A few days back, we went to the Burjuman Centre. Actually we had an appointment elsewhere at about 11.30 and not wanting take any risk with the traffic, we left home early….and ended up too early for the appointment. Since Burjuman was nearby, we decided to drop in.
We entered the Nike shop and I as usual got curious glances from the Philippino salesgirls. What would a sari clad middle aged dame want in a Nike showroom? I asked for football jerseys. Without batting an eyelid ( very professional of her…) she asked me , “ For gents or ladies, Madame?” I couldn’t help giggling. Obviously I didn’t look the football jersey kind at all. For gents, of course, I said…for my sons. She smiled , apparently relieved, and led me to the area where Barcelona jerseys vied with the Juventus ones.
I didn’t find the kind my son wanted, thanked her and walked out. Next at the Adidas shop, they had every other club but Manchester United. Disappointed, we both walked on. Then I saw it… the Virgin Mega Store. I remembered that the twins had asked for original DVDs of Prison Break. A very reluctant RP followed me into the shop. He knows I go haywire inside that shop. Virgin Mega Store personnel in the Mall of the Emirates and Deira City Centre are familiar with me… But this was the first time in Burjuman. As I waltzed alone towards the English DVD section a red uniform clad youth started trailing me. First, he told me, ‘Ma’am, No Hindi titles here.’ As I looked at him surprised, he added condescendingly, ‘This is the English Section, Ma’am.’
I took a look at his name tag before saying, “I know, Adrian. Can you help me locate the first season of Prison Break?” I could see him mentally shrug as he told me, Sorry, we are sold out. Then as the salesman in him surfaced, he said, we have the second season, though. I said okay and picked up the second season. I felt like telling him I have already watched the complete first season with my twin sons and half of the second, but why should I bother, I thought.
The suddenly my eyes fell on the seventh and eighth seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond. Now… I am an avid fan of the series and own all the 6 seasons. With a whoop of joy, I picked up both. I could see my poor better half wince right behind me. I handed all the three collections to Adrian and asked him if he could check out at their branches in the M o E and Deira if they have the first season of Prison Break so that I could pick it up from there. He disappeared for a while and brought back the news that it was available in Mercato Mall and he could get us a copy in two or three days. I gave him RP’s mobile number and name and told him to give a ring as soon as he got it.
As I was about to turn back, he told me Ma’am we have the latest Hindi hits and pointed and enunciated with a heavy accent ‘ Jhoom Barabar Jhoom…and…’ I said serenely, sorry I am not hooked to Hindi movies. Then, as we both moved towards the counter, I said, “Adrian, appearances can be deceptive, right?” he had the decency to look ashamed.
At the counter, there was another youth, an African by birth obviously, who saw my collection and said, “Good choice, maa’m…And I smiled at him, “Yeah, I know.” I hope Adrian learnt a lesson today. You cannot stereotype people or take an arrogant attitude. My wearing sari had nothing to do with his duty as a salesman. Where is it said that only jeans-clad people can enjoy American sitcoms? He was young… and I was ready to forgive him… But, if he acts snooty the next time I am in the shop… I’ll give him a piece of my mind!
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
THE BORDERS ARE CLOSING IN!
The heart of the compulsive bibliophile in me skipped a couple of beats when I saw a branch of Borders (the bookshop in Mof E, supposedly inaugurated by Jeffrey Archer last year) in Deira City Centre...
Layers of dust can escape my eyes but you can never hide a bookshop from me... In fact, my bibliomania goes to incredible lengths... Even when my eyes glance at the word 'book' in the advertisements in the Freehold section of the Gulf News calling potential customers to book their flats in some exotic upcoming skyscraper... I doubleback to the word, only to retreat in defeat... God knows I can't afford to book an apartment... but I definitely can buy a book or two (or even three) if my fancy catches them...
Like I said, it is joyous tidings for me that Borders have opened a branch in Deira City. For one, Mall of the Emirates is far, far away for a Sharjah resident and I have to depend on a reluctant spouse to drive me there... There's no fun being in a bookshop with a husband who reads nothing but the newspaper and other people's minds... He'll just dog you with impatient looks and serve volleys of " Are we done?" s , "How long will it take"s.... and an assortment of grunts and groans... at you which you can not dodge or ignore anymore...and exasperated, you follow him out of the shop promising never to repeat that mistake ever...
Perhaps I am being a shade too harsh on the man. Once or twice a year he takes me to House of Prose, my favourite secondhand bookshop in Jumeira. Since the jewel of a shop is ensconced in a mini mall, he'll happily wander out of the bookshop and amble in after giving me enough time to browse, choose and generally enjoy the smell and sight of books...
This time, I bought a lot of obscure ( to me) writers... Women writers... about women main characters... in those brightly coloured papaerbacks... For a change... Actually I have picked up almost all Michael Palmers, Crichtons and Follets there...
It was only last year that I started enjoying women writers... Like my friend says, I am all for what is called in Kerala ' Pennezhuthu' - Female Writing- I feel women are better at humour these days... Then I read two books by Karen Quinn and enjoyed it without going through the rollercoaster rides I had with Dan Brown... Quin's books were about the upper middle class American women, so different from me... but I enjoyed the books...Somewhere in my forages I picked up a few Erma Bombecks and have become an ardent fan of hers...
After reading A couple of Shashi Tharoors, a Mitch Albom and of course, the last J.K. Rowling, I wanted a change. I picked up Tasmina Perry's Daddy's Girls. Initially, I kicked myself for paying good money for what seemed to be the a lurid account of the lives of the rich and restless British gentry... the book turned out to be good... the spoilt, ambitious and beautiful women showed some spunk and character at the end...
This time, at the House of Prose, I piced up more women writers, like Diana Appleyard and Sarah Webb... Let me see how they measure up...
I have half a dozen books to finish before getting new ones... But will I be able to restrict myself from exploring Borders? I shall have to go all the way to Dubai... It is a pity we don't have really bookshops here in Sharjah like in Bangalore... We do have the Book Gallery and the Book Plus in Malls... But we need a Magrudy's or a Borders here too... May be even a branch of House of Prose. They have two branches in Dubai and one in AbuDhabi... and Sharjah is supposed to be cultural capital of the emirates... If books are not 'culture'... what is? But seeing they cost so much... it is but natural that book shops thrive in Dubai- the commercial capital...
Maybe once RP buys his MRV, I'll get the Nissan and I can explore the bookshops in Dubai at will.... may be that's why he's delaying ... right? OH MY! Sigh!
Layers of dust can escape my eyes but you can never hide a bookshop from me... In fact, my bibliomania goes to incredible lengths... Even when my eyes glance at the word 'book' in the advertisements in the Freehold section of the Gulf News calling potential customers to book their flats in some exotic upcoming skyscraper... I doubleback to the word, only to retreat in defeat... God knows I can't afford to book an apartment... but I definitely can buy a book or two (or even three) if my fancy catches them...
Like I said, it is joyous tidings for me that Borders have opened a branch in Deira City. For one, Mall of the Emirates is far, far away for a Sharjah resident and I have to depend on a reluctant spouse to drive me there... There's no fun being in a bookshop with a husband who reads nothing but the newspaper and other people's minds... He'll just dog you with impatient looks and serve volleys of " Are we done?" s , "How long will it take"s.... and an assortment of grunts and groans... at you which you can not dodge or ignore anymore...and exasperated, you follow him out of the shop promising never to repeat that mistake ever...
Perhaps I am being a shade too harsh on the man. Once or twice a year he takes me to House of Prose, my favourite secondhand bookshop in Jumeira. Since the jewel of a shop is ensconced in a mini mall, he'll happily wander out of the bookshop and amble in after giving me enough time to browse, choose and generally enjoy the smell and sight of books...
This time, I bought a lot of obscure ( to me) writers... Women writers... about women main characters... in those brightly coloured papaerbacks... For a change... Actually I have picked up almost all Michael Palmers, Crichtons and Follets there...
It was only last year that I started enjoying women writers... Like my friend says, I am all for what is called in Kerala ' Pennezhuthu' - Female Writing- I feel women are better at humour these days... Then I read two books by Karen Quinn and enjoyed it without going through the rollercoaster rides I had with Dan Brown... Quin's books were about the upper middle class American women, so different from me... but I enjoyed the books...Somewhere in my forages I picked up a few Erma Bombecks and have become an ardent fan of hers...
After reading A couple of Shashi Tharoors, a Mitch Albom and of course, the last J.K. Rowling, I wanted a change. I picked up Tasmina Perry's Daddy's Girls. Initially, I kicked myself for paying good money for what seemed to be the a lurid account of the lives of the rich and restless British gentry... the book turned out to be good... the spoilt, ambitious and beautiful women showed some spunk and character at the end...
This time, at the House of Prose, I piced up more women writers, like Diana Appleyard and Sarah Webb... Let me see how they measure up...
I have half a dozen books to finish before getting new ones... But will I be able to restrict myself from exploring Borders? I shall have to go all the way to Dubai... It is a pity we don't have really bookshops here in Sharjah like in Bangalore... We do have the Book Gallery and the Book Plus in Malls... But we need a Magrudy's or a Borders here too... May be even a branch of House of Prose. They have two branches in Dubai and one in AbuDhabi... and Sharjah is supposed to be cultural capital of the emirates... If books are not 'culture'... what is? But seeing they cost so much... it is but natural that book shops thrive in Dubai- the commercial capital...
Maybe once RP buys his MRV, I'll get the Nissan and I can explore the bookshops in Dubai at will.... may be that's why he's delaying ... right? OH MY! Sigh!
Friday, April 06, 2007
AN ITALIAN CO(R)N JOB!
Seems a pity to start a travelogue like this…But this incident has been the pebble in my shoes ever since it happened that after returning home I was waiting impatiently for the pictures to get downloaded so that I can give vent to my irritation.
We had a brief trip to Milan on the third day of our Europe tour. The tour director gave us 3 hours to visit the Milan Duomo and the surroundings. He told us we would not be able to see the The Last Supper, Da Vinci’s fresco in Santa Maria Delle Grazie since booking had to be done well in advance…like 3 to 4 months prior to visit. They are overbooked thanks to Dan Brown!
Well, we were not disappointed much, for the Duomo di Milano is in itself a magnificent piece of 16th century architecture with its majestic pillars and stained glass windows.
Piazza del Duomo, the central square of Milan is a place where visitors, Italians and pigeons congregate. We were typical tourists wielding cameras and clicked away happily at the base of the imposing statue of Vittorio Emmanuele II.
