Ideamarked! December 2010: Internet Delights, Online Wars, Schooltime Nostalgia, Curd Rice, Romance, Art & Writing

I’ve had a busy December, what with friends from out-of town, the big relationship questions, getting started on the Yahoo! Real Beauty arrangement and a month-long writing exercise (you’ll have to read further to know what!). But I still managed to keep an eye on things of mutual interest, dear reader. *Pause for applause* I’m feeling upbeat and high-spirited this month. So be nice and leave a comment or two telling me what you think and what else you’d like to see.

• This would have been par de course in an 80s Bollywood flick dhak-dhak style! (via AwkwardFamilyPhotos)
• Getting ready for the Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2011.
• This really appeals to the Ideartist in me! (via PS-IMadeThis)
• A month-long writing exercise with a daily prompt (via Reverb10) Hat-tipped by Lakshmi Jagad. Also see my posts on this, here.
• I first heard this song featured on the soundtrack of ’13 Going On 30′ and then fell in love with it. It was the theme song of my journey to the big Three-O and beyond. (Billy Joel’s Vienna Waits For You via YouTube)
• Two drifters off to see the world, there’s so much of world to see. A classic. (Breakfast in Tiffany’s Moon River via YouTube)
• Stoopid copywriters, funny fails! (via Failblog)
• An interesting concept: Turning off your phone as a technological gesture of affection. (via Arzan Wadia)
• Some of us miss the forest for the trees. And then there are those who remind us to stop and pick a fruit and savour it before burning the forest down. (Ashwini Mishra on the small things)
• I came upon this blog from a reader response. It took me back to my early days of blogging when blogs were personal journals (not blossoming ebusiness ideas) and bloggers were ordinary human beings (not the next big Internet celebrity). I particularly liked the idea of this tag (yes, another throwback to those days of yore) and his answers. (via Yuva Anandan)
• I ran into an online war with Bombay Elektrik Projekt after I tweeted that I was disappointed with their Monday Night Slam event. They slammed me on their Facebook page and on Twitter. An account of the event is here.
• I didn’t send this one in but it instantly reminded me of my Best Friend. (via PostSecret)
• An ode to that humble king of South Indian cuisine – thayir sadam (curd rice to you philistines). The article has liberal local references so you’re advised to carry a Tamil-English dictionary. But it is worth a read. Damn, my stomach’s growling. And this after having had a sumptous dinner of the aforementioned thayir sadam!! (via HawkEyeView)
• Remember the teenage sleuthing trio of Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews? My early adolescence was checkered with the adventures of The Three Investigators. Here’s remembering.
• Horsing around (via AwkwardSchoolPictures)
• Things you would never know without the movies (via TheTopSpace)
• “Not email but Facebook may launch its own country by Monday!” (via FakingNews).
• Hardware meets software? The clash of the giants. A good read, even for the techno-greeks. “Apple versus Google” (via IntelligentLife)
• From the idea-archives: My article on learning to cook from the internet, which featured in JetLite’s in-flight magazine in October 2010. Cooking wannabes and seasoned chefs, do take note! (on The Idea-smithy)

If you see yourself (or your site featured here, if you’d like to be or if you’re just intrigued by the Ideamarked posts, do drop into The Idea-smithy Facebook Page and tell me about it. I love company!

Reverb 10.18: A New Dream

Short and possibly repetitive, it looks like the rest of Reverb10 is going to be. After all, I guess how many introspective questions can there be for an aspiring writer?

December 18 – Try.

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

(Author: Kaileen Elise)

I’ve wanted to live in my own place for years now. I first tried it five years back, a little after I had finished my education and started working. My office was clean across town, took about 90 minutes to commute to and another 90 back home at the end of the day. Most of my colleagues were from out of town and rented flats close to office. I figured out an arrangement with a colleague who I got along with. We even went looking for places together and found a few we liked. And then I broke the news to my family. It was a mess.

In sum, it didn’t work out and resulted in my spending more and more time in commuting and m office hours getting extended too which meant I had practically no time or energy left to do anything else. I didn’t really spend much time in the house either and I hated feeling like a prisoner trapped between four walls, only exchanging one controlled environment for another at the start and then the end of each day.

Five years later, things have changed in more ways than one. The financial implications of moving out are scary. On the other hand, it looks a lot more possible now than it ever was. I’ve crossed the magical 30 mark and hopefully laid to rest notions of my whole life being within the largely male-dominated control of other people.

I am a neat person though I don’t know how tidy I’ll be able to keep my own house. I’m generally well-organized, reasonably independent but I don’t know how self-sufficient I’ll be in reality. I’d love to find out. Maybe next year will be it.

Reverb 10.11: What I Don’t Need In 2011 (And How I’m Avoiding Them)

A list! I love lists! And that’s only the first reason why this Reverb 10 prompt has me singing.

December 11: 11 Things

What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?

(Author: Sam Davidson)

Fooo…..yes, I was all enthusiastic and eager and ecstatic (and other good-sounding ‘E’ words) at the thought of a list. But having discovered the list is (again!) about things that one has to bid goodbye to, my E stuff feels D’ed (dampened, defeated, disgusted, demeaned, disillusioned, devastated…).

