Book Tag: You're It!!

Mandar tagged me. And although I stopped playing tag quite a while back, this one looks like a fun game so here goes…

Total Number of Books I Own: Don’t tell my mom this, or she will kill me! Roughly about 450 or so. Ranging from utter trash to sublime literature, I have enough fodder for a couple of generations of silverfish.

Last Book I Bought: This was Undue Influence by Steve Martini. Typical page-turner, somewhat in the genre of dear old Perry Mason, only the morality is greyer and the humour, much darker. Has been classified into holiday/travel reading.

Last Book I Read: In the Company of Cheerful Ladies by Alexander McCall Smith. The latest in the series on Precious Ramotswe, a delightfully engaging lady-detective (she calls herself that!) in Botswana. Starting with the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, this is a series to read every time you want to reaffirm the existence of goodness and kindness. Simple, straightforward and charming. (It was a re-read.)

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:
Let’s see. Five books that mean a lot to me. Hmmm.
1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: Simple, yet profound. I found this book in a pile marked to be given away. I was all of twelve and completely believed in Boo Radley. Even now, many years later, every reading reveals more nuances and Scout continues to grow up with me.

2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien: The ultimate Quest trilogy. Fascinating characters, extraordinary landscapes and great writing make for a tale that can be read and re-read over and over again.

3. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: An eye-popping, magically real look at Indian history and the Indian psyche.

4. Misconception by Naomi Wolf: A classic feminist text about the gender bias that exists even in the field of gynecology and obstetrics. Through her own experiences of carrying and delivering two kids, Wolf recounts the myriad ways in which the American health system stumped her. Interesting, enlightening, and frightening.

5. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder: This book is here for two reasons. Firstly, Gaarder is Norwegian, and this appeals to my Scandinavian fascination. Secondly, philosophy is an enchanting subject. This book combines the beauty of philosophy with a creative narrative that entertains as it teaches. An allegory, a lesson plan, a great story and a mystery all rolled into one.

There are tons of others. Kundera, Douglas Adams, Amitav Ghosh, Mahashweta Devi, Vikram Seth (especially Golden Gate!) Margaret Atwood, Roald Dahl, Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Enid Blyton: so many friends to spend a lonely night with. All dear, all delightful. Best part is there are always so many more to discover! A veritable candy shop for the mind!

Why siblings make more sense than Nike!

I’ve recently been sharing stories with friends and colleagues of the merits and demerits of having siblings. My single-kid friends always protest loudly when I say that kids with siblings are better behaved! (Giving truth to my statement with their loud protests, nevertheless!) Yet, I sincerely believe that having a sibling is a healthy way to learn some important truths in life. Like this one: Just do it!
This I learnt when pretty young. My sister was two; I was 6 and a half. She was beginning to be very pesky and I was starting to realize exactly how pesky she could be! I was proud of school (those were the days!) and enjoyed the whole ritual of packing pencil-boxes and books and stuff. One day as I packed my pencil box, she reached out and grabbed an eraser. Now that was fairly normal. But when she proceeded to slobber all over it in typical two-year-old fashion, I lost it, and made my first and last mistake in this category. I threatened to beat her. Really, I only threatened! Next thing I know, she was bawling her head off and babbling in that endearingly pathetic way that two-year-olds have: "Nandu beat!" Of course, seeing the apple of her eye in such abject misery, and bearing witness to the creator of that misery pushed my mother over the edge and I got soundly whacked! I also learnt my first lesson: Just do it! (Especially if you're to bear the consequences anyway!)
Really, who needs Nike when we have siblings?

Through Four Doors

My grandfather was in the I.C.U. for two days this last week. The same place where my gran died. There is a corridor there, leading up to the actual ward. It has four doors. From the icy cold of the waiting room where you take off your shoes to the actual ward, you walk through each of those four doors. Each door is a new level of pain and self-knowledge. And many are those who haven’t dared beyond the first. Choosing to urge on their braver relatives, and keeping themselves back in the relative safety and cold of the waiting area. For although the temperature grows warmer, few can endure the coldness of the soul that descends when the fourth door shuts.
At the end of those four doors, pain and indignity rule. Loved ones who stood tall and proud, shake and stutter. Warm hands turn cold and clammy. And I’m not even talking about the sick.
Back in the purgatory of the waiting room, near and dear ones huddle together for warmth and comfort, making periodic, and lonely, trips into the perdition that lies beyond the four doors. And on each of those trips, they whisper silent prayers. Let it be quick. Let there be no more pain. Let me never be here.
I made many trips up and down that corridor in those two days. Whoever’s up there now knows me really well. Thanks to those four doors.

