The girl in the restaurant

So it’s that time of the year again. J and I, like last year, are once again etching out a near perfect plan of stay in India this July over our extremely brief three week ‘vacation’. I quote the word vacation since we spend so much time in Mumbai and Bengaluru traffic that watching idle vehicular exhaust and unimaginative grocery store names automatically becomes a big part of our stay there. Hopefully this time around there will be some respite from that. Anyway, among the top things we always include in our trip is room for fantastic gastronomy. She recommends a long list of places to go and try food at in Mumbai while I dish out choice eateries from in and around namma Bengaluru. Over such a conversation recently I mentioned the famous restaurant chain Adigas. Having tasted the food there a few times I thought it was time J too had the opportunity to do the same. But then, the mere mention of its name took me back a few years to a peculiar incident that took place in that restaurant in Malleshwaram one evening. This blog, hence, is a reflective piece of the same.

A friend and I were returning after watching ‘Superman Returns’ in hope of enjoying a deservedly hearty meal at the restaurant after having been subjected to a dud of a movie. As is customary in such famed places we had to wait for about half an hour with other eager faces and grumbling stomachs in the reception before we were ushered in. Once the doors came ajar and the person there helped us to a table, we realized that we would have to share it with four slightly loud middle aged men. But then the allure of the delicious meal was so tempting that to put up with their cacophony seemed liked the least worrisome thing to do. So we settled down exchanging pleasantries as, moments later, a family came and sat down at the table next to ours. It was a family of five people – the parents and their three children. The eldest one was a girl, about twelve years old; the second was a boy, slightly younger than her, maybe ten and the last was an infant asleep in its mother’s arms. Their dress indicated that they possibly came from the lower middle class and the extra shades of talcum powder on their necks indicated that they probably didn’t go out as much and that this outing to Adigas was something the family had been looking forward to for quite a while. This became even more apparent as the girl grabbed the menu that was given to them by a slow moving waiter and whispered sharply to her brother – ‘See! See! I told you they had it!’ – emphasizing on the ‘it’ to indicate that they both were anxiously awaiting some particular dish. The enthusiasm on their faces made me smile a little as I thought back of my childhood days where we would sit in such high end restaurants and have tomato soup with a piece of hard bread floating in it with much pride.

The friend and I then got busy with ordering our meal and I didn’t notice much of the family after that. A few minutes later though, my friend got a call and she stepped out to take it. That was when I had the chance to notice something peculiar. As it appeared the father was not very pleased with the prices of the dishes. It was clear that it was possibly not within the budget they had in mind. Noticing their reluctance the boy began whimpering as he now knew what was coming. The girl, on the other hand, maintained her optimistic smile and continued to listen carefully at what her parents were discussing. The slow waiter returned with that condescending look you get in restaurants in India where you get gauged by these fellows by merely looking at what you are wearing. A repulsive attitude that refuses to go away. ‘People are waiting outside sir!Hurry up!’ he moaned as he noticed the family fidget with the menus. The father then inquired about a few dishes to which the waiter carelessly kept nodding a NO and looked on dispassionately at their discomfort as if secretly enjoying their public ordeal.

Finally the father gestured to the daughter and without a word the family began to get up. As the parents walked away with an apologetic grin on their faces the waiter returned and said something to the little girl I will never forget ‘You can have the water if you want. It’s free.’ She, instead of frowning or ignoring him completely simply smiled back as she had done so gracefully until then, added a genuine laugh and responded ‘Thank you uncle!’ She then comforted her brother who was now in tears as the two slowly walked out hand in hand from the restaurant without having consumed a single thing there.

Something cracked inside me silently that evening. Amid the din of the crowd that sat gorging on a dozen dishes and guffawing in the cool comfort of their wealth, I could clearly hear the crackle of that little girl’s young broken heart. Her brother had chosen to let his tears bring him relief while she, still a child herself, had battled the public scene with such grace and determination. Today as I think of her I sincerely hope that she finds much success and that well deserved spotlight of fame to reward her refreshing optimism in this cynical world. I also wish that someday she can take her parents and siblings back to such a restaurant and order a big fat meal that will contain every dish she has ever wanted.

How big are we?

During a search for some tunes meant for soothing the stressed mind, I came across this piece developed by the American Museum for Natural History. It is essentially a view of where the Earth is in the grand GRAND scheme of things in this endless universe of ours. The tabloids are filled with scams from around the world with columns running deep and red with facts and accusations. Then there are the demi-Gods who have, for centuries, been convinced that they are indeed the center of the universe and have absolute command over everything and everyone. We have obnoxious celebrities and politicians with their gigantic egos and larger than life 'aura' walking around with their eyes in the clouds. I look at places like Twitter where a hungry need for instant and constant validation goes on each minute as people desperately try to get new followers each day or on Facebook and YouTube where they add absolute strangers as friends thus ensuring their consistent ego massage happens unperturbed. So much is happening on this little blue and green marble of ours and yet we seldom realize just how dwarfed...how overwhelmingly dwarfed we are in this infinite universe that surrounds us. For having helped me a bit with that perspective, I truly enjoyed watching this presentation. Of course, the fact that this video is juxtaposed with a wonderful rendition of Mangala Charan shloka only makes this piece even more likable.

Now that Delhi is far away

'Does it snow there?' was one of the most popular and most juvenile of the many questions we had bombarded our tired father with when he had disclosed to us that he had been transferred to New Delhi and that we would have to spend the next few years of our lives in that city. Having stayed in rural Andhra as infants, in Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai as kids and in Bengaluru as blossoming teens, the prospect of living in the capital of our nation was, according to us (and by us I mean me and my younger brother) was the perfect gateway to the good life. As we boarded the two and a half day KK express towards Delhi, our minds were filled with the colorful images of India Gate, Jantar Mantar, Qutub Minar and Palika Bazaar. Images that we had only seen in strong black ink illustrations in our social studies textbooks published by NCERT. Images that had lured us with their historical greatness in our Tinkle comics. Images that, we knew, would be part of us forever.

With such ambitions aboard, our train finally chugged to a halt in the 37 degree boiling pot called Delhi one merciless afternoon in June 1992. A gush of hot air (of an intensity I had never experienced ever before) rushed into the compartment and wrapped itself all over me as I stepped into the din of Delhi's cacophony. Loud noises that claimed to be speaking Hindi (but sounded nothing like the kind we had been taught in our modest CBSE schools) welcomed us as we zoomed past fast red line buses and faster speaking Dilli wallahs towards our flat in Narayan Vihar (we later moved to Inderpuri). I can still recall a sense of being in an absolutely alien place my first few weeks there. Given the velocity with which the twangs of Delhi Hindi swept across us, me and my brother – who back in our schools were famous for our pristine enunciation of the language – were now feeling somewhat shortchanged at the hurling of 'le liyos' and 'aa jaiyyos'. In fact, it was in my second week there that I had whispered to my dad – 'Can we not go back to Bangalore next year?' indicating to him of confirmed trouble ahead.

