Good bye 2011! Hello 2012 :-)

It's the last day of the year. Did some major cleaning so that the new year is swanky clean..well, least the house! :-) Starting on a clean new slate.


Still got some time on my hands after all the cleaning. Not going for a party. Want a quiet evening at home with a couple of friends.. except the couple of friends are all out.. partying :-/


So I guess it's time to sit and ponder. Get philosophical over a glass of wine. Look at all the things that was 2011. To say the least - a roller coaster ride. 

I don't know if I would call it a good year, but it was definitely a memorable one. One that I will not forget for so many reasons. When I take it apart I can't believe that it all happened in just one year. 

This was 2011!
Courtsey: www.sodahead.com

Some highlights: 

• Last trimester of MBA 'M'
• Bryan Adams Concert
• Valentine's day
• Exams
• Getting a job
• Mad Birthday!
• Graduation
• Missing friends after they have left
• New room mate
• Starting work
• Losing some friends :-(
• Girls' Night outs
• Trips to Hampi and other random places
• Finding some lost friends :-D
• Painting the house
• Quitting work
• The usual dose of family drama over marriage
• Starting something new on your own
• Mom and sis home for Chirstmas
• Some more drama and now here I am!

I don't know if 2012 is the end of the world, but end of 2011 was/is the end of my world as I have known it.

Possibilities and challenges that are so new it's terrifying; yet in parts exhilarating.

So here's my wish for 2012 - For both of us:  

That all the pain and hurt turn itself into some beautiful and creative. 

That you draw inspiration from the possibilities instead of being bogged down by the challenges. 

This should be the year we stop worrying about petty differences and plunge wholeheartedly into making dreams come true. 

This should be the year that we make as many people smile as possible. 

That it should be a year we'll never forget. 

Happy New Year's and God Bless All!

Some Tangy Moments!

Sometimes it’s not the most elaborate affairs that steal your senses, but the simplest. And sometimes all you need is the memory of a taste or a smell to take you away to a time, place, era. For me, it’s the tamarind.

Everyday, on the way to my office I pass this huge tamarind tree laden with  bunches of dusky dusty brown fruit just beyond my reach. Everyday I promise myself one of these days I’m going to bury my dignity and clamber away to the top and satisfy my cravings for the sticky ripe sour-sweet pulp inside. Just like a child. But adult dignity is hard to give up and yet another day passes with nothing more than faint aroma of nostalgia and disappointment.

I had no idea that it was preying on my mind so much till I came across Anita Nair’s Goodnight and God Bless. This is one lady who share so much in common with me that I sometimes wonder if she’s one of my siblings lost at the mela. Apart from a love of Blossoms, the books store in Church street and Chennai this lady has fond memories of the tamarind which is so close to my feelings that I could not help but wonder if she had dipped her pen into my brain before putting these lines on to paper:

Excerpt from Goodnight and God Bless – Seventeen:

“Ever since I was a little girl, I have had a great fondness for tamarind. I like the tree. The teardrop leaves and almost black branches. I like the notion that ghosts and ghouls liked to  inhabit it’s branches… I like the adage that likened a good prospective groom or bride to a well laden tamarind branch. Perhaps what I liked was the physical and metaphysical merged to create a universe and a sersatile one at that. But mostly what I love about the tamarind was the fruit itself.

A moment of heaven and happiness

I liked them green when the tartness made your teeth ache…I liked them semi ripe when each mouthful was a conundrum of: Was that sweet or was that sour? I liked them ripe when the flesh sticks to your fingers as your peel the dry shin off in bits and each mouthful is a taste of heaven…

When my cousins raided the store cupboard in my grandmother’s home for busicuits or jackfruit chips, I was content to dip my hand into the deep earthenware jar in which tamarind was strored. The glistening black, sundried tamarind speckled with rock salt crystals to this day evokes memories of still summer afternoons when the heat paused even the crows’ caw. Of childhood days when you though the world stood on it’s axis and would never move.And you ached to be a grown up…”

The clincher when I read this the first time was the raiding of the tamarind jar. In my gran’s house it was not an earthen ware, but a short, squat little glass jar with a red plastic cover. I could not help but grin from ear to ear thinking of the “raids” that was planned late in the afternoons by me, my sister and my cousin to get a ball of black ‘heaven’;  away under the very noses of the servants while my gran blissfully caught up with her beauty sleep ( which meant one less hawk eyed obstacle to cross!)