The thousands of pigeons were a sight to behold and we could see tourists feeding the friendly birds who didn’t baulk at perching on the heads and hands to peck at the corn doled around by some good Samaritans.
My sister Rat, on a whim, went right in their midst and extended her hand…A curious pigeon hovered in the air near her. Soon, Matsy, my niece joined her…More pigeons flocked towards them…A young man approached them and dropped a few kernels into their palms and the birds started eating from their hands…Soon I too joined them. The man now put a few kernels on my sister’s head and the birds flew up and perched on her head.
She started shrieking and shooed them away…The birds flew away…but the young man did not. He demanded money. We gave him 2 euros…he started off menacingly in Italian and demanded 5 Euros. We refused…but soon he was joined by three more youngsters who surrounded us threateningly. We had to shell out 5 euros.
Later on we came to know from others that actually for 2 Euros, they take your picture feeding the birds…and we, we were victims of an Italian con…er…corn…job!
We had a brief trip to Milan on the third day of our Europe tour. The tour director gave us 3 hours to visit the Milan Duomo and the surroundings. He told us we would not be able to see the The Last Supper, Da Vinci’s fresco in Santa Maria Delle Grazie since booking had to be done well in advance…like 3 to 4 months prior to visit. They are overbooked thanks to Dan Brown!
Well, we were not disappointed much, for the Duomo di Milano is in itself a magnificent piece of 16th century architecture with its majestic pillars and stained glass windows.
Piazza del Duomo, the central square of Milan is a place where visitors, Italians and pigeons congregate. We were typical tourists wielding cameras and clicked away happily at the base of the imposing statue of Vittorio Emmanuele II.
The thousands of pigeons were a sight to behold and we could see tourists feeding the friendly birds who didn’t baulk at perching on the heads and hands to peck at the corn doled around by some good Samaritans.
My sister Rat, on a whim, went right in their midst and extended her hand…A curious pigeon hovered in the air near her. Soon, Matsy, my niece joined her…More pigeons flocked towards them…A young man approached them and dropped a few kernels into their palms and the birds started eating from their hands…Soon I too joined them. The man now put a few kernels on my sister’s head and the birds flew up and perched on her head.
She started shrieking and shooed them away…The birds flew away…but the young man did not. He demanded money. We gave him 2 euros…he started off menacingly in Italian and demanded 5 Euros. We refused…but soon he was joined by three more youngsters who surrounded us threateningly. We had to shell out 5 euros.
Later on we came to know from others that actually for 2 Euros, they take your picture feeding the birds…and we, we were victims of an Italian con…er…corn…job!
THE EUROPEAN FOOD EXPERIENCE
Should we eat to live or live to eat? My husband asked me before our Europe trip when I expressed my doubt about the food we might…or might not…get there. We are going to visit places….food should not be a stumbling block in this great trip. Fine, I decided. I shall not crib. I am not very fussy about food. In fact, in my pre-marriage days I was famous for eating anything served without any comment. But, I am a strict vegetarian and hence my apprehensions about the food facilities on tour.
Well, I must say it was not unpleasant at all. Though I do feel that I have eaten my lifetime quota of Pizza Margueritas in the 3 days we stayed in Rome.
We used to have a very filling continental breakfast in the hotels we were put up and one Indian meal a day.
In Lucerne we dined at La Alpine, an Indian restaurant. We were exhausted by the 3 flights we had taken in 24 hours and didn’t notice much the first night there. On the second night, I noticed some Swiss customers. I came to know that there was a good Swiss clientele for Indian food. The place had a very ethnic Indian touch. Food was good.
At Mt. Titlis, we were given a buffet lunch at the restaurant on top. There was hot soup to thaw your frozen body that had been exposed to the -15 degrees temp. and the snow fall outside! There was a funny combination of Indian dishes…but hot, steaming food was welcome and they even had ice creams and fruits for the adventurous!
In Dijon, we went to a Taiwanese restaurant. As Girish Agraval, the tour director, put it, it was a new experience for both the restaurant and for us! For the first time, they were serving Chinese vegetarian dishes. Well… I found the boiled ( without salt) string beans and bean sprouts edible only after dousing it with some chilli flakes and mixing it with some ready made yoghurt they had given. The spring rolls were too oily. I liked their noodles, though.
At Milan, eating in the Autogrill was a disturbing experience. For one, the place was crowded and no one had time to confirm to us that what they had slapped onto our tray was actually vegetarian stuff. It looked quite doubtful. I ended up eating just the French fries and salad.
In Paris, we were taken to a restaurant called Rama, run by a gujju family who are residents of Paris since 23 years. The proprietress Sheetal ‘behn’ was an energetic woman hurrying from table to table serving home made rotis and daal. Her Aloo Muttar simply melted in the mouth. Only one problem- she gave only one katori per person which didn’t go very well with our North Indian tour-mates who wanted another each for raita…which was flatly and loudly refused. The next evening, her no- nonsense daughter Deepa was helping around. With her British accent and high heeled boots, she gave an exotic touch to the traditional settings inside ‘Rama’.
We had pizzas Marguerita throughout our stay in Rome. On the first evening, we decided to look up a restaurant called Maharajah suggested by Girish. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t open till 7.30 and we were in a hurry. We got into another place run by a Kashmiri Indian with a Nepalese waiter. The ambience was grand…food was minimal in helpings and the bill was atrociously high. We paid 60 Euros for the meal and the ambience. This is what happens when you don’t remember to be Roman when in Rome!
Then there was the in-flight food… well…nothing to write home about. It seems we have to specify that we want ‘Indian Vegetarian’ to get something that we will find edible… ‘Asian Vegetarian’ may not be of much help!
We had the most heavenly experience in Mumbai…We had our connecting flight to Dubai only in the evening, so we spent the day with RP’s cousin Raja. Hmmm! The day started with filter coffee. That put life back into me. Then followed a breakfast that warmed the cockles of my vegetarian heart! Steaming idlis with Sambhar and ‘gun powder’! Do you know what idlis smell like while being steamed? They smell like heaven…Believe me…I know.
Well, I must say it was not unpleasant at all. Though I do feel that I have eaten my lifetime quota of Pizza Margueritas in the 3 days we stayed in Rome.
We used to have a very filling continental breakfast in the hotels we were put up and one Indian meal a day.
In Lucerne we dined at La Alpine, an Indian restaurant. We were exhausted by the 3 flights we had taken in 24 hours and didn’t notice much the first night there. On the second night, I noticed some Swiss customers. I came to know that there was a good Swiss clientele for Indian food. The place had a very ethnic Indian touch. Food was good.
At Mt. Titlis, we were given a buffet lunch at the restaurant on top. There was hot soup to thaw your frozen body that had been exposed to the -15 degrees temp. and the snow fall outside! There was a funny combination of Indian dishes…but hot, steaming food was welcome and they even had ice creams and fruits for the adventurous!
In Dijon, we went to a Taiwanese restaurant. As Girish Agraval, the tour director, put it, it was a new experience for both the restaurant and for us! For the first time, they were serving Chinese vegetarian dishes. Well… I found the boiled ( without salt) string beans and bean sprouts edible only after dousing it with some chilli flakes and mixing it with some ready made yoghurt they had given. The spring rolls were too oily. I liked their noodles, though.
At Milan, eating in the Autogrill was a disturbing experience. For one, the place was crowded and no one had time to confirm to us that what they had slapped onto our tray was actually vegetarian stuff. It looked quite doubtful. I ended up eating just the French fries and salad.
In Paris, we were taken to a restaurant called Rama, run by a gujju family who are residents of Paris since 23 years. The proprietress Sheetal ‘behn’ was an energetic woman hurrying from table to table serving home made rotis and daal. Her Aloo Muttar simply melted in the mouth. Only one problem- she gave only one katori per person which didn’t go very well with our North Indian tour-mates who wanted another each for raita…which was flatly and loudly refused. The next evening, her no- nonsense daughter Deepa was helping around. With her British accent and high heeled boots, she gave an exotic touch to the traditional settings inside ‘Rama’.
We had pizzas Marguerita throughout our stay in Rome. On the first evening, we decided to look up a restaurant called Maharajah suggested by Girish. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t open till 7.30 and we were in a hurry. We got into another place run by a Kashmiri Indian with a Nepalese waiter. The ambience was grand…food was minimal in helpings and the bill was atrociously high. We paid 60 Euros for the meal and the ambience. This is what happens when you don’t remember to be Roman when in Rome!
Then there was the in-flight food… well…nothing to write home about. It seems we have to specify that we want ‘Indian Vegetarian’ to get something that we will find edible… ‘Asian Vegetarian’ may not be of much help!
We had the most heavenly experience in Mumbai…We had our connecting flight to Dubai only in the evening, so we spent the day with RP’s cousin Raja. Hmmm! The day started with filter coffee. That put life back into me. Then followed a breakfast that warmed the cockles of my vegetarian heart! Steaming idlis with Sambhar and ‘gun powder’! Do you know what idlis smell like while being steamed? They smell like heaven…Believe me…I know.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
HOME SWEET HOME…
Am back
After six take-offs
After seven touchdowns,
After literally living in a coach,
With three dozen strangers,
With a heart full of memories,
Some good, some bad and some,
'Abso-blooming-lutely' ugly!
Am back
With baggage filled with knickknacks,
And loads and loads of dirty clothes,
With a body and mind
Frantically trying to adjust to
Vagaries of time zones and cultures,
With fingers itching to record all,
That the mind has stored …
In its random memory!
Ten days
Ten times twenty four hours,
Of check-ins, check outs, check posts,
Flight crew, announcements,
Immigration, filling forms, scanners,
Trolleys, officials, green channels,
Ahlans, dankens, bon jours, mercis,
Grazies, ciaos and arrivedercis…
And most amazingly,
Smiles- the proxy interpreters!
A Jigsaw
Of thousand and some pieces
That lay scattered in my heart,
Of people, places, memories,
Of attitudes, alien habits,
Of curios, and the curious,
Of fear and anxiety,
Of joy when dreams come true,
And the keystone that held it all together,
The longing for a land familiar and…
Of unconditional safety!
Oh… UAE!
Try as I might, I cannot but exult
That I have returned home safe and sound!
I never thought, as an expatriate,
I’d say so openly…so gratefully,
But, as the two wheels touched your soil,
Loyalty to my homeland notwithstanding,
My heart murmured…in all sincerity,
Home…Sweet…Home!
After six take-offs
After seven touchdowns,
After literally living in a coach,
With three dozen strangers,
With a heart full of memories,
Some good, some bad and some,
'Abso-blooming-lutely' ugly!
