So, the thing is...

Your average, normal human being.

[blibberingschrodinger]

Happy birthday?

Because my definition of a ‘happy’ birthday seems to have undergone a massive change over the years.  And no, I didn’t wait till my birthday to make this an H-post. I’ve had writer’s block.  The idea makes me happy, because if I had writer’s block, I must be some kind of a writer, no?

I turned 32 this past weekend.  In my opinion, this might have been one of the most peaceful birthdays of my life.

Because I didn't celebrate it. “What a grumpus”, you might think. And by some standards I may even be the grumpiest grumpus ever.  But this time, I was a happy grumpus, oxymoronic as that may sound. 

When I was a kid, the days leading up to this day used to be full of excitement.  I was bought two sets of new clothes - one for the birthday party in the evening and one to wear to school, because you know, birthday. Till I was in class 5, my mum bought sweets and stationary that would be segregated into tiny packets - one chocolate and one pencil and one eraser in each.  Special friends (basically my bench partner, best friend, class monitor, and current crush) would get two chocolates in their packet and teachers were accorded the highest status - a dairy milk bar.  I'd go to school laden with these gift sets for the whole class feeling somewhat like Santa Claus, and return feeling pampered, special, and considerably lighter.  In the evening, my mum would gather all the kids from the building and have them come over for the ‘cake-cutting ceremony’. Everyone would bring little presents, sing happy birthday, eat the cake, play one game of dumb charades, and go home.  This used to be the favorite part of my day.  The silence after everyone had gone.  After a special dinner that had all my favorite food, I’d sit around with my parents to open my presents, discover that I needn’t worry about my supply of stationary for the rest of the year, and go to bed.

After we moved to Hyderabad, this ritual stopped.  To begin with, there were only 10 people in my class excluding me, and somehow we were no longer excited by the idea of toffees and pencils.  There were also no kids around where we lived who I was friends with, and I think that was the year I started hating attention, so it was just as well that we couldn’t have the standard celebrations.  I'd just take some assorted chocolates to school, give them out and have happy birthday chorused at me by a horribly off-key, all male group. When I was a teenager, I was never completely satisfied with how my birthday had been spent.  I definitely enjoyed all the presents and the food and some of the attention, but there was always this feeling of something not having been just right.  I used to think this was for the lack of having a cool birthday party with all my friends and music and cool snacks and no adults.   Later on, when I actually had the option of doing this, the very idea was horrifying.  So the self-berating continued - “you’re just one uselessly shy person who doesn’t have the courage to arrange a party”, “even if you did, probably only one person would turn up”, “you suck”, and similar thoughts followed me around like a large alien-blob. 

Till last year, even though I had stopped giving sweets out, and being greedy about presents, there used to be an expectant feeling in the air.  Like the blob had changed its function from being a self-berating blob to being a judgmental blob, forcing me to feel excited and pressured about having a good time. It grew larger and larger and on my birthday it felt like the thing was riding on my shoulders, smirking at my failure to "have a blast".  (Incidentally, I don't understand why we wish people blasts on their birthdays. Won't they die if they actually had one?)  By the end of the day, I'd be disgusted with myself, depressed for not having done anything significant in life, and the birthday blob would openly be laughing in my face. I would spend most of my day saying thank you to Facebook friends who posted on my wall.  While well meaning, I couldn’t help doubting the warmth when the wish was from people I hadn’t spoken to in years.  It was with a sense of relief that I woke up the next morning to go back to being my un-special, nondescript self.

So this year, instead of torturing myself, I simply spent my birthday like I spend any other weekend - doing things I like.  I cooked, cleaned, Skyped with my parents and sister, watched movies with my husband and enjoyed some excellent wine.  I reviewed my three decades of existence and realized that I’ve done okay.  I didn’t pressure myself into having other-people’s-idea-of-fun. I didn’t make any promises to myself, except to take life as it comes, and to wear my introvert pride on my forehead. I took my birthday off Facebook and people still remembered to wish me. I did not spend time looking at social media and responding to wishes from near-strangers. And you know what?  I had an excellent time.  I wasn’t depressed, nothing felt forced and I actually felt  good about things.

I’m happy to report that there was no sign of the birthday blob.  I checked. Thoroughly.

[nottherealsimon]

The Agatha Christie’s Poirot cast as animals :D

[blibberingschrodinger]

How could I not reblog? @poornakatha, look!

[blibberingschrodinger]

Gupchup

Because it nicely refers to the cities in Haroun and the Sea of Stories and my favourite street food - golguppa!

As I attempt to write these alphabet posts, it is becoming increasingly evident that I have two main interests - books and food.  In an effort to deviate from these, I thought of writing a post titled Grammar, but it started turning into a rant, so I stopped. Then I started asking people to give me words beginning in G, hoping that would lead me somewhere, but I suppose I can’t really expect myself to write about what appeals to others (also, I’m not talented enough to take request-words and whip up a post!).  So here’s to embracing oneself, warts and all, to borrow a phrase from Mrs. Hughes of Downton Abbey.

Or paanipoori, or puchka or whatever else you call it. This tangy, spicy, crunchy contraption has never failed to make me drool. I’m actually grateful that technology hasn’t advanced to the point of recording faces while the person types, because I’m drooling right now, and that isn’t a pretty picture! 

