The Week That Was - Jumbled Reflections

What a week it has been!

A one day match in the Parliament, a close fight, a nail biting finish(the speaker was seen literally biting his nails)and then allegations of mathch fixing to be followed by investigations and then - nullifying the outcome of the match?

And now the blasts. Low intensity they might be - but two lives lost, many seriously injured.Every innocent life lost is a reason for tears. Panic, fear and a sense of insecurity descend on the nation once again.

Who is doing this? And why?

Do they think bombs and bullets can destroy a nation? We, as a nation, have survived many a trauma - and did not go under. Will not go under.

These mindless cowardly killings should serve only to re enforce our nationalism, bring home with force the thought that we need to continue being resilient, and be proud of being an Indian. The best part of Rahul Gandhi's recent speech in the parliament was when he said :'I speak, not as a Congress Party member, but as an Indian'. Let us all think and behave like Indians.

What can we do as individuals?

We can begin by blocking resentment and bitterness from entering our hearts. It isn't easy, particularly in times of crisis such as this. But keep our poise, we must. We must make a conscious effort to forgive and go forward, instead of gritting our teeth and baying for vengeance. We must us keep in mind Gandhiji's words that an eye for an eye makes the world go blind. That blindness we do not want. Let us not invite that darkness.

What should our leaders do?

That's the question. Their blind hunger for power, the ideology blinded political moves, the lure of the pelf which blinds them to the responsibility that rests with them. Power, ideology and money - all blinding factors which operate independently or in combination to make possible the entry of king makers and criminals and shameful horse trading into the Parliament and make a mockery of democracy and its institutions.

I wish there were a panacea - an ottamooli - that we can administer to cure our leaders of their blindness!

And we, the people need to be proactive. We can make a start in our small little worlds, in our small ways. Starting from our own minds, then in our immediate surroundings, in the people we come into contact with in our daily interaction with life, we must sow the seeds of patriotism, statesmanship and devotion to principles. Our Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's display of these qualities came as a draft of fresh air in the polluted atmosphere of the Parliament, as a ray of hope. Let us take leaf out of his book.

Let us hope our leaders - at least some of them- get inspired by this remarkable Parliamentarian and follow his footsteps.

I am confident that India will bounce back, as she always does, after these setbacks. Becaus we the people love our counry.

Jai Hind

Ramblings from a Magic Carpet

My brother downloaded some music and sent me a CD full of our family favourites - of the sixties and seventies. I played them and ---

Do you know that music can transport you through time and space? And then soft land you through mists of oblivion into forgotten regions in the vast realm of memory?

Yes. That’s exactly what happened for more than an hour when I sat in the room of the staff hostel listening to the songs we used to listen to as children, sitting before the Telefunken radiogram or the Grundig spool tape recorder. The first number was Cliff Richard’s Young Ones - and the mists begins to clear. I saw us siblings (we were quite a number) sitting together around these gadgets, listening, talking, arguing – S Janaki is better than P Leela, Jayachandran is a better than Yesudas in certain types of rendition(my music savvy brother), Jayachandran potta potta potta ,(my youngest brother –too small to take on the senior one on one), MGR is a hopeless actor (the youngest one takes a swing at the speaker), Umrigar is the greatest - none like him(that was the last but one), stories of the ongoing tussle between Minnal (nickname of an upright and uptight SI) and Sarkar Mohammed (a dashing dare devil , I think), I’ll tell amma you are actually playing book cricket when she thinks you are studying(the youngest). Then I’ll tell her you ate meat cutlet from the fridge on Friday (The last but one).

Yes. Music, more than anything else, can stir up memories of distant days and breathe life into the hazy shadows which never desert the mind but lie inert in some uninhabited alcove of that region. Scattered bits of memory fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle and images flit thru the mind, one after the other, images which move, speak, laugh and quarrel. Delicious smell of olath Irachi or chemmen frying come wafting in from our kitchen on the other side of three/four decades, to complete the images regrouping themselves in the mind with every song.

And then, one after the other, came the numbers Atlantis and Foot Tapper – both by Shadows. I got a jolt. For I was flung far far away from my childhood into the imaginary(?) city of Camelot. Images of King Arthur and his knights sitting around the round table, with their metal helmet and metallic woven armours (forget what they are called) riding leisurely through the streets of Camelot, the Excalibur, the Holy Grail. I stretched my memory to include Knight Lancelot and Queen Guinevere but couldn’t. Possible that the children’s version of The Knights of the Round Table that was gifted to me for my birthday was a sanitized one with no space for romanticized adultery. On that same birthday, my brother brought home the small turntable record of Shadows with Atlantis on one side and Foot Tapper on the other. These days, I listen to those numbers often, now that I got them with me once again. I think they are the best pieces of instrumental music I’ve ever heard. And, I guess their power to transport me to the chivalrous, idyllic world of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table through childhood memories, has something to do with what those numbers do to me.

Beware of Kids!

Yes, they are cute but there are times when they can be such brats. I can deal patiently with their naughtiness and tantrums but when, in all their innocence, they make you go crimson in the face with embarassment, well – that’s when I could, with the greatest pleasure, give them a good hiding!

My mother used to relate an incident every time the conversation revolved around the ‘innocent’ utterances of children. Two of my siblings – shall we call them Georgy and Porgy?- had this habit of helping themselves to snacks served for guests at the dining table while the latter were being entertained. Once they(Georgy and Porgy) nearly cleared all the plates while the guests were still there, and so amma thought that the time had come to discipline them. She sternly told them not to touch anything on the table in the presence of guests, but could help themselves freely to whatever they wanted once they left. This instruction was given while waiting for some half a dozen very sophisticated (US returned) relatives who had terrible airs about them – you know the type that makes you uneasy, the type you have to suffer whether you like it or not, the type before whom your image is very important to you.

The guests arrived and the table was set and all the home made goodies spread out. The guests sat at the dining table and started helping themselves to the snacks. Georgy and Porgy waited, on the opposite sides of the room, each leaning on the walls on his side, eyeing the table. Amma was keeping an eye on them and she was quietly amused at the way they were ogling at their favourite snacks. It was torture for them, she could see, and every time they looked pleadingly at her, she’d shake her head firmly, a stern look on her face.

The guests took an unusually long time at the dining table, talking and picking something or the other from the plates now and then.

And Georgie and Porgy began to get impatient. Georgy appeared to be the one whose self-restraint had reached the tether end, for he would move towards the table as though mesmerized and magnetically drawn by something there. Amma would then be instantly at his side, gripping his arm firmly and directing him back to his position against the wall. Porgy did not leave his wall but the tortured expression on his face was so comical that amma had difficulty trying to control her laughter. But she was pleased - with herself that she could discipline them, and her little boys that they could exercise that much of control over themselves. Just then she noticed that Georgy had left his wall and was walking towards the table as though in a trance. She was on Porgy’s side of the table. She started off quickly towards Georgy, but before she could reach him, there he stood between two chairs, and with excitement bordering on hysteria , he was pointing out the various snacks dishes as shouted out to Porgy: ‘Porgy, when these people go, you take avalose unda (index finger touching the avalose unda plate) and cheeda (index finger touching the cheeda plate) and I’ll take achappam(streaching across the table to touch the plate) and cake and mysore pak”. The last two items were to his left and right, and he stretched out his hands to point them out simultaneously, making him look like a choir conductor in the grip of an ecstatic frenzy.

Poor amma. Though she could laugh heartily each time she related this incident, I can imagine how terribly embarrassed she must have been! She nearly fainted with mortification but fitted a plastic smile which she beamed at the American returned guests, who were quickly getting up to make way for Georgy and Porgy who had already launched a violent attack on the dining table.

Kerala - No let up in the blood-letting

Another life lost - in the name of a text book. Not that the state needs any reasons any more to mow down human lives. Of late, they - human lives- have become the most worthless things - the cheapest tokens of political protest, the most common/vulnerable casualty of violent politicisation of issues.

All parties are now outsourcing violence - either to their youth wings or mercenaries. A time was when the Congress Party exercised some restraint when it came to unleashing violence or their violence dispensers. But looks like their previous stint in power(2001-06), during which they were blockaded from performing by the opposition, has made them frustrated and therefore reckless. Governance had become impossible then with the shamefully irresponsible behaviour of the CPM in connivance with the Karunakaran faction. Disruption by the opposition of normal day to day life, of routine educational and developmental activities had been the order of the day. The Left was at its worst during that tenure of the UDF govt, with obstructing governance being their only agenda. It had to prevent the Congress Government from performing lest it get re-elected. Now that the Left is in power, The Congress has decided to pay them back in the same coin.

So now whom do we turn to for some restoration of sanity in the State?

Are there any leaders in Kerala who can put the state above party loyalty? Any one like Somnath Chatterjee, our Lok Sabha Speaker?

I am reminded of the Biblical story where God gives word to Abraham that he'll spare the city from destruction if there were 10 good men in it. Yes, ten good leaders in the state, who can put the people above the party can save this state in its headlong plunge into a 'bloody' disaster.

The leaders have let us down one by one. The exodus from the state has begun. Check out this link to find out more: http://my-think-pad.blogspot.com/2008/04/exodus.html

Come Entrance Exams and - -

When I joined service in a college, some thirty years back, in a small town in Mid –Travancore which I had always associated with extreme conservatism, I did not bargain for the type and size of talents displayed by the student community. The intra-mural competitions were big events which stretched on for weeks. The classical music competitions used to be held over a period of two days. The folk dance and classical dance, both solo and group- each of these events took two full days to complete. The judges were well known experts in their fields.

