In defence of the Bombay local trains (NaBloPoMo Day 28)

One post every day in November

A famous American comedian once said, “Don’t knock the weather. Nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change it once in a while.” With sincere apologies to him, I would like to take the liberty to say, “Don’t knock our local trains. Nine-tenths of all amateur literary ‘geniuses’ in this part of the country wouldn’t be able to write a word if it weren’t for trains.”

This humble attempt at writing, for example, owes its existence to the Bombay local trains. I am of the opinion that our local trains are deserving of a little more respect than we have been accustomed to giving them.

For where else but here would you be regaled by a rendition of music ranging from Gandhiji’s favourite bhajan to the latest Hindi film rage, brought to you by a couple of urchins to the accompaniment of two little pebbles?

Where else but here would you be badgered by a whole crowd of little sales executives, graduates from Nature’s School of Business, marketing their wares which could be anything from hair clips to ribbons, from nighties to nail polishes, from fruits and vegetables to hair adornments of all kinds, all of them shouting at varying decibel levels, each trying to get to a higher crescendo?

Where else but here would you find ‘state-of-the-art’ technology fans that world only when you bring a slender object (preferably non-living) in contact with them?

Where else but here would you learn to balance on one foot for more than an hour or have someone stand on your foot and be able to do nothing about it except mutter under your breath simply because you don’t know who to yell at, thus learning the qualities of sublime patience and understanding, so very essential for success in today’s relationships?

Those people who have not had the opportunity of spending at least some time in a ladies compartment have been missing an opportunity which, for want of a better word, I shall term ‘interesting’. The ferocity with which they gobble bananas, guavas, idlis and other edibles would make them strong contenders for the eating records in the Guinness Book of World Records. One must be careful and see that one makes cautious manoeuvres with regard to locomotion if one wishes to avoid friction. When they fight for place to rest their tired limbs, it is like cocks fighting for a place to roost, though I am told the latter are more subtle.

The ladies compartment has often been compared to a fish market. I don’t see why the general compartment has been spared in this regard. In all fairness, I declare that the general compartment looks like a mass of buffaloes, quiet for most of the time, occasionally groaning when their horns butt into one another. The reason they don’t gossip is not because they don’t feel like it, but because they are too busy playing cards.

Trains, are thus, the very lifeline of Bombay. If the motormen ever went on strike, life in suburban Bombay would come to a standstill.

This last paragraph is for the reading pleasure (or pain) of those diehard critics of Bombay, who declare that Bombay is an unthinking, unfeeling city. They have only to spend a few minutes in one of our local trains to have their ideas refuted. For where else but here would you exchange tidbits about domestics, rising prices, recipes, working conditions and just about anything? Where else would you open your heart to a complete stranger? Where else would you live a fast life and yet have the time to stand and stare? Where else does the pulse of Bombay throb? Where would Bombay be without trains?

(Since I have been unable to write an original post, I have posted here my first piece of original writing, something I wrote in my second year of college. I showed it to a friend, who showed it to another, who showed it to her dad. Said dad was an editor at The Economic Times, and he gave me some valuable feedback that I still cherish. The piece was written when my lovely city was called Bombay. Sigh!)

The Uneasy Chair (NaBloPoMo Day 8)

One post every day in November

The discontented man finds no easy chair, said Benjamin Franklin. If he were alive today, I’d take him to a corporate office so that he could see for himself that in today’s day and age, even well contented women like me sometimes have to encounter the menacingly un-easy chair.

For some inexplicable reason, the designers of corporate officers think that the best way to design the visitors’ lounge is to stock it with those soft and plush chairs, the kinds that two of me could easily fit into and still have space for a book. I’d like to give some advice to these people. I’d like to tell them, if you want to make it comfortable for us, put in a Flat Screen TV, in 3D, High Definition and have a mini-bar stocked to the full with refreshments on the house for those who walk in from the harsh glare of the sun. But please do away with those soft, plush, cushiony chairs. They do no one any good.

