Random & staccato

Reassurance

2011-10-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

In this moment
I wait for the reassurance
That the seeming stillness before me
Will be filled with the vigour of ages past.
That the future of countless memories
Will get a shot at survival.
That jigsaws have a legitimate existence
As broken pieces.

Long road to gratefulness

2011-05-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

Will I be grateful only...
For the crispness of spring
The sunshine on my back
A free day to take a long walk
The occasional novel thrown in
A satisfying day of work
And an email long overdue
For a dainty tea party
A cook-out with friends

Will I be grateful?
For deadlines and feverish writing
And a mind that loves to wander
Days that feel like years
The sudden pangs of loneliness
A stack of dirty dishes by the sink
Food appetizing to none
For pricking conscience and over-zealous moments
Every plan waylaid

Life

2011-05-25T04:34:00.000-07:00

wouldn't be as interesting if it was not lived in the head

Looking forward

2011-04-01T09:46:00.001-07:00

It's a sunny day in London and I can hear someone strumming on an electric guitar somewhere in the flat above me. And for reasons that I can't fathom, it makes me want to write. What exactly? I have no clue. Probably, it's just the world seems so much nicer, now that I can smell and taste again (Dad's medication sure is working). Or for some reason, the strumming, gets me thinking of my first days in London and stirs up that feeling of looking forward to things - at that time, it was about what my classes and classmates were going to be like, whether I would like living in London..you get the drift. Today, those jazz chords are making me want to hope at a stage when things are set to change, yet again.

True, it's only half-way through the year, but my core classes have ended, which officially means that I will never be sitting in my Transnational class with the 27 people from so many different part of the globe. Did we become friends for a life-time over 20 weeks of 3-hour lectures, presentations and heated debates amongst such strong-minded opinionated people? Will we all ever meet up again? I don't know, I have my doubts, despite all the promises of meeting up and getting together again. But, I did feel a twinge of sadness, when we had our last class combined with a pot luck lunch two days ago. The feeling when good things have ended and you resurrect them in your memory, to hold onto them.

For today though, I want to hold on to that feeling of looking forward to newness - setting up my own study schedules, motivating myself to keep up with timelines and figuring out whether I can be a disciplined person when left to myself. Only time will tell. But I hope the feeling lasts!

P.S Prof Dave Morley says: We spend our lives doing things that help us regain elements of an (often idealised) past. And though, I've chosen to paraphrase him somewhat inaccurately and out of context, I just felt the need to add that line, for some apparent or non-apparent reason.
P.P.S It's nice to see the sun still shining in London at 6.30 pm. How I love day-light saving time!
Sayonara for the day folks.

Ode to Grey's Anatomy

2011-03-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Like heaps of other people on the planet, I began my tryst with Grey's Anatomy a few months ago. Now I've never been the sort to follow a drama to the extent of checking when the next episode would be aired but this time, I've caught the fever and its extremely frustrating to see how slowly Season 7 has been progressing. Now, given that this is not usual LMT behaviour, a couple of friends have been asking me about what makes GA the exception.

To you dear ladies, I say:
While McDreamy, Richard, Addision, Lexie, Izzie, Miranda, Arizona, Mark, Alex and their innumerable patients have been great, what makes it even more worthwhile for me to dedicate 40 minutes once a week are Cristina Yang and Meredith Grey. Probably because Cristina Yang as she appears in Season 1, epitomises the kind of life I thought I could live. Where you have one goal and you make it your life's motive to follow it, and everything else recedes into the background. Decisions appear so easy to make when you look at it the Cristina way.

In stark contrast to Cristina's single-mindedness is Meredith and her gazillion issues, living in shadow of her mother's greatness, her inappropriate relationship with Derek Shepherd, coping with her mother's Alzheimer's, forging new relationships with Lexie, her father, Richard and so on. And as much as the series is about Cristina expanding the scope of her world to include things and people and emotion, it is also about Meredith learning to face things head on and prioritising what she wants, instead of running away from everything. At many levels, the show advocates for me the ideal of balance, that too little or too much of things can wreak havoc.

What I also like is that Shonda Rhimes (whoa, I know the name of the lady who does the screenplay) doesn't have any perfect women as her central characters. Take Addison Montgomery, who has it all in terms of looks and professional success, but can't juggle it with a successful relationship, or Miranda Bailey whose difficult marriage and eventual status as a single mother, makes it impossible for her to take up research in paediatrics. To me, every women in the series represents a different step on the ladder, professionally and personally, they face difficult choices and live with the consequences, tough though it may seem. Which is why I watch it, even though it often sends me on a tear-roll!

Add to the storyline a few good looking men, and voila! you have a winning TV drama, I guess.

