Wednesday, September 2, 2009
happy onam
For the first time in 5 years, I actually notice that its Onam. It would have been great to have spent the 7 preceding mornings, waking up before most of the old pooja-making aunties of the colony, climbing over their gates, stealing flowers for the poo kalam and just about escaping alive from tommy-the-dog's hungry, gnashing teeth. But no, I've had no such luck. My mornings, as usual, have been spent battling the work force deluge that takes over the city public transport. But I'm getting good at this; last week I actually made it to my weekly 9am department meeting on time and my boss almost cried with happiness.
So anyhoo, Happy Onam, here's to a great harvest.
So anyhoo, Happy Onam, here's to a great harvest.
Monday, August 31, 2009
oopsie.
Omg. Has anyone seen the the teaser website for the 3 mistakes of my life?
Now just look out for the hiccup (hint: see line #1). Apparently all that Yoga still hasn't done anything for his proof reading and/or spelling skills. For the record Chetan Bhagat and his books irritate the hell out of me, right along side dumb blonds and bankers; not surprising considering Chetan *swear word* Bhagat is a *swear word*- ing banker.
But I'm glad he exists; if nothing else, he gives all those unfulfilled IIT-IIM-Investment Bankers hope that some day, they too might find meaning in their lives.
Now just look out for the hiccup (hint: see line #1). Apparently all that Yoga still hasn't done anything for his proof reading and/or spelling skills. For the record Chetan Bhagat and his books irritate the hell out of me, right along side dumb blonds and bankers; not surprising considering Chetan *swear word* Bhagat is a *swear word*- ing banker.
But I'm glad he exists; if nothing else, he gives all those unfulfilled IIT-IIM-Investment Bankers hope that some day, they too might find meaning in their lives.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
A matter of Taste
As a kid, whenever I was on one of those Club Mahindra Holidays with the family, I would consistently find myself avoiding the de-glam sections of the breakfast buffet and gorging on sausages, jellied croissants and for some unknowable reason, corn flakes, and feeling like a blimp for the rest of the day. Of course, my parents heartily encouraged us to stuff ourselves stupid during these holidays, since breakfast was complementary. It was my father’s personal Revenge Against The Resort-Machine to overeat at breakfast, which was the only thing they didn’t charge him the filling in his gold-tooth for. Now add my brother, mother and myself into this overeating bonanza and it was 4XRevenge.
We, the kids, were goaded by threat of no more food till the next complimentary breakfast. We knew even from our limited experience, this was a situation very likely to materialize. But I never hold it against my parents, because while they too enjoyed the occasional sausage, they had seen enough of life to wisely bank on the idlis and uttappams. Hence their tanks were really full till well after dusk. So you cant really blame them if they hardly noticed their children's pathetic faces due to acute starvation and just assumed we looked bummed out because we had spotted nothing but wild hogs when we had been promised tigers. After a few years, brother and I learnt to go half and half on the sausage-idly ratio and we were not sorry.
What exactly makes a breakfast of cured ham, scrambled eggs and buttered toast with marmalade, a side of baby tomatoes and iceberg lettuce for garnish, with some orange juice and coffee to wash it all down, more appealing than say, oh, I dunno, crisp dosas with coconut and raw onion chutney and tangy-spicy sambhar, with a side of baby banana’s, washed down with strong, sweet, filter coffee? What exactly? Now I know, the answer to that question is, to quote – “the seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake.” You’ll see why I use the obvious underwater reference in a minute.
What got me thinking about food today was my horrific experience at a pricey Japanese restaurant my boss decided to take me and my team to for lunch. Jerers finished a year at work today so we went out to celebrate her survival. They had to drag me there, kicking and screaming; there is nothing a full blooded mallu woman could possibly be more averse to than non-curried, non-‘mollied’, non-marinated-in-1inch-of-masala-and-fried, RAW fish. No, Jap food, in my mind, is hell food. Bhagwan played a mean trick on the Japanese, giving them all that seafood and no real vegetables except for radish, barely any cooking oil and totally no spices but for ginger. No? Not true? Really? Then why on earth would anyone (not) cook food like that? Are they just lazy? Considering we’re talking about the Japanese, I don’t think so.
