Whose help do you need?

I had an elocution coach once. In one of her lessons, she had us complete the following exercise.

She came to the board and wrote down “Someone stole my yellow pencil”

And then she would have us read that line, loudly, each time with an emphasis on a different word.

SOMEONE stole my yellow pencil — meaning an accusation and anger about not knowing who it was.

someone STOLE my yellow pencil — meaning  that perhaps it would have been alright if someone borrowed it, but the stealing was the the real source of annoyance.

someone stole my YELLOW pencil - meaning that it may have been fine if any other pencil had been stolen but it was the cherished yellow pencil that irked.

Without getting into the details, I recently found myself mired in all kinds of philosophical, social and identity conflicts around what to do when someone unilaterally decides you need their help.

And I thought about my elocution coach — and all the ways in which she may have helped me practice emphatically  making a point and declining that help. 

This may have been what we would’ve diagrammed out and practiced. 

i do not want your HELP — meaning, do not assume that I need anyone’s assistance for reasons of gender, title or that I am quiet.

i  do not want YOUR help — meaning that there are lots of people in this world whose help I actively seek and cherish. It is as yet unclear to me whether you have demonstrated your ability to help me successfully. Helping me (or anyone for that a matter) is a privilege that you need to earn. 

“I” do not want YOUR help — meaning, it’s nice that you want to help. Perhaps you could meet that goal by helping someone else?

i do not WANT your help — meaning, as much as you want to help me, I must WANT to be helped too. And perhaps your reasons for wanting to help me are not motivating enough. 

i DO NOT want your help — meaning, yes, I actually can decline your favor. It is one of those unsaid, basic human rights. And i can accept whatever consequence there might be for declining that favor.

And so I played out all of these sentences in my head — again and again. Word for word. Emphasis upon emphasis. None of these options seemed respectful, polite, dignified or kind. And while I have strong opinions on many, many things, I do strive to be kind, dignified and by-and-large a good human being. I try! 

As my conflict wore on, there was much dancing around the giving and (my) vehement non-receipt of said help. 

I felt increasingly weakened, undignified.  

I never found the right words to say.  What I ended up saying was this.

“Thank you for your feedback. I usually take a different approach to these problems and I’m going to stick with my approach for now. Perhaps your point of view may evolve. Meanwhile, I will try and be more open to your help in the future” 

What I really felt I was saying

“Today. I am going to be a closed, unopen person that you seem to think I am. It is a risk I am taking for I do not know what consequences lies ahead. But today, I am going to take that risk. 

And thank you for your feedback. I definitely believe in my own ability to repent these actions. Even if intellectually, I know that I’ve done nothing wrong, judging by how emotionally exhausted I feel, I wonder if I can do this again.  And so, in the future, i may very well find myself looking out for opportunities where you can help me so that you can look good, where you can talk over any sentence I dare to speak, where you can say “we” each time I say and do the right thing but say “I” when you do the right thing. 

But today, I am not going to have any of it. 

In the future, you may very well open my eyes. Already, I have started to see a few things. That you are on a higher perch than I for instance. Maybe you intend to maintain it that way? In the future, I might agree with you that the (im)balance of these perches are eternally important. 

But today, I am going to take the risk of standing my ground. 

And while you can hope for a different future, so will I hope for a better future..

So. Will. I. 

I still didn’t have the right words to say. 

But someone did ultimately help me. Someone who has clearly had to deal with this again and again in their lives rescued me and said “Let her talk! What she’s saying is important”

I now have the right words to say 

I WANT HER HELP! 

"They"

"They" has been declared the 2015 word of the year. 

That means if you find yourself typing sentences with s/he or him/her, you are now allowed to use "they" or "them".

If you've always used "they" as a singular pronoun, well - I applaud you. But know this. You used to be wrong but you are now suddenly right by the magic and power vested in those committees that decide who is right and who is wrong. What power, indeed. I am unsure whether you are right beginning now or whether your previous wrongs have been retroactively writ right. If you are one of those sticklers who like to know how often they are right, these kinds of accounting details can be important. I do not have an answer for you. I apologize.

If you have never found yourself typing s/he or him/her because you always thought "they" was correct - well, please refer to comment above. But if you were the sort who simply defaulted to using "he" and "him", please know that I like you a little less. Whoever you might be. The ability to like someone a little less is infinitely vast. So it does not matter how many of you there are. I like all of you a little less. Henceforth, please use "they".

But, if you, like me, keep typing him/her and grating your teeth at how difficult it is to do in Whatsapp or finding the whole insertion of a "/" standing out like an ugly, sore, attention-demanding punctuation mark (they all are, actually), then revel in your liberation.

Yahoo!

One more step into a world where we will all have a conversation with a lot of "theys" and "thems" and not know if its a single person or many persons and whether they are girls or boys or gender-fluid people. It's a merry world. If you get confused in 2015, let's hope 2016 has a word for it.

Also, does anyone think that if "they" is now a word of the year - which happens to be a world that already exists - we are entering an era in which they are going to be fewer and fewer neologisms. Does that mean that we now have a vocabulary to describe anything and everything? Or perhaps that means we no longer communicate through words, but with pictures and vines and instagrams and short tweet. Or does that mean we are no longer communicating at all.

I do not know. All that I can say is that I was a bit disappointed that the 2015 word of the year was not something more jazzy. But perhaps it's just as well that it's a word that provides the illusion of beginning to fix the faults of the past. There is much to applaud in that.

4 years

Why do you not write anymore, someone asked.

It started to feel pretentious, I said. Suddenly? I suppose the answer is not - it started to feel pretentious; that it always was (as is my insistence on using a lot of semi-colons. What to do. I like them!). The answer is that I didn't want to do pretentious things anymore.

There are many more answers.

This is an attempt to document them all. And then call it a blog post. And then mute that damn voice that keeps reminding me from time to time that I have stopped writing.

I do not know why I stopped.

Life started happening... or maybe it stopped happening. Who can say.

Maybe instead of letting it happen to me and observing and fuming at it from a distance, I started happening. I reckon you might call it growing up. Or something in that vicinity.

There's also the loss of anonymity.

You see - my most prolific years of writing was when I used a pseudonym. Anaztazia. I picked it from a newspaper - someone named Anastasia had played tennis or won tennis - or something. Who knows. Go google it if you care. But that's how I made up that name. And then I just started writing. Quietly. To myself. To an audience I did not know, that I did not seek, that I didn't think might come to me. And then I joined a blog community - still anonymous. I wrote. I wrote everyday. For an unfathomable reason, my younger self knew that if I just kept at it, I would get better. It's true. It flowed. There was no dearth of thought, of imagination, of ideas, of expression, of fancy, of words - definitely no dearth of semi-colons.

And then, an audience came. And they feted. And I liked it. And I began editing myself. No more just being myself but now in service of something else. Was that the beginning? Was that the end? I will never know. But I made the folly of revealing myself. Do not get me wrong - I was no axe-murderer or stalker or depressed, gloomy soul. It is just that there are thoughts - innocent, naive, pointless as they might be - that can only be had in private, that can get nurtured when you write about them, that can transport you to a world so unique, so wonderful, so vast and rich but yet so tender and fragile that they annihilate the moment they come into contact with someone else's imagination. Maybe it was that.

I became careful. Too careful. Of what I said. Of who might read it. Of what they might think of it. I lost track of the very reason I was writing - to get away and not into, to lose myself and not find me, to trap those fleeting will-o-the-wisp lives and give them life, give them eternity, give them a space to be. But somehow unbeknownst to myself, I gave my own writing a mortality.

