Will I grow up?

Some days, I want to be someone else. Not that I don’t want to be me. I like being me, being goofy, serious, neurotic me. But some days, it might be fun to be someone else. (don’t use pop psychology, just go with it ok?)

The person I want to be most is a reclusive writer, with a cottage in the middle of nowhere, with a dog called Jack (more on this imaginary dog some other time). With no large water bodies or a phone anywhere nearby. Just Jackie boy warming my feet, a laptop, lots of coffee, a cozy table, lamp and me. Books covering every surface. A writer, poet. Changing the world with that brilliant novel. This me knows how to play the guitar and the violin and is quite well read, what with being a writer and all. This me even understands Shakespeare without the Lambs helping out, and can argue whether or not Shakespeare was a chauvinist.

A winemaker. Mmm. Vineyards in Italy. A nice crumbling stone cottage with a fireplace, logs crackling in the fireplace during winter, lovely employees who sing as they crush the grapes (hey, it’s MY imagination). Besides the winemaking, I am also a shepherd in my free time. “The hills will be alive with the sound of bleating.” Let us establish at this point that imaginary Jack will always be by my side. (Daddy, Ma? See? This is what happens when you deny your ONLY offspring a pet. Too late now. I am evidently damaged.)

A chef. Surrounded by fresh fruits and vegetables, and so much possibility. Flour
in my hair and a smile of satisfaction at my glorious Christmas pudding. Chopping, crushing, steaming, baking. Spices: star anise, bright oranges, fragrant cumin, glossy red chillies, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves (take out the chillies and the cumin, and I could make mulled wine at this point.)

Edith was right. I am a hopeless romantic.

Why I Write

I often see writers trying to explain why they write. They do it eloquently, gracefully. Look at Terry Tempest Williams's essay. (Tempest. What a fascinating name. Does it offer us a glimpse into her personality? But then, are we moulded by our names? I know people who are nothing like their names, many named after gods and qualities they never reflect :D And yet others who are their names personified. Sulekha. Good writer. She is. Mehjabeen. Moonbeam/Moon-like. She lights up a room.)

Tempest says she writes because:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=502133944457

I think, I ponder, try to get inspired. I struggle and finally, I squeeze out a few words, about why I write, before I give up. For now.

I write to put my memories into words. I write to share my life. I write because it makes me happy. I write because it makes me question, it makes me think. I write because it is the only way I will ever express all my thoughts, everything I feel. I write to challenge my imagination. I write to tell stories. I write to tell you about my day, to cajole you into telling me about yours. I write about things that matter to me, about people who matter to me. I write because I like the sound of words, their taste, their feel. They give me company on sunny days, on rainy evenings and on silent nights. They surround me when I am alone; they protect me in a crowd. They float around me like dust motes in a bright sunny room, and I follow them with my eyes, frantically trying to commit them to memory, or to paper at least. They flutter all around me, make me what I am. I bat at them like a cat, try to pluck one out of the air and pin it down. It’s hard. Yet, I love these words. Words, do not float away from me. Stay close.

Chocolate! Fire alarms! Paris!! Spell!!!

Dear Reader,

I am battling bloggers block and the urge to eat chocolate, a combination that has a tendency to drive a person mad. I get ideas when I am about to be claimed by sleep, and by the time I wake up, poof! All fantastic (at least in my semi conscious state, they seem so) post ideas are gone. So as I sit here before my laptop and wonder what to type, I am struck by random, random thoughts. Should I inflict them upon you, or should I sift through them and pick up one that I could elaborate, tweak and beat into submission, into something that vaguely resembles some coherent flow of thought? I wonder, I ponder and I decide: Blitz Krieg!

In Paris (yes, you lot are going to hear about this place so much, you might as well give in), in Paris, I went to a pub with the group I was travelling with. In the dark pub that was lit only by UV lights, everything became very interesting (anyone remember that Friends episode where Ross whitens his teeth for a date?) Our t-shirts, teeth, eyes glowed a ghostly white and the ambience was seductive. A pianist, super cheerful with a glass of whiskey next to him, played out tunes in a surprisingly accent free voice. People around us were steadily getting drunk, while he sang soulful songs. But after every song, there would be just a couple of people clapping, and as I sat there looking at him, I wondered how he did this job. Imagine sitting there, playing for a bunch of people for whom your music was just white noise? My soul would die a bit each night if I were him. Whiskey would help prop up my spirits too though, I suppose...

