Tag: India

An Asian Reading Fest

Regular readers of the blog know that we recently returned from an Asian vacation. Every time I take a vacation with the sister in the Middle East, she has a set of books ready for me to read. The books she had laid out for me this time included books written by Jean Sasson, who happens to be one of her favorite authors. Jean Sasson  was a nurse by profession and spent a little more than a decade working and living in Saudi Arabia. One of the princesses of the Al Saud family solicited Jean’s help in telling the inside story of a Saudi princess’s life. She has since written eleven books dealing with various problems faced by middle eastern women.

This time, the book I chose from her pile was ‘Growing Up Bin Laden’. It is a book about Osama Bin Laden as told to Jean Sasson by Osama Bin Laden’s fourth son, Omar Bin Laden and his first wife, Najwa Bin Laden. She uses their alternating voices in the book to tell the story of his life. It is the first book of the kind and is an interesting read.

I am following up this book with two books that I hope to write about soon in conjunction with Growing Up Bin Laden:
Al Qaeda, The Islamist State And The Jihadist War by Daniel Beaman &
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

I suppose I expect to get a glimpse of the view from within Bin Laden’s family, from a professor on Middle Eastern Affairs and a President who finally caught Bin Laden, but is abetted by a world that is still host to a variety of terrorist organizations.

Serious fare thus far you will agree, so I followed it up with delightful fare.

What better mode to release those endorphins than by paying a visit to Malgudi?

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I fell in love again with R.K.Narayan and his writings. Every time I read one of his books, I am amazed at how simply, how nonchalantly he takes you on a stroll along the Sarayu river after passing through the tantalizing wares on Market Street or on quieter days muse and saunter along Vinayak Mudali Street, passing Albert Mission College on the way. The charm of Malgudi never stales. I have come back and scoured the local library for books on R.K.Narayan and find very few.

Note to self: Buy some books by this great writer and donate to the library the next time I visit.

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While I visited the hills of Dehradun with Ruskin Bond, or Malgudi with R.K.Narayan, the husband took off on his own into the Tamil world of Sujata.

Blissful are the days when one is visiting another world while sipping tea in a cool room.

The Spirit in the Photograph

The family got together and tried to take a photograph together:

Challenges here: The Saga of the Family Photos

Precursor here: The Family Photo Saga Part 2

How do you dress for a family photograph?

Motive matters.

  • If you are going for the preserve-family-as-we-are aspect of things, then I suppose we lounge around in daily clothes, crack jokes and laugh at them in a manner that will make Vogue photographers cringe. #BeCool
  • If you are going for the best-behavior-photographs, then I suppose you resort to the prim look, and smile at the photographer like you are meeting him for a job interview. #JobInterview
  • If you are looking for the social propriety angle, then of course you observe and deduce based on women dressed in Tamil TV Serials before their daily evening coffee at home. #TamilTVSerials
  • If you are looking for the co-ordinated angle, what are the colors to pick out? Should we all wear blue and look like Smurfs? #Smurfs smurf_dino

The problem happens when each one is aiming for a different objective.

  • The sister-in-law in a bid to impress her mother-in-law (viz. my mother) shed the slacks and tights and swooped in looking beautiful in a saree (#TamilTVSerials look). The mother said, “See how beautiful your sister-in-law looks in a saree?” This did not bode well for me. Luckily a blouse emergency shot this option down.
  • The sister went in for the #Smurfs angle and said, “A bright color looks the best”. She paraded the sunflower-with-stalks look.
  • The t-shirt wearing men were hustled out of their t-shirts by smart men in pressed shirts and pants. (#JobInterview look)
  • Bearded Blokes refused to shave and went for the #BeCool look.

So it went. For every member of the family not playing with toy cars under sofas.

In all the melee, we forgot to soak the toddler boys, for whose sake the picture was being taken, in Dettol and scrub them with coconut-bristled-brushes. They continued playing till the last minute and looked delightfully dirty. It was in the car on the way to the studio that these boys were made look presentable.

