Home SWEET Home

Fact:  India has the largest cases of diabetes, sitting preeningly sweet above China, USA ,Brazil,Russia and Japan, and every other country in the world. And under the age of 35,3/4ths of the deaths are attributed to Diabetes.

It’s a disease that blows out candles as fast as AIDS, 3.2 million a year.

Controllable,predictable,preventable,yet,Why? The reasons could be enumerable. From genetic to Lifestyle, but mainly boil down to the sweet tooth we possess as a nation. A thread that ties us as strongly as innumerable boundaries divide regionally. Maybe it comes down to us genetically encoded and wrapped as a hand me down gift of traditional seasons greetings sweets box.

Could it be that as a nation we are genetically predisposed to the slayer?long generations being exposed to the culture of nothing can be too sweet,slowly creeping its way from habits to silent trickle me downs in the wills??

We have all heard tales about how our ancestors, okay this one is purely mine, could have a box of ghee and used to drink their tea half full with sugar, he also used to ride a horse across hundreds of bighas of land a day, probably burning it all off, he died as healthy as his horse at 94.

(Could it also be that losing all our horses to the lazy winds of time we are just left muddling about in the sugar,tilling land in Farmville or building cities in CityVille with no horses to pull us out of this quagmire? )

If you do not remember any such stories and you pick at sweets delicately and probably just hand out platitudes of ‘I don’t like them’ when someone offers it to you while secretly salivating, then you will probably not relate to what I write, because you are already on the path to emancipation. A generation separate from the greedy that is the underlying definition for the rest of us and maybe eventually the plague in you shall spread and dethrone us from our highly placed spot in diabetic hall of fame.

Could it also be that our 'will power 'courtesy being dipped in sugar over centuries has become porous to popular healthy notions of sweetness and are blinded into letting the saccharine slip through,unawares??

Many reasons, but I can only extrapolate from what I feel.

Let me start by introducing you to my personal battle field where recently,only two contenders are alluring me away from reality, the fight between cookies and chocolate fondant .Explaining me, a small digit in the billion denominations, but still a part of the majority that places us at the top of the charts.

Small steps to the right,big steps back in reverse,my body perfects a rhythm,eyes disciplined in their aversion of the cookies that display the RAID THE LARDER,a space jammed with chocolates icecreams,cookies,chocolate covered Raisins…now imagine a more attractive corner at 35,000 feet. This is my work altitude.My work space limited, my imagination with the hyperactive switch on.

I do this regulary,you know.Not flying I mean,just dancing around the Larder.

I have this image that plants itself in my mind and then the dance begins.

The theory being that the image supplanted in my mind translates to repeat telecasts, making the hologram med image a delightfully succulent treat for the tongue.

Tea Coffee???As I pour along, POP comes in the image of me munching that shortcake.

Nibbling the corners to reach the strawberry core,which needs a hundred percent attention,rubbery yet full of gummy strawberriness.Snap out!!!!

Row two,Would you like some dessert? Or cheese??and remaining correct to theory fruits???

This sluggish drama unfolds and my mind provides the background score,the word dessert,desssssssert rapping mindlessly soundlessly on.Rapping on it while the product lies tangibly close is pure agony for my senses, the spoonful of chocolate dreams are dancing tittilatingly up.

My conscious mind will never let me live,were I to eat both.

However the ability of the mind to placate the belief system, lulling it to mute by replacing it with a temporary relief patch is an art that we subconsciously practice to perfection.Basically I am all about zero control.

Desitny,It was meant to happen,Uncontrollable,sab bhagwaan ki kripa hai (God’s will) are all gateways to heavenly mouthfuls,brushing aside all scientific data.So may be its god’s will or psycho kinesis that I find a cookie,then another, in my hand to go along with the hot Chai.

Also my sweet jaw needs a little nourishment to revert to sweet status post a savoury lunch.For which the star attraction is the Fondant(I can even feel the molten chocolate in the centre move lavaishily past the crumble of the cake,and into the river of caramel,where i scoop it all lovingly and enjoy my piece heaven.now that is what i equate the golden gates to,I don't know about you..)

Justification?reality?Fact?whatever.

This is how I came to perfect the dance around the RAID THE LARDER.The really professional dancers have written guilt out of the equation.For me this is such a hindering factor,because then guilt turns to self admonishment , as the size of the coulis reduces with each walk-past. and the self admonishment only goes when the memory is written over by an overly concerned call bell,or a nice and scandalous chat over a cup of peppermint tea which I savour.

The question that I answer most frequently,why do Indians have soooooo much sugar in their tea,or put in milk bottles for children?? I guiltily answer in between my bites of the short bread or the chocolate coulis.I don’t know what I say,I hate justifying to self righteousness, or regional or palate perceived superiority, I need to find a great come back.(If i start to explain the orgasmic pleasures derived by our genetically primed tongues,it could be leaking an open state secret,plus it will take practical demonstration,which the salad part of the world is deprived of,as it is wont to do.)

(But what I should tell you is my heart bleeds when the rotation of meals changes, that is the depth of emotion an Indian can feel towards a piece of sweet.)