You know what technology – text messaging, online chatting, facebook - has done to this world? Besides making us into complete idiots who depend on technology for the simplest of things, it has ruined our ability to spell (mum, don’t laugh, I can spell, ok?). I often wonder what would happen if people (and I don’t mean annoying teenagers, I mean fellow 20+ year olds) type ‘you’ instead of ‘u’? or ‘this’ instead of ‘dis’? it is amaaazzzzzziiiinn dat ppl r unabl 2 typ cmplte wrds. I wonder how much effort it takes to type that odd vowel? I assure the followers of this culture, that contrary to popular belief, those ‘a’s, ‘e’s and ‘I’s are important. Really, they are.

I love fire alarms. Everyone I know and lived with for the past one year in halls greeted them with pure, unadulterated loathing, while I would run out of my room with a huge grin. I consider fire alarms to be a fantastic opportunity to catch up with friends. Others did not agree though. The general hatred towards the alarms was compounded by the fact that it always went off at odd hours, usually between 1 am and 6 am when some fellow creature of the night was burning food or smoking stealthily (and unsuccessfully) in their rooms. In my case, this meant I was wide awake every time, since I don’t keep to human times. Shelby called me a “bloody prophet” because the alarms uncannily went off often on days when I would mention them. “Ooh Shel, love those pyjamas, I hope the fire alarm goes off so that people see them”/ “Sigh. Last days, and no fire alarms. So sad.” Were followed by the ear splitting “teeooooteeeoooteeeoo” of the alarm. I think my flatmates hated me a bit because of this.

Strange and highly disorganised monologue done. Thank you for reading.

Love,

Me.

Family

I am reminded of home by the simplest of things, things I had not thought of for almost a year. My aunt is using her mixer grinder, or as we know it, the Mixie, and that sound just transported me back to my living room in Bombay, where that sound was a fixture on Sunday mornings. Dad talking on the phone, surrounded by every English newspaper published in Bombay, Ma in the kitchen, yelling for dad to come help cook something. if I ventured in there, she’d promptly send me off, telling me she did not have the time to clean up whatever mess I’d make in there, in other words “you are useless, go get your dad to help me”. Dad would go into the kitchen with a long suffering expression, and then relegate mom to the post of a dishwasher, or the sous chef, i.e. cutting veggies while he dumped copious amounts of Maggie tastemaker and every spice he could lay his hands on into what was cooking.

So this post is about my crazy parents, who, I think, are the two most influential people in my life, not to mention the most entertaining.

I often tell my friends that it is a miracle I survived my childhood. From being forgotten in the house as a baby (Ma: Ok, I’m ready, let’s go. Dad: Where is the baby? Ma: Oh right!), to dad’s occasional lack of attention to details (Friend: Oh, so this is your daughter? How old is she? Dad: Four or five. Ma (glaring at dad): She’s four!!) to Ma’s experiments (Ma: Ok, my two year old child, put your head through this oddly shaped window grille here, let’s see if it fits. Me: happily following orders. Ma: damn it! Her head is stuck in the grille!!! Me: happily waving at people walking four floors below us and at birds flying past. Dad comes back home: What the hell happened here?! Ma: Oh she did that when I was not looking. Get the baby oil, we’ll ease her head out of there). Cycling, that is another thing I remember. Dad tried his best to teach me, but while under his supervision, I mowed over a kid who was playing cricket :D

They were cool when it came to religious instruction though. They taught me the basic concepts, you know, God, karma and the ‘thou shall not kill’ rule, brought me Amar Chitra Katha comics so that I would know the mythologies and then pretty much left me to my own devices. ‘Interpret as you please’ was the rule. It never was an issue that I did not pray every day, or that my faith is ambiguous on the best of days. Dad is currently a Buddhist, while Ma finds comfort in the rituals of daily prayer. She also finds comfort in teasing dad when he prays daily, despite his having stated that he does not believe in Hindu rituals anymore. Dad tries his best not to laugh when she starts a hilarious running commentary when he goes to pray.