The highlight of the family picture was the fact that as the photographer’s assistant tried to arrange folks one after the other in a way that will make us look good in spite of the clothes and the colors, the grand head of the family took a roll-call in true school teacher style only to find the youngest member of the family missing.

If one were to read through the chronicles – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, you will notice the photograph was being taken to update the presence of the recently-added-to-family toddler boys. It turns out that the youngest one decided to play with his toy car under the studio chair beyond the range of the lens, and refused to budge. Chocolates did not help, future domestic world war threats did not work. Carrying him with the studio chair did not help. It looked like the picture was going to be taken without him after all.

Every picture has a story. I called the father a social dinosaur who might have called the photographer’s assistant to join in if you remember. True to the father’s nature, this family photograph did have the photographer’s assistant in it. His spirit can be spotted lingering in the photo. A chirpy young man, who showed absolute promise by cajoling the little fellow, hiding his toy car and flashing it out of his pocket at the right moment, making the boy look up in glee.

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The boy who looked up at the last minute after all this drama looks best, and as far as we are concerned, it does not matter if the rest of us had our eyes open, or were picking our nose, or were about to sneeze.

That is probably why we looked like a dysfunctional bouquet of sorts. I have always liked the impromptu wildflower bouquets with their riot of color, wild grasses and ferns. Captures the beauty of the wilderness.

The Family Photo Saga – Part 2

Since the last time the family had gathered together in one place, two toddlers had been added to the family banyan branches, and it was time to take a family photograph. “Let’s leave at 5 p.m. sharp, so we can get done with the photographs by 6 p.m. sharp!.” Sharp words indeed for one trying to finish that blasted book, lying flat on the bed. Just 100 pages to go.

Let me paint the 3:59 p.m. picture for you and the 4:02 picture for readers to compare and contrast. There is no point in saying that the bustle started at 4 p.m. sharp. How did it start. Where did it all start from? These become questions and relevant ones at that.

3:59 p.m.:

If a cameraman were to walk into the old parents’ flat, there would have been no one in the camera’s span of vision. A wild-ish whoop and some loud vroom-vroom sounds could be heard at ground level, where two toddler boys were lying on their stomachs and putting hot wheels cars through the paces in the afternoon heat. Every now and then the cars would fly through the painstakingly constructed hoops, and zoom under the sofas in the sitting room. The boys would then roll over and then sidle up on their bellies under the sofa to retrieve the car, and come out looking like they had dipped themselves into the vacuum’s cleaner’s dust bag. Their cheeks were not the rosy little cheeks that their mothers lovingly spoke and sang off  while they were babies,  but rather ones that could use the detergents being relentlessly advertised on the muted television near them.

The 3-seater sofa housed a young, handsome boy with a ghastly beard in a supine position. He had clapped on large earphones that did not invite conversation. The sofa under which the toddlers had to crawl to retrieve their cars had on it another young man (not as young as the supine one, but with an equally ghastly beard) snoozing mildly in front of his laptop. This young man had piled into his afternoon biriyani plate saying he needed to complete work on an important document.

Two lazy chairs were reclined to full-back: On one of them rested the Calorie Master, who after a fitful serving of 500 calories of Biriyani, was preparing himself for the rigors of a photographic session.(https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2016/08/03/newtons-sixth-law-of-motion/)

The other lazy chair found a septuagenarian who boo-ed at calorie counters and baa-ed at document writers, ate his heartful of his wife’s famous biriyani and snored peacefully. He did not seem to notice The Hindu newspaper placed on his tummy that mildly fluttered up and down with his breathing.

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On the floor lay a pyol (paai), and on it lay a restless gentleman reading a Tamil book while keeping a benevolent eye on the men folk. The biriyani was working its wonders in his stomach too.

Further inside, in the bedrooms, three females lay reading quietly in one room while the fan whirred overhead and the incessant water dripped from the water filter into the stainless steel bucket below.  In another bedroom lay two others fast asleep – content in the afternoon heat, while a septuagenarian lady lay musing about when she should get started with the evening coffee. There is little point in getting the old lady out of the kitchen when her family is around. If she isn’t in there, she is thinking of what she could be doing in there to fatten up her loving brood.

