What makes me pick up a book?

I have just finished reading a really long (768 odd pages) book and am wondering what to read next. As of now, I am  actually looking at something as dry and long as Paul Samuelson's book on Economics. I don't know, I just feel that I want something emotionless and objective and yet subjective. This got me thinking about what actually makes me pick up or buy a book.

Many people read books which are best sellers or are recommended by their friends. They just go ahead buy or borrow the book they want. In our house, my husband is the one who actually buys books and his buying rate is clearly faster than his reading rate. End result, there are many good 'unread' books at home. I am not big into buying books as I am the one who actually dusts the shelves where they stand and I am the one who looks at the slowly decreasing shelf space at home. Anyway, books are my companions and I like to have various associations with them. For instance, I can recall my music classes when I come across some old Amar Chitra Katha comics. I associate Nancy Drew books with my teenage years. I associate Agatha Christies with my grandparents. I associate Jane Austen with my college years. I associate the discovery of many women authors like Virginia Woolf , Edith Wharton, Lousia May Alcott with my initial married life. Very often, my mood forces me to choose a particular book. However, there is a general criteria that I do have while choosing a book.

These are some of the things that I will consider when I take up a book:

1. 1. Is it a classic ? I am partial to classic English literature. There are many good books in this genre that I am yet to read.
2. Is it written by a woman? I am partial to woman authors, I wonder why?
3. Is it well reviewed by magazines or newspapers like 'New York Times' or 'Guardian' or 'New Yorker'
4. Is it an award winning book?
5. Does it have a story? - I prefer books which  have a good story line, something that is not too violent or obscene or too outlandish. I am not a 'fantasy fiction' fan. 
6. What is the genre? - if it is very clear that the book is a 'mystery novel' or a 'series' , I am little careful and I might take it only if I am ready for a light read. For instance, if I know I am travelling I prefer to have some such book that is fast paced and easy.
7. Is it a Victorian novel ? I love Victorian novels which deal with society, inter-personal relationships and women and their lives. It all started with my Jane Austen fascination.
8. Who is the author? I am partial to Indian English authors and like to try reading them. I like the fact that it is a character much closer to home. 
9. Is it women centric ? I like books that deal with everyday lives of women, modern or otherwise. 
10. Does it have a good dose of humour? I do enjoy books which are humorous. Some of my favourite books in this line are 'Three men in a boat',  'Golden Gate' and 'A writer's nightmare'. I also like P G Wodehouse for this reason, but I find them too flimsy and light for me right now. 
11. Was it made into a movie? I am curious about books that have been made into movies. Sometimes the books turn out to be better than the movies themselves. Ofcourse, I will read them only for one of the reasons mentioned above. 
12. Is it Chicklit? I am partial to Chicklit. Okay, popular Chicklit, if that makes it any better. I loved 'Bridget Jones Diary' and 'Eat Pray Love' and some of the first few 'Shopaholic' books. I am always interested in the modern twist to a fairy tale. 

This list seems to be soon turning into my favourite books, which is not what I intended in the first place. Anyway, I am in the process of trying to write my review of 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot. I definitely need to take some time to write it as it has taken me about 3 months or more to read the book.

5 point someone

I have wanted to read this book for a long time. Finally, I read it last month. It's a small book, easy to read and you can probably finish it in a day. The reason I chose to read this book had a lot to do with the hype surrounding the book, the author and ofcourse the movie, 'Three Idiots'.

I am glad I did not watch the movie because the book is seeped in 'IIT' jargon and presents a pretty contemporary picture about the life in a top rated engineering college in India. The title of the book refers to the much discussed 'GPA' in IITs. The GPA is very crucial as it determines the future prospects of a student and Chetan Bhagat has chosen a good title for the book.

The story is all about the travails of three students who join IITs with various aspirations. The three guys come from very different families and backgrounds and somehow become friends. The story deals with the ultra competitive environment in the IITs where every student is a school topper. After the gruelling preparation for getting into the IIT, many students find it tough to keep up with the grinding schedule of the IITs. It is a combination of personal ambition and family aspirations which encourage them to sustain and do well in the end. Chetan Bhagat uses this backdrop for his story and makes a case for the mercenary attitude that parents and professors have towards education in India.