What’s wrong with those chairs? Everything. They are so soft and inviting, they pull you in. No matter how well-intentioned you are, no matter what resolutions you make, about not giving in to the temptation of their gooey softness, about sitting straight backed on the very edge, you can’t help sinking in. Nay, being sucked in.

And when the assistant of the person you’ve come to meet shows up at the visitors’ lounge to let you know that the Big One will meet you now, it is impossible to get up without leaving your dignity behind, if you know what I mean. For that matter, you simply cannot get up with anything that resembles the most distant cousin of what they call office decorum. Because by the time you want to get up, the seat has established some degree of adhesive fondness for your behind and the two have just promised that they will never part from each other again. The person you’ve come to meet might come forward, right hand outstretched, and the seat behind you will think this is a fine time to play tug-of-war and hold on tightly to you, as a good team mate should.

 Then when you try to force the twain apart, you are rewarded with this situation. A little like peeling off a wax strip, minus the pain of course, but with a whole lot of embarrassment to fill its place.

I’m not suggesting that you make the seating arrangements completely austere. Nobody likes to have bars or criss-cross patterns implanted on their bottoms. But there must be something else you can do. Why not have stools there instead? Or folding chairs? It’s a waiting room, after all. We don’t want to spend the rest of the day there.

My first cupcakes

I almost didn’t upload these cupcakes. Uploading these cupcakes on the blog is an act of bravery.

Even as I type these words, there is an Auto-Correct mechanism in my head that is screeching into my ears, asking me to replace the word ‘bravery’ with ‘stupidity’.

You see, I spend a lot of time scouring food blogs, searching for recipes that seem doable. Recipes whose ingredients are easily available, where the ingredients are a kirana shop or a hypermarket away. I spend a lot of my Internet time, especially after the kids have been put to bed, admiring food photos and wishing I had that kind of magic at my fingertips.

At some level, I cringe to upload these pictures. My younger brother, Merwyn, of Merwyn’s rucksack fame, has done a good job of capturing the images. But there was only so much he could do, considering the general appearance of my treats.

 

The Delicious Dozen

In a world in which food photography is an emerging new discipline, where food is a thing to be fantasised about and gawked at, my creations are completely homely.

In a world in which the two words food and porn have begun to hang around together, my creations look like the edible equivalent of the boy/girl next door. Well brought up, courteous and nice, but definitely not someone whose posters would adorn your walls.

Certainly not worth uploading on a blog. Especially when all blogs worth their salt have such drool-worthy pictures. Pictures that make you hungry. Pictures that make you want to put your hand in through the screen and pull the dish out.

And yet, after all that nay-saying, here I am, and here is the blog, and here I am on the blog, uploading pictures that no self-respecting baker would dream of putting up. Simply because the longer I thought of it, the more advisable it seemed. After all, I’m no well-known baker. I have no reputation of excellence in sugary goodness to protect. Then why hide these pictures? Especially considering the fact that hiding these pictures would mean hiding the joy that these goodies brought to me.

Because just like food is never only about the food, dessert is never about the dessert alone. There are so many stories that piggyback on them, stories of calories not counted, of the laughter and delight of children, of the pleasure of doing something special for someone dear. Not to forget, the thrill of watching the cakes rise, the anticipation, the aroma that pervades the house and the sheer pleasure of baking.

I had woken up at 5 am, while the house was still asleep, to bake this batch. Once the kids woke up, I’d be too busy washing, bathing and feeding them. The baking activity went off well, despite the minor hitch encountered during the mixing process. The recipe, provided by Maria’s Menu, promised to make a very large quantity of the cake. Since time was of the essence, I decided to halve the quantities of all the ingredients and finish the task faster.

Now where any other inexperienced baker would have taken a little pencil and jotted down the exact quantities, as necessitated by the halving exercise, I decided to do the calculations in my head seconds before adding the ingredient in – all in the interest of saving the afore-mentioned Time. Big mistake!