But.

We can backtrack can't we.

We can go back and hide in some corner of the world where no one can hear no matter how much you scream.

Let us start from there.

And let's start writing again. Let's.

The Agent

Listen carefully, sweet girl. Because I am going to let you in on a secret.

When its time to replace your agent, its time to replace you!

You say you’ve been in this industry 3 years now? 3 years? And you’ve starred…… starred in 3 full-length movies. And you were the most prominent of a gaggle of waitresses in an unreleased…. unreleased 4th full-length movie?

And you call this prolific work?

I started in the movies, the cinema they called it then, when I was 16. A whole 3 years younger than you are now. And by 19, that’s how old you are my dear, in case you’ve forgotten to count because you’re in my presence…. It happens….

By 19, I had starred in 8 full length movies. And I had starred in them. The trailers said “starring Gwendoline”, and after that “starring name-him-what-you-will-lame-impotent-actor” . By age 19, I had attempted 4 full-length suicides. And they were all released, in every single newspaper and every last tabloid.

And I had a different alternate name to use in every single hotel in America. Freddie kept track of the names.

Freddie, my agent.

Did you memorize my secret, sweet girl?

You can stretch your face thin, and paint your face white, and your hair black, or purple, or fuschia. I’ve done all that, and its as marvelous and simple as they make it sound. Just got to keep the wine cellar well stocked.

You can even walk around in Loubotins and tango around with Versace and dazzle everyone with Harry Winston rocks.

But there’s one thing you never can do. Never replace your agent.

Freddie’s been dead for 4 years now. Dead! Gone! He was too old, they said. Wacky, they said. When he brought me that mother’s role, I realized that too. Play a stepmother he said. The young second wife of a millionaire, who has 2 sons. Only stepmother he said. It’s got character, he said. The Oscars, he teased.

Me? Play a mother’s role?

We fought all night. All night. Freddie died sometime then. It was the only thing we fought about.

He’s still my agent, of course. He taught me everything he knew. So he remains, my dedicated agent. I take all the calls in his name – he taught me ventriloquism. And I pretend I’m him. No! I am him!

2 movies I’ve done in the last two years. I played a man in one. Freddie would have wanted me to. Oscars, he would’ve teased. And I played a man, like any strong, handsome, self-respecting man like Freddie would’ve played a man.

Because… I always listen to Freddie. He’s my agent, after all.

****



Gwendoline looked at the machine. Someone had called, and Gwendoline had immediately routed them to the answering machine.

The man had introduced himself as Andrew.

“Freddie. This is Andrew. How have you been? Listen. I know I stood you up the other night. It’s been 4 years now, so you probably don’t remember. But I have a great deal for you old pal. For Gwendoline. I keep telling you to start working with other actors and actresses – well they all call themselves actors these days, but I keep telling you to work with someone else. Get a little color in your life. Variety. Anyway, I knew you wouldn’t listen.

I finally have something for Gwendoline. You may have heard the rumour that Gary has a new script he’s working on. Well, I’ve read it and it’s perfect for Gwendoline. You think you can have her audition? There’s just one catch though.I will have to be the one representing Gwendoline.

You know Gary? He’s a bit peculiar.He doesn’t like working with agents who are dead.

Well, anyway, I hope you call back old chap!”

Gwendoline was shivering now.

“He doesn’t like working with agents who are dead” She played the message over and over again. It didn’t change. It never changed. “He doesn’t like working with agents who are dead”

Gwendoline looked around, eyes dilated, heart thumping wildly, the walls around her seemed to resonate with her heart, the earth trembled.

There was no Freddie to go to now.There was also nothing, absolutely nothing to lose now. Freddie was gone. The movie offers never came. The fan mail had long since stopped. She could go out into the street, dark glasses or otherwise, and no one would recognize her.

The paparazzi had long since abandoned her for meatier, perkier, more scandalous people. Far more scandalous than what happened to Freddie. And it wasn’t her fault.

They had fought. They had fought all night. The last thing she had said to Freddie was “I don’t know why I still keep you as my agent except for one stupid rule that you taught me!. How selfless of you, Freddie”

And he’d walked out that minute and gone home, to greet death, to relieve Gwendoline of THE RULE.

Gwendoline had arranged for a quiet funeral for Freddie, her friend at the orphanage. There was no one to invite after all. And Gwendoline had simply told no one. There was no one to tell after all.

She looked at the answering machine. In one hasty moment, she called back,

“Andrew. I don’t know who you are or what you think of yourself. But if you think you can threaten to tell the world Freddie’s dead and make some money off me. You’re right. You can. I have nothing to lose now. But I’ll tell you this. It wasn’t my fault. I expect you to come to my house, because courtesy demands that you meet the one whose life you’re about to destroy, and hear me out. And its been so long since I saw my name in the papers. So I’ll consider what you’re doing for me as service. But you’ll represent me to every newspaper and to every tabloid. And you will answer all the press. And you will get me Gary’s role. As my new agent. Freddie would have wanted this.”

[This was this week's writing assignment.
The same can also be found here

http://bestofwriteclub.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/24-character-sketch-30-year-old-actress-vain-glamorous-career-almost-over/]

The Flight

*quick short story*

By this time tomorrow, Kalika would be far, far away from Leoni and Kaajal. Wait. This time + 2.5 hours later? Or this time, but 2.5 hours earlier? Oh! She was going mad. A moment ago she had calculated. Now, she couldn't remember. "Ask passengers sitting next to you", mom had told her. "Be careful who you speak to", warned dad, concerned. Kalika wasn't sure who to listen.

Soon, she must decide.

But now, all she wanted to do was run away, or in this case, fly away. But the aluminum box holding her and 400 other friendly souls or cunning souls, depending on which parent you listened to, seemed to have been made with one clear specification. Don't let Kalika run out. Floating that high in the sky, where the arrow of time was changing direction, where houses seemed to small too be comfortable in, and clouds loomed ahead like menacing ghosts, the 400 guards that surrounded her too seemed to have one missive - don't let Kalika run out. If she listened closely, the monotonous, devilish chant of the pressurized cabin said - don't let Kalika run out.

400 stern guards, she thought. It dawned on her that it had long ago been decided, which parent she would listen to. Kalika was her father's daughter. It was on his wish that she was sent to a boarding school in another continent, at such a young age. And it was his wish that she was now returning to a stranger land, her homeland, at long last, to be with her parents forever.

Soon, in a span of this single flight, they would go from being family.... to being strangers.

Ode to 2011

In just a few days, Anno Domini 2011 will give rise to Anno Domini 2012.
And I would have gone a whole year without saying anything in this space.

I have always imagined that this space was an essential part of my Alzheimer's collection, a carefully curated collection of stuff with the somewhat lofty goal of jolting me to lucidity, should I ever suffer from Alzheimer's (of course, I expect that there will be effective, affordable, non-hair-loss-inducing, wrinkle and dark spot erasing medication by then. But meanwhile, the collection idea is appealing both for dramatic intent and well as realistic purposes.) It appears then, that I've had nothing to say in 2011 - a year which quite easily ranks as a Janani breaking-making-and-defining year. The real breaking-making-and-defining year was 1994. But there was no internet then. When someone finally invents that time machine they keep tempting me with, I promise to go back and make an entry for 1994.

Every year, since 2004, I have come here to vent, to pour out my thoughts, to slip quietly into the alley behind the universe, to warm myself in the blanket of anonymity, to assume alter egos, to be, as you may already suspect, a drama queen, to test out alternate career options, to just be creative. But never, apparently, to just be me. And in 2011, a year that I spent a good deal of time, being just myself, it seems, I wasn't compelled to come out here and hide. The thought is both comforting and disturbing.