The long and short of it is – every other girl could sing or dance ,or sing and dance, or respect these forms of art. Parents spent a lot of time and money to train their children in whatever form of art their wards were interested in or had talent for. Students spent a lot of time and energy to become accomplished in their chosen fields.

Today, in the same college, getting students who can give quality performance is no easy task. Those who do volunteer to do it, more often than not, lack calibre, expertise. Classical music and dance have given way to cinematic (now banned – the term I mean)dance and film music. Not that there is anything wrong with or inferior about either. It’s just that they require little or no training. In these days, when making value judgement is considered a mortal sin, I make bold to say that those were good days, when young minds were put to rigorous but enjoyable training to master the complexities of classical art forms. Those were the days when the students and their parents believed that to acquire skill in classical forms of art was a worthy enough mission, and that there were things as important in life as the entrance exams - which brings me to the villain of the piece.

I do not remember in which year the entrance exams to professional courses were introduced in Kerala- but the decline of interest and engagement in arts and fine arts mentioned above became instantly felt after the introduction of this phenomenon. I hear stories of how school and pre degree students who were being trained either in music or dance were abruptly taken out of these classes and admitted to coaching classes giving training for the entrance exams. Kala was cut down to size. But the sense of rhythm inherent in human nature cannot be suppressed. Fortunately, the TV which quietly made entry into every home in Kerala provided plenty of models of disco/cinematic dancing. Centres which taught disco dancing began to appear in big towns in Kerala where young people went to shake a leg in order to fulfill their urge to sway to rhythm.

What the entrance exams have done to Kerala – at least in the part of Kerala I speak of –is, they have enlightened the parents about the futility of art. Traditionally, Kerala was a place where it was believed that training in some form of art would enrich the experience of life, train and discipline the mind, add a deeper dimension to personality, and also enable one to deal better with this business called life. This inherited wisdom was uprooted and blown away overnight by the hurricane which came in the form of entrance exams which descended on the state in the eighties. I tend to compare my pre-entrance with the post-entrance students. The difference is not in how they dance on the stage. It is in how they conduct and carry themselves, in their weltanschauung and the way they face a crisis situation. The pre-entrance lots – they were respectful but they could challenge you in class. They were involved in the happenings in the classroom. You entrust them with a job, they would do it with such heartwarming earnestness and sense of responsibility. They would sometimes walk up to you and ask whether you would recommend this book or that, or if their understanding of some book they'd just finished reading was right. They somehow gave you the feeling that they believed that learning was its own reward. They made you feel happy and grateful for being allowed to contribute to the learning process. And they made your heart swell with pride when they interrupted your lecture with ”Ma’am, aren’t you contradicting yourself?” For they were genuinely interested in the process of education. They had the time and inclination to actively engage themselves in the process of holistic development which educational institutions attempt to offer. And the post-entrance generation? Well, they are different. I guess it is the prospect of the entrance exams looming large and intimidatingly before them that makes the difference.

Sweeping generalizations, I know. I could be wrong. But a huge change has come over the attitudes to life in the post entrance days, both of the parents and therefore of the students. It would be naive to attribute the change in the timbre of the student personality to decline of interest in arts. But I can safely say that this disinclination for anything other than entrance test related activities is symptomatic of this change. And I prefer the good old days.

I’ll conclude with a small incident. A few of weeks back, my friend’s college- going daughter started quizzing me about how to get a book published and how to get a publisher to accept a book. She’s always been a quiet one and so I was surprised. I asked her about this sudden interest. It’s not sudden, she told me. She writes short stories -it’s a passion with her. I remarked that her father, who himself writes extremely well, must be excited about her interest. She kept silent. A couple days later when I met her parents, I talked to them about this. I was told in no uncertain terms not to give their daughter any bright ideas. Let her first learn to earn her bread and then she can think of writing, I was told. But what harm does a little bit of writing in free hours do, I persisted. She ought to be studying, and not wasting her time indulging in such useless exercise.

Guess we live in times when man lives by bread alone.

"Where is your Mother?"

On that day which I would like to erase from my memory, I went, as usual, into the Director’s room to sign the attendance muster as soon as I reached the Research Centre. The visiting professor from England was in Director’s room with his daughter, a young girl in her mid teens. The Director (my boss) asked me to take her around and introduce her to the other research scholars while he finished his business with the visitor.

I took her into the large spacious airy room where we research scholars sat. We sat down at the large common table in the centre of the hall so that others could join us as they came in. And then I turned to her with a friendly smile which she returned.

“How do you like Trivandrun?” I asked – the standard question, I know but I couldn’t think of anything original.
“Oh it’s a lovely place!”(I think she meant it). “I call it a city lost in trees”
‘Eh?”, I said surprised.

I began to think that she too must have read that travelogue written by I don’t remember who which had a chapter titled The Treemen of Travancore. I remember I was furious when I read it ‘cos in all the fifteen years that I lived (I was 15 when I read that piece,) I had never seen people in Travancore living on trees and eating tadpoles live.

“We have a room on the sixth floor” she explained “and when I look out of the window, I see only palm trees”.

Actually she was right. In those days there were only a handful of high rises in Trivandrum, and from the height from which she surveyed the city, a splendid view of greenery would greet her.

And then I made that fatal mistake.

“Has you mother come too?” I asked!

Oh, we Indians. Why do we always have to ask about father mother brother and sister every time we are introduced to a person? Why don’t we realize that it is impolite, for these questions are an intrusion into the personal sphere which many would like to keep private?

“No”, she said, without batting an eyelid. “My parents are divorced”

My ears were on fire. “I’m sorry”. I stammered.

“That’s OK. My step mother is here”.

I nodded, struggling to conceal my embarrassment behind a smile.

Just then my friend Aparna (name changed like all the names that’ll appear in the rest of the story).
“Hi, Milly. Good Morning”, she said.
“Meet Michelle Tate. Cleanth Tate’s daughter”
“How do you do?” said Aparna
“Hello” said Michelle
“Is this your first visit to India?”
“Yes.”
”How long have you been in TVM?’
“WE came two days back.”
And then from Aparna‘s lips fell those deadly words.

“Where’s your mother? Has she come too?”

Michelle repeated what she told me. Aparna shot an annoyed look at me for not having warned her, but then, I didn’t get a chance to warn her. Besides, who ever thought that a great intellectual like Aparna would be stupid enough not to know that one should not ask such questions to a stranger, particularly if she is from another country and culture?

And then the one and only Bhasker walked in. He’s one of those characters who you’d call hyper - was always in a state of excitement. He saw Aparna and me with a white girl and came enthusiastically toward us.

“Hello. Who do we have here?” he said beaming at all of us.

I performed the introductions, and then he started his round of queries.

“First visit to India?”
“Yes” said Michelle, trying to sound and look friendly.
“It’s a beauuuuutiful place, isn’t it?” He had a soft soulful expression in his eyes. “Did you see the Taj Mahal”
“No. Not yet. We’ll visit North India next week”
‘Who’s the we?” asked Bhaskar.

Sensing that he was approaching the danger zone, I tried to edge closer so that I could give him a warning kick. But I didn’t move fast enough for out came The Question

“Has your mother come?”

“No”, a staccato tone. This time she didn’t offer any explanations.
“What is she? A career woman or a housewife?”, asked the incorrigible Bhaskar
“My mother is an archeologist”, said Michelle.

Did she sound tired? Did I hear something like a resigned sigh from her?

”Oh’, said Bhaskar. He was unstoppable. “Then it’d have been lovely if she could also have joined you, no?”
“Heavens no”, Michelle burst out. “There’d be such a row!”

Bhaskar looked stupefied and, with eyes like saucers, he looked from one to another. By then I had moved close enough to give him that kick.

Unfortunately, it was harder that I intended it to be and it landed on his shin. I think he was about to repeat the word ‘row’ with a rising intonation when my kick landed on his shin, and he let out a yelp starting with R. "What on earth are you doing Milly? Why did you kick me?” he yelled angrily at me.

I didn’t look at Michelle. I couldn’t face her. I didn’t look at Bhaskar. I didn’t trust myself. But I looked at Aparna in utter dismay.

And she rose to the occasion. She got up, not abruptly but as though it was the most natural thing to do after the first session comprising introductions, and offered to show Michelle around the place, an offer which the poor girl accepted gracefully.

After that awkward episode, I made a resolution never to ask a stranger personal questions. But I must admit that old habits die hard and on a few occasions I have slipped. But only on a couple of occasions did I ask the wrong questions to wrong people.

Tears for the Dead

I know this is a strange subject to write on. But a certain item I read in the newspaper a few years back and a certain incident I saw rather recently keep coming back to me every time I attend a funeral – and, I feel ashamed to admit this, I get clinical at funerals, and watch how the bereaved ones behave.

The story that I referred to was a report on the sudden unexpected death of a young prominent industrialist. The report quoted a high profile journalist who had rushed to the house of the industrialist minutes after he heard of his demise. The industrialist had been a good friend of the journalist whose brief words to the press betrayed his awe at the atmosphere in the house where a death had taken place. He was greeted by complete silence. No one wept, sobbed or sniffled. His widow sat next to the body in a plain white sari. His mother too. Their faces were expressionless. The behaviour of the other relatives (not many had reached) too could be fitted with a similar description. There was of course reference from the journalist to the dignity and calmness with which death was confronted, but the subtext of his words was that the presence of death was tangible, and totally unsettling. I got the impression that it was an altogether new experience for him.