The clock clicked sturdily and moved towards the 4:00 mark. It was at this time that the s.lady saw the clock and leaped out of bed. “Shouldn’t we get started if we have to leave at 5 o’clock sharp? “ , she said in her best school-teacher-addressing-the assembly-without-mike voice that had the following effect on the populace:

(1) The sleeping ladies moaned and shoo-ed her out. (Amma! What are you bellowing like this for? )

(2) The females reading in the opposite bedroom leapt in their beds. It never is pleasant to be reminded of frivolous things like dressing up when a book needs reading. (Aaaaghhggghwwwhhhh! Paati! Amma! Paati! Awggrhhh!)

(3) The Calorie Master stirred and fumbled the word ‘Coffee’ through the fleeing mists of sleep

(4) The s. who boo-ed and baa-ed slept on since he had prudently switched off his hearing aid for just such emergencies.

(5) The man on the pyol was happy that the house stirred. These quiet afternoons were draining for the man of action.

(6) The bearded fellow with the earphones could have remained at rest in a South Indian wedding hall with the nadaswaram blaring nearby. But he too stirred.

(7) The toddler boys behaved as if nothing at all happened. (Lightning McQueen is now rounding on the turn and chasing Chick Hicks. Now Chick Hicks is falling through the loop and yes…he is flying through the race and oh no…..he went under the sofa again.)

8) The document writer’s laptop slid from his lap, and he showed remarkable agility and managed to catch it before it plopped onto either of the toddler’s heads as they dove under his foot to retrieve Chick Hicks. This sudden jerk to reality gave him a peeved look, and he too managed a swear word that got him chastised by the toddlers (Blimey is a bad word!)

4:02 p.m.

Where a minute before, soporific peace reigned, now confusion did.

 Children walked up and down looking important.

The girls asking whether they needed to change, (Yes! ), and the boys looking for their misplaced toy cars, planes and headsets. (No!)

It is but a question of time before the question of dress pops up. Oh the drama.

What kind of clothes? It is an important photograph said everyone to no one.

Part 3: Dressing Up for the Family Photo.

Baboons In An Orchestra Aid Bold-And-Beautiful Actress

We played host to a few relatives from Tamil Nadu, India lately. Uncles-in-law & aunts-in-law have been taking in a spot of the Californian sun and we added ourselves a few pounds of weight with all the cooking and eating that ensues. In all the hustle and bustle that visiting folks entail, I was not entirely surprised to see that Tamil TV serials reared their ugly heads in the television too.

Before I start, I want you to imagine a cage with a baboon waiting to get near an orchestra of badly tuned musical instruments nearby. Bear with me, I shall explain why a baboon is caged nearby.

I was cleaning up in the kitchen after an impressive sort of meal while the visiting folk switched on the Tamil serials. I need not have worried that I had not been following the serial for the past year and a half. In ten minutes, I knew the whole plot: Rohit and his father were bad, bad men and bold-actress-with-lots-of-make-up, had filed a police complaint against Rohit. Bad Rohit’s bad father clutched his heart when his Rohit was arrested and was carted off to the hospital with a weak heart. Rohit’s mother came to plead with bold-and beautiful actress with lots of make up, who was sitting at home and reading a magazine, to take back the case, and cried a river. All with me so far? Good. For it is here, that we wade into murky waters.

Bold-and-beautiful actress said she could withdraw the complaint but she had one condition.

The baboon breaks out of his cage and is now letting loose on a harmonium, while thumping his feet on the drums and the horrendous background music prepares everyone in our house, and the neighbor’s house too, that impressive stuff is about to happen.

B-and-B actress goes to visit ailing father in hospital and tells him her conditions for withdrawing the police complaint. Baboon is warming up now and lets you know that. Apparently, reprehensive Rohit had raped poor Divya, gotten her pregnant and not only had he abandoned her, but bad Rohit and his bad father then tried their best to get poor Divya killed.

The baboon now tries a windpipe sort of instrument that makes one forlorn and wane.

The B-and-B actress sets forth her condition: Rohit must marry Divya.