And as we come totally religiously programmed, with ingrained knowledge of  the circle of life ,(you may even buy bracelets depicting it celebrating the eastern-ness of the concept )and if I am blasé about it, In life what comes must go, what begins must end, and if it’s a circle the end is just the beginning. and if it has to be never ending and what it calls for is devotion dedication to the finer things in life, well who am I kidding its actually ambling along sweetening the unbearable bumpy never ending ride, enjoying it while watching the cirque of life.

So for Indians basically life is a Jalebi ,(roughly a crooked sweet doughnut) and we rise in it like a cake.(which we now, bowing to changing times, make with sugar-free.)(and its a fine way to be,but as we stare at computer screens all day long,we just need to figure out a way to balance the missing horse riding for hundreds of bighas in the equation of Sweets+horseriding= Long healthy life,because sweets+computer+god's will=Fast Track to God)

WE LIVE IN SWEETNESS.WE THINK SWEETS.WE ARE SWEET.

How else is it that pan India you wouldn't find a person who doesn't smile at you, as you ask for directions in broken Hindi, in the worst possible accents we may have ever heard in our lives? What makes us still smile when you turn around and poke a jibe at the poor unkempt fellow who just waved you along? What makes that smile so sweet? Religiously awakened tolerant enlightenment? Or just five sugars dissolved in the mid-afternoon brew?? You will never know.

As for me I am part of the unquestioning sweet parade with just a smidgen of self flagellatory tendencies and a very bad case of Selective short term Amnesia.

WELCOME UNQUESTIONINGLY TO INDIA.

Till the neo- savory healthy underdogs overthrow us and  bleed out the sweet .Then we would brush past a questioning you with the blank polite stares of New Yorkers,munching salad and sipping Americano.

Raanjhana , Apna Rachaya Shani!!!!

Strong character detailing,incidents played to perfection by all,actors chosen tailor made, Lead actor chosen such that he could tomorrow probably come to deliver fresh cow's milk at your door,and you wouldn't blink an eye,though Dhanush's silky hair that wave around like a head and shoulders advertisement in the air may pause me for a second, but only a second (not withstanding his southern acting pedigree) Screenplay written probably by the local 'panwari '( small adhoc shopkeeper selling a betel leaf delicacy),ensconces us in Benaras making it a reality, then transports us to Delhi and ties us all up with the thread of love.I also experienced a minor love haze when Abhay Deol dimples his way into the movie.Contempt For Sonam and a constant feeling of laughter in my stomach whenever the best friends came bickering on screen.Basically I lived with Romeo(Raanjhana) in his hours of Love and throes of deathly Pain.

Not undermining my ability to loose focus when faced with Abhay, What apart from him, is in the movie that makes me and you forget wrist slashing is generally not recommended for a long and prosperous life?not to mention glorifying it maybe in the hopes of leaving behind a 'khoon bhari maang'.
What is that makes us sympathize with a serial stalker,who just cannot take No as a gentle rebuff  and needs it to be redefined by 16 slaps.the 17th not receiving a recipient cheek as the owner is rudely shot directly to the hospital ICU.all for the want of a simple understanding that we don't always get what we want.

What is is that makes me and you  forget all logic and  cry for him????(okay just me maybe not you)

I should probably have walked out disdainfully muttering about the silliness of it all,been more pragmatic and practical, but in my defense,and the only conclusion is I am an easily captured bird ,you spin me a tale and i will build a castle and golden cage myself.I run on instinct,and have a tendency to take casual leave from logic,quite frequently.

You throw in three friends who cross boundaries of loyalty and you kill it with love ,and I will probably be at the end of the hook, wiping off my tears ,falling into an abyss of sadness.Short lived I admit,but still,questionable is my mingling into the screenplay as if I was related to the characters.

so let me take you through how I saw it.

*Fictional depiction of characters to animals is no representation of their personal traits;)*

Once upon a time there was a boy and a little girl who lived in a town upon river Ganges,or a snake,played by Sonam Kapoor and a dog played by Dhanush who lived around the same time.

Dog sees snake,dog loves the snake, the snake being ever-changing in it’s a form and resplendent in its glorious beauty, is a creature completely devoid of guilt at sucking the life out of the dog that loves it deeply and with adoration that obliterates his social skills to the point that blinded by the hooded dance and drama that surrounds the snake’s family, the dog forgets to attend a wedding in which he is the groom.

To give the snake credit,it did try and slap the dog away,but the dog being a dog,was always happy to see its master no matter what and her touch was felt lovingly by his own paws even after the palm had vacated the cheeks leaving only a resounding crack,the joy that coursed through him set him into the motions of movements ,which should only be reserved for stances danced with fluidic grace,borrowed from alcoholic stupor in front of a groom on his way on the auspicious marriage horse.The dog was drunk,drunk on love.Maybe he needs a lesson in violence never broods love.

Doggedly he espouses the local U.P. customs of wooing a girl,Complete in the knowledge that he is not the Bull dog(Shahrukh Khan of dogs I guess) he decides to work on entrapment by following her slither daily to school, staring mooney eyed from afar,holding onto the boundary fence, as she practices her Nagin dance, ,while his friends egg him on. By following her, he marks his territory , makes a manly pass at the girl’s affections, stealing her away from her locality boys,who come ingrained with a moral territorial right over their street girls.(that is small town wooing for you)

The film does have humor but not the hissing Nagin played by Sonam Kapoor,trying to emulate joy and coming up just spluttering unconvincingly ,the only thing human in her, being the exaggerated sway of her hips in a slim fitting suit,or even a ninth grade dress,I guess they start learning hypnotism really soon.Ensnaring the puppy to the level of tears,one would hardly forget a person let alone a loyal lovable dog if they slit their wrists in front of you,however Nagin being ever selfish and in love with the Nag of the century ,the dimpled bull dog of a prestigious college she currently holes in,conveniently overwrites on all her other childhood  memories with ease.