There are three protagonists in the story, one is intelligent but unhappy, the other is not so intelligent but hardworking and sincere and the third is intelligent, but cynical and lazy. Together they try to beat the system and try to enjoy their lives in the college. However, their plans are not so successful and they land up in the ranks of the 'five point something' grades. In the end they realise that their short cuts are not going to help in improving their grades. It is their interests and passion which guide them to better grades.

Is it important to enjoy life and have as much fun as possible or is it important to just work hard and make it to the top? Chetan Bhagat grapples with this question throughout this book. One of the characters, Ryan, represents the 'cool dude' characters that we often encounter in life. The ones who have got things too easy, money, a good life and good grades. The other two characters get influenced by Ryan and try to follow his lead to get things the easy way. In the end, they are forced to use their own strengths to beat the system. Like in life, mere intelligence and creativity does not help in IIT. Intelligence combined with hard work and sincerity is what gets you through.

I think the book was good because of its true depiction of the dilemmas faced my many young people in India.

The rest of the Shiva trilogy

I did continue to read the Shiva Trilogy by Amish Tripathi. The second book, 'Secret of the Nagas' was better than the first. The quest for the 'evil one' continued in the second book. Shiva, accepts his role as the one to save the race from evil and goes in search of the 'Nagas'. When you hear the word, 'Naga' you somehow think of a serpent king or queen and that they are half snake and half human. However, the Nagas of Amish's books are not exactly snakes. They worship the Snake God but are quite human, only, disfigured. They seem to bring on fear by their very presence. And hence Shiva takes on the brave task of finding the city of the Nagas. The suspense is quite good throughout the book. As readers, we do not know why the Nagas are so secretive and why they are so powerful either.

There is a long description of the dense forests in the south. The journey into the heart of the Naga land is quite captivating and keeps us hooked to the book. At the end of the book, you do know the real reason behind the dread or fear about the Nagas. The Nagas finally do come on the side of Shiva but it takes some time for the normal people to accept that the Nagas are not evil afterall. Evil is not necessarily a person, but something which induces a good person to do something bad.

So the Shiva's task is unfinished and this brings us to the third and final book, the 'Oath of the Vayuputras'. We know the source of evil by the end of the second book. The third book deals with what Shiva has to endure in order to fight evil. The book starts with a bang. There is lot of violence and Sati, Shiva's wife is almost dying. During this climax, comes the decision to continue fighting. It all comes down to political strategy and practical thinking in order to get the right people to help Shiva to finish his task. The Vayuputras are the ancient tribe who were responsible for maintaining peace in India. Shiva turns out to be a descendent of this secretive, ancient tribe. The story is all about the origin of the tribe and the rules by which a Vayuputra has to live his life. Does Shiva manage to find the truth about his origin and does he manage to destroy evil? That forms the rest of the book.

I liked the second book more than the last one. This was because there was a lot of suspense in the second book which made it quite interesting. Shiva travels the entire breadth of India and the description of various places kept it very lively. By the third book, there was no more suspense, just a lot of description of wars. It became a verbal description of war which was fought in the 'Mahabharatha' style. It might have been good for a movie but after a point, you just get enough of imagining all the fighting. Anyway, a really interesting twist to our otherwise 'Godly' mythological stories. I actually felt like reading more of 'Shiva' stories, from the Amarchitra Katha series. Many of my own memories of the Shiva folk lore, goes back to my childhood, reading them as Amar Chitra Katha comics. So thanks to Amish Tripathi for bringing back the interest in Indian history and mythology.

How do I name it? Name change

I have read announcements in the newspaper about people formally changing their names. I thought I might also do the same, as I have decided to change the name of this blog. Well, choosing a name is not so easy. I thought I just needed one name for the blog and then Blogspot asked me for a user name, a titile and google user ID and my overworked brain just stalled.The name 'EverydayIndianwoman' was a really bad choice, showed a total lack of imagination on my part. I was in a hurry to just start blogging before the concept of blogs ( as opposed to microblogs) went out of existence in the virtual world. In my hurry, I just thought of the first name I thought was appropriately anonymous and also reflected what I was. It was actually based on this song titled 'I'm everywoman' that was the title song for the 'Oprah Winfrey Show'. Anyway, end result, the name I chose somehow gives a completely different picture about the blog.

What I realised slowly is that the combination of two simple words, 'Indian' and 'woman' on the internet, is not so nice and simple afterall. So I decided to just go ahead and change the name of the blog for the sake of simplicity, honesty, anonymity and also gender equality. I do not want the name of the blog to reflect the fact that I am Indian or a woman, that is for sure........