Any mention of street food has two effects on me. The aforementioned drooling, and an immediate recollection of all the street food I ate while I was in Delhi. My maternal grandfather (tatha) had lived in Delhi for the longest time, and knew Chandni Chowk like the back of his hand.  Of course, this was still in the days when you could wander through this place without worrying about sleazy men groping your little granddaughter. So once in a while, after begging my mum to let me go, and being the personification of obedience for at least a week, I would be allowed to accompany tatha into this land of paanipoori, papdi chaat, aloo chaat, hot samosas, ram laddoos, chole-kulchas and several other delicacies which I can’t bear to name when I still haven’t had my breakfast. Tatha would finish running his mysterious errands and then we’d stuff ourselves with any and all kinds of chaat, top it off with the crunchiest jalebi I’ve ever eaten in all my years, wash it down with a gigantic glass of lassi or jaljeera and return looking like contentment itself.  Sometimes we’d make a detour to the Dolls museum, to prove to my mum that we weren’t entirely frivolous, but given that I could better remember the food I ate than what I learnt, she saw through that fairly quickly.

All the time I was in Delhi (and even now when I visit), my favourite of the street foods is aloo chaat. It beats golguppa for a while.  It’s simply diced boiled potatoes - seared on a frying pan till the outer sides are golden-brown-crisp, tossed with mint chutney, chaat masala, some spiced chickpeas, chopped onions and topped off with lime juice. Man, oh man. I could polish off 3 servings at a time as a kid and the chaatwaala (next to Roshan-di-Kulfi in Karol Bagh where my cousin and I would get this treat), would be amazed at the little girl asking for more even as her eyes watered from the spice.

Hyderabad, unfortunately, isn’t familiar with this nirvana-inducing street food, but some of the stalls can still mix a mean paanipoori. My absolute favourite is the stall outside my college. That chaat stall used to be such an equaliser. Inside the campus, we had identifiers - science batch, arts batch, rich, not-so-rich, the cool ones, the arrogant ones, the simpletons and so on.  Outside, huddled around this tiny stall among all the samosa ragda, kachori, papdi chaat and golguppas, we were all the same - hungry. I’ve heard several accounts where girls would take an auto from outside the college just before lunch, ask the driver if it was okay to eat first, and have the driver happily join them in snacking. So when one day one of my friends came running and announced that the chaat stall wasn’t where it was supposed to be, our world nearly came crashing down.  Droves of students gathered in the street to try and find out where he was - our saviour, the one person who could make nothing of all our college worries with this tangy magic potion served in tiny pooris.  We endured this trauma for three days, surviving on lacklustre fare from the college canteen, before the man came back from a family vacation in his village. Sighs of relief were breathed all around and life could go on as before.

This stall is still around. I’ve gone back to it in recent times, and the food tastes the same.  It is now served in plastic bowls, instead of the leaf ones, and the stall itself has moved into a tiny shop, with benches for those who wait. These and the lines that time has left on the face of this underrated magician, are the only changes. Everything else remains - the man is still happy to oblige with warm filling for your paanipoori should you so desire, and is still wielding his ladle with the same expertise.  If you’re in Hyderabad and find yourself anywhere near Lifestyle in Begumpet, do look this guy up.

On a slightly less drool-inducing note, I finished reading Haroun... It is by far, the most excellent metaphor for the lack of freedom of speech I’ve come across. Lest I echo A’s post, I’ll simply say that you should definitely read this one.  And make everyone you know read it too, for good measure.  Speaking of books, there is also this delightful little volume called Korma, Kheer & Kismet, by Pamela Timms that talks about food in Old Delhi.  It has recipes for all the dishes mentioned, an added bonus for someone like me.  Fair warning though, please refrain from reading this on an empty stomach. Seriously.

[yoursgenerally]

Kahani

I came across First Amendment Fundamentalism* through the writings of Christopher Hitchens, who was a lifelong crusader (pun intended) for freedom of expression and a self-confessed First Amendment Fundamentalist even before he launched his war against religion. One of the events that combined both his passions and also led to a barrage of high quality writing from him was Salman Rushdie’s fatwa. 

Salman Rushdie himself has suffered a great deal due to the fatwa and the lack of complete freedom of expression in our world. His genius though, lies in the fact that he’s managed to write a treatise on the importance of the freedom of expression and the relevance of stories and fiction, and cleverly disguised it as a thoroughly entertaining children’s novel, Haroun and The Sea of Stories.

I asked K to pick up book from the library thinking it’s a set of short stories but learnt that it’s a novel from its back cover. I’m not a big fan of novels (primarily because I’m a slow reader), but what really perked up my interest, and kept me engaged, was the character and place names, many of which are derived from Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu words, and if you know the meaning of these words it enriches your reading experience immensely. Salman Rushdie has a unique way of connecting with the English language and using it to keep the reader engaged. He talks about the importance of establishing that connection in this interview with Charlie Rose.

