faux pas @ pondy

It was close to 3 in the afternoon. Two women in a car with a crazy chauffeur who claims to have changed his name recently. The place is near Beach Road, Pondicherry. The women are increasingly getting excited since the chauffeur is making no effort to ask for direction to their hotel. The streets aren't exactly crowded with 40C outside. They seem to be going in circles. Finally, one of the women spots a living soul on the side of the road. An old man completely engrossed in cleaning his fingernails. On her insistence the car screeches to a halt. Hell, she can do this...this is her car. The tinted window rolls down. She peers out and smiles at the old man on the road.

"Rue Saint Martin?" Her accent distinctly french.

"Eeehh?"

"Rue Saint Martin?" she repeats loudly.

"Whaaat? Money exchange??" he asks with enthusiasm.

The woman turns red on the face. The other woman smiles and waves a thank you to the man before collapsing on the car seat. Both woman giggle hysterically leaving the madcap chauffeur perplexed.

Last heard one woman telling the other "Sweetie the French left loong ago, remember!"

of men

I rode an autorickshaw to work today. I thanked my luck when the first autorickshaw in sight agreed. Usually they dismiss me with such utter disdain that it completely erodes my self esteem, no less! So I hop in with delight and that delight doesn’t last long. The vehicle jerks off (yeah literally!) a few times, coughing black fumes and shudders and shakes. Then it moves forward. Slowly. And it keeps moving slowly, never going beyond 20kmph. The driver is an old man and he hums happily as I frantically look outside for hope. Maybe, just maybe, we are actually moving fast enough and I am not able to sense it. Speed is relative, right. So maybe the other vehicles are on turbo speed and hence zipping past in a flash. Then, the Wipro chappie from my apartment whizzes ahead on his bicycle. Yes, bicycle. No, this can’t be happening to me. I beg the old man to speed up but he gives me an injured look and says, ‘Whaaat madam…I am 74 years and you are asking me to speed!’ WTF? I am not asking you to run the marathon old man. Now, surely the rickshaw isn’t that old. I bite my lips. This feels like a toy train ride on the mountain rail to Darjeeling except I am not on a holiday and I have a meeting in 15 minutes. But it would have been good if the torment ended there.

While we stop at the Silk Board signal, Wipro chappie is right next to my rickshaw. He grins and pipes in, ‘May be you should come with me….’ Look fellow, bugger off ok. Just because I smile at you on the elevator doesn’t mean I am going to jump out and squeeze myself on the narrow crossbar of your cycle ok, even if I were to be slim enough to fit there. Listen, my-knight-in-neon-helmet, yours maybe a geared ATB, but it is no steed ok. So, vamoosh! What’s wrong with mankind this morning? And I mean man-kind. All I have is a pasted smile on my face. But Wipro chappie is relentless. ‘You work around MGs right?’ I nod. ‘Oh, it’s going to take a while for you to reach’ Thanks pal. Like I wouldn’t have known at all if it wasn’t for your brilliant insight.

Finally, oh finally, the lights turn green. Wipro chappie waves off with, ‘Bye, see you back home.’ Home? Yeah, like hell we will. May be I will figure out a way to let the air off your tyres eh. Don’t mess with me.

the time of my life

Do you feel this way? That a tiny part of you dying when you hear someone who had inspired you when you were young, died? I do not do condolence posts. But when I heard Patrick Swayze died yesterday, I felt I lost something precious from my youth. Over the years I have watched a few of his movies, can’t claim to be fan though. But it is Johnny Castle that’s embedded in my heart. I remember watching Dirty Dancing on a smuggled video tape in 1987, at a friend’s place. Agog and spellbound, Ruma and I watched him without speaking. We would have forgotten to breathe too, if it wasn’t for all the sniffling. We rewound the whole tape and watched it again back to back. For a gawky, bespectacled 15 year-old tom boy, Johnny became God. Till I met him I was convinced that I would never 'want' a man. Of course, the boys I knew, never considered me worthy of romantic attention since I was ‘one of them’. I was ‘eunached’ between a nerd and a tom boy. No tits, short hair, tanned brown with all the outdoorsy activities and better at hockey than the average Joe, wasn’t their definition of a wet-dream-woman. Therefore I never got torn chits filled with romantic notions nor chocolates or roses. I was the ‘un-girl’ they would watch a match with where they could swear and cuss, belch and fart to their heart’s content. I was the one nursing their bruised knees and broken hearts while they lusted after the ungodly creatures called PYTs. So Johnny was my first and only crush in high school. I fell head over heels in love like I have never known before. I took serious interest in dance which surprised Ma since till then I had to be coerced to attend the classical dance classes that all good bengalee girls must take. I told Ma, I wanted to grow my hair long, which pleased her enormously. Then I got myself a video tape of the movie and played it endlessly at home when no one was around and danced till my limbs were sore. To me, Johnny was what my man should be. Older and rugged with a sweet searing passion. And in being so, Johnny made me a woman. Till date, I get goose bumps whenever I hear the Dirty Dancing tracks. And now he is gone forever and along with it the first flush of my youth. Sigh!