The baboon bangs, clangs and deafens one with the din on an impressive scale.

baboon

There are loud murmurs of approval from the audience, and I am shocked. I should know better than to expect anything else from a TV serial, but I still am shocked. I mean to condemn that poor girl Divya with a rascal of a husband is nothing short of criminal. She could have carved out a life for herself (and her baby if she wanted to keep the baby that is) with dignity and self-respect. Who wants her to be saddled with the rapist for life?

The maudlin entertainment pulled my attention when the parents or parents-in-law were here several times previously. There the heroine is:  impeccably groomed, dressed like she is going for a party, to receive her abusive husband or to confront angry relatives. She babbles on paying no heed to the social cues, and pretty soon, there is an explosion of sorts and everything thuds to a stop with a slap on her face. The glycerine acts immediately and there are tears and dubious sentiments on culture and I gag (once again) in the confines of my home.

For all our efforts at education, social reform and trying to open the mind to gender equalization, I think we have an epic fail with the Television serials. The producers may say that in the end, good triumphs, and after three years of bearing abuse, the emancipated young lady defies that kind of ill-treatment in the last one week of the television show and their souls are salvaged.

But where is my apology? Where is the apology to the audience? For three years, you send misogynistic messages every evening to the audience – an audience comprised of young, impressionable children, parents of married daughters, parents of daughters-of-marriageable-age, parents of young sons,  parents of sons who are married, not to mention every human-being, who actively seeks or passively receives the entertainment. What is the social message you are sending them? There is no subtlety there – the socially disgusting messages are there in Techni-color with dialogues.

Like my young daughter says, “Oh. In Tamil TV, everybody slaps the women when they don’t want to talk about something anymore. They never just walk away!”

That feels like a slap. Let loose baboons on drum now.

The Empress of Palates Examines The Upma Conundrum

This post is heavy on Indian foods: Upma, Chapathi, Koottu. Here is an image that will help: (Just a snapshot from Google Images when you look up South Indian Tiffins – idli, dosa, pongal, upma, sambhar, chutney, koottu.)

I am glad to say that this post was featured in the Open Page in the Hindu dated 19th July 2016. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/not-cool-enough-yet-the-upma-conundrum/article8866694.ece – illustrated in the article by cartoonist Keshav, whose work I have admired ever since I knew how to appreciate humor in the written form.

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“Folks are coming home for dinner tonight, what do you say we finish up all the leftovers in the fridge, so we can start afresh tonight? ” I said peering into the fridge. One box of chinese take-out (kung pao vegetables) was stacked atop a glass container with homemade vegetable biriyani. Beside it lay some south indian koottu and a few chappathis. One sweep to conquer Genghis Khan, Akbar and Raja Raja Cholan.

“Sure!” said the husband. I must tell you that of the many virtues I love about the husband, one is the fact that he is not a snooty gourmet. He is one of those lovable fellows who will have an omelet with dosa and soup, and gush on to say that it was a good meal. So much so that, I have gotten used to being quite the Empress of Palates around the house. If I think we could have masala vadas and I am in the mood to make them, I set to it with gusto.

“I told the guys we shall make it a South Indian dinner potluck.” said the h. as I peeked into the phone telling me about one friend’s contribution. I nodded. One friend said she would make a side dish that would go well with upma. So,  I said I will make ‘Upma’. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upma) It is that beautiful dish that is garnished with beans, carrot, peas all cut up into tiny pieces like stars, planets and comets speckling a clear night sky, and to complete the panorama of the flitting clouds added,”I’ll also make a mean groundnut chutney. ” Van Gogh’s Painting would beg if I made this beautiful one swirl.

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I had that smile that tints my face when I look up at the night sky, while the husband looked mortified. . “How could you? Why would you make upma when you can make so many other things? Upma is not the right dish for .. it just isn’t the right dish pairing for dinner alright?” said the man hovering his chappathi between the kung pao vegetable and the koottu, on his plate, as though deciding which was the worse choice to make.

“But you don’t mind eating upma. Even though you say you don’t particularly like it, you do justice to the dish don’t you?”