Comforting, because perhaps I'm getting more comfortable in my own skin. No! I had a pretty normal childhood (except for the not-watching-enough cartoon network bit), and I have so far not been diagnosed with any kind of clinical or pop-culture-defined neurosis or psychosis. Some people simply find it a tad bit difficult to just be themselves - like remembering names, or being prompt with email correspondence, or not losing their pens and/or umbrellas. And so, in 2011, I got a lot better with just being myself.


Disturbing because, "Reflections" has been wonderful for me over the years. It feels wrong to abandon it for so long. It feels wronger still, that I did not feel like sharing something so good and wonderful. While I was experiencing all the ups and downs of new decisions, drastic changes, facing all the dilemmas of what would happen, and waiting forever for the change to happen, and then remembering with gratitude that there had been much,much more good times than bad in the times that had just passed, what a sad pity that I did not write it all down.

And now, dear future Alzheimer's ridden self, who will tell you about Anno Domini 2011?
There is always facebook. You can find out there. I can only hope that you've told someone your username and your ridiculous password. I can only wish that you have managed to find someone that you can trust enough to do that.
You can always hope your friends will be there around to help you. Because, dear sweet future Alzheimer's ridden self… in 2011, you had a great many friends who stood by you and kept you sane the whole time.
I can only hope that you still remember the amount of time you spent going all hippie, eating and cooking organic food. For a brief time, you contemplated becoming a food critic. And then you thought about becoming a journalist (its strange that during that contemplation you didn't bother to write as much). But you dabbled with both on the internet. Maybe Google (if it still exists) can help you dig out stuff from this year.
Or perhaps you will remember the monkeys. Juno. Malloc. Opie. Emo. Gosh! I hope the names sound familiar. The darling monkeys. Who taught you more about what it is to be human than any actual human you've ever met. Juno - stubborn, penguin shaped, fat, smart, cute little girl. You'd tell anyone who listened how Juno would sit in her chair in her very funny and endearing way. And she had large expressive eyes. And Malloc - fussy, grape peeling, orange scooping, frail, hard working girl. You spent so much time with her trying to get her to eat. It set off that cooking craze. Opie. Big ol grandpa with wisdom in every gray monkey fur he had. And Emo. Crazy old Emo. Who danced when nobody was watching and who couldn't stand bananas. You remember them don't you? For a time, every human you saw reminded you of one of these monkeys. Every baby you saw reminded you of their antics. You had a marvelous time and oh, by the way, you did some science.
And your advisor - she was simply the most generous person you ever saw.
And your parents. You said this about them in your acknowledgment and you teared up when you wrote it.
"Last, but not the least, I would like to thank my parents. I thank the forces that be, for not giving me a choice in the parents I have. Had I been given one, I doubt I would have made such a good choice. I have spared them no hardship. In turn, they have reciprocated by sparing me no comfort. Every step of the way, they have stood by me and I cannot thank them enough."
and you well up every time you think about it.

Dear sweet, wrinkly old Alzheimer's ridden self. 2011 was a great year.
You started afresh towards the end of the year. You worked with disadvantaged children, whose optimism, grit and courage and desire to make the world a better place made you feel so much more humble. And a lot less self defeatist. That was important.
And sure, you weren't working there motivated entirely by the lure of a social cause. You were there because you wanted to learn a lot about a broad range of things.
And at least towards the end of 2011, you were learning a lot. So it worked out quite well.

Dear old mental case,
I haven't done a great job summarizing. Because I'm just rushing to add something to the blog so that I won't miss a gap. It feels wrong that there's nothing for 2011.
But make no mistake. It wasn't because 2011 was a boring year. It was because 2011 was a year worth living. And especially since the only valuable store of all that is your damn head, I find it completely unacceptable that all those memories are wasting away in random nodules in your brain.
So wake up already.
And get on that time machine, and come tell me what's going to happen to me in the next couple of years.
Perhaps in December 2012, we can we can write this note together ?

Eternally yours.
Janani

Embracing Plurality

NOTE : This post was written during the height of the ground zero mosque controversy.

Proponents of Park51 are at pains to expla­­in that the people planning the mosque are very different from those who attacked the world trade center. Once the difference is acknowledged, it should no longer irk the sensitivities of those who suffered from the attack, they hope.

In a previous Op-Ed in the New York Times, William Darlymple describes how Islam, like Christianity has many sects. He also writes:

"Most of us are perfectly capable of making distinctions within the Christian world. The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn’t mean he’s in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.

Yet many of our leaders have a tendency to see the Islamic world as a single, terrifying monolith."

That the majority of Americans are able to discern the many forms of Christianity, but are blind to those of Islam, must not be dismissed as bigotry. Nor must it be taken as evidence of hypocrisy, or taken to the extreme conclusion that they are not truly secular. Why then, are Americans not able to see these parallels? The reason is likely far less sinister.

It comes down to the way the brain works. It is with experience with members of a category, that we are able to identify differences. Bird lovers readily distinguish ravens and crows while the novice sees them all as black birds. Car experts will identify two models of a car in no more than a glimpse. When we attempt spot-the-differences puzzles, it is not until we look at the pictures long enough, not until our brains have extracted enough information that the differences become apparent; sometimes embarrassingly obvious. Parents of identical twins are often asked if they get confused and almost always the answer is no. Such an ability is not born out of love or a special parental bond. It is simply that constant exposure to these kids has allowed the brain to sample the visual information repeatedly. Parents develop a sophisticated perceptual ability to identify their twins- one that is sensitive to nuance and subtle differences. With experience, we become acutely aware of deeper levels of categorization and are able to identify individuals of a broad category.

Known as the other-race effect, psychologists have long documented the finding that we’re consistently better at distinguishing those of our own race than those of others. With the other-race-effect too, the more the interaction with people from another race, the less similar other-race members will appear. Categorizing people according to the somewhat more abstract basis of religious identity may very well happen the same way. The majority of Americans may be unable to distinguish Muslims of different sects for the simple reason that they are less likely to have mingled with enough people from a minority population and are therefore naïve to the differences among various Muslim ideologies. Minorities of all nations suffer from the same problems in attitude. They’re seen and treated similarly. It should therefore not be surprising that many Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of Park51.

The Taliban and the extremists they support are under the same influence of neural processes. They too lump all of the West in one huge category and label them as evil. The Taliban regime’s vehement insistence on insularity only makes it harder for them to understand Western heterogeneity, and has further justified their passions for terrorism.

Then what are Americans (or anyone) to do?

Thankfully , it is one thing to treat people from an unfamiliar religion as the same because we’re not able to tell them apart. It is another matter, entirely , to pretend that the diversity is non-existent. It is this difference in conscious treatment that should set apart great American Leaders from the Taliban Leaders .

In their lifetimes, most Americans aren't going to be able to live in the several Muslim countries, mingle with people from various sects , to learn to tell them apart. But it does not take much effort to endorse that differences exist even if they are not instinctively sensitized to them.

William Dalrymple, in his Op-Ed succeeds in explaining that the ideology of the Sufi sect of the Cordoba Initiative is in fact at odds with that of the Wahhabi sect of the Talibam. It is a difference one should be mindful of. It can be argued again that not all people of the Sufi sect are similar and not all people of the Wahhabi sect are similar. That too, is well worth taking note of .