Dear Bro

This is to let you know that all of us are getting on with our lives and managing somehow. It’s been 5 years today. And finally, I think we are beginning to cope. I did catch Ma crying silently in the kitchen and trying desperately to hide it from the rest of us. Baba doesn’t talk as much as he used to. He made a brave effort to hide behind the newspaper this morning to avoid any talk. We tried to be as normal with each other today morning when I left for work. Ma made your favourite ‘kolkata noodles’ for breakfast. The one she always used to make for us back when we were kids, with lots of onions and eggs. Ro loves it too. We never discussed you. I will go back home this evening and I am sure we wouldn’t talk about you at all. Except for the garland of jasmine, there is no trace in the house of how much we miss you.

Last week, Ma asked me to pack up your coding books in a box over the weekend. For the last 5 years they have been in your bookcase and I hadn’t had the heart to suggest we pack those up and donate them. She suggested donating last week but Baba said the technology has changed so much that the books will be redundant. I think somewhere deep inside we are still refusing to let go. We have donated one of your computers to the blind school where we sponsor a meal on your birthday. The other one is still lying in your room and occasionally used by Ro for playing games. But I think we will have to give that away too soon because the configuration is too old. Your wardrobe now houses Ro’s clothes and toys. He didn’t want me to give away your fluorescent green windcheater. He says he will like to wear it when he grows up. Ugh! Such taste! Grin. He is also eying your black electric guitar and your tennis racquet. He was trying out your Nike the other day (the one that Baba had bought for you and which you hardly wore). He still has a long way to go to fit in those shoes but he is trying earnestly. Just so that you know.

This year the Pujo is in September instead of October just like the year you went away. Ro’s got a whole set of new clothes and is very excited about them. I bought a saree for Ma from Chennai last month. She never buys anything for herself since you left. Says she has enough. I am desperately trying to fill the empty hole you left in their lives. I am not doing it too well as you can see. They still miss you as much. Though they consciously try not to make it obvious. I miss you too, you know. But I haven’t still had the time to grieve. Since you left, my life went through several cart-wheels that left me breathless and distracted. I still feel you are always there, right around the corner and if I really call out, you will be here instantly. Just that maybe I don’t call you loud enough. I guess I will grieve at my own pace. Maybe I will never grieve. Because you never really left me. But I miss you. Your amazing voice. The strumming of your guitar. The sight of you sleeping like a baby in the morning. Our conversations that made no sense to anyone other than ourselves. Your broad shoulders to cry on. The assurance of always having you around because you worked from home. Your ability to make me laugh.

Ok, I goto run now before the tears turn into torrents. I too have million things to finish before I pack up for home. You keep smiling. And please please help us to cope.

Thanks

Di

born to be wild!

I did something that I hadn’t done for a long while and honestly, it feels so gooood! Yeah! I bunked work, packed my bags, said bye to parents and child and took off to the hills with of course two friends for company. It all started on a Saturday drinking session at Indijoes. That’s where the idea spurted and over happy-hour beer and steak, we decided to take off to Coonoor. So there we were on M G Road, wrapped up in shawls on a cold windy Bangalore morning, huddled up in Dee’s car, frizzling with excitement like the first school picnic where you got to sit with your best friend in the bus. In anticipation, I slept fitfully through the previous night making endless lists in my head of millions of things that I might have forgotten to pack. I don’t remember being this excited since I went for a college picnic. (ahem!)

Since Dee had to be woken up from bed, (yes sir!) while we waited on M G Road, we didn’t start at the time we intended to. Therefore got caught in city traffic, till we reached the highway. The drive went on with the first stop at Maddur MTR where we stuffed ourselves for breakfast. We continued peacefully till Mysore where we decide to take a ‘never-before-taken’ Ring Road, bypassing the city. For once, the road sign led us to the right path and despite our skepticism and doubts we reached Ooty Road well on schedule. The drive through Bandipur and Madhumalai was beautiful. At one spot where the road narrowed down, we met a herd of elephants. Majestic creatures that they are can look quite threatening up close. We saw a host of monkeys skipping about by the side of the road and looking out for open car windows to hop in and scavenge for food.