The humour tickles you from the directions of the dogs best friends, loyal he dog ,Murali(Muhammed Ayub) and she dog,Bindiya(Swara Bhaskar.)

Timeless is the tradition of putting your arms around your guy friend’s and staring companionably at the lady love of your childhood friend,walk to school and walk back from school,(keeping an eye out for her, literally,because what are friends for!!!), The 'brotherhood friendly staring fraternity' apart,in their minds ,the lady love being already wedded to their mate, becoming  ‘bhabhi ji’(brother's wife) for janam janmantar (child marriage not being a discretionary or valid grounds for logical dismissal)

In our tale of Romeo Juliet gone horribly wrong at the word Love, this shoulder hugging group staring role is played by’ Murali’ ,the musical rhetoric pronounced and enunciated by both him, and Bindiya ( Loud and floral language made her the abusive but compliant to all schemes, yet always jilted love bard),in combination and alternately they held my jaws to ransom.

Murali is tearingly rustic in his appeal,who fumbles when he meets his Bhabhi or bhobha or zoya ,as her correct name eventually finds his voice. Point to note also are his superior scooter riding skills while all the time having a chunni tied Kundan on his back,balancing around the roads of Varansi to find a hospital,for our local par amour,with a penchant for wrist slitting,in the face of rejection,a skill that so impressed the leading nagin that she flicked the blade onto her wrists in the face of  a plot she singly wrote to deceive everyone, being foiled. Pity in her case it was not shown as being an effective way of kissing goodbye to mother earth.

Swara’s character is marked by undying faith in the cow’s cupidic skills,her  love being jealous, from deprivation, a constantly swinging carrot. Her instant joy at bread crumbs dropped by an oblivious Kundan(dhanush) , leads to her gratitude filled feet pattering around all the temples in town.The sting from her bite is muted by purity in her emotions.However her constant showering of abuses and curses, her openness in her dislike of the leading ‘she snake’ of her life, throughout the rolling reel gets us used to her constant raucous wails. This made her sad head tilting and jewellery clinking, unheaded on a dishevelled yet still veiled wedding lehenga,on seeing Kundan, post being jilted on her wedding night,feel silently deafening, and her pain in that averted glance feel like a boulder shifting in me..

These were the best friends.

The leading dog with all his endearing lovable stalking capabilities faulted majorly and showed no appreciation for any kind of locomotive,he got on normally but usually just left the cycle going on its natural path to leap after slithering lady love,not believing in brakes he preferred being stopped by stationary buggies at railway stations Uncaring for his safety as he lands at railway station floors or river beds, into which he drives when he grows a little older on a scooter,apparently may have been a busy time to avoid the station,or probably preferred the river, just for a cheap wash.

Needless to say my distress at this kind of treatment to hero cycles, was repeatedly seismically felt by the front seaters, who progressively gave me nastier stares(I would love to think I was riveting enough,but I think it was the legs again)moving swiftly on.

The whole movie is apna rachaya shani (a self written course to destruction)as Murali so lovingly liked to remind anyone who cared to listen in to why was the groom was crying in his garish brocade sherwani,(probably heights of haute couture for benaras city),sparkling in orange finery,maybe he didn't like it,otherwise why would a groom cry? why would he slit his wrists?the answer to everything was apna rachaya shani, according to Murali,a devout Shani Bhakt throughout the movie.

Had the love been wavering like the next man that walks past me,had a gap of eight years dulled the memories of a girl in white hi jab doing namaz, had the snake’s slaps churned slow poison into his system instead of permanently ensnaring,then the character would not have been ‘Kundan’.

What kind of love doesn't evaluate the damage done by the object of desire?Kundan’s.

Kundan was rustic,simplistic,and his love was so.

When he is lying on that hospital bed at first I didn't think he would actually close his eyes.And not once in the movie after all his persistence I thought he would say he is tired,tired of trying,for her.Tired of it all.

This ball of energy that persistently churned out Chai like a machine,in the cold delhi winters and followed lady love like earth does the sun.To watch it ebb and wane,flicker,That was the point when I closed my eyes.  It was when I saw his friend Murali(muhammed)stare in agony from outside the hospital room window, Helpless in the face that even his fast driving scooter skills will not save his childhood friend, the feeling to cry went a little lower in my system.

When I saw a Proud Pandit father ,die of agony inside while eating his rice,knowing  his son was dying in the neighboring state, The feeling edged lower still.But when I saw Bindiya breaking her bangles of hope, finding her life long death curses transferred, to her Kundan instead,made the feeling hit rock bottom, just as the lights came on BRIGHT.

 The rolling credits reflected in my (sigh!!)wet face. Looking down I kept telling my self, this is just a film; just a film and maybe it worked a little.

Maybe it didn’t ,Even after just two drops, my eyes are red.:(( just so no one can catch a glimpse of the blood shot red eyes, I keep searching for imaginary things on the floor. but I have to constantly work at wiping the tears, that need repeated telling of the truth that it was a fictional portrayal and he hadn’t actually died. Everyone is standing waiting for me to move and so are our lovely front benchers, and according to a very conscious me, all boring holes staring at me and my downcast search for fictional items.