Another marvellous memory is going to my native place and clambering up the tree away from the prying eyes of adults and stuffing yourself till you are holding your stomach in agony. But that never stops you from returning the very next day to do the same because the temptation for biting into the soft brown skin is just too much.

But it’s not just the love of the fruit in it’s raw form. I love cooking with it as well. I love mixing it water to make the pulp for making rasam or better still, my new favorite, vatha kozhambu. I love how the tamarind melts to the soft brown almost muddy liquid which goes into making the best compliments for a plate of soft fluffy rice with a dollop of ghee on top.

Like I was saying, tamarind- the taste, texture,feel- is a chapter in nostagia and childhood memories.

So do you have a similar chapter in your life, triggered by a bite or smell of something disarmingly simple? If you do, do share your ‘imli’ stories!

The secret hand book of Moms

Have you ever had a discussion with your friends where you are talking about the impossibilities your mom used to threaten you with as a child and have the entire gang go,’ I KNOW!!!!’? Or gone to a friend’s place and found that her mom nags her exactly the way your grandmom does, though her mom is saying it in hindi while your gran used to harangue you in Malayalam? I always used to wonder how is that moms’ across the country have the same idea. I kinda dismissed it as a common cultural thing ( though to be very honest there is little else similarity between my gran and Parvinder Aunty).

But as the world started to get smaller and my views broader (thanks to cable tv and books.. later internet), I could not help noticing that putting aside language, moms’ across the world nag/threaten/cajole/pet saying pretty much the same thing. Growing up( in my household), the ultimate prophesy of doom was that you’d end up a sweeper if you don’t study. And as a child I never really understood why it was so bad because it seemed a blithe enough an existence to do nothing but sweep. I thought you’d be getting off easy rather than studying another 4-5 years to be an engineer or doctor.

Years later, after 4 years of engineering, part of a new batch of trainees for an I.T company I found myself surrounded by people from all 4 geographies of India. That was one of the best times of my life, to be part of that training, especially the batch I was put in. For a whole lot of girls that was the first time they were away from home, but no one was home sick. Boys and girls would sit late into the night playing off key anthaskari, ‘truth or dare’ at 4 in the morning on unsuspecting and extremely sleepy people leading to hilarious consequences. And of course, marathon conversations which covered everything under the sun, including moms. And it was there that I found replace ‘sweeper’ with ‘chaprasi’ or ‘cooking lady’ in another language and you have more or less got someone else, or rather everyone’s mom! :-/

And reading Amy Tan’s books, you really wonder if she actually talking about Chinese moms or Indian moms coz you really can’t see the difference.

It can’t be sheer coincidence, right? Moms across the world? Only one thing sounded plausible to me. Like the bible, there’s yet another book which has practically been translated into every language known : the secret handbook of moms. I believe as soon as  someone is known to be a mom, some guardian of the code comes and gives her a book under oath that it not to be shared with anyone who is not a mother. It’s a mass conspiracy I tell you. Mothers around the world, united in their cause to shape up someone worth leaving behind. Not that it’s not a worthy cause, but does the ends justify the means? Was so convinced, that I did a mini raid in my house for the book because if any mom is likely to forget where it is and misplace it( or think that she did), it’s my mom!! But the fact that I could not find din’t detract me, in fact it only convinced me the deviousness and ruthlessness with which the organisation works. It fact I think that there is only one copy of the book in every language and that the new mom has to memorise the whole thing before passing it on. You can ask me how is that possible in the day and age of population explosion, but I ask you, is it really that difficult in the day and age of internet??

But to be honest I don’t think it’s a online copy. I think it’s hard copy, a physical thing infused with the power of moms over the ages. It’s probably more like an infectious magical entity. I’m not entirely sure how to imagine an object encapsulating all the wisdom of all the moms. It has to be awe inspiring to the point of being just a wee little frightening while still remaining a thing of great beauty. Kinda like Aslan the lion from Narnia.Something which would disintegrate if touched by anyone who doesn't hold the awesome kind of love and heart that only a mother would have. ( Try breaking that code, Hackers!!)