11 Things My Life Does Not Need in 2011 (why not and how I plan to get rid of them):

1. Writer’s block:

I’ve faced this enough of times in the past year and can testify to it being the vilest, most horrible, uncomfortable, lonely, sickening feeling ever. It’s like being constipated for days on end and watching everyone else eat sumptuous tasty meals. It’s like being pregnant for eighteen months, watching your belly bloat to alarming proportions and wondering if the only way out will be for you to burst. *Shudder* Never, ever again, please.

I don’t really have a plan to get rid of the possibility of this but I guess I can keep my proverbial medical kit handy. Good friends, other career options and enough of distractions to tide me over till it passes.

2. Financial worries:

I’ve never been poor. But there have been times when money has felt a little stretched. Add a generous dose of good South-Indian girl guilt to that. That’s when if the outgoing includes items that are not mind-enhancing and matrimonial-prospect-inducing, they’re considered wasteful. Incoming has got to be a steady, predictable flow, no windfalls-followed-by-empty-periods for this one.

Considering I’ve chucked up a sensible, respectable career for a newfangled, alien venture like writing, am well past my sell-by (as prescribed by the Southern powers-that-be) date and show no signs of making up for it, pressure is high. Much of this of course, is self-induced which is the beauty of any childhood-implanted guilt. The recording plays on inside your head, long after the originators of the voices have fallen silent. Anyway, I really do not need the cringing self-doubt of dwindling savings with no albeit tiny-but-definitely-incoming money flow in sight. I don’t believe I have the nerve to go through with being footloose and income-free for very long. Which just means, I’ll run back to the safety and uninspiring boredom of a respectable job, again. And that’s the end of my writing career, my dreams and my self-worth.

How I plan to keep this wolf at bay is by thinking ahead and keeping open to income-generating options. Naturally, I have my pride and conscience and I don’t intend to resort to get-rich quick schemes. But I have chalked up a number of things that I can do and do well. There’s writing of course (all kinds) and also number-crunching, business analysis and a number of other things I’m still discovering. It’s still a tricky thing for me, marketing them in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m full of myself. But very simply, these are retailable skills. Money earned for work done is a simple enough mantra. And fingers crossed that there will be enough of takers for what I’m selling.

3. Emotional distance

One of the first things that I decided I wanted to do, when I quit last year, was to go back to being the person I was a decade ago. Starry-eyed, idealistic, passionate, uncontrollably alive. Also unfashionable, socially outcast and totally uncool. But I wanted that and I wanted it all, no exclusions.

A big revelation happened over the course of the year (through the novel and many wine-soaked conversations with E Vestigio and long distance phone calls with P, L and others). I cut out sarcasm. Then I whittled away at cynicism. I chipped off bitterness. And I’m gnawing away at polite behaviour.

The results are that I’m exploding more than once. I’m often caught at a loss for words or saying the most horribly inappropriate things at the wrong times. But I feel so very alive! The sense of being weighed down is going. Even though I’m actually a few kilos heavier than when I had a rigourous daily schedule, I feel lighter.

I’m not completely there yet but I intend to keep at it. Emotional distance from people and experiences is what I thought kept me sane. But it also kept me stifled, tiny and mostly dead. I’m letting go. Be warned, much madness up ahead but it’ll all be authentic, 100% me.

4. Poor health

Rheumatism. Spondilitis. Diabetes. All things that doctors have been threatening, are creeping up on me.

Malaria. Gastroentitis. Low blood pressure. Vitamin D deficiency. Weak bones. All things that have already made their presence felt in my life.

I was always a skinny kid but also a bundle of energy and I recuperated quickly. The most ironic thing about my health in the past decade was discovering that I was overstressed and vitamin-D deficient. On asking what I could do to get better, I was told to work less and play more!

That seems like wonderful advice to follow (even doctors say nice things sometimes). So I intend to worry less, laugh a lot more, eat well, run around like crazy in the sun – and hopefully live not just longer but better.

5. Unhealthy weight gain

As mentioned above, I was a skinny kid and I grew up into a lean adult. But shortly after I quit my job, I discovered that I was alarmingly fleshy for my snugfit jeans. I ended up getting a new wardrobe (of dresses and skirts) but that niggling belief that I was bloating hasn’t left. Of course I’m duly grateful that it’s only a little weight, that actually does look good on me. But I’m alarmed by the idea that it could just inflate (pun intended) out of control. What’s more, I really don’t want to add cholesterol, heart disease and other things to the repertoire I’ve listed above.

What I plan to do about this, has actually already been set in action. I signed up for yoga six months ago and did follow the regime for a good while. But the schedule didn’t suit me and I fell off the bandwagon. Mercifully for me, I also started swimming, an activity that brings me even more pleasure than health benefits. The weather has gotten a little too chilly to enjoy the swim much but I still managed to get into the pool 4 days last week and complete around 15 or more laps before shivering my way back to the changing room. Maybe I’ll sign up for a dance class too.

Persistence and patience are my friends and I don’t intend to let those sneaky kilos get the better of me.

6. Boredom

The killer of all things creative, happy and joyful, who would be scareder of boredom, than a storyteller (an entertainer)? Thankfully for me, the world is a treasure trove of interesting things and people and experiences.

I’m not going to deaden this by putting a schedule on it. Suffice to say that when something occurs to me, I explore it. A new hobby? An interesting person? A novel idea? I’m a sleuth for interesting experiences and each one I pick up only leads to bigger and greater delights.

7. Control

This is the other card in the evil side’s deck, supporting the first card of boredom. Control by family, by employers, by social norms, by stereotypes. It kills the spirit, it kills my soul and it damages my creativity.