P.S: Who ever thought I would dedicate an entire blogpost to a TV drama.

Why

2011-03-01T10:18:00.001-08:00

are so many people shutting down blogs that I've grown used to reading? It's grossly unfair.

(Sve, you've inspired me to attempt the one-line post. In my best London Tipton style, Yay Sve!)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

2011-03-01T08:58:00.001-08:00

I can't remember the last time, I heard someone use this proverb but it's certainly been lurking in the recesses of my mind for the last two weeks. Why? I don't know...but in my head, it's always followed by my dad's signature suggestion: Talk less and do more.
Now, I'm not talking of hell in a place of flaming fire sort of way. Its more at the metaphorical level of the torment that I put myself through because of the innumerable number of good intentions/plans that I set out for myself all the time: to wake up early, give myself regular hours to read for classes, to systematically work on the dissertation, to start figuring out the essays for end of term submissions, to make time to shed those excess calories, to make it for mid week church meetings, to keep up with news and big media happenings, to find a part time job and to cook everyday.
My problem is that I go on an excessive guilt drive when I don't finish what I set out to do on a particular day. And when that happens for a couple of days continuously [during reading week for instance, when I read two entire novels (in my defense, I have read NO fiction for the last six months, which is a LONG TIME!)], I come out feeling so bad that neither chocolate, crisps, diet coke or a new episode of Grey's Anatomy or How I met your mother can make me feel any better. And yet I laze and let the torment continue.
But I'm sick of all this mental tamasha and want to be feel what I felt in a few days in December: the sheer joy of finishing what I sent out to do, of studying without getting distracted, of converting my good intentions into concrete plans and of talking a little less (People who know me well will appreciate the enormity of this decision!). Today's the first day in my race away from metaphorical hell. Wish me luck people!

For some spice!

2010-12-30T02:46:00.000-08:00

You know the irritating feeling when everything around you seems to be at a standstill? When people aren't updating their blogs, leaving you with no entertainment. When the cafe around the corner and the Chinese takeaway and the library are closed, ensuring there is no place you can read apart from your room . When a stuffy head and a bad cold make you feel like nothing and demand that you stay within four walls. When your essay refuses to structure itself inside your head, let alone make its way onto paper. When everybody's new year plans involve going to a bridge to see fireworks on a cold night. When every Facebook status seems to be same "Happy New Year" and it begins to wreak havoc on your nerves.

Then you're probably a cranky international student spending the Christmas vacation in London.

Of friendship over assignments

2010-12-09T03:51:00.000-08:00

I see most of my classmates once a week, for a span of three hours. That's it.Three hours, when we're trying so hard to get our head around ideas, to learn, absorb, assess and impress. The moment it stikes four, everyone disappears, only to reappear the next week looking their calm, perfect and collected selves! So much so that in the first few weeks of class, I wondered if we would ever be more than just classmates, if we'd ever open up and get to know each other as individuals and whether it was only me who seemed to be uncertain about so many things. It didn't help that my friends on other programmes in the same department seemed to be hanging out with their classmates after class, going for meals, concerts and sharing a great sense of camraderie.

But the moment came. It was on a bleak morning when we were supposed to hand in our first formal assignments, when I walked into the library, and found myself surrounded by familiar faces. The only difference being that this time, I saw sleep deprived individuals, who had simply put on clothes and dragged themselves to college, pushing themselves to read their essays one last time, people united by the desire to make one last ditch effort to save their essays and to use a very Asian term, to save face. We waited while people edited, proof-read and printed and then walked together to our department to hand it in. It took less than two minutes for the deed to be done...but I'm glad we did it together. Because it those few minutes of shared anxiety that forged a sense of camraderie. I now feel at home!

Miserable opps

2010-11-19T07:41:00.000-08:00

There are those that lack opportunity
And those who find misery in opportunity
I refuse to be either

Truths

2010-10-16T09:29:00.001-07:00

Be you five or fifty
Under the mask of bravado and a confident step
Despite the exhilaration of starting anew
Is a child who misses home