The red eyes came to my rescue , I would love to say it’s a genetic disorder,blame it on someone, but then vampire eyes is all me(I wonder if eyes are actually the mirror into your thoughts)whichever it was the two angry armed men got wordlessly disarmed.PHEW!!!! (girl power)

I should seriously control my legs next time, though my next movie is super man, maybe I should control my arms.

 I should even thank the she snake in all this,Her vindictive sleeper role in the film, hinted at in small instances of selfish love sacrifices she took from our little love puppy Kundan,Turned the film into a gripping saga of love and betrayal.

Also had she not graced her hooded presence in the city ,Kundan would have married Bindiya and she would have been Murali’s bhabhi and all this rachaya hua shani would have been managal then this Friday we would all have been watching Grey's Anatomy on TV at home as no one makes a film when its all kushal mangal. That's how I  saw it.

Should I pray not to cry in movies???not all make me tear up.last one was in college,and I am a fat liar,but how would you ever know to the contrary?

As I am an all inclusive fool,on CL from logic for two and a half hours, I think I will not pray, because its my  belief(justification to self more like it),that its better to be touched to the levels that shake you in your pallid apna rachaya shani life rather than not feel at all  and sail past life rather than dive in and get a little wet.....Jai Shani dev!!!!

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE

 'Zdravstvuite….or that’s how they say it in Russian.Do not pronounce the first v..otherwise even the Russians would con-volute the pronunciation.

 Repetition in this case does not translate to retention I still  kept walking muttering Zdravstvuite…Zdravstvuite ,under my breath.After a break of fifteen minutes of lack of rendition I had to take a re-course in the words pronunciation,I am obviously not a natural Russian.

Definitely Indian though, I may be half way across the hemisphere but I know the local viral travels with me. I have this self realization of being infected because when you start learning Russian by attaching punju connotations to it, you have been in Delhi for a long time, so this is how I memorized the Russian ‘HI’…

Breaking it into two parts ZDRAST—VICHE…I allotted the second part to the Punjabi aithey uthey ithey ‘vich’..after that I just needed to focus on remembering the first part.

It is a fluctuating luminescence but the bright light in my head came on,on my last evening in Moscow,strolling down the artistic Arbat street,the idea to enhance my Russian local experience struck.

It occurred, rather untimely I must confess, that spending a week in Russia and not even knowing how to say Hi to my handsome portrait painter….unthinkable….considering my timing, the only Russian I could practice it on was the crusty immigration's officer at departures, who was not mighty pleased with the fact that the immigration slip from arrivals had gone walking, and probably lining the bin along with my nephews diapers back home.

Saying it,mumbling it, the first time didn't actually sound like anything a Russian would say,and asking me to repeat under pressure couldn't get a riveting performance from me,so the greeting that was sent forth again muttered was the universal hello.

The second person I uttered this to was back on my home turf, while regaling my friend with tales from ‘Russia with love’,this friend I greeted  with the an extremely loud version of the convoluted ZDRAVSTVUITE, the volume decibels increasing with the confidence in my knowledge that she would never correct me,having probably never heard the term before and all that would leave with her , was a lasting impression of my vast skills. Hence after the resounding success of the formal greeting I decided to chip in with the privet privet too…a slightly informal HI and pronounced exactly such….and thus I reveal 50% of my Russian skill with those two words.

Words covering the other half  being spasiba,meaning thank you.Now this is one word I mastered ,initially it came out as a shy almost apologetic sound to the hot Russian maid who came to clean up behind us very lazy Indians, starting with her, by the end of it I was brandishing it about town to everyone who bothered to bump into me.I must have been the most grateful person walking the streets of Moscow that week.

I did have genuine cause to use it though,because the real feel of a visceral thanks is only felt when you are lost in a strange country that refuses to acknowledge signs of any language that you have spoken or heard of since you were a foot long.

When you are surrounded by a river on one side and a park on the other but where you want to be is on a hill top,then asking for directions is the most probable course of action,the stumbling block comes when you approach a family that looks like they could speak English.

After the careful selection you are 99% staring into eyes that are all blue and 100%confused by your gesturing. The only other course of action is to get wilder in your gesticulation.hoping maybe one of your contortions will strike an old dumb charades memory between two linguistically alien people.Basically taking a cue from the super man movie with the raised hand flying sign and from two year old's at how to charade for a mountain, I managed a glimmer of recognition in the blue eyes, (some languages never change)eventually after  tonnes of grunting and English clues I was set along in the right direction.Leaving behind trails of spasiba echoing in my wake.

‘Spasiba’ flows and is ever gratefully churned out naturally, when you are in a  land that feels like its never been trodden on before, mud mulching under your feet in red riding hood's deep dark woods that are strangely standing in the center of the city ,part of a russian sad (park)and you have no idea whether to go left or right or straight ahead so that you can see a street,or maybe a cyclist or a passerby,or some indication that there is no wolf lurking around ready to pounce on you.I know the possibility of them stacking up woods where children feed squirrels and skate is highly unlikely but having grown up on a healthy diet of werewolf movies I could not subconsciously delete the options, could I?

