contributing to any weight loss. But strangely, you're not eating much, but you're not losing much either. You decide to look up the phenomenon on Google (like much else you've been looking up off late, wink wink)

After lunch, you have a few hours to kill waiting for friends and family, so you decide to explore.

First you go to the Old Navy store on Market Street. You pull out a dozen shirts and a couple of trousers to try on. Once you've tried them all on, you proceed to eliminate items on the "absolutely need" basis, thereby ending up with nothing in your arm and everything on the trial room seat. You sag your shoulders and shake your head about your unfailing responsibility and walk out sulking.

Then you walk across the street to the Gap store and clap your hands at the sight of a pretty white top on sale. You decide you love America for their fortnightly sales, unlike in France, where you have to wait for a whole season to pass before the next sale. You pick up that white top, another white top, a pair of jeans on sale and try all of them on. This time you say rubbish quite firmly to the annoyingly responsible voice from within and go ahead and check out all above items.

Happily, you walk next door to the Anthropology store. Tooty-Fruity, you are so right! The Anthropology designers are goddesses and the clothes there are truly meant for pretty fairies, who also might happen to have a lot of dollars tucked away in their wings. After sighing and admiring every item in the store and smelling their scented candles, you walk out knowing that you will never ever be able to afford anything in that store and that you should walk away while you still can control your bodily actions. For a little longer in that store, you would have been capable of squatting on the floor and throwing a tantrum, screaming that you wanted, and only wanted this particular top NOW!!!

Then, you feel guilty about all the money you just spent in Gap on products that were not even Red products and resist for the next couple of hours the urge to buy anything. You catch up with sister and brother in law, in a bookstore, and you proceed to pull out all the clothes items that you bought in the bookstore to show to your sister, who cowers in embarrassment and hisses, can't we wait till we're home for this? Of course not I reply and continue to flourish and fold the next item in the bag with the deft handling of the most experienced Bengali sari salesman.

Then they take you into the H&M store where they have to return a previously bought item.

You close your eyes and walk in. But soon, you open them to check out the top your sister is showing you and you say, oh wow. That was the end. You scamper around the shop first marvelling at the pretty cotton tops and then at the prices. H&M in Europe was cheap, you thought, but cheaper in America!

You walk back to the car with two bags with much unnecessary clothing. You reach home and as you pull each top out, you are invaded by an overpowering guilt. To assuage your qualms about having spent so much, you promise yourself to make gifts of all the purchased items.

One pang of regret later, you decide that that's it, all will be gifts. Except that one white pretty coveted top from Gap. That one will remain yours. The rest can go.

I have not been paid by any of the mentioned stores to write about them. Do you think I should ask?

I am an annoying five-year old!

2008-04-02T12:58:00.002+04:30

So, yesterday was April Fool's Day, if you didn't realise!

And consequently, that thing about me going to see "suitable boys", was also, umm, a hoax:-)

Now, you can beat me up, promise never to talk to me again and call me names. I deserve all of that. But, My God, you guys are all so gullible. Tee hee!

P.S. All of you who got worried and tried to call me or sent me mails, I am touched. I also feel a little guilty about getting you worried, but if it helps make you feel better, the first part in which I wrote that I was fed up with boys is actually true!
So, please forgive me?

Enough is enough

2008-04-01T17:56:00.000+04:30

I've had my share of non-committal boys and boys who just aren't ready for a serious relationship. I'm so fed up and more than ever, anxious that I will never have the energy to get out there and find someone for myself, that I have finally caved.

I am, as of today, allowing my parents to introduce me to "suitable boys" and will pick an eligible bachelor out of the lot to get married to.

The "seeing" begins today!

I'll have more to tell you once the first meeting has happened!

Somewhere in the mountains of Tahoe

2008-03-31T12:48:00.000+04:30

Amidst tall pine trees and awe-inspiring mountains, we went up cable cars and landed on the tips of the snow-covered mountains with muffled thuds. Picture Perfect, Happy Camper and their friends looked at me warily and said, "Are you sure you've done this before?"

I nodded nervously and said, "You guys go ahead, I'll manage on my own. It's but a green trail..." I sounded unconvincing even to myself.

One by one, they zipped down the first slope and halted at the bottom. Like puppets in a show, each of their heads mechanically turned up towards me.

I slowly made my way down, carving rather large "S"es with my skis, my knees too wide apart for safety and my skis webbing dangerously with each other every third minute.

Just when I thought I could save face and reach them without having had any mishaps, some kid whizzed past me, completely unbalancing me in my fine act, and in less than a second, I was hurtling down towards my friends in speed that I had no control over.

"I CAN'T STOP!!!!" I yelled, as I fled past them.

Two minutes later, the four of them came swooping down expertly on their skis and examined the scene. There I lay, leg twisted behind me - ski-less - ; another leg still shoed and skied, but positioned rather strangely, my goggles wet with snow and ski poles and ski sent out on the trail far and wide.