“Well yes. But upma is not a dinner worthy dish.”

The brain was fumbling with the light switch somewhere. “We had it for dinner last week with tomato chutney remember?”

“Yes! For us it is okay, but it isn’t exactly a dinner dish for Guests.” he said with a flourish. Like one who has just scored a particularly tricky point at the Local Debating Competition. The way he said ‘Guests’, one would think President Obama was stopping by with Elon Musk to discuss the Space Program over a plate of upma that evening.

“I thought you said that the only folks who visit our home are those you can open the kitchen to.” (This, he said in another discussion surrounding the use of a formal dining table in the home, but I am entitled to use the argument here: I checked with the daughter.)

“Yes but upma is easy to make. “

“Really? Last month do you remember me peeling some pasty stuff off the pan when you attempted to make it? You said that I made it look easy to make upma, but it actually is an art by itself.”

“Yes…I did. But that was to appease you.” I drew myself up. The husband raced on before I tacked on to the subject of appeasing and said, “NO. Not upma. Anything else.”

“I don’t understand this – what is wrong with upma?”

“I don’t know. It is considered a poor man’s dish.” said the husband, his arguments thinning. The cashews and ghee swam before my eyes and wondered which poor man would cook like that.

I gazed at the poor fish, and let it go. A few minutes later, the phone piped up with friends telling one another what they proposed to bring. One of them said she would bring Upma and then went on to add: My husband thinks I should not say Upma though, so I shall bring Vermicelli – Sooji Khichadi. A few minutes later, the phone buzzed again with her husband chiming into the conversation saying he had convinced his wife to switch their entry to Pongal instead of upma.

What is the mystery that plagues Upma’s status in South Indian Society? The Empress of Palates demands an examination. An Upma Festival maybe?

The Knee Scooter

I have always been a loving aunt and have prided myself in the fact that I love being around children. This time, the nephews and nieces seemed extra nice around me. At first, I deluded myself into believing that they were sympathetic towards me and my broken leg. But it turns out that while they love their aunt like an aunt, they loved my knee scooter better than any toy they’ve seen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_scooter

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I often muse on our purpose on this Earth. I wonder how we will know whether what we make of our lives is meaningful or not. The knee scooter has provided me with deep philosophical answers.

You see? This simple aid has been a boon of sorts. I broke my foot a few months ago and am still hobbling around on a boot(cast). I was advised the use of crutches to not put any weight at all on the foot. My resolve to bear the injury stoically crumbled faster than some dried up cookies on my counter-top. Three days into using the crutches, I found myself weeping at the hopelessness of it all. My arms hurt from the crutches and I could not run behind my toddler baby to get simple things done. That is when one of the children in my neighborhood came and told me about this knee scooter. A contraption that can be used to move around without putting any weight on the foot. The husband got me access to one quickly enough and I must say, I whooped with joy!

The knee scooter was amazing and helped me perform most of my duties as normally as possible. In fact, I even undertook a trip to India and Dubai using it. Many people thought me nuts. In fact, my own family thought I’d become a salted walnut. I realized that it is not easy to travel halfway across the globe with a toddler in tow when one’s foot is broken. Most people would have cancelled without a second thought. Well…I am not most people, and went anyway (with some ‘subtle’ encouragement from the husband and daughter of course).

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I tried to find the inventor of the knee scooter, but it is not easy to find. Nevertheless, the person (or team) who invented it, or even helped conceptualize it in one way or the other, has led a purposeful life. The beauty of it is that they may not even know it. It is not a very popular contraption. The medical team at the hospital I got treated in did not tell me about it. They gave me crutches. If doctors tell their patients about knee scooters, patients could try to obtain one on their own even if insurance doesn’t cover the cost for it.

While I was scooting my way in Dubai one day, a Doctor came up to me and introduced himself as an Emergency Physician. He’d noticed my boot and asked me what I was using to move along. When I told him all about the knee scooter, I was surprised to hear that he had not seen one like it. He vowed to make enquiries to make knee scooters available for patients in the Middle East. To me, that one conversation was well worth the trip.