Beautiful Ends

2010-09-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've always read obituaries in the paper. And even shed a few tears for people that I've never known. Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking of death and pain even more. For one, because I lost my eldest aunt (the first of my mother's seven siblings) to cerebral haemorraghing. She was 73...but not old, as dynamic as ever. As her grandchildren stepped out for school specially dressed by her for Onam celebrations, she accompanied them to the gate, ensured they got their transport. Little did anyone think this was to be a final farewell.
A few hours later, we heard she was sick... we hoped, we prayed, we questioned why the doctors were taking no more action...but less than 48 hours after she was hospitalised, she passed away.
A week after the funeral, her younger granddaughter Karen was found carrying a picture of her to school. Her response had me in tears: "I carry it so that I can look at it when I am free". The family says they often find her kissing the photo. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been listening to fragments of stories adding to my own memories of my aunt. This is my tribute to the woman who personified resilience, who kept going when life handed her more than her fair share of bitter lemons. She reminds me that it is possible to keep loving even when people and situations take nasty turns. And somewhere in my heart, I am glad that she'll never be in pain again, physical and emotional and that she's with the Lord, at rest for ever.
The death of two other people, have also taught me some strange lessons. One was a family friends' father. I will always remember him as the cheerful old gentleman who after a bout with cancer and radiation managed an exhaustive tour of Israel on foot in his 70s, simply because he wanted to.
The other, a young girl of 19 who I am only connected to through blogosphere who succumbed to dengue last month. I don't know Tejaswee but her pictures tell me she was sunny, vivacious, bursting with life and energy. I read her blog, a letter that she writes over a year ago to a child that she planned to adopt sometime in the future and I quote my favourite line: "I dream big, and I watch my dreams fall. Right now, I have the strength to rise."

Hark....the death knells

2010-09-11T12:22:00.001-07:00

Behind the crazily crowded street that leads to my office is a cemetery. I've never seen it but every once in a while,I come across a small procession of men making their way to the burial ground, carrying on their shoulders,the mortal remains of a loved one. I dare not to imagine their emotions as horns blare, urging them to move on, move quicker and make way for traffic when all they want is perhaps to take it slow, to make the last few minutes with somebody last just a little longer? That people will be sensitive to their loss.

Everytime I see them, I tell myself that I can afford to wait another five minutes to get to the office. Because I have memories of a sunny November afternoon when I was part of the procession of vehicles making its way through the streets of Old Bhopal to the cemetery allotted to Christians. We doubted if the ambulance would make its way through the last stretch- a narrow crowded alleyway lined with houses on either side. For a few minutes, the little children in the area forsook their favourite playground (the road), all business and talk was forgotten. And as we slowly moved ahead, I have a hazy memory of some of them even throwing open the gates of the cemetery to let the ambulance in. I am grateful for that moment, for the symbolic gesture of kindness for a person in pain.

Living a delusion

2010-06-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

Ever been told?
That you are indispensable
That there will always be place for you
That people will miss you for more than a week
That even your paranoia or madness is unique
That you were meant for much more

Ever been told?
That you are living a delusion

Shine on her, crazy diamond

2010-04-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

In the misty vapour of the hamam, I see the body of twelve-year old Jehanna Begum, the week her mother died. Lying on the cold marble slabs. Her eyes trained on the red diamond in the chandelier, questioning. Her tears washed away in the stream of water that runs over her. The child, without a maternal bosom to sink her head into.
Into the hamam rushes the restless Jehanna at fourteen, accusing the red diamond. Trapped by her female body, trapped in the zenana. Craving the sun that she is never exposed to. Jehanna, with her two attendants to unleash her fury upon. The adolescent daughter of the emperor, visited by her father once a year.
The sixteen –year old Jehanna, who in the few moments before her attendants come in, prostrates herself before the red diamond, praying for respite from her aching loneliness. The young girl, who submits herself to the hands of her attendants, to be made beautiful. For whom, I ask?
Into the hazy mist of the hamam, is brought the body of eighteen-year old Jehanna. To be soaped, scrubbed and washed one last time before her burial. Jehanna, who will never make it into a love saga, whose beauty will never be described in the chronicles of the kings. The woman, who was embalmed in the light of the red diamond.

The days of community love

2010-02-03T02:04:00.000-08:00

For an outsider, it was just Annual Day at the Indian School. But it wasn’t. This was the yearly exhibit of community love and engagement. The type of event that everybody became a part of, in some way or the other. Not too hard to envisage, given that there weren’t too many schools that you could choose to send your kids too. And if at all, your child were culturally/musically inclined, then ‘Sound’ or ‘Tune’ of Music were the only options on hand.
So annual day at the school meant that the dance mashas had their hands full of classical and filmy routines, that the piano and guitar instructor David sir was recording rhymes for the kindergarten kids to sing to or that Anto sir had rescheduled classes to ensure that all the kids participating in a programme had the same slots at the music school. It was a flurry of activity – setting up sessions, calling all the kids, and finding out who could pick up whom.
And teachers weren’t the only ones taking the decisions. Parent called each other, picked up swatches of fabric, compared notes on costumes & tailors and even went out shopping together for the right outfit. Music blared in many homes, as kids practiced in bedrooms, living rooms, and backyards waiting for the yummy intermissions in between. Then there were the miffed parents, who stormed to school to question why ‘their’ children got left out of the programme. And the night after the function where you would bump into parents and kids, irrespective of your choice of cuisine or how late it was in the night.
And it wasn’t just the week before annual day. It was on all those days when the kids and parents got on to the huge school buses to Dubai take part in DALA competition, in the Kairali Kala Kendra festivals or whatever was the big event that year. Little tips were exchanged on dance makeup, safety pins were handed over, some parents listened as other students pratised their extempore speeches and the entire parent and student fraternity cheered when their kids performed on stage. Proud parents pushed us onto stage, year after year, to take the trophy for the school championship, and the cameras just kept clicking. I don’t know how many albums I found my way into. Years later, what I do know is that, at the risk of speaking in cliches, these were the best days of our lives and of course, community love.

