I rant therefore I yam

People People People . I am sick of seeing people. All of the same size , same colored clothes , same sneakers and all in pairs(NOT the shoes).People in Bangalore tire me.Today , I somehow found myself telling a friend I'd meet her at Garuda Mall.At the entrance we were greeted by an idiotic show with a even more idiotic hostess.Ahem a "beauty" contest apparently , like the zillions were'nt enough for these people to display their inner beauty.And coming to that , what's with this weird haughty expression people walk around with? What is that look trying to prove?

Fuschia Pink anorexic girl : What is thees?
Corn guy :Corn
FPag : Oh ok , give me some without the butter or the masala , half cooked
Ok, now that sounds like Horse feed to me.

Don't people go out with friends anymore? And why am I asking you this question ? Because , we are a little antisocial and we have just "2" close friends. Whatever happened to meeting old friends at a cafe? Why is everyone wrapped around someone or the other? I'm not even sure they're wrapped around the same person for a long time ! Or maybe I'm a chip off the old block?
More than once I remember the good old days in college when a bunch of us would head to Lake View or a Barista and talk noisilly about everything under the sun and never once bother about whether our shoes matched our bags or worse , someone else's bag.Sigh.Maybe I'm growing old.Maybe there are no more interesting and good people in the world.Interesting men sounds an oxymoron.Oh so sigh.

Anyway , friend and I felt nauseous just walking there , we burst out and headed straight to Crossword.Got myself Mark Haddon's " A Spot of Bother". Now , I shalt lay meself down and proceed to read it peacefully accompanied by a cup of coffee.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

No , this is not a book review .. I do not possess the talent for it . Its about the book , the feelings that KH manages to wrench out of you and a heightened sense of responsibility towards the world we live in and finally , a prayer for all those people in Afghanistan , and all other war ridden nations in the world.
I think ,probably what hits you most are the people in it , these people are like our brothers and sisters , you see these people in every man or woman you see on the streets in India , they look like us , they eat like us , and yet they aren't safe like us.
The lesser said about the book , the better.I feel it would be belittling to say that the book is well written and the author paints a lovely picture with his words.It is for you to read , feel and find out.

To quote from the 17th century Afghani poem that the book derives its title from..

"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs.
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls."

Need I say , a must read?

Wisdom cometh with a price

Apparently my wisdom teeth (All four of them , bless them all) seem to have a mind of their own.If the X-ray has to believed , theres one thats growing perpendicular to all the others , rather like a rebellious middle child.The reason why I visited the dentist , for the first time in my twenty odd years of existence was because the LLM2 (lower left molar no.2) , yes, I named them chronologically , is growing into the jaw or rather I think thats what the dentist said.
Mind boggling question no.1 : Why do dentists assume you will have a full mouthed reply to their "Coffee addict?"
"First time?" questions while they've thrust a cold poking device into your mouth?
Anyway , the dentist made up for all the torture the tooth's been giving me. He is cute and smily and curranty eyed :).No we cannot consider him since he's married and incidentally his wife also practices , so shush all you match makers.All great things in life are rich ,high caloried or married (pathetic quote and extremely cheesy ? Imol effect, my friend)

To add insult to injury , the nose decided to give in and refused to perform its normal functions and instead chose to run down like a small waterfall (the ones that you chance upon when on a trek , rather like a nameless little image of the main one :)?Now I'm describing a waterfall ??? )
A visit to the good old family doc followed."Is your mother ok ?" he asked considering my Mother visits him as often as she buys the vegetables ."Yes , doctor.She's hyperventilating thrice a week , so all's good".Apparently a case of a slight chill and a slight infection in the throat, or so he said.How would he like it if I called a heart attack a slight stoppage of blood to the heart I'd like to know.A stubborn molar and a disobedient nose are just as bad. So hmph.

Anyway, the silver lining was the purchase of Khaled Hosseini's newest , was so thrilled to spot the book in Landmark , it made the rest of the day pass less painfully , ah the book , the old non-judgemental friend.Detect a hint of bitterness there ? Yes , it calls for another post :)

Home bound

The Altoid has moved into her “home”. June 10^th will be remembered from now on, just like May 13th is .Newer curtains will be procured every year to mark this day and the slightly older ones will be shifted to the dining area, the linen cupboard groweth.