The 36 hairpin bends to Ooty took a little effort and encouragement. Grin. Dee had apprehensions and we bribed him with a promise of a sexy back massage when we reach Coonoor. He did not know then, that a far scarier drive awaited him on the slopes of Coonoor. We did the bends, Dee gripping the wheel and Rach and me, muttering a prayer under our breaths. We counted each one of the bends and like a trained parrot I kept reminding Dee to honk before climbing each bend. I got teased amply for it later. Next stop was lunch at Nahars in Ooty. We reach there after some drama of reversing on a downward slope with Dee losing his cool for a bit. It started raining softly by then and we managed to move inside the restaurant where all unoccupied tables were waiting to be cleared of the earlier order. I wisely stuck to a South Indian thali while Rach and Dee took their chances on naan and aloo methi. What arrived though was boiled aloo sprinkled with fried methi leaves. Rach promptly christened it Crackling Methi but i goto admit, we felt better with food in our tummy. At Nahars we met Rach’s aunt and uncle. They live in Coonoor and were having lunch with their guests. In fact Rach’s uncle was instrumental to booking the guesthouse where we were to stay. After direction to guesthouse was drawn up on a paper napkin, we hurried off to Coonoor. We landed there only to realize there was another family staying there aswell. No problem we thought. We got the booze baby. The booze turned out to be an awful concoction called Vanilla Vodka. God bless the state of Tamilnadu where government-controlled wine stores leave no choice for the customer. So while the youngest of the other family hogged the TV watching cartoons, we made merry playing Pictionary. Oh! The squiggles caused laugh riots and I have preserved them for posterity. After dinner we sat around the porch listening to the rain and enjoying the strangeness of a mountain night. Day 1 ended with Dee thinking he heard croaking toads while Rach and I were sure they were crickets!

Day 2 began easy and slow. Rach and I lazed around in the garden talking mostly about Kolkata and food (yes, the too are intimately connected!). It’s so de-stressing to not have any pre-designed agenda on a holiday! The other family had left by mid morning so we hung around watching TV till late afternoon and working out the plan for the night’s binging. The caretaker Ramu was roped in to arrange for beer (any brand boss! Just get it!) and a pack of cards since Dee wanted to learn ‘teen patti’ (an Indian variant of the card game Flash). So while Ramu went about the arrangements, we ordered in lunch from Orchid Square. After lunch we pestered Dee to take us shopping – the usual knick knacks. Dee and I managed to fill the car with utterly useless things like a set of needles (my idea) to be gifted to our moms. We bought locally produced cheese and honey and Dee picked up hemp shirts for himself and bro on Rach’s suggestion. He also managed to twist his back while trying to open a display drawer in one of the shops. However, a stiffened back never stopped him from surveying the chick scene. Such a braveheart! In a split second, he claimed to have made lingering eye contact (no less!) with a pretty lady who zipped past in a Scorpio. Rach and I thought of debating the improbability, however, we never argue with a man who takes women shopping with very little persuasion.

On our way back, we dropped in at Rach’s uncle’s home. An eco-friendly home with a real fireplace and a pretty garden. Ashok uncle and Malu aunty is the most amazing couple I have ever met. The kind that make me wish for a warm pair of arms hugging me every morning. The kind that make me wish for someone to grow old with. mmmm. They filled the room with scintillating conversation that meandered from book reviews of one of their friends to their close encounter with a bigcat. Aunty gave us roses from her garden. A hitherto unprecedented act according to Rach, since Aunty is so passionate about her garden. However, Dee got a full-bloomed big pink rose, the prettiest of the lot! It will suffice to say Dee never lets go of a chance to pour his charm in generous measures. Enthused by their stories, we decided to venture out and drive around to the jungle. The scenery was breathtaking with the blue green mountains suddenly veiled by wispy shroud of grey clouds. The sun was setting and lights were fading fast. We decided to head for the guesthouse. But such was not to be. Rach mentioned an interesting cemetery and I suggested we take a look. Which led us to a road with no humanity in sight. On the way we stopped at the gate of Mansoor Khan’s (Amir Khan’s uncle) sprawling bungalow. The adventure ended abruptly a little further as the road constricted and we found ourselves stuck on a narrow ledge that doubled as a footpath barely wide enough for the car and hugging the steep mountain slope with nothing but tea bushes for company. We couldn’t move forward as there was no road in sight. The only option was to reverse the car. Reverse? Here? Rach and I got off the car to help Dee with 'navigation'. We tried reversing for a while with the front wheel narrowly missing the outer edge by a few inches on more than one occasion. This side is a 6000 ft sheer drop and the other a rockface bristling with thorny bushes. Our cellphones showed no signal. We were cut off from civilization and the jungles are known for bigcats and snakes. The lights were fading. We prayed we don’t get a puncture. As Dee cautiously inched backwards, the brakes let out strong whiffs of burnt rubber. We prayed for an opening where Dee could turn the car. With night approaching fast, it would be impossible to reverse the car all the way to civilization. Short of a kilometer of reversing, we found a grassy patch big enough for the car to turn around. Rach and I hopped in and hugged Dee for keeping his nerve and headed homeward to get to our well-deserved booze binge.

