The edapally punyalan stands valiant at the busy cross roads of Eranakulam(Kochi). This spear bearing, white horse riding, serpent killing, St. George of St. George church at edapally had always been a mystery to me. This deity with the power to control and rid snakes is an easy favorite even among the hindus who fear the snake gods. My maternal family home was built around a dozen edifices of snake gods and hence the allegiance to punyalan had stuck since a long time. Our trips to Kochi till date are always accompanied by a hand folded quick bow and swift donations to this white knight.

As a child, I was perplexed at the tam-bram association to a church and the politics of the faith confounded me to no end. When cousins chose partners outside the familial realm of caste, religion, ethos and what not, they were met with cold response from the elderly. The faith I had awed now seemed hypocritical. The willingness to rebel anything and everything had only become stronger and sadly the purpose was lost somewhere!

The families haven’t stayed far behind. The confluence of ethos, language, religions, casteism, is the norm; the fence is breaking away. Acceptance is now widespread and even in vogue. As we celebrate the unions, sport a thaali with influences from the families of boy and girl; organize weddings with various ceremonies making them double the fun, has the din shut us to what holds next? Has the clamor and victory of love left us in the end nonchalant? Did we revolt to find common ground and lose ourselves mid-way?

So when I posed the question to a friend, she was quick to conclude – “Our unborn children are Indians. They won’t be tied down to caste, religion, language and all the unnecessary barricades”
I wasn’t convinced – “So, it means they will know no language well enough, they will hardly understand any traditions, they will have no real direction to choose their god, they will never care enough for all the work we did to sever the very barriers.. Are we making a better world or breaking it?”
“All of that and much more. …”
“like?”
“We might as well brace ourselves to accept homosexuality isn’t uncommon” she quipped, tongue in cheek of course!

So when I grew up watching amma wake up early to paint the kolam, slurp many a serving of coconut oil laden avial, guffawed in the theatres watching Malayalam movies, mastered a language that can be spoken only if you are born into it; I had taken pride in all of it and let it all be part of me even without my knowledge, even with all the rebellion that had sprung. So am I wrong in expecting my unborn child to experience it the way I did?

It makes me wonder what our parents had in mind for us and how we turned out? Will we manage to introduce the best of cultures into our upbringing as parents? Will we be forceful, unmindful or renowned in our approach? So, if I were to save something what would it be – my religion, my tradition, my language, my food habits? If I make the choice, how do I make the save? and if I make the save, would it be at the cost of losing the choices of my other half?

The irony of the situation may cease in a long time. Hypocrisy fought with new hypocrisies… Blended fusions and potpourris created and meshed. Love triumphing above all else and leaving behind a trail of foot prints washed away in the sea of reform!

There is nothing more exhilarating than devouring food as a group; ordering so much as to lose track of who ate what and blink incessantly at the stout bill (with gratuity included like a clench in the stomach) only to realize that the idli Manchurian had escaped your side of the table completely! The past few weekends I had restaurant-hopped only to reiterate the slothful cycle of drink coffee- eat-discuss how to while away time until next meal-argue over choice of restaurants-eat again-play poker with snacks on the side-sleep-getup-drink coffee-decide which restaurant to go to today… (You get the point!)

May be I am exaggerating a little. No, I am not exaggerating enough! We played poker, watched crap like ‘watchmen’, smashed people as we played wii only (it seemed) to fill in the hiatus between meals that were delicious enough to dope you to ecstasy! May be not! But then, Indian food; I correct “good Indian food” is a rare commodity for a Bostonian and when one sets foot on Edison street of New Jersey, you cant help but eat all that food as much as possible, leave alone stop thinking/talking about it for sometime.

Amidst this little circle of life, that almost always revolves around the roti bit of RKM*, the Indian Diaspora in this country spends one-third of their time here – either trying hard to recreate the magic of food back home over long reliance bills and a million recipes online or reminiscing street foods, sharavan bhavans and sadhyai meals, like they were the only things that made them jingoistic about India.

Over my little less than four years here, I have come across many who have made it a point to be as minimally accommodative of the many choices one has for food here. And if I were to categorize the lot highlighting in Indian film industry style –“All characters are purely fictional. Any resemblance to someone living or dead is purely coincidental”, it would be thus –

NonChanceTakers: I’d rather not have the fries that share the oil with the lard. I’d rather stay hungry than dare look at a restaurant that isn’t deemed ‘pure veg’.
Scan the entire menu, scowl, scorn and say ‘Salad with no side’

SafePlayers: I don’t like to fuss, as long as the ‘m-word’ is not visible. They stick to the veggie options available and do not ponder more than what meets the eye. It is ok as long as the fish sauce is not chunks of fish in the pad thai.
Veggie burger please OR Vegetarian burrito bowl OR Greek wrap OR family style tofu

Non-vegetable eating Vegetarians: They could dispose of a pipping channa batura or dripping vadais until the last drop of oil, but if it were served on a bed of fresh lettuce could freak them out. Salad is a definite No-no and any vegetarian option that mentions fresh/grilled/lightly toasted vegetables is a put off.
Arree yaar, lets have Indian food ya… where the vegetable is mashed, oiled, deep fried and mutilated.

SpoilSports: The ones that get a kick out of freaking out the already difficult to acclimatize. Even the milk you get has beefy juices for fat; Tofu is processed lard ; Eeesh when they say fish sauce at a thai place, its actually oyster, squid and earth worm sauce!

TailorMakers: The ones that confuse the waiter to distraction
Thai chicken curry with no chicken
Fried rice with no chicken, no egg, no broccoli, no mushroom, no beans, no pea pods .. and .. ahh no tofu
Please use a new pair of gloves before making my veggie sub. I am allergic to meat enough to vomit all over this place..ehh

StrictTailorMakers: The ones that perplex the waiter to annoyance
Does this have meat? It says vegetarian. But it definitely doesnt have meat right? Are the vegetables actually meat cut like veggies? Sure no, No meat right? Will it taste like meat?