Am back
With baggage filled with knickknacks,
And loads and loads of dirty clothes,
With a body and mind
Frantically trying to adjust to
Vagaries of time zones and cultures,
With fingers itching to record all,
That the mind has stored …
In its random memory!
Ten days
Ten times twenty four hours,
Of check-ins, check outs, check posts,
Flight crew, announcements,
Immigration, filling forms, scanners,
Trolleys, officials, green channels,
Ahlans, dankens, bon jours, mercis,
Grazies, ciaos and arrivedercis…
And most amazingly,
Smiles- the proxy interpreters!
A Jigsaw
Of thousand and some pieces
That lay scattered in my heart,
Of people, places, memories,
Of attitudes, alien habits,
Of curios, and the curious,
Of fear and anxiety,
Of joy when dreams come true,
And the keystone that held it all together,
The longing for a land familiar and…
Of unconditional safety!
Oh… UAE!
Try as I might, I cannot but exult
That I have returned home safe and sound!
I never thought, as an expatriate,
I’d say so openly…so gratefully,
But, as the two wheels touched your soil,
Loyalty to my homeland notwithstanding,
My heart murmured…in all sincerity,
Home…Sweet…Home!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
IF ONLY I HAD ANOTHER CHAMBER TO MY HEART…
I suppose it is general knowledge that the human heart has four chambers…2 atria and 2 ventricles. All with specific duties to perform. But what with the multitasking capacities commonly found in all human beings, I have put the 4 chambers of my heart to good use. Well… for the benefit of laypersons like me, let me tell you what we are dealing with here. The 2 atria are smaller than the 2 ventricles in size, and between the 2 ventricles, the left ventricle is the larger chamber.
Okay now that the size is established…let me tell you how I use these chambers.
Obviously, the left ventricle houses my family…It is rather overcrowded there what with a husband, twin sons, two sets of parents, brothers, sisters( both in-law and consanguineous) , cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles and aunts occupying it and expecting all my love. Doctors comment that 70% of myocardial infarctions occur in the left ventricle. Possible, as it is flooded with all that much love. The right ventricle has to balance, to prevent me from looking lopsided, so I have put all my friends there. All my friends, ex-colleagues and students whom I cherish and value…who enrich my life by their undemanding affection and loyalty to me. Separated from the left ventricle by a mere septum, the crowd inside these chambers, often cross over on visits…!
Since the right atrium effects the cardiac rhythm, what we call heartbeats, that’s where I store my love for music…rhythm, beats…you got it! Whether it is brought in by the inferior or superior vena cava , old Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil songs are stored in there as are carnatic renditions of great maestros and upcoming artistes. An odd collection of western numbers clamour for attention as well! So taking my music away from me is going for my jugular!
My left atrium is only slightly larger than my right one…for it has to store my love for books in its archives. Starting with Tintins and Asterixes, Enid Blytons, Harry Potters and Eragons , westerns, romances, thrillers, adventures, to plain inane trash… everything finds a place here…in fact, there’re times when a raging battle of the books takes place there. Especially when I am inside a bookshop and my heart palpitates with excitement…
Now I come to my present predicament. With these 4 chambers full and overflowing, I need a new place, a new chamber, to ensconce my latest love…my love for blogging. I need professional help. Is there a doctor in the house?
Okay now that the size is established…let me tell you how I use these chambers.
Obviously, the left ventricle houses my family…It is rather overcrowded there what with a husband, twin sons, two sets of parents, brothers, sisters( both in-law and consanguineous) , cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles and aunts occupying it and expecting all my love. Doctors comment that 70% of myocardial infarctions occur in the left ventricle. Possible, as it is flooded with all that much love. The right ventricle has to balance, to prevent me from looking lopsided, so I have put all my friends there. All my friends, ex-colleagues and students whom I cherish and value…who enrich my life by their undemanding affection and loyalty to me. Separated from the left ventricle by a mere septum, the crowd inside these chambers, often cross over on visits…!
Since the right atrium effects the cardiac rhythm, what we call heartbeats, that’s where I store my love for music…rhythm, beats…you got it! Whether it is brought in by the inferior or superior vena cava , old Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil songs are stored in there as are carnatic renditions of great maestros and upcoming artistes. An odd collection of western numbers clamour for attention as well! So taking my music away from me is going for my jugular!
My left atrium is only slightly larger than my right one…for it has to store my love for books in its archives. Starting with Tintins and Asterixes, Enid Blytons, Harry Potters and Eragons , westerns, romances, thrillers, adventures, to plain inane trash… everything finds a place here…in fact, there’re times when a raging battle of the books takes place there. Especially when I am inside a bookshop and my heart palpitates with excitement…
Now I come to my present predicament. With these 4 chambers full and overflowing, I need a new place, a new chamber, to ensconce my latest love…my love for blogging. I need professional help. Is there a doctor in the house?
CRICKET LIMERICKS
A cricket Blog had run a contest on writing cricket limericks…As usual I stumbled on it a day or two too late. Yet, I felt intrigued enough to try my hand at it. The opening lines for 1 and 2 were given. The last one is totally mine. I have posted this entry in another blogsite where I frequent these days. Thought I’d put it here too….just in case A4isms is in someone’s blogroll…heh heh…wishful thinking!
West Indies are hosting the cup,
For Team India, it’s time to wake up,
Will they win tosses,
Make good old losses,
Or will India be sold again a pup?
They say the world cup is wide open,
Even for Johnston, Romaine and Davison,
Wright, Basher and Tikolo,
Can beat the stars hollow,
So, root the teams with new batsmen!
West Indies are hosting the cup
All fans, kids and grown up
Glued to Fox sports
And media hyped reports
Watching even replays and follow- up!
They say it is a lazy man’s game,
All just for money an’ fame,
Winning the matches,
With runs, extras an’ catches,
Is sure to shift all such trivial blame!
West Indies are hosting the cup,
For Team India, it’s time to wake up,
Will they win tosses,
Make good old losses,
Or will India be sold again a pup?
They say the world cup is wide open,
Even for Johnston, Romaine and Davison,
Wright, Basher and Tikolo,
Can beat the stars hollow,
So, root the teams with new batsmen!
West Indies are hosting the cup
All fans, kids and grown up
Glued to Fox sports
And media hyped reports
Watching even replays and follow- up!
They say it is a lazy man’s game,
All just for money an’ fame,
Winning the matches,
With runs, extras an’ catches,
Is sure to shift all such trivial blame!
Saturday, February 24, 2007
RAMBLING ALONG THE COFFEE TRAIL!
As far back as I can remember, our household has always woken up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. This is common in all Tamilian homes. The Keralites and the North Indians start their days with chai. For us, Tam- brams, chai is a beverage to be consumed around 3 pm after a siesta. The wheel of action for the day is set rolling only with a cup of…sorry… a glass of …or more traditionally speaking, a tumbler of coffee.
Our coffee is not the glamourous brew aired on the TV … where one finds young couples or maidens sipping from bright red or green mugs and uttering punchlines. We feel the satisfaction of having drunk coffee only when it is served in a ‘davara and tumbler’. And mind you, not for us, the instant variety. We expect coffee to be made with the decoction prepared in a coffee filter (what the Kamath and Saravanabhavan menus refer to as filter coffee.) The steaming hot coffee has to be alternately transferred to and from the tumbler and davara and sipped at a temperature agreeable to your tongue.
It is always beneficial to be an early bird ... Nope, you don’t catch the worm… but you get to taste the coffee made with the freshly boiled milk and the first thick decoction. As the day progresses, the decoction is rendered thinner by the addition of boiling water a second time… and a third time ( for the poor unfortunate maid servant!) They say the cooks in wealthy homes drink the best coffees.
The quality of the coffee served to the guests decides the reputation of the house. The right ratio of the decoction and the milk is the acid test for a good coffee. Many a marriage function has faced crisis because the sammandees did not get ‘degree Kaapi, a situation which results in Sammandi Shandai!’ I have always wondered what this degree kaapi is… May be it is the one that results in words like “Ida…ida … Idathaan naan edirpaarthen!” And normally the cooks are forewarned to ensure degree coffee for the ‘boy’s side’.
The roadside teashops serve coffee in small thick glasses. You can see the residue of the coffee powder settling at the bottom as they don’t use filters, but strain coffee in cloth and I have never drunk such coffees to the last drop. Before I reach the settled dregs, I stop, thus not getting my money’s worth. Yet, holding a hot glass of coffee with both your hands and taking sips off it after blowing into it is an experience in itself!
I first heard the term ‘Peaberry’ in my maternal grandmother’s house. She used to buy coffee beans, fry them ceremoniously and powder the crisp black beans in a manual powdering machine. The smell of freshly ground coffee powder as it falls into the receptacle, used to transport me to some heaven of delight! I thought peaberry was a kind of berry, a substitute for coffee bean and as far as I remember grandmother used to use it in combination with some other coffee beans, hence my misunderstanding!
The size of the glass in which coffee is served varies from house to house. The elders in the family have their traditional ottu ( bronze) glasses or at least big steel glasses that can hold ¼ litre of coffee and they have matching davaras. Others generally have the steel tumblers half the size. It was a cultural shock for me when in my in-laws’ home coffee was served in miniscule glasses the contents of which would hardly suffice to wet my throat in the mornings. Generally, I have noticed that in Karnataka, the size of the coffee tumblers are much smaller than in those in the Tamil Nadu homes and the Palghat Iyers’ kitchens. After a few agonizing days, I found out why. The frequency of drinking coffee is more, so the servings are small. Though I have accepted this general practice, my mornings in Bhadravathi still start on a note of discontent. I know no one would refuse me a larger quantity of coffee in the morning if I choose to have one, but I believe in being a Roman in Rome, so I can always wait till I get back to my own kingdom, where we guzzle a large tankard full of coffee every morning…to the accompaniment of the newspaper.
The North Indian practice of making coffee is rather funny. I mean funny- peculiar …not funny –ha ha! May be I should rephrase this statement. The coffee made by my UP and Punjabi friends taste good, but when I see the traumatic method of preparation, I really feel sorry for them. First my friend spoons out sugar into a cup. She adds coffee powder to it. Next she adds a few drops of … yes, DROPS… of milk into the cup and with a spoon starts beating it like you whisk eggs for a cake. This she does for 10 to 15 minutes, non stop, till the whole thing is a frothy mixture. It is then added to the milk boiling on the stove and the coffee is served. It all seems like futile exercise prior to adding calories ! And I can not cotton to their practice of drinking coffee after a meal, especially at night. Coffee at night is meant to keep you awake.
