Everything's Official About This

The Boy on the Burning Deck

2012-01-25T16:05:00.001+05:30

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Uncle OT or The Visitor as he's known to some, sent me this link
to a news article from The Guardian and asked me if I could do a post on what I thought of the subject. Looks like he's been mailing other bloggers, too! (I get the vague feeling of being back in composition class in school!)

The article is on obedience and why it's not necessarily a good thing in children. Ah well. To start with, I'm not a big fan of studies like these. Ten years down the line, it's very likely that someone else will find out that obedience makes your heart last longer or gives you a third kidney. But in any case, since I'm a parent and all and therefore qualified to be opinionated, I shall air my views.

Obedience works on hierarchy. Basically, somebody who is bigger/richer/older tells someone else who is smaller/poorer/younger what to do and expects the latter to follow those instructions because the former knows better (by virtue of being bigger/richer/older). It's a different thing when this is an employer-employee situation because the employee is paid to obey (even then, we must Facebook at work).

As far as obedience in parenting is concerned, it is all about someone who is bigger and older telling someone who is smaller and younger what to do. As children, we're all taught to obey our elders and we're also duly made to read a hundred moral stories in which an annoying boy called Ramu with a neat haircut wins a medal for being obedient. But life is rarely as simple as a Ramu story.

Funnily, the value of disobedience was taught to me by none other than my mother. When I was in Class I or so, we had this story called The Boy on the Burning Deck in our English reader. Now the actual story has a war background and all, but the story in our reader was simply about a boy on a ship who was standing on its deck because his father had asked him to do so. The ship bursts into flames for some vague reason and the father dies off. But this painful boy, instead of escaping when given a chance, chooses to stand on the deck and die because his father told him to stand there and not move. As five-year-olds, we were all expected to burst into tears at the death of this very noble child. My mother, after explaining the story to me, told me very clearly that in the event of a fire, she hoped I wouldn't be an idiot and stand somewhere just because she'd told me to.

When we talk about how important it is for adults to cultivate obedience in their children, we assume that the adults in question are wise individuals who know and understand the world. Sadly, this is not always the case. Age, in my opinion, is rarely a qualification for wisdom. Everything around us ages, including the furniture, and one does not automatically become wise by defeating death one extra year. If this had been the case, we wouldn't have so many old people spending a good amount of time calculating the number of minutes by which their morning coffee was delayed because their modern daughter-in-law woke up only at 6 AM. Unless a person actively chooses to grow from life, the years do nothing to his/her intellect. Old people are just like young people. Some are wise, some are not. Some are painful, some are fun.

Similarly, with parents, not all parents know what's best for their children just because they are parents. I'd like to distinguish between good behaviour and obedience here. Good behaviour is to do with social interactions. A child who insists on keeping his/her shoes on and jumping on somebody's white couch, in my opinion, deserves a whack (okay, a very light whack AFTER you've told the kid to geddofff a million times...don't call Childline yet). Good behaviour is necessary to cultivate in children because otherwise, we'll have a world full of unbearable adults whom we can't even whack. An intelligent child will figure out pretty quickly that good behaviour often works in its favour if the parents are supportive, appreciative, and exhibit good behaviour themselves.

Obedience, on the other hand, works on the principle of threat and becomes a personality trait. It is a 'do-this-or-else' hierarchy and if the child falls in line all the time, it simply does not get the chance to think for itself. A well-behaved child needn't always obey what his/her parents say. Likewise, a poorly-behaved child could very well take up Engineering because mommy told him to. As parents, we all have an idea about what we want our child to be. This is not wrong. But it's equally important to encourage the child to figure out what it wants to be. When you become a parent, your entire world shrinks to that of your child's. You are forever occupied in trying to do your best for it. For your child, however, the world is expanding and you are increasingly becoming irrelevant. This is inevitable and should be so. Even though I consider myself to be pretty broadminded, I'm quite sure GBM will someday shock and scare me by wanting to do and doing things that I wouldn't have done myself. It would be okay in her world and not okay in mine. And that should be okay.

When a child is old enough to have opinions (and even my two-month old has opinions on which part of the house she wants to tour), there will be instances when disagreements occur. But even if you disagree, do it with respect. Be willing to consider the possibility that your child might be right even if you don't understand how. Parents are often dismissive and forget the fact that children remember. If you are not willing to consider your child's opinion because s/he is a pipsqueak, remember that you are setting an example for the child who will not consider yours because you are an old fogy. And worse, you might bring up a child who does not value anybody's opinion.

I thought back to my own childhood when OT sent me this link and tried to imagine what my life would have been like if I'd been obedient and listened to everything that my parents, teachers and elders had told me. I concluded that I'd have been an unhappy Physics school teacher who had no clue about her subject.

Moral: When there is a fire, get the hell out of there.

The Old GB Blog

2012-01-25T11:47:00.003+05:30

***

When I deleted my old blog, a reader managed to save many of my posts from cached pages and emailed it to me. Though I don't have all the posts, I do have many of them. I'll try and put the old posts up one by one on the following url:

The Old GB Blog

Now let me be unfunny here in peace :) Tatas.

The Kung Fu Panda

2012-01-20T10:26:00.006+05:30

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This is in response to a comment made on this post in which a reader has fretted that this blog is turning into a mommy blog and s/he is not very pleased about it. Since a few others too have called this a mommy blog ever since I started writing about GBM (though some of them were happy about that), I thought I should say something about it.

Here's some news: I passed out of college a long time ago.

The Gounder Brownie blog (the first one) was started when my biggest problems in life were professors who didn't know how many lines made a sonnet. It's been close to eight years since then and yes, I've changed. I mean, what do you expect? I wasn't eighty when I started that blog for the posts to have the same theme of laughter club meetings for eight years. From 18 to 26, quite a few things have changed in life and it's only natural that it should affect what I write about and how I write it. I'm no longer as apoplectic as I used to be and I believe it's better for my health and my writing, too. Yup, I've even reached that stage in life when I care about my health. Who would have thought. I'll be appearing in Olay ads next.

And to those who are getting antsy about the amount of attention GBM is getting here, here's a gist of my life the past year:

3 months of nausea and migraines, 3 months of hyperventilating about suspected Hypertension, 3 months of severe heartburn and lack of sleep. One horrendous day of pain when I discovered what pain actually is. Six weeks of recovery from a major operation when I barely managed to sleep.

And right now, working my ass off in between feeding GBM and changing nappies to keep my sanity.

You see, I've put in so much effort into getting this kid out of me hale and hearty that I'd be damned if I'm going to pretend this subject doesn't interest me. Or act like I'm not insanely proud of it. This is easily my biggest accomplishment- physically, mentally, emotionally and though motherhood might be common enough, it's pretty uncommon to me. GBM also happens to look like me and there's nobody more fascinating to me as myself. So be sure that you are going to hear a lot about her over here. If that makes me parochial, so be it. So was Jane Austen. Heh.

That said, no, I'm not going to write only about GBM here. There will come a time, I hope, when I'm able to take a leisurely bath, watch movies, read books, meet annoying people, eat out, go on trips, attend job interviews, have colleagues, hang out with my friends, have long conversations, write blog posts without interruption, and so on. When all that happens, I might start writing about it. For now, I will stick to writing about what I'm experiencing. Like I always have.

We were all babies once. Not brinjals. I find it enlightening to watch the journey that I once made play out right before my eyes. It offers me a perspective that I greatly value. This is not to say that I've become a Zen Master. This is to say I've become a Kung Fu Panda. I'm blundering my way into wisdom. And this is the big screen where that story is playing out. Too bad if you don't like the show.

Me, Myself

2012-01-19T09:44:00.002+05:30

***

I've finally started going on my evening walks and it feels great to step out of the house for an hour a day. Of course, this splendid outing is limited to me walking up and down the road in front of my building and nowhere else because I should be able to get back within five minutes if GBM starts howling. I usually feed her before leaving and then she's content to talk to her yellow doll- Manja Coloru Manjula- or the box of her car seat. Or watch M dance. She doesn't seem to miss me during this one-hour period and I'm grateful to be of insignificance.

I've not been reading much. I tried to read Dr Spock very sincerely but I concluded that he just keeps saying you can do anything as long as you feel it's right. Which I knew anyway. Also, he keeps talking about childcare in 'simpler societies' and how it's all golden there and it began to annoy me. I'm pretty sure he'd consider Indian society to be 'simpler' and that certainly wouldn't be true, considering how complicated childcare here is. Every aunty worth her weight in Grand Sweets michur will have an opinion on what's best for your kid, even if the kid she raised turned out to be an A-class moron.

One book I really want to read is The Emperor of Maladies. I tried to read it when I was pregnant and quite liked it, but it was just too heavy to get past then. What with me being preoccupied with apple pie and all. I've come to realize that I basically don't want to read any literature where I don't immediately know what the hell is going on and who the hell the first person voice is. I remember wanting to read such books when I was in college and even feeling proud that I got them, but now that I have very little time on my hands, I don't feel like indulging the self-indulgence of others.

I try to watch one episode of Seinfeld every day on my laptop with earphones on when GBM takes her afternoon nap. Since she's started sleeping for seven hours at night these days, I don't try to put myself to sleep when I'm not particularly sleepy. I will eventually run out of Seinfeld DVDs though and I must plan on what series to watch next. I'm quite tempted to order off all the highly violent crime thingies that I didn't watch during my pregnancy. I'm sure some wise aunty will come and tell me that violence can be transmitted through breastmilk though.

I do some amount of writing every day, too. Whether it's blogging or work-related or even sending 'creative' text messages to N or A. It keeps me from completely transforming into a dairy cow.

This is the summary of my Me-time. And though it must sound pretty lame to all you swashbuckling young people, I'm pretty happy.

Kichidi Kid

2012-01-11T10:41:00.006+05:30

***

One of my greatest childhood regrets was that I was not Egyptian. I corrected this by calling myself Isis in secret. Osiris was my imaginary boyfriend. Yes, really. When we had to name GBM, we made a long list for girls and a very short one for boys (I just knew it in my bones that it wasn't a fella in there!). After she was born, we finally picked a name that wasn't there in either of the two lists. Both M and I agreed that the name suited her, had a good meaning, sounded nice phonetically blah blah. My secret reason for agreeing on the name, however, was that it ends with a 'ra'. I'm hoping GBM will have an Egyptian phase like I did and insist on everyone calling her Ra. Heh.

Which of course, makes me one of those dunderhead parents who actually believes their children will care about fulfilling their hopes. If my own track record is anything to go by, this is a highly foolish dream. My mum desperately wanted me to be all classical. Like learn Bharatanatyam and Carnatic music. I did learn Bharatanatyam. For two torturous weeks. After which, I gave up because the class timings clashed with Oliyum Olliyum on Doordarshan.Now, I'm playing all sorts of classical songs for GBM (phoney, phoney me). Last week, I also introduced her to the Beatles. So that, you know, when she becomes a depressed teenager, she can be depressed with class.

My mum also tried to get me to learn to read and write Malayalam. I was least interested in this project as well. Currently, however, I'm feverishly reciting Malayalam nursery rhymes to GBM. Similarly, M, who never admits to his Telugu identity and insists on calling himself a Tamilian, only speaks to GBM in Telugu. So much so that I find myself speaking to her in Telugu-mixed-Malayalam at times.

I wonder what GBM will eventually speak. M and I mostly speak to each other in English. I can understand Telugu (or at least, the Chennai-Telugu that M speaks) but cannot speak it. M can understand Malayalam and speak it like Vivek in Tamil movies. The only regional language we both can read, write, and speak is Tamil. We live in Maharashtra where most people speak Marathi as their first choice and Hindi only if we request them to (it's only recently that I discovered that Marathi and Hindi are actually very different languages- I always assumed they were more or less the same since I couldn't understand either). I really don't know how this child is going to speak though we will, of course, harass her in the first few years of her life by acting patriotic and insisting on her learning three Dravidian languages all at once. She'll probably end up speaking a bit of each and learn none of the languages properly.

Deep down, I think I don't care. I don't think I'd mind very much if she only learned English properly. There, I said it. Not because I think English is superior to the other languages but because it makes sense practically speaking. That's one language she's got to learn properly if she's to survive her education (and her grammar Nazi mother). Neither M nor I bothered to learn our respective mother tongues (just like several other parents), so why should we push it down GBM's throat? She'll obviously have to learn the local language if she's to get by (which I still haven't but manage to get by because I work out of my bed). But really, if she doesn't want to learn everything else, I don't think I'm going to push her and get all holy-cow. I know this is how languages die and we-must-take-pride-in-our-culture yada yada, but really, decimal numbers are bad enough to contend with as a kid. Why make life more difficult?

I'm going to try and find out if she's interested in learning dance/music/skating/tennis/swimming/salsa/maggi noodles and so on like a dutiful mother, but if she doesn't give a damn, I'm going to be happy. I mean, I was happy being a useless lump as a kid, so why not? I don't think I'll be heartbroken if she doesn't become Airtel Super Singer or receive commendation from Kala Master.

I hope GBM will read though :| I've already put together a picture book collection for her and all. I think I'll find it hard to accept if she's not much of a reader. Or turns into one of those bimbettey girls who is forever trying on lipstick (there's no lipstick at home though...she could try and look Goth with my kajal if she wants). I'd feel a little let down by these two factors considering I'm a children's writer who did General Studies and everything. But ah well, as a parent,the sooner I accept my inability to influence my child, the longer I'll keep my marbles.

I will, however, bring her up to believe that Egyptians are cool.

On Blahness

2012-01-05T11:56:00.003+05:30

***

I was at a New Year's party on the 31st. Yep, that's right, I'm still partying and all. It's a different thing altogether that the party was on the ground floor of the building I live in and I managed to go only after putting GBM to sleep. You wouldn't believe how excited I was about going for this party though. I was like a chipmunk on a sugar high and I kept admiring myself in the mirror because it felt so wonderful to be out of a nightie. Yay yay. Parrrrddddeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. M thought I'd gone mental, as usual. But really, it felt great to go somewhere other than the pediatrician's clinic.

GBM developed a cold last week and I spent a lot of time researching the Common Cold and acting like a huge calamity had happened. She was remarkably not bothered by it, but my heart still broke every time she sniffed.

I also spend at least ten minutes a day thinking about mosquitoes these days. I'm armed with an electric bat on most evenings and the quality of my tennis can rival that of the Wimbledon. I'm turning into one of those mega bore mothers who believe the bowel movements of her baby and such like deserve to be reported in national dailies. I'm pretty sure my mum is reading this and feeling highly smug.

I've managed to finish the first draft of the YA novel I was working on. Woohooooo. It's about 11,000 words long and I've never written with such speed and purpose before.

Which brings me to the title of this post. If I think about it, this is the most non-happening I've ever been in life. I haven't been to the theatre or eaten out or even gone for a walk in ages. My fashion sense is completely dependent on how soon the top can be unbuttoned. And not for reasons you might otherwise assume! I don't even get the time to have a long, uninterrupted, profoundly useless conversation with my friends. There are emails I haven't answered and this blog I've been neglecting. In all, my life would undoubtedly qualify to be blah.

And yet, I've never felt so super-charged about being alive. I've never felt so full of purpose. I've never felt so much at peace than now. Though a part of me wants GBM to grow up quickly so I can wine and dine away, there's a big part of me that's grateful to her for showing me how life begins. GBM opened her eyes to the sun last week. She usually keeps them tightly shut when we take her out because it's too bright, but last week, she opened them wide and just watched. It was incredible to see the wonder in them. And there's nothing blah about rediscovering what a wonderful world it is, after all.

Okay, I'm done being Chicken Soupy.

Tejaswee Rao Blogging Awards

2011-12-27T12:03:00.005+05:30

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I'm back just so I can boast a little. The following posts of mine have won the Tejaswee Rao Blogging Awards instituted by the won-and-wonly and most wonderful IHM.

Sleeping with the Enemy in the Sexual Violence category

Awwww in the Relationships Gyaan category

All the Old Knives in the A Woman is a Woman's Worst Enemy? category

The Pandas are Dying in the Female Feticide and Infanticide category

Where Angels Fear to Tread in the Gender Stereotypes category

Girlz in the Books, Ads, Movies, TV category

Many of my favourite bloggers have also won. The list offers great reading material on gender issues that touch everyday life and beyond. Happy blog hopping!!

And Happy New Earssssssssssssssssssss.

What GBM Did

2011-12-22T10:04:00.003+05:30

***

Ah well, here I am, behaving like Jayasuriya, promising to retire but coming back. By public demand (and also because I'm like any other obnoxious parent who wants to keep boasting about their offspring's genius), here's some news on GBM.

She's 5 weeks and 3 days old today.

GBM now sleeps for five to six hours at a stretch at night. Wakes up, feeds, fusses for a bit, and then sleeps again for three hours. In her crib. Ha. Ha to all the nay-sayers who said babies will refuse to sleep by themselves.

Obviously, this has more to do with GBM's personality than my star parenting skills, but I'll take credit for it anyway :D

GBM has decided that one colossal dump a day is enough. Not for her the tiny bird-like droppings through the day. Our girl does it once and does it explosively. So everyone knows she's arrived. This saves me considerable laundry time.

GBM wakes up in the evening between six and seven and insists on staying awake for three hours after that. During this time, she wants to be fed, cleaned, and taken sight-seeing all at the same time. Nobody knows why exactly she chooses this time. We call it the Koundamani Phenomenon (those of you who watch Tamil movies will undoubtedly remember Koundamani's 6'0 clock maalai kannu problem). She acts cranky towards the end of this period and is somewhat soothed if we play Beethoven symphonies. Yeah, that's right. I told you my daughter is a genius. Shuddup.

GBM reads books. Okay, not reads exactly. But she does look intently when I flip the pages and point to illustrations. That's almost the same thing, you must agree.

Earlier, I used to wait for her to fall asleep. Now, I wait for her to get up. I must be in love.

***

Okay, bye. This time, I really, really am going! *waves bat at audience*

Bye Bye...For Now

2011-12-21T08:56:00.004+05:30

***

I'm afraid this blog is going to fall asleep for a while. I'm getting back to regular work from today (though I'll still be working from home). I've also crash-landed on a lot of writing work (more details on that later!) which means I'm going to be spending whatever time and energy I have on moving ahead with that. Of course, all this is going to happen in between feeding GBM and changing a million nappies.

I'm an optimist, looks like.

Actually, GBM has done wonders for my writing. I've always worked better when I have a deadline. Otherwise, I'm quite likely to open an MS Word doc auspiciously and then waste the rest of the day refreshing my Facebook homepage or reading Rediff message boards. Now, I'm so sincere to my writing, I ideate while feeding her and then quickly put it down the second she falls asleep. Yay me. I must be Superman.

So till I manage to pack in blogging too in this wonderful schedule, astalavista, as they say in Konkani.

Maa TV

2011-12-11T09:47:00.004+05:30

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Dear GBM,

Have you heard this song?

You might remember listening to it when you were inside me. Remember that terrible day when I had a bad headache and nausea all at the same time? I couldn't keep any food down but I was also ravenous because I was pregnant. So I kept eating and throwing up and my head felt like it was going to explode. I didn't know what to do, so I just lay on the cold floor and watched Pandiaraj comedy videos on Youtube. Somehow, that seemed to help. Then, I decided to listen to some music and M played this song. It's all about Rajnikanth's devotion to his mother, see? He says even if he took nine janmas and attempted to repay his mommy for all the sacrifices she had to go through in those nine months, it wouldn't be sufficient. An admirable sentiment. Though I was more entertained by the thought that perhaps the mother was shaking her finger throughout the song to indicate that she wanted her teeth brushed and Rajnikanth completely missed the point and gave her a bath instead.

It's almost a month since you arrived. Time flies. But not fast enough. I think you should turn three months old at the earliest just so I don't get freaked out by your wobbly head (Dear God, Intelligent Design this is not). I'm seriously worried that my clumsy hands might drop you when you squirm and your adorable little head goes this way and that. Also, I'd like to sleep some more, please. To be fair, you aren't really a fussy baby. Your requirements are basic. A. Feed Me. B. Change Nappy. People would think this is quite simple. I used to think so too. But motherhood is like a game of Chinese Whispers. You start it and by the time you go a full circle, you are pretty much clueless about how things changed the way they did. Somewhere in between, you lose control and surrender to fate. And the end result has you shaking your head Prufrock-like- This is not what I meant at all, this is not it at all. I'd be feeling like a crap mother by now if not for the fact that I know all this is normal. Your mommy has the power of the internet and has read enough blog posts by new mothers to know that she's not alone.

Which makes me wonder what it was like for mothers of my mother's generation. Were they allowed to feel frustrated? Did they know it was normal to get mad and maybe want to resign from this post? Did they feel it was okay to miss their old life? And not feel like bad mothers?

One of my college-mates who read my birth story post wrote me an email thanking me for narrating the experience the way it happened. Not hiding the brutality of it. She said she was glad she read it because older mothers when asked about their labour experience dismiss it by saying they forgot all about it as soon as they saw the baby's face. What a TV moment. The mother with her perfect mascara beaming at her cherubic angel. A soulful melody playing in the background. A gentle tear sliding down the father's face. What a shock it'd be if they instead showed a half-crazy woman with bad hair looking down with fright at this tiny stranger who is howling at her breast in an antiseptic hospital room?

When that is the truth. It may not be poetic. But like war, it could be made to sound so. Instead, I wonder why we are constantly shown only mothers who've taken to the role like cheerful kamikaze pilots. Another curious observation I've made is that most of these Maa songs are sung by sons. Why aren't there as many Maa songs sung by daughters? Maybe because the daughters have an inkling that this shit ain't true. I think they know it in their bones that mothers are human and might prefer going to the toilet when nature calls over feeding a hungry baby.

Dear GBM, I cannot trim your nails. I cannot give you a bath. I'm not the best at putting you to sleep. All I can do is run to you at your first howl and feed you. And yes, my singing calms you down. The only other person who has the same effect on you is MS Subbulakshmi. Who would have thought. Sometimes, I think you deserve better and your behaviour which is actually golden in comparison to most other newborns should get far more appreciation than I'm able to dole out. But thankfully, I don't feel guilty. Like I said, I only need to go online to know I'm normal. If not for a space where women are finally speaking out and narrating their experiences without mincing words, I'd have let the likes of Vairamuthu and Vaali judge me. You see, motherhood would have been easy if I had indeed been God. But I'm only human. And that makes me greater.

With love,
Your panda-eyed mother.

Zombie Yoga

2011-11-29T09:16:00.003+05:30

***

GBM finished two weeks of life on this planet yesterday. Thanks to her, I've managed to shed all my pregnancy weight gain plus some more. I'm considering launching an exercise video series Shilpa Shetty style pretty soon. The video will be called Zombie Yoga.

After a week of GBM's arrival, M declared that people who have two kids are either psycho or have extremely poor memory. Oh don't get us wrong, we're both amply proud of GBM's many milestones (including the 'mango-yellow' poop she produces without fail after every feed much to the delight of the pediatrician), but really...how did people ever manage to have a dozen kids and all back then? Did they stay awake for 12 years?

To be fair to GBM, she's actually quite a reasonable baby. She doesn't mind lying in the crib by herself in rapt contemplation of the ceiling and surrounding walls. She doesn't care if all of us leave the room and she's left alone. She also seems to remember all the songs I used to sing to her when she was inside me. My mum puts her to sleep now by crooning 'Found a Peanut'. We used to play the 'Senorita' song from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Gita Govindam by MS Subbulakshmi to her earlier and she gets this hilarious recognition in her eyes when these two songs are played now. Yeah, yeah, we're now annoyingly gushy parents who think she's a reincarnation of Mozart.

Her other achievement that I'm glowy about is the variety of faces she makes. After she has fed enough, she pulls this face that looks like a drunk rowdy who has downed a huge amount of biryani and is now going to sleep. If I try to feed her more, she gets an expression of absolute disgust. Sometimes, she falls asleep while feeding and then wakes up in a terrific frenzy to make up for lost time. In these instances, she shakes her head vigorously and acts like she's some mental boxer in a do-or-die round. She also smiles a lot...which I'm grateful for.

As long as GBM is fed (and she sometimes feeds for 1.5 hours straight making me feel like Putana) and changed on demand, she doesn't throw a fuss. The only problem is that she is a night owl and chooses to make her demands only when I'm beginning to feel like a run-over mangy cat. Surprisingly, despite the loss of sleep, I haven't had any headaches...in the pre-baby years, even a loud noise that disturbed my 8-hour beauty sleep would give me a raging headache the next day. I suspect I've become a mother.

M was saying that 17 years from now, the two of us would go on a road trip to celebrate the fact that we were done being parents and GBM was off to University. I was beginning to enjoy the fantasy when I realized that I'm now nearly 26 and my mum is still losing her sleep over me by trying to put GBM to sleep. Jeez.

The Birth Story

2011-11-22T09:58:00.005+05:30

***

I thought I should put this down before I forget it...which seems incredible, considering the intensity of the entire experience.

On the 13th of November, M and I were on an evening walk. I suddenly felt a pulling pain on my abdomen and wondered if I was finally beginning to have a real contraction. So far, I'd felt my uterus tighten off and on, but I'd never really experienced any kind of pain. I told M and we decided to wait for a couple more hours before setting things into motion.

Once I got back home, the pain sort of subsided and I was back to just feeling my uterus tighten off and on. I thought it was probably just Braxton Hicks but we decided to check with my gynec anyway. Dr RG barely listened to my description over phone- she simply asked me to go to the hospital and check it out instead of debating on whether or not I was in true labour. This was a relief because I was wondering if it was all happening in my imagination and I didn't want to spend the night second guessing.

Once we reached the hospital, I was attached to a non-stress machine (which measures the strength of your contractions and the baby's heartbeat) to find out if I was indeed in labour. And it turned out that I was in the pre-labour stage! My contractions were small but happening in regular intervals. My cervix had dilated by 1 cm. Dr RG decided not to send me home. Funnily, I wasn't feeling any pain at all and I was telling M that this was a false alarm and I'd probably be discharged the next day. Through the night, I had more non-stress tests. Apparently, my gynec had suspected that the umbilical cord could be around the baby's neck and she wanted to ensure that the fetus was doing fine inside. I had no idea about this and was bugged that I'd to be woken up frequently and attached to the damned machine. I had to lie on my back during these sessions and this was very painful. I assumed that the back pain was because of the weight of the uterus pressing against my spine. I didn't realize that it was because I was in labour!

In the morning, Dr RG examined me again (and let me tell you, these internal examinations are not joy rides) and announced that I'd dilated to 2.5 cms and that the baby had descended further! I was quite happy that I'd made it to 2.5 cms without too much pain...maybe I'd make it to 10 cms and not even realize it, haaannnnn? Dr RG asked me to take a bath and get ready for a long day. I took a nice, hot shower and wore kajal and everything so I could look pretty for the baby. The hospital procedures were started. I was shaved (yeah...and I don't mean my head), given an enema (what fun) and an IV access line was fixed on my left hand. It still hadn't sunk in that I was going to have the baby and I was giggling with M and making enema-related jokes.

Through the day, I had more non-stress tests and my back was really killing me. The contractions were apparently getting stronger but I couldn't feel them at all if I was sitting up or walking around. By afternoon, I'd dilated to 3.5 cms. Whoa. What a nice, cooperative baby.