Maybe battles are best fought between two individuals instead of groups of stereotypes. Borders, labeling, classification and identity after all sprung from a need for convenience; not for settling matters of life and death. To fall prey to the appeals of broad labels, to treat everyone as a particle of a homogenous moiety is the tactic of the shrewd politician. To cultivate an appreciation for differences is to embrace a layered, fine-grained plurality and is the stamp of a responsible leader.

Einzelkind

I am an only child. I have zero brothers and zero sisters . There comes a time when you’ve been acquainted with someone for a significant amount of time when they will ask you how many siblings you have. And I have always wondered what anyone hopes to learn about me by the number and variety of siblings I have. Why are they so curious about precisely one half of my genetic make-up (nothing more, nothing less). And which part is it ? Are they curious about the part of me that’s the same as my siblings, or the part of me that’s not. I find that entire line of questioning mildly offensive.

A kid, I suppose, is interested in whether I have lots of fights and/or boardgames and whether it would be fun to play with me. As a tween, teen or adolescent, I imagine they’re interested in dating my heretofore unknown kin ? As an adult, I suppose they’re largely interested in psychobabble. They feel compelled to know if I was pampered, do I know how to share, am I selfish, did I grow up not knowing what to do with all the time I had on my hands ? They always proceed to tell me whether they had always suspected it. And they're always jubilant whether or not they suspected. "Hey I could totally tell!" or "Really! You don't say!". They promptly proceed to compare me to other people they know who are only kids too. And I never know what I should do with this new information on my hands. Start an only-kids anonymous club (where we'll teach other the 12 steps of adopting each other as siblings)? I’ve never seen anyone say “oh I know x yz. S/he has 1 brother and 2 sisters too”. And often I sense a dilemma – are they to take pity on me for never having had the joys of siblinghood, are they to be mean to me so as to offset the ills of pampering, are they to feel envious of me that I never had to put up with hand-me-downs or fight for the TV remote ?

Apparently, I, and others of my kind are specimens. Outliers in nature’s need to procreate jointly and severally and profusely. So I shall present the requested psychoanalysis as well. For the record, almost all of my cousins are only kids themselves. And apart from the general trend that the females among us are more troublesome than the males, I can see no other marked similarity. As for am I pampered – I wouldn’t know. Present to me a control case, where all other things are held equal, and the only difference is a couple of siblings, and fully define “pampering”. I could then tell you if I was pampered. Am I selfish ? This whole post is about me and my assumed “uniqueness”. In what way can I answer that question and not sound either self-effacing or vain ? Do I know how to share ? I am always willing to partake of anything you have to offer.

And finally, did I grow up not knowing what to do with all the time I had on my hands ? As an indirect way of answering that question – I was one of those people that learnt to tell the time quite late. I hid my face behind digital watches before I made the switch to analog for a very long time. I imagine that if I were completely bored to death, waiting, waiting, for time to move, I would’ve learnt to read clocks sooner than most other kids my age. I must have found something else to do ( in fact, a lot of other things to do).

The one word that I have managed to remember from German class is “einzelkind”. Thanks to the language’s love for compound words, “only child” is unified into a single concept. Einzelkind defines me by what I am rather than what I did not have. I am all of my DNA. And I'd love to share ALL of it.

Mostly water !!!

On Aug 1st this year, I took up a resolution to eat only home-cooked food. I came to the disconcerting realization that having decided that all of vegetarianism in the US was either leaves, or cheese, I was constantly picking cheese. In turn, my body, totally supportive of that decision, had decided to store it. If my sins got carried over to my next several births, I’d be staring at several interesting possibilities including being a fat bird incapable of flying, a fat snail, which when stamped would result in an overmuch of putrid squish, a fat ant incapable of carrying over hundred times its weight, or a fat leaf leaving its eating to be very undesired. I wish I could post snapshots of my imagined rebirths but I try to keep my posts G rated. Kids and their PB&J sandwiches are welcome!

So I resolved to turn a new (leaf?). Having taken such a resolution, I came to my senses rather quickly. A fat leaf ? Na! I know my biology. Leaves don’t have adipose tissues. I’m saved! And of course, I faltered several times and broke my resolve more than once. I even made the untimely discovery that Panera Bread will serve you sandwiches without the meat. No more of just Mediterranean veggie sandwich ? Hurrah to even varieties of cheese between slices of bread. Down goes my resolution.

Be assured, absolutely nothing on the weighing scale went down. So my real strict resolution is going to start again on September 1st. I shall be including potatoes in my diet now. Potatoes, not being leaves or cheese will give me more variety and are in great abundance in the US of A. (God! I sure hope I am kidding.)
Meanwhile, all I can think of now is real vegetarian food. Indian food. I mean food served on plantain leaves during weddings. I used to detest the entire unholy mess and all the rasam dripping hands and the annoying way in which the servers get stingy with the banana chips and the even more creepy chunks of pumpkin. The wedding-food Gods (there must be one ?) are clearly having their sweet revenge. Would that I could go back to one of those weddings and eat the pumpkin sambar.

And then my mind drifted several times to Shatabdi express’s food. I haven’t been on the Shatabdi often enough. My mom never believed in wasting precious daylight time in a train unless absolutely necessary. It was always madras mail. Board at 10:40 in Bangalore. Land in Chennai at 4:30 am in the morning (by which time the entire city seemed like it was sitting down for lunch. Those guys start their days much earlier compared to Bangalore). And Shatabdi’s food, even back in India, where all kinds of sumptuous vegetarian food was available, was delectable. I have a particular fancy for anything train and train station related (except the restrooms of course!). And now, I am fully convinced that Shatabdi’s food is a cuisine in its own good. So of course, I had to know everything there is to know about Shatabdi food. Who decided to start it ? Who decided the menu? Does that minister or the civil service official have a statue yet ? Could he be coaxed into becoming prime minister? Is the Indian government generous with its budget for Shatabdi food ? Is the catering company up for IPO soon ?

And it was in this delirious mood that I went to Wikipedia fully believing that it would have an entire entry dedicated to Shatabdi food.

And what do I find ?

“Shatabdi Express travelers are provided with snacks, breakfast, meals, coffee or tea, a one-litre water bottle and a glass of canned juice.”
!!!
(and it's in the entry for Shatabi; not the entry for Food Service in Shatabdi)

I am pretty sure that falls somewhere in the zip-code of misrepresenting information. That line almost sounds like Shatabdi’s food is completely besides the point and atrocious and that the only thing worth mentioning is the 1 litre water bottle (it may not even come with water in it. Is that what I must make of it?) and a glass of canned juice ? I mean, what about the soup and the breadsticks and the candy and the ice cream and the hot coffee served in flasks and hot rotis and the rice and the yogurt (we call it curds), and the little earthern pot it's set in, and the pickle and the sabji and the dal all wrapped neatly in aluminium foil ?

This happens to be the only time I’ve wanted to edit a Wikipedia entry.

This also makes me feel very much like Arthur Dent(of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), who upon realizing that his planet Earth had been demolished, desperately searched the guide for its description, in an attempt to cling on to its memory.

All I can say is that airlines around the world must be described as giving snacks and meals and water bottled and canned juice. In fact, it would be perfectly alright to say that airlines are always in huge supply of ice.

But to relegate Shatabdi’s food to that pedestrian class is a gross injustice.
One that I plan to resolve in the next few weeks!

So long and thanks for nothing!
************************


The Earth.