But then again, with kids like me, I think they would need all the help in the world :-) And only the collective wisdom would rein in and reign over my kind!End of the day, we love our moms ( in fact, if I go home and they don't nag I feel out of place!)

and hope we are half as good as the ones we've had and there's actually a hand book to help us out!

What do you think?!

What curves do to me!

Research has finally found why they have sexy women in casinos- men have the same brain area allocated to sex and money. :-/ Which is why they have all these sexy hostesses in casinos because something about humping them and spending more is linked in a twisted primitive way. 

I've not gambled yet, nor (unfortunately)* am I attracted to women. But there are a particular set of curves, when I see them makes me want to hump as well. This is a confession, and but not the kind you think. Ok, well..I'm not sure what you are thinking, but it's not something perverted (Yeah, I know you are secretly disappointed!).. well.. not entirely.( Feeling better? ;-D)

I'm talking about cars. But not just any car, it has to be one of those sleek feline shaped machines. They usually come under the auspices of BMW, Audi for me. There's something about the lines on them that I just want to run my hand over sensually knowing that there would nothing on them which would jar my senses. Funny thing is, it's not just a physical thing. The engineer in me is just thrilled at the seamless coming together of design and function. The visual is just so perfect and then the purring of the engine... that's practically dirty talk!...How in the world are you not supposed to feel turned on?

Back in my home town, I din't care about cars one bit. I'm the kind of dunce who can't make out the difference between an Indica and Wagon R or even a Santro. I just can't. They all are boxes you use to get from one place to another. I still cant. I know Maruti 800 and Maruti Zen. If someone asked me what car we had I I'm most likely to tell you it's a big car or a small car [ depending on when you asked me]. And what color it is. That is it! I've covered the entire expanse of my knowledge concerning the make of cars.

Courtsey: carplanet.tk

But I remember the first time I feel in love with a car. My ex's place. Had got him a subscription to Auto Mag.  When I went over to his place I wanted to see what was that I was presenting, so took up the  mag and was flipping though it when my eyes feel on , well, according to me, Art! A black shiny drop of a car against a satin ribbon of a road set amidst the hills..A  panoramic long shot which came me GooseBumps!  

I read, rather gobbled up all the information I could about the car- Honda Civic, Not yet launched in India etc etc. That's the first car post 2000 that I could recognised on the road without seeing the bumper!

Courtsey: carplanet.tk

But it was when I moved to Bangalore in 2009 that I realllly started seeing CARS!! Chic BMWs, Sexed-out Audis, flipping over the occasional Lamborghini (I nearly tripped and fell watching this one go by.. so the flipping bit was quite literal!) Not Mercs though. They look a little too bulky for my tastes...and GAWD-I-cant-stop-drooling Jaguar!!!  Remember reading in a literotic story (oh please.. dont look so shocked.. like you never read one! :-P ) this guy talking about a girl with a Jag of an ass. It was an odd enough simile for it to stick in my head, but I think the moment when I fully appreciated the weight of the complement is when I finally saw the bloody car. It's Big, It's Mighty and have I mentioned GAWD-I-cant-stop-drooling Sexy!!

The crazy thing is that I don't think I'm the only one out there. I've asked others just to reassure myself that this is practically normal, and surprisingly... it seems it is! :-/ ( or so my friend reassure me)

So were they being nice.. or is it true for you too?

* Face it.. they just smell nicer.. all the time! You have to feel the loss if you are not attracted to them!

Character!

you seen the movie ' high fidelity'?? there is one dialog which everytime i watch that movie i see part of the dialog least 10 time ,rewinding it again and again coz i just cant get over it.

