In India

I spent a long time in India the past few months and truth be told I wasn't sure whether to return.  A lot of this time was spent at home with some family stuff thrown in.  This time around I also headed East, principally to meet an old friend D, who I had last visited in 1997. D was my MSc classmate and the brightest chap ever and this hasn't changed much with time.

But first stop Kolkata to meet old colleagues of mine. When you aren't exactly working full time in the profession there are a lot of awkward pauses but on the whole it was interesting to be back in the city and meet them.

As always parts of Kolkata look like they are falling to ruin. Kolkata always makes one feel so till you make a few rapid visits and cease to notice this.  Despite it being early January, there was hardly a chill in the air though the evening dark fell as quickly as I remembered it.  Park Street looked even more run down until you noticed bits that had changed, like the revamped Flurys. So changed was the cafe that I did not venture in. The much anticipated visit to Oxford Bookstore was a damp squib, it was hard to believe that 14 years back I used to binge shop for stationery and books here. And though I picked up a few Bengali movie DVDs, even this was a meagre selection.

I took a few photographs but walking around I felt that some cities are meant to be photographed, some to be written about and Kolkata is the latter.

On the way to the airport my cab driver a Punjabi Kolkatan (who overcharged me - though I got used to this, Mumbai probably being the only place where the meter has any meaning) told me well to do Bengalis were fleeing the city and migrants coming in from elsewhre.  The feeling that things were never going to change was certainly a predominant feature of my conversations with my colleagues.  Perhaps like my driver's joke about his Ambassador car - on life support but still going - Kolkata goes on.

From there on I went on to Guwahati. Which had changed a bit of course, given I had last visited in 1997. Still, it is light years away from India's metros in terns of crowding and traffic.

 

The Bramhaputra, Guwahati, 1997. 

Looking across to the Ugra Tara temple, Guwahati, 2015.  

Guwahati, 2015. 

The last time around I had visited during the April Bihu, this time around for the January one (fun fact: I once knew a girl called Bihu named for her parents Assam posting at the time of her birth).  As always D had planned a trip - the last time we did Umananda, Madan Kamdev and Shillong, this time around Kaziranga.

 

Madan Kamdev Temple, 1997. 

Bonhabi, Kaziranga, 2015

 Bonhabi, Kaziranga, 2015

Around Kaziranga, 2015.

The resort we stayed at, Bonhabi, took me a bit back in time given it reminded me of the many Inspection Bungalows we stayed in, down to the kind of meals.  Though we had of course come for the Park it is entirely possible to while away a week doing nothing much except reading or walking around the adjacent tea gardens.

We did of course do the safaris, an afternoon jeep safari and an early morning elephant sari.  To take good wildlife pics you need a good camera and I had my phone on me. On the other hand having a good camera you are so focussed on the shot that you tend to lose the pleasure of the moment. A good number of jeeps passed us with people with really big and expensive cameras, all in pursuit of that one shot and at some point it just seemed part of the rush of modern life and its relentless documenting (of course I am doing it here too!).

 Rhino, Kaziranga, 2015

 Morning over the Diphlu River, Kaziranga, 2015

Diphlu River, Kaziranga, 2015.

Despite the poaching and fall in numbers, there is a good deal of rhino spotting possible in Kaziranga. As also deer and water buffaloes (the latter are very shy).  The guides aren't entirely focussed on the biggies, they take time to point out turtles or birds in the trees.  The biggie of the Park is of course the tiger, the reason those big barrels of modern cameras are out in full force in Kaziranga.  At one point we thought we might get to spot one given the agitation of the deer but it was not to be - no doubt with about 50 odd noisy people across the stream waiting for the tiger, it decided not to emerge:)