For a while, all went well. Then just before closing time, I forgot about the cutting down and added as much water as the original recipe called for. Suddenly the pan began to resemble a flood-ravaged city. Water, water everywhere.

There are many moments in life when I long for an Undo key or at least a Last-Saved version. And this was definitely one of those moments.

The tension was released only after I succeeded in carefully scooping out the water. A mini-crisis averted, the rest of the baking went off without a hitch. The batter had been enough to bake twelve cupcakes and one round chocolate cake.

Next I prepared the icing and packed it into a little container. The cakes and cupcakes were meant for my brother’s birthday. Since I had to be on the road for an hour and more to get there, I thought it made sense to do the icing at his house.

Unfortunately, disaster struck, despite all those precautions. By the time we had traversed the 15-km pothole-ridden distance, the cake had folded up. Not folded up as in failed, although at first glance it seemed like that to me. Half the cake lay on its back, while two-thirds of a quarter of the cake had sat up, presumably to get a good view of what the rest of it was doing. The other quarter, meanwhile, had fallen face down on the sleeping half.

If, while sitting on the floor with your legs stretched out in front of you, you attempted to touch your toes, you would succeed in attaining the position that my cake had attained at this moment of time.

Meanwhile, there were bits of the cake that remained unmoved by this attempt at performing Yoga and they distanced themselves from the mainland. The sight was enough to drive me to distraction and I groaned. Not to be outdone, the cupcakes had attempted their own brand of acrobatics. Fortunately, they were a more hardy species, and they survived the activity.



Plated, not quite to perfection

My sister-in-law, mother of two sons, succeeded in untangling the mess that the cake was in. By the time she was done, the cake looked almost as good as new. We slathered some icing on the cake, and then garnished it with a generous sprinkling of tutti-frutti.

Next, I attempted to decorate the cupcakes. Having managed to quell the rioting on the part of the cakes and the cupcakes, now it looked as if the icing was in the mood to create trouble. My original plan had been to decorate the cupcakes according to the high standards set by Maria. I strove to attain the perfection of those swirls as they pirouetted upon the top of the cupcake, starting from the outer edge and nearing the centre.

But it was not to be. The icing stubbornly resisted my attempts to coax it out. A thin streak came out of the nozzle, but the bulk of the frosting congregated at the tip of the frosting bag, and refused to budge. Maybe it was too thick. Or shy.

Tutti-frutti saves the day

So then we did the one thing that I had managed to get a grip on: we loaded the cupcakes with tutti-frutti.

But no matter what it looked like, and I never judge a book by its cover, three of the little people in my life, and the grownups too, gave my goodies the thumbs-up. My daughter and my two nephews, loved the cakes and the cupcakes. My daughter even liked my creations better than the infinitely-better looking store-bought cake.

My younger nephew came up to me and said, “Aunta, your cupcakes weren’t nice,” and then as my face fell, squealed in delight, “they were SUP-ERB.”

My older nephew's feedback particularly warmed my heart. He said, "Aunta, the cake was very yummy. And the cupcakes were supradelicious (his own contribution to the English language. Mirriam-Webster, please include it in the next edition of your dictionary.). The tutti-frutti gave a nice flavour to the cake. The chocolate icing was also very nice."

But no matter what they look like (Hope springs eternal: a well-decorated cupcake is just one batch away), what is important is that these sure did taste really good. Maria,  take a bow!

Say Cheese. You're being shot...

Rummaging through my personal stuff the other day, I found this poem that I had written aeons ago when the world and its cousin were much younger. A lot of the concepts in it are of course outdated today.


The invention of the digital camera, and the Delete key, has taken the sting out of my phobia for having my picture taken. But old habits die hard, and the sight of a camera still manages to put me on high alert.


In the old days, the mere glimpse of a camera would cause me to freeze. And if you were particularly cruel enough to snap me in that mood, you would see for yourself how deer feel when they are rudely caught in the glare of the headlights.