To us four, a home is almost a part of the family, the fifth and the sixth members of our household. Which explains why we pamper them and pet them and clothe them like they were our offsprings. Which also explains the psychedelia in the drawing room . Each member feels it her right to buy whichever color and whatever thing that she fancies.Why her and not he ? The Dad is, but naturally the onlooker.He is the guy that did all the framework ,the walls and the beams , we do all the colors and generally , whatever we want.

A huge Singaporean multi-colored fan adorns one wall, the sensible Altoid figured, it didn’t matter what color we painted the walls, the fan would definitely go. She didn’t realize half of our guests (all old and nearly blind) would feel the same.

Or like that Kerala “Lady with the lamp” print I got of Raja Ravi Varma.I got it for 150 rupees , after much haggling with the vendor , after shaking my fist at him and telling him the great Ravi Varma would be ashamed to see his work of art being sold by that mercenary. Anyway , the lady looks kinda confused standing in front of the telephone table.

Mom , on the other hand loves diyas , idols of God and brass platters . Which is why you would find an idol of Lord Ganesha facing a platter of pink gerbras floating serenely amidst floating candles and money plant (?) leaves. Art , they say has not any rule.

I hope her new home would be to Alto, what her old one will always be. The stretch of land where we stuck together lived together and stayed together.

The home is where the heart is , or rather where the “hearth” is : )

Gerald Durrell

Yesterday, I got back home at around 6 and decided to visit Landmark . Its one my favorite places in Bangalore .Rather like a temple for books. Just as you enter , you get a whiff of the Cookie Man’s cookies , Kalmane’s coffee and that weird soap place’s smell (They sell soaps that cost 80 bucks a gram!) all at once . Very typical Forum feeling.

A vacant eyed help at Landmark(they were REALLY vacant ! Mix of brown and grey and expressionless) told me Khaled Hosseini’s latest would take a couple of days. Picked up a Bill Bryson for Mom(She’s visting Altoid for a month and she needs something else to think about other than thoughts in which the pilot highjacks the flight , she boards the flight to Tokyo instead of DC, the customs mistake her rasam powders for drugs .. you know all this could fill up into a new post entirely)

Anyway , I picked up Mitch Alboms’s latest “For one more day” and then my old favorite Gerald Durrell’s “The picnic and suchlike pandemonium”. A collection of short stories, this. The entire Durrell family decide to go off on a picnic one hot summer morning , take food that could feed an army , mistake a dead decaying horse for a rock and a resting point , for more of the painfully funny details , do read the book.

Some hilarious excerpts ,

“Do you think there’ll be enough food?” asked mother worriedly.

“I thought we were only going to Lulworth for the afternoon” said Leslie . I didn’t realize we were emigrating.

…

“Larry dear !” cried mother. “What a lovely surprise!”

Larry made his first verbal commitment to his family in ten years.

“Have any of you got colds?” he rasped irritably.

“If so, I’ll go to a hotel”

…

“Well I didn’t hear any tickety” said Leslie.

“Now –now dear don’t quarrel “ said mother peaceably.”After all , Jack is the engineer in the family”

“If he’s an engineer , it’s a curious sort of technical language they’re teaching him now “ commented Leslie.

“Engineers in my day didn’t discuss their tickety pings in public”

...

Am already well into the second story now ,I plan to finish it up in a couple of days and then lay my hands on this book.

It happened one night

I simply have to find a dermatologist nearer home, I thought. It’s ridiculous to be stuck in a thunderstorm at 7PM, with no call booth in the vicinity, no electricity and that too in a low-lying part of the city. I looked with dread at the rising level of water under the railway bridge , there would be NO way my rickety kinetic could wade through that water , it wouldn’t start after that , and I would be doomed to be stranded in the pouring rain 15 Kms away from the warmth and safety of home .Why ! Why did I have to be this brainless?(Genes! Screamed my head , all coz of Amma!)

I looked mournfully at the crowd that had collected under the measly shelter to find a cheesy ruffian winking at me. Sigh...Right then, I found somebody jolting my shoulder and I turned around to give the guy a piece of my mind, rain be damned.