The book is dedicated to his first son Zafar and we can easily see a lot of parallels to his own life (e.g. a story-teller and his son are the main characters), which will probably be more obvious to people who’ve read Joseph Anton (I’m looking at you, K). The tone is much like the author is reciting the story to his son. The feeling was much like what I got while reading Hobbit, which is really the written version of the story that Tolkien told his children.

The character names also have plenty of references to other stories like the Arabian Nights stories, Alice in Wonderland, Don Quixote, and most pleasingly for me, to the Beatles. There is a group of people known as Eggheads whose head is the Walrus (full name: I. M. D. Walrus). This is the exact reference I’ve used for my headline, and these are quite an intelligent group of people so I was stoked by the coincidence. Talk about connecting with his readers!

The country the book starts is called Alifbay (the first two Arabic/Urdu letters) and the “world” from which the stories come is called Kahani. The world has talkative and silenced sides known as Gup and Chup. He’s used the analogy of light and dark as well as (the sun’s) warmth and cold adroitly to explain the differences between a society with freedom of expression and a closed one. These references also reminded me of this article by a Turkish author Mustafa Akyol, which talks about how the Islamic states now have moved far away from what the Islamic culture stood for a few centuries ago. Coincidentally, that article mentions Ibn Rushd (known as Averroes in the west), a 12th century scholar whom Rushdie’s father took his family name from.

The Gup army is called the Library. It’s headed by General Kitab, its regiments and battalions are volumes and chapters and the army men and women are pages. This analogy talks about the importance of books and libraries in an open society and does a splendid job of driving the point home.

I’ve already divulged quite a few details and I’m afraid if I go on any further I might end up spoiling it for you, which I’d hate to do because this is a must-read for anyone who likes fiction and believes in the power of books and the freedom of expression. It should also be made mandatory reading at the primary/junior high school level.

* First Amendment fundamentalism is a belief that ALL laws limiting or suppressing speech, including those against extortion, contempt of court, slander, libel, etc., are unconstitutional by the plain reading of the First Amendment of the American Constitution.

***

Aside: Whenever I think about Rushdie’s love for language, his knowledge of English literature, and his endearing camaraderie with Hitchens, I’m reminded of this video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhybzb_rushdie-and-hitchens-playfully-alter-classic-literature_news

Enjoy!

[blibberingschrodinger]

It only made sense to reblog this after having mentioned this book in my previous post...

[blibberingschrodinger]

Fiction

Because we all make it up now and then.

Some of my fondest memories from my summer vacations are those of my maternal grandfather telling me stories to keep me from disturbing my mum’s afternoon siesta. He knew a grand total of four stories, and would tell me these in succession, as he lay on his cot with me sitting by his side - the very picture of attention. My continuing fascination with the same stories was an endless source of amusement to him. He tried reading some new ones and telling me those as an experiment, but that didn’t work (mostly because they were from the Tinkle I had devoured a few hours ago and left lying around). So he stuck to the standard four and I spent several enjoyable afternoons listening to multiple variations of these.

Aside from confirming the fact that I might just have been the most boring kid in existence, that paragraph was meant to illustrate how fiction played such a major role in my childhood. I am eternally grateful to my mum for having ensured a steady supply of books/comics/magazines/something to read wherever we went.  She was the one who wanted to inculcate the “reading habit” in me, and probably ended up succeeding more than she wanted to, since it totally overshadowed the “making-friends-and-interacting-with-humans” habit. 

Interestingly, I started to read in reverse.  Meaning, that I would pick up Tinkle, stare at the pictures to my heart’s content (this was when I was around 5, so staring at pictures was fun), and I would think to myself “Why do these people have words? I know what the story is. Who needs words? Okay, let’s try this last one.” And reluctantly, I would start to read the last word (I’m not sure why I always read the last one first). Painstakingly, I would string the letters together and move along the sentence like someone reading Arabic and would eventually discover that my version of the story was different from the actual one. Indignant, I would try it with the next story to see if I got any better at guessing storylines, and would end up finishing the comic.

I’ve already written B for Books and C for Christie, so it’s quite evident I do, have always and likely will always, love reading fiction. Reading made up stories is one of my favourite ways of finding peace and calming myself down. Every time I go to the library, I am overwhelmed by how much fiction there is to read!  It makes me just a little sad that I wasn’t introduced to good fiction till I was much older and had to discover it for myself.  Agreed, that has its own charm, but really it would have been awesome to have read known about Harry Potter when it first released in the late 90s.

After having read a little bit of crime fiction from the public libraries here, I had this idea (preposterous as it turned out to be), of writing fiction. I think that was the only easy part of the endeavour. I’d write a paragraph, and then realise I was simply mimicking the style of the most recent author I’d read. Writing fiction is obviously a very very difficult thing to do. You need to build complete characters, thought by thought, feeling by feeling.  You need to speak in so many different voices - I can barely bring myself to speak in my own! Practice might help sharpen sentences and training might help master the technicalities of writing, but I suppose in the absence of inherent talent and ideas, both of those can go only so far.  I think Salman Rushdie said that - in way better words of course.