I know just two other people who had a similar phobia. But while I could be induced to grin and bear it for the sake of not making a scene, these others were truer to their fears.


It was the last year of school, and the entire class of girls and the teachers who had taught us through the year had taken up their positions in front of the camera for the annual yearbook picture. Just before the photographer could actually focus and shoot, one of the teachers suggested that it might be a good idea to conduct a roll call to make sure that we were all there. The attendance register was duly brought out and the names recited. It was then that the school became aware that two girls had elected to abscond.


For some strange reason, the school authorities put their heads together and decided that this was a major infraction of the rules, particularly when all of us had been expressly instructed on the previous day to show up at school, looking suitably decorous and becoming for the yearbook photograph. It was a necessary injunction, considering that some of us had already begun experimenting with our appearance, to the eternal displeasure and horror of the nuns.


A search party was formed, and units of the party, in groups of two or three teachers, were summarily dispatched to different corners of the school to find the errant girls.


Over the next hour, they searched. They looked through classrooms, the library, music room, the Physics, Chemistry and Biology laboratories, the school auditorium, the basketball court, the playground, the school office, the canteen and the teachers’ staff room. They even searched in the nun’s convent and poked their heads in the little space near the stairwell where the janitors kept the cleaning supplies. But not a trace of the two runaways was found. This was strange, since the two had been seen during class in the morning. And the old, sleepy watchman at the school gate had sworn that no student had left the school.


Another hour was employed in the search, with different units dispatched to search through the same places. This time, the searchers were more diligent. They walked into classrooms that were occupied and stared hard at the bewildered students to see if the fugitives had camouflaged themselves in their midst. They walked into empty classrooms and peered under desks to see if they were hiding there.


While this interesting drama played out, the rest of us waited, pleasantly amused. And while we waited, we wilted under the sun. By degrees, the excitement of the moment ceased to interest us. The sun got hotter, and we found ourselves getting broiled and roasted under its glare. A few sentinels had been posted to watch over us and they effectively prevented us from dispersing.


Eventually the two girls, looking sheepish but unrepentant, were brought in and the ceremony of clicking the yearbook picture got underway. Apparently, they had spent two agonising hours, holed up in the bathroom.


The lengths some people will go to just to avoid having their picture taken.


Incidentally, an anna was a copper coin that was in use in India in pre-Independence days. It was valued at the 16th part of a rupee. The four annas which I had referred to, in the poem below, constituted 25 paise, one-fourth of a rupee. The 25 paise coin, popularly known in Hindi as the chavanni, ceased to be legal tender in India, on June 30, 2011.


Dear Chavanni, you and your heydays are sorely missed. May your soul rest in peace.


The rest of you who survive the chavanni and mourn its loss can amuse yourselves by reading my ancient poem.














There's nothing that leaves me more completely shaken
Than the thought of having my picture taken.


I am not what people in the know refer to as 'photogenic'
I look better in real life than I look in my pictures which is a positive way of saying that in my pictures I look pathetic.


Therefore, clicking a snap never evoked in me feelings of delight.
On the contrary, the first idea that strikes me is immediate flight.


I have never been able to understand why people love to take pictures.
They're actually pleased and thrilled; some even go into raptures.


Some are happy, some are glad, some even get excited.
But all in all, most people are delighted.


To me, however, these feelings are alien.
If I could, I'd think with my legs, I'd be fleein'.


But the family, that great institution that always thinks differently from noble minds,
On thoughts of escape restriction binds.


Parties, birthdays, weddings, christenings, picnics, et cetera,
Whatever be the occasion, they produce a camera.


The camera itself is a strange contraption
That causes me not a little agitation.


A camera in the hand drives most people bananas
They proceed to treat me as if my brain is worth just four annas.


First they want me suited and booted
And when I'm ready, they want me shooted.


They make me stand in all sorts of gawky postures that would put a contortionist to shame.
They refer to the above torture euphemistically as 'posing'. What a choice of a name!


