Open Letter to No One in Particular

The battlelines drawn by the mad Madrasan has Delhi Boy’s jockeys in a twist but what got my goat was the term MADRASAN. How derogatory is that? Just when everyone south of the Vindhyas had nicely got used to being called MADRASI by Goldy and Pinky up north, we suddenly get relabeled like old wine in a new bottle -transported from familiar surroundings to new territory and for what?! So that #madrasan can trend on twitter?!! Nevermind MADRASAN sounds like ‘she who attends a Madrasa’ and could open a whole can of worms with its communal overtones.

For every Fendi-clutching, Manolo Blahnik-tottering, blonde streaked ‘Dahli-ite’, there is a long-tressed wise Madrasi who orders Zara on sale from Baby Uncle in the US. And for every tight-shirted Delhite clawing his way up the Harvard Review there is a Madrasi who breaks a coconut at a Rajni shrine. It takes all types except the average Dahlite will insist his dad sups with Manmohan and his Mummyji does her weekly grocery shopping in Paris. The average ‘Madrasi’ can only feebly wave her dad’s Phd degree and colour–coordinate her mum’s pattu saari collection.

It’s a losing battle; we cannot match up to the Dahlite’s standards. We cannot dream of purchasing Bentley convertibles and running over sleeping beggars. And it is all because amma and amma keep our salaries locked in trust funds that will magically crack open when the Doomsday clock strikes the n^th hour. We cannot party, drink (aaiyo) or hang out with unsavory types, that usually boosters your reputation no end on the college circuit, because amma has a GPS tracker embedded below our epidermis.

So what hope do we have of meeting the Dahli boy on his turf? So what if we can discuss rocket propulsion and the finer nuances of a Monet in the same breath. Or Jayalalitha’s gold bathroom fittings and the latest Sun TV serial for that matter - We can’t flash the cash and that’s that. Unless you count our big fat gold weddings…..

BOOKS I READ/AM READING: 'Alex’s Adventures in Numberland': I have never come across a book that made math so much fun and well…so idiot-proof;) Ouch. Unless you count Feyman of course. Makes me want to crack open Euclid’s Proofs..hm….now THAT’S saying a lot. Other Recommended Reads: 'Madame Bovary' (forgotten how many times I have read it) and the ever-entertaining, so, so brilliant Tharoor tour de force ‘Great Indian Novel’, not to mention Du Maurier’s earliest work that has mysteriously surfaced ‘The Doll and Other Stories’ (Dark, somber and a bit gauche but it is her early work).

PS: Hell’s Bells….I just googled ‘Madrasan’ on Google (Images Options) and no points for guessing what I got.

Back to work, Back to reality

Of late my digital imprint has been a bit like my cooking. I consume more than I concoct.

I am constantly trawling the net for new web trends, social media bytes and general blather that will knock the socks of my employers. So of course I have no time for anything that entails typing more than 140 characters. And this is when I AM working.

When I was minus a legitimate job, my Facebook floundered, my Twitter hardly chirruped, my blog got bogged down and I dropped from the (digital) social scene like a fly squished by a particularly effective swatter.

Now that I am three days away from my first 100% fulltime job (since V came along) the moths are raising up a storm in the pit of my stomach. I would have stuck to butterfly flutters but that conjures up a vision of a picturesque meadow with butterflies gently flitting to a Chopin sonata. What I feel like is more of a ‘lost in a dark forest torn from the underside of your worst nightmare’– set to Darth Vader’s signature tune.

There are wonder mums with three children who juggle it all without breaking a sweat. I am pretty sure I am not it, not when I still have peanut butter under my finger nails as I dash frantically to catch that damned bus. Why use public transport when you can drive? Well, that is when I get to read for an hour uninterrupted. The old fashioned reading - minus the palm top/the ereader/the tablet sort and more importantly away from the three year old toddler sort. Though to give V credit he is in bed by 8.30 PM, giving me 2 hours of reading time at night as well.