“Oi?” was precisely what escaped from my mouth.

“R!!” said a familiar friendly voice

“Oi?”

Here , I must add that I associate people with places. Anybody I see outside of context is regarded with extreme terror and a prolonged freezing of the face into a look of horror.

“Judging by the expression , it HAS to be you , R!!”

“S! Where! When !Here? How!”

The initial excitement ebbed away to be replaced by discomfort. I could bear the silence no more.

Well, where have you been all this while? You just disappeared all of a sudden didn’t you? Its been five years? I asked.S shuffled her feet uncomfortably .I couldn’t help but notice the huge red bindi that kinda cried out “I’m married! I’m married!” and the mangal sutra that looked more like a golden shackle. You got married? I yelled accusingly ,And you didn’t even call me?

S tried to pacify me by patting my shoulder rhythmically whilst moving her hand up and down frantically. By then, the rain had subsided and the vehicles were clearing up. I offered to drop S home after a cup of coffee.

A little while later , we were comfortably seated in a cozy little garden café .The trees swished their branches softly to shed the little drops of water off their leaves , the birds emerged from their hiding places and the squirrels came peeping out of their holes. Bangalore looked very much at peace with itself,rather like it was saying , there , that wasn’t very bad was it?. A very ideal setting for shared confidences.

It was then that it occurred to me that , just maybe S didn’t want to tell me the whole story . I don’t know what it was, I think if you grow up with a person, spend years with them, you just feel these things. I knew she didn’t want to talk.

We walked out of the café , with her hand on my shoulder whilst I chattered on about my studies , my tuitions , my crushes and my dance.

Yes , as long as it feels the same , nothing else matters.

Trains

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Trains have a wonderful way of doing that, don’t they? I’ve always loved train journeys; they bring a strange sense of peace and melancholy in me. Ironically, my cab route passes very close to a railway track and I look very much like the perched mournful caged bird that awaits a miracle to occur.

The last journey was with my friends from the old company; we had laboriously pored over numerous maps of South India, refreshed the website for Indian Railways a zillion times, and had booked in bulk. All 7 of us were aged 21 coz I was too lazy to type in each name (Well, why 21? If I was lying anyway, why not do some wishful lying I thought). The previous trip had been to Dandeli, we were a bunch of 16 people from work, we had two whole compartments to ourselves, it started with who liked who in which team, and who thought who liked who, followed by a rather raucous anthakshari session , needless to say we were the only people with happy ,bright faces , the other faces were a combination of groggy , plain livid , agonized ,pained ..yes yes , we were traveling with a bunch of stone hearts . Another thrill is sitting on the step and watching paddy fields and farms go by : ) , seeing a kid waving madly at you and you wave back with a very happy ,mad grin on your face (The manager is , when necessitated, treated to a very watery smile , like the watery coffee that’s available at Amrutha Darshini)

Some day, SOME day, I will take off on a rail tour and go all over India!

*Images -The Ming

Coffee

A fig for partridges and quails,
ye dainties I know nothing of ye;
But on the highest mount in Wales
Would choose in peace to drink my coffee.
~Jonathon Swift

This post is solely dedicated to the queen of all beverages known to me, the quintessential coffee!

Amma’s cup:
Colour : Dark Brown
Sugar : Just right , not to sweet , not too bitter
Container : Tumbler + Dabara
Her Mood : Grumpy (I need to get back to work after this , tch tch )

Dad’s cup :
Colour : Pitch Black (perhaps a word that could describe black better?)
Sugar : 3 grains
Container : Neat looking china cup(with no chips/stains)
His Mood : Happy (Let see what the little one has to say !)

Altoid’s cup
Colour : Light brown (Very Very light , like there was a war and there was a scarcity of coffee powder )
Sugar : Apparently sugar is not scarce during the war
Container : Tumbler with the Dabara missing (Altoid loves the maid servant and believes in minimal use of utensils )
Her Mood : Disdain (I have to make coffee for THIS brat ? Primogeniture is non existent in this family)

Darshini Coffee : After a meal of 2 Idlys and a crispy vada soaked in chutney and sambhar , I actually can see angels in heaven.

