Mon carnet

We're talking real blackberries here

2011-07-27T09:41:00.002+05:30

It was a very hot July afternoon and we were hungry and groggy, having taken the early morning flight from Charlotte to Washington D.C. Google maps had made us get off one metro stop too early for the second time (the first time was in Paris) and we were lugging our bags around with no clue about how much farther away our hotel was. There was a whole line of Ethiopian restaurants on the street but they were all closed as it was past lunchtime when, miraculously, we came across the cheerful looking Cafe Saint Ex almost yelling to us to come on in already in a slight but very endearing French accent.

I really must add a bit of background right here to address the crucial question of why write about the prosaic incident of finding a cafe while walking around in Washington D.C. A few years ago, when I was still a student, my French lessons had become my outlet for my limited imagination and I used to find myself gladly conjugating verbs in the subjonctif imparfait and writing something about how la vie sucked and not completing my practical record for Statistics, which was one of my majors in graduation. Those French classes had all the appeal to make me want to spend all my time learning the language - a) It was French b) It would not help me one bit in earning my real degree in Statistics, Math and Economics. At some point during our fourth year of learning French, we were asked to review a book and present it to the class. That was the time I briefly gave up on doing everything and limited myself to reading and re-reading Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

The book, written in the 1930s is about the pilot Fabien who works for a commercial airmail company in Argentina and is tasked with flying out during a storm to deliver mail. His boss Riviere has committed to himself to take on the most fearful risks to make commercial airmail more viable than other means of delivery such as rail or road. He is undeterred even when some of his pilots have lost their lives just to adhere to his instructions of departing on time irrespective of what the weather is like. The narrative is very simple and presents the story from the point of view of Fabien, Riviere and Fabien's wife. All I remember now are disconnected passages - about how Fabien is able to see the porch of a house from his lonely perch in the middle of the night sky and wonders if the person in that house knows that someone many miles up in the sky watched the lights of their house go off, the other about how he looks at the stars all around him and takes in the bejewelled death trap he is in after he realises that he is going to die in the storm that he knew about even before taking off.

This book was published in 1933 and in 1944, Saint-Exupery, who had previously been a pilot himself, died almost the very same way Fabien did, except that he was on a mission to get intelligence from Germany for the Allies. After that obsessive compulsive reading of Vol de Nuit, I chanced upon the ultimate work of published genius that is The Little Prince by Saint-Ex and that permanently altered the rank-ordering of the Greatest People Ever that is a running list in my head.

And that afternoon, when we entered the cafe, there were models of what seemed like WW1 and WW2 aircrafts and propellers hanging down from the ceiling, there were pictures of Antoine de Saint-Exupery and I ate the best French toast with blackberry compote in the world. The bookshelf they had there wasn't as big as it should have been for a place like that. But then I took one more bite of the toast and looked all around me and knew that while life would largely want to make me scibble furiously about the many ways in which it goes wrong, this was one of those rare moments, like the lining up of major celestial bodies in a straight line is for astronomers, which I had to soak in entirely and carefully note down.

Zinda har pyaar rahen

2011-05-22T09:20:00.003+05:30

It is day 4 in Vina del Mar, Chile, our new home and we feel like we have been here a while already, and I mean that in a good way. The people here are among the friendliest I have come across anywhere. I do not see why everyone everywhere cannot be as nice as Vina del Marians. Owing to the proximity of the Indian features and skin tone to the Latin American ones, we are constantly mistaken for localites and people go on to utter a few sentences in rapid Spanish before we can sadly remind them that we know 'no espanol'. We are working on learning Spanish as it is embarrassing to be at the receiving end of such warmth and to not be able to communicate in the local language.

We have been exploring the area around where we live and that mainly comprises of long walks along the sparkling blue Pacific. Yesterday, while walking around and taking pictures, we came across some very friendly street dogs. One of them invited himself into a game of beach volleyball that two boys were playing and jumped cheerfully towards the sky every single time one of them served. He reminded me so much of Jolly, our very friendly canine friend in Bangalore who had none of the cautious judiciousness of street dogs and was always too happy to welcome anyone into our home. She is really a Latina in her soul, that one.

Stepping back a bit and taking in the larger picture - we have moved to Chile - that oddly shaped country I knew nothing about 4 months ago! There is a certain definiteness around new beginnings that comes from moving into a new country, which does not come with invented mileposts such as New Years and birthdays. While I am always the brooding, over-analysing, inwardly nitpicking kind, I find that an overwhelming change of physical scenery can help me snap out of a phase and at the very least, attempt to forget the people and events that have turned me into a radically cynical adult. It is also easier to completely write off others' judgements and the need for validation in a place where there really is nobody else whose opinion can matter in my decisions (my other half obviously does not come under 'others' ). Long haul flights provide just the right ambience for soul-searching with all those clouds floating past and with the sense of not belonging to any real time-zone. In the journey to Chile, I thought of all the people who have known and cared for me for the longest time now and how I want to be seen in their eyes as the person they have always known me to be and not as this icy, reticent person I sometimes find myself to be. So many words that have been held back at all the wrong times, so many hugs I should have gotten up and given.

Vina del mar is Spanish for 'Vineyard by the sea' and gets its name from all the famous vineyards around here. We helped ourselves to a glass of the exquisite local red wine tonight. A part of all this is probably the wine talking. In the spirit of wine-induced clichés, *raises her glass* this one is for new beginnings.

The back drive

2010-12-14T13:02:00.012+05:30

My college has long driveways leading up from the main and back gates to the main porch. There are these short elevated stone platforms lining the entire stretch of the two drives for students to sit on. These drives, as they have come to be called, are arguably the backdrop of nearly everyone’s most enduring memories of their time in college. I do believe that these drives made all the difference in giving my college the kind of personality that came to be associated with it. The back drive in particular was the zone of simply letting go. It is shadier than the front drive because of the older, bigger trees there and it used to get filled up quickly with people during any kind of leisure break or unpopular classes.

My best memories of college are sitting on that drive and having the most engrossing conversations with my best friend, or sometimes just watching the world go by with a book in our hands. We were a part of a bigger group of friends and it was common for us all to sit out a few hours of the day on that drive. We were also always within earshot of the other groups of people around us and we would often see someone from somewhere else laugh out loud at something funny one of us had said, leaving the funny person feeling terribly pleased about her comic skills or hear someone else continue a song one of us had started to hum. I remember this one day when one of the many stray dogs that our college had adopted had a long loud sneezing bout in the middle of the drive. Everyone on the drive had gone completely quiet to watch him and cheered for him once he stopped. He sheepishly ran away from our sight, not knowing how to receive the sudden attention. I remember being able to sit back on that drive and letting go of all the small big worries that came when graduation started seeming more like a tangible reality than a distant hurdle and being able to slowly accept circumstances at one severe low point in my life. Most of all, I remember all of us being completely at ease with and totally unapologetic for the people we were and having a lot of fun together, perhaps much more than some of the others we knew. Some of the sweatshirts of our college had “God is a woman” written on them and that probably defines the highly charged air we breathed within the college walls.

Today, with a few years of Real Life having happened to me, I realize just how important that experience was. My friends from college are still some of the nicest, most motivated, interesting and happy people I know. It is hard to imagine that somewhere during all those hours spent giggling and discussing the most trivial of issues, we grew up emotionally. In the spirit of the person I was back then, I will not apologise for being judgmental now and admit that I now know of so many people who did not get that kind of growing experience for whatever reason that might have been and are now adults who have just not grown up, and that is not in an endearing “keeping the inner child alive” kind of way but are characterized with being annoying, stubborn and unable of processing new thoughts.

When I go to my college to teach every Saturday these days, I can still sense the unbridled energy and draw heavily from it to keep me going through some of the occasional difficult days the rest of the week. All of this is probably also a lengthy justification to myself on why sometimes I am such a wimp and think “Ah good, she’s found a friend” and choose to not say anything rather than point out that the class is being disturbed when that quiet girl in the corner talks to her friend with a wide grin on her face.

Revisiting the past

2010-11-02T21:51:00.006+05:30

We are back from a trip to Hampi, which ranks high in my "Places marked for consideration of permanent settlement" list. I fell in love with it during my first trip there with my friends two and a half years ago and had jealously looked at all the European backpackers who had set up camp there for a couple of weeks to a few months, bicycling around the ruins with their Lonely Planet in tow, leading the life I had dreamt of for myself.

This time, I went with my significantly better half to show him this little town that had me thus besotted and to get his views on its qualification to the aforementioned list. Hampi effortlessly did her bit and I am happy to say that she's been given the thumbs up by the Mister too.

It is the way in which everything comes together - the history, the architecture, the abundance of places where you can sit down and have a splendid cup of tea, the friendly animals on the road(dogs, cows, cats sometimes) that, depending on the way you are hardwired, you come precariously close to abandoning any plans of a job and a career in your current field and turning over into a history junkie for life at Hampi. If the above list doesn't do it for you, one meal at the Mango Tree will at the very least, leave you with a slightly more positive outlook towards everything.