Speaking of whom, have you read any of his books? If not, I recommend you start with Haroun and the Sea of Stories. A borrowed it from the library, and is reading it during our bus ride to work in the mornings.  I was reading along with him today and the few paragraphs I managed, simply made me forget I was in a bus with grumpy people, heading to an office with grumpier people. The first of his books I ever read was Shalimar the clown. I got confused, nearly gave up, realised what he was doing with words, and read the rest of my book with my jaw somewhere near my chest. My life is mostly driven by logic, and I never thought I could enjoy an oxymoronic-sounding genre like magic realism, but boy was I wrong! To make words behave the way Mr. Rushdie makes them behave is pure genius. I’m not fool enough to think I can do that. I was hoping for a Tinkle-standard short story, but so far the page has remained blank.

So for now, I’ve given up on writing fiction.  For now, I’m happy reading about the worlds other people imagine for me. It’s enough at this point that I can at least visualise what they imagined, and derive incomparable joy from their use of words. Given the amount of fiction available in the libraries, that should keep me busy for a while.

[poornakatha]

Women and Men

A couple of days ago, my facebook feed was overflowing with gratitude messages for women. The sacrifices they make, the value they add, and how no one would exist without their beautiful influence.

But, of course, there were men who made jokes about it, asked why there is no ‘Men’s Day’ (there is, idiot. It is on Nov 19th), and how men will just forget the day anyway.

For all those people…

I won’t forget to wish you on Men’s Day. I am all for equality.

On Men’s Day I will wish that you get paid just the same as a woman for the same job.

I am all for equality of opportunity. I hope you get six months of paternity leave. I hope you are there for every smile, gurgle, spit up, vomit, mid afternoon hospital run, loving hug and cuddle. I hope you are there for your child’s first steps and first words. I hope you feel transformed by the experience of caring for an infant and feel as close to the baby as your wife does. I also hope you enjoy returning to work and talking to colleagues about your ‘break’ and whether you did anything interesting and travelled anywhere in those six months. I hope it is a pleasant experience convincing your colleagues that you are as competent as you were before you became a father.

I am all for social equality. I hope no one stops you from following a career that you are passionate about because it is ‘unmanly’. I hope you become the first male nurse, male cook, male stay-at-home-parent, male teacher, male detective, male carpenter, male engineer in your family. I hope you are lucky enough to marry a lady who allows you to work. Or stay at home. Your choice. I hope she doesn’t feel threatened by your success. In fact, I hope she celebrates it and basks in the reflected glory. Still, though, I think you will enjoy the luxury of following her wherever she gets transferred. You will experience new places for free and develop new language skills. And become great at adapting to new circumstances.

I hope you get to decorate your home just as you like, with as many lazy boys as you wish. I hope there are no cushions in the house or any piece of uncomfortable furniture. I hope your wife is generous enough to allow you to do this. And I hope you enjoy vacuuming the bread crumbs out of the sofas (she left them there while watching a late night movie with the girls. She didn’t clean up after herself because her father never taught her to take care of the house).

I am for sartorial equality. I hope you are never told that a colour is ‘girly’. As if colours have gender. I hope you get to wear pastels and pink and daffodil yellow if you like. I hope your clothes become a little more interesting and office wear doesn’t just have grey, blue and black. I also hope you are surrounded by models of male beauty. I hope all male actors and male models are impossibly good looking I hope their interviews often have insights into their diet and skincare regimen and you are inspired to stick to a self care routine. In the middle of this, I hope you have a family that reassures you that you looked beautiful while receiving an MTech degree in guided missile technology.

I am for economic equality. I hope you see ads each day about your mother saving for your dream wedding. I hope your mother still feels it is necessary to spend on an education. I hope you are surprised and happy to see an ad about a man starting his own business (after the boss sidelines him for choosing to become a father).

I am for equality in the home. I hope you are extremely shocked and grateful when your wife’s family behaves like decent guests at your wedding. I hope everyone congratulates you on the wonderful family you are marrying into and how much your mother must have saved on wedding expenses. I hope your wife is helpless when left alone with your baby and calls you every fifteen minutes to check where the baby’s food, clothing, diapers, common sense, humour and intelligence are. I hope her look of extreme gratitude makes up for everything. In fact, I even hope she posts messages on social media complimenting you on your parenting skills. I hope that our legal system begins to see that fathers are parents too.

I am all for safety for everyone. I hope some kind lady accompanies you to the auto stand when you leave work in the evening. I hope the auto driver doesn’t flash her breasts at you. I hope they (the kind lady and the auto driver) are thin, malnourished and look physically weaker than you, but are still, somehow, safer on the road than you are. I hope you are allowed to learn to drive a car. I hope you are never allowed to drive a motorbike.

But, above all, I hope the laws protecting against domestic violence are repealed. God forbid if your cousin’s colleague’s friend’s husband misuses the law and foists a fake case on her.

[blibberingschrodinger]

Genius, no?

[blibberingschrodinger]

Extraordinary

Because by definition, ordinary must exist. 

On a very long commute to work, that ceases to be mesmerizingly  scenic after the first few weeks, I discovered that I was on board a "WiFi Bus", and to get my eighteen dollars' worth, logged on. The first thing that popped up on my feed that morning was a series of what looked like inspirational quotes with one difference - they were a mandate. They spouted stuff like 'get up and get awesome' 'go out and don't go home till you're the best' and so on. I read the first four quotes before scrolling down and finding comfort in a post about someone's check-in to a coffee shop. I usually don't pay much attention to posts online. Given the limited brains I have, I like to put them to use for more productive things - like scrolling down Instagram posts. 