Cracked pains

2010-01-05T06:51:00.000-08:00

It was the alien eye roving about them, that made her mind restless...that forced her to thrash these same thoughts out, again and again.
She'd always been independent..according to her way of defining things. Some others may have thought her to be the servile wife, whose life remained confined to making sure that her husband's coat and tie were ironed, the kids had good food in their tiffin and creating a comfortable ambience at home. But she liked it that way...she was her own boss for hours and hours. In the evenings, when the kids were young, she would take them out for a stroll or if her husband was back, they'd take a ride to the beach, the four of them on that bike that she could never learn to love. Thank God for the scooter that she had...made it much easier to pick up things without having to walk all the way and to socialise with all those women who couldn't but keep their minds off other's lives and bedrooms. That's why she'd been a bit of recluse, and hadn't kept a maid. After all, maids were the leaking taps that dribbled gossip all over the place. And it wasn't as if anyone had condemned her to this position. Her husband and she had talked about it when he came to meet her first. She was in the mood to work in those days and he'd only encouraged her. In fact, she was the one who decided that she would give it up, not for him or for the kids that they had in a few years, but simply because she wanted time for herself. And he had always respected it, despite the fact that her income had meant that they could splurge a little more on clothes and the movies. Moreover, she liked to be there when the kids came home, surprise them with the little daubles she'd picked up for them or the chat-patta stuff that she'd made for teatime, drink tea in the tiny lawn with her husband or just watch him read the paper. The little pleasures of life... she relished the thought that she was the one who made it all possible. The comfort that she could give and deny!
Which is what made everything harder now...here she was, unable to get up from the bed in the morning till her husband came and propped her up with pillows and got her to sip on tea and biscuits...No she couldn't eat them, not because of the chemo but because her mind rebelled against being waited on hand and foot and her throat just wouldn't co-operate to push those morsels down. And the ultimate humiliation, she needed help to dress and bathe herself. It was humiliating to feel her that husband had to put her bra straps on for her...her arms and fingers just wouldn't co-operate. And then to keep things simple, she would go out for her chemotherapy sessions in a nightgown. In her 30 years of married life, she'd never made an appearance in public in her nightie...let alone step out of the house in it. And her she was, in an auto, on the way back from chemo, hating herself for being dependent. And then this kid in the next auto was looking at her as though.....
He looked at the kid in the next auto. She looked young enough but by the looks of where her auto was going, she was headed towards one of the offices that lined the road ahead. She seemed sensitive enough, after one quick look at his wife's bald head and him holding her with one hand and a wheelchair precariously perched in front, she'd gauged the situation and had the sense to look away. She appeared the young confident type, who probably thought that she had learnt all the lessons that she would ever learn in the few years she had spent at work. Poor thing, little did she know that there were somethings that she would never know about herself. After all, till a month or two ago, he'd thought of himself as the strong one. And all it took was one piece of paper, a medical report to shake him out of a universe that he had thought would remain unchanged till the time he beat a quiet retreat from it altogether. His wife hadn't been unhealthy at all. There were the few times when she'd had the occasional backache and the tiredness but after a night of good sleep, most of her problems had been sorted out. She'd never been one for lying in bed. Three weeks after their first child had been born, she'd rushed back to be with him rather than staying at her mother's place for the first three months. And the second time, she had refused to go altogether saying that she had enough experience to deal with it herself, provided she got an ayah to just help out a bit. When their elder son asked whether he could go to the States for his undergrad, she'd told him flat: you either get a scholarship or don't go, despite the fact that he had been willing enough to pay. She'd been equally staunch about the two children marrying kids from their income group and type of family. Coming to think of that... he hadn't told the kids much yet.. just mentioned that mom was weak and that she needed regular treatment at the hospital. But they were soon going to ask why mom didn't come to the phone or why she needed to be hospitalised so often. Moreover, his daughter had threatened to take the first flight out of San Francisco when he told her that her mom was taking a nap and couldn't be disturbed. Before they arrived that he'd had to steel himself up. He couldn't afford to let them see how much it hurt to see the one who had supported him and opposed him equally, to wane so quickly...Just as much as he wanted to show the world how strong he was, at that moment he craved support himself. He looked at the kid in the auto...she would learn too..he only wished that it wouldn't be the hard way.
The kid in the auto looked at the aging couple in the auto next to her. She'd never know who they were or what the story was, but their picture remained intact...in her head the lines were forming already...
"It was the alien eye roving around them, that made her restless......"