All this they expect me to do while saying 'cheese' with a grin shooting from ear to ear.
The only positive thing about this whole exercise is that it makes me end up feeling like a martyr.


The worst thing is that the camera chooses to capture that particular moment
Which causes a sensitive person like me acute embarrassment.


Did I say this is the worst thing? An error on my part.
There's more to come. I tell myself, "Cheer up." With these words, I take heart.


The last straw comes with the moment I particularly dread
When the developed pictures are subjected to a post-mortem, I wish I were dead.


The spectators gather around and the pictures undergo keen scrutiny.
They observe every picture and laugh; they obviously find me funny.


And since being laughed at is not something I relish
It necessarily follows that having my picture clicked is not an experience I cherish.

Happy Valentine's Day

In my first year of college, I used to travel from Thane to VT. On one such trip, I happened to sit across a woman. She looked very old to my 16-year-old eyes, but she must have been only in her 50s. She had silver–grey hair and she was clad in a simple cotton sari.


It was her reading material that caught my eye. The coach was crowded with all the women making the sort of noises that people always do, but she couldn’t care less. She was lost in the book. Now I love books as you must know if you have been with me thus far, but a Mills & Boon romance was not something that I would be caught dead reading, as the phrase goes. And she was totally engrossed in it.


The cover showed the regulation nubile young thing caught in a passionate embrace with the brash, arrogant hero. As she read, the M&B devotee reddened, blushed and seemed to tingle all over. Whatever the brash, arrogant millionaire, pilot or business tycoon was doing to the beautiful and innocent secretary, piano teacher or governess, it was as if it was being done to her. You could actually imagine what she was reading by the expression on her face.


Whatever her life must have been, the paperback in her hand had transformed it. With the paperback in her hand, and she held it with care as if she were holding molten lava, she was free to imagine the hero as pursuing and wooing her.


By and by, those sitting around me caught sight of her, and we all, sufficiently smug, I am ashamed to admit, began to sit back and enjoy the entertainment. We sniggered quietly, totally amused by the spectacle of an elderly woman making a fool of herself.


She was completely taken up by the romance of love. A thought at once shocking and sobering for me, a teenager fresh out of school, and those around me, working women, caught up in the nasty hustle and bustle of life.


Those were the days when stores selling love cards/teddy bears/novelties/chocolates/jewellery etc made a killing every Valentine’s day (V-day). I don’t see that kind of aggressive selling anymore. Then again, maybe I am not the target consumer anymore.


Back then, a couple of weeks before V-day, these stores would unleash a blitzkrieg of advertising. Nobody who was even half in love could escape the relentless and ruthless hard sell of love.


For singles who happened to stroll into such stores during pre-V-day times, the immediate impression was of being in the wrong place entirely. The whole ambience was so cheesy, it became increasingly difficult for people like me to see anything but red. And I mean that in more ways than one. Shops would stock red balloons, red ribbons, red teddies, chocolates in red wrapping, the works.


Poor Doordarshan of course never marked the day, but the few English satellite TV channels would proceed to unleash every soppy, mushy flick in their collections upon our already ravaged senses.


It seemed like war was being waged on singles, who were not worthy of contributing to the coffers of these hawkers of love merchandise.


Who even knew who the real so-called St Valentine was? Just some ordinary bloke whose big day was marked all over the world. A chap who had managed the rare feat of being able to go viral in pre-Facebook and Twitter days.


But, of course, the offensive worked. Suddenly we would be greeted with the sight of apparently sane and level-headed people being transformed, without any warning, into moony-eyed idiots, hooking up with the most unlikely candidates just to live up to the pressure of being a couple on V-day.


No wonder that a certain coloured ideology went ballistic in its opposition of V-day. I opposed their methods wholeheartedly and still do, but at that time I remember thinking that if there were a way of going underground and lying low while the V-day carnival played itself out, it might not be such a bad thing.