I don’t have a plan to avoid every instance of being controlled by another person or entity. But when I do face one of them, I intend to stand my ground and not cave. Enough died, already.

8. Other people’s problems

Egos. Insecurities. Complexes. Weaknesses. Negative sentiments. I’ve had a strange affinity for all of these from other people. That, coupled with the ability to absorb and expand on all, I feel like I’ve been quite a bundle of other people’s nerves.

It’s rather tricky detaching oneself from these things without imposing emotional distance from them. I don’t get it most of the time. What’s more, standing up for myself has never come easy (no matter what the image may dictate).

No plan on this one either. Just the will to oppose it and hope that practice will make perfect.

9. High bills on clothes, makeup and socializing

This I really, really don’t need. I am no shopaholic but after a decade of denial, I decided to indulge. Now I think, enough of self-pampering and now for some balanced restraint.

This is the other aspect of keeping away financial worries – curbing the unnecessary outgoing along with building the possible incoming. I don’t really have to have expensive shoes that only last a month. Mumbai roads make dust of everything and none of the big shops guarantee any quality on this terrain. High-voltage partying has never been my scene and mercifully the social circle I move around in, doesn’t really cotton to it either. Mostly I am now okay with saying that I can’t afford it and so I won’t. Out with the fabulous lifestyle, in with some peace of mind.

10. Goodbyes to people I’m close to

This is more a fearful wish than an intelligent item on the planning list. Six months of 2010 were spent in trying to cope with saying goodbye to good friends, to notions of loyalty, to dreams of greatness. I know I learn from each of these experiences. But I’ve had a rough, really rough enough ride of it. I’m not sure I’m ready for another dose, just yet.

I can’t think of anything to put under 11 so this is going to be a list of 10. That’s my bit for letting go of control (even my own OCDness)!

Big City Girl

I am the first born-and-bred Mumbaiker in my family. Neither of my parents had lived in Mumbai before marriage. My father, quintessentially a small-town boy, albeit with some campus years that expanded his world view, had stayed in Chennai and Kolkata for a few years each. But none of that would have prepared him for the uniquely mad life of Mumbai. My mother, on the other hand, grew up in Delhi. But she was the daughter, the youngest child, of a high-ranking government official and so her upbringing was as close to that of a sheltered princess as post-independence middle-class India could possibly get. Not the most ideal background for the rigours of a Mumbai housewife’s life, either.

A year later, I came along and they became (as my father liked to put it), “a young couple with a small child”. Their first years were marked by all the struggles that I was too young to remember – moving from rented flat to another, learning to run a family and a household. Those were the early days when housing loans weren’t as common, not even to qualified professionals and they struggled with that bane of every newcomer to Mumbai – housing.

After those initial struggling years, they managed to book a flat in a seemingly godforsaken corner of the city’s suburbs. It was far away from any train station and one would have to walk for 15 minutes to get to the nearest bus stop. But it was surrounded by a large, green patch (even then a rarity in Mumbai) and close to the international airport, which fact made my father think the area would boom very quickly. He was right, almost. It was 1982 and I was ready for kindergarten. We moved into the no-man’s land between Andheri and what is now called Powai, a then-unknown place named Marol. I was enrolled in what was considered the best school in the vicinity.

St.John the Evangelist High School, was over a century old and belonged to the even older church, next to it. Surrounding these two, was a rustic Christian village, replete with single and double-storey houses, two-feet wide lanes, tall crosses on street corners, blackish pigs running wild and shopkeepers squatting on the road. This was nested in a Bori/ Muslim colony and a short distance from where we stayed.

Our colony comprised a long, wide road with plots of five buildings on either side. When we moved in, only three of those plots had been constructed and we moved into Plot 3, beyond which lay a garden plot and then untamed wilderness. Within a few months, the colony was populated and eventually, the other plots began to come up. Most of the flats were occupied by families like us, young people with small children.

Two years later, I transitioned from pink frocks to the khaki uniform of primary school. All the kids in my colony went to my school or to the asbestos roofed shed-like building at the end of my colony. The parents of the Johannian kids sniffed at the latter, which condescension carried down to us in the years to come.

By the time I was ready to enter secondary school, the entrance to the colony was marked by a street bazaar on one side (where my mother shopped for vegetables) and a couple of shops on the other side (grocer, dairy and attawala). Further down the main road, the other colony was also growing and it housed the area’s two doctors, a tailor’s shop, hardware stores, a barber (which my dad patronized and which also cut my hair when I was small enough to need help getting into the chair) and a stationary shop (which provided our textbooks and school supplies). The school at the end of the colony had put up a signboard saying ‘Marol Education Academy’ but us Johannians remained unimpressed.

The early 90s were a busy time in our lives. Liberalisation, cable TV, the Gulf War and closer home, the Babri Masjid issue. We had class discussions on these, my parents followed CNN with rapt attention and the men of the colony banded together to patrol the gates at night to keep off would-be fundamentalist attacks.

Did I mention, my neighbors? To our left were a Goan Catholic family with three daughters and a son, all at least 10 years older than me. Opposite to them were the a booming-voiced uncle and a demure-looking aunty in pretty frocks, my first and most vivid impression of a Parsee family. Facing us were one of the few senior citizens families in the colony. Upstairs were a Malayali Protestant family, very quiet but nice to us. Below us were two Malayali Hindu families, best friends who moved in the 80s and sold their flat to a Bori family that would send us sweets every Eid. Most of us celebrated every festival from Diwali to Eid to Christmas to Holi and Easter. School holidays happened of course, as did the sweets and delicacies that would arrive from the relevant families to all our houses. I never really appreciated the meaning of ‘secularism’ till it was eroded by all the politico-religious events of the 90s.

