Thank you 2012! And Hi 2013 :-D

WHOA... Did another year just fly by? Was it just a year 'coz it felt like a lifetime!! Looking back at my last post in 2011 it looked like things could not change any more. Clearly 2012 was not gonna be shown up a year that was so last year! ;-) So I went on another roller coaster ride, even more terrifying with the kind of ups and downs which makes you feel like your face is gonna get blown away in the momentum! But I survived. Actually, No. I did better than survive. I got crushed, bruised, had a few of my emotional teeth knocked out. But with a lot of help from my friends and family, I got up, brushed off the dirt and the best part, laughed about it. And boy, was it hard! But boy, was it so worth it!

So this last post is for all kickass people who helped me smile! This post is for a big, Big, BIG

I have no idea whom to start with, so in random order...

Chinch - Sweetie, you are a hundred miles away but I love you for the fact that you are always reachable and always there. For being both the comfort and the sharp reminder to keep strong and move on.


Annie Mathew :  I think the most of what I said about Chinch applies to you too. Then again I'm not surprised both of you being birthday twins!! :) Of course, you are your own brand of 'pat and whack' but I know I could not have done it without you!

Chinnu and Elu : For just being the mad cap sisters you are. For the times you never realise how much energy and joy you bring into a room. For the times you never realise how much it means to me.

Akhila : :(  Who'll understand my half sentences? Who'll make me kanji-paiyer when I'm sick and make me feel pampered? Who'll.. never mind.. you know how long that list is. I'm just incredibly glad we had the time we had together. God, I'll miss you. So freaking much!!!

Maria: I don't think you know how much of a role model you are to me. In a world where there doesn't seem to be a lot of people who you can look up to and want to be like, I'm just so happy I have you!

For the Blore Boys, ie Renju and Mani : We are not the closest of friends and we don't get to hang out as much either, but just knowing you guys, Mani with his forever enthu eloquence and Renju with his calm composed demenur, are around the corner if ever we needed help was an unbelievable reassurance.  Something I'll sorely miss :(

Eapen : It means a hell lot to me that I have talked it out with you and we are friends again. Maybe I'll never get back my best friend again, but you are pretty great as just a friend and I would hate to lose that. So thank you!

Vijay : For making me laugh about all the complicated relationship statuses and situations; for keeping my sanity and the countless hours of advice, both useful and useless. For just being a friend I'm really proud to have!

My out of towner boys ie Peppy, Thiru and Don : My sunshine!! The boys who can't help me but make me smile like mad no matter how down I'm feeling. Pretty please, stay the same with the annoying (yet secretly delightful) ways always!!

Bobby Uncle and Lourdsy Aunty : For being the sweetest, kindest and most understanding people I know. For raising kids who are an absolute joy to know and to love!

Uncle G and Teena Ammayi : For the fact that you reached out even when you were abroad. For the fact that you reached out and helped me feel like I'm not alone. For reaching out and bridging gaps when certain bull-headed people were being, well, bull headed! :)

Amma : Well, for being everything you been, even the time I dint couldn't see it or appreciate it. I just don't have the words to thank you enough.

Alex : hmmm... this is a tough cookie. So I'm gonna steal something which pretty much says what I have to say. It's from "As Good as It Gets",  one of my all time favorite movies! And I love the scene with Jack Nicholson when he takes Helen Hunt out for a real date, because I think This is how I feel pretty much all the time when I try to say something nice. And in case you were wondering, I'm Nicolson! :-)



Melvin Udall: I've got a really great compliment for you, and it's true. 
Carol Connelly: I'm so afraid you're about to say something awful. 
Melvin Udall: Don't be pessimistic, it's not your style. Okay, here I go: Clearly, a mistake. I've got this, what - ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I *hate* pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I'm using the word "hate" here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never... all right, well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills. 
Carol Connelly: I don't quite get how that's a compliment for me. 
Melvin Udall: You make me want to be a better man.



And Last and Most Importantly, I want to thank God! For having given me these people in my life! There's not enough words to express my gratefulness for all that's been 2012, the good ,the bad and the ugly!

And I Pray and Hope 2013 is so much more!

Wish you all a fantastic year ahead! Yet another year choke full of memories and stories.

Review: Anita Nair's Mistress

Anita Nair's 'Good Night and God Bless' is one of my favorites when it comes to nighttime reads, just before sleep, or one of those books you just dip into when you just have a few minutes to wait. Rather like the chocolate mint on your pillow in the nicer hotels, a nice refreshing taste before a good night's rest. But her 'The Better man' left me very disappointed. The main character put me to sleep and the rest of the cast was not very well etched. The main feeling I remember when I finished the book was relief! So I was a little sceptical about picking up something on the novel side again, but the fact that she did write 'Good Night and..' seemed good enough reason to give her another chance.

To begin with, Mistress has come a long way from The Better Man. She's paced herself well in Mistress, Anita Nair. I loved her take of the 3 different perspectives for the situations.. kinda like a emotional kaleidoscope.Same mirrors and the same bangle bits, but one turn and you have another unique pattern entirely different from the one before. And she's added just enough kathakali techniques to remind you very vaguely of Marquez's 100 years. I think she's added that right amount of magic surrealism which is what actually raises the book above the otherwise cliched storyline ( boy-girl-bad marriage-she cheats) without seeming over ambitious. 

Also loved the exploration of the 9 emotions of dance. I think those short introductions for the navarasas were her chance to indulge in her lyrical best. And for someone from Kerala,it surprises and delights you the familiar landscape being imbibed with a new emotions. Like the quiet fury of the woodpecker or the derision of the December winds.

The only thing I would complain about, though it's not a critic, is the fact that I could not place what the author wanted from the characters. Are we supposed to empathise with Radha, who in my perspective turns from estranged and misunderstood wife to an intellectual snob and pardon my french, selfish bitch; or are we supposed to resent Shyam,the cuckold husband, with his typical overbearing malayali chauvinistic trappings which turn out to be a sheild to protect the surprisingly more sensitive and fragile emotional ecosystem he had grown up and lives in? Or as in some cases,has the author given us the freedom to choose the perspective which suits us the best?! Nor are we clear about the 'Sahiv' Chris's motivations and intentions for starting the affair. And after all the build up, the relationship between the Uncle ( who btw provides the 3rd perspective of the book) and his father remain unexplored. But then again I'm not sure if that's another kathakali technique which I might have not understood.

But in Nair's defence, the lack of clarity is not because of her language or writing( which is crisp yet 

Anita Nair : A lovely voice from God's own Country!

retains a certain flow and grace) but is because the characters themselves are for the most parts confused souls and is never really sure of their feelings and to end their confusion picks up the most dominant emotions and decide, 'this is it, this is what I feel', which I feel is how predominantly how the world works unconsciously, whether it admits it or not! That confusion and corresponding joy or panic of the decision is what made the otherwise bland characters seem so alive to me.

All in all, it was a book I enjoyed a lot. To take something that is so familiar (and we all know what feeling that usually breeds)and imbibe new emotions and colors and life is a unique talent. She also reminds you that there might be no such things as true feelings only differing perspectives. I think it's well worth a read to enjoy that realisation.

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!