This got me thinking about the people who take the extreme step of changing their names. They must have probably gone through something similar for them to make such a drastic change. Just imagine trying to change a name like 'Saravanan' to something like 'Rahul' or 'Rakesh'. Does it make the person friendlier or more approachable or acceptable?

These days, a lot of people try to name their kids in such a way that the name does not reflect their caste or community or even region. Gone are the days when you had south Indians with long, hard to pronounce names. People want their children to have short trendy names. Sanskrit names which do not have connection to any caste or community are becoming more popular than the traditional names in India. The good thing about this is the equality it brings in. The bad thing is that it makes us conform to the western way of naming ourselves, with a first name and last name. May be, in years to come, the long traditional names would eventually become family names. Then we would have the Krishnans, Subramaniams, Balakrishnans, Srininvasans, whose children would be named Sidharth, Raghav, Smrithi and so on.

Coming back to my own blog, I hope this name change has not caused any inconvenience to anybody. If it has, you will have to excuse me for the same......And to all my regular blog readers (which may be 5 in number), thankyou for reading my blog. I know you will continue to read my blog, whatever be its name.

Immortals of Meluha

I have wanted to read the 'Shiva trilogy' ever since the recent book 'Oath of the Vayuputras' was released. The Shiva trilogy, in case you don't know is a series of 3 books written by Amish Tripathi. The first book was called, 'Immortals of Meluha' and published in 2010. I have always been interested in fiction based on our Indian mythology. It seems much simpler to understanding than understanding something like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Fantasy is not really my choice for books. I have only read the first book in the Harry Potter series. I have watched movies of the other six. As for Lord of the Rings, I have only watched the movies. So if it was fantasy, I thought I might as well try out an Indian one.

The 'Immortals of Meluha'; is definitely interesting and fast paced. The story stops at a very important point at the end of the book. I will know what happens next only when I read the 'Secret of the Nagas'. Unlike the Harry Potter series, there is no conclusion after each book. So the story is about how Shiva, a tribal chief from Tibet becomes Lord Shiva, the Mahadev. The story unfolds in a mythical land called Meluha somewhere near the ancient city of Mohanjadaro. The people of Meluha, the Suryavanshis, are looking for their savior, one who would help them fight against the Chandravanshis of Swadeep. It seems like Shiva is the one, who will protect the good from the evil. But then at the end of the first book, you are left wondering as to who is the evil of the two. What is evil afterall, is it just a perception, is it a definite quality?

Amish Tripathi has done a lot of research for the book, with respect to the places, the stories behind the origin of the rivers and cities. He gives a good description of the cities, the condition of the houses, roads, public facilities, royal buildings and so on. Somehow, I got that feeling that the land of the Chandravanshis resembled India and Indian cities. The land of Meluha seemed like the US. Order versus chaos, discipline versus impulsive action, luxury versus poverty and squalor, pleasure versus contentment. Anyway, there are a number of ways this can be interpreted and that is the potential of the story.

Shiva, as a mythological character is always interesting as He is shown to be quite human sometimes, with His blatant display of anger and raw energy. He is the nomad, the one who does not conform to the norms of the society. In this book, all other characters are quite ordinary and are shown in relation to Shiva. The character of Sati is not so strong yet, the focus is still on Shiva. There are a number of 'action's sequences, which are described quite well. The scene of the war with the Chandravanshis, the surprise attacks which resemble gorilla warfare are all well written.

If there is one negative about the book, it is the language at some places. When you read about mythological characters or characters who have lived several hundred years ago, you somehow assume that they were more polite with each other. Atleast you don't want to hear words like 'shit' and 'bloody hell' especially coming from Shiva. The other point is that may be there should have been more Indian words replacing some words like 'My Lord'. May be they should have used words like 'Maharaj' which would have been more apt and easy to understand too.

The Golden Notebook

I really enjoyed reading "The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing. This is the second time I am reading it (after a gap of 7 years) and I felt I understood it better now. I liked it the first time, but I wanted to go over it once again, really carefully. Attempting to write about this book itself is very challenging for me. It is over 500 pages long and I think it is the most exhaustive expression of a woman's psyche. It was published in the 1960s and had a shocking impact on the readers.

The first time I saw this book, I got attracted to it by reading the blurb and also finding that it was on sale. I read it first in 2006, before the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the then 87 year old Doris Lessing. So I read it with no major illusions or expectations about the author. About half way through the book, I was quite engrossed in the story and had to remind myself that this was written in the 1960s. It is one of the most honest descriptions I have ever read about the challenges faced by a woman and an author.