My three closest friends in college and I, with no love life to speak of, remained staunchly on the outskirts of this circus. We would watch in dismay as everywhere, college canteen, cinema hall and shopping bazaars included (this was pre-shopping mall era in Bombay), became playing fields for V-day celebrations, with public displays of affection in full swing. Thankfully the classroom was spared.


It was only after V-day was over that the madness would slowly be shed like a hangover and sanity would return. A lot of provisional couples would be seen to part ways amicably. Many would shake their heads in disbelief, wondering what on earth it was, temporary insanity or hay fever, that had taken possession of their minds.


After all, what was love in the context of V-day? Merely romance. In other words, the smallest hint of love multiplied by a whole lot of unreal expectations. Classic setting for a piece of fiction. Maybe the M&B devotee from the train had it right after all when she let an imaginary hero become too real for her.


A part of me would insist that if this day were truly dedicated to love, it should not be appropriated by lovers alone. After all, there are so many different types of love.


Not everybody is privileged enough to hear violins or guitars or harpsichords go off as a prelude to falling in love. There are first-time fathers who hear their child’s first feeble cry, and know that they will be forever wrapped around that little finger.


There is the young mother’s love that will set aside a just-started meal to clean a child’s poop and having cleaned the little one and made it as good as new, proceed with the remainder of the meal without losing a shred of its appetite.


There is the love of the parents that will profess to have no special fondness for the only remaining treat that the child wants a second helping of.


There is the love between siblings which though played out within the confines of the home with slaps and pinches, hair pulling and name calling, and pillow fights stands out in loyal defence if another should attack one of its own.


There is the love between old friends, three-score-and-more years, in which nothing need be said, because everything can be understood without the aid of words.


There is the love that humans share with their four-legged friends, who remain unquestioning and loyal at all times, their tails ever wagging.


There is the love that begins as friendship and then grows into something more.


There is the love between husbands and wives that having traversed the gamut from excitement to monotony, seeks to renew itself, the love that does not stop holding hands, even when it disagrees.


There is the love between the very young, in which every look, every sigh, gets magnified in intensity, in which passionate lovers cannot imagine anyone else's love as being as pristine as theirs.


There is the love of the elderly which is stronger for having gone through a whole lifetime together, for having endured so much together. It is a love in which the passion may have abated, but the feelings re-arrange themselves into something infinitely soothing and calm.


There is the love that makes a plain woman beautiful and invests an ugly man with charm.


There is the love that grown children have for elderly parents, in which every infirmity of the parents is treated with patience and understanding.


There is the love that does not impose its own will upon the loved one and the love that is tinged with loss. There is the love that loves even when it receives nothing in return. There is the love that expects nothing in return.


Love such as this must be nurtured and honoured. It must be safeguarded against bitterness and betrayal, against weariness and insult, against neglect and scorn.


Love such as this manages to plod on day in and day out, thriving, surviving. It is not averse to enjoying candle-lit dinners and receiving expensive gifts but it does not always have time for them. It is far too busy cleaning runny noses, wiping tears, washing sores, and doing a thousand unpleasant chores that need to be done, long after the euphoria and exhilaration have fallen asleep on the job.


This V-day, after the excitement of the celebrations dies down, spare a few moments to think of all the loves of your life — romantic, maternal, paternal, childlike, platonic, spousal, passionate. And say a prayer of thanks for them.


Celebrate love by all means, but show it through some personal act of loving kindness. And not just on this one day of the year.

Who did I meet today?

Nine am on a trafficless road a few blocks away from my office building: I was ambling along slowly, marvelling over how desolate the road appeared. It seemed as if the world wasn't up yet? Was I early? I checked my watch. The dial indicated 9.05 am.


Where then were all the people? Did everyone have a day off? Was today a holiday that I had forgotten about? Or had aliens abducted all those who worked on this street?