Am I coming across as a likely candidate for the lost series??well navigating around a strange country when the bones in your body are made from safe cement,you basically want to fly and leap and ideally land on your feet,the other prospect is something which is at constant war with the adventurous spirits within.

So when I saw this group of people emerge  from my werewolf haze,I spaseebaaed god and profusely spaseebaaed the English speaking Russian breed of youngsters,and happily trotted along my way again,minus the mad gesticulation of last time.the footloose wanderer winning the battle against the ,' I should have stuck to the original path ‘ scolding strict alter ego.

The other word I learnt was in the confines of the house which my sister in law repeatedly used to fetch her ducklings to her…IDHI SUDHA…which basically means come here,now I couldn’t very well say that to half of Russia.It is one thing if you say that to a small child, you would excuse my self preservation skills in not shouting it to the Russian populace.I sufficed by going on repeat mode inside the house.

Learning how to sway your head gracefully and say DA!!if you want the man to keep pouring more wine into your glass is also a very important green signal,which incidentally would roll down very well with a Georgian KHACHAPURI,which in my dictionary is a stuffed pizza bread,(surprising to me was the fact that a country the size of a dot and population of three people was influencing a country that was hundred times bigger in gastronomic terms(though i can inhale just about anything),the country had the capability to conjure up a meal that stuffed me and left me wanting more, and for a word to get transformed in my mind from conjuring up Georgian architecture to hallucinating about pizza bread when any one would say Georgian from here on  i would say it was a lexically revolutionizing experience ) obviously continuing on from the viral it gets committed to memory by splitting it as  Kachaa Poori(Raw Poori-Indian flat fried bread)

A red signal one was NIYAT NIYAT…..which I put to good use to fob off a very tall and persistent stranger,who I eventually pegged as a beggar,When he flashed his stained teeth at me,lurched a little closer,and probably thought me gullible enough a target to ask for a dollar by wagging a finger at me,rude man.

Had the incident not seen me in a very crowded subway with people constantly pushing past me I may not have had the courage to loudly say NIYAT NIYAT and then coolly stroll off to the next shop along the dark underground subway..

In all my days in the city that eats mainly potatoes,if not borrowing from other cuisines of broken off sister countries, it is the parks of Moscow that tinge my experience with a brilliant halo. All other memories and language conquering vanish when I close my eyes today and sit back on the bench in the woods,look up stretch and smile at the bird that hops close to me,because I am sitting so still. I am still and so is my world,which usually spins faster than most spells.In this solitude a fat red squirrel mistakes me for one of the school kids that feed them,but I am a silent greedy person who has already finished her snacks,so they greedier still, curiously scamper close, sniff and then disdainfully scamper off,in rejected mode,with one last hopeful hop backwards.Tough luck little chaps!!

And even though Muscovite s may treat my piece of Moscow as a figment away from reality and what really shapes it is the historical buildings and socialist history,what sings its praises are compilations by great composers like Tchaikovsky. Probably Lenin also would not be very pleased by my take on him, as Lenin Bhaisaab (a term of reference placed as an honor by my,below a decade old nephews)but with all due respect the man makes a very imposing figure with a ten foot statue,but then maybe so would I make, if I was encased in ten feet of bronze,not taking away from the sculptor and with all due respect to lenin's ideologies that led a nation through revolution, I only speak of today. And what exists today, is a throbbing language insulated, cosmopolitan city which is same as any European town.

Moscow for me will always be,summer snow that floats ethereally around the city,sometimes settling on your nose as it passes,making your nose twitch. or sometimes just catching the sun,or the street lights,and today as I walked in the monsoon washed streets of delhi, the moths that flew past my nose whispered memories of the summer snow,and that is a trigger that will flick on Moscow channel forever in my memories cinema hall.

Moscow also is, the smell of wet wood,crushed leaves,stagnant lakes feathered by the summer snow,slithering golden ducks,couples standing holding hands,couples sitting on benches by these lakes,just reading,couples walking by, stopping for a stolen embrace,a fleeting kiss that sometimes lingers.Not all young, some old. It makes me pause and want to stay, not for want of companionship but the feel of Love in the air, an affirmation that the emotion does exist.

(actually they don’t need stealing, some are just all over each other and the desire to get a room doesn't exist, as the term’ stealing affections’ was left behind in the 20^th century,fueled by beds and hammocks hanging invitingly by the lake sides, I am guessing the powers to be, alarmed by the declining population ,are also fueling up the baby less Russia, with loads of free love opportunities)

They say that if you touch the walls of Kremlin then you would return again one day,I didn't smooth up those walls so who knows if I ever walk these roads again but forever for me the colour of Moscow will be green,The feel of Moscow, love.The touch , fluttery and fleeting, crisp and extremely mobile and bright Neon in the glimmering summer  months.The vibrations, of Hope,as light as the summer snow that shrouds city in its hunt for a safe home,hopefully.

BABU RAJ

Fluttering pages on an overloaded desk of musty files,stirred from their decade long slumber by the occasional intrusion by the air lazily waving around the room from a ceiling fan,bringing a breath of fresh air on a balmy sweaty afternoon.

Thumb curved back to wipe the bead of sweat racing down the sideburns which have lovingly embraced the oil in sheeny glory. afternoon sun twinkling  off the gloss from hair that still has channels drawn through it from the single toothed comb,run through it with precision in the morning.