But the actual joy of Kaziranga is just to be there. Of course you can't walk around but the sky, the trees, the birds all conspire to make it wonderful.  In the early morning - though the elephants calmly carry us around - you do regret disturbing the animals out for a first meal but the forest itself is beautiful, wreathed in mists, the early morning cold pleasant against one's clothing. And the night brings a pleasant tiredness that is alleviated by a hot bath and a small bonfire (literally!) at the resort.  On the trip, I was reading Tanizaki's Some Prefer Nettles which constantly contrasts old Japanese ways with the Western influences taking over the country.  There is no East/West dichotomy that I felt in Kaziranga, rather something of the old and the new.  Like the feeling of a hot water bath after a dusty day in a forest versus one in a hotel room, the warmth of a bonfire versus central air conditioning. These are not things one normally contrasts, hot water is after all hot water, and yet it all feels different here.In effect, you notice the feeling of the bath, the warmth of the flame.

I returned feeling entirely refreshed but also a bit regretful that I was soon to be plunged back into city life.

Fangirling in the 30s and 40s

Rather unusually for someone my age, I had a taste for Indian music from the 1930s and 1940s.  These were the kind of songs that did not even make it to Chitrahaar/Chhaya Geet. Sometimes an old movie would screen on Doordarshan or one might hear a KL Saigal on the radio but on the whole even in the 1980s when I was young, few TV and radio stations ventured beyond the 1950s. Part of the reason for my tastes was my uncle R.  When I used to to go to my grandparents place from hostel, sometimes we would be alone and he would be playing an old song that would burn itself into my brain and I would get addicted to the singer.  He had the oddest tastes and an excellent ear for music so one could never tell what he would choose to play. This was how I was introduced to MK Thyagaraja Bhaghavthar, better known by the moniker MKT. 

Even though their tastes had moved on to the Tamil dramas on television in the 80s and 90s, my grandparents would indulge me now and then with cinema and music tales from their youth if I pestered them enough. Sometimes my grandfather would rent a MKT video for me and though these films were hackneyed I would watch them for the music.  And to listen to the spoken Tamil of the time. And much to my mother's chagrin - because she wanted me to be smart and up to date - I wanted to dress like an old time heroine - in a sari, pallu tucked in, hair in a plait - post any such viewing (I still tuck in my pallu!). Unconsciously perhaps I was deeply influenced by my grandparents because it seems strange that I wanted to be part of a time when they were young. A time they didn't feel particularly nostalgic about. Or perhaps I just had an affinity for that time.

Your average 1930s/40s hearthrob

I want to lick that postcard-Average 30s Tam girl.

My grandfather had seen and heard MKT sing. He was a goldsmith's son according to my grandfather and dazzlingly good looking. His voice of course was divine. This fact was corroborated by my grandmother who spoke pityingly and sometimes witheringly about girls who went into a swoon and daze at his very mention, who kissed the little postcards of his that they slyly bought and no doubt were writing some very erotic fan fiction in their heads and diaries. Even married women were not immune to such immature behaviour according to my grandmother - whether she liked him or not I cannot tell because she portrayed herself as above such frivolities as succumbing to masculine charms. If it was today, those girls would have set up a MKT tumblr. For while notions of masculine beauty may change, the rules of fangirling do not. 

The eyes, that smile!

In one of the movies I saw (Haridas) TR Rajakumari played an oomphy lady who took the hero for a ride before repenting and renouncing her wicked ways as was the case in movies of the time. My mother had mentioned her beauty and my grandfather had added on information about the many men left devastated by her charms, she was after all Tamil cinema's first dream girl. All of this was no hyperbole, on screen the actress was stunning.  It was an alluring beauty - she reminded me a bit of MS Subbulakshmi - but with the sex appeal amped up.  And not in the least bit in a sluttish kind of way, she just looked like a woman who a man would do anything to have.  Or for that matter the lesbian tumblrs that I see in constant meltdown over some actress of the other - if they had existed in the 30s - TRR would be their girl.  Or at the very least everyone's girl crush, she's certainly mine.

