typed and scratched

One of my favourite writers, C.K. Meena in Bangalore wrote that in the paperless society of the future, every single word would have been gobbled up by cyberspace. She asks us to imagine not leaving behind a physical trace of our ability to write.
This is what she writes in The Hindu.

I HAD to respond.

An adorable oldish woman I know has never understood how to move the mouse. The little arrow seems to dart around where it pleases, and she's always wide off the mark. And when unfamiliar windows pop up, she jumps right out of her chair in panic. All she wanted to do was check email, for god's sake!! But what did all those squiggly blinking things mean?

Well, at least she asks.

This oldish woman needs her letter writer. Just like all those letter writers who used to sit outside post offices ready to help the unlettered. Only, this generation's letter writer is digital, using TEN fingers and a mouse (actually it's way cooler to be a keyboard person). It's a story similar to the one about how the postman took over the carrier pigeons. I'm glad about that, because there is no more opportunity for bird crap to dot my balcony, even if it's digested Italian worms on the day I get overseas mail.

Another oldish man I know thinks he's too grown-up to ask for a letter writer. He's like the villager who could never read his son's letters from abroad because he was too proud to approach the letter writer. His son would never say he loved his old man, but he'd write pages and pages about how much he missed him. Now we zip many years and mediums ahead from then to today. This oldish man I know never reads the thrilled SMSes I send about how I made the perfect rasam today, or "That's MY hand holding the mike on TV at 9!!" He could ask someone how to check SMSes. Instead, he simply complains that I never write on inland letters as often as I used to.

SMSes never bring you the sob in someone's voice as they cry about a job interview they didn't get through; they never have the dots of i's turned into little hearts, and the tails of y's crashing into the heads of p's in the next line. But by virtue of being typed furiously and received almost instantly, every letter of the SMS is dripping in the emotion of the moment. The oldish man didn't know this, and waited for the inland letter. When the blue paper arrived, it, well, made a great essay.

It is disturbing to think about all of us dying off without leaving a physical trace of being able to write. But everyone hasn't stopped writing. More people have started. When you know the receiver won't die of cardiac arrest when she sees your spelling, you'll write more freely, more often. Yes, we write less on paper to our closest friends, but write on email/talk on phone to many more we love but didn't know how to communicate effectively with.

Earlier, my dear oldish woman used to wait for after 10 o'clock to call me on half-rate STD. And even as she was yelling (trunk call hangover) to me about how pleased she was at knowing I'd handed a bouquet in school to her favourite Malayalam actor, she'd suddenly hear a warning beep and hang up before she could tell me goodnight-and-pray-to-god-everyday. And everyone knows how shattering that can be. That conversation would end there because she was embarrassed about writing to me. Because she couldn't write in straight lines, or use stylish sounding English words like my oldish man did in his inland letters. But now she dictates in Tamil to a software, and it gives me an English display when I receive the email. We talk much more. She gets to crib about my tan and dark circles on the webcam once in a while, and I know she made theeyal today.

We still might be very far from including the unlettered completely in all this communication, but at least the 'semi-literate' have more of a chance to sock the smug educated in the eye. While playing their own game.

So really, let's keep writing while we still have the oldish man and woman around.

rajni? yum...

Yenna 'muthu' pol potato chips... (Won't translate because I don't know how)






AVM Films makes another with Superstar: 'Sivaji, directed by S. Shankar. There have been reports that the film is about Rajni scouring the world for seven look-alikes. Incidentally, superstar used to be called Sivaji Rao before he turned into Rajnikanth.

The movie's all hush-hush even after it's puja on Nov. 28. Of course, the following are guaranteed:

- A philosophy song, where you are asked not to fall for material things, because see how love and affection is opening the world out to you. That if you have just enough money to fill your palm, you're its master; but if you have money up to your neck, then it only is your master (money, not neck).
Also, that he's the autofellow who never says no to delivery case. That he's not from any political party, just makkal (public's) party. Aaha, thatthuvam. (Really, they have all been sung, and meant from the bottom of his heart).

- Many slow motion walks of pure style; swirls; smiles of divinity; kicks in the butt and gut of every bad guy who puts kann or kai on thaaikulam (eye or hand on womankind).

- A snake joke (p..p.. paamba?!)

- An actress (Shriya) quarter the age of our superstar, and there'll be a dream sequence (HER dream, not our decent hero's). Not in snow, but rain, especially since Shriya's already proved she won't maranjify (hide) when there's mazhai (rain).

- Some scene that'll draw attention to the beauty of sunglasses on our hero's face.

- A tragic, poverty-stricken past full of travails orphaned Rajni has triumphed over, as he raises his cute as a button brother by selling tea in construction sites. A dialogue that'll explain why young Rajni will NOT steal or beg. If it's a younger sister, she'll go to English medium school, wear half-sari and know how to milk a cow with one hand while she slaps an eve teaser with the other.