A few years later, a young girl I know lost her father and I went to her house on the day of the funeral. She was in a room surrounded by relatives. She was quiet but had a strained expression on her face. The minute she saw me, she broke down uncontrollably. Immediately her aunts went at her – gently of course, but persuasively.
“Is this what your faith teaches you?”,
“you know now he is where there is no pain”,
“ God calls his favourites early” .
They went on and on and on till the girl literally switched off her tears and sat there looking at me, poker faced. My heart went out to her, but how does one tell her,"Go ahead and cry your heart out. You owe in to your father and to yourself”, in the face of such formidable unrelenting efforts at cultural conditioning to deal with the inevitability of death? I remembered the journalist’s awe when he described his visit to his friend’s house. And I understood how that silence is achieved – I saw it in the making. I saw it in its workshop.


Ever since these two episodes, I’ve developed this horrible habit of assessing the behaviour of the bereaved ones at funerals. Most people weep openly, and this averts a burden from settling down on the minds of the onlookers. I manage to get over my blues after a funeral even before I reach my home – except on that occasion that my young friend was coerced into keeping a calm and stoic demeanor by well meaning relatives. And though I was never anywhere near that industrialists house, that picture given by the journalist continues to haunt me. On both these occasions, it appeared as though the bereaved conscripted me to share the burden of grief which they were conditioned not to unload through tears. I am sure the journalist too felt the same – though he didn’t say it in so many words. By the way, in both cases, the people concerned belonged to the same community.

I fully understand and appreciate the fact that this edification exercise would have begun as an effort to come to terms with the inevitability of death – to inculcate a sort of Donne like attitude of Death-be-not-proud-cause- you-cant-bend-or-break-me. But then, aren’t there a few certainties before which it is better for mankind to be humble and submissive? There is no greater leveler than death – shouldn’t we pay our respect to such a democratic institution whenever it visits us? Of course, there are people who are made of the stuff which makes them very irreverential in their attitude to this occasional visitor. They take bereavement in their stride. I both admire and envy them – they are a class apart. But to deliberately and consciously deny yourself and the departed loved ones tears in the name of dignified bearing and image construction is unfair both to the living and the dead. The least we owe our dear departed is tears. Tears are not a luxury, but a right, ‘cos they are an essential mechanism of nature to keep that thing called sanity going.

The End of Silence

am no poet.
i know that.

my muse died young
a slow death though
with growing estrangement from my tongue
and my self.

a casualty of imperialism
and acculturation.

but of late I find myself
tinkering with free verse
in the alien tongue.

the genre issues a license
the poetic license
liberation from the strain
of logical exercise,

And offers a mould
that won’t crumble
when loaded with feeling.

minds crippled with entrenched silence
turn to the spirits of the muses
inevitably.

can they be raised from the dead?
will they take kindly
to the strange sounds of broken silence?

Amma Buys Me a Saree

I was looking through some old photographs and saw one of me in a saree which took my mind to the day my mother and I went to the newly opened Parthas to buy it.

I am not one of those who pull out all the sarees in a shop before I choose one. If I find one I like, I stop looking for more "selection', and make the purchase immediately.

On that day, amma and I went straight to the cotton saree section. A youngish sales boy was at the counter. He pulled out one stack of sarees and I immediately found what I was looking for. It was a beige coloured plain saree with a lovely temple sculpture figures on the border in dark maroon. Usually, amma is the one who takes the initiative to close the deal, but this time, she just stood there, her eyes fixed on the saree. Perplexed, I turned to the sales boy and asked him to bill it and pack it. Then I felt amma's gentle hand on my arm. I turned to her and was startled to see that she had bent over with her face close to the saree and was squinting down at it. Alarmed, I asked her

'What is it, amma? What's wrong?"

She looked up, gave me a strange grin and said,

"I forgot to take my glasses"

"But surely you can see the saree without them" said I, more alarmed than ever. Oh God! Could something have happened to her vision - something I had failed to notice?

Suddenly, she straightened up, looked at the sales boy, pointed to the silk section and asked him to bring some sarees from there. My heart leapt - she was going to surprise me with a silk saree, I thought.

As soon as salesboy started walking towards the silk section, amma grabbed my arm, lowered her voice, and in a conspiratorial tone urged me.

"Moley, this saree you've selected. See if those women on the border are wearing clothes. You said they are temple sculptures, didnt you? Quick! Before he comes back"

Eighteen years after that incident, amma and I were sitting on the veranda of her house when a house to house saree vendor came in with his wares. I was about to send him away when amma called him in. It was the 21st of December, I remember, and she asked me to take a saree. It was to be her Christmas gift to me. After the vendor left, I reminded her about the way she tried censoring my saree years back. Tears of merriment running down her face, she denied ever having done it.

She didnt live to see another Christmas after that. I have maintained her last gift to me in perfect condition - wear it once in a way and relive those moments.

Tagged

Am tagged. By Sujatha of Fluff "n" Stuff
Tagging makes me nervous for many reasons. The most important one being I'm terrified of chains - probably 'cos of the description of chain reaction by my English teacher who taught us about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She told us that once a reaction is triggered off, it cannot be stopped till half the world is desrtroyed. She also told us that the end of days prophesied in the Bible would come as a chain reaction. So i vowed - no chains for me.
The least important reason - this machine before I am sitting at the moment is too complicated for me. I'm still in the primary school level where it is concerned. I only know how to handle the minum functions. Of course I intend to correct this situation 'cos this contraption is hijacking our lives. Look at me. I've forgotten the art of writing on a paper with a pen after I started keying in my thoughts (not that my handwriting was anything to brag about-a letter I once addressed to my Birmingham penfriend landed up in Bhurnanganam post office near Pala in Kerala).
So Sujatha, forgive me if i dont tag five people - i just dont know how to do it ( am wondering how i can take it out on you for forcing this confession out of me).
Now to take care of the Tag instructions.
Pick up the nearest book.
Open to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the next three sentences.
Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.
The nearest book - A 93 year old English Bible ( published by Burns oates and Washbourne Ltd, London in 1914) which has a place next to this machine. It is the Bible I've been reading since I was in the high school. My father (think he bought it as a young high school boy) got it bound for me and so it is still in good condition. This is the book which unfolded the beauty of the English language to me. It has travelled with me (I travel a lot) and has been my constant companion in all the changing statuses of my life.
The three sentences after the 5th sentence on page 123:
But the princes offered onyzx stones, and precious stones, for the ephod and the rational: And spices and oil for the lights, and for the preparing of ointment, and to make the incense of most sweet savour. All, both men and women with devout mind offered gifts, that the works might be done which the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. All the children of Israel dedicated voluntary offerings to the Lord.
Exodus. Chpt.35. Verses 27-29.
No comments on the lines except that 1. where rituals are concerned, people have not changed after 2000+ years 2. I love onyx
On being Ritualistic- would some try blogging on it?

Indian Abroad - Part II

The second episode is not a hi tech one. It could be funny if you try visualising it. Want to give it a shot? Then read on.

Ravi's and Rola's last destination before they crossed over to England was France. After a day of sight seeing, Rola was tired and decided to stay back in the hotel room while Ravi went for a walk. As he ambled along the street, he casually asked a person on the street if there was some place nearby which was of interest to tourists. The man replied in rapid French. Ravi understood not a word of French. Nevertheless, he walked along the direction the man had pointed to. It took him to a beach. As he walked down the beach, he saw a demarcated area. The name boards in different languages told him it was a nudists’ zone. It very strictly stated that nudists were prohibited from coming out of the segregated area. Since it was not stipulated that clothed people couldn’t enter the nudists’ area, Ravi entered and sat down on a reclining chair. A few minutes passed during which he generally enjoyed the peasant breeze and the view. Suddenly, he spotted a nude woman coming purposefully towards him. When she reached the spot where he was sitting, she stopped and said in heavily accented English, “15 dollars, please”. “What for”, asked my bewildered cousin. “You sit in chair. 15 dollars charge”. “Then I stand up’ said Ravi and got out of the chair. “No good’, she insisted, “you already sat. You must pay”. “I won’t pay”, said Ravi and he walked away. She followed him, talking sharply in French. He started running and she ran after him. He was faster and soon reached the boundary, which he crossed, but which she couldn’t, as she would be fined 50 dollars if she stepped out of the nudists’ zone. Ravi turned back and smiled at the fuming nude lady and walked away, feeling quite pleased with himself.

Breaking the Magic Wand

They ask me how it feels
the day after

Does it hurt?
do you miss it all?

The routine. the role,
the camaraderie
the feel of belonging.

The burden, the deadlines.

The young minds – impressionable
the puzzled frown
the joy of the idea
the starry excitement
the faces volatile as knowledge unfolds

Do I miss all that?

Strangely enough, no.

Didn’t I love it all?
I ask myself.
Where, then, are the pangs?

Ripeness is all.
Stoicism born of a second lease of life !

Life -
to be celebrated
till the last breath

Every change brings a new horizon

So, how does it feel
the day after?