But me being me, daredevil and all, I actually tried everything. So there I was watching my boss go dizzy with delight, picking little mini-dishes off the conveyor belt that roamed manically by the side of our table. First she jumped at some raw jelly fish which looked to me like vermicelli. So I picked up my chop stick and gave it a go, thinking semiya upma, semiya upma, semiya upma, to stop my finger muscles from clamping shut in protest. Let me just say that it did not taste like semiya upma. In fact it did not taste like anything at all, although the texture felt like that of dried up glue. Jerers then picked off some raw salmon and innocently offered me some. I accepted- it was soft and absent and tasteless as water. Salmon eggs followed this, which like any decent fish in its larval stage, were clustered together in the hundreds as tiny, glassy beads and these precious looking peach colored beads, gushed out something like yolk when you bit in. Then came milk in steamed egg or egg in steamed milk, I really don’t know, but it was a gelatinous white thing, deceptively packaged in the Japanese equivalent of a matka-kulfi and truly devious to taste.
But I hit rock bottom with the Tako. There, in one of their devious little mini-dishes, lay copper-red and curled up, these delicate little dollies, cute enough to to share screen space with Hello Kitty. They were the Takos. Baby octopuses. RAW. Babies. Octopuses.
“ Why don’t you try one?”
And the devil made me say, “Ok.” And I proceeded to put one in my mouth, crunch and swallow. I had just eaten a fetus. Of an Octopus.
But the good thing is, once again, all of this stuff was absolutely tasteless, so I didn’t throw up or anything.
Then Jerers kindly picked up deep fried salmon and deep fried salmon skin, both coated in corn flour and some sort of spice so it was quite alright and I filled myself up with this for the rest of the meal. I got back to the office and washed down the whole thing with half a liter of good, full sugar, full calorie Coke, because I’ve heard Coke is really an excellent cleaning liquid.
In spite of all the negative publicity, I maintain that everyone should try Japanese food at least once. I did and now I’m done with that.
We, the kids, were goaded by threat of no more food till the next complimentary breakfast. We knew even from our limited experience, this was a situation very likely to materialize. But I never hold it against my parents, because while they too enjoyed the occasional sausage, they had seen enough of life to wisely bank on the idlis and uttappams. Hence their tanks were really full till well after dusk. So you cant really blame them if they hardly noticed their children's pathetic faces due to acute starvation and just assumed we looked bummed out because we had spotted nothing but wild hogs when we had been promised tigers. After a few years, brother and I learnt to go half and half on the sausage-idly ratio and we were not sorry.
What exactly makes a breakfast of cured ham, scrambled eggs and buttered toast with marmalade, a side of baby tomatoes and iceberg lettuce for garnish, with some orange juice and coffee to wash it all down, more appealing than say, oh, I dunno, crisp dosas with coconut and raw onion chutney and tangy-spicy sambhar, with a side of baby banana’s, washed down with strong, sweet, filter coffee? What exactly? Now I know, the answer to that question is, to quote – “the seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake.” You’ll see why I use the obvious underwater reference in a minute.
What got me thinking about food today was my horrific experience at a pricey Japanese restaurant my boss decided to take me and my team to for lunch. Jerers finished a year at work today so we went out to celebrate her survival. They had to drag me there, kicking and screaming; there is nothing a full blooded mallu woman could possibly be more averse to than non-curried, non-‘mollied’, non-marinated-in-1inch-of-masala-and-fried, RAW fish. No, Jap food, in my mind, is hell food. Bhagwan played a mean trick on the Japanese, giving them all that seafood and no real vegetables except for radish, barely any cooking oil and totally no spices but for ginger. No? Not true? Really? Then why on earth would anyone (not) cook food like that? Are they just lazy? Considering we’re talking about the Japanese, I don’t think so.
But me being me, daredevil and all, I actually tried everything. So there I was watching my boss go dizzy with delight, picking little mini-dishes off the conveyor belt that roamed manically by the side of our table. First she jumped at some raw jelly fish which looked to me like vermicelli. So I picked up my chop stick and gave it a go, thinking semiya upma, semiya upma, semiya upma, to stop my finger muscles from clamping shut in protest. Let me just say that it did not taste like semiya upma. In fact it did not taste like anything at all, although the texture felt like that of dried up glue. Jerers then picked off some raw salmon and innocently offered me some. I accepted- it was soft and absent and tasteless as water. Salmon eggs followed this, which like any decent fish in its larval stage, were clustered together in the hundreds as tiny, glassy beads and these precious looking peach colored beads, gushed out something like yolk when you bit in. Then came milk in steamed egg or egg in steamed milk, I really don’t know, but it was a gelatinous white thing, deceptively packaged in the Japanese equivalent of a matka-kulfi and truly devious to taste.
But I hit rock bottom with the Tako. There, in one of their devious little mini-dishes, lay copper-red and curled up, these delicate little dollies, cute enough to to share screen space with Hello Kitty. They were the Takos. Baby octopuses. RAW. Babies. Octopuses.