I was walking along the pavement, pondering over these mysteries when a vagabond, hobo, bum, call him what you will, suddenly sprang up just a few inches in front of me. Shaggy and rough he was, with a beard that tapered as it reached the top of his scant belly.


He had seemed to materialise out of nowhere. In truth, he must have just sprung up from the platform of an adjoining shopfront where he must have been sitting.


He was so gaunt that I could have knocked him down with my elbow. And yet I stood there dazed, wondering what I was going to do if he attacked me. Where are the crowds when you need them?


He stared at me for the briefest of seconds and then his lips parted to reveal a set of off-white teeth.


And then he spoke. "Hello, girl, I am God."


With that, he sprinted away as fast as he could. Relieved, I laughed aloud and turned to look after him. I was still laughing when a middle-aged office-goer turned the corner and came face to face with me. My laughter must have sounded unreal to him because he turned to look at what had so amused me. There was no one there.


I turned away, as the strains of a Joan Osbourne classic drifted into memory. "What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us, Just a stranger on the bus, Trying to find his way home."

Help! I see UFOs everywhere

My life is a saga of UFOs. Not the kind that publicity-seeking folks claimed to see in the '70s. My UFOs are numerous Unfinished Objects that punctuate my life, waiting endlessly for me to fulfill the plan I once had for them.


There they lie. The 52,800-cross-stitches-strong piece of art that should have been framed and occupied pride of place on the wall of my living room, but is still at least 39,600 stitches away from the finish line, is an excellent example of this tendency to do tomorrow what should have been done yesterday.


Other UFOs are not even this lucky. Ask the six balls of white crochet yarn that appeal to me silently every time I look into the corner of the cupboard into which they have been consigned. They wait with the patience and serenity of a saint for me to decide just what I envision for them. My indecisiveness and, let me admit, my laziness and tendency to procrastinate conspire to exile them into the distant future where they remain stuck in limbo. Incapable, for no fault of theirs, of being able to fulfill the promises and expectations I had for them.


There are other UFOs in my life. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller is one of them. For some strange and inexplicable reason, I have never been able to read beyond page 9, even though I’ve attempted to often enough. Each time I start from the first page, determined that this time I will see this thing through to the end. But then comes that dreaded page 9 and something always threatens further reading. Another book, a film, domestic chores, too much office work, the need to spend quality time with my daughter.


Clearly well begun is not always half-done. The best of well begun intentions can remain frozen in the perfect beginning.


The coming of age novel that has given up on the hope of ever seeing the light of day simply because I can’t get a grip on how it will end; the 63-poem collection that I cannot submit for publication until I achieve the just-right (or so it seems to me) figure of 100; this blog and another one, Rheamyprincess, to mark the joy that my little darling has brought into my life — they are all projects that I once started with extreme excitement but which now languish for want of attention. They are all mute victims of this 'let unfinished things lie' syndrome.


I am reminded of Penelope from Greek mythology. This enterprising lady, queen of Ulysses, the king of Ithaca, had her marriage interrupted after a year of marriage by the Trojan War. During his absence, the beautiful Penelope was wooed by a number of suitors, all of whom sought to convince her that her husband would never return alive.


Unwilling to give up hope for her husband and unsure of how to get out of her predicament, Penelope busied herself in weaving a robe for the funeral canopy of Laertes, her father-in-law. She told the suitors that she would smile upon one of them once the robe was complete. Meanwhile, she worked diligently at weaving the robe during the day, and at un-weaving it during the night.


Her ruse has now become a popular expression for something which is always being done but never finished. The story of my life, although mine is not quite so Penelopian in its compulsions.

Snip Snip

It all started when MiL said to me, you must cut your hair; it’s the best way to stop hair fall. What she meant, of course, was, you must get your hair cut, but I mistook (what can I say? I wasn’t thinking) the passive voice for the active, and reminded myself that I had successfully snipped off an inch from the edge in the past. It was the easiest thing in the world.