Head bent over exhausted by the three flight trek back from a three hour lunch,bent in hunt for support from the desk, seeking a platform to launch its siesta.And dream of the evening tea.That is the image I evoke when I hear “babu”

A clerical position of subservience coming down from the raj,having morphed over  a

period of time from efficient diary keepers to matinee samosa dreamers.

It is also a word that I have heard echoed in whispered phone calls to distant loves,an endearment,a declaration of closeness,aSealing of fate,a sign that babu to bahu is just a difference of an alphabet.

How and why it crept into the romantic parlance?a  bellwether for endearments?is anyone’s guess,mine is that the word has slipped in to the conversations in disguise hiding under the rotund OO instead of the cirque.evolving the word to baboo.

Having just returned from a popular blockbuster Hindi movie,where the heroine trills up a “hello baboo….” in a phone conversation with her best friend in the climactic scene got me thinking,how authentic,so realistic.

That’s before getting home and drinking water I realized (for effect: glass still tilted to take in more water) that one of my drivers to work is also in a habit of calling everyone baboo,sitting in a cab early in the morning and to be called that.urggggggh!!!!

Without having to think too hard ,Another example of my encounter, is a colleague who if she has to correct you, will slowly shake her perfumed head in shattered disappointment, just tilting it so, as to not displace the hair from her bun and open her address with a disappointed na na baboo,now that can either now be an open ended statement left hanging to be completed with the head shaking effect or sometimes maybe a whole dialogue is suffixed with extra head wagging for pronounced effect.

So am I to assume that the word has been taken on by the Diaspora willingly,or an epidemic? a virus that has been filtered down and left to run amok fueled now it seems by popular cinema?? a word that transmutes between romantic and non romantic.so widespread in its virulence that it sometimes slips out unnoticed.

 The meaning is just not as simple as a darling. So I can obviously not take offence for something which does not have a laid down definition and is vaguely floating around in the pond of words infecting random people. Its in a transitional phase and has yet not found acceptance in the oxford dictionary, just having found attention in my meandering writing.

Have I ever had a babu phase?I thankfully shudderingly so,have not,but then neither have I gone through the honey puss,sugar buns phase,hmmmm however I do come with a sickeningly rich smattering of sweethearts and sweetie pies.and a quirk,do read on.

If I call you by a name that is not Ramakrishnan Pillai Subrahmaniam Aiyyar…a name that was lovingly weighed on you by your parents, I shall call you depending on my fondness for you, with a  name that either I conjure up, preferably(increasing your status in my list of approval) or just tagged along because of general pet name popularity. I do not sit and agonize on these names they just roll out.Individualizing the person on my radar, scanning them into the ‘close’ category.Maybe some of those names rattle people, like baboo does to me,do feel free to discuss our interactive address with me, its subject to change.

What do I have against this word babu? What got me thinking thus??Nothing!!Just imprinted images of the musty balmy room refuse to leave my mind's living room where they come out and lounge on hearing the command from the 'ear'ly yours.

I guess I am just biased and a little particular of its aural origins too,as they fall on my ear drums and if the origins are favourable,maybe it could lull me.By favorable I mean someone like Ranbir Kapoor probably,as he asks me to mix sugar in his tea baboo ,mmmmm yes,now that’s an endearment!!! ….and RK too is on the probable list,as I just cannot imagine Bradley cooper whispering baboo.For him I reserve darling or actually I should say, shut up!!! you got me at hello.(pause) baboo…(sheh!!still not Shakespearean enough for me)

I SPY WITH MY EYE...chip...No EYE..chip...

Thirty three years,two brats,two dogs ,two cars ,some hundred maids and thousands experiences , Three decades of joint strategic approach ,applied by my progenitors against us brats to brow beat us into unquestioning marshal discipline, softened by occasional lollipops to whip us into first rate humans ,you could say from input to desirable out put my family is a well oiled machine.

Constantly being in each others paths,secretly walking up when the other is talking on the phone and snack up on information updates,one would think that we would all know each others next thoughts,however,the number of times we say hysterically Oh!!! You JUST DON’T KNOW ME AT ALL scares me because only today I read about this software being developed in California that can know my personality ‘somewhat’ in 50 sentences I tweet online and in 200 tweets form a very comprehensive photo of my psychological profile. Its Ominous.

All that information I painstakingly fill out on facebook,my space,is secretly siphoned off by these computer spy soft wares to systems far away that are poring over my life,with a microscope storing me away in a microchip,slotting me into the  extrovert, conscientious, neurotic or open to experiences categories based on words I take two seconds to think about and three seconds to type out and send out to the world.

Not content with the sex,age,education and marital status image they want to probably make a robot that thinks and reacts like me,now that would be an idea, a clone robot to do all the mundane work and me just to enjoy and dive off into the ocean.well either the American spies are doing that for mine and your personal benefit or they are upgrading  you and me from a demographic bar on a graph of statistics to a personalized target for advertisements based on our psychological bent,which shapes our decisions much more than our marital status.

I must say the gentle Mr. Eben Haber from IBM in San Jose California is one smart cookie for realizing that ha can probably sell me my thumbs up if he makes it fall off a cliff rather than put it within easy reach of my extrovert ,open to experience self.

