Mummys day out

My mother and many woman of her time,lived lives that were totally dependent on first their parents,then their husbands and finally their children.The were provided for by and large and should a husband not provide,then they had made a bad marriage and the parents or their fate was the cause,if it were a good marriage and good fate then the husband would have provided all.
All their lives were spent that way,they are great mothers,perfect wives but where they happy or did they waste the one life they had in the services of duty and family.I am never sure how to answer that question especially when marriages lasted 60 and more years.They had to be doing something right.
Now my mother for instance will always lament her fate at being married to a man who was not quiet what she imagined a husband to be(some truth no doubt).The fact however remains that my father took on all the financial responsibilities and my mother took care of running the house and bringing up children.Some time later when she was in her 50s,my mother like most women of her generation she decided to give up going out of the house for anything.She got used to being house bound and watching tv and yelling at my father for getting under her feet all the time and interfering(that's what men do when they retire and have no office to go to and no people to yell at)Over the years getting my mother to step out of the front door was a task that would put every skill of strategist to good use.If anyone managed to get her out of the house,even to visit her daughters,it was considered a big victory and the person concerned would well qualify for a noble price in blackmail.Which is precisely what works with her.
Now being left in the charge of a 76 year old mother (who under all that dependence can be as stubborn as a mule)I have become adept in the art of emotional blackmail.So today after having thought through the night on a game plan,I decided to go ahead.Of course no surprised are allowed so she was told that the bank needed to see her in person(no such requirement exists).She was warned of dire consequences(I did tell her her bank account would be frozen and all her money given away...which she believed)I was ready to take the plunge.Now anyone reading this might think that i am a nasty daughter who is harassing a senior citizen.Far from it.
Imagine my despair when the papers reported that bank employees were on strike.Well having hidden the papers from her I proceeded to get ready and finally after much wasting of time and constant grumbling,she was out of the front door and to the bank.Well you can imagine,not a soul stir ed in the bank and me,I was most surprised."Oh it looks like a strike doesn't it" I said with the innocence of a 5 year old(assuming they are innocent nowadays).Well "we just have to go back I guess" says she.Was I going to allow that?.Of course not.Opportunities come only once and now that the mother was out in the open I was going to cash in big time."we shall visit some family friends" I say.Huge protest (which are promptly ignored) and long face and sulk sulk.Well there are some advantages of being the driver so i drive to the friends house (all the time telling her that its bad manners to talk to people only when you need them....she refuses to accept that she does any such thing)and escape on the pretext of having to run errands.Half an hour later I am back to fetch her and she seems happy enough to have gossiped and had a good cup of tea(Oh they managed to make good tea says she....huge compliment coming from her and to be taken as...oh the outing wasn't too bad).So we manage to be back home in time for her tv serial (where everyone cries because they have bad marriages and bad fate),she get back into her glad rags and yours truly is tired by the sheer enormity of what she has accomplished.Friday being another day,we shall get her out again because the bank work is not over,but the sly mother has figured out that her equally sly daughter may not have been speaking the whole truth when she swore blind that the bank wanted her there in person.So for now she has promised to sigh cheque and reduce me back to my status of errand boy to a very lovable by adamant mother.

Oh Monday

Mondays,it seems commonplace to hate this particular day of the week.For most people the beginning of the week spells another six days of having to run and rush through the day in a desperate attempt to reach targets,meet deadlines and meet the weekend(which unfortunately cannot be rushed).I was one of the breed though for many years I looked forward to Mondays because i enjoyed what i did.Many years on when I choose to give up a full time job (around the time that Mondays became less and less a day to look forward to)I basked in the joy of being able to forget the days of the week.One didn't need to know because there are no deadlines to keep and one can do what one wants irrespective of the day of the week.
But all of a sudden,I woke up one morning,earlier than usual because this "oh its a Monday" feeling hit me.Why I wonder,what made it happen.I am still trying to figure it out but haven't found out as yet.Is it because my brain started sending me messages that its time to get to some paying work.Is my unconscious mind dying of guilt because I am not bothering about finances or is it just that the amount in the bank balance looks so small( even my mother who has never held a job has more money than me) or was it the sudden and.....guess what,i cant even remember the reason but all it takes it a friends shoulder to cry on and I am feeling better already.Finally it all boils down to getting a grip on ones self and making an effort.Getting hold of a project to work on and that's the key

Unrecognizable thats who i am....