Sometimes when I would visit, my uncle would be in that jokey melancholic mood that was a trademark of his. He would then say well soon I shall be old and alone in this house with just a glass of alcohol and MKT singing.  That was not to be.  But as long as that house exists and an MKT song plays in it, he is bound to be there somewhere around, eyes closed and listening to the music,  momentarily free of the tangled thoughts of his mind while he lived. 

__*__

My 30s/40s playlist below. MKT sang a lot of devotional songs - which I like - but I will stick (mostly)  to the more romantic ones:)

1. Manmadha Leelai with bonus Rajakumari.  Not the best dancer in comparison to some others of her time but that blown kiss (about 3.13) was quite a sensation. As it should be, coming from the Princess of everyone's dreams!

2. Vadaname Chandra Bimbamo

3. Krishna Mukunda Murare

4. Radhe unaku kovam

5. Ellam Inbame

And a bit of Saigal

1. Babul Mora

2. Do Naina Matware

3. Madhukar Shyam hamare chor

And a sample of Kanan Devi and MS songs of the time:

1. Ami Bonoful

2.Tum Bina Kal na Aave

3. Engum Nirathaiye 

__*__

Photographs - 2

I think this photograph was taken sometime in 2001 at the Botanical Gardens in Kolkata.  It was a happy day.  And it presaged a period of unconditional love, unconditional hate and unconditional acceptance of the way things were.  My exterior is calm, beneath I am on an emotional seesaw but right at my core I am again calm. But never have I been flung on and off that seesaw more violently than during my relationship with P and never has my inner self returned so rapidly to an astonishing tranquillity a few years later.

For a long time, these extreme emotions embarrassed me. Because extreme emotions are undignified.  Being utterly torn, wearing your heart on your sleeve, these make for blowsy sentiments. Bottled up, stoic silent hurt is much more attractive, it can even seem more truthful.. But in all that shakeness as you make your way back to life, you find that you don't regret falling into events without a thought, without anything but some true feeling in your heart.  And when one's heart is engaged, something true always lies at the centre. Not everyone feels this way. It can be difficult to maintain relationships with exes sometimes, especially if your history together is painful or burdensome. It can be hard to get right the balance of  being true to your past feelings and at ease with your present. For some reason this has always been easy with P. 

And of course this is an attractive photograph.  Perfect for a novella based on the events of 2001:)

Photographs - 1

Because we moved around a fair bit, home for us was just a few possessions.  Books, clothes, curios, photo albums, that kind of ephemeral thing.  About the only things of permanence was my mother's kitchen and the large wooden boxes painted Army green and stamped with my father's name and address that we used for packing.  These doubled as furniture so they moved with us everywhere.  As a result, I am far more careful with the small things that make up my life than say furniture or white goods that I see as entirely expendable.

My photo albums haven't travelled with me for a long time. They are at my father's place in Mumbai and every time I am home I browse through them and digitise them if required.  Of late, more than a few are falling apart which makes me melancholic but also reminds me that the value of photographs goes this far and no further.  Looking at them gives me pleasure, not just for the nostalgia of The Way We Were but because each time there is a difference in the way I perceive them.

The exception to photographs I keep is those of people I have gone out with.  When I was young, the intensity of a relationship was such that in the aftermath a small bonfire of letters and photographs was cathartic.  It is not that one feels less intensely as one grows older, it is merely that photographs of happy coupledom are merely that, photographs. Plus your taste for the dramatic decreases with age :).  So I was a little surprised to find a small stash of photographs dating back to the early 90s of my then boyfriend (a term I dislike but let's stay with it) that had remained behind. Partly I think because this was a time when I was learning to use a camera and I kept the whole lot of my first attempts.  R had an excellent camera, in retrospect it was more than excellent given that my parents couldn't afford even an instant camera and they were not alone in this. To his credit - and he was utterly sweet like that - not only did he teach me the basics but he let me play around with it quite a bit. A number of IIT photographs I have are taken on his camera. I guess I kept these pics for the way they are composed with identical backgrounds but are not really "couple" photographs. In a sense they evoke the mood of the time rather than existing merely as a testament of a romantic relationship. Almost I think like a Frankie magazine project.