My back hurts a little from last night's difficult bus journey from Hospet to Bangalore and I have been slow at digesting all new information today thanks to all hopes of even a few precious minutes of sleep being chased away by the monstrosity that was the stretch of road for the first few hours of the journey. We are talking slowly today and have trudged through the day with difficulty but we have already promised ourselves one more trip to Hampi at the next possible opportunity.

(Photo by Trambak)

In a fit of midnight madness...

2010-08-27T17:11:00.005+05:30

...I tried my hand at fiction. Below is the result, it hasn't been titled yet:

She ate the piece of chicken as noiselessly as she could. She tenaciously went at the last bits of meat near where the bone bends as they wouldn’t come off easily. She washed it down with cold buttermilk before picking up the stainless steel cup that contained one round scoop of badam halwa. This was a lot more food than she had prepared herself for. She took large bites and swallowed quickly. The last few bites came close to being painful as she could feel the butter in the halwa clogging up her throat. But there was no time to deliberate those trivial discomforts and she searched with her fingers along the surface of the cup to make sure there were no difficult lumps remaining. She could have turned on the light - they wouldn’t be able to see her from the first floor - but she chose to be discreet now that she knew her way around the house rather well.

Five months ago, she had reluctantly left home, the warm familiarity of her sisters’ loud laughter and angry abuses to get on the bus and land here to look after the new-born baby. She had spit out her rage that evening in one long convulsive tirade against her parents and her sisters when it was decided that she would go take up the job of the ayah that their neighbor had informed them of. The five of them had sat mutely watching her burn herself out in her fury, as she cursed their neediness and their self-righteous selfishness that had made it necessary for her to go to the city to earn what to them would be her hefty salary.

As she quietly made her way to the kitchen sink to wash the dishes and remove all evidences of an insolent midnight feast, she looked around at the large living room, and the shadows left by the big bookshelf in the familiar, warm darkness. This was her main work zone during the day, where she spent most of her time feeding the baby and cleaning up after him and creating silly little games for him all by herself. She came back to her room in the corner beyond the dining area, where she ate her meals of roti, dal and vegetables sitting cross legged on the floor twice a day.

Decent folk, she thought, before getting on to the bed, but they need to know that a girl – she needs her chicken curry.

We like them hairpin bends

2010-04-18T02:30:00.001+05:30

Today, I waited for that final piece of furniture we had ordered for our living room to be delivered. Now that it is here, it feels just like it did when we placed that elusive last piece onto the 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle I used to solve in my summer holidays along with my mother and cousin.

A lot of life altering changes have taken place since I last posted. First of all, you will start noticing the nonchalant use of ‘Our’ on this blog. Secondly, I am back in Bangalore. Thirdly and a little more obviously, I have changed jobs.

I will always remember that snowball fight we (this is a different we – it consists of me, my flatmate and my neighbours) had on the 13th of Jan, my last night in Birmingham. We were afforded that opportunity thanks to the heavy snowfall in what turned out to be the most severe winter the country experienced in more than 20 years. That was my second snowball fight within a span of ten days and everyone believed they owed me one last experience of knowing how it felt to have a tightly packed fistful of snow landing on my nose with unforgiving force as there was no telling when I would next see that much snow again. I am convinced they also secretly believed they deserved an outlet for having to see off somebody who would wake up with the smug assurance of getting to see the sun every day. I would have probably reacted in exactly the same way if I were to spend a few more months sinking my feet into 2 feet of snow on my way to work and back everyday in that perpetual dim greyness.

This winter has been an experience in understanding orders of magnitude, among other things. While I had managed to know what it took to keep myself safe and warm during the last two winters, all my winter clothing proved to be acutely inadequate when the temperatures went more than 5 degrees C below the average winter temperatures. I even had frostbite on my toes while I was indoors, inside a sufficiently heated apartment! (This is unlike the indoor frostbite I suffered in the previous winter when I was living in what was a virtually unheated apartment that belonged to an ass of a landlord for which I was paying through my nose.) As absurd as it may seem now, I remember days not so long ago, when I used to crave to know again what it felt like to feel uncomfortably hot.

Cut to a month later and I find myself in a Kancheevaram saree on the hottest day in Bangalore in 25 years. And then I realised I didn’t like the heat either.

Apart from highlighting the extremes in temperature and adding my half a cent to the evidence of a messed up ecology to generations in the distant future who might find this blog hidden below a heap of cyber debris, this is meant to be a post to help me take stock and move on.

So here’s bidding an official goodbye to the plants in the balcony, to the purple orchid in my window that I ‘killed with too much love’, the lovely apartment in the city centre, to the canal that flowed beside it, to Victoria Square, to gorgeous Louis, my neighbours’ half Korean, one quarter English, one quarter French baby boy who gave me the most beautiful smile on the day I left, to being addicted to Top Gear, to being a banker in the UK at a time when the word evoked unbridled hatred, to being a doctor’s flatmate and listening to real stories of human lives being saved over dinner, to ploughman’s sandwiches for lunch, to accumulating copper coins with every cash transaction and carrying an unwieldy wallet, to impulsive train rides to Banbury and London, to scones and crumpets, to jacket potatoes, to mulled wine and finally, to all the snow which must have now melted. I loved it while it lasted but as I have said earlier on this blog, it is swell to be back home.

The last few months have seen me go through changes at a rate that is unusual in the normal course of events for a regular person. Looking back from the other side, with the dizziness behind me, I am now in a position to say that I am grateful for changes of all kinds that have sometimes just happened to me with me not being in a position to control anything about their timing or effect. They help provide reference points from which I can identify who I have become. There is also of course, all the learning that comes with change, even if sometimes, you are too dazed to register anything beyond the trivial lesson that when a snowball comes straight at you, all you have to do is duck.

Once among the clouds, atop a white hill........

2009-08-05T00:55:00.005+05:30

G,

Remember that day when we were so proud to have successfully dismantled my little cane chair without breaking any of the parts? You responded with just the right degree of urgency and seriousness that the six year old me could expect from a playmate and helped me do a thorough job of it. And I am told the six year old me had extemely high expectations of people.

Today, everytime I get told that I don't come across like an 'only child', I look back fondly on our shared sunny, quirky, magical childhood. I grew up assuming that everybody has a cousin their age living within get-told-off-by-parents-and-run-to-crying distance. When it eventually dawned on me that I might just be one of the lucky few to grow up with the privilege, I was thankful for it. Even if I wouldn't have you know about it then as we were too busy pinching each other's necks and inventing new names to call each other.

If there is something I treasure about my childhood memories - it is the reassurance of knowing that I had you to laugh with, to seethe at my wounds, to conspire with, to get it, to share made-up stories with, to spend summers with and most importantly, to care. And isn't it fantastic that this feeling has endured through it all - through that impossibly difficult age when we wondered about our acceptability/popularity indices to now, when we begin to know the permanent from the transient, to what I know will be always.

During all our singing lessons, I know you weren't particularly thrilled to be told that our pitches matched rather well. One day you woke up with a different voice and several feet taller and that was the end of us standing together and singing for guests at home. I miss that, you know - especially because of how revolting you find the idea.

This is to tell you that you are more precious and important to me than you can ever know. I haven't been the best of sisters and am actually using the occasion of a highly bollywoodised festival to let you know this, and publicly at that (but does two count as public?). But I think you know it comes from the heart. I also know that while the title seems like corny gibberish to the rest of the world, you know exactly what I'm saying.

Love,
Your proud sister.

P.S - did you notice how I'm not trying to get you married off to a nice girl here as I always threaten to?
P.P.S - My brother's a gentleman, he's funny, wise, smart and humble. And oh, he owns two BMWs.

oops.

In Adjectively Candid-land

2009-05-02T05:43:00.001+05:30

The end of the rainbow

2009-03-07T02:08:00.007+05:30

I have met way too many disgruntled Indians here over the last few months. They are all disgruntled with India. I'm certainly not taken by surprise at the fact that they do not slip into fond reveries and break into a song about a golden land when they hear their country's name mentioned. Clearly, if they have taken the huge and difficult decision of setting up their home in another land and even adopting another country's nationality, I would expect them to have some very significant reasons driving the decision. But what I did not expect to see is an over-simplification of reality only to justify the decision.