Coffee is no longer a pick me up on a sleepy morning. Coffee joints have added new dimensions to our youth culture. These days, one can see stylish coffee bars where, hip crowds of the young and the restless hang around. People sit with a cup of coffee for hours together… If you do that in an Udupi restaurant or a Mallu’s tea-kkada, the waiter will come and whisk the glass away and wipe the table with a dirty rag literally telling you to get out or order something else! Initially I was appalled at the price of coffee in such places… Rs. 60 for an ordinary coffee…100 to 150 if it is laced with chocolate and / or other flavors. I realize the youngsters today have that kind of money to burn. Well… to each his own! I personally used to feel it was daylight robbery in Bangalore Barista till I had the Starbucks and Costa experience in the UAE. They seem to be the natural place to enter when you are an hour too early at the airport or in a mall…but afterwards you feel guilty about the amount of calories you have sipped in and the amount of cash you have shelled out!
Whether in my earthen mug with the words ‘Coffee Addict’ or in the steel tumbler and ‘davara’, coffee continues to be the first thing on the agenda every morning in my life. I don’t mind doing without either tea or coffee for the rest of the day, but my cup that cheers is a must for me to get me going. There are thousands of us who are compulsive- coffee- drinkers- in- the- morning, and I dedicate this piece to them all.
Our coffee is not the glamourous brew aired on the TV … where one finds young couples or maidens sipping from bright red or green mugs and uttering punchlines. We feel the satisfaction of having drunk coffee only when it is served in a ‘davara and tumbler’. And mind you, not for us, the instant variety. We expect coffee to be made with the decoction prepared in a coffee filter (what the Kamath and Saravanabhavan menus refer to as filter coffee.) The steaming hot coffee has to be alternately transferred to and from the tumbler and davara and sipped at a temperature agreeable to your tongue.
It is always beneficial to be an early bird ... Nope, you don’t catch the worm… but you get to taste the coffee made with the freshly boiled milk and the first thick decoction. As the day progresses, the decoction is rendered thinner by the addition of boiling water a second time… and a third time ( for the poor unfortunate maid servant!) They say the cooks in wealthy homes drink the best coffees.
The quality of the coffee served to the guests decides the reputation of the house. The right ratio of the decoction and the milk is the acid test for a good coffee. Many a marriage function has faced crisis because the sammandees did not get ‘degree Kaapi, a situation which results in Sammandi Shandai!’ I have always wondered what this degree kaapi is… May be it is the one that results in words like “Ida…ida … Idathaan naan edirpaarthen!” And normally the cooks are forewarned to ensure degree coffee for the ‘boy’s side’.
The roadside teashops serve coffee in small thick glasses. You can see the residue of the coffee powder settling at the bottom as they don’t use filters, but strain coffee in cloth and I have never drunk such coffees to the last drop. Before I reach the settled dregs, I stop, thus not getting my money’s worth. Yet, holding a hot glass of coffee with both your hands and taking sips off it after blowing into it is an experience in itself!
I first heard the term ‘Peaberry’ in my maternal grandmother’s house. She used to buy coffee beans, fry them ceremoniously and powder the crisp black beans in a manual powdering machine. The smell of freshly ground coffee powder as it falls into the receptacle, used to transport me to some heaven of delight! I thought peaberry was a kind of berry, a substitute for coffee bean and as far as I remember grandmother used to use it in combination with some other coffee beans, hence my misunderstanding!
The size of the glass in which coffee is served varies from house to house. The elders in the family have their traditional ottu ( bronze) glasses or at least big steel glasses that can hold ¼ litre of coffee and they have matching davaras. Others generally have the steel tumblers half the size. It was a cultural shock for me when in my in-laws’ home coffee was served in miniscule glasses the contents of which would hardly suffice to wet my throat in the mornings. Generally, I have noticed that in Karnataka, the size of the coffee tumblers are much smaller than in those in the Tamil Nadu homes and the Palghat Iyers’ kitchens. After a few agonizing days, I found out why. The frequency of drinking coffee is more, so the servings are small. Though I have accepted this general practice, my mornings in Bhadravathi still start on a note of discontent. I know no one would refuse me a larger quantity of coffee in the morning if I choose to have one, but I believe in being a Roman in Rome, so I can always wait till I get back to my own kingdom, where we guzzle a large tankard full of coffee every morning…to the accompaniment of the newspaper.
The North Indian practice of making coffee is rather funny. I mean funny- peculiar …not funny –ha ha! May be I should rephrase this statement. The coffee made by my UP and Punjabi friends taste good, but when I see the traumatic method of preparation, I really feel sorry for them. First my friend spoons out sugar into a cup. She adds coffee powder to it. Next she adds a few drops of … yes, DROPS… of milk into the cup and with a spoon starts beating it like you whisk eggs for a cake. This she does for 10 to 15 minutes, non stop, till the whole thing is a frothy mixture. It is then added to the milk boiling on the stove and the coffee is served. It all seems like futile exercise prior to adding calories ! And I can not cotton to their practice of drinking coffee after a meal, especially at night. Coffee at night is meant to keep you awake.
Coffee is no longer a pick me up on a sleepy morning. Coffee joints have added new dimensions to our youth culture. These days, one can see stylish coffee bars where, hip crowds of the young and the restless hang around. People sit with a cup of coffee for hours together… If you do that in an Udupi restaurant or a Mallu’s tea-kkada, the waiter will come and whisk the glass away and wipe the table with a dirty rag literally telling you to get out or order something else! Initially I was appalled at the price of coffee in such places… Rs. 60 for an ordinary coffee…100 to 150 if it is laced with chocolate and / or other flavors. I realize the youngsters today have that kind of money to burn. Well… to each his own! I personally used to feel it was daylight robbery in Bangalore Barista till I had the Starbucks and Costa experience in the UAE. They seem to be the natural place to enter when you are an hour too early at the airport or in a mall…but afterwards you feel guilty about the amount of calories you have sipped in and the amount of cash you have shelled out!
Whether in my earthen mug with the words ‘Coffee Addict’ or in the steel tumbler and ‘davara’, coffee continues to be the first thing on the agenda every morning in my life. I don’t mind doing without either tea or coffee for the rest of the day, but my cup that cheers is a must for me to get me going. There are thousands of us who are compulsive- coffee- drinkers- in- the- morning, and I dedicate this piece to them all.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
GOOD LUCK, TEACHERS!
It’s that time of the year again!
Yes…since New Year the familiar comments heard in the corridors of schools will be “ Exams are round the corner…start getting serious!” And by mid February the feverish pitch has set in. Worried parents of underachievers will start visiting the school regularly, suddenly concerned about their wards’ progress. Teachers often wonder how they manage to hibernate from June to Jan.
The scenario is grimmer if your child is in the so-called ‘Board Class’ ie, appearing for the crucial grade X or XII exams. The two or sometimes three pre-board exams normally get dismal results leaving, students dejected and anxious, parents worried and demanding and the teachers frustrated and helpless. The whole year one has been teaching… testing, revising…yet there seems to be a cul de sac ahead you.
The arrival of the Hall Tickets somehow brings a flurry of activity all around. Now the kids know there is no way out. Time to pull the proverbial socks up, burn the midnight oil and seek help from all quarters…
Suddenly God seems to be the right counselor. The next fortnight is spent not eating enough…not sleeping enough…walking around with a book in the hand… and calling up friends and empathetic teachers for clearing doubts…
Once, the first paper is done, a sigh of relief is let out. Not as bad as I thought… is the reaction. CBSE gives enough gap between papers for some of those ‘indolent –throughout- the- year’ students to cram in at the last minute and end up scoring well… so that the parents can thumb their noses at the teachers who had been sending warning letters home or calling up parents about their kids’ performance all rendered cruel and insensitive… ‘See my child has done so well… All the time you people were demoralizing her/ him…!’
What they don’t know or care to know is the effort put in by those who teach these classes. The teachers have accountability too. No one chooses the thankless job of teaching for the monetary benefit it offers (which is peanuts for all the strain they go through) nor for the glamour. They are teachers because they choose to be. They are responsible for the good result of the school and ultimately the image of the school. But generally, they are accountable to their own conscience! I know teachers who force underachievers’ parents to drop their kids home so that they can revise at the teacher’s residence till 9 or 10 pm. They don’t get overtime for such acts…if anything, they get dark looks from their family! There are teachers who wake their students up at 4 or 5 a m and coax them to study. But no one, including the student who passes with decent marks, cares to remember these efforts.
For the student, it is newer, greener pastures… for the teacher, it is the same scene…with a different set of students. Who will remember that they wield the four expedients, Sama ( conciliation) Dhana ( gifts) Bheda ( separation) and Dhanda, the last resort ( punishment) for the sheer benefit of the students?
I am sure all kids will do well, ultimately. My best wishes to them. Yet, having been one, I would like to express my best wishes to the teachers, for they really deserve it!
Yes…since New Year the familiar comments heard in the corridors of schools will be “ Exams are round the corner…start getting serious!” And by mid February the feverish pitch has set in. Worried parents of underachievers will start visiting the school regularly, suddenly concerned about their wards’ progress. Teachers often wonder how they manage to hibernate from June to Jan.
The scenario is grimmer if your child is in the so-called ‘Board Class’ ie, appearing for the crucial grade X or XII exams. The two or sometimes three pre-board exams normally get dismal results leaving, students dejected and anxious, parents worried and demanding and the teachers frustrated and helpless. The whole year one has been teaching… testing, revising…yet there seems to be a cul de sac ahead you.
The arrival of the Hall Tickets somehow brings a flurry of activity all around. Now the kids know there is no way out. Time to pull the proverbial socks up, burn the midnight oil and seek help from all quarters…
Suddenly God seems to be the right counselor. The next fortnight is spent not eating enough…not sleeping enough…walking around with a book in the hand… and calling up friends and empathetic teachers for clearing doubts…
Once, the first paper is done, a sigh of relief is let out. Not as bad as I thought… is the reaction. CBSE gives enough gap between papers for some of those ‘indolent –throughout- the- year’ students to cram in at the last minute and end up scoring well… so that the parents can thumb their noses at the teachers who had been sending warning letters home or calling up parents about their kids’ performance all rendered cruel and insensitive… ‘See my child has done so well… All the time you people were demoralizing her/ him…!’