Rob: Top five things I miss about Laura. One; sense of humor. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she's got one of the best all time laughs in the history of all time laughs, she laughs with her entire body. Two; she's got character. Or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She's loyal and honest, and she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character.
[holds up three fingers]
Rob: Three;
[long pause, hesitantly]
Rob: I miss her smell, and the way she tastes. It's a mystery of human chemistry and I don't understand it, some people, as far as their senses are concerned, just feel like home.
[shakes his head, recollecting, then looks back and lip synchs 'four' while holds up four fingers] 


Rob: I really dig how she walks around. It's like she doesn't care how she looks or what she projects and it's not that she doesn't care it's just, she's not affected I guess, and that gives her grace. And five; she does this thing in bed when she can't get to sleep, she kinda half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal numberof times... it just kills me. Believe me, I mean, I could do a top five things about her that drive me crazy but it's just your garden variety women you know, schizo stuff and that's the kind of thing that got me here. 



the first time i heard this dialog, all i could think was this is who i really want to be.. is there is one thing people have to say , this should be it,'she doesn't even take it out on people when she's having a bad day. That's character.'.. and everytime i see the movie i listen to the whole dialog again and again.. i think on some sub-consious level i'm trying to imagine myself as the person being talked about.. least god knows i badly want to be.. and i know i've failed miserably when it comes to that.. but i'm an incurable optimist about the power of self.. no matter what has happened in life i do feverishly believe that my life will what i want it to be, or least i can be who i want to be.. so i've flunked half a dozen tests before,and i'll flunk the next few as well, but does it matter if you do pass one day?


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This is something I had written to a friend quite some time back. Read it today and felt like sharing it! :-D

Every Girl has her Yellow Boots...

Saw Anurag Kashyap's That Girl in Yellow Boots.[Spoiler Alert]

 It's a very hard movie to pin down. For one, I'm still undecided whether I like it or not and for someone who has an opinion on everything under the sun, it's a mighty odd feeling. It's disturbing for sure, and not a movie I would recommend for everyone. Kalki is her usual brilliant self as the lost girl and so are the rest of the cast. It's hard to believe that it's Prasant Prakash's first movie and Gulshan Devaiya [ one who plays the kanadiga mobster] was priceless!! The only problem with the movie is the ending. It's too disturbing and a wee bit far fetched that the the father she lost was also her stalker. I mean how did he find her?! How did he/could her have known that she was coming to India to look for him? I hate movies with loose threads (unless it's left deliberately for the audience to solve!)

For me, it was less about a girl looking for her father, and more about a girl looking to be taken care of. For me it's the scene with her outburst which sums up the movie; and the secret forlorn wish of every woman out there. The build up to the outburst is just about perfect. Her voice is sweet and calm while asking her boyfriend with his self imposed chaining if he want anything to eat. Even when she has to clean up after him she appears composed, in spite of the taunts. It's his assumption that he knows her and what she's all about that ticks her off.

The script for that scene is brilliant according to me. It's something I've heard from every other girl I've known, the jist of it. It doesn't matter from where she is, but as a girl she's been asked to bend, compromise, give, give up herself for making life easier for people around her. And she does too. All the while dreaming of that one person with whom she'd be nothing but herself. To have someone who gives as freely as she does. Someone who will take care of her without asking something in return. To love and be loved unconditionally.

But we are flawed creatures. We, while having the capacity for unconditional love, are conditioned not to give anything without a price. And while not in such dramatic force as Ruth's revelation, it hits us all the same way, the disappointment- that unconditional love is myth; fairy tales told to make life easier because we all need that little bird Hope singing to get through!

I still don't know if I like the movie or not. The ending is still very hard to accept. But I think it gives a brief glimpse, a rare insight into what women are.

Musing on "The house of Blue Mangoes"

Started David Davidar's first novel.

This is not a review. More like my thought processes while going though the book. [This is my Spoiler Alert!]

Parts of it reminds me of Marquez's'100 years of solitude'. This one is more grounded than Marquez's fable, but the moment with the kingfisher took my breathe away.

The beginning shook me a little because I assumed [very wrongly] the pace would be more like 'The house for Mr. Biswas'. Judging a book by the title I guess is equally misleading.

And I was not prepared for vividness of the history when he talks about 'as European historians later put more modestly, the breast cloth wars'.  What struck me the most was how his women react. Set in roughly in the beginning of the 20th century, their reactions are uncannily like how women in the new modern Shining Indian still react.

But once I set myself to be a tad bit more objective reader and a bit less of an empathetic reader, it was delightful. With every page I turn I'm finding it more compelling. Esp. when he speaks though Padre [ as the English priest is called] and Charity.