Unlike a lot of Indian parents, mine encouraged me to make independent decisions from childhood. That, I think, is what I am most grateful to them for. I was not a bad student, so marks never mattered to dad, as long as I learnt something, while Ma was happy that I kept my head out of trouble.

This is most definitely not my best post, but I am posting it anyway. For those two clowns back home. Kisses.

Music for your soul?

Some Hindi/urdu songs are sheer poetry. Not the new ones though, gah.

Gulzar and Javed Akhtar have come up with some of the best lines through the ages, and so have the guys in the period before the horror that was the nineties. The magic of good old hindi songs – the music, the singers. Sigh.

Some songs I love (my main source of old Hindi songs is Ma, and my knowledge is nowhere as vast as hers):

1. Abhi na jao chod kar (Hum Dono) – My favourite. Always makes me smile. Love the playfulness of the lyrics, and the wistful longing behind them. Mohammed Rafi (aka God, always sounds like he is smiling as he sings) and Geeta Dutt, what a pair.
2. Dil dhoondta hai (Mausam) - pure nostalgia
3. Is mod se jaate hai; Tere bina zindagi se koi (Aandhi)
4. Mera kuch saaman (Ijaazat) – not big on this one’s musical arrangement, but the lyrics – what imagery.
5. Tere mere Milan ki yeh (Abhimaan)
6. Huzoor is Kadhar, Do naina aur ek Kahani (Masoom)
7. Tum itna jo (Arth)
8. Ehsaan tera hoga (Junglee)
9. Katra Katra (Ijaazat)
10. O sajna Barkha Bahar aayi (Parakh)
11. Kahin Door jab Din dhal jaye (Anand)
“Mere khayalon ke aangan mein koi sapno ke deep jalaye”

I could go on. These are some of my favourites though.

Among the newer songs, some really good ones:

1. Chod aaye hum woh galiyan (Maachis)
2. All songs from 1942 A Love Story, Khamoshi
3. Piya tora abhimaan, Mathura Nagarpati (Raincoat)
4. Bawra mann (Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi)
5. Gali mein aaj chand nikla (Zakhm)
6. Tose naina laage, Maula mere maula (Anwar)
7. Mehfuz (Euphoria)
8. In dino (Life..in a Metro)
9. Mori Araj Suno (Tina Sani, Coke Studio)
10. Chal Diye (Zeb and Haniya, Coke Studio)
11. Bhaage re Mann (Chameli)

What say?

Silence and Noise

How do you put a feeling into words? A sense of what should be? Imagine a silent valley. A house, a veranda. You recline on a comfortable chair. Dusk. Silence. The suspension of reality and that in between world where memories, ones you never even knew you had, stroll in to accompany you for the evening.

Memories, are we not made up of them? Do we not make more memories every day? They are more than pictures or videos. They capture that part of life that was ordinary, mundane. They transport you back to those sights, sounds, smells of long ago, or yesterday, or an hour ago, to everything you felt and did not feel.

Your father reading the newspaper, his glasses at the tip of his nose; your mother waking you up. A dear friend’s laughter. The face of a stranger who held your gaze for a second longer than necessary. The sound of trains. That BEST bus bell. Conversations. Your reflection in the mirror. Laughter. Thunder and rain. The hypnotising wave of the wiper on the windshield of the car, tiny rivulets running down windows.

Silent summer afternoons. So silent that the birds huddle in trees that are still, no wind to bring relief. Evenings. The television plays, and the strains of an old hindi song tiptoes out from the kitchen, bringing memories of its own.

Diwali. The crack of fireworks, the twinkle of fairy lights on every window you see. Silent lamps standing guard at every doorstep. The day after Holi, slightly pink people on the streets. Ganesh Utsav, ten days of bells, drums, incense and chanting.

Silence and noise. They seem to mark out moments more than anything else sometimes.

