Nourish-n-Cherish

Schools have a method of making every child feel important. In my school, especially in the younger classes, the goal was to get as many children as possible onto the stage. Rounds of auditions were held for roles requiring no dialogues to speak of. The whole process instilled a sense of pride and the camaraderie was memorable. Every child wrote home stating they were to participate in the play on Founder’s Day, and parents would take time to gather from all parts of India to see their off-spring shine forth and perform on stage. Well … not exactly, since most children would be part of a queen’s maids or fairies or some such similar thing, and just stand on the stage long enough for a photo-op. The point is: it was a major highlight in their lives.

As I grew older, and occupied my status as an aunt, I was invited several times to performances of nieces and nephews. One such performance a decade ago still gives me goose-bumps. My niece, V, was to perform on stage as a Sunflower in her nursery school. Preparations were on at a feverish pace. She would sing and practice religiously everyday. I was there dressed in my best clothes to watch my dear niece perform.

I stepped back-stage before the program started, and wished her luck, before snaking my way through the crowds to an inconspicuous chair in the rear-end of the auditorium.

This is where things start getting interesting.

We were ready for the “Sunflower Song & Dance”. V stepped on stage, and the sunflower field was before us. To state it mildly, V’s vocal chords are noticeable even in a noisy bunch of first graders. She stepped on stage, scoured the audience and started singing. All this while, she was combing the audience evidently looking for me – her favourite aunt. She spotted me, stopped singing, pointed at me and waved – “Hi chitthi!” .

I have never got a nastier jar in my life! I slowly felt the people farm turn and look at me. I turned red with embarrassment. I could have done the beetroot song and dance just there but I went with sinking as low as possible into my chair, and prayed for the sunflower dance to be over!

What brings these reminiscences back after all these years you might ask – aah a good question. This time, it is the role of my nephew in his School play, which I will have to miss on account of living half a moon away from him. Nevertheless, I look forward to the narration of the event with gusto. Here is the first account from my sister:

I received a circular last week from Siddu’s school stating that he was selected for the school concert and that he was to be sent to school for practice even after the exams. I beamed all over and thought ‘ How proud I am! Now I know why my parents were always proud when I was performing on stage during Founders’ ! I promptly blew the trumpet to some select close friends too! He went for the rehearsal yesterday and I couldn’t wait to hear about his role!

I asked him and he gave me his usual cynical reply ‘big deal‘ !! I gave him a talking and said it was a big deal of course and these are the things that would take him a long way in life- he would become confident and face an audience with no stage fear etc etc! He listened to my monologue and said ” Amma , I am a clown in the play and there are many such clowns. That’s why it is not a big deal!!!” I tried to hide my disappointment and asked him if it was an important part. He said ‘”Amma, stop getting so excited! There are atleast a dozen clowns and I am just one of them. I am having lots of fun with my friends so this practice time is cool.They won’t even miss me.”

I was persistent and said “So what are you supposed to do in the play? Are you going to say something on the stage?”. He said ” Yeah” and went off. So I raced behind him and said ” See you said it won’t make a difference but you actually have something to say on stage. Take your part seriously. Do you have any dialogues to learn by heart? Come I will help you. ” He sighed- ” Amma, I learnt my part the first time Sir said it. Basically I come cart wheeling on to the stage, whistle, make a noise with my nose closed and then stand in a corner with all the other clowns. After some time, one of the clowns punch me and push me down. I fall down flat. Then I raise my arms from the ground and say ‘ I am dead’. So what dialogue are you talking about? ”

See the way the human mind starts thinking between nursery school and 5th grade? The same role in first grade would have had him rehearsing his part at home, and exacting reviews from folks at home. Nevertheless, performing is great fun, and an important part of growing up. That letter opened a flood of memories – all pleasant!

Whenever I am particularly lethargic about blogging, I like to think that I suffer from a writers block.

I could call it a Pianist block,(I like to think that the effects of my work are similar to the musical effects of a piano concerto – I was never told dreaming is wrong!) but I have never stepped within a furlong of a piano without disastrous consequences.

So I could just simply call it a Lazy block. Now that would make “Lazy” my profession. So when folks come up to me, and ask me what I do for a living, I could say:

“I work as a lazy”

That is one sentence I’d like to throw around the English speaking populace and gauge their degree of recoil. That would give me subject for more blogging – Ha!

Last year: same time A story of …
Happy Women’s Day!