Like the priest I know the mechanics of our culture, the caste system - but the emotional logic escapes me; in spite of having found my peace(?) with it, rather having lived all my life within the society which still clings on to it, it remains an alien concept to me.

As for Charity, it's funny that a 21st century, educated, employed, independent woman finds an echo in the thoughts and fears, especially the fears, of small town, uneducated house wife from the last century. How much of the world has really changed for women if I find myself facing the same fears? Sometimes I wonder if all the talk about women empowerment is merely another illusion of control we think we have over our lives?

---------------------
[edit on 13/9/11]

I'm not entirely sure why I'm surprised that the book should have a chapter entirely dedicated, rather obsessed with mangoes, given that the book itself is called House of Blue MANGOES!!?
I should have read it in summer. Now it's torturous to read about it and not be sinking in your teeth into lump of gold and sunshine! :-|

Chivalry... Why art thou dead?!

The other day me and my muse got into bit of tiff. She wanted me to have a go at the story with a chivalrous man as the central character; set in the present day!! I told her that even fantasy fiction has it's limits. 'Face it dear.. Chivalry is DEAD!'. She huffed and puffed but there are somethings about our times which you just cant change.

Just to make sure, I went and asked the girls to name a few chivalrous men they knew. Sure enough, they came up with a few name: Mr. Darcy; Sir Lancelot; Walter Raleigh. So I rephrased my question to name a few chivalrous men they knew for real, in the present age and time. They smirked and giggled like I just asked for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! :-|

And just to reconfirm, I went to the All-Knowing-One, ie Google. The results*: 99.9% of all pictures turned out to be either cartoons/paintings/black and white photos :-/

No, I needed no more proof.

But I could not help wondering what exactly led to it's demise. Then out of the corner of my mind, the corner which stores random information about random people, I could remember people being chivalrous to one girl in particular. In fact a lot of guys used to fall over each other to try and help her. I know what you are thinking..She was cute, but not that cute. So I probed into the why. Why her? What is it about her that sent men all the way back to the Authurian Age?

Hmmm. She's just like any other girl when there are just girls around. But put anything remotely resembling a male in her vicinity and then suddenly she turns into new born Bambi!! Pupils widen; a certain languidness about her which makes her look like she's gonna fall any second; movements become clumsier and the clumsiness results in pouty lips or giggles and down cast eyes [ I have not been able to find the logic which dictates when pouty lips and when giggles are appropriate] ; and of course, for the life of her she cant do anything without the help of a 'strong, masculine hand' . The overly sweet,simpering temperament!!


Wait a second. Did I just describe the classic 'damsel in distress'? 0_o

Is that why knights are long dead and gone? Because damsels in distress are far and few in the post feminist world?? Do they feel out of place if they don't have someone to rescue?? Am I to understand that the independent women don't need chilvary? Did.. [hushed tones]..Did women kill chivalry?


Well, I guess common sense dictates that, 'of course independent women don't need chivalry!' Does that mean  they are averse to it? I doubt that. After which girl doesn't dream of being treated like a lady.
But does that mean she can't have it in her terms?

Hmm.. what exactly are her terms? I think this is where it goes awry. Standard ones are opening doors, pulling out the chair, offering to pay the bill, offering to carry something heavy when she's tired. But there's always this sect of women who snub the guy by saying 'Do I look incapable?'#glare#
I think for the sheer confusion which is created by what is chivalrous and what is questioning her ability to fend for her self, made men decide it's not worth it. They are simple creatures who are feel their very existence is threatened by confusion. After all, they are MEN. They grunt and decide. No namby pamby wondering which way to go.
And maybe that is why it is only for the absolute 'Bambi' type females, who are unlikely to spurn them thus that they venture forth to try.

Sigh.

It's a sad state of affairs. But maybe there'd be enough men out there who are not looking to validate their manliness and just be polite for politeness sake and help out the girls; whether she asks or not. Coz the secret is irrespective of what she says and does, she's thrilled in her heart's core when you do those little things!

Musings on 'The Opposite of Fate'

Reading Amy Tan's The opposite of Fate. So far, Love it.*

I have read the Joy Luck Club but fortunately or unfortunately I saw the movie and as it happens often with the order of movie-then-book, the celluloid imagery blocked a large portion of my own visuals/imagination from being created. So there was not much to compare. I remember that the movie was well made and the book, well written. So in a way, this is my first taste of Tan in writing.