This also reminds me that we had possibly the best kept student rooms in the history of student life:)

Balestier Road

One of the good things about not having had a car for the past ten odd years is that walking everywhere became easier.  It's actually not that difficult to walk a couple of kilometers though parents who did it back in the day everyday to school would have you think otherwise.  By walk of course I mean amble because its rare for my walk to be a power walk, I stop to look at things or photograph things often.  Small things come to your attention in a way they never do when you have a vehicle, even in the simplest of these - like a bicycle - the pleasure is in the movement not in observation.

My brother lives in a neighbourhood that is quite expat. Largely white, a few others.  There are tall, well maintained condos. Maids out with their charges.  Joggers. That sort of thing. But if you walk around a bit it changes. The other day when I was walking the neighbourhood got a bit more grungy and a bit more run down.  There were housing estates that had seen better days. The neighbourhood was also more "local" than the immediate area where my brother lives.  More lighting shops than you would care to count. Not picturesque local but merely the slightly ramshackle, fraying at the edges feel of the ordinary suburbs of Asian cities.

Of course this is Singapore so you do run immediately into a mall that has the familiar set of eateries and shops. Albeit a mall where the shops were crammed with items for the forthcoming Chinese New Year.

At some point in my walk it began to rain heavily.  There are plenty of frangipani trees planted around the city. The flowers fall now and then which kind of makes a walk pleasant. But it all looks wondrous after a thundershower as I discovered. Particularly if the trees are clustered around a small area.

This is a city that is lent character by the rain. Partly because it's a break from the constant, oppressive heat (the city lies close to the equator).  Partly because rain like snow is a climatic feature that evokes a myriad of emotions.

On my walk I came across the Sun Yat Sen memorial but left a visit there for another day.  Those fallen flowers are the nandiyavattai or crepe jasmine, also common here.  Almost every garden here has people at work, their maintenance requires constant attention though once in a while you do wish they would allow in a bit of chaos instead of the constant manicuring.

Right next to this is the Burmese Buddhist temple.  Street clusters in Singapore are often united by theme and around here a lot of street names are of towns in Burma.

The temple is a fairly new one. There are some elements familiar from Indian temples, the small shrines outside, the lamps, joss sticks though the whole is a lot more spick and span than you would find in an Indian temple. Everything is shiny new and the flowers are plastic. With temples for the large part I find that very few invoke a certain feeling - maybe not a religious experience but the feeling that something ineffable lies within. And there is a certain feeling to this temple, a quietness and calm, something beneath all that shine and colour.

I had been walking for 4 hours and yet it had felt like nothing (of course my days are idle and this makes a difference). But a walk in the pouring rain though a drab, old neighbourhood is sometimes good for the soul.

Things We Find When Moving

While packing up my place in Sydney, I found an old storage box with partitions that I sometimes use for storing jewellery.  It is made of hard plastic and probably dates back to the 80s. My father would sometimes be gifted Diwali sweets and the tin or box it came in was reused. Particularly because these were often decorative, at least by the standards of the time.

In fact pretty much any packaging that we received was rarely thrown away.  Even cardboard boxes which my brother and I would gussy up with leftover wrapping paper.  Painting over things was a Sunday afternoon past time for us, be it a cheap earthenware vase or just little paintings for our wall. Sometimes my grandmother would give us a print from a Japanese calendar, my uncle had been to Japan and a calendar would often be sent to him. We would get a single print which we would mount on left over plywood.   All of this was far cheaper than buying a curio or a print - even a Taschen calendar poster was unaffordable.

I discarded a lot of these when I moved to Sydney a decade back except this box.  And for a cheap plastic throwaway it has lasted a long time. What's more it is in perfect condition despite being in careless hands. 