This post however, got me thinking about how we seem to be living in a world of superlatives. It is no longer enough to be 'satisfied'. Indeed, there must be something wrong with you if you are satisfied with whatever job you have because it serves it's primary purpose - paying your bills. You must be mental if you don't seek out challenges in your job or other aspects of life. "You like spending your weekend pottering about the house and making simple dishes for your husband? Right, So you like cooking. Let me get you a cookbook so you can make one of those complex dishes - a weekend project maybe!". This part in quotes was actually said to me by a colleague who thought I was "wasting" my life because I wasn't chasing any ambitions. It is probably a good thing I didn't tell her that my greatest ambition is to one day be loan free, have a house of my own and have a nice cup of tea with my husband while watching Jeeves and Wooster. Also, since we do the tea-with-Wooster thing pretty much every weekend, I've probably achieved my goal, to a larger extent than this colleague in question. 

To be clear, I have absolutely nothing against people with ambition. Or against people who seem to achieve whatever they set out to, in a most Midas-ish manner. The ones who seem to be the inspiration behind those posters that mandate being extraordinary. My annoyance is with folks who think anyone can be that extraordinary. How is that even possible? How can an entire population be extraordinary? Who'd be ordinary then? There is nothing wrong in wanting to be extraordinary, you might say. And I agree, there isn't. Then again, there is also nothing wrong in not wanting to be so, or in recognizing your limitations. Like A said, "I can want to be Steve Jobs with all my heart. I can even work really really hard and get advanced degrees in computer science, but I still can't be Steve Jobs. Just because some people make it look easy, doesn't actually make it easy." I think he is right. All of us have our limits. Physically, emotionally, intellectually, financially and in so many other ways. I see so many young people not recognizing that factor (yes, yes, I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to notice this new generation). This lot seems to take the inspirational mandates seriously, and they don't go home till they become "the best". (If you spot a barely adult, twenty-something fellow overworking, stressed out of his skull because all his other friends are 'starting up' or 'quitting their jobs to travel' using their fathers' money, please send him home and ask him to live a little bit.). Why do we set such unrealistic expectations from ourselves? Sometimes I think our parents' generation had the right idea. They weren't chasing some dream at their jobs. Those jobs were a means to an end. Some were lucky to find something they really enjoyed doing, and others didn't and that was okay. They found fulfillment elsewhere. It was completely fine to enjoy simple pleasures in life and not topple a steady train just because some friend's business venture did well. 

From the anyone-can-do-anything-if-they-want camp, I now see some people graduating to the everyone-should-do-everything camp. In encounters with these folks, my eyes hurt from the effort of not rolling them. Why is it so wrong to be okay with being ordinary? Ordinary folks in my opinion, have immense common sense and are actually fun to talk to, given that they're not telling you how you should make yourself useful every waking moment of your life. They are also using time they could spend being ambitious to write alphabet posts on their blog for your enjoyment, so it can’t be that bad. No?

[blibberingschrodinger]

This is the very first time I’ve deleted an entire almost-ready draft and started over again.  In a different tone, different scenario, different frame of mind. I’m somehow, very proud of myself.

[blibberingschrodinger]

Dosa

Because, yum!

A few winters ago, I used to know this little girl who would settle in front of the TV every Thursday night starting 8:00 pm and watch Zabaan Sambhalke and Dekh Bhai Dekh back to back, savoring every frame of the hilarious stories being played out. Thursday nights were her weekly treat. She would sacrifice her play hour, and finish up all her homework, set her bag according to the classes in the next day’s schedule, polish her shoes and make sure her uniform for the next day was ready. She knew she would be denied her precious hour in front of the television if even one of these tasks wasn’t complete.

Come 7:50 pm, a mini easychair would be pulled out of its usual resting place and set in position, as close to the TV as could be managed without being yelled at by her mum.  Glasses would be cleaned and worn - the occluder she was wearing to coax her lazy eye into working was given a rest.  This specific task was performed with the slightest touch of smugness, given it was her most accomplished negotiation. She’d settle in and impatiently wait for the refrain of “washing powder Nirma” to finish. Just as the opening bars of Zabaan Sambhalke’s title song started playing, a plate would appear in her lap as though by magic. Her mum would have piled this plate with that divine combination of dosa, coriander and coconut chutney and butter. She would spend the next half hour enjoying the gentle comedy and the crispy feast in equal measure.

There are obviously no points for guessing who this little girl was, and how I knew her. The above, isn’t fiction.  This was the Poirot-ish ritual I used to follow every Thursday while we were in Delhi. Greater enjoyment, I haven’t known till date.  Even today when I happen to come across any clips from these two serials, I can nearly smell dosa-chutney and I have to stop, because I know I’ll start drooling, and that isn’t a very appealing sight.  After we moved to Hyderabad, two factors proved to be obstacles to this ritual.  The first, was the conclusion of both the aforementioned serials. The second was - for reasons beyond my control, and not very pleasant to document - my mum was no longer in-charge in the kitchen.

