awake at 4
every once a year
my chitti came home
smelling of hamam
white flowers in her hair
and the morning dew
my cousins with her
sleepy-eyed though
dressed for school
and waiting for the show.

after coffee and gupshup
a complaint or two
of homework not done
of things to do
amma would get
the big plates she had set
until late last night
of sugarcane sticks
and coloured rice
shaped into balls
for convenience.

dropping our bags
pigtails oiled and black
faces powdered
so sleep won’t be back
we flocked around the table
as little children would
extending a hand each
towards the centre
over rice balls and all.

a coconut was broken
but not split in two
just enough for the water
to trickle through
amma held it such
chitti’s hand under hers
and four little hands
stretched and stretched
beneath, making it six
at least.

round and round
the rectangular table
three times we went
not stopping not rushing
trying to catch
each drop of water
that slipped through
our strained fingers
our many hands.

kakpudi vechen,
kanpudi vechen
kakekyella kalyanam,
kurvikyella seemantham…

watching our mothers
repeat these words thrice
(somehow i still
never get it right.)

the show was over
yellow, red,
brown and white
the rice balls some
were kept at the window
for the crow to peck
the rest we offered
for the cows in the street
as for us lucky children
vadas and jaggery-rice
pongal, and chutney too
would be in our dabbas
for school
our happy treat.

tomorrow at dawn
my dear amma
and chittis
will meet again
perhaps granny too
they’ll go around the table
crows will be called
and cows will be fed

but all this only after
coffee and gupshup
and a complaint or two
of the times that were
and the children
how fast they grew
how fast they have gone…

everything. a name could be an identity. a power which, unknown to you, lets you draw strength from it. a memory. an association. a feeling.

a name could be tradition. it could make you feel accepted in one place, alienated in another. p k gangadharan in kerala could feel more at home in the united states as peter ganga. sukhdeo singh would like to be suky, just like v pratap can demand so much respect when you say daku vir pratap chauhan…
some names just grow on you, don’t they? if they don’t suit you, you change them.

for women the rules are generally different. the girl just born, who grows wearing her name like a second skin all her life, is expected to shed it off once she gets married. till her death, her husband’s name is then attached to hers. does she like the new name? does she feel sad parting with the old? has anyone bothered to ask? that’s not for us to know. it’s tradition, that’s the way it is. it’s unfair.

i saw a few marriages before i myself got married. few very close friends, few cousins. arranged marriages where along with the new husband, the new family, the new extended family-friends and relations, the girl also gets a new name. i could never understand it. when it was my turn, i was lucky my would-be husband would agree to my conditions:

i will not wear a ring,
i will not wear a mangal-sutra around my neck,
i will not change my name.
“sure, no problem,” he had said laughing, “do you want me to change mine?” (note: i do wear a mangal-sutra, but one i designed myself)

my father did not approve. “you can’t just live like how you want to all your life! a girl changes her name after marriage, it is normal.” and i had argued. “i was born with this name. so i see no reason why to change it. i like my name. radhika j nair. j nair. it also rhymes with jane eyre, see!?” i saw him glare at me through the rear-view mirror in the car. “when will you change?” he seemed to ask. in my mind, i replied, when it is time to change my name, i will know.

three years and six months into my marriage, i asked my husband for a different anniversary present. (of course, this, apart from the other list… a new dinner set, a pullover, jeans, dinner outside…) i asked him, for his name.

i wasn’t under any pressure. no one asked me about it. i wasn’t bored of jane eyre. it just happened. i was ready.

when i called my father this morning, he was driving again. i read out to him one of the ‘deed-agreements’ (I ABSOLUTELY and entirely renounce, relinquish and abandon the use of my former name of …. and assume adopt and determine to take and use from the date hereof the name of ….) and told him how much i hated the way it was done. such harsh words for my father’s name. i didn’t ‘abandon’ it, i merely was making a choice. already, i had turned my friends back all the way to ipswich where they had come from: they were to sign the deed as witness but i hadn’t expect the deed to sound anything like this.

two weeks later, i realised i had to decide now or never think about it again. i was looking for a response from my father. was he okay with it? my father only laughed out loud. “i am both happy and sad,” he chuckled. “…sad that my name ends here, happy because you have taken the right decision at last.”
“when i have a daughter,” i told him,”i’ll marry her off to a nair.”

less than two minutes after our conversation, the phone rang again. it was amma, asking mischievously, “hello? can i speak to mrs radhika praveen?”

update: the winners have all been chosen. congratulations to all of them 🙂 me? i didn’t win. but so what? i still have my blog, and the 13 lovely people who faithfully voted for me will still come back to read me, right? right?