We reach the guesthouse to find uncle and aunty already there to check whether we have returned from our wild jaunt. Thus began an entire evening of surreal stories that ended with uncle driving us to a spot in the hills where we could see the whole Metupalayam valley, glittering like ‘stars below’ (Aunty’s words). The deafening silence of the night on a wet hill side greeted us as we peered into the valley praying desperately for the clouds to melt away. But we could only see the spidery moon, winking occasionally from behind the veiled grey of the clouds. A little disappointed, we got back to the guest house where the now-chilled beer awaited. Grin. Chilled beer on a chiller night. Awesome. It all started off peacefully enough. However, night was still young. As the night progressed, we sank into ribald debauchery. Two drunken women threatening to do a ‘channe ki kheth mey’ dance on the moonlit lawn in their night clothes at 2AM, requires the man to be enormously brave to survive. The talk got kinky and wild and the laugh got louder. Dee bore the brunt with his signature silence and occasional twinkling-naughty smile. By then, we were beyond redemption and huddled up on his bed leaving the poor fellow squeezed and begging to be allowed to sleep. But such was not the plan. We insisted on playing cards on his bed and bulldozed him to a game which was a version of strip poker, the stripper of course being Dee. Looking at the wild women, he had enough reason to panic and hugged his blanket like he was born in them while we dragged the sweater off him. This isn’t a family blog and I could have easily written about the raunchy details with glee except that Dee refused to shed any other piece of clothing and the two of us tired out of the effort of pulling a fat sweater off a grown man fell on either side, snoring. It was with the early morning ‘azan’ from a far off mosque that I sauntered to my room only to fall in bed restlessly with an aching arm caused by alcohol induced dehydration. Rach too woke up with a painful forefinger and kept asking ‘do you know what I did with this finger last night?’ Yeah baby, some things are better forgotten. Grin.

We filled the morning with endless chatter and Dee quoting my previous nights utterances. In all this, we overshot the time we had planned to start for Bangalore. Finally, we left the guesthouse around 2PM to discover that we have a flat tyre. Somehow we managed to hitch the car till the petrol bunk but being a Sunday, the few auto garages were all closed. We trekked down further to finally find a dirty shack that passed for an auto garage. They mauled the shinny new alloy wheel till I was ready to beat up the guy. Dee gave me the offending nail to be kept as keepsake. It took over an hour to repair. Then on, we reached Ooty without a hitch while it rained. On the downward drive through the hairpin bends, we had Ghalib’s beautiful words flowing in the car. We drove through the Bandipur-Madhumalai–Mysore stretch chasing stray cars. Yes, cars. Grin. It was 11 at night when I got dropped home. But it’s never over till its over. On the way from my home to Dee’s, the car ran out of gas and Rach and Dee had to push it to the nearest bunk. Finally, I got an alls well message at 12 with all of us slumped in our respective beds. So till we meet again....

'Get your motor runnin'

Head out on the highway

Lookin' for adventure

And whatever comes our way...'

My friend Dee

Dear Dee

Among all the silly and not-so-silly things that we do together and for each other, often what gets missed is expressed appreciation. But this is not a thank you post. This one is for posterity. I am hoping this post survives in some inconspicuous corner of this virtual world and may be some day either or both our grandchildren might trip on it and read. This is also for those times when we may not be ‘in’ each other’s lives as much as now. We don’t really know the future and I am not waiting till I turn 60 to tell you this.