By the time I was nearing the end of school, a gleaming bus depot had sprung up across the road, servicing the hundreds of families right upto the entrance to Aarey Milk Colony. The shops at the entrance had prospered and more had joined them (a jeweler, a chemist, Monginis’ bakery, readymade foods, stationery and even a restaurant). St.John’s had run a collection drive through tuck-shops, donations and yearly fetes that funded a new church building. The playground was walled off and the large well opposite to the gate had been covered. And that shed-school at the end of the road? That had not just a new roof but a few stories too. The MEA brigade had started to talk back to us Johannians. The circumference of my daily life had also expanded to the corners of my colony which now had about 18 fully developed plots. My friends lived in other plots but also in Marol village and the other ends of the St.John nexus like J.B.Nagar.

My last year in school was my tenth standard (as per Mumbai tradition) and my world expanded to coaching class and college. I joined a fashionable college where most people hadn’t even heard of Marol. I travelled by buses and trains and realised just how neglected the east side of Mumbai’s suburbs were. My sights shifted from the place I grew up in and went skipping over to Bandra (where everyone in my college shopped), town (an occasional day-long jaunt to browse books at Flora Fountain) and the ‘posh’ sights of Juhu. I still returned home every evening so I knew Marol was getting more and more crowded, the roads were getting worse and there were more cars on the road than I had ever seen before.

In 2000, six months after I had graduated and shortly after I began my first job, travelling to the black hole of the Worli belt, we moved. The 1BHK flat that I had grown up in felt too cramped, too tiny, too dingy for three adults. The commute to college and office was getting far too grueling for us and my father predicted it would only get worse (right again!). To top it all, the ground facing our building for many years (undeveloped on account of the power station at its center), had gotten around building regulations and grown a tall guesthouse overnight. None of us wanted to live next door to the random, floating populace of a guesthouse. We literally and figuratively crossed the tracks and began a different life. For a few years after that we kept in touch with Marol, mum through her carnatic class group and I, with my school friends. But people moved on as did our lives. In 2005, we moved again to an even glossier address. We had arrived. Also, we sold the flat that I grew up in, to another ‘young couple with a small child’. The heartening note in this was that the young woman was one of my childhood friends who not only knew the area well (having grown up in it herself) but had also visited the flat often to meet me. At least, it felt like we were handing over the first home we had ever created, not to a stranger but to someone known.

Last week, I was on my way to Powai, en route to an IIT event. On an impulse, I routed the autorickshaw through Marol village. The old school was undergoing renovation. The church was as I remembered it from my alumni meet 5 years ago and the midnight masses with J of that time. The well was gone and roads had been laid down everywhere. The pigs were gone too but the bylanes seemed just as tiny, tinier even. As we came out, we couldn’t resist driving further down the road. As we passed the bus depot (now housing a bank and facing a restaurant and numerous shops), I stopped. My mother got down to buy samosas from the grocer/sweet shop we had always patronized and I went for a walk down the colony road.

‘The buildings look shorter!’ was my first thought. Of course, I’ve walked down these roads when I was all of three feet tall. M.E.A. is now a 7-storey gleaming white building with a tree-lined walk from the road. The block of shops now has a mobile phone store, various jewelers, a tailor and clothing shops as well. There are tall trees lining the colony road on either side. It feels peaceful and prosperous. The main road is concreted in places and has those neon markers embedded in it. Standing on the new divider, I started to laugh, in surprise, delight and…I don’t know. And then I wanted to cry.

I thought I had left Marol behind, that it had become too small a place for me. I’ve been defensive of and then indifferent to my unfashionable background when compared to some of my now friends who grew up in more stylish areas. And I struggled for all those years with the absence of urban amenities in the area while travelling everyday to better endowed places in the city.

But looking around me, I realised that Marol had grown up too. I didn’t stand out at all as someone who came from a ‘better’ or ‘nicer’ part of the city at all. People around me were dressed just as fashionably, flashing the same phones and iPods as anywhere else. There is a flyover starting at the spot where a butcher’s shop used to muck up the street. The shops have tiled entrances. There are gleaming high-rise buildings housing corporate entities and on their ground floors, shops, banks and ATMs. The route to the international airport has been cleaned up and is dotted with numerous hotels. Andheri East is now undergoing the growth that my father foresaw in 1982.

It’s one thing to read about it in a newspaper or see it on television. That’s like seeing a photograph of a person. But the truth about life and progress and growth really hits you only when you meet it in person. The city of my childhood doesn’t exist anymore. There is a coffeeshop or a restaurant at every street corner. Big, flashy cars clutter up every road from Dharavi to Dombivali. There is a show of money everywhere. And the beggars have been joined by entire families, respectably clad, asking for help. It isn’t anymore a safe haven for any hardworking person. Muslims and other minorities are not treated with the same equality that I was taught. Safety for women is a statement on a public release, not the unspoken truth that we all lived with.

