since we are all touched by the quicktale/(virus?), whatever you call it…(have to admit ammani, it is quite contagious!)

i actually wrote this a few days ago, a week before the burglary, didn’t feel like posting it for some reason. with this restless desire i always have in my head, to want to write but not know what about, i had opened a blank page and what came out was this. just a picture in my head i guess. i still don’t like it much, not as much as i had felt it then. but now each time i open my notepad it jumps out at me, so i think i have to let it go.

…she pressed the tip of the needle into the white, willing canvas, plucking it out from the other side, pulling with it about a yard of bright shiny turquoise, pushing it back up where she could see the head like that of a naughty child’s – hiding to see if anyone’s spotted him yet. making the thread go round the needle once, she pricked the canvas again, this time more determined, confident, taking it down and up and around again. then she did this with green and red and yellow and black, and then some orange and some more brown. faster and faster, chains of stitches going round and round, up and down, and up and down.

then she stopped to sigh and take a deep breath, stretched her arm away from her face, and smiled, satisfied. here was her story.

i had always wondered about the practicality of a blog meeting.
the point of having a blog was (well, according to me), to leave the reader faceless; and to not know the person behind my favourite blog.

so when praveen told me about the blog meet in london i initially hesitated. but only for a second or two. because then i remembered i was in london, and so were the others. apart from the fact that we all had blogs or journals, we were all pardesis in this country. i am glad i didn’t miss being there.

it was a harmless get-together over lunch at an indian restaurant. not – like neha mentioned what was the agenda at a the blog meet she attended in mumbai – a frightfully serious discussion about ‘the future of blogging'(!?). (though i do agree there is a bright future, don’t ask me what right now, i’m working on it!) besides, most of us shared the opinion that before we met, we all had a different idea of how the other person looked. yet when a blogger walked in, we were somewhat able to guess his or her name and/or blog.

it is very rare that i meet a person for the first time and start chatting rightaway (full points for neha to guess that i’m more of the listener type, rather i pretend to be one very well ;-); and so i was looking at and listening to everyone chatting with each other, and answering questions put to me, enjoying every moment of the strange togetherness of new people over dosas and lovely (really southindian) filter coffee…

i have also been secretly indulging in the sympathy most of them expressed towards me after their 30 minutes with praveen (“really radhika, how do you put up with him!?”🙂 well, it feels good to see someone else harassed for a change, considering the fact that – having lived with him for almost four years now – he only gets worse with time! on the other hand, and ahem, speaking from the heart, i am so used to the endless chatter during the day (except, thank god for office hours) and the snoring during the night, that if he is quiet even for a moment i have to go check if something’s wrong! and, here’s the deal: a free home-cooked treat for anyone who gets angry with him, and stays angry for a full two five minutes! jag, chakra, any takers? 😉

the trip to the park was a nice end to the evening. i couldn’t help observe that with a big group of desis, you can feel at home even in the heart of london. anand too said it felt like bangalore, though i think he was referring to the warm sunlit roads and general atmosphere of the area.

back to the blog meet, thanks everyone for making it happen, especially chakra. err…if everyone is done settling their accounts with him that is 😉

this happened on tuesday. and it was all very filmi.

the three hours that we were away from home watching a movie that did not rise to our expectations anyway. the 20-minute diversion we took on the way home, to buy milk and yoghurt for the next morning. arriving home to find nothing unusual or out of place for a long time. until we went upstairs and noticed one of the pillow covers in the bedroom missing.

i thought it strange. i am the only one at home who changes the pillow and bed-covers, yet it was unlike me to leave one on and one without. my mother then noticed a lone gold earring on the carpet. i came in to check, her tone had sounded like “how could you be so careless, leaving gold lying about the place…”, and i too was curious now – i don’t change my earrings for months. this one was missing its pair.

my heartbeats racing, i opened the wardrobe. a storm had been inside, the contents ravaged about, bangle-boxes lay open or turned upside down. the only jewel case in my possession, which had contained my wedding gifts from friends and family – rings, gold chains, bangles and four tiny earrings, stared me in the face, absolutely maroon, velvet, and empty.