In Goa

Till November of last year I had never been to Goa. There would be rapturous reports of parties, weekend visits. beach sports, food, the lifestyle and yet I had never been to the state. When I used to admit this, everyone I knew would be incredulous.  That too when you live in Bombay! You must go! Its heaven! Its awesome! Etc. Etc.  I am not sure why I never did make the trip but it seemed hard to believe that it could be less than paradise in the face of so many glowing reports.

Well reader, it is less than paradise.  Despite the photographs this post is going to host.

This was a trip I was looking forward to because I was going to be spending several days with close friends of mine.  They are building a house in Goa and the plan was to motor around a bit and also look up their place and a few local architects.  All the planning had been done by them from a place to stay to things to see and do.  Eventually most of my pleasant memories of the trip are of time spent with friends.

The places we stayed in were homestays which in  way mitigated some of my negative feelings about Goa, had I stayed in a hotel I might have fled the very next day.  The one in North Goa was a bit of a fancy affair albeit in an idyllic setting.  The one in South Goa on the other hand was unpretentious, the family more casual and the children unaffected. It made for a few happy hours.

Starting the vacation in North Goa was perhaps not the best thing to do.  It is a place over run with tourists and suffers the malaise of famous beach towns.  That is it is just another party town, an away place to get drunk (or perhaps smoke something stronger), have a fling and more.  It isn't just the foreigners, there is a steady stream of cashed up Indians (yeah some Goans still refer to us as Indians) for whom this is the place to sport short shorts, kiss discreetly but openly and be "modern". It's the closest thing to being abroad without actually leaving the country. In this Goa is quite liberal, there are none of the other unspoken constraints of travelling elsewhere in India. But this also gives a sense of empty and even sad decadence to the place, it is all body and no soul.

To add to my unhappiness, the background score for all this was pop hits of the 80s and 90s. Everything I managed to avoid as a young adult now follows me everywhere!

The Goan countryside is pretty, there is little doubt about that. So are the houses, in this the Portuguese have left a far greater legacy than the British.  And architecture seems a fairly serious (and creative) preoccupation judging by the visits my friends made. And things improve as one heads south even though there are murmurs of beaches here and there being taken over by the Russians or the Israelis or the Indians and how things were far better before some unspecified time. 

Part of  my lacklustre response is because there is little that engages one intellectually (and yes I know no one goes to Goa to sip coffee and peruse bookshops - there are other places for that!).  What I really mean of course is a sense of place that arouses one's curiosity. Goa's most famous son is Mario Miranda. And while the permanent display of his early works in Reis Magos Fort are a wonderful and amusing insight into Goa in the early 50s (thank you friends), he is so ubiquitous that even an illustration like Street in Fontainhas that seemed charming becomes overused.  Other artists are little known, I only found some fading postcards of Angelo da Fonseca's work for example and in fact I only knew of the artist because of my vintage clothing blog.  Perhaps these are mere initial impressions that will stand corrected on further contact, on the other hand I had gone with friends who had avoided beach party tourism and taken pains to locate museums and artwork and bookshops.

Everyone goes to Old Goa. And the complex of churches at its heart is quite spectacular. Of these Bom Jesus which houses the body of Francis Xavier is by far the most popular. Were there not photography restrictions, I fear people would be making V signs and posing in front of the long departed saint. Outside though everyone poses against the edifice. In fact there are a large number of honeymooners here, rustic girls in skimpy clothing taking photographs with their husbands, no doubt to be secretly savoured once they return home.

As always the better parts lie in the fringes. There are the ruins of the church of St Augustine. There is something a little eerie and spectacular about it.  The quiet convent on the other side which was undergoing some restoration work when I was wandering around. The small and perfectly formed Italian church, St Cajetan (everyone seemed to be trying for a Goan toehold). This place in fact has the gate of the old Adil Shahi palace.  So strongly associated is Goa with several centuries of Portuguese rule that everything before is barely mentioned in the tourist pamphlets.