You could have known me for twenty years of your life but if you haven't seen me in six months,chances are that you will walk right past and not acknowledge my presence.That's because you wont have recognised me.Now lets get this right,its nothing to do with height weight and all that other stuff.Its just that over the years for some strange reason I look different almost everyday.I wasn't aware of it until a professor insisted that I sit in the same place in class ever day.He swore that he had to search for me as the look changed every day.Not surprising then that I am constantly walking up to old schoolmates and college mates and having to introduce myself and hear them gasp in surprise at the change.I am convinced that its all about the rest of the world having bad recognition skills.
Imagine my surprise then this morning as I stood waiting for the butcher to cut the chicken for me.A couple walked into the shop and I knew instantly that the woman had been with me in school or had she worked with me.A quick scramble through my brain files and i knew that she was a classmates sister from school.Should I confirm it?.Or should I just go by after all she had known me for sixteen odd years(years when we moved from being children to teenagers to young adults...where the most change happened).I decided to let it pass and was just about to leave when she smiled and we both started to say something....well wonders never cease.She remembered me and we exchanged notes of fellow school friends.It left me convinced that this was all about recognition skills or that the brains ability for long term memory is far greater than short term ones.Shared experiences,time spent it all matters.Of course even in the case of girls who didn't recognise me,the fact remained that when we did get over the initial shock,life was back to normal.So here I am all ready to go out again this evening and chances are that there will be people who know me but wont recognise me.One things for sure,I am safe from being identified from any police line up and that's for sure....like they say there is always a silver lining.

The possibilities

Sometimes its just about making the effort.It has been days of thinking of doing things but not getting down to it,especially the jobs one doesn't want to do,like dealing with the government and such.
So this week,having put things off long enough I went ahead and attacked.First stop was to get the ration card done,surprise surprise....the crowds were less and the work got done in under half hour,next stop,nationalised bank....no progress but at lest some follow up done and to discover that the financial situation is not as bad as I imagined it to be.Reassured,I attack spending.Now why does one need to spend tons of money in supermarkets buying basic necessities when its all available at the public distribution system.Again the crowds are non existent(lesson to be learnt,go in the middle of the month) and I get dhal,wheat,sugar and tea,what more can i ask for.The bill is under a hundred bucks and if that's not fair price then I wonder what it is.Eco friendly too,I have to take my own bags so all the cloth bags are out and my months expenditure on food has been cut down real fast and with no compromise on quality.
Meat and fish is also getting better,avoiding the super markets is such a good idea.The quality of food is better,our cooking methods have bettered (thanks to the mother officially taking over the kitchen) and we are feeling a lot better health wise.The rains have added another positive.The car doesn't have to be taken out so much,its beautiful to walk on the roads and get the much needed exercise,to chat with the shopkeepers,to check out the gardens and to watch all my plants bask in the lovely rain....oh its so good to be able to stop and smell the roses.

My days are numbered

The aversion to numbers or anything faintly numerical,started when I was around six.My father who had a pretty decent grip on numbers,had to deal first with the disappointment of having to deal with three daughters(the common belief being that boys were more numerically inclined)and to add to that he discovers that the first two could barely count and were nowhere close to being numbers driven.In one last ditch attempt he decided to start me young and math classes began the moment I entered school.He tried when I started to talk but didn't succeed.Well being my fathers and mothers daughter,I was a combination of stubborn determination and dormant rebellion so if he thought he was going to teach me maths,it had better be my way(one plus one equals two would mean putting two chocolates to do the addition or nothing else).Well every time he sat down to teach,the battle started.He was a man of little patience who simply couldn't understand how any child with even the basic brain could be so difficult when it came to simple arithmetic.Well the long and short of it is that I developed an eternal hatred towards anything numerical.
Imagine my surprise and my parents shock when I ended up with a distinction in statistics in college.My mother was convinced that the examiner was drunk when he corrected my papers and my father secretly had that "I told you she had some brains" look on his face.As I started working and generally getting some experience of life the truth dawned that perhaps I should have fallen in line early in life and realised that everything finally comes down to numbers.So from sales targets,to income tax,to simple everyday accounts,there was no getting away from it.The tragedy was that even something I love like drawing,painting and cooking needed some quantitative ability to get places.So I stopped dreaming of being a painter and instead decided to cook everything that didn't need precision measurements.So baking was simply out of the question.
Years later and now that I have time on my hands,I have decided to bury the ghost of my numerical aversion so the baking is first on my list.It started with chocolate fudge...all measurements in place and the dish is an instant hit with all my friends.Well well,the first hurdle has been overcome.So my next step was chocolate brownie.This required the next level of measurements so I made my attempt.Except that the oven was a bit too hot,the brownies came out a nice sticky brown exactly the way they are meant to be.So my confidence sufficiently boosted I am well on my way to the next level of testing.Its going to be bread next and if I get that right well perhaps my father can be proved right.....there is a bit if brains just waiting to be used.I may have tackled the office accounts and targets and other mundane ever day corporate stuff(that's only meant to survive and impress the boss) but to be able to master a passion long lying dormant because I believed I couldn't master numbers.....well that's a new high and now its all coming together,the ingredients are all ready and I am ready to arrive hot off the oven.