I often hear my parents complain about the evils in this city. My boyfriend has lived here for a year and he hates it. Most times I agree with them. But at the same time, I can’t bring myself to hate it or even be as dispassionate about it like them. Stories and movies about Mumbai, often have to do with the outsider’s impressions. In a lot of ways, this is a city that runs on the backs of newcomers. But I think, with all its flaws, it is still a city that is uniquely encompassing of outsiders. You come to this city and as the daily struggle of life here absorbs you, you become entwined in its fibre, you become one with it. As my parents did.

And what of those who have no prior history to speak of? This city is too big, too overwhelming for anything else. It demands a lot, too much perhaps from its inhabitants. From the ones all its own, it leaves no room for allegiance to any other place. I don’t feel Tamilian or even South-Indian. I will never feel like a Delhiite, even if it is one half of my cultural genes and I was born there. I have no other geographical or cultural identity other than being a Mumbaiker. It mirrors my life or maybe my life mirrors it. It holds me in both, a mob-style clutch and a womblike embrace. Mumbai. Metropolis. Home.

Tiny Tales: Emderatology

Close to midnight on Saturday, the coffee server on duty reported two dead people in the shop. The couple had been seated in the back booth of the cafe for over three hours, he recalled. When asked why she didn’t report it earlier, she said that she only noticed when he went over to tell them that it was closing time.

Inspector Clue-so deduced that the death must have happened a few minutes prior, when the couple was presented with the bill, since the bodies had not started ‘to steenk up the place and were probably ‘fresh’. This theory however, was dropped when the young server pointed out that both bodies were freezing cold and rigor mortis had set in. The lady, who admits to being a investigor in her sparetime (which she says is more than the time the job takes), was quoted as saying

“They were just sitting there staring at each other. For all I know, they had died ages ago but I just thought they were in love.”

Investigating experts were confounded by the abnormally red colour on the cheeks of the deceased. It was surmised that the excess rush of blood to the face caused the brain to stop functioning. Two slimy, fist-sized objects were also found fallen between the table and the wall, which were later identified as human hearts. Speaking to this publication, the coroner said,

“I must admit I was surprised to see two bodies without hearts inside them. How they came to remove their hearts I will never be able to tell. No wonder they died. Poor things.”

It wasn’t until the police began interviewing the friends of the couple that the truth emerged. The first to come under suspicion was Mr.McMohan, a close pal of the male victim, aided by the fact that his first reference to the victim was that he was staying at his place but was in the toilet at that moment. This charge was however dropped when it was revealed that the victim often used this as an alibi to explain his social activities to his family. On hearing the charge, he confessed that he himself had been in Pune all weekend (even at the time of the call) and could present an alibi but which he requested not be revealed to his family.

Following this train of thought, Inspector Clue-so next went to the best friend of the deceased lady. This was the turning point of the case (and also what salvaged the good Inspector’s career from the wreck of the first hypothesis). The best friend (name withheld on request) explained the history of the two dead people.

“I didn’t even realize that they were still in touch but it must be recent. They haven’t met since they broke up ten years ago. After all the drama is over, you really don’t want to face the person you shared your first awkward kiss with. It’s dreadfully embarrassing meeting that one particular ex-, you know.”

Wrapping up the case, Inspector Clue-so was quoted as saying,

“And ze key to ze mystery was found zere. You see, ze two people entered ze shop separately but it was very crowded. Zen ze spotted each other and thinking eet rude to do ozzerwize, decided to share a table. Zat is why our esteemed young friend behind ze counter does not remember zem coming in together. Ze got to ze table and discussed ze weather and how heeedeeous zis year’s fashion week was.”

The reporter interrupted this account to ask how he arrived at this conclusion and was rewarded with the following explanation.

“Because of zis.”

said Inspector Clue-so holding up a promotional leaflet whose copies were on all the tables of the shop. The image showed a boy and girl both wearing jeans. Both characters bore penmarks on them, depicting a different set of clothing.

“Obviously zey had good taste.”

said the Inspector with a distinct sniff.

“After zat, zey must have run out of topics. Ze young man had just broken up with his girlfriend, as was told to us by his friend in Pune. Ze young lady in turn was considering breaking up with her boyfriend. Zen zey found each other. Eet was like fate! But memories prevailed. Ze embarrassment of zere last encounter and all ze memories of the years after zat. Ze emotions must have been overwhelming. Hysteria built up inside both of zem till zey could take it no more! Both of zem blushed and blushed till zere hearts could take it no more and then zere hearts jumped out of zere mouths at the same time! And zey died of extreme embarrassment!”

As a reward for her help, the young coffee server has been deputed to be a trainee under the brilliant Inspector, starting next Monday.

————————————————————————

Note: The science of embarrassment is called emderatology.

BlogAdda 3: Protecting Your Privacy

My third post is up on BlogAdda. Last week I talked about how to build accessibility for a blog through feeds and link-sharing mechanisms. This week I take a look at the exact opposite.

While the internet opens you up to a broad range of people and experiences, it also leaves you open to a number of undesirable elements. Fortunately, filtering mechanisms are available that can help you tailor your online presence with the level of accessibility and privacy that suits you the best. Privacy is as relevant an issue as accessibility and I felt that after talking about how to make one’s blog visible, it was vital to know how to also protect oneself online.

(Click here to read the post)

A Laundered Life

I feel like my life is being scrubbed with a very hard brush and industrial-strength detergent.