Cut to scene at the end of the day.

The friends had long given up waiting for me and had quickly gone on to explore adventurous and (I think, rather foolishly dangerous) "black" trails.

Picture Perfect and Happy Camper patiently accompanied me on every one of our descents, occasionally letting themselves be tempted by the more challenging "blue" trails and letting me cope with my beginner/intermediate green ones.

I had managed all of ONE descent without any falls. I might say I have improved my skills at controlling speed on ski slopes, but you shouldn't believe me, because that's something I will tell you if only to make myself believe that I just didn't spend an ENTIRE SUNDAY falling down mountains and bruising my knees and thighs. (At least I was careful to fall every single time on my sides and not on my back, because, in my life, I can handle only one major back problem a year and according to my Horrible Health Horoscope, that one isn't due for another six months in 2008!)

At the end of the day, we regrouped in the bar at the base lodge and ordered beers. I sipped on mine and exclaimed that the beer was the best part of the day. All of them shook their heads and patted my back. (Secret : I actually thoroughly enjoy skiing and enjoyed the day at Tahoe, but if I had told them that, would they have bought me that second beer?!)

I handed back the rental skis and ski-suits and walked easily back to the car in normal hiking shoes, while the rest of them duck-walked in their heavy ski boots, on asphalt. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the fatigue. Suddenly, Happy Camper took his skis under his arms and made a gesture as if to pull a trigger and all the while making gun sounds, began to shoot all of us in front of him. I did a slow-motion run towards him and melodramatically fell on the ground, fake-gasping for breath. His friend, who was farthest away from the shooting scene, realised what was happening and came to our rescue. When Happy camper saw him rushing towards the crime scene, he pointed hus "gun" towards the friend and shot him too. The friend touched his heart, looked at his hand, acted aghast at the fake-sight of blood and screamed, "Me too? You too?!"

Happy Camper laughed a hearty laugh, put his gun down triumphantly and duck-walked back to the car.

I followed him only a step behind, still eating all their brains about how the Beach and the Surf was such a more-fun sports option to the Mountain and the Ski. In the Mountains, you boot up, you suit up, you wear ten layers of clothing, you are the proud owner of a leaky nose and you look really really bad in a sack of clothing that fits a potato better and especially, when you try to look normal walking in ski boots.
In the Beach, you strip, you wear sexy bikinis, you feel the warm waves hit your body and you laze around in the sun reading silly magazines. Somewhere in there, some sport will somehow be achieved. Or so I have to convince these people.

Paperweights can lie!

2008-03-30T16:03:00.001+04:30

Long complaint, angry post : proceed only if you're jobless and/or however unlikely, interested in contentious matter!

2008-03-28T13:07:00.002+04:30

When I rented apartments in France, I was very particular about finding places without real estate agents helping me out. My logic behind that stance was that I didn't want to pay a month's rent as fees to the agent (which is the going rate in any city in France) and have to pay two months' rent as deposit before moving in.

I also had the difficulty of not having anybody around to sign guarantor papers on my behalf (in most cases, parents or employers sign as guarantors to reassure the proprietors that their rent will be paid by them in case the tenant was incapable of doing so). My choices in apartments and respective house owners were therefore much reduced than the general market, and on two of the three occasions I moved house, I was compelled in some sense, to pick the best of the worst.

When I moved to Le Mans however, I considered myself to have been extremely fortunate in finding the flat that I did and in my dealings with the owners. The old couple that rented me their flat in downtown Le Mans were kind to me, understood my inability to provide guarantor reassurance as a foreigner resident and accepted just the two-month rent deposit as some kind of back-up money for them. So, in August 2006, on the day I moved in, I wrote them a check for that month's rent and close to a 1000 euros more of deposit. That deposit was money I was going to get back eventually, I told myself when my hand faltered writing out that big a check.

All along my stay in their flat, the landlords were extremely impressed at my prompt payments, my general behaviour towards other tenants in the building, my patience at BigMouth's unacceptable attitude, my hospitality and so on. They would visit on Sunday afternoons and stay for tea and appreciate the taste with which I had decorated the place. They would always unfailingly exclaim that the flat hadn't ever looked cleaner and in better condition.

For all these reasons, I had assumed that when I announced to them my decision to leave, they could only be honest in their dealings with me. I gave them notice mid-november, three months in advance as was specified in the contract. I had mentioned on the phone - however, not in the registered letter that served as notice - that I planned to move out mid-February. I imagined that they would calculate February's rent accordingly.

Come early February, I receive a call from the young couple that was to move in to the flat after me. They said that the landlords had advised them to call me and "settle" with me the issue of rent for the remainder of February after I had moved out on the 16th. They wanted to move in around the 25th and so they proposed to pay me 4 days' rent.

I did not understand at first why they were going to pay me. I made some excuse of being busy and said that I would call them back. Upon reflexion, I realised that the house owners intended to charge me rent for a full month and that they had conveniently washed their hands off the matter by asking the future renters to pay me for the days they wished to use to move in before the 1st of March.