As my friends were busy that morning, I had taken the bus from South Goa to Old Goa.  The buses are cramped but its fairly easy to travel by the bus.  Again I am struck by the absence of middle class India, almost everyone in the bus appears blue collar, a few locals and most workmen from outside the state.  From Old Goa, I took the bus to Ponda which is not really on the tourist route. The only reason I knew about the Mangueshi and Shanta Durga temples was because I had friends from the state and they often visited the temples for the usual Hindu rites of passage.  Ponda as it happens is more or less like rural parts of Maharashtra or Karnataka and decidedly the less glamorous cousin of Goa by the Sea.  Partly this is because the temples are not as spectacular as their counterparts in many other Indian states though they are a little different with their blend of Hindu, Islamic and Portuguese influences. Later my friends met me at Ponda and we drove around a bit. It felt a bit like being in a 70s movie, say Chitchor, right down to little kirana shops and Marathi programs on radios and little B&W  TVs.

Ironically despite a recent ban on foreigners entering temples, it was the Indian visitors who were in Western clothing.

Not much after I returned to Mumbai, the happiness I had felt in the wake of being in Kumbakonam felt a little diminished. And for a long time after I felt a certain aloofness towards Goa. Maybe this was because after travelling elsewhere I felt even more strongly the contradictions and underlying ennui of Goa.  Maybe it is because Goa is a de-stressing holiday, the kind you may look forward to after being stuck week long in traffic in Mumbai. Not therefore a holiday for someone having a mid life gap year. But largely it maybe that places are like people, sometimes we just do not get along. Looking at the photographs for this post, I thought perhaps I had misjudged Goa a little. But when I think of Goa, I can only recall the feeling of listlessness, even a lack of joy, that I felt at so many moments. Everyone is there to relax and have fun, to chill in current parlance, we are assured over and over again that this is the state of mind we all long for and yet at almost every moment you feel that vital life, the life that truly nourishes us, is elsewhere.

On my mother

The before and after of my life lies on the day my mother died.  This is always hard to explain, the sentimental misunderstand the nature of this feeling, the more pragmatic dismiss you as having a taste for melodrama. But anyone who has lost someone very close when young will immediately empathise, indeed a silent kinship runs amongst us.  Suddenly you are in new and uncharted territory, banished from the world you knew except as memory. In this territory hours and days will go by and each will mark the slow receding of that singular event from the world you inhabit.

It is twenty years since my mother died.  Just the other day I was astonished that she would have been 69 this year, by no means young but by no means an age in which death is inevitable.  In most ways my mother has faded from the life that surrounds me. There is hardly anything left of her in the places she inhabited, indeed it can be hard to say if anyone now remembers her very often apart from her children.  This is a natural outcome of the passing of time, every philosophy is at pains to tell you that oblivion stalks us from the moment we live. Still we hope for a little more and the now and then mention of my mother by people who knew her makes me happy, makes me feel she is still a little alive in this world.

Which is why I write this every year. To keep her a little alive. As the tiniest of flames but still there.

The photograph is of my mother in 1969, unusually in the fashions of the day. 

Favourite Boy

Review of Chaudhvin ka Chand here.

_*_

The Favourite Boy had his birthday some time back.

Every woman should have a Favourite Boy.  Favourite boy is not the husband or the bloke you are in a serious relationship with. Neither heaven forbid is he just a friend.  Instead Favourite Boy inhabits an enviable zone between the two i.e. a situation full of unconsummated romantic promise.

Favourite Boy is somewhat younger than me which famously discomfited him when we first met and wasn’t helped by my looking 25 for a very long time in my life thus confusing Favourite Boy.  Favourite Boy and I took to each other from our first meeting.  Favourite Boy and I would meet when we were in each other’s town and would write zany letters to each other when apart. If you wanted to go for a late night drive or stay up until 4 am talking rubbish or try strange alcoholic spirits or plunge into the sea fully clothed Favourite Boy was on hand. This has remained unchanged over the years.