It’s almost mid-way through 2010 and I’m hoping the rest of this year speeds by quickly. It really hasn’t been a good time at all. I feel like everything around me is dropping away, one by one. The job is over and the longer I stay home, the more distanced I feel from that ambitious, aggressive person I was at work. Some days I feel like all those things were done by another person. I can’t imagine standing up and talking to a crowd of people, of taking charge of a team, of coping with a death and supporting a whole group of other people. Was that really me?

I feel like people and relationships are just slipping away from me. The best friend moved to another continent. She and I are just the same and yet, she feels so far away, so disconnected.

Astra, my lovely witch, and I parted ways. I miss her often but I know I can’t go back to her. If it makes sense and if I anticipated it and I know it can’t change, why does it hurt so much?

My fascinating muse has left. I find myself thinking about him often but again, I think of our last conversation and I know I’m never going to reach out to him. You were wrong, we so didn’t get past this.

I’ve been going through dates in a crazy way. None of them have hurt at all. I decided to call it off  and when I went to meet him, the first thing he said is that we should stop dating. It didn’t even hurt my ego, let alone my heart. Nothing touches me anymore.

A distant cousin was in Mumbai this morning and he mentioned a yahoogroup I had set up ages ago of my cousins. I had forgotten about it so I went to look it up. I found a whole list of groups of people who used to matter in various ways. I set up most of those groups. I was a born social networker, long before it became a marketable skill.

Notably, I rediscovered the college group. There were lots of photographs in one, an albumful that I’d uploaded. It appalled me that I couldn’t remember the names of many of the people in those pictures.

Remember the Bihari boy from Delhi? Quiet and gentle and soft-spoken. He once told me about his family in Ranchi and his hardships, being an unpopular minority citizen. I remember he was one of the few people who actively tried to keep in touch after college and was very kind to me when he learnt about the break-up. I remember him telling me that I was sinking, cutting off the world and I should make an effort to reach out and come back to life. I still can’t place his name and it’s driving me nuts.

I remembered the one other person apart from Best Friend that I was in touch with and I called him. I asked if we could catch up tomorrow since I’d be in his part of town. I last met him a few months back, after I took my break. Our meetings have always been this way – I call him when I’m in his area or think of him. But he’s never once called. He told me he was busy but if he wasn’t travelling and if he didn’t have meetings and if he managed to finish work, he’d stop by. I don’t know why this particular time should have hit me but it did. I told him I didn’t like that I kept calling and he never called. It snowballed into a fight where he kept saying things like “I never call anybody”, “Tum log sab mujhe phone karke aise nahin bol sakte ho”. I ended up hanging up really, really angry and hurt. I deleted his number. And I feel like shit.

I just had a thought as I was typing this out. It feels like I’m facing some kind of karmic retribution for running after all the wrong people and ignoring the ones who really cared. What do I do now? How do I break out of this? And what could I have done back then? I didn’t know, I so didn’t know.

God, but it isn’t the same thing typing all this out in an email or a post. What’s the point in a long list of Facebook Friend acquaintances when the only person you really have left to talk to, is a blog?

I miss people, the real people. My people.

Vasai Road: Love, Rum & Dancing At The *AlienPhyre Wedding

I’m just home from an amazing weekend. Actually it was only one evening but it packed in so much that it feels like I had an entire weekend.

My friend Reena got married yesterday to her longtime sweetheart Melroy. I met Reena through Adi and bonded with her at The Wall Project. If you visit the Tulsi Pipe Road stretch just to the left of Matunga Road station, you’ll still see our works of art.

Reena’s is the first one after the tree and is very much like her…pretty, graceful and romantic. It says,

You are one big fairytale waiting to happen.

Spitphyre's Fairytale

So Reena’s fairytale did happen this weekend. Yes, I know that sounds corny but who cares? I’m still riding the warm, fuzzy haze that could be partly a result of the copious amounts of rum consumed (plus frenzied dancing and general madcappery) but also the afterglow of an evening and night spent in what now takes top position in my list of places I’d love to live in.

Adi and I spent about an hour battling the traffic to the station from my suburban flat. After that, we wedged into the impossibly crowded train to Vasai Road. A breathless (who’s got the space for lung-expanding breaths?) 45 minutes later, we both managed to disembark, miraculously with all limbs intact. We had to walk out of conjested marketplace but once we got into an autorickshaw, it got much better. The autorickshaws don’t run on meters (a point that both amazed and amused me on my last visit here) but thanks to Samir’s detailed instructions, we knew just where to look and how to proceed with the highly localized process of acquiring transportation.

The auto turned out of the marketplace and rode down a long, clean highway-like stretch of road. Our driver would stop periodically to try and engage a third passenger (similar to buses, these shared autos work on per-passanger-rates) and he only picked up after we agreed to pay a full amount at the end. It was awhile before I took stock of my surroundings and realized that we were cruising through curving bylanes, lined with trees, lush greenery and fields. The feel was very Goa and brought back not-so-distant memories of my great Goa14 vacation in October. Water bodies, small and large dot the landscape of Vasai Road and it seems like everything is next to some sort of Talao.

Reena’s wedding invitation had thoughtfully included a map pointing out landmarks, churches, signals and talaos. Armed with that and Samir’s instructions, it took us all of 15 minutes to come to a stop outside the red-bedecked house (opposite a talao, of course).

She travels all the way from here, each time she meets us?!

I exclaimed to Adi, who replied,

She actually says she lives in Vasai Gaon.

And I could see why she called it that. Vasai Road is a village in so many ways. The cleaner air, the unsophisticated proximity to wild nature, the sprawling spaces and most importantly, the easygoing camaraderie between everyone I met in these few hours…these are things I’ve never experienced in all my years in Mumbai.