I called the house owners that evening and explained to them very calmly that as their tenant, I'd like to restrict my financial exchanges with them and not some strangers that were going to move in to the flat after me. It was then that they unhesitatingly admitted that they intended on keeping the whole month's rent for February and that they thought it "nice" that I recover some of that money as the new tenants would be using the flat from the 25th onwards.
I politely pointed out to them that my notice was dated 18th November, which meant that from the 18th February onwards, I was under no legal obligation to pay rent and was free to move. They were suddenly uncomfortable, stuttered and stammered something about how they had never wanted anything other than first-of-the-month to last-day-of-the-month rentals and that they "would see" about the matter.

Quite foolishly in hindsight, I had allowed my bank to make the automatic monthly transfer on the 2nd of February, as was my habit, for the entire sum of one month's rent.

As can be expected, I called back the young couple and said that I preferred not to deal with them but with the house owners. They also agreed with me and said that they found it weird to be paying me and not the house owners.

On the 16th therefore, I expected to recover a check for the remainder of the month's rent, which was no ignorable sum. The inspection that was scheduled for that morning commenced on time, with my friends - who had come to see me off to Paris and bid me goodbye before I left France - exclaiming at the primness and properness of the surfaces, bathrooms, toilets and the kitchen that I was handing back the flat in.

The house owners seemed tense and rather curt. They said they had to rush after the inspection for a lunch meeting; I put their curtness down to that.
While inspecting the floors, they commented on how unused and polished the hardwood surfaces looked. I told them that I had spent the last few evenings polishing them. They said oh, they had never had a tenant doing that before and went on with the inspection.

When we reached the kitchen, they hovered around the two small electric plates that served as the stove and ran their hands along the surface. They scratched at three obstinate black spots that were already there before I moved in - but about which, when I moved in they had said, oh, that's just grime, it will come off in two scrubs - and said, tut, tut, this will have to be cleaned. I did not say anything, still naively believing that they were not the kind to squeeze money from honest tenants.

They noted several things down on the contract and the inspection form and gave it to me to sign. But before I even looked at it to sign, I brought up the topic of the check they owed me for the rest of February.

At first they acted surprised that I had still not "settled the matter" with the new tenants. I kindly reminded them of my telephone call in which I had made it clear that I would deal only with them. Then, they went back to being curt and angrily muttered something about how they had never agreed to a mid-month move. I said that if they weren't ok with it, they should have said so at the time I gave them notice, and not instead, have signed the notice letter and sent it back to me thus implying they were ok with all conditions of the move.

The wife grumbled some more and brought out her checkbook while her husband tried to guilt-trip me by talking about how "things had always been smooth" with me and why was I "being difficult at the very end?". I took her check and smiled knowingly when I saw that they had repaid me four days' rent.
I handed it back and argued that I would like eleven days' rent back please, as my notice was given on the 19th. She tore the first check and handed a second one to me.

Then they said, would I sign the contract and the inspection form. I looked down to read their markings and saw that they had mentioned something about floor polish, stove cleaning and bathroom cleaning. I asked them what that was about and if I could strike them off the list, as those were all tasks I had completed myself. They did not need to bring in a cleaning lady for those.

Not waiting to hear their response, I struck those off the form and signed it and returned it to them.

Now came the matter of retrieving the deposit money. Legally, I knew that they were allowed to keep the money for two months after I vacated the flat. But I had explained to them earlier about my travel plans and that I would need that money especially since I was not going to have a steady pay during my travels, and they had not seemed fussed about giving it back to me soon enough, on the condition that they saw no damages to the flat.

But on that day, they unhesitatingly and cruelly announced that they would "hold my deposit" for a month just in case there were any "surprise damages" that they would have overlooked in the course of this "hurried inspection" (they spent an hour and a half inspecting a 66 square metre flat!). Legally bound, I had but little choice than to accept this term. They promised that the money would be returned to me in the first week of March. I jokingly enquired if they were planning to deduct the rent money I had taken back from them from the deposit disguising that money to be used to "repair damages" that they would conveniently find in my absence. My friends who had been all the while aghast at the proceedings and were seething with fury at my meek acceptance of the owners' behaviour, glared at me and muttered not to give them ideas.

I phoned the house owners two days back seeing as I had not received any money back from them and that we were already almost the end of March. I left them three messages and a number - international, I admit - to call me back on. I obviously did not hear back from them.

I called again this morning and sure enough, they took a while to come on line when I introduced myself to the person on the other end. They hurriedly said that, no, they had not forgotten about me and that I would receive the "remainder of the deposit money" sometime next week. "Remainder?", I questioned. "Oh yes, we had to polish the hardwood floors again, since we realised that the product you had used was not the usual one. And also, we had to get a cleaning lady in to scrub the stove and get rid of the black spots you saw there. Add a few more euros for the water bill you owe us for two months in 2008 and that's what we have deducted from your deposit", she explained, not so calmly.