Basing his software on research which links words to our personality like a lot of ‘summer’ words could mean level of trust is high.Using too much ‘lazy’,’awful’,’heart breaking’;could stash you into the neurotic category.

Its already in practice using other spyware strategies but its all still in its nascent stage.

At the moment If the advertisements that reach me are an indication that the cyber mafia out there knows who I am,then I think they have cross identified me with a mafia lord,what with the number of property selling and buying messages I receive, I should be landlord of all I survey or actually with a bank account to rival the very rich Amabani’s at the very least.

And As I am typing this out ten minutes back I get pinged by an unknown number, the text of which suggests that MISS Ramya can’t live without me and to satisfy her panting desires I have to call up the number mentioned, So I repeat again I am not a Paan chewing ,dhoti wearing,flat renting buying Lord,who has a voracious appetite for Ramya.

‘can anybody hear me??is anyone out there??’

I am somebody who skips through decades surrounded by people I know, some just a surface glaze and some deep through confidences shared on rooftops,bonded by stories that are secreted out in our alcohol weakened  states. I have this way of moving, that everyday I treat the person as new, I do not slot you do not judge you.Hence this whole approach to consumerism, sets me back,I'm amazed at the level of desire to penetrate into our heads to get the cash out like diarrhoea,scary.

I would love to hack into the chip that has this data about me,its like a test of sorts ,the result of which I would never know,well till I start getting bombarded by end resulting  advertisements and walk around all day long with a burning desire to be in a shopping mall instead of wherever I was wandering at that moment.Basically a spending zombie with dollar signs in my eyes and a credit card hanging loose from my sleeves.

That’s when I would get worried.Right now they are just sharpening the blades,and I am a fool, blithely joking about ARMAGEDDON.

LOVE SPRINGS

In the summer I jump into my car and jump out of my skin because of the heat that sizzles me brown,gingerly holding the steering waiting for the blessed air conditioning to kick in which is also very temperamental in my Elvis(my stately hatchback)I drive, when my toes curl and loose sensation with the cold that's creeping slowly and wickedly up ,I turn the heating towards them and still I drive.

Do you drive to music? I drive to music,it livens up my spirits, transporting me in my aluminum can to a destination that only music can live in to cover up, for the world that's going mad outside,courtesy seasons or just plain mad traffic.So If I have to turn right and its taking me time,do I even turn and look at the poor soul glaring at me from the car behind,because what drowns it out?...Music.its only when the the summer chases the cold fingers away and that I turn it down ,and let the 'out' seep in.

 When I move my eyes up wards, the sunlight streams through leaves,who part this light,partitioning it into rays that fall separately onto my vision frame,softening the same scenery which will be angrier and harsher in its toll on me when I go past them in the angry summer sun months.switching hands on the steering to cool them off.

This is the time for butterflies,to fluff up their wings and spread them into a flutter over the path kissed by sun streams.

I change the gear,a little to the left to let the car behind me go ahead,my feet and hands move automatically enlivened by the magic that is winding up my system making it easy to lose my self once more,slowing down,because the impact  of the bloom each flower brings,is an effect that a bouquet on credit card delivery can hardly compare.Drugged.

Riot of colour, they line the sides of roads, as I drive past, some of them are in an orderly,lined,manicured and absolute gardeners’ pet flower show perfection display,and some just growing in wild abandon,straining in all directions to grow just a little more.throw in a little breeze and you see them Dancing to the tune of the golden globe. Awarding it with their colorful turn out.

I am drugged.I am totally intoxicated.Why am I so touched?do I  have a poetic soul?Why do I feel the rhythm of each flower swaying?Why does the golden sunlight make me feel rich?I don't know.Plus  my mommy taught me I have to accept gifts with grace.And It was only when I was very little and a little less greedy that I had the ability to refuse money given by relatives;however as the years crawled by I became the professional,one time shy no,second time grab it with thank you girl.so even today whatever the gift,whoever it be from,I grab and generate happiness NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Returning to the drive in spring that throws beautiful golden bouquets at me which makes me so poetic.

The chords in our little setting are strung right from heaven to create a music in my heart.I am serious there is a warmth around my central being that makes me almost saintly benevolent.Almost!

 And it all sounds too poetic,but its this music that makes me love spring.The happiness painted around sneaks into my system.Looking ahead,my vision softened by the golden fire that has spread to my heart,bringing the happiness that starts right at the bottom,playing catch up with me as I speed ahead,leaving behind a trail of chains;chains of rigid cold fingers,chains of weeping monsoons,chains fallen off hopes that were tied down to invisible spider threads, to spiral and settle down mingling their identity with the sands of time,to loose their very essence,freeing me to zoom ahead.an explorer to destination unknown.

(Actually Im headed home,to tea,peppermint in my light blue Jug of a Mug,nothing unknown about it,but a little anonymity on my mug's behalf for the sake of poetry...AHH!!!an easy sacrifice )

LOST AND FOUND

What happens when you live in a city for almost thirteen years, and you still thank god for the day GPS was built? Hang your head in shame that’s what.

I used to think, think being the operative word that my directional capabilities rivaled that of batmobile on autopilot. There was a belief in my system that booted and rebooted itself into the bloodstream till it became a reality in my mind,self belief in directional capabilities.

If you keep the city I live in as a mathematical symbol, it would best be a circle.