old order changes

We started school learning to write.I remember many note books with pink lines as borders with three blue lines in between and we had to write in a way that all the starting letters touched the pink lines and the others stayed within the blue lines.End result....lovely handwriting.This was also repeated for Tamil class as well so much so that my Tamil handwriting is picture perfect.
When it came to reading,we had regular reading classes both in English and Tamil.While English was a good class,Tamil was sheer humiliation(worse when one has an elder sister in the same school who is fluent in any language taught and is constantly being held up as an example).The sheer anxiety of those Tamil reading class makes me wonder how I survived all those school years staying sane.Unfortunately Tamil turned to french in college and if one didn't have the advantage of the Alliance francais then well,it couldn't have gotten much worse.
The point of all this is that years later when the ink pen gave way to the ball point,to the felt tip to the key board....well hand writings went for a toss.Imagine my surprise when the bank manager claims that my signatures don't match the original(signed some twenty years ago).Its shameful because my dad was 87 when the manager claimed his signature didnt match the original.To be in the same position some 40 years earlier is cause for concern.Now as to reading,well that's gone by the wayside to.When was the last time I read aloud....cant remember.Not allowed to sing aloud even in the car when travelling with husband as the man objects loudly(one would think that if any support was forthcoming it should be from family,whatever happened to the better of for worse promise?).
So I am wondering if i should start to write letters to friends and family(used to do this earlier only to realise that most of them never got posted coz lazy me couldn't dream of walking up to the Post office)but then again why when i can call.So this is probably an obituary to the written word and to public speaking.....sigh....once again I am faced with the fact that my world has changed forever.....on the bright side....I am still standing

Goodbye sunshine hello thunder

Funny how when one is nice to people,one gets taken for a ride or at best ignored.Get nasty and they take notice,end result however is that if one is dealing with inefficient people then the matter stays unresolved.
For starters I worked for a company that had no clue to accounting so they generally dumped money into my account and expected me to run an office....so poor me looks rather rich on paper(the truth being far different).Now if one is rich and middle class and salaried(difficult to be all the same at once as they are all different states of being but yours truly always manages to do the impossible) and cant manage to explain to nosy auditors how I came about being allegedly rich.One then goes to ones bank.Now here is a bank that spends millions on advertising to say how great they are etc etc so poor me despite having been in advertising so long(helps you come to terms with the fact that all advertising is rubbish and untrue)actually went to them for help.Being polite by nature I asked them for information and waited patiently since i was told that the data will be available in two days.When two days became four,I asked them firmly why the data wasn't available.Went four days became ten,I blew a fuse.Strange,it fell of deaf ears,they continued to mouth the same excuses and despite my rants,they are unable to give me the information.This bank is famous for this and while I find that being polite and nasty gets the same results....well I may as well feel good and let of steam at them.This is a bank,but I find that nasty behaviour works in most places.Talk of a crying child getting more attention.My new motto in life is to shout,rant,be nasty and say goodbye to my nice self.It was nice being you but the world has changed and I am adapting to a changing world.

under attack

To be part of a minority is not a very happy state but not one that is top of mind either.Personal attack on the other hand is something else.It makes one feel vulnerable and introspective.Was it me,was it something I said and one tends to keep thinking back.Its funny that as human beings we focus more on the negatives(unless one is an out and out positive person).
Recently some of us commented on a story that was doing the rounds.Sordid as it was,we decided to look at the funny side.It didn't work....suddenly the mail box was full of self righteous,sanctimonious remarks from women who live far away and who in my opinion had lost their sense of humour (assuming they had one in the first place).The outcome was that I ended up feeling vulnerable and sad.It took two other women to come up with something funny to put my mind at rest but the outcome was strange.Most of the group thought that the funny side was misplaced.Did they expect us to be sad for the whole world?.But then again have we become so immune to disaster and sordid details that we no longer care?....I am still not sure.

