Friend-sied

All my friends know how much I love my friends- old and new.

There is always a frenzied excitement about meeting new friends, learning all about them, being with them! The initial high, the heady honeymoon phase, then the settling in to a routine which is comfortable without being jarringly distracting.

Through this madness, invariably there is the sane tone that old friends provide, the safe comfort of their anchor and support ensures one doesn't get blinded by the brilliance of new-found friends.

That said, there are no friends like old friends!

So imagine how ungrounded I was this morning when my very first pair of diamond earrings went literally down the drain!

But...

after an hour of reconciling myself to the fact that life often offers such shocks, I received a call from my major domo telling me that my friends had not deserted me after all!

I shan't offend delicate sensibilities all around by detailing how the drained off diamonds were recovered. But hey, all you friends out there, you all mean the world to me and I am holding on to all of you- tight!

Am I grounded?

Tiff(!)-ins

Ever since dd was put into play school, I had to shrug off my 'I don't cook' attitude and get my nose to the grind. Packing lunches every day five days a week, for so many years.

There were days when she would like the lunch! But those were few and far between. Some of the tiffins I packed for her would even be a hit with her friends and she wouldn't 'mind' taking them as long as her friends ate from her tiffin and she was allowed access to theirs!

Many a time we would agree on some sort of a routine - for each day of the week, a particular item- but this too never worked out.

Then ds started school too. And his tiffins had to be so different from hers. While she constantly craves variety rice one day, pasta the next, dosa, idli, baby idlis, roti, puri, parantha, breads, cheese, what have you, he was always steadfast in what was 'acceptable' tiffin to him.

There was a phase when they went to differnt schools and used to get different tiffins from mom. Dd had to make the compromise- she had to adjust to whatever was being made for the common tiffin. The ubiquitous potato reigns supreme.

Which is why this less than perfect mom fantasises about the perfect, nutritionally balanced, visually appealing tiffins that Meeta packs daily. I lurk there regularly but when come school mornings, it is back to the usual boring stuff.

A major disincentive to experimentation and trying new stuff is the attitude of ds. He sniffs at anything new in the most suspicious manner till I say, 'Angel, Amma has made it specially for you with love' to which he responds, 'Amma, why do you put SO much of "love"? A little "love" is enough!' And I would end up reverting to the standard fare earning the ire of dd!

Can't please them all - but am I trying enough? Priya, got me thinking...

The Eighth One

Krishna was never a favourite God.

All through childhood, one saw the grand spectacle and celebration of Krishna and love for Him as Delhi was but an extension of Braj bhoomi. His presence was reassuringly all pervasive in that land of Yadavas through each season and turn of season. Even a Rama centric festival like Diwali could not be celebrated without the mandatory Goverdhana Pooja the day after Diwali. And of course the day of His birth was celebrated with gusto- there would be street side tableaux at each corner with intense competition among them for the most elaborate and impressive jhaanki. The kids of the neighbourhood would gather together and bring all manner of goodies with which to decorate their stalls. Cash contributions would also be solicited by the little beggars and by night, each street would have its own little depiction of the birth of Krishna much like the Christian nativity scenes.

But, as I said, Krishna was never considered my favourite God.

Till I became the mother of a baby boy and saw the world in him- divine. When I first saw my baby boy in the Neonatal ICU, he was hooked up to all manner of equipment. Seeing him lying there amidst a huge machine (respirator) this love crazed mum actually saw a little Krishna with the protective hood of a snake over him and a zillion wires and pipes connecting him with the rest of the world.

For six months after my son's birth I was more or less totally confined to the house and in fact to a single room where all I did was to adore my baby, without any distractions of the world. My meals would come in and occasionally some family members (including my daughter!) would peep in. The phone calls would impinge at times and at others, I would step out of the room and the house to make the necessary visits to the doctors. But for all these diversions, I was totally immersed in the love and care of my child, my Krishna. He was my universe and it was in his face I saw ALL. Much like the other love struck mother Yashoda, who saw a miracle in her Krishna.