To long days and mosquito ridden nights

2009-11-19T00:43:00.000-08:00

Found this random piece on my comp after a long time. Don't care for it too much but just reminded me of ACJ and the people there. To memory!
Cluelessness
48 students and a large room. "A list has appeared on the server". Laptop owners preach to their congregations.
The word or The sentence?
“Let’s change the name of the paper”
“Suggestions anyone?”
Silence. The WORD stands.
Helvetica , Georgia!!!
Copy/paste these fonts everday. College computers have selective amnesia.
Harsh realities
Lectures in Tamil. Sources on world trips. A week is technically only 4 days long.
Friday afternoon flurries
Who said Friday. We always thought Monday. The last person and piece becomes the scapegoat to push deadlines.
Homage to the language
Fill as many blanks and pages of the grammar exercise as possible two hours before the deadline.
Rewriting become the prerogative of a few
Caspar is a friendly ghost
Who said that deprivation was scary? Enlightenment dawns in unfamiliar terrain
Pandemonium
Hell breaks loose but the valiant finish the race. All pages of the deprivation issue are pdf-ed by 9 pm
Daily war
Engagement columns are man’s greatest gifts and missing reporters the greatest bane.
Nightmares at Nine
Pages in gestation. Intensive labour begins.
You are Shakespeare
Unfettered creativity and onomatopoeia rule the roost. Let the words flow
Information for future students: New police patrol cars are more comfortable than hostel rooms.
You are the future of American journalism!!
Tomorrow goes...
For the first two weeks. But the glossy pages of the tabloid finally appear to be loved and cherished from this time forth and forevermore.
Q and no A
Tracking news and fielding off ignorance is essential only on Friday morning.
The decision of the quiz master is meant to be contested.
Rest conferences
We asked and we got. But who said simulated was hot? Your eyes take a sleepy gleam.
New verb: Dissertate
End of your tether in rough weather. Missing books are your greatest foes.
5000 down, 2k to go. 8000, would be a dream come true.
IP: Information Please
Rouse a few to chase some clues. Raise a hue, the IP is soon due.
Omega and Alpha
A sigh and a cry.
We’d didn’t realize, the year had flown by.

Time hurts

2009-11-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

Today I found what time could do
To me
To a trio
To banns of friendship
To comfort in silence
To the taste of hot/cold coffee
To long chats in a parked car
To the tussle for a comfy couch
To lazing on a sports field
To photocopied Chaucer notes
To buying Levis jeans’
To Barbara Ann
To shedding tears over marks
To discussions on life
To deciding on a half plate of chowmein
To weight loss/gain
To seven pups and Dirty
To misunderstandings
To a heart full of promises
To the yearning for a phone call
To speaking our minds out
To unuttered/unattended wounds
To believing that we loved each other’s company
To the best memories
To who we are and where we go
Today I found that TIME hurts