- An intro scene that will not not shift from Rajni even to move on with the script. It's whistling-and-going-mad-screaming-for-joy time for fans. (and for 3/4-fans like me to gape in wonder. Yes. 1/8 space is for Kamal Hassan in pre-Avvai Shanmugi films; 1/16 space for Suriya with murukku meesai; 1/16 space for the hero of current blockbuster)


There are also some rumours of Mohanlal being in the movie, with equal screen space and time as namma chandramukhilan. Would be a tough task, considering Tamil fans start yawning and going out for pups (puffs) the second Rajni's face goes off screen.


(Now I have to go and see Padayappa, and Bharatham)

airwaves crackle

CNN-IBN on air all over the country from December 16! On the web, so much fun too.
Still lots of glitches and nervousness, tickers that leave you to fill in the blanks, anchors who call me Mohini (yuckyuckyuck). No other woman in an office of 20, no respite even on crampy PMS days until I just list out (in shocking decibel levels) the perils of venturing within 10 feet of me and leave the room in all drama.
But there are anchors I don't know who wish me on air to "stay warm and dry" as I report on the endless cyclones, bosses that are thrilled to bits when we ignore some idiot DMK politician for telling the story of a whole street that's quietly flying black flags after 42 of their neighbours who died in a stampede at a flood relief camp. Then they ask someone in Orissa if they knew Tamil Nadu is not as parched, and still dying the same inhuman death.
I notice that it's taken over my dinner/breakfast for the past 3 months. That it makes me prioritise Office-Delhi calls over Mummy-Bangalore calls. I miss the complete control that newspaper articles gave me, and realise everyday how much I have to depend helplessly on every cog in the wheel (cameraperson, editor, driver, automan, watchman, landlord, carpenter). When the wheel falters, I'd like to jump into the sea, but when it zips smoothly right over all bumps and potholes, I absolutely love the ride.
I whine at being woken up from sleep at 3 in the morning by an assignment coordinator in Delhi, but then shut up after I know he wants me to get early responses from Chennai on what people think about Meerut police beating up couples in a park. They recognise blogs as strong valid voices and put them up on their own news website. They're so earnest, most of them. And so young.
I'm most excited, but am trying to be straight-faced reporter whose stomach and liver don't merge into one at the thought of suddenly being on TV 24 hours, and having to say sensible truths all the time. Brr.

spies came out of the water

I wonder if we've become a police state. And the police isn't always just the guys in khakhi… it's the nosy lady on the ground floor apartment; the maybe too-powerful theatrical media; hungry Uriah Heep lawyers; political parties making up 'ideology' over biryani; patchily scripted film personalities; the man speeding the screaming dirty Qualis he thinks is his dick/manhood.
Everyone wants to gun everyone else down. Actually, I understand that: the tendency to push people around. Especially when it's easy.
What I don't understand is how we let them. And live like fugitives, full of fear. And tell ourselves we're quiet because we want to be amused.

(Although The Hindu has written a first page Magazine article about the Kushboo issue in as stern a voice as the grand old paper can muster, it's forgotten to mention the real slap on the chastity protectors' face. The Madras High Court's observation last week: "The court is pained at the way these two women have been treated. They have the freedom to speak their mind. These protests... is this your culture?" And then asked the big-mustached police to work a little bit and please prevent such illegal protests if they happened again.)

new pal

His only job is to open the gate, shut the gate, and in between retrieve the screamer kid's ball from the sunshade every five minutes. He told me his name thrice, all when I asked, but I nodded without paying attention. I try to squeeze every bit of English out of my Tamil just to get him to dismount the wall he climbs every time I so much as look at him. It's a class thing, a friend said, but I naively want it not to be.

Today is ayudha puja, and on Sunday everyone in Sri Ramachandra Apartments was washing his/her bike. I rode off to work, came back with the same dried-up-and-unsuccessfully-scraped-off pigeon crap and all the slush in the city. But I wasn't going to clean it if it meant having the shirtless prowler attack me. The Prowler is an uncle who circles the apartment block and asks quick questions every time he sees my flat mate or me... "What time does work get over?" which means am I loafing (=going to night club with boys) till now; "You must be eating out everyday..." which means I'm the 'modern' girl they will ever despise; and "What salary do you get?" which means do you earn more than me. He was funny for 2 days. But then he tried to convince me to cover a wedding as national news, and I have been on the run since.

Anyway, watchman walks up to me yesterday and says, "Amma, neenga mind pannalena, naan unga bike-a thodachidava?" (If you don’t mind, can I clean your bike?). Offended at the presumption that I wouldn't clean my own bike (where would he get such an idea?), I quickly assured him that I would do it myself. To that,
"I don't mind, really. I'm here all day. Sunday I can do."
"No no, in Bangalore, I washed the bikes of everyone in the house. I'll manage."
"Oh, but now you're alone. You must be thinking who you'll clean for...”
(Laughing) "No no, I don't have such sentiments..."
"I understand, ma. It's ok, you don't have to pay me. But please, I can't see anything in such condition!" Then as The Prowler approached, "Ok madam, you go upstairs now."

