Pabpanaabha swaami kovil

I have known the temple like the palm of my hand ever since I was old enough to enunciate the name as titled above. I remember accompanying thatha, who would take his time to pray at the many deity doors, while I would simply mimic him and watch him intrigued as he prostrated with his hefty self. And  later when he grew a little too old to trudge the few yards that separated our home from the east entrance of the temple, it was with my childhood pals Nin and Nan, that Padmanabha swami kovil became part of our childhood like no other significant entity!

We visited every evening with Chachu akka. She is Nan’s aunt, but she is universally chachu akka for all of us. With her off we would go on our little sojourn, everytime hoping that the anjeneyar (hanuman) is adorned with vadais or covered with creamy white butter, and we could make our childish greedy eyes and get some on the banana leaves. It worked most of the time and the gripping smell of layers and layers of butter on that 10 foot hanuman still lingers as I type this!

We were masters in our piety; We knew the shortest routes to cover all the gods almost like the “travelling salesman problem”, which poojaris gave the most chandaman (sandalwood paste) that we could play with and smear on the ceilings, which teertham was the yummiest ( the warm panakam at narashimha moorthy was the best ), which sanctum was the most fun (krishnan’s which has a door that even children have to duck to get in, leading to many little labyrinths ).

No sooner had we completed our rounds, we would settle down to what we loved best — Now the sprawling open spaces of the temple are filled with white sand. It was still the same when i visited three years back. We knew which portion had the thickest sands and we would settle down to build our little castles and play our games. The evenings in a coastal country are effortlessly beautiful; one has to live to tell the tale! As we children played childishly, maamis would settle themselves around and we could catch a few traveling gossips in the sea breeze.

While our normal days were thus marked, we would wait and wait for the ‘sheeveli’ ( tiruvizha / festivities ) which usually fell in the month of november spanning almost a month. The gods mounted on beautiful flower laden chariots, carried by brawny men  around the sanctum. They would be followed by “Darshini”, the elephant who was of course! the favorite among children. As darshini makes her appearance, hoards of children including the notorious three would start by walking behind her and by the third round, we would have gained enough over confidence to walk ahead of her and keep up with her! There were daring games played; that one must prostrate and get up just before the elephant’s foot was inches away from your head! Of course the mahout wouldn’t let anything untoward happen, but the evenings were thus spent in thrill and glory!

In the final moments of the day’s events when all the din from the festivities dies, the raaja comes in all modesty with hands folded in namaskaram,  in a simple white mundu (veshti/dhoti) and just a simple gold chain adorning his bare chest; we would be beckoned by chachu akka to leave our play and hold our namaskarams to him. And that was our glimpse of the travancore royal family.

Many years later, when we three were too old to play castles in the sand, but thankfully never old enough to leave the comfort of the place we associated so much of our lives with, we would come to escape the lack of privacy at home that parents think no teenager should have. Then padmanabha swami’s home was our haven. We would just settle ourselves watching the world go by and children playing in the sand, talk incessantly about everything teenagers would! We had also given up the butter craving in fear of bursting pimples! We had grown enough to questions the existence of God, but ironically never felt more at home than at God’s residence!

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I want to be able to go back there one of these days, just to feel the peaceful aura that grips everytime I cross over the stones that mark the entrance. The musky smell of sea breeze, sand and old oil from the lamps that adorn the sanctum. The feel of the cold stone under my feet and the mysterious three door deity who smiles in the dark sanctum not giving himself to any worshiper completely! I wish the stories of wealth that this wonderful adobe is in the news for now, does not rip her of the conciliation that this edifice has always stood for, for the people of trivandrum. I wish the sanctuary of God, lives through all her resplendence to tell many tales like mine!

The one where i don my true-mallu-movie-buff cap

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malayalam movie

There was an era in malayalam cinema when everything lal-ettan touched turned gold! It began around the time I was five and grew with the lot of us until we were eighteen or so. I am sure many would agree with me if i say that the 90s were the golden era for awesome malayalam movies. I haven’t seen the likes happen recently, even with the advent of crush-worthy talented youngster like prithvi looming to churn hits.