Sanjeev Kumar and Darth Vader

I watched Star Wars: Episode III over the weekend. I almost cried at the sadness of it all. Someone somewhere once said that the turning of good to evil was a grand thing. A thing to be gawped at, awestruck. In Anakin Skywalker’s transformation to Darth Vader, it was awesome, but sad, heartbreakingly so.
And in a strange way it reminded me of Trishul. I’m sure purists will be offended by the comparison, but the whole father-son parallel in the two movies is hard to ignore. In Trishul, the dynamics are different, the situation and issues more mundane, but the father-son dialectic is almost as powerful. Also I like Sanjeev Kumar with his arms intact! (For those who don’t get it, think Sholay!)
Which brings me to the only grouse I have with George Lucas. I mean, seriously, where are the mothers and daughters? Few movies and books, if any, graduate beyond the bittersweet dynamics of daughters growing up in their mothers’ shadows. But fathers and sons are everywhere! So are mothers and sons, for that matter! Complexes, compulsions, obsessions, power struggles, are all familiar territory in many fictional dad-son, mom-son relationships. Yet, I’m looking for a strong, realistic portrayal of a woman and her daughter. Not sentimental, but strong. Not bittersweet, but tangy as mint. Not pallid, but passionate. Demeter and Persephone qualify, but aren’t there any others?
Maybe I just haven’t found the book or movie that is out there. If you know of one that might pass this test, do let me know. Until then I’ll go on feeling sorry for poor Darth Vader and even poorer Luke.

The Intolerable Brightness of Choice

Sometimes, just sometimes, in moments when I’m blinded by the sheer brilliance of choices offered me, I long for a simpler life. One with more certainties. It manifests itself as a longing to read Christie and Dickens, even Erle Stanley Gardner. A longing for a world where all equations can be worked out the way we solved them in school, without the messy, bleeding edges that real life offers.
Times like this, I can almost believe that it would’ve been better to be born in a poor family, be expected to fetch water, cook food, wash vessels and clothes and not speak/study/love/question. Be married off at 16 to a man who may or may not care, bear children, raise them, and die. All without an iota of doubt that this was what my life was designed to be. That it was all fated, and like a good movie, it played to the end.
Unfortunately, the circumstance and time of my life don’t permit such an easy formulaic film. Instead like a new director, with a brand new camera full of film, I wander in a daze, trying to capture every exciting picture, every tantalizing sound, without knowing what the film will turn out to be. So when I periodically sit back in the darkness of my mind to review the rushes, the sheer brightness of choice blinds me.
I can write the story, I have the resources, it’ll be a beautiful film, if only I can allow myself to see clearly. But the brightness blinds me and I continue to film on a wing and a prayer.

Of koyals and gardens

This morning, as I took a shower, I heard the first koyal of the season. Aai used to say; koyals mean the rains are coming. I stood under my little rainfall and listened as this particular koyal went completely crazy announcing the beginning of the end of the summer. And I thought to myself as I came out of the bath, that there would only be a little more time to gorge on mangoes before they disappeared for another year.
Yet, when I come back to the kitchen, fully dressed and hungry, the floor is covered in green mangoes slowly turning to gold. The transformation as exciting as the change to autumn colors, yet far more succulent and promising. My granddad tells me they’ve come from our trees back home in the native place. The trees Aai planted.
In front of our medium-sized house back in rural Karnataka, my granddad and grandmom had lovingly planted a garden. My granddad had planted flowers and shrubs, mogra, shevanthi, the fragrant mallige. My grandmom was far more ambitious. She had chosen to plant 3 mango trees, a drumstick tree and a couple of chikoo and guava trees. My granddad argued over the time and effort it would take to raise trees. But, she preferred the profound to the prosaic and ultimately prevailed.
This morning, as I bit into a piece of golden sweetness, I thought of the last time we were at the house, swinging in the hammocks between the mango trees. I remember the peacock my dad photographed one early morning, coming over the wall to enjoy the shade. And I think of my grandmother who saw far into the future.

How do you know?