Visions of it swam sickeningly through his nauseated mind. There was no way his imagination could feel the impact of the whole Earth having gone, it was too big. He prodded his feelings by thinking that his parents and his sister had gone. No reaction. He thought of all the people he had been close to. No reaction. Then he thought of a complete stranger he had been standing behind in the queue at the supermarket before and felt a sudden stab — the supermarket was gone, everything in it was gone. Nelson's Column had gone! Nelson's Column had gone and there would be no outcry, because there was no one left to make an outcry. From now on Nelson's Column only existed in his mind. England only existed in his mind — his mind, stuck here in this dank smelly steel-lined spaceship. A wave of claustrophobia closed in on him.

England no longer existed. He'd got that — somehow he'd got it. He tried again. America, he thought, has gone. He couldn't grasp it. He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He'd never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, had sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every Bogart movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonalds, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger.
He passed out. When he came round a second later he found he was sobbing for his mother.

He jerked himself violently to his feet.

"Ford!"

Ford looked up from where he was sitting in a corner humming to himself. He always found the actual travelling-through-space part of space travel rather trying.

"Yeah?" he said.

"If you're a researcher on this book thing and you were on Earth, you must have been gathering material on it."

"Well, I was able to extend the original entry a bit, yes."

"Let me see what it says in this edition then, I've got to see it."

"Yeah OK." He passed it over again.

Arthur grabbed hold of it and tried to stop his hands shaking. He pressed the entry for the relevant page. The screen flashed and swirled and resolved into a page of print. Arthur stared at it.

"It doesn't have an entry!" he burst out.

Ford looked over his shoulder.

"Yes it does," he said, "down there, see at the bottom of the screen, just under
Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6."

Arthur followed Ford's finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn't register, then his mind nearly blew up.
"What? Harmless? Is that all it's got to say? Harmless! One word!"

Ford shrugged.

"Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book's microprocessors," he said, "and no one knew much about the Earth of course."

"Well for God's sake I hope you managed to rectify that a bit."

"Oh yes, well I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it's still an improvement."

"And what does it say now?" asked Arthur.

"Mostly harmless," admitted Ford with a slightly embarrassed cough.

"Mostly harmless!" shouted Arthur.

"What was that noise?" hissed Ford.

"It was me shouting," shouted Arthur.
************************

Peepli Live

There is a scene in Peepli Live. The entire media has descended upon Natha’s house. Politicians and government officials make frequent visits, each offering things other than what Natha’s family needs most. At one particular time, the entire family comes out and regards the scene in front of them. There’s a quizzical look on each character as they look over their courtyard. In that single frame, the entire movie turns over itself and asks you to consider the world as seen through the family’s eyes as opposed to Natha’s family, as seen through the world’s eyes.

Peepli Live manages to make an inanimate character, called the Lal Bahadur come to life and manages to make all of Natha’s life a marketable commodity. The makers shrewdly sold itself as a satire when in fact, it may very well have been a well researched, remarkably executed documentary (the jokes too I believe are probably not too far from the truth). The movie even manages to stay away from both clichéd endings; in the end Natha is neither dead nor alive. There are two crucial deaths, written in to make a rather somber point, and they too are pulled off cleverly that you cannot completely explain it as karma, poetic justice or oh-that-awful-life. Shit happens, as they say (and describe in great detail). Natha’s own family members aren’t beyond manipulation or selfishness. Why then, must we expect anyone else to be ?

Peepli live is a daring take on India’s cold, hard brutal democracy and way of life. There was no happy ending. Yet it makes you laugh. Slumdog Millionaire was a stylized version of dreams coming true magically, even when you’re from cold, hard, democratic India. There was a happy ending and yet it made you cry.

When you're done laughing, it does make you wonder.

Makeover

Don't go away.
I'm still writing the same ol stuff.

Am trying to give my blog a makeover it truly needs.
I have great dreams for my new template ( a whole day of surfing the net didn't really get me anywhere I might add).

So... my dream has now changed.

I do not promise astonishing results or better user friendliness or anything like that. Think of it as one of those haircuts you simply must get, because its been long, way too long since you had your last one.

Which reminds me, I also need a haircut. But fear not, I shall not blog about it.

Besan ftw!

For the past few days, I’ve been consumed by the need to write something about besan (or gram flour) – that yellow powder tucked away in the corner of the kitchen shelf (or pantry). < As an aside. I like the word pantry. Depending on my mood, the word “pantry” can evoke tendencies that hark back to the my childhood days of Enid Blyton. I imagine myself to be one of those boarding school kids devouring pies and puddings stolen from the pantry during midnight feasts. Or it can evoke more memories of real experiences, of 2 day train journeys in India, where the pantry always smells good, regardless of the cheap oil they were using, and the food pretty delicious as well. Indian train food must be given a whole cuisine category. There is a lot to be said about the gluttonous and pleasures of watery, peppery tomato soup, cutlets with so much oil that they soak the paper plates on which they were served, and pulao’s and kurmas and curd rice with little pickle sachets, and bread omelettes. And the tiny cups of tea, coffee and hot milk that come by at regular intervals. But most of all I like the world pantry. I’m one of those people that dream of houses with pantries just so that I can use the word “pantry” legitimately instead of creating elaborate contests in which their usage is justified – such as the one you’re currently reading > < END DETOUR. END INTERESTING PART OF THIS POST>

Now the praise of besan, despite all its value, is even less unsung than train cuisine. It’s the ingredient that is always forgotten on shopping lists. An accommodating sorta fella, besan doesn’t expect to be added to every dish. In fact, he’s not needed at all. I know of a few kitchens that do not even have besan. And it is likely they will remain that way for ages and will manage to satisfy the palates of many that dine there. Besan doesn’t seek to advertise himself unlike the multitude of other flours that seem to embellish themselves with free-flow and what not to enhance their appeal. Besan, the thick, lumpy chap cannot be bothered to change himself. It doesn’t ask for too much attention really. It seems as if producers of the product and nature itself have simply relied on the fact that cooks will serendipitously discover its need, and once they do, they will find it impossible to turn back. Like the use of tobacco without needing advertisements and despite all the statutory warnings. Besan, however is so much more healthier.

To use besan is to go that extra length, to make your food taste from good to “oh my God. What have you added. The taste just lingers and lingers. And it’s awesome”. Besan can make you aware of all your taste buds, and possibly sprout some new ones. Surprisingly, advice columns on women’s magazines ignore besan all the time when they have to reply to questions such as “What can be done when I add too much salt in my food ?”. Now, in my opinion, these people shouldn’t even be given any recourse. That’s the only way they’re going to learn to use a smaller spoon. However, they’re often told to add a potato to the food, which apparently simply absorbs the salt. Do people then go on to eat this potato, I’ve often wondered. No wonder then, that we're battling increasing levels of cholesterol and diabetes. Of course, in many parts of the world, they've decided to simply do away with the initial extra salty cooking and cut right to the potato with lots of salt. We know it as french fries. In my house, one just deals with extra salty food with huge helpings of yogurt on the side (yes yes. Homemade. Organic. Probiotic. Lactobacillus-uberexotica. Traditional. Goodness). Anyway. I wonder why these horrified cooks, couldn’t resort to adding besan. I have tried that, with good success. Of course, the food doesn’t taste the way it was originally intended. But the new taste is rather appealing.