What they don’t know or care to know is the effort put in by those who teach these classes. The teachers have accountability too. No one chooses the thankless job of teaching for the monetary benefit it offers (which is peanuts for all the strain they go through) nor for the glamour. They are teachers because they choose to be. They are responsible for the good result of the school and ultimately the image of the school. But generally, they are accountable to their own conscience! I know teachers who force underachievers’ parents to drop their kids home so that they can revise at the teacher’s residence till 9 or 10 pm. They don’t get overtime for such acts…if anything, they get dark looks from their family! There are teachers who wake their students up at 4 or 5 a m and coax them to study. But no one, including the student who passes with decent marks, cares to remember these efforts.
For the student, it is newer, greener pastures… for the teacher, it is the same scene…with a different set of students. Who will remember that they wield the four expedients, Sama ( conciliation) Dhana ( gifts) Bheda ( separation) and Dhanda, the last resort ( punishment) for the sheer benefit of the students?
I am sure all kids will do well, ultimately. My best wishes to them. Yet, having been one, I would like to express my best wishes to the teachers, for they really deserve it!
Monday, February 19, 2007
ARE YOU MY VALENTINE?
Two decades and some years back…
When I followed you during Saptapadi,
When you committed yourself to me,
For better or for worse,
In health and in illness
Before seeing all my idiosyncrasies,
When you said ‘kubool’…
I forgot to ask you,
Will you be my Valentine?
Two scores of years…
When the gynec snipped off the umbilical cord,
I quietly took it back and tied it
Well and tight …
Around You, Me and the Twins…
Secure, snug and strong…!
Never asking you…
If you were my Valentine!
We stayed tied…
Through colic, teething, insomnia,
Homework, competitions, tests, exams,
Bruises, braces, admissions, performance,
License, heartbreak…dreams of future
Since you were always with me
During my fears, doubts and occasional tears,
I forgot to ask you
Are you my Valentine?
Sands of time…strands of grey…
We watched our fledglings
Poised for flight
Each like a Jonathan Livingston Seagull,
Stretching his wings to hug his destiny,
Comfortable silences, shared smiles,
Warm togetherness,
Sans overtness…
Just the deep understanding that
Together, we have journeyed
Life’s long trek…Still I haven’t
Asked you if you’re my Valentine!
When you say…
This is what I’ve done for you,
In case I am not there…
A sharp jolt in my heart hurts me a lot!
I say, what if I am not there?
And when you look crestfallen,
At the possibility,
I realize….
You are my Valentine- my very own Valentine!
When I followed you during Saptapadi,
When you committed yourself to me,
For better or for worse,
In health and in illness
Before seeing all my idiosyncrasies,
When you said ‘kubool’…
I forgot to ask you,
Will you be my Valentine?
Two scores of years…
When the gynec snipped off the umbilical cord,
I quietly took it back and tied it
Well and tight …
Around You, Me and the Twins…
Secure, snug and strong…!
Never asking you…
If you were my Valentine!
We stayed tied…
Through colic, teething, insomnia,
Homework, competitions, tests, exams,
Bruises, braces, admissions, performance,
License, heartbreak…dreams of future
Since you were always with me
During my fears, doubts and occasional tears,
I forgot to ask you
Are you my Valentine?
Sands of time…strands of grey…
We watched our fledglings
Poised for flight
Each like a Jonathan Livingston Seagull,
Stretching his wings to hug his destiny,
Comfortable silences, shared smiles,
Warm togetherness,
Sans overtness…
Just the deep understanding that
Together, we have journeyed
Life’s long trek…Still I haven’t
Asked you if you’re my Valentine!
When you say…
This is what I’ve done for you,
In case I am not there…
A sharp jolt in my heart hurts me a lot!
I say, what if I am not there?
And when you look crestfallen,
At the possibility,
I realize….
You are my Valentine- my very own Valentine!
SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE…..
Every morning, I sit at my computer, going my regular blog-reading route, exploring new by-lanes and side routes, adding more stopovers to my list. All the while, the FM radio is on… (have become quite good at multitasking…I even answer a few phone calls, have my breakfast and exercise my neck too…while blogrolling!) Once in a while I make an effort at listening to the RJs instead of hearing them. The result? I feel exasperated by the inane chatter most of them indulge in. The monotony of the singsong monologues is grating…whether it is in Hindi or Malayalam. The jokes render me blasé and the ridiculous and sometimes crude and biased remarks leave me disgusted enough to switch the radio off. Since I can’t stand the silence or the click-clack of my keyboard, I tune in again and start whining…
This has set me thinking, am I not doing the same thing? I write on and on and on about myself, my views, my opinions in my blog and expect others to enjoy it!
Sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander eh? Perhaps now I know why I don’t feature in many Blogrolls…. Heh…heh…That's another story! Anyway, it is only February…Still resolution- making time of the year. So I make up my mind to be more tolerant to the RJs… Hope this resolution stays put!
This has set me thinking, am I not doing the same thing? I write on and on and on about myself, my views, my opinions in my blog and expect others to enjoy it!
Sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander eh? Perhaps now I know why I don’t feature in many Blogrolls…. Heh…heh…That's another story! Anyway, it is only February…Still resolution- making time of the year. So I make up my mind to be more tolerant to the RJs… Hope this resolution stays put!
Sunday, February 11, 2007
NIGHTMARE ON THE… AHEM!... STREET
* A story written on behalf of my husband! keep a pinch of salt ready!
The clock strikes 9 sending me to fresh waves of panic. I gobble the last piece of the paratha before lobbing the plate like a Frisbee into the kitchen sink. I grab the car keys and hurriedly snatch the haversack packed by wifey. Before I can hurry out of the house, she manages to grab hold of my neck and plant a worried kiss on my cheek! I wonder when I shall see her again.
I reach my destination. I had thought I’d be decently early. Ahem! Apparently not! There are already around a hundred in the queue. I quickly join the tail end of the line… Furrows of worry are beginning to appear on my forehead. Am I too late?
Ahem! I need not have worried. Within half an hour there are 300 men and women lined up behind me. I avoid eye contact with the women lest I fall prey to their pleading looks to exchange places with me. ( I have strict orders from wifey regarding this as she knows that my Achilles heel is my chivalrous nature!) I look at my watch.
Ahem! It is only 11.30 pm. The queue seems to lengthen non- stop!
I look around. New coteries are being formed. Old acquaintances are not acknowledged for fear of favours sought. Some are beginning to settle down for the day. Some enterprising ones take out the foldable chairs, they have brought and relax. I curse myself for not having thought of that. Now I’ll have to squat on the road for the rest of the night.
Past midnight. All is silent. People have retired for the day. Ahem! I can’t seem to sleep. Good thinking on the part of wifey to have made me take a valium 5 the previous noon and made me sleep for 8 hours. Now I am as wide-eyed as when both Wifey and I were struggling with post- natal depression! I keep a sharp eye on the sly ones who try to worm their way up the queue surreptitiously!
Ahem! I say aloud, alerting the intruder that he was being watched.
3.30 a.m. Wish I had brought a hooded jacket. These February nights are c..c..cold! I hug myself, hoping that the sacrifice I am making will be worthwhile in the long run!
5 a.m. People are getting up… getting ready. A mallu thumbi appears out of nowhere vending tea that is welcome… oh so welcome!
7 a.m. The long queue is causing traffic snarl-ups. It is peaktime and tempers fray and pop out! Soon the police come, trying to control the crowd. Ahem! They don’t seem to succeed much!
7.30 a.m. The gates open. Instantly pandemonium breaks out. All those people who have been waiting patiently all night have changed into panic stricken beasts stampeding for life.
The security guards can hardly handle the avalanche of parents tumbling into the school.
I am propelled by unseen hands to the counter when my turn comes. ‘Sorry, only one application form per parent says the indifferent shadow on the other side of the bullet proof sheet of glass. ‘I have twins’, I yell into the hole in the glass too low and tiny for me to put my head into. I whip out my wallet and thrust it in showing her my twin sons’ photograph. Luckily she believes me and gives me 2 application forms for the kindergarten section of the school.
As I step out of the queue jubilantly, an irate parent shouts, ‘They are going back on their word. They are issuing more than one form per parent. This’s black marketing!’ Like angry bees they swarm towards me. Someone tries to grab the forms from my hand. I dodge, trying to escape. Soon I am grappling with a man twice my size. My yelling, ‘I have twins, you idiot!’ falls on deaf ears. I struggle hard to free myself. THUD! I fall down. Even as I fall, I am…ahem!...clutching my two forms!
‘Are you okay?’ screams Wife. ‘THE FORMS….the kindergarten application forms for the kids…’I mumble desperately!
‘What! Your kids will be completing their B.Tech in three months… what’s wrong with you?’ She yells!
Ahem! I pick myself up from the floor and glance at today’s newspaper in which I was reading about kindergarten admissions in the emirates when I had fallen asleep… What a nightmare at…ahem…!!
The clock strikes 9 sending me to fresh waves of panic. I gobble the last piece of the paratha before lobbing the plate like a Frisbee into the kitchen sink. I grab the car keys and hurriedly snatch the haversack packed by wifey. Before I can hurry out of the house, she manages to grab hold of my neck and plant a worried kiss on my cheek! I wonder when I shall see her again.
I reach my destination. I had thought I’d be decently early. Ahem! Apparently not! There are already around a hundred in the queue. I quickly join the tail end of the line… Furrows of worry are beginning to appear on my forehead. Am I too late?
Ahem! I need not have worried. Within half an hour there are 300 men and women lined up behind me. I avoid eye contact with the women lest I fall prey to their pleading looks to exchange places with me. ( I have strict orders from wifey regarding this as she knows that my Achilles heel is my chivalrous nature!) I look at my watch.
Ahem! It is only 11.30 pm. The queue seems to lengthen non- stop!
I look around. New coteries are being formed. Old acquaintances are not acknowledged for fear of favours sought. Some are beginning to settle down for the day. Some enterprising ones take out the foldable chairs, they have brought and relax. I curse myself for not having thought of that. Now I’ll have to squat on the road for the rest of the night.
Past midnight. All is silent. People have retired for the day. Ahem! I can’t seem to sleep. Good thinking on the part of wifey to have made me take a valium 5 the previous noon and made me sleep for 8 hours. Now I am as wide-eyed as when both Wifey and I were struggling with post- natal depression! I keep a sharp eye on the sly ones who try to worm their way up the queue surreptitiously!
Ahem! I say aloud, alerting the intruder that he was being watched.
3.30 a.m. Wish I had brought a hooded jacket. These February nights are c..c..cold! I hug myself, hoping that the sacrifice I am making will be worthwhile in the long run!
5 a.m. People are getting up… getting ready. A mallu thumbi appears out of nowhere vending tea that is welcome… oh so welcome!