I am not here to analyse what went wrong with the mallu movie industry; although in all clear perception, it is falling prey to the kollywood slide of item numbers and unwarranted heroics in a pesudo-modern setting, which to an average malayalam movie lover is blasphemy. Isn’t that why mallus have turned to tamil movies when they want a dose of dappankoothu, mindless heroics with punch dialogues which they prefer not to tarnish the sublime settings of our own? I have digressed….

It is no secret that it is difficult to comprehend the motif and depth of a ‘good’ mallu movie for a non-mallu. I talk from experience, since I have a mighty tough time, even with subtitles to make N “understand” the mind-blowing mallu comedy. And just because it serves the sect of esteemed audience, mallu movies are shunned by the outer-world as ‘not-worth-the-penny’ or time. So let it be, I say. Why thrive to change the ethos of a people, just because others are doing it? Why churn crass, bawdy comedy interspersed with plot-less shots in the gulf to look modern? why not stick to entertaining mallu-landers with stories of our own?

So all the aping and trying to make commercial farcical cinema of recent times, had me stuck to the old-times ones. It is true that like a saving grace of the dying language in our household, I hold on to larger-than-life lalettan roles and mammoty’s conscious ones to hold malayalam closer than ever before. For i am not sure what motivation I have to teach my unborn child malayalam, other than the fact that I am a fan and is dearer to me than the language i speak at home. So it is bound to die with me and my strew of mallu movies and songs! ( How dramatically tongue-in-cheek!! ) Well! I digressed again!!…..

So finally coming back to where I wanted to put my money with this post – I watched pranchiyettan and the saint, mammooty’s new movie. I had a shot of de javu, loving the comedy and light feel of the movie I haven’t felt since killukam. Mammoty is truly peaking at 60 with such a gamut of roles he has done lately and this one is another feather to his hat for comedy which all these years had been lal-ettan’s niche! The loveable pranchiyettan character, so wonderfully depicted in all his shortcomings and wonders, quipping in trisshur malyalam simply stole the show!

Oh! so the mallu movie buff in me is looking up expectantly, for more showers of good movies like pranchi. Oh! jolly good I say. Sometimes movies, only the ones you grow up to tell a tale or understand the profoundness make the best ones! I bet pranchi will be watched, re-watched and loved for years to come! So there i go again… basking, smiling, laughing with mirth, being what a mallu-movie-buff truly means!

Music is the answer

I used to own a brown paper covered music book, that had the renderings for a novice carnatic music-learner. And a brown shruti-petti too electronically tuned for my music lessons. And then there were practice sessions with music sir, taalam types, raagams, tyagaraja ulsavams, singing for the sundal during navatrathri and attempts at music competitions ; a different life may be; now that i reminisce. The last time I sang was four years back on a contrasting hot day in the month of november in Boston, for a small diwali gathering. I had unearthed a bhajan I had picked up in school and decided to rake the tune. And since my vocal chords had forgotten to croon, until recently when 100+ minute drives leave – just me and my breathing for company. I sing aloud to break humdrum.

I began by dumping every song we downloaded or owned into the player, followed by audio books (the cell by stephen king caught me unaware on the drive and since I have said no to audio books!), and finally settling with ARR, sudha raghunathan, unni krishnan, yesudas and chitra. I almost always start the ride with MS’s hanuman chalisa that totally reminds me of SVCE on sundry early mornings and then move on to a lot of classical and carnatic renderings. I am, for having not continued my music lessons beyond varnam, have little clue about the particulars of a raagam et all, but have sung along, loving the aalaaps and breathless eees and aaas and moving backwards in time, as I drive forward.