Say the circle was concentric to another circle, and filled in between with a large cobweb,

And as arachnophobia is a bona fide defined fear,and we shall discuss the dangers of creepy crawlies later for the moment we shall send the spider to play politics, while we figure out the system.

On the outer diameters my vehicle,or Elvis as I lovingly call my old boy, we run along just fine, zipping mindlessly past the rearview’s of sedate travelers, moving with a surety and motion full of swerves,all maneuvres of the very knowledgeable.

As we glide deeper into the city circle, we do not loose our edge,the confidence is I agree not at the peak,and as the web keeps spinning roundabouts with four extremely similar exits at us,the stage from confidence to self doubt to frantically whipping out the GPS is traversed in a nano second.

When it comes to admitting or self realization that I am stumped,its usually situation dependent for example if I kicked your shin under the table of twenty people for a slight that I absolve my personal responsibility off and put you on stand ,I can guarantee my angelic smile will easily pass your accusatory scanner as you move on,this LOST situation is not an external calamity but an internal emergency due to genetic shortfall,so I quickly do a mental hands up and hand over to technology, mentally berating the errant navigational gene that passed on to my brother but decided to take the lazy day off when it came to me.

As it happens,the technological marvel in question is my super ultra smart phone which in terms of technology is practically comparable to an octogenarian in all of its two years of life, in a cranky mood.How the quality of Korean products or maybe made in china is deplorable, is a money draining topic you and I could discuss with long faces some other time.Right now we shall just mourn the functional loss of my phones abilities. Mourn its ‘age old’ right to vibrate at all the wrong moments,(not pleasurably so I must add,just a deathly shudder) signaling its will to shut off and restart in its own time.That usually happens when it decides it has been overworked,or when I decide its time to switch on the GPS.whence my lovely yellow beauty decides its life is too low on power to sustain such a drain on its functions .Even as I stare in disbelief, yet again ,at the flashing battery that is ready to die,it again gives its warning vibration shot,before blinking me down.

I tell my friend from out of town with a phone in its teens to utilize her shiny new jazz of a gadget to get us to where we wanted, and yes I do try and be a little sheepish about it.She is an out of towner and I am the directionally challenged guide.(there I said it)But what shame in admitting you need another helpful phone.

Armed with the latest technology and My internal homing device working on the familiarity bred by studying your college degree in the vicinity of the area that was our destination for the feast,got us swiftly till the point where I handed the baton to my friends shiny dependable new device,for the final few kilometers. According to my approximation we were ten minutes away.

How even after half an hour we were talking to a nepali clueless guard,is something I have been told  that occurs when you depend on technology too much or Murphy decides,it's just not your day.

In attempt One at a direct approach, we entered a govt. housing society and not that we were judging the food standards by the look of the colony, maybe the epicurean standards of the cities highest rated restaurant was all for its home cooked ,served hot,experience on the roof top,with domesticated street dog at your feet.

.

But even in all sensibilities looking up trying to figure which rooftop,and coming up to a blank with all shirts and kurtas hanging out for drying,hinted at either abysmal décor standards which were wickedly aiming at ‘Homely’orrrrr we were in the completely wrong place even as the GPS mimed "you have arrived at your destination."

Definitely not at the right place , we got down to good old, roll down windows and ask 'bhaisaabs' for direction,but I guess the genteel helpful race of 'bhaisaabs' is also a dying breed.'bhaisaabs' directions were either to his house or maybe just a local colony darshan, because ten minutes and four lefts and two rights later we were chatting with our lost Nepali guard at a locked up dead end, who’s most helpful information was turn around,which we did,only to find ourselves on the other side of theNepali guard's gate in say another ten minutes.

Attempt two, three, four, I have even lost count, saw us do a lot of doubling up,but the humour levels in the car minus the testosterone were relatively upbeat lacking the sexist jokes on ‘lost chicks’. Suddenly to our left we crossed a temple and god must have taken pity on our growling stomachs and found us a good guide who said straight ahead in 200 mtrs," you cannot miss". 

And that’s how we found ourselves eating chicken tikka in a place that is out of the box.

Sitting down on a  highstool,under the night sky,surrounded by the youngest most buzzing crowd in the city,we had arrived.

Biting me back to earth, besieged  by mosquitoes I curled my exposed legs under me, awkwardly balancing in my fight against possible malaria(I left my faithful repellent in the car,or you could not put it past me to lather my self up, all sweet smelling, in front of this genteel crowd)

We reached home in one shot, thanks to my short term memory in retaining directions working in top condition,I am home tonight, but keep your DPS(dad positioning services)on speed dial,a good old paper Map,for your girl scout moment.

But if you are with your blinkers on,staring at your sleepy phone and  god forbid were the spider to arrive and  invite you into its parlor,and you are without trusted friends with a Big Moose built I would suggest do your polite refusal with pepper sprayed confidence,stay glued inside you car seat, do not step out and make an equally speedier,footloose exit towards the lit part of the circuitous web, or dial 100(if the battery sustains)

 I would love to tell you its a furry little spider or fluttery mosquito lost on its way home with an equally stunted directional gene,But watching the piling newspapers burdened with tears of young girls dead, its a chance that I would recommend you don't take and trust that you don't place, as I am afraid the mosquito repellent is just getting ineffective in the fast mutating carnally ridden desires that ,diversify ,amplify and become more horrifying with every illicit orgasm.