Such is the power of besan. You can never screw it up. It’s one of those things that can make food taste roasted and shallow fried without adding much oil. It gives a certain fullness to the flavor unparalleled to any combination of spices that I have tried. It is the ultimate finisher. It can bind things together. It can give that tiny edge of sweetness that even ardent resistors of those Indian cuisines known for their sweet food, will not be able resist.< The fact that Indian grocery stores stock it in huge packets makes me wonder if this post and my fawning prose for besan is completely premature. But it gives me hope that there so many more uses that I am yet to discover.> For me though, a small amount will do. It just sits, in its corner on the kitchen shelf waiting to be drafted into service. And when it does, boy! does it do its job! The besan, when bought, sits in the *pantry*, serving at the pleasure of the cook forever and ever.

It’s as close to a fairy tale that most of us are ever going to get. Besan is why I decide to keep cooking, much less write about it.

Besan completes my kitchen.

Love All

America is a secular country. Secularism is absolute. It cannot vary in degrees. It cannot vary depending on the circumstance. There is nothing the government can do about the decision of some people to profess their faith, to gather peacefully and to practice their religion. And if those that gather there also attempt to reach out, to explain to others that they come there on good faith, that they’re tolerant, that they mean no harm, the government must simply stand by it. And so there is nothing the government can do about the decision to build an Islamic Centre merely two blocks from Ground Zero, where several people died by a Jihadist attack.

The very idea of an Islamic Centre seems to irk the sensitivities of many people. Perhaps they wonder if their yet-to-heal wounds are being rubbed raw. Perhaps they wonder if they’re being laughed at for putting up with other religions. Or perhaps they do not want to be asked for understanding and forgiving for they are not done grieving. Secularism occupies no place in their heart. Memories of loved ones do. And they cannot find it in themselves to understand, to support other religions again, a support that they offered once freely, a support that they feel was fully misused. And perhaps all they’re asking is for these people to go away for now, to come back later, when they can remember peace-time again. And they’re asking that an exception be made, an exception that takes into account their sensitivity and their vulnerability.

But the constitution does not grant the right to sensitivity, vulnerability or fear. It asks simply that people continue to be strong regardless of circumstance in order to uphold a higher value- that of tolerance. For its founders believed that one can find courage, strength and the will to do what is right under absolutely every single circumstance, no matter how trying.

Perhaps they would rather live somewhere else where everyone professes the same religion that they do. Alternatively, perhaps they would live somewhere where everyone practices their religion in secret so that religion is never questioned. But perhaps it would all of us some good to remember what tolerance feels like in peacetime.

I grew up in India, another secular country albeit Hindu dominated. On my street among a majority of Hindus, are also Muslims and Christians. Every Diwali ( a Hindu festival), my mother asks me to distribute sweets to the neighbours. We distribute them to all our neighbours regardless of religion- regardless of the Christmas Trees in the courtyards or the Quranic verse on the walls. I am certain that this act of distributing sweets is never interpreted as my trumpeting my religion, for I am always welcomed with open arms. Come Christmas, I can expect sweets from my Christian neighbor and come Eid I can expect sweets again from my Muslim neighbor. None of us is afraid of one another. Indeed we have often given them our house keys to help guard our house while we are out of town. We go to our temples, churches and mosques. My Muslim neighbor does not find any ill in asking other neighbours to contribute to the temple because the temple plans to use those funds to build a park. And my Christian neighbor does not refuse to pay the community maintenance fees despite the community leader being a devout Hindu. Nor does the community leader insist that the community consist of solely Hindus. It can be argued that we tolerate each other because we fear our lives. But the honest-to-God or whatever-you-believe-in truth is we tolerate each other simply because we care for each other.

Perhaps those of the Cordoba Initiative are over-reaching and are testing American secularism too much. But the test is so easily passed. If Americans only extend their once steady, now trembling hands, they will realize that what’s waiting for them is a warm, firm grip, a balm that will finally ease the pain.

Much Ado About “Nothing we didn’t already know”

Confidential reports about the state of the war in Afghanistan was recently released by an organization called Wikileaks :- an organization devoted to whistle blowing (collecting and releasing documents that wikileaks feels the public ought to know). It headlined in 3 leading newspapers :- NyTimes, Guardian, Der Spiegel, while every other piece of news including Iran’s sudden “ Oh. Now that you really really really mean to punish me by meting out sanctions, is there somewhere we can sit and discuss this?” was fully submerged. By the end of the day, the documents’ revelations- ISI collusion with the Taliban, civilian casualty, bribe and corruption, the strength of Taliban’s military capability were concluded as “there’s nothing new here. We already knew this.” Yet the manner in which it all came out, the sensational undercover Wikileaks organization, its platinum-blonde, handsome and forthright editor-in-chief & spokesperson Julian Assange and the sheer magnitude of the reports made it meaty media material.

Editorials and opinions swarmed the internet, and again, they concluded that we knew all this already. Perhaps a few things have been distorted. We were lead to believe that American Helicopters were shot down by guns and artillery whereas they were shot down by heat seaking missiles that the Taliban possess. Some of the money going into the war is being used to bribe Afghan officials into doing their job. Afghan civilians are even more scared about the Taliban than we originally thought. But really, these are questions of degree, not of outright lying and purposeful misleading. Terrorism in Afghanistan is real and present. If it isn’t stopped, the rest of the world is going to be attacked. AGAIN.

White house officials for their part got all childish and insisted that it put their troops in risk (because until now the Taliban and the ISI thought that the US had believed their bluff about being nice people ???). They insisted that the person who had passed on these reports be found and prosecuted, only making ordinary people ask “ Why are you so scared that we know the truth. What else are you hiding from us. Did we never land on the moon either ?”. Ultimately however, everyone had to at least revisit their opinion about the war strategy.

For a while now, people have pretended that this war is anything like other wars- where the battlefields are clear, where civilians can wait safely in their houses, risking only those lives that are in the battlezone. And we’ve also pretended that there is a mathematics to it that will let us set an unambiguous deadline for finishing the war and heading home. It seems that the American people must be reminded more frequently that Afghan Terrorism exists today because we sought their help while fighting the commies and then hung them to dry when we’d finished with Russia. We left them in the lurch then. To do that again would be not only foolhardy, not only unfair, but also dangerous. Afghan anger against Americans and allied forces is fully justified. So also is their fear and perhaps even their belief that the Taliban will do them more good as long as they listened and abided by every radical rule that was imposed on them. To earn Afghan loyalty is of prime importance – as rightly and strongly outlined in Gen. Petraeus’s CounterInsurgency Field Manuals. To abandon them, when some of them may at last be seeing hope outside of Taliban’s dictatorship would be ridiculous. Earning trust is not something we can put a timestamp on. Neither is saying “we’ll protect you for the next 3 years. After that we’ll throw you to a pack of wolves”, which is what it must seem like to the Afghans. Thankfully, the US congress finally approved more funds for the war and perhaps president Obama will stop the nonsense about discussing timelines come December.

Meanwhile, all is not lost. Media in Afghanistan is ramping up. At least some people are looking at soap operas, of lives lived in foreign lands and are beginning to wonder if they could live like that too. Gossiping about the neighbor, plotting against mother-in-laws may be a luxury that they will soon begin to yearn. At least some people are listening to criticism against the Taliban and are wondering if there may be some truth to it. And at least some of them are looking at images of cities with roads, hospitals and education and are hoping that they too can be like that someday.

And already women are beginning to get enrolled in schools. And people are beginning to talk to each other non-stop on cellphones and landlines. And thanks to US occupation, many of them can at least apply a band-aid on a gash if not have their hip replaced. Some of this is worth fighting a really long time. Even if the peace lasts only a day or two, there will be some kids that will go on to remember what it was like to play in fields of hay and will strive to make that last in turn.

Not another friggin choice!