But nevertheless we continued to be surprised at every fresh piece of information Delhi kept flinging our way. The first trip to see our new school in Lodhi Estate seemed like a two hour journey as we got a chance to be a part of the mayhem that was peppered all around the roaring capital of the nation. I distinctly remember my brother, wet with reluctance, pleading to dad that he couldn't imagine going this far to school each day even as my poor father consoled him by telling him there would be a school bus for all that. Narrow streets that seemed friendly and welcoming suddenly opened up into generously wide spaces which were lined with large mansions of politicians and guarded by grim looking soldiers standing behind large sandbags with obvious weapons in hand. As we looked in wonderment at the residential areas of the likes of Murali Manohar Joshi or Advani or VP Singh, we couldn't help pondering how we would spend the next two to three (maybe more!) years in this concrete puzzle of a place where people spoke something that wasn't exactly Hindi and had armed soldiers guarding residences.

Then something happened. Once school began, we found more children just like ourselves who had come from the broad horizons of our grand nation and were equally intimidated by their new surroundings. They too, like us, were learning the fundamentals such as a Punjabi and a Sardar are two different things and that there can be Punjabis who don't wear turbans. Together, we were taught that 'liyo' was just another way of saying 'lo' and that screaming 'Oye!' at someone wasn't rude at all. A lyrical collection of such newly acquired tones began coming together as a song while we mastered the art of getting off buses without waiting for it to stop. We juggled with 'aa jaiyos' and 'de diyos' with finesse as we traversed the length and breadth of that grand city exploring everything from panchkuian to Noida to Safdarjung Enclave to Karol Bagh to Rajendra Nagar to Janakpuri. Nothing, it seemed, was beyond our radius of possibilities. I even participated boldly in the under-18 painting contest held at the Lalit Kala Academy and submitted two pieces from my prized collection. That I didn't win anything is another matter but one of my pieces was actually showcased as part of their eventual display. School life ushered in a whole new lease of confidence as the art of haggling with a bus conductor became as easy as biting into warm jalebis near Chandni Chowk. Yes – we embraced Dilli as it gracefully complimented our gesture. Within a few months we had become such regulars in the city that it was impossible for anyone to say that we were the same uncertain and shaky kids from Bangalore who had wondered how they would get to school each day.

Even though I left that city more than 15 years ago I still think of the place as a spot that had given me so much without ever judging me or smearing me with labels. I still think of my school in Lodhi Estate. I still recall the faces and the names in that edifice with fondness. The sight of the misty India Gate in the distance which I would pass each day on the way to school still remains fixed in my mind's eye. The smells and sounds of Jama Masjid still linger within me every time I hear the name in a passing reference. The gasp of excitement we would feel every time our car passed the majestic Parliament building is still very much in the pages of my past. The punch of disappointment we would feel every time we spotted out number 18 bus near Pusa Bhavan each morning still unfolds when I close my eyes. Yes – being the city that patiently endured the pains of my critical teenage years 'that Delhi' will always remain a prominent member of my memory club.

Today, in 2011, I sit back and think of moments from those bygone days as I read horrifying stories from that city. I read of such inhumane acts of violence on children, women and men that a shudder runs down my spine questioning me if this was the same city I had spent some of the best days of my teenage years in. What happened? When did that 'dilwaalon ka shahar' become so ruthless and gory? When did the love in the big hearts of those people turn to muck? Why has the skies seen so much innocent blood and tears spilt on those city grounds? Why? How? When? Questions and more questions. As I watch heated debates unfold across the Internet accusing Delhi and calling it names, a part of me feels blue since in many ways I have always carried a bit of Delhi with me wherever I have gone in the world. The image I see of it today certainly does not match the beauty and grace of that muse who sits within the canvas I have built for it over the years. It probably never will. Not with the way each new day brings more horror and wails of woe from within those historic city walls. As I sit in shock and read about the catastrophes unfolding there I am more convinced that the Delhi I had once seen and experienced is now invisible to the naked eye. Gone, possibly, for good.

I am reminded of that 1957 film which was titled 'Ab Dilli door nahin' (Delhi is not far now). According to me that Dilli of my fond past is now beyond my mortal reach. This time, that Dilli of mine, is definitely far away. Ab woh Dilli bahut door ho gayi.

Poem - A breezy moment

She feels a breeze pick up her mood,
Like a piece of good news is in the air,
She doesn’t whine, complain, brood,
But watches nomadic flowers everywhere.

Her eyes fill up with a moisture that isn’t tears,
She inhales deep, exhales out her pain,
Letting them transform into foggy reindeers,
Letting their prints form and remain.

Her hair dances to the melody around,
Stray, yet at peace with that singular moment,
Snaking their way across the oasis they’ve found,
Looking for more such that might have been sent.

She feels a breeze that has managed to allude,
And keep all her troubles far away from here,
In those few seconds, that are now set to conclude,
She is without care, without plans, without fear.

Whistles of a lifetime

I remember it like it was just yesterday. As I stepped out of the comfortable shelter of my home in India back in 2000 to explore alien waters, there was no prophet in the world who could have possibly predicted the milestones that’d end up dotting my rather multi-layered life since. As reminders of my beloved roots, I took with me a dozen things – a few Hindi and Kannada audio cassettes (this was an age when a tape based Walkman was still around), good old rasam and sambar powders for the kitchen, a photograph of Lord Balaji and of course, my first Butterfly pressure cooker.

This rather eventful memory came back to me as I read a piece in OPEN recently (‘The Final Whistle’) as to how there is a chance Indians might finally abandon the pressure cooker in due course. With the advent of a wide range of cooking options, I suppose that is still possible. But I just can’t imagine the plateau I belong to – South India – getting rid of this modest whistle blowing miracle for the next century at the least. Given its inherent versatility, I doubt Indian kitchens will ever really call it quits when it comes to this ‘chote kitchen ka bada kamaal’, as it were.