So here goes.

I hope you know how wonderful you are, like many people whose lives you have touched in so many different ways, have vouched already. But I will not dwell on your generosity, your ability to make friends on the most unlikely circumstances, your humility, your deep concern for even those whom you know briefly, your faith in people, your passion for what you believe in, your protectiveness for those you love, your boisterous sense of humour and many more things that endear you to people. Because in these, I am not the lone beneficiary of your extraordinary nature.

But it is those unexpected and almost instinctive moments that melt my heart and often break it. I suppose those are best bud privileges only. Grin.

Like, I didn’t expect you to rouse yourself and step out groggily to help me search for my shawl because you thought I may not be able to sleep without it. That was so damn sweet.

How you seethed ‘can’t you keep the window rolled up when we drive through crowded areas?’ Thank you. I shall remember always. Despite the irritated tone and the slammed door, I know it stems from genuine concern.

I have never had anyone text me from his room to ask for tooth paste, where all he could have done is walked across to my room.

How you can joke, ‘so what, gaadi hai, dusri aajayegi’ when all I wanted was to hit the dirty mechanic who was molesting your shiny new alloy wheel.

I didn’t expect you to be so calm after the cemetery fiasco. I am awfully sorry for suggesting it. If I were reversing the car on that narrow ledge that passed for a path, we would have ended 6000ft below and even there I would have chewed off the head of the person who came up with the brilliant idea. You never cease to surprise me.

How you cackled that the baby monkey crossing the road looked as cute as me. The monkey and I are both grateful that you noticed us despite driving with a painfully troubled back.

Finally to offer yourself voluntarily to get teased incessantly by drunk women takes courage. Real courage. Grin. I would have clobbered them to death.

I wish for you to never change. I know there is one lucky girl waiting to get hitched to you. I wish for her to have the big heart to love you for all that you are.

Yours always,

Me

In and around

Ro gave us a scare when he fell ill last week with fever, cold and a wheezing cough. We panicked. Consulted doctors. Monitored his condition hourly and thank heavens he got better as I was ready to fall over with exhaustion and worry. I amaze at how my mother brought up two kids with little help from anyone else. And she was so much younger! The 24X7 coverage of flu on media obviously doesn’t help. But all well that ends well.

Someone very close to me is going through a tough patch. Heartbreak isn’t easy specially if you have practically known little else for nine long years…that’s 1/3 of ones life no less. For the last few years I had kept my reservations to myself and hoped things will work out fine for both of them. But it ended one evening...horribly as it were, just out of the blue. There’s not much one can say to someone who’s hurting except to say things will get better and one will find love again and happiness to share with someone who truly cares and deserves. Keep faith.

phoenix

You turn around

surprised at the ashes

of what could have been

the rest of your life.

You search for a reason and

for answers that don’t exist.

In life’s dice, you wonder

when you missed your turn.

But when the tears dry

you ought to see

the sun’s coming up

and it’s a beautiful morning

remembering you on rakhi...

I was reading this when my eyes misted up. Bro and I have our stories too. Many, too many of them. We loved and hated each other with such fierce passion that often it scared Ma. One morning, I was dragged from my kindergarden to look at a pink baby wriggling in the hospital crib sucking his thumb and my entire family fussing over it. It appeared impossible to me that this thing would now be my brother. I was awe struck and jealous as hell. It never ceased to amaze me how that wriggling mass of cuteness became the only person I ever connected truly to. We sulked, argued and fought but we stuck by each other like two parts of a genetic jigsaw that our parents couldn’t figure out. As we grew up, the close bond tightened till there were no secrets or insecurities kept from each other including our obsessive belief that our parents loved the other more. Sometimes we had wondered if we were really twins who just got separated by a time warp. My parents had turned to me on critical occasions to convince him, when they thought he chose foolishly. I never took their side, firmly believing that he needs to make those choices himself. For that he was always grateful because he knew I was the only person who could talk him out of anything. Now that he is gone, a part of my parents will never forgive me for not coming through at those times. They worry too that I do not have bro, to be there for me when they are gone.

My earliest memory of our fight was when he drove a sharpened pencil point into my thigh till the lead broke and stuck inside the flesh and I ran to Ma with the oozing blood making a crazy pattern on the white skirt. I howled and brought the roof down till justice was meted out. I was eight and he five. I don’t now remember what we fought over but I remember preening around like peacock showing off my bandaged leg like a trophy and narrating with glee, the circumstances of the injury and the thrashing he got because of it. It was with same ardour that I would, some years later, narrate how he punched a boy four years older to him, when that fellow teased me about my glasses. I felt strangely reassured and proud that here was someone I could always depend on. My brother.