I took the details and the amounts down and said that I would call them back if I had any questions.

They have retained effectively a THIRD of my deposit money : all under the pretext of floor polish, stove cleaning and water bills. Apart from the water bill - money that I legitimately owe them - I cannot see how, even if the floor required polishing and the stove required cleaning, these tasks could run up such a huge bill.

I quickly calculated the amount they retained, the water bill estimate based on my previous payments and what do you know, the rest of the money adds up exactly to the money they gave me back as February's rent and a little more!

I called them back and very firmly told them that I would require bills for the polish they used, the number of cans that were used, the cleaning lady's bill as well as the water bill's photocopy. I gave them an address in France to send them to. I told them that if I hadn't received the bills and/or the money by April 16th - two months from when I moved out - I would be taking "severe action". I also told them that if the money I recovered from my deposit didn't correspond to my realistic calculations, I would write to the Consumer Board to complain and that they would receive copies of all my correspondence with them, and maybe hear from them directly.

I am, to say the least, tired of being taken for granted only because I am polite and kind. I am, if anything, making of this a big deal not so much for the money (although, God knows I need it) as for the principle. I am, above all, livid for being treated with so much dishonesty and craftiness for all the kindness and honesty I have shown to these people.

Phir bhi dil hai Madrasi!

2008-03-27T23:03:00.006+04:30

Last night we had an Italian dinner - Zuchini in wine sauce with pasta - while watching a typical "comedy picture" in Tamil - Panchatantiram.

Picture Perfect, Happy Camper and I were literally rolling on the floor at almost all of Kamal Hassan's puns and hilarious lines, all at the same time trying to roll our tagliatelles onto our forks and sipping white wine. That's when I realised that we might be the beer-guzzling kind; the wine-sipping type; the people who call an eggplant an "aubergine" and not a "brinjal"; the kind who'll meet friends for brunch in Haight and Ashbury, but a good old "Tamizh picture" will draw us back to our roots like the best of the kozhamabe and puliyodarai there might be around.

To usher in the Spring, some God just took a hose and sprayed random people with colours!

2008-03-25T05:37:00.007+04:30

I am highly disoriented. I thought I had written about my ENTIRE weekend, but I only today realised I had written exclusively about Sunday and the hike. Saturday must be feeling so bad and ignored, especially after he (Saturday just sounds very masculine, right?) gave us such a good time. My apologies to Saturday and here goes the account of what he gave us.

Friday was Holi, the Indian festival of colours. It is a festival that beckons Spring and celebrates the blossoming of flowers among other good things specific to the season of Spring. In modern India, this festival is also used as the excuse by many energetic and enthusiastic young persons to come in close contact with equally young, energetic and enthusiastic persons of the other sex, under the pretext of throwing colours on each other, without being accused of harassment.

You see, Holi is celebrated mainly by applying colours (green, red and yellow) on each other and then dunking large amounts of water so that the coloured persons will spend even larger amounts of water, trying to get all those sticky colours off their bodies and their clothes. Right now, you're thinking, oh what an inordinate waste of time and water, but trust me, it's all very fun and apart from the water wastage, quite safe and friendly.
The colour powders are traditionally made of neem (green), turmeric (yellow) and kumkum (red), but in India today, the powders are mostly made of potassium, sodium and some few nitrates that are more or less harmful to the skin. But then who's looking in India, and if anyone is, who's listening to the complaints?

Here in Amreeka though, they had several nice smelling powders, some of which, they claimed on the packets, were even organic!

Other Holi landmarks include the preparation of bhang (pot-blended buttermilk! As I said, it's a very gay and friendly festival!), other delicacies that I barely ever remember the name of, because the consumption of bhang precedes the consumption of these less memorable nevertheless delicious savouries.

Legend has it that Holi was started by Krishna, the Hindu god, who was blue-bodied (all Hindu gods are coloured for some strange reason!). So his clever adoptive mother Yashodha counselled him to throw colours on Radha, his beloved, when he took to heart the fact that she was only fair and not coloured. Radha, like the best feminist lover there ever can be, retaliated and thus, I'm guessing, began the festive celebration of Holi!

That's just a fun version. There are other legends, that might actually be more credible, but I'm too lazy to write about them. Also, they're quite boring if you're not so much into Hindu mythology. So, if you're familiar with figures like Vishnu, Narasimha, Prahlad, Holika (the festival's name actually comes form her) and the rest of the gang, and you're still interested, check this article out.

On Saturday, Picture Perfect, Happy Camper and I were invited to North Indian friends' house, where elaborate Holi celebrations were planned. How they were going to play with colours and coloured liquids in a carpeted, rented apartment was beyond my imagination!