In more recent times, and somewhat to my surprise, dosa has been my ultimate comfort food.  I always used to think it would be rajma-chawal, but no. I find that as age has caught up and I’m increasingly choosing to drink a cup of tea over a glass of wine before sleeping, this crisp, savory ‘Indian Crepe’ as it is described in countless restaurants overseas, has cemented its place in my mind as my ultimate comfort food. It might be noteworthy, that I consider nearly any and all kinds of food I eat, comfort food (except for salads), but dosas are a class apart. (OK, maybe it wasn’t all that noteworthy, but like that little girl would have said- my blog, my wish!).

Dosa nearly saved my life. Well, it saved me from slipping into depression at any rate, when I was visiting the US for the first time. After days of eating bland, pseudo-Indian food, being told that a Chinese dish would be spicy and being served a bowl full of gravy with bell peppers, the sight of Saravanaa Bhavan nearly had me singing. Folks in that restaurant were a little more than shocked at the amount of food A and I put away that day. The moan that escaped both of us when we ate the first bite of our dosas was enough to embarrass anyone within earshot. But we didn’t care. It was dosa. It was definitely the most expensive dosa I’ve eaten, but it was also the tastiest. I would have given an arm for it that particular day, I was so homesick. NYC was definitely more charming after that day.

These days, for a decent dosa, we have to take a train and a bus as a part of an hour-long commute to reach the hallowed portals of Saravanaa Bhavan. But we do it. We set time aside on weekends, we don’t care that it takes forever to make a trip, we don’t care that it means nearly the whole day is set aside for this trip. We do it. Because nothing - I repeat, nothing - beats that first bite of dosa with chutney followed by sambar. Nothing soothes me as much and nothing brings back that feeling of absolute enjoyment and security from my Zabaan Sambhalke days. “After all this time?” you might ask.

Always.

[zwischendenstuehlen]

Have you ever wondered where books come from?

Well then, let me show you, because that’s what I do for a living.

Right now, it’s this time of the year, and the little ones have just freshly hatched:

You’ll notice they’re still blind and naked when they hatch. So I make them little coats to keep them warm during their first winter:

See how they happily line up to put them on:

See? Better. Now they’re ready to go and explore the world.

And if they make it through the winter and we take good care of them, they will grow up to be strong and wise like their older fellows:

So, in case you were ever wondering, now you know.

[bluelightseven-deactivated20140]

[allofthefeelings]

As a Publishing Professional I can say that this is 10000% accurate, and I am a little concerned you’re just giving away all of our industry secrets on Tumblr.

[poornakatha]

See blibberingschrodinger? This is how they grow up and become wise.

[blibberingschrodinger]

How could we have thought otherwise!?

[blibberingschrodinger]

Christie

Because after having read a fair bit of crime fiction, nobody has managed to give me as many incredible jaw-drop moments as Dame Agatha Christie. Thanks for the letter-tip PK!

The first time I heard Agatha Christie’s name was when I was in class eight, and was under the impression that Carolyn Keene was the best writer of detective fiction.  Like Bingo Little would say, the folly of one’s youth! During a conversation with a distant cousin, I mentioned I liked reading detective stories and how Nancy Drew was my favourite (never mind that those were the only books I had read till that point), when she said “Oh, you’ll love Agatha Christie then! Nobody manages to build suspense like she does. Have you read any?” Slightly offended, and not wanting to seem like an absolute ignoramus, I mumbled something about having started one, but not gotten far yet. I then pretended like amma was looking for me and made good my escape. If I were any wiser, I would have realised that this cousin was posing a trick question. After Agatha Christie, Carolyn Keene (or the several people who wrote under that name), is like a parody.  I don’t mean to undermine the Keene stories. They gave me several enjoyable afternoons, and at one point I even play-acted some of the stories with a few friends. But Agatha Christie is a different league. I’m sure even Carolyn Keene - were she real - would agree.

Interestingly, I don’t remember the first ever book I read. I think it was The Clocks. For the longest time after that conversation, I only knew that the Hindi film Gumnaam was based on And then there were none, and it became one of my favourite movies despite the awful ending. During the final year of school, I found myself watching the dramatization of The Mousetrap produced by the theater society, and made a mental note to read the book. It’s surprising that I never actually got around to reading all the books till much later.

When I started going out with A, we talked about Agatha Christie, and he nearly fell off his chair when I said I hadn’t read Murder on the Orient Express. A copy was duly bought, read, and I was hooked.  I think after that is when I read pretty much all the Poirot mysteries. I still remember the night I started reading And then there were none, stopped reading because I was terrified, couldn’t sleep because the suspense was killing me, and stayed up till a ridiculous hour to finish. I had to read the ending twice, because it was so ingenious (so much better than the movie!) and slept with the blanket over my head and tucked beneath my feet. I think those two are my favourite Christie novels. One with multiple victims, the other with multiple killers.