Serene as I scan the new skies
words falling around me like pleasant showers
‘you gave better than your best, mom’.
‘really m'am, we are proud to be your kids - we treasure your classes – sorry if we let you down – thank you’

What more can I ask?

Indian Abroad

My cousin Ravi and his wife Rola (names changed on request) visited me after a long time. They had relocated to a distant country and were visiting India after more than a decade. Like most people who visit India after a long time, they too were distressed about the condition of the roads, trains, buses, airports and most of all, of public toilet facilities in the country. The conversation led to the high tech facilities outside India, which make life comfortable for tourists. In this context they recalled an incident which makes me wish that someone would impress upon the Minister for Overseas Indians the imperative need to arrange orientation sessions for Indians who go abroad for the first time, in order to familiarize them with the high tech features in public facilities - or they would be caught in terribly embarrassing situations like Ravi and Rola who made their first European tour some twenty years back on a shoestring budget.


It happened in Switzerland, which, they swear, had the most sophisticated, high tech tourism facilities in the world. It was their first foreign tour and they traveled through the whole of Europe by Euro Rail. In Switzerland, while they were in transit in a station, they decided to use the paid shower facility, about which a fellow traveler had told them. It would be much cheaper than checking into a hotel to freshen up.

The minimum rate for a shower was 5 dollars for 8 minutes. Wincing at the thought of parting with 10 dollars for 2 baths, Ravi waited outside the shower unit while its door was being programmed for 8 minutes at the cash counter. As the door of the shower opened, Ravi got a brainwave. He shouted out to Rola to get into the shower along with him and take a quick bath. That way, he could kill two birds with one stone, and the other stone – 5 dollars - would remain safe in his pocket.

Rola had no time to think, ‘cos Ravi was frantically yelling out that that the door would close automatically and she would be locked out - and the poor girl literally hopped into the shower. The door closed. They quickly disrobed - and then the trouble started.

They had no inkling as to how to start the shower.

The familiar tap, which turns the shower on and off back home in India, was nowhere to be seen. They pushed/pressed/pulled every button, every lever, and every handle in the shower room, but the water refused to flow. They started a frantic search for some clue. Rola searched on her side of the wall while Ravi, searched on his, and then he literally crawled on all fours to find out if there were any hidden taps or switches or buttons on the floor. So preoccupied were they with the exercise of trying to decode the shower-operating trick that they didn’t realize that the 8 minutes were over. And horror of horrors! The door of the shower room opened automatically. Within seconds, the outer door of the shower room also opened and in walked a lady with fresh towel and soap for the use of the next customer. Her jaw dropped when she saw the two of them in the shower, in a state of total undress. What could poor Ravi and Rola do other than strike that classic Adam and Eve post-sin pose?

Rola, however, was the first to recover. Sheepishly, she asked the lady how to operate the shower. The lady was very helpful and assured them that she’d extend the time for another 8 minutes and left but not before looking at them with a mischievous smile and remarking “Indians having fun?”

Cry My Beloved Kerala

After each blog about Kerala I take a solemn vow that it’ll be my last. Many who visit my blogs on Kerala have come up with the uncomfortable poser that implies meaningless cribbing/all bark and no bite on my part – and they do have a point. Like they ask, what purpose does mere raving and ranting of a nonentity serve? Hence my resolve to keep mum while Kerala goes to the dogs its own way. But I find myself breaking that resolution over and over again. This time, the provocation was a heartbreaking sight I witnessed, peeping out through the blinds on the second floor of the building where I happened to be when the commotion took place.

Before I relate the episode, just a word about the significance of it: Right now, the opposition in Kerala is on the rampage, on account of a Class V11 textbook that they want withdrawn. Political parties no longer believe that ends DON’T justify the means. The concept of peaceful and civilized protest has been rooted out of the political soil of the state, and goonda raj reigns. Peeping out through the aforementioned blinds, I got a glimpse of the tragedy behind the goondaism in Kerala politics.

It was the last working day of the week at College. A handful of party workers (youth wing) shouted slogans outside the college gate and succeeded in getting the classes suspended for the day. This is a regular thing which we in the education sector have come to accept as part of ‘training the youth to become responsible citizens in a parliamentary democracy’. (Small wonder college teachers in Kerala chose to send heir children to the neighbouring states for post +2 education). To come back to the episode, as the trouble makers were withdrawing from the college gate after they achieved their goal, I ran to the window to have a good look at this tiny group which, in a matter of minutes, brought the days activities in an academic institution to a full stop.

What I saw continues to give me sleepless nights.

In all, there might have been 16-18 young men. Of those I spotted only five people who had that hard angry bigoted demeanor of seasoned party workers, the ‘leaders’ of the group. The rest were all young boys, very young boys, most certainly 2 or more years less than 20. Most of them were uniformed – probably from some professional or Arts & Science colleges that were trying to bring about discipline in their institutions by imposing the uniform rule. They stopped right below my window. The leaders started discussing something very animatedly. The hard, ruthless, pinched expressions on their faces and their aggressive, belligerent body language were scary, to say the least. In contrast, the fledglings who were with them just stood there looking from one leader to the other as the discussions continued. It was the expressions on their faces of these boys who have hardly shed their baby fat, that upset me. They were thoroughly bored, totally unenthusiastic, absolutely uninterested. Obviously they didn’t give a damn about any text that was prescribed for any class. They just stood there, some silent, some talking and laughing quietly at some private joke, obviously unconnected with the burning political issue at hand, while the ‘leaders’ continued their ‘serious’ decision on the ‘grave’ political issue. Soon the group split into two. One went northwards and the other southwards, led by the leaders. I saw the leaders say something to the their apprentices in both the groups as they moved in opposite directions. AS though following instructions, the youngsters – all of them- took out phones from their pockets and started speaking into them. In all likelihood, they were arranging reinforcement at the next venues to which they were headed to pursue their disruptive activities.

How did those boys, hardly out of their knickers, get into the company of these cantankerous characters up to no good, I wondered.

Were they paid for the day to add to the numbers of the strikers?

Were thy threatened and coerced into joining the party that meant nothing to them, to which they apparently had no ideological or any other affinity?

Where are they parents? Why are they so helpless that they can’t see to it that their offspring go to college and pursue their studies instead of becoming tools in the hands of anti social -yes, I mean anti social, it’s not a slip of the finger tips- elements?

My heart went out to the mothers whose hearts must be bleeding, at the fathers who must be racking their brains to figure out where they went wrong.

And I get an awful sinking feeling when I think of the fate of my beautiful Keralam whose future citizens are being moulded by such worthless scums.

My Friend Aleykutty

I have decided this shall be my last attempt to blog about my friend Aleykutty. All previous attempts (more than half a dozen) got aborted by my sense of inadequacy. I feared I could not capture in words her person and personality with the limited linguistic resources at my disposal. For how do you analyse what goes into the making of a gentle soul who can laugh at everything in this world, and most of all at herself and her troubles, be they pinpricks or rifle wounds? Life doles out its share of miseries to all – but unlike all of us, Aleykutty can laugh about her share of it. She has that capacity to step outside every trying situation she finds herself in, look at them from the outside with eyes of a story teller gifted with a keen sense of humour, and then talk about them as though they were scenes in a comic play in which she too has a role to play.

Her terrific sense of humour and fantastic narrative skill make her the best storyteller I have ever listened to. She has us in splits all the time.
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She was the nerve center of the Department (she has retired – how we miss her!). When she sits at the common table placed in the center of the room, others would leave their seats one by one and join her, as though drawn by an irresistible magnetic pull. And those memorable sessions round that table would be like laughter holding both her sides.

The subject of her hilarious stories is usually herself – she is the butt of most her jokes. She stayed in the staff hostel and went home on Friday evenings for the weekend. On Monday, she would arrive with her bagful of jokes and funny stories, built around her journey back and forth, and the weekend happenings in her house in the heart of rural Mid-Travancore.

Here’s one of her Monday stories. She was a little indisposed on a Friday but still chose to travel home, despite feeling nauseous. As soon as she got a seat in the bus, she fished out a couple of lemon flavoured wrapped toffees from her handbag, put one in her mouth and kept the other in her hand just in case she continued to feel pukish. Lost in a reverie, she didn’t hear the conductor asking her to buy the ticket, till he tapped her on the shoulder with the edge of his pencil. She shook herself out of the daydream and told him her destination, and then absent-mindedly handed the lemon-flavoured toffee to him, instead of the fare. The conductor’s eyes flew back and forth rapidly between the toffee lying in his palm and Aleykutty’s face, and then he said to her, “Madam, this is worth only 10 paise. The fare is three Rupees”. Aleykutty’s description of the conductor’s facial expression when she put the toffee into his palm would put the most established author of farcical comedy to shame.

Yet another journey story. This time, she was traveling in an overcrowded private bus, which stopped in a no-man’s land between two stops, in order to issue tickets. Aleykutty, who had a window seat, looked out and saw a barbershop with a name board “Chandrodayam”. From where she sat, she could see the comings and goings in the shop. She sat patiently, looking out of the window, watching rather abstractedly the activities in the barber shop, her eyes straying occasionally to the name board “Chandrodayam”. Soon the conductor came to issue tickets. She gave him three rupees. “Where to?” he barked. Absent minded, Aleykutty replied ”Chandrodayam”. The people sitting near her burst out laughing but the irate conductor snapped, “You don’t need a ticket to go to Chandrodayam, lady. Just get down from the bus and take ten steps forward.”

