Season's greetings

Recipes on plum cakes in special interviews with chefs, christmas special desserts in restaurants, red and white santa caps and christmas tree decorations on sale, santa clauses too in local markets ... everything is red, green and white! It may be an indicator of western imperialism, the impact of American television shows all running new and old episodes of 'the christmas spirit' but the way Indians, a majority of them non-Christians, have taken to Christmas and made it their own seems to hold out a hope. Hope of harmony, of cross cultural celebration, of festive spirit transcending religious barriers.

But something prevents me from making any such inferences. For the past few years Diwali and Id have been falling around the same time- a gap of a day or two between them making for one long holiday. The markets were buzzing, everything was gay and glittery. I sent out greetings on behalf of my family to all on our email list wishing them for both festivals. I know it was naive on my part but i didn't anticipate the reactions. Some were simply astounded that I clubbed the festivals together. Some were angry that i had tarnished my grandparents' name by making them wish on Id. One relative, living in the gulf, replied saying it made sense to wish him as he was in a 'muslim country' but why subject others to it. Most of them noticed and had something to say, either immediately or through the whispering network that characterise family communications. none of them ever cringe when wished 'a merry christmas' or reply similarly to greetings on the 'season of giving'.

so as for composite culture, we arent there yet. Meanwhile, I will return to polish off the plum cake.

to poetry with love

Poetry came into my life along with love. As I struggled to make sense of the strange bunch of emotions which deliciously complicated my being, I began to articulate in verse. The internal struggle on admitting that another person could enter and hold any power over my domain, the independence of this personal domain itself so newly acquired and hence so precious, found an outlet in words. But words about other things- opinions and emotions- asserting this independence and in this assertion containing the connection I denied. I think I could then qualify for the ‘bad poet’ of the generation, but poetry I did write.

Love brought in poetry to my life but I never wrote about love. But as love receded, the poetry drained out. Though I found and lost love after that (to one I owe the joys of hindi and urdu poetry), but never did I recover the well springs of verse. I tried to suck it out, now trying to word lost love but the stray phrases petered out, like promising dark clouds of summer, leaving behind the frustration of inadequacy. Prosaic I called myself, often wondering whether the love I have found since has also been that- prosaic. Later, I even stopped reading poetry, thinking I had lost the capacity to connect to verse

That’s when Neruda came into my life, unannounced, unexpected, in the form of a film. And my eyes turned to verse again, trying to find meaning in the now unfamiliar pattern of words. (oh why cant they be all straight lines, from one end of the page to another, paragraphs which cut at the appropriate frequencies, arguments which are introduced and concluded). Love is so short and forgetting is so long, he said. Poetry and love belong to the same old trunk of memory, shoved into the farthest corner of the attic but never abandoned. Indeed, it’s the memory of love that makes me turn to poetry again. Not to pick up the pen ever perhaps (so other contenders for the ‘bad poet’ title can relax!) but to reconnect to the personal domain buried under experience, caution and all such clichés of living.

living the 'easy option'

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”
Oscar Wilde

I never thought i would be a teacher. Teaching was considered 'the easy option' and a job 'most suitable for women' as it 'was hardly a job' and 'just good pocket money'. Even as i outgrew that socialisation and began to question it, it remained a scary option. After being so critical of all my teachers it was not very comforting to put myself in that place.I just drifted into teaching, dont know how long i will continue, but its humbling, challenging and frustrating all at the same time.

On family and festivals

Festivals. We have too many of them. And I don’t care for most. Leaving my atheism aside, most festivals if not about sundry gods, are in honour of brothers and husbands (why never mothers or sisters). If they are about women, they are concerned only with the married woman (husband still living, mind you) or pre-pubescent girls. The only good thing about them is the food! Each festival comes with a detailed menu of goodies which are specific to it, on which it seems to have a virtual monopoly.

Diwali, in particular, has much going against it. It has become an excuse for socially sanctioned bribery and unbridled consumerism. But diwali has a subversive quality to it. ‘Our diwali’ (as I tell all non-south Indians) is the one festival where we go against all rules. We seem to be insulting Narakasura, the evil asura king whom Krishna defeated. But aren’t we honouring him instead? After all didn’t he in his death ask people to celebrate his destruction with lights, new clothes. Or are we affirming the original dravidianism by refusing to follow Aryan ritualism even in the moment of its supposed triumph over the dravidas? Is this the explanation for the thumbs down to rituals, to purity? The only other tamilian festival I value is pongal. There is something endearing about the vision of tamilians, spread over as they are, stubbornly celebrating the onset of harvest in one tiny part of the country and searching for sugarcane, tamarind and such season specific products in parts of the world which follow very different time-tables.

Coming back to diwali, for me diwali has always been with family. And over the years, my extended family has been making less and less sense to me. The feeling I know is mutual. But come diwali, I wander back. To diwali-eve late night card game sessions. To endless retelling of family stories and jokes, of which one will be new and everything else has been repeated a million times. To drop off to sleep exhausted with food and laughter. To be woken up an hour later to have oil applied to our hair. To sit in front of gods defiantly munching on snacks without a mandatory offering to them. And that too without having a bath. To being pushed into taking the bath in the lure of new clothes.