Meanwhile as my clock stolidly plods on, I am back to scouring the net
1. To act extremely knowledgeable about the latest trends
2. To sound relatively adept in geek speak
3. Hoping like hell I am not out of my depth


BOOKS I READ IN JUNE
Devil in The White City (Erik Larson) : Stunningly researched and a ripping good read, if you like the mix of power hungry builders and gory serial killings that make Jack the Ripper’s exploits seem like granny playing croquet. Highly recommended and mostly fact, you get to know about the first Ferris wheel and the incredible, unbelievable effort that went to create the extravaganza that was the Columbian Exposition: The World’s Fair in Chicago of the 1890’s .

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (Stephen King) : I ‘fess up, I am a King addict especially when he isn’t always off on his LSD trips. This one is a fabulous read - a girl lost in the forest for nine days who finds strength in baseball and her favourite star. Simple, lucid and yet frightening. I am not straying away from any path, that’s for sure.

The MoneyChangers: I used to be a Hailey fan but this is definitely not one of his best. Re-reading this after more than 15 years so it felt a bit odd. Déjà vu..

picture sourced from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WorldColumbianExpositionExhibitHall.jpg

Wishlist for 2011

It's that time of the year again when I dust off my little diary and figure out what I have been wanting to do but never quite got around to doing. The last time I did that was way back in 2004 Make a Wish

This list is more sane, more grounded, more mature me...

1. Travel…travel..travel
2. Go broke..go broke..go broke
3. Revisit Lakshadweep and get my %$^ diving ticket
4. White water rafting – somewhere!
5. Doodle, sketch, draw, Photoshop – forget the ebook reader, invest in a stylus
6. Try to coordinate holidays with best buddies more often
7. Study something but nothing related to Lit, too cliché
8. Chase up my publishing dreams - there is a BIG BIG market for toddlers, zone in woman!
   
9. Actually cook stuff more often from the recipe books I buy
10. Call a friend a week at least! Just like that.
11. Hell, get the ebook reader anyway

Books I am reading

Great Expectations because I love Pip, always did, there is something so pathetically abysmal about that thing called hope. Shantaram - the only Indian reader to have given this a miss, I actually borrowed this to see if it is worth the hoopla. Damnation I haven't been getting in much reading at all!

Backstroke in the Backwaters

The Malabar Coast - where the backwaters kiss the sea and the coconut trees beat a tattoo against the sky.

Four long years in the making (or should I say dreaming) my ‘I-don’t-know-where-but-it sure- as-hell-‘aint-what-everyone-does’ Kerala plans boded its time patiently, nestled comfortably amidst my Lakshadweep diving and Rishikesh rafting pipe dreams.

A week of heavy duty armchair planning, a lot of research and route changing - the idea boiled down to this - I wanted to do all that Kerala Tourism does not promise in its relentless pursuit of luring tourists to where all OTHER tourists go.

In other words, there had to be this secret part of Kerala which the Keralites like to keep to themselves, space they can call their own and you bet your boots, we found it. Very ‘The Beach’ (if you remember the movie or loved the book as much as I did), we had our own adventures finding beauty in unknown places.













In all honesty, the North came about more from a sense of economy than adventure, but as my North Kerala thesis progressed, the sense of adventure sharpened all right.

You want to sit in a houseboat, we canoed across the backwaters. You want to sit neckdeep in tourists, we find beaches where you can swim where dolphins laze, we find an incredible sanctuary that take ecotourism and turns it on it head. You want a luxury resort, we find adventure getting to a waterlogged homestay - the view making EVERYTHING worth the effort. Imagine seeing a river and the sea in one sweeping glance. You want a regular hotel, we stay at a mussel farming resort feet away from the best pool I have ever swum in - the crystal clean backwaters that stretches as far as the eye can see.

I daresay in due course, the hardworking folks at Kerala Tourism will neatly package, label and sell the Malabar Coast - creating a santised package that will appeal to the Indian mind - houseboat (check), cruise (check), sea (check). But for the moment, the average ‘outsider’ only knows this part of the world by his palate- courtesy the Malabar Parantha and the Malabar fish curry.

The route was a simple, stick to the NH given how lousy (and this is hearsay) the local Kerala roads are. So we dutifully followed the NH 47 and the NH 17 through broad roads and tiny lanes and villager packed ruts just taking slight detours to reach our varied destinations. I plan to blog in detail about it, but that's for later and for a separate blog for the footloose and fancyfree who also happen to have a toddler.