It was he who had sneaked in a half-burnt candle and a matchbox in his pocket when Ma banished both of us to the dark portico one evening after none of us owed up to a mischief. He knew that I would be afraid of the dark and when Baba came home, he saw us busy making shadow puppets in candlelight and heard us saying how lucky we were that Ma threw us out since it meant no homework. Thereon, we always shared the punishment and he never forgot to share his candy. We drove Ma nuts when we invented a code language for ourselves and used it to chatter at home. Then we had this crazy game when he would make a sound and I would repeat the same at a higher note and he would follow with an even higher note till we both were screaming and it would end with a sharp slap from Ma. The slap left us giggled till we were rolling on the floor. Ma never understood what we found so amusing. This is a madhouse and someday soon the neighbours will ask us to leave, she used to say.

The neighbours never asked us to leave but we grew up and moved cities. We didn’t talk as often as we did when we were kids, but that bond got stronger. When I was studying in Delhi he used to write these funny letters (back in late 90s there weren’t any email) in his still childlike handwriting about aliens landing on our terrace and how the neighbourhood street dog had a pretty litter. He found humour in most things grown ups ignored. He found wonder in the most mundane of things. It is his innocence that I miss the most.

how long?

But how long can Kolkata afford ’shorshe eelish’ is the question? Every single state machinery is close to ruins. However, this ‘misguided anarchism’ is not limited to any particular political party nor is it a fresh idea. I have witnessed ‘bus porano’ 15 years back and if I recall right, the expressions on the faces of the perpetrators weren’t any different. (Looking at the woman should I be lauding them for gender equality?) Living in another city for many years now, I realize more things change more they remain the same.

Every day there is a ’swell’ of Bangalees arriving in other cities looking for opportunities and the ones who remain are probably looking for their 15 mins of fame in this fashion. I am not trivializing the trigger but the means used for protest. Maybe change will come with pain. But I doubt that. As I speak with many folks who live there, I get this alarming sense that they are perfectly ok with the bandh/bus-burning. Yes there is the obligatory noise about ‘economic loss’ but beyond that Kolkata is happy enjoying a long weekend. There is this entire generation that grew up ‘enjoying’ the bandh holidays and would know no better. While watching the news, my nine year old asked ‘what is bandh?’ and for that I am grateful.

happiness...

It was party time with Ro celebrating his birthday. The poor mother was dancing not so daintily between office work and the arrangements. So the cake had to be chocolate and strawberry and the balloons blue and white and the badges Spiderman and the goodie bags handmade from old newspaper and blue satin ribbons and the party games fun. Yes, the mother stayed up nights and ran all the errands till she was ready to collapse before the party. All for a hug and a wet kiss at the end of the party followed by a declaration – you are the best mommy in the whole world. The reward justifies the backaches, the un-met deadlines at work, the dark circle and the haggling with the decorators. For once, the squealing kids didn’t trigger a want to clobber them instantaneously. So they danced and skidded, dropped cake and spilled soda on the floor, screamed their lungs out, thumped each other with balloons. At the end of two hours the place turned into a battered war zone. The service folks bore all the mauling with a smile and the mother looked bedraggled and ready to howl. Finally the party ended and the goodbyes lingered.

baby boy

Ro turned 9 this Monday. He is growing up at a pace that I do not know how to keep pace with anymore. Despite the Ben 10s and the other competing contraptions, he retains some endearing innocence that I know for sure wouldn’t last till next year. He still rushes to hug me when I return home, even when he is in the midst of his friends at the playground. If he is home before me, he insists on opening the door, instinctively knowing who’s at the door. He never flinches when I call him my little baby in public. One of my neighbours always says how lucky I am to have such a loving child. Of course, she doesn’t know of our skirmish and I-will-NEVER-talk-to-yous. But he is a gentle child, probably one of the reasons most girls are friends with him but not all the boys. He doesn’t get into fights and has learnt the art of fixing boys older to him with a stare, which is commendable at his age. I had wished for him to be more aggressive when I mistook his easygoing adaptive nature for passivity. But as he grows, I notice the distinct streak of latent stubbornness that’s a sure sign of a mind all of its own. He has opted for cookery for his hobby class in school this year. My father, being from the generation that he is, looked at him in disbelief when he announced his choice. My mother smiled and was secretly pleased. Last year he had taken yoga, again out of his own volition. To my father all this is very alien and he wonders why on earth his grandson chooses cookery over a science club. Though seeing my mother’s enthusiasm, he keeps his ‘wonderment’ to himself. Finally, I heard him telling Ma yesterday, that he regrets never having learnt how to cook himself. To which my mother, being my mother, tells him it’s never too late.