The next day, Reddy was sparkling. Even the pigeons didn't want to crap on so shiny a surface. (Instead, they came to my balcony and relieved themselves on the broken fan blade). It hasn't been an ayudha puja with pori and sweet boondi, lemon, agarbatti, and bruised fingers... but in many by-the-electricity-meter conversations I have found in Palani the greatest bitch in town. Our victim: The Prowler. Apparently, The Prowler can never start his scooter in the morning.

tatabyebye

... since not much is being thrown in anyway.

pink, thank you

I, invincible economy shopper, will venture into a store only if it says SALE, or if it is fridge-sized. Or, as I found out yesterday, if the shop is run my an old muslim man (long white beard mandatory).
He didn't need the pesky nephew stationed at the dupatta-camouflaged entrance to call out to passing people on the road: "Madam, skirts, bags, fashion tops. Naya style aaya hai madam." And as you walk on, "Just look, madam. Arey, dekhne me kya jaata hai madam?"

This old man just sat there sipping his tea, looking through his billbook. He looked up as I glanced in that direction. He waxed his wrinkly-eyed smile at me and asked almost apologetically, "Kuch chaahiye beta?" I managed to utter "bag" while still willing my insides to stop falling for this age-old trick. But I was already walking up the steps, following a tea-boy who had stuck his head in the direction of the shop, signaling me to walk with him.

He was already standing up by the time I got there. I got the feeling I'd just missed a swift dusting of wares.

"What would you like? Leather bags?"

Only when I tried to move my hand to point in answer, did I realize that someone had thrust a glass of tea there. Elaichi. By the lingering tang in the air, I knew he'd had ginger tea.

"No leather. Cloth you show me." But I just went ahead and touched around. I walked into what looked like the next section. Some other old muslim man approached me. "Oh, ye kisi aur ka hai?" I asked to the general direction of the old men. Oldman1 assured me that the shops were different, but I could look anyway. They'd settle accounts later.

After some pottering about, I confided in oldman1 that I was a journalist and was tired of people's jabs about the kurta and jhola stereotype. Could I have a cloth bag that was cheap and best, but not a jhola?

"Bunty aur Babli dikhaaoon?"

Now, I knew the DDLJ tunic. The Tridev bhandni Shroff scarf. The Kuch Kuch Hota Hai 'cool' chain. The Mr.India chiffon sari. The Chaalbaaz transparent raincoat. The Rangeela mini-sleeveless dress. The Pyar Tune Kya Kiya haircut. The Dil To Pagal Hai neckline and sports bra. But this was new. And suspicious. These new-fangled filmi clothes/accessories came with film industry gold weight. Their brand name and short-lived fanciness made them expensive. Economy aunt was yelling in my head.

But the old man had already slung a bright pink bag across his shoulder. "Full work (embroidery and chamki) on handle. Plain body. Rani pe accha tha, nei?" I frantically thought back on the movie...

http://www.indiafm.com/firstlook/buntyaurbabli.jpg

When he saw some recognition light up my face, he produced a full-length mirror from somewhere to show I could be a Rani too. "Par chamki hai," I said, screwing up my face. Then he fished out another pink, less bright than the previous, but Babli enough. I liked immediately.
So now, I have a Bunty aur Babli bag to take with me to the other world when I die. Maybe now I'll get Abhishek.

what to call him

'Boyfriend' sounds like he'd drop me home in a car (because the city isn't nice to girls at night), kissing my cheek lightly while he said a tender "goodnight, sweetheart". It sounds like he'd take me for a well planned dancing and drinking date, and hold my hand when I'd go to the dentist.

He'd be someone everyone assumes is my ride to the theatre (even if it was a group thing). He would know what clothes I had ("Why don’t you wear that black sleeveless thing with the V-neck?") and pat me proudly on my head if my earrings matched my shirt. It would also mean he is supposed to carry my luggage, and be nice to my friends even if he wants to strangle some.
Still, they call all boys with girls that.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" they'll ask, if they see her with him more than twice. "You want come for Sarkar? I'll get two tickets for you?" It makes the boy someone I picked off the department store shelf marked 'Boyfriends'. And I'd like to ask what he'll be called if he was 30. Boys don't automatically graduate to husband, you know.
And it makes him single-roled. And makes us a unit. No personality, no idiocity, no separate lives.

Lover, I'll call him. Smiling, quiet. Light on his feet. Sexual. And not my conjoined twin.

a place taken

A new home means large windows that can be swung open with every bit of strength that limp hands just woken from sleep can muster. Brighter, cleaner sunlight splashes itself over every inch of white space.
Four little black marks on the floor tell me there was a sofa there that someone cushioned into every evening after work. They had a TV, and you had to lie on the sofa if you had to watch. The bathroom floor dips a little by the tap, where someone stood singing "Vaa di yen kappa kezhange" through the mugs of water dribbling down his/her face. The mostloved windows open in smooth swishes, while others screech dryly. Strangely, the kitchen is unsolved - even if someone ate too much garlic, mango, fish, ghee or coconut, it has been distempered.
Walkedabout houses are like yellowing books. They say, "I've been enjoyed." Some doors handles are wrung more, some balconies more smoked in. The top shelf in the wardrobe, it seems, had sheltered a few gods who bathed in sandalwood incense. Someone who didn't believe in diets went to the commode a lot, and now it's a crater because of the weight. There's a leaky tap still sticky with scotchtape efforts. A rusted shower telling of times when Cauvery wasn't impartial. Pigeon crap that helps track which windows were left open too long.
Ok the last one, I want to wish away. I picked up one little curled up crapball yesterday while cleaning the bathroom. With bare fingers! That has got to offset all my sins.
Now to find cellotape and leave my poster marks for the next tenant to appreciate.