poof...zap the little devils

Hmm...let see,I don't like the little men and women who dot the income tax office.Frankly I don't like auditors either though mine is a nice smart tam bram who knows his stuff but the point being that they make my otherwise peaceful life a bit of a mess.I mean I like making money,I slogged for the better part of my life and ended up making some serious money close to retirement when the rest of the 20 something are raking it in at the beginnings of their work life.So why cant they just let me enjoy it,let me indulge a bit and well just let me save for a rainy day.No but you see that's the tragedy,now to begin with I hate keeping records.There was this lovely boy in office who was so pucca he kept tabs on all my finances and I was fine but don't you know how difficult it is to hang on to chaps like that.
Tell me why would someone be interested in my financial history?After all I am a poor church mouse who was paid a bit and like a good middle woman decided that the little money saved was fine ....but no they actually want to know why i paid who and what....give me a break ...am i supposed to remember all that...the tragedy is that they think its income when its all been expenditure....how many salaried people get extra income.Honestly how does one make them understand.So now I am actually expected to keep track of all the money I spend and account for it at a time when i am sponging off the husband.They even take the pleasure out of sponging...I need something strong to zap these little devils out of the system and in the mean while I ve decided I don't like money at all,It gives me a headache .The only solution then is to turn dumb and become a helpless housewife who has to run to the husband for every decision.Maybe i shall try it,why not ....talk of recreating oneself.Ha sounds like a plan....hmm I am liking it.

Boys,men and mallu men

This week the focus is on my community(i have had an overdose of them hence)By and large I don't like mallu men(the few exceptions are my small group of mallu men who remain friends and whose friendships I cherish,but all of them without exception have been living out of Kerala all their lives).What bugs me most about them is their condescending attitude to woman(cant really blame them as the average woman in Kerala is a doormat).Its probably their upbringing and the constant reinforcement of societal values that gives them an upper hand.Unfortunately its the middle aged ones that are the most dangerous.For starters they leer,pass uncalled for comments and can get intrusive in a way that one wants to break those ever present coconuts over their heads in the hope that whatever sense may be hidden in the recesses of their otherwise dead brains,can be brought out.Sadly its also the woman in kerala who are part to blame for these men.Boys are a grand obsession in this state(maybe so in other places as well).Girls are taught very often that despite being educated and articulate and working,their primary responsibility in life to be be someones wife or mother.Its a tragedy that if one dares to do otherwise there is instant talk of the girls loose morals,bad parenting or just economy and the click click of many tongues can make one feel that this is the worst possible situation to be in.Small wonder then that the men quiet literally believe that they are gods gift to womankind.Strangely this gives them license to behave as they please,to treat woman as sex objects and to ridicule and turn violent should a brave woman stand up to their advances.God forbid one is in an unfortunate situation of being saddled with all men in a train compartment.After having striped one naked with their eyes(rest assured its as bad as being physically assaulted)they will them continue to make snide remarks and if all this fails,then they will inch their way into your personal space.If they are are down by a few drinks(often the case as they always drink bottoms up) then be sure to have pepper spray handy or a good sharp heeled shoe or even the ever present umbrella.
Once again it comes back to socialization,if men of the same community can be nice and generous and respecting of women when they have nothing to do with their native land,one cant but imagine that it has a lot to do with Kerala society in general.When will these mothers make sure their kids learn to cook and clear up after a meal.Would it be so difficult for them to learn that sisters are equals in life and not inferior beings(then they tend to treat their wives and other women differently)well that will be the day....in the meanwhile the women continue to believe that their lot in life is to wait for crumbs off the mans table....Unfortunately while writing this I realised that i also know a lot of mallu men (who despite cross cultural exposure) continue to remain chauvinistic and macho and can be a pain in the wrong place.My advice....please steer clear of this breed(i have managed to do so).So I end with a prayer that the good Lord give the mallu man a shock to his system very soon and in the course of evolution,please god can you re engineer their brains and that of their mothers also so that the next generation will be better....?

Disclaimer:To all the nice mallu men(and I mean the ones that are my friends) who read this...my apologies,sometimes guys you are the minority sadly