He may not be my eighth child, the mysterious, dark Krishna. Yet I think of him when and marvel at the significance of eight. The Eighth baby ( to one mother), born in the eighth month, on the eighth day of the dark phase of Sravana, the eighth avatar of Vishnu.

May be it is significant, I ponder, that all His favourite snacks are made in the ratio of 8:1 (rice and urad dal)!

Krishna Krishna Krishna!

Hmm-kara

I must at the outset confess that it is only wild horses which can drag me to a cinema to endure a full length film- but having said that, must admit that dh is one helluva wild one!

So we both did manage to seek time out (together!) for watching Omkara this weekend. Given my extreme eagerness to trash such outings, dh was extra keen to reach in time and arm himself with plenty of popcorn and other edibles to continually pop into my complaining mouth. Actually, his job was made easy for him because though my jaw was dropped nearly through the entire first half, I was struck quite dumb!

It was quite a spectacle! The dusty Gangetic plain seemed to come alive in all its glory and yes, the gory was especially highlighted. Enough has been said and written about the movie- so without going into the story the characterisation, casting and so on, here are just a few impressions.

The language, of course, is just too typical to be offensive. To one whose sensibilities have been weathered continually by blasts of Dilli's patois shorn of its purani dilli etiquette (though even that has been considered inferior to the tehzeeb of Lucknow), the crassness sans lyrical softness of Punjabi, the earthiness of the agrarian Jat speak of western UP and the surrounding tracts of Haryana, the lack of sophistication of the doodhiya flow of yadavs and of course exposure to the more colourful language of the Biharis, the words used in the movie cannot seem offensive. If anything, they ring true.

As does the entire range of visuals. The nautanki counterposed with the naach-gana during ceremonial occasions, distinct in the latter's dirge-like tones from the celebratory abandon of the nautch-girl's dance. The delicate innocence of seemingly fragile but flesh and blood women who seem quite literally untouched by the sun contrasted against the rough and ready manner of the trigger happy men who live entire lives only as representatives of their caste, lineage and upholders of that typically fragile, typically male concept- honour.

It was a faithful, nay, vividly perfect recreation of the ethos and pathos of an anonymous small village in poltically surcharged western/Eastern UP or northern Bihar.

The radiant jewel in the entire movie, I think, is the song Jag ja- vintage folksy Gulzaar - 'motiyon sa mogra', need I say more. And so lovingly crooned by Suresh Wadekar, a pleasure!

Note: If the sight of pot bellied men in khakhi in a kotwali, jerking their bodies lustily offends your patriotic sense, if you are worried how the mobile service providers can do any billing and enforce any revenue collection in such badlands, if the loud language grates your intact sensibilities, if the pervasive prescience of doom bothers you, if you are bothered that such movies may further glorify the credo of violence in the caste-ridden cow-belt, if you'd rather see a sappier 'family-rated' tear-jerker, take care!

That tag, this day!

In this blog-eat-blog world, a novice like me needs to watch it. I seek to insulate myself through my extremely limited readership and the fact that I choose to stay within the confines of my own comfort zone. I do not form any significant part of the blogger eco-system out there - not even an 'insignificant microbe'. No links to the blog gods or their pundits, no blog lines or rolls - this blog is just a LOT of myself on display for any or every one who may wish to read it. Detailing about the boring inanities of my grey existence, suddenly, from out of the blue, someone springs up to a-tag.

First, it was Africableu and Artsymama, who pegged me on the tag-line. Then I breathed easier- thought I acquired immunity from the tag-rag-tag like childhood measles.

No such luck, alas. It was Lak who started round two of the game as early as in March this year, demanding to know all manner of things about the me and books I own read and all! Then more recently it was Chitra who demanded to know five secrets in my freezer, car, closet, purse. And now Priya has tagged me demanding that I reveal all manner of details of who and what I am! Wish I knew the answers to all these tags!


Embarking on the various tags, I would still prefer to beg off the books one, Lak. That is something which I really don't feel upto now- so maybe another day, that tag?

Chitra, the things in my freezer, car, purse, closet would be mere manifestations of my usual cornucopia- my 'Bhanumati ka pitara' as it were! So I head first to the last, Priya's tag.