she rocks

brand new

A little rain was all it took. Ok, not little, because the sky came crashing down, along with some trees and electric poles. Sharp pokey needles pierced my face and neck as I zipped blindly through road lakes. In between two great splashes arching out from either side of my bike, I suddenly realised how completely drenched I was. What’s the point now, of rushing home? So a circuitous route taken, some plastic cover wearing people seen, and rain songs loudly blubbered, I got home.
"Shit, my cell phone! Oh god, my wallet! Yaaa, my cheque book!" All wet. Colours meeting each other on Gandhi’s face. Little blue waves on my account number. I’m all soaked, and there’s a droplet tickling the end of my nose, still unsure about landing on the floor. I shouldn’t have to worry about sodden paper, dammit.
So the dripping bag was chucked in the corner, wet hair ignored, and rain soaked in.
I feel a secret amusement at how the morning after suddenly looks like life in slow motion. Civility, parched and scabbing till now, has become fresh and dew-sprayed. Everyone’s breathing is leisured, walking softer, singing louder.
No flying tempers, no nonsense-boys wanting to overtake you from all sides and crash and die all the time. No chest starers, mirror and crotch adjusters. Loosely flapping shirts, clean wet-from-the-puddle feet, raspy voices, cups of tea, and white clouds. I look around more, and wonder about right-lanes, "Stop Horn OK Please", "Nodey ley Upendra", a Gent’s beauty parlour board illustrated with the pic of a boy being facesqueezed into a haircut. Wonder why tumblers are better than cups & saucers. And why skipstepping, once started, cannot be stopped.
The air is clean of intrusive dust particles that otherwise make for dangerous irritants when combined with sweat. The tar road is not a sheet of heat anymore, and even the blaring horns have shut up (except for the occasional idiot who I curse to burn in acid rain).
Yes I know it’s hot again. Not dry, though.

"thalaiva!" they cried, and brought their colours out

Some posters on the roads:

legs to dance

A week ago, on the release of three big tamil films (Chandramukhi- Rajnikant, Mumbai Express- Kamal Hassan, Sachien- Vijay) I wrote this:

A towering cutout of Rajnikant in a salute-pose stands dripping wet with milk, as spring-footed people at the theatre jump about its legs catching the milk-splashes and patting it on their heads. With their eyes closed, like in a temple. There's absolute piety here too, but just much more vocal, much more physical, so much more ecstatic.
So many of them are just standing around and whistling. At nothing in particular, but just as if every time someone mentions the word "Superstar" or even thinks it, two fingers are reflexively shoved into the mouth and the most piercing, most devoted whistle shrills out above bursting crackers.
They're dancing in total lost frenzy. Packed off into the theatre hall by the fan club leader, they keep their feet moving, hips thrusting, their throats hoarsely yelling, chanting, singing. And inside... Even advertisements are getting cheered at, because each passing ad means they're getting closer and closer to when Chandramukhi will be on. Then. Slooooowwly, stretched across a whole 3 minutes, the words 'SuperStar Rajnikant' appear on the screen, and then a shining star with his face on it swirls for a baiting while. In those 3 minutes, every single person in the hall is standing up, and yelling things I don't think even he is conscious of. Those 3 minutes, everyone knows, are purely for the fans.
--------
After writing that bit, I decided I had to tell SOMEone about what a super time I'd had getting myself into four first-day-first-shows (three of Rajni, one of Kamal) on April 14. But I was greeted with "Such rowdies they must've been"… "Such idiots, idolising a fellow who can't even act"… "They're dangerous people… hope you're ok - didn't you get felt up?"…
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Everyone was telling me how they knew about fans who tore the screen when Rajni was abused by the villain in the movie, how they broke theatre chairs, slashed the seats with blades, mauled women.
"It's mostly the slum people who act like this, basically because they don't have anything else to do, and they're not educated no? Poor things," said someone, known to frequent the wildest of raves where non-slum people let themselves go. None of them had actually seen any of this happen. They'd heard. They knew.
I sat shocked, staring at my terminal. If people were ready to throw hearsay around like they'd breathed in the sweat and been deafened by the shouts and cheers, maybe they'd be ready to see another point of view, I thought. The piece was speed-written as a straight forward major-happenings-in-the-city story, and filed in time for the next day's issue.
The next day, photos of the fans (to go with the story) were declared "cheap" and Malaika Arora's legs went on page one. I like legs. They kick well.