The book has a very different structure. It actually has a book within it and a flashback to the main story. The main character is a woman in her thirties, Anna Wulf, an author and a single parent. The book goes back and forth from the time Anna was a young woman in her 20s and her life when she is in her 30s. Anna Wulf has a whole gamut of experiences as an idealistic young woman in South Africa, as a modern woman in London trying to live life on her own terms. The story is told in terms of entries in Anna's notebooks or diaries in various stages. Anna is a successful author after writing one best selling book. But all of a sudden, many things start crumbling in her otherwise independent life.

South Africa forms the basis for Anna's communist leanings, and her ideas about love and life in general. Later as a mature woman in her 30s, she tries to come to terms with the changing face of communism, its place in the world and her own identity. She is also a single mother which was something quite challenging by itself in the 1950s. With the collapse of communism and increasing importance of capitalism, Anna finds herself questioning the traditional role of a woman and a mother. She also tries to pursue the ideal man in her life and in the process comes across her own weaknesses and strengths.

There are many stories within the main story of Anna Wulf in the Golden Notebook. Women and their internal and external struggles are the focus throughout the book. Doris Lessing is quite bold in her descriptions about the feelings and emotions of women at various stages in their life. I loved reading the description of real women in this book as opposed to the the false and often pathetically portrayed characters in many books. I loved the fact that Doris Lessing did not hide behind too many emotions to state the conditions of women in the 1950s. She was impartial in her observations about men and women and this is what makes her writing authentic. She was not trying to be a feminist, trying to strongly state something about women through her book. It appears as though she made strong observations about anything or anybody that really caught her attention. She was interested in the conditions of the people living in South Africa, the condition of women in the so called liberal London society. The description of places and scenes throughout the book is equally captivating. Whether it is the description of the South African landscape or the interiors of the London flat, her description brings the scene in front of your eyes.

I could go on and on about this book. I wish I could quote my favourite lines from the book too.  But I just may have to read it once again and mark them. Another aspect of the novel that I really loved is her use of the 'notebooks' to denote the various stages of Anna's life and emotional development. I could actually relate to it. Women try so hard to play the perfect roles of a dutiful daughter, loving wife, responsible mother, that they lose themselves in the process. Anna tries to find her true self, separate from her other identities of that of a writer, a single woman, mother or lover. She keeps one notebook for each of her identities, one of the notebooks contains the story she wishes to write.

It is too easy to brand "The Golden Notebook" as a feminist book. It is finally the quest of an individual to find her true self. Anna wants to live a free, independent life. When she says 'free' she means that she wishes to live like a man without having to do things differently just because she was a woman. Back in the 1950s women were still not accepted as individuals. They had to stick or attach themselves to their roles in society. A woman who was single and wanted to experiment with her life was just not accepted. Doris Lessing has just tried to prove that a woman is just as influenced by her philosophies in life and has the right to make mistakes and learn from them. The story was written at a time when people were finding out the dark side of communism and racism, the devastation of war and the need for a new way of life.


The book can still be read and enjoyed today just to get inspired by the seeing how much our society has changed since then and to experience some brilliant writing by Doris Lessing.

On Teaching

 Like all little girls, I too have admired teachers, when I was in school. In real life, I tried being a teacher, when I volunteered in a Government school near my house for a while. I was to teach English for Class V in a Tamil medium school. It was a combined class, so the total number of children in the class was about 50 or sometimes it would be 30, depending on the number of absentees. I went there for a couple of hours in the morning, from 10 am to 12noon. That was when I realised what an exhausting job, teaching is. By the end of one hour, on most days, I could feel my throat getting dry, and my hands dry with chalk powder. I felt like sitting down sometimes. But I had to stand for the children to remain attentive or atleast active.

Teaching is usually a profession taken by many married women as it is considered convenient and most 'appropriate'. This actually translates into being easy as the timing was fixed and holidays were a bonus. I actually resisted joining a 'Montessori Teacher Training' course that was right next to my house for quite some time. It was the course chosen by many young, educated mothers who wanted to work part time. I am glad I didn't take that course too......as adult education sometimes catches on and I find myself wanting to take every other 'part time course' that is offered. Anyway, coming back to teaching, I realised that only if you have real passion for the profession can you continue doing it for a long time.