There is a sure-shot method to get a grown person turn red with embarrassment almost instantly. It involves the process of meeting their parents, hoping they remember their child’s glorious childhood, and re-kindle their enthusiasm to share the minutest of details. One question you can ask is: Do you remember how baby goliath used to play hide-n-seek? To date, I have not heard this question back-fire. All parents who have spent hours on their mother’s knee learning the value of truth, will tell you, how daft their little one was at the game. In fact, I am quite sure Newton’s mother will tell you that her son tried to hide himself behind an apple as a child.

It is quite fascinating to see the game of peek-a-boo mature into hide-n-seek. Suddenly, closing one’s eyes in the middle of the room, means nobody can see you! Give me a break. When they do hide, you can be almost sure, it will be a choice between spot A and spot B. Spot C becomes too varied. Of all the things the things I like to see best is how they come up with hiding spots when in a hurry.

“Hurry up! Amma will be coming in any moment…hide!”

Keep the pressure on, and see the kind of spots they come up with to really enjoy hide-n-seek. For example, this is where I “found” my daughter hiding when I came home one day. I had to try to avoid tripping over her, given that the box was in the middle of the room. Nevertheless, I spent five whole minutes shouting out her name, and looking for her in every other room, before feigning surprise at find her here.

I started mentioning this to one of my friends, and guess what, her sister came up with? My friend’s hide-n-seek past! To protect the privacy of the friend, I shall refrain from mentioning the name, and other details. But, let’s say it was highly entertaining to imagine that a highly qualified person with a keen intellect also started out with a deplorable hide-n-seek history!

Another related story that I put up soon, is my brother’s hide-n-seek history. Boy, that would be a read!

There is a sure-shot method to get a grown person turn red with embarrassment almost instantly. It involves the process of meeting their parents, hoping they remember their child’s glorious childhood, and re-kindle their enthusiasm to share the minutest of details. One question you can ask is: Do you remember how baby goliath used to play hide-n-seek? To date, I have not heard this question back-fire. All parents who have spent hours on their mother’s knee learning the value of truth, will tell you, how daft their little one was at the game. In fact, I am quite sure Newton’s mother will tell you that her son tried to hide himself behind an apple as a child.

It is quite fascinating to see the game of peek-a-boo mature into hide-n-seek. Suddenly, closing one’s eyes in the middle of the room, means nobody can see you. When they do hide, you can be almost sure, it will be a choice between spot A and spot B. Spot C becomes too varied. Of all the things the things I like to see best is how they come up with hiding spots when in a hurry.

“Hurry up! Amma will be coming in any moment…hide!”

Keep the pressure on, and see the kind of spots they come up with to really enjoy hide-n-seek. For example, this is where I “found” my daughter hiding when I came home one day. I had to try to avoid tripping over her, given that the box was in the middle of the room. Nevertheless, I spent five whole minutes shouting out her name, and looking for her in every other room, before feigning surprise at find her here.

I started mentioning this to one of my friends, and guess what, her sister came up with? My friend’s hide-n-seek past! To protect the privacy of the friend, I shall refrain from mentioning the name, and other details. But, let’s say it was highly entertaining to imagine that a highly qualified person with a keen intellect also started out with a deplorable hide-n-seek history!

Another related story that I put up soon, is my brother’s hide-n-seek history. Boy, that would be a read!

I walked into the house, and surveyed the surroundings. I was out looking for a house that would satisfy my desires of a dream home. The living room was large, with a minor raised level constituting the family room where the family could have their meals. The kitchen needed some upgrades, but roomy and airy! I stepped into a pretty large room that was ridden with cobwebs.

“Is this a walk-in closet”, I asked?

My realtor nodded, while the old lady, who lived in the home, looked at me quizzically and decided to ignore my question. We stepped into another bare room, and I exclaimed :

“WOW! A HIS and HER closet. This is lovely!”

The old lady, who now bore an uncanny resemblance to my grand-mother, looked at me like only a grandmother can look at a grand-child, and said she has around 10 sarees that she folds and keeps in her steel gray trunk. The first room was used to store the bags of rice after a harvest, and the smaller room was for storing maize. Why did she need such large rooms for clothes?!

At which point I burst out laughing, and got up from my sleep. I kept thinking about paati’s face and smiled to myself!

The day is not far-off when folks walk into village houses in Singaperumal Kovil (a tiny village near Chengalpet) with similar comparisons, since Chengalpet has now opened up to IT firms!

I am stuffed with food.
I am stuffed with good food.
I am stuffed with good Chinese food.
I am stuffed with good Chinese food that I did not order.