Quite frankly, I'm now bored of hearing things like "So what if taxes here are high? At least you can walk on the roads without fear at night" or "Things work here, unlike in India". There are two extremely exasperating problems I have with statements like these. Firstly, the people saying this are very obviously out of touch with the whole concept of India. They talk about India like it is one stretch of a poorly lit road with potholes. On probing them a little more, you would find that the people saying this are usually the kind who have travelled very little beyond their own hometowns in India. I have also found a lot of them to be fiercely regionalistic, which I think is ironic, not to forget annoying. Secondly, it baffles me how the UK is supposed to be the land of milk and honey, and how their adopted land delivers on every count where their own land failed. I would completely agree with any arguments that give credit to this country for what it really is. However, when I bring up the topic, what I find again is a messy maze of mutually contradictory opinions. They like living here but guard a strong sense of disdain towards people who belong here. I don't even want to get into the widely prevelant ridiculous NRI/Indian diaspora credo of how Indians are morally and intellectually superior to those of every other make. The very people who exhort to me about why I must pounce on the magnificent opportunity of 'settling down' here for the rest of my life are the same people who mock the food, culture and people who are indigenous to their preferred country of residence.

Sometimes, I honestly try to understand the thought process behind these kind of opinions. I know that the 'system' back home can sometimes have profound effects on the life of the individual. It doesn't take a massive effort of imagination to figure out that one corrupt judge or one vengeful policeman or a callous medical practitioner can do irreperable damage and make anyone affected by the injustice loathe the system that made it possible for these excesses to take place. Nevertheless, I have realised that most of the India-bashers here are those who have simply not had the opportunity to take out of India the best that it offers or have simply looked the other way when the opportunity presented itself. They haven't really been affected by any such significant incident, or at least they have not told me about it. I find their opinions strange because I have begun to realise how significant the Indian identity is in who I am and that I really do like that part of me.

Take my recent 17 day trip to India, for example. I was in Bangalore mostly, but visited my ancestral towns of Hassan and Chickmaglur and made a quick dash to Mumbai in one of the weekends. While we are at the topic of my trip to India, I think it is an opportune moment to talk about a major life-altering happy development in my life. Yes, one bright sunny afternoon, he proposed to me and I said yes ( actually I said "Thank you" and he said "Why are you thanking me?" - but that is a different story - we did say the right things eventually - it was splendid!). Coming back to where I was, to use the simplest of arguments, I think the mere fact that we come from a big country with a billion people in it teaches us things you cannot ever fathom on a fairly small sterile squeaky clean nation. I'm really not referring to any country here - I'm comparing India with any country that is not as big as India and where it is possible to have rules that its citizens obey. Now, I could be the one sounding biased, but I do think that because we interact with people a lot more on a daily basis in India due to sheer population density, we find it easier to reach out and connect with people spontaneously and not have a tedious is-this-the-right-thing-to-do algorithm running at the back of our minds everytime we come in contact with a new person. Moreover, in most major cities of India, we have the valuable experience of coming into contact with people with whom we have very little in common if they happen to come from another part of the country. This in itself presents a lot of scope for great conversation and even more so, as you set about discovering things that you do have in common. I cannot think of a more useful life skill to pick up while growing up. We also have the advantage of being familiar with most major world religions. So, even when we move out of India, we are not alien to any religious customs or traditions as chances are, we would have witnessed at least glimpses of what we see of religious practices elsewhere while living in India. This serves very well in being sensitive and informed and avoid the embarrasment of making a gaffe in this regard. These are the kind of personality traits that are usually liked in people from anywhere. I'm not saying that Indians have an exclusive claim over these traits - only that there is an easy opportunity to pick them up with very little effort. You don't get this kind of learning everywhere and it took me a journey out of India to realise this.

I love my fiancé's stories of Kolkata - of its sergeants and its trams and endless idiosyncracies- and I love learning about sentence construction in Bengali. I relish every single Tam bram story my best friend has told me and the subtleties of Tamil pronounciation that she describes. These are merely two of the million other grand experiences I have had only by virtue of being Indian.

I've finally figured out what I'm going to say the next time an Indian here asks me "What's the big deal about India? What do you get there that you don't get here?". It is easy, I'll say "An interesting Indian to talk to". Honestly, I'll need all the advice that my wise friends can offer to fight the urge to really blurt this out one day.

A winter like no other

2009-02-04T03:09:00.004+05:30

Just when I started enjoying the nip in the air, the heavens sent us a full blown snowstorm. This is what the city centre in Birmingham looked like today, after yesterday's non-stop action. But Brum looks pretty in white, don't you think?

Today, while talking to a friend, I realised that 'ghar' is a mimetic word. When you say it, there's a vibration that starts at the windpipe and goes inwards and resonates and something hurts a little bit somewhere there. Or maybe it's just me.

The blog post I never saw myself writing when I created this blog

2009-01-14T04:50:00.006+05:30

On Sunday evening, I made masala dosas. My flatmates really liked them. They asked for more, that's how I know it. I don't know about other flatmates but it needs to be said that my flatmates do not belong to your average I'll-say-whatever-it-takes-to-make-you-cook-for-me strain. They are both brilliant cooks and are never too tired or lazy to cook a wholesome meal. So when they pay me a compliment for my culinary (ahem) skills, I usually blush and take a bow.

This evening (today's Tuesday), when I went into the kitchen to make myself dinner, I decided to use up what was remaining of the filling I had made for the masala dosa. Then, it struck me, out of nowhere, that I could make aloo parathas with that same filling. This meant that I had met with two incredible successes in three days in front of that same electric hob : 1) The incident of the crisp masala dosas 2) Discovering one smart cooking related idea. I finally let the happy sigh that was inflating inside me escape and decided that this must surely be the point where life starts to take a turn back towards the ordinary in the way I've known it to happen ever so often. But that was only until I tasted the parathas.

They tasted unmistakably like the parathas that were served for breakfast at my hostel in Mumbai on Tuesday mornings. Why that is so significant is because our entire weekly schedules revolved around those parathas back then. I know people who will still be able to write tearful odes to those pieces of savory bread. It was a few seconds before finishing up the mint chutney with the last crumb of the paratha that it dawned on me - we were served masala dosas on Sundays in the hostel! And here I was thinking I would generously pass my idea on to future generations as my original cooking tip. Clearly, I won't be able to call this idea my own even though I don't know for a fact if Mr.J and Co. beat me to discovering it.

I don't think it is at all likely that anyone still studying in my institute in Mumbai reads this blog. But I'm sure those parathas are still to die for and I certainly don't mean any offence to Mr.J. This was just plain idle hypothesis- he knows what that is. I already resent that I won't be in Mumbai on a Tuesday when I visit this time around in February.

An Anatopism

2008-11-02T04:22:00.003+05:30

I had never really understood the reason for classifying raags as morning and evening raags and the concept of associating them with attributes almost as if they were personalities in Hindustani classical music until today.

During the course of the two glorious months this summer that I had completely to myself in between jobs, I decided to dabble in music once more and exercise those vocal chords in a good way. Luckily for me, I had a friend who also believed in the concept and decided to sign up for music lessons with me. It was also one such other lucky coincidence that a telephone number written down barely legibly on someone else's visiting card led us to whom I believe, with all the faith I am capable of, to be the best music teacher in Greater Bangalore.

Since my friend and I had only about two months before we had to head back to two different continents, we enquired if a crash-course in music could be worked out for us and were told that it certainly could. Our teacher spent less than five minutes explaining how the speed at which she would teach us would only be constrained by the speed at which we could learn and proceeded to give us our very first lesson by introducing us to raag Durga. Soon, the lessons became part of a routine and among other things, we rediscovered the poetry in taking down notes in Hindi and Kannada depending on the day's lesson. More significantly, we achieved what even our teacher considered to be progress.

Since our teacher is not one to pause to revel in crossing minor hurdles, she decided to train us towards a mini public performance as part of an event her students organise every year on the occasion of Guru Poornima. As the event drew nearer, raags were assigned to each of her students and there were endless rehearsals, mostly for the benefit of the 'senior' students who would be performing for the better part of an hour. We were given a composition called 'Koyaliya bole' set to raag Malkauns (an evening raag if you must know). On the day of the performance, we were introduced as 'the students from the UK who are brave enough to perform on stage after having trained for only a month'. We went on stage after deliberating if we should ask the compere to clarify that one of us is going to be working in the UK and the other is a graduate student in the US and after deciding against it as that would not make the audience any less judgemental. We also had our nerves to deal with the pressure of just having been described as 'brave'. There is no recorded version of that performance but from what I recall, we had sounded better in several of our rehearsals than we did that day. Nevertheless, we were not insufferable (nobody fainted or anything).

This evening, in my room in Birmingham, I listened to the CD on which we had recorded one of our rehearsals of 'Koyaliya bole'. The song is about the cuckoo heralding the arrival of spring and has in it a quick and lively succession of notes that can convey to an audience that doesn't understand either Hindi or the genre of music that the piece is about spring time. While usually the song cheers me up and reminds me of my two minutes under the spotlight, today, it did not have any of that effect. The irony of listening to a song about an exquisite Indian spring in a grey snowy wet English winter then struck me. You could nearly feel the notes from the music system freeze in the frosty evening air and lose their way rather than resonate and uplift as they did a few months ago. Well, the song is not really anachronistic because even if it seems like a distant dream, technically, spring is coming which is what the song affirms. But I guess the song is not meant for a continent that is subjected to a season of cruelly short spells of negligible sunshine before the season when the sun finally commiserates and decides to smile brilliantly.