Someone recently said to me, “If we survive apart for the next year, then I’ll know for sure that we’re meant to be together.” And set off a small thought parade in my head. How do we measure love? Or the honesty, the sincerity, the very truth of a love? How do we know that the love we have, the somewhat-mundane regular love we’ve settled into, is the one great love story of our lives?
Some people, like the friend I talked about, measure it in years. If we last for so long, we’ll last forever. If we’re still together at New Year’s then we’ll always be together. We’ve been together for six years; we wouldn’t have survived if we weren’t meant to be. And yet, in all these statements, the time is only incidental. We’re willing to allow time to be the arbitrary and supposedly fair judge of the worth of a relationship because we know no other.
Some other people, measure love in the grandness of a gesture. He proposed to me under the stars and the ring was gorgeous! I knew right there it was love! Yet, a gesture is only a fragment in the tapestry of a relationship. And even grand gestures become boring if you have them everyday.
Still others measure love by what it does to them. She makes me feel great. He makes me feel beautiful. Yet, any great relationship does that. We have friends who make us feel complete and whole, parents who make us feel intelligent. What then?
I’ve said every one of these things too. And yet I know I fall short of describing why I believe in the worth of my relationship. I know because of all this and more. I know because it makes even the mundane, quaint. I know because it could be a day, a month or a year, and we’d be together because we chose to be. And there lies the key. I know it’s true, great even, because I choose it every single day. Not because I can’t live without it, but because I live with it when I could live without. Because existentialism is easy and trust is much harder.

Beginnings and Endings

For anything to start, something first needs to end. A colleague, well-loved and admired, leaves today to take off on a whole new journey. In the gaggle of goodbyes and good wishes, I’m wondering if something of me will stay with her. We haven’t been the best of friends, but she has been a very good mentor without ever meaning to be. She is kind and sweet and very very adult. The kind of daughter every parent wants, and the kind of friend anyone would be proud of.
So as she leaves today, I’d like to wish her happiness. May her every morning be bright and lovely, her kitchen always full of delicious smells, her arms full of loved ones and her bags full of memories. And as she climbs on that plane into the future, let the regrets and sadnesses of the past fade into oblivion and may she look down on a landscape smoothened by beauty and love. Dearest L, may you find every joy you look for. And a little more. You definitely deserve it. Godspeed and God bless.

Do I ever cross your mind?

Am listening to Ray Charles’ last album, Genius loves company and feeling wistful.
I want to go dancing across the landscape of your mind in an uninvited moment and leave that lingering ache that makes you call me and say almost nothing.
The dancing, however, must wait for a more opportune point in time. There are things to do, places to go, clients to talk to, and storyboards to write.
I’ll just have to put up with you dancing through my mind.

An exciting life? No, Thank You!

Last December, one fine Wednesday, I took a rick home from Andheri and this rickshaw driver wouldn't stop talking! He asked me my age, marital status, my parents' work, even my sister's age. In return he told me that he lived in Dahisar with his mausi, was 30 years old, a graduate and earned between 500-1000 bucks a day. Then he asked if I wanted to stop for chai!! I politely said, no, thank you, and tried to see how I could cushion my fall if I were to jump out of a running rickshaw!!
Then, of course, he bowls a googly. He asks me for my name. Now I remembered all those scary stories that girls tell each other at pyjama parties about people stalking you and stuff. So I thought I'd give him a false name. My name, I said, is Radhika. All seemed well until he exclaimed, "Arre! Mera naam Krishna hai!" I died!
Thankfully, we were already near home, so I jumped out, paid him and walked away as fast as my little legs would go!
Phew!! My life is more exciting than i want it to be sometimes! :) And on days like today when nothing exciting happens, I remember days like that one and am happy for a boring day.

Quizzing for joy!

Just came back from a rather fun office quiz that had been arranged for a bunch of newbies. :) I love quizzes. This, of course, does not mean I'm good at them. In fact, more often than not, I don't know the answer, and when I do, I tend to blurt it out completely out of turn much to the annoyance of the teammates!
Come to think of it, I'm not very good at singing either, which is another thing I love. Ro will constantly discourage my singing along to anything, even a song from a rickshaw movie like Raaz or Tere Naam, which shows how bad it must sound to others. (Coz it sounds just fine to me, mind you!)
Luckily for me and my loved ones, I don't love any dangerous stuff like racing or hang-gliding. I mean with my track record for being bad at such stuff, I could end up killing someone!
What worries me, and could in the future worry others, is my budding enthusiasm for cooking. Have to find out where Mom keeps the cleaner fluid, so I know what to avoid!