7 a.m. The long queue is causing traffic snarl-ups. It is peaktime and tempers fray and pop out! Soon the police come, trying to control the crowd. Ahem! They don’t seem to succeed much!
7.30 a.m. The gates open. Instantly pandemonium breaks out. All those people who have been waiting patiently all night have changed into panic stricken beasts stampeding for life.
The security guards can hardly handle the avalanche of parents tumbling into the school.
I am propelled by unseen hands to the counter when my turn comes. ‘Sorry, only one application form per parent says the indifferent shadow on the other side of the bullet proof sheet of glass. ‘I have twins’, I yell into the hole in the glass too low and tiny for me to put my head into. I whip out my wallet and thrust it in showing her my twin sons’ photograph. Luckily she believes me and gives me 2 application forms for the kindergarten section of the school.
As I step out of the queue jubilantly, an irate parent shouts, ‘They are going back on their word. They are issuing more than one form per parent. This’s black marketing!’ Like angry bees they swarm towards me. Someone tries to grab the forms from my hand. I dodge, trying to escape. Soon I am grappling with a man twice my size. My yelling, ‘I have twins, you idiot!’ falls on deaf ears. I struggle hard to free myself. THUD! I fall down. Even as I fall, I am…ahem!...clutching my two forms!
‘Are you okay?’ screams Wife. ‘THE FORMS….the kindergarten application forms for the kids…’I mumble desperately!
‘What! Your kids will be completing their B.Tech in three months… what’s wrong with you?’ She yells!
Ahem! I pick myself up from the floor and glance at today’s newspaper in which I was reading about kindergarten admissions in the emirates when I had fallen asleep… What a nightmare at…ahem…!!
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
NUMERICAL SKILLS VS VERBAL SKILLS
The other day, my sister in law made an observation that disturbed me, though I hadn’t realized it at the time. She said, ‘Do you think different parts of the brains control different skills? Have you noticed how people who are good at languages fare very poorly in Math and vice versa?’ I had at the time, agreed that that was a general observation. Somehow, even as I agreed, it had left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt that I had betrayed myself by agreeing that I am a mathematical ignoramus because I am a language freak!
Talk about the internet making the world a small place! I later came across a blogger, Amardeep singh@ sepiamutiny.com , who has written about a ‘desi crossword puzzle afioconado’ named Kiran Kedlaya who came in second at the 2006 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Kedlaya is an MIT mathematics professor who specializes in polynomial equations. According to the interview on Cogito.org, he started competitive crossword solving in graduate school, and says the skill works the same part of the brain math does:
Is there a connection between math and crosswords? Dr. Kedlaya thinks that math, music and computer science – popular professions among “solvers” – tap into a similar part of the brain. Wordplay, says Dr. Kedlaya, suggests that the link is using language in unique way. In a crossword, figuring out the word from the clue is not sufficient; decoding how the letters cross is vital, too.
Ahhh! Victory, I gloat!
In the film Wordplay, it’s pointed out that a disproportionate number of the top crossword puzzle-solvers are people with computer science and mathematics backgrounds.
I want to mention this to my SIL. I hope she will eat her words…at least regurgitate and ruminate on those wild accusation she had unknowingly made on the capabilities of my greycells!
See, it requires the same section of the brain to do a crossword puzzle as well as solve a polynomial equation . So if a + b = b + a, if I am good at solving crossword puzzles, I should be good at math too, right? Now I know why I enjoy doing the daily Sudokus after I finish the Easy and Cryptic puzzles in the newspaper, every morning. Since I am good at Crosswords, I am good at MATH! Elementary Maths, my dear Watson! I want to scream from rooftops, if not to the whole world, at least to convince myself.
My mathophobia can be traced back to the childhood years when I was subjected to sheer mental torture through the math sums set by my grandfather during the holidays: The one that used to give me nightmares for decades was worded like this:
“ Kaale arakkaal kaasukku naale arakkaal vazhakkaynna, oru kaashukku ethra vazhakkay?” ( Sorry, the effect of the question will be lost in translation…. In other words, words fail me when I try to explain the question in a language used by laymen!) Now, if as a teacher, I fire such a question at my students, I shall definitely be reported to the ministry of education. If I asked my kids such a question, they will no doubt sue me later for mental abuse. I was expected to work out this fraction sum and arrive at the right answer ( which happens to be 11 but I don't know how ) or forgo the evening snacks! Years later I sympathised with Swaminathan, whom R.K. Narayanan put through a similar predicament about the price of mangoes.
My aversion to anything mathematical increased in geometric progression till I abandoned Math for English after two torturous years of Integral and differential Calculus…( Oh! I love Calculus now though…and Captain Haddock…and Tintin!)
‘My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense…’ I mumbled as I ran for cover into the world of literature and there I found my niche and settled down to live happily and unmathematically ever after… till my twin sons started going to school.
I couldn’t let my phobia of Math get into them. My mathematical prowess was a skeleton in my personal cupboard and I shut that Boggart inside and threw the key away. For the next 12 years I put on a fine act (deserving nothing less than an Oscar for my performance) while I supervised my sons’ studies and made them revise Math so that they scored centum or something near it in their tests and exams.
I had to use all my wits when it came to stuff like problems in Base 2 and Base 5 ( to tell the truth, even now I don’t know what the heck they are…. Luckily my sons are almost engineers now and I can confess my ignorance without maiming their love for Math.) I would make both the boys sit far away from each other and later tally both their work to see if they had done the same thing! It used to work, most of the time! Now does that make me a whiz at Probabilities? No chance!
I discovered my talent for mental math after I took up teaching! Maybe there is some truth in the adage, ‘Practice makes Perfect’. Totalling all those students’ test papers honed my addition skills… soon I started calculating percentages (To enter the column called Attendance in the report card, for each term!) Slowly fragments of what I had listened to in my math classes started making sense… ( Am I what they call a slow learner?)
Today I have progressed to a stage when I can openly talk about my boggarts. I keep telling myself that I am not a total numerical moron each time I finish a Sudoku or when I tally the scores during the family sessions of Rummy. That I can’t manage finances is another bloggable matter altogether! Like my father used to quip, ‘at the end of the money there’s always some month left!’
Of course, I barely glance at the Kakuro puzzles everyday…Trying to solve them is like ‘adding to my problems’- pun intended! In the meantime I revel in my verbosity and thank Amardeep Singh and Kiran Kedlaya for the glimmer of light that beckons me from the far end of this particular tunnel!
Talk about the internet making the world a small place! I later came across a blogger, Amardeep singh@ sepiamutiny.com , who has written about a ‘desi crossword puzzle afioconado’ named Kiran Kedlaya who came in second at the 2006 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Kedlaya is an MIT mathematics professor who specializes in polynomial equations. According to the interview on Cogito.org, he started competitive crossword solving in graduate school, and says the skill works the same part of the brain math does:
Is there a connection between math and crosswords? Dr. Kedlaya thinks that math, music and computer science – popular professions among “solvers” – tap into a similar part of the brain. Wordplay, says Dr. Kedlaya, suggests that the link is using language in unique way. In a crossword, figuring out the word from the clue is not sufficient; decoding how the letters cross is vital, too.
Ahhh! Victory, I gloat!
In the film Wordplay, it’s pointed out that a disproportionate number of the top crossword puzzle-solvers are people with computer science and mathematics backgrounds.
I want to mention this to my SIL. I hope she will eat her words…at least regurgitate and ruminate on those wild accusation she had unknowingly made on the capabilities of my greycells!
See, it requires the same section of the brain to do a crossword puzzle as well as solve a polynomial equation . So if a + b = b + a, if I am good at solving crossword puzzles, I should be good at math too, right? Now I know why I enjoy doing the daily Sudokus after I finish the Easy and Cryptic puzzles in the newspaper, every morning. Since I am good at Crosswords, I am good at MATH! Elementary Maths, my dear Watson! I want to scream from rooftops, if not to the whole world, at least to convince myself.
My mathophobia can be traced back to the childhood years when I was subjected to sheer mental torture through the math sums set by my grandfather during the holidays: The one that used to give me nightmares for decades was worded like this:
“ Kaale arakkaal kaasukku naale arakkaal vazhakkaynna, oru kaashukku ethra vazhakkay?” ( Sorry, the effect of the question will be lost in translation…. In other words, words fail me when I try to explain the question in a language used by laymen!) Now, if as a teacher, I fire such a question at my students, I shall definitely be reported to the ministry of education. If I asked my kids such a question, they will no doubt sue me later for mental abuse. I was expected to work out this fraction sum and arrive at the right answer ( which happens to be 11 but I don't know how ) or forgo the evening snacks! Years later I sympathised with Swaminathan, whom R.K. Narayanan put through a similar predicament about the price of mangoes.
My aversion to anything mathematical increased in geometric progression till I abandoned Math for English after two torturous years of Integral and differential Calculus…( Oh! I love Calculus now though…and Captain Haddock…and Tintin!)
‘My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my sense…’ I mumbled as I ran for cover into the world of literature and there I found my niche and settled down to live happily and unmathematically ever after… till my twin sons started going to school.
I couldn’t let my phobia of Math get into them. My mathematical prowess was a skeleton in my personal cupboard and I shut that Boggart inside and threw the key away. For the next 12 years I put on a fine act (deserving nothing less than an Oscar for my performance) while I supervised my sons’ studies and made them revise Math so that they scored centum or something near it in their tests and exams.
I had to use all my wits when it came to stuff like problems in Base 2 and Base 5 ( to tell the truth, even now I don’t know what the heck they are…. Luckily my sons are almost engineers now and I can confess my ignorance without maiming their love for Math.) I would make both the boys sit far away from each other and later tally both their work to see if they had done the same thing! It used to work, most of the time! Now does that make me a whiz at Probabilities? No chance!
I discovered my talent for mental math after I took up teaching! Maybe there is some truth in the adage, ‘Practice makes Perfect’. Totalling all those students’ test papers honed my addition skills… soon I started calculating percentages (To enter the column called Attendance in the report card, for each term!) Slowly fragments of what I had listened to in my math classes started making sense… ( Am I what they call a slow learner?)
Today I have progressed to a stage when I can openly talk about my boggarts. I keep telling myself that I am not a total numerical moron each time I finish a Sudoku or when I tally the scores during the family sessions of Rummy. That I can’t manage finances is another bloggable matter altogether! Like my father used to quip, ‘at the end of the money there’s always some month left!’
Of course, I barely glance at the Kakuro puzzles everyday…Trying to solve them is like ‘adding to my problems’- pun intended! In the meantime I revel in my verbosity and thank Amardeep Singh and Kiran Kedlaya for the glimmer of light that beckons me from the far end of this particular tunnel!