after a visit by the police, and a sleepless night, i walked in the garden again, trying to re-trace the burglar’s steps. how did he come in? how long had he been watching us, to strike at the time when the house was empty? was he english? was he asian? this was considered a ‘safe’ area…was he a ‘she’? were there more than one…? no footprints, nothing to show who it was. the plants, the flowers in the garden, the four very expressive wooden-figure-musicians in the house, the male and female dancing-rajasthani-puppets hanging by the porch door – witnesses all – remain silent in spite of my pleas.

i believe the worst is over, perhaps…

but what bothers is not the gold that was taken away. i rarely used them; i never had a fondness for jewelry anyway. it bothers me that these were precious gifts, blessings for the day we got married. it bothers me that i had to bring them with me much against my wishes almost four years ago, only to lose them this way.

it bothers me that a bulky and ugly black pouch, containing lots of feel-good-accessories i was deeply attached to, should attract the thief’s attention. in it were colourful glass and lac bangles, red and green and mirrored ones, silver anklets and toe-rings precious to me. precious not for their monetary value, but as moments i treasured. moments with my sister when i picked the bangles, the many shops we stopped at in mumbai, the fuss, the dilemmas, the giggles. the dreams. some clips and hairbands, crocin tablets (nothing else stops my head from splitting). about fifty or so bindis i had handpicked for every occasion. not that there are many when you are in an ‘english’-locality london.

it bothers me that a camcorder we recently purchased, after three years of waiting “for the right moment” should disappear so quickly. when we had not even begun to use it yet. along with it my kolhapuri hand-purse, with all the essential plastic and paper moneys inside.

it bothers me that in a nation that is quite “rich and developed”, this repeatedly happens to people who are generally classified as those coming from a “poor and developing country”. it bothers me that getting rid of “the indicator on the front door” – the colourful toran, will make me seemingly less-indian. it bothers me that i am even given this suggestion, twice by well-meaning people. it bothers me that none of the (four) english neighbours around our house, except our new sri lankan friends next door, knocked to enquire about what happened that night.

my heart is still racing. it bothers me that a perfect stranger has walked in my house, uninvited. it bothers me when i think… i think he will visit again.

it was a friday night, like any other friday night.

cars and bikes zoomed on the motorway that circled london and on the motorways elsewhere in britain. inside (london) men and women fell over each other as they tried to walk straight on the footpaths leading to a(nother) pub. youngsters stayed in groups and passed the cans and joints around. their drunk voices rising high and falling with the chilly wind. behind a huge but presently-isolated construction site in hemel, we parked our car and briefly discussed who should go to drop in the videocassettes and dvds at blockbuster.

i think i fall into that category of people who would hate to admit to themselves that they are afraid. i like to think of myself as someone who tries to walk into her darkest fears, even though i might be trembling like a leaf inside. and so, “i’ll go.” i said bravely, stepping out of the car even before praveen could ask, “sure?”

the entrance to the store was from the other side, a work-in-progress-diversion for the mega shopping centre scheduled to open by the year-end. anyway…to get to the other side you had to cross an unlit alley, so quiet you could hear your own voice inside your head. so dark that if you stopped and stood halfway through, you would forget which way you were heading. it was beginning to be the loneliest and scariest three-minutes of my life, until i remembered…i just had to look for birbal’s light!

children have a vague manner of interpreting or understanding the stories they read. as a kid i used to devour a lot of stories myself and some of the simplest ones stay with me even today. this birbal’s story is one such unforgettable piece. although the plot here was about justice to the poor man who stood in freezing waters all night for a reward, i had, as a child, taken in another lesson from the same story.

i had learnt that however dark the night may be, there must be a light shining somewhere. look at that light, and the night isn’t dark anymore. i had practised this so many times…when i had to wake up at 4 am during vipassana practice and walk in silence, alone, to the dimly-lit meditation halls about a 100 yards away. sleepless nights where i waited for the headlights from passing vehicles to fall on the walls and wildly tilt and zoom across the rooms. production times at work where i reached home at 1 or 2 am, sometimes, walking all the way in the dark because there were no willing rickshaws to drive to that area. the beautiful minnaminungu (fireflies) when i lay awake and in pain in kerala more recently, or even the faint glow of the moonlight coming in through the window when i have to get up to use the bathroom… however bright or faint, the light left no space for fear.