And then, I got my first taste of parenthood. The baby decided it didn't want to play ball any more. My cervix stopped dilating and I was stuck in 3.5 cms till evening. But my pains started increasing. And dear god, how do I begin to describe it? It felt like a woefully overweight elephant was trampling on my spine with determination. I kept having more and more non-stress tests and the nurses insisted that I lie on my back (later I found out that the top of the bed could have been raised to give me a sitting position- this would have spared me a world of pain.) The Lamaze breathing techniques which I'd learned during my prenatal classes really came to my rescue here. The patterned breathing gave me something to focus on and I managed to synchronize it with the intensity of my pains. M was watching the intensity of the contractions on the NST machine and trying hard not to cry. We were in a semi-private room because the private ones were not available and across the curtain, there was a woman with a preemie baby. The previous night, I'd thought the baby's wails were cute. But when it started howling during my contractions, I remember telling M that I wanted to bash that baby up. We even managed to giggle. So much for my maternal instincts.

Dr RG decided that since labour was not progressing, I should be induced. Now my contractions were already very strong and this was a long shot. I'd been in labour for over 15 hours and this was my last hope of having a normal delivery. Labour was induced and the lone trampling elephant grew into a hundred. I really did think I was going to die of the pain. The contractions were so powerful that they went over the highest bar in the NST several times. My face had apparently flushed so much that I looked black! By now, I realized that I was going to have a C-section and I was mighty pissed that I was going through all this pain with no baby in sight. I was determined not to cry because that would just lead to a breakdown. So I steeled myself and did my breathing along with the NST machine, trying not to look at M's face.

Finally, the doctor gave up. I'd been in labour for 26 hours and I wasn't progressing. She ruptured my waterbag as a final try but that didn't help either. The baby was too big to get out of me. Once she decided on a C-section, things began to move quickly. A catheter was attached to my urethra, a few busybody nurses came out of nowhere, ripped my clothes off me and put me in a hospital suit that was ten times my size and shifted me to a stretcher. By now, I was past caring what I looked like and I had no sense of embarrassment at what was happening. I just wanted the baby OUT! I remember removing my earrings and yanking out my nose-ring in the middle of a contraction- it's a wonder I didn't end up tearing my nostril!

As I was being carried to the operation theatre, I'd to sign a consent form for the spinal anesthesia and M kept telling me to be brave. I was wondering why he was saying that because I was finally relieved I was going to get an anesthesia to end this godawful pain. I couldn't talk though because I was having contractions on the stretcher and didn't want to fall off it!

At the OT, there was a team of masked doctors and I couldn't really make out their faces much. I wasn't wearing my contact lenses or glasses and in any case, I was simply too exhausted to notice. I was sitting near naked in a room full of strangers and I didn't give a damn. I don't think I'll ever feel a pint of shame in my life after this! I was still leaking amniotic fluid from the waterbag burst and I'd to sit with my back bent while a spinal was administered. The anesthetist was a senior doctor whose face I didn't see but whose voice I will never forget. He was extremely calm and told me exactly what would happen as he was giving me the spinal injections. Finally, finally....the pain stopped. I felt my body go numb and the doctors shifted me to the operating table. An oxygen mask was fixed on my head and Dr RG asked me to close my eyes. The anesthetist simply said, "Breathe for your baby!" and this stuck in my head powerfully. I focused on taking long, deep breaths, imagining the baby who was soon going to come. The pain was gone. I was all right. It was all going to end soon.

After about half an hour or so, I felt something slide out of me. And the entire OT was filled with the first cry of my child. It was wild, lusty, and so powerful, I began laughing inside my oxygen mask. They brought her to me, a certified, healthy baby. A girl. With my face and my husband's long proportions. I couldn't hold her right then because I was still on the operation table. She was taken to be shown to the rest of the family. And I lay there, stitched up and fatigued beyond words. But knowing that the this was the beginning of the rest of my life.

It wasn't an easy delivery. But I'm glad I lived through it. Now I know what I can endure. I know my own strength. Thanks to my daughter.

The daughter is here...

2011-11-20T19:32:00.000+05:30

***

Born on November 14th at 11.15 PM.

*Wide grin*

Taking Stock

2011-11-03T11:01:00.008+05:30

***

Despite my whining, this year has been pretty great, actually. M and I went to Goa in January and had a super time. It was the kind of holiday that's impossible to imagine with my parents (bless them). My parents have this great fear that whichever hotel we stay in will run out of water. So they usually wake up at some ungodly hour and start filling all the buckets in the bathroom while trying to hold a conversation above the din.

I'd wake up and find two beings wearing monkey caps performing this bucket-filling activity with supreme efficiency. My protests that I wanted to sleep for longer would be met with an instruction to get ready and walk in the mist. During this mist-walk, it was mandatory to deep breathe and observe flowers, according to my mother. My father's only focus would be on how far ahead I'm walking because you never know when kidnappers would be in a mood to kidnap.

After this walk, my father, who has always been a Man with a Plan, would have booked a bus or boat or bullock cart at 6 AM or thereabouts to take us to all the destinations that are on the tourist map a few centuries earlier. So we'd wake up the poor room service boys, goad them into giving us breakfast, and then rush towards the mode of transport, always with an aim to be the first ones to have reached the spot. We'd then wait impatiently as the rest of the lazybones tourists arrived, commenting on People's Inefficiency, Lack of Punctuality, and Inability to Plan. After seeing everything that's there to be seen and clicking a few million pictures (for all of which my father would have given instructions on how to hold the camera), we'd have an early dinner and go to bed. Because the next day, we'd have to get up early and fill buckets.

I've had several holidays of this kind and it even inspired an Interval episode in CM. Here's the first page of it:

Since both M and I have similar ideas on vacation, we were content to lie on the beach and do absolutely nothing for most part of the holiday. It was certainly a waste of time and we didn't see everything that was there to be seen in Goa, happily. (There's no escaping DNA, though. I almost popped a vein when the cab meant to take us to the railway station was ten minutes late. M was amused by just how red my face could turn.)

In March, I went down to Chennai for the launch of Mayil Will Not Be Quiet. I had a vague suspicion that I was pregnant, but didn't bother checking because I had too much to think about already. This was my first proper book launch and I was a bundle of nerves. Thankfully, N and I didn't goof up and we did a decent job of it. N, A, and I met up for lunch and N was saying we should do a trip sometime in May. I remember saying haha-I-could-be-pregnant-but. 'A' kindly said I didn't have any pregnant glow and to shut up. But ah well, it turned out that I was right.

After that, most of the year has been about doctor visits, advice from all quarters, parents and in-laws flying in and out, and M and I coming to terms with the fact that we were now firmly and irrevocably lodged in Uncle-Aunty category. As a married couple, we've also worked much better together this year and learned to laugh more and get pissed less.

Career-wise, I managed to expand my freelance network a bit. I have no illusions of being a Super-Mom and I'm happy to take things easy and work within my own comfort zone. Thankfully, the people I work with are cooperative, so I've had no trouble finding well-paying, regular assignments. I've also been writing a column on Creative Thinking in IE. Nothing earth-shattering, but well, it's a good addition to that 'My Pregnant Year' CV!

As far as publishing goes, I've two more picture books with Tulika coming up. A short story of mine has been accepted by Puffin for their upcoming anthology of magic stories. Aana and Chena has gone into reprint. Mayil continues to receive good press coverage. In all, I'm pleased with my writing work this year.

What else? There's a baby coming soon. And then there's the next year to think about.

Not too shabby for GB, what?

What the Baby Did

2011-11-02T10:33:00.004+05:30

***

And no, the baby isn't here yet. My due date is November 19 though I'm full-term and everything and the baby can come any minute blah blah.

I've been neglecting this blog for a while. Every time I think I should write something or even reply to the comments that people have taken the effort to leave here, I feel like a particularly dopey tortoise. I really, simply, just want the baby OUT. Gahh. I want to eat a nice, unhealthy, bacteria-filled roadside shawarma without a care in the world. I want to sleep on my stomach. I want to watch violent TV. I want to...you know...BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH.

Okay, I'm not suffering from some depression or something. I'm actually remarkably cheery these days. I've manically cleaned up my cupboard to accommodate the baby stuff. I've caught up with my reading. I even went and watched 7aam Arrivu in a faraway theatre with my medical files (you know, in case my water broke and we had to rush to the hospital or something....I'm filmy like that). The movie was terrible but I had a great time. I was the only buffoon laughing throughout the film in the entire theatre.

Enough about me. Here's something about the baby!

What the baby likes me to eat:

1. Guava
2. Yogurt
3. Fish (okay, that's just me...but never mind)

The baby gets mad if I don't eat lunch by 1 pm. It starts off by wiggling and then stubbornly kicking me till I put something into my mouth. After that, the baby gives a few happy kicks and falls asleep. I'm supposed to eat dinner by 8 pm too. Breakfast- not later than 9 am. The baby thinks it's my mother.

The baby falls asleep if I sing 'Found a Peanut' (my favourite nursery rhyme when I was a kid) and rub my stomach.

The baby stays quiet if M places his hand on my stomach. But kicks if he places his head on it. It thinks my mother's hand and mine are the same.

The baby likes the Senorita song from Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

The baby likes to kick as I keep count when I'm doing my prenatal exercises.

The baby gets excited by its own heartbeat. Every time the doctor brings the doppler near me, the baby jumps around.

I think these are accomplishments enough for so small a being. That's all for now. Hopefully, by the time I post next, the baby will be out and kicking me in person.

Royal Sundaram

2011-10-17T10:06:00.005+05:30

***

I had some fake contractions and low back pain last week. And I've therefore been put on bedrest :| Which means, I'm not even supposed to be using this laptop. But well, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to that. The gynec does not want to give me any medication because I have only a week to go before the baby's full-term, so all I have to do this week is lie down and ask that baby to stay put.

After being pissed and frustrated and why-me about it, I've finally begun to enjoy my bedrest. I'll probably look back to this time period in the days to come and yearn for it. So I decided to be chirpy and christened myself Royal Sundaram because all I'm doing now is ordering people to get me this and that from my chamber.

Here's what I've been doing:

1. I ordered Bringing Up Vasu from Flipkart. It still hasn't reached me. So I wrote a pissed off email to Customer Support because well, there are only so many interesting things you can do when on bedrest.

2. M got me Blinkers Off (by Andaleeb Wajid- who is my Facebook friend) and I finished reading it in a day's time. I liked her unpretentious style of writing and the bitchy girl in the book is a lot like someone I know, so I got a load of joy out of it.

3. I'm going to start reading my Agatha Christies today. Strictly Hercule Poirot only. I don't like this Jane Marple stuff.

4. I watched The American. And though George Clooney takes his shirt off a couple of times and all, I thought the movie was too slow. As it is I'm stuck in bed....what I need to watch right now is some Anaconda type movie. You know, the type where you know from the first scene who all are going to die and people keep disappearing in comforting intervals.

5. I gossiped with A over the phone and felt a million times better. I don't think I was meant to be an angel in this lifetime at all.

6. Shortlisted three baby names each for a boy and a girl with M.

7. And....here's what I've been bursting to say from the beginning: a writer who is presenting a paper on 'Breaking Gender Stereotypes in Indian Children's Literature' at the Sahitya Akademi (you read that, right? SAHITYA AKADEMI, mongeys!) apparently read Mayil Will Not Be Quiet and loved it. So she promptly called me up and sent me questions and all. So she could put in my golden words in her paper, OKKKKKKK? And Royal Sundaram has solemnly sent her the responses. At least, Mayil is going some places while I'm stuck here.

That's all for now. My 15 minutes of internet time is over. Be nice and send me your wishes and messages, children. I have to go and catch up on my rest now.

Then and Now

2011-10-03T11:31:00.006+05:30

***

Every time we go shopping for the baby, I'm amazed by the fact that I managed to stay alive as a baby in spite of my mum not using any of the stuff that I'm inclined to buy. Take for instance, the car seat that we bought yesterday. For most of my childhood, I was taken around in an ambassador that's probably responsible for the hole in the ozone layer getting slightly bigger. Not only did it break down all the time and emit a cheerful black smoke to announce its situation, it had no air conditioning, no seat belts, no child lock, no airbags, no nothing. As children, we'd emerge like little steamed wontons from its interiors after a long ride. It's a wonder I didn't get dehydrated as a newborn traveling in it or fly right out of the window when it screeched to a halt at signals.

This is not to say that the car seat is unimportant. I'm convinced that it was a necessary purchase but I still keep comparing my baby days to my current situation and preparing mental speeches for the baby on my deprived childhood. You know, along the lines of, "You know, in those days, I didn't even have a car seat. All I had was a rash on my bum. And oh, I've escaped certain death many times."

We also bought a baby nail cutter. And I really have no idea what my parents did with my nails because we never had a nail cutter at home. We only used scissors and I remember we had these giant tailoring scissors made out of iron for the longest time. It belonged to my grandfather, a tailor by profession, and I remember running away from my mum every time she came near me with those. So how did my parents cut my nails when I was that tiny? Did I never scratch my delicate newborn skin up? Maybe I was just a weird baby who was peaceful with my ever growing nails.

I also plan to buy a baby crib soon. Apparently, I insisted on sleeping on my mother's stomach and nowhere else when I was a kid. So she had to sleep in the same position till I fell asleep and then transfer me next to her. God, what a bundle of not-joy I must have been. I don't remember at what stage I removed myself from my parents' bed and moved to my own. It never occurred to me then that I was disrupting their life. For how long did they have to put up with me rolling around and generally being a nuisance? The baby crib is supposed to make the baby get used to sleeping by itself and all. I hope this baby doesn't insist it will fall asleep only on top of my head or something.

Baby bath tub. Now this I really want to buy because the idea of holding a slippery baby and being acrobatic in the bathroom sounds like a scene out of some horror movie to me at the minute. Even though there are going to be people here to help me and everything. What if you didn't have anyone to help you and had no money to buy a bathtub though? I'd probably wait till the baby was ten years old to give it a bath.

I never wore a diaper as a baby. How did my mum ever take me out? Did I just keep wee-weeing all over the place or was I born with superior bladder control?

And mind you, I'm sticking to a very small list of baby essentials at the minute and trying not to buy all those tiny frocks with ducklings on them now itself. If it's a boy, I don't imagine he will be very pleased. Or maybe he would be a hippie baby who doesn't care. Who knows.

The stuff you've to think about as you grow old. Jeez.

On an Airplane

2011-09-26T09:56:00.002+05:30

***

My current mental state is like that of a passenger on an airplane that's taking forever to land. In a new country where I'm going to be without any maps. I also get jolts in my stomach once in a while- like I can't remember if I put some life-saving equipment in my baggage. And there's no way I can check till I land. I can see the runway from my tiny window, but it still isn't time yet. For now, I'm suspended in air with nothing else to do but wait. I'm reading books and watching movies and working on my laptop, but it's just to make the waiting more bearable. It's as if all of me is geared up for that touchdown moment when the plane dips and your stomach drops and with a roar in your ears and a nervous giggle stuck in your throat, your life overturns.

In our last prenatal class, we finally watched a real childbirth video. I've been avoiding watching any because well...let's just say it isn't my idea of entertainment. But surprisingly, I neither thought it was gross nor frightening. It didn't scare M either. We were both left with the feeling that this was something we could definitely do. It seems incredible that till now, I was so utterly incurious about how I came into this world. It seems equally amazing that every person I see around me is there because someone else went through what I'm going through to bring them into this world. It kind of makes me feel more forgiving towards the moron in the theatre who keeps talking over his cellphone throughout the movie.

We watched both Crazy, Stupid, Love and Friends with Benefits last week. Both got decent reviews but I didn't really think either was that great. Or that funny. Maybe because I'm in my airplane mode, I just wanted the movies to get over. I'm really tired of the slick men who apparently know all about female psychology and can pick up any girl in a bar. And then one fine day, true lurve finds this slick boy and he starts talking about his childhood on the beach. Or his dad. Or his first diaper. Then the slick man discovers what a good woman's love can do to him (mostly when she's dressed in some ultra feminine gown- the Hollywood version of Kajol's red saree in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai- for the first time and he sees her with new eyes and yada yada). I also wish they'd stop including these never-let-go-of-your-soulmate type of speeches in the script. Everyone thinks the other person is their soulmate when they are in love. Then the shit hits the roof and you break up. And find another soulmate. And that'd be another movie.

I sat next to this bespectacled girl during Friends with Benefits and she kept saying, "NAAAIICCCEEE!" every two minutes at whatever was happening onscreen. I was starting to get pissed. And then I remembered the childbirth video and decided to tolerate her because of her mother. Bless her.

The Workshop

2011-09-20T09:53:00.002+05:30

***

The workshop is over. Phew. That's one thing ticked off on my 'to do' list! I was wondering if I should take it up at all because managing preteens and teens is not exactly easy, especially when one is increasingly beginning to resemble a penguin. I wasn't sure if I could stand continuously and talk all day without developing some scary pregnancy related syndrome.

But I'm glad I decided to do it. Thankfully, the organizers (Katha, Delhi) were mostly female and sympathetic to my almost-eight-months pregnant self running backstage once in a while and munching on something.

There were 350 children in all. Some as small as Class IV and some as big as Class X. The point of the workshop was to discuss the basic elements that go into story writing and encourage the children to be original and have the courage to write about their own lived experiences. At the end of the workshop, they were to participate in a story writing contest and the winning stories would be published in a Katha anthology.

In many of the writing activities we did, the children inevitably ended the story with a moral. Even if the stories themselves had a wild side to them,they'd end with a sanctimonious message printed in bold, capital letters. This wasn't exactly new to me. I've seen the same pattern repeated across writing events for children and it really saddens me that their opinion of adults is so low that they feel we'll only appreciate them if they talk like little wise bores.

I asked the children what sort of books they read and where they got their books from. Most said that they loved adventure and fantasy novels and that they picked up the books themselves from libraries and bookshops. Then,I asked if any of them had ever gone to a library or a bookshop and picked up a moral stories book. Obviously, nobody had ever done that. Then why did they keep writing moral stories? Did they think adults loved reading moral stories? If they did, they wouldn't buy moral stories and dump it on their children instead of reading them themselves, right? If nobody is interested in reading moral stories, why write them at all? Why not think about writing the kind of books they themselves loved reading? The sort of writing that you can't stop reading?

It astonishes me how we keep convincing generations of children that they must all be some message-spouting Prahalad types instead of unleashing their incredible reserves of originality. If at all they take the plunge and write a story that's not obviously moralistic, they can only do so if the story is about some John or Jacob robbing a bank in London. They find it so hard to set a story in a surrounding they know well without turning it into a message about the environment or hard work or something equally didactic. The inability to articulate their own experiences, to see the wealth of stories around themselves, the firm belief that adventures can only happen in Britian....really, what have we done to children? Though this was only to be expected and I've seen it happen many times over, I still feel sad about it. I hope the two days helped at least some of them to break free from this self moral policing and write with a free mind, with words they know and understand.

At the end of the workshop, one of the children came to me and asked if I could please, please publish Interval in CM again. I was touched beyond words because Interval is a comic N and I used to do together when we worked there and it was very special to both of us. I was super happy that she remembered it two years since it was last published! I had to tell her that I'd quit and wasn't doing it any more. Her face fell and she said she'd taken a 3-year subscription for the magazine only for Interval and she was really disappointed we'd stopped doing it! I felt oddly tearful and moved by it all.

As an aside, GBM was very excited throughout the workshop and kept kicking me all day. I hope this is one kid who never writes a moral story ever in its life.

To Do List

2011-09-06T10:08:00.008+05:30

***

Three book reviews for a lit journal that I need to submit by the end of the month. Two of these are picture books which I've finished reading. The third is a novel called iBoy and I can't bring myself to read it. Every time I look at it, I want to cover myself with the quilt and pretend I'm too fatigued to read. The book itself doesn't seem to be too bad- and I did choose to review it. I think my reluctance has to do with the fact that I don't want to read anything which I already don't know is good. Which is probably why I'm only re-reading stuff these days.

Put away all the pregnancy books and stop visiting all the baby sites of the world. Enough. I don't want to know if it's common to develop hemorrhoids in Week 34 or see pink rhinoceroses in Week 38. I really don't want to see any more 'PUSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH' diagrams. I read the pregnancy Bible- What to Expect When Expecting- and I think there are far too many jokes in parentheses in the book. I wish I could write one line reviews like this for that journal and forget about it.

Prepare for a creative writing workshop that I'm conducting in another 10 days. Apparently, some 200 kids are going to show up. I have no idea what profound truths about creative writing I'm going to reveal. Maybe I'll just make up stuff on the spot. Waking up at 3 AM and staring in an Easterly direction opens the Creative chakra that is located between your left eyebrow and right nostril.

The prenatal exercises I learned in my first prenatal class. So far, I've been doing them with great enthusiasm. But it's only been three days. I hope I don't get too impatient and stretch in all directions all at once to prove how fast I am. I must remember this is not about being fast.

Wrap up the project I'm working on before November. Though I'm getting really bored of it.

Stop getting irritated with people who advise me to eat saffron (so I can produce a 'white' baby), who tell me I don't look seven months pregnant (here's an idea- you aren't my doctor, so why don't you just shut up?), who tell me not to walk so fast or for so long (I can still walk for an hour and I will- too bad if that horrifies you), who think I must be anemic because they were when they were seven months pregnant (though I've eaten more dates and raisins than an Arab and have lab results to prove it), who think a six-kg weight gain is too less (though my doctor thinks it's good and the baby is doing just fine), who tell me not to buy baby clothes already because it's like tempting fate (so I'm supposed to leave a newborn naked bang in the middle of Winter when it comes?) and basically, all those who think they know everything about pregnancy just because they were pregnant once.

Blog whenever I feel blah and not wait for some fantastic idea to crop up in my head. I don't think I'm going to feel fantastically original for a while.

That's all.

For M

2011-08-18T10:06:00.008+05:30

***

One of the first things I told M when we started talking about babies was that I was going to be horrendous and he'd have to put up with it because though billions of women have given birth earlier, I haven't given birth a billion times. So as far as I was concerned, I was like that very first amoeba in Tree of Life.

I was also going to be paranoid about everything and I wasn't going to be consoled by the fact that several ladies have delivered in the fields and gone back to work the very next nanosecond. Just so M doesn't think I'm some stoic soldier types from a Tennyson poem who marches into the jaws of hell feeling sunny as a sunflower. I was going to be difficult. Don't you agree it's a joy to be married to me? At least, I come with statutory warnings.

Of course, underlying all of this was this great feeling of martyrdom that had descended upon me. Here I was, going to give up a solid nine months of my life (and more). Here I was, going to turn my gorgeous self into a hippopotamus. Here I was, doing all the hard work for a joy that would be shared between the two of us. Here I was, wondering what my career graph was going to be like in the next two years. Surely, I deserved a statue on the Marina Beach.

But here I am, 2/3rds of the race run (okay, waddled) and I think M deserves a statue on the Marina Beach. Too. (I still deserve the first because I'm still a martyr.)

Here's why:

1. For taking over the cooking completely during my nausea days and cooking with the door closed (despite the summer heat) to keep the smells away from my belligerent nose.

2. For taking over the cleaning (including the times when I couldn't make it in time to the sink) completely during my nausea days. All I had to do was smell lemons and lie on the sofa.

3. For staying up and listening to my insane conversations patiently despite being exhausted by all of the above.

4. For coming back home early from work to keep me company in spite of the hundred projects you were working on.

5. For the surprise drives in the middle of the day to Spicer bakery. Yay.

6. For smuggling food in your pockets into 'No Outside Food' theatres so I could keep eating throughout the movie.

7. For not acting like I was some gossamer thread just because I was pregnant and trusting me to eat and do whatever I felt like.

8. For giving up three fourths of the bed to me and my multiple pillows without fussing.

9. For coming with me to the doctor's every time and dealing with my paranoia by making me laugh.

10. For all the low-calorie desserts you've whipped up every time I faked a pregnant woman food craving.

And above all, for not doing any of the above as a great favour to me but doing them because you are a decent human being. I hope to do the same if you at all get pregnant someday *har har*.

So, M, thank you very much. I think you should make me that banoffee pie you've been promising as a reward for being so artlessly disarming.

Hello, hello

2011-08-05T09:42:00.002+05:30

***

Hello, hello. I'm here only. Everything is good and great, in case you've been sitting breathlessly on the edge of your chair wondering why I haven't written anything in so long.

Just two more weeks and I'm into the final trimester. Woot. I've been having the weirdest pregnancy-related dreams. Like I once gave birth to octuplets. There was this endless stream of babies coming out of me and I was sitting very benignly like a goddess. No pain or anything. Efficient delivery, almost like a Fedex service. Then I had another dream where I'm having a cesarean and M is watching the operation. And just as the doctor is lifting the baby out, M gets a call and he goes off for some hundred years. By the time he's back, the baby's gone and I'm super mad. Then the doctor puts six tiny star-shaped stitches on me and I feel all happy. The last was the weirdest. I gave birth to a girl who looked grown-up already and I was walking out of the hospital with her. By the time we reached home, she was already this self-contained young person wearing dangling earrings and all. Yes, yes, all this is related to birth anxiety and my inner fear of bringing up a baby and many pregnant women have these kind of dreams etc etc. I know all that, but it's still fun to write about it like I'm very unique.

We went to one of these baby shops and got newborn clothes. Even mittens. Though I don't imagine the baby will tolerate them for long. There were a million other products there that I hope I'll never be tempted to buy. I'm sort of hoping this baby will be miraculously cooperative and never give me any trouble. Ha. My evil parents, on the other hand, can't wait for karma to catch up.

I read up on some breathing techniques during labour and tried to practise them with M. We both kept giggling and couldn't do it. I kept feeling like a chugging train illustration from Champak or something. But since I'm very conscientious (and also because my mum nagged me into doing it), we've signed up for prenatal classes. I really hope the other pregnant people there are not some society types who will talk about the spirituality of pregnancy or something like that. I don't know why I'm assuming that's how they will be.

In other news, one more picture book of mine with Tulika is coming out this year. It's called Monday to Sunday and it's about this boy who thinks he's a different animal every day of the week. No, he's not some psycho from a Gautam Menon film. Just a weird, imaginative child. Okay? I really hope this baby doesn't think all my books suck.

My friends gave me a book full of messages for the coming-soon baby. With my pictures with them and all the nonsense we've done over the years. I cried and got all snotty-nosed. Mother India level I'm reaching in life.

Well, that's all, everyone. Now you may exhale slowly and relax your body while making a hoooooooooo sound because you've just heard from me. Okayyyyy.

Girl Time!

2011-07-09T10:17:00.003+05:30

I'm off to Chennai tomorrow for a week. And after a really, really long time, all my friends are in town and I can't wait to see all of them all at once. Wheeeeeeee. It's likely that people will try to place me under house arrest due to my delicate condition of womanhood and what not, but isssokkayyy, I plan to run out anyway! I'm also the first pregnant sistahh of the group, so I'm going to show off my yawning baby ultrasound (yes, that's what GBM was doing during the 20 weeks scan- yawning so widely that the doctor giggled).

I remember there's this passage in Mrs Dalloway where Clarissa meets her friend Sally after ages and this Sally who used to be quite the rebel during their student years says, "I have four enormous boys!" N told me even when we were studying the text in class that she was sure I'd turn up one day like that and tell her something similar. Quite the prophet, N.

Some of my happiest memories are from my college days. We spent those three years whining about how horrible college was and how moronic our professors were and how nobody understood the angst and pointlessness of human existence. But funnily, we were having the time of our lives. There's this surprise b'day party that we threw for N which especially makes me crack up to this day.

Two days before N's b'day, we called up her mum and told her to leave the gates unlocked the next night. The plan was that we'd arrive at around 10 PM and wait on N's terrace (the stairs to which are outside the house) and then call her up at 12 and blah blah. But as it happened, N's mum forgot about this and locked the gates. A bunch of us arrived in an auto very grandly and promptly at 10 and were stumped as to what to do next. If we called her mum and asked her to open the gate, N would realize something was up. So what we did, we climbed the gate and jumped off, cake and all. The auto driver was vastly amused by this but apart from him, nobody else saw us.