Beyond nostalgia

2009-08-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

So I've been reading this book called The Hindi-Bindi club ( yes, it is chick-lit and I have no scruples admitting that I enjoy the genre thoroughly. It doesn't deem me less intellectual in any way) on the lives of three young women born to Indian parents and brought up in America. And as expected, shadowy images from Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth were creeping into my subconscious, urging me to make comparisons. So what the heck, I indulged myself and here's the verdict, in points.
This is the first time, in the books I have come across, that the protagonists have a heritage that isn't solely Bengali. There is a Marathi family, a Punjabi family and yes, a Bengali one too in the group, so it doesn't appear as though only the Bengalis have a yearning to get back to where they grew up ( I refuse to use the word 'motherland' coz i don't essentially believe in the land and mother correlation that Indians tend to draw). For all those fans of Jhumpa Lahiri who jump at me when I say this, trust me, I'm one of your ilk too and I understand that she probably writes about the community that she knows best. All I'm saying is that you need to occasionally acknowledge that nostalgia isn't only an all-Bong feeling and there are quite a few Indian communities which were represented early enough in the US. As for the aspect of cultural inclusion in the current book, I've heard that the author Monica Pradhan's parents migrated from Mumbai , which by all means has been a cosmopolitan melting pot, while being Marathi heartland and will continue to be so, despite the Sena's efforts.
The second observation is that there is in the book an acceptance of the fact that the second generation is American-Indian and not Indian-American. No doubt, all the mothers in the book at some stage or the other acknowledge that their daughters would be way different if brought up in America, but there is a definite shift towards acknowledging that they are products of the American way of living. In fact, this is validated in the marital choices of all the three daughters Kiran, Rani and Preity. The author actually explores different permutations and combinations vis-a-vis marriage. There is Kiran, whose marriage and subsequent divorce, to and from respectively, a rock musician, draws the ire of her parents not because of his ethnicity but largely because of his profession. Then there is Rani, whose wedding to a foreigner could be explained away, thanks to the fact that Rani is only part Indian anyway (Her mother Uma is Bengali though and teaches English at the University but married a firang in the early days when it was unthinkable). But even the so-called ideal daughter in the book, Preity is also wed to a firang. And when Kiran remarries at the end of the book, despite all the matchmaking that she has submitted herself too via the matrimonial sites online, she marries a foreigner, something that even her father ultimately comes to accept. And mind you , the book clearly delineates that this was something that was not acceptable a generation ago and Uma's act is occasinally brought up as an aberration. And here's another interesting change, unlike the usual novels, where the mother is the repository of culture in a alien land, the mothers in this novel seem to be much more open to being adaptable than the fathers, but I also think that is largely because the book is about mother-daughter relationships. And the fathers still largely subscribe to the code of the highly intellectual fathers who got to the States based on their exceptional performance in studies or work.( You don't need to read much of this genre to figure out that the fathers are always at MIT, or Stanford or have at least studied there) Rani's firang father being the only exception to the norm.
The third and final aspect deals with an element of comparison between those who emigrated to America in the early stages and those who came later, which I haven't seen before in any other book. And while Monica Pradhan doesn't elaborate on it too much, there is a scene where Kiran, Rani and Preity look at the young girls dancing in saris at the New Year's party and comment that "They must be the new immigrants". And while it isn't exactly evident what the feeling are between these groups, this scene firmly establishes them in the role of the pioneers, the early migrant, who were there when too many Indians weren't around.
However, I tend to think that Monica Pradhan had tried to weave in one-too many threads in the narrative when she goes through the long passages on the description of the Indo-Pak partition through the eyes of Saroj ( Preity's mother). These sections seems a bit disjointed and appear to me as the result of research, though I may be wrong here.
There is one more thing that I like the book for, which is its limited mention of clinical depression. You feel the pain when you hear Uma's ( Rani's mother) mention of her mothers' early suicide that probably resulted from a sickness that wasn't identified as depression. You can understand her fear that Rani, has inherited it genetically and may be prone as much to suicidal attacks. I also vividly recollect a scene where Uma's husband takes her to a punching bag and asks her to take her frustrations out..( I've seen this before but there is something different that i can't exactly seem to identify, probably it's to do with an element of guilt that resides somewhere in Uma's mind particularly with regard to marrying a foreigner and being disowned by her father). There are also the funny but poignant passages about Meenal (Kiran's mother) who is dealing with living without her breasts (after breast cancer) and even after years of having lived in the States, is still uncomfortable about lingerie shopping in the open.
I do say that the end is predictable, but yeah if you want a fresh idea of what happens in Indian minds across the Atlantic, this is fun. Though I don't think it would be exactly true of the third generation ( they are almost all American and very little Indian.)

Halfway abandoned

2009-06-30T09:07:00.001-07:00

Tell me of those with dreams fulfilled
Of hopes and goals achieved
Of winners on life's racing track
Never impeded by speed

Of those who managed year after year
To wake to those shrill alarms
And worked from dawn to dusk
Sans facebook and the coffee machine

Of those do-it-alls
Who juggled work and applications on time
And rested assure that the call would come
With the passport to a life sublime

Of those who balanced life and love
And managed straight A's in both
Or those who took the early plunge
And made homemaking their fame

Tell me of those who didn't leave the fight
Halfway abandoned

The Mass Mindset

2009-06-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

What are you doing now?
Seemingly innocuous question
Only two permitted lives
The Medicine/Engineering way

Strike a tangent
Judgment blankets you
Condescension smothers you
Sympathy kills you

Did you survive?

Fallen idol

2009-06-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

It's a not a person but this thing called compromise that I've begun to hate recently. Till a few months ago, I venerated this quality, pitching it as the solution to world's problems and mine. So whether it was the question of the Israel and Palestine conflict, or how long I could keep the light on in the room i shared with my cousin , there seemed to be a way out... THROUGH COMPROMISE.
So how did my idol get depedestalized (if that word does exist)? I don't know. But what I do warn you against, is the disguise that compromise comes veiled in: practicality. And guess what? I fall for that one because I think of myself as a practical, pragmatic creature.