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yaaaayyyyyy!
i am on the final list of nominations for the indibloggies award!!

of the other 110 blogs on the list, there are some i visit regularly already, and some more excellent blogs i had never seen before. in the five-and-a-half years of blogging now, and four design changes, i think it’s always great to be learning something new everyday.

and it feels even greater to be put in the best design category (my first, thanks to praveen for all the coding :-x), among all the other beautiful minds, and beautiful blogs. to the mystery people who first picked me for the award, thank you, thank you!

and now i’m happy to see i’ve reached so far (especially since i didn’t even know i was nominated, until last night), and i can’t help being greedy at this moment! in fact, indibloggies has made it easier by giving me a cool license for the same…

ps: you have to register on the page to vote. if you don’t have a website, simply leave the field blank, but do vote. and while you’re at it, why not visit some of the other blogs on the list and vote for them as well!

the closer i get towards my 14,000-word coursework deadline, the more routes i seem to find to escape writing. one of them, to my husband‘s delight, is the kitchen.

dahi vadas, eggless banana-walnut cake, murukkus, palak paneer and alu parathas, crunchy bread-rolls, melt-in-your-mouth maladoos, ragi mudde with sambhar, methi mutter malai and puris, rajma and rice, kerala parottas with spicy kadala curry, or simple thairchadam …my excuses continue to surprise me.

the year has been a restless one by itself. my friend rupali and i were room mates again after three years. i was in india for two months and more; i went to kottakkal to get my backpain treated. i enjoyed the desert safari on the two-day halt in dubai on our way back in june. i enrolled myself as a full-time MA student. amma came home to stay for three months, and my father followed a month later. we got burgled, and thankfully received the compensation that was due. we lost the films we so lovingly shot though. praveen and i got our british citizenship. i discovered i had never felt so indian before. a school friend got in touch with me; i still remember standing next to her during our assembly prayers in the mornings, shiny shoes and blue socks lined against each other. i learnt to be more tolerant of the cold climate, and it only got colder. i missed bombay even more, i learnt to live with my memories. i have decided to change my name. i have begun to listen to my favourite music again. after four years in the uk, i think i even made a new english friend.

some things i know will never be the same again. but some things i know, will never change. today, i leave you all with a tune that still fills my heart with pride, and causes that painful lump in my throat. thanks rupali, for sending it to me.

click here to listen (2.1 mb)

may everyone away from home find a home in their heart. may there be a heart in every home. happy new year.

have you ever visited a farmer in maharashtra, anywhere in india?
i have.

i was very young then, but i remember my father driving through the inner villages of nasik, kolhapur and other places around pune.

the farmers i saw had tobacco-stained smiles, but they were always smiling. they were a happy people. always willing to help, be it water for the carburetor, a few extra hands to push the car or lift the wheel stuck in the muddy pothole on the road. the women took us to well-hidden bushes where we could relieve ourselves after a long, back-breaking journey. sometimes they parted with the bhakris-and lasan-chutney and chai they had made for themselves. i remember my father insisting on paying them, when they loaded sackfuls of onions they were picking from their fields, into the boot of our car. i remember the sounds of the hand-wheel turning on fresh sugarcane, and the taste of those hot afternoons.

i can never forget the happy farmers in haryana, extending their big hands into our rented-sumo with tall glasses of chai and lassi. we were on our way to vaishnodevi then. i am so thankful for all those road trips.

today when i read about the farmers of vidharbha, i have to swallow the lump in my throat. i have to convert the pain into anger. anger to defend. anger to protect. in this cold home so far away, i have to do something to save my warm memories.

some days ago, i got my british citizenship. it took me the entire week to understand why, and what i was getting into. i felt i was betraying my country, and praveen had a hard time explaining i was not, and that i still am an indian in every sense. “look at it this way…now we can make the best of both the worlds,” he had said.

so here is my challenge, and also my request. i am not an agriculture expert. i have never worked with an ngo but i have travelled with my mother’s colleagues for some of her innerwheel social activities. i am also not a teacher. my father recently admitted, he consciously kept me away from politics in the country and abroad, forcing me to read history instead. he also said, “perhaps this was both a good and bad thing.” now i know why. it makes me tiny in the ways of the world, but it also makes me an optimist.