“ Why don’t you try one?”
And the devil made me say, “Ok.” And I proceeded to put one in my mouth, crunch and swallow. I had just eaten a fetus. Of an Octopus.
But the good thing is, once again, all of this stuff was absolutely tasteless, so I didn’t throw up or anything.
Then Jerers kindly picked up deep fried salmon and deep fried salmon skin, both coated in corn flour and some sort of spice so it was quite alright and I filled myself up with this for the rest of the meal. I got back to the office and washed down the whole thing with half a liter of good, full sugar, full calorie Coke, because I’ve heard Coke is really an excellent cleaning liquid.
In spite of all the negative publicity, I maintain that everyone should try Japanese food at least once. I did and now I’m done with that.
Monday, August 17, 2009
A really long, possibly dull post about my love for Neil Gaiman (with a brief about my teenage obsession with R.L.Stine)
Some nights ago, I read a story that put the fear of God in me. It was so scary that it had me knocking on my house mate's door, comforter and pillow in hand, sheepishly but firmly establishing that I wouldn't be sleeping alone in my room tonight
I’ve always enjoyed horror stories. Horror, mind you, and not gore. In my teens, I was a die hard fan of R.L.Stine’s Fear Street Series and secretly worshipped Stine as a god. Goosebumps didn’t do much for me; it involved mainly purple colored monsters, chain-rattling and people being eaten, things that I find quite boring in books and repulsive on screen. But Fear Street was about people who lingered after death, about misplaced curses imposing on innocence, about life vanishing, about fear and envy personified. I like stories that talk about these things.
They really scare me.
There was this story about a girl who once wore a dress she found in the attic. It had obviously once belonged to someone else, but she didn’t think about that, she just discovered it and slipped it on because it was beautiful. What she didn’t see, was that it was soaked in rage, from a hundred years ago.
There was another story, about this boy who died rather suddenly, but for some reason he couldn’t gulp down his last breath. So he found himself in a strange, vaporizing gap between life and death, knowing that he had left off something he had to finish before he could die properly. But he couldn’t for the death of him, remember what it was. As the events play out, he finds that he has returned to his past, to prevent his own accidental death in the hands of a girl. This was before Donnie Darko, mind you. It was such a frustrating and heart-heavy story that I could hardly stand being alternately in tears and spooked out of my wits. It’s the least a ghost story should do.
That was Stine. But this post is about my love for Gaiman’s work. He took up the thread where Stine had discarded it, at least in my world.
Neil Gaiman likes to write about things that are not real. His stories are full of spirits and demons, anthropomorphic emotions, abstractions that are given shape and three dimensions and a name you can call out. While his tales spin around the paranormal, he has a way of closing the comfortable distance between you and the source of terror. He sets that paranormal in the reader’s living room and not in Fear Street or Transylvania. His brand of fear is personal, its something that belongs to everyone of us, the fear that is primal, because it’s a case of survival, a fear that is irreconcilable because it confronts the limits of control we have over our lives and it is fear that makes you better because you see that life and laughter are precious resources. Its not the fear ghosts; it’s the fear of God.
I'm really jaded in many ways. No wars, no famines, nobody's pain really affects me; I can just watch the news and think of everything as someone else's story, even as I sit there and consider by what luck why it isn't mine. I can surround myself with pretty things and clever people or simply escape reality altogether. On some of those days, one of Gaiman’s stories meets me in fantasy land, holds me by the shoulder and rattles me till I’m begging to go back to the boring world of bank statements and laundry. Because once your on the other side of the cracked mirror, real life looks like heaven itself. But the images from Gaiman’s alternative universe still haunt; fear manifests itself in the odd toaster, the deranged woman who haunts my lift lobby and the dull awareness that I might just be a slip away from a darker reality.
The story that froze the marrow in my bones was not a ghost story; it was a love story. Its called The Wedding Present. The wedding present is just a piece of paper in a manila envelope that a newlywed couple receives from an unnamed sender. On it, their marriage is described, word for word, from the wedding vows, to the party afterward. As many happy years of their marriage go by, the couple notice a disconcerting parallel marriage that writes itself out on the piece of paper in the manila envelope. The written marriage is bizarrely contrasted with the happy milestones they have hit in real life. The children, the promotions, the bigger home, the pets, the birthdays and the holidays of the real world, are set against a disfiguring accident, adultery, miscarriage, professional failure, a marriage that has decayed completely in the same set of circumstances that the real couple face. The wedding present becomes the shock absorber, taking into itself every mishap and misfortune, a little blessing to the couple from an unknown benefactor…
This story does not have a happy ending. It doesn’t have an ending at all. In spite of the wedding present, reality exacts its price from the couple; the groom dies a young man, about a decade into their perfect, happy marriage. Before the story leaves us, the bride is reading her wedding present for the last time. In it she sees an ugly world, a despicable world, but a world in which her husband is alive. She remembers that when Dorian Gray’s picture is destroyed, reality is restored and the real Dorian Gray ages to dust in an instance. And so she destroys her wedding present and waits for her love to come back to a life where they do not love each other, but are at least alive.