We then went up the stairs quietly and settled down on the terrace. Just then, N's neighbour, the very famous Mouna Raagam Karthik sauntered into his terrace for a smoke. We kept playing ringtones from his movies to annoy him and the poor man finally gave up and went in. After about an hour or so, we decided that it was time for the party to begin. So what we did, we made J call up N and cry to her saying that she'd run away from home and was now on N's terrace. This might appear filmy to some of you, but J is one of those people who can pull this stunt off perfectly well. Besides, we were all at that point in the Wahhhhhh-I-want-to-move-out-of-my-house phase. N was flabbergasted. She was terrified that J had gone insane (in her defence, J did sound demented) and what in the world would her parents say if they found out that a runaway girl was on their terrace?

But N is also one of those people who will put up with any amount of bullshit if she considers you to be her friend. So she quietly crept out of her house and started climbing the stairs. At this point, J started clicking pictures of N's harassed and confused face and N was convinced that J had indeed gone mad. When she finally came up and saw us, her face looked like she'd been fed a diet of pullipumittais all her life. She was furious to start with because she really did think J was off her rocker. But then, we were all rather hysterical by this time and N couldn't keep up her wounded expression for long. We cut the cake and all and then went downstairs to sleep in N's room.

Which is when we saw N's dad standing outside with a torch, looking extremely worried. You see, he'd woken up in the middle of the night and realized that N was missing. As were her chappals. And he thought N had run away from home.

He was shocked to see a bunch of hysterical girls in his backyard and we all got a nice earful about it. But of course, we thought this was even funnier though we mollified him sufficiently with the leftover cake. Then, we went to bed without a care in the world.

I don't think I've ever laughed as much as I did that night or been that juvenile. Since then, we've all grown up quite a bit and become less giggly in normal life. But every time we meet up, we magically turn mental again and keep laughing for no good reason at all other than the fact that everything is funny. Touchwood.

The Boring Aspects of Marriage

2011-07-06T11:44:00.003+05:30

___

This is a post about all the boring things you have to do once you are married:

a. Plate Grabbing: Before I got married, I've seen my mum do this. And now that I'm married and in a house where I'm the prime hostess, I've to pretend to do this too. If you have guests over, you are supposed to carry their plates to the sink once they are done. Now I've never really understood the point of doing this but it becomes even more absurd when the guests start protesting about you carrying their plates to the sink once they are done.

Because, apparently, this is what they are supposed to do.

And then you have to keep saying 'No, no...oh no, pleaaaaasssseeeeeee let me do it!' and then they have to keep saying 'Ohhh what is there in this yada yada!' And this exhausting process goes on for ages and you finally have to grab the plate from them with a brilliant smile. The thing is, some of them get offended if you say, 'Alrighty then! Dustbin on the left!' as soon as they protest. So you have to keep doing this even though it's mighty boring. Why we need this drama at all in the first place baffles me. When I go somewhere as a guest and this ritual begins to unfold, I just quickly give the plate off because really, I don't have any great attachment towards it and if it's so important to someone else, I don't see the point in holding on to it like it's a life-jacket.

b. Health Enquiry: Before I got married, I could be blissfully unaware of which thaatha's which cousin was bedridden or which estranged aunt of mine had broken her leg. But now, since I'm a separate 'unit', it's not enough if my parents enquire after their health. My mum will call and give me the full details of what's happened to which person and then I have to call the said person and ask questions- the answers to which I already know. I'm terrible at small-talking with people I don't particularly like or know, so after asking how they are doing, I basically have nothing to say. So I'll keep laughing inappropriately and hang up after feeling like a prize ass. Why do people care about random people calling and asking about their health? Really, if I were sick, I'd be grateful if nobody ever called me and made me repeat the story of my misery endlessly.

c. Visiting relatives: If you happen to move out of your city after marriage, you have to keep visiting relatives every time you go back. Whether or not you like them. And then you have to keep shuttling between your spouse's place and yours. This becomes a real bore when the two places are not two streets apart but some forty kms apart. So this means you have to work out a schedule of where you will be on which days and inform the respective sets of parents so they can do their 'arrangements' three thousand light years ahead.

d. 'Respect': I call M all sorts of things and for the life of me, I can't speak this 'avar', 'avanga', 'aap boliyeji' kind of language just because other people are around. It feels strange on my tongue and in any case, sets M off into a spate of giggles because he knows how hard I'm straining to sound so proper. According to my mum though, it will sound really bad to other people (the majority of whom are irrelevant to my existence) and I should speak a 'respectful' language to the husband. Why I don't know. I don't get this idea of fake respect. I mean, just because I said 'neenga' instead of 'nee', it doesn't mean I have more respect for someone. But since this is apparently such a big deal, I have to be careful about how I speak to M when the relatives are around. Since I can't manage this very well, I just avoid calling him anything altogether.

e. Tiffin Box Exchange: If somebody gives you something they cooked in a tiffin box, you can't just wash the box and give it back to them. You have to put something in it that you cooked and return it. And then they'll give you something else because you did this and then you have to cook something else and give it to them and then....well, you get the drift. All this is very well if you are some Tarla Dalal character who cooks fancy items all the time, but otherwise, this is such a mammoth bore. I mean, if someone gives me homemade most wonderful mysore pak, I very well can't give them cabbage. So I have to make something similarly wonderful which I'm incapable of doing. I wish people would just give stuff wrapped in tissue paper and be done with it.

There's lots more but I think I should get some work done now. Okkkk. Boi.

Halfway Updates

2011-06-27T11:09:00.003+05:30

***

Come Saturday and I'd have completed 20 weeks. Phew. Another 20 weeks to go before this tiny person decides to make an entry. Probably, after the baby is born, I'd wish I could stuff it back inside just so I can sleep like a buffalo in a swamp the way I do now. What a lovely mummy I am.

But right now, I just want the rest of the 20 weeks to fly by quickly. Currently, I'm in that state when astute ladies are able to figure out I'm pregnant and the mean ones wonder if I'm just fat or if that's a baby bump. I'm not dressed in some Cannes-like gown, so it's not all that obvious yet. There was one woman who was staring at my stomach so pointedly when I was on my walk that I breathed out completely and gave her what she wanted to see. Yes, I'm round. Thank you very much.

One of my neighbours gave me her home BP monitoring device and it turns out that there is nothing wrong with my BP at all. Possibly, I need to have my head examined, but that's about it. It's usually around 110/70, which is ideal for the 2nd trimester. I also made M check his BP on that to make sure that it wasn't giving me false readings. Yippie.

I now sleep with pillows all around me like a zamindar. I've also eaten so many dry fruits and nuts by now that I feel like I'm from Sowcarpet.

I have my 20 weeks scan scheduled for this Thursday. Obviously, they won't tell you if the baby is a boy or a girl, but maybe I can make out from the screen, eh? I've been talking to this baby all along under the assumption that it's a girl. What if it ends up being a boy? I hope he doesn't feel bad about it later in his subconscious mind and all :|

That's all for now. I'm going to be conscientious and reply to comments on the previous posts. Bye!

Moi and Ma Doc during ma Dialysis

2011-06-15T16:35:00.005+05:30

***

Everybody on my Facebook friends list is getting engaged or married these days. Which makes me wonder how appallingly similar all our lives are. I mean, here we are thinking we're each unique and what not but we're all doing the same thing at the same time, aren't we? What a moment of epiphany, children.

On M's friends list, everyone's putting up baby or grihapravesham pictures. I go to the profile pages of my younger cousins and they are all putting up pyjama party pictures where everyone is making faces. With captions like "Sakshi, Bhakshi, Mokshi, and moi"...or "Madness!". Or some pictures at a pizza place that a poor waiter snapped while everyone was grinning consciously and touching their hair. On the profile pages of people my parents' age, I find tonnes of spam that the poor aunties and uncles invited upon themselves by clicking on Facebook viruses.

I wonder what my Facebook page will be like forty years from now. Since we're the generation that logged in before we had children of our own, our friends list will hopefully not have only sons and daughters. Maybe forty years from now people will be posting pictures of their new knee caps. Ma sparklin fake teeth. Baldness! and so on. And instead of pictures with spanking new spouses, we'd all have pictures with our doctors. It's funny to imagine how many old people are going to be there on my friends list. All these nattily-dressed dudes and dudettes....how shall you grey and wrinkle with every new profile picture? Of course, I'd be old too and I'd be embarrassing my children with pictures of myself in frilled frocks and hats. Maybe they'd block me and I'd start a community, the equivalent of an on ground Old Age Home, on Facebook. Maybe I'd then meet a tall dark thaatha there and have a scandalous online affair.

Life is full of possibilities.

Sloth Bear

2011-06-13T16:27:00.002+05:30

***

I went to Mahabaleshwar for two days and then to the zoo the next day. We saw a pair of sloth bears that I really liked. One of them was slumped against a wall and the other sort of got up but then slumped back again as if it had asked itself, "What's the point?" M and I spent the rest of the day pretending to be sloth bears (like you pick up the newspaper but don't read it because everything has already happened and so on. Very grown-up we are that way). There were leopards, tigers, a balled-up porcupine, and a fancy peacock, but my favourites by far were the bears. I felt a bit sorry about the deer though. Nobody really wants to see them.

It rained and rained and rained in Mahabaleshwar and I was so happy I could finally sit in a car for three hours straight without having the urge to throw up. The only room available in MTDC was an economy one. It had a tin roof and the rain chattered through the night like an annoying maami. I pretended I was a poor soul in a Tinkle story with a leaking roof and all and rubbed Axe balm all over my nose to stop the slightly suspect blankets from grossing me out with their musty smell. There were some hundred gymnastic monkeys around and it was a joy watching them.

My BP shot up for some strange reason the last time I was at the gynec's (maybe because I also got a Tetanus injection!) and she sent me to take three more readings the same week. Which of course, was not good for my BP since I spent the whole week Googling for everything horrible that could happen to me. I'm now the world's most informed person on Hypertension. The readings kept fluctuating and finally, my gynec made me lie down and said she'd call me in after a while. I sort of dozed off because it was all cool and dark. Then she suddenly came out of nowhere and checked my BP and it was perfectly fine. I think I should exchange my head for a new one and stop being such a paranoid parimala. I've promised M that the next time I have my BP reading taken, I'll pretend to be a sloth bear and just hang my arm out like I couldn't care less. I'll be all slumped up and my BP would be a dreamboat.

The Importance of Baby

2011-06-01T10:11:00.004+05:30

I was reading this post on IHM's blog. Of course, I'm now well past that stage when people are advising me to get pregnant. I have delivered the Good News at long last, much to the relief of my neighbour in Chennai who was apparently doing japam to make sure that I got pregnant. If only she'd been born in the days of Dasaratha, there would have been no need for silly yagnas and mango divisions. The NCERT should seriously consider including her pious face in the chapter about reproduction in their Biology textbook.

But my neighbour is, of course, just one person. Even if we assume generously that something is mentally very wrong with her, there are so many others for whom other people's pregnancy is of great interest. I've had arguments about this with my mum many times. According to her, in India, it's not impolite to take an interest in other people's lives. So somebody being interested in why you are not yet pregnant is merely an extension of that interest. I asked her if people would have had the same concern if say, I suffered from Piles. Would my neighbour do japam for my Piles problem or ask my mum about the status of my Piles every time she met her?

People also take great delight in discussing the inability of somebody to have a child. In fact, this whole baby-making process is seen as some sort of achievement and if you fail in this department, you have failed your life's purpose. On the other hand, if you are some 90-year-old man who got his 70-year-old wife pregnant, you can come on the news turban and all and tell us that drinking camel milk every day is what made you achieve this brilliance.

Why are we so baby-crazy as a nation? Surely, it's not because we love children. I mean, a baby in India has it pretty hard. As soon as it's born, it inherits a bunch of mean relatives who will make an inventory of all that's wrong with it. Then the baby has to be pierced, head-shaved, fed leghyams and subjected to drishti-pottus and such like till it's old enough to attend Pre-kg tuition classes. After that, of course, the baby becomes disillusioned in life and no amount of moral stories it was forced to listen to will come to its aid. Baby's flat and out, y'all. Flat and out on a big fat book on Mathematics by RD Sharma.

I suppose this baby-obsession comes from the fact that most married people don't know what else to talk about other than their children. Since the majority of marriages in India take place with the bride and groom not exchanging a word before the wise elders have solemnized everything, it is not difficult to see why this is so. The baby becomes a common point of interest and the marriage itself hinges on it, more or less. For the rest of their lives, parents can discuss what needs to be done for the baby and what the baby needs to do. Baby, do engineering. Baby, get married. Baby, have a baby. Etc.

So no baby means, marriage falling apart for most people. Now you see why a Piles problem cannot be treated on the same sacred platform? I suppose this is why every time I arrived in Chennai minus M and minus a pregnant tummy, people assumed I was getting divorced. The baby is like an insurance in your marriage. Even if everything crashes on a couple's head, they can always stay together for the sake of the baby.

Phew. And to think my No.1 reason for having a baby was that babies are funny.

Flipkart it, Bozos

2011-05-23T10:39:00.002+05:30

You can now order here and get free home delivery and all. Make a pregnant woman happy. Do your dharma, ok?

Mothers-to-be Day

2011-05-09T14:57:00.002+05:30

__

So we went and did the 12 weeks scan and saw the baby kicking and waving and twisting about like some sort of Kalari person. The sonography guy is one of the glummest people I've seen in my life. He usually slouches in like the Principal gave him grief for dirty canvas shoes. And then he watches the screen with a telegram face. You know, the face you get when you've just read your granny died back in your village. Granny Stop Died Stop Come Stop Immediately Stop. But in any case, he did show us the baby's marvellous profile and its wide variety of acrobatics.

I've never been good at waiting. So I usually get hyper when I'm waiting at the clinic. I tend to chew M's ear off with a constant commentary on all the human beings waiting along with us. Nobody else says a word though. I mean, people usually look like they are farmers in the middle of a 10-year drought. I'd understand if this were the cancer ward or something like that. But hey, this is like the Headquarters of Good News, so why not smile a little, eh? All the husbands would be guiltily fiddling with their phones and all the wives would be concentrating on how much longer they can endure the pressure of their bladder. If some matajis have come with their daughters, they'd be staring at the ceiling as if shot dead by Navy Seals. There was one man who decidedly looked more pregnant than his wife. I mentioned this to M and the two of us promptly went into a giggling fit. Which wasn't very good for my bladder.

The way they say you are pregnant in medical reports is like this: Uterus is bulky, gravid. So sweet of them to keep stressing that you're bulky. For some strange reason, I found this to be extremely funny. I kept thinking about Mrs Dravid being told she was gravid. And I kept giggling more and more.

After we did the ultrasound, we went to the doctor's clinic. Again, there were so many pregnant women there that I became hyper. What if we all went into labour on the same day, same time? How would the doctor manage? While I was chewing M's ear off about this, he spotted another pregnant man and started giggling. Which set me off too. Everyone else continued to look like Apocalypse was upon them. I mean, if you are so sad that you are pregnant, why did you become pregnant, dude? Cheer the hell up. And other such advice I kept giving off inside my head.

We went for The Fast and the Furious 5 yesterday. I didn't register much because I was concentrating on eating seedai without making too much noise. But I did notice that it had a pregnant woman who was nauseous exactly once in the film and then later went on to jump through roofs and all without a care in the world.

I haven't been writing much here because I'm keeping a diary, you know. I'm writing to the offspring daily. With my own unique illustrations and all. Nothing profound, just whatever I've been doing and my terrific observations of life and living. Including the sonographer's bald head. I just hope that the offspring reads it and appreciates it before it becomes an arrogant preteen git who thinks I was so uncool to have done something so soppy.

Happy Mothers-to-be Day to me. I'm gravid and I deserve it.

The General and the Gent

2011-04-27T09:16:00.003+05:30

***

I was reading this post by IHM and I was thinking of an incident that happened a few years ago. I was traveling from Madurai to Chennai on an overnight bus. There was a big traffic jam on the way and we were delayed by over seven hours.

The bus did not have a toilet and the driver only stopped the bus a couple of times on the road so the men could take a leak. There were at least ten women passengers on the bus. Each human, each with a bladder. At first, I thought the driver would stop when he saw a toilet on the highway, but he seemed to rush past every rare one I spotted. All the women except me were traveling with a male companion. The distress on their faces was quite obvious. And yet, not a single person spoke up. Apparently, a woman wanting to pee was a shameful idea.

I decided that enough was enough and went to the driver and told him to stop at a toilet in a polite tone. He said okay. But the bus continued to fly by. I went once again and asked him what the problem was. He said that he hadn't seen a single toilet and that he had to make up for lost time. I asked the cleaner to get up from his seat and go and sit in mine. Then, I told the driver in a voice loud enough that the entire bus could hear that I wanted to pee and that I was going to sit there, right next to him, and make him stop the next time I saw a toilet. I probably looked deranged without my mandatory morning tea and I scared him enough to make him stop the bus the second a toilet dawned on the horizon.

All the women were visibly relieved after this break and the rest of the journey was quite uneventful. But it got me thinking on how many sociocultural rules govern our lives. Much more than the laws of the land do. Who decided that it was okay for men to pee in public but not women? Why are women's needs seen as 'special' needs while the needs of men are what make the General? Why did I have to make a fuss for the driver to comprehend that this was an important issue? Why didn't the husbands/fathers/sons accompanying the other women speak up if they themselves felt shy of asking the driver to stop?

We see this attitude everywhere. Men on Chennai buses get very irritated if a woman sits in the General seat because we already have Ladies' seats. When half the bus is reserved for women, why do we want to have a claim on the other half too? I once got into a General compartment of a local train and this guy started grumbling about how women were getting into the Ladies' compartment as well as the General one and there was no space for men. Since I seldom shut up when given an opportunity to be angry, I told him to point out where it was written that the compartment was only for men. According to him, all the women had to be stuffed into the two Ladies' compartments while the rest of the ten or twelve were solely for guy-bonding.

The fact that we have 'Ladies' privileges' only because sexual molestation is such a common and accepted thing in our society is barely considered. Ladies' queues, ladies' compartments, and ladies' seats are not examples of a chivalrous society. They are examples of a society in which its men cannot keep their hands to themselves. These are an open acknowledgment of the fact that despite the law, these are the norms. Given a choice, I'd gladly give up this 'privilege' to a day when we can all stop carrying umbrellas and handbags as body shields.

Equality and sameness are very different words, just as General and Gents are. The General is everybody's. I'm going to stay put on this seat.

Random Rangan

2011-04-26T16:42:00.002+05:30

***

I'm presently reading a collection of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates. It's called Faithless. She writes mournful, desolate prose that I enjoy. There's one about a waitress that's particularly sad and depressing. On summer afternoons, when your eyelids are closing slowly like stage curtains, she makes a good read. There's a certain gumminess about her writing that goes with this weather.

The mangoes have come. And since I eat for two whenever it suits me, I've been feasting on them. Do not give me pregnant woman advice on how I should avoid papaya, pineapple, mango etc etc because I'm not going to listen to you. I eat joy-making things. I will hang upside down from a tree and eat plums if I feel like it.

The mother has been rearranging my cupboard. But I'm not angry like I used to be. Every time a parent visits, we get a newly arranged house. So for about a week, one never knows where which dal is. I'm anyway not very talented in the dal department. I only know that the one in the corner is what we put in sambar. So if someone changes that position, I am not to be blamed. I've made sambar with channa dal and not even known the difference. But I'm still zen, see? I feel sorrier for parents these days, knowing that I'm going to cross over to that side soon. I think I should stop reading Joyce Carol Oates and read something sarcastic immediately.

The doctor said the baby has very good growth. I felt like it had achieved a star in its report card. Maybe my parents adopted me from China. I should stop feeling so yay-my-baby-kicks-ass.

Okay, bye.

Fish

2011-04-19T10:30:00.005+05:30

I've been gone for a while and to all those who missed my silvery evilness, hellos. I actually did reply to the comments in my previous posts but this stupid Blogger displayed an error page both times and swallowed them all. Then I was just too tired to type everything out again. So I just disappeared instead.

Nothing fantastic has been happening. Other than the fact that my mother landed in Pune with boxes of fish for me to eat. Yes, she carried them in her cabin baggage. The things mothers do. *Sniff* I like this baby already. It objects to the smell of sambar but I stop feeling nauseous when fish is frying in the kitchen. Nice Mallu DNA. Maybe it will have a coconut instead of a head and call me Memmy. It also has the Mallu love for strikes. The day Anna Hazare called for a nation-wide fast, I couldn't keep any food down. Revolution is in the blood, komarade.

How boring is a healthy lifestyle. No wonder people adopt one only when they are sixty plus and close to dying anyway. I miss the restauranting of the yesteryear. The days when we could sit in the theatre for six hours and watch two movies back to back and not carry a bottle of lemon juice like it was an oxygen cylinder. Sigh. But it should get better soon. Only a couple more weeks for the first trimester to end. And if my nausea doesn't go away by then, I will move to a fisherman colony in Sri Lanka.

That's all for now.

The Pandas are Dying

2011-04-07T21:36:00.005+05:30

When I went for my first ultrasound, I had to sign a declaration that I had no interest in knowing the gender of my child. The softboard in the waiting room had clippings on female feticide and the PNDT Act. Newspaper reports on doctors who'd been arrested. Positive images of girl children proving their use. Of course I knew this was what it would be like. I'd written papers about it back then.

But back then, I hadn't seen the heartbeat of my child. I did not know when I was typing out my furious arguments what it felt like to have a life grow inside me. I did not know what it was to consider a form who is only 5.2 mm to be a person I could talk to. Someone with a personality. Someone who hates apples and becomes happy when I eat curd. But I do now. And those news reports that used to anger me back then....they terrify me now.

What must it take for a mother to willfully harm her child because she's a girl? What must it take for a husband to convince his wife that killing their baby made economic sense? What must it take for a family to view this as a practical decision? What must it take for a doctor to execute a murder so effortlessly? And for a nation to rest in apathy as every year, its girls continue to disappear? These questions terrify me because I don't want to imagine any more what those answers could be.

In the middle of the World Cup euphoria, there came the Census reports. India now has a child sex ratio of 914:1000, the worst since Independence. This means that despite the economic prosperity, despite the rise in literacy, and despite the Saina Nehwals and Indra Nooyis, the girl child has no place in a nation that has brutally cast her aside from its dreams.

It hurts.

Because progress is supposed to mean that the generation that comes next will have it easier than we did. That the struggles and prejudices I endured will be resolved in my era. That my daughter will have the choices and opportunities that I did not have.

But it is not to be.

Even in the way in which the news is reported about the child sex ratio, we're only interested in noting that decades from now, there might only be one woman for every five men. This will mean that brides will be in high demand then.

I ask you- what about the writers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, sportswomen, business women, musicians and several million other women that this country has lost out on? Who never made it because they never saw the world? Do women contribute in no other way to this nation other than by being brides? Do we serve no purpose other than reproduction?

As long as marriage is seen as the 'happy' ending in a woman's life, you can be assured that more girls will die. From the time she's born, a girl's parents start planning for this momentous occasion in her life. They may not deny her food, good clothes, or education, but they will still teach her to centre her life around this event. They will buy gold. They will enter into financial plans that will give them returns around the time their daughter is of 'marriageable' age. They will develop worry lines as prospective grooms seem hard to come by. They will lament over 'unreasonable' dowry demands. They will spend a vulgar amount of money on her wedding and take pride in the fact that they did not spare a single expense. They have done their duty. Their daughter is married. Settled. At last. It's a happy ending.

And then of course, if things go wrong, one can always compromise.

As long as we write our plots this way, our daughters will continue to die.

What do we do about this other than cry that society is so evil? Take a stance.

If you are an unmarried man, don't look the other way when the bride's family is burdened with taking care of the wedding expenses. Don't hide under the excuse that the elders decided all this. The elders didn't decide when you should have your first beer or your first smoke. Have the balls to take a stance.

If you are a married man, don't be lazy and incompetent at housework because it's convenient. Marriage is not a slave trade. If you know that what you're doing is wrong, be willing to change instead of reclining on a chair and making sexist jokes. Love is a verb. If you do care about your wife, act.

If you are a father, don't turn a deaf ear to your daughter's idealism. If she does not want marriage or if she wants a wedding with twenty people in it, have the courage to listen to her self-esteem speak.

If you are a woman, it's never too late to start believing that marriage is a minor event in an epic. It's never too late to believe in yourself. Or your daughters. The world is a very large place. Have the courage to embrace it.

I read these lines somewhere:

Don't take your daughter to the goldsmith to make her new chains. Take her to the ironsmith to melt the ones that she wears.

Till we do this, we will continue to die out. Just like the pandas.

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH

2011-04-06T08:39:00.002+05:30

Okay, since I've made the announcement and everything, I'm now free to rant. Or have my mood swings here, as matajis are known to have. Actually, I'm quite pleased about the situation. It wasn't exactly a surprise but I was still shocked when I took the pregnancy test and saw the second pink line creeping up like a slow worm. I'd promised M that I'd do it when he was back from work but my head was sort of exploding. Heck, I was having a mood swing, OKKKK?? So I went and did it and well, whatdoyaknow.

Then I demanded that M come back from work immediately and look at my handiwork. What a moment, what a moment. After the minor celebration and oh-my-god minutes, M went back to work and I went back to Googling for positive pregnancy test images. I did a comparative study on the darkness of the pink line and concluded that my pink line did not look like any of the others. So then, I did another pregnancy test in the evening and well, whatdoyaknow.

So there it was. Badabingbadabingbadaba. My mum thought I was playing the fool when I called to make my announcement. Mainly because I kept shouting "Oho, good news, good news!" and laughing. When she finally believed me, she gave me about ten pieces of advice that I immediately forgot.

After the initial hysteria, it finally dawned on us that life as we knew it was officially over. Phew. I still haven't had my share of making parent-jokes and here I was, already a mataji. Hand me my checked kerchief, children.

Till about Week 6, I had absolutely no problems being pregnant. At one point, I was convinced I was going to be James Bond-like. And on the day I was due, I'd just say, "I need to zip out and make a delivery, y'all. See ya!" I'd be all steely and dude-like and even wear my purple sunglasses to cheer up the nurses.

But no. Suddenly, there came the nausea and suddenly, all I can do is lie on the couch and smell a lemon. I read somewhere that nausea was Nature's way of ensuring that you didn't inject toxins into your system. What bs. First of all, I've never eaten so many healthy things in my life. Ever. And then Ma Nature punishes me for it by making me puke. Second of all, one is supposed to be eating well and being pleasant during this phase. How that is possible when you feel like you're on a wobbly boat in the Koovum all the time is beyond me.

I was whining to M about how my friends were still partying and deciding if they should get married at all while I was turning into a nausea narasimhan. M said that I ought to think about it more positively. Like twenty years from now, I'd be forty-five and have the house to myself while my friends would be grappling with teenage drama queens. Ha. I cheered up momentarily and then felt a little guilty for thinking about when the baby would leave when it hadn't even come in the first place. But then, if the baby is anything like me, it'd want to run away from home and be dramatic from the age of three or so. So it's okay, I guess.

We did an ultrasound and I was fully petrified of what I'd see. It's been so long since I wrote a Math exam and waited for the result, so I'd actually forgotten what it feels like. The ultrasound brought back those memories accurately. The doctor said she wanted me to do it just to ensure that the embryo was in the right place and that it was a bit too early to see the heartbeat and that I shouldn't worry if we didn't see one. Like heck I wasn't going to be worried.

Thankfully, we did see the heartbeat and I cried and all. Proper Bharat Mata, what? Then I came home and Googled and exulted on the fact that not too many people get to see the fetal heartbeat at that stage. Hola, our baby was already so advanced and a genius and a super-achiever, what? Then I realized that I was acting like a Chinese mother, so I put a lid on the glee and went back to being nauseous again.