Disclaimer : As usual, I'm 2 years behind on "what's-up-in-gizmo-land". But what the heck... my emotion is very current.

So I read about these uber smart chaps who want to save the planet (whether they believe in climate change is beside the point), and they've come up with a way to help.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9937567-54.html

So from now on, instead of having a million receipts in ur hand, you can have them all emailed to you.

This means for some of you, you'll have additional labels and filters in your gmail and everything will be neatly organized. And you can keep track of every starbucks latte you've had. Some of you whack-jobs will then write this tiny program to extract all the starbucks lattes you've had and plot it on a graph to track caffeine intake and probably correlate it with your work productivity/sleep deprivation/food binges/ paranoia. Note: Please factor in all the time it took for you to write this crazy program, instead of you-know, doing real work. And hey, while it doesn't sound like it, trust me, I salute you.

This is what it means for me.
Another choice ?

This means a series of answers at the checking counter.

Cash or card.
Credit or debit.
Swipe a million times coz the credit card machine really likes being polite and certain.
Do you want it in your hand, in a bag, giftwrapped ?
Do u want a paper bag or a plastic bag.
Do you want the receipt in ur hand or in the bag.

OR

would you like the receipt emailed to you ?

Please give me your email address.
Is it right ?

< I don't even want to go into whether there's going to be an additional verification step; perhaps you have to login, click a link, enter a captcha, perhaps set another online shopping account, with secret password questions and hints. I'm sure they'll tell you that if you created an account, you can set the choices such that the store will never have to ask you what your preferred billing method. Pretty soon, there will also be another one of those iphone apps for it. Maybe you just have to wave the iphone across their computer and it'll figure it out >



You know what I don't care. Just do what pleases you.

Coz I am now going to end up with a million receipts in my hand, bag and in my email address that I going to completely lose track of what I'm spending. This is how financial collapses happen. By giving people completely unwarranted freebies.
Luxury of choice, by definition, shouldnt be this affordable.

Congress! Are you listening! I know you love freedom of everything (including the right to bear firearms ???), but could you please curb some of my freedom to make choices ? Can u mandate that every single store, across the board, does exactly one thing ?

Or

Or

Since you love making databases, can u at least let me register my choice once and have all these guys who're so desperate to keep me happy, know what I want, instead of asking me every single time ?

Coz what I really want, is not to make these many decisions.

All I want is my latte.
And the most I'm willing to do... in order for you... to keep me happy... is to tell u I want it non-fat with caramel sauce. That's it.

If that's good enough for me, it had better be good enough for you.

Putting it simply!

For US : The education system

For India : Absolutely everything else!

the Amnesiac

What did the great sages and scribes have in mind when they sat down and painstakingly chronicled the nature of human folly; when they etched it on papyrus and couched it in so grand a setting that the stories would be told to children for ages to come. Might they have been in awe of the possibility of imagination ? To experience an entire story as if it were he in that story, he in that miserable state, he who is caught in the grips of passion and he who is enduring an ordeal so painful that it ought to have been avoided. And surely showing us the ways in which our ancestors became successful, the ways in which they failed, the things that made them laugh and the things that made them cry, would settle once and for all what each of us must do in our miniscule time on earth- rather like the stars and the galaxies had managed to settle among themselves what they need to do over and over again across millenia.

Yet. We forget. All the time we forget about our errors. And the few times we remember, we convince ourselves that we are now so practiced in erring that we are incapable of making them any longer. And all the time enemies are made for reasons that should've long since stopped surprising us but each time we are caught off-guard. Wars are fought over things we needn't desire and we never stop. And all the time we burn our fingers as though since the last time, we'd grown an entirely new kind of skin. All the time we feel hurt, pain and anguish and we promise ourselves never to let it happen again. For reasons not altogether different, it happens again. And we're shocked. Did the scribes forget man's impressive ability to forget ?

Everyday children attempt to walk after falling over and over again. They forget the pain. And everyday mothers feed their children having forgotten the need for gratitude. And in several corners of the world scientists and artists are experimenting, having forgotten the embarrassment of their last failure. And all over the world peope are learning to love again having forgotten the last time their heart was broken. And several of these children will fall again before they really walk. And mothers will cry quiet tears at night. And scientists will go drinking at bars and new lovers will sometimes never go on to become old lovers.

But when the cavemen drew gory drawings about wolves who steal his kids, we tamed the wolves into dogs. When they drew about the wrongful deaths of their brothers who asked nothing else but their fair share in the day's bounty, we came to create democracy. The scribes told us about the scary world, about the hyena ridden valleys and the cheetah's lair. And we crossed all of that and made it to the moon. And there we saw the stars and the galaxies repeating their lives all the time. But they too are moving further and further, faster and faster, in search of something. They clash, collide and bang their heads against enormous walls and seethe in fury.

Meanwhile, the universe decrees rather simply that we RINSE......
AND REPEAT.

All's fair in bargaining and war

It was going to be a full house in Ratham Veedhi , Madurai. Such days were few and far between and Gomathy Patti looked forward to them more than anyone else. She planned on waking up at 4 am in time to prepare an elaborate meal for everybody. She would spend most of the night awake for fear of getting up late. Cooking for several hungry kids, enthusiastic parents and uninvited guests that would be welcome with open arms wasn’t easy. Gomathy Patti took on this daunting task with a large serving of gusto and a huge dollop of pride.

She allowed an extra 15 minutes to bargain with the vegetable seller, Chellappan, at the market. While on her way to the market, she spent all those 15 minutes, stopping to tell those she met on her way that all the grandchildren were going to be home that day. To some selected people she confided that she was going to make vendakkai (okra) curry. Her daughter-in-law Kaamatchi stayed at home, cooking other things that Gomathy Patti felt didn’t need an expert. Also, Kaamatchi keenly avoided listening to Chellappan complain about her mother-in-law. She was never sure whom to support. Kaamatchi smartly used Gomathy Patti’s absence in making some extra rice and increasing the quantity of rasam and sambhar by adding more water and some more spices. Later, everyone would exclaim that Patti’s rasam was always especially tasty when there was a large crowd to dine with.

By the time Gomathy Patti made it to the vegetable seller, word had reached him that she was going to buy okra. He huffed readying for the bullfight. He sprayed water on all the vegetables to make them look fresh. He quickly covered one of the baskets with a wet cloth and rope so that he could make it look like the vegetables had just been delivered. He removed all the rotten vegetables he could lay his hands on. He then gulped some water, cleared his throat and clapped his hands. He was ready.

An audience had also gathered. Waiting. Who would win?

Gomathy Patti came in with her nose upturned. She took each vegetable by hand and nodded her head in disapproval. Chellappan paid her not the slightest attention, tending to the banana plantain instead. Gomathy Patti took out a bunch of coriander leaves from beneath the large pile. The ones below were rotten. “Che. What good will such a bunch do to my rasam? This is why I grow my own coriander in the kitchen garden”, she said.

Gomathy Patti had opened with an ace.

15-love to Patti.

“Well, for you maami, I will give this bunch to you for free”, he said removing a fresh bunch from the top and waving at her. ” Even if you discard all my wares as old and rotten.”

15 all

“No. I don’t need anything for free. My son earns a hefty pension and my grandchildren are soon going to be working in fantastic jobs that don’t even need a pension. Why, I might even give you some of my own coriander then”

30 -15

She next went to the beans and drew out the fibre from the sides of the stalk to test their tenderness. She sighed loudly. And as though doing it out of generosity she asked him how much it was, adding that she must be a fool for wanting to buy it at all.