road to eldorado

Every time someone tries to tell me Madras is changing into "a hep and cool city", I bite my teeth tight, scrunch my hands into fists and pray for the proliferation of "uncool" people in the city.
But after one random wandering into Mylapore, I’ve got a certain jasmineoilbath-turmeric-Cuticura-vibhooti smell bottled up in my head. And each time someone swears that the city’s becoming a salon-manicured, pink-clothed, cappuccino-preferring person, I smell my Mylapore smell.
I had strolled into the place, staring up open-mouthed at the gopuram of the Kabaleeswaran temple. The temple is all I knew of the place, apart from some "in my bachelor days" wonderfully embellished stories from dad – about the Brahmin agraharams (streets set apart for Brahmins), the banishing of fish/mutton shops in the area, some political speeches, and my dad’s best reel off: the shocking saga of a maami (aunty) who used Milkmaid condensed milk for payasam ("What?! She didn’t stand over the stove mixing the milk for 24 hours till it got thicker?").
But I must’ve chosen a particularly busy day to walk in there because I realised, still open-mouthed, that there wasn’t an inch of road to spare for another tyre, or foot.
Right in the middle of all the Swiss ice-cream shops, cell phone showrooms, gigantic shopping malls, and BMWs trying desperately to park in auto stands, were three towering chariots swathed in flower garlands. As the ther (chariot) jerked forward, pulled by tight-muscled perspiring young men, the milling just-bathed crowd parted reverently to give way. Just as I was craning my neck to see what was glistening in the ther, I realised that apart from two policemen standing in a corner wolfing down free slices of pineapple from a vendor, no police was around to handle the masses.
Apparently, during the Panguni festival that happens every year in the Kabaleeswaran temple, it's like the temple priests fleetingly reclaim their lost authority. Every morning and evening, for 10 days in March, the temple idol of Shiva is brought out, mounted on different vahanas. And for those 10 days, one wave of the priest’s hand voicelessly directs hundreds of people. The minute he wiggles that little bell and the chariot lunges forward, folded hands and soft prayers go up in the air. Some children get to ride on the ther, prettied up in new shiny clothes, and appropriately ohh-aahing when gold-plated puppets come flying from all sides and shower flowers on the idol.



During these 10 days, people from villages around Chennai throng to Mylapore with plastic toys, beaded necklaces, clay pots, plastic flowers, matchboxes, kumkum, turmeric, merry-go-rounds, mini giant-wheels, blouse-pieces, idols of gods and goddesses…
And in the middle of it, I couldn’t help cheering along, especially when the little girl who wanted to see it all shifted herself coolly from her stunned dad’s shoulder onto my head. Each time the closely watched puppet angel swung towards the ther, the entire crowd watched, saying "Ippo vizhum. Ippo Vizhum" (Now it’ll fall), as if they'd be proven fools if they didn't guess right. And the fresh-faced boy hiding behind the electric pole, holding the puppet strings, would smile to himself, and tug the string just when everyone least expected it. The blood red flowers dropped on the idol, among mad clapping and cheering and hurried praying.
10 days of a locality turning into a complete chandhai (exhibition-cum-market). A day of impulse buys ("All for god only. Shiva, shiva"). My pick of the day: a big-headed plastic monkey in red painted T-shirt, riding a red cycle-rickshaw, at the back of which a proud sticker said "Hardworking rickshawman". It even has a key to wind the guy up so he can take imaginary people for 5 second rides.
Ok, so there were guys in Adidas shorts filming the whole thing in videocams. It isn't about saying shut-up to new things. It's about poohing to the self-congratulatory cool world that poohs to the sometimes similarly self-congratulatory old-world. But oh well, there ain’t nothing cooler than kudumi vaadhyaars (priests with pony-tails… oh yuck to English translations) on Bullets.

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Note to self: Find photoshop for size-cutting and posting more photos taken.

home, places we've grown

Oh, all that I know
There's nothing here to run from,
'Cos yeah, everybody here's got somebody to lean on

- Don't Panic (Cold Play)

drippy days

A week ago, I looked with disgust at a dusty drum and orange plastic pot sitting in the corner of our miniscule kitchen. "I need to keep the potato basket here. Can't we chuck these useless things out?" I asked my flatmate. When I touched it, she slapped my hand away, looking like she'd like to pull my nails out of my fingers one, by one.
"Summer's coming. When you have soap in your eyes and the tap makes that khiiisssshhh sound, you'll know why this dirty drum is important," she said. I thought it quite unneccessary that she walked off without finishing the coffee she was making for me. What drama.

Today, the tap said "Khiiiiisshhh" when I had soap in my eyes. And the potato basket is a big waste.
Fortunately for me, there's a tap on the ground floor with running saline water. I'll only have to climb up two floors with the orange pot, boil the whole thing on our little Clix gas stove, drain the salt with the littler coffee filter, and wait for it to cool before I use it. All this on the day I stop jogging because it's too stressful.
I find it utterly non-funny that today is World Water Day.

scrub white

Two women in burkhas stood by the creams & soaps rack looking thoroughly perplexed. They had their shopping cart full of wax strips, shaver, batteries, tissues, comb, a lonely looking packet of onions, face packs, and shampoo… A very bored-looking knee-height boy was prancing about their legs, panicking every two seconds when he’d trip over one of their pale white feet and almost smash his nose on the floor.