At least that was what I had meant to do initially – lop off the split ends, no more. But a slight error in judgment proved to be my undoing and before I knew it, I had become a scissor-happy monster. There was something strangely cathartic about the whole business of going snip-snip.


I held the tips of all the strands together and let my scissor do the talking. Halfway through the scything, I made the mistake of stopping the exercise to drop the fistful of hair onto the paper. That was when I wished that life had an Undo button.


The face that looked back at me from the mirror had a rather asymmetrical finish. But it was too late to do anything about that now. The next few seconds saw a repeat of the ancient fable in which the monkey, seeking to equitably apportion a chapatti among two quarreling cats, proceeded to demolish bits of chapatti, reasoning to the foolish felines that this or that cat’s portion was larger than the other’s. The monkey justified his actions staunchly under the aim of doing justice by both.


Fortunately, I had the good sense to stop before the chapatti vanished completely. I was quite pleased with the results. But my husband was rather horrified. If he were familiar with the work of Greek dramatist Euripides, he would have said to me, “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first drive crazy.” Or if Indian mythology were his thing, he would have said, “Vinash Kale Viparit Buddhi.”


Being a man of few words, he just goggled at me. Taking pity on him, I assured him that it would grow back. But he, satisfied as little with my chopping skills as with my assurances, has ordered me to go to a hairdresser and get professional help.


In the old days, men used to be happy if their wives displayed a new skill or talent. I guess the '00s man is made of different stuff.

Go, go, go

I was watching Collateral Damage yesterday when I was struck by how familiar a voice in the film which shouted, "Go, go, go, let's get moving," or some words to that effect sounded. And that was when it struck me.

It was the same voice that I've heard before in countless Hollywood action flicks where an authoritative voice needs to nudge people into collective action. I like to think of the owner of that voice as an ordinary, unassuming bloke who becomes quite another man when asked to issue a directive, nay, give out a command. For the most part, he probably goes through life quiet and unassuming, but when there is a need, his words, high-pitched and insistent to convey the impression that the speaker is in the throes of passionate action, galvanise others into strong and decisive action.

Today on the railway platform, as women commuters around me, sighting the approach of the train, gathered their wits and their belongings together for the partly physical but mostly mental exercise of leaping onto the train, one woman, who stood behind the small crowd, took a leaf from the book of our super competent Mr Voice of Authority and called out, “Ladies, train aane par sar kate murgiyonki tarah mat pesh aao. Jald se jald chadhne ki koshish karo. Come on, ladies, go, go, go.” (Ladies, when the train comes in, don’t behave like headless chickens. Get on to the train as soon as possible.)

Her words elicited a disgusted and disgruntled look from her listeners. There were one or two women whose faces indicated that if it hadn't been for the pressing business of getting aboard the train, they would surely have welcomed the opportunity to clobber her on the head. Clearly voices of authority must be heard, and not seen.

The action flick guy had the advantage in this. Because he is in a film, people listen to his voice. In real life, people have no use for voices, unless they resound within their own heads.

The Case of the Elusive E

All day yesterday, we spent in searching for E. We searched everywhere, under the table, in the bookcase, amid the onions and the potatoes, but E did not turn up.

E, for those not in the know, is one of the letters of the English alphabet. It is a red letter, 1.5" tall, with a circular magnet attached to its back. Until yesterday, it dwelt peacefully with A, B, C, D and 21 others in a little box that came with my 19-month-old daughter's slate.

One day ago, it was there. One day hence, it was not. Life is like that. All search attempts and rescue missions proved futile.

In the absence of the most overworked letter of the English alphabet, the others are maintaining a stoic silence, unaware (or unwilling) to reveal the whereabouts of their missing comrade.

I, meanwhile, have not given up hope.


Dear E,
If you are reading this, please return home soon. All is forgiven.
Love, Mama.




Nearly 12 hours later. Today: E returned home without a word of explanation, seemingly careless of the heartache we had all gone through. What could we do? We could not subject him to third-degree methods to arrive at the truth. We decided to let it go.