With you

I was alive

I was spontaneous

I would talk ceaselessly

Time stood still

Right now

I am peaceful

I live a routine

I am a compulsive listener

I wear a watch

Yesterday has been a rite of passage of sorts. Since I know, I have been orgasmic about chicken biriyani. I love and savour it like some women worship and salivate over John Abraham. And I am not a snooty foodie, therefore have had this beloved ‘item number’ across cities, towns and across price ranging from a happy Rs.35 to a heady Rs.375.

But it finally happened yesterday. I was at my favourite biriyani haunt in Hyderabad. And no it isn’t Paradise. It’s a quaint place called Point Pleasant on Banjara Hills Rd. 10. Don’t go by the name or the fading garish look. For the last one year that I am traveling to Hyderabad frequently, I have sworn by their chicken dum biriyani. In Hyderabad, this is my staple everyday. I skip breakfast and dinner to be able to gorge on this ‘item’ during lunch. But the spell broke. Just like many others over the years of wising up. The beautifully laden plate didn’t excite. The mind-bending aroma didn’t titillate. I was left with stunted emotions grouping desperately to find my ‘love’. I watched the curling steam and found myself wishing for a plate of curd rice. My conversion complete. I am praying it is a temporary affliction. Let the lord be with me.

I am back in HYD. Same airport, roads, buildings, hotel room, everything. Just as I left it a month back. In my life, change doesn’t last. Or so it seems. I miss Ro. Intensely. So I work late till I am ready to fall in bed. I miss our ‘slug monster’ games that he invented a few years back. It’s a silly game alright. He crawls up from behind when I am lying on my belly reading a book or fiddling with the keyboard, and I would be obliged to shake him off my back. Silly ain’t it? But these are some of the most fulfilling times that I have known. He has grown up so much that my back hurts but I don’t want him to know. So I strain to shake him off and he goes..weeeeee…yeeeeeee….but well I wouldn’t give that up for anything will I? I do hope someday he will read this and know how much it means to me to have him make me a part of his silly childish games.

the wonderment

Currently I am on a dubious assignment conjured up by my boss and her peers which took me past the St. Patrick’s Cathedral on the right and the Sacred Heart Convent on the left. It’s a spot where Hosur Rd. meets the Residency Rd. and has a long traffic signal. While waiting, I noticed the cobbler kiosk on the left. I have seen it many times before and like any other city dweller learned to forget about it as soon as the light changed to green. Today there was this little girl no more than six in her rather dirty school uniform, with no shoes and hair neatly plaited with red ribbons. She stood right in front of the cobbler kiosk reading a notebook. In a moment I realized she was learning the multiplication table. Completely immersed in her notebook, she kept on reciting the numbers as the pedestrians rushed by, the buses screeched, the autorickshaws honked away and the general din of a busy intersection engulfed her. She stood and practiced her numbers with scant attention to what was happening around her. The middle aged man and a teen aged boy working in the kiosk occasionally looked up at her. The easy comfort of the three leads me to believe that they must be a family. I wanted to get down from the vehicle and may be smile at her and say ‘I am proud of you’ but hesitated. I was the outsider here and didn’t want her concentration to waver. The lights changed and before I could fish out the camera to take her picture the vehicle moved. I just hope her parents know how lucky they are. With the excesses we tend to bring up our children, often the purpose is lost and the value warped. All I wish for her is to get a fair deal and be who she wants to be without getting in the cross hair of our corrupt social fabric. God bless.

Ro’s summer holidays are getting over in exactly 4 days. He seems excited to start school. Even came up with a suggestion why not a new school for the new class, which alarmed me. Fearing the worst, I probed. Do you not like your school? It’s not like that mommy, he looks at me wondering why I don’t get it. It would be fun to get new friends na? This is his third school since kindergarten. And he has never fussed and happily went through the gate never ever looking back. It always unnerves me to see how easily he takes to change. Even to changes which are more personal and intense. We moved house literally over night when I moved in with my parents and he didn’t protest even a bit. I sometimes fear that he must hold a secret grudge and it will all burst open someday. I have tried subtle questions, probing questions and downright honest questions. Nothing. He has never expressed desire to get back to his ‘old’ home/school/friends/neighbours. This puzzles me. I got a close friend to talk to him. She being a trained psychologist hopefully will be able to catch some undercurrent that I have missed. But there was no hint of resentment for the intense changes he has been through. She concluded that he is a superbly well-adjusted child.