So our car stalled several times and the shock absorbers are breathing their last. So I did not get a soothing hot oil massage, did not go shopping and never found anyone selling either coconut water or banana chips. So I drove two babies, one friend and her uncomplaining husband over the narrowest and worst roads ever to reach a Theyyam that refused to materialise but what the heck, this was my Kerala dream vacation and it was scrumptious, no two ways about that!

The only shopping I did, was to buy a Parambikulam tee and cap - and that is only because I fell desperately in love with the sanctuary which is always going to remain on my list of places to visit again and again and again - forever and forever.

I am typing this with my feet in the water, my fingers drumming the keypad in tandem with the sound of fish plopping in the water.

I slip into a reverie that includes buying property off Kasargode and setting up a homestay, I dream of hell, mussle farming - (according to farmer entrepreneur Mr Gul Mohammed it is easy-as-pie and dead lucrative). I dream way too much but as always my logical side rudely brushes the gossamer soft illusions and it is back to business

So perhaps I will sell Jet Wings or Outlook Traveller articles on offbeat vacations, maybe I will write that book or get back to illustrations but I know I won’t.

I will get back, settle down to being a small cog in the advertising machinery, selling stuff to people who yearn to be bought. I will go back to being an impatient mother and juggling all the stuff I HAVE to do with all the stuff I want to do.

But somewhere in the back of mind will remain the ripple of the backwaters where time refused to stand still.

===============================================================
THE ROUTE
Coimbatore - Parambikulam Sanctuary –Thirussur/Trichur (Punnarkotha Temple Elephant Park) – Malappuram – Kozhikode (Calicut) - Kannur (Muzhapilangad the Drive In Beach) –- Bakil/Nilswaram/Valiyaparamba (Kasargode)

PLACES WE STAYED (DESTINATIONS AND ENROUTE) - All highly recommended, reviews will be up on TripAdvisor and will link the same to my travel blog
Parambikulam Sanctuary http://www.parambikulam.org/
Lulu International Convention Centre, Thrissur http://www.luluicc.in/
Kappad Beach Resort http://www.renaissancekappadbeach.com
Kappad Beach Resort http://www.kannurbeachhouse.com/
Oyster Opera at Padanna (Kasargod) http://www.oysteroperaatpadanna.com/
GGT Grand at Gudalur (return journey) http://ggtgrand.com/

Toddler Party Do

Birthdays. I do not remember when I last really celebrated mine or even ‘wanted’ to celebrate it. You hit the 30’s and it is mostly about the company of moderately priced alcohol and sympathetic friends.

Flash forward to Dec 8th 2010 and organizing a three something toddler’s party single handed. What does a posse of tots eat? Er do they eat at all? I contemplated handing crepe paper decorations as hors d oeuvres. If the kids were anything like the one I was familiar with, they would devour them in all shades.


I consulted the man-in-charge

Me: What would you like at your party
V: Mummum (food)

Me (sinking feeling): Er food? Okay….what else
V: Cake

Me: Of course, what kind?
V: Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate………..
(Devious manipulative mother pre-programmed kid to like her fav kind)

Me: Done, what shape?
V: Fish

Me: Fish?
V: Fish Fish Fish Fish………………..

So I downloaded fish designs, I made fishy invites, I cut out shapes that were definitely fishy – their fins were missing. Heck I even had a dot the eye of a fish game and a welcome sign on shiny blue paper that said DIVE IN.

I pondered flicking the Naval Ball paraphernalia which did indeed have a mermaid theme. Gave up on it when I realised the venue might be under surveillance.

I am not sure if the kids were impressed with my decoration efforts but the mums chaperoning them were. YAY!
Until one mum commented how strange my fish looked. BOOOO.

The mad rush for appropriate return gifts, the painful packing and marking, the guest list in a state of flux….all ok, all calm – until the caterer went fishing, the baker went hiking, the food didn’t quite put in an appearance and the thirty something small guests did ;(

Another mad rush to make teeny pizzas and teenier idlies, along with a LOT of hollering, a lot of driving and what can only be politely termed as a near nervous breakdown.

Well, the cake eventually put in an appearance. I was so thrilled I promptly stole the gems before the kids had a go at it. Hell I had paid for the damned thing in more ways than one.