light. hope. whatever.

back to where i was, sure enough, the tubelights from the store threw a tiny white triangle where the dark alley turned to the right. into the street where the other shops were. my thumping heart regained its natural rhythm as i walked towards the triangle of light, turned to the store, dropped the dvds and cassettes into the quick-return-box and rushed back through the darkness to where our car was parked. shutting the door i sighed, smiling at praveen. he had been fiddling with the mp3/cd-player in the car all this while, unaware that i had been through my entire childhood through that alley, in just six minutes.

to the country of light and shadows and rain, to the land of stories, myths and legends, to the country that was home to both akbar and maheshdas (or birbal), this is my message: walk to the light, always.

happy independence day 🙂

children like junk food. children play truant from school. children bully. children get bullied. children carry kitchen knives to classes. children rape their own teacher. teenagers go binge drinking. teenagers try illegal drugs.

teachers ask for help. parents get blamed. parents attack teachers.

sigh.
the rods are spared. the children are spoilt (brats).

let’s face it. children in india are not so difficult.
true, they too can be shaitans at times. i myself have been bullied for years at school. one of my classmates once poked a pencil in the white of my eye (i still have the lead mark). i have a cousin who, in his childhood, used to wait behind the gates of his building along with a friend, and they both would shower a handful (each) of tiny pebbles at the first autowallah driving past (they wanted to see how the pebbles rolled down the sloping rickshaw-windscreen). as children we all have enjoyed our share of ber (berries), saunf (fennel-seed) bunches, jeeragoli (cuminseed sweets), vada pavs and pepsicolas from the sweaty-thelavala outside the school gates.

at some point we all have bunked college or cut classes (though i must be one of those few who didn’t and i still regret it!). i once hid my school-calendar from my father, because the teacher had written a complaint in it that i had not done my homework. she had asked me to get his signature the next day. i was so afraid of my father that i made things worse for myself by trying to forge his signature, clearly without success! i too have ‘tried’ a cigarette (at my workplace, not at school), ‘just to know what it must feel like, the smoke filling the lungs…’

whatever.
as children in india, our limits are defined. there’s a ‘curfew time’ and ‘playtime’ and ‘comic-book-time’ and ‘homework-time’. there were the home-made lunches in steel or plastic dabbas, with spoons that went rattle-rattle on our backs. parents and teachers discussed children’s reports at first with sombre faces, then breaking into sheepish laughter at how they too were a pain when they were of this age. all the way home the mothers would shake their heads, tch-tch the whole thing and laugh it away saying bachche to bachche (kids will be kids). behind the doors they would teach us our place, even if it meant having to use or simply �wave� the much-feared danda at us with anger.

without the stick, uk’s children are a national problem, even if the bookstores and libraries here have millions of self-help-guides on managing kids and parenting. it is a chicken-and-egg-situation to an extent, but if someone asked me, i too would vote for blame-the-parents.

i�ve seen toddlers in prams, their arms and messy fingers busy with a pack of crisps, fries or cola, sometimes all three, while the mother is busy lighting her cigarette. i�ve seen parents taking their children to shopping centres with a leash strapped around their little waists, so they don�t run away or misbehave. a leash!? and i have not seen children playing outside their own homes. (i know, i know, i’ve mentioned this a hundred times before, but you can see how much that means to me!)

right now, i cannot imagine bringing up children myself, but i do have a few common sense rules about them when it will come to that.

children might be monsters when it comes to bad behaviour, but they are not your dogs. when it comes to meals, a home-cooked �dabba� is the best, even if it means getting up 30 minutes earlier in the morning. children need to play. they need to use up their bubbling energy. children need love; it is the only language they understand when they are born. they need coaxing, explaining, some pampering maybe. there will be times when they need to be spanked. they must learn to fear, only to learn to respect. they must learn to win trust. they must be trusted.

everything said and done, the uk government has now launched yet another initiative to tame the uncontrollable minds. a �12-pound ‘opportunity card’ will give them access to sports and music events, and it can be ‘topped-up’ if they have volunteered for a good cause or done good in their studies. i think it�s not a bad idea at all. and it even may work.

i, for one, will be watching this closely.

it’s all falling together now. what impresses me is the speed with which the police and scotland yard authorities are operating.