i always have believed it is never too late to change. it is never too late to give an education, to learn. to the 25 million of us indians who are abroad, let us make the best use of what we have. let us stop to read about the farmers on our homelands. let us think if there is anything at all we can do?

can we give them a free education? can we reach them simple computers so they don’t need to travel to school? can we make pesticides that kill pests and not the farmers? can we pay off the money-lender’s loans so the farmers are debt-free and can concentrate on their produce? if we stop one death, the family lives. if we educate one person, the family learns. this is a big dream, a difficult project. but maybe, it is not impossible. there must be a way.

just think.

more links:
gaurav sabnis has a few suggestions on the indian economy blog

india together

sonia faleiro’s blog

the good news in india

twice a week on the london underground, i make my way to university through the stations in mumbai.

seated by the window, i see the wheeler bookstalls, the samosa vendor running to collect change before the train leaves. i hear the boy selling fanta and coke, interrupting his cries with the dderrrring-dderrrrring of his bottle-opener striking the cola bottles. not a scratch on any of them. like me, a little girl is mesmerised by the sound, and she wants to have a go at doing it herself. the father rushes to the window, hands out a note through the bars and gets a bottle from him to pacify her. i strain to catch a glimpse, of another girl trying to catch up with the train; in her hand are strings of lemons and chillies, tied together with a piece of coal. “buy it, buy it,” she shouts over the rising noise of the engine, “it will keep evil away.” i think of all the things you can buy in mumbai.

just then a group of english school kids rush in even while the doors close. their uniforms neatly pressed, black stockings for their legs. i’m looking for mud stains, or ink leaking from fountain-pens loose in their pockets. one of them pops a pink chewing gum. some of the commuters look up at them, expressionless. i am sure their hearts have leapt to their mouths. at baker street station, behind the plain glass windows of the tube, we move again.

a lady sits close to me, smelling of fish fries. she is restless with her hands. after a while she takes the yellow box from her bag, peeks at the contents inside, and gives in to temptation. the trapped air begins to reek of vinegar and stale oil.

another lady pushes in on my left. when i look at her she smiles broadly. “please adjust, i have been standing for long.” i immediately oblige. her friend pushes a bag overhead, and leans next to her talking about her husband’s raise. the woman who has been knitting, seated opposite, pushes the glasses on her nose with the back of her hand. a sign that she is taking an interest in the conversation. it turns out her brother works in the same department. she puts the needles aside and gets a stainless steel container from her bag, to celebrate the new association. “i made them myself, steamed rice cakes with chutney, try them, come on.” the women are thrilled. “not until you have this first,” they challenge, and get their own lunchboxes out. in the crowded train compartment that has turned into a canteen in an instant, afternoon lunches are shared in the mornings.

a chill fills the air as the doors open again, the gossip, the women, their recipes, disappear. except for the train driver’s announcements, there is silence all around. i look up and even the swinging handles are gone. then of course i remember, trains in mumbai don’t use doors. the tube in london can do without the overhead support. in front of me, i marvel at the multi-coloured faces buried in novels or the free metro newspaper; we might have well been in an advertisement for benetton. in a corner near the emergency exit, i spy on someone gulping down a banana behind yesterday’s evening standard. the journey continues.

i get off the piccadilly line and take the lift to the street near university. hawkers have lined the roads today. fruit-vendors, newspaper boys, a man sells fresh mogras for girls and housewives, another irons clothes piled up on his cart. two stalls later a boy pours steaming hot tea from one steel glass to another. if he misses he will get burnt. but the liquid seems like flexi-rubber, expanding and contracting into the shiny glasses in his expert hands. a radio plays popular bollywood numbers for public entertainment. the voice fades out as i move away from one stall, and re-emerges as i approach another. by the time i get to my class, i will get to hear the complete song along with some of the commentary.

that’s when the lights turn green, and i see that i am not alone. a student-army marches across to the other side of the road, then splits into groups of twos’ and fours that walk into the library, the rest heading for classes in the other direction. just after i’ve swiped my card to enter the gates, i stop to look behind me. the hawkers look up from their carts and wink. i can make them disappear if i want to, or i can let them stay.

it all depends upon where i want to be.

