Life and the likes of it: India

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Culture Shook

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!

Foodies

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

Heading Homeward

In less than twenty days, I will be making my first trip home in two years. Amidst, the clamor of joy and bittersweet excitement, I can’t but wait to feel the anxiously relieved smiles on appa and amma, glad to be waiting for their prized possession to come home. I am yet again reminded of how life teaches you to realize its worth when you do not have it.

I had been spending the past few days typing mails to friends and making an active presence in the group mails; making an earnest effort to catch up. It felt a lot different from the dolorous letters, mussed with ‘miss you’ on every second line, that we used to share as sixteen year olds. Standing many years away from class-parties and doleful farewells, each living in a different corner, a different world, somehow common grounds is always met with old stories remembered and guffawed.

At such moments, I uncannily realize the ghosts hidden in each of us, which surface to bring a timely smile, a momentary goose bum, a gush of nostalgia and a fleeting lump for that tiny tear. Yet, it passes, just like a hazy cloud, leaving you high and dry to return back to life around you, until another time.

One of my first instances of yearning for home was amidst rigorous goolging to complete assignments. I chanced upon the India map, out of an irking pop-up; and somehow, I have never been able to repeat that instantaneous jerk of patriotism and inexplicable pining to head home, the picture brought to me. Given, another minute of that rush of adrenalin, I am sure, I would have taken the next flight to Madras.

I knew that the inkling never died, and resurfaced as the easy sobs upon watching the award winning ad on you-tube yesterday, recommended by hiten . And yet, away from the two seconds of thoughts to give my best to my home country, return to people who love me, here I am fulfilling my responsibilities for the company that keeps my experience and moolah intact.

How is it, I muse, that we live selfishly amidst apparitions, that stay on optimistically dormant to haunt us on where we come from, and where we wish to go back to? How is it that the urge to ‘give’ remains to shake the nonchalance we display at it? How is it that life is still led at normalcy, while the lack of its worth is felt as an ignorant shadow at every step?

I am not sure of these answers I seek or questions I ask? But, as I take a step back and reminiscence a fast-forwarded flashback on life, with incepts of joys, misgivings, love, skirmish and achievements, I am at a loss of words to describe the wonderment and childlike contentment I feel, knowing that I would be soon tasting amma’s avial and small talking with pals at gangotri over rounds of bhel puri.

At these times, I am glad life doesn’t give you a rewind switch; for the pleasure of reliving moments and yearning for them is a bliss better than the moment itself.

A Niagara vacation

A Niagara vacation

The long weekend had begun with some customary practices by the MA traffic police. Having succumbed to the exorbitant speeding ticket, on the eight hour drive to Niagara, we were forced to keep to the speed limits on the temptingly empty roads. Upon reaching Niagara, flocked by a gazillion tourist, we too bore the brunt of long lines for the various ‘attractions’ on this man-intruded fury of nature.

My last visit to this place was almost a year ago, when we had foolishly settled for the go-to bus guided tour, a cheaper alternative provided by the enterprising Chinese immigrants. Sadly all I remembered about that journey was the annoying two hour wait in the claustrophobic bus for micturition; while Niagara from the last weekend had other surprises in store.

A zillion non-resident aliens and immigrants from India were swarming Niagara and its ambience. I was subtly reminded of the Russel Peter’s show, where he cued quite comically that the earth will soon be taken over by the multiplying Indian and Chinese population. I was further victim to the foreign feeling of the very hypocritical desi mentality, to irk at a junta of our own, conveniently ignoring the fact that the feeling is mutual. The sari, salwar-kameez clad, every second face in the crowd and streets laden with pani puri stalls, tediously made me feel at home, a feeling I didn’t want to have!

However, the picturesque falls with its roaring green waters, made this tryst with nature very special, away from other hiccups. I had thoroughly enjoyed the cave of the winds an innovative tourism gimmick when one pays to get wet in the Niagara. Various other conventional sojourns followed along the trolley ride, circumscribed within two miles of the majestic cascades. And not to forget, the tiresome trip was intermittently treated to some cliché dhaaba food.

As we prepared to leave this land woven out from rocks, forests and nothingness, a few facts about why the falls stand where they are took me off-guard. Man had controlled the gripping land slides to prevent further erosion of these imposing falls. Though carefully preserved as myths and notes of history, it made me wonder how is it that we humans had evolved to control the whims of nature and when is it that we have to give it up?

It happens only in India

First it was the efforts from political bodies to impede sex-education in schools, singing the saga of “Against our culture”. Followed by; the country divided on the reservation system. Murthy pelted for the ‘Nation Anthem’ row. And; now the government wants a piece of the women civil servants menstrual cycle. Every issue did create a storm in the tea cup in its own engaging way. This is what I had to say about the latter to the BBC. However, I was a wee bit late and realized I had submitted it after the debate was closed!

Having read about the new appraisal forms, the Indian Government is requesting from the female civil servants, to reveal exhaustive details of her menstrual cycle, I second the words of Sharwari Gokhale, environment secretary in western Maharashtra state, in stating that I am grossly “gob smacked”!

It is often ironic to see the hypocritical lines between “personal” and “non-personal” drawn by the patriarchic society of India and hence the government too. This issue cannot be shunned away as just another feminism gimmick, but fends far into dealing with ones personal feelings as an individual and civilized citizen. Further it also questions the extent to which any employer can involve in employees’ lives and how BIG can big brother be?

It has been and is a common practice to undergo a gambit of medical tests before joining a company as an employee, in India as well as abroad. Believing oneself to be a healthy citizen with no adverse health dimensions that can prove detrimental to fellow employees, we undergo the rigorous tests quiet unquestioningly and ignore why is it that we are being evaluated beyond our abilities for an office cube in the multinational firm. One cannot forget the real-life based movie of ‘Philadelphia’ where ones life as an employee is ripped away because he is diseased with Aids. It cannot be far from realizing that such incidents go untold and unreported, which are pretty pertinent in today’s corporate scenario, where one hasn’t accepted diseases like Aids without looking at it as a stigma.

In such regard, a woman’s menstrual cycle is being treated by the health ministry as something beyond a natural phenomenon. It is as relevant in life like urinating or cleaning ones bowels. It is never that one is expected to elaborate details of this kind to any superior for any reason whatsoever. It leaves the arena open for further intrusions of adversely unacceptable nature. The appraisal does not clearly define the motivation behind recording vital information about one’s bodily behavior. If such imperative facets of ones life is not ones own, then we may be redefining the very meaning of ‘personal life’.

One does not arise to such situations as being of a particular gender. Therefore even this concern cannot be sidelined as a woman’s subject. It is no different from a situation if men were asked to enumerate on his testicles, for health ministry specified reasons. As lawful citizens and loyal employees one should not be humbled to live a transparent life, because the employer wants so. On such a note, I back the women civil servants in India in their quest for instilling privacy into employee life.

Cricket is our religion; Sachin is our God

Ever since the summer of 1996 , my addiction to cricket and the world cup has remained; a lot less fanatic, but subtlety consistent zeal still drives me to unconsciously mutter a prayer or two for the players out at the field who are trying to keep up the expectations of a billion fans like me and make this game of cricket an engaging sport.

It comes as no surprise to me that a new comic is being published n India, which features Sachin Tendulkar as a super-hero, only next to superman and the like. I often wonder for those few hours we watch them on the screens smashing balls, grabbing wickets, diving for catches how is it that they feel being demi-gods to the public? I am reminded of the dialogue from the movie spider-man “With great power comes great responsibility”. It suits the responsibility we usher upon those eleven players, to win a match, that has now become more detrimental than life itself!

This fact has only been furthered by the incidents of last week, when hell had broken loose after India was defeated by Bangladesh and the Pakis didn’t make it to the super-8. I had sat saddling with disappointment at the edge of the couch watching one wicket after another fall, mouthing many grumps. End of the day only two questions remained in my mind – 1. Which player’s house will be vandalized in India? 2. Which player will be vandalized in Pakistan?

Has the Gentleman's game gone out of hands, is a topic still in debate and will continue to be for decades to come. We often hear about the extremes of fad that drives fans to kill themselves after a defeat. Fans destroy homes of the cricketers. Fans burn effigies of their heroes. End of the immediate uproar and anxiety a defeat brings to the nation, rage dies out and the zealousness continues. Can anyone forget the unsettling era of Ganguly’s captaincy?? Amidst this clamor, the country and its media forgets those eleven players who are mere mortals like any of us with emotions and problems and not consistent machines that are being threatened and pushed to perform like gods.

It is often sad to see the extent to which a public reaction torments these players, which is evident from the recent developments of a series of resignations in the Pakistan team and board, not to forget Woolmer’s unfortunate demise. Nevertheless to say as an ardent fan of cricket itself, one will miss the Pakistan team with entertaining fast bowlers like shoiab and hitters like Afridi. May be I can never understand the extremist view of the cricketing world and the players who are the scapegoats of the unforgiving cricket-buffs.

At such moments I reluctantly recall G B Shaw for his definition of cricket as a fool’s game and soon decidedly ignore it when I look forward to the next match with absolute gung-ho. And this time it is the deciding match of tomorrow. Ho Hail The Indian Cricket Team!