Thoughts of a person pretending to be working on her dissertation

A few things that crossed my mind in these past few months:

1: Electronic life: Has anyone else noticed that life today is starting to resemble life depicted in futuristic movies made in the 90s and early 2000s? Tiny USB sticks, tiny computers, touch screen gadgets (remember that fancy computer thing in Minority Report?), voice recognition programmes, electronic.....everything! I find it unnerving sometimes.

The worst - e-books: I tried e-versions of books that I already own in their real format – you know, paper – and I must say, it has none of the charm of reading the actual paper book (describing a book this way is starting to depress me); and worse still has to be those e-book readers that I see everyone carrying on the tube and on buses. I was told that the e-book reader is very convenient – it does store thousands of books and takes up no physical space, just virtual; and the experience can even be real: you can turn pages ‘manually’. Sorry. I think turning e-pages, which are essentially in that format to enhance your experience of using the contraption, and hence are imaginary, is just stupid.

For me, and I agree that this need not be the case for everyone, but for me, the pleasure of reading is the whole experience of it – the act of stepping out of my house to go to a bookstore on a lazy afternoon, browsing, the smell of new books. Going home with the reassuring weight of the new tome in my bag, curling up in an armchair in a corner, and then being oblivious to the world around till someone screams for you to eat something. Funny, witty, pretty, exotic bookmarks holding back a story already read, pointing you to the new world waiting to be discovered. Shutting a finished book with a sigh of satisfaction, and looking down at what now looks like a book that has been read, tiny cracks on the spine, a very faint dog eared appearance. And most importantly: shelving it with other loved and well read volumes, all living together in a space that promises still more undiscovered delights and known comfort. Somehow, I don’t see such an experience being offered by the e-book readers and e-books themselves. Imagine curling up under a blanket with a self lit book that is unyielding in ones hands, and needs to be turned off. Jeez.
Of course, it has its pros, but I still refuse to support it.

2: Obsession with food: While in Bombay, I was and I will be indifferent about food – give me coffee and apples and I will be out of your way for an entire day. However, here in university, where no one makes food that I can eat if and when I feel like it, food has come to occupy a very important place in my life. Days are planned around food. Eating is just the final outcome of a very long and elaborate process - planning a week’s menu, preparing grocery lists, at least two hours of shopping, followed by cooking. What makes everything more interesting is the fact that I am surrounded by friends and flatmates who love food equally – so when we are not eating, we are planning to eat, swapping recipes and trying to get each other to eat. Any visitor or random flatmate entering our kitchen is offered food; a friend who was offered snacks by three different flatmates of mine one evening asked, “why is everyone in this flat trying to feed me?!” We even plan elaborate flat dinners at least once a month; any reason to organise a feast, which lasts for at least a minimum of four hours, with starters, mains and dessert, followed by several rounds of very enthusiastic and sometimes violent UNO. My Facebook account is filled with pictures of food, and then of people eating said food. Happy fattys.

3. Social networking sites: I use Facebook because it allows me to be in touch with 300 people simultaneously, and regularly – no need to write painfully long emails when you can post a hello anytime you fancy. However, when people (no, assassins) offer you weapons in mafia wars, and a friend you swear is an accountant invites you to farm, or when random people send you “gifts” that you don’t get (as that hilarious facebook song goes) you can be justifiably annoyed.

And when one reads newspaper articles, starting with something along the lines of ‘serious charges of corruption were laid against the minister of state’, followed by ‘the minister, however, vehemently denied being involved in the affair when he tweeted....’, one can risk spraining one's neck due to incredulous double takes. Tweet?! Images of a tiny yellow canary with speech impediments flash before my eyes.
This new networking phenomenon has led to people discarding tact and discretion: ‘Just had lunch, yummm’, ‘had a shower’, massive hangover’ and ‘scratched my butt’ are things we really don’t need to know, you know?

Rant ends.

Randomness Again and a very ‘I, me, myself’ post

Why do they call it 2 minute noodles? It NEVER cooks in two minutes.

I love the smell of Jeera tadka, haldi, the sound dried red chillies make when you run your hand through them, and the taste of ginger.

I also love the smell of Brut, apples, paint, old books.