Not every boy can be a Favourite Boy. For e.g. my Favourite Boy has a way with words, is good looking, quite the party man and can generally be expected to jolly one out of the moods. All these are attractive attributes in a Favourite Boy.  Another important thing is that Favourite Boy must have a new girl on his arm every now and then with whom he has a proper romantic relationship, this creates the proper framework for your own relationship with Favourite Boy.  Of course to be Favourite Girl, you have to ensure that you too have a Boy on the Go. Many a happy hour can thus be spent discussing these romances in a “we refuse to get there but what fun it is to discuss it our love lives with each other” way. It is entirely possible that Favourite Boy will marry one of these girls or be very intense about a few (or conversely you might) but with luck this won’t change the boy remaining Favourite Boy.

As you will guess a good degree of flirtation is the cornerstone of the relationship with Favourite Boy. You must at all times extravagantly praise the Favourite Boy’s looks, his attire, his house, his music and the like.   Yet you must also at all times verbally spar with the Favourite Boy on all this and run it down because frisson is also an important part of the relationship. Frisson and Flirtation. There in summation is Favourite Boy.

I have sat with Favourite Boy on ledges, benches, at the seaside, in a car, on a train, on swings and even on a tree.  A happy cloud of romance hangs over us always which we never dispel by way of an actual romance.  People waste their time agonising over what ifs or precipitate perfectly good Favourite Boy relationships into messy relationships.  Never must one do this.  For the pleasure of the Favourite Boy is in sitting side by side eternally, knees never touching.  So a toast to Favourite Boy!

_*_

Still reading RK Narayan, is he amongst the best Indian writers ever?  It feels as if my pleasure in reading Narayan has quadrupled over the years. Here, for e.g. is the sly humour of the opening chapters of Mr. Sampath, The Printer of Malgudi in regard to the offices of The Banner:

…….the other three windows opened on the courtyards of tenement houses below.  The owners of the tenements had obtained a permanent legal injunction that the three windows should not be opened in order to that the dwellers below might have their privacy.  There was a reference to this in the very first issue of The Banner. The editor said, “We don’t think that the persons concerned need have gone to the trouble of going to court for it, since no one would open these windows and volunteer to behold the spectacle below.”

This stimulated a regular feature entitled “Open Window”, which stood for the abolition of slums and congestion. 

My Mother's Clothes

I don't think I know anyone as particular about clothes as my mother.

Not though in terms of dressing au courant or fashionably.  More that she had a very defined aesthetic and anyone straying from this would arouse a great deal of irritation in her.  

If I had to label her style, it would be simple, modern and classic. This was however compromised by her fear of her mother and the desire to please her. Consequently there are few occasions when my mother pretty much abandoned the South Indian look or indeed wore much make-up. When she did, she shone because it felt true.

These pictures taken in 1969 or so in Chandigarh are one of few times which are definitely her own aesthetic.  I particularly like the one below, which looks like Bombay Dyeing ads of the time. 

Our styles differed a lot and though once in awhile my mother would appreciate my sense of colour and bohemianism, many a time I have had to return things that didn't meet with her approval.  It wasn't that she wanted to control my tastes as much as it disturbed her sense of harmony. 

Rightly or wrongly, I have retained my own tastes.

But I like to look at her pictures now and then and think of her elegance and grace. I remember all her sarees and its nice to recall their look and feel, her own thoughts about them.

Good taste endures. 

____**____

For my mother (1944-1993).

The Week Before Christmas

Review of Majboor on the phillum blog.

The lead up to Christmas here is often exhausting, especially if you feel disinclined to shop as happened to me this year. On Friday evening I watched Majboor and wrote up the review.  Saturday was taken up with shopping for gifts because I couldn't put it off any longer. I bypassed the malls and went to the outdoor  Rocks Market which was fairly pleasant given that we are still having rather cold and cloudy days well into the summer.  Then the packaging of gifts, the making of cards, the weekly grocery shopping, the weekly cooking, a fine tune of the Majboor piece and the weekend had just slipped away.