what also impressed me is how, in spite of being very private individuals, the english have all stood together, calm in the time of need. today, they are even defending those who will remain vulnerable in this country for a long time to come.

i came across two articles that sum up why the british cannot change their way of life. the first is andrew sullivan’s essay which points out:

Stoicism? Sure. It’s a characteristic of an island where weather is a verb, where in a tiny, crowded place, patience is necessary. Americans, used to an entire continent of limitless potential, tend to have less need for stoicism. If they hate where they live, they often move somewhere else. If Brits move more than a few hundred miles, they’re in the sea.

and tunku varadarajan’s editorial (through india uncut):

The secret of British composure is that Britons really do feel proud of their civilization. On the whole, they apologize for very little, which is as it should be. Their message to terrorists is always likely to be straight and robust: “How dare you! I’m British!”

given the latest debates in my head about my life in england, this has been a new education.

right. now for some tea. earl grey, anyone?

two weeks after my last post about the homecoming, i am having thoughts about whether it is happy at all in the long run.

do i want to stay in india and wrap myself with the sometimes-overwhelming warmth of people? i could enjoy the local train rides along with co-travellers who don’t need a subject to start a conversation. i could share my recipes and kitchen experiments with my neighbours whose naughty kids would come home to play on the computer or watch the simpsons together. i could visit any of my cousins at anytime. i could have hour-long discussions with my sister in chennai about my new chudidaar or sari, or her latest chappals (that actually fit her size-9-feet). i could haggle with shopkeepers and autowallahs, and turn my balcony into an all year-round mini amazon. i could fight with praveen for who gets to read the morning papers first, and fix up dates with friends for a play or a visit to the british library at vt. on the way back, i could indulge in bhelpuri and creamy lassi (or the rs 5-hot chocolate), and sleep all the way home in the good old ‘local’ again (more on trains here and here). when it rained i could rush to get the washed clothes inside, my excuse for soaking in the rain myself. then i could walk over to the corner farsan shop and get steaming vada pavs and moong pakoras just in time for tea with praveen. and then we could watch a movie together and act surprised to find some of our friends in the theatre as well…

or do i want to stay here in the uk and better get used to the sometimes-overwhelming lack-of-warmth of people? i could still count little joys and be happy in my three-bedroom shell, which now cannot take anymore of the india i stuff in. i could cook new recipes and be my own judge. i could wish the english neighbours were friendlier (nick, is an exception though, a friend), and chanted something else apart from ‘morning and ‘day. i could wish it wasn’t so cold outside, so i could wear whatever i wanted. i could switch on the television to find nothing i can relate to, and promptly switch it off. i could walk around the parks and wish for sounds of children playing or a familiar face, and instead find dogs leading their plastic-gloved-owners (to deposit dog-poo safely in the respective red boxes). i could call just one masi/cousin a week and find the phonecards running out of time too soon. i could open my emailbox everyday to find no letters from anyone i know. i could be happy i have all the time with praveen and he with me, and all we could discuss would be our people 5000 miles away…

sighhh.
how many more times, am i going to have this conversation with myself?

———————————-

on a somewhat related note, movies can take a whole new meaning when you are abroad.
you enter the moviehall to watch the familiar faces of actors that belong to your country, and you get to see parts of your country too if the film has been shot there. you get to see stories and legends that have been narrated by your grandmothers years ago, when you were fighting to keep awake and hear what happens in the end.

and when a good movie like paheli or parineeta comes along, with all the colours of rangoli and sindoor, the smells and tastes of dal-baati and puchkas, the sounds of rainfall, the bangles and payals, all jingling across wide courtyards that show the richness that is india, you know you have just been home.

outside our window
the tree could not hide
the moon.
not last night.

back at hemel

and i-am-sooo-relieved

these days i catch myself sighing…

at the broadband connection

at the just-five-channels on tv, and how

for me, when it doesn’t exist.

at my study-corner

where i type this.

at the silence outside my home,

the silence inside me

at the clocks going tick-tock.

everywhere in my garden –

at the plants growing carefree

at the plants that didn’t survive

at the birds that come and go

at the 16-hour-daylight

and the 18-degree summer breeze

pleasant.