Remember as kids when we scraped our knees/elbows in school, we would be fine till we saw Dettol coming out of the first aid kit, and start crying before the dettol soaked cotton touched the scrape?

Does anyone else remember the sheer terror a visit to the dentist evoked? (After paying away half of my father’s savings to my dentist, I am totally over the fear – Earlier, my questions started with “Will it hurt?” Now, knowing that the answer will ALWAYS be YES, my first statement to my dentist is “inject the local anaesthesia and THEN excavate/drill.”

I don’t have any fond memories of Doordarshan programmes. I don’t remember any. I remember Zee TV and Sony. Zee horror show, Aahat, Woh (Lilliput was the clown under the bed, scaring the hell out of people), Hip Hip Hurray, Family No. 1, Dekh Bhai Dekh. I dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Different strokes were fun, till they got dubbed and became annoying.

Does anyone else love the way their parents smell when they come back from work? And when you tell them, they shoo you away, tell you they are sweaty, and need to shower?

As a child, I liked Chunky Pandey. (WHY?)

I think crows are annoying. Pigeons are a waste of space. Sparrows are the only cute birds you find in Bombay.

I can procrastinate like hell. My best (?) work is the done at the last minute. I am procrastinating this very minute, by the way.

I have officially fallen in love. With Paris. The city, not Hilton. I also love you Bombay, but Paris..... sigh. Can I retire and move there? NOW?

I am the nerd who quotes ‘Friends’ every two days.

The only class I looked forward to in school was English. I would finish reading the textbook before school started. Maths has given me psychological problems that refuse to go away.

I have newfound interest and respect for Mohammed Ali Jinnah. I think he was a fascinating leader.

I love my flatmates in London. They are a very diverse, interesting, intelligent group of girls and we have together taken the term ‘love for food/gluttony’ to new
heights.

I get high on coffee. Then I become a fun (and slightly scary) person.

I store utterly useless trivia in my head. Wikipedia will be the cause of my downfall.

I love bright socks with cartoon characters on them. Bright pinks, orange, stripes, stars, giraffes, sparkles. Bring it on! Funky pyjamas > even better. Think Winnie the Pooh, funky bunny, mickey mouse.

I once applied Tiger Balm on my nose. I also once washed my hair out with Rin. I applied kohl all over my babysitter’s face while she slept soundly. I squirted perfume into my eyes. I was also very young when I did all of this.

I can sleep like I have no care in the world. Once, the watchman had to climb down the terrace, in through the window to our 3rd floor flat and open the door for my frantic father who then yelled me out of my slumber while the entire building looked on. I woke up, walked to the other room and went back to sleep.

I had no favourite colours as a child. I have not seen the Lion King movie, never flown a kite, eaten ‘golas’ or climbed trees. They are on my to do list. And yes, I did grow up in Bombay. :P

I think summer is the most glorious thing in the world.

I think it is time to end this self obsessed post. Any suggestions for the next one, considering the serious lack of updates on here?

* Picture: Ashwati/Mej.

A Short Story?

Mist descends on the valley, and settles itself for the night. The valley takes on an inkish hue at twilight, the air of a day at its end - ploughs resting, machines silent, the cattle fed and watered. Her cottage submerges into the fog swirling around it. Silence. She sits on her cane rocking chair, rocking gently. She had dozed off in the afternoon, and had woken up to find the sunlight bleeding away from the folds of her clothes, journeying back across the veranda, receding into the yard, and then slowly fading away. She could now see the darkness before her lit by little pinpricks. Fireflies. She had always loved them.

She remembers other such evenings, when she was a little girl, back from school, sitting on this same veranda, reciting multiplication tables by rote, the chirping of crickets keeping beat with her recital. Her ear would be straining for the sound of her father bicycle coming down the lane, for the bell that he would ring, knowing she was waiting for it. She can still remember her mother, humming as she cooked in the kitchen. The sizzle of vegetables cooking, the sharp fragrance of spices enveloping her. If she peeks back, she might still see the sparkle of her mother's silver toe-rings, her sari swishing around her feet as she moves across the kitchen. Might hear the clinking of her bright green bangles.

The boatman sings a lonely song, his voice carried by the loving wind across the river to echo around in the valley.