Okay, now I'm going to eat an egg and try to keep it down. It's a challenge worth James Bond, truly.

Err...

2011-04-05T17:07:00.003+05:30

Yes, it's true. 32 more weeks to go.

I thought I'd wait a while longer before I posted this here, but I was going to explode if I didn't start writing about it.

So there. Say hello to GBM, children.

If you have laddoos remaining from India's WC victory, pop one into your mouth from me, won't you?

Phew

2011-03-22T09:08:00.003+05:30

I've been gone from here for a while. So much has been going on that there's just too much to update. I've been writing posts inside my head when on my evening walks, but it's going to be a while before those make it here. I know, mysterious and full of suspense I'm being. Hold your breath, children. I will reveal all when the time is ripe.

I turned 25 this month. M gave me mayil-blue clothes that I could wear for my launch. I also got a doll. Okay, now before you imagine that I'm some Genelia-like character who can't sleep without a huggy toy, I must tell you the story.

When I was in Class II, our school (St Joseph's) had a Christmas raffle and the prize was this amazing-looking doll called Nikita. I was six years old then and I remember praying hard to Jesus Almighty Lord during Assembly to grant me the gift of that doll. I was very, very sure I was going to win it because I'd prayed so hard and y'all know how tough that is for a kid from a Marxist family, right? But of course, Jesus ditched me and this eruma-maadu 11th standard girl won Nikita instead of me. I was devastated. I spent several years of my life trying to find Nikita in Chennai but I never did. This is also when I became an atheist. True story.

So anyway, I saw Nikita in a shop here in Pune and I told M this tragic story of mine. At the end of it, I even had a tear in my eye and all. This is why I'm a writer, see? I feel so much, I must spill out and so on. And then, when my birthday came, M got the doll and all. It's an awwww moment, feel free to express it, children. I secretly talk to Nikita when nobody's at home. The beginnings of schizophrenia, maybe.

The launch of Mayil Will Not Be Quiet went on very well, much better than we hoped. Both N and I were terribly nervous about having to face a bunch of pre-teens, but in the end, we managed to pull it off.

If you want to read the reviews, go here and here. Even if you don't want to read the reviews, you better click on those links.The book should be available in bookstores and on Flipkart soon.

My mum went to Landmark yesterday to take stock of all my books and rearrange them on top of the shelves (it's a family trait). She didn't find Mayil on the Tulika shelf. Do you know why? Because it was in the bestseller rack of the children's books section! Now isn't that something? Why don't you buy a copy and make us even more bestselling, eh?

N is visiting this weekend. Among other things, we're planning to do a creative writing and illustrations workshop for the children in my colony. The friendly neighborhood aunty I'm becoming.

All in all, I'm in a happy place in life right now. Maybe I should put a hugeass dhrishti pottu on my face and walk around. Hoooooorrraayy.

The Right to be Pissed

2011-03-03T12:09:00.002+05:30

It's only after I started forming this post inside my head that I saw that several others had already written about it. But ah well, there's always space for one more rant.

Since Women's Day is not too far away, I shall take this opportunity to celebrate it by getting pissed one more time. Do click on play and watch:

This will not be the only bullshit you'll see this Women's Day, you can be assured. You will see many more such advertisements that cry themselves hoarse on how a woman is a daughter, wife, sister, Ma, Paati all rolled into one and how you can shower your appreciation on her by buying a bigass diamond or washing machine.

The truth, however, is that it's a downright pain in the ass to be all of these all at once. I'm pretty sure all the superwomen in your life would appreciate you better if you washed your goddamn shirt yourself instead of reclining on a chair and giving gyaan on the latest washing machines in town. Really, it's so boring to keep watching women caring about shirts so much on TV. We don't give a damn, honestly. If your boss fired you because your white shirt is not white enough, he's probably insane. Or maybe he's a retired PT Master.

There are so many things wrong with this particular video(apart from that painful Tu hi tu, tu hi tu...), but let's start at the beginning. People who wear a dupatta while sleeping, raise your hands!

What?! Nobody?? OMG. All of you must be really normal women then.

In my mum's time, it was enough if a woman was fair, slim, and homely. Now, you have to be all three plus a career woman who also doubles up as a traffic cop when required, it looks like. Throughout the song, this eerily smiling lady doesn't have a hair out of place. From the range of things she does, one can deduce that she sleeps for twenty minutes at the most. And yet, she has no bags under her eyes. Arrey wah! We didn't see her use Ponds Age Miracle, did we?

She's not just traditional, she's also modern, minddit. She has a job *clap, clap* and she's so sweet, she doesn't even bitch about her boss (a man, of course) who makes her work overtime. Funnily, this woman's world seems to be populated only by men. The only other woman is the MIL who is sweet. A bit disappointing. I'd have enjoyed it better if she'd set her DIL on fire and the latter had gone up in smoke smiling as insanely as ever. Maybe we could have drawn out a comparison with Sita Devi there and applauded ourselves.

I'm really tired of seeing women who don't get tired. Or pissed. On some days, I just wake up feeling pissed. I make carping statements, I invite fights, I act like my hair is on fire. In short, I make life difficult for people around me.

But I also believe that I'm effing worth the trouble.

I don't need to be an angel to be wanted or loved. Because the people around me are not angels either. And I put up with their drama because I care about them. So why in god's name do I have to keep smiling like a self-advertising dentist in order to be the perfect woman?

I'm also lazy, you see. On some other days, when I'm not pissed, I like sitting on the sofa like a well-fed cat, doing nothing at all. I also happen to think my life is perfect on those days. If I had a day like the woman in the video, you can be assured you'll find corpses all around me.

*PFFFFFFFFFFFFTTT*

Okay, now let's say something calm and collected.

Why are these ads so annoying? Simply said, women get enough shit as it is and we don't need to be told that we're morons who believe the shit is, in fact, 24 carat gold.

Womanhood is not about sacrifice. Womanhood is about being human in your own skin. It is about realizing that being human means you will age, lose your temper, lash out at the people you love, have selfish dreams, make mistakes, be unreasonable, dislike pain, love comfort, bear grudges, and in spite of all this, you are still awesome.

Dear Star Plus, I give you the finger. Buy yourself a bigass diamond ring and smile away.

The Book, Children

2011-03-01T09:43:00.011+05:30

Mayil Will Not Be Quiet is here at last.

Isn't that the most fantastic-looking cover ever? The Amazing Miss Niveditha Subramaniam, or the famous N who appears on this blog frequently, did it.

We wrote this book together, so you can be assured it's fabulous.

The launch is happening in Chennai at Landmark (yeah, we're big league, children), Apex Plaza, at 2 pm on March 8th. Why don't you show up and take our autographs, eh? You can even take a picture with us and hang it in your drawing room. How cool will that be, HAAAAAAAAAAN?

There will be a book reading followed by a discussion. Come ask me which team do I think will win the World Cup. And bring your whistles and balloons along.

You can order the book here: http://www.tulikabooks.com/paperback13.htm

Click on the ISBN and pay up!

If you want to interact with the two supreme intellectuals who wrote this book, visit our microsite *ahem* here: http://mayil.tulikabooks.com/

We'll be putting up cartoon strips and posts and a whole lot of fundastic item numbers there. WATCH OUT!!

Short Stuff

2011-02-21T09:48:00.005+05:30

The other day, on my walk, I went past a school. The bell had just rung and there were children running out of the gate like a wildebeest migration. I suddenly noticed that almost all of them were taller than I was. This was amusing because I am, after all, a senior citizen with two strands of grey hair to my credit. I said, "Excuse me, excuse me" meekly and dodged past them like a young-at-heart nimble aunty.

I then started thinking about my school days and how I was always the first person in the line during assembly. This unfair height order rule meant that I could never mumble my way through the million bhajans we had to sing every morning. I had to sing with utmost devotion, closed eyes and all. It also meant that I could only stand next to short boys in other classes. I have nothing against short boys but I'm not very interested in them. I'm sure they have good hearts and all that, but unless the rest of them is like Surya, it's very unlikely that I'd be interested. I'm only five feet tall though.

During Games class, the PT Sir would yell 'HEIGHT ORDER!' and everyone would immediately look at me. I'd hunch up my shoulders and pretend that I was taller than the second shortest in class, but I wasn't fooling anyone. The second shortest would have a smug expression on her face, bordering on a sneer. (Her name was Srividhya, by the way. Hey, Steevidhya, if you are reading this, I hope you feel ashamed of your insensitive, appalling behaviour. ) This meant that I was first in the line once again and I had to get my LEFT-RIGHT-ABOUT TURN coordination correctly.

Which I never managed to do. I didn't have the advantage of following the person in front of me, so I was extremely stressed out by this whole process of turning left and turning right and turning about like a top with a screw loose.

Here's some embarrassing trivia: when Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai won their respective crowns, my cousin and I were convinced that the only worthwhile ambition to have in life was to become beauty queens ourselves. We used to collect their pictures and eat carrots every day for glowing skin. Okay, stop smirking, I was in Class IV and yet to develop into the formidable intellectual that I am now. Okay? Okay. Sadly, I had to give up on this dream because I just didn't grow beyond five feet. Oh, the cruel jokes of fate!

Like a good Mallu girl, I only drank tea throughout my childhood. I was thus deprived of Complan, my last shot at adding some inches, by my mother's theory that anything bottled is bad for you. Except disgusting arishtams from vaidyashalas. I stopped growing after seventh standard and from Facebook, I understand that some of my classmates are still growing. So you can imagine. There I was, a shrimp in a sea of sharks. Despite the high-heels that I tried wearing during my teen years.

College was marginally better. I met more short people but I was invariably the shortest. The hand-rest for the tall beings. I was endearingly referred to as 'Short Stuff'. We had aerobics in college and I was, once again, first in line. Now, if I can't turn left or right or about turn correctly, I can't dance either. So I'd mostly stand there like an octopus, waving my limbs about in a friendly fashion. The aerobics instructor, who was Kala Master's less-famous sister, by the way, would shake her head at my abysmal performance but I at least managed to fix a charming smile on my face. You see, by then, I'd come to terms with what I looked like and everything. Not that I was convinced I was a trilokasundari, but I realized that this was what I was going to look like and no amount of angst was going to change that. Gone were my high heel days. I only wore chappals and adopted the JNU-look. You know, kurta, jolna, kajal types.

But it's only when I started working that I realized what a great advantage my height (or lack of it) was. At five feet, you don't threaten people with your physical appearance. Most people tend to look at you as some sort of overgrown child. This might sound like a disadvantage, but I've found that one can actually get away with making the most in-your-face statements because your colleagues will have a somewhat-indulgent attitude towards you. If you are intelligent and articulate, you will win additional points for being so because you are also short. Murthy sirisu naalum kirti perusu types. Tall people, on the other hand, just end up sounding like boring coat-suit types giving gyaan.

You can also give orders and have them executed without sounding like a beeyatch. All you have to do is make yourself look extra short and at the same time, very serious indeed. Being short, I'd say, has been a key factor so far in my rapport building with bosses. I could joke around and write tongue-in-cheek emails without putting myself in danger. It's all very Tenali Rama-like, you know. The jester tells the king home-truths and gets covered in gold coins for being rude.

When my parents decided that holy matrimony was to descend upon me, they wondered if M was "too tall" for me. The thought never entered my head, though. I was convinced I was beyond splendid by then. I don't know if M thought I was "too short" for him and now is probably a dangerous time for him to make such confessions, so I shall leave it at that. The photographer for our wedding, however, was much amused by the disparity in our respective heights. He asked me if I could stand on a stool while doing the photos that he was going to paste inside sunflowers and hearts and what not. I was already pissed off because I was dressed-up and I flatly refused to do so. As a result, while you can see the whole of M in our romantic profile photos in the wedding album, I appear like a bodiless head. Ah well, at least, I have a fabulous face.

I hadn't thought about my height in a really long while and it was only when I was running amongst the school children that I remembered my angsty days. I saw one short child in the crowd and I wanted to tell her not to feel bad about it. Someday, these tall people will take orders from you and what's more, they will think you are an advanced-level funny genius. Trust me, it will happen.

19 Vayadhiniley

2011-02-19T09:19:00.005+05:30

***

What I used to be: My 19-year-old self.

Angsty and angry and so AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH at the world. I like how the internet keeps track of my growing old.

I haven't written poetry since...since I was 19, I guess. What a waste of blinga genius, no? I happened to find this page because of a conversation I had with N. It brought back all my poetry-days.

Here's one more I discovered buried somewhere in my inbox:

paradise lost

daughter of eve,
i bear in my blood
upside down worlds.

the prince i kissed
morphed into a frog.

he leapt into the
lilies
with my crystal ball.

angry, i swore, princes
were fake.

i disowned the stories
that flamed
my brains

in amber light.

i wound my hair into
a granite bun.
swearing
no witch hunter

would climb into my skull.

i’ve smashed my mirrors,
killed my eyes.

i find in my
pocket,
snow white’s
apple,

rich, red, wrong.

the dwarves wait for
me to take the plunge.

they hold my glass box
in eager joy.

daughter of eve,
i sink my fangs into

sin with ease.

exit paradise.

Amusing. I miss writing poetry but I can't bring myself to. Possibly because the intensity of my pissed-off state has reduced. Sigh. In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo.

Happy Birthday, Tulika!

2011-02-15T20:34:00.002+05:30

__

Tulika is now 15 years old. Why is that so important? Well, I don't know about you, but to me, the Tulika story is like one of those marvelous movies on sport where you watch the last match with a lump in your throat, knowing that the underdogs are going to win. Nobody expected them to win but they did. And inside your heart, a tiny voice says that it's okay to believe in corny things like dreams coming true.

For those who don't know yet, Tulika Publishers is a publishing house that brings out children's books. They are located in Chennai and no, they haven't hired me to be their PR person (though I wish they would hire me in some way....maybe a face-making tea girl). I've written for them, so this is going to be a terribly biased post. But then, I'm a terribly biased person in the most charming way in real life too. So I'm not going to insert any more disclaimers.

Tulika started off in 1996 at a time when Indian children's literature was synonymous with reams and reams of mythology. Not that there is anything wrong with mythology, but after a point, it becomes tiresome when the kings keep performing yagnas for sons and the sages keep cursing apsaras for disturbing them. Okay, I'm being unfair. Mythology is a great genre...but it's EVERYWHERE. As a child, I preferred reading Malory Towers and pretending that I was Darrell Rivers who played lacrosse though I had no idea what the hell that was. There was hardly any Indian children's literature that captured my imagination. I instinctively turned away from anything preachy and thankfully, my Marxist parents applauded my tastes.

When Tulika started off, I was in Class VI. I was already past the picture books stage and I never bumped into their books till I reached college. And met N (who is now a fancy Tulika publisher herself). She introduced me to their books and I was super envious of the under-5 population of the country. Why, they had such remarkable books to read, the snotty Pogo-watchers! I spent many a happy hour in Landmark reading Tulika books and I suddenly realized how much fun an Indian childhood actually is. Because I'd never read anything where children have fun in an Indian context without them painfully arriving at a Moral in the end, this moment of epiphany blew me away. I looked up their website and found many essays on children's literature and why Tulika was started. And the story of their struggle. I felt inspired in a very flag-hoisting way. Here was a bunch of people who dared to start off small with sound convictions and managed to pull the rabbit out of the hat!

By this time, N had joined Tulika as an intern and she suggested that I write for them. I wrote a small story called Aana and Chena and couriered it to them with a self-important cover letter and all. I didn't hear from them for a long, long time and I assumed that this meant they didn't like my story. But that's the thing about email. You can always appear cool and shoot off an enquiry without sounding desperate. And so, I did some bombarding while retaining my chilled out personality and everything.

I still remember that night. I was feverishly checking my email and I saw Tulika Publishers in my inbox. I opened the mail. It was an acceptance letter. I was so joyous, I ran to my parents' bedroom, woke my mum up and told her the news. She sleepily said, "Oh! Good!" I grinned and ran back and read the mail a hundred times to make sure that I hadn't somehow misunderstood the three-line mail. Tulika was publishing me!

I cannot express enough the joy of holding a book you have written in your hands and looking at it, page by page. It's a lot like falling in love. The day the package with copies of my book came home, I was delirious. I showed the book to everyone I knew. I didn't care if they thought I was boasting. Heck, I was a Tulika author! Aana and Chena was also the book I gave M when we first met and he still has it (ok, it hasn't been ten years or something, but it's still special and all).

Why is the Tulika story important for writers like me? Writers who have no literary contacts, agents, awards, and age to come to their aid? It is important because if you have nothing but your craft to fall back on, the publishing industry can ignore you. It often does. It can make you believe that you are no good and convince you to give up. I was twenty two when Tulika accepted my first book. For every small edit that was made on my story, I was duly consulted and informed. With due respect. At no stage did they make me feel like an amateur who ought to feel grateful that they were giving me any attention at all. They were extremely approachable and I felt very comfortable agreeing and disagreeing with the suggestions and decisions made. The attention to detail, the painstaking efforts that go into the production of a book, the love with which it finally comes hot off the press...happiness is a warm picture book, to misquote Peanuts.

So far, I've published four picture books with Tulika. Each has been a delight to bring out. Each has put a smile on my face when I've felt down in life. It also feels darned good to sign your own book and give it to children who can't believe they know a real-life writer. Though I can only half-believe that myself.

Happy Birthday, Tulika people. Here's to many more.

@N- I hope you will lobby for that face-making tea girl job I want.

Gounder Brownie ka Baap

2011-02-10T19:41:00.002+05:30

___

*This is an advertisement*

So my father is now a blogger. Really. This is a moment to walk down memory lane and all that, but let's follow his policy of 'First Things First' and put down the link immediately. Here it is:

Baap re Baap

As you can see, it's a law blog and that's what he's going to write about since he's a lawyer and everything. He's even managed to upload a profile photo. Parents are so precocious these days. So if you have legal problems (and as a family, we hope you have lots), be sure to leave a comment, ok?

Since my father asked me to put up his link on my blog, I'm tempted to take a potshot at how he used to consistently inform me during my college days that I was wasting my time by writing things for which nobody was ever going to issue me a certificate. But parents make mistakes when we're growing up and as selfless children we ought to forgive them.

My eyes cloud over with memories as I remember how my father took his first, hesitant baby footsteps into the world of computers. The mouse scared him. My brother's temper scared him even more. He would copiously make notes and follow the step by step instructions written down by his antsy children. Ah, those were the days of Reality TV outside the television box.

(Since all this flashback is taking up too much time, I'm going to quickly play a song and move ahead several years. Here it is: *song beginning with chorus*)

And then, my father became a Facebooker and began Liking all my status messages. Even ones that said 'Jonathan Daddia is now following me on Twitter *drool*'.

Now, he's a blogger. Maybe he will tweet next. The future is wide open.

My daddy's all grown up.

Sleeping with the Enemy

2011-02-04T09:59:00.002+05:30

Reading Stieg Larsson's trilogy brought back many memories from my Gender Studies days. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the other two books in the series fall under the genre of crime fiction/thriller. But they are also books about violence against women, an issue that Larsson felt very strongly about throughout his life. When he was 15, Larsson witnessed the gang rape of a girl. The rapists were his friends and the girl was known to all of them. Larsson did nothing to stop it. Her name was Lisbeth.

Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of Larsson's trilogy, is unlike any other I've encountered. True, certain parts of her characterization seem James Bond-like but again, this is a genre that accommodates and even demands that. What I like best about the books is that Lisbeth is not stuffed in a cat-suit with her breasts hanging out in an everyday manner of dressing. She is not blonde and neither is her hair untied and loose when she's engaged in a fist fight. Lisbeth is mysterious, but not in the slit-eyes, pouting mouth way. She's mysterious because she likes to handle her own business. Her sexual identity is queer and queer in a way that rings genuine- not the girl-on-girl action that caters to an obviously male, straight audience. When subjected to violence, Lisbeth responds and responds effectively. Even though her responses are violent, a part of me feels enthused and rewarded. It's just so good to see a woman giving it back in the balls for once, never mind if she's fictional.

In my first Gender Studies class, I was convinced that of the bunch of women who were my classmates, I'd probably seen the most of gender-based discrimination. I was the only non-White in the room, after all. But the very first question that the professor asked us- What made you take up this course?- dispelled those assumptions. L, from Cyprus, said she'd been subjected to domestic violence. Her boyfriend had not only hit her, he'd even burnt down her car. She'd gone to the police station to file a complaint but her boyfriend told the cops that it was a lovers' quarrel. They chose to believe him and sent her home. L was angry and also afraid. There were women from Britain, the US, Ireland, Sweden, Germany and many other countries who were similarly pissed off.

If you take the statistics for violence per se, in any country, you will find that men die due to violence in substantially higher numbers than women. Then why is violence against women an issue? How is it different from violence in general? Violence against women is an issue not because women are innocent. Not because women are softer, defenceless, frail, delicate, or more deserving to live. Violence against women is an issue because women die because they are women. Same way Jews died because they were Jews and Blacks died because they were Black. However, today, you can be arrested for calling someone a monkey but it's perfectly fine to call someone a motherfucker.

Women and sex are inseparable in popular culture. In one of the gender workshops that I did, I asked the all-girls class how they knew that a particular scene in a movie was a sex scene. They seemed shy to respond, so I threw them some prompts: would they consider it a sex scene if a man and woman were shown together in an intimate act? They said yes. Would they consider it a sex scene if a man was shown undressing by himself? They said no. Would they consider it a sex scene if a woman was shown undressing by herself? They said yes. And this is how we behave in public life too. Go to any waterfall in India. You will see men stripped to their underwear jumping about, unmindful of what is showing and what is not. You will also see a bunch of women in the water, fully dressed, fully conscious of the fact that their clothes are wet and that they may look 'vulgar'. They will come out of the water and walk back in their wet clothes with a dupatta or towel draped around them. The men will change right there, doesn't matter who's watching. The idea that the female body is sexual everywhere while the male body is sexual only in context is imprinted in the heterosexual mind, be it male or female.

But why is sex associated with violence? Why is 'fuck you' in any language an abuse? Why is it that 'I'm so fucked' or 'I'm so screwed' mean that one is finished? Because in popular culture, sex is not an act of love. It is an act of power. And the one who loses is the one who is fucked. This is why rape is as much a weapon in warfare as a grenade. This is why rape is expected collateral damage in a riot. This is why it is okay to rape a dalit woman even if you won't let her touch the water in your well. This is why men who rape women are heterosexual and yet misogynistic. This is why they believe women who threaten their power need to be taught a lesson. The widespread availability of pornography, which is often violent and often debasing, has also contributed heavily to these ideas.

The etymology of the word 'pornography' itself is interesting. Though we know it now mostly through the internet, a recent invention, pornography comes from the Greek words 'porne' and 'graphos'. 'Porne' refers to the lowest class of prostitutes in ancient Greece i.e. the women available to all male citizens, not just the gentry. They were considered to be cheap, vile, and objects who could be mistreated without drawing censure from anyone. Not all classes of prostitutes in ancient Greece were viewed this way. The porneia was the lowest in the hierarchy and they had the least human value. The word 'graphos' means 'writing, etching, or drawing'. So pornography is essentially the representation of the lowest class of whores, the ones who can be humiliated because it's fun and nobody's asking any questions.

By this definition, women world-over, no matter what their qualification, job, race, culture, caste, religion and any such category, have slipped into the porneia. Today, it's okay for a man with half my IQ to rub against me in a bus. It is my fault for dressing like a whore. Today, we can all watch Barney on How I Met Your Mother and find his hump-and-dump strategies funny. Today, it's okay to call someone a cunt or a pussy and not offend anyone in the room, even if it has women. Today, nothing can guarantee your safety if you are a woman. Welcome to the porneia.

Stieg Larsson's trilogy goes right into the heart of the issue, though most readers of the books would probably find his plots more exciting than the sociological aspects of it. But me, I'm a Larsson fan because of Lisbeth. And the cold fact that his books are based on actual statistics.

Blah Blah

2011-01-27T08:15:00.007+05:30

We watched 127 Hours yesterday. As usual, I had to sit right next to a moron who kept wondering throughout the film why Aron Ralston didn't use his mobile to call someone. Maybe he thought Abhishek Bachchan would pop in from somewhere and suggest that Ralston make use of mobile portability and get Idea for better network coverage. The moron also kept texting someone and then asking the guy sitting next to him (very loudly) what he'd missed. Apparently, the moron had thought 127 Hours was a comedy and he was sorely disappointed to know that it was all about a man jammed in between a rock and a hard place. It is a testament to how zen I've become with age that I did not ask him to shut up despite the continuous stream of "Arrey yaar, uska haath blah blah". In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. I am the captain of my soul.

Cutting off a limb to live another day sounds like something straight out of a Saw movie. But that's pretty much what Ralston had to do. I found myself asking if I'd have done the same. Okay,to start with, I'd never be in this situation because my parents always know where I am despite the fact that I've moved cities and all. Also, even if I go missing for a while, my mother has an imagination that can map out all the possible tragedies that could have befallen me and sooner or later, a harassed squad is sure to come after me. Like the time she thought I was lost on a beach in Kerala and sent a committee of bearded men after me when I was happily watching the sunset with N and A a few metres ahead. My mother is the queen of Paranoid Activity. But let's say hypothetically that I'm caught in a Ralston-like situation, what would I do?

My first instinct is to say that I'd never be able to chop my hand off. But again, you never know what you're capable of until you're plunged into a situation. Would I want to stay alive that badly? Maybe I'd give up if I was drowning or something because it'd be over quickly...but to slowly starve to death...maybe I would rip my arm off, after all. This made me wonder if the idea that scares me is death itself or the process of dying. And no, I'm not suppressed and depressed and oppressed in life. It was a purely philosophical rumination,all Nietzsche-like. What if a chimpanzee who can handle tools was caught in a similar circumstance? Would it chop its hand off? If it didn't, would it be because the thought never occurred to it or because it was unable to hurt itself in order to survive? Is it only a human being who can go through such unimaginable pain to see another sunrise? I don't really know because I don't experiment with chimpanzees and such like, but it certainly made me feel poetic for a while.

I also watched The Stepford Wives this week. The term keeps cropping up in gender discourses and I quite enjoyed the movie, especially because I know quite a few Stepford Wives in real life too! The ending was a little disappointing though. I should probably get the book and read it. The other movie I watched was Harishchandrachi Factory, a Marathi film (with English subtitles, of course) on the life of Dadasaheb Phalke, the man who made the first Indian movie. It was a light-hearted take on Phalke's life with no attempt to discuss racism or poverty or colonialism or any other ism that would have made it more profound. Which I felt guiltily grateful for.

I've been reading the Stieg Larsson trilogy and I'm enjoying myself. It is far better than the Dan Brown kind of fare though it falls under the same genre. I was reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on the train to Goa and the title kept running in my head in rhythm with the beat of the train. The-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo-chuku-chuku-choo.

On our way back, this bunch of guys kept talking loudly late into the night and M shouted, "SILENCE PLEASE! LOG SOGAYI HAI!" Inexplicably, this highly boring Lata Mangeshkar song from Zubeidaa that goes 'SOOOOOGAAAYYYYIII HAAAIIINNN' a million times started running in my head and I kept giggling in my sleep despite the headache that I'd developed.

The brother came over for the weekend and we played cards and stuffed ourselves and also congratulated each other on how much more cooler we are than our parents. Yippie.

Mayil Will Not Be Quiet, the book that N and I wrote together, is going to press in the first week of February. After four years and numerous drafts, it is finally happening. Clap hands, clap hands. We're novelists, bitch.

Okay, that's all for now.

Oh wait, we went para-sailing and also saw dolphins in Goa. Now isn't that something?

Okay, that's all for now.

Random Rangeela

2011-01-11T10:41:00.004+05:30

I've been writing mythology stories endlessly at work. The effect of which, you have seen in the last post. I like Ganesha the best. Hanuman is a close second. The rest are too boring. Take for instance, Prahalada. I mean, what a bore of a child. He's the sort of kid who gets a centum in every Math exam and writes his answers in an especially neat handwriting all over the question paper so he can double-check them later. Ekalavya, I sort of like. Him being the underdog and all. But I deeply disapprove of him chopping his thumb off. I'd have liked him better if he'd punched this bratty Arjuna in his face and had asked Dronacharya to take a walk.

M and I have been going for the Pune International Film Fest and everything. I've been trying very hard to find the intellectual me who used to like watching slow cinema. But now, all I want to see is a bhangra in a depressing Danish film. Or at least, a comedy sidetrack.

I ate banoffee pie in an expensive restaurant and got food poisoning. What goes down must come up- this I proved the whole of yesterday.

We're going to Goa on Thursday. I'm not taking my laptop with me. I'm going to be incommunicado and everything. What I am taking is my new pink and purple glares. I will wear them and be cheerful, far from gods and goddesses and other mental cases.

Bye bye now.

King Vikram Goes on Vacation

2011-01-05T08:17:00.006+05:30

__

It was morning. The sun was shining and it seemed very unlikely that it was going to rain. There were no ghouls in sight. And yet, King Vikram had plenty of demons raising havoc inside him. His salary hadn't been paid yet. He wanted to take leave and go on vacation, but the Vetal told him that this would mean LoP. His bills hadn't been reimbursed either. Should he quit? For how long would he do this pointless job of carrying a corpse back and forth? Did anyone care? Why was he wasting his life thus? Maybe he ought to become a freelancer and carry some other corpses for a change.

King Vikram found himself bang in the middle of an existential crisis. He went to meet the Vetal. But before he could open his mouth, the Vetal said: "O King! I'm so glad you are here. I was just beginning to get lonely in my cubicle. Let me now tell you a most boring moral story that runs for 15 pages. Listen!" King Vikram wanted to protest, but the shiny HR plate on the Vetal's polished table stopped him. He could see his face reflected on it. King Vikram was a sucker for symbolism. He knew that his fate depended on the Vetal. He'd to listen to the Vetal's most boring moral story that ran for 15 pages.

The Vetal spoke: "In a kingdom far away, there lived a bunch of people who had very strange beliefs. They believed that working for a living was tantamount to killing one's soul. They believed that a person ought to do only what interested him or her. Fishing one day, kite flying the next.

They would each bring food that they were able to bring according to their own ability. For instance, Subramaniam would bring the vadam and Mustafa would bring the biryani. Omanakutty would bring stew that she called ishtoo. Then, everyone would eat lunch according to their need. After this, they would have a long siesta. Since they believed Marriage was evil (the other evil item on the list was America), anybody could sleep with anybody and nobody ever 'owned' the other person. The concept of family was pooh-poohed. Everybody was liberated. You could take vacations whenever you wanted to."

King Vikram wanted to interject at this timely moment and bring up the question of his own vacation. But the Vetal ignored him superbly and went on: "There was so much contentment in this kingdom that God was jealous. Moreover, these people did not even believe in him to start with. So God called in a consultant. His name was Satan and he charged God a whopping fee. Now God was assured that something good would come out of this.

Satan went to the kingdom and announced that he was going to give everyone presents for being so awesome. The people asked him, 'Will each of us get the same thing with no differences at all?' Satan nodded. His red eyes smiled. The people were happy. They were going to get the same presents. It didn't matter if they were lousy as long as they were the same. When they opened their presents, they found themselves staring at a strange machine. 'What are these?' asked the people. 'Computers,' said Satan. 'I'll see you later!'

Then, he swiftly made a getaway.

The people began using the computers. They were fascinated. They could now read about fishing and kite flying and watch videos of the same instead of just doing them. They could play fishing and kite flying games too. They were fascinated.

After a week, Satan came once again. 'Are you happy with your presents?' he asked. 'Yes!' screamed the people. 'Good!' grinned Satan. 'Because I have better news. I'm going to pay you now for sitting before the computers!'

'Will we get the same amount no matter for how long we sit before the computer?' asked a smartass (the trade union type, scoffed the Vetal). 'Of course!' beamed Satan. 'But what will we do with the money?' screeched a heavily bearded man. 'Karl, you simply have no idea!' smiled Satan. Then, he twirled his fingers and out of thin air, there appeared a mall. The people gasped. There was a shop that sold fish and a shop where you could fly kites on a screen using a joystick.

So, the people sat before the computers and got paid. They explored the mall and were fascinated. Soon, they began ordering things from the mall while sitting before their computers. That way, they could multi-task (the Vetal smiled here. It was his favourite word).

The next week, Satan came down again and said, 'I'm so happy to see all of you so immersed in your computers. All of you are looking fat and beautiful!' The people smiled like children. 'Now,' said Satan smoothly, 'How would you like it if I paid you a bonus? Apart from your regular pay for parking your ass in front of the computer, I'll pay you extra if you sit for an extra number of hours. Say, if you sit there after 5 PM.' The people loved it. Except Karl. He grumbled inside his beard but nobody heard him.

Soon, everyone was trying to see who could sit before their computers for the longest. The bigger their bonuses grew, the more the mall glowed. The next week, Satan came down and announced, 'From now on, I'm going to pay you according to your work. Everybody is going to get a different pay!' Satan was a little nervous but he needn't have been. Because the people loved it. 'Finally!' they yelled. They were tired of being equal.

Satan whispered in each person's ear how much they were going to get. 'And remember,' he said, 'you are getting the highest, so don't tell the others or they'll get jealous.' And so, the people of the kingdom sat before their computers. In a few months, the kingdom had a hundred malls and one gym where the people of the kingdom went occasionally when they wanted to fit into their pants for a special occasion. Like a buffet lunch hosted by their office.

Though they had everything, whenever, wherever, they wanted it, the people of the kingdom were sometimes sad. In long evenings, when the sun never seemed to set, a yellow malaise sat in their hearts and they dreamed of going fishing.

They prayed to God for peace. And God was happy."

The Vetal paused in his narration: "O King, tell me now. Why weren't the people of the kingdom happy? They had everything, whenever, wherever, they wanted it. And yet, they couldn't be happy. Why so?"

King Vikram said, "The answer is simple, O Vetal. Jobs make people miserable. They prevent people from taking vacations. They kill your soul. They make you feel cheap and unappreciated."

The Vetal said, "What sort of communist bullshit is this? O King, you are fired."

Lightning struck King Vikram's heart. He was now free to go on vacation. But he wouldn't get LoP. Because he had no job.

King Vikram was devastated.

All the Siddharths

2010-12-30T09:56:00.004+05:30

***

The first New Year party you went to was a glitzy ball in which boys named Siddharth walked around talking of their experience with theatre and what they thought about Kafka. The Siddharths of the world smelled of a strange maleness that was bottle-made. They had newly sprouted chin hair and were called Sid. For short. Most played the drums.

Was it fun? It was an honor, certainly. It meant you were cool enough to party, never mind if your feet were frozen and inexplicably and embarrassingly, you couldn't stop yawning. Your contact lenses were trying to get out of your eyes and you were furiously trying to push them back while pretending to be amused by the wit that was lashing across the room like a whip. Nobody could ignore the wit, its sharp crack as it landed here and there, keeping everyone awake.

There were some white people too, pale in their printed kurtas, looking deep into your kajal-lined eyes and speaking of Ganesha. You couldn't understand what they were saying because the music was too loud and you were not international enough to catch their accent. So you nodded along and smiled a lot, wondering if you were racist because their lack of eyelashes was grating on your brain.

And then, there was the food and the booze. And you with a glass of orange juice, sitting down primly and insisting you were a teetotaler, but not because of moral reasons. You were amoral, you just didn't like the taste. The smell of it. The Siddharths were drinking beer and discussing football and it could have been a tavern somewhere in England where you'd never been but hoped to see someday. Some of your friends were social. They mixed and matched and flowed around the room, calling everyone and everything crazy. To be crazy was a privilege.

Some of your friends were frozen, just like you. So you stood in a tight little circle, a coven, and chose to be the anti-socials. Which was crazy too and hence, cool. You spoke of post-colonialism or existentialism. One or the other. It didn't matter. Everything was funny because the night was crazy.

And then, when it was time to go, though the Siddharths insisted the party had only just begun and there was more beer and they weren't yet smashed, you were relieved. The auto driver fixed you with a disapproving glance. But you put on an airy expression and wished him a very Happy New Year.

When you'd changed and shut your eyes to sleep, the glitzy ball went out slowly like the tip of a dying cigarette. And you slept like a child inside your blanket, glad for the silence and the gentle murmur of the fan.

Awwww

2010-12-28T10:24:00.002+05:30

***

Facebook tells me that I'm celebrating an anniversary with M coming Monday. Yes, you ought to say "Awwwwwwwwwwwwww" at this point and offer congratulations and what not.

Let's have a moment of silence.

Now for the speech:

1 year is a long time for someone who's held 4 jobs in 2 years. I think my mum was especially worried when I got married (before this, she was especially worried that I wasn't married) because of my beautiful temper (my nickname at home was RDX amongst other things), and my maladjustment with normal society (my dad used to say I was a Maoist- ironic that it should come from a communist, what?). But I don't seem to have done too badly. Heck, I think I'm a kickass wife, it doesn't matter who agrees or disagrees.

So here's some wisdom I wish to share with everyone on this stupendous achievement:

1. Yes, it's wonderful that you are married and have found The One and all that. But it's not so wonderful that you have to spend all your time wrapped up in each other. Don't cut off your friends or stop spending alone-time with them. It is possible to have conversations with them that don't involve your spouse.

2. Marriage is a big event in your life, all right, but it isn't your life. Taking time off from stuff to adjust and adapt and all that is fine. But get back to your life at the end of it. Don't change your priorities overnight and so easily.

3. Don't act dependent. It may seem cute initially that you need him/her for every little thing but in the long run, it will become a pain in the ass. You were running things just fine for 20 odd years before you met your spouse, so why become a helpless kitten suddenly?

4. You aren't a Pomeranian. So don't perform for rewards. If you do something nice or sweet, do it because you want to and not because you want a pat on the head. You will end up feeling unappreciated and ignored and what not if you perform.

5. Don't forget that you and your spouse are individuals first. Don't be so self-involved as to believe that you are the whole world for the other person. Nobody is that interesting. Don't get jealous and possessive if s/he wants to spend time by himself/herself or with people other than you.

6. Live in the present and drop your baggage. It doesn't matter who did what in 1937. Don't obsess about the past and limit who your spouse can be friends with and who s/he can talk to. Controlling other people is exhausting.

7. Fight with civility. No name-calling or in-laws bashing. If there are issues, deal with the issues upfront instead of finding out who can be cheaper. If you do lose your temper and end up saying things you didn't mean, apologize. It's also fine to demand an apology if you feel you deserve one.

8. Keep your personal space and make decisions for yourself. Discussing things and consulting each other is good, but don't allow anyone to tell you what to do when you don't agree with it yourself.

9. Be irresponsible and get to know each other well (even if you've dated for a million years, living together is a different ball game) before you pile on children, house loan, car loan etc. Nobody gets married thinking it's going to end in a divorce, but sadly, it can happen. And if it does, you shouldn't feel trapped by these factors. It's also unfair to bring children into a mess.

10. Learn from the marriages around you. What do you like and what don't you like? What can you avoid from the examples you've seen?

11. Keep the humour. Life is absurd and so are most of the things we do. Recognize that and don't take everything too seriously. Avoid interpreting and reading between the lines and analyzing the unsaid. It's a waste of time and energy and you wouldn't really care if something more interesting were happening.

12. Stay friends with each other. We often find it easy to forgive the mistakes our friends make or the hurtful things they say, but we are very touchy when it comes to family doing the same thing. We're also more encouraging and positive when a friend wants to get blue hair than we are when a family member wants to buy an iPod. Friendship is what will last when both of you are Diabetic, Arthritic, and ugly in the final years of your life. Work on it from the beginning.

Happy anniversary, M.

(AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, I know.)

Me Aur Meri Maggi

2010-12-21T08:24:00.002+05:30

_

Yesterday, M and I were walking back home wondering what we'd make for dinner (the days when we wondered about who will save the world are long past). M said we could make chappatis and dal. I was agreeing to this when suddenly, out of nowhere, a bowl of Maggi floated into my head. It's cold in Pune right now and I've been living in socks all day and all night. I pictured the steam rising above my bowl of Maggi. The happy spice of the taste-maker coursing down my system like a lady with the lamp. The teeny bit of pepper I'd put at the end bursting on my tongue. Ah! Maggi!

So I suggested to M, "Listen, what about Maggi?" M is sometimes a very health-health person. Like he's anti-microwave and all. So I added that we could include peas and carrot in the Maggi to make it err...healthy. But then M said, "What for? It will spoil the taste." There's the man I married.

We walked back home, got the car and were so excited about driving to the shop to find Maggi. Almost like Harold and Kumar. Except, we found our Maggi easily enough. Then, M cooked two packets in two bowls (so we don't fight about who got more: we're very grown-up that way). As the smell of Maggi flooded the house, all the happy memories I associate with it came rushing to me like clouds in the wind: how I'd walk to the shop near my house with determination and buy a packet despite my mum screaming that I was going to have a silicon- lined stomach; the number of times N, A, and I have cooked Maggi together during sleep-overs; the Maggi I first ate in Brighton when I was cold and miserable; the Maggi cake we made and cut for a roommate's birthday because the cake we tried to make was a disaster.... Ah! Maggi!

By the time my reminiscence was over, the Maggi was ready. M ritualistically carried the two bowls to the sofa and with great reverence, we ate a dinner that was simply out of the world.

This post is short because you have to be able to read it in two minutes.

The Mouse Girl

2010-12-18T09:18:00.004+05:30

One of my favourite stories from the Panchatantra is that of the mouse girl. The one where a sage turns a mouse into a girl and then, when it's time for her marriage, she says no to the sun (because he's too fiery), no to the cloud (because he's too gloomy), no to the wind (because he's always rushing away), and no to the mountain (because he's too placid). In the end, the girl falls for the little mouse who is cheerful, clever, and capable of defeating even the mighty mountain by drilling holes into him. They walk away into a pink sunset, two little mice, who I hope and pray, will live happily ever after.

The moral of this story has always been: Like seeks Like or something equally lame as that. But I think the moral should be: Girls who don't compromise are rewarded in the end.

Once upon a time, I was working on a project on Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) and I was accompanying a team of doctors who were studying the rise of CVD in rural areas in Tamil Nadu. CVD, which can be categorized as a lifestyle disease, used to be an urban phenomenon. Not any more. One of the doctors told me that this was because machines had made women lazy. Earlier, women used the grinding stone to make dosa batter. They pounded grain manually. Now, they use the mixie and give the grain to the mill because they have jobs and no time to do these tasks.

According to him, this had made women obese and was therefore, a change for the worse. Moreover, since cooking time was reduced, the culture of fast food was on the rise. I asked the doctor if it occurred to him that the women who had turned 'lazy' were now using their time to obtain economic power that may actually be good for their hearts in other ways? The doctor himself sported a forgiving paunch. Would he sacrifice his clinic hours and stay devoted to a grinding stone in that time? He wouldn't have to hit the gym at all. If the cooking time of women was reduced, what about the cooking time of men? Perhaps that could go up and we could combat male paunches that way?

I conceded that lifestyles had changed in rural areas, but the responsibility for that ought to be studied at a much layered level than through a simplistic 'women are to be blamed' lens. Women did not enter remunerative employment because society believed in equal opportunity magnanimously. The trend began and has thrived because of economic needs. It wouldn't therefore be a sustainable solution to go around preaching that women ought to get back to the grinding stone and cook more often to maintain the health of both the sexes. It simply wasn't practical. The doctor, who was grey and therefore wise, told me vaguely that feminism had created all these problems. Women were just not willing to compromise these days.

I keep hearing and reading marital advice that's all hinged on this one almighty word- compromise. Making compromises is apparently the way to live in a marriage. But what does compromise mean? Suffering a beating in silence? Obeying rules that dictate your dress code? Putting up with impotency? Doing all the housework by yourself? Taking verbal abuse? Giving up your career? Or simply living in resentment? If you are a woman, yes. For men, a compromise in marriage, as advised by the elders, is almost never more than marrying a dark girl in exchange for a fat dowry. I know that there are men who are in abusive marriages too and there are women who exploit the DVA, but I'm speaking here of what the accepted social codes are for the idea of compromise. A compromise that leaves one half of the relationship feeling like crap is like pressing the mute button during a violent film. It doesn't stop anything from happening. You simply stop hearing the bloodshed.

Given the way things are, I don't find it surprising at all that many young women I know are very hesitant about the idea of getting married in the first place. Some insist that they will not get married to a boy who stays with his parents because they don't want in-law trouble; some insist that they will only marry a boy who lives abroad because he's likely to be more broad-minded then; some insist that they meet and know the boy for at least a year before getting married. Parents find these conditions to be bewildering. Why not compromise?

Why say no to a boy because he can burn you up? Why say no to a boy because he has too many mood swings? Why say no to a boy who is always in a rush and has no time for you? Why say no to a boy who isn't jolly? Tell your parents, dear brides-to-be, that the Panchatantra says it's okay to say no. Choose a partner who makes you merry. Who gets you and your quirks. Who thinks it's fun to skip with you up a hill. It does not matter how many trial runs you need to find one.

And if you don't, that's okay too. Because the moral of the story is: Girls who don't compromise are rewarded in the end.

The Year That Was

2010-12-15T09:53:00.002+05:30

__

2010 was pretty fast, what? It just seemed to vroom past like a biker boy. So here are the highlights of year 2010 for me:

1. I got married- an event I did not think would happen anytime soon at the beginning of 2009.

2. I went to Sri Lanka! I ate at the Hilton! I wore skirts! And distributed wedding laddoos to unsuspecting auto drivers there. We also lost our camera and went to a police station at Kandy where the Sri Lankans were so nice to us, we came back without registering a complaint.

3. I came to Pune and have made my peace with a non-beach city.

4. I changed jobs. This isn't too eventful because I seem to be making this an annual affair. I think even if I start my own company, I'll write resignation letters to myself.

5. I can now cook reasonably well. I'm being humble. I rock. Eat my pasta.

6. I published Power Cut and School is Cool. Finished work on Mayil's Diary with N. Wrote a few more picture books and have sent them. Hopefully, they should come out in 2011.

7. I started going for long walks every day.

8. I can now understand Hindi if a South Indian speaks it. I also know one line in Marathi- Kay zala?

9. I celebrated festivals. My family, being atheist and all, does not believe in celebrating anything other than maybe the October revolution that falls in November. But since M's family celebrates everything, I ended my Scrooge-iness. It's ironic that I celebrated Onam first because of a Telugu boy. Such, is life.

10. I've worked from my sofa for the most part of the year, far from the traffic, the dust, the heat, and the indelicate AC.

Happy New Year, everybody! May 2011 be prosperous and blah blah.

School is Cool

2010-12-12T08:38:00.007+05:30

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So yesterday, I was on my way to Bombay to be all literary. Three of us from Pune- DD, SC, and I (without a fancy website)- drove down and got stuck in the Expressway because the car decided to suffer a breakdown. We were stranded just before Lonavala and after making some calls (I do like sounding like a VIP), we got a cab and managed to reach the school fashionably but not annoyingly late.

I was to handle a session for 30 Class II children, but since we'd informed the school about the car breakdown, they decided to club Class II with the Class III session hosted by SG in order to prevent the breakout of a riot by very small persons. So in all, there were suddenly 60 children that I had to work my charm on. I decided that instead of doing a reading from The Snow King's Daughter
(which I was thrilled to find out is one of the Recommended Reads in the JustBooks newsletter) as I'd planned, I'd do School is Cool instead. The first book requires silence which I was quite certain I wasn't going to get. It's the story of a little Tibetan refugee girl and I'd have to lecture a bit on independence, exile, and geography. Not what sixty excitable under-7s were going to listen to. School is Cool, on the other hand, was a book they could immediately relate to, I thought. What with them having to wake up and come to school on a Saturday...bleargh.

Right at the beginning of the session, I taught the class a 'puffer fish' face. Basically, when a puffer fish comes under attack, it swells up to scare the enemy away. So a puffer fish face is one where you blow up your cheeks and keep your mouth tightly closed. I told them that I'd randomly yell 'puffer fish!' and they'd have to keep their face that way and whoever didn't was 'out!' This is, if you haven't understood by now, a noise-level control technique. Children in a big group tend to be extremely excitable and they can bulldoze you in seconds if you let the noise overwhelm you.

So after establishing this, I started with School is Cool. I asked them why they liked coming to school on some days and why they didn't like coming to school on other days. The responses (scroll below to read) were quite something! Most said, "Miiiiiiissss, we have to wake up SOOOO early, Miiiiiiiissss" for why they didn't want to go to school. It was the perfect opening I was looking for. My book, too, is about a little girl who is bugged about being woken up early to go to school. So to get through her day, she plays make-believe games till the time she gets ready. The class roared with laughter and I caught a few nodding their heads vigorously and with empathy as I read out the story. The page where the little girl is on the potty and imagining that her feet are two elephants on two tiles was especially a hit. The children thought the word 'potty' in an actual book was hilarious. There was one girl who said, "Chi-chi-chi!" and I said, "Hey, we all do potty in the morning, there's nothing wrong with that!" For this, a tiny boy solemnly declared, "I never do potty, Miss."

I had to yell out 'puffer fish' quite a few times for this page before they quietened down and listened to the rest of the story. Every time I held out the book to show them the illustrations, they'd rush forward with great energy and laugh their heads off. It is sad that adults don't value the response that picture books evoke from children; it is even sadder that they find no response within themselves. After School is Cool, we played a small 'listening' activity. I asked five children to come forward and introduce themselves. They had to say their name, one line about themselves, and perform an action. One tiny girl said she wanted to grow up and become a beautician! After they'd all spoken, I asked the rest of the class questions based on whatever the children had said and whoever answered correctly got a Chocopie. Yes, really. At this point, the noise level was ear-shattering and this small, plump girl advised me, "Miss, say puffer fish!"

Then, to wind up, I read out from Aana and Chena. When I said Aana, the elephant, thought he was ugly and showed them the illustration, one boy said, "But Miss, elephants are cute!" He then pointed out that the elephant in the picture was beautiful. I told him that I agreed with him but sadly, Aana did not. Once I was done reading, the boy wanted to read out the story to the class himself. Which he did very well, I thought. Then one more boy wanted to read out the story to the class and I had to disappoint him. But I did say that I'd come back some other day and they could all read out how many ever times they wanted to!

I asked the class to write down one reason why they liked coming to school and one reason why they didn't. Here are some of them:

I like become to school because there is reces.
I don go to school because I want to watch the movie.

I like to come school because I get bored at my house and I fun in school.
I dont like to come school because I like to sleep more time and our school is very early.

I like coming to school because I can study a lot and become wise.
I don't like to come to school because I can go to the zoo.

I like to come to school because I like to study.
I don't like to come to school because my waterbottle falls down in the school.

I like to come to school because we do lot of masti.
I don't like to come to school because of Grammer Exam.

I see that school is cool because friends rox.
And obviously I don't like school to study a lot.

I like to come school because we get friends.
I don't like school because I have to write and write.

Come to school- To play games
Don't come to school- Sleep full time

I like to come to school because we learn new things.
I do not like to come to school because my class makes noise.

I love to come to school to talk.
I hate comming to school to study.

The school is cool because there are friends to play.
The school is boring because always teacher shouted at us.

I like to come to school because I can meet my friends.
I don't like to come to school because my partener troubles me.

There are several more, but then, this post would take forever to finish! After the session, I got to meet several other writers and illustrators (including AK who illustrates for Tinkle). I was kicked, especially, about meeting DB whose book, The Seed (which was selected by The White Ravens as an Outstanding International Book for children), is one of my favourites. She read School is Cool and was delighted. Woot. I got chatting with a translator sitting next to me and she asked me what books I'd written. When I showed her, she exclaimed that she was, in fact, the Hindi translator for School is Cool [School Mast Hai]. That was quite a moment.

Some of the older students trooped in and took our autographs though DB warned them that none of us is really that famous. The editorial board of the school's student journal interviewed us and I felt strangely old and wise. After this, we had
a yummy lunch that included a massive, warm, drippy gulab jamun and we drove back to Pune in a car arranged by the school.

I should get my Raybans and holiday in Switzerland. I'm famous.

Gorilla

2010-12-10T09:00:00.002+05:30

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This week, a gorilla chased me in a hotel. Midway though, it was kind enough to morph into an enormous, especially snappy dog. I woke up feeling like somebody had been thumping my head continuously for 8 hours. I think it was the sound of my pounding footsteps. Since Google is always there to solve your problems, I searched for what this dream meant. Would I get a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Apparently not. It just means that I have unresolved anger issues. Who knew.

A gorilla is new though. This was also a gorilla who spoke English and turned his head in a very sophisticated way. I remember one part where I was running down the stairs and the gorilla was cruising down it, calm as the Pope. So anyway, I'm excited about having unresolved anger issues. It sounds like something a writer should have, you know. I can imagine someone writing my biography: Behind the mask of Gounder Brownie, there lurked unresolved anger issues triggered by traumatic childhood experiences. Now I feel like a somebody.

I had a terrible headache the morning after the gorilla dream and it refused to go away the entire day. I took a tablet, I lay down in surrender, I watched Modern Family, I read Asterix...but it did not help. The next day, though, I had a dream in which I was swimming in a pool on the top of a hill. And a brown cow was looking at me. Somehow, the cow made me feel pleasant and cloudy. I was floating and there were yellow flowers raining down the skies. It was a small dream but I woke up feeling like a newborn.

I also had backache this week because I slept on a different bed that my choosy back did not like. So I was walking like a statue come alive. In all, it hasn't been what one would call a top of the pops week.

I'm going to Bombay tomorrow to do a book reading (from my own book, minddditt) and workshop for 30 Class II kids. I'm going to be reading from The Snow King's Daughter (I think) and I don't know what else I'm going to do. I hope to god they don't get bored. Maybe I'll announce a surprise P.T period and run like a gorilla.

Save the children.

On some days...

2010-12-01T08:52:00.002+05:30

....I feel like I have saved the world.

Here's a video of a child playing with the Kandy fish on his iPad :)

Going Solo

2010-11-29T09:14:00.005+05:30

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M is away in Ooty. As a government babu, he gets to roam around the country, stay in the best of places, eat breakfasts that include fresh orange juice, and bathe with basil-parsley soaps (I kid you not). So since I was alone at home with my Margo and Tropicana, I decided to have a happy Sunday myself. First, I had to clean the whole house because CID Shakuntala (Chief Inspector of Dust a.k.a my mother) was arriving the next day. The maid helpfully did not turn up.

Since I was feeling ambitious, I decided to clean the fan in the drawing room which resembles the white canvas shoe of a very dirty child. M's solution to making the fan look clean is to keep it switched on. That way, nobody notices. However, CID Shakuntala is an expert in such cover-ups. Standing at the towering height of five feet, I obviously needed support to reach the fan. So, I piled a fat cushion on a chair, covered it with cloth (my household skills impress me) and climbed on top with a broom. The fan creaked dangerously as I tried to dust it. And then, I felt the cushion slowly slipping away. I thought to myself- did I want to fall down, break my spine and then write a Readers' Digest story about how I crawled inch by inch to the door and defeated death? The answer was no. And so, I sensibly got down and gave up on the project. M's idea will have to do for now.

I cleaned the rest of the house, booked myself a ticket for Unstoppable, had a nice shampoo-bath, and wore my bubblegum pink kurta which I hadn't worn in ages. Then I ate leftovers from the fridge (vegetable biryani and raita!) and packed my bright yellow Co-optex bag with an umbrella and my Neil Gaiman book. I walked to the theatre which is a good 4.5 kms from home, bought myself sweet lime juice and read my book till it was time for the movie.

Unstoppable was very entertaining and fast-paced. Besides, it has Denzel Washington. The guy next to me though didn't understand half of what was going on. He kept laughing three seconds after I laughed- I tested this out by pretending to laugh for a totally unfunny dialogue. Ha. Ha.

Then, I walked to Pune University and had an extremely sweet tea at the canteen. I read some more Gaiman and pretended to be a college student. I wish somebody had asked me which department I was in. Then I could have had my Santoor moment- collegeaah? Naanah? Ohohohoho.

After this, I walked back home and made myself chappatis and paneer-capsicum curry. Jagan Mohini was running on TV and I had a blast watching it (what? I like Namitha). Then, I watched Neeya Naana which was about people communicating with ghosts and such like. It was a bit creepy and since I was alone at home and all that, I decided to read PG Wodehouse and be merry. M called and we talked about what we did the whole day. Which took less than 10 minutes. In the olden, golden days of bachelorhood, this topic would have run easily for three hours. But hey, we're oldly-weds now and we need to be responsible about roaming charges.

Then, I read more PG Wodehouse and slept off.

One Line at a Time

2010-11-27T21:10:00.003+05:30

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This is the editorial I wrote for the childen's special issue of TBR.
After 2 years of rewriting, editing, and writing chunks of other people's editorials, here's one on which I finally got to sign! Yippie.

***

A children’s writer in India often gets asked why s/he does not write for adults. Why not make some progress from writing a line a page and produce something…more substantial? To most, a children’s writer is a frog who’s waiting for the moment of magic that’ll transform him/her into publishing royalty. The children’s writer might croak in response that s/he is not really waiting for such a graduation day. In which case, the listeners get a knowing “hmph sour grapes” expression on their faces.

This dismissive attitude is but a symptom of a much larger malady: the negligence and undervaluation of a genre of literature that is, perhaps, the most liberating of all to create and consume. Though we have had literary giants like Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray, Ruskin Bond, and RK Narayan write for children, the genre still has not received its due consideration. Children’s writers in India don’t make too much money. The pay cheques are modest. Most have regular fulltime jobs that may or may not have to do with writing. Most are read by small (though growing) audiences and almost never figure in bestseller lists. They hardly win any award or occupy column space in the nation’s widely-read newspapers. A psychologist analyzing these statements would undoubtedly conclude that an Indian children’s writer must either have masochistic tendencies or an unreal optimism that’s bordering on the foolish. For, why would anyone write if not to be read?

A part of me wants to give you a detailed intellectual response to this question. Something that will put me on par with someone who’s written a real (read adult) book. But rather than churn my brain to impress you, I shall tell you the short truth: because it’s fun.

Writing for children is at once a huge responsibility and an invite to the Mad Hatter’s party. It’s an opportunity for you to become a part of a child’s treasured memory. It could also become criteria for how the child develops its reading in the years to come. If you commit the unforgivable sin of boring a child in your story, you might turn him/her away from books for a long, long time. On the other hand, if the pages of your book turn old and frayed with use and love, you could just have hooked the child into a world where travel requires no passport. These are the selfless reasons for writing for children. The selfish and gleeful reason is that it’s a key that opens several delightful doors that years of being a grown-up have shut for you.

Fortunately, now more than ever before, publishing for children in India has become easier. Today, there are more publishing houses committed to the cause of producing quality children’s literature that veers away from the usual didactic and preachy fodder that has formed the staple for too many years. Though the sales figures of these houses pale in comparison to the millions of conventional children’s mythological titles sold by the big players in this field, they nevertheless are developing a loyal audience that comes back to them for more. There is greater awareness (though not as much as one would desire) amongst parents and teachers about stereotyping, violence, politically incorrect depictions and insensitive treatment in children’s literature. Parents are not so nonchalant about narrating Cinderella to their child as they used to be in previous generations. Today, Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters are likely to be painted with a softer brush. The Black Vs White kind of morality is slowly giving way to a more intelligent and less judgmental representation.

It is thus an exciting and advantageous time for an Indian children’s writer to experiment with style, depiction, and narration. The acknowledgment of this is coming about slowly: for the first time this year, the Sahitya Akademi has instituted an award for children’s literature: the Bal Sahitya Puraskar. The Vodafone Crossword Book Awards, considered to be corporate India’s biggest book award, also instituted an award for the children’s category this year. Though Indian children’s books have received international recognition even before this, it is heartening to be cheered and applauded by the home audience at last. One hopes that in the years to come, the award categories will also take into consideration the age group for which the books are being produced within the genre itself to provide a more equal platform. Is a picture book for a 3-year-old any less weighty than an adventure novel for a 10-year old? These nuances need to be given due consideration and sub-categories need to be framed. Though the primary aim of a writer in writing a story is not to win an award, these developments are critical in elevating this much neglected genre to respectability.

A writer today also has the added advantage of having multiple media to experiment in. One needn’t be restricted to the print medium alone: there are audio books, e-books, i-books, each that’s new and exciting. Technology has widened and diversified the audience for a story- so even if a writer is unable to persuade conventional print editorial boards to publish, s/he can always try to breach other media that may be more receptive to innovation. These also nullify the problem of having to persuade bookshops to allot a reasonable space for the genre. Some feel that such ‘new-fangled’ media might turn children away from ‘good old books’, but these should be seen as opportunities that co-exist rather than threaten each other. Closing oneself to the future, however unfamiliar or unconvincing it may seem, is not a sustainable solution. Instead, a children’s writer must be willing to be educated in these developments and use them to advantage. It is thus a friendly climate for a children’s writer to flourish.

A child is a very busy person. The world is trying its best to teach it everything that it has on offer. If having to go to school every other day is not bad enough, a child today also needs to have about five talents apiece to be considered ‘smart’. In such a scenario, it becomes very difficult for a book, in whatever format it might be in, to compete with the limited time that the child has in its hands. Of course, Indian children have been reading Enid Blyton, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl, Lemony Snicket and many more recent writers ardently. And so they should. But it is equally important that they get to read contemporary fiction set in India too. The disconnect between their real world experiences and the experiences they read about in books set in unfamiliar places is not bad- but it leads to a situation where they are unable to articulate their own experiences because they haven’t found the language for it. This is a gap that needs to be filled- by writers, publishers, and by the buyer market. And hopefully, someday, the Indian children’s writer can stay a frog and still wear a crown.

2010-11-25T09:09:00.002+05:30

I fell for her like a suicide from a bridge.

- Neil Gaiman, M is for Magic

Neil Gaiman is my current obsession. And no, he does not write romance novels if the one line I've quoted here gives you that impression. I put it up because I love how enormously well he captures that plunging, reckless, intuitively fatal feeling you get when you dare to fall in love. And you know that it's hopeless.

The first book by Gaiman that I read was Coraline. It certainly is one of the scariest books I've read. I read it in one stretch the very night I got it. Coraline discovers a door in her drawing room that leads her into the Other World in which live her Other Father and Other Mother. Two people who look just like her parents. Except, they have buttons for eyes. Can you imagine a world like that? With people you know and trust in real life...who look just the same but are not quite? The creepy, quiet pace of the book struck a delicious terror in my heart and I mourned deeply when I reached the last page and it was all over.

The second book by Gaiman that I read is The Graveyard Book. Now don't let the title mislead you into thinking that it's one of those Halloweeny dumb thrillers. Mixing horror, fantasy, and sheer narrative power, Gaiman once again delivers a book that's just so terrifically original, you fail to understand how somebody can have an imagination such as his, seeing and living in the same world that we roam. The book is about a boy called Nobody who lives in a graveyard. I bought the book for N, who is also a Gaiman fan, and read half of it on my flight to Chennai. I was hooked immediately. And I just had to buy it for myself the second I hit a bookstore.

I'm presently reading M is for Magic, a collection of short stories. I'm not a big short stories person. I love the works of Roald Dahl and Saki, but usually, I shy away from the genre. The first story in this book is a detective story. And the detective is investigating the murder of Humpty Dumpty. Don't you want to know who the killer is? Don't you?

Every once in a while, a writer comes along who transforms your life and the way you think about it. No, I'm not talking about the self-motivation books. I'm talking about the books that make for ripping entertainment. The books that grip you and live in your brain and bring tears to your eyes when you discuss them with another loony such as yourself. The lines that you can never forget because you've fallen for them like a suicide from a bridge.

For no particular reason other than the fact that I feel like getting back to college and writing literary essays, here's a list of my top books. Not listed by author, rank or genre. You might have read some or all of them and they might not have struck you as being specially spectacular. But the point is, this is my list. And they are all books I keep re-reading because... well, I love them.

1. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
2. Nine Stories, JD Salinger
3. Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger
4. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
5. On Beauty, Zadie Smith
6. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
7. Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
8. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
9. A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon
10. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
11. Lolita, Vladimir Nabakov
12. Othello, William Shakespeare
13. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
14. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
15. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
16. The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl, Roald Dahl
17. Matilda, Roald Dahl
18. The Collected Short Stories of Saki, Saki
19. Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
20. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
21. Swami and Friends, RK Narayan
22. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
23. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
24. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
25. The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer
26. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling
27. Curtain, Agatha Christie
28. Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi
29. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
30. The Adventures of Hop, Skip, and Jump, Enid Blyton
31. Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
32. The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams
33. Harold and the Purple Crayon, Crockett Johnson
34. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
35. The Seed, Deepa Balsavar
36. Kartography, Kamila Shamsie
36.Peanuts, Charles Schulz
37. Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
38. Blandings Castle, PG Wodehouse

There are several more books that I've loved reading. But these are the ones that I keep coming back to. And each time I come back, there's always something new waiting.

The Shah of Blah

2010-11-22T11:14:00.004+05:30

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I've not been too busy in life. Which explains why I haven't been blogging regularly. It's only when I have a million things to do that I rebel and do something else altogether.

Winter is here. It's probably the first Winter in my life because when I was in the UK, I sat on the heater for the whole year and the seasons passing by didn't really register. Apart from writing at work, I haven't been doing anything remarkably productive. I guest-edited the November issue of TBR. It's a children's special...this month having Children's Day and all. I finally got to write my first editorial *applause* and feel important.

M and I went for a Wine and Cheese Festival yesterday. I know, we're very uppity people. I took a bite of a six-year-old goat cheese (because I watch Masterchef Australia, dooood) and felt like I'd eaten goat droppings. The basil cheese was nice though. And coffee cheese. I could pretend to be a gourmet and write about the delicacy, texture, and smoothiness of it all but I'm not a cheese bore. It was yum and it was free and that's all matters.

We had Lemon Cheesecake for dessert. Woot.

In other news, I got a haircut. After 11 months of steadfastly refusing to find a beauty parlour, I forced myself to go. I went to a place called Reshu's. I was the only person there and I said right at the beginning that my Hindi was 'thoda thoda maloom', so I didn't get any generous advice on how I should beautify my ugly self more.

I watched Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows (which, by the way, has been released by Shri Then Andal Pictures in Chennai). I wish they hadn't cut off Dobby's epitaph from the film- Here lies Dobby, a free elf. Dameeeet....where's my checked kerchief? As is my luck when watching a HP movie, I sat next to a bunch of men who'd not read the books and didn't care about anything other than Emma Watson. They were also eating groundnuts loudly and laughing at Kreacher. Idiots. Avada Kedavra to you.

I re-read On Beauty by Zadie Smith. It's undoubtedly one of my favourites. It's hilarious, sad, and very real. Also, I learnt about a very important work of art from the book: Merda d'artisa. Don't be put off by the fanciness of the name. It's worth a click.

Okay then, I'm going to be upper class and drink green tea now. Bye bye, my pretties.

Settled

2010-11-11T08:51:00.002+05:30

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I've always thought 'settled' is a dreadful word. It has such a finality about it- like you've suddenly turned into stone and there's nothing new or fantastic that can happen to you. When you are a child, you think you are immortal. That's why you jump across flights of stairs, never thinking for a moment about your head that could split open like a beautiful hibiscus in the fraction of a second. As you grow older, you realize that mortality is actually common. It could happen to you and at one stage, just as now all your friends are getting married all of a sudden, all of them will start dying too.

I know, cheerful right?

'Settled' seems like a point of no return. All your decisions are made. Your rebellions are over. You can no longer colour your hair pink or get the tattoo of a Chinese character on your arm. You are already with the person you want to be with the rest of your life, so those wonderful, hazy hopes of meeting a stranger who gets you within the space of a train ride or flight sink forever. You bump into friends from school on Facebook and the giggly faces you once knew have become nearly unrecognizable. Everybody's put on weight, you note with some sense of victory. Your parents are growing old, you realize. This seems shocking because they were once the all-powerful beings who controlled your existence. Your sibling, the one you hated with all your energy during your childhood, has become closer to you though you may not talk all that often. Suddenly, you no longer find the expression 'blood is thicker than water' to be corny. You understand it for the first time in your life and it makes you feel old.

When you were a student, you had a plan. You just had to decide what course to take next and the timetable of your life slipped into your mind with ease. Now, you no longer know where it is that you have to go. The bell does not toll for you, it tolls for those much younger, calling them to the plans you once had. This leaves me thinking that despite the fact that I can no longer get the African braids that I once wanted, I'm more unsettled than ever before. I don't have a plan and each day does not bring something new. Unless I go looking for it. The fear of knowing your life is entirely in your hands, as the existentialists sagely say.

Ironically, the more unsettled you become, the more settled you think you are. We grow more and more insecure as we grow old. Before you know it, even Fab India stops making clothes your size and you stop getting a haircut because there's not much hair left there anyway. You are stuck in a job you hate, you have two children who find you irrelevant, and a neighbour who is more interested in your life than your spouse. Depressing, I agree. But what if you suddenly throw it all away and catch a bus? I know it sounds mental. But what if you did?

There's this story by Somerset Maugham called The Lotus Eater, which we had in our BA English course. It's about a man who goes to Capri in Italy. He's a very ordinary bloke who has a regular job. Nothing fancy about him. But he falls in love with the place and comes up with a fantastic, even insane, idea to stay there. I'm not telling you what it is because that's the story. The first time I read it, I liked it more for Maugham's gentle, murmuring narration. Now, I think about it often though I haven't got a copy of the story with me. Now that the 'settled' adjective keeps haunting me, I think about Wilson and his Capri. It is to remind me that no matter how happy or content, no matter how final everything seems to be, you can be unsettled if you really wish to be. I like that possibility to stay open.

Maybe I can still get my African braids.

All the Old Knives

2010-10-30T10:11:00.005+05:30

...all the old knives
that have rusted in my back, I drive into yours,
ma semblable, ma soeur!

- Adrienne Rich, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law

I was re-reading much of the poetry that I read when I was in college and it was fascinating to discover the layers of meanings in these texts that had slipped my eye earlier. Meanings that are created in my personal universe because of all that has happened to me. It is delicious to sink your teeth into this newness because you know that you could never have unearthed it earlier- it just wasn't time yet. I find this to be the greatest joy of reading literature- it's a creature alive that grows and responds each time you stroke its back. You find meanings in the text that are intimate and speak to you in a way that even the writer, often from some other culture, period, and even gender, couldn't have imagined.

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law was a poem we had in our Women's Writing paper in our 3rd year. Even back then, the three lines I've pasted at the beginning of this post spoke to me a great deal. It touched upon the irritating argument that people often wield when dissing feminism- women are the worst enemies of other women, so why blame men? No amount of explaining that patriarchy is a system and mindset that is actively and passively perpetrated and strengthened by both men and women can get you to convince the non-believers.

And if you think about it, it does seem absurd that women themselves want to put down other women right? It was a woman who threw her girl baby out of a toilet window last week. It was Saina Nehwal's grandmother who was so disappointed at her birth that she refused to see the baby for a month. It is the older women of the family who tell the younger women to sit down for a meal after the men have eaten. It is the mothers who are indulgent about their son's habit of evading housework but highly critical of their daughter's disinterest in the same. It is usually women who go to great lengths to put down beautiful women (it's the botox, she's not natural, it's the make-up, it's just skin-show, she's FAT). It is I who was amazed and touched by M's talent for cooking and it was he who reminded me that I was comparing him with other men who do not do any housework and not women who do this as a routine job.

Women are catty, bitchy and intensely judgmental about their own sex in a way that seems so mental. I don't claim to be a saint in this respect. I've hated many beautiful women simply because I knew I could never look like that. The second a really hot woman walks into the room, your girl radar immediately classifies her as a bimbo or at least, you feel a pinch of instant dislike creep into your veins. Though so many of our concerns and disorders have to do with the way we look, I suspect that we're more often than not dressing up and covering up to escape the critical eyes of other women than men. If it's an older woman in a silk saree who looks good though not really as ravishing as the younger one in a mini skirt, we are a lot more generous. Aunty is sooooo pretty! What tejas! Our generation can never manage to have that kalai on our face! And so on.

What is it about ourselves that we hate so much? Why do we put down and hold back the women in our lives who are fighting to fly? Why do we want to push them back, make them go through every insult, every deprivation, every snatch of opportunity that we ourselves went through because of our sex? Why are we so keen to drive the knives that have rusted on our backs into the woman next to us? Is it because we truly believe women are inferior to men? I don't think so. Many of us have seethed in the unfairness of gender inequality. Even the mother who threw her daughter out of the window but kept her twin brother, I'm sure, has felt it. It is possible that it is because she seethed so much under its weight that she even did what she did. And yet, instead of turning this indignation into a productive anger against the system, we let ourselves down by keeping this cycle of hate going.

Psychologists say that victims of abuse often turn into abusers themselves. Is this our malady too? Ask yourself this question before you hate. Ask this before you tell your daughter that she will be too old by the time she finishes her PhD. Ask this before you anxiously fawn over your son-in-law. Ask this before you set the table for the male guests to eat first. Ask this before you say a rude woman at your workplace is that way because she's unmarried. Ask this before you say Sania Mirza is just a glamour doll. Ask this before you order just a salad when you eat out. Ask this before you sit in front of the mirror, hating the bulges, the wrinkles, the grotesqueness of your female form threatening to swallow your self-esteem. Ask this before you turn all that hatred upon yourself. Let the knives that have rusted fall to ashes.

Random Rangan

2010-10-29T15:56:00.000+05:30

Yes, after being absent for weeks together, I suddenly write two posts in one day. I have this sudden urge to pour forth.

N and I have finally finished our work on Mayil's Diary. It started off as a teaching resource on gender for children. It's now a full fledged novel and is more of a growing-up kind of book. I feel like a celebrity already, writing collaborative fiction and all. Where's my cooling glass?

School is Cool is out. Please go and buy your copy like dutiful children. The Snow King's Daughter has been selected for co-publishing by Kerala State Institute of Children's Literature. So this means that the book will be brought out in Malayalam by the Government of Kerala along with my publishers. I hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter about my books. Please buy them, ok? If you are in some award committee, give me an award. I'm a nice person. I will mess my hair up and collect it amidst thundering applause in an elegant evening.

Once in a while, I think about my life and am seized by terror. This usually happens when things are going great and I have nothing to worry about. I start thinking about my life five years down the line- what if I'm stuck in a highly boring job because I have to pay off my home loan? What if I'm stuck with a creepy kid who crawls around the house and touches my shoulder lightly with one finger when I'm watching The Omen? What if this kid doesn't read books at all and is not impressed by my work? What if I get Diabetes and cannot eat Tiramisu ever again? What if I'm not able to write any more and don't get published ever again? I'm not being lighthearted at all. These are questions that have made me toss and turn at night and wish that when it's morning, I'll wake up as an eighty-year-old who has all her issues sorted out and can now unabashedly interfere in everybody else's issues.

M and I are going for Eat, Pray, Love tonight. I don't think I'll be able to watch anything else. We're going for a night show though I have office tomorrow. Yay. I feel like youth again.

Before that, I have to order pizzas for us from Domino's because it's Friday night and we're going for a movie and nobody's interested in cooking and all. I opened the Domino's online menu at 1 pm, so I can call quickly when it's 5.30 pm. They have an offer if you call before 6. Exciting.

I'm not looking forward to giving directions to the pizza man though. Ordinarily, my geography is terrible. Geography in Hindi is usually a disaster. I hope we get our pizzas before the night show.

I read Othappu by Sarah Joseph, who is one of the few feminists my mum approves of. I haven't read an adult novel in ages, I realize. Anyway, the book was decent. It's probably better in Malayalam, I don't know. It's about a nun and a priest who have an affair. I can't help thinking that the book would have been way better if only SJ hadn't turned all the sex into some spiritual exotica imagery. I don't know why so many Indian writers do this. They write about the experience in a very cosmic way- it's all lightning and thunder and gale and rivers and what not. Unnecessary, I think. Especially if you are making a point about why getting physical is not a bad thing in the first place.

I had to go to Chennai on work and on my flight back, I sat next to a guy who had one of those slanting floppy hairstyles. As in, half his forehead was covered on one side of his forehead. I think he thought he looked damned hot. He was one of the muscled- T boys. Anyway, he struck up a conversation with me about his life and all that and he had these really awful paan-stained teeth. And I was thinking he looks like one of the psychos from Criminal Minds. Then I wanted to laugh so badly but couldn't because there's nowhere to hide on an airplane.

Phew. What a life.

I just had my tea now and I feel energized. Is it 5.30 already? Damn. It's only 3.53. What pizza shall I order? Do I think I should also get garlic bread just in case?

Seedha aao. Right turn karo. Dhanyawadh.

Angels in the House

2010-10-29T08:22:00.005+05:30

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This has been a hectic month. It's a sign of old age that I say this because I went on vacation. And couldn't wait to sleep on my own bed and bathe in a familiar bathroom. Gone are the days, comrades, when hotel rooms with their fancy faucets and lampshades held their charm. I will turn 25 this coming year and it seems like such an achievement. A quarter of a century. My very own silver jubilee with myself. Congratulations and celebrations.

I started work on a post and then published it in an unfinished state (my trembling fingers and weak eyes clicked the wrong button). I started and restarted that post many a time but then, I was unable to finish it. It was a post that was beginning to sound balefully academic and I grew tired of it. The subject of the post was 'The Gender of Gratitude' and it was my analysis of marriage in the new age. No, not analysis really. Just a collection of observations from all the stalking I do on Facebook of other people who got married around the same time that I did. I'm compulsively competitive that way. Are people posting too many awwwwwwwww status messages and photographs (I myself answer guilty to having a profile photograph with the partner)? Is there gender parity in their marriage (what? Gossip is intellectual in the post-modern world)? How long do I think the awwwness is going to last (blame me not, great prophets always bring bad news)? And so on.

Karva Chauth was two days ago and we've all been treated to images of the Bachchan women looking at the moon through the sieve. Shilpa Shetty, Kareena Kapoor, and down south, Pony Verma, too kept the fast. Now I'm not going to dissect the practice of Karva Chauth and ask why husbands never observe a fast for their wives' good health. Tit for tat is old fashion- feminism and I'm already aware of the million justifications that will be placed before me. I really don't want to listen to how the fast is a scientific detox mechanism for wives devised by our wise and clever elders.

However, what I'm interested in is the new trend of unmarried women observing Karva Chauth (Kareena being one among them) too. Most of them aren't the doormat variety. They make their money and lead their lives the way they want to. Nobody is forcing them to do this. And yet, this festival has become such a rage. There is undoubtedly a lot of glamour attached to it these days as people throw pre-Karva Chauth bashes and vie with one another about the gifts they've received once all the mooning over is done with. A few friends of mine kept the fast too and none of them is what I'd call a traditionalist.

This leads me to suspect that Karva Chauth is not really about the husband/ man in your life any more. Which is good in a way- it's nice to know that the pati is no longer the sun in the solar system. But if you look at it in another way, it is terribly twisted. It's the same argument that's put forth every time the purdah issue comes up- I'm making an emancipated choice to follow this tradition (however patriarchal its origin and implications are), so nobody say anything. If you are not really keeping the fast for your husband's health and long life and moksha/reincarnation as a happy man in a harem, why exactly are you doing it?

This is my theory: I think everything today is about the drama. I'm not using 'today' in the disapproving tone of a seventy-year-old Chandamama reader (I resigned and I'm allowed to take digs now). I'm using it only to make an observation. There is no period in time that is/was better than others.

I keep hearing from young wives about the sacrifices that they've already made for their family (which is a grand total of two- themselves and the husband.). Some have quit their jobs, some have decided to stay at home and find work so that when the husband comes, there will be someone to pamper him, some have expressly stated that their husband is now their priority No.1. Some observed Karva Chauth while being pregnant (though the elders advised them against it) because it brought them 'closer' to their husbands (who also told them not to fast as it's not medically advisable to do so). Very touching, this Kannagi-ness.

The funny thing is, the husbands themselves haven't really demanded such sacrifices. Most of the young, educated, slightly aware brood of men are refreshingly different in their approach to marriage and most do desire equality in their relationships. Why then are these young women, who are usually bright, independent, and not really submissive, tumbling over themselves to prove their love through such 'sacrifices'? Why aren't women grabbing the opportunities that their mothers seldom had and using them to their advantage? I think the answer lies in the fact that many of us are in a state of flux about our value systems. On one hand, we are too 'educated' to be conformists. We're aware of the Angel in the House. On the other hand, we haven't figured out yet a substitute for the traditional ways of expression. We don't know yet what we can become if the Angel is dead. And so, we take refuge in the drama of being an Angel.

I don't believe that the Angel in the House avatar will stay forever though . At some point, they will outgrow it and realize that one can't claim returns on sacrifice. That sacrifice, especially when unnecessary, only leads to resentment.

Rajini. Dot.

2010-10-04T09:05:00.002+05:30

I've never really been a Rajini fan but I've watched most of his films because they are entertaining. True, his 'advice to the ladies' has always struck a jarring note with me, but I'd forgive him faster than I would a wannabe like Vijay who attempts the same in a much more poisonous way. With Rajini, like everything else in his films, it still manages to be good-natured. Even when he's singing Oru kudai sunlight, you are tempted to ignore the racist overtones of the song and its depiction and admonish yourself for being a bore who's even considered thinking that way. But all said and done, I was never a Thalaivar-vaazhga person.

But...

I watched Endhiran on Friday and boy, am I a fan now! I can't imagine anyone else playing Chitti's role with equal aplomb or lovableness. Kamal was apparently offered the movie first and thank god he didn't do it. I'm pretty sure Kamal's Chitti would have been one of those ultra-sophisticated wanna-win-an-Oscar performances. With unique make-up and get-up for each of the Chitti replicas that explode onscreen. I don't even want to hypothesize on how Saaruk would have done it.

Rajini, on the other hand, sticks to the local. The biggest Wow! factor in Endhiran is that despite its big budget, theme, and ambition, it never for a moment pretends to be anything other than a Tamil film rooted very much in the spirit of the street. You get all the jokes and they are all insider ones. This is what makes the film an absolute kick-ass experience. You gotta adore a robot called Chitti Babu.

I'm not going to talk about the story and yada-yada because if you don't know it by now, you are probably in coma or something. Let's talk performance here. Rajini has never struck me as a great actor. I've enjoyed watching him but his over-the-top superstar antics have never made me connect. But as I watched Chitti's deadpan face achieve humor, love, anger, evil and the entire range of the Navarasa with such flair, I couldn't help wondering who else in the superstar league could have done it. The Malayalam industry has had some stellar actors who've been big at the box office and equally big at performance in the past. But if you look at those superstars now, all you see is a bunch of aged men wearing their crowns insecurely and unconvincingly. Mohan Lal and Mammooty are both terrific in films that have gut-wrenching reality and require genius to perform, but they've never been able to let themselves go and play a character that's out of their comfort zone. Both have attempted to play dons, rock stars, punks and what not. And it's terrible to watch them do it. They look undignified and foolish. Not to mention tragic.

But take Rajini. At sixty one, he swaggers around in a uber-funky hairstyle playing a robot and wins you over hands down. Never for a moment do you think- god, he should retire. The scenes in which Chitti becomes evil are so gleefully executed that one can't help but think that in hailing Rajini as a hero, we've lost out on a wonderful villain. The lines are minimal- no lengthy I'm-going-to-cut-you-into-parts-and-then essays. He simply mimics a bleating lamb that's about to be sacrificed and sends shivers down your spine. To be a true superstar, you must know how to wear your mantle. And when it comes to that, Rajini is in a league of his own.

The graphics towards the end of the movie are super. I was cheering as much for the the brilliance of it as I was for the delight that this was happening in Kollywood, machi. From those ugly-weirdo snakes in Mudhalvan, Shankar sure has come a long way. Well done.

Towards the end of the movie, when Chitti is dismantling himself in a black-humoresque way, you actually feel a little weepy. That I say, is a robot for keeps.

Long live Thalaivar. Dot.

Where Angels Fear to Tread

2010-09-23T15:12:00.004+05:30

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One day, when I was fed up of calling and asking people if they wanted to go for a movie, trying to schedule my time around theirs, and being the one who has to book tickets and text everyone the information, I decided I'd go for a movie by myself.

This wasn't such a big deal, of course. There are no crocodiles under the seats in Satyam. But I knew my parents would say no and point out about fifty instances of young women who did this and paid for it dearly. So I told them I was going with friends.

I enjoyed myself hugely.Part of it was because I was doing this 'in secret'. But a large part of it was because I suddenly realized I could be by myself and have fun (note to Amma: I don't mean 'inner peace' here). I didn't have to wait around. I just had to make a plan for myself and do it. Zero coordination, the zen of a movie plan. After this, I went for several movies by myself. Nothing happened to me. I wasn't groped. Nobody murdered me in the toilet. No one followed me home.

I also used to go and sit on the beach by myself. My mum thought (and I'm sure still thinks) this was an 'I'm a feminist' statement. I have no problems being called a feminist. I am one. But by sitting on the beach alone, I wasn't playing out my politics. I was simply doing something I felt like doing without putting in the effort of inviting other people there. The joy of one-person plans is immeasurable.

Almost every girl I know has parents who're worrying to death about her. Either it's to do with their safety or the fact that they are not married yet. These two are often linked. Because once you get married, then worrying about you becomes somebody else's primary responsibility. Worrying about someone is a sign that you care about them. I get that. I also understand that when parents read about horrible incidents and terrifying statistics in the newspaper, they see their children in those numbers. It shakes them up. I still get emails from my mum telling me not to drink Dabur honey because it has too many antibiotics.

But when this worrying becomes gendered, when it begins to control your life, your thoughts, your movement, your future- it's time to take a look at it. The world is an evil place, more so if you are female. There's no refuting that. There's probably not a single woman alive today who hasn't been groped at least once.

Girls grow up all too soon. We learn the world is not an easy place much before boys wake up to the fact. We learn to walk with our jaws set and our chests caved in when we're in our pinafores. A stern expression every time we get into a bus. Keeping our eyes averted and gazing at a distance. Using umbrellas and schoolbags as body shields. Not sitting next to a man even though it's a General Seat and not a Gents' Seat. Believing in safety in numbers. Checking for cameras in dressing rooms. Quickening our steps on an empty street. Rage bursting inside our heads. Shrinking our smiles when we step out of the house.Who taught us these lessons?

Many of them come from our mothers. What they've gone through, they don't want you to undergo. Many come from our sisters and friends. Many come from experience. All these stories don't come with the comforting notion that they are, after all, fiction. Each is true. Each has happened. Each is real and alive in the memory of someone you know. How can you forget them? How can you ignore them and believe you will be unharmed? It would be foolish to do so. Better safe than scarred.

All these stories get even worse when it's about a single woman. If pre-school, school-going, college-going, working/married women have it bad, the single woman gets the worst deal of the lot. Because she's laid herself open to attack by not signing up for the most favored insurance policy for women.

Not all women are single by choice, some are single because their horoscope has denied them this safety. Some are single because the right boy never came along and so now, they are grey and half-dead at the age of 30. Some are single because of family circumstances.There's no bigger tragedy than a spinster, it would seem. And so, if you're a choosy daughter who's not willing to 'compromise', you are frequently reminded that spinsterhood is no joke. Not only is society unforgiving, you will find it impossible to live. No landlord will rent out a place to you. Better to marry someone, even if the person doesn't seem half worth the trouble. If you get bashed up and cheated and later divorced or abandoned, you'll at least know you tried.

With all these warning bells ringing in your head from the time you are old enough to understand language, it's very difficult to believe that you will not be a victim. It's very difficult to have the belief that you can live or do things by yourself, in spite of being a woman. It cannot be done. But...do we give up without even trying?

Do we stay safe and lead half-lives? Because it is a half-life when so many of our decisions are colored by the question: will we be safe? Professionally, when I've had to travel by myself, my parents have been worried sick about my safety. My mum would advise me not to eat in restaurants because then everyone would know I was alone. So I'd tell her I'd order room service. But then, that would mean opening the door to a room boy. I'd have to ensure I wasn't arriving or departing from anywhere at a too late or too early hour. I could never just go and focus on what I was supposed to do. It drove me insane. This constant worrying. I understood why they were worried, but that didn't make me feel any better about it. I did not want to be an any-moment victim.

The more I alienated myself from this victim status hovering around my head, the more I began to enjoy myself. I stayed in this tiny lodge in Cuddalore when I had to go there for some development program. I noticed the extra courtesy and helpfulness of the staff. I ate in a motel nearby where the waiter, an old man, gave me a table all for myself though (or because) I was alone. I went walking down the streets by myself and nothing happened to me. I sat in a park where there was nobody. I felt exhilarated. The weight of considering every strange man to be a dangerous animal fell off my shoulders.

I taught myself to be unafraid and I savoured every trip I took since then. I genuinely believed the world wasn't such a bad place after all. I refused to make my decisions with Safety as No.1 on my list. I wasn't going to strike it off the list; it would be stupid to do so, but it wasn't my No.1 any more.

I think it's important that we do this if we're to lead lives that allow us the freedom to think. To be normal. To stop being so crazed with worry. To believe we're able and capable. To know that we're not infants who need to be under someone's supervision. To make one-person plans. To put yourself as the person in command. Instead of just telling your daughters horror stories (that they inevitably end up experiencing despite your best efforts), infuse them with self-belief, the agency to be in control, the courage to face the world. Alone. Because let's face it, in that lonely toilet on a solitary hill, when the monster crashes out of the two-way mirror to swallow you, you will only have yourself to depend upon. And as women, we all know this is the case too on a crowded bus in the middle of everywhere.

There's a slow python inside all of us that eats our self worth day after day if we let it. This python whispers that only fools rush in where angels fear to tread. This python coils around our limbs, keeping us frozen with fear. Recognize it. Grow unafraid of it. Peel its skin away. Let its flesh fall off its bones. And then, when it's dying, kiss it goodbye. It was an old friend, after all.

On Parenting

2010-09-02T07:39:00.003+05:30

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Okay, just because I've been absent for a bit, don't let your suspicions be aroused by the title of the post. I still stand by no good news is good news for now. However, I have been meeting and talking to a lot of young parents and I often find myself thinking about how different their views are from the way in which I was brought up. To start with, none of them believes in hitting their kid. I don't mean caning or belting or hanging the kid upside down by its soles or something, so don't let your hackles rise. I just mean a good old pinch or a light slap on the bum.

My mum swears by what she calls Adi-o-therapy. My brother and I got our fair share of beatings when we were growing up. For the most part, I think we got what we deserved. We were both very strong-willed children and inclined to fuss till my mum lost her cool. My brother and I used to fight all the time. One of my favourite hobby horses while growing up was to irritate the hell out of him. I'd do this by singing tunelessly into his ear, repeating advertisement slogans every time I saw him (Nambikkai. Naanayam. Balu Jewelers. For some reason, I thought this was hugely funny), and eating my share of sweets very slowly after he'd finished eating his share. I'd also occupy his room and refuse to leave till he bodily threw me out. For his part, he monopolized the computer, made me believe I was a moron (he'd plenty of evidence for this though!) and gave me a massive inferiority complex because of his over-achieving. I didn't flunk in school or anything, but I hated it when teachers (especially the Math ones) referred to me as 'Oooooh S's sister!' and waited for genius to flow out of me. My brother went to IIT, Caltech, Stanford, MIT, and is now in Johns Hopkins. He's a theoretical physicist.You see what I mean?

So anyway, my mum used to end our fights by basically whacking both of us because we were getting on her nerves. Didn't matter who was at fault. It's some ancient Akbar-type justice system, but I don't see how else she could have managed both of us. My dad, for the most part, was the good cop in the parenting process. He never raised his voice, let alone hand, at us. So the onus of 'disciplining' the children fell on her and she was the bad cop during our childhood. Apart from getting it for being a pain, I also used to get it for studying (till 2nd standard or so...after that, I started studying on my own). My mum used to give me Tamil dictation words and I'd never put the mei ezhuthu in the correct place. So if you asked me to write 'paakku', I'd write 'paagu'. Every time I did this, I'd get a pinch. Sounds appalling, right? I mean, there I was, a rojapoo five year old...and I was getting pinched for not writing correctly! The parents I meet now don't want their kids to even hold a pencil till they are eighty or something.

When I listen to these parents talk about how the child should be allowed to free its mind and not read or write till it feels 'ready', I find myself agreeing on principle. I did not enjoy my Tamil dictation session. I hated it, if you want to know. But I don't know if I regret it. I am interested in the field of education and I absolutely loathe schools like DAV that make you feel like you gotta be a Karl Marks if you want to be anything in life. But I sometimes think we overdo this 'sensitive' child bit.

I was playing with a kid here and we were playing an 'ocean' game. So basically, I'd make big waves or small waves and he'd have to swim accordingly. The waves ranged from a Tsunami to a tiny wave that tickled his toes. When I said 'Tsunami' however, the adult population in the room froze. They thought this would scare the kid, it being a natural disaster and all, but the kid only asked for an even bigger wave to engulf him. As adults, we transpose the associations that we make with incidents and situations on to the child. We then worry if this is going to damage the kid's sensibilities. I think we should worry about this- it is important and bringing up a child that's aware and sensitive is no joke- but I think we should also allow the child to discover the world by being a child. Without our anxiety hovering around it.

I don't think I'd have ever learnt Tamil properly if not for those sessions simply because I wasn't interested. If given a choice, I'd have never learnt Math. But I did learn all these things because I had no choice. Was it all useful? No. I never knew what the hell differentiation was and I still don't. It hasn't affected my life. But I still solved problems in my 12th board without knowing this. Sure, this isn't the ideal education that one wants. Ideally, we should understand what we study. What we study should excite us. But sadly, we don't live in an ideal world. The world sucks for the most part because it's governed by the average, the majority. So much as I'd have enjoyed a non-competitive paradise where my artistic skills were identified in LKG and my Math textbook was thrown in the fire, it might have not prepared me for the moment when I stepped out of school. I'm not saying the system I went through was lovely. It wasn't. But I don't regret it. I think it built my character even as I rebelled against it.

Today, I see parents changing schools at the drop of a hat- too much homework, one bad teacher, competitive atmosphere and so on. But one has to recognize that the system is designed to accommodate a very large category called 'Everybody'. Many of these parents don't have a cable connection at home because TV is full of trash. I agree that TV is full of trash but I think it's okay for the kid to watch some amount of trash. At least, it ought to know what trash is. Shin Chan isn't my idea of creative genius, but if I had a kid, I'd be okay with it watching the show. I wouldn't make it watch only The Sound of Music or something. The thing is, you can't protect a child all through its life. At some point, the world will get to it. And when that happens, the kid ought to know that aaal is not well with the world.

I think what a child needs is sound ammunition for getting around the system and finding its way through it. Ammunition that it finds for itself through experience, not a hand-me-down.

If you have an iPad...

2010-08-20T14:38:00.002+05:30

...then download my story okay? :D

This is a series that my new company is launching and this is my first story for them. I write apps for the iPad for kindergarten kids now. Print dinosaur goes digital and all that.

Here's the write-up on it: Kandy Fish

Yay.

Chop till you Drop

2010-08-18T11:19:00.006+05:30

I thought I could go off lecture mode for a while, but looks like Uncle Vistor is not going to let me :D His comment on this post suggests that I climb my pedestal once again and deliver the wisdom that my long years have given me. Here are his questions:

After ruminating on your post, some questions popped up regarding editing:

Is the editor the best judge of what is saleable?
How does he/she determine what is to be edited?
Who is a good editor?
How do you as a writer, know which of the editor's rulings are sensible?

In other words, I am asking about traits and the job requirements of an editor.

A post on this as addendum to the series?

So here it is, Uncle V. Settle yourself under a Bodhi tree and then read!
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Before I joined the magazine, I had zero experience as an editor. I'd been part of the editorial boards of my school magazine and college journal, but I'd never worked professionally in such a capacity before. I was twenty two at that time and I'd just been given a 60-year-old magazine to run. Was I nervous? Not at all. I was extremely confident that I could do the job because I knew to read, I knew to write. I had clear ideas about what good children's literature is and I was in a position where I could give orders and have them executed. I was very enthusiastic about whipping my sleeping division awake.

But what is a plot without obstacles, eh?

An editor has two jobs to do: copy editing and decision-making.

The first is usually delegated to a copy editor in reasonably big concerns. A copy editor is someone who goes through the text, proofs it, ensures that it fits the page, checks if the accompanying illustrations/photographs synchronize with the text (for e.g, if Sita is admiring a red flower in the text and the illustration shows her admiring a blue flower, the copy editor has to make the appropriate change- sometimes it's easier to change the text to save time) and makes sure that credit lines for texts/images taken from elsewhere have been provided in the proper format.

The second, decision-making, is the most important function of the editor. The editor decides what content should go into publication. This, the editor does in consultation with the management and the other divisions of the organization. For instance, I was hired because the management had taken a policy decision to change the personality of the magazine (based on Marketing and Sales feedback). To change it from its only-mythology image to something more contemporary, something that children could relate to in this age. However, the change was not to be so radical as to alienate our current readers. And so, I had to fit in my editorial beliefs with the overall beliefs of the organization.

It's never easy to be the decision-maker when you are changing editorial policies. It can be a make or break situation for the organization. For instance, Target magazine, which used to be popular when we were children, underwent a personality change and completely lost its market. Consequently, they had to shut down the magazine because nobody wanted it in its new form.

So there I was, partly terrified by the enormity of my responsibility and partly kicked by my own importance. As is the case whenever such an upheaval of policies takes place, I had to face a lot of resentment and hostility from the editorial board that had previously decided on the content. They were still there and boy, did they hate the upstart who'd joined new! Not only was I new, I was 22! That was enough for most to write me off as the product of the management's eccentricity. We shall gloss over my trials and tribulations because those, while immensely fun, will need a whole new post.

I took in the following factors while deciding on what content should go in: a. What of the old version received positive feedback? b. What grouses did I have with those that received positive feedback? c. How contemporary should my new content be?

For the first factor, I had help from the Marketing survey that we'd done. I also consulted the other divisions to know what of the old publication needed to be retained (Sales, Customer Care, Online). Obviously, I had to retain genres that had come to define the magazine over the years. So I had to keep mythology (and I felt it was necessary to do so too)...but I had a problem with the way the stories were being written. They were riddled with stereotypes and insensitive language.

This is where the second factor comes into play- how do you educate your audience without changing what they like? You do it without making a hoo-ha about it. You do it in subtle ways that don't affect the text too much. For instance, the episodes from the Mahabaratha that we were running constantly justified Yudhishthira's actions. After he'd pawned Draupadi away, the writer had included a line that he probably knew this was how the war would start and dharma would be achieved. Bullshit he knew that. So yes, I chopped. The writer was a very senior well-awarded person and I received some angry mails, but I stuck to my guns.

As an editor, I was the bridge between my audience and the management. For instance, I was told to chuck the children's contributions section because it lacked originality and most of the writing was insipid. But I fought to retain this because I felt it was important that a children's magazine have a section that served as a creative outlet for children, no matter how amateurish their work. Disagreeing with the top is not always a pleasant experience, but the boss who hired me had great trust in my abilities and he let me get away with quite a lot.

As for the third factor- deciding new content, I depended on my literary education, tastes, and the market to frame this. Much as I love Roald Dahl, my audience was mostly urban middle and lower middle class and semi-urban sections. I had to keep in mind the cultural setups and exposure levels of my audiences when I was deciding what was contemporary. The stories had to be something they could relate to. Something that they could understand without the text under-estimating them.

I had writers writing for me- in-house as well as freelance- and whenever I made changes, if they were major, I always told them why I was doing so because this would prevent them from repeating it. For instance, N had written a story where a girl slaps a boy and I modified it to them having a heated argument because I did not want belligerent parents to write us emails about us encouraging violence (oh yes, they will! Once, we published a Ruskin Bond story titled Untouchable which is about a boy becoming friends with a child from the untouchable community- the story looks at the irony of the system and so on but a very angry lady abused us for printing words like 'untouchable' in the magazine!). A writer listens to the editorial feedback and if the reasons given are solid, a reasonable writer will usually accommodate the changes. My first book with Tulika- Aana and Chena- was inspired by the word aanachandam in Malayalam. The word describes a person who doesn't have beautiful individual features but looks beautiful all the same. This is one of my favourite words and my story revolved around it. However, during the editing process, the editors pointed out that the word was not easily translatable into other languages and since they were looking at a bi-lingual, they'd have to remove it from the text. I agreed, even though the word itself was going to be axed, because it made editorial sense to do so.

A good editor is someone who understands management policies, has policies of his/her own that, if in conflict with the management's, should be taken up for serious discussion. And very importantly, s/he should be someone who understands the pulse of the audience. Identifying sale-able material is a process that is influenced by and evolves through all of these factors. An editor isn't the lone person who makes this decision, but s/he is ultimately held responsible for it if the decision leads to failure. Such, is life.

My new magazine came out in November 2008. We started getting feedback for it from the first week itself. And when my boss forwarded the reader feedback to me, I sat back on my chair and cried a little. They loved it! They couldn't wait for the next issue! And that made everything...the fights, the rewrites, the endless proofings....worth every minute of it. I was glad to be the bitchy editor, I was.

__

Uncle Visitor, do you have a halo around your head now? Arise!

Mallu Central

2010-08-17T09:39:00.002+05:30

Okay, so I'm from Chennai and when I'm being fake-ly intellectual, I say 'Madras' in the middle of discussions with NGO types. I've probably spoken more Tamil than Malayalam in my life because most of my friends are Tamil. I write in English. M is Telugu and I once woke up in the middle of the night when he asked me for something and surprised myself by replying in Telugu. I said, "Pettuko". Whatay. I'm impressed with myself even if you are not.

But I am a Mallu, you see. Though Kerala has never been home and I've never missed not being there. And when I've been there also, I've always wanted to go back to Chennai once I've had my pazhampori (Thrissur station pazhampori especially). But after coming to Pune where I zimbly can't talk to anyone in Hindi or Marathi (though I understand Hindi reasonably well now), I am beginning to get in touch with the Lolakutty in me. I got a bunch of Mallu movies for M to watch when I went to Chennai last. And I policed him throughout the movie-watching to ensure that he 100% appreciated the wonderfulness of it. I also burst into song in between and sang "Chembazhukkkaaaa chembazhukkkaaa chakara chembhazhukkkaaa!" in full gusto. I bet you don't know what that means. It don't matter.

I also catch unsuspecting Mallu people in market areas and strike up conversation with them. See, this is very unlike me. I'm not a big fan of random conversations with aunty-uncles. But if I see curly hair and the unmistakable nendram pazham in the shopping bag, I edge my way to let them know that I'm also Mallu, men. Though I don't have curly hair (dammit). It's not like I invite them home or something. I'm not that social or that psycho. But I like it when they acknowledge that I'm also a penkutty jest like them. M is vastly amused by this newly-discovered streak in me. So am I. I always thought I was a Chennai ponnu (I am still) but apparently, I am just like those Dubai people who call Asianet and request for Lalettan songs.

Enda karthavey.

Dinosaur

2010-08-16T15:44:00.006+05:30

N and I are writing a novel together (oh yes, clap your hands, children) and it's half-done. I'd mentioned this earlier in one of my old posts, but if you are not a S.Venkatasubramanian who has by-hearted (I love this verb) my whole blog, I will tell you again. N and I are writing a book that's aimed towards introducing gender concepts to children. This is being done with the noble intention of ensuring that children don't waste their time later unlearning all the lessons that they learnt for a good part of their lives. The kindly souls in Tulika have agreed to take up the book for publication and we've been working on it through the ups and downs of life (marriage, job change, laptop crashes- I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled).

So anyway, our protagonist is 12 and N and I have been digging into our memories, trying to remember what it was like when we first had a crush on a boy (I strictly liked only 12th standard boys. I had such high standards even then), what a period felt like for the first ever time (this was fairly easy to remember since it sucks till date), class politics (I was the Inglis snob of the class who everyone assumed did not know Tamil. Bleddy stereotyping buggers), sibling rivalry (both N and I have older brothers, so we gave our protagonist a younger brother and we're having fun making her bully him), mother-daughter fights (no refresher course needed there) and much much more. We were attempting to claim our memories and then modify them to the experiences that children in this day and age have. Then we realized how OLD we actually are. And how children today (already, the idiom of the ancients invades my sentences) seem to be another species altogether.

I get a faintly confused expression on my face whenever someone talks to me about their latest, totally rad cell phone. I have a vague idea of what bluetooth is, but if you asked me to explain, I'll probably get a prize zero. I was with M the other day at this popular eat-out here that's graced by several school and college students. And I honestly felt like an ancient. I was listening to their conversations, the way they held themselves, the group chemistry...and I thought of our awkward Ispahani school meet-ups in Cafe Coffee Day. Ordering Espresso without knowing what it is and drinking it though it tastes like someone made coffee with pavakka juice. These kids were definitely much cooler than what we used to be. I'm sure they all knew what an Espresso was, to start with. Just writing this book and constantly comparing the then-myself with what I know of children now is making me feel fossilized.

I'm not going to say we were more innocent and pure than the generation now. I'm just afraid some spanky new technology without which you can't breathe is going to come. And I'm never going to understand it. I'm going to hesitantly plug it on my nose like my mum fumbled with a mouse and then I'm going to pass out because I did it all wrong. Stupid dinosaur, me.

I'm a little sad that dinosaurs are all over the place now. What an exciting time it was when we saw that Tyrannosaurs Rex in Jurassic Park. Now, dinosaurs are there even in your tiffin box. What an indignity.

I should stop being nostalgic. Definite sign of old age. I should, instead, write emails to all my young cousins with inspirational quotes from the Bhagavad Gita. Maybe I'll write a paragraph for my status message on Facebook. Then I'll know for sure that I'm officially redundant.

Writing for a Living-4

2010-08-11T09:34:00.004+05:30

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Once you have landed a writing job and are finally getting paid to do what you want to do, you begin to feel antsy. Because that's simply how our brain is structured. We like problems because they keep us occupied. They catalyze us from our static states of existence. They give us a justifiable reason for self-obsession. And this is why depressed people are people who don't know how to be sad.

Once you have landed a job where you are required to do work that you like doing, you begin to feel that all is too perfect. When you have to write because someone is paying you to do it, a part of you immediately resents this. You don't want your writing to be read and torn apart by a monster-editor who never seems to like anything you write. It is one thing to get your writing peer reviewed and critiqued, it is another to have it critiqued by someone who could potentially fire you. You begin to hate the red lines across your manuscript. Every time you open a Word document and type out the words, you delete them because you can see your editor wrinkling his/her nose up. You feel angry. You know you are a good writer. Isn't that why you were hired in the first place? If your creativity is going to be questioned all the time, if your lines lose the rhythm with which they marched into your head because your editor thinks they are too obscure, if self-doubt begins to creep into your words...and worse still, if you begin to write like your editor so your work is approved...what good will that be?

The fact about writing for a living is that someone is letting you do it. Someone is paying you to write and that someone has a right upon your writing. This is a fact that writers in corporate setups need to understand, digest, and embrace. Even if you are writing for a publishing house that has accepted your manuscript, you must share the ownership of your work with the editorial team there simply because they are investing in you. I've been a writer with corporate setups and have written for publishing houses. In both cases, your heart does die a little every time your lines get axed. Or rewritten. Or changed into something else altogether. And you are left saying, that is not it at all, that is not what I meant at all.

Coming to terms with editorial practices is a part of growing up as a writer. I was an editor and a writer at the same time- I was the editor for the English magazine in my last place of work; I used to write for the magazine as well as write for publishing houses. As an editor, I trashed perfectly good stories because they didn't fit what the magazine needed at that point. I chopped lines. I changed storylines. I axed whole paragraphs because the story went beyond the two pages that it was allotted. I wrote rejection letters to many writers, I got into heated arguments with writers who wouldn't want a word of their story changed, I never got back to some writers about their manuscripts because there simply wasn't any time. And as a writer, I spent hours refreshing my inbox to see if the publishers had replied to my hundredth mail asking about the status of my manuscript.

Publishing is a hard industry. It takes time for publishing houses to get returns on their investment. Like any other industry, it is about making money. And you, as a writer, are a very tiny part of it. Sure, without you, there is no book....but there are hundreds and thousands of writers who will write more books for the publishing industry to have its fodder. The sooner you understand how negligible you are, the faster you will make your peace. There is nothing wrong with making profits or wanting to. And it is the job of the editorial to find a balance between what is good material and what is sale-able material. The editorial will accept or reject, chop or keep your words keeping this in mind. And there is no point in virtuously walking away from this fact.

The reason why many of us are so wary of anyone touching our manuscripts is that we give ourselves way too much importance. This is understandable because the process of creation is exhausting (even the good Lord took rest after he was done creating). It is exhilarating and it gives you joy that is intensely personal. But the second it is read by somebody else and they point out your errors, the obscurity of the writing, the non-sale-ability of it, it dwindles into ordinariness. Your joy suddenly becomes foolish. This is a painful process only if you refuse to see the reasons behind the rejection. Achieving a balance between what you want to write and what you have to write at your work-place is hard work. I adapted myself to it because I was seeing the process from both ends- as an editor and as a writer. Writing for pleasure is one thing and writing professionally is another. The second might seem like a lesser god because of the money involved, but it is a tougher penance that will teach you many valuable lessons.

How does one retain love for the art while writing for a living? If you are not free to write as you please, can you still be in love with it? You retain the love by working hard to do so. By not lying to yourself about your insecurities. By respecting the views of your editors. And by understanding survival in a hard industry. You have a choice: to walk away and hide your art in the safety of your own shadow. Or to lay it under the sun with pride and walk away...while the world takes care of it.

(concluded)

P.I.G

2010-08-09T22:18:00.002+05:30

N and I used to do a comic called Interval for the magazine. I did the writing and N did the illustrations. It was a 3-pager, black and white, and was about this nameless boy whose life was remarkably like our own. It was a popular series in the magazine and we loved working on it together. I still have the mails and postcards that children wrote to us telling us how much they loved reading it. That bundle will probably be the first thing I take and run if the house is on fire.

However, since we've both quit and walked into the sunset since then, we can no longer work on the comic. Copyrights owned by the corporates and all that. But we miss working on the comic. And nothing can keep two good women down if they really set their minds to it. Especially if they are nasty and lovely at the same time.

So here it is, children: P.I.G

Most of the strips will be insider jokes because we're extraordinarily fond of ourselves. But we hope you will get some of it too.

Go on and be a pig.

Girlz

2010-08-06T08:51:00.005+05:30

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After they made Boys, I fully expected a movie called Girls. You know, something that shows the rest of the world what girls are really like and how scandalous we actually are. That we like looking at boys (in the plural, not the one Rama that every woman is allowed) and sometimes at girls, have friendships with other women that are not based on shopping, have whole spheres in our brains where men are highly inconsequential, and are also blessed with enough personality to colour several white peacocks. But Girls never came.

Every year, we see more movies with bubbly heroines who seem to be in various stages of retardation. Innocent and jumpy, full of cute quirks and oh so chawming, ladies and gentlemen. And every year, my BP rises just a little bit more.
I can't stand Genelia in Santosh Subramaniam. Every time I hear that ha-ha Hasini and the whole let's-bang-our-foreheads, I want to bang her head on a nice big boulder in Mahabalipuram. And yet, so many men and even women find her to be 'adorable'. What's with this innocent-infant heroine obsession?
I was pissed with Arvind Swamy in Roja because he made a big deal about the whole pattikaadu thing and how he didn't want some urban woman who knew everything he knew because then, how would chemistry develop in the plot?

And when they do this whole Jessie kind of movies also, I get pissed. Okay, Gautam Menon, you tried very hard to show Jessie to be this speshul woman but just because everyone's whispering in Inglis in your movie, it doesn't mean you've created a 'different' heroine that all of womankind needs to be grateful for. Every time Simbu said 'Jussi' and did that whole soulful face, I was wondering why Jussi wasn't getting phenomenally bored. And just because one soulful boy creepily follows you around, you don't fall in love with him. Especially when you've had half a line conversation with him. Same for Madam Sameera Reddy. Though there, Surya was phenomenally hot. So at least, that makes sense to me.

Why don't we ever see films that give their female characters some depth in characterization? And I don't mean make them into Phoolan Devi. I don't even mean make woman-centred cinema. I just mean...give the woman some life! I'm sick of fluffy-heads and their 'va di polam' bimbette groups. Female friendships exist in our films only in relation to what the hero needs at that point. Does he want the friend to convince the heroine about his lurrve? Does he want the friend to carry his message to the locked up heroine? Or does he want an evil double-cross villi to make the plot more interesting? I know popular cinema is just for popcorn, but still...they always have some amount of boy bonding going on. Heck, even Rajini has boy bonding with Vadivelu. On the other hand, women are always hating other women. Wicked second heroine hates innocent first heroine, MIL hates DIL, women bitching about other women all the time. Or if at all they show women bonding, it will be the first wife magnanimously letting the second wife into her large heart.

Cinema, for the most part, is unreal. And I don't expect it or even want it to have gut-wrenching verisimilitude. I enjoy the masala-padam genre. I revel in nonsense. But I just want to see women on screen with the 20% spunkiness of women I know in real life. I'd like to see women liking each other, for a change (and I don't mean to indulge your hostel-lesbianism fantasy).

I switch on the TV and women are everywhere- scratching one half of their face to test for dry skin, buying anti-aging creams to look impossibly young, trying to prevent armpit sweat, measuring their fairness, colouring their hair because they are worth it, eating one grain of rice and what not. I see it everywhere all the time to a point when I start feeling that I'm unreal for being the way I am and thinking the thoughts that I think. Then I look around me and I see women. With enough spunk to give me goosebumps and an odd feeling of love in the pit of my stomach. And then I switch off the TV and come and rant on my blog.

Angst

2010-08-05T15:34:00.005+05:30

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N read the previous post and we went down memory lanes and jungles and all that. This involved digging into our mail archives and finding a million poems and assignments and stories we'd written and sent around for review. We also found a lot of mails that are full of angst, growing-up pains, tragedies of the world and what not. I sound insane in most of my mails to N, I was vastly amused to discover.

The following is a mail I sent to N and A when I was in the UK, in the middle of my self-induced and highly ridiculous depression. Parents, do not be disturbed by what you see below, be glad that I've grown a brain since then. I'm posting it here because this is an angsty part of me that I've left behind, but I'm still glad I went through it and got over all the pain and yada yada of my existential crisis. It's good to have I-used-to-be-an-ass days to look back upon. Also, I sound mental in it and I like that.

***

Hey,

Feeling lousy and very bugged...so decided to mail you guys, who else do I have, eh?? I went to the beach..hahha...some 1000 drunk people were there. What ayy new year. It was very windy though, so I got back home earlier. Some random people on the road and all shook hands and said happy new year...one crazy drunk guy wanted to hug me and howl or something. Haha. Anyway, happy new ears to you yaars. I don't know what I'd do without you guys, serious. I can't stand anybody else and I just want to go and sit on a hill top and jump from there with a parachute. I feel like making a dumb girls-only movie and weeping or something. Sisterhood of the Pants or some shit like that. Haha. I'm going to get solidly drunk one of these days and do something utterly nonsensical. Okay, that's it. I don't know why I came here and what am doing here. I'm pretty much lost. I don't know why I did half the things that I did in my life. So utterly pointless. How on earth do people manage to live to be a 100 and stuff? Don't they ever feel like giving up? I think I've had enough of everything...I really don't want to stay alive and go on flaying my own skin every day. Do you like the word 'dollop'? Notice how it blooms in the middle like a snowshoe [no idea what that is though] and drops like a shot bird. Dollop. Hahhaa. My life is a dollop.

I wish it were free to call you guys. I'd seriously call you 20 hours a day or something. You guys at least listen to my rubbish without having to go somewhere and do something and be useful. I mean, I don't mean that as an insult...I think our combined redundancy is glorious. If I make a movie which I shan't get directed by woolly headed K who by the way, I think sucks and is not the genius B thinks he is considering the way he acted in N*******, I will call it Redundant and cast the two of you alongside myself. We shall wear sunglasses.

Here are 10 New Ear things I want to share with the world:

1. Yeah, happy new ear, so what?
2. Hate your roomies
3. Stay Single
4.Be best friends with best friends
5.Buy Winnie the Pooh socks for the people you love
6. S will look lovely with dots on his eyebrow
7.Live alone
8.Live with a dog if you must
9. Don't eat bread
10. Clothes are boring

Okay, over. Now, I will sleep.

Dearest N and A, I love you.

***
There are very few times in life when I've felt happy to have grown up. This is one of those times. Happy graduation day to me.

Writing for a Living-3

2010-08-04T21:44:00.002+05:30

Writing is a one person sport. You make the rules, you change the game, you abandon it when you want to. It doesn't matter who won or who lost because it's all the same.

And then, out of nowhere, you realize that someone is watching you play. They are watching you play your game and suddenly, your hands hang loosely by your side and you don't know where to put them. You know this turf and yet, it bothers you that someone is watching. You play to impress. You swing with flamboyance. You swing and miss. And you are embarrassed. You see the smirks coming. And then, you pretend you never did play and walk away. It's better, you think, to go elsewhere and play. Some place where nobody can see you. Because you don't wish to change your sport to please someone else.

If one wishes to write for a living, however, one cannot afford to take the sport to the closet. One has to lead it into the drawing room like an elephant. Draw as much attention as possible. Break a few doors. Trumpet your arrival. Because a sport needs its spectators and you should never deprive yours of them. A problem that many writers have is simply the lack of readers. There's a difference between readers and see-ers. The see-ers are the types who will glance through your work and say 'nice' or 'good'. The readers will go beyond this convenient list and offer you what you might not want to hear to start with.

I was fortunate enough to be blessed with readers right from the time I began to write- my mum and my brother. Both of them read whatever I wrote and gave me the sort of feedback that I didn't appreciate much back then but am very grateful for now. My brother laughed at the sappiness of much of my writing. The whining tone. The artifice of borrowed wisdom that I tried employing as my own. The ridiculousness of my sad themes when I knew so little of sadness in my own life. My mum, too, drew parallels between what I wrote and what I was like in real life. I still remember this poem I wrote in Class VI about keeping your surroundings clean. I showed it to my mum; she read it and said, "First keep your own room clean." Though that's a very mum-like response, it's a response that I've stored in my mind to restrain myself whenever I've been tempted to write about things without conviction, just because it is convenient to do so. Staying genuine in your writing is one of the principles I try to keep up in my writing. If it doesn't ring true to you, a reader will see through it in no time.

In college, I met N and got myself another reader who minced no words when telling me what she thought about my writing. College was a time when we began as insecure amateurs but led ourselves to believe that we were accomplished. In a state like that, when you have just finished tearing up over Keats and Ginsberg, and believe that you at last know what good writing is, it is very hard to take criticism. Because you are now educated in what good literature is and you should be able to create your own. It is, however, vital to recognize that the bigger your sport grows, the more important your spectator is. N read my writing, helped me shape it, told me what was trash and what was not, improved my narratives with her suggestions. Spent time over my prose. Made me tea. And also, illustrated the first batch of stories that I wrote. We've spent several hours over our manuscripts (N writes too and I've been her spectator many times as well), falling in love with what we'd written, even setting it to music sometimes, and yet...always, always keeping the honesty in it. My test by fire for anything I write is N because if I send it to her, I know I will get a response and I can trust that response to have in it an honesty that I might not find anywhere else.

Once you allow your sport, willingly, to have a spectator, your job is not just to play; it is also to entertain. And by this, I do not mean that you should give your audience what it wants and forget about what you want. Play in a way that your audience understands the new rules you are making and wants to see more. The way children are drawn to make-believe games. Admit your spectator's right to be entertained, to be bored, to tell you to play differently, or even change the game. You still hold the bat, don't forget that. But listen to the gallery calls. And oblige if you are convinced.

I managed to find writing jobs by chance. My job with the magazine grew out of freelance assignments that I took up on the side. I was working for the development sector then (a job with a government institute that my father helped me find because I was so depressed about my unemployed state) and wanted to do something concrete because my day-job was such a bore. So I'd come back home at around 8 (I was working in Sriperambadur then; it's 2 hours from Chennai), eat dinner, and edit stories till 10.30. It so happened that the then-boss at the magazine liked my views on children's literature and offered me a job. And there, out of nowhere, a writing job fell into my lap. I wasn't planning on it at all and yet it happened. And I was ready, though I didn't know it, because I'd been playing all along.

*to be continued*

Across the Universe

2010-08-03T10:34:00.000+05:30

I've seen this tag on many of the blogs I lurk around and have been chuckling at the lists I've read because I identify with so many of them. So I thought I'd do it too and give myself a break from pontificating about my profession for a while. The tag started here. How much across-the-gender behaviour do you exhibit? If you want to sound high-brow scholarly- how Ardhanareeshwara are you?

1. I hate dressing up. In fact, M first knew about my existence when his mum saw me at my cousin's wedding and noticed that I'd arrived in jeans and a faded kurta with zero jewelry. She told M about this strange-funny girl and M apparently remembered this when his parents broached the topic of shaadi. My mum gave me a lot of grief for the said appearance that day, but see how the Universe conspired to get you what you ultimately wanted, Mummyji? Well-settled daughter. I wore jewelry for my wedding though. Partly because I didn't want to overdo the rebel thing (not when I was doing one super conformist act of getting married anyway) and partly because the jewelry looked good on me.

2. I hate cosmetics (with the exception of kaajal which I generously use). I don't understand why so many women want to smell like fruit orchards. I'm not against deodorants- they come in handy when you are traveling or are having a long day- but why spray yourself every time you need to step out? Stinking is one thing and your natural body smell is another. I don't use all those flavoured lip balms either. They give me a headache. I also think hair conditioner is a corporate scam.

3. I'm a messy person. I can live like a pig and be happy as a clam. I don't mind dirty sinks (I draw the line at dirty toilets though), scrunched up clothes, unmade beds, crushed papers in files. I detach myself from the mess and observe it with fondness. M, on the other hand, is a clinical cleaner who waltzes through the house like Monica (Amma, I know you're thinking this is going to put my marriage in trouble one year down the line. Relax and let the Universe give you what it wants to).

4. I hate shopping. My mum has bought most of my clothes. I don't go to the tailor either, so all my clothes have V-neck because that's the first and only measurement the tailor took of me. I get really bored when I shop and usually make super-quick decisions about what I'm going to buy. Before M and I got engaged, we had to buy each other groom-bride clothes. So we went shopping together. M wanted a grey suit and he spent a lot of time visiting shops, looking at patterns (everything looked absolutely the same to me), analyzing the quality and so on. I was ready to collapse and die after the second shop we visited. (M, if you want to defend yourself, do :D)

5. I eat well. This might not seem like such an 'across-the-genders' thing, but it really is. Half the women I know only eat salads or share meals whenever we're out for lunch/dinner. I enjoy eating and I eat what I want to eat. I don't obsess about my weight and I think gundu is an acceptable body shape. I'm not advocating obesity, but really, I think women need to love themselves more (not in a Dove ad types...but just you know...don't worry so much about what every man thinks about you...they are thinking about Man U or some bore like that anyway).

6. I'm not sporty, but I'd like to bungee jump and para-glide before I die or die when doing either. I'm very impatient with people who say they are scared to get on some ride in an amusement park or get nauseous every two minutes.

7. I hate spending time in the kitchen for more than what is required. I enjoy cooking whatever it is that I cook, but I don't see the point in cooking a million dishes or making things that take time and can be bought from shops anyway. I appreciate the effort of women who do this; I eat whatever it is that they produce with great relish, but I don't see myself doing the same. I cook because I have to eat and that's about it.

8. I make all my decisions on my own and hate being told what to do. Whenever my dad says things like 'Oh now I don't have to worry about you because M is there to decide', I snarl and deliver a long speech on how I'm not a cow. Though I know my dad says many things just to provoke me and have fun. I hate it when people say things like 'Your husband gives you so much freedom!' Nobody can give anyone freedom. They can only take it away from you. Your freedom is yours and it never comes for free.

9. I don't like being given flowers or heart-shaped objects. I find them silly. In one of the Seinfeld episodes, this guy gives Elaine a flower and she thinks 'Now for how long do I have to hold this?'. That basically is my reaction too. I hate seeing hearts with arrows through them on every damned thing. I find it very annoying.

10. I love traveling alone. One of my grand plans before the whole marriage drama started at home was to go to Egypt by myself. I used to travel around a lot by myself when I was working for the development sector. I was greedy for the peace that my own company allowed me. I get irritated by women who act like children and need to be accompanied everywhere they go.

On the other hand, I cry very easily- at the movies, if I read something I loved, if I get into fights, if I feel bugged...and sometimes, just because I feel like it. I love the 'sisterhood' relationship that I have with my female friends- they know everything that goes on in my life, no holds barred. I don't know too many men, any man, in fact, who shares that much with his male friends. I love my nose-ring. I can't live without kaajal (I said that already, but so what?). I'm good with children and love spending time with them. I enjoy making other people feel special. I think women who are funny are funnier than men who are funny. I'm not going to be March 8th types and declare that I love being a woman. But I do.

Writing for a Living- 2

2010-07-31T10:44:00.001+05:30

Money is evil, isn't it? Anything touched by money immediately becomes cheap. Because what you can buy, including mail order brides, is what you can control and replace. And so money makes things expendable and we're right to hate it for what it does to the human soul.

But it feels darned good to make money. And there's no denying that.

A lot of people say things like 'I do it because it's my passion. I don't do it for the money.' As if not-earning is somehow ennobling. As if passion somehow becomes B-grade because you earned something through it. But without money, where would we be? Because all the good things in life are not free. And very often, they are quite expensive. This is why most of us work. This is why we trudge to office day after day and sit on chairs for 8 hours, often doing work that's uninspiring, uninteresting and pointless.

And if you are a woman, especially, making money can free your mind in more ways than the law of the land can. I watch this Muhurta Neram show on and off just to know how terrible and comical our society really is (I lie...I also watch it to know what I've escaped). So many people want a bride who doesn't work and who hasn't studied much- because an educated woman who makes money is a scary entity who will not put up with your nonsense. And yes, I know a lot of you blazing young men do want working women and blah blah, but what I'm saying is- for men, there's no question of two categories like this emerging. Everyone wants a mapillai who is educated and earning. Nobody ever deems a man's superior degrees and money-making abilities to be a disadvantage. Yes, this is pressurizing for men too; men are forced to support the family and abracadabra [this line is just for the types who are part of Baadhikapatta Aangal Sangam and such likes] but at least, your achievements aren't subverted the way it is for women. So in conclusion, what do we take away from Muhurta Neram, children? We understand that making money is super-important for men and women. Men- because nobody will respect you otherwise. Women- because if the polladha Vadivukarasi maamiyaar types on TV don't want you to earn, it obviously means that you'd better.

A few people, a few blessed people, manage to combine their passion with money-making and if that happens to you, I suggest you woot with joy. If your passion happens to be writing, the following might be relevant. If it's irrelevant also, it doesn't mattah- read it and absorb it. A good writer is an observer of all sorts of trash. Then, s/he inserts the observation intelligently in the text to stun you with the originality (see, I watch Muhurta Neram because my taste in TV is really bad; I even watch Arukaani to Azhagurani).

Most people take BA English without knowing what the hell it is about. I, for one, didn't know what my course would be like. I didn't do any syllabus research or talk to seniors, professors, well-meaning aunty-uncles in the family before I made my decision. I took BA English because I loved reading and writing and I liked English classes the most in school. Some people in my class took it because they were Engineering-fail. Some because they were BSc-fail. And some others took it because they wanted to learn English [like VETA, beta]. So anyway, when the three years were almost over, all these campus hiring thingies began. The type of profiles that these companies were looking for in the English department were:

1. Air hostess
2. Tech writers
3. Call center
4. Ad Words rep (Google)

Chotu kya banega, eh? I'd already decided to do my MA, but I still went and sat through all those sessions just to find out what I could do after this degree (yes, this never bothered me much till this point). In the meantime, all my school-mates who were in their 3rd year of Engineering were already ready with their CTS-Infosys Plan of Action. I was getting increasingly disgruntled. The job profiles listed above, with the exception of air hostess, did not pay much. Not anything close to the budding, blooming Engineers anyway. Besides, they seemed to be tremendously boring to me. I did not want to do any of these. What I wanted to do was to write stories and get paid...like a lot...because being important is rich, but being rich is more important.

So what did I do? I went to the UK and did MA Gender Studies and made myself more unemployable than before. I've been a very difficult child, I realize now. I did a course that most people hadn't heard of. I did the course without worrying about who'd employ me after that [although, the UN figured prominently in my plans...I could then sight adichufy Sashi Tharoor, no?].

I was writing all along, though. The best thing that I did in college that helped me become a writer was to start a blog. Before college, I couldn't write prose at all. I wrote a lot of poetry (sentiment-high, angst-ridden, sincere and unoriginal) though. I started my blog because everyone seemed to have one and I thought some of my friends might read it and comment on the writing. The tediousness that I experienced when trying to narrate a story otherwise disappeared, as if by magic, when I was blogging. Because, here at last, I was telling my story. A story I knew really well. I was writing without worrying about whether people would understand my style. If my brand of humour would appeal to them or even make sense. I stripped away the layers of self-consciousness that had trapped my words before this. I was finally writing as me. With a candour that was so liberating. I discovered what worked for me. And I was overjoyed. Because most of my readers were people I didn't know in real life and they got what I was saying. It made me feel like a champ, it did.

I'm still amazed by the unknown IP addresses on my statcounter- people who've never met me but still understand or are at least amused by what I'm saying. I obsess over my statcounter. I even click on all the links that you have clicked to see what all you read. I re-read everything that got a click. Then I imagine what your reaction would have been. And I like to think you got all the jokes and the wisdom. I know I don't diligently respond to comments on my blog (mainly because I'm the phone-on-silent-mode type) but my cup brimmeth over every time somebody says they liked what they read. It doesn't take much to make me happy, see? I'm a nice low-maintenance ladies.

So, at this point, I could finally write. I had the confidence that if employed, I could deliver. But...but...who would employ me? I came back to India after my MA and two career paths were open to me: a. Do something with BA English b. Do something with MA Gender Studies. I also wanted money for whatever I was doing. All this would have happened if I'd been a citizen of Utopia. But I wasn't. So then, I conveniently became depressed. Which is the world's best solution when you have parents who will put up with your bullshit despite knowing it's bullshit. I'm blessed that way.

-to be continued-

Writing for a Living-1

2010-07-29T09:43:00.000+05:30

I was reading A Room of One's Own the other day and I was struck newly by the truth in what Woolf says about writers, especially female writers. For those who haven't read the book, A Room of One's Own is a practical and unsentimental look at writing as a profession. The tediousness of it. The poverty of it. The sentence that can't be written because there are meals to be cooked. The silliness of doing something so undependable when there are bills to be paid. It was one of the texts that convinced me in college that if I wanted to be a serious writer, I couldn't get married. If I wanted to keep my mind fresh and hungry, if I wanted the words to come when I called, if I wanted to make a living out of writing, then I simply couldn't afford to allow myself to get distracted. It's also one of the few texts I've read that don't romanticize writers as demi-gods whose genius comes as a given and not through hard work.

Because writing is hard work. It's difficult to convince people about this because writing doesn't look active. You don't have to run around when doing it, you don't have to shout over your cell phone to get it done, you don't need a blackberry to do it. And it does seem like a very romantic profession, doesn't it? The act of creation. The writer in her own world creating new worlds. And like all things romantic, it seems flimsy. Because how hard is it for someone to write when they have the talent for it?

But writing is not about talent. It is about hard work. And I say this at the risk of stripping away perhaps the only factor that makes other people respect my profession. Anyone can write if they want to. That is the simple truth. We wouldn't have so many bloggers of all colours otherwise. But the emphasis is on the 'want'. How badly do you want to do it? How much time are you willing to invest in doing it? How hard will you work to plough through a language that has come to you from the tongues of so many people? A language that you wield clumsily at first because it's not your own? How many drafts will you write before the words become yours and ring true? How serious will you be about writing compositions in English class when nobody else cares? Will you give up because Young World didn't accept any of the poems you sent them when you were in Middle School? Will you stop because you have to go for IIT classes and there's no time? Will you stop because writing is a hobby and not a profession? Will you stop because nobody takes you seriously?

Will you stop because you read your own writing and knew it to be mediocre?

The hard work put in to become a writer is hardly acknowledged because most of it happens inside your head. The workshops you attend or the creative writing classes you take will find a place in the extra-curriculars on your CV. To show that apart from being a B.E or an MBA, you also indulge in the arts once in a while. But the real work is in the freeing of your mind. To break loose from your self consciousness. To be brave enough to will yourself into writing something that will be judged, or worse still, ignored. To feel the shame that rushes into you when you show something you wrote to someone and they say 'It's nice' without reading till the end. It's easy to get demoralized and give up because nobody's going to notice or miss your work. The hard work is to miss it for yourself.

When I used to work for the magazine, a lot of people would tell me that they'd like to write for it. I'd say, ok, could you first read it and get an idea about what to write? In 9 out of 10 cases, the person wouldn't read it. I'd get a rehashed mythological story, the kind that's been around for centuries. I'd respond asking the person to read the magazine first, understand what sort of writing we're looking at and then send me something. I'd almost never get a story back. And this is because people get very possessive about what they write. They feel mortally wounded because it is their creativity that you've questioned. But this is a sort of possessiveness that is disguised laziness. The unwillingness to examine your work; the goldfish attention you are willing to spare to something that you claim is very dear to you.

Writing doesn't 'just come'. It evolves. It becomes a part of you only if you let it. It can grow only if you understand that it has to. It can pay your bills only if you have the courage to let go. It won't matter then that nobody understands your hard work. That they think it's all too easy. Because you'd know and inside your mind, the walls have crashed. And the words are coming. They are coming so fast and so easy. Because they are your own.

Sociopathy

2010-07-27T10:02:00.000+05:30

So do any of you live in Pune? Sorry if I sound like a Yahoo chat person, but what's your a/s/l? Are you a bore? If you are not, do you want to be my friend? In real life, children.

I've begun to realize that all my conversations that are actually conversations and not "Nahi, patha nahi" are held online. Excepting the ones with M, of course. M and I have very deep and profound discussions. Just last week, we were watching Alibabavum Naarpadhu Thirudargalum. I said it was so funny that they were pronouncing 'sesame' as 'see-same'. M (to whom this had never occurred) said I was being a Stella Peteru and that it wasn't 'sesame' but 'see-same' because the whole thing happens in Arabia (where people speak Tamil and Hindi, apparently). Also, if MGR said it, it must be right. Wah, kya budhimaan hai mera pati.

So anyway, the Stella Sisterhood is in different-different cities these days. Most of us are the type who will keep the phone on silent and never answer it. We also don't return missed calls though we get a pang of affection when we see the missed call. Most of us are also on Invisible mode on Gtalk, so we don't really know when the other person is online. Such, is, life.

I'm a virtual employee, so I talk to my team online or over the phone. I hardly meet them either. I'm not very social, so if I meet new people, I will never remember their names or their faces for that matter. Also, I don't care much for family-bonding kind of conversations. What my husband did, what your husband did, what your kid did and what they all like to eat and so on. It's okay if that sort of bonding happens in the background of a friendship that's got more than just that. But I will get very bored if it's going to be only about the mosquitoes biting your kid, I'm sorry. I get bugged sometimes when I don't get to hang out with friends in this city. I rant about it and M sensibly says that this means I have to make new friends. Then I spectacularly say I have a bunch of brilliant friends and I don't want new ones. Very mature, I agree.

But I'm going to put in some effort into this because I really don't want to end up becoming a non-Hindi knowing Dadima watching cookery shows in her old age. So if you are a Pune person, say hi and tell me your intentions. If they are all aboveboard, we can start frannship. Okayvaa?

Tiramisu

2010-07-26T11:26:00.000+05:30

The whole of last week, I had nightmares. Yes, really. All sorts of nightmares. My favourite though was the one in which I'm required to make beet coffee for Sonia Gandhi and I'm trying to make it fast-fast but things keep going wrong and then...Sonia Gandhi is coming closer and closer and I'm still standing stupidly with the jar in my hand, looking defeated. She was wearing a dark green saree with a maroon border, by the way. Same pony-tail and everything. It really was Sonia Gandhi. She sat on one chair and looked very pissed by the fact that I hadn't made beet coffee for her. I woke up feeling thoroughly exhausted and miserable. Then I discussed it in great detail with M and he said, "Hmm." Wah, the man of few words I married.

I usually enjoy my nightmares. I've been having this nightmare about some big cat (mostly tiger, sometimes lion or leopard) chasing me all over the place (once in Jantar Mantar!) ever since I was a kid. Though I get super scared during the dream and my heart threatens to go kaboom, I still never want to wake up and end it! But beet coffee nightmare is a new one. And not one that I'd want again- are you lijjening Madam Soniaji?

So anyway, the whole of last week, I was a bit of a zombie person. Yesterday, I was bathing and then I started thinking about what all I had to do at work and I forgot I was bathing. I was still bathing though (I know it's hard to understand. Watch Inception if you want help). When I remembered I was bathing, it came as a shock. I think I'm getting some advanced Alzheimer.

So since I had such a nightmarish week, M and I went to La Pizzeria and I ate a humongous wedge of Tiramisu. I'm telling you, it's the good stuff. If these Shiv Sena people ate some of it, they'll stop being so ants-in-pants. We also watched Salt and I really enjoyed it. Jump on the lorries, ladies. Truly, I approve of the fact that Angelina sensibly kicks off her high heels, wears running shoes and then does all the dishoom-dishoom.

And by the way, I DID NOT have a nightmare last night. Which goes to prove that Tiramisu can cure all your problems, children.