Remember When...

I’m a sucker for nostalgia. Start a sentence with “Remember when..” and you’ll have me hooked. So I was paying attention when someone recently said, “Remember when you used to post everyday?” and was suitably ashamed. So here I am. Why was I away? Mainly because the brain was on a blink and I could only think of monosyllabic words; boredom and too many hospital trips can do that to you.

Anyway, that particular “remember when..” reminded me of other, more pleasant “remember whens…”
Like, remember when

• the only fun stuff on T.V. was Giant Robot and Fragglerock?
• pencil boxes with magnetic clasps were the über chic accessories in school fashion?
• you only got music on cassettes?
• Thums Up was the ultimate Cola?
• it took ages for a letter to get to America and you had to scream down phones to be heard in Allahabad?
• a girls’ sleepover was fun and exciting?
• we gossiped through the night and couldn’t stay awake in math class?
• we sneaked down to the baking-room for a chat and were caught by snoopy Sr. S?
• we first met? Our first meal together?
• we walked down Marine Drive in the rain?
• you surprised me by coming unannounced on New Year’s Eve, all the way from England?

Our only weapon against the passing of time, memories, trapped, like an insect in amber, in all those remember whens.

Swimming the sea of matrimony

A friend got married this Monday. The evening was lovely and she looked gorgeous. The flowers everywhere, the fairy lights, the general bonhomie of the reception was enough to make me long for just such an evening, all my own. Until, I realized that in this case, more than any other, the ‘morning after’ could make for far more than a headache!
I’ve always looked at matrimony as a deep, blue sea. And as friends and family will attest, to me the metaphor is more than terrifying. I’m phobic about water, and I must admit, more than a little frightened of the uncharted waters of marriage and all that it stands for. Which is why I watch on amazed, excited, yet afraid, as people all around me dive cleanly off the safe springboard of singledom into the churning waters below. Disregarding distance, time, age and geography, they seem to be single mindedly determined to thrash their way to the other side.
Yet, like while waiting on the side of a pool on a hot summer day, I can already imagine the cool waters, the sudden falling away of my body, the grace of the water enveloping me kindly. I can see how fun and enjoyable it can be, and I want it. And I’m afraid.
Around me, couples swim through the waters in their own fashion. Some are loud and sloppy, like the neighbor’s kids. Some pass by quietly and methodically, swimming with the economy of experienced swimmers, paying bills, feeding kids and attending functions without missing a stroke. And then there are the golden couples. The ones who swim like they were born to it. I watch them as they swim like Olympic synchronized swimmers, graceful and free, together yet apart. And as when I watch them on TV, I wonder if I could ever do it.
My family and friends behave much as they used to at the swimming pools of my childhood. They urge me to take the plunge, endorsing the pleasures of marriages, the wedded bliss of cliché. And I dither by the poolside, by turns, tempted and repelled, fascinated by the cool blue and terrified by the depth, waiting, as always, for someone to hold my hand and smile away the fear before we hit the water.

On Pain

I’m in pain. My arm persists in behaving in a strange and perplexing manner. Starbursts of pain snake their way from my right wrist to my shoulder regularly in an irregular manner. Drugs have been taken, bandages have been wound and relief is eagerly awaited.
I am always impressed by how solipsistic physical pain makes me. The stabbing awareness of a body is never stronger. Every nerve, hair and muscle quivers with the possibility that it too might impinge on my consciousness like the pain-creator of the moment. And I restlessly fidget inside the shell, all at once uneasy at what it means to inhabit such a frail container.
Of course, I know the pain will not last forever. And yet, my mind argues, what is there if there is no pain? It is only the other side of immense pleasure my body affords me. And it affords me the same awe at what wonderful things our bodies really are. And always, it reminds me not to take it for granted.
And sometimes, it gives me something to write about.

A nugget of wisdom

I always thought pretty women were pretty silly when it came to men. Found unexpected support in this quote attributed to Katherine Hepburn. Must watch The Aviator. Cate Blanchette won the BAFTA for this role and gets my vote for the Oscar as well.
Now what did Katherine Hepburn say? She said, "Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do."
What say? Dis/agree?