Lady 1: What soap do you want?
Lady 2: I think Simran’s soap is nice.
Lady 1: Ok, but see this Mysore Sandal.
Lady 2: Hehe… maybe Veerappan manufactured it. Hehe…
Lady 1: Okok, let’s decide fast. (To boy: AYE!!!, and scooped him up from the floor and stuffed him into the shopping cart)
Lady 2: See this one. It "cleanses and gives fairer skin".

At this point, I decided to move closer to the soap rack and join what I thought would definitely turn into a hysterical laughing about fairness products.

Just then, Lady 1: Accha hai, nei? (Big grin) Then when we put cream and powder, face will shine.
And in one sweep, they took some five bars of the fairness soap and threw them in the cart. One promptly went into the boy’s mouth. Three could’ve gone into mine.
I’m very very scared right now.

knave knives

why would anyone call a person blunt because they were making too many sharp remarks?

woah

It amazes me, this sudden unanimity of opinion.
Everyone is saying yuck to roses and candy. Everyone is suddenly talking about Bajrang Dal. Everyone is a sharp customer whom knows the stuffed toy companies are out to swindle. Everyone hates mush. Everyone wants to hate V day.

So much unity in thought.
Everyone is painstakingly making sure Monday is deathly drab. Petrified that if they went to watch a play or a movie, they would be spotted and accused of having "celebrated Valentines". That they must make sure they’re heard saying "the day is even for one’s mother".

So much harmony in action.
Everyone’s making sure they don’t end up wearing red or associated shades on that day. That they're not caught walking alongside a guy or girl on the footpath. That if they went shopping, even alone, they’d become Madhuri Dixit buying pink things for herself in Dil to pagal hai. That they don’t decide to buy a letter pad that day. That they must not kiss who they want to so it doesn’t seem like an occasion.

My dad said he’s going to kann adichify and whistle vuttufy (wink at seedily, and whistle luridly) at my mom the whole day. The bus stop road romeo has similar plans, I suspect (except, he has a larger audience that excludes my mom, I hope).
Phew. Happy Valentines Day to the unafraid. May you stay far far away from the I’m-trying-very-hard-not-to-like-V-Day sheep.

fritti!

Gauging from the panic and palpitation, you'd think kids are more "prone to catching" homosexuality than a cold. If someone even barely mentioned an anti-gay remedy, many would grab their happily-eating-mud children, and line them up to be fixed.
Movies, superheroes, presidents, art teachers, paints and brush, moms, tea, dance, and even food has been blamed for turning children gay-- logic be damned. Another in the line of fire, to the total delight of would-you-please-pay-more-attention-to-me i'm-more-than-just-jumping-colour animators, are cartoons.

Conservative Christian groups in California have accused the makers of a video starring SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney and a host of other cartoon characters of promoting homosexuality to children.

Now, webspace if filling with talk on which other toons are light on their toes. Cause carrying cartoons are popping out of everywhere. And the prettiest (open to debate, of course) is errmmm.... wabbit! Bugs is a transvestite too, in many many of his escapades. and such eyelashes... sigh.


oh those legs!