This was already 5p.m. and the house was empty. Fortunately we met one of Reena’s family friends walking to church and he offered to take us there. I rather regret to say that I attended Reena and Melroy’s nuptials clad in jeans and sneakers but the alternative would have been to miss the ceremony altogether. We got there just in time to hear some of the mass and the beginning of the rituals.

The St.Francis Xavier Church, Giriz, Vasai Road

The St. Francis Xavier Church is a stately old building, probably one of the big ones in that area. Now having grown up in a Catholic environment myself, I’m fairly familiar with some of the artifacts and nuances of the church. I found it most interesting to see Marathi inscriptions on the walls. The mural right above the pulpit depicts a saint in a pose of imparting wisdom to two people, clad in very Indian-looking costumes. I’ve never seen images of this sort in a church. Reena is an East-Indian after all and is a descendant of the fishing communities that spot the coastline.

I didn’t have a chance to attend her paani ceremony the previous day but from J (also an East-Indian), I know that this is a ritual symbolizing the bride’s family fetching water from the well in pots for her to be washed and readied for her big day. Goans have a ross ceremony the day before the wedding, where the friends and relatives of the soon-to-be-weds are invited to smear their faces with turmeric, milk and afterwards, anything that they have their mind to. It’s a fun occasion as at both houses, the bride and groom are respectively being splashed and smeared with all manner of substances and everyone is having a jolly good laugh at their expense. I think these are very similar to the mehendi and haldi ceremonies that have become the staple of Hindu wedding across the country.

It is interesting to see a blend of the early Christian rituals along with local practices combined together to form the culture of an ethnic group. More personally, from my own childhood growing up a Catholic area and studying with Goans, Mangaloreans and East-Indians, the weekend was a sweet throwback to my memories.

The actual nuptial ceremony was quite short and embedded in a religious mass. After the prayers, the couple were asked to exchange their vows. Adi would keep making me giggle by pointing out that Melroy had asked Reena very politely,

Reena, would you please take this ring as a symbol of…

While Reena’s response had been a more authoritative,

Melroy, TAKE this ring as a symbol of….

Hmm well, bad behaviour from the bride’s friends is probably an artifact of all weddings and we tried our best (our worst!) to live up to that standard.

After the ceremony, we had a short hour to rush back to Reena’s place, get dressed (mercifully NOT in jeans and sneakers) just in time to welcome the newlywed couple back home. A traditional East-Indian soup was served to the two of them (which was probably just as well considering that of all the hogging that happens at a wedding, the bride and groom get very little part of it!).

Chicken Soup For The Wedded Soul

A bus drove us down to the St.Gonsalo Garcia College Grounds, nearly half an hour away. The choice of location was breath-taking. Right next to the old school, the open ground had been carpeted, a podium and tent erected with a stage to one corner for the live band and covered tables set up all around. It was a clear starry night (all visible in the clear Vasai night sky) and a lovely place to have the post-wedding party.

The centerpiece (seen hanging above the wedding cake) was a wedding couple on a motorbike, reading a book together to symbolize Reena and Melroy’s shared love of books. This came to them courtesy the very talented Shawn Lewis who joined us at the party By then Adi and I had managed to catch up with Gursimran, Samir, Apurva and Rehab. We were also joined shortly by Valerie, Shawn and Shailaja to complete the Tweeple contingent at the wedding.

After this point the details start to get a little hazy. This would have been around 8pm and I’m a little unclear about how we managed to pack in such a lot into the next 12 hours.

There was the bridal march culminating in the oranges-and-lemons dance (couples running under the bower formed by other couples holding joint hands in the air). There were all those brilliant fireworks set under the canopy of the nightsky. There was much frenzied dancing. I abandoned my food thrice to jump onto the dancefloor. Uncles, aunties, cousins, friends, classmates, bridesmaids, flower girls and us jived, salsa’ed, hip-hopped and everything in between that could pass for dance.

The bridal bouquet throw is probably one of the most well-known of Christian wedding rituals. But for some reason the garter throw doesn’t get as much attention. In this case though it did. After some blindfolded groping, Melroy managed to get hold of Reena’s garter and tossed it….to a little boy in the audience! Yes, much fun was had.

(l-r) @shadez, @adityab @ideasmithy @alien_kid (Groom), @spitphyre (Bride), @rehabc, @unitechy, @limeice, @fukat

I don’t remember when the music faded from my ears and the laughter stopped ringing. All I know is that apart from the immediate family, we were the last ones to leave the wedding reception. Anand valiantly took on two pillion riders on his scooter while Valerie giggled and hiccupped the girls back in Reena’s car. From there we walked across the road at 3 a.m. in pitch darkness to Anand’s house.

I’m almost embarrassed at what an innate city dweller I am, where dark nights and insects chirping can put fear into me. I clung to Rehab as we picked our way around a talao, across a field and over the path through the trees.

If this had been a Bollywood movie, it would be a horror story. Door kahin jungle mein, kheton ke baad, two pedon ke beech mein se jo raasta nikalta hai…

But we turned the corner and Anand’s house loomed into sight, magestic, comforting and welcoming. What grand houses, the Vasainiwasis live in!!! A two storey building, flanked by a balcony twice the size of my room and surrounded by a yard, facing a talao. This isn’t Mumbai for sure.