Gods own country and the Devils own people

Last week I took a long 15 hour train trip to Kerala.Someone called it gods own country and the devils own people but we shall come to that later.
After passing brown arid dry terrain of Tamil Nadu,it comes as a shock to enter Kerala.One can almost see an invisible hand with a piece of good green crayon draw a deep line between the two
states.
Kerala is lush and green with beautiful waterfalls and the smell of damp earth which is so refreshing after the heat and dust of the neighbouring places.The rain falls in torrents or a slight drizzle and the sound is a soothing plonk plonk on the sand outside.Almost all the countryside is dotted with houses with typical conical roofs strong enough to allow torrential rain fall off like water off a ducks back.Each of the houses( however rich or poor the occupants may be)will have a small garden and some plantain trees,papaya a jack fruit or a mango tree and sometimes the tapioca trees.Now that the build up to onam(the harvest festival) is on,the gardens are dotted with yam plants in all their glory and one can be sure that a tender yam is just waiting to be dug out and melt in ones mouth(its hardly needs much cooking time).Flowers abound and again they are fairly typical,the hibiscus,the yellow trumpet flower and the theti (a red round bushy flower).The gardens are lovingly tended to on a daily basis and is often inhabited with a couple of chickens,hens and the odd duck.I love the duck.Its a bird that is pretty common in Kerala and can be found in ponds and rivers.Not very tasty contrary to popular taste but there is something to be said about the duck and the way they always swim in formation and do those upside down jumps in the water.
In between all this green expanse there are breaks and they come up on you rather suddenly.The lakes and backwaters beckon with their lovely long snake boats with fisherman throwing the nets for the catch of the day(rest assured that fresh fish is always on the menu of all homes).The waters are clean and silvery and the black boats almost inspire the most dull person into wanting to paint.The waterways are long and wide and can be seen interspersed with large coconut groves and small coves to anchor the boats.
Kerala besides being beautiful,is also clean.The mallu obsession with washing(its all that water around them) doesn't stop with just washing themselves,even the animals,roads and gardens are clean.Its a joy to just see so much cleanliness around.The garbage is most houses is burned and turned back into the soil.This is not some countryside story.Trivandrum the capital city is exactly like this.Hardly any high rise,just the odd ones that mar the landscape but by an large its all houses with gardens small,large and medium.Walk into any ones house and someone like me will come back richer with small fiery chillies,lovely pink chambaka ,and a thousand other fresh home grown produce.
For all this beauty that is Kerala,the people (despite being some of the most educated and the most literate state) are small minded,lazy,opposed to progress and intolerably arrogant and its the tragedy of the state that all the beauty of the environment is wasted on the people who in my limited experience,haven't changed a bit in all the years that I have seen and interacted with them.Fottunately the ones who do leave the state do turn out to be pretty nice(with the usual exceptions) so one can only conclude that too much homogeneity is not very healthy.

The quack in me

Being a quack is not something most people would be proud of but i am and with reason.For 30 years I have had practical lessons on diabetes and can with a great deal of confidence decide what to do in an emergency or even change the dosage of insulin with out too many problems(I always consult a doctor to confirm my decisions).I discovered quiet by surprise that I am a pretty good quack so I have over the past few months been sharpening my quacking skills.Its paid off.A few months ago when a friend was agonising over her daughters fever(this friend imagines that even the smallest of illness can be something of mind boggling urgency so...)I sat and watched.On a closer look at the daughter it occurred to me that she was a lot more yellow than the average Chinese and that can only mean one thing....jaundice.When i pronounced my diagnosis of the case I was met with silence,then the "oh my god,I hope your not right".Well good quack that i am,I am most often right so when the doc confirmed my diagnosis I was rather elated(poor girl had to live through horrible diet restrictions)my next case of that of the husband and his tail bone problem.While he went on and on about the pain,I did my research rather well and confirmed that a good dose of physiotherapy would do the trick.I even gave him the options available...so much for Internet research.It amused me no end when the doc repeated all my alternatives and was rather miffed that i seem to know all the answers.The junior doc who was pretty bugged with well informed patients,suggested that since i knew so much I didn't have to bother about the hospital visit...Sour grapes if you ever heard one.
Today I have diagnosed that I have tennis elbow (without knowing a thing about the game mind you)and know what course of treatment needs to be done ,...not for me the steroids so after having decided I went to the doc who told me what I need to do...rather easy this whole ortho business....there are no cures for any damage to body parts,unless broken in which case there is surgery,but should you make the mistake of breaking a rib there is very little to do besides rest and relaxation so the docs jobs is rather easy.Like the good doc says there are no emergencies in ortho.Today I asked some hundred questions during my 10 minute therapy and have decided that after diabetics my next quack specialization is going to be orthopedics....ha talk of home remedies...long live the Internet.