tiffen ready

I try not to be in awe. I struggle against becoming the stereotype ‘gazing-in-wonder’er of something that has been raved about in websites, newspapers, food guides, and has even been given a thumbs-up sign at the Mommy Quality Testing Department. But I’m suckered in.
I tell my roomie I’ll buy dinner on my way home from work, and try to plan my route so I can stop over at a food-joint on the left side of the road. Then I see Shanti theatre and vaguely remember someone telling me that there was a Saravana Bhavan in the building. "Oh God, I’ll be buying from a brand," I think, the word shaping into an index finger wagging itself at me accusingly. Oh god, even newcomers to Chennai look into their places-to-visit list and ask directions to "Sa. zha. va. nah. Bha. waan".
It is… (shudder)… even recommended in travel books that describe sambar as "a mixture akin to lentil soup" and chutney as "pureed cilantro condiment".
But one impatient roar from my stomach and my bike turns into the Saravanas parking lot. The next thing I know, I’m looking at the menu. But I promise I chanted "Shame on me" 100 times before sleeping that night. I’ll walk on hot coals next, as atonement. Or drink toxic cola.
So many choices on the menu make me nervous. So I scan the column on the right — the one with the rates. For a tiffin room, they definitely don’t believe in being too wallet-friendly. "These brands… pha!" I crib. After I’m billed for one of my most uncreative dinners in ages, I take my token to the counter that says ‘Parcel’.
This moment on, what I witness is pure industry.
Non-sweaty boys in blue uniforms crinkle their brows, toss this, and mix that in the open kitchen. Shiny steel, and white rags flash through idli-smelling steam. A man standing in the far corner near an expanse of square, black, sizzling slate straightens his tall white chef hat with SaravanaaS printed across his forehead, and says, "Masala", softly, and cleeeaarly. He’s hardly closed his mouth after speaking, and a boy zips invisibly to the man and places a steel bucket of yellow potato masala to be smeared on the insides of a masala dosa.
Everyone has a no-nonsense expression as they go about dipping washed dishes in piping hot water; cutting freshly bathed onions to sprinkle in a circular fashion on the sambar vada just so it lazes about in the droplets of glistening ghee. :)
I’ve always expected those kneading parotta dough to conjure up enough anger to slap that damn flour into suppleness; but the tall sprightly teenager’s shockingly chubby hands play about in the flour, the thumb carrying the dryness of the flour into the dampness of the lukewarm water, all the while looking like he was strategising on how to beat the damn rival team in morning beach cricket.
Waiters and stewards in white, wearing name badges, walk in and out of the kitchen… no ones gets jostled, no one does a pehle-aap routine, no one even realises how the white brigade weaves through the blue troupe in perfect sync.
Fluorescent green banana leaves lie upon a platform, to be whisked away by the whitemen and placed on the plates before the food is dropped on it ("For preventing grease from clinging on to the plates, and for the little south Indian touch," explains the coffee-making expert who stands by the counter marked ‘Coffee’, where the rare order of tea gets prepared too.) Whatever the size of the plate, there is a neat leaf cut in that very shape, so it sits like it belongs.
The quiet of the kitchen is numbing. Especially because a few steps from there will take me to the unbroken buzz of the dining hall, where a father urges a little girl to choose a flavour of ice-cream for the fruit salad while he himself unthinkingly orders coffee, and a family of four that dismounted from a Bajaj scooter decides to have soup, naan and gobi manchurian, "for a change".
It thrills me that one of these whitemen may one day be an investor in another SB outlet. SB is one of the few non-corporate dos that encourage its employees to set up their own outlet, and even provide half the capital to do this. But otherwise, the place runs like a factory, and each bowl of pulao and and raita is weighed and a few grains of rice thrown in to make the standard weight.
All the cogs in the machine are unfaltering, largely expressionless men, who only collectively snort, guffaw and hold their stomachs and the closest walls for support when they realise that the idli-man has switched the steam machine thingie on without placing the batter dumplings in. He was too busy gaping at the pink foreign women who’ve walked in to check out if Lonely Planet is right about Sa. zha. va. Naah. Bha. waan.
It is my roomie who said the biryani was "soooo yummm" when I prefunctorily sulked about the price and brand association. "But it’s a home-grown brand, no?" she said, to ease my pain a little bit. But by then, my tastebuds were too happy to care.

bam! punch! thwack!

when I open a Word document full of my made-up words and Indianisms, a high-browed Spellcheck runs red and green lines everywhere. Do this, do that. Here take some synonyms. And some suggestions. Want to turn 'hamare' into 'hammered'? And 'jalebi' into 'jailbird', 'kathe' into 'Kathy' (wonder what one has to do to get one's name in Gates' english), 'kannada' into 'Canada', and 'Tamizh' into 'Amish'? Fragment, it tells me in bold.
I love that I can smile sorrily at the naiiiiiiive code-dependant grammarian sitting in my computer, and Ignore All. Oooh I sock 'em soooo hard. Best BEST feature of the entire damn thingie.

free to dismount

I keep expecting someone to stick a worn hand in front of my face, wiggling an index finger. I keep expecting to hear "2 rupees madam". Each time I drag my bike out of the parking lot, I brace myself for the unavoidable, almost enjoyable fight with the token-man.
"Two rupees-a?!" I would say, and keep my eyebrow up and my mouth open in the "aa" shape — a tried and tested expression of incredulity.
"Aanh, ok ok," the parking attendant would say. "One rupee, 50 paisa," he’d demand, looking urgently in the direction of some other motorist trying to slink away without paying the parking fee.
Or there’d be a little word-tussle about how he never gave me the token/ticket.
Some people would give him Rs.2, but insist that he took their bike out of the stand. After all, the Corporation was paying him. He had to earn that extra 50 p. But I don’t think any of the parking guys really cared what the bikers thought. Moving a featherweight Scooty wasn’t much of a deal anyway.
Each day, it was the same. We might smile at each other today, and look through each other tomorrow. But everyday, without fail, we’d repeat the same ticket-and-paisa charade, as if yesterday didn’t happen at all. And no one really wanted that extra 50 paisa either. It was the only way we would ever talk, probably. We’d exchange big fat lies about one being poorer than the other, I’d grumble about how the world was out to swindle me, and he’d hiss about how I could drink coffee for Rs,25 but not pay him half a rupee. We both knew where we stood, but we’d haggle anyway.
Fun, it was... Not the kind of fun you look forward to or anything, but a routine that never changed. A momentary jolly.
Here in Chennai, I can park anywhere but in the middle of a flyover, and no one asks me anything. Coins and change have lost significance suddenly. When the chemist (I think I insulted him by referring to him as ‘medical shop guy’ to a friend) gave me 3 one rupee coins as change, I could sense grief welling in my heart. What for is their existence? Sniff.
But the little area outside Khadi Bhandar near my office has a parking attendee. She wears a cap, from under which half-dried mallipoo pops out. She blows on her whistle proudly, gesturing to cars and bikes to park behind the yellow line. "They all know to buy cars, but see if even one idiot knows to park properly," she curses under her breath to no one in particular.
Maybe I’ll park my bike there one day. I’d like to know if she thinks I’m a good parker.
Till then, the chilrai (change) can come of use for a pile-them-up game when boredom strikes, groundnuts, platform tickets, tea at a chai shop, or a khaara biscuit.