During the three months that I volunteered, I realised that my throat went hoarse after about 2 hours of talking and shouting..Well, shouting was part of the teaching as these were active 10 -year-olds who had to be outshouted sometimes just to make myself clear. I also realised the difference between teaching, say a bunch of 20 well behaved kids and teaching a motley group of 40 kids in a class. Also, if you don't prepare for the class, even if it is a basic English class, the kids can outsmart you and make you feel quite lost.

Yesterday was Teachers Day and it is right that we should celebrate this day every year. I congratulate all the teachers for being dedicated to their profession and contributing so much to the growth of young minds. It is after all my teachers who have made me like 'English' to start with. I wish educational institutions also realise this and pay their teachers well because it is afterall quite an underpaid job.

My Life in France: Julia Child

I just finished reading the book 'My life in France' by Julia Child and Alex Prud Homme. It is a wonderful book and can be enjoyed both by foodies and book lovers. It was written by Julia Child in her later years as a memoir about her experiences in France which changed the whole direction of her life. Julia Child was one of the earliest TV stars, who had her own popular cooking show, during the 1960s and 1970s. I did not know much about her until I saw the movie, 'Julie and Julia'.

When I lived in the US, I had occasionally watched the Martha Stewart show and wondered how she became so popular. Home cooking, a beautiful kitchen and good food seems to be always popular on day time TV. And it was Julia Child who kind of introduced this concept in the US. When I saw a couple of her shows now on You Tube, I thought it was Julia Child's simple commentary and demonstration which made the show such a success. Black and White TV with a made up studio kitchen is not as attractive as the real home of Martha Stewart but Julia Child  was the pioneer TV host who proved that a cooking show would be quite popular.

Anyway, I think I enjoyed 'My Life in France' much better than the TV show. What I liked about the book was the way Julia Child's life is described through her travels and her cooking experiments. The book describes Paris at a time when international travel was not so common or so easy. She had to travel on a ship for a week before reaching Le Havre in France. Paris in the pre-war period has been beautifully captured through photographs and beautiful descriptions of places and smells and sounds. It seems as though Julia Child loved travelling and her curiosity about new places, people, customs, cuisine comes through the book. It is her endless curiosity that led her to master the art of French cooking. Julia Child was actually a modern woman with a good education and work experience. She traveled to various places for work and met her future husband, Paul Child. The experiences of Julia and Paul as they set up their home when they first land in Paris is particularly charming.

The book is quite simply written and gives the impression that Julia Child truly enjoyed her life and cooking for people. It was an enjoyable read and I finished it quite quickly. What I got from the book was that if a person holds on his or her passion, it would show the way to success or fulfillment in life.

Talking through wall posts

We all know who social butterflies are. They are the well adjusted, friendly, easily likeable people. I am now referring to the social butterflies in the context of the socially networked lives we lead these days. Every one of us may know atleast one or two such people. They all always 'logged' on, have funny one-liners to comment on most posts or photos. They might have been quite close to you in those days when social networking meant actually meeting people and spending time with them. You might have even known them well. But now, they have virtually become social butterflies, flitting and flying from one social networking site to another. Initially, it is fun interacting with them and liking their comments. But slowly you feel that you are being bombarded with information that you don't really want to like or comment on publicly.

You actually start to wonder if this was the same person who was once close to you. Does being a 'friend'  mean the same anymore? Every communication with them seems to be only via 'wall posts' and they are friends with almost a thousand other people that you don't really feel connected at all. Its like their entire life is displayed on the 'timeline'.  You start to wonder if any emotion is real any more. It is as though real life has to be replayed on the virtual world just to ensure that people know how good your life is. No occasion,whether is a family function, or a fun party or a festival is spared. Everything has to be put up for everyone to see, just to show how good your life is.

I have known a few people like this myself. It has been so strange that when I started emailing the person, the response was totally different than when I posted something on the wall. I do agree that Facebook and similar sites are very good at getting in touch with long lost friends and colleagues but then you realise what a shallow world you have created. It is just a bubble which keeps growing bigger and ready to burst as you add more and more friends to your 'list'. I might seem a little anti-social writing this, but I prefer the silent ones online, who just put up a few snippets of their life to be seen by others.

Publicising Pregnancy

This seems to be the season for pregnancy stories. The most popular one being the birth of the new Prince, baby of Kate and William. If you don't know who they are, I congratulate you for being removed from the mad mass media. The other popular stories were the surrogate baby born to the Badshah of Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan. It brought about a lot of discussion about surrogacy and alternate ways of making babies.