Of death and life

There is something to be said about stages in life.There was a time when almost all my time was taken up attending weddings,then it was visiting friends with babies,and now its attending funerals.As a policy i never went for funerals as longs as the parents were around,but with the death of the father it looks like it set off a trend.Many a close friend or family seems to be going underground literally.At the cemetery I seem to know more people six feet under than above and the tears I've cried could fill an ocean.Most of them are deaths that have occurred at a time when most people have lived their lives to the full and therefore one is happy for them and we can reflect on a good life.There are others that have gone in the blink of an eye when one was least expecting them to and those are the tragedies.
Recently at the funeral of my uncle,I had the opportunity to revisit the land of my parents and to reconnect with family after twenty years.There is something terribly overwhelming about meeting family after so many years.To begin with one have never imagined that ones family is so large,and all under one roof.Secondly it brings back fond memories of happy childhood days of play and happiness and one wonders why we never kept in touch.There was this cousin who spent her holidays with us and with whom i had a great friendship.My holidays were spent in their house and i still remember giggling in church in orthodox kerala because we had to kiss the priest hand and he unfortunately was a young man who couldn't handle the attention we gave him just to see him rattle while my aunt who was a stalwart of the church,glared at us which surely meant that punishment was around the corner.
To reconnect i decided to visit all my cousins only to realise that there were the next and the next generation there to greet me.The nephews and nieces looked curiously at this aunt who turned up in jeans and who was striping their garden of all fruit.The younger children wanted to know where i had been all these years and my cousins and i spent a good day catching up on family politics.Suddenly it was good to be back with family and we had all grown into different individuals but the bonds remain the same.Surprisingly one cousin complemented me on my command over the malayalam language which left me shocked,She was known to be stingy with her compliments but i considered that age and experience had mellowed her.
It was time to leave and we have all promised to exchange notes on a regular basis but I sometimes wonder if in all this tragedy there is some hope,some silver lining to it all ....

the tail of two dogs

Loyalty....it was considered a virtue some years ago,A number of my contemporaries worked for companies because they had been treated well,their efforts recognised and so on.We rated loyalty very high on our agenda.Then the times changed and a new breed entered the work force.While job hopping was looked down upon in our time...rolling stones gathering no moss and all that...the new breed didn't know what moss was(not surprising as they grew up in concrete jungles) and for them job hopping was a reaffirmation of their abilities and the fact that they were needed all the time.Somewhere along the line companies also bought into the idea and that when loyalty became a liability.If we stayed on too long it was because we were not getting other jobs and that kind of questioned our skill sets and that's when some of us had to throw loyalty out of the window.
Did this virtue go out of only the corporate sector?.Far from it.Yesterday it was brought home to me so clearly how little loyalty pays.
There are two dogs on our street.They are both strays but there ends the difference.One is the extrovert.She has very sharp survival skills so she wanders among different houses,spending a day or two in each.She will greet you with swishy tail and prance around like she hasn't seen us in years.This is the treatment that anyone in the building she stays in gets.You don't have to feed her,pet her or do anything but she does her bit.End result is that most of us let her use our terrace or our car parks as temporary home,we feed her left overs and one person actually took her home to three streets away when they moved,so she now spends the week with them and is back for the weekend ruling the roost in our street.She is well fed and clean and this is a direct result of ditching loyalty to any one house and instead keeping all her eggs in different baskets.
The other dog,is the exact opposite.He also wandered into our street a few years ago and then decided on the house he wanted as home.He started by hanging around outside the gate,slowly moving into the garden and then making himself at home on the door step.His loyalties were very clearly to one house and one family alone.They fed him and played with him so all was well until one fateful day when the woman of the house died and the house was sold and everyone moved away.They didn't take the dog with them and the gates of the house was locked,so there he is an abandoned dog.Imagine my surprise when I tried feeding him last night.He didn't know how to get out of the gate and because he had not kept his options open,(preferring to safeguard the house and in the process bite a few people)there the food was on the road and the dog just stayed close and watched but couldn't eat and I was too scared to venture closer.The long and short of the whole exercise was that our extrovert dog came over and gobbled up all the food while the other one just looked on helplessly.Did his loyalty really pay or like so many of us who threw it away,would he have been better off doing his own thing.I believe he would.In the meanwhile I am still trying to get him to eat a bit.

grass roots

I have been having a lot to do with ration cards lately.The card entitles some people to all kinds of commodities like rice sugar dhal etc and if its not used for two months then the card is cancelled.Considering how difficult it is to get a new one,we normally allowed someone else to use our card to buy stuff as we didn't need so much
Now that my mother lives with me the responsibility of keeping the card active is mine(my dad took care of that and being an old person he got away with a lot).To begin with,ration shops are dark,crumbling places piled high with sacks of everything.Its mostly full of people who either walk there or live close by.Very few people arrive in cars the way I do and that's not a nice thing.It almost makes one feel that one is cheating the lesser mortals of their access to food(never mind that I am entitled to it).With all that guilt(really that's my problem) i park the car a good distance away and walk to the place and stand in line.I start by getting stared at,then they chat me up(convinced that i don't understand the language)and are taken aback when i reply in fluent tamil and continue the conversation.The trick is to identify with the masses so i discuss food prices and crib about how hard it is to make ends meet and so on.I even chat and enquire about the little tykes that accompany the mothers and shuffle my way to the counter where after a few visits I plucked up the courage to ask for all the commodities listed there.
I take care to dress in drab clothes and rubber chappals and look as much at home as my housemaid(and manage it very well).Having gotten over their initial shock,they get curious and soon the chap measuring out the stuff is commenting about my cloth bag which I bring along and encouraging me to buy more stuff and with promises to keep things for me.I am now welcomed with a big smile by counter staff and have become an oddity in the place but have been accepted. Its still not easy standing in long lines in the hot sun but sometimes it needs just such an experience to remind one of the problems and trials of the less fortunate and appreciate what one had,so its time again to go back to the ration shop but i shall wait till the second week when the rush is a little less and once again I will get all the news on what keeps people going on a different plane