9:45 Am Coffee : Ok , shove the bag(that absolutely HAS to match the outfit) into the cabinet , check mail , bound down the stairs , force the friend to take a breather , approach the coffee machine like its your long lost lover (Hmm , never ever had a present lover , anyway you get the drift ,no ? ) , (½ cup milk + ½ tsp sugar + ½ cup latte ) --tending towards infinite pleasure and infinite bitching about the company , its managers and the general exploitation all over the place.

Kalmane Coffee :

Meet your old friends , sip Kalmane’s Mysore filter kaapi that’s served in tumblers , gang up with your best friend , browse through the little library there , window shop , get back home all set to fight Sunday night blues

Café Coffee Day
Sit on minuscule chairs, try to holler out to your friends, lean back and find yourself almost on the lap of the person breathing behind you, wait for eons for a cup of crushed ice and milk, and oh yes,with some coffee in it

Airlines Hotel
Sunday mornings are for book club meets, hot masala dosa and coffee served in tall glass tumblers with a spoon thrust into it

Now that all is well that ends well, let us end it with another quote

Be a coffee drinking individual – espresso yourself!

Ok , did I hear a groan there?

* Image courtesy , google

Voice from the past

Yesterday was one of those days, depressing, boring and yet another of those “what the hell am I doing in this hell-hole working for these monsters” kinda days . Come 8:20PM the east-indian security guard blared over the intercom (his 30 seconds of fame for the day)

“Kompany transport will leeb in onother phibe mineets” . I shoved my unused pad and pen into the cabinet ,beats me why I set it aside EVERY single day , a vain hope that one fine day , I would be jotting down ideas for a Nobel prize winning thesis? Heehaw!

Ok, now the cabinet is my manager’s head... I gave it a resound kick, clapped my hands, there, that felt better, life’s all about venting ones anger on inanimate objects and unassuming friends.

Just as I loaded my play list, an unlisted number flashed on my mobile screen .Must be some consultant I thought. “Hello?” in my most put on professional accent.

“R?”

“?”

“Sigh, its me D”

“: )!!”

“Where are you and why do I hear traffic at this time of the night?”

“Work” I said sulkily.

The conversation went on, I didn’t care about the other two passengers in the cab, who were deprived of their dose of radio city and that sickly RJ who keeps calling herself my friend and drive time pal, bleah.

Continuing, D is my friend from my old company. I hadn’t mailed/called/met her since I joined the hell-hole .General wonderings about my health, stress levels ensued and then popped up the sawaal dus karor ka! Updates about my being single and when did I plan to jump headlong into holy matrimony. I pacified D saying it would all be in good time and hung up after promising to meet her on one of the weekends.

I went to bed remembering our group of 4 in my old company, the shared confidences and the unsaid words. Our brief stay in a house near office, the late night walks, the midnight roach scares and the makeshift dinners. Yes ,with a warm feeling and a pinch of sadness.

Dance like no one’s watching

I love dancing.

And my tryst with dance started when I was 5, and it started, with my Mom. I don’t think my Mom even realized it was something that I would like doing. She was giving me a first of many chances to find out what I was really good at. And as it turned out, I loved dancing.

Mom decided that since Altoid was a budding singer (to which I disagreed heartily), the only logical thing to do was to train Chiclet to dance. I often wondered whether it was a part of Amma’s well sketched solution to a future economic crisis.

So one un-fine day, Amma decided that I had gorged enough gulaab jamoons (the word is non-existent in this hateful dictionary) and bhajjis and it was time to put her 5^th point on the To-do list to action. So little Chiclet was yanked from her cradle (now, that’s another story .Until I was about 8 , I could fit into my cradle, and no ,no, not the ones that you see around these days , this was a mid sized one that could fit a 3-foot person).

My newly appointed dance Guru Mrs.UK gave Amma’s Somalian evacuee frame a curious glance as I crouched behind Amma and watched GUK’s(Guru UK) slaves dance to her tunes.

“Where is the student?”

“She’s hiding behind me like an ass” said Amma victoriously, to which I promptly chewed a bit off Amma’s Benares saree, take that, and that I thought.