Aleykutty is not tall. She missed 5 ft by a little more than an inch. Of course, she has plenty of jokes and stories about that. Like this one, when, as a PG student, she was assigned the role of a judge in the College play. With the coat and powdered wig, she looked impressive on the high chair (specially provided to make the judge’s daunting presence fill the stage) in which she sat during the course of the scene. The most dramatic moment arrived. The verdict was going to be delivered. She got up (or down? as she herself puts it) from the high chair and the huge audience dissolved into laughter. The judge, whom they expected to loom large, was shorter standing up than sitting down. Struggling to keep a straight face, she managed to deliver the judgment to an audience in no mood now to listen to any solemn pronouncements. The curtain came down before time and the tragedy ended up as a tragic-comedy!

I have many many more stories told by Aleykutty – about herself, or about her interactions with life, enough to bring out a book titled Thus Spake Aleykutty. But no more stories, ‘cos they reduce her to a mere teller of funny stories, doer of funny deeds. She is more than that. Much more than that. And, I must ruefully admit that, once again, this effort to write about her has failed to achieve the desired results. For I have made no mention of the largeness of her heart, her generosity, her genial outlook on life, her refusal to be judgmental – all of which, and much more, form the stuff she is made of. And if ever there was a person with no airs whatsoever about her, it was Aleykutty. The unassuming manner in which she conducted herself and the self- deprecating manner of speech misled many into placing her below the millionaire slot to which she actually belonged. Never have I come across a more modest, unpretentious, self-effacing person, or one whose sense of humor kept her so alive and sensitive to the lighter side of life.

The Kite Runner - A Novel by Khaled Hosseini

A week since I finished reading it

Am still reeling from the impact
Still trembling before the human tragedy
The enormity of it

They haunt me
Those tear streaked faces of children
Orphaned, hungry, terrified
The worst wounds of decades
Of political unrest

Where the clear stream of reason has lost its way
Into the dreary desert sands of dead habits
Tagore’s words –how true of Hosseini’s fictional world

How I wish it were just that
A fictional world

Kalpana

I'll always remember Kalpana 'cos of two unforgettable incidents in which she was the protagonist, and I, a helpless, supporting actor.She was a PUC student in a college in the then Madras where I was doing my masters. But she was almost a foot taller than me - mebbe that explains the allotment of the afore mentioned roles. We became good friends 'cos we travelled together back home for vacations. While I got off at Bangalore, she proceeded to Mysore from where she was 'picked up' by her mother and taken to Coorg. Yes. she had to be picked up- or she would have landed back in Madras. - that's how much she had her wits about her.

Once, we were returning to college after vacation. WE took an auto from the station. The auto took an unfamiliar route. We just had to come all the way down the Mount Road and then turn to the Cathedral Road to reach our college. Instead, the auto turned into a small lane as soon as it entered the Mount Road and went through small gullies we had never taken during all our days in Madras.

Kalpana, despite her size, got jittery. 'N-e-w r-o-u-t-e-,' she spelt out, for fear the driver might follow spoken English.

I nodded and kept silent, keeping a keen eye on the road.

Kalpana got more jittery. 'He might take a l-o-n-e-l-y r-o-a-d-(she spelt out the hyphenated words) and r-a-p-e us". She sounded scared by now.

But soon, the auto turned into the Cathedral Road and we were relieved. Kalpana made something like a sign of the cross and loudly heaved a sigh of relief.

WE reached the college gate. The young auto driver helped us with the luggage. Kalpana paid him and he spelt out with a twinkle in his eyes, 'T-h-a-n-k y-o-u, m-a-d-a-m'

The second episode was not just funny. It made me angry enough to twist her head off her neck if i could reach that high. WE were going home for summer vacation. Kalpana had fifteen pieces of luggage which we piled into a cab with a carrier. The cab charged us a bomb, and both of us were furious - she with the cab driver, and I with him and Kalpana. As soon as we reached the station, the porters pounced on us. Kalpana knew no Tamil and so I started to bargain with them. Kalpana suddenly let out an excited yell and pointed her long finger towards the trolleys parked under a "self service' name board. I was a little hesitant, cos the porters warned us that we will not be able to handle the trolley. Kalpana pooh poohed what she thought was a sexist remark and proudly strode all her six feet towards the trolley. She pushed it with great ease towards our luggage and together we piled our luggage (her 15 pieces, and three of mine)on to it.. And then we took the two ends of the handle and pushed. The trolley refused to move. I began to feel embarassed but Kalpa would not give up. She pushed and pushed and panted and puffed. The trolley moved one millionth of an inch forward and then refused to be pushed around. I looked at Kalpana whose face had become the colour of tomato. She stared back at me with a never-say-die expression and pushed. And then she did something whch made me want to do the same thing to her. She gave the trolley a violent kick and then let out a yelp, holding her toes and hopping around. By now, the porters were guffawing loudly and a crowd began to gather. I begged Kalpana to let the porters do their job. 'Never', she snapped at me. 'I'll finish this damned thing I've started'. An onlooker then let us into the trick of the trade. He suggested that we check the iron wheels of the trolley and set all four in the same direction and then push. WE went round the trolley and found that that while two wheels were forward looking, the other two were turned in two different directions. With a clenched fist pumping the air, Kalpana let out a triumphant "yes' and we went about fixing the wheels. and pushed. Hurray! the trolley began to move. The audience(porters included) applauded, laughed, hurrayed. WE pushed the trolley smoothly , followed by a large crowd in the Central Station of Madras, with passers by looking at us and grinning from ear to ear, and I wanted drop dead then and there but kill Kalpana before that happened. We must have pushed for about two minutes and then the trolley began to behave like the dhobi's donkey. It stopped and refused to move. By now Kalpana had become a mechanical expert and started adjusting the wheels while I stood there holding the handle sullenly. WE pushed the trolley again. The crowd had grown larger and their excitement increased seeing that Kalpana's colour had turned from tomato's to beet root's. Some one remarked that she was going in for a heart attack. Some one chided me for not pushing with all my might and letting my friend down. The porters loudly remarked that they should look for some other employment. No need, some one said. We'll enrol the ladies in our union. Some one emphatically disagreed.'don't think we'll have any use for the shorter one', he said. I bore it all but did not grin. I began to wonder why the almighty did not choose that momnent to use his legendary thunderbolts to punish me for all the sins i had committed in my life. If media menace was what it is today, that sensational scene would have been on the front page of all the national dailies the next day.

Just then we heard a very refined voice asking us if he can be of help. I turned around and saw a man in his thirties, looking sympathetically/disgustedly? at the two of us who were making a spectacle of ourselves there in the big metro railway station. Gratefully, we handed the trolley to him and he pushed it without much ado. The crowd disappeared slowly-so did the porters. The man unloaded the luggage, put them into our compartment, and started to leave. I asked him what his name was. I took the initiative 'cos i had a terrible feeling that Kalpa was going to throw her arms around his neck and cry on his shoulders. I must surely spare him that, after his wonderful service."Never mind my name. Only, don't bite off more than you can chew', he said and vanished in the crowd.

I've lost touch with Kalpana completely. Wonder if she is somewhere reading this.

From My Commuting Days - An Unforgettable Journey and its Fallout

This is just to put the records straight.

Residing in Cochin and working in Changanasserry, I commuted the distance, enjoying the hospitality of the Indian railways.

It was an unusually humid day in November and the train arrived on the dot at the Changanassery station (a rare, rare event – a minister or a top railway official must have been traveling in that train). I had heard the whistle of the train as soon as I took the turn to the short stretch leading to the station, and broke into a run. As I entered the platform, the engine was chugging and the gangman’s hand holding the green flag was beginning to rise. Seeing me hop, skip and jump across the railway platform, his hand suddenly began to behave like those shots in slow motion, and I hopped on to the general compartment behind the engine (my favourite ladies’ compartment was right at the back – would never have made it there even if I were faster than PT Usha). In a second the train started.

The compartment was jam-packed and I started excuse- me- excuse- me- pleeese my way through the crowd. Just then a friend who was seated comfortably in the side seat got up chivalrously and offered me the seat, which I took, giving him a grateful smile in return. In less than 5 minutes I started dozing. When the train stopped at Kottayam 20 minutes later, a huge crowd tried to fight its way into the compartment while an equally huge crowd pushed and cursed trying to get out of the compartment. Abusive words were freely traded. The train started, and loud angry voices could be heard in the crowded compartment for sometime.

It was the season of Sabarimala pilgrimage, and a large number of Aiyyappa devotees had boarded the train at Kottayam. One of them (apparently from Tamilnadu) stood near me. I think he was one of those hardcore devotees who had taken the vow to grow his hair uncombed for how long I don’t know - and the knotty, brittle copperish hued strands hung around his shoulders. He must have been terribly tired, 'cos, as soon as the train picked up speed, he squirmed his way down through the pressing crowd to sit on the floor of the compartment. Amazed, I first looked down at him sitting there in the space he carved out for himself in that jungle of trousered and saree/salwar draped legs, and then up at the irritated expressions on the faces of the owners of those legs. Then I fell asleep, into a deep deep sleep for more than an hour while the train sped to the next station Piravam Road.