SemiVeg: They believe that a little indulgence on the other side is of no harm.
I am chicketarian when I go to KFC!, Otherwise I am a pure veg. I am not fussy, no..
I taste the gravy.. But I wont eat the meat you see..

DayKeepers: The ones that throw a surprise then and there.
Can I have the chilly shrimp customized to be veggie? ‘why?? Whats wrong? Health ok?’ ‘Saturday machi..Following no meat day dude!’

StrictlyNonveg: The ones that could frown at an all veggie menu and can eat anywhere else, as long as the dish has enough meat to regurgitate. For them the allegiance to the meat eating nation is secretly higher than the one called home.

All said and done, I am glad for having licked-sucked-belched over a many course meal at Bombay Talk from all the plates passed around and contentedly remembered gangotri days of college life and pandered to the shenanigans of a food-centric nation.

*RKM - Roti, Kapda aur Makan

Rattling adventure

When you start hearing noises more than the creaking of wood and more like someone actually walking your floors at night, you are either living in a haunted house or there are uninvited nocturnal rodents plundering your dear house and heavenly kitchen. In our case it was the latter and it was not until last Thursday that I had started to notice what a messy guest I had inadvertently housed.

For the drawers that kept warm clean towels were now smeared with yellow pulses and defecation that if not realized looked more like burnt cumin seeds. I could almost puke at the thought that I had infact thrown a couple by the splash of the hand thinking it was my tempering rendered to chutneys and curd rice that had found a way to splutter haywire. If that was not enough, the vessel scrub was shredded to bits and plastic boxes gnawed to contention.

But then the little rascal was nowhere in sight every time, I’d get into the shelves. It wasn’t until Saturday morning that I had seen a flash of tiny pink tail and gray fur scuttling to darker corners in my yellow pulses shelf. And I had not given a moment for the numbing shock to sink and shrieked the hell out of morbid fear and equally advent indignation. My hygiene obsession had indeed taken to unwanted hospitality and I was truly hurt.

For someone who had guffawed over a daily dose of Tom and Jerry and had watched a valiant appa enter battle grounds with a broom and a screaming amma jumping on the stool, this wasn’t new but it definitely wasn’t fun! Talking of which, Tom is truly the depiction of a foolhardy human disposition to handling the house guest. N and I had fared no better and even Homer Simpson would have considered farcical what we attempted next.

A fortune cookie was promptly placed in the top drawer now devoid of the soiled towels. We waited until the prattle of hungry eating be heard. N assumed a tin and knife, whereas I held the broom like pointing it in attack from a creature bigger than me and waited in ambush almost six feet away from the circle of attack. No sooner had the drawer been pulled to reveal a feasting Stuart, N had attempted trapping it in the tin; I had screamed again sending the tin, the knife and a pair of beady black eyes on gray fur flying down to the floor and the spectacle ended with Stuart heading under the dishwasher and N fuming at his machismo under attack by a screaming wife.

If only we hadn’t enacted Tom and Jerry, the bothersome resident would have stuck to the shelves and eventually trapped. Instead, we had now let him loose to roam the house and touch anything he pleased. Anyone involved in this game would agree that the most frustrating part is the ineptness of a human attack and the agility of a smaller being throwing challenges at you.

We decided to do what is normally done through patience and wit. (No knives, tins, ropes or such). We headed to buy traps and offer him a feast. Though he hadn’t budged on Saturday night, I had successfully bribed a warm brownie into trapping the gate-crasher last night. The four hours of scrubbing shelves and disinfecting them was no easy task. And not forgetting to mention the packets of expensive pulses and load of plastic boxes trashed for fear of poisoning. For I had always sympathized with Jerry all this while, I sure got to know who the true villain is. It definitely isn’t Tom!

Its a little more than one am on an icy Friday morning. I am wide awake engulfed with thoughts, memories and what not? I sit here listening to the house cringe to the bitterly cold outside; the windows ablaze with icy moisture and I warming to the luxury of night socks and down comforter.

The scene outside is nothing but a canopy of trees sans leaves, abandoned and wiled to battle the weather for a better spring in the waiting. The envelope of snow and its carpeted whiteness makes the night seem a shade brighter. The moon is nowhere in sight; just a grim sky etched with clouds and a few houses as shadows at a distance.

It’s a silent night nevertheless. All I hear are the occasional creaking of wood and the snort -like snores of N beside me. It reminds me that the houses in this part of the world are as living as the people in them; where the wood breathes, survives, wears and dies.

Such nights have been rare. I have always been the peaceful sleeper, the morning person; and if not sleeping, I’d be busy busting my ass to clear an exam or panicking for an assignment submission. Or if it were the 13th of December a five years ago, I’d be finishing up my phone calls with the world far and near, from every friend of the past fifteen years, many of who wouldn't recall a friend called DD now; And then I’d sleep tight with a smile of contentment. Or as the unripe teenager, I’d be giggling into my pillow with my best friend beside me; Or on even rarer nights finishing up the last dance to leave the party.

But it is not one of those nights. Its a night I have been sitting up to type; for stopping the thoughts that are racing past; of mundane memories of an era bygone; of bus numbers, previous home addresses, school buildings and names of roads walked or ridden; as if I was so grotesquely bored that I had been rewinding life in its bare details.

It is a night when I have no silent tear to shed; no secret crush to swell my heart to wake; no deadline looming; and no phone calls to wait for! And yet I lie awake to the perfect ruin of a winter sky, a tinge of purple in the air and the distant rumble of a heater; all in the wee hours of a sleepless Friday morning.