That and the large number of people who saw me forge ahead with a knee scooter. I hope they will remember seeing something that alleviated a person’s distress with a broken foot. If my trip abroad can help even a few people with foot injuries, I think the trip was a success. An unconventional one maybe, but a successful one.

Santa Followed Us!

Here is wishing all of you a wonderful new year! For those of you who noticed the quiet blog, I have been offline on a trip to India and the Middle East for the past few weeks. The daughter was sick with worry about whether Santa would know where to find her, since she was to be away during Christmas. She left letters and cookies under the tree in our home in the US (‘Just in case’ she says!) But she need not have worried. We knew a manager who worked at one of Santa’s factories and arranged for Santa to drop his presents off for the children halfway across the globe in our hallway in Chennai.

You know? If I were Santa, I’d be quite flustered with all the last minute changes that he had to deal with last year.

1) The lists changed in the last minute. For a whole month, there was something on there, and then the day we were leaving for India, a new list appeared with a bunch of cookies. I had to physically ban the milk, since we were scheduled to be away for over 3 weeks. ("Huh? I Changed my mind" – the daughter shrugs her shoulders when quizzed about the change in list contents!) IF I were Santa, I would have stuck around and shrugged my shoulder too, but he didn’t. He was very accommodative of requests procuring items from the local markets at short notice.

2) The location changed. There was a large Christmas tree with an updated list and a post script saying, "Santa: We will be in Chennai for Christmas for this year." I mean. What?

A number of questions arose in my mind. First of all India is ahead of us in timing. So, technically, by the time he read the note and zipped past time-zones, he would already have been late, but he wasn’t!

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The daughter and her cousins spent all afternoon on 24th cutting up pieces of paper and coloring them to be Christmas tree and decorating them with stickers and bindis. Santa behaved admirably and left the gifts for them under make-shift paper trees that made for endless days of fun.

Happy New Year!

 

(Image from Google Search)

Carwaas Saar Carwaas Carwaas!

I got into a friend’s car and they both apologized for the mess in the car and removed one toy from the seat. I cringed. Everything else about the car was spotless. No rubber-bands and dried leaves on the floor, no spare jackets on the seats, no books peeping out of every pocket – not even a chocolate wrapper on the floor and they apologized for the mess. I made a mental note to compose something proportionate when I gave them a lift. I don’t think mere words are enough. The cars interiors and exteriors have led to intense arguments about what is a reasonable mess quotient for a car in our family. Ever the sensible voice in the family, the daughter suggested that we take an adventure of sorts and get the car cleaned by going to that fun car wash down the street. So, off we went jibber-jabbering the whole way.

The automatic carwash is the one thing that had my eyes positively popping out in all directions when I first came to the US. Perhaps I have told readers about my brother and his love for vehicles on wheels. For refreshers, please hop on over to his blogpost – if that doesn’t convince you about his love for vehicles, I don’t know what will

http://my-unused-mind.blogspot.com/2010/01/falcon-to-burgeran-autograph.html

Point is that as long as I was with him, I had to just take my vehicle and go wherever I was going. He’d have it cleaned, he’d fill the petrol tank (except on one occasion that I shall blog about soon), turn on the ignition and hand over the vehicle to me with a longing in his eyes. I would then get on and simply move-it with a wave to the dear fellow. Moving to the US has altered all that. There is no brother at hand to take care of my car for me. The car needs washing, I wash it. Sigh! From the opening paragraph it is all too clear that I am not doing a stellar job at it either.

The daughter and I enjoyed the carwash and on our way back I couldn’t help telling her about how I felt when I went for my first carwash in the US.

“You mean – you have never seen an automatic carwash till you came to the US? You’re kidding right?” she said incredulity dripping out of every syllable. I then explained car washes to her as done in India.

A carwash in India has as many flavors as the spices and the industry thrives on a number of best practices. Only none of them are documented.

The marketing slogan used is:

Saar Saaar Saar Saar – carwaas saar carwaas saar carwaas

Volume:

Adjusted to traffic and surroundings. Decibel levels should allow for marketing slogan to be heard inside rolled up car windows.