When he left his previous school, on the last day of the term, his best friends cried copiously saddened that they wouldn’t be meeting everyday. He hugged them and said bye just like he did everyday for the last three years. The guilt of seeing the tears in the other boys’ eyes wrenched my heart. They were all of five. I promised their mothers that we will meet during vacation. Which we did for a while and there were those frequent telephone calls. But I always got the feeling that he cared more about his friend’s feelings than actually missing them. So while he was polite and cheerful when he met them, he wasn’t really attached. Maybe I am just paranoid!

talking lizzy

I am done with Amit Varma's My Friend Sancho and I have decided to stay with Amitav Ghosh. I tried. No, honestly. I did. It is like Ekta Kapoor's serial with shorter dialogue. This is no Murakami. I expected better craft. I will continue to read his blog instead.

What’s happening with me

My city is having a spell of heavenly weather and hellish roads. Yes. It’s the rains again. Gusty, loud, passionate downpour that is lovely to watch from the glass bubble where I work. But you realize soon that divinity stops at 10 ft above ground. Since we don’t have transporter we have to battle through roads turned sewers, non-stop honking, traffic snarls from hell and breakpoint temper. Caught up in the loveliness I reached home at 9.30. That is a full evening show of being stuck in my car. I could have sat at a movie theatre instead, except that all theatres are on strike!

The good part of this week is the two books I am reading. Carl Muller’s Once Upon a Tender Time, the last of the Von Bloss trilogy. Through the first two parts, The Jam Fruit Tree and Yakada Yaka I fell in love with the Von Bloss. It is an adult tale of love, misgivings, betrayal, loneliness and humour in the backdrop of Srilanka’s fractured history.

The other is Amit Varma’s debut novel, My Friend Sancho that I picked up yesterday from Shankar’s at the Taj. I read his blog regularly and appreciate his view point on most things. I will comment on the book once I have finished reading. My last impulse-buy turned out to be a dud. The only reason I bought that book was the male protagonist’s name. (Yeah! now you know why I am bankrupt).

Oh, the rest of this post is about you. Last night was the third continuous night I dreamt of you. I haven’t missed you all day. Hell, I don’t even think of you as often as I used to (which was every other minute). And I thought I made it. Got over you. Got over the hurt, the indifference, the non-existence, the lies. But then you arrive in my dream as the ordinary, everyday loving self. We talk, we share laughter, we quibble. We become two real persons in my dream. And I fall in love again. I woke up disoriented last night with the taste of bhelpuri that we were feasting on. Falling back to sleep, I realized we have never had bhelpuri together. I just hope I am not talking in my sleep. That will worry Ma.

@ HYD Airport

Sitting at Hyderabad Airport, I am enraged. I just realized that flying to and fro from Bangalore I paid the user development fee twice! If that wasn't enough, at Bangalore, I was told that the airport is not accepting cards of any kind as they don't have the facility and neither do they have change for a Rs.500 since passengers are expected to carry the exact amount! This is 6.30AM and I am expected to find the exact change and tender the same. WTF!

First, I didnot ASK for a swanky airport where a plate of iddlis (2 nos.) costs Rs.90. I didnot ask for an airport that will cost me Rs.700 to reach. Many talk of better 'facilities'. I would ask which ones? Yes, the toilets are cleaner but there is no announcement box inside. So if you errr take longer you just might miss the flight.

I consider air travel as a basic service that should be provided to the average tax-paying citizen. The airports should function efficiently with on-time departure and arrival, acceptable hygiene and cleanliness and other facilities at a reasonable price. I would rather have a no-frills airport that has a better record of on-time takeoffs! Who needs these fancy branded shops that pay a bomb to be there and pass that on promptly to the customer. Imagine if Chennai Central starts charging UDF since it has introduced trolly carts to ferry passengers from entrance to the platform. I bet the railways have a far better record of timely departures and arrivals. So what am I really paying for?

Ok enough cribbing. The road to airport is far prettier in Bangalore than Hyderabad. But Hyderabad has many competitive players in the air-conditioned cab service. Better options than Bangalore.