I am sure there is another raag for icy winter evenings.

More London

2008-05-12T12:45:00.003+05:30

The first time that I visited London during my stay in England, I was plain relieved. We lived in a quiet little suburb outside Birmingham called Solihull and the initial excitement at discovering peace and quiet and the simplistic esthetics of red brick houses began to wear off quickly and was replaced by a deep craving for the chaos of a metropolis. The only two places I have lived in are Bangalore and Mumbai and it is only natural that total silences and sparsely populated neighbourhoods make me feel unsettled. The one thing that I didn’t quite get used to in Solihull till the very end was how all commercial set-ups closed by 5 pm and how the roads wore an eerily deserted look by 6 pm, except of course, on Fridays. My first visit to London coincided with the Thames River Festival and it was all that I had been pining for- lively, crowded, noisy and stretched till late into the night. I was also lucky then to have two very enthusiastic sets of friends, both card-carrying (the Oyster card I mean :p) Londoners, showing me around town.

Ever since that first visit, London became my biggest addiction and my panacea to all my troubles- from severe stress to a little boredom. Looking back, I am now glad that I had the chance to discover London and its different avtars in my several trips. I have stayed in Woolich Arsenal, a relatively new residential locality in Zone 5 where a majority of its residents work for the financial organizations in Canary Wharf, in the Halls of the London School of Economics near the Tower Bridge with a dear dear friend from college just when she was about to graduate, in Watford, a picture perfect suburban locality where all the houses had a front lawn and a driveway and finally, in an apartment in a tiny lane near the London Bridge tube station after the friend from college had moved out of the Halls and started work (sigh! how quickly these things happen!). I did the touristy bits- the London Eye, the Original Bus Tour and the River Cruise with my mum when she visited me in the UK and I was pleased to see mamma dearest being as smitten by London as I was.

My most enduring memory of London is walking across the Millennium Bridge after attending the midnight mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve. I remember how the huge metal spider on display outside the Tate Modern (part of the Louise Bourgeois retrospective on show at the modern gallery) looked surreal and wondering how they got the lighting just right for the voyeuristic pleasure of the few pedestrians who would walk by it after sun-down. The other memory I have of my visits is of running late for my return train/bus in every single one of these trips since I had to reluctantly drag my feet out of London just before leaving it. And I mean running in the literal sense - with the different sets of friends I visited helping me with my luggage; we ran by the Thames near Westminster Pier, we ran along the London Bridge and we ran on the platforms of the Marylebone station just so that I could catch the last train to Solihull.

Here’s to London- the city that was my happy-place for 6 months. And just in case there’s any of my friends from London reading this- you know how I nod understandingly when you complain about how London is not as great as it seems to an outsider and how life there can get to you? Well, that’s just me pretending- I still completely fail to understand how everyone is not as big a fanatic about the city as me! Woolich Arsenal- England's ammunitons
factories during World War 2 were located here.
The factories have now been smartly converted into
apartment buildings with the original structure intact.

Graffiti in London- none of which I understood

From the London Eye

From the balcony of the Tate Modern

The Tower Bridge

Learning the ropes

2008-04-28T20:35:00.004+05:30

I know I haven't really used my blog as an emotional dumping ground the way a lot of people I know have done with their blogs. But I'm making an exception today and therefore decided to shout out an "achtung!" right at the very start so that you are clear on the content that's coming up and can flee right away if this kind of thing induces any kind of inflammation, watering of eyes or other allergic reactions in you.

The only reason I'm doing this is to clear out my head and because even I think my friends need a break from listening to my small-big issues when I know for a fact that a lot of them have plenty of their own to sort out! I still want to take a moment here to tell my friends that you (you all know who you are) are all stars and are an incredible source of respite and joy. I know that my friends know how much I love them for it but I'm not sure they know just how proud I am of them.

There is something about the twenties that makes it such a tough period to go through. I, for one, think that it is all the things that I was not able to forsee about life at this age that makes it abstruse. For example, what I did not know while growing up is that when you reach your twenties, everybody around you (who is not in their twenties) assumes that they have a right to size you up and not even be discreet about it. I don't know if this happens with most twenty and odd year olds or if I have an exceptionally raw deal on my hands here- but I find that in any social situation, questions that were earlier considered too personal to be asked by mere acquaintances can now be asked of you by total strangers. Whatever happened to discussing the weather, politics and cricket! On one fateful day, they get replaced by work, marriage and fitness and you will need to have ready convincing answers to questions pertaining to these topics to save yourself the misery of listening to clichés carelessly passed off as advice.

Then comes the tougher part- in that critical change that takes you from being a dependent in the governement records to a productive tax payer, there are whole new dimensions to your personality that develop, which make you feel like a stranger in your own skin at times. And when it comes to such changes from within, it takes a while to understand and accept that you may have the most wonderful entourage- and I'm using the word in the Facebook sense- but there isn't really anyone else but you who can help you deal with it.

I do not mean to paint a melancholic picture of what is universally acknowledged to be the most magical part of the average person's life. God knows, I have always longed for the kind of independence I now enjoy. And the changes and responsibilities that initially seem daunting begin to look exciting on getting used to them. But then there are times when I realise just how significant an impact some of the decisions I take now can have on the way the rest of my life shapes up- and it is at such times that I cave into the pressure and get into melodrama-mode because I do not know if I am able to judge the consequences of my decision well enough. It also seems like it is just us girls who feel the compelling need to express how hard this can be- the guys seem to handle it rather well- but then I know they have their moments too, they just occur less often and can be made to snap out of it more easily, which, of course is a marvelous thing. But there are times when I really wonder if the kind of decisions we need to deliberate over and a greater burden of social conformity makes this harder for women. I don't think there's just one correct answer to that question.

I have begun to digress now. Since this post was for my benefit just as I had mentioned earlier, it seems like it has served its purpose and now would be a good time to end it- also Alanis Morissette is playing on my playlist and like she says "And what it all boils down to/ Is that no one's really got it figured out just yet".

Getting high on masala chai

2008-03-26T19:58:00.003+05:30

Well, I’m back from the UK and it already feels like I was never away. I’m also just back from a short but very memorable trip to Kodaikanal with my colleagues.

The timing of our trip was not exactly perfect what with the perpetual showers and a constant thick cover of fog over what were considered to be the best sights around. Despite this, we ended up enjoying our brief stay in Kodai and I was busy relishing some of the many little pleasures of traveling in India that I sometimes pined for while in England- like having endless cups of masala chai and paying for them in Rupees.

It is surprising to see how my idea of what is symbolic of India and to some extent, our national pride has changed ever since I have come back. My idea of these themes and objects now coincides with what a first-time tourist or an Indiaphile who has never visited India would imagine them to be. This is not because a mere 6 month stint abroad makes me think like a firang but more so because I am now probably able to see what India is that not many other countries can be.

Even a few months ago, I was annoyed to see how India was depicted as this strange, exotic land that is a destination for spiritual fulfillment for dummies in The Darjeeling Limited. But now, I see nothing wrong with this description- I would probably only explain to the uninitiated that this too but not solely, is India.

I now see nothing wrong with a tourist defining India by the box of spices in the average Indian home, the stray animals on the road that have a sophisticated sense of traffic etiquette, the colours, the cacophony of dialects, the scary traffic, Bollywood and whatever other stereotypical image there is of India (but no, not snakes and snake-charmers- I take exception to that one – it is surprising just how many people are still told the “India is a land of snake-charmers” story and how many people buy it!) I now see all of these things as catalysts in making the experience of living in India a very entertaining mind exercise. I do not know if I am right in thinking so but I am now of the opinion that we use our creativity and judgment rather well while living in an environment where we take nothing – rules, penalties, liberty- none of it for granted.

India, in some ways seems like the punk district of Camden in London, in standing for the alternate as against the regular- with the exception that we are regular people leading regular lives which just happen to be in essence unusual, without anyone really trying to make a statement. This is why I would recommend India to anyone who is looking for a holiday that is going to play havoc with their idea of the quotidian. The more practical side to it is that it just happens to be a huge landmass that can offer starkly diverse experiences and it is all easily available with a single visa and a single currency.

I can see that my outpour of nationalistic sentiments is eerily close to sounding like a copy for Incredible India . I think I might have fallen prey to the “saare jahaan se achcha” syndrome, which I suspect affects every true blue Hindustani returning from his/her first trip abroad- which is why I cannot be blamed for this post.