But increasingly diwali is becoming poignant in its nostalgia value. For in the past year and half, three people whom I most associate with diwali and who are (perhaps not coincidentally) the nicest people in the family are no more. Next diwali I know I will trudge back home seeking the familiarity of the festival I like and the family I want (at least during the festival!!!), but wonder if it hasn’t changed forever…

on a poem

Across
by vikram seth

Across these miles i wish you well.
May nothing haunt your heart but sleep.
May you not sense what i dont tell.
May you not dream, or doubt, or weep.

May what my pen this peaceless day
Writes on this page not reach your view
Till its deferred print lets you say
It speaks to someone else than you.

I am not great with poetry but loved this one. but then had a long discussion on and dissection of this poem with a friend. he thought it glorified sacrifice and is an exercise in self-torture. for me it spoke of the quiet dignity of unrequited love. love is magic and often, love is pain, but it is also primarily about self. how we talk to ourselves when we are in love tells us a great deal about our own self.

Finding a home

“You cannot have both- freedom and a good apartment” informed the property dealer. It has been 9 months now but I still remember the look he gave me, because this was the look which was mirrored in the various faces I encountered as part of my search for a rented accommodation in the city I had just moved into. All those faces conveyed various versions of the same conclusions they were making in their minds about my ‘character’.

What I was looking for was a place which would be my home. The hallowed notion of home conveys I think a sense of independence and privacy- it’s the place to be yourself. But this was precisely what all these owners of property found objectionable in my context- how can a single woman be allowed to be herself? Most owners of properties consider that they are doing their tenants a favour by leasing out their apartments, the monetary benefit is not seen as an equal deal- surprising even in our market society. So they can lay down any number of terms.

My problem started with the fact that their terms didn’t not include a person like me. Many turned me out because they wanted “families”. They added that they were a decent set of people and couldn’t take risks. That apart, I got to hear lectures on Indian culture, it seems Indian culture is dependent on my returning home by 6pm everyday. Otherwise it under grave threat. Moreover Indian culture is threatened by having male friends over at my house. One couple debated in front of me whether a male colleague could come home for tea or not and what would be the appropriate time after which he should be turned out. Half an hour said the wife, the husband wasn’t sure why the colleague should come to his house at all. Other than colleagues one is not expected to have a social life anyway.

One man gave me a long lecture on how he doesn’t like noise, loud music, too much clatter etc. I was actually surprised when he agreed to finalise the deal me that evening. But within a few hours, he said they wanted families with children, how he was going to apply the noise/ clatter restriction I am at a loss to explain.

For those who found the idea of a single woman as an acceptable tenant of course had their own assumptions. I was to be like their daughter- they told me. I was touched but the sub-text was clearer- I was to be answerable to them just like to parents. The assumption was that a single working woman had very little things to do in life- work and then come back straight home!

On narrating such experiences to people, I also got friendly advice on how I should go and ask for an out of turn allotment of the campus accommodation. The outside world is harsh, I was told. This seemed to me to be another version of the same argument that my potential landlords cum torchbearers of morality were giving me. It sounded much like – the world is unsafe, don’t go out in the world. Instead of trying to make the world safe by going out and making it confront your presence

What I was looking for was a house where I would not be told when to enter and when to leave, who can visit me and who cant. Some very basic stuff I thought. Instead I encountered a whole set of people who not only demanded a virginity test as it were, but thought that it was a most ‘normal’ demand to make. My reactions shook them; they had only my dubious character to fall back as an explanation.

The threat of a single woman I realized was indeed immense. This was the figure
society was most anxious to keep away from its collective understanding of itself. The only way it could deal with the multitudes of single women who don’t seem to be disappearing is to suggest hostels or hostel-like situations.


Eventually and interestingly, the person ready to rent out a place turned out to be a very old, illiterate, religious woman (our prime example of patriarchy). While being obsessed with cleanliness, she has mostly tended to keep her reservations on my life to herself. This when, ‘young’ and ‘educated’ people refused the second they found I was not a ‘family’!

what are memories all about

finally i decide to write. the gap between creating this blog and putting these words down probably explains much abt me. i want to do so much but mostly keep postponing them all. not that i am doing something very important but i do manage to push out the most important things away...
anyway to come back to what did actually make me start this...i was intrigued. not by the blog business actually. but by poeple's desire to be "back in touch" with older friends in their life. i was introduced to this group called orkut where one has communities of one's school and college aparrt from a mind-boggling variety of interests.a whole of people reported how they had got in touch with thier school mates, neighbours from old times...i got excited. i wanted to know whether there was any possibility of meeting up with some of my childhood friends, people i had lost contact with suddenly as i moved cities or even those who moved off after school. i was curious- what did become of them. but with this curiousity was linked another one- why this curiousity afterall? would i even make sense of these people if i met them now. what after we had updated each other(forget update, in most cases it would be almost a blank) would we have to say to each other. lives have meandered and changed many courses since. often leaving most of us in opposite banks of the tale. but we still seek to meet, to find out.
i think some of this is the power of memories. we all live with our memories and to connect to someone from the memory is a chance to liink up with our whole self all over again. perhaps i think there is some essetial me whcih has lived thru all this time and the possibilty to connect offers one a hope to find out that essense. of course the idea of an 'essence' is problematic, so in that sense it is good i havent really come across my older worlds. but the possibilty remains attractive.