40 - 15

Chellappan played along knowing full well that she did not want the beans. He quoted a particularly expensive rate . He hoped that the lesser price he would eventually quote for the okra would be acceptable in comparison.

40-30

She pretended to think for a while, and then, feigning a defeated look, refused it. She now looked around the place vaguely as if her long-hatched plans had been soiled and she hadn’t a clue what her other options were. She sighed loudly again. She now turned to the okra. She took each okra and broke off the tip. The whole time she kept up a constant prattle of disapproval.
“Why are they so hard ? They’re all overripe. Much like you Chellappan. ”

“Maami. These are as tender is my 10 month old baby. Besides, okra is good for any age, for brains of any age, including yours”

He proceeded to pick a particularly tender okra and effortlessly broke off its tip.

deuce

Gomathy Patti was not impressed. She proceeded to test the okra some more. It might mean that she would break the stalks of all the okra in the stall. But Chellappan let her. It wasn’t everyday that someone prepared such a feast. He could feel his patience wearing out even as he displayed a smug smile, confident of his goods. Narasimhan, who was also making his way through the market place, was loudly gesturing at his wife Lakshmi “Buy okra from here Lakshmi. The curry you made last week was pretty good” he said.

Advantage Chellappan

Gomathy patti turned to them and snarled. Not missing a beat, she said nonchalantly “True. Chellappan can sometimes be lucky.” And she picked up an overripe okra and showed it to them.

Deuce

Chellappan now found no humour in this. “Maami. Careful. I respect your age. But think about my age and what I am capable of before you start driving my customers away.”

Advantage Chellappan.

But Gomathy Patti was not that easily stymied. She waved her hand dismissively and said “ Bhagawan (God) will come to the aid of those who tell the truth”. “Anyway”, she said, this time with the look of one who is doing a favour, “now I will give you 30 rs per kilo for this okra and I’ll buy three kilos of it.

Either give it to me or risk losing more customers than just Lakshmi and Narasimhan”

Deuce

Chellappan knew the math all too well. If Gomathy Patti bought the okra, chances were Lakshmi maami would buy the okra too. If Gomathy Patti didn't, Lakshmi wouldn't dare for fear of having to defend herself against Gomathy Patti's claim that Lakshmi had betrayed her. And so, Chellappan would have wasted all morning for nothing.

“Fine. Now will you please make a move? ”, he said.

Gomathy Patti finally permitted herself to smile. She loaded the okra in the choir basket and counted out the money twice before giving it to Chellappan. As she handed him the money she said “Where’s my coriander bunch you promised me? “

Advantage Gomathy Patti

Chellappan permitted himself a smile this time.

“Maami. I’ve rarely seen a more cunning lady than you”.

And then Gomathy Patti bared her large toothless smile and whispered, “and I’ve rarely seen better Okra than this. Make sure Lakshmi pays you at least 20 annas per kilo.”

Deuce
***************************


PS:

Long Live USPS

http://www.economist.com/business-finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15911952

What does US post office mean to me ?

It means either junk mail (which you should absolutely ignore) and VERY IMPORTANT mail(which you must absolutely not ignore). It's odd that USPS sits so comfortably in this bimodality. To me, it means I have to go through all that junk mail, credit card offers, coupons, random things pretending to be very important, and non-random things completely clueless about their importance in order to spot the "important" mail. I have a large-to-extra-large axe to grind with the "important mail" mailers. Can they make it any harder to notice its importance ? IMPORTANT AND CONFIDENTIAL written in unassuming, regular font,regular font size, black typeset really doesn't do much to get my adrenalin flowing. I suggest coloring the envelopes red. Or use glow-in-the-dark material. Or speckle the envelope with tiny hearts. Maybe use a nice texture. Or a citrus fragrance. Special paper ? Something like special currency paper ? Something ? Anything but white envelopes and black fonts.

Jan through April, until I get my W2, I wonder several times if I've missed one of those documents or if I've missed my bills (yes yes... I have heard of autopay and E-bills and I do that meticulously).

But USPS themselves, I think are a fine organization. I say this despite the unfortunate time when my package got lost somewhere in Utah during the snowstorm. USPS very sweetly sent me an "important" mail saying they'd found the cover but not its contents (go figure!) and if I could give them an elaborate description of the contents, they'll try finding it. When I went to USPS however, none of the attendants had even heard of this form. I still strove to send them an elaborate description of the package only to hear that they couldn't find it. I suspect right now, a llama is chewing away at my plaid coat. (Yes. LLama!) The point though, is they bothered to inform me and keep me updated (of course using the very primitive art of envelope camouflage).

They're a fine organization because they're expected to make money solely from selling stamps while the government is off bailing filthy banks (it's hilarious how you can always use that line these days and people will always nod in rage). And so I suppose it is worth pumping money into them and keep them going. I don't mean blogging, reblogging or painting placards (in BOLD RED writing) and parading about Capitol Hill. Just buy their stamps. Some of them are even amusing.

http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2009/pr09_118.htm
(I especially like the sunday funnies stamp panel).

world wide waste

A neuroscience professor once told me that the brain is a wonderful thing in that it cleverly managed to ignore much riff raff. And it was important that it did that. Paying attention to too much, storing all the information all the time is a ridiculously inefficient strategy since most information is worthless to the immediate goals of finding food and avoiding predator and the slightly more long term goals of procreating and possibly parenting. Retrieving information within the brain's memory stores then, is worse, much worse, than looking for a needle in a haystack. And the brain smartly decided to only store information that it tended to need, and pay no heed to anything else.

A few apes, a couple of tools, some fire, language, written scripts, a somewhat clumsy wheel, agriculture, animal husbandry, an abacus, an apple, a whirring machine, another apple and etc etc etc later, poof! we get the internet! And suddenly the brain's relieved of its duties to memorize anything. And humans immediately become thirsty and hungry not just for valuable information, but to dwell on any set of words and/or numbers that supposedly form a thought, the thought's coherence notwithstanding.

We've come a long way from Gutenberg's press haven't we ? From having to painstakingly distribute information to those that needed it, we're at a point where we painstakingly plough through the internet, concentrating really hard to ignore alphanumeric sentences that we do not need. Clearly, somewhere in between is a diabetes-worthy sweet spot, and clearly we're too mesmerized to bother finding and holding steadfastly to this sweet spot.

The internet is getting ahead of me way too quickly. It is with almost tearful eyes that I recall the days when I was aware of google and the rest of the world was yet to find out. But now, I barely survived the transition from orkut to facebook. Each time facebook changes its layout I can hear a few more of my neurons committing suicide. I feel unmotivated to open my twitter page despite having an account. And I find it oddly disturbing that weird sounding names are wasting their time following my account, which has no hopes of ever updating a status message. We're now pursuing 0 bytes of information with the same level of gusto that we pursue everything else ?

Each day, I sigh loudly when I realize that there's no way I can keep track of all the stories and blogs and news and gibberish out there. Reddit, digg, delicious, stumbleupon, tumblr just give me internal hemorrhage. A few hours before writing this blog, I sat down to figure all of that out, mistakenly assuming that it would make life easier. Few hours later, I'm moaning and groaning with the realization that all these people are probably doing nothing to nudge humanity forward. We're wasting our time, I, the sour fox, that cannot obtain the sweet grapes, have decided. There's an article somewhere that employees of the SEC are to be blamed for the recession because they spent too much time watching porn. What the rest of the internet-addicted world is doing is hardly more admirable.

It is therefore with some modicum of relief that I accept a lifetime of internet ignorance.