One important gift still remains.  My niece is of an age (4) when she has been sucked completely into the world of Disney (something that alarms me but that's a separate story) and Ariel is a particular favourite of hers.  Anyway a few months back we got talking about Ursula the Sea Witch who features in the animated series (naturally as a fat blue woman) and then somehow we got to the meaning of the name Ursula with my niece - a somewhat opinionated child - refusing to believe that it meant "little bear" because "you are very wrong Anu Periamma, Ursula is a sea witch!" Then she had one of those moments where she suddenly got what I meant (and I love these moments, its like watching a light suddenly shining in her mind!).  This carries its own dangers because she became immensely preoccupied with Ursula and the potential of another story that featured a bear.  Rashly I promised her a story of Ursula and the Bear to be delivered by Christmas but I have yet to start on it.  Hopefully inspiration strikes soon otherwise I will have a somewhat disappointed niece on my hands.

The shopping trip was slightly sobering too.  The markets were deserted and a girl at a stall told me that this year they would be making little or no profit during the crucial holiday season.  In my suburb, the Eastern European man who opened a small store of cheap bed n bath stuff has seen no customers and has grown progressively sadder and more dishevelled.  Perhaps it's fears of another financial crisis. Or perhaps everyone is online.

Speaking of which the highlight of my weekend was a trip to my favourite bookstore, Abbeys.  A wave of pure happiness engulfs me in nice bookstores so I remain loyal to dead tree books and can't contemplate an electronic one. Ever :-) 

And here are pictures of an Australian summer that has seen more rain and cold than the fabled sun of tourist brochures.

Dog Days

I have been dog-sitting.

The dog belongs to my uncle and is quite the apple of his eye. So I had to move in to keep an eye on the dog while he is away.  The dog has been behaving thus far and in an effort to establish friendship has shown me its bones hidden all over the garden. He's a Lab of some sort and fairly gentle as dogs go.

As I am away most of the day a walker comes around during the day.  This hasn't stopped the dog from attempting to bamboozle me into a walk.  Most often he loiters around the house but now and then he comes and barks at me, these appear to be requests for bone time or walks. Or he will hang around hoping for food, his stomach is a bottomless pit.

Bone time is very sacred and must be adhered to every day, its the hour when he bonds with you by chewing on a bone while you sit close by.  I have to take a book and sit by him till the bone is chewed to the...bone.  Of late we seem to have swung back into winter which makes this slightly unpleasant - especially when the demand comes at 9:00 pm.

I am not entirely sure why but I talk to the dog in Tamil, maybe because its the language I employ for babies.  It hardly makes a difference to the dog of course who only responds to a few important words.  I sing nonsense verse to it once in awhile too but it always leaves the room when I do so which hasn't done much for my pride in my singing :-)

The suburb my uncle lives in is fairly unremarkable, there are streets of suburban houses, schools, the odd community centre, a Railway Parade.  Over it all lies that Anglo-Saxon somonolence (as Murray Bail once put it in a book) peculiar to the more far flung suburbs of Sydney. 

This part of Sydney is also quite green and leafy and is a part of town where the city's early vegetable gardens were established.  One sunny day the dog and I went for a walk.  The park nearby is a mix of native and foreign trees and full of bird life.  I took a picture of galahs which are abundant in this part of town. And just a few general pictures in and around the park.

Yesterday I was putting away some stuff and the dog looked extremely doleful.  It then struck me that it thought I was also packing and leaving. Much petting and endearments later he looked happier.  Of course when I do leave he will hardly notice because the family will be back:-)

Initially the dog-sitting seemed a bit of a hassle coming as it did in the midst of a busy work spell but it's turned out to be a bit of a change and a mini-vacation.  Perhaps a staycation keeping house and dog for people on real vacations is a perfectly acceptable way to step out of one's routine:-)

__*__

Separately the guy I buy The Big Issue from informed me today that he was now married to one of his customers.  When I first met him he was homeless, separated, had lost custody of his children and had just started selling the magazine.  Since then he had bought a place, earned a diploma. And now the marriage.  It made for a happy story.