Front seats for the sunset

2007-11-25T18:35:00.000+05:30

Dreamy. Disoriented. Small.Charmed. Confounded. Captivated. Disturbed. Overwhelmed.
That is what going backpacking around Europe with my friends felt like.

Our itinerary was: (departure- 1st November) London- Brussels- Paris- Nice- Monaco- Venice- Rome- Vienna- Salzburg- (Linz)- London (arrival- 12th November).

There were several times during the trip when we found ourselves before a spectacular view when we weren’t really expecting it. It is one thing to know that you are heading towards a highly celebrated site but something else to turn a corner or climb a bridge or exit a metro station to suddenly see something so strikingly beautiful that everyone falls into a reverential silence before it. These silences and the gasps we let out were, to me, the essence of this trip.

Apart from the sights that worked their magic instantly, the trip was also one effective lesson in history, music, art, religion, politics and architecture. Sometimes, what we learnt about the lives of artists and composers and their times left us as stunned as did seeing an architectural wonder. We also have our cynic-sense in place and could partially see why a particular travel book describes Continental Europe as “that pile of elegant decay”. We did have our minor let-downs and the tourism-oriented marketing at some places did seem excessive. Despite any such flip-sides, I don’t think a trip to Europe can ever be anything less than extraordinary regardless of how and when it is done. All it takes is to see how an everyday occurrence as a sunset can seem like a grand opera in the backdrop of art and history and it becomes clear what the fuss is all about.

While the sights and sounds form the foreground of the trip, the researching, the unending debates while setting the itinerary, the reading of maps and figuring out the public transport systems and living in youth hostels, the great food we stumbled upon in places that inconspicuously happened in the background was equally significant in terms of recall-value. There is something about being a backpacker that makes it easy to talk to strangers and to other backpackers with itineraries that are more chaotic than our own. In almost every journey, our co-passengers shared with us stories of their own favourite fulfilling-yet-crazy trips after they discovered we were among the mavericks who holiday in their country in the wrong season. And very often, we would be asked “So where will your next holiday be?”. I was initially surprised that anyone was even suggesting we attempt another trip like this one, especially as it had been as more work than holiday with the visa application procedure and the bookings that sometimes wore us out. But then I now realize that my appetite for travel has just been kindled and it is a good state of mind to be in- to be planning for the next trip at any point of time. It places the business card, the deadlines, the worries and the task lists in perspective.

Il fait beau sur la France!

2007-11-04T16:08:00.000+05:30

This is Padma Sharma blogging from sunny Nice in France.

That is the most I can manage to get across with a French keyboard and after two days of talking in French. More shall follow when I return to good ole Brum.

P.S: I am heading to the beach now :)

Somewhere Else

2007-09-21T03:09:00.001+05:30

Well, there’s only one way to say this. I fell in love with a little Welsh sea-side town called Conwy 15 days ago- and hopelessly at that. The river Conwy flows through this town that is surrounded by purple-red flower-laden mountains and a grand 12th century castle runs along the town's perimeter. This basically means that from any given standpoint within Conwy, you are bound to find a picture postcard-like view before you that you want to capture and permanently freeze in your mind. Somehow, writing about my visit seems like it isn't the right way to save for posteriority the memories of the trip. When I write, it feels like I am trying to organize memories in convenient packages, just like those cans of processed food with their customary levels of preservatives that occupy miles of shelf-space in super-markets. And just like those cans, I know that anything I write will simply not have the intended effect.

This, my friends, is Conwy:

(pictures courtesy Trambak, Suryadip and Dam- muchas gracias guys! :))

P.S: I should have written this earlier- just that I did not have access to the internet at what is now "home". I am in the UK on work for the next five months. I would appreciate it if anyone has any suggestions on places that must be visited and things that must be done around here. We have been making our own plans too for almost every single weekend we'll be spending here- but then any local knowledge always adds significant value to what the maps and travel guides tell us.

Making a point in 90 minutes

2007-06-17T15:39:00.000+05:30

The only thing about me that has remained constant in the last one year has been the fact I have been reading regularly, irrespective of the extent of work load, the state of my mind and errm..my heart, the temperature, the migratory cycles of the local feathered population, the phase of the moon and other such variable factors. Since I would like to remember the details of some books that I have read recently, I have decided to blog about them for a while now.

The book “90 Minutes at Entebbe” by William Stevenson comprises of two main parts. The first and more significant part narrates the build-up to and the actual execution of one of the most well-planned and successful rescue missions carried out by a government in a foreign territory viz., the mission carried out by Israel in 1976 to rescue over a 100 of its citizens who were held hostage in Uganda by hijackers. The second part contains the transcript of the discussion that took place at the United Nations Security Council during the proceedings against Israel for alleged violation of Uganda’s sovereign rights in the course of the rescue mission.

The book states, while describing the process of planning the rescue mission, that there was one particular incident that convinced all the parties involved in decision-making that Israel must switch gears from diplomatic negotiations with the hijackers to direct military intervention. This incident involved the hijackers releasing all passengers of all nationalities on board the Air France plane that was bound to Paris from Tel Aviv but hijacked to Entebbe, Uganda, save the Israelis. Through this act of the hijackers, what had been an international crisis affecting several countries became solely Israel’s national concern. This act of the hijackers is said to have brought back to Israel’s collective consciousness, the memory of ‘Selekzia’- the term used by the Nazis to separate Jews from the rest of the crowd before sending the former to harrowing concentration camps.

This, the author seeks to establish, enabled the Israeli government to identify its immediate concern- that of saving the lives of its citizens, regardless of the consequences on its standing in the international community. The result was Operation Thunderbolt- an operation in which a fleet of 4 military aircrafts, in conditions of complete secrecy, took off for far off Uganda to bring back all the Israeli citizens on the midnight of 4th July, 1976 after a brief combat that left all the hijackers and some Ugandan troops dead. The deftness with which the mission was handled can be understood from the fact that the eccentric Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, could not help praise the efficiency of the Israeli troops even as he was fuming about the loss of lives of Ugandan soldiers that this mission had caused. Incidentally, the exact role played by Idi Amin in this hijacking incident is not clear throughout the book,. There are parts where he comes across as sympathetic to the cause of the hijackers and others where he seems to have made a genuine effort at negotiating on behalf of the hostages.

There is a sense of irony that comes across towards the end because it is clear that Israel, through its meticulously planned and boldly executed rescue mission that lasted for only 90 minutes, made its stance regarding foreign policy and terrorism more eloquently than the Israeli diplomat could during the proceedings that lasted for days on end at the United Nations Security Council. While I was at my seat’s edge while reading about the mission and was taken aback by the precision with which it was executed, I was bored while reading the arguments put forth by the diplomat before the Security Council that come across as lukewarm and unconvincing (to me at least). On reading the entire transcript of the arguments, I could actually understand the cause for some of the ill-will that Israel had to face from other nations at the end of the hearings at the Security Council.

I completed this book in a little over a week while reading it in the morning in the bus on my tryingly long (sigh!) journey to work. Since I cannot help but think about work on my way there, I think this led me to look at the entire rescue operation from an efficiency of execution angle and left me admiring the planning skills of the Israelis. This does not, however, mean that I admire Israel’s military activism, since I have looked at things from an admittedly narrow perspective here. The book did make me wonder if, for a country to become exceptionally efficient militarily or economically, it takes the strong emotion generated by the memory of an incident (the Holocaust in this case) that has affected the individuals of the population at a personal level, only by dint of he or she being part of the bigger group. This also occurred to me when a colleague recently mentioned how it is widely believed that it was the shame of the memory of defeat in WW2 and the eagerness of the Japanese to wipe it out that contributed to Japan’s miraculous turnaround in the post-War years. This, too, seems to corroborate the notion that the psyche of a group is reflective of that of the individuals that constitute it. But then again, there could be a Fallacy of Composition at work somewhere here. It is possible that what may come across as a bold and domineering country in terms of its policies is made up of simple-minded individuals who can be satisfied with a good life and are not keenly ambitious for anything else. There must be millions of pages of printed matter out there about the role of the constituent individuals in influencing the mind of a group and I need to get my hands on some of it. Any recommendations will be deeply appreciated!

It was fantastic!

2007-05-14T21:24:00.000+05:30

One year after coming back home from IGIDR, it is surprising to look at how my perceptions of the two years spent there have changed.

As soon as I had arrived, when anybody asked me how my experience in Mumbai was, I would say that it was good for the most part but add a qualifier to convey the fact that it was not all easy and pretty. I would occasionally talk about how, when we all started off, all the people there were the diametrically opposite personalities of each other and that we took time to get used to having each other around and some more time to find friends. Sometimes, I complained about how I was always sleep-deprived because of the amount of work there was to do and at other times about how the institute is isolated from the city and there was not much scope to explore Mumbai.