One of the initial memories of using my first cooker was an immense feeling of absolute elation when it went off on that rainy evening in my apartment in Caracas. Yes – I had successfully made a bowl of rice! That I later managed to have it with some chutney powder and oil is another story. It took me almost a month to get my lentils to cook well. Something about the water levels I wasn’t quite sure about. But rice? With my friendly cooker friend it was a non issue. I still remember my neighbor knocking on my door with wide eyes and enquiring if I had set off the fire extinguisher! I had to show her my miracle from India and explain to her that this was how rice was cooked back home. She suggested I use parboiled rice instead which only needed to be boiled and didn’t need equipments that sounded like an army tank to prepare. Nevertheless, she got used to the ‘Pssh..pssh…pssssshhhhhh!’ noise a few days later as she realized I wasn’t going to compromise on how I made my rice. Her parboiled rice didn’t have a face in front of my reliable jasmine rice.

Since then my cooker renewal cycle has been a standard 3 years. Considering the carefree lifestyle of a bachelor, by the time the third year of a cooker’s life came around, it actually did look like something that had been involved in a major war. When I got married last year, the one thing my wife asked me specifically was if the cooker I had was, well, ‘decent enough’ for the two of us. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that then but one look at it when she arrived in Copenhagen, and she shook her head in disapproval. ‘This should be interesting…’ she said examining the colorful exterior of the hero who had the word ‘Prestige’ embossed proudly on his weathered shell. He certainly was prestigious indeed for having prepared wonderful hot rice and vegetables and daal for me on many a sub zero winter night! As the entire city ran for shelter from the heavy snowfall, I’d be sitting cozily in my 5th floor studio apartment watching ‘Malgudi Days’ and enjoying soft tamarind rice with potato onion sambar. Ah! What wonderful moments they were.

But all things do have an expiration date. This summer while vacationing in India, I found myself right in the middle of a pressure cooker shop with my wife. Before I knew it, I had selected a new and obviously larger version with bigger containers and a much steadier grip. On the way out I turned to her and asked ‘We can still use the old one for emergency purposes, right?’ She, having been familiar with my bizarre affection for the old fella, smiled and nodded her head in approval.

So that’s pretty much it. We now make lip smacking dishes with the new fellow who has been quite consistent thus far. But I do occasionally open the kitchen closet and throw a quick glance at my old buddy who saved me with just one whistle on many an occasion. In search for all the larger things in life sometimes we tend to forget the small things that helped us out at critical times. In my life as a self-taught cook, I can never forget the role a cooker has played. For that, I join those who pray it never vanishes from Indian kitchens.

Picture imperfect

Perspective is one of those rare things that only gets better with age. From the raw seeds that it splits into two from, it grows with time into this giant colossus of a tree with, hopefully, a lot of juicy fruits hanging from its various weather beaten branches. With every drought and every rain, one can only hope that the tree of perspective matures, gets stronger and penetrates its roots deeper into the soil of our psyche.

The reason my mind drifted to such random thoughts, was because a friend shared a photograph of a scenic landscape on Twitter and expressed her wish to live there forever, if she could. Now, as much as I do not doubt her intentions one atom, I started thinking of my own hopes of a similar nature from not so long ago. I thought of that familiar feel of being able to just detoxify and detach myself from the tech-heavy, news-heavy and mostly, boredom-heavy life of excruciating mediocrity I sometimes find myself in. I still preserve wonderful memories of those few times I was able to get away from the hubbub and din of the city’s megalomaniacal tentacles into the silent greens connecting two concrete jungles. My mind is still afresh with inspirational images of babbling brooks rippling away in shady wilderness, almost mocking the superficial existence I lead in what is defined as ‘the good life’. On my week long trip to a speck of a place called Lakkavalli, about an hour’s drive from the city of Shimoga, I still remember feeling like a moronic foreigner as I gawked in wonder at the small tea shop that stood lazily on the edge of a breathe taking gorge overlooking what was known as the Rajah seat – ‘the seat of a King’. I recall walking through the noisy markets in the evenings that were filled with the ever shifting fragrances of a dozen flowers – primarily jasmine. I remember looking at the simple folk there – the friendly cobbler, the affectionate pan wallah, the local priest who knew everyone and whom everybody knew – all characters from a quintessential Malgudi day. Yes, I remember saying to myself then, I can totally live here. This is it.

On the fourth day of my visit to the aforementioned paradisiacal delight, I, for no particular reason, started missing the Internet. The yearning to click on random websites and continuously check if any of my online friends were around to chat began to grow. I found myself being plagued with this nagging feeling that the same gorge, the same market, the same tea shop and the same aromatic essences – now seemed a tad jaded. They all now seemed – boring. People were too laid back, too simple for my taste. There was no traffic to fend off or no honking to put up with. The evenings were filled with the annoying cacophony of crickets and other unidentifiable bugs instead. The buzz of the mosquitoes at dusk drove me crazy with itches all over and self assigned slaps across my cheeks. The silence of the valley after dark was plain torture. My need for that undecipherable variable grew with each passing hour. I needed, most than anything else, that wide open space of an absolute void. Yes – that addictive nature of a city’s throbbing mendacity was aching to rush back into my now healthier veins and lungs. I had to get back to my toxins. And so – after just six days in Lakkavalli – I took the first bus out of there. The moment I coughed from the unholy smoke of an ill mannered passerby at Bangalore’s central bus station – I knew I was home. Ah, bliss, here I am.

Maybe this is the way it is, I wonder. For folks like me. City-bred addicts who can certainly appreciate and love a natural setting like any other sane human, but only if it came with an expiration date. Metroholics who love that clean feel of being an innocent child playing in Mother Nature’s welcoming bosom as long as we are not fed too much of her milk. We need our poison too. We need the vile that is served at our over-greased snack stalls in the name of taste bud amplifiers and fashion statements. Yes, we need our sickness back.

I truly wonder if that perfect picture of life we crave for is actually defined in its imperfection. The moment it gets too askew, we find an obvious distraction. And once that gets a tad cloudy, we find a way to weasel our way back into our personal hells. The next time I am in Lakkavalli (whenever that is!) I hope I can track down that tea-shop wallah atop that gorge overlooking the King’s seat and ask him this. Maybe then there will be some clarity in this bizarre definition of perfection I have lead thus far.

Hmm…I now wonder how I’d frame that question though…




Tweet

The boomerang of existence

This is the first time something like this has happened to me. Actually the thought, as weird as it was, came to me when I was doing the dishes looking out at the maniacal breeze gushing past the rain stained city this evening. In the hubbub and the din that our kitchen can be sometimes, I managed to soak in a bizarre, albeit philosophical, thought. And hence this attempt to blog it out for what its worth.

Earlier in the day a dear colleague and friend of mine – a woman who I have never seen without a smile – broke down inconsolably as she shared the death of her beloved grandmother. I immediately consoled her, as a good friend should, and thought about the untimely demise of my own grandmother (mother’s side) back in the winter of 2000. While I still do not hold any malice towards the Almighty for taking her away before I could show her the achievements I had made at the time, (I was 22 and was working overseas on my first job assignment) today’s incident with my colleague still brought back memories. I was never really close to my grandmother, but I still felt shortchanged at the time when she left us in such an abrupt manner. But then I guess that is the nature of death – sometimes abrupt, mostly sudden and always rude.

The day moved on. I returned home after several mercilessly scathing sheets of downpour had successfully drenched me with their fury. As I sat down with my evening dose of tea, I suddenly realized that another very dear friend of mine, from back home, had gone in for a C-Section delivery today. I immediately grabbed the phone and called up her mobile hoping that her husband would pick it up and give me the updates. And would you know it? He did. I almost cracked into a guffaw of joy when I heard his calm voice say ‘Hello’. I was already convinced it was a good sign. He shared with me that she had undergone a successful procedure in the morning and a healthy baby boy had entered their lives. I, all the while trying to hide my overflowing joy for my friend and unbridled wishes of health and happiness to the newborn angel, was certainly elated. Considering how much she had wanted a piece of their love to be in her arms for so long, it was only just that her husband’s voice was radiating with so much joy, so much relief and more than anything else – so much peace. An attribute so rare in the troubled days that we live in.

And then came this thought. A soul from one end of the world had departed to the Heavens and another had entered, quite possibly at the same time, back into Earth. Was it the same soul? I don’t know. In fact I don’t even care. What I do wonder about though is this – who was the luckier one? Was it the one who left Earthly possessions and headed on into the oblivious wonder that a place beyond death might be? Or was it the innocent bundle of life that had not yet opened its eyes to see the kind of world we put up with day in and day out. Who is the happier one? Who should I really feel sorry for?

As much as the cliché goes that grieve a death and celebrate a birth – I wonder what sort of world we will leave behind for the millions of unopened eyes that are yet to come. I just hope the circle of life continues without anyone having to wonder which is better – release from the comfortable known to the scary unknown…or vice versa.

Seasonal Musings

As a nonchalant bachelor I would always wonder why it was that unassuming men – orderly, regular, prompt to be online and most importantly, always in disposal of infinite time given their constant status as ‘Available’ or ‘Busy’ on a dozen messenger windows – would mysteriously recede into abstract oblivion once they got married. For a long time I had blamed it on the much hyped nuance of the seemingly complex formula called ‘married life’ that somehow would make it quite impossible for a man (and a woman!) to be who they were during their pre-marital births. This included being able to spend hours together from work (or home) staying online, spending 2-3 hours at one stretch gossiping about absolutely meaningless stuff or just plain sitting idle as they’d absorb every final atom of whatever it was the Internet and the rest of the world was offering as a bribe.

And then I got married one day.

Now, without being the kind who’d immediately set himself to the defensive mode and start ranting publicly about how it all finally made sense and how it was indeed Herculean for a newly wed husband to stay away for long durations from his equally newly wed missus, let me elaborate my musing. I doubt if it has less to do with the fact that my blogs aren’t as frequent as they used to be and more with the fact that I actually don’t miss blogging so much? Maybe that’s the wrong way to put it. I don’t know. But my days right now are actually filled with things I never thought I’d find myself being a part of. For instance, taking turns in doing the dishes. Being the wayward ‘maverick’ that I was for almost a decade, it was a given that I always was the one to tend to the oily and curry stained china every time I was done heartily gorging in their contents. But now – well, now it is different. We have a routine that we follow to ensure neither of us gets too tired or bored from this rather mundane chore. And then there is the travel. Why on Earth would I ever spend a good couple of hours looking for accommodation and sight seeing tips for Greece! Heck, I was in South America for 7 years and I didn’t even visit Brasil! Given my seriously painful allergy towards traveling alone, I just didn’t feel like going through it at the time. But now, with my girl in my life I find myself transforming into someone who actually wants to travel and not has to. Bizarre. And then there is the shopping. Jolly good shopping! I find myself walking into random stores to see if I can spot something that she will like for the house. Something that would make her smile. Something that would fire a spark in her eye as she’d examine it with a pause and shake her head slowly validating my unplanned expenditure. And all this over a small candle stand? To re-word myself – bizarre.

People might be quick to label this ‘love’ and be done with it. But I wonder if it is more than just that. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that humans, by nature, need associative validation. It’s like a scientist who can spend a decade inventing a miracle drug but would never feel truly complete until someone actually pat him on the back and appreciated his invention. It is in this association that we define our seasons…our moods. It is perhaps in this stereotypical cliché that a newly wed couple, who is always in the ‘honeymoon phase’, actually ends up redefining their entire personality. They end up becoming each other.

The hilarity continues. I find myself calling a raw mango ‘kairi’ instead of ‘maavin kai’ and an onion ‘kaanda’ instead of ‘pyaaz’. I refer to a commotion on the street as ‘locha’ instead of ’jhagda’ and say ‘kaai zaa-la?’ instead of ‘kya hu-aa?’ What is even more interesting is I don’t even notice these things anymore. The same is happening with her too. I have spotted her many a time using my body language to explain something or repeating a song that I might have mindlessly started to hum. I find her calling me ‘ShaKri’ when she is excited and ‘Shashi’ when something serious needs to be addressed. A very interesting pattern starts to emerge with this sort of associative validation, isn’t it? Neither of us knows we are doing it after a while but we know we don’t mind it.

To return to my initial rant about why it is that I feel men and women become less frequent from the cyber space or anywhere else after marriage, it is possibly because they are busy transforming into their spouse. A healthy, much needed and definitely monumental phase of the relationship. And for that, I wouldn’t mind looking over a lot of things – even blogging.

Well, I have to run now. She is making something new out of paalak leaves and I actually am convinced it will be awesome as always considering the aroma that is traveling up to me. Even if I can’t truly share the emotion she has right now to surprise me when I eat it, I can at least join her in the season she is currently in…isn’t it?

The asexual tongue fight

As melancholic as this seems, I can’t help revisiting it ever so often. Maybe it is because I keep encountering that O so blessed crowd who keep lashing out their strained idioms peppered with the twists and twangs of words they learnt either sitting behind a desk somewhere or from another tongue that ethnically owns it. I am not quite certain. But nevertheless, its consistent recurrence in my multi layered life, which in the past has had me wondering in awe, now makes me guffaw in disbelief. Tch tch!

So here it is then without further ado: All those who think they can use a forged intonation and get away with it – you are miserably misguided. And the worst of them are that pristine clan I belong to – desis. But before I begin pointing out why this ill mannered barrage of attempts vexes my thinking muscles, let me identify the symptoms. So you have this O so à la mode desi gent or lady: Hip in the purest form of its usage implying a well honed sense of dressing and a very well trained eye to catch the faintest glimpse of anything alien. The moment you attempt to strike a conversation with them (and trust me, dear muse, it isn’t easy to get them started but O then it is impossible to get them to stop...) you usually get the cold shoulder. Reason? Your angrezi is still laced with the strong curry-like essence of your desi roots. Instance: Punjabis speak English like Punjabi. Bengalis speak English like Bengali…you get the drift. Given the brazen abundance of dialects our country has, it is little wonder then that mastering the language of our previous masters (yeah yeah, I had planned that one) comes with its authentic shade of home-grown exuberance too. These are the folks I admire the most. The yeest aar wayst butt maai Emgleesh eez daa besst! kind. People who are unafraid to belt out their well timed wunderrfull or staap or draamaa or whaat yaar and of course, the more popular camaan mann. No Sir. We are the kind who doesn’t care where your tongue is from but your ear has to record and decipher whatever sounds our tongues are spewing forth. Get busy! These are the people who have my eternal respect for their timeless adherence to their ancestry regardless of how many eons they might have spent away from it. Salaam!

But then there are the rebels. The laat sahibs without the necessary training. Their aggresive need to blend into the new culture is so fierce that they stick out like a sore thumb the moment they open their mouths. The ones I could call the so-glad-to-be-the-NRI-that-I-still-think-having-an-accent-makes-sense kind. The ones who will ensure that irrespective of their current destination, their English is always either A for American or B for British. Either they are mauling their tongues with their O my! That’s not so great now is it! Or ensuring that their r’s always have the prototypical rrrr drag that American English is unique for. This is not a problem. So far nothing here coaxes me to roll my eyes and say 'Give it up guys. I know you were not born here. Quit the act. It is just pathetic.'

What does get to me though is how they, accidentally or instinctively of course, stuff in classic desi sounding words into their sentences while speaking fast enough to avoid their audience from picking it up! Clever, eh! Like for instance: You know! It was the best cay-bin we could have wanted inside that cruise boat! Aha! Cay-bin? Not only is the sentence arguably askew in its grammar but what is with the random annunciation of the word cabin! Initially I used to always wonder about these bizarre seeming instances during my spring days overseas and during my colorful conversations with these since-I-have-been-overseas-for-two-years-hence-my-accent types. But with time I realized just how hopelessly clueless and eternally shallow these people really were. The façade of trying to tell me with their tongue that they ‘no longer could speak Indian English’ was over. Too old.

It was after such horrifying revelations, that I slowly walked away from such phony stereotypes who not only would make a mockery of their own good self but also of the clan they represented. I could almost hear the Caucasian natives giggling in solitude about the miscued attempt at the ‘accent exchange program’ these guys had going on. Recently I have, unfortunately, resumed my run-ins with this blessed crowd and so I had to find a way to tell them ‘Fine! I get it. You are still one of those moronic NRIs who will never master the local tongue that feeds you but will always Americanize your English punctuating it with cay-bins and marrrketts and that one word I loathe the most – my darling hubbeee. Yuck. Stop it please. I beg of you.

The only moment in memory I have of this rant of mine backfiring was when a Middle Eastern-American woman (meaning an immigrant who, wanting to get the hell out of her awful nation, somehow got hitched with a Yank and fled it years ago only to go back there from time to time to show off her borrowed accents and furrowed accessories) complimented me on my English with her own eerie version of the language. She thought I was educated in Britain thanks to my pronunciation while I, admittedly a tad flattered, confessed that India had indeed been the source of my wunderfull English.

Sigh. So much for the asexuality factor of this tongue fight. What say man? Sad no yaa?

Darkness, cricket and masala mandakki

The final rays of the tired sun slowly retreat out of the muddy ground that has now become their temple. The boys, all in the age range of 10 – 14, have been sweating themselves insane since 4pm as they mercilessly whack the slightly misshapen bat around the abandoned patch of dry grass peppered with sharp and tiny stones. With their hands smelling of burnt rubber and their trousers reeking of the blackish slug from the nearby gutter – a spot quite favorable to well aimed shots by left handed batsmen in the ranks – the boys yell and curse at each other over every lose delivery and each taken run. The hurriedly applied Ponds talcum powder’s fragrance is now long gone from under their armpits and necks as they await, red faced and dry lipped, as the final ball of the 11th match is about to be bowled. The opposition team – comprising of four taller and slightly well built boys – has won five of the matches already so this match is supposed to be the ‘tie breaker’. Of course, this is the third ‘tie breaker’ that has taken place in less than an hour. The skinny young bowler flings a direct Yorker to the equally skinny batsman who swings it wildly on to the onside. The ball, wrapped in the dull envelope of a dying day, sails over the head of another skinny fellow before being captured, suddenly, in his roughed up and unprepared palms. The sound it makes on the impact – ‘Smackkon!’ – immediately results in absolute cacophony as the fielding team realizes that they have won the game. With the opposition needing just two runs to win, this unexpected gift of absolute randomness has brought them euphoria colored in a hundred shades. Unprecedented yet definitely much appreciated.

Just when the batsman, now out, is trying to negotiate with the winning team into playing another ‘best of 13’ series, one of the lads’ mother calls out to him from the noisy metal gate of their grandmother’s ancestral house. ‘Enough! Come on! It’s dark now. I told you…no more playing after dark. Enough for today. Come and wash your hands and legs everyone!’

The lads use this wonderfully placed call as an excuse while mocking the opposition that the next day of the ‘championship’ will hopefully bring them better luck on the field. They scamper out of the ground, bruised and panting, only to be pounded with instructions on entering the gates by the elderly woman. They are told to go in and wash up, comb their hair, change their clothes and walk down to the end of the street to bring a few packets of masala mandakki (spicy puffed rice with roasted peanuts, tomatoes, coriander, green chillies and red onions). The boys, on hearing this delicious assignment, chase each other in a short lived race to get to the bathroom avoiding hitting the rest of the dozen odd members in the house on the way. Needless to say, by the time they reach the bathroom it is already occupied by some cranky elder who refuses to open the door despite their incessant pleas. They then start heading to the tap in the garden instead where they intend to hastily wash their faces and feet. Another short lived race ensues only to result in a potted plant being smashed out of its place and into a few large pieces with moist mud overflowing on the haphazardly shaped chips of clay. The masala mandakki feast now stands threatened.

Many such random episodes made their welcome appearance as I spoke to my maternal cousin Sudhi (my mother’s third elder sister’s first son) today. The single most tragic highlight of the talk was the fact that we were speaking to one another after a wide void of 8 long years. It was hard to say why, but somehow a vacuum of inexplicable silence had settled on us. Somewhere down the lane the daily battle to make it to the end of the day painlessly had taken priority over other trivialities like wanting to keep in touch consistently. A warm sense of blatant complacency only family members are capable of. A wave of undeniable nostalgia flooded me as I suddenly realized how time had managed to hoodwink us just by being its natural self. It was then that he mentioned the kind of fun we all used to have when we were kids during our annual visits to our native Shivamogga. We spoke of how our maternal uncle – Madhu mama – would tell us that we would get chocolates if we could stand up straight on a football. We would then spend an hour, like absolute fools, trying to get on that darned ball that refused to stand still. We recalled rainy afternoons when the older cousins in the house would give meaningless tasks to the younger ones just so we would end up pressing their legs as they vanished into deep siestas. Ah! The tricks that were pulled on us as kids! How much fun we used to have back then, I thought, without even having heard of a computer or a video game. All we had was the zest to be active and the unstoppable urge to have unlimited fun during our limited summer vacation. With our hands overflowing with deliciously wicked masala mandakki we would jog back to the house to supply everyone with a large packet each. We would then chomp them down greedily in unabridged glee while coaxing each other to share some of theirs with us! This would then lead to refusal, more insistence and a small chase again resulting in the masala mandakki being peppered across the clean floor. Oops! Another assignment would be handed out which involved getting down on all fours and cleaning up the mess. Oh what fun all this used to be – innocent, guileless and harmless fun.

I sat back with a sigh today lost in these thoughts as I disconnected the phone. That play ground where we had created so many cricket records in my native of Shivamogga is now no longer there. A large house sits prettily on top of it covering all the memories we, as kids, had once created tightly under it. That small shop that sold our delicious masala mandakki too is gone. Now there is a kiosk that sells cigarettes to anyone who has the money. The large Alsatian dog that was constantly tied to a large tree in the neighborhood Shetty uncle’s house is now long dead. Oh…the number of times we have jumped across the compound wall to retrieve the ball from under its watchful gaze! Of course, anyone who connected that shot was automatically qualified as out. So it took a master batsman to place a shot without letting it hop into Shetty uncle's yard. An art we perfected with each passing summer break.

And the darkness? That much envied enemy and much beloved friend who had bailed us out of and put us into such amazing loops back then? Well, that still exists. It comes and goes each day without fail but somehow, its context has completely changed. It no longer is something we think about. It is no longer something we are reminded of. No more calls to come into the house to wash our legs and no more trips to get more masala mandakki. All that is left is this darkness of growing up into someone else...someone we no longer recognize from our younger versions.

But then something else hit me too which I found quite ironic in my present circumstance. Now that spring is here in Denmark, even darkness is becoming a tad scarce to enjoy what with sunlight seeping into sleepy rooftops as early as 4am these days. Sigh, I thought, so much for memories that can never be recreated, isn’t it?


..ShaKri..

Dev.D :: a review

Documenting B- grade sleaze with A-grade class

There is an insanity in Anurag Kashyap’s eyes that craves to experiment with raw human emotions. The reason this yearning of his appeals to me is because it attempts to break the cliché that Bollywood is so infamous for. Be it the overrated Chopras, Bharjatyas or Johars, everyone invariably uses glitz and glam to cook up just another love story. Sure, the variable component is always how many karods of ruppaiyyah they spent in putting up ridiculously unrealistic sets. Whatever the premise, the bottom line is always the same – a simple love story. But then isn’t there more to it than looking at life through rainbow colored glasses? Is there not a strand of our existence that sits up, yawns, scratches the bum carelessly and says – ‘Was that really worth the success it got?’ I have asked myself this question umpteen times and 90% of the responses were always an uncertainty. The tragic reality of aam Indian’s taste in movies is that the wrong movies are heralded as super hits. The consequential effect this has is that year after year we continue being subjected to the same old familiar BS we adore with such reverence. Maybe it was that uncontrollable reek that made me watch ‘Dev.D’ in the first place even if it meant having to re-visit a story already told.

The first thing I had heard from here and there about ‘Dev.D’ was that it was a ‘modern take’ on Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s famous novella ‘Devdaas’. It was only after seeing it that I realized as to how it was much more than that. ‘Devdaas’ is a script that has been visited twice in B-Town’s history. Once by the legendary sobbing superstar Dileep Kumar sa’ab and the second time by the stammering success story Shah Rukh Khan. I have seen both of them and found that both of them stuck to the basic premise. Arrogant rich boy Dev finds his fancies in childhood sweetheart Paro. Being of different economic backgrounds there is serious resistance to this blossoming romance and so Paro is married off to someone else while Dev drinks himself to death while finding comfort in nautch girl Chandramukhi’s court. Dev eventually dies a heart broken lover without the shadow of Paro’s love. As much as I had expected ‘Dev.D’ to be similar to this plot what I ended up seeing was superlatively refreshing to say the least.

From what I could fathom the only similarities between the third version of the novel and the former two were the names of the main characters. Apart from that everything else has been blown to smithereens in Kashyap’s take. In ‘Dev.D’, Devdaas goes from being a character in a novel to a metaphor of any cocky young man. Our Dev isn’t afraid to ask his Paro if she touches herself. He isn’t scared to ask her if she could send him a topless photograph of herself via the Internet and he doesn’t flinch calling his father by his first name. And Paro? Well she is not the timid and submissive damsel as seen in the previous versions either. This one actually ties a mattress to her cycle and heads to the farms for a session of mad monkey lovemaking with her Dev. She photographs herself topless, gets the film developed, scans the photograph and emails it to Dev in London. She isn’t afraid to grab his arms and smother him with kisses at the first opportunity. The list of such brazenly relevant modifications to Chattopadhyay’s original work goes on. The Dev in this feature is not so much ‘in love’ with his Paro as much as he is obsessed by the idea of loving her. He yearns for sex – plain and simple. No expensive duets to be designed for this emotion to come through. No colorful dancers gyrating in unison in the middle of a sarson ka khet. No sir. It is this direct no frills approach to human attraction that I found the most refreshing. He is a clueless loser who is a victim of his own self. Period. What is more? The ‘friendly’ Chunnilal in the original is a cheap pimp in this one who ends up being a close liaison with Dev in his visits to Chanda’s brothel.

Kashyap goes on breaking more clichés with the introduction of Chanda – the seductress. If Bhansali’s Chanda was an artist who sang melodious sonnets and referred to Devdaas as ‘aap’, Kashyap’s Chanda is a high school drop out with a notorious MMS sex scandal behind her. She then becomes a prostitute who indulges in all kinds of carnal pleasures including raunchy phone sex with those who are willing to pay. Even here, Kashyap keeps the character realistic and straight as an arrow. No emotional upheavals to put up with. No sensuous and humanitarian dialogs with a drunken Dev. Nope. This Chanda cares for Dev in a way only one heart broken soul can do with another – with silence. Kashyap breaks further moulds with Dev’s character too. Unlike his previous avatars, Dev isn’t hooked only to alcohol. The new Dev.D is into all kinds of highs. Everything that can be swallowed, sniffed in, sucked in and guzzled is on Dev’s list of ways to ‘forget Paro’ who he refers to as a ‘slut’ at one point. Could it get rawer than this? Unlikely I feel.

One can easily argue that Dev.D is nothing more than garish sleaze dished out in a format that is similar to the original Devdaas but I would have to respectfully disagree. It takes a bold film maker to get his female protagonist to say she has to use the potty when the male protagonist wants to undress her during a bout of ‘pity sex’. A feat, I am sure, no ‘established actress’ can mouth even if her life depended on it. It is in things like this that the movie goes from being a B-class dish out to an A-class path breaker. If not anything, what Kashyap has managed to do is show Bollywood his middle finger when it comes to documenting romance. I can safely say no one will ever dare to make another remake of ‘Devdaas’ after watching ‘Dev.D’ since it’s a benchmark too high to surpass.

That said, ‘Dev.D’ too has its share of flaws. I did feel that the climactic portion of the movie could have been handled with a lot more grit than what was eventually executed. Dev’s penultimate decision seems too quick and abrupt given his trail of poor decision making up to that point.

Music is an absolute delight. Out of the 18(!) numbers in the album each one is a masterpiece. Composer Amit Trivedi sure has a bright future ahead of him if he keeps creating such compositions. My personal favorites include ‘Dhol Yaara Dhol’, ‘Nayan Tarse’, ‘Yeh Duniya Badi Gol Hai’, ‘Pardesi’ and of course, the mass favorite ‘Emosanal Atyaachar’. Grade-A music that only makes the goings on all the more delightful.

Performances belong primarily to Abhay. This young man is making excellent decisions in his role selections and is quickly becoming a metaphor for ‘hatke’ cinema genre. I liked him in ‘Ek Chalis Ki Last Local’, ‘Manorama Six Feet Under’, ‘Oye Lucky Lucky Oye’ and now ‘Dev.D’. A very strong performer with a wonderful future ahead of him. Mahie Gill puts up a good performance as the hopelessly in love and clueless about Dev’s terrible attitude Paro. Her eyes speak louder than her voice and that was something which I liked the most. She captures the quintessential desi girl with apt brilliance. Newcomer Kalki Koechlin is a surprise! This French-Indian actress does a terrific job as Chanda, the misguided and abused young girl who is still coming to terms with a lost family. Her Tamil is quite eloquent and on further research I found out that she does speak it fluently.

‘Dev.D’ stands out like an eyesore of a scarecrow in the middle of a familiarly patterned sugarcane crop. A tad ugly perhaps to the unfamiliar eye but definitely unique. And for just that, Kashyap’s unique take on the timeless novel has my vote.

..ShaKri..

13th? And a Friday? So what?

The one thing I have consistently adhered to in my “avatar à la pardes” is ensuring I am always in line with whatever cultural appendages that particular society follows. Now, while this does not necessarily translate to the automatic assumption that I follow them myself, what it does mean is that I am at least aware of their looming existence. So for the last decade I have always been quite akin to recognizing something that comes to me as a ‘very non-desi concept’. And by that I mean something I had never heard of during all the joyous 22 years I spent growing up back home.

Among the many adoring little nuggets of interestingly different versions of wisdom I have received over the years, Friday the 13th happens to be a prominent one. You know…the phobia about that day of any month in any year as being a highly inauspicious day? Yes. That one. I still remember the day I heard about it the first time. I wasn’t quite sure why, but it made me giggle a bit. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that our conditioning back home with regards to what is auspicious and what is not is so intensely specific, that we rarely consider anything unholy anymore. And even if we do we will do everything to ensure its religious status does not affect our personal lives in any way. Why, even if a random rock on the side of a street happens to look like a distant cousin of a famous image of the Almighty from our generously peppered pantheon of choices, we dive at its feet and lo! There is a small temple there with thousands of devotees thronging it with hopes, dreams, desires and wishes aplenty. Before you know it every television channel that believes in “screaming the truth as it unfolds” is making the rounds at what now resembles a pilgrimage spot. So yes, I do recognize the power of faith when I see it.

But being a guy who has always hated numbers – especially mathematics! – I never really shared any major emotions with them in any form. To me there are just that – numbers. Symbols that represent knowledge and should be looked at for inspirational and intellectual components and not as sources of evil that might come looking for you to hunt you down. Be that as it may, this day is still revered as a dangerous one by many in the world. I even know of people who do not go to work that day under the fear that something horrible might befall their otherwise amazingly peppy lifestyle. But then, like most things, this number too has its share of historical (even Biblical!) references that have sound claims justifying that 13 as a number and Friday the 13th are things one should be wary of. I feel sorry for this isolated little fellow already.

Now being a man of science, I wanted to play with this theory a bit and see if there indeed was any truth in the proclamations that have made headlines on every prominent website around the globe today. Hence I did everything that could easily be considered the opposite of what I do usually. I got up on my left instead of right (no superstition here …just that I sleep to the right edge of the bed and makes for easy getting up), flipped open the cellular and saw my fiancé’s photograph before seeing God’s face (something I should probably start doing more often considering she is my new source of love and inspiration!), walked lazily towards the bus station without the usual “turn around and see if a bus is approaching” gimmick that I do to take the next bus out. Oddly enough the moment I stopped at the bus stop today, a bus came screeching to a halt and was even partially empty! Hence, I did not have to make a dash for it. I then walked lazily into the Metro station without looking at the “Next train arriving in…minutes” display that I normally do. I even took the elevator to go down into the platform to delay that process as much as possible and lo! The metro came chugging in the moment I stepped out of the elevator and what else was new? I even got a seat! Something I never do while going to work! Not only that but I also have had a pretty smooth sailing today with minimal emails coming to me requesting a zillion different things with tech assistance. In fact I have had only 1 so far! Hmmm…curious, isn’t it? What else was nice? My friend who has been proofreading my second book (yes, it is coming!) said she was done proofreading it and would send me an email with observations and corrections tonight. Phew! Will this list ever end? Nice little surprises on a day that was supposed to be the ghastliest of all! How unlikely, isn’t it?

Anyway, all this may mean nothing. I mean, after all it is still 12PM here and there are still 12 more hours to go! Maybe that long awaited chain of ill happenings will come to me after all in some form or shape. But until then, let me bask in the glory of this wonderful sequence that has been ...oh…hang on…just got another email from the boss…has it already begun?!?!?! No wait, false alarm. He just wanted to thank me for something I helped him with last week. So…I am still hopeful!!!

Have a happy Friday the 13th folks! ;-)


..ShaKri..

Signs of happiness

THE TRAIN CHUGGED OUT OF Dybbølsbro at a rather lethargic pace. I was headed as usual back to Østerport to my studio apartment. After a hectic afternoon looking for the right kind of shoes, I had stopped for Italian pasta before washing it down with Coca Cola. I had shelled out a good amount of money for the total of ten things I had bought during my shopping spree but then, this is Europe. Nothing is cheap. Not even joy. I sat back gazing at the depressing roof tops that seemed more tragic under the cold and foggy Thursday afternoon.

The cabin I was in was dotted with all kinds of co-passengers. There was the well dressed yet tense seeming European gentleman who was busy punching in the keys of his cell phone. A couple of rows behind him sat a glum looking middle aged woman. She must have been quite taken from whatever it was she was reading since she sent out no hints of any expression. I wondered if she was reading only to avoid eye contact with strangers. In front of me sat a tired couple with an infant in the man’s arms. The infant looked as if it had been crying a lot with puffed up red cheeks and an inquisitive look. I smiled back at it and winked but it ignored my reaction and looked at its tiny toes instead with equal curiosity. A few more people sat peppered over other random spots either looking out the window in silent reflection or looking at each other in silent observation. So much to say but no words left anymore, it seemed.

As the train arrived at Nørreport station, a young couple walked in and sat in the row right opposite mine gesturing at each other with their hands. She was saying something interesting as he responded back with equal energy using his forefinger and palms. She would laugh with child-like innocence by covering her mouth as he would shake his head trying to convince her that he was right. Within a few moments their sign language had enveloped our cabin of silence. It was clear that everyone in that cabin was quite taken to this couple who seemed so much in love with each other. He even kissed her once as she continued giggling and enjoying his company. A few moments later she pulled out what looked like a sonogram report. With unbridled enthusiasm they both peered at the square-shaped photograph of what was presumably their first child. Each one in the cabin now focused on the couple and their bubble of exploding joy that seemed to exist without a care for the meaningless seeming world that surrounded it. The onlookers seemed envious but then they also seemed helpless. They continued waiting patiently for their stop as I got up to get down at mine.

At Østerport the train whizzed past me and I could still see the mute couple laughing and sharing their world of bliss. How odd, I thought, that in a few moments of silence they had shared more than anyone in that cabin ever could with spoken words. I walked out of the station wishing them the best of luck.

Love knows no language. Hate knows only one.

..ShaKri..

Anonymous Entries

IT HAD BEEN ALMOST two years since she had known him. It had all begun that rainy evening when she had posted her first blog entry on the Internet after a bitter fight with her father. She was mad. Like a hurricane she had swept away from the room and onto the one place she knew she would be heard. The world of close knit strangers - Internet.

‘I don’t know what to write here…’ she had typed in like a lover trying to explain why she needs to break up with her partner. Her mother’s death had not been easy on her. She was twelve back then. She was twenty four now.

It was then that she had met him - Anonymous.

Anonymous had left a comment – ‘Don’t worry. It will come.’

She had smiled in response with a colon and a closing bracket - :)

And so it had begun. The two year long association. A relationship so platonic that at the end of it none of them could really define what it was they shared. They didn’t want to.

She was who she was. And he was Anonymous. Both single children with a troubled past.

She would religiously update the blog site. Filling it with detailed descriptions of her day. Her good, bad and ugly experiences at work and at home about her father who she was convinced never understood her.

Anonymous would plug in soothing words of comfort the following day. Explaining to her how hard it really was for children who lose one of their parents. A sibling can actually be a blessing in these times, he would say. He understood. He had been there too.

She was glad she had an ear she could relate with. What began as a spot to vent her frustration soon became an archive of questions and answers. It was like a modern day version of the Bhagavad Gita where she was the weary Arjuna and Anonymous was Lord Krishna. The all knowing omnipresent entity who gave her all the answers.

‘Don’t worry. It will come,’ he would often say without specifying what ‘it’ really was. She never asked.

He soon became her guide. Her mentor. Her philosopher. Her friend. A friend who did not demand. A friend who did not expect.

The connections she had never found with her own father were baring themselves with this stranger who had come from the unknown and was shaping her sanity back to meaning. The coherent strings of leading a life without regrets were being stitched into her life’s fabric.

And it was all because of him – Anonymous.

With time her blog became a private place. No one else was able to see it any more. Just the two of them knew where it was and what it was for. She began archiving the entries by date. She added new sections to her page like – ‘My Favorites’ which listed some of the best 'Anonymous responses' to her most troubled queries. She found peace in reading them.

‘Don’t you ever get tired of baby sitting me like this?’ she would ask like an innocent child at times.

‘No,’ he would write back ‘this interaction is a selfish cause for me. I am learning a lot from you as well. So in one way you are baby sitting me.’

They would exchange symbols that denoted laughter. One colon with two closing brackets - :))

Sometimes it would be the more popular – LOL - Laughing Out Loud.

As their relationship was about to complete two years her father got terminally sick. He had been suffering from heart disease and soon he was hospitalized. She spent a lot of time with him. They had never really bonded since her mother’s demise and it seemed that the prospect of death was the only reason anyone really bonded in the family.

A sad prospect.

Yet she continued updating her blog.

‘Sorry for not being here for so long,’ she would say explaining her situation.

Anonymous was probably occupied too since his entries suddenly stopped coming in. ‘Maybe he got tired after all,’ she said to herself.

She wept the day they had completed one week of no interaction. Silently. In the woman’s bathroom at the hospital.

‘He is gone,’ she said to herself ‘like everyone else in my life.’

She walked back to her ailing father’s side. The old man took his daughter’s hand and whispered ‘I am sorry. For everything.’

She smiled back not knowing how else to react to that.

‘This heart is a weird thing,’ he said. ‘It is giving up on me but I don’t want it do so yet. Not without spending some more time with my little one.’

She smiled again as her eyes got misty. ‘I am scared pa’, she said.

‘And I am sorry,’ the old man continued ‘…I have not responded since a week. They don’t have a computer here so it is hard. Don’t worry. It will come…’

..ShaKri..

© 2006-2007 Originally published as 'Anonymous Entries' / existing in pieces, Shashi Krishna