MAYANK SARAF’S WORDS: HARAPPA, SEQUESTER, MERMAID
Anxiously he looked at the dipping sun. 'Pack up!' He yelled to his assistant before occupying his chair. As he reached for a chilled bottle of water, he looked around at the hundreds of junior artists on the sets of his period classic Lord of the Ruins. He was certain this magnum opus on the life of Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni, the excavator and archeologist who started the extensive excavations of Harappa, would elevate him to the heights enjoyed by the likes of Peter Jackson and Steven Speilberg. His script writer had done a brilliant job, by adding a time machine to transport the protagonist to the time-frame of the glorious civilization! Maybe it was destined that he, Bahadur Mandarkar, the ‘Director with a Difference’ as the tabloids addressed him, would be the man to win an Academy Award for the nation! He took a contented swig out of the chilled bottle of Bisleri.
How many strings he had to pull at the central government level to get permission to shoot his film in Lothal! Permission was not granted by the Pakistani government to do the actual shooting in Harappa. But here in Lothal, there were topographical similarities…and the ruins of the bygone civilization….OH! How jubilant he and Saxena had been when they discovered this valley sequestered from the eyes of the modern world, preserving the ambience of a world, 3000 years old!
Harappa had been an obsession since his high school days. He had to thank his history teacher for this movie. It was in her class that he had been labeled a prize fool. History lessons in the post lunch periods were a pain… He used to sleep, screened by the hulks sitting in front of him. On one such noon, the teacher had fired a question at him. He hadn’t even heard it properly and she had thundered, ‘Haven’t you even heard of Harappa?’ He had jumped up and said, ‘Yes Maa’m. He was our Field Marshal…!’ He had been nick-named Field Marshal after that! I will show the world who I am, he used to tell himself. Today, 2 Screen awards and 3 Filmfare awards later, ( the latest for his ‘ Platform No 3’ depicting the stark life of the microcosm whose life and destiny were on the platform of a railway station…) he was a director of great repute!
Today, actors clamoured for a role in his films. Bahadur Mandarkar… You have made it, man! He mentally patted himself. Hearing a muffled cough he returned to the present. It was Saxena, his assistant, who looked quite troubled. ‘BM’, Saxena said, ‘we have trouble. The heroine wants to talk to you. She wants something. You better talk to her.’
Mandarkar walked with Saxena to the heroine’s tent. When he heard her request he was livid! ‘Madam’, he said trying not to blow his fuse. ‘This is a period piece. What you want is impossible! We are in Harappa . There can not be any mermaids in this story….!’
'C’mon, director saar, if you want to, you can always put in a dream sequence, where I can come dressed as a mermaid and the hero can sing from the beach to me. We can do the shooting in Amsterdam!'
‘ BUT… but…’ blustered Mandarker, ‘My movie is about a race that existed thousands of years ago!’
The star pouted. “Don’t talk to me about race and racism… I know very well how insensitive and racist people can be! It is the mermaid scene for me or I say Goody...I mean Goodbye to you and your film!’ Mandarkar realized the mistake of having cast a controversial reality show celebrity as his heroine! ‘If I were Field Marshall Cariappa, I’ll shoot you, madam… and not the film!’ he muttered angrily. ‘Saxena’, he yelled, ‘Get a car to dump Miss. Dumb as Mermaid at the nearest railway station!’ He took another swig at the bottle hoping that the chilled water would cool him down!
How many strings he had to pull at the central government level to get permission to shoot his film in Lothal! Permission was not granted by the Pakistani government to do the actual shooting in Harappa. But here in Lothal, there were topographical similarities…and the ruins of the bygone civilization….OH! How jubilant he and Saxena had been when they discovered this valley sequestered from the eyes of the modern world, preserving the ambience of a world, 3000 years old!
Harappa had been an obsession since his high school days. He had to thank his history teacher for this movie. It was in her class that he had been labeled a prize fool. History lessons in the post lunch periods were a pain… He used to sleep, screened by the hulks sitting in front of him. On one such noon, the teacher had fired a question at him. He hadn’t even heard it properly and she had thundered, ‘Haven’t you even heard of Harappa?’ He had jumped up and said, ‘Yes Maa’m. He was our Field Marshal…!’ He had been nick-named Field Marshal after that! I will show the world who I am, he used to tell himself. Today, 2 Screen awards and 3 Filmfare awards later, ( the latest for his ‘ Platform No 3’ depicting the stark life of the microcosm whose life and destiny were on the platform of a railway station…) he was a director of great repute!
Today, actors clamoured for a role in his films. Bahadur Mandarkar… You have made it, man! He mentally patted himself. Hearing a muffled cough he returned to the present. It was Saxena, his assistant, who looked quite troubled. ‘BM’, Saxena said, ‘we have trouble. The heroine wants to talk to you. She wants something. You better talk to her.’
Mandarkar walked with Saxena to the heroine’s tent. When he heard her request he was livid! ‘Madam’, he said trying not to blow his fuse. ‘This is a period piece. What you want is impossible! We are in Harappa . There can not be any mermaids in this story….!’
'C’mon, director saar, if you want to, you can always put in a dream sequence, where I can come dressed as a mermaid and the hero can sing from the beach to me. We can do the shooting in Amsterdam!'
‘ BUT… but…’ blustered Mandarker, ‘My movie is about a race that existed thousands of years ago!’
The star pouted. “Don’t talk to me about race and racism… I know very well how insensitive and racist people can be! It is the mermaid scene for me or I say Goody...I mean Goodbye to you and your film!’ Mandarkar realized the mistake of having cast a controversial reality show celebrity as his heroine! ‘If I were Field Marshall Cariappa, I’ll shoot you, madam… and not the film!’ he muttered angrily. ‘Saxena’, he yelled, ‘Get a car to dump Miss. Dumb as Mermaid at the nearest railway station!’ He took another swig at the bottle hoping that the chilled water would cool him down!
Monday, February 05, 2007
AL SHAH MATA!
The king is dead! Shah Mata! That was what flashed in my mind, when I read about the death of Sidney Sheldon. At an age when parents would frown if their daughter was walking around with a Harold Robins in her hand, I got away with Sidney Sheldon! I read his Naked Face first. What a change from the Wodehouses, Nevil Shutes and Richard Gordons my father used to avalanche me down with! Quite a different kettle of fish from the J.T. Edsons, Suddens and Louis L Amours pilfered from my brother's collection!
When it comes to reading, I suffer from compulsive disorder! If I like one writer, I end up reading him till I finish all his published work. Master of the Game made me a slave of theis great master. Rage of Angels left me terrified for months... But nothing beats the book called "Are You Afraid of the Dark'. I finished it in record time during Xmas vacations... on the 25th. The next morning the notorious tsunami struck wreaking havoc of the kind hitherto unheard-ofin Asia! My first reaction was to take the book again and read the ‘Afterword’ once again... And I was in a turmoil... Was the tsunami a natural disaster or masterminded by a superpower? It took a few weeks of self-counselling to allay my doubts and fears...such was the mastery of the great story teller! May he rest in peace up there!
Art Buchwald! I was (as usual) introduced to him by my dad, an ardent fan of his column in the HIndu. Initialy I just read because I was forced to...unable to understand anything due to my ignorance of the political scenario in the US... Later things started connecting and his infectious humour worked its way into me and thus started my long liaison with Buchwald's brand of writing which later led me to the likes of Khushwant Singh, with his malice towards one and all! Buchwald was forced to write his obituary by his friends, which he did and the papers ran it the day after his passing away... It is just like him! If anyone could have died with a smile on his face, it would have been Art Buchwald definitely, in spite of the physical agony he was going through!
The world is shy of two great writers-- each a master of his own game... And we fans feel stalemated! Sigh! Shah Mata... the king is dead!
When it comes to reading, I suffer from compulsive disorder! If I like one writer, I end up reading him till I finish all his published work. Master of the Game made me a slave of theis great master. Rage of Angels left me terrified for months... But nothing beats the book called "Are You Afraid of the Dark'. I finished it in record time during Xmas vacations... on the 25th. The next morning the notorious tsunami struck wreaking havoc of the kind hitherto unheard-ofin Asia! My first reaction was to take the book again and read the ‘Afterword’ once again... And I was in a turmoil... Was the tsunami a natural disaster or masterminded by a superpower? It took a few weeks of self-counselling to allay my doubts and fears...such was the mastery of the great story teller! May he rest in peace up there!
Art Buchwald! I was (as usual) introduced to him by my dad, an ardent fan of his column in the HIndu. Initialy I just read because I was forced to...unable to understand anything due to my ignorance of the political scenario in the US... Later things started connecting and his infectious humour worked its way into me and thus started my long liaison with Buchwald's brand of writing which later led me to the likes of Khushwant Singh, with his malice towards one and all! Buchwald was forced to write his obituary by his friends, which he did and the papers ran it the day after his passing away... It is just like him! If anyone could have died with a smile on his face, it would have been Art Buchwald definitely, in spite of the physical agony he was going through!
The world is shy of two great writers-- each a master of his own game... And we fans feel stalemated! Sigh! Shah Mata... the king is dead!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
K2’S WORDS:FOOTBALL, MC DONALDS, GIRLFRIEND
They say unlike poles attract… they are right….they also say birds of the same feather flock together… Now doesn’t that contradict the first statement? It does.
My friend Sahil is very disconsolate at the moment. You just won’t believe what happened to him. If you belong to the female species you will not sympathise with him… but we males… we fully understand Sahil’s predicament and all our sympathies are with him. Do you raise your eyebrows skeptically? Have patience, listen to me.
Life was all hunky-dory for my friend, Sahil till last week. He has been recently promoted and unlike many footloose, fancy- free guys like me, he was planning to settle down in life. Yeah, he had planned everything meticulously. He proposed on his knees to Prathima, his girlfriend, who rather expected it of him and nodded happily! There was only a small snag. Her parents! She couldn’t commit herself unless they first approved of him. She promised to bring them over to the revolving restaurant- Al Dawar in the Hyatt at Deira. Sahil had winced when she told him he’d have to foot the bill as that would impress her dad and remove any obstacle on the path of his eligibility as her suitor. It was not yet the salary-time of the month, so we friends had to pool in to save our friend’s future.