We arrived among the first to a house that was lined with plastic "carpets" and old bed sheets from wall to wall. We had under-dressed to the hilt - we'd brought out our oldest t-shirts and bedraggled trousers - expecting to be showered and sprayed with indelible colours. True to our expectations, as soon as we arrived, we were smothered with colours on our faces and clothes. I willingly bore all the colours and "tikkas" on my face, forehead (my "fivehead" was large enough to sport half a dozen tikkas!) and cheeks, managing to save my red t-shirt from damage, until one friend came and gave me a huge affectionate hug, thus conveniently wiping his hands on the back of my t-shirt. So there went my t-shirt and I spent the rest of the afternoon threatening that friend that he owed me red t-shirt. He said all right, he would make a trip to the nearest Dollar Shop. Bah.

Soon, all the other guests arrived. But none of them were under-dressed. On the contrary, in fact, since all of them were wearing their best finery. Colourful silk salwar kameezes and saris were all over the place, made up women jabbering away in Hindi, so much food and drink making the rounds, children running helter skelter around the house : one would never have guessed that this party was happening outside India! All the other guests who arrived well-dressed got conveniently let off the hook by the hosts, since they noticed their expensive clothes and exclaimed, "Oh, we cannot colour these lovely clothes! Ok then, we'll let you off with just a "tikka" on the forehead". Then the guests looked around and spotted us, dressed like beggars and came running to us excitedly, "Ooooh, aap tho holi ke liye special dress kar key aaye hain! Aap ko tho rang daal na hee padega!"* And then followed more smothering, more turmeric tasting powder entering your mouths, more hand prints on your t-shirt and all the rest.

On our way back home in the car, Picture Perfect and I rolled down our windows and deliberately stared at unsuspecting people in other cars on the freeway and even managed to scare a kid or two.

This has been the most - actually only - fun Holi for me since I left India five years ago!

*"You've come specially dressed for the occasion of Holi! Now, we HAVE to smear you with colours!"

Hike

2008-03-24T09:28:00.004+04:30

We woke up early this morning, skipped the morning obligatory cup of hot coffee and got into the car excitedly. We were headed to Mission peak for a hike!

We reached the foothills at around half past eight; the sun had reported a loud "present" to the attendance call, as had our friends from Hawai. I was flitting about like a butterfly with excitement at getting the first proper exercice after a month and so, I took the liberty of clicking many pictures at the base. I also made Picture Perfect, Happy Camper and the unsuspecting friends to pose for said pictures.

Picture Perfect patiently stood for two pictures, while my camera flickered into life, took it's own sweet time to focus, then click and then actually open and shut the shutters for the picture to be registered onto its (very slow) memory card. In all that (in)action, Picture Perfect realised that they had been posing already for a long time and so, the next time, I pleaded for them to pose, she grit her teeth, drew me to a side and muttered under her breath, "Empress, we plan to come back here again and again, this being our favourite practice hike spot. So, NO, we're not going to pose for any more pictures and make more fools out of ourselves".

I pulled a long face, but it didn't work, so I went back to grinning at the thought of climbing that peak.

Hawaian friend and I started off with the rest of the group and soon gained speed over them. Saving for one pause quarter-way up the trail, to collect water bottles from the rest of the group, we trudged along the steep hill quite confidently.

At some point, Hawaian friend said, amidst heaving breaths, that the hill was jh-ust toooo stee-eeep and so, I ruthlessly left her behind to be recovered by the others and went ahead.

It was then that I realised how long it had been since I had such moments to myself. Running, walking, hiking in the wilderness, with my thoughts echoing in myself; nothing but the wind to keep me company (and here, the occasional chipmunk and/or cow and also the innumerable Chinese tourists whose kids cut the trail and after whom the parents yelled "ni haon chi po xin che!!!" or something to that extent). I trudged up effortlessly would be a lie. A lot of sweat went into the climb and I might also add that my poor asthmatic lungs chugged along wheezingly.

But it all reminded me of my running days; days that I cherish so much. Mornings that used to begin for me at six a.m. with warming up in the stadium, races that meant psyching up your mind and body to beat the best around you and the best in you, ends of tournaments that meant muscle pulls, strained nerves, extended asthma attacks...
But more than anything else, the exhilarating feeling - when you reach the top or the finish line - that you didn't give up...

With those nostalgic thoughts and a few dozen panting breaths, I reached the top and waited for the rest of them to join me.

As they trudged up one by one and sat down almost immediately to bring out the murukku, grapes, biscuits and nuts and fruits they'd packed for this intermediate pause, I wandered away downhill and returned with two yellow Californian Tulips for Picture Perfect and Hawaian Friend.

Time flies

2008-03-22T04:04:00.001+04:30

A month exactly since I left France!

Manque

2008-03-22T03:14:00.002+04:30

Hier, j'ai rêvé en anglais après, ce qui me semble, des années!

Ce matin, en me réveillant, j'étais prise par une peur extrême de perdre cette habitude de longtemps que j'ai, de rêver en français!