After the internet made it so simple to download movies, I discovered the iTV dramatizations - Poirot and Marple. Oh, the joy. Every time there is an adaptation of a book for the screen, there is always a chorus of readers that goes “The book was much better”, and it usually includes my voice. Not this time.  David Suchet was so definitively Poirot in my head, that when I watched him as a different character in a movie (The Bank Job, I think), I nearly felt betrayed. I’ve spent countless afternoons doing household chores with Poirot and Marple playing in the background. Despite their sinister content, the episodes would put me in a very sunny, comfortable, summer-holiday-ish mood. I recommended it to all and sundry and even told a friend who was staying with me for a weekend, that these mysteries were my feel-good/comfort watches. I’m quite sure she kept an eye on me for the rest of the weekend after that.

So when I came across The Monogram Murders in the library, I borrowed it simply because it said Agatha Christie and Poirot on the cover. I spent a tedious week trying to finish the book and an additional day trying to understand the plot. Evidently, the author’s attempt fell flat. I’m no critic, and Sophie Hannah had a mammoth task in writing a Poirot mystery, but really, they should have left Poirot alone. She herself says she is no Agatha Christie, and she is right. She isn’t. For that simple reason, her Poirot isn’t Poirot.  Agatha Christie managed to make your jaw drop without much drama. She didn’t need very elaborate emotions or dozens of pages where she built scenarios.  As far as I remember, all the books I read were 250 pages at the most. This one was a tome in comparison, and not a very interesting one at that.

There is no better way to end this post, than by referencing the very engaging documentary called Being Poirot, where Mr. Suchet talks about the series and how he spent 25 years playing my favourite detective. Santé!

[blibberingschrodinger]

Books

Because - really, could it be anything else?

The greatest advantage of living by myself, was having time to read.  I don't mean read like I'll-read-a-few-pages-before-I-do-laundry or something similar, where you need to break off in between and attend to some chore. I mean reading like I-have-absolute-control-over-my-time kind of reading.  Granted, I was exclusively reading PGW or Ruskin Bond or Agatha Christie, but these were books that were familiar and comforting.  Nothing wrong with that. During the times that I did venture away from comforting volumes, I tried reading Lord of The Rings, and gave up somewhere after the first book because it was putting me to sleep very very effectively.

One of the best things about moving to Hong Kong, has been access to the public libraries.  Signing up took me all of five minutes, I can borrow a maximum of eight books at a time and renew them five times for a period of two weeks each time. It’s brilliant.  I haven’t really ever been a member of a library, unless you count the telephone-booth like contraption from where I used to borrow Chacha Chaudhary comics when I was growing up in Delhi. And when we moved to Hyderabad, there just weren’t any libraries.  The only books I read during those years were the usual Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys that came to me from cousins who outgrew them. Of my school library, the less said, the better. The library in the school I attended for two years after class 10 was slightly better, but since we were the ‘science batch’, we were subjected to judgmental stares if we were frivolous enough to borrow fiction when we could have borrowed Resnick and Halliday.

It is hardly any wonder then, that I was so enamored with the libraries here, that I sang praises to anyone who would stand still for a couple of minutes. I was so excited to Skype with my mum after I got the membership, she thought I was finally going to give her the ‘good news’ of my pregnancy. Little did she know, eh?

Since I’ve become a member, I’ve mostly read crime fiction.  So much so, that one evening as I walked back from the bus stop, every person who passed me by seemed to me like they were behaving suspiciously! I’ve discovered Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone - a recommendation from a very good friend and an absolute delight to read. I’ve made friends with Aaron Elkins’s Gideon Oliver - the Skeleton Detective, and been impressed by the detail in the stories. I’ve read the novel where Poirot was resurrected (The Monogram Murders) and been thoroughly disappointed.

Every time I go to the library, I realise how I hardly had the opportunity to discover new authors for myself when I was growing up.  In Hyderabad, even when I could buy books, I would only buy the ones that already had good reviews. Also, I could only buy books that were the popular choice and were being stocked. With a library, I have the choice of returning a book if I don’t like it, so I can pick a book on a hunch that it might be good, instead of worrying about wasting money if it isn’t. I have the option of coming across an old book that isn’t being printed anymore, and making friends with some obscure but brilliant detective.

A few days ago, I read an edited version of a lecture by the brilliant Neil Gaiman called Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming.  I think this should be made mandatory reading for the likes of my grumpy school librarian, who was personally offended that I was borrowing a Famous Five when I should have been prepping for my board exams. “You’re wasting time! These books are okay to read in the holidays, but they won’t give you any knowledge”, she said indignantly. I disagreed then, and I disagree now, for as Mr Gaiman rightly says, “ Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.”

[blibberingschrodinger]

Alone

Because I realised pretty late in life how important it is to be alone once in a while.

Like most Indian women of my generation (yes, the day has arrived when I need to add that phrase my generation), I had never lived alone. This probably would have remained the case, had my husband not decided to go abroad to study. Even after that decision was made, I was expected to move back in with my parents (someone even suggested moving to Chennai to live with my in-laws, but that idea was shot down, thanks to my mother in law's common sense). Moving back with my folks didn't make sense for a number of reasons. The most important ones being:

a. Awkwardness when A came to visit. Like really, how the devil would we get any privacy!? b. Logistics - commute time to work, disposing furniture, space in the smaller apartment, yada, yada, yada, c. Having lived any way you please for nearly three years, it is very odd to go back to living with your folks. Don't get me wrong. I love my parents, and I do whatever is possible to make sure they are comfortable. Then again, I love myself too, and I'd also like to do things that make me comfortable.