I cleverly deputed two super sweet mom friends to cut more fish shapes for a treasure hunt game. But that never materialized - I was too busy fending off kids in much the same the average Somalian fends off persistent flies)

Kid: Aunty Balloon dedo! Dedo na Dedo na..DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDO DEOD DOEDO DEDO (holding on to my leg)

Kid 2: Aunty bubble soap chaiyye
(had bubble soap solution all over the place so kids could blow...well bubbles duh!)

Kid 3: Aunty apke paas hindi music nahin hai kya?
I was playing rock and roll much to the chagrin of assorted mummies. (Ladies, I didn't have the time to organise the Lil' Mermaid OST!!)

Kid 4: Yes aunty!!!! Aunty Sheela ki Jawaani!!

AAAAAAAAAAARGH!

Organising a birthday party with husband AWOL and in-laws frantically trying to reschedule flights to get to Sri Lanka Vs 20 laps in the pool + 5 games of squash + 8 km hike through unexplored territory + doing a 1500 word dissertation. That’s a no-brainer bubba!

As for V, he was too busy kissing the girls and eating cake……. my boy..sigh.

BOOKS I AM (TRYING TO) READ
Starting today, precisely at 9.45 PM after V knocks off, I am getting back on track...to hell with the Defence Services Staff College jigs and all the script writing i have been stuck doing. "I am retiring while I am at the top' - QUOTE UNQUOTE my squash partner. Reading 'Duma Key' (Stephen King) - King and I share a love, hate relationship and I CANNOT seem to end it. Want to re-read Mrs Craddock and Razor's Edge (Maugham), The World is Flat (left it midway a couple of months ago)., Shantaram which I have gotta return to Annie, Memoirs of my Father, gadzillion blogs..........my list is infinite - waittaminute that CAN'T be called a list at all...hm

A Preganant Pause

What is wrong with the word 'pregnant'? It rolls off your tongue with a delicious twang, it is succinct, it is pithy and most of all you know what it means! Why can't a woman say it like it is? Is it a cuss word? Will God strike her down?? Why must she stoop to euphemisms and not make the matter-of-fact declaration.

But if we must stick with euphemisms then I infinitely prefer a 'bun in the oven'..or two as the case may be. Unfortunately all that carrying and expecting is still carrying on. And to that I add 'She is in the family way' which always makes me think they missed an apostrophe and an s (after family). "I am gonna get her with a shotgun and get her out of the way," said Grandpa grimly. "Darling, wouldn't a nice bit of arsenic do the trick - so much more quieter," interjected grandma gently.

Now, one can sidestep this tricky word as best as one can until one actually ends up being…well…pregnant. The first six months is smooth sailing but once you start resembling a cross between the Good Year blimp and the Michelin Man you can no longer avoid the inevitable.

Scene I

Social gathering with a bunch of coursemates: 96% of who are always itching to know when their non-baby buddies will be saddled with a baby as badly behaved as theirs’.

X “Oooh Finally!! Some good news!!!
Me: “How on earth did you know I got an appraisal?

X(cleverly rephrasing): I mean are you ‘expecting?’

Me: “Expecting….. another appraisal, I wish!”

X you carrying?

Me (waving hands in her face): Nope, not got a thing

X OH GOD!!

Benevolent me: All right, I will put you out of your misery, I am pregnant.

A sudden hush descends upon the room, the men look steadily at the cracks in the wall, the women squirm in acute embarrassment

Wellwisher (coughing delicately): Um…er.. Congratulations.

Strange, we can barely coin a term for what will eventually evolve into a baby but the moment aforesaid baby pops out the proud parent just cannot stop gushing about it!

Scene II

Show off Mumma: “Do you know what A is reading?”

Me: “No”

Proud Mumma: “Homer’s Illiad! Isn’t my kitchy kootchy gooey goo smart?”
Me: “Um he is 9 months old”

Proud Mumma (not missing a beat): “Oh he signs it – you know baby sign language.”

Me :”Right..and he can also translate Herbrew to Greek.”

Proud Mumma): Really, whose child is that… Mrs Sharma's i bet - that little ^%&$$%. Well, if she can, MY kitchy koo can do it better…

And the war of the mummies begins and you wish little kitchy koo was back in mummy’s tummy, back when mummy was too embarrassed to talk about him.