Location:

Some places I know have “saloon caarwaas”, “jest fast carwaas” and regular deals. The saloon carwashes are the ones done with foaming soap and water. While this is done with a regular service, the owner has the option of sipping tea (hand-delivered with a finger in your cup) or leaving the car there. Best done with reliable dealers or mechanics, for we all know that spare parts are hard to come by.

As for the Jest Fast carwaas variety, I’ve seen them done in minutes while waiting for the traffic signal to turn green. A bunch of guys throw some water on the car and another bunch climb on with towels and scrub clean. One time the signal turned green and the guy on the front windscreen was not done yet. He kept wiping while the impatient mistress honked to let him know. This guy should be identified and recruited by any organization worth its salts, I have always maintained. For Rs. 5, he simply wouldn’t let a bird dropping go. He scrubbed and scrubbed. He screamed to the driver – “Madam – keep moving! I will scrub and then jump off at the next signal. Don’t worry!”

So, the lady drove gingerly with this guy squatting on the hood and scrubbing the windscreen with all his might. It is a pity I hadn’t a cell-phone to snap a picture with me right away, but I shall always, always carry that image with me.

As expected the daughter guffawed at the whole story and said she preferred the automatic variety. I was not so sure.

Jam relieves Jam

My recent trip to India was filled with driver chronicles. I am not going to bore the general public with the story of another driver who drove us in Kulu Manali. But I do have to mention him. We had asked for a car with driver to take us upto Rohtang Pass ( a peak where it was possible to view snow in the Indian Summer) Rohtang Pass is beautiful, but getting there is no relaxing soak in the spa. There are roads upto midway up the mountain. After that, it is blind faith in your car driver.

Driver KM (for Kulu Manali or Killer Man) was lean, bronzed and had a mean cut running across his jowl, that served to accentuate a sinister look.  If you get a driver like ours, the chances of getting killed by his looks was greater than being killed by the lack of roads. Driver KM seemed to have taken strong training from Mafia overlords, Hollywood and Arnold Schwazanegger in the looks-could-kill department. While he claimed to have control over the vehicle, he seemed to be totally lacking in control on his own emotions. In hindsight, it might have been worse if his areas of control had been switched, but we heard from others that they got drivers who knew how to control both the car and their temper. Sad – still, life is a bargain.

Rohtang Pass took a good 3.5 hours from where we stayed in Manali. We left at 7 a.m. The driver opined we were late. “Jam lag jaati hai” he told us. He explained to us with a stern face that traffic jams were common, and frivolously leaving at 7 a.m. does not suit the strict guidelines set by a peak as severe as Rohtang Pass.

Whatever may be his shortcomings in the temper department, I must grant Killer Man that in the envisioning department he did not fail. We started back from Rohtang Pass on the narrow roads, and right enough there was a spot where progress stopped. When yaks carrying people overtake you on the roads, you realise there is a problem.

I “kya-ho-gaya-bhaiya”-ed him (what happened brother?) to find out what happened. I mused on how in India, one embraces everybody as family, and perfect strangers become your elder brother or maternal uncle in a jiffy. Driver KM’s jaws were firm –  he crytpically replied, “Jam lagi hai”. He seemed fond of the phrase.

I was confused, and being the sort of inquisitive bird that I am; I wanted to know what caused the jam. I hoped there wasn’t an accident of any kind. Driver KM was swift this time. There was hardly a second’s gap before he took to chastising me about speaking and thinking good thoughts. He said it would make me a better person. I had committed a heinous crime in suggesting there might have been an accident. Now, if there was an accident, it would be entirely my fault. I found the insinuations a bit unfair, but the only other option I had of getting back to my hotel was para-gliding down some steep cliffs and I wasn’t in the mood. So, I kept quiet and simmered in the background.

Conversation lulled for a while after this. I couldn’t bear it any longer and decided to investigate. It turns out that two large lorries with drivers having roughly the same ego as the size of their vehicles were attempting to cross each other on a road that would gladly accomodate two bicycles and a duck, but no more. So, the blokes sat staring at each other for an hour. Neither would back down, and neither would move. Vehicles snaked up for miles on either side, while these two egotists carried on their fun who-doesn’t-blink-first game.