Obviously, they didn't understand at first. I don't think anyone did. Why would I want to live alone when my folks were in the same city. How could I want to live alone? What sense did it make? Financially (you're wasting money on rent!), emotionally (your husband is away, how can you cope?), and in every other way imaginable. Of all the counter arguments I got, I think amma's food was the only one that had any merit.

Anyway, like my late friend Mamta would say, I put my foot down and insisted on living by myself, and boy did I love it!

One point I must make here is the fact that I am an incorrigible introvert. In my head, there is no greater joy than being alone. The prospect of conversation gives me anxiety. Meeting people and the prospect of small talk are instant triggers of panic. I'm not exaggerating. There have been times when a meeting request for 'Team introductions!' or 'Let's all catch up' has made my hands and feet go cold. I have actually cut a visit to my parents short because it happened to coincide with some other relatives visiting and I just couldn't handle the number of people in the house. I do okay with one-on-one conversations, but the word 'group' is guaranteed disaster.

Anyway, I lived by myself for nearly two and a half years, and it felt like I was reclaiming parts of my life. I learnt that I was fully capable of stepping out alone, accomplishing humdrum chores and on adventurous days, bargaining succesfully for reasonable auto rates. I read, ran on the treadmill, discovered that I love spending time cleaning things, drank copious amounts of tea, tried all kinds of tea, watched dramatizations of Agatha Christie books to my heart's content, and discovered that I actually enjoyed having my sister over now and then.

It's not like I couldn't or didn't do any of these before A went off to study. I did, but for a limited amount of time. I would mostly end up thinking of what A would like to do/watch/eat. Not like he has demands or anything, but still. You end up compromising in a marriage now and then. You don't, can't (and shouldn't, to be honest) do absolutely what you feel like all the time once you're married.

In some ways, I think I grew up during those months. Taking charge of things made most of my big worries handle-able, and my trivial worries, a joke. With absolutely no other way out, I began to respond to a situation logically, without panicking first. Where earlier I would first panic and then suggest solutions to whoever was in charge, now I began to break problems down and deal with parts in a certain order. I suppose I got to know myself better.  I got emotionally tougher, and better equipped to handle unexpected situations and problems.

And no, my marriage did not fall apart, we did not have fights and living away even after having found a job wasn't a sign that my husband was leaving me. On the contrary, we stopped taking each other for granted and the distance really strengthened the bond.

So I made the decision to live by myself, and did so for over two years. I had a great time and none of the ominous predictions made by dozens of well-meaning people came true. Sometimes, it does pay to listen to yourself.

[blibberingschrodinger]

Tumblr Tantrums

It has been a while since I wrote anything aside from work emails and text messages to A. Several things have happened since my last blog post, the most annoying of which, was Tumblr dying on me.  Just like that. No warning, nothing.  You think you are getting to know a site nicely, and things are coming along pretty well, and just when you trust the damned thing with not one, but two 500-word drafts, it refuses to let you login.

Anyway, it has finally started to behave (obviously), and in an attempt to make myself write something (anything!) other than work-related emails, I'm going to do an alphabet post.  An idea shamelessly copied from the likes of Sue Grafton and my good friend PoornaKatha (whose blog you should totally read).

Well then, let's see how this turns out...

[sriramvasu]

Always.

[blibberingschrodinger]

Rest in peace, Mr. Rickman.

[scienceisbeauty]

International Space Station silhouetted against the sun.

Via HuffPost Science

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

[blibberingschrodinger]

Oh my!

[yoursgenerally]

Raspberry Pi

I’ve decided to restart blogging and write (mostly) about my side projects. Most of them involve technology, which excites me, and technology that excites me.

The current project is the my new Raspberry Pi (Pi 2 Model B). I don’t have a keyboard and didn’t want to hook the Pi up to the TV screen, so I’m accessing it from my Mac. This kind of access is called “headless” access because you’re accessing the Pi through a network connection and are not using a separate screen and keyboard. 

I found an extremely useful post by Edmundo Fuentes (whom I’ve started following, btw), who has solved the exact same problem and written a simple, yet brilliant, step by step guide.

The only two differences in my process:

1. Macbooks these days doesn’t have an Ethernet port but they have Apple’s own “Thunderbolt” port, so I’ve got a “Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter”.

2. I bought a micro SD card pre-installed with NOOBS, so when I ran the Raspbian’s RasPi Configuration tool (sudo raspi-config) to expand my rootfs, I was told that I can’t use that tool but since I have NOOBS, my rootfs is expanded anyway (i.e., the rootfs occupies the entire SD card).

And, as suggested, I’ve installed Chicken of the VNC (VNC Viewer).

I hope to do some interesting stuff with the Pi. I’m just reading up stuff and thinking of fun things to do. I’ll definitely post when do try something out. 

Cheers!

[blibberingschrodinger]

I’m liking the names.  Raspberry Pi, Chicken of the VNC.  I’m waiting for the day when someone launches a software called Ragada Pattis - teekha zyaada.