making statements

I read this on a photoblog... Looks like things aren't too different even in Canada... :)

"There are too many signs, too many directions, too many internet tests to find out how smart we are or what sort of dog we resemble. There are too many books of self instruction and too many movies where the hero and heroine are of comic book proportion and the good guy always wins. There are too many pages of direction for a tax return and too many music CDs to choose from and too many channels on television. There are too many soldiers and too many politicians and too many children without food.

We're in this frantic make-work mode - so we make and make and make. Everything is disposable - otherwise what would all the workers do? We have professions springing up left right and center just to deal with all the other professions. And, you know, workers have all those worker babies and so we need more ... work. It's a cycle, like everything else. I'm no physics genius, I can assure you, but even I understand the notion of critical mass.

What if everyone kept their car, for instance, for twenty years on average - instead of two years. Can you imagine the world-wide global impact of that? Massive job loss, pockets of intense poverty springing up in the world's economic giants, inability to fund the population growth.

I hardly know what to do - whether to laugh or cry - when I think about it - when I see the spray painted stop signs and the kids in flocks on street corners with black lipstick and pierced ... everythings. God bless 'em - maybe when the youth of the world is pissed off enough, things will change."

I haven't pierced a thing yet (apart from my ears, but at 8 months, that was hardly my choice). Nor am I pissed off. I'm amused. So I think I'll pierce other people. So ha.

ka-ching!

Automan (irritated): You want to go to bank first, and them home?!
Me (Very carefully): Umm.. Yes.
Automan: ATM? Or State bank? If it is public bank, you will be there long enough for me to go have bath, get married and have kids. And then I can give them bath also. ATM means go inside, chak, zzzhup, chadak, chinnnng! Over.
Me: No, no… ATM only. Fast-fast I'll come back.
Automan: Good. I like the youth of today. Umm… can I also withdraw money from my ICICI ATM on the way?

groundhog

Subways are for wimps, I say. The brave cross the road, and the braver cross the road where there is no zebra crossing.
Something there is that doesn’t love a subway (Not the sandwich place. Anyway, that Subway gives waaay too many choices. Give me a place that has says ‘Dosa, pav bhaji and meals only’ anyday).
After a year of using subways, I’m still unsure. So many directions to follow, and if you go wrong, then so much to undo. So many mixed smells, dark corners, rumbling noises.
Ah, to walk right across a busy main road, raising a ‘halt’ palm at a speeding motorist who wasn’t sneaky enough to zip past before your Moses palm rose… Little kids holding on to mummy’s index finger, shuffling their feet that uncontrollably trip each other, and trying to get in as much hop-skip-jump as possible before they reach the other end of the road. Of course, all this is cute only if you’re a pedestrian, and not the fuming I’m-getting-late-for-work person on a vehicle.
Plus, the more, the fierier. On a weekday, say at 6:00 p.m., there will be a big bunch of to-cross-or-not-to-cross people on either side of the road. We’ll all huddle together, some heads looking left, some right, and others gaping straight ahead at the monstrous billboard with the half-nude woman promoting liquor as soda. As vehicles whiz past in an unending flow, we’ll lose our collective patience and simply troop across the road. There’s always comfort in a criminal crowd.
Here in Chennai, I am asked to always take the subway. To go underground and find myself in a maze of yellow tiled corridors manned by one beggar each. To lose all sense of direction and surface, somehow, on the same side of the road. Quickly, I mask my stupidity with sense of purpose and pretend that I suddenly thirst for tea in that potti kadai there. Payasam-sweet masala tea downed, I head for the subway again. By now, the limbless beggar recognises me and grotesquely wiggles his right-hand stump. I scurry away, and miraculously get on the right side of the road.
Surveying the yawning space behind me, I’m sure I could’ve just crossed the damn road with fewer episodes. But I wouldn’t be able to see that lady who scrubs the tiles in the subway yell in the most filthy tamil ever, at an old marwadi spitting pan juice on the just-cleaned wall.
Nor would I see old posters of Noam Chomsky’s visit to Chennai in 2001, still peeling off the walls — some people might have been in awe of him for his work; some others just thought he’d look a lot better with a moustache and promptly drew one with a sketch pen on the poster.
I quite like knowing that there are people and cars and scooters rushing about above me, and that the ceiling will not cave in even if a BUS stood on it. It’s fun to wonder whether I’m walking below a flower seller or a guy selling posters of Kajol and MGR.
The best part, though, is the surfacing — from a completely bizarre, closed, brick-cement-tiles-and-paint surrounding, to the chaotic buzz of colour and people.