Pour me soulager, j'ai trouvé l'exemplaire virtuel du livre "L'Assommoir" de Zola sur Internet, afin de me ré-immiscer dans l'atmosphère parisien/français. J'en ai lu une centaine de pages dans la matinée.

Depuis, toute la journée, je m'attrape à parler qu'en français - sans faire exprès - à des gens qui sont inconscients de ma peur, grande quoique irrationnelle.

Comment expliquer pourquoi une jeune femme visiblement d'origine indienne, et qui peut vraisemblablement parler l'anglais, rentre dans un café à Mountain View, ville qui a héberge le garage dans lequel est né Google, dit au monsieur derrière le guichet qu'elle voudrait "un grand café au lait, s'il vous plaît"?!
Le monsieur ne comprendrait pas; les autres croiront que je me donne des airs; je crois même que ma soeur pense que je fais exprès de parler en français...

Ca aurait été comique, si seulement ce n'était pas si tragique pour moi!

On a warm and sunny day in Santa Cruz

2008-03-20T11:48:00.004+04:30

We ran a race to the ocean and dipped our legs in ice cold water.

We played cricket on the beach with a tennis ball and a tennis racket.

We rode rides and thriller games likes the Giant Dipper - wooden roller coaster built in 1924 and on which you're riding and realise at the top of a 80° fall that shit, this thing is old and rickety! - Hurricane (relatively newer roller coaster), Fireball (contraption that is hexagonal and like a pendulum and that swings from one end to another, really really high and turns when at the top.

We screamed our lungs hoarse on these rides.

One of us swore we'd never ride another of those things and an hour later, promptly went back to a scarier version.

We ate breakfast on the beach at lunchtime, because leaving the house "as early as possible" after seven people have showered and dressed, means leaving the house at noon.

We drove to downtown Santa Cruz and the ladies decided to get a manicure and a pedicure.

The boys decided to get a table at a place called "90 Beers on the Wall". They also got a beer.

Five minutes into the pedicure session, I wailed that I wanted to be with the boys and that beer seemed so much more familiar than all those nail products and colours that the Vietnamese women were inflicting on my feet.

All the ladies now have coloured toe nails and finger nails. We also each got a flower on our big toe nails, which is very pretty by itself, but on a nail, looks really silly.

We threw the Frisbee on the beach, but the wind kept taking it to the three women sitting behind us, a little to the side. After a dozen retrievals from them, one of them got fed up and joined us in our game.

Happy Camper did a slow motion run for over ten metres so that I could capture him on my camera. My horrible digital camera takes so long to click a picture, that it didn't get one of him even after ten metres of painfully slow and exaggerated running.

I have, however, other nice pictures of the beach. So scroll down.

And those pictures

2008-03-20T11:38:00.001+04:30

Coloured cable cars on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk

He sat up there all day and the cable car didn't move an inch.

Back from the water, backs to the water.

Have you ever seen so many toes at one go?!
(Also, spot the unmarried toes!)

The people in the seven-seater van

2008-03-19T10:32:00.002+04:30

What does one do when there are so many people in the house that one can't count on both hands?

Well, first of all, one gets a second person to act as supplementary hands and counts all the people. And then, we all get together, cook a lot of food, eat all that food and pack leftovers. Then the pregnant one amongst us takes it out of the refrigerator one hour later and finishes the leftovers. Then we sing. Then we sit in the van and the gracious host that is Happy Camper drives us to "Patel Tourist" spots in the city like Golden Gate Bridge. Then we all troupe to the local Saravana Bhavan for a South Indian dinner, because cooking all that Indian food can satisfy only that much gluttony.

While we were out in the city, we drove on several steep, up-and-down roads that are so typical of San Francisco. Every second minute, Picture Perfect was turning around to check on her newly pregnant friend from the UK. Newly pregnant friend was going, "wheee, wheeee" like she was riding a roller coaster. Truly enough, when we got to the bottom of the hill, she announced, "Can we do another please? That felt exactly the roller coaster ride a pregnant woman can take!".

But at another point, we were on the top of a steep incline (I said, 70 degrees, Happy Camper and his other engineer partner burst out laughing at me and said, go ahead exaggerate some more, so I really don't know how much, but it was almost like we were going to slip down. I swear!). At the very top, just before the road flattens out, they put a STOP sign! Right there! Like, at the point when your right leg can press no further to accelerate and you're wondering if you brake now, whether you'll ever be able to get started on that incline! So we're all shaking our heads annoyed, and we go up another steep hill. And just when we thought we couldn't be any more tense about being able to climb the roads with seven people in the huge van, Happy Camper gleefully announces, "Folks, I don't know if this van is going to hold up! I'm forcing pretty hard here..."
We all look at him in shock and go, "Dude, we're sixty percent up this hill and you think we need this information right now?!" It's like the pilot of your flight decides to apologise just before he crash lands onto some unknown island.

But this pilot didn't crash. We survived. The van also survived. I hereby declare that automatic automobiles are the best invention in this world since masala dosas.