…at the routines i welcome

washing, cooking, ironing

the to-do lists, the daily chores

at the effort of unpacking –

sorting, adding, keeping aside

something ‘for charity sake’.

at the time i get to myself

at home, in the local market

at the library

spotting indian faces

amid the white and blond

at the smooth transactions

the announcements, the queues

well-mannered.

…at the way the traffic flows

around car parks and superstores

at the order in the chaos

called life.

day 24 at kottakal:
one more day of treatment to go 🙂

apart from my mother’s constant care and doctor’s reassurances that i’ll be up and running about within three months (provided i take enough rest and medication back home), the only companions who took me through this ordeal were the books i found at the library.

shashi tharoor‘s the great indian novel, a classic satire on the characters of the mahabharata living during the british raj, through the eyes of veda vyasa, or VVji for short. i have never come across such mature writing and intelligent handling of the topic itself, while keeping the reader entertained throughout.

r k narayan‘s the world of nagaraj is a predictable malgudi character you can’t help loving. nagaraj is a simple man who tries everything in his capacity to write a book about the less-written, more talked-about kalahapriya sage narada. you cannot ignore his quiet but all-knowing dutiful wife either.

dr sudhanshu chaturvedi‘s the complete works of kalidasa was the surprise of the year. so far i had only heard of how great his poems were (from praveen) and the lack of sufficient information on the same. however, this book does not contain a literal translation of his works, but has enough and excellent notes — on ritusamhara, meghdutam, (both poems); kumarasambhava, raghuvamsham (epics) and malavikaagnimitra, vikramavasheeya and abhijnanashakuntala (plays) — to draw a person into his fantastic world.

perhaps, the fact that i am 5000 miles away from my husband and can rely only on the cell phone signals and std/isd booths that dot the kerala roads, is what made me appreciate the love poem meghdutam the most. all the book contains is the summary but i never seem to tire of reading it over again and again. split into two parts – poorvamegha and uttaramegha – the first deals with the glories of nature and the second with those of love. i couldn’t help listing the cloud’s itinerary to read out to praveen (over the phone) and ended up making up my own lines from the summary itself. hope kalidasa forgives me for getting carried away!

banished
for a year
a yaksha
high
on the ramgiri mountains
pines for his wife
his beloved
eight months
into his exile.

he watches
a cloud
elephant-shaped
drifting
through the blue sky
and instantly
(having no means
to communicate
with his wife)
makes the cloud
his messenger.

with prayers
and praise
the yaksha then
instructs
the three-day journey
the cloud must take…

“over the amrakuta mountains
where light rivers
prepare you for the long way;
where women
awaiting the return
of their travelling husbands
are soothed
by the gentle wind
accompanying you.

“turn northwards
extinguishing
the fires
in the saranga forests
and drink the waters
of reva (narmada)
to undo
your fatigue.

“feast your senses
as you pass over
gardens, fragrant
white with ketaka (flowers)
trees noisy with little birds
building nests
in the rich city
of vidisha.

“rest you must
on the neechais mountains
full of kadambas
and youth unrestrained
courting their loves.

“proceed then
sprinkling your waters
on jasmine buds
and flirting with girls
by protecting them
(from the sunrays).

“make your way
to ujjaiyini (ujjain)
playfully mocking
pretty lotus-eyed women
with lightning,
your spouse.

“fall on the river
nirvindhya
but hurry
to relieve (river) sindhu
of her condition
emaciated
with the dry leaves
blocking her path.
rest after you
cross avanti and vishala
cities referred as
heaven on earth;
and after quenching
your thirst and fatigue
at river gandhavati.

“at dawn,
refreshed by the waters
of river gambhira
proceed with haste
toward devagiri
bathing skanda (fire-god’s son)
with flowers and waters
of the nearby ganga.

“enter then
the land of kurukshetra
taste the sweet waters
of saraswati and ganga
at the foot
of the white
himalayas.
pay your respects
to the three-eyed god (shiva)
blowing sweet music
by rumbling
through the tall bamboos.

“drift through
the crauncha pass
to kailasa
sporting with
celestial nymphs
chasing them later
with your thunder.
hasten then
taking waters from manasarover (river)
towards the mountains
of airavata
where you will find
the land of alaka –
the city
of my beloved.”