This is drastically different from her fiction, because the voice and the context is quite clearly American[ and she keeps insisting that she's an American writer and not a Chinese American one] and there are few situations which are not doled out with heaps of humour, irrespective of when she's talking about. I love the fact that bits and pieces of what she's written seems to have been taken out from her dairy. The tone is almost conspiratorial, like she's sharing moments or disclosing secrets with a close friend, you the reader.

And I love what she writes about. About being a cynical ghost believer to a rock band member. And the trials and tribulations of being the American daughter of a Chinese Mother. While custom wise, China and India are poles apart, cultural reasoning [ by that I mean the reasons behind a particular custom/cultural icon etc] is quite similar. And for that reason I'm able to identify with her, because I've heard my own versions of ills befalling a disobedient girl from my mother/grandmother.

But what I like best about the book is that she openly admits that she writes for herself. Least reading the essays, I had a feeling that she's someone who writes for herself and even if her first book had not got publlished or worse, not got read, she would still have written the rest.

When I write, I write for me more than anything else in the world. Communicating what I have to say is only part of the story, it's far more important that I have a clear idea of my thoughts and emotions, and writing helps me to do just that. I have to give it form and structure, a flow and all of it makes it so much more tangible which in turn helps to clarify who,what,where I am.

Whenever I have told this to someone, they exude displeasure which conveys what I'm doing is selfish and that's not how it's supposed to be. I've always been of the opinion only of you write for yourself will you be most dispassionate and give the most honest opinion you have. Else we'd be trying to adjust or compromise our opinion to fit in some way to the other person. Somehow that she writes for herself first and everyone else second gave me a sense of validation. Maybe validation is the wrong word.. I think it's more of ..ummm.. finding a kindred spirit. That's a unique feeling when you find someone ; a touch of relief mingled with joy, perhaps not just in knowing that you are not the only one, but because in it's own way it's you finding the common thread, a wisp, that runs though the soul of the universe as well. Least that how I feel when I come across someone who knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Anyways, That's about the sum of things on Tan.
Take care


*Finished it too. Still Fabulous! :-D

To Blog or Not to Blog.. that is the question...

I wonder how Shakespeare feels about the whole thing; about how everyone uses every other line written by him and hijack it and paraphrase [ to use the term most loosely] into whatever context they want. Or worse, write some shitty line and attribute the inspiration or the line itself to him. 

But that his problem. And my problem is that I have not yet started and yet I've digressed from where I wanted to go.

It's been a long time coming. It's been a long drawn out [internal] debate on whether or not I should be imposing yet another blog with yet another random thought on the wide,wild web. It was a stale mate for the longest time between arguments which run along socialistic views [ No.. dont you dare put up coz you know you are gonna succumb like everyone else and write whiny posts about inane stuff like rain ruining your shoes, which no one wants to hear!!] and narcissistic ones [ Hey, I can write better posts than thaaattt! And I promise not to write about rains and shoes.. and heart of hearts, dont you really want to just see how popular it might just get? *]

Finally, like an epiphany, it hit me. What's the worst that could happen? So, it will be just another blog with [godforbid] whiny posts about things that no one other than shallow, self centered people care about. Ok.. It sounded damn casual in my head, but written down it sounds BaaaD! Do I really want people to know just how shallow or self centered I am? :-| Ultimately, truth is, it matters very little. So people will finally close off that nagging doubt that Phil is lazy or [ insert your favorite 'Phil' trait which is equally unfortunate and annoying but bearable]** But they'll love me all the better for have known a little bit more about me. [ or maybe they wont, but I've been reasonably lucky that way..So not too worried!]

Well, the long drawn out point was, I finally got down to it. Hope if not actually engaging it will least be endearing. ie if laziness of my muse doesn't hamper me too severely.

So take care and [hopefully]see you soon enough**

Phil![and the lazy muse!]

*Blogs are the modern day equivalent of diaries which we kept as kids in the hope that one day it'll be the literary successor of "Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl".

**I'm already guilty of the habit of addressing ghost readers. Internet Gods, Save my blog!