They say it is human to err… and Sahil, my poor friend, is human… and like all other humans he has a chink in his armour, a weakness. He is an avid football fan. That’s not a crime, you say? I know… It is not a sin to be sporty… but it is obviously a sin to be so obsessed with a game as Sahil was. We were all sitting at the McDonald’s watching the thrilling match played by the UAE team and the winning of the Gulf Cup Championship. There was much jubilation after the historic win and we all were a part of the celebrations that followed at the McDonald’s. By the time we returned to our flat it was past midnight. It was only then that Sahil remembered to his horror that he was supposed to have met Prathima and her parents at Al Dawar. To his dismay, he found that he had switched off his mobile… which later showed 8 missed calls from her. Next morning, he had tried calling her, but her stentorian-voiced mom gave him a large chunk of her mind before ordering him never even try to contact her daughter again!
I am sure if we explain the whole situation to her father, he might understand… after all, we,birds of the same feather must flock together, right? But no…he had been upset because he had missed the game waiting for an irresponsible upstart of a suitor to turn up! You say, ‘ Serves him right?’ But then, you’ll say that! You are a woman aren’t you?
My friend Sahil is very disconsolate at the moment. You just won’t believe what happened to him. If you belong to the female species you will not sympathise with him… but we males… we fully understand Sahil’s predicament and all our sympathies are with him. Do you raise your eyebrows skeptically? Have patience, listen to me.
Life was all hunky-dory for my friend, Sahil till last week. He has been recently promoted and unlike many footloose, fancy- free guys like me, he was planning to settle down in life. Yeah, he had planned everything meticulously. He proposed on his knees to Prathima, his girlfriend, who rather expected it of him and nodded happily! There was only a small snag. Her parents! She couldn’t commit herself unless they first approved of him. She promised to bring them over to the revolving restaurant- Al Dawar in the Hyatt at Deira. Sahil had winced when she told him he’d have to foot the bill as that would impress her dad and remove any obstacle on the path of his eligibility as her suitor. It was not yet the salary-time of the month, so we friends had to pool in to save our friend’s future.
They say it is human to err… and Sahil, my poor friend, is human… and like all other humans he has a chink in his armour, a weakness. He is an avid football fan. That’s not a crime, you say? I know… It is not a sin to be sporty… but it is obviously a sin to be so obsessed with a game as Sahil was. We were all sitting at the McDonald’s watching the thrilling match played by the UAE team and the winning of the Gulf Cup Championship. There was much jubilation after the historic win and we all were a part of the celebrations that followed at the McDonald’s. By the time we returned to our flat it was past midnight. It was only then that Sahil remembered to his horror that he was supposed to have met Prathima and her parents at Al Dawar. To his dismay, he found that he had switched off his mobile… which later showed 8 missed calls from her. Next morning, he had tried calling her, but her stentorian-voiced mom gave him a large chunk of her mind before ordering him never even try to contact her daughter again!
I am sure if we explain the whole situation to her father, he might understand… after all, we,birds of the same feather must flock together, right? But no…he had been upset because he had missed the game waiting for an irresponsible upstart of a suitor to turn up! You say, ‘ Serves him right?’ But then, you’ll say that! You are a woman aren’t you?
Saturday, February 03, 2007
BACK IN THE TRI-WORD CIRCUIT
Last month, my sons gave me 2 sets of three words and asked me to write nonsensical stories using them. Sure, I told them. Yet, till last week I did not get round to it. Urged by a very insistent son, I penned one down on a piece of paper, as I didn’t have access to a PC at the time. His infectious guffaw was reward enough. Am posting it now.
P.S. To the people who comment on the marked ‘Iyer and Ammami touch’ in my tales, I just have a smile as response…
K1’S WORDS: RONALDINHO, TOOTHPICK, LAUGHING BUDDHA
As the plane taxied along the runway, Ambaal looked at her husband, Srinivasa Shastrigal, seated next to her. His bald and shining pate and potbelly reminded her of the statuette of Laughing Buddha she had seen in her friend Meenakshi’s house. Only the ears were different, she mused, with red kadukkans (earrings) adorning her husband’s ears. She recalled how the young women at the entrance of the plane had smirked at the sight of her husband’s earrings. They must have wondered where the two oldies were flying to. What do they know?
It all started in May. Her grandsons were home for their annual vacations. They were glued to the TV all day. Compelled by the grandsons, Shastrigal had started watching the curtain raisers for the world cup football. She had noticed his mounting interest, especially whenever a team wearing green and yellow played. There was excited talk among them about a new sensation in the Brazilain team. Now what was that boy called? Aah! Ronaldo? Er…no…Ronaldinho. Her husband sat riveted to the screen showing the lean young man zigzagging across the field. Though he talked about strange things like ‘centre forward’ and ‘penalty shootout’ with his grandsons, he seemed to get more and more obsessed with that buck-toothed young man with flowing hair and puzzled look on his face. Something was going on in that head, she thought as her husband used a burnt out agarbathi stick as a toothpick while staring at the game.
When she had asked him what was wrong, he had become emotional. ‘Ambaal, doesn’t he remind you of Rasamani?’
Ambaal stared at the young man who was trying not to let anyone get hold of the football under his control… Yes…yes… the boy really resembled her son, Rasamani who had died at the age of 18. The same teeth, the same innocent , wide-eyed expression, the same curly hair… only Rasamani used to sport a kudumi! Yes, it was as though her son was reborn as the Brazilian!
That evening he had told her of his decision. And now they were on the flight to Germany, to meet Ronaldinho, and get a picture taken with him…in memory of their son, Rasamani!
P.S. To the people who comment on the marked ‘Iyer and Ammami touch’ in my tales, I just have a smile as response…
K1’S WORDS: RONALDINHO, TOOTHPICK, LAUGHING BUDDHA
As the plane taxied along the runway, Ambaal looked at her husband, Srinivasa Shastrigal, seated next to her. His bald and shining pate and potbelly reminded her of the statuette of Laughing Buddha she had seen in her friend Meenakshi’s house. Only the ears were different, she mused, with red kadukkans (earrings) adorning her husband’s ears. She recalled how the young women at the entrance of the plane had smirked at the sight of her husband’s earrings. They must have wondered where the two oldies were flying to. What do they know?
It all started in May. Her grandsons were home for their annual vacations. They were glued to the TV all day. Compelled by the grandsons, Shastrigal had started watching the curtain raisers for the world cup football. She had noticed his mounting interest, especially whenever a team wearing green and yellow played. There was excited talk among them about a new sensation in the Brazilain team. Now what was that boy called? Aah! Ronaldo? Er…no…Ronaldinho. Her husband sat riveted to the screen showing the lean young man zigzagging across the field. Though he talked about strange things like ‘centre forward’ and ‘penalty shootout’ with his grandsons, he seemed to get more and more obsessed with that buck-toothed young man with flowing hair and puzzled look on his face. Something was going on in that head, she thought as her husband used a burnt out agarbathi stick as a toothpick while staring at the game.
When she had asked him what was wrong, he had become emotional. ‘Ambaal, doesn’t he remind you of Rasamani?’
Ambaal stared at the young man who was trying not to let anyone get hold of the football under his control… Yes…yes… the boy really resembled her son, Rasamani who had died at the age of 18. The same teeth, the same innocent , wide-eyed expression, the same curly hair… only Rasamani used to sport a kudumi! Yes, it was as though her son was reborn as the Brazilian!
That evening he had told her of his decision. And now they were on the flight to Germany, to meet Ronaldinho, and get a picture taken with him…in memory of their son, Rasamani!
Friday, February 02, 2007
TAG TIME !
I was visiting Akkare's blog and decided to tag myself. So here is the list of three things I want to share with you all.
Three things that scare me:
· The thoughts of something untoward happening to my sons.
· RP not answering my call
· Being in a speeding car
Three people who make me laugh:
· Mangala and Rat
· My ex-colleagues
· Raymond, Robert and Frank Barone
Three things I love:
· Short stories
· Smell of hot chocolate
· Sentimental movies
Three things I hate:
· People creating a scene
· Backbiting at workplace
· Smelly socks
Three things I don’t understand:
· The share market
· High school Math
· How some parents let their kids disobey them
Three things in my handbag:
· The little brown book with the list of books to be bought
· Sunglasses that I rarely remember to use
· A light brown lipstick
Three things I am doing right now:
· Enjoying the freedom ( after quitting job)
· Planning my magnum opus
· Catching up on my reading
Three things I want to do before I die:
· Learn to sing the pancharatna kritis
· Publish my novel
· See my grandkids
Three things I can do:
· Do sudoku of all levels
· Make perfect ‘phulkas’
· Listen
Three things you should listen to:
· The Priya sisters’ concerts
· Old songs
· Your conscience
Three things you should never listen to:
· Gossip
· Flattery
· Salesmen
Three things I'd like to learn:
· Computer graphics
· Maa kolams of intricate patterns
· Starters
Three favourite foods:
· Adai
· Kadi chawal
· Idlis
Three beverages I drink regularly:
· Coffee
· Juices
· Tea
Three Films/books I watched/read as a kid:
· All Enid Blytons
· Mythological movies
· Classics
Three things I want to pass on to my kids:
· Sense of humour
· integrity
· Passion for reading
Three things that scare me:
· The thoughts of something untoward happening to my sons.
· RP not answering my call
· Being in a speeding car
Three people who make me laugh:
· Mangala and Rat
· My ex-colleagues
· Raymond, Robert and Frank Barone
Three things I love:
· Short stories
· Smell of hot chocolate
· Sentimental movies
Three things I hate:
· People creating a scene
· Backbiting at workplace
· Smelly socks
Three things I don’t understand:
· The share market
· High school Math
· How some parents let their kids disobey them
Three things in my handbag:
· The little brown book with the list of books to be bought
· Sunglasses that I rarely remember to use
· A light brown lipstick
Three things I am doing right now:
· Enjoying the freedom ( after quitting job)
· Planning my magnum opus
· Catching up on my reading
Three things I want to do before I die:
· Learn to sing the pancharatna kritis
· Publish my novel
· See my grandkids
Three things I can do:
· Do sudoku of all levels
· Make perfect ‘phulkas’
· Listen
Three things you should listen to:
· The Priya sisters’ concerts
· Old songs
· Your conscience
Three things you should never listen to:
· Gossip
· Flattery
· Salesmen
Three things I'd like to learn:
· Computer graphics
· Maa kolams of intricate patterns
· Starters
Three favourite foods:
· Adai
· Kadi chawal
· Idlis
Three beverages I drink regularly:
· Coffee
· Juices
· Tea
Three Films/books I watched/read as a kid:
· All Enid Blytons
· Mythological movies
· Classics
Three things I want to pass on to my kids:
· Sense of humour
· integrity
· Passion for reading
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