Pregnancy and its related issues never got so much attention in India as it does now. For instance, we never knew when or how Amitabh Bacchan had his children or Indira Gandhi had her grand children either. But the birth of  Ms. Aradhya got worldwide attention. I again congratulate all those people who don't know who that little celebrity is. There is a popular television show about a celebrity mother and her kids, called the Tara Sharma Show, all about motherhood and toddlers and teething troubles.

While it is good to get a lot of information about pregnancy, motherhood and so on, what is not needed is blatant advertisements for pregnancy. Pregnant or expectant mothers and young women might need this information in the form of books or videos and they just need the right access to it. Is it really nice to stare at a bare pregnant belly button, I don't think so. Its nice to shop for trendy, fashionable maternity clothes. But do you really want to see models who are pregnant. Leave the woman alone, atleast when she is pregnant and stop telling her how she should look.

It is now considered cool to bring out all the craziness of a pregnancy. You can see it in social media or even the new age books, written by the new age mothers. I think this is as bad as hiding and suppressing information relating to pregnancy, which was  the norm 50 years ago in India. We do want to remove the myths surrounding pregnancy, but do we want to make a comedy about such a personal experience. It just transforms what is an almost spiritual experience to a gross bodily function.

In my own personal experience, my idea of pregnancy changed after I had my child. I used to avoid looking at pregnant women, somehow thinking that they might collapse any moment. Now, I just treat them with a lot more courtesy and respect. I think the whole tradition of 'valai kaapu' or 'baby shower' makes a lot of sense. It is a beautiful way of letting people know that the woman is expecting and needs to have her loved ones near her. It is a way of celebrating the woman and making feel beautiful and happy. Some families have two such functions during the period of 9 months. I now understand the need for it, anything that will cheer up the mother to be.

Car owners and Neighbours

As I write this, I am able to hear the repetitive, jarring music that accompanies some cars as they back up. Thankfully, I am lucky enough to be able to hear birds chirp loudly, even though it is getting to be ten in the morning. In most neighbourhoods, all you hear thesedays is uninterrupted car music, right from 6am to 10am. Outside my own house, I can see the drivers wiping the cars till they gleam. People wash their cars religiously in my neighbourhood, rather they get their cars washed every morning. I think this is a ritual that symbolises the power and position of a person in society. It is as though by having clean cars, they are prepared to face the day, and have their ammunition ready. The cars are clean and are waiting to be driven. But where are they going to drive these cars? On roads built by corrupt politicians which are full of pot holes, puddles and garbage.

There is so much pomp and show that goes around this in-animate thing called the 'car', that it makes for a good topic for my blog. The endless noise that accompanies a car when it is being reversed needs special mention. There is a cacophany of noise outside my house as SUVs try to reverse out of the narrow street.  Some people like to announce their arrival or departure by honking in front of their gates, or they have this loud music to indicate that they are reversing their car. Instead of slowing down ahead of a curve, people would start honking as they approach the curve. This has become such a habit that the habit has now become the rule.

Almost every house that has a car and a driver, would have it parked right in front, in the morning. At times it would be obstructing traffic, just because someone is alighting or getting into the car. The driver and the car would be parked for half an hour in front of the house, just waiting for someone to get ready and get into the car. You are just expected to drive around the obstruction if possible, without driving into a ditch or just honk to show that you too have to use the road. If  only people walked a kilometer everyday just to pick up their cars, I think there would be a drastic reduction in lifestyle diseases.

The ownership of cars has got nothing to do with parking space. The fact that you don't have a parking space is not uncommon. So any space outside the house, on the road, in between road junctions can be used. There are drivers employed just so that parking spots can be reserved for the owner. The driver's work is to ensure that no one takes up the strategic spot on the road, in front the house that 'belongs' to the owner of the car. And so this is how crazy the car owning public look to a fellow car owner. You can imagine how it looks for the thousands who don't own cars and have to put up with this everyday.

A weekday morning

It is a weekday morning
The children are not to be seen playing
The roads are filled with people keen
On doing things that keeps them going
From one day to another, without knowing
Why they are doing what they are doing
I spend my time drinking coffee and looking
At the bustling traffic outside, thinking
"I am not like them. Am I?'
I know I am probably worse, just afraid

To join the rat race
Knowing that I cannot survive
Cannot take in all the pain, all the strife
That goes into the making of a normal weekday morning.