This evening, the engineer friend and I had a looooong dialogue des sourds. He was trying to copy songs off my computer. I proposed to write them all on a DVD and give it to him. He, who had recently bought a NAS (go figure what that is! I'm not the techie geek here) disk drive, insisted he had to play around with it and wanted to transfer the files virtually onto that.

So he made me turn on my Mac.
"You have a Mac!", he shuddered.
Then, he pulled it from my lap and sat down confidently to examine it.
"WHAT?!", he started.
"What?", I said, scared, a little.
"You have a French keyboard!", he wailed.

I shrugged as if to say, what can I do, it's all my fault that they speak a different language in that country.

He fiddled some, then he looked towards me and asked, "Where are your keyboard locales?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind".

"Hmmm". I begin to hum a tune.

"Tell me, what's your IP address?"

"What's an IP address?"

"No, no, what is YOUR IP address?"

"O-K, but what IS an IP address?"

He hits his head and then proceeds to key in some nonsense type letters on his PC. Then he looks back at me warily and asks, "How can I put a backslash on a Mac?"

"Why do you need a backslash? I only know forward slash"

He is by now looking very very defeated and is staring desolately at the Mac screen. Like a defeated parent who doesn't know what to do with a mischievous infant, he switches to the mother tongue and wails, "Yenna ma, nee ippidi irukke...."

"Sorry", I mutter, not knowing where to look.

He hands me back my Mac and orders me to figure out what my computer is called. "I will try to link mine to yours directly", he announces.

"Oh, that I can tell you. My computer is called Empress' computer!". I finally had the answer to ONE of his questions!

"Is there a dash or a hyphen in between?"

"No, no, there is no underslash. There's a hyphen"

Then all of a sudden, I was jumping out of my chair, yelling, "I can see the engineer's laptop! I can see the Engineer's laptop!"

All the seven people in the room looked at me, a little scared at my frenzy, "So can all of us", offered Happy Camper softly.

I flailed my arms wildly pointing at my screen and two minutes later, they realised I could finally see his computer on my screen!

I then painstakingly copied all my music onto his computer and onto his NAS-whatever. Engineer walked around his NAS-thingie gleefully looking at that machine blinking and rubbing his hand in delight.

On his way out of the room, he patted me paternally and said, "It's ok that you have a Mac, but really, a French keyboard?"

Yosemite

2008-03-17T23:56:00.007+04:30

It's been a while since we came back from Yosemite valley. I finally found the time to transfer the pictures form my camera and upload them online. Here are a few of the breathtaking sights that met the eye on that cold but sunny weekend amidst the immense Indian mountains and their wild creatures.

Happy birthday!

2008-03-15T12:34:00.002+04:30

Bon anniversaire ma p'tite Southern Bride!!! Que cette année soit celle qui t'apporte la joie et la réussite sur tous les niveaux;-)

Je t'appelle tout à l'heure! Big big kisses :-)

Full house

2008-03-15T12:18:00.004+04:30

Friends of Picture Perfect and Happy Camper arrived from the UK this evening. Another friend of theirs arrives on Saturday morning from Hawai. For the next week or so, it's going to therefore be a packed house with margarita evenings, south Indian food evenings and clubbing evening thrown in for good measure.

My vacation seems to have gotten a little calmer, now that I have decided to stay longer. There is no longer a frenzy of having to do things and see places and people before I leave, and so now, all the people who were clawing at each other to have me as a guest at their homes are just, "Ooooh, you're staying ONE MORE month-a?! Then, ok! We will call you home next week, or after that, or after that..."
I can't wait, for wherever I go, they are serving me delicious home-cooked Indian food and what could be better than that?

But I know that this calmness will soon be so powerful that Departure Day - 7, we'll all realise that there are 33 different things that I still haven't done or seen and we'll go back into fifth gear in a hurry and I'll be caught up in a whirlwind again. But I guess, as long as they're feeding me paneer and dosa and rasam while they work up the storm, I'll just shut up and enjoy the ride:-)

Looking forward to this coming week :

- Margaritas, with authentic Mexican tequila
- Meeting Steady-Reddy after FOUR WHOLE YEARS!!!!
- Holi (the festival of colours) celebrations at friends' place. Actually, not so much looking forward to the colours as to the bhaang. (Hi, my name is Empress and I'm an alcohol addict)

How has your weekend been so far?

Maybe not long enough to get a Californian State Identification, but...

2008-03-13T11:16:00.002+04:30

I'm definitely going to be around here for a little while longer!

I've extended my trip by what seemed to me a few days at first. But this evening, when we were at some friends' place, and I was telling them what was my date of departure and what is now my actual date of departure, I gasped and looked at Happy Camper and said, "Oh my God, that's exactly a month!" He laughed politely and nodded his head, which could have meant, oh she's realising only now but which also probably meant, oh my god, what have I signed up for, one more month of this creature.