We were just starting to rev up for a pajama party with a Calvinball-like game of ‘Skeletons In The Closet’ when voices on the landing told us that we weren’t alone. Another contingent of guests had landed up and decided to park at Anand’s place and have a party on his balcony. A bottle of Old Monk, a guitar and lot of people on the chaddars on the terrace were what kept me up all the way till 7 a.m. We switched the lights off to keep from disturbing Anand’s family (though we barely managed to keep our noise levels down). Anand brought in little candles in porcelain stands as Ryan started to strum the guitar, Munna sang along and Melwyn waxed eloquent to the stars and to the rest of us.

Candlelight, Guitars and Rum under a starry night

It was delicious, listening to live music, laughing and joking with old friends and some new ones, the rum keeping our senses blissfully muted. As the first light of dawn came up over the horizon (by that time none of us could tell which side was East), I hummed the last song of the night…

Here comes the sun..it’s all right.

It described the entire evening, the people I’d met and the place itself. There is such peaceful contentment right there that Mumbai and it’s noisy stress seem like a world away. Due to the greenery and lack of pollution the weather is cooler too and I probably experienced the only winter I’m going to see this year, last night. It’s a deliciously cool place with wonderfully warm people.

With Anand's hospitable family in their lovely house

I was home by noon today, back to my glitzy room in a flashy upmarket address, my cellphone and inbox buzzing with invitations for the evening and the week to come. But none of them match the sweet wholesomeness that I experienced in a few hours. Reena’s family and friends, Anand and his parents who were our gracious hosts through the night all exuded such a cosy sense of warmth. I find that strangely lacking in the vast social circle I have back home here.

There is something about the peaceful serenity that makes it possible for people to open up and share themselves more willingly and truly with each other. I made a lot of new friends last night. Anand’s mother’s bhakri-chai was the most delicious breakfast I’ve ever tasted. In fact I don’t have a drop of a hangover or even a muscle ache despite all the strenuous dancing, the rum drunk or the night spent in the chill air with very little sleep. It might have been the wonderful company. It might have been the special occasion. It might have the lovely place. It might just have been all of that.

It was a special night for Reena and Melroy and somehow that managed to reach out and touch even the lives of those who were only dropping in for a few hours.

Spitphyre + Alien_kid = AlienPhyre!

* On account of their Twitter ids of @spitphyre and @alien_kid.
**Tweets about the event can be viewed under the hashtag of #phyre

13 And 30 On The Beach

I’m back from my week-long break and I’ll write a more detailed post in due course of time. It’s been a week full of experiences (travelling to another place always is, isn’t it?). I still have to sort out my thoughts, shake the sand out of my shoes (yes, there was a beach too!), sift through the photographs (the camera gave way near mid-way but the trusty phone-cam backed me up) and put it all down. Still, I wanted to say hello and it’s good to be back and did you miss me?

Here’s one picture from the collection – from an evening spent on a sweeping vast beach aptly named ‘Lonely Beach’. That’s my 13-year-old cousin along with me, displaying the spoils of our visit. This is for Siddhu, the mischievous, lovable bundle of energy who shared his energy with me…for making my vacation so much fun and really completing the experience of visiting with cousins at the native place.

Whether you’re 13 or 30, a good old-fashioned summer vacation with the family will never lose its charm.

At The End Of The Lane

The Raja family took the flight out today. Uncle has retired so they’re moving to the house they bought in their native city awhile back, in anticipation of just such a time. They leave behind a spacious flat on the top floor of a building at the end of a leafy, shaded lane, a company flat in description but home for nearly two decades to a family I’ve known well.

On our mantlepiece there was a family photograph that was shot in the Rajas’ living room by uncle. We had a new party-for-two-families on their sprawling terrace one year. When a powercut during late class stranded me in a deserted college building and I couldn’t reach my parents, I called aunty and she said, “Come over, I’ve made pulao.” I’ve spent innumerable Sundays lounging around in front of their TV set, drifting in and out of conversations with uncle-and-dad and aunty-and-mum, playing Uno with their daughters and napping in their bedroom. After the weekly tutorials I’d go over to their house next door and meet my parents for dinner there. The ‘Neglected parents association’ was formed one evening after a gripe session of how the younger generation never wanted to spend time with them anymore – resulting in a monthly (if not more frequent) movie/dinner/outing plan between my parents and uncle-aunty.

During the July 26 deluge, the worst ever rain in Mumbai and the only natural calamity I’ve ever had to face, I couldn’t cross the water-logged areas to get home. So I turned around and waded down a dark gulli, the water level rising with each step, even as my fellow-traveller urged me to pull back. I trudged on because I knew exactly where the road would stop sloping, I knew we’d make it to the building without drowning. I knew this because we were going to the Rajas’ place and I’ve been going back home there for years now.

We said our fond farewells yesterday. I know we will keep in touch. Uncle and dad are buddies, an unusual friendship for both of them, typically shy South-Indian men. Mum and aunty will continue their phone updates of health, TV, movies and unwed daughters. Priya, the baby of the family left for the US ages back. And her elder sister messaged me last night,

All the best to you, babes. Though we are not best friends, we have a different relationship. Keep in touch and come down to see us soon.

I know. This is a relationship that goes beyond an individual’s common interests with another. It is bigger than any of the pairs in our two families. It is a familial bond and it binds us all together. We will stay friends and family.

But the top floor flat in the building at the end of the lane is second home no more.