Every so often you find yourself in a place where it is not possible to form an opinion. The feeling where you rack your brains, and you get no vibe! It was into one such place that my friend and I peeked into for lunch. We were handed a menu that has seen better days in the past, and engaged in our banter, before being approached by the owner.

We asked him for vegetable soup. He nodded his head, and asked us whether we were both vegetarians. I affirmed with a nod of my coconut. He touched his hand to his heart, and said he would take care of our lunch for us, and disappeared without a squeak.

I was wondering what he would send for us, since he had not asked us about our preferences – spicy, sweet, mild. Do we like tofu, broccoli? Nothing – nope – not a whiff.

We idled a little more, before some heavenly soup came alongside an appetizer (I don’t know the names of the dishes I ate, because the owner sent us something that wasn’t even on the menu) Soon, an entree consisting of vegetables arrived too.

I must say, this was a very different kind of hospitality, and one lunch I enjoyed. The company was great, and so was the food!

While growing up, I remember thinking that my father was the know-all of all times. I now see my daughter going through life with the same fairy-eyed notion in her head. I asked her to come to me, so I can put on a pair of shoes, and she ran away at lightning speed to her father, claiming he knows best. I rolled my eyes and let it go.

He felt particularly heroic when she ran to him with her skort and shoes, proclaiming in her sweet baby language that her father only knows how to put them on (“appa-ku theeyum!”).

I looked on, and decided to let the results speak for themselves. My daughter was tripping and losing her balance every third step, because of two notable reasons:
(1) Her left shoe was on the right leg and vice-versa
(2) Both legs were in one leg’s opening in the skort

Appa-ku theeyum – ny foot and big toe! I watched on with amusement before I took off her skort and shoes and put them properly again!

My Hero!

I looked in the mirror, and spotted two strands of white hair this morning. I know I have always had one strand that grows out of the same spot in my scalp with bull-headed determination, no matter how hard I try to uproot it, but the second one was new.

Now wait a minute…..wait a minute!

I was supposed to be wise by the time the gray hairs came! I have always wondered how the hair would know when I became wise enough for the colour change to start. Now, I see that the hairs just give you some time, and hope Lady Prudence has taken her turn and shone her brilliant rays on you. If you were goofing around while it happened, well…sad luck!
Assuming Lady Prudence follows a round robin style to make fellas wise, I would have to wait around with graying hair to get wise. All this while folks around me can look at my graying coconut, and assume I am wise.

Hmm….now, that’s sounds enticing. I could offer a ton of advice that sounds more convincing than it really is, thanks to my “wise look”. There is one problem – I need to get friendly with some younger dudes/dudettes who are willing to take my advice. Teenagers are out, since they don’t listen to advice. I am quite young myself, so I would have to target my advice at audience aged > 19 and younger than me.

For those of you who have read this post probably know, that even if Lady Prudence scorches me with her rays, there is no way I am getting any the wiser. So, I shall live in harmony with self, few white hairs and a song on my lips!

Related links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_hair#Effects_of_aging_on_hair_color

I have to start this post out by stating that eating is not one of my daughter’s preferred activities. We expend considerable ingenuity in getting her to eat her meals without making it seem like a drag for her. I sometimes wonder whether she has read the studies warning people against junk food, because she prefers to eat none of that either. I see children in her day-care center munching and snacking with relish, while my little one sticks to roaming around with a juice cup, whose level seldom diminishes.

For Pongal, I had made vadas and payasam. As is customary, I set it in front of God as an offering. Just before performing the minor ritual before the offering can be eaten by us, I noticed a tiny hand sampling each of the vadas with a nibble, and placing them back on the plate in an orderly fashion! Never had I seen her sample some food like that. To offer the cutely bitten vadas to God was at once satisfying and rewarding!

There is a reason we call children Gods!

Happy Pongal!

Freedom of Speech & Worship
Freedom from Want & Fear
Where liberty’s torch is gleaming
And our way of life is dear

These were the lines in one of our school songs, the song affects me in more ways than I had imagined. I am witnessing a demonstration against the Bush regime imploring the US to stop sending more troops to Iraq.

This is what I love about freedom of speech. There is a small band of protestors gathered in San Francisco, replete with drums and bugles.

I love the sight of these determined people out in the cold, standing up for what they believe in.

The only thing that baffles me, is the fact that the Iraq war has been compared to Vietnam war so much, it should have sent unsettling signals when the first set of comparisons started. To sustain it to ensure that the Iraq war is the costliest mistake in really difficult to comprehend.

A mistake once is just that: a mistake
Same mistake twice : A stake too dear to miss