Everlasting Effervescent Heroines

Continuing my previous post about 'everlasting heroes', I must mention the 'everlasting effervescent heroines' too. This description is especially limited to Indian movies. Heroines or the female lead actors in Indian movies are the casualty of the chauvinistic film world in India. Most heroines may be intelligent, talented and accomplished young women in real life and yet they start their career playing the chirpy, bubbly roles that the audience supposedly asks for. All leading actresses, whether it is Deepika Padukone or Priyanka Chopra or Katrina kaif, become famous for their over hyped, glamorous, frivolous roles on screen. Once they hit the magic age of 35, they just disappear from the film world. Some of them, if they are lucky, come back as 'comeback queens' or appear in television ads. The best example of a 'comeback queen' is Sridevi but we have to wait and see if she gets any more 'heroine' roles. Even Sridevi had to play a number of squeaky, chirpy roles before she established herself as a star in Hindi cinema.

It is a pity that the modern young woman of today is yet to be portrayed as someone who is in search of her own identity. She is lost trying to find the perfect man to complete her life. In order to make breezy entertainers like 'HJKJ" or "KBKBKBKB" or our heroines are shown as independent, headstrong girls up to the point at which they sing their first duet with the hero. They appear in modern outfits to show how modern their 'outlook' is initially. But by the end of the movie they graduate to more modest outfits to show how committed they are to their heroes. We do find this kind of stereotyping in the west, where actresses like Julia Roberts are typecast in the role of the romantic heroine. But atleast Julia Roberts got some chances to show her acting potential by playing different roles after she became a star (Pelican Brief, Mona Lisa Smile, Eat Pray Love, to name a few).

Women face many challenges in their daily lives, whether it is in managing their family life or facing harassment in public spaces or finding their foot in the corporate ladder. But Indian directors seem to think that the middle class working woman's struggle is not really attractive and cannot be packaged along with designer labels. I wish they realise how wrong they are. Go to any mall and you can see that the maximum sales is made by working women who wish to spend their disposable income on non-essential items.

A few movies like 'Wake up Sid' (hindi) focus on the dilemma women face about their professional and personal life. If the woman is interested in a career she is shown as being extremely dominating and stubborn. Very rarely do you see the actresses play subtle roles of strong determined women.With movies like 'Kahani' becoming famous, I hope we find many more talented actresses like Vidya Balan who give a bold new face to the Indian heroine. I am glad that Vidya Balan was chosen to be the one to be representing India in the Cannes Jury team. I hope it gives her more offers from directors with stories centred around strong, independent women.

Everlasting Action Heroes

I read a hilarious review about new tamil movie called 'Singam II'. You can read it here. It got me thinking about action heroes. When I think about action heroes, the first name that comes to my mind is, our own, one and only Superstar Rajnikanth. He is the evergreen action hero. He has not aged a day beyond 35 in his movies. Even now people are waiting to see him come on screen like a warrior. Even Amitabh Bacchan has had to accept a few roles where he looks his age, I think these are his roles in the movies, 'Black' or 'Chini Kum'. Amitabh atleast has accepted that he is older than 50. But with Rajnikanth, there is no way he will be seen on screen as a man older than 35.

In Hollywood too you can see such evergreen heroes in movies like 'Indiana Jones' and 'Mission Impossible'. Tom Cruise, Harrisson Ford, George Clooney. Tom Cruise still manages to look like he did when he was in his thirties but the other two have played a few roles where they show their age, like in 'Descendants' and 'Six days, Seven nights'. Jackie Chan is the internationally famous action hero who never ages.

In the case of Tamil movies, you can see that many actors try to follow the footsteps of Superstar and try to remain evergreen heroes. Thankfully, the audience is a little more selective these days. Popular actors like Suriya, Vijay and Vikram are struggling to remain at the top. Kamalhassan has appeared as a father in few movies like 'Mahanadhi' and 'Avvai Shanmugi'.  In the Hindi filmworld too Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan act in repetitive roles of angry young men or righteous cops or supermen. According to me, once an actor starts getting roles of the 'action hero' he is surely getting old or he has hit the magic age of 35. That is the reason why all the directors try and cast him in roles that don't make him look any older than 30.