So here's how it works:
Well meaning X says how long will you be able to continue with journalism and come home late at night?
I respond with a shrug and a quiet "I don't know".
So X goes on : You know once you are married and you have kids, it just isn't practical? Who will after all take care of the kids while you're away at work till midnight? You really need to look for something that will give you time with the family.
I'm practical enough to know that no husband (even if it is one that returns home at 6), no matter how adaptable and easy-going, is going to be willing to spend the entire evening tending to the needs of bawling toddlers or toughie teenagers and that apart from India (where there are still a few maids available), there are hardly any places where you're gonna be able to keep a full time maid or nanny or whatever.
I shrug again and say to X, "I know what you mean".

The conversation ends there but the thought doesn't.So what will bring me back home early enough to maintain a healthy balance between work and a family (that I'm very sure that I want to have). I'm racking my brain for all the options and again the practical bit of me emerges with the solution: academics. That's the only way im going get back home in time to be with the family, get some time to myself, get summer holidays at the same time as the family and still be economically independent. And after all, I have considered academics in the past...the only difference being that then that was something that I had reserved to do after I was bored of a media job ( in about 10 to 15 years) and wanted to settle down and I mean really settle down (my equivalent for that stage of a man's life in the Vedas when he was meant to be with the family before he procedeed for Sanyaas). And if I were to continue in India, the Sixth Pay Commission has made it more alluring to take to teaching.
"So what is the issue?", asks my pragmatic self. The problem is that at 22, I have to be practical enough to compromise on my dreams for a family that I may or may not have in time. Where I can go and what I should do today is already being defined by that shadowy illusory vision of what my tomorrow could be like? I'd like to know how many guys out there think of when they will be back home or who will tend to the kids, when they decide on what they want to do in life?

But guess what? Even if I don't compromise today ( thanks to my ultra-supportive family), I know I will eventually because I am what you call a 'Practical' person.

Privately public/publicly private

2009-03-10T04:04:00.000-07:00

As a child, when I occasionally wrote down stories or poems, it was on scraps of paper and stored away in a flat Vochelle tin under my bed. I wonder why I left it there, considering that it wasn't the best of hiding places. Or maybe it wasn't meant to be hidden. It was left there to be discovered by anyone who really wanted to see what was in that tin.
Similarly, the many serialized stories that I wrote were stored away in a folder with my name on it. It wasn’t really secret but more in a not-in-your-face sense. It was never password protected. (More so, because I guess because I didn’t know how to.)
Few months ago I found myself writing down my thoughts in a folder, which I labeled hidden. Yeah right…hidden in such a way that anyone who scanned my documents could find it.
Who was I trying to delude but myself? Everything that I wrote was a personal note, personal to the extent that I didn’t want to publish or publicize it but public to the extent that it was left available to anybody who wanted to see it or appreciate it. Privately public in one sense, but publicly private in another. Still doesn’t make complete sense to me. After all, where does the private end and the public begin? Any thoughts?

The creations of a bland afternoon

2009-02-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

A dead afternoon in the Mylapore house. Sitting by a little window at the bottom of the steps, watching ‘the disco’ lights playing on the black and white chess-board floor, watching Neerja hammering away at her laptop keys, occasionally interrupting her to share my fanciful thoughts of what the rooms looked like during the dance-school days. Somewhere, I can already hear the talam, the dance masha using gestures, clicks and claps, while a dozen little eager eyes look on. Six and eight…the long rooms for the beginners making their way into this enthralling realm. Seven, the storage and make up area for the performances. Somewhere on the ground floor are the older girls and companionships that have sprung up over efforts of moving arms and hips gracefully. A warm oil lamp stands in one corner of the other room, the muslin covered veena occupies another corner, a mridangam close by, the recorder with classical rhythms stopped halfway. The next room is the shrine to the rules of dance, the haven of the sacred classical texts. And then there is the voice..in a language that I cannot feign to recognize…Tamil probably. And then the owner of the voice…the white hair framing the face, the soft wrinkles developing around the corner of the eyes, the fair pallor displaying a heritage different from the language she uses…she steps in from the patio where she has just dried her silvery hair through the glass door of room 1. The voice sounds again..she emerges enquiring about the missing pair who are expected to perform that evening. Silent whispers exchange between these two truants who are hidden away in the little room accessible only from the outside, the hidden entrance only a few have discovered. The contents of their conversation remain a secret muffled by the sounds of the veena.