I'm thinking about:

Too many things to be recorded - work, home, the children, my parents, my family, my friends, the spare tyres around my middle, other friends, others, more friends, people around me, the people not around me...

I said:

Ever and never too often to be saying them again (hmm, does that say what I wish it to?)

I want to:

Take a break

I wish:

To write like this and this and whatever Scott writes; I wish to scrap like this; I wish to making a smocking frock (white/ blue/ pink?), even if I couldn't make it for my daughter, I hope to for hers, I wish to wish a LOT less :)

I hear:
A lot of birdsong, the wind in the trees, the sounds around me and most of all- the noises in my head!

I wonder:
How simple things get complicated and at times how the complicated sort themselves out simply.

I regret:
little.

I am:
rather confused

I love:
All that I don't violently hate

I dance:
as if I had two (4?) left feet!

I sing:
off-key

I cry:
often and for all and any one. But most of all, I cry for my self.

I'm not always:
consistent.

I make with my hands:
all manner of odds and ends which keeps me busy in the making but holds little permanent value.

I write:
with little care, intensely, as rough and ready as I am.

I confuse:
and mix metaphors

I need:
at times, a lot to keep me afloat, and at others, keel over nothing at all.

And finally:.
I fear this isn't what I was meant to write at all :p

... the wind out of my hair

Sitting at Spratt, I decided to get my hair washed. Aren't you going to be travelling by road all day tomorrow, dh asked.

Maybe I could wear a scarf over my head, I suggested.

The peace of the salon was shattered by our uproarious laughter.

Legacy

Just as the rains meant kites in the skies and swings from trees in an otherwise citified childhood, there was The Pooja, in our otherwise low-religious fanfare family!

The hype would start days, nay weeks, ahead. The family silver would be brought out from the soft folds of old cotton sarees amidst loud exclamations of how black it appeared. We would all set at work washing the silver and the brass with Vim and tamarind, dousing with brasso, rubbing in the vibhuti and rubbing revertially with the softest of cloths and then wondering at the beauty of each piece anew.

While we kids would try and experiment with shades of shringar bindi to decorate the idol's face, we would be chided by our grandma who would insist that her goddess looked perfect just freshly scrubbed (as she claimed her grand daughters did too!) She tried to instill a pride and a deep association between her godess's idol and er grand-daughters. At times the cousins would be there. Else it was just us, but fancy celebrations nonetheless.

What a lot it was which kept us busy till so late the previous night! The flowers, fruits, agarbatties, camphor, wicks, vastram, kalasham, sandal to be rubbed out of a log (not powder out of a bottle). The decorations at the doorstep and within, the tying of the toranas, the transformation of our sanitised aseptic house to a festive post to receive the Divine Devi, the bestower of wishes, Vara Lakshmi.

Grandma would insist on cooking all manner of exotic dishes to pamper herself (I think) as much as to pamper us, who were easily pleased with simpler fare. It obviously had tremendous memories and associations for her because she would inexplicably smile and hum just as she would scowl and scold! The pooja done (which she did not participate in, being a widow) and the naivedyam offered, she would relax a bit and finally sing an invocation, which in her excited but tired voice would often sound like a sad dirge.

Evening all manner of women and girls would have to be invited for the customary haldi kumkuma. And this was a tricky part. My sister would have definite likes dislikes and would specify who was to be invited and who was to be excludd. This would result in a battle of wills between mom and her and at times grandma too, with little me as a go between!

The celebration would be repeated year after year, unvarying in its pattern and pomp. Then my brother got married and his wife soon got assimiliated into this annual ritual. After my marriage, I too kept up with this with my mother-in-law. She too would cook elaborate meals outsourcing all the decorative stuff to me. Till a recent long hiatus. Now my f-i-l has passed on and m-i-l is a widow living in a different city far from me. These poojas are so NOT you, I am told by some friends who wonder how I could particiapate in rituals which may not hold much relevance and significance for me.

Yet I have the idol's face m-i-l bestowed on me and children who need a legacy from me. The link continues.