The family and the ration card

When one runs up against the bureaucracy,there is only one choice...fall in line.Which is why this morning saw us land up at the family ration card office to apply for one which would in no uncertain terms,establish the fact that we live in this country and in this city so let no one dispute it.Never mind that we also have a passport and a voter id which are all issued by the government.
Having decided to get one we find ourselves faced with three ques of people(no one is sure why they are in a a particular one)and since all of the instructions are in tamil,i decide to be translator so i recall those horrible tamil lessons i endured as a child and begin reading the instructions,by which time the impatient husband has managed to reach some clark and given in his papers.
Now we have no idea what the definition of family is really and as we have decided that the husband will apply in his name and i will not be mentioned,it seems that he is a single man for the purpose of the family ration card.,and there begin our first brush with how difficult it is to be single in this country.They don't issue cards to single people,because by the governments logic you need to be part of a family(as in father mother,children dog etc).So we appeal to the higher authority.I choose to stay behind (trying to look like the other woman may seem hep in some circles but not here and as i cant be identified as wife the best thing to do is to remain invisible).So the conversation goes like this.
senior clark...."why are you single"
husband....smile in resigned fashion
senior clark....ok we don't issue cards to single people....you have to have family...why do you need card?
husband...the gas agency wants proof of my existence.
senior clark(a little foxed by this new development)...do you cook?
husband....(with straight face)I have a cook
senior clark....(having never had such a situation before)...hmm...ok you go and submit papers.
(we heave a collective sigh of relief and move to Que)
after sweating a bit and beginning to smell as bad as the rest of the crowd,we submit papers and get a chit in return,not even a printed receipt.

well now we wait for verification and in the meanwhile we are still trying to figure out how the husband and i are related for the purposes of governance...and as for me,i am still not sure if i should be my mothers daughter or my husbands wife....hey what ever happened to me and my identity....well remember we may be a growing economy,affluence all around,educated independent woman but the reality at the grassroots is still the logic and reasoning of the dark ages....so i wait to be recognised

babies all

Baby,the word is usually used to describe a real young person or could be a term of endearment but to be named "baby" is something else.Among malayalees this is so common that its translations are a dime a dozen and any given family can have more than two babies(as in names) so there is a Kunju(baby in mallu land) and then a Kunjukunju and a baby john or just a baby.Its an unisex name so one is never sure if the baby in question is a man or woman.Imagine our dilemma as kids when every uncle around was a baby of some kind.So we got our own system in place.We prefixed the name of the place the uncle worked in so we ended up with a "coimbatore uncle" a "trivandrum uncle and so on.
The baby obsession doesn't end there,it also extends to the aunts so we have kochamma (small aunt i think) which in modern times has become a "koch" so we have stylist sounding names like valsa koch,susi koch and so on(the baby theme still holds)
The worst experience was when a client told us his name was baby john and for the life of us all we could think of was baby corn(food being an obsession as much as the baby type) so while we thought of the many ways to eat or cook baby corn,the man himself was by no stretch of imagination even half as appetising.So every time we rang his number we repeated the name many times just to wipe out visions of baby corn.
Strangely non of the babies are every referred to as babies...i sure must get to then bottom of this.I wonder if this was a way to ensure that the so called babies never grew up?I am going to ask one of those geographical uncles to explain this once and for all.So much for the saying...whats in a name....every thing i should imagine.