But now, when I occasionally talk about the place, all I can say is that it was simply, wonderfully, abso-blooming-lutely, fantastic! I probably have only distorted memories of the time spent there. I am now immersed in work and memories of IGIDR comprise only of bits of the kind of conversations and incidents that can only occur within the confines of a university campus that is away from civilization. This is probably also the memory I will guard in my mind for the future.

I couldn't help typing this out when I realised it has been exactly one year since I came back. This is especially for all those friends of mine who are still studying or about to graduate- take it from me, you people will be talking this way about the places you now complain of. Yes, I know, how bizarre!

..and the Bheja Fry for me, thanks!

2007-05-12T22:59:00.000+05:30

(I'm still vegetarian...the title is just me trying to be witty)

There was one particular aspect about the movie Bheja Fry that I found simultaneously heartening and realistic. The protagonist of the movie, Bharat Bhushan, is an incorrigible dimwit, a smug bore, a cuckold and yet, there is just one relationship that has remained intact despite all these personality disorders. The man has a "bestest friend" who completely shares the former's passion for watching cricket and empathises with his love for Bollywood music and his tendency to display his meagre singing abilities at the most inopportune times and places. I particularly enjoyed watching the chemistry between the two characters when they are completely tickled by each other's pitifully dull jokes even as they are trying to help another man who is in serious trouble.

I found this depiction refreshing because, for once, two men were shown to be thick buddies and there was no sacrificing of loves or lives by either of them to make the audience understand just how deep their friendship is. The said best friend is not just a lame sidekick to the protagonist whose only role is to make the male lead look good, as is the case in most of our fillums. On the contrary, Bharat Bhushan is full of praise and admiration for his friend's abilities as a tax officer while the friend does not really reciprocate any of this reverence.

The reason I am even writing about how two grown, uninteresting men are shown to be friends in a realistic manner in a movie is only because I think that very rarely do we get to see something like that. Bollywood, over the years, has slaughtered every kind of relationship between people and stuffed it up with its own fluff comprising of imaginary and in some cases, ghastly emotional upheavals and excessively complicated situations. The relationship between the male lead and his best friend has been vicitm to this kind of treatment very frequently. Given this context, I was surprised to see how the two friends in the movie are like some of the people I see and know. In everyday life, for a lot of people I know, to go out and help a friend in need while there is an important cricket match being aired on TV is the ultimate testament to one's concern for the friend's wellbeing . There have been other movies, such as Dil Chahta Hai that have succeeded in depicting warmth and bonhomie among male characters without leaving the audience cloyed by the end. But these are only the exceptions and not the norm. Well, at least it looks like there is some hope of watching men in movies discuss cricket or Bollywood and give each other imperfect advice and spend less time saving each other from getting electrocuted, drowning, being thrashed by 12 dark-skinned and bald men etc.,.

That leaves us with the question of the relationship among saheliyaan in movies- but let's not even get into that just yet!

My Biggest Regret

2007-04-28T00:35:00.000+05:30

(A State of Mind Update)

The One thing
That tops the huge list of things
That vie for space
In that encumbered zone in my mind
That specializes strictly
In Brooding, Over-analyzing and Enervating Myself
Is the fact that I have not travelled
As much as I should have, by now.

Of Microphone Abusers

2007-02-04T23:34:00.000+05:30

To those who still don't get it, for the last time, "madrasi" is not a word in any language.
Sunil Pal, who gets away with calling himself a stand-up comedian, was invited to perform in our company's annual party. To sum up what I thought of his show, it would just do to say that the title to this post is all about him. I repeatedly heard the words "madrasi", "lungi", "Tamil" and "hamare South ke bhai" in a span of about five minutes. I had switched off long ago, then, I stood up and left.
Anyone who has visited Bangalore and paid attention would know that the folks here have a highly evolved sense of humour that is usually marked by caustic sarcasm - the kind that can mercilessly scald the likes of the Pal fellow. Well, there sure is a lot to laugh about Bangalore as there is with any other city, but it takes a receptive mind to find the right things to say that would be both relevant and humourous. Our colleagues came up with wittier one-liners about Bangalore that evening than what the nitwit performing on stage can ever hope to even after a lifetime in the business of stand-up comedy.
The "madrasi-lungi" drill has probably been going on for the last fifty years in the name of humour. In these fifty years, there have been wars, revolutions, insurrections, huge swings of business cycles and innumerable events that have brought about irreversible changes in the culture, economy and demographics of most cities. With changes of this magnitude, the content of art, cinema and humour is expected to change naturally. Yet, we hear the same old tripe about "madrasis" and jokes about skin colour and the way the languages of the South sound being made. The irony is that these jokes are gleefully being broadcast in places which is home to the people whose culture is being insensitively ridiculed.
Mr. Sunil Pal and all the others who earn their bread doing what he does must be warned to take a reality check the next time they perform before an audience that has a cultural quotient that's greater than theirs. They must, for their own good, try to find out whether the audience is laughing with them or at them.

Care for some Conscientious Consumerism, Comrades?

2006-11-26T19:18:00.000+05:30

In case anyone is wondering, the film festival on globalisation at the Alliance Française did this to me!
It was an eye-opener in many ways. We had always read about jeans and shoe manufacturers exploiting their workers in the Third World and enjoying immunity from any legal action by tactfully sub-contracting their operations. However, to see visuals of over a thousand women in Europe who had lost their jobs and of women in Turkey and Indonesia to whom the jobs had gone working in uncongenial conditions for a pittance was compelling. At least I now know which brands of clothes and footwear I am definitely going to avoid.
There were also several ecological issues that were raised. A documentary by the title Le Cauchemar de Darwin (Darwin's Nightmare) showed how a variety of fish that is a predator, was introduced in the biggest lake in Tanzania as part of a scientific experiment in the 1980s. This predator went on to completely destroy 210 species of other fish in the lake in a span of a few years. The predator was bred because there is a demand for that variety of fish in the European market. By the time when the documentary was shot (around 1998-99) the entire economy of the neighbouring villages and towns depended on catching this variety of fish and exporting the same to European countries. The irony is that the fish is too expensive to be purchased by Tanzanian nationals and even as the country was exporting over 500 tonnes of fish a day, it was on the brink of a famine. There's more to the story. The cargo planes that carried fish from Tanzanian ports allegedly brought with them arms to support the civil war in adjoining countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone to name a few). I found this particular story extremely perturbing as we were also shown shots portraying the extent of poverty and civil strife in the region.
These documentaries are somewhat dated but it would not be unreasonable to assume that things have not changed much towards the better considering the stories we read in the newspapers even today.
It is very likely that this is just the bouregois bohemian in me speaking. I say that because the fact that I support the causes projected in some of the documentaries that were screened does not mean that I am against all that globalisation stands for. Clearly, I am a beneficiary of the phenomenon what with a job in a multinational corporation that I am happy with. Nonetheless, I would certainly not like to cast my economic vote in favour of corporations that flout norms of corporate ethics. Neither would a lot of people I know. It probably takes concerned organisations and individuals such as those that made the documentaries I watched to care enough to highlight the injustice being inflicted.
The way I see it, all it takes is better information to avert a lot of such misdeeds being committed in future. We only need to be informed correctly about the ramifications of our economic decisions so that as economic agents, the choices we make do not end up as the cause for somebody else's woes.

Diwali Getaway: Coorg

2006-10-29T17:13:00.000+05:30

It was "pristine" just as the travel brochures promised it would be. We were surrounded by more beauty than we could absorb!

A To-Do list for Podmoza

2006-09-01T23:29:00.000+05:30

My friend Padmaja (Podmoza in our circles) has recently left for the US of A to study more Economics. As is usually the case, a lot of us had been making lists of all that we simply had to tell Podmoza ( Za here on) before she boarded that plane. We have managed to convey most of what we wanted to but what remains are some hopelessly inane tips and pointers that we are still bursting with. Suchitra and I decided that this blog would probably be an appropriate place to spill it all out. That way, anyone else who would like to add to this list can easily do so.
Za, this is for you from Such and me ( so you already know what to expect :D):
1. Develop an exotic accent to create an 'exotic foreigner' image. We don't want you to be associated with any 'typical Indian student in American University' image. No Za, no stereotypes for you! Do weird things like making the accent sound different at different times of the day.
2. Read whacky journal articles like the one that links the Wizard of Oz with events related to the Gold Standard and quote them somewhere in your discussions.
3. Do invent your own Theory of Everything. Ensure that you can answer questions on anything. ( We have an example of one such theory on Pimples which shall be e-mailed to you)
4. Silly questions deserve sillier answers. We do not think you will face too many of those but it would be wise to be prepared. Trace your links to some Indian royal family just in case the topic arises. If the topic does come up, tell the authorities that by your line's constitution, you refuse to pay for education.
5. This one's important- Rave about Bangy and MCC and the coffee and the Adigas vada sambhar and the CTR food!! Do your bit to save our city from getting stuck with the plain old Silicon Valley/ Electronic City image. Deliver a "Power of CTR Masala Dosa" lecture series to anyone who you think deserves to hear it.
There are a lot more tips coming your way Za. But we prefer to give our tips in small doses. Anyone else who has similar/dissimilar tips regarding Economics/ campus life/ Life/ anything at all to offer to Podmoza is welcome!
P.S- Za. we miss you man! Keep us updated on all that you find exciting in the Economics you learn!