AS the train approached Piravam Road, I came slowly out of the deep slumber. As usual, I became conscious of my surroundings even before I opened my eyes. Then I felt something rather heavy on my lap. I cautiously opened my eyes into thin slits and looked. To my horror and distress, I saw that Aiyappa devotee’s head with the knotty hair resting peacefully on my lap! He was fast asleep!

I snapped my eyes shut immediately, cos I knew that the people around were eagerly waiting for me open my eyes and react.

God, how embarrassed I was! My mind got busy immediately, trying to figure out how I can get that head off my lap. Soon a brilliant idea struck me and, still pretending to be fast asleep I brought my handbag (which I always clutch close to my heart no matter how deeply I sleep) down on the head resting so comfortably on my lap. I made sure it appeared like the unconscious action of a person fast asleep – and it worked. The weight left my lap all on a sudden. I waited for sometime and then opened my eyes, taking care to appear like a person coming out of a deep sleep. The rest of the journey was uneventful, while I sat looking out, refusing to meet the eyes of my friends and acquaintances who stood around.

That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But truth, unfortunately, has a way of getting distorted.

Apparently, the word had got around – and real fast too, as I discovered the minute I joined my travel companions the next day morning on the railway platform. The minute they saw me, they burst out laughing and asked me how it felt after the yeoman service I rendered to a tired devotee the previous day. I took it all in good humour and sportingly took part in the bantering repartee.

And oh, the story spread. And how? not in its original form, but spiced with plenty of mirch masala. Some versions had it that in my sleep, I clutched that head and held it close thinking it was my handbag! With passing years, the story grew in quantity and quality, and spread among the teaching community of my university, seasoned with mustard and cumin seeds, garnished with curry patha and dhanya patha.

Almost two years after that eventful journey, I was at the centralized valuation camp. Three days after I joined the camp, a teacher from another table came to mine where I sat with the six others in my group, and asked who Miss K-------------- was. That’s me, I said. What can I do for you?

Oh, that’s OK, he said and walked off with a smile on his face. Perplexed, I sat there looking at his receding back and then went back to my work. A couple of minutes later, two more came with the same question. I repeated my words and they too went away without offering any explanation, but with the same smile on their faces. When the next batch came, the teachers in my group took over and insisted that the visitors explain their interest in me. And they did. They wanted to see the lady who traveled 100 kilometers by rail with a Sabarimala pilgrim’s head cradled on her lap.

The next day, I arrived a little late for the valuation. But my friends in my group greeted me with dancing eyes and a loud swamyeeeeeei, aiyyappo!

The story continues to grow. I don’t attend the camps any more but my friends tell me that the story continues to do the rounds. The sabarimala pilgrim, some said, had hair up to his knees. And throughout the journey, I was having a snoring competition with the man! Of course, my fingers were intertwined with his knotty locks, and one passenger had even detected a louse crawling up my hand.

Hillary Clinton is out - How sad!

i feel sad
infinitely sad
granted I know precious little about US politics.
but I know a lot of women here wished to see a woman in the most powerful seat.

guess on our part there’s a deficiency of understanding of the debated issues.
and so our take is this:
she lost out
‘cos she is a woman
and women still live under glass ceiling in the US.
She lost out
‘cos she is a fighter
one hell of a fighter
and might prove to be the ‘only man in the cabinet’
as Smt. Indira Gandhi once did.

and so the muscle flexers of the party
opted for an unknown person
on the strength of a book
and charm of his silver tongue

and the popular appeal of reverse racism
was on their side
in their fight against having a woman call the shots.

of course these are just
the jottings of a woman
with just a superficial knowledge of Am politics.

but there are many such ill informed women like me here
who feel sad.
infinitely sad

My Eyebrows

No. I am not anything like Cleopatra with her legendry nose. My eyebrows could never have created or changed history. But I can safely say that, in my part of the world, I was one among the first generation “pluckers”, as women with shaped eyebrows were called derisively/disapprovingly then.

It all began(Scene 1) with my friend Rachel coming late to class one day, looking different and chic. In no time we noticed that it was the upper half of her face that gave her that sophisticated look. Suddenly my friend Nilu (a Punjabi girl who always resented Sr. M… R…’s constant reminder about young girls behaving in a lady like manner) let out a howl. Sr. C, who was emoting the angst of King Lear dropped her Clarendon Shakespeare and looked at Nilu as though she were a ghost. The two girls and I who sat to Nilu’s left, jumped up and out of our skins and scrambled away, out of the room. Our plump friend who sat to her right jumped out of the window which was next to her, on to the veranda. Pandemonium prevailed in the lecture room while the rest of the girls in the classroom tried to run out. The teacher and students from the adjacent classroom gathered outside our class room, looking scared. Anyway, before a stampede could start, we heard Nilu shout at the top of her voice ‘it’s all right, it’s all right. I’m fine. Please stop.’ Her voice seemed to come from the skies and I followed it to find that she was standing on the desk (not even on the bench), looking sheepish, but gesturing like a music conductor, trying to calm the students, teachers and all. In reply to Sr. C‘s anxious question, she said “it’s Ok sister. I just had a bad dream”

Words fail me when I try to describe the expression on Sister C's face. By nature she was an affectionate and charitable soul but a little jumpy. Left to herself, she’d have laughed it off once she got a grip over herself but the teacher next door, who was watching the whole show, insisted that Nilu be hauled up - and she was. Properly. For howling, sleeping during the lecture and standing up on the desk! She had to explain how she fell so deeply asleep as to have a nightmare. She stuck to her guns but, later, told us her confidantes (5 of us) why she let out that eerie sound. As soon as Rahel walked in, she noticed that she had shaped her eyebrows!! Nilu, having grown up in Delhi and having moved around in the sophisticated circles there, had been a strong advocate for shaping the eyebrows. She felt that we southies were lacking in grooming. And she used to be at me all the time, to get me to shape my eyebrows. When Rachel walked in, Nilu saw that she had influenced at least one of her laidback southie friends, and felt so triumphant that she lost her head and forgot that she was sitting through the most tragic part of King Lear.

After Rachel took the first step, Nilu increased the pressure on me to prune my eyebrows. And Rachel joined her too, probably because she wanted a partner in the crime. Most of our class mates were teasing her all the time, or giggling, guffawing when she passed them.

Now a word about my eyebrows.

They were thick, wild and joined at the centre, and were the most prominent feature of my face. Nilu thought it looked like the wild growth at Tintern Abbey. Now, with Rachel on her side, she doubled her attack till I finally gave in.

Scene 2 took place during the lunch break, in a quiet small class room in the corner. Rachel had come with all the tools required for landscaping my face. (Her pardesi cousin had taught how to go about maintaining shaped eyebrows). The operation shaping began. One of our gang stood watch at the door, but no one came in there till the deed was done. I looked at my self in the mirror. I looked different-couldn’t decide if the change was for the better or worse ‘cos it was a small mirror which couldn’t show my full face.

The curtain went up on Scene 3 when I reached home. I wanted to walk in unnoticed, which was impossible in my house because amma would be waiting for me in the porch when it was time for me to reach home. Yes. She was there. Her face changed the minute she saw me. Anxious eyes wandered over my face but she simply couldn’t make out what had happened to it! Very gently she asked me if I was feeling fine. Not convinced by my exaggeratedly chirpy yes, she placed the back of her palm on my forehead to check my temperature. Then she let me go, but the puzzled, anxious expression followed me. A minute later she came into my room to tell me I should not take bath in cold water as I always do. Throughout the evening, I noticed that her eyes kept straying to my face. I still marvel at the fact that she could not put her finger on what caused the change in my appearance. In a few days’ time, she got used to my new look!

There were no more eyebrow episodes for the next two years when I went to a college in the big metro where I always enjoyed the anonymity that is the welcome companion of a nonentity who wants nothing except to keep a low profile. But the trouble began two years later (scene 4 starts here) when I was catapulted into a small town in mid-travancore, the heart of nazrani orthodoxy, with a job as a lecturer in a women’s college. In the 4000 strong college, there were less than 10 students who shaped their eyebrows. On the other side of the desk, I was the only one. Little wonder I came to be known as “plucker” – for plucking out hair to keep the eyebrows shapely. From anonymity to cynosure of attention – what a painful traumatic transition it was. I dreaded leaving my room in the staff hostel in the mornings. The students seemed to get into a state of excitment whenever they sat in my class or passed by me in the campus. The ‘plucker’ students looked at me with the expression reserved for a comrade – in-arms. My colleagues tried to keep a poker face – which scarcely concealed the glee? amusement? disapproval? marvel that one reserves for an ET.

Well. I survived it. And my eyebrows too. Like an arty novel or film, the story concluded with the protagonist merging with the crowd, losing her /his identity, for my eyebrows gradually lost its unique quality with people on both side of the desk taking to shaping theirs - - - -

Kerala Cracking Down on Unholy Holy Men

The Kerala TV viewers are having a thumping time, and plenty to talk about, what with godmen/ holymen/ swamis/ healers / preachers surfacing, getting caught, absconding and walking into police station with a gun, threatening to commit suicide!!

From Kasarkode to Kanyakumari, the police is on the rampage raiding "ashrams', and the holy men on the run.

What a laughable situation!

Who would have thought a few street smart imposters could have taken the intelligent malayalee for such a royal ride? Isn’t literacy supposed to be a protection against gullibility? One should think not, considering the number of false prophets that are being smoked out - and all of them thrived on the gulliblity of a people who take immense pride in having mastered the three r’s!