The scene shifts, the voice is heard again....only this time in a house by the sea. You can hear the pride in her voice as she takes you into the in-house theatre created according to the principles of the Indian classical texts. A pride equally evident when she comments on the 75 neem trees in the garden she created from nothing .

Creator of beauty
May beauty follow thou, wither thou goest.

I’ve never met her but somewhere it is the image of Chandralekha that i associate with that of the danseuse who ran the dancing school.

Little known tales

2009-01-13T04:16:00.000-08:00

Notes.We grow up hearing about the good aspects of our culture before we are at the stage when we form our own opinions. And then come the subtle subconscious judgements that we make as we come face to face with the not-so-good images of India. Everyday presents a new tale. Here's one i heard from the horse's mouth.

For most Muslim girls in Thiruvarankurichi, a small village near Trichy, menarche marked the beginning of a cloistered existence. For Salma, it began even earlier on the day when she and her friends sneaked into a forbidden cinema hall to watch a Malayalam movie, which accidentally happened to be pornographic. In a small community, opinion is formed as quickly as news is spread. The judgement was pronounced soon after. Salma was to discontinue her education and stay at home, while her brother who accompanied her to the movie was let off after a thrashing.

This was Salma’s first revelation of the unwritten un-explained impositions made on a woman. More questions followed, with no answers except “Because you are a girl”. Her loneliness and the many books her brother brought from the lending library fuelled her thoughts and provoked her to begin writing. But when her name appeared with her poem on a magazine page, it brought about what she calls “ a culture shock”. Writing by a woman was unheard of and even more radical were the poems which talked of a woman’s life and loneliness. Criticism flowed from all quarters. Even as she ploughed on, life became harder. The family of the one she was to marry initially refused because of her writing but later reconsidered saying “How long will any girl continue to read and write?... only until the birth of two children”.
Despite Salma's protests, the marriage took place. It was the honour of the family that was at stake. In her husband’s home, she was constantly under supervision, which irked her endlessly.

I could not understand the mystery of the thali around my neck which seemed to have the power to transform my entire life. I wanted to snap it, hand it over to my husband and go back to my parents... but they only harped on the justifications for continuing the marriage.

For 10 years she continued to write late in the nights in the bathroom and hid her works between her clothes. To avoid verbal and physical threats, Rokkaiah adopted the pseudonym of Salma. In 2000, the publisher of the magazine Nizhagal offered to publish a collection of her poems. Salma attended the book release in Chennai under the pretext of seeking treatment for uterus problems. The book was published with no pictures or any details about the author.

The year 2001 saw Salma in a very different role. Salma was nominated for the post of panchayat president by her husband, who was keen on the post but was unable to get it as the seat was reserved for women. Her pictures appeared on walls and leaflets, she regularly appeared on public platforms making speeches accompanied by male family members. By then her poetry had won her recognition in the literary circles in Chennai. On the day that Rokkaiah won the panchayat seat, a TV channel used the situation to interview her, the poet Salma. For the few people who realised that the interview was not about the election, Salma had a ready answer. “If you are willing to accept me as President, why won’t you accept me as a writer?” Increasingly, Salma has begun to see and use power as a shield, even against the many accusations from her family. But with the increasing publicity that has surrounded her in recent years, they have come to believe that women’s writing isn’t useless.

Salma contested the elections to the Tamil Nadu state legislative assembly in 2006 but lost by a narrow margin. She was then appointed Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu Social Welfare Board and relocated to Chennai in 2007. She, however, regrets that she has not been able to do enough for the women of her community, who she feels are exploited. There are very few NGOs, if any, run by Muslim women and you need the permission of the Islamic organisation in the area to get access to the women. While a few women in her village are now receiving education till Class 10, she doesn’t see this as a larger trend. “The condition is almost the same in rural pockets of Tamil Nadu. As long as the men remain ignorant, the chances for the empowerment of women are almost negligible. We can only hope that the recommendation of the Sachar Committee will make a difference.”
Her literary works are still committed to the cause of the women in her community. There is a poignancy with which she addresses issues regarding crises in the bedroom or of sexual desire of women.

By recording the murmurs of my inner emotions and the extraordinary aches of my body which are fobbed off as taboo, I try to create tiny ripples in the frozen silent space. My writing depends on me and I depend on my writing.

Her work has brought her a degree of independence, still denied to most women in conservative Muslim pockets of rural Tamil Nadu. She is regularly criticised on both her work and appearance. On being asked about her stance on the burkha she quips “ I find it inconvenient to work wearing a burkha but I don’t wanted to be quoted as being against the burkha”. Some fears live on.

(The italicised words are from Salma’s address at the Norman Cutler Conference on South Asian Literature at the University of Chicago in May 2007)