A paperback and a window seat

2006-08-13T13:21:00.000+05:30

Lord Emsworth leaves Blandings for London
And the engine chokes to life
A loud vile cry declares departure
And the bus heads westwards
From the window, familiar city landscapes
Fibre-glass towers and screaming billboards
Turn into fields of paddy and sugarcane
In Paris, Elise finds love.
The engine's humming lulls me to a dream-enriched sleep
That angry honks and high-beams shatter easily.
Arezki is arrested, Elise ridiculed.
Outside, a child in an over-sized shirt
That has safety-pins filling in for buttons chases hens.
A country is partitioned, an exodus follows
Men of steel watch madness make butchers of others
And I dream of angry assasins.
The highway is clear and the bus gains momentum,
Beyond the lake, lights from the suburban porches announce the destination's approach.
A pig turns dictator and I step out to Terra Firma and reality
From that manic trance of confused reality, fiction and dreams
That a paper-back and a window seat evoke.

The Brat Gang

2006-07-16T13:48:00.000+05:30

Recently, I was at a family gathering in the outskirts of Bangalore where I got to meet some of my relatives I hadn't met in ages. I was returning home with some of them who are based in the US and had come to India for the summer holidays. It was a long journey home and there was this one young gentleman who took up the task of keeping me company solely upon his tender shoulders - five year old Sharat who was visiting India for the first time!

When I got into the car, he was wondering why I was coming along with him and his parents and like any good five year old, asked his parents the reason for the anomaly. His parents patiently explained that there was no cause for concern and that 'the girl' (moi) coming along with them was in fact, his sister(to keep things simple). 'I have a sister?!' he startled. After some convincing on the part of his parents, he swallowed the fact and after some deep thinking, decided that he would like to get to know me, his newly discovered sister, better. 'So how old is my sister?' he asked his father. His father told him that it would be a good idea to direct the question to the sister herself. On being quizzed, I asked him how old he thought I was. Now for what follows, let me just tell the people who do not know too many five year olds. Sharat knows all the numbers and he knows more than what a kid his age would typically know. It is just that at that age, kids do not correlate the concept of age and the numbers they have learnt together.One more detail to understand what follows - I'm 22.

Sharat decided to give the puzzle a try and asked me 'You are thirteen?' . 'Sharat, your sister has finshed college and is working now.' , his father said to help him arrive at the answer. 'And people go to college at 21,right?' the kid asked his father. 'Yes, so what comes after twenty one?' his father prompted. 'She's older than 21...' Sharat thought aloud and he turned to me and asked' so you are......41?'. When a kid as cute as Sharat is says something like that in all earnestness, it hard not to pinch his cheeks and give him a big hug. But I had to fight all such instincts as he was yet to fully validate the ties that give me the right to do all of that. Later on during the journey, he warmed up to the fact that he had a sister and seemed pleased about it too. He spoke to me about what he thought about India (which he first thought was a place in Bangalore and was corrected by his mother), the autorickshaws and the autorickshaw drivers, rockets, cars, helicopters, gravity (that was an exceptionally gripping discussion), music and all that he thought I was entitled to know about him by virtue of being his sister. That is one entertaining journey I will remember fondly.

On a related note, last week we had a surprise visit by a distinguished young guest - seven year old Murali. He had allegedly thrown a tantrum at home about wanting to talk to his 'Ranjini akka' (I'm called Ranjini at home and akka means didi). So, his father had to chauffer him to our home one evening. On asking Murali what it was that he wanted to talk to me about, he told me all about his school, the Wright brothers, the Arctic tern and him wanting to join the army. Murali also happens to be an excellent dancer and loves all sports, especially cricket. So he actually enacted an entire scene typically seen while watching any cricket match on TV , which is when there has been a run-out and an appeal is made to the third umpire and there are umpteen replays shown on our screens. Murali enacted the replays and showed how the batsman is shown to move back and forth across the crease and how the fielder is shown to toss the ball towards the stumps. The best part was that he was showing how all of this looks in a replay! As a finale, he even showed the bowler's disappointed reaction when the decision is a not-out. It was a spellbinding performance that day!

It is wonderful to get to know these little brats who are otherwise amongst others of their own kind and are always upto mischief in some unseen corner of the house. It is amazing how they can turn out to be great friends!

For Mumbai and Srinagar after 7/11....

2006-07-16T13:34:00.000+05:30

A prayer that all the causes, issues and discontentment that lead to such flagrant acts of cruelty may one day be completely eliminated......

\chapter{Bangalore Again}

2006-05-15T14:39:00.000+05:30

What does the title mean, you ask? Well, It means that I have finished my course in IGIDR, Mumbai and have come home to Bangalore and will be working here. It also means that I had been writing my thesis in LaTeX and sitting long hours in front of the computer has done some damage to my already modest literary skills and that explains the unimaginative title.

But this post is more about leaving Mumbai than about coming to Bangalore. That is not to say that I am not excited about being back in Bangy! I am absolutely delighted to be here! However, it is only now that I have begun to realise how much I will miss IGIDR and Mumbai.

Two years ago, around this time, I was wrtiting the IGIDR entrance exam and was very anxious to clear it. After attending the interview a little more than a month later (7th of July, 2004), I fell in love with the institute and would have given anything to be given a chance to study in IGIDR. Looking back now, at all that I have learnt in the two years that I was in the institute, I feel extremely fortunate for the opportunity I was granted. In terms of academics, all the Economics that I know (which isn't very much) is what I have learnt here. I owe a lot to my professors but shall not attempt to express my gratitude towards them on this blog- I will not be able to convey all that I feel. There is more that I have gained from this experience apart from some knowledge of Economics, a degree and a job. To be honest, I did not feel this way about the place from the beginning. I was depressed, lonely and cynical for nearly three out of four semesters. The fourth semester has proved to be an eye-opener.

I realised how much I enjoy the company of my friends here and how important they are to me. There was the usual pressure of assignments and tests this time too but somehow, it did not seem half as taxing as it did in the earlier semesters. If I have to sum it all up, it began to seem like this was just the right thing to happen. It is as if I had to go though it all - the pressure, the loneliness, the frustration, the thrills, the highs, the laughter, the feeling of belonging...since I got to learn a hell of a lot from all these experiences. Two years in IGIDR has proved to be enriching in many ways and for that, I have to thank my friends! Thank you for being the wonderful people you are! I shall treasure the memories of the time we spent together!

P.S: A thousand apologies for the hackneyed cliché but I really do mean it!

Oikos Nomikos

2006-03-07T00:28:00.000+05:30

In a 1997 article titled " How did Economics get that way and what way did it get? ", Robert M. Solow concludes by saying:

" Oscar Wilde described a fox hunt as the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. Perhaps here we have the overeducated in pursuit of the unknowable. But it sure beats the alternatives. "

The article describes how the study of Economics has evolved over the past few decades into its current model-centric form. It suggests that the shifting of the centre of gravity of research in Economics from Britain to the United States could be one possible explanation. It also involves interesting comparisons of Economics with other sciences, mainly Physics and Biology.

The process of learning Economics has served in showing how wide-spread and fascinating its applications are. It is almost seems like there is nothing that falls outside the scope of Economics, that the scope of this science that started out as the science of household management, is infinite!

Transmutation

2006-02-18T00:52:00.000+05:30

Morphed in a flash,
Simplified, trimmed down and concised;
As an abridged pocket-sized chef d'oeuvre,
Dimensions lost
Comprehension gained.

Thank you for the music!