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you know you have a serious blogger’s block when you’ve forgotten how to update your entries.

thank you anne, for setting this as a class assignment for me. and thanks to the others who asked why i had disappeared. hopefully, this time i’m back for good 🙂

the mother sat on the floor of her sepiatone kitchen – the afternoon sun gently gliding down the groundfloor window, millions of dust dancing in the brown light. slap slap, plop plop. she patted the white mass of butter in the steel container. her fingerprints forming dents in the soft oily dough. she always got it right. her daughters looked on from the kitchen doorstep, imagining the butter melting in their own mouths. soon the mother would look up fondly and ask, “want some?”

they would scramble towards her with their arm extended. sometimes both, if they were feeling greedy that day. the mother would plonk some of the white stuff on their palms, but not too much, “you’ll grow fat otherwise.” the daughters would grin naughtily. one of them would bring her palm in front of her nose, teasing her tongue with the taste of butter, indulging in the experience. the other would be watching her, waiting, every time. suddenly, she would slap her sister’s palm upwards, and the butter would be all over her nose. while she looked on, white with anger, and some butter, the girl would burst in laughter, and pretend to run away from the scene of crime. there would be wailing and anger, and a melodramatic complaint to the mother, asking for justice.

the mother would be looking forward to some time of rest. all this routine, the cooking for four, the washing, the homework-checking, and the daughters quarreling and teasing was eating up her time for herself. on an impulse, she would go to the daughter who initiated the fight, and slap some butter on her own face. “take that, now you know how that feels to your sister!?”

puzzled, the girl would look on, but only for a second. because all the three would be having a butterball fight very soon, laughing till their sides would ache and their eyes squeezed tears down their cheeks.

years would roll by. one afternoon, the three would be together again, connected only by the invisible threads of technology, the internet. they would be trying out the new yahoo voicechat, the webcam, and the headphones one of them had purchased just for this day. one of the daughters would tease the other again, and again the other would complain to the mother mock-wailingly. and then she would ask her sister, “do you remember? the day you slapped butter on my nose, and then amma had done the same to you? remember? don’t you?”

she would not remember it all, neither would the mother. but there was this vague memory of the soft homemade butterballs and the laughter. and she would wonder if that was really her being so naughty. after all, she was the elder one. but then she would return to her computer soon, and write about it all. and she would call it: “butter on her nose.”

“what is your name?” i asked him. he was taller than me, and looked like a younger cousin i had in india. he badly needed a haircut, and i was wondering what he was doing in a place like this.

“james bond” he replied, without batting an eyelid. and then, looking straight into my eyes, he grinned noisily. he was happy. i felt a lump rise in my throat.

rahul was one of the 10 epileptic children at an after-school club in london. there was grumpy james, who spoke his heart out and was not liked by anyone. there was ross, who was always bullied by james, and who in turn bullied the others. ross couldn’t speak, and often used sounds to express his opinion. like when you call him to a game of hide-and-seek, he’ll give out a looooooonng-sounding shout of joy. when, in a playful mood, he trips james and gets kicked by him, he goes silent. his mouth spilling saliva all over his already-saliva-stained black one-size-smaller t-shirt; his eyes go red with hot tears that don’t somehow fall. mary is 12 and very sweet. she likes to paint, and she likes marilyn monroe. she has a scrapbook full of her artwork and comments by her teacher and mother. when the fat strong straps on her wheelchair that hold her body in place are undone, she is on the floor trying to hold on to a plastic ball that always escapes her thin fingers. anita is 18 and can’t stop crying. terri is 18 too, and has to be fed by a tube that goes directly to her tummy. she has a small face, tiny legs that stick out of her wheelchair uncomfortably. i think she is uncomfortable herself, and very sleepy, but even when i try asking terri what she feels, she can’t answer. “can she think? can she feel?” i wonder. i haven’t met some of the other children yet. then james demands that i play with him. but i have to leave. he sulks even when i tell him this politely.

my 60 minutes are up.

“give it a good thought,” says the kind lady of the after-school club. i am thankful that she is so understanding. she tells me there are feelings inside us that even we don’t know about. and these come to the surface when you are dealing with severely disabled children. so it will take a while to be patient, to not choke up while you are with them. “and you haven’t spent time with normal children either…”

i think of her words on my way back home. i think of the travel expenses to london and back once university lessons start next week. i think of the other student jobs that i can only volunteer for and not get paid. i think of the vast and competitive syllabus that i have to study, the presentations i will have to give, the 4000-word assignments i have to submit. can i spare 8 hours a week for these children? i think of them again and again. the sight and smell of saliva still sticking to my skin and senses, and mashed potatoes.