Oh yes. These godmen did make their money. And how? One amassed wealth throwing eggs on the wall and making predictions about the future of those who approached him, based on design and colour of the egg matter dribbling down the wall !!! A whopping three hundred crores of rupees is supposed to have passed through “Swami” Santhosh Mandhavan’s Bank account. And he has dabbled in everything from making porn films to raping to drug dealing to hawala to - you name it. Most of these Swami Amrutachaithanyas and Himaval Maheswara Bhadranadjis and those mushrooming Christian religious preachers have huge real estate holdings.Their nexus with politicians and Police have made this God's own land a gold mine for these Godmen and women.

Now, the Kerala government is planning to hold an inter-departmental inquiry into the assets of these false gurus from all religious communities. We can now sit back and laugh at ouselves for having fallen pray to the worms that are going to crawl out of the can.

Kennedy in Kerala

This ttle might sound strange, but the Kennedys have a close and long lasting connection with Kerala. John Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline dominated the imagination of this state in the sixties. As the first catholic president of the US, he was a rage in the catholic community of Kerala. I was in the primary school when John Kennedy became the president of the US. Those were the days when the only news media available were the newspaper and the radio. I do not remember the excitement in my house when he beat Nixon – but I clearly remember the aftermath. The elders at home talked about the famous debate which turned things around for the young democrat. In the typical Malayalee style, men made dramatic declarations with matching gestures about Nixon’s discomfiture when Kennedy doled out his punch lines (all figments of imagination, I’m sure-there was no U tube or small screen in those days).
I think it was Kennedy’s ascent to the White House which prompted my father to subscribe to the Life and Time magazines. Even as a child I used to be fascinated by this handsome couple. Though I understood nothing, I faithfully looked everyday at the pictures that came out in the magazine –and preserved them till the eighties (all were lost when we relocated - or I would have had a collector's stuff now)
I remember the Cuban crisis. My sister was in the US at that time, and I still remember my mother telling me to get down on my knees and pray that Khrushchev calls back his fleet instead of defying Kennedy’s blockade! God hears children’s prayers, she told me. I remember the celebrations when the Russian premier allowed his better sense to prevail. Kennedy’s victory was like a personal victory for all at home-which included me ( Today I have different notions of who the villain and who the hero were).
I remember the day he was assassinated. Everybody seemed shell shocked. I was in the 5th std then and the school declared 2 days holiday!!! It was a catholic school. I don’t think it was officially declared but we had no classes. When I went to school after two days, I found my class teacher (a nun) in a state of shock. She was talking in terms of canonizing John F. Kennedy!! Thanks to the poor reach of media in those days, Kennedy’s bohemian ways were unknown to my part of the world. I remember the seamstress Cicily thathi (she was a storehouse of knowledge http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2008/02/cicily-thaathi.html) asking with tears in her eyes “what’s the motivation for Kennedy’s widow to remain alive now?” I still remember the stunned, numb expression on her face when Jacqueline remarried. She couldn’t get over it for days – and she and the rest of the household passed on that resentment to me.
Kennedy is a common name in Kuttanaad, the catholic stronghold in Kerala. I don’t know if, with the priggish Nazrani sense of morality(http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2008/04/evolution-of-nazrani.html), these name bearers are embarrassed by their name.
The story goes that in the mid eighties, Jackie traveled incognito in Kerala. As she took a boat ride through Kuttanaad, she was shocked to have been recognized by almost everyone who saw her!
Again, when she flew down to Trivandrum and took a pre-paid taxi to the hotel where she had booked, the car driver told her he’ll step on it so tat she can catch at least the last part of the Kennedy serial that was being aired by Doordarshan!!
A coincidence. A couple of days back, Father Teddy, my colleague came home to pay us a visit. In the course of the casual conversation, I told him that Teddy is an unusual name in Kerala. He told me he was named after the last of the Kennedy brothers! Hardly were the words out when the news item came scrolling on the TV screen that Edward Kennedy was taken ill!

Are Mallu Males Perverts?

If making passes at women whenever they get a chance is an index of perversion, well, there are a large number of men in kerala who are perverts. now the question here is, are there a larger number of perverts among males in kerala than in other staes? sadly enough, the answer is yes. there was a time when i used to argue with pardesi mallus about this. i insisted that if there are such perverts at large in kerala, there are an equal number in the other states too. i dont insist on that line of argument any more. After living in Mumbai for more than six years, i must admit that it is a much more pleasant place for a woman to live in and travel about. men mind their own business and are not eternally trying to paw at women.

this is an issue (higher incidence of perversion among mallu males than in males from other parts of india) i hate to talk about 'cos i dont believe in stereotyping. but recently, i had occasion to spend some time with a youngster just out of an engineering college in chennai. he told me horrible, nightmarish stories about ragging there(he made me promise not to blog about it or mention the name of the college till his results are out!!). what shocked and upset me was his emphatic statement that the worst bullys are mallu boys. their ragging is intolerable - and terribly perverted. and there is what is called networked ragging, where mallu boys from various colleges in the city exchange freshers for ragging!! since ragging is not the issue here, i wont dwell on the subject. the point is, mallus are known, aknowledged and accepted as the worst, most perverted, most innovative hazers in all institutions in the country where ragging takes place.

i wish someone would tell me i've been wrongly informed.

http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2009/04/are-mallu-males-perverts-answer.html - pl check thos posts. it's a response from an honest response from a male mallu which i posted, as i was impressed by the honesty. Besides, it throws light on the issue.

Why Godmen become Godless

We have seen this happen far too often. Men of god switching sides. From god’s own people, they switch over to the league of his archenemy. Why does this happen?

Before ruminating over this distressful fact, let’s take a look at this category called god men. There are two types in this category.

Type 1- Scoundrels and fraudsters who don the robe and colours of godmen, capitalizing on 1. human gullibility, and 2. human greed and dissipation. These fraudsters partner with the latter and thrive on the former. The swamis who are hogging the media attention in Kerala at the moment belong to this category. They are petty criminals but perverted geniuses.

Type 2 – These are men with more power than ordinary human beings. Some have prophetic powers. They are, more often than not, full of words of wisdom. And all of them are magnetic personalities who attract people like magnet draws metal dust and shavings. Some of them display magical power like snatching objects out of the thin air. Some of this type usually carry on unscathed till the end of their lives, not getting embroiled in too many controversies, while some fall into disgrace.

It is the Type 2 that interests me. For they are people who have tapped the hidden human potential more than the average person has. It requires considerable discipline, commitment and a deep- rooted faith in the self to acquire that level of control over human faculties. Their methodology of achieving the seemingly superhuman feats can be emulated for personality building or offered as a structured package in schools where the future of a nation lies, or in civil service personnel training institutions where the custodians of the nations administration are trained, or in all in -house training programmes. For, what this type does is to address that flaw in human personality referred to so pithily in that saying ‘the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’. Their forte is the realization and conviction that with rigorous discipline spelt out by our forefathers in the yogic and similar practices, the weakness of the flesh can be overcome.

It is sad that these men (Type 2) who have succeeded in conquering that insurmountable obstacle to human progress called flesh, should eventually use their power to gratify the flesh. That is when they become corrupt, lose their transparency and become surrounded by coterie and start indulging in anti social and anti national activities.

Why does this happen? After turning this over in my mind for a long time I found the answer. Power corrupts, ever power over the self, unless this power is drawn from a spiritual source. Disciplining the mind should go in tandem with spiritual growth. The empowered mind divorced from the spirit will tip the equilibrium in favour of the flesh, causing a craving to gratify the flesh. The spirit is the conscience that should ideally guide the empowered mind. The spirit is God. Mind power in a spiritually unsound person can be dangerous. It makes these ‘Godmen’ drunk with their mind power. Display of magical powers in the presence of devotees is an effort to ensure large fan following – to keep the herd in their trail.

I wonder if Mahatma Gandhi would qualify to be categorized as a true Godman. At least he made an honest effort to simultaneously develop his mental and spiritual powers. Perhaps he did not succeed fully, but the effort was genuine. This should convince us that true godmen are not available a dime a dozen.

I think I have met a true Godman. Met him a few times. I was a middle school girl then and did not know or care about this godmen phenomenon. He was a priest, must have been in his seventies, skinny as skinny could be, with a long long pepper and salt beard. He wore round Gandhi glasses. The minute I saw him, I felt I was in the presence of untainted goodness. Don’t ask me what gave me that feeling. Was it that smile so full of peace and love for mankind(?)?. I didn’t know anything much about him then. Today I hear his canonization moves are afoot! People who knew him say that he always kept a low profile, lead a simple life and walked miles and miles to see people, no matter what their station in life, to give a word of solace, a healing touch to the wounded heart.

Can’t remember having met another like him.