In real life, we don’t get presents like that. But sometimes we act as if there’s a parchment in our attics, writing away all the realities that we do not wish to be.
So, I’m thinking that if a paperback can bring the dreamer to examine her own life as it happens, then its slightly more than just a paperback.
In other news, I managed to boil an egg just now till it burst in the saucepan.
I’ve always enjoyed horror stories. Horror, mind you, and not gore. In my teens, I was a die hard fan of R.L.Stine’s Fear Street Series and secretly worshipped Stine as a god. Goosebumps didn’t do much for me; it involved mainly purple colored monsters, chain-rattling and people being eaten, things that I find quite boring in books and repulsive on screen. But Fear Street was about people who lingered after death, about misplaced curses imposing on innocence, about life vanishing, about fear and envy personified. I like stories that talk about these things.
They really scare me.
There was this story about a girl who once wore a dress she found in the attic. It had obviously once belonged to someone else, but she didn’t think about that, she just discovered it and slipped it on because it was beautiful. What she didn’t see, was that it was soaked in rage, from a hundred years ago.
There was another story, about this boy who died rather suddenly, but for some reason he couldn’t gulp down his last breath. So he found himself in a strange, vaporizing gap between life and death, knowing that he had left off something he had to finish before he could die properly. But he couldn’t for the death of him, remember what it was. As the events play out, he finds that he has returned to his past, to prevent his own accidental death in the hands of a girl. This was before Donnie Darko, mind you. It was such a frustrating and heart-heavy story that I could hardly stand being alternately in tears and spooked out of my wits. It’s the least a ghost story should do.
That was Stine. But this post is about my love for Gaiman’s work. He took up the thread where Stine had discarded it, at least in my world.
Neil Gaiman likes to write about things that are not real. His stories are full of spirits and demons, anthropomorphic emotions, abstractions that are given shape and three dimensions and a name you can call out. While his tales spin around the paranormal, he has a way of closing the comfortable distance between you and the source of terror. He sets that paranormal in the reader’s living room and not in Fear Street or Transylvania. His brand of fear is personal, its something that belongs to everyone of us, the fear that is primal, because it’s a case of survival, a fear that is irreconcilable because it confronts the limits of control we have over our lives and it is fear that makes you better because you see that life and laughter are precious resources. Its not the fear ghosts; it’s the fear of God.
I'm really jaded in many ways. No wars, no famines, nobody's pain really affects me; I can just watch the news and think of everything as someone else's story, even as I sit there and consider by what luck why it isn't mine. I can surround myself with pretty things and clever people or simply escape reality altogether. On some of those days, one of Gaiman’s stories meets me in fantasy land, holds me by the shoulder and rattles me till I’m begging to go back to the boring world of bank statements and laundry. Because once your on the other side of the cracked mirror, real life looks like heaven itself. But the images from Gaiman’s alternative universe still haunt; fear manifests itself in the odd toaster, the deranged woman who haunts my lift lobby and the dull awareness that I might just be a slip away from a darker reality.
The story that froze the marrow in my bones was not a ghost story; it was a love story. Its called The Wedding Present. The wedding present is just a piece of paper in a manila envelope that a newlywed couple receives from an unnamed sender. On it, their marriage is described, word for word, from the wedding vows, to the party afterward. As many happy years of their marriage go by, the couple notice a disconcerting parallel marriage that writes itself out on the piece of paper in the manila envelope. The written marriage is bizarrely contrasted with the happy milestones they have hit in real life. The children, the promotions, the bigger home, the pets, the birthdays and the holidays of the real world, are set against a disfiguring accident, adultery, miscarriage, professional failure, a marriage that has decayed completely in the same set of circumstances that the real couple face. The wedding present becomes the shock absorber, taking into itself every mishap and misfortune, a little blessing to the couple from an unknown benefactor…
This story does not have a happy ending. It doesn’t have an ending at all. In spite of the wedding present, reality exacts its price from the couple; the groom dies a young man, about a decade into their perfect, happy marriage. Before the story leaves us, the bride is reading her wedding present for the last time. In it she sees an ugly world, a despicable world, but a world in which her husband is alive. She remembers that when Dorian Gray’s picture is destroyed, reality is restored and the real Dorian Gray ages to dust in an instance. And so she destroys her wedding present and waits for her love to come back to a life where they do not love each other, but are at least alive.