“no, i don’t think i can cope with it,” says my heart. my mind says “they’re only children, where’s my sense of duty towards them?” heart says “this will see you through your transport costs at least.” mind says “what about the children? the time it will take for me to know and understand them, for them to understand me…what if i fail them?”

i think of how the heart and mind have got mixed up so easily. my back hurts after all the travel during the week and the sitting for long lectures. i think of the label my own doctors have given me – ‘fibromyalgia‘. how small it suddenly seems to be. my mother’s question, “is there no other job?” echoes in my head. for once, i wish there was.

on the train i pick out a book to push the thoughts out of my head. “later,” i tell my mind, trying to read. my eyes don’t even touch the words. i study ‘myself’: this is a strange conflict of will vs ability. of i-wish-to-help vs it’s-not-as-easy-as-you-think-it-is. i admire the lady of the club house, the girls who are carers there. how do they do it? i know i do care, but what i have to know is, will i make a good carer?

i am glad i volunteered for 60-minutes with the children. suddenly a minor four-year-old memory flashes in my head like a tiny photograph, a deja vu maybe…?

i still have a week or two before i say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the kind lady. before that, i have to accept the answer i already know.

this picture has been haunting me since a long time now.

it belongs to a book of short stories, russian i think, that i had read when i was really really small. my father had got it from one of the churchgate streets, where books are priced at rs 5. i don’t know why i think they are russian stories, maybe because i still have some of the sketches i made from this book. and the author had a russian sounding name. i don’t recall the last time i saw the book. maybe, as we grew up, my sister and i, it got bundled along with all the other amar chitra katha and indrajal comics we used to read, and is still lying at a raddiwala‘s shop somewhere, or on someone else’s bookshelf.

the picture (in the book, and one-that-keeps-coming-to-me) is of a little boy, about five i think. golden, shiny hair, like the artists paint of blond people in flesh tones. the boy is wearing a loose white shirt, full puffed sleeves with a bright button at the wrist. it looks like he is cared for and loved, but he is sad. in his hand he holds a brand new trumpet, golden, like his fine hair.

the boy had always wanted the trumpet so he could play it for his grandfather, who is his only best friend. his parents buy him a trumpet, but almost immediately forbid him strictly from playing it. “son,” they say, “you must not play a trumpet when there is a death in the family, especially when it is your grandfather’s.”

i remember reading the story as a child, and how it had a terrible effect on me even then. i remember thinking of my own grandmothers, and imagining their death. of the jaggery-wheat laddoos i would never get to eat. i remember being frightened by the very idea. i remember having decided at that very moment, with the book still in my hands, that i would never ever want anything so bad…because wishes have such bad endings.

ps: well, coming back to the point of this post, does anyone remember reading this story, or where i can find the book again?

all is quiet, as it should be.
i am browsing through some watercolour-painting books next to a huge steel rack of, well, books. to my left is another rack, behind which there is a man. i cannot see his face. to the right of this rack is a readers’ square – four chairs around a coffee table with newspapers and magazines strewn all over. two of the chairs are occupied by two strangers, english, sitting opposite each other. suddenly…

pbrrrp!

the silence in the library is startled but for a second or two. i can feel people look up from what they are reading, like i did. i keep the all-about-watercolours-book back, pick up step-by-step-lessons-in-watercolour and open the book. when…

pppbbrrrrrrrp!

and then…

PPPBBARRRRAAHPPH!

i want to burst out in giggles, laughter bubbling inside my stomach. i press my lips hard yet a smile escapes the corner of my mouth. i hold the book higher up against my face, and look at the two seated strangers to find them fighting with the same impulse. each catches the other’s eye and, awkward and embarrassed, bury their heads back into their papers.

had this been india, i thought, or if i had been with a friend, i would not have been able to suppress my laughter, nor would perhaps half the library. i was both amused and amazed at the way the english could resist any emotion for such a situation.

and what coincidence. i happen to be leafing through this book at home by kate fox, called ‘watching the english’ (my review here). it is my turn now to observe the two englishmen in the library; i’m curious to see how they will react, throwing all rules of polite behaviour and ‘weather-based’ introductions to, excuse the pun… the wind.

the book also has an entire chapter on english humour, and how it is their “default mode” and a constant undercurrent during conversations. sure enough, i do not have to wait for long for proof…

stranger 1 (leaning a little forward on his seat to talk to the man sitting opposite him):
“you don’t suppose we are on candid camera, do you?”

the question has its effect, and leaves both the men laughing, albeit uncomfortably, before they ‘ahem’ and go back to their papers again.

not rude, not impolite, quick-witted and yet, gets to the point.
how very english indeed!