So it is over the last few months that I seemed to realise the void created by lackluster music in our electronic media filled lives. My memories race to power cut evenings in the little street I grew up. My cousin Jo, is the most amazing singer I have known ( As a kid, I used to often hide her paatu book, when she would close her eyes to render a beautiful aalap). So with Jo and Pillus around, the power cuts and buzzing of mosquitoes on sultry summer nights would transform into anthakshari followed by singing mukesh and kishore kumar numbers, all scintillating into a brilliant musical night! Did you just ask yourself, when was the last time you played anthakshari? Yes! thats precisely the music-void I am talking about left by easy access to songs strewn on the web and our own players and pods playing it for us!

It is like, we no longer sing to kindle the music that filled our lives for all the years since we started to hear melody. On a grueling six-hour journey from NYC to Boston, five of us to keep the driver and the passengers sane, took to utilizing our data phones to contention! With 5 i-phones, we began searching for the songs we love and playing one after the other from youtube like a jukebox on a linklist. The songs ranged from 70s to 90s and across various languages; that is the closest I have gotten in recent times to a musical episode! And then of course some fast numbers on my ipod that help me run and the new-found old love for carnatic music on the drive.

Well, I sure hope to convert this party I have had with self, singing out loud as I drive alone. I want to throw an antakshari party without any music system blaring in the background, just so everyone remembers that they were willing to sing and remember lyrics and have a good time. Someday I hope I can separate humans from head-nodding-nanos, at least for a little while. Lets start with wine and end the night with many a croon, hums and drums! You are all invited!

Waiting for the want to want a child

There have been so many times in the past few months, I had lifted my pen to scribble a few undertones on the above motif only to crumple, trash and crash. It either seemed too personal or too extreme like Liz in Eat Pray Love. Not that I have conquered the emotions or here to share news, far from it; just another attempt at happy diplomacy and hopefully I don’t hurt in the bargain!

I have been on a baby shower, baby birthday galore in the last year. My close friend from back home is a mother of an adorable two-year old and I had marveled at her courage back then, when I was still struggling to fit into marriage (not that I am an expert now). Followed by a lull, suddenly the world around me mushrooming with babies, couples talking of planning; pre-natal preps, post-natal preps, natal preps, a few self-proclaimed love-To-Be-Singles and other who-wants-a-baby-when-you-got-a-career-and-a-LIFE! Let me stop before my head spins into my bare arms.

Keeping aside my views on all the above, for I have none, since it is none of my business anyway and I fit nowhere at the moment, let me digress to a baby shower party. We, a bunch of us, had thrown a babyshower yesterday for a very dear couple, to welcome the first miracle in our close circle of friends. The day had unwound on awesome food (of course!), lots of games interspersed with baby-shower games to embarrass the couple and a final cake and customary awards for the proud to-be-mom and dad.

Amidst all the fun and a reassurance I have often felt from admiring women who all-enduringly grow larger with life, conversations, not surprisingly, steered to why a baby, when a baby.. et all. And someone decided to drive this point home – You are never really ready to have a baby ever! You simply take a plunge just the way you plunge into marriage when you are not ready for it either! How subtly said and amiable on print, isn’t it? Simply put, if you are to wait for the want to want a child to dawn upon you, you may end up waiting forever! Daunting and relieving at the same time!

So where does that leave many a women like me, who don’t believe in walking down the altar alone and haven’t started their waiting or haven’t even thought about it? Well! That’s not true, I am thinking about it now, amn’t I? Oh well! So many eons ago, I had quipped about marriage being “a propagation of species”… well! My opinion sure has changed for I have survived 1900 days in one without getting into too much trouble (I hope!  ).  So that is about marriage. What about the next commitment you ask? The one as big as committing to dyeing your hair fiery purple for life!?! Frightening to the bones as it seems at the moment, much so by, the fact that, the two best parents in the world had a tough time handling a tyrant of an incorrigible child like me, what would my unborn child be like? And suddenly the jeer of “how can the world handle another of you?” doesn’t seem so funny anymore. All this keeping aside the “weighing as much as your hubby”, “never losing the baby fat”, “ticking biological clock”, “locked down for life” expletives the super-slim-soccer-moms and feminists throw at you.

So, during my impending trip home, when I will be showered with questions on why not and hope for soon, I am going to redden with ignominy of the situation and the inner-person who fears it all will only gloat further. Or may be.. just may be like the one terrified petrified and stupefied of heights  decides to go for bungee jumping, I may sport a Ron moment from deathly hallows of breaking down your fears and go for the kill. Someday…I say… for now its just the want to wait for the want to want in sight!

That thing they call love

I am not a sucker for the valentines’ fervor. And owing to my recent view of consumerism, I only believe more strongly that it is yet another day to indulge people in spending – it’s good for the economy they say… so long then, you won’t hear me say another word against it, if that’s the case!

Let me digress, for this post is about something else. Coincidental to Valentine’s Day weekend, we happened to watch a sort of romCom today; Drew Barrymore’s ‘going the distance’. This was about a boy meets girl in NYC (like we haven’t seen a gazillion of those already) and how they work a long distance relationship between SFO and NYC. I am not going into the nuances of the movie, but it is a good one-time watch and I would have preferred if they hadn’t tried hard to give it the happy-ending in bollywood style!

It reminded me once again that the most loved love-stories of our times are the ones that break your heart and tear you apart. They leave so much unsaid and undone that the feeling of “what it could have been” is far exhilarating than “what it is”.

It was only last week that I was hunting for a copy of the classic Malayalam movie ‘Vandanam’. Although filled with many laughs and unrealistic drama, the climax is what takes home a winner. It ends with separation of two people in love, out of circumstances not within their control. And like a dagger through your heart the screen closes with them in cars right next to each other at a traffic signal; each wanting to find out where the other is, not realizing they are just a head turn away. The signal turns green and the cars go separate ways. It sold, because the story was set in a time with no cell phones or internet and finding someone from change of addresses and landline numbers was almost next to impossible.

Another movie that I watched recently ‘Bridges of Madison County’ is a hands-down winner in this arena. The most gripping scene of the movie, fueled with some brilliant music, is Francesca fighting her tears and herself from leaving the car she is waiting in with her husband, to the car in front of them being driven by Robert. The scene is so dizzying to the viewer that I almost wanted to go for the car door knob in anticipation. And then the music mellows, Francesca takes control of herself and Robert drives away like a lost cause and she makes a decision for her family and wallows on ‘what it could have been’ for the rest her life. My favorite quote in the movie that says a thousand words is – “This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime.”

There are many such classics I am sure, each hauntingly beautiful, which can be easily reduced to shallow stories, if not for the way they end. So what if Jack hadn’t died? What if Jessie had stepped up her act? And then there are movies like Notting Hill and Serendipity, which apparently give one a sugar high, for they are fantasy at its best. And the same can be told for every product of the Karan Johar factory!

So for this valentines day, when the cable companies will flood you with happy stories all day, plan to throw a few tragic tales too…It is always good to add a few tragedies to life, I say… It helps you appreciate when the good times come along!

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A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you
everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own
attention so you can change your life.  A true soul mate is probably the most
important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and
smack you awake.  But to live with a soul mate forever.  Nah.  Too painful.
Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself
to you, and then they leave.  And thank God for it.

Excerpt from Eat Pray Love

 

 

Ladies Coupé

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atrocities against women

. .. The title always has a happy ring in my mind. It could easily be a feel-good-book and as a matter of fact there is one by Anitha Nair titled the same. I read it many years ago and wallowed in my own experience traveling in one over a long journey. It was the notorious Patna to Madras misnomer-ed as ‘express’ which took three days and four nights. I wonder if Laloo brought improvements to it at all ? Of my many journeys on that train, I distinctly remember this for we were in an all women compartment. Amma had said it was “safe”, since we were traveling without appa. She had also said it would be hence cleaner and easier to make friends. And just like that, we had managed to make friends along the way with many mother-daughter, mother-children traveling just like us. I don’t remember anything untoward about that journey, but a compartment transformed into the sounds of women talking, sharing food, codling others children and children having a ball of a time.

So, when I read Bg’s tweet about the most recent rape victim in Kerala, the words ladies compartment had conjured these happy images in a flash. And like an abrupt full stop, I snapped back to what the news was about. And the first thing that struck as odd was amma’s words ringing “SAFE”.  A simple google search will bring you chronology of violence against women in a ladies compartment; of being raped, having thrown acid upon, of being surreptitiously ogled by men in burkhas and probably  many more unreported/unrecorded cases?

Did you ever wonder what is the real need and motive behind all the gender separation? It is not a thing of the east alone – I had frequented a gym couple of years back and it was run by women and was advertised as women’s only gym, with no brawny men coveting you. I had picked the place out of proximity and little out of the all-women banner. It had me surprised that even the west held these inhibitions. And it is for the presence of these hard rooted inhibitions that concepts like unisex-restrooms standing for gender equality are only made possible in fiction like in the Ally mcbeal sitcom.

So where does all this figure in a ladies compartment or the ‘magilair mattum’ etched behind the seats in PTC buses? Why do parents fear sending a girl child to a co-ed school and succumb them to the walls of a convent bred? Is it enough to separate women from men to ensure their protection?

Probably not. That has been proved time and again. I had mentioned once about the plight of women in Kerala. And it must come as no surprise for many that the most infamous city in India for eve teasing is hyderabad.  I can narrate many disturbing incidents I have heard of and some experienced, but let us just say, I have come to understand so long as men don’t come into terms with the way women have turned independent, she will continue to be hunted and still blamed for being a whore or dressing up like one. So, in a society that is waiting to blame the woman for atrocities committed against her, where do you hide?

So, thats where the ruling bodies decided to sideline the problem instead of attacking it. Just the way, it was considered that 33% reservation is all it takes to uplift women, women are given “reserved” seats on trains and buses.  It is hoped that for those few moments she is traveling in a nest of her own gender, she will be safe from ogles, brush-asides and whistles. That is all she hopes for! And it only bodes ill that, even ‘that’ is a lot to ask!

 

 

Oh Bombay!

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Bombay

N spent six important years of his life in Bombay; I say important because, those last few years leading up to 23 marks your entire outlook to life. It moulds you and sets you up for the rest of it and there is little your mindset can change after that! And even though I may never confess to him, I totally envy him for having spent those years in the clamorous city with a labyrinth of secrets. For, I am sure, I may never be able to live there hence and in a way I am glad she will remain my fascination and passion from a distance as I have always held her all my life!

All this coming from a girl who believes she is a part mallu, part hyderabadi and part chennaite might be sacrilegious to a staunch bombayaite I bet! My passion comes a lot from appa, who having spent a good part of his traveling job in Pune, can banter like a local in marathi; appa and amma have also told me wonderful little tales about their life as newly weds in Pune and a rural beautiful place called janjira murud, by the coast. I for one have never visited their adobe in Pune nor been to janjira murud. But I have vivid images of the aayi who made chapatis to the height of a drum everyday and the farmers who came for loan to appa’s office, all like reading RK Narayan’s description of malgudi’s characters.

So when did all this stem to a fascination for Bombay you ask? Amidst these tales, appa once told me about a man he knew who was one of the many wayfarers who traveled the Pune-Bombay stretch for work. He owing to obdurate love for Bombay always sat facing Bombay-wards in the train. Something so subtle and even comic at many levels, it had struck a chord. What is it that this city does to its cohorts, it made me wonder?

That is when I began my quest to figure Bombay at all levels. You are not in the dark; there is a myriad of literature and movies to kindle that type of quest. But I chose to hear about it from the people I knew or read their experiences. I heard tales of someone being caught in the mad rush within the ladies-compartment for she didn’t know how to push aside when her stop came other than whisper a little “excuse me”, a cousin who when followed by thugs ran for his life, of someone who spent fourteen hours walking to get home on a monsoon evening.

I have devoured Bombay through the eyes of these anecdotes. I have also preserved the glimpses I have had when I visited her; the typical Bombay experiences of bhel puri and vada paav at andheri station, amazed at the ever bright full of life suburb like mulund even at 12 am, standing in “line” for Best Bus.. being stuck in traffic for over five hours to get to VT, gawking at nareman point, of taking pictures and loving the Taj building even more than the gateway of India, being almost touched up by a hijda while traveling in the auto and how my cousin prompted me to hold a namaste to let him pass and that strange feeling that still wells up when i remember the miles of blue plastic sheets that form a view to anyone landing at the shivaji airport; it is as if poverty put its foot down and wasn’t afraid to stay forever!

Similar passions were kindled last night watching Dobhi Ghat. A typical Bombayite felt the movie showed the underbelly and bad neighbourhoods as i heard from whispers around me, similar to reactions from slumdog millionaire. But to someone who is still holding Bombay at the bewitched levels, I felt the movie was a treat. As I watched the nuances unfold in the form of the rat killers who keep the city clean and outgrowing into a plague, the perfume seller merchants, the street food during muslim festivals, it was as if the stories I heard from N and others were coming together in front of my eyes.

I watched with awe on how he hinted at the bored house wives’ sex drives, meticulous sorting minds of the Dhobis who without any excel sheets and the rest remember which clothes come from where and go where, of the sultry neighborhoods and unrelenting rains, of disparity between the rich and poor that was almost fluid. And just like the aayi who never talks, but watches it all, the movie sends the message many many novels and movies before have – for a city giving space and dreams to billions, she cannot stop to care for anyone or anything anymore. For she is her people – wicked and passionate and nothing can stop her from moving on…….

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Until next time… when N has a promised me a trip this summer to Bombay for a few days and I hope another post beckons !!

The Diaspora dilemma

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Indian Diaspora, returning home

I have just returned hail, happy and nostalgic like one would when one visits family during the summer vacations. Our hosts are nothing short of family and I had one of my best vacations, that if shot as a movie would unwind over a seamless background score with pretty people laughing over cups of coffee, tea and endless food!

Amidst this happy holiday and burying myself in Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City on the flight, I began to imagine my life in a few years; in all its horror and wondrous curiosity. Playing deaf to the outcry I receive every time I say this, I assert – Yes. I am among the unexpected diaspora, the one that is sure of finding its way back home. I am buying time,Yes. But, Veetileku ulla vazhi marannitilla.*

Keeping aside the adrenaline rush that builds up to state, I can’t imagine ever owning a passport that doesn’t have the ashoka pillar lions on it, there is a bigger process involved in the winding up and heading home after having missed and longed for her from a distance; probably even bigger than when you left her shores to embrace another world. And it is this process that’s daunting for many who may never return and stay happier yearning forever.

I understand now where the dilemma stems from. Not one, but many many many factors. One that strikes immediately is – we are constantly running away from an overdose of social interaction in India. Everyone from milkman to neighbor has an opinion on how you should lead your life. And seven seas away, you make efforts to keep the few makeshift relationships out of necessity, just so you don’t lose your sanity staying alone.You miss food, the one the family overstuffs you, the neighbor aunty brings in a kinnam, the bhel puri uncle by the college gate makes ‘specially’ for you. It takes a back burner, but almost always, never dies.

I could continue listing so much goodness that draws you home, that may extend a few pages. But let me instead look a little deeper, a little ahead – Can I stand the sweltering heat, pollution and filth? Can I drive on roads where everyone is vying for space and power? Will I ever learn to cross roads and haggle again? Am I ready to pull 100 strings to get a simple gas connection? Am I willing to sacrifice the solitude forever? How well can I adjust to the fact that 8:30 means anything 2 hours hence? Will I ever feel that the chaos that I once missed is now overwhelming and wish I could turn back? Am I willing to learn to find my way in the process oriented, strictly hierarchical work culture?

I can throw in a lot more ifs and I try to stop before I change my mind. I did it for 23 years didn’t i? What makes me think I can’t do it anymore? Now here is where Suketu Mehta strikes the chord. That’s when it hit me so hard – I am constantly trying to return to a place I knew for the first 23 years of my life. I am not prepared for her metamorphosis in the few odd years I spent watching her like a precious piece of my history ignoring her growth without me being a part of it. So now… I can never say – I will go back to my 23 years and live the same way. And here is where it makes it easier as well. I have to return learning to adapt the same way I did when I left. Adapting without looking back and that’s where the challenge lies, deeply emotional, exhilarating and frustrating, all at the same time.

Even if my answer to most of the ifs is a ‘maybe’ confounded to distraction, truly there is no place like home. And someday, not too far off, I will return with gusto, happiness, desperation and even fear; for now the wait is what keeps me going..!

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* I haven’t forgotten the way to home

Dirty money

Lets face it. Eventually everything boils down to money. EVERYTHING. Yes! there are so many arguments against it, but lets remove money/earning power from the picture. We would all be living like animals, fending for food and needs on a daily basis, without plans and motives and dreams. Money makes it all happen, doesn’t it?

But like everything good, this dirty old man comes loaded with trouble; trouble to make more and more, trouble that you will never know how much is enough, trouble that you may never want to part with it for anything or anyone. There is a scrooge in all of us, may be not in the evident misanthrope way; but we all have troubles parting with the moolah we made from sweat and blood. We make exceptions, but that is again selfishness that acts; is it for a close kin? Is it someone dear who needs it? Should I be lending money to friends and risking the feel-good friendship? There are so many orphans in the world, I can’t really do much now, can i? Ya, so I pass by homeless people everyday, I can’t give my money to some stranger? Do i get tax benefits when I donate to this organisation?

I am no Samaritan. I am smitten by almost all of it too. I was simply making a statement and was wondering where it is all headed? And then I threw my hands up and wondered; pestilence, war, stock markets and greed have always been there. And Samaritans too in each of those eras. And when you take a step back and decide; ‘Ok I dont really need that new diamond set simply to boost my ego. I will give away that money to someone in need of it’ you are judged by the world for not being a family care-taker. To be always a good Samaritan, you must have no familial bounds. And if you simply care only for the family or yourself, you are a scrooge in the making. So how does one strike a balance? When can one say I have stored enough for a rainy day, I can share and part with the rest for the needy? And if all of us wait to be Bill Gates to get there, we can forget about playing the part of Samaritans in our life-times.

That brings us back to the very definition of money; sitting dirty, waiting to be touched, wanting to be parted in barter for worth, pride and inflating ego. And giving it away without returns is a gamble in itself, for you cannot be foolish to wait for a Samaritan to help you when you realize you can’t fend for yourself, for you were busy playing Samaritan!! A terrible irony in itself? Isn’t it?

Here is a piggy bank plan I had learnt from a friend when I was twelve – She would never spend on the sippups or candy everyday like most of us, but indulge once in a while when she really lets greed take over. No surprises, for the very same reason, we all thought she was weird. Instead she used to save the coins on days she didnt feel the need to give into greed. She said, she saved it for a rainy day. I dont know how she used it, but I do remember her piggy bank was heavy by the time we were fourteen, while most of us had proudly escalated to treating ourselves at the bakery already.

Imagine everytime you crave an indulgence that’s not at all necessary, and you ask yourself, if you really want it? If you can proudly happily say No to that, why not save it for a rainy day or someone’s rainy day, in a separate piggy bank that grows untouched? But, I bet it takes more than just determination to get there; for it involves fighting urges to ego boosting, peer-pressures and letting sound judgment and want to help take over. That in itself may take a life time for many, I am sure! Someday, I hope I can get there as a natural act, without doubting if it is infact perdition and misanthropist like. Someday, I am sure, one must rinse oneself of money, for money after all is always dirty!!

 

Domestication – A Diwali story

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domesticating women

It was eons ago; my cousin (lets call her Apple for now, for lack of a better letter ) and I were visiting a temple in rural kerala. Like most pilgrimages; [ now that I recall, almost all my trips in kerala were pilgrimage ones.. I digress] this one too was a family and extended family trip crammed in a rented Sumo, listening to yesudas fill the space between car horns and incessant banter in loud pallakad tamiz. Now that we had reached only the fifth or sixth temple for the day, the elders scuttled away to catch the glimpses of ‘deep-aaradhanai’ *, while Apple and I retired. We were seventeen and not in any hurry to love God at the moment. We had Engineering college crowds to look forward to, sharing giggly girly stuff and making fun of everyone we knew, basically being mean teenagers.

After what seemed like a few hours, the junta emerged to reprimand the two of us for being ‘us’ and not spending enough time praying, for we were only one day through the 3 day trip and we were already acting like nonchalant moles.  It was the day before diwali and the kerala countryside was in peaceful ignorance. Here is a little known truth – Contrary to the desi declarations to the eye-popped gora “Diwali, the festival  of lights is the only festival celebrated all over India”, Diwali is not the festival of mallu-land. If it is popular now, it is simply the influence of bollywood and kollywood dappankoothu and in no way due to the lights-factor or devotion for Ram. It is however, respected in sufficiency by the pallakad iyer community and as a mark of that, my family was making temple visits that year!

Finally we had made it to the modest home of somebody for the night before resuming the road trip at 5 am the next day.  Apple and I didn’t bother to understand the distant relation and were quick to find the minutest things to laugh our hearts off in giggles of course. And suddenly like an unexpected bomb scare, we were part of an unending tirade; So here was the daughter of that somebody, we were spending the night at, who was the same age as us, but.. ( Now that a big but..) who was coy, dressed in dhawani, wearing pottu, bangles et all, beautiful and serving us ladoo and murukkus that she made herself; and better still was getting engaged in a year and was a rank holder!  Until a few minutes back, enjoying the ladoo and murkku, Apple and I had cracked wicked jokes about the girl marrying someone with the funniest combination of south-indian names and having kids in quick succession and imitating her to distraction.

Probably vileness doesn’t go unnoticed and the elderly began the embarrassing bashing of why Apple and I were.. well.. what we were and why cant we learn a few things from the girl. Stories of their teenage, early marriages, the ‘addakkam and oddukaam’** were also lavishly thrown in and even though we were in salwars, fitting nonetheless, we were made to feel like we were in beachwear and behaving like we would in Florida. And even if there was some chance of us befriending that perfect-girl, it was absolutely bleak now.

That night was a mixture of goody-girl-lectures and a careful fall asleep before we hit the road again feeling. Fresh and famished on the diwali morning, again dressed in frowned upon-salwars with bangles-less hands, Apple and I had decided to act as cool as possible and blissfully overlooked miss-goody-two-shoes.  And by the cow shed, the somebody of the house was talking to the eldest among our junta – “ adellam ok maami. City na problem taan. Domesticate pannungo”***… We had a mix of umbrage and laughter, for we had no clue if domesticate was meant for the cows or the beach-girls.  Well I may never find that out; so that was that and we were glad to have yesudas fill our eardrums with guruvayoorapan praises for the first time!

Then Engineering happened, Apple and I went our separate ways, shared many common moments of confusions, falling in and out of trouble, experiencing the world on our own, married and probably still discovering things at our ends of the worlds. Amidst this turn of events, even with all the lack of ‘domestication’ per se, I think we did fine, although not perfect.

So, a few months back I found out through word-of-mouth that miss goody shoes wasn’t all that goody afterall. She had eloped two years after her engagement and the rest is well history. That’s when I rung Apple and we had recounted that terribly good diwali eve, laughing till we had tears or like Monica Geller expresses – I laughed till, little pee came out! That’s when apple concluded – “Guess what? I am actually making ladoos for diwali and may be I’ll attempt murrukus for next. OH dear! Now I know what domestication feels like”

A very Happy Hearty Diwali everyone! Try to keep it safe and errmm… domesticated. 

* aarthi

** characteristics of a docile nubile

*** Its ok. its the problem with the city. try to domesticate.