“Come here, little girl” said GUK with surprisingly kind eyes, and the little girl went.

That day, I learnt the first namaskaaram of the very many that were to follow. The commencement of any dance starts with the namaskaaram , first to the Lord above, then the Guru(with the hands positioned in front of the heart) and then to the audience), yes, in that order.

In the days that followed I became GUK’s pet student, partly because I had a photographic memory when it came to remembering new steps (You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I could remember everything I saw, even just once) and secondly, I discovered something about myself hitherto unknown - that I could co-ordinate my hands and feet.

Now, there exists a step in BN called the “Rangakramana” which is basically a technique to cover a lot of stage, it involves movement, arc-like from one side of the stage to the other. While the teenagers sashayed gracefully, Chiclet assumed it was a running race and fled from one corner to the other, I rather think she could’ve mistaken the step for a game of wall-touch. It was during these times that Sudha Chandran’s “Mayuri” was aired on DD. I vividly remember sitting on the cardboard-box-converted chair, swinging my legs and telling Amma which of the dance steps I already knew, which of them Sudha unfortunately didn’t do too well, while Amma shelled peas for lunch.

I had by then progressed to the “Thillana”. Thillana is the dancer’s first brush with “Abhinaya” or expression.Thillana comprises of 3 stages of jathi (sequence of steps, the sequence is carefully designed so as to make the jathi on the whole very pleasing to the eye) followed by a stanza in praise of the Lord, devotion is the first emotion that you are taught.

GUK decided that it was time I was introduced to the stage and it was then that I first felt it, my love for the spot light! It’s a wonderful feeling, an experience that is never an “experience”, you always are nervous before the curtains are drawn, you always think you’re going to mess up, and then, the lights come shining above you, you forget the countless times you practiced, the emotions that you wanted to convey in a zillion other ways, the pain, and the exhaustion. You dance – for yourself, for the joy of being able to, right there, right then.

My father by then got a transfer to Bangalore and GUK had to wish her pille (little one in Kannada) adieu.

There are some things I can never forget about Mangalore-The LIG housing colony, my best friend, Suramya and the lady who taught me my first step- my Guru.

After coming to Bangalore, I conveniently forgot all about BN, I relapsed into the regime that my new school demanded. I needed to unlearn the Mangalore Kannada accent, I had to learn cycling, I needed to explore the new compound, dig my hands into a new garden, fight with my old foe, Altoid –the list was never-ending. And then, Amma found me.
“Chiclet, wear your salwar suit, I’ve found a new BN guru”

The new BN guru was a Mrs. N, GN.GN asked me to demonstrate whatever I’d learnt with GUK. Now, it seemed like eons since I last danced, and I’d forgotten most of the movements. While I contorted my face trying to remember GUK’s face while she taught me the step , I found the wooden stick(it is used by the gurus to tap on the floor to give you the rhythm) being hurled at me and an angry GN glaring down at me asking me if I had plans of finishing at all. A grim Amma and a scared Chiclet started walking homewards never to go back to GN.

Two years later , Amma found out about Guru R from her student. Chiclet got into her salwar suit (the same one, her rate of growth increased at the alarming rate of of 10^-9 cms per year).

GR’s house was very close to ours , and amma coached me on the way. “Sit in aramandi until your knees touch the ground , I would rather you ripped your thighs than have GR complain about your posture , do you hear me?” “ Yes , Amma” “Will you treat to masala buns on the way back ?”

GR is the kind of Guru that you always want to please. One look at you , and she would know when you weren’t in the mood and when you actually got into the skin of the character. I must add, she is one of the most talented and the most creative dancer/Guru that I have ever seen. I had a strange blow hot blow cold bond with this Guru, mainly because she was a creative and a moody artiste ,and I, was plain moody :) .

I haven’t changed gurus since GR.

I’ve done worse.

Its been a while since I last danced, 4 years to be precise, rather like an old friend you lost touch with. Or rather, you are scared to get in touch with, for the fear of finding that they’re just not the same.

I am confident that I will someday, when I feel I can, for dance is one of my very old friends, one of a few that I have been completely true to.

Work like you don't need the money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching…