Should it hurt to be beautiful?

Last week, I had chanced upon a used book store, running a 90% off sale. In all my excitement, I had walked away with a big bundle for a steal. It can’t get better than to have a shelf lined with books, you are yet to read or re-read for the love of it. It felt great to own the books, I so remember having enjoyed through the borrowed old latte-colored pages of Arcade, Eloor and Senthil libraries. As I digress to what this post is meant to be; I am reading snow flower and the secret fan a novel entailing Chinese women. Half way through -- the vivid descriptions of foot binding left a deep and painful impact on me.

In this regard I dare to be countered – Aren’t the pencil heels doing tardily what foot binding did irrationally? Aren’t we continuing to succumb to what the society prescribes as beautiful, though we have come a long way to stand up for what we believe? It opens up a whole new arena; of things that one does or has been doing to be beautiful, to be marriageable, to be hooked, to be famous and to be more feminine than feminine can be!

The acts of neck extending rings and painful piercing among tribal women in various parts of the world are well known. Of one such, I had witnessed were the deep holed elongated earlobes of older women in Kerala, so much so that the heavy blob of dangling gold could easily cut the soft flesh and many a times it does. If bronze-neck-stretching-rings and rib-breaking-hour-glas-shape-rendering corsets are looked upon as a thing of the past; fairness creams, silicon implants, gamut of make up options, plastic surgery and liposuction are the modern woman’s answers for perfection. And they hold evidence of the fact that beauty always comes with a price; the price of losing oneself in it.

I must confess I have not fared too well either. I endured ear-hole-widening a few months back to be able to wear jewelry for my wedding and continue to undergo a monthly routine to momentary spasms of waxing and threading; my threshold of pain ends there. One might say I am mixing grooming with inexplicable extremities. But then, the scale of pain and scope of sprucing up have been murky and almost undefined.

For, if -- Beauty lies within and Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder; so long as the beholder is blinded with the emphasis this world offers to pulchritude, the within bit is evidently lost in our quest for beauty.

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Knots tied

Whenever I think of a wedding and the little big intricacies that make it happen, I am reminded of the story “The missing mail” from Malgudi days. The story encompasses the pleasure and pain of bringing the observance together, surviving joy, hard work and crisis. And not so long ago, it was my turn to be in this rigmarole of a marriage, much unlike the era that Narayanan was describing and much like the beguiling ambience he had portrayed.

N and I come from backgrounds that are thankfully one-third alike; ‘thankfully’ since it makes the ritual a lot less complicated. But sometimes it is the other two-thirds bit that can make your wedding a little special and strenuous at the same time. May be that explains how we had squeezed time for me to adorn a madisar but carry a ceremony, as per N’s family tradition, that sans fire.

It had begun on a Saturday with a subtle pooja to the elephant god before dawn. As I prayed and chanted, it was appa’s sleepless night, playing host to the myriad of guests and finding them the respectable hotel accommodation all night long, which gnawed me. And somehow I had not understood until then that there is no such thing as a well planned wedding and if it were without consternations, it wouldn’t be a wedding at all.

The day had broken and spent with the many friends and cousins, welcoming and talking, all blending into that gregarious atmosphere, which was to linger for the next two days. The fulsome feasts had begun and the pedestals were laid for believing that something bigger was in the making. Before I knew, it was time for engagement ceremony in the evening and I was ushered to the bridal room for that first perfect look.

Our engagement was completed by the maternal mamas, who had thoroughly enjoyed the turban tying, garland exchanging and some pot belly hitting hugs that ensued. And with every little function, somehow the families, who had begun the journey with the two-thirds uncommon, were closing in on them. As for N and me, the blinding video lights and the gamut of pictures with constantly plastered smiles were only a warning of what we might be facing hence.

The wedding Sunday was deemed immensely auspicious and it seemed to me the entire town of Madurai was geared to wed. I was circumscribed to a saree only dress code from dawn to dusk, not that I minded, for that bridal touch. As my disoriented step cut hair was deftly braided into a knee touching length, I had mastered the skill to hold a heavy extension to my head. By the time I was worn the muhoortha pattu and jewelry I had spent hours and days designing and selecting, I was running a high temperature and the heavy drumming and gaggle of well wishers outside didn’t help my nervousness.

As I entered the decked pedestal, assuming an unbending namaskaram, the wafting redolence of my huge rose garlands, the olfactory of agarbathi, sandalwood and ornate jasmines gripped me. I was carefully whispered to walk like a bride and I had smiled inertly to my incorrigible clumsiness even in this heavy attire. If not for appa’s reassuring smile and N’s uneasy grin, I am sure I would have effectuated a ‘runaway bride’ scene. But I, in all my panicked calm, espoused the seat next to the pattu veshti festooned groom without further ado.

The ceremony was my first, of course for partaking, but attending as well. As a few words were being spoken by elders, I was but scanning the packed hall, for smiling at familiar faces much unlike a shy bride. Thanks to my humongous garlands and complementing hairdo, I couldn’t turn my neck to peek a word with N or appa. Soon, the gattimelam was sounded and I watched our fathers exchange garlands, followed by our mothers. And with that we had transcended into an ironic arranged marriage mode.

As if rising from my reprieve, we rose to a ritual, I never knew existed in Hindu marriages. With my hand in his, we repeated prose in wholesome Tamil, of words that sounded beautiful, but meaning unknown. Yet, we had in all proclivities agreed to marry the other through that lexis with a thousand odd people watching us.

The next few moments were lifetimes apart and if I were to recall, the only thing that stopped me from sobbing was N’s characteristic “it’s ok” nod, holding the wieldy chain of gold in his hands. No sooner had he given the nod; in the deafening noise and showers of well wishes, the taali had entwined my already crammed neck. And thus in the blink of the eye, we had accomplished the most defining moment of the entire wedding and managed to keep my eye liner intact!

With all anxiety weaned off, little did I know that, the groom and bride were to take a joy ride on the legendary kudirai vandi of Madurai? And to have a cousin hold an umbrella over you, as the horse made its way on the sunbathed streets, was indeed an unusual treat. What followed were a zillion wishes, a million photographs and the aftermath of many a magical moments. And somehow, everything post the crux is never as stirring, but the rituals never cease to end.

For many, it seemed like the new chapter to our lives had begun that day; but for me, it was one of the rarest days of my life when my whole family was together after many many years. Periappa, periamma, mama, mami, athai, athan, cousins and everyone bubbling away and am I glad that they could make it to this little town which they have never visited before.

That wedding night, as I prepared to leave my family to enter a new home, I had done something, I would have found cheesy as a third person. Having spent two days lolling with my entire family, all I wanted to do was stay back. And like a little child, draining my heavy makeup of the evening, I had cried my gut out hugging and refusing to let go of appa and in the bargain making everyone around me teary-eyed.

As I drove away, I was glad for I was married; not because I love N any better now, but for the blissful once in a lifetime episode, which had taught me the love for family again. For – if marriage is sheer optimism; it doesn’t get better than being given away into one.

Wedding Bells

It was through dusty black and white photographs, that amma had introduced her best friends from college to me. She had quoted composed yet with a little tinge of sadness that, she had lost touch over time and she wondered where her friends were married to. And it was then, I had made up my mind to keep in touch with my pals no matter what and even made promises over the infamous ‘spit hand shake’ that I wouldn’t miss their wedding wherever I was.

And when life has it otherwise, it is always combined with inconvincible guilt and pacifying counter affirmations. What comes to my mind is the little sunlit room, accommodating three girls, with their heads bent over the unfathomable ‘probability and queuing theories’. P, M and I were making last minute attempts to clear a paper, which was already termed difficult to fail, considering that scores could fall below 0. We had made the experience less intimidating, by surmising half understood work, discussing gossip and munching finger chips.

We had come a long way since then, to four wonderful years of college life. P and M were always there to listen to me crib about everything under the sun, tolerate my endless blabbering, forgive me for everything silly, organize surprise birthday parties and laugh and share. We had molded good from bad days and made silent promises to not forget, yet forgo.

And here we are two years away from, enthu movie days, beach talks, yapping over phone, lunch hours, ispahani center sojourns, night outs, group studies, (un)surprised birthday parties; all left behind to embrace new boundaries and new lives, woven over best moments and feelings permanent.

And like an answer to all those unsurprised moments of birthday cakes, here we are, as a surprise to many including ourselves, all getting married within the next eight months. In a week’s time is M’s wedding and I am 26 hours away, unable to attend it. Yet, nothing can stop me from being excited and equally happy, for this girl who had stood by me at all times and loves me for me.

On my last visit to India, the three of us had made that small talk, over the easy rounds of food. And, I was subtly intrigued how I had transformed to being ‘DD’ for those few hours I was with them. It was old times, blended in everything new. It made me wonder when we would do this, many years from now; table talking, pulling legs, scape-goating and smiling.

And somehow just like that, it was lucid. The only factor other than ‘change’ which is constant in our lives is friendship; and when you have friends who can make that change, the friendship will always be a constant one.

Post Dedicated to my best friends – Preethi and Manju. Wishing Manju the best wedding ever.

A toast to great memories.

Holding back

There is nothing like an enrapturing book, on a warm Sunday night; the world is asleep and you are melted into an era so gruesome yet fearless, adhering to the lineage you come from or may be going into or never wanting to be in it. But, end of the beautifully narrated story in ‘The house of blue mangoes’ that preserved the wrath of caste-ism, I was but left with a lot of questions, for which I didn’t want to seek an answer.

I have never understood the fear, displeasure and nonchalant contempt associated with fellow beings. I have never tried to understand the decree which drives one to prejudice in the safe name of caste. I have further refused to realize the repercussions of breaking this very barricade that has been preserved so rigidly in our mindsets carrying it subconsciously and practicing them unknowingly in who we are and where we come from.

One of my first encounters at the factor of caste was at the temple of my family deity. Amidst the goddess’s clout and the Brahmin’s prowess to please her, the little sanctum was the prerogative of the Brahmins alone and the others had to be satisfied with watching the goddess at a safe distance on the outside. As a child, I never understood why we were given the special privilege to look at the Devi at such closeness, that you could almost feel the heat of the lamps dancing to the rhythm of the Brahmin’s enunciation of the potent slokams. He would amidst his rigmarole of ceremonies, keep a watchful eye to ensure no one from the unprivileged class made his way to the sanctum. However, over the years, I had decided not to question such faiths or practices owing to my sheer bafflement at the pace of life and ways of life that dwelled in regions like here.

As I grew out of the age of chaste, when one wishes to do everything that is a heady taboo, I had indulged myself in trying to taste the very disapproving in the Iyer family – non-veg. And because of one day of folly, amma to date takes my promises over phone that I have not touched chicken since and hence. Instances like these make me wonder if, faiths and practices were meant to make one live a life of blissful ignorance and convenience; even if they were not, I believe it has evolved to take that place.

I am not going to vehemently state the need to shun the beliefs one’s family or bearers have carried for a long time and banter the need to let go. I must confess, I am not a staunch subscriber to these thoughts either. How else can I explain my peculiar tastes to a Brahmin made vatha kozhambu and the need to hog curd rice with kadu maanga? How else do I owe my urge to seek education and independence above retiring to a child-bearer and safely said home-maker? How else may I cash on the secret feeling of relief to belong to an educated and respected class of Brahmin which abates the necessary rebel and feminist in me?

Life always seems to come to a full circle, or go in one. And when one is able to look beyond the bigger picture, living the life that elders disdain is a bitter-sweet one. My first headstrong encounter of skirmish was ‘meet-the-parents’. While the two of us involved cared less about our descent, bringing the parents together was a lot of hard work; honestly harder than the 12th std Board exams. And before we had come into terms with understanding the ramification of bringing cultures, practices and beliefs circumscribed in unyielding lines, life had turned upside down and inside out, until the only way to escape them was to let them be and us to be us.

It ruefully made me realize that even when one has grown above scorned values and misconstrued faiths, the urge to hold on remains deep down. It is something we are subconsciously told and brought up on. The tendency to wrath, speak aloud, eat meat, address elders, to dare, to survive, to learn; every little thing we are made up of, is influential and though most of us (including me) would conveniently never agree to coast these dispositions to the caste we come from, it will take a long time for these imbibed ingredients to erase from our sullied minds carefully honed for generations.

It makes me wonder when it will be that we humans would actually belong to the species we rightfully belong to. And in a million years we will. Life always comes a full circle.

Walk with me

On the dusty lanes of life I treaded, I met a myriad of wayfarers like me. A few made the journey special; with a few I shared intermittent laughter, while a few parted ways like a murky nostalgia. Along the cross-roads came the harbinger, who I seldom realized was to consort my voyage henceforth.

An uncanny fear and annoying cold-feet and after, here we are on the next cross roads, dovetailing a lifetime ahead from a tacit car ride at sunrise, a slight tear on a petty argument, glib laughter at the steps of the church, a smile over a cup of coffee and a little bundle of colorful post-its doled out on silent mornings by the pillow.

Yet, as we prepare to sail ahead, I wonder why growing-into the imperfectly perfect relationship, is much easier than growing-up in one?

--To the soul who ambles with me, addressing me dotingly as ‘kutti’.

The modest hypocrisy

I half-distractedly turned the pages of the book I have been reading to sleep for the past one month. I lifted my eyes to see the little ganesha idol, amma had sent me, sitting corpulently on the window porch. Belonging to a class of non-religious, yet non-atheist genre, I simply adore the paunchy god, who seemed to smile at me at that moment. Beside him were the pile of ten rupee notes and one rupee coins, I had bribed him to initiate a gambit of selfish requirements a long while ago.

It reminded me of the reverend Ganesha in my drawing room back home, who I would pray and recite prayers to, only on the tonic exam mornings. The kabir das dohe comes to mind –“dukh mein sumiran, aur sukh mein kuch bhi nahin.” It left the inkling of a god-fearing mind and I soon plunged back into the book, shunning the semi-guilty feeling.

It made me wonder if a little hypocrisy is more imperative than acceptable in life. It may range from how far we express our innate religious instincts to habits we possess or clothes we wear or how far we hold our tongue.

One of my oldest experiences of setting double standards was facing orthodox relatives. At the age of ten, I would obediently listen to amma and aspire to know if pottu should be always worn in front of Uma periammai or I must unquestioningly fall at Murli mama’s feet. Having told how to behave, because of the gender I belong to, rather than for my whims as an individual, I didn’t possess the liberty to defy traditions or unexplainable practices like most of my counterparts of the opposite sex in the family could; including appa. He would never be asked why the ‘punol’ always slept on nails behind doors, but adorned his chest only when elders accompanied us to temple.

When the phase of helpless rebel had weaned off, I had mastered the art of harmless two-facedness. If a pretentious humbleness could mean peace later, it must very well be done. One such instance was the jubilant 25/25 in the unit test in mathematics stuck to the fridge, making a proud daughter to amma; little did I know that Ramu mama’s arrival was to burst my bubble “Girls are very bad in doing maths. How come you seem to have scored well?” No sooner had the uncalled for been uttered, amma pinched me to keep more words to myself. I had the plastered indignant smile accompanied with the words much unlike me –“Well the paper was very easy.” Looking back, picking a feud then, might have spelt ruin of family ties for years to come.

I am further confounded by the cloak of needed duplicity as to how far can one go with it? It is often that you are expected to wear this cloak not just with people who hardly matter outside closest family circle, but sometimes with family or to be family as well. A classic example would be that of “meet the parents” when every pretence carries with it the jeopardy of working against you in future. And ironically, necessary pretence is more than welcome to make that first impression.

Another instance of well delivered profess, is the constant anxiety to be a daughter/mother/wife every economically and emotionally independent woman in this world undergoes. The world around her refuses to comprehend her as a woman but as everything aforementioned. I am sure, I will not be believed if I were to state that she clandestinely feels like a woman above everything else, which she carefully envelops with what her nearest world expects of her. It only varies to what extent she can be unassuming to express it.

It bewilders me to put myself in a state to walk this line between ‘hypocrisy’ and ‘modest hypocrisy’. When does one turn into the other, takes a composed yet mature mindset to decipher. As, I still linger in the aura of life as ‘me’ ahead and not as being an expected ‘she’; I say the line is a cake walk. But when the mind is puzzled to transition from ‘me’ to ‘she’ I am but apprehensive of what waits ahead.

A letter for thought

It was one of those scorching, comatose afternoons in the little house in Hyderabad. I, as an eleven year old, anxiously awaited the portly post-man to deliver my letters, constantly eyeing the steel letter box. It was worth a wait and a feet-burning run down the stone pavement to grab the envelopes doled out by different hands and enclosed vividly in their own sweet way. There was one from Shari; the typical pink colors with drawings and stickers screaming “Miss you”. A tiny envelope from Anu, subtly yellow and mellowed “Missing you”, much like herself. A card from Karan, penned with his artistic writing and child-like words –“surprise inside. Open soon”. I hurried to unwrap the letters, smiling with unalleviated joy, to hear from my pals in a far away land (Trivandrum!!); waiting to give up my evening hours of play to write about my past week and reassure them that they would always be my bestest friends, signing off with “Reply soooooooooooooooooooooooon”s… Letters were my tickets to the fairy-land where I dwelled with pals; I had made for a life-time to come.

Looking back at the life that sans e-mails, sans messengers or orkut, sans mobile phones, sans every complex obscurity meant to ‘stay in touch’ and yet never to do so; I am amazed at the gratifying bliss, I shared, receiving a letter and putting all my love into its reply and living up to the promises made, signing autograph books with ‘Keep in touch’ or ‘roses are red and violets are blue, friends like u are very few’!

My tryst with letters had been persistent since the life in Patna, when I would be longingly given quarter sides of the blue inlands to stamp a few words to thatha (grandpa); write about a little poem I learnt or the new mathematics quiz score I secured as his proud grandchild or the latest Enid Blyton novel I enjoyed. Later this had turned into an enduring habit to write comprehensive letters to chums who I would dolorously leave behind, when I moved with appa’s transfers to a new school, a new city, a new circle of friends.

I still have the two brown boxes full of variegated letters, which have every emotion of a life bygone safely preserved in senile paper and soft ink. As I dig the countless envelopes, they travel from the postcard of my best friend’s five year old hand to the letter I received when I was eighteen. Emanating from them all, is the forgotten laughter and slight tears we shared as friends, as schoolmates, as luncheons-ers of others’ Tiffin boxes, as night-out group study partiers, as secret-keepers, as inseparable ‘Best Friends’ who pledged on the farewell day, only to realize in a few years that the very word ‘stay in touch’ had innumerous repercussions, one fails to anticipate.

I, at today, set alarms on the office outlook to remind me amidst work to call a friend on his birthday; make a mental note of all the phone calls I have to make on weekends, only to procrastinate the thought to the next weekend on the washed-out Sunday night; watch a friend come online, sweetly reminded by the yahoo messenger, only to prioritize a pending deadline and chat another time; midst hours of lolling on orkut pages, I decidedly leave a ‘Whats up?’ only to forget after a week that I did so when my friend responds; await a phone call on my birthday and expect to be scolded for being a lazy bum and never mail.

A wedding invitation, a solitary mail, a tri-monthly phone call, a yearly lunch, a new year wish has all that has become of a time when letters updated a weekly life. These rueful facets of life make me wonder if I have grown above everything in this world, may be even myself?!

Marriage – marriage what?

It was September 2001; a bemused I, sat on the debate bench of the sultry classroom, during the first English lesson. The professor had decided to engage the boisterous section-B of to be computer science engineers to some supposedly intriguing discussion on love versus arranged marriage. Shortly, the unruly apathy of the 17-year-olds was silenced to discomfiture by the unwarranted – “Marriage’s very purpose is legal propagation of species. Does it make a difference if it is love or arranged?”

No sooner had the half-feminist, half-callous and gravely-casual, words fallen off my mouth, even the inconspicuous self-proclaimed Romeo of the classroom, who considered commitment a sin, let out a sneer at this supposed piece of female gender mouthing atrocities about a sanctimonious epiphany. I let the moment pass and smiled inward at the ignominy the situation must have stirred in the minds of the forty odd teenagers staring at me with half-awe and half-scorn. When the professor gathered herself from the bewilderment, she closed the debate diplomatically – Marriage is a socially-approved sexual and emotional union of a man and woman expected to be permanent.

An amused bunch of pals had shunned my statement as anything more than an element of jeer over canteen coffee breaks for college years to come. However, looking back at the facetiousness with which I had handled the ‘M’ word back then, makes me wonder if the real meaning to marriage can ever be understood? Even if it can be understood, is there any such meaning to it? And even if a meaning can be coined, is it a ‘real’ one?

As the college days hopped away, running into phases when one hates men, I had even turned into the unwilling feminist, declaring marriage as “legal rape”. I too like every dumb teenager dreamed of the Casanova knight who would ride me on the handsome horse, conveniently contrasting the upheaval of feminism in me!

When life grew out of flippant college-life to seek sense and self-realizations in the harmless name of ‘higher-studies’; life taught me a lot of lessons beyond the academic blah. As I rejected my very own obdurate definition of marriage, I had never bothered to ponder over it either. Standing at the zenith of murky transitions within me, enjoying life in varied colors, marriage is still an unfamiliar territory; I am reluctant to embrace.

It leaves within me incomplete descriptions, a myriad of questions and self-certified clarity. Marriage can’t be defined, but experienced; Marriage is a lifetime of optimistic contradictions; Marriage is a sweet metamorphosis of independence; Marriage is synonym to adjustment; Marriage is a fifty year challenge to see simplicity in complex life.

As the philosophical I evolve to reality, I fall back sipping the coffee, complacent to the oblivion around me, smiling at the breathing space of life still left to explore the world, jump the mile and carefree freedom. I snap back – “Marriage… marriage what?”

Vishu- kani

Yet another ‘vishu’ came and went by. This time I had spent it cooking a hearty meal to my capacity and dawdled with pals indoors, rapt in a movie, owing to thunder storms outside. It has been two years since I experienced ‘vishu-kani’ (the first sight on vishu day) and the lovely feast amma would dole out for the genial vishu lunch, on the banana leaf. Warm afternoons of festive filled ambience, family banquet and sumptuous burps intermitting the post-lunch laughter marked ‘vishu’ as the most sought for festival, next to ‘diwali’, in my life.

The eve of vishu was often spent shopping for the little big niceties that went into making the first sight on vishu day graciously positive and meant to make the year ahead a very lucky one. I would look forward to take the seat next to appa, watch him gracefully arrange the ‘urali’ with rice, the coconut filled with ‘parupu’, the cucumbers, melons and fruits, all reflecting on the mirror that was adorned with gold chains placed behind the delicacies decked out on the ‘tambalam’. The ‘kani-konna’ (the yellow flowers that bloomed to aptness, during the vishu season) added the final touch to the festooned ‘kani’, prepared carefully to be harbinger of joy for the year to come.

A contented sleep was soothingly interrupted by amma at the crack of dawn. She would walk me down, closing my eyes, saving them from seeing anything else before I set my eyes on the bedecked ‘vishu-kani’. Slowly, appa would dampen my eyes and gesture me to open them to the sight that even after twenty odd times of redundancy over the years, still swelled my heart with unremitting joy. I would ritually go over the details of the kani I had helped appa ornate last night. It always seemed different from the night before, as if blessed to completeness on a vishu’s first light. Smiling, I would make a stamp of the sight in the memory lane, adoring every intricacy.

As the vishu day unwinds and the cucumbers and melons of the vishu-kani make a delicious meal for the afternoon, followed by the showers of blessings accompanied with 'vishu-kaineetam'(money) from elders, a pleased I would sink with happiness on the perfect day. This year, living a life that sans the presence of appa and amma and the beautiful vishu-kani, I simply reminiscence the vishu days back home and recite a prayer to keep the family hail and healthy for ages to come!

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.

Jigsaw

As a school go-er at six, in the freezing Patna winter, looking atleast five times me in three layers of warm clothes laden over a Vicks smothered chest for that perfect warmth; I was a naïve child, who half-sheepishly yet happily traveled the scooter ride on a standing ticket between appa’s protective arms, looking like little red riding hood with the red scarf wrapping my head and ears from the cold-prone winds and the water bottle garlanding my neck.

Often the pictures of me taken back then, with the mushroom hair cut and innocent smiles make me wonder if living life as little ‘divu’ was the best part of the past twenty-something years. My thoughts coast at the play-room, the storage hub of our flat with three balconies (a Dr.Bhishnudev Prasad owned building on Patna Main road), where I had created an immure world of me and my modest dolls, who would come to life in the puerile dramas I enacted with my kitchen sets. I was a contented child much to my parents’ relief, who could dwell for hours playing mother, teacher, soldier to the torpid, docile playmates.

I had learnt to amuse myself and in the process shared the perfect affiliation with self. As years went by, my playmates were replaced with books, paintings and jigsaw puzzles. As more years went by, the relationship extended to friends, good friends and best friends. Life’s rapport with self had almost dwindled away as a teenager and by the time I was twenty, spending time on my own was next to impracticable.

I, at now, at twenty-something, often spend a good many hours, bundled in books, fending for errands, attempting to cook, traveling to shop, listening to tunes while I run the treadmill. It makes me question if the little ‘divu’ had survived and was that autonomous me governing life all over again? Suddenly living as the stereotype independent working woman seems like the strewn jigsaw puzzle pieces, which I am trying to fit together, trying them on to make that complete picture, little by little each day.

I recall the jigsaw puzzle of puppies I knew by heart and fixed it almost ten times in fifteen minutes. I smile at the sardonic reality, when puzzles that seemed an effortless child’s play at eight are blurred veracities at twenty-something, when the pieces that fit the perfect life are yet so hard to find and when you do find them they are harder to fit!

Amma’s bajjis

It has been a week of incessant rains and intermittent wet flurries in Boston. The murky skies, punitive droplets and frosty winds give no indication of the spring that is supposed to have set in almost three weeks back. As I snuggle in a blanket watching the romantic showers trickle down the window, the whims of piping hot red molaga bajji dipped abundantly in coarse white chutney, complemented with sips of dicotion kappi in a tumbler, grip me. I fantasize the oil-laden golden bajjis and almost scent the mesmerizing aroma, so apt for the chilliness outside.

I suddenly shake back to life realizing that the wafting redolence is now replaced by the rustiness of a closed heated room. I dotingly remember amma, who would have, as if read my mind, walked in with a plate of bajjis and masala tea. I smile traveling back to evenings spent over warm tea (amma always preferred tea to coffee) on the huge dining table, cooling the tea back and forth from dawara to tumbler, table-talking about everything under the sun. It was those little moments of sheer nothingness and smiles, which brought me closer to her.

Amidst phases of elaborate arguments and instances of puerile laughter, amma and I had created a world of two of us for three years, in appa’s absence to Goa. She was my confidant, friend and fighter-cock sibling back then. As I look back at my engineering years; they wouldn’t be complete without this fifty something (still looks thirty eight), cherubically puny, enthusiastic, subtly pious, cleanliness freak, childish laughter filled and marvelous cook, my mother.

I grab the packets of chilly powder and besan, enclosed with love and emanating reassurance of amma’s touch to the perfect taste, enthused to try my first bajji. I imitate the unconscious observations I made watching amma cook, sitting on the kitchen platform munching down half cooked pieces of food, much to amma’s kind indignation. As I eye the amateur half brown bajjis floating in oil, I let out a little sigh and a sweet tear, missing amma and her golden bajjis.

May be its a lame effort to not wear my heart on my sleeve.

The knots bind her life,
Engulfing her caged ego,
The beauty of dreams shatters,
The urge to laugh desecrates,
She cries in the mesmerized solitude,
Lumbering the dark voids of her mind,
The ghosts of her past wriggle by,
Unfulfilled expectations haunt,
Unanswered questions sneer,
Words disappoint her tears,
Love culls her faith,
Unscathed is her forlorn heart,
Searching serenity in happiness bygone,
Such is the mystery of life, she breathes
Slowly the knots untie,
Painful truth spate her fantasy,
The woman rises, carnages the child in her,
Oh! She bleeds gathering pieces of her chimeras,
Surrounded with remorse,
Blinded with belief,
Alas! She surrenders letting the relentless, that is her 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!

God’s (dis)own country??

It has been more than ten years since I stopped watching the news on Malayalam channels. Apart from the communist party’s hooliganism, never-ending strikes, a series of political leaders’ overviews and some unruliness of the unemployed male population the news had nothing worthwhile to tell you. I was tired of listening to my father rant watching the news “oh the state has gone to the dogs” and I stuck to asianet for the movies and songs which the conservative and decent part of the Kerala film industry still continues to produce!

I have spent a good many years of my life in Kerala and I am thankful my memories are of times spent as a child and everything innocent and happy. Other than these, I only feel remorseful contempt for ‘ende keralam’* which only seems to worsen by the day.

Whoever, still cares to call kerala “gods own country”, I wish to shake them up and let them know that the Gods decided to disown us a long-long time ago. It depresses me to see my land so blessed with rain, fertile harvests, rich culture and traditions; scenic beauty fails to make a mark in any way. If at all kerala is in the news it is for the 100% horny movies, high suicide rates, increasing rates of atrocities against women, child molestations, excessive poverty, thousands admitted for intoxication, leaders in liquor consumption, pathetically unemployed, towering labor costs.

I happened to read this article in ndtv today that talked about the 'Alcohol consumers "welfare" association' in kerala and how they are trying to get the government to sell liquor at subsidized rates. I must confess it scandalized me to say the least. When the nation was progressing to produce professionals, economy was soaring high elsewhere; men in kerala lie deliberately ignorant to the world to be satisfactorily inebriated.

There is a lot that goes untold and un-reported in the popularly read newspapers like ‘malayalam manorama’ and ‘mathrubhumi’ who claim that such news ‘cannot be mentioned in public’. It is a known fact to every kerelaite that a woman can’t walk the streets alone, leave alone going to movie theatres or travel alone. My hometown of Trivandrum is known for the job-less street mongers who can’t help but whistle a tune or two at every woman aging between five and fifty. I have avoided public transport because of the atrocities men aging from fifteen to eighty inflict on the female passengers. If this is not enough, this write-up of experiences of six women journalists describes the ‘way kerala treats women’. End of it I felt ashamed to be coming from such a cruel place which held no respect for the women folk.

I recall the incident; my aunt experienced walking down the busy street of MG road in Cochin. A teenager had the balls to blow kisses to her from the opposite end. Overcame with rage on this brat who had not even started to shave, she had crossed the road to slap the boy right across his face. It got me thinking if society in kerala had grown to accept imprudence of any kind?

It is high time kerala stopped hanging on the 1991 report of it being the highest literate state. If there is any land more illiterate on civilized rules of a land, it is kerala. What can you say about the state when people recall it for the porn stardom, voluptuousness and hypocritic sexism? I am sure I am not the only one who is pained watching my home-town wither away in the hands of indecent men who are turning the god’s land into a living hell!!

*My land kerala