I sighed good humoredly. I had to think happy thoughts remember? So, I sat and thought of Kissan Jam and all my favorite flavors. I like pine-apple and mixed fruit, don’t you?


After a jolly hour of this game, an officious looking person came and hustled everybody to get moving. He brandished his impressive moustache – a must when it comes to mediating between lorry drivers in India, and got the traffic moving without making either of them think like they were sacrificing in any way.
What can I say? My sweet thoughts relieved the jam. I didn’t mention it to Killer Man – some things are best left unsaid.

Honeymooning in the Hills

I’d been on a great trip like the voyagers of yester years and swept acrossvarious countries in the Summer. Well, I’d only been gone three weeks, and I had only gone to Asia. But the journey still felt like an epic one, and what better place to log it than my old blog? Now, I am going to go for the classic NRI effect and make a statement intended to annoy the masses: I had clean forgotten how hot the Indian summers could get. Folks who live there claim it has already cooled down because of the monsoons. But I thought it was still hot, very hot. We did our best to escape the heat and retreated to Kulu Manali.

Kulu Manali, I learned was the latest vacation hot spot. One evening, under the pretense of reading a book in the garden, I silently drank in the antics of a newly married couple playing basketball in the garden, and almost split myself sideways, while attempting to keep a straight face. The poor fishes were taping themselves playing, with witty comments about each other peppered with love dialogues. I could have told them that 5 years from now, they would squirm faster than a bunch of earthworms watching it, but that would have been plain mean of me. So, I did the next best thing and watched them.

I must say those honeymooners brought on a flood of memories. Before you recoil in horror, let me assure my readers that I am not here to tell you about the time my dearest and I recorded ourselves on our honeymoon. I do not wish to impose ……

I have probably remarked on this blog that I was brought up in the picturesque Nilgiris in South India. Ooty, the ‘Queen of Hill Stations’, was home to the southern half of the honeymooning crowd, and our home was often the abode for honeymooners who were the third related cousins to the aunt who was just two hops away from the distant maternal uncle (who incidentally also knew my paternal grand-uncle’s maama through adoption, did you know?) There have been times when folks would arrive on our doorstep with a letter of introduction from someone like this, and we would be entertaining them for their honeymoon. Or rather vice-versa. The children of the house were quite adept at studying the smitten behavior from the long-lasting, and had our own jokes running in the background. What I did not appreciate was the fact that the guests being honeymooners needed a separate room, and mine was offered up without the slightest word of consent from me. Indian hospitality I tell you – tut tut.

Some of them were decent guests and chatted up with us without having to touch each other every 5 seconds to make sure it wasn’t a dream. I am sorry to say this glowing statement of conduct did not quite pass for a few of them. What appalled me was the fact that these visitors would then go on to ask us to accompany us to show them around Ooty. Thank Heavens my father did not usually consent to these requests, but the fact that they would ask was enough to give me the jitters. I mean, what do they expect a school going girl to do with them while they walked arm in arm down a quaint lane in Ooty? The problem, I realise now, was the fact that we as a nation try to get the maximum bang for the buck. So, while honeymooning and linking arm in leg or arm as the case maybe, we should also drink in the Botanical Gardens – Botany classes, and the HPF (Hindustan Photo Films Factory – Engineering) and Marine Sciences in the dying Ooty Lake.

There was one moment when a pair of them came back eating out of one ice-cream. Caused quite a scandal in the 80’s I tell you.

THUMP!

A loud thump woke me from my reveries. Apparently, the female half of the couple had inadvertently basketed the ball from within 5 meters of the hoop, and the thump was a loud congratulatory smack, which the male half was promptly recording for future use. I looked up. The couple smiled and asked if I could take a picture of them. I smiled and obliged. They positioned themselves next to a largish rose plant and smiled at the flowers together while I clicked.

Honeymooning in the Hills is still in, and love is in the air.