Because She is a Woman

I notice a certain shifting of position, a re-ordering of values and criteria when men talk about women in high position. I am not talking of that common breed of the male species branded mcp. It’s those liberal, fair-minded and intellectually poised men that I have in mind. Recently, while I was in the company of half a dozen men whom I would place in the latter category, Jayalalitha and Hillary Clinton figured in the conversation. Jayalalitha was corrupt to the core, they stated emphatically. Her style of functioning provided a major role for goondaism. The tone and tenor of the conversation became venomous in a controlled, suave manner – but the appearance of objectivity/impartiality was maintained by a careful use of diction. I pointed out that corruption and goondaism aren’t Jayalalitha’s forte alone. Most stalwarts in regional politics specialize in this. But in unison, they proved me wrong. They tabled a list of Jayalalitha’s real estate acquisition across the globe. The information came from dependable sources. Sources were quoted. Did these sources do a research into, say Karunanidhi’s wealth, or Deve Gowda’s for that matter? The question was dismissed with a casualness which suggested they hadn’t – and the listing out of the malpractices of the ‘film star turned politician with a dubious background’ continued with controlled heat bordering on the danger zones that threatened to rip off that mask of objectivity and poise. The long and short of it is this: it doesn’t matter if Gowda and K’ nidhi are corrupt - after all they are MEN. No. They don’t believe in condoning corruption. But they shrug off corruption as inevitable when the practitioner is a male politician. Corrupt men create much much less shock waves than corrupt women. That is the unwritten, unspoken truth.

Hillary Clinton too sufered the same fate in the hands of these men. It is not that they were anxious about uncle sam succumbing to the embraces of Cleopatra. What I could sense was a deep seated but unspoken resentment that she did not have the weaknesses associated with a woman, and she was smart, and stable in time of crisis, and she dared to aspire for the most powerful seat in the world!. Their list of her fatal flaws included vanity, arrogance, overconfidence and of course, corruption – all of which would be soft peddled in a male leader . And they wont give her a chance.

Strange, how men have an extra antenna up when it comes to a woman achiever. It is specially programmed to pick up flaws which would be highlighted in red when they are detected in the female species, but would have an ‘ignore all’ command given in default when picked up in the male species.

my take: A sin is a sin whether a man or woman commits it. Not only ceaser’s wife, ceaser too must be above blame. Corruption in public servants is detestable. A fraudulent practice is no more heinous because a woman commits it, or any less scandalous when a man commits it. No separate standards for the sexes, please!

Remember what the great teacher once(and for all) said without mincing words? Whoever has not sinned can cast the first stone.

PS. Strangely enough, Indira Gandhi did not suffer the same fate as Jayalalaitha or Hillary Clinton did in the hands of these men. When she surfaced in the conversation, it was I who protested against the tributes given to her in turns. I don’t understand how the lady managed to unsex herself in the eyes of these gentlemen. Or are Indian men incurable dynastic rule advocates?

An Apology for Srinivasan's Katha Parayumbol

I got a couple of comments to the post on katha parayumbol, to the effect that it is a substandard film; given below is a cut and paste of my response to them, showing why i like this film:

guess u have a point.

but it's not realism that i looked for in this movie. true, anavalmothiram, vadakku nokki yanthram, Chinthavishtayaya shyamala etc pay more attention to realistic details--but look at his works in a chronological order. you'll find a change-a movement from the realistic to the symbolic. ( all prolific writers show this tendency ). chinthanvishayaya shyamala is less dependent on realistic techniques than his earlier ones. kathaparayumbol has moved more to the symbolic plane- it's like a fable which goes something like this: 'once upon a time there was a small village in the remote highlands of kerala, where lived a good and honest barber balan'. Then balan's fortunes(misfortunes?) are traced. the social context in which this man lives is represented in typical, not realistic manner. all the usual srinivasan ingredients are thrown in, in a deliberately stereotyical exaggerated manner - for the focus of the movie is on

1. the character dileneation of balan -which all of you must admit is done in an excellent manner -with extreme realism - and with no jaada.

2. the fickless of the herd which is shown through stereotyped portrayal. perhaps opting for realistic techniques for this aspect would have made this movie an all time classic but i think balan's character dileneation and the spectacular performance by srinivasan make this film a real worthwhile experience.

besides, i know a person who is so very much like balan the barber - guess that's one reason i could relate--

SRINIVASAN KATHA PARAYUMBOL

braving a migraine, i went to the theater to see katha prayumbol, 'cos my friend Bhawani insisted that it is a must- see movie.

i think it is Srinivasan's master peice. and i am glad i went to the theater to see the film, instead of seeing it on the small screen. it was a great experience. being surrounded, yes, physically surrounded by feelings- cos that is what the movie is all about. about feelings. the feelings of a do gooder, the type you occasionally come across in life but never go ga ga about 'cos she/he keeps a very low profile, is shy about the world coming to know about his instinctive goodness and genorosity. you know, one of those uncomplicated types whose right hand does not know what the left hand does, who believes in minding his own business, in doing an honest job to make an honest living. and one who yearns only for an innocuous existence.

what a well executed film! -dont think i have seen many Indian films like that. cant think of another movie so free of mush which yet got tears streaming down my face out of sheer happiness? or a more complex set of emotions?

when is this genius of a filmaker going to be recognised? i dont think there could be many others who can take you on the journey through the labrynthian complexities of the human mind, laughing all the way but, all the time, making you intensley conscious of dark horrors that lurk in it.

but unlike his usual scripts, katha parayumbol is no dark comedy. oh yes, it has plenty of frames which offer saritical- bordering- on- farcical representations of human vanities - enough to make the film a super entertainer. but then, those are not surface ornamentations but essential weaves in the fabric of the film, showing us how the world appears to a man of the protagonist's nature. Therein lies the beauty of the film.

it's not one of those selfconscious experimental films. it's a plain, simple and honest narrative with a fabular quality. in katha parayumbol, Srinivasan brings down that artificial separation between art/parallel and mainstream movies.

But then we can say that of all his works.

Food for Thought

All on a suuden, everyone is talking of food.

By way of explanation for wheat shortage, Sharad Pawar , Minister for Agriculture, picked on South Indians for taking to chapati eating habit.

Minister for Commerce Kamal Nath thinks that poor people have suddenly developed enhanced appetite. Hence the government is faced wth the new challenge of providing additional meal per day for 15 million people.

And now, the President of America feels anxious about Indian middle class eating healthy, causing global food and economic crisis.

Food riots breaking out in different parts of the world. Food items being rationed even in developed countries.

And the Big brother expects the rest of the world to take care of global food requirements, while he converts food to fuel in order to deal with rising oil price as also to presrve his own oil reserves.

At the bottom line, it's all about food.

When Einstein said “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones", I guess he had no inkling that World War III may be fought over food.

Is our civilization heading back to its primordial ways ?

Who is the fittest that will survive?

George Bush on India's Eating Habits!

Bush said it- bluntly. as he always does. blunt talk. Many tend to dismiss him as cerebrally challenged when he comes out with these what appears to be his usual foot-in-the-mouth statements. The fact is, he was only voicing what the policy makers of America always believed in – no Asian country , be it Iraq or Iran or India, had any right to existence if they posed a threat to American economic interests. Bush was always the voice of the selfish, self-centred uncle sam who honestly believes in making the world safe for America at any cost. He is undiplomatically frank about it. Years back, Woodrew Wilson delicately rationalized Americas entry into the first world war with that ‘makng the world safe for democracy” bit, when actually what he meant was making the world safe for America. That is the great American dream, whatever else idealists might eulogise.


Ok. What if Indians are eating nutritious food and, as a result, the world is ravaged by inflation? What should India do? Starve her people so that American inflation can be capped? Condolleeza Rice’s anxiety about India putting a cap on exports to feed her increasingly affluent population, thereby causing supply shortage in the first world has, one must assume, made her president paranoid. His earlier paranoia led him to create havoc in Afghanistan and Iraq. He still harbours paranoia about Iran. Now it is India that haunts his nightmares. Guess it is China’s devil may care attitude arising from military and economic strengths that prompts him to keep silent about the eating habits of the Chinese people!

Ominous statements that cannot be ignored or taken lightly. Since independence, India has managed to retain her identity in her foreign and domestic policies. Her Non alignment policy, closed economy, nuclear programme, her pro-active role in Bangla Desh liberation and the successful run of democracy for six decades have made the world sit up and look at her as a force to be reckoned with. But the US did not feel threatened by her because poverty and famine were her companions in the post independence period. Now that India has achieved self sufficiency in food, and is well on the way to becoming a super power who can call the shots on many issues, uncle sam is getting jittery.

In the context of such menacing statements, it becomes very important that India strengthens herself politically, economically and militarily. This is a warning to all political parties to keep aside their individual agendas and behave responsibly in a statesmen like manner. The statement of the president of America cannot be dismissed as a gauche turn of phrase.

I GOT MY CENTURY

I get my century the minute I post this blog, I feel happy that I achieved this feat, despite being under the weather for a year.

Much water has flowed under the bridge since I posted my first blog ”Criminally Enlightened”. I traveled extensively to discover my India. I took ill but fought my way back to good health, with the help of near and dear ones. I blogged and blogged reveling in the freedom afforded by my space in the virtual domain – the freedom to be myself, to say whatever I please regardless of how insignificant or irrelevant my words were to the real world I inhabited. I reached out to kindred souls in that virtual space, who took my extended hands and shared thoughts and feelings through their comments and posts. I discovered that this space was also inhabited by some who could not see eye to eye with me on many issues. Their responses introduced, not discordant notes, but a complex dimension to this harmony of souls in this virtual world.

My hundred blogs represent, among other things, a journey into myself to discover and resurrect dormant or forgotten spaces in that unexplored region of memory.

Through this new form of self expression, I confront myself.

May God bless whoever discovered this platform for creativity.