In real life, we don’t get presents like that. But sometimes we act as if there’s a parchment in our attics, writing away all the realities that we do not wish to be.
So, I’m thinking that if a paperback can bring the dreamer to examine her own life as it happens, then its slightly more than just a paperback.
In other news, I managed to boil an egg just now till it burst in the saucepan.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
of the leading lady
When I think about it now, whats with the heroine anyway? This beautiful, vapid, attention grabbing female, who talks too much, has a girlish mind but a grown up body and after a brief hard-to-get routine followed by a taming-of-shrew act, gives in to the sheer masculine power of our male lead. Then stands by him, through out his lone crusade against injustice, a sparkling accessory to his perfect ensemble.
A Sita for every Ram aspirant. A Helen, worth waging a war for, but free of too strong a personality- thats like sex and violence central, love as an excuse for swords and fighting and BLOOD! No wonder thats a classic.
The leading lady is a shadow defined by the greatness of the guy who chooses her. The First Lady is anyone married to the president. Our Hero picks the prettiest and most loving one of the lot, I mean, what could be better, she will go through any amount of shit with him and still look great through it all. Of course, this is only one archetype of the heroine; the others are either mostly mute, with eyes lowered or are variations of the first two. The thinking woman fits well into the role of the vamp, the other woman, the one who abuses her womanhood to achieve her own selfish ends. Intolerable, I swear.
Now, if by any chance, the female lead has depth, god forbid, then some lovable rascal or the other has to snap her out of it. This inevitably leads to a happy ending, once the megalomaniac villain or the rich, conservative father is dealt with.
Anyway, I was just wondering, why idiocy is so appealing in a young woman. Why innocence, sex appeal and undying loyalty are to the heroine what courage, persistence and the ability to pulverize 15 men alone are to the hero. Not to mention height.A Sita for every Ram aspirant. A Helen, worth waging a war for, but free of too strong a personality- thats like sex and violence central, love as an excuse for swords and fighting and BLOOD! No wonder thats a classic.
The leading lady is a shadow defined by the greatness of the guy who chooses her. The First Lady is anyone married to the president. Our Hero picks the prettiest and most loving one of the lot, I mean, what could be better, she will go through any amount of shit with him and still look great through it all. Of course, this is only one archetype of the heroine; the others are either mostly mute, with eyes lowered or are variations of the first two. The thinking woman fits well into the role of the vamp, the other woman, the one who abuses her womanhood to achieve her own selfish ends. Intolerable, I swear.
Now, if by any chance, the female lead has depth, god forbid, then some lovable rascal or the other has to snap her out of it. This inevitably leads to a happy ending, once the megalomaniac villain or the rich, conservative father is dealt with.
Okay, so they are both fictitious I guess. And yes, this mostly pertains to Indian cinema and Victorian romance novels.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I'm running really low on endorphins today. Bah, bah, bah. These are the days that should give me a good enough reason to stop blogging, because hormonal swings entail a good deal of weltschmerz, which in turn makes for ugly blog posts.
My dream is to not need to blog. Its like that movie, I can't remember which one, in which this benevolent doctor says that his dream is for his hospital to have to close down due to lack of patients. Imagine the excellent scenario of your life being so wonderful, your work being so fulfilling, that scratching out little snippets to publish on your e-page during major meetings, as opposed to meeting notes, seems absurd. Its not that work sucks; its really alright. It's just that my boss's voice just grates on my ears like claws scratching on black board when I'm on an endorphin drought.
I don't want to write here, but I would probably die if I didn't. I'm a little bummed that life isn't exploding in rainbows and leprechauns. Clicking publish on this site gives me a small, guaranteed high that is far more addictive than anything else.
My dream is to not need to blog. Its like that movie, I can't remember which one, in which this benevolent doctor says that his dream is for his hospital to have to close down due to lack of patients. Imagine the excellent scenario of your life being so wonderful, your work being so fulfilling, that scratching out little snippets to publish on your e-page during major meetings, as opposed to meeting notes, seems absurd. Its not that work sucks; its really alright. It's just that my boss's voice just grates on my ears like claws scratching on black board when I'm on an endorphin drought.
I don't want to write here, but I would probably die if I didn't. I'm a little bummed that life isn't exploding in rainbows and leprechauns. Clicking publish on this site gives me a small, guaranteed high that is far more addictive than anything else.
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