retail therapy

At the best of times I am a bad shopper and if shopping has anything to do with buying clothes or household things then I am hopeless at it.It begins with having to look respectable(shop assistants are a snobbish lot and will ignore you if they think you cant afford what they have to sell and that's judged by the way you dress) and most often than not the nightmare begins the moment one enters the shop.
The big retailers all have perfume counters at the entrance so the moment the doors open one is swamped by eager young men (not for a moment must one believe they are attracted to you...they are not) trying to sell the so called latest perfume from some fashion house or the other.brushing them off is rather difficult and no amount of arguing with them that the so called latest is last years range(remember some of us read the foreign fashion magazines)will brush them away.If all else fails prepare to be sprayed on by a dozen different fragrances and come out smelling like a flower shop or worse a tart.
When the successful escape has been engineered then the girls get at you.What erks me the most is that the girls have a nasty habit of peddling the anti wrinkle creams the moment they see me(yes i am on the wrong side of 40 but there is no need to rub it in literally).If i refuse they will go on to anti pigmentation creams,fairness creams etc.All I ever want is mascara or lipstick but they don't seem to think that someone my age may,just may want to bad an eyelash at some drop dead gorgeous hulk but well considering most women may be in denial about wrinkles,the girls do have a tough job ahead and chances are that the commissions on these products are the highest.
As one climbs the floors to the women's ware lot the experience can get more depressing.To begin with most shops today stock only the smallest of sizes,then of course the latest trend seems to be the balloon dress or the strapy number both of which can make the likes of me look like mutton dressed as lamb.So while the shop assistant will swear that the clothes look good on you the trick is to put it right back.Has anyone ever come across a shop assistant who actually tells you that something doesn't look good?.lets face it the poor girl will have an unhappy client on hand(no one wants to know the truth...that's the whole point of retail therapy) so in her own interests she had rather lie..
All in all retail therapy is no longer retail therapy so when depression or just sheer boredom overtakes,i head for the supermarket.The happy shelves of food can lift a sagging spirit and add to a sagging body too but the hours spent on food shopping is real retail therapy as far as i am concerned.

gay or straight

I am either getting rather outdated or am just sane in a mad world.The newspapers are full of murder,rape gay marriages and such news.I am not sure what the purpose of this news is.Does it change society?.No if at all it gives every pervert and murderer a chance at his or her 16 minutes of fame.Do we stem crime?,no we just glamorise it for the sake of readership and viewership.
Take the instance of gay marriages.All newspapers in my city thought it was news,perhaps it is,but looking at the photograph i was a little surprised.There seemed to be a man and a woman(man dressed in drag) and i am puzzled.I am under the mistaken notion that gay and lesbian marriages happen because men are in love with men and women with women.If that is so why do they need to have a man and woman role in this relationship.Why not just remain same sex and be happy.If i were in love with a woman I am sure i would want her to remain a woman instead of taking on a male role.The very fact that gays and lesbians need to follow opposite roles,tells me that there is an underlying need for opposite roles so can this whole debate on gay and lesbian tendencies be right.Call me conservative but honestly if I needed a male and female role in a relationship to feel normal them why not just stay straight.
Confused i may sound but I still believe that a heterosexual relationship is far more natural and instinctive and all this war on gay rights is just a section of petulant people wanting some attention and sorry i have no sympathy for them.
Ps.I actually have over the top gay friends whom i like but i like them as people and not for their sexual preferences.

rediscovering

Its been four months since i gave up my job to be at home with a parent and freelance for a bit.For the first time today there was time to reflect in all the frenzy that has been the last few months so what had it all amounted to.
To begin with I discovered i could write and write well,I also discovered that by being at home I saved myself a lot of money.I don't have to take the car out so often so all that petrol saved in this time if rising global prices is good.I have started cooking so its fun eating food that one likes and those are the plus points.On the other side thanks to being out of the rat race,the stress has diminished but the clothes sense has gone,so permanent attire is pyjamas and t shirts or shorts when it gets too hot and unlike the office the home is not fully air conditioned.
Today my cupboard looked like the leaning tower of Pisa.Haven't cleared it for months and the clothes have piled up.Also since there is no need to dress well (veggie man is only interested in how much I buy as are most shopkeepers)the clothes have not been used in a while so need to find a reason to wear them.Not surprising then that today when i tried wearing earrings the ear holes had closed but managed anyhow so there i was with my nice clothes,jewellery and combed hair and people actually commented in the positive so have decided to dress well once a week just in case i forget how i used to look.
Today i also for the first time realised that my only conversations have been with one friend(also working from home) and its not much by way of intellectual stimulation(when all we discuss is price rise and the ways of the world) and to top it all I haven't read a decent book in ages.For the first time i felt stupid,like I have been out of touch with the world(considering how the tv news and the newspapers go there is nothing much said for being in touch)or that I haven't used my brains in a long time so for starters I shall go through every freebie offer that credit cards give,get myself some landmark vouchers and hit the book shelves.I need to read a good book to feel sane again.....and maybe meet some new people go for a few plays and get our a bit more,but its all so cosy to be left alone and not bothered,I can leave my cell phone off and nothing will happen so its also a great feeling but its good to feel stupid once in a while...wake up calls are necessary to life