But that's ok. My sister keeps repeating that marrying her came with disclaimers. And I was apparently one of the longest disclaimers in the contract.

I'm only now getting used to the idea of having some more time in the Promised Land and of Dreams. But I'm already liking the place and the people quite a bit and have even begun toying with the idea of coming back here for longer (All my French readers, can I hear you calling me traitor yet?) for work or for education. It's all very tempting and it's all very up in the air. But what is my life if not up in the air and me blowing air bubbles while I'm up there with it?

I have a feeling that by the time I leave this country, I'll be one of those people they'll have to throw out while I kick and stomp and bawl insisting on staying. The Immigrations Officer will sternly tell me to "go back where you came from" and I will happily go back to France, my foster motherland, but not before I wag my tongue at him and say, "they have so much more good wine and cheese there than you guys".

Where is India in all this, you ask and very rightly indeed. India is somewhere in the background, beckoning faintly. This travelling around the world is such a fun thing to be doing, really, but the bummer is that there is a final destination. And right now, the final destination in my mind is represented by over-protective parents, over-ambitious projects for a passion that is music that will probably never be realised, unfulfilling and rickety love, full of incertitude, no job and so few friends.

Where is that wise Empress who tells me to relativise and prioritise and put things into perspective?

While she takes her time to come back to me, I'm going to go back to "seizing the day" as the wise Greeks declared and get ready for a bagel breakfast in the morning.

Bottom aches

2008-03-10T11:27:00.004+04:30

I can't decide whether it is more all the wine we tasted while biking from winery to vineyard in the Napa valley or the hard seats of the bike itself that served us for the afternoon that are taking its toll on me tonight.

Napa valley was bright, sunny, warm and very very springy. We spent the entire day wearing just one layer of clothing, sun glasses and hats! The last time I remember looking that summery was like in summer 2006, because in 2007, France had a season that they lied to us about and called summer but during which it rained throughout. So I felt very very joyous and skipped about in mustard fields and sang a lot. All thanks to the glorious sun! Or maybe just the wine.

Picture Perfect and Happy Camper have a new mission to complement their old one, that of feeding me non-stop. This time, they're trying to convince me to extend my stay in the Amreeka. Quick poll to all (of my ten) readers, whose opinion I place in high regard (when I am in the mood): Should I?
My sister and brother in law have come up so far with exactly eleven reasons, all of which sound very convincing. I should tell you that more than half of those reasons involve travelling near and far from their home to nature abundant pretty places and the rest of them involve cuisines of all kind and somewhere in between was also a promise of letting me cook and clean their house for a couple of days.

While you ponder on that very important question and help me make up my mind, I am going to go get some work done, because that's how my weekends end off late. While it is still Sunday night here in California, it is already Monday morning in France and I begin my week-long routine of staying up till the wee hours of morning "remote working". I'd like to think that that is extremely impressive, jet-setting and very modern and all as a work pattern. But the truth is that it is plain tiring and sleep-depriving. Especially after a heavy routine of biking and walking and wine-drinking.

Also, riding bikes makes bottoms hurt a lot.

Un weekend bien commencé

2008-03-09T21:39:00.001+04:30

Samedi, ma soeur et mon beau-frère avaient invité leurs amis chez eux. Ils avaient invité à peu près 20 personnes. "Ah, tu verras, m'avaient-ils rassurée, il y en aura au moins la moitié qui auront déjà d'autres projets et ne viendront pas".

Surprise. Mauvaise ou bonne, je n'ose dire. Tout le monde est venu.

On a donc commencé à cuisiner le matin sur le thème de la cuisine méditerranée. Sur la carte avions marqué : hummus, pain au ail, taboulé, salade de pâtes, patatas bravas, tortillas, tarte aux poireaux, tarte provençale, poivrons farcis, gâteau au chocolat et j'en oublie...

Vous n'allez pas me croire : on a tout fait, à trois, en quatre heures et demie!

Le soleil était au rendez-vous. Les invités se sont rassemblés sur la terrasse dans le jardin derrière la maison. Mais une table de jardin manquant et les mets les tirant vers l'intérieur, la plupart était déchirée entre l'intérieur et l'extérieur.

Tout le monde était impressionné par nos talents culinaires, moi la première! J'étais éblouie par la facilité et la maîtrise avec lesquelles Happy Camper a réussi le hummus, a pelé les ognons, a blanchi les poivrons...un vrai chef. Et puis, ma sauce béchamel "a déchiré" : eh oui, je devais faire les tartes sans oeufs, nombre de végétariens obligeait!

Bref, ce blog va vite terminer en un blog de cuisine si je n'arrête pas ici. Je vous dis à très vite, mais pas avant que je ne rajoute, qu'après cuisine et repas, j'ai passé l'après-midi à apprendre aux invités à prononcer "poireau" et "poivron" et à répondre "non" aux gens qui me demandaient la seule question qu'ils savaient poser en français : "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" Ummm, merci All Saints!!!