2006-02-09T00:38:00.000+05:30

That's what I would like to say to the Kannada film industry! Now, that would appal anyone who's even remotely familiar with the kind of music that's being generated in Sandalwood (that's what the Kannada film industry is called)! But something that happened today helped me see things differently.
This evening, after dinner, I picked up a tape at random and played it. It happened to be a collection of songs I had recorded from the radio in Bangalore that I hadn't listened to for a long time now. One particular song in the tape changed my mood entirely. The song is called " Car Car" and is all about these marvellous locomotives that have changed our lives. The video alternatively features highways of the USA and the humble roads of namma Bengalooru(and this was shot when the fly-overs were being constructed- not a pretty sight at all!) during rush hour traffic. The chorus goes "Car car car car yelnodi car (2)"! The absolute meaninglessness of this song is what makes it endearing. Added to that is the fact that it is sung by some talented play-back singers. I enjoyed it so much that I actually felt refreshed after listening to it!
Every now and then, Bollywood tries hard to come up with crass, meaningless numbers- but on this one count, Sandalwood outsmarts its big brother in Mumbai. It is only in Kannada movies that we have songs like "Colour colour" and this other song, the chorus of which goes something like:
"Danger, 16 to 20 danger
20 to 30 hunter
30 to 40 soldier........"
No prizes for guessing what this song is all about. And I swear these are all real songs in real movies!
I do not know if these songs are written by lyricists (if they actually hire lyricists to write them) who have little kids at that crucial stage of childhood when their rate of absorption of new words into their vocabulary is at its peak. Perhaps, these songs are innovative tools devised by the smart lyricist-parents for feeding some important words of every Kannadiga's favourite language (viz.,angrezi) into their kids' long-term memory.
Regardless of the actual reasons behind the songs, I thank the persons behind them for making them. If these songs did not exist there would have been an implacable void in the universe!

Non!

2005-12-19T20:32:00.000+05:30

So it's that easy? A city of 6.5 million people can be renamed just because one litterateur felt like it would be the right thing to do and a myopic chief minister was only too happy to give his blessings? Firstly, the whole exercise seems pointless. Bengalooru is simply Kannada for Bangalore just as Dilli is Hindi for Delhi. In Chennai's case, Tamilians had always been referring to the city as Chennai even as the rest of the country called it Madras. But in Bangalore's case, it is just the same name pronounced differently. So if the state government's policies are to be consistent, they will have to rename Mangalore as Mangalooru, Mysore as Mysooru and Chickmaglur as Chickmaglooru. This will most certainly involve various costs in terms of both time and money.....costs that the indebted state government can do without! Moreover, there is an implicit message that is being sent out to all the talented people from all across India and the world moving into Bangalore when the local appelation becomes the city's official name. A message that says that the Garden City is not as welcoming as it once was.
If names of places can be changed simply according to certain politicians' whims sans any referendum, I shudder to think of all the possibilities open to Sonia, Laloo or Advani followers to impress their 'leaders'....all MPs and MLAs have to do to ensure themselves a lucrative portfolio the next time is to name their constituency after their party president or the latter's kin (eg. Rabrinagar, Rahulpura !!!!).
One attenuating factor is that, looking around us, we know that the change in name is not going to matter significantly; Bangalore will remain the liberal pluricultural city that it has always been. We only have to ensure that the wrong signals that are attempted to be conveyed from the name change do not really reach the intended targets.

Caught in a time warp!

2005-11-03T00:31:00.000+05:30

I have finally finished reading 'Is Paris Burning?' by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins. I had been reading it for the past two months and have thus been living through the events that occured in Paris from the 19th to the 26th of August 1944 every night before going to bed. Anyone who's read any work of the authors of this book would know of their capacity to effectively transport the reader in time and space.As is characteristic of the style of Lapierre and Collins, a lot of effort in research has been undertaken to provide the reader with the smallest of details ( such as the colour of a dress a particular Parisienne had worn on Liberation day) which is what makes it seem like the events in the book are unfolding before one's own eyes.
The book is about how Paris narrowly escapes from being reduced to ' a field of ruins' as Hitler had planned it, to avenge the desruction of German cities by the Allies.The title of the book comes from Hitler's angry words 'Brennt Paris?' addressed to the chief of his general staff when he learns of the surprise attack of the Allied forces on German strongpoints in the heart of Paris.Hitler had repeatedly given instructions to the commander of Gross Paris Dietrich von Choltitz to ensure the capital was completely destroyed if it were to fall into Allied hands.
Apart from the actual battle for liberation, the book also describes several other conflicts that could have delayed Paris' timely liberation.These include the political fued between the Communists of France and Charles de Gaulle and the skirmishes between de Gaulle and the authorities in Washington.Further, it describes the moral dilemma that von Choltitz went through when he was instructed to execute orders which, he knew, if carried out,history would hold him guilty.
The passion that went into the efforts to save Paris comes across throughout the book.Overall, the book makes interesting read for any history buff.

Here's something that has made the experience of reading the book very interesting for me: I had read Catch 22 by Joseph Heller just before I started reading 'Is Paris Burning?'.Now, Catch 22 is famous for Heller's caustic sarcasm and is aimed at pointing out the meaninglessness of war.It blatantly rubbishes the idea of 'a hero's death' and other such romanticisms associated with war.So, while reading about the nationalisitic fervour of the young French man who took to arms to save their beloved capital and the American GIs who executed the orders they were given unquestioningly, I was constantly reminded of how these sentiments , in a way, contradict what is depicted in Catch 22.Moreover, I happened to watch two WW2 based movies - ' Schindler's List' and 'The Pianist' while I was reading the book.It then seemed like the book deals with an insignificant part of the much larger horrific event that was World War 2.

It does seem like there can never be no such thing as 'too many books' or 'too many movies' about World War 2 if we are to try to understand its actual impact on the lives of people and nations!

Ajji

2005-09-24T22:32:00.000+05:30

Music soothes no more
It is merely a reminder of your melodious voice and of all the songs you taught me.
A source of boundless love, comfort and warmth, an epitome of serenity, an undemanding giver,
By instinct, you chose to reminisce of reasons for cheer when your pain had rendered us all joyless;
You chose to be content , unaffected by all the troubles that came your way;
We see you Ajji, in all that could make us smile.
We were still learning from you the art of appreciating simple pleasures, of acceptance and of gratitude,
We are now left to learn these precious lessons without the teacher who taught by example.
Ajji, with each passing day, your absence has become harder to accept.

You are reading my journal

2005-09-15T01:53:00.000+05:30

The Lake Superior State University has included the word 'blog' among several other 'misused, abused, over-used or useless' words of the English language that ought to be proscribed. It appears in the 2005 Banished Words List along with phrases like 'wardrobe malfunction' and 'pockets of resistance'. Somebody who nominated for 'blog' to be 'banished' would like to see words like 'diary' and 'journal' being used instead ( since blog comes from weblog = web+log i.e, an online journal).
Some of the other words in the list indeed deserve to be there ; anybody caught using 'safe and effective' , 'all new' and 'and more!' again should be put through rigorous courses in vocabulary amelioration that require them to learn words like 'absquatulate' , 'spifflicate' and 'sternutatory' all day long as punishment. 'Blog' seems to be the most innocent word in that list- it really doesn't deserve such harsh treatment- what say, fellow keepers of online journals?

In my defence..........

2005-09-04T18:55:00.000+05:30

.......It happens the world over- southerners speak differently! In the one year that I have been in the Great Indian Melting Pot, Mumbai, I have endured excruciating analyses of my accent when I speak Hindi by well-meaning friends, casually curious strangers and certain chauvnistic compatriots. There have been several theories about the accent that mine resembles the most- the venerated Sonia accent, the distinct Rajni accent( this would be my personal favourite if I had to vote) or the angrezi accent of Lagaan fame.....and the list , to my exasperation, is growing! I have tried real hard to speak Hindi 'normally'- but the accent just keeps coming back ! That set me thinking- maybe this is all due to some really powerful linguistic influence that south Indian languages have on their speakers. But then I remembered the classes I had while learning French where we were taught how the Southern accent is different from the popular Parisian accent. It was then that I realised- this is a global phenomenon- it happens everywhere- the US where SAE( Southern American English) is studied as a seperate dialect by linguists, it happens in Britain, Spain, Japan....! I say we ought to accept the South Indian accent just as a distinct southern accent has been accepted in all these other countries and let it stay that way- it has its own charm! (it really does!... and to those who do not buy that-you need perspective, meri aankhon se dekho zara!)

Where rationality abounds

2005-08-30T18:35:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered where the 'rational agents' in Economics text books actually lived? Anyone who has serious reservations about the assumption of rationailty in Economics must visit our quaint ,charming institute for research in Economics located on a little hill in Mumbai's periphery. You will then discover the world of convex and even lexicographic preferences, utility maximization, constrained optmization, Nash equilibria and most importantly, monopolistic competition on a scale that's inconceivable in the outside world!All decisions here from the choice of subjects and supervisors to the choice of a seat in a class-room are made after resolving carefully defined optimization problems.You can actually figure out what your roomie will be doing in the week-end with the help of a neat mathematical model !Studying Economics here is like one of those fantasy movies where the viewer becomes a part of the plot and there is simply no escape till the movie ends! An invigorating ambience for the study of Economics, this!
Need any help visualizing an Arrow-Debreu equilibrium? One visit to IGIDR , Mumbai could solve all your problems :-).

J'y suis arrivée!

2005-08-29T16:37:00.000+05:30

Enfin, un blog à moi !
Merci beaucoup Mamta pour l'encouragement!