My only problem is that it is very difficult to imagine Shahrukh Khan or Amir Khan or Vijay or Suriya as a college student. Its difficult to see them act silly and act like they are lovestruck teenagers.The older the hero, the younger the actress who is paired with him. Recently the movie, 'Billa II", a typical action movie, was made with the lead actor Ajith showing off his grey hair. That was the only redeeming feature of the movie.


What I am trying to say is that it is a pity that these talented actors who have potrayed sensitive roles in their younger days very rarely get the chance to play their real age on screen after a point of time.Any hero who plays the role of a father or a middle aged man gets cast as a character actor and is very rarely considered a 'rising star' in Indian movies.

It is unfortunate that Indian movies rarely show heroes as fathers and also as strong and powerful men.  People say that Indian movies commodotise women and they are never given equal importance as men. I think that films in India commodotise men too. We do not have enough directors and actors who are ready to go out of the mould and experiment with different roles for men.  Why have actors, when all you need is young, beautiful, nimble footed dancers. 'Action' sequences are also choreographed movements which are strategically placed to entertain and attract the audience attention.

On a scale of 1 to 10

Would you mind rating my blog? I really want some feedback, except for the stats I receive from Blogger I have no idea who reads my blog, other than my own family.

So this is the new rating system practised in India. I thought I would just use the same. 

Rate the blog between 1 and 7 if it is Poor
Rate the blog between 8 and 9 if its Good
Rate the blog 10 if you love it or it is Excellent

I have been answering several customer satisfaction surveys in the last three or four years. Car companies, home appliance manufacturers, phone companies. Customers are expected to use only these words to express their opinion about the service level, it is either good or bad or excellent. What happened to 'Average' or 'Must Improve'?

When I answer these surveys, the thing that comes to my mind is education, grades and the performance of students which are graded similarly. Every intelligent teenager who is completing school is expected to get above 90% but it is only the lucky ones who get 98.99% and get into the best colleges. What happened to being happy with anything above 90%?  Cut off for medical or engineering college seats is always in the 98th or 99th percentile.

Coming closer to home, I am very impressed that my daughter gets an A+ in her tests. But guess what, there are children who come home crying because they failed to get 25 on 25 in their tests. Even the grading system has not eliminated the pride and prestige of a 25/25 or 100/100. Children who study well in class constantly aim for getting full marks, irrespective of the subject, and are very disappointed if they get anything less than that.  What happens to the majority of the children who can be called the average performers, do they get any attention in class I wonder? It is a replication of the grading system that I used above. There are only three categories for appraising performance in tests, these days.

This obsession with perfection in scores or awards or titles continues in people as they become adults. They forget that there is something called 'average' or 'can do better' and feel very bitter if they don't get what they want. I hope we don't use such rating systems in real life. I was kidding when I said please rate my blog. I really don't care.  I am doing this for myself and a little for others. I haven't received any comments on my blog this year and that does not make any difference to me. Saying this, I think I will rate my blog a 5/10 with a lot of scope for improvement.

Ten unsusual sights on a Chennai road

It might be easy to get a driving licence in India. But the real test is facing the traffic and obeying the flexible rules as you face the traffic everyday.

Here are ten unusual sights that you can face on any road in Chennai. You may even get lucky to see them all on one single day.

1. A procession carrying a dead body, along with music, dance and fireworks with the right to stop and redirect traffic.
2. A bullock cart carrying wooden planks or PVC tubes or furniture.
3. People ignoring the one way and driving on the wrong side of the road, regularly.
4. People moving the temporary barriers or dividers put in place by the traffic police, in order to cross or drive around the barrier.
5. State corporation buses ignoring the traffic lights.
6. Manholes suddenly left gapingly open in the middle of the road, with just a red cloth put there to warn motorists and pedestrians to avoid it if possible.
7. Unusually high speed breakers put up by all and sundry, with no warning signs, to supposedly slow down the traffic but only resulting in breaking our backs
8. Traffic being stopped abruptly because of some political party's unannounced rally or procession or the CM's sudden drive through the road.
9. Traffic signals on important junctions found not working and left without a traffic constable, so basically you are expected to be a law abiding citizen.
10.  Sudden changes made to roads like  'no free left' just to catch otherwise law abiding citizens unawares.

Sunday with newspapers

When I think of Sundays, the first thing that comes to my mind is the Sunday newspaper. , If it is a Sunday, I don't think of an elaborate oil bath or sunday brunches or visits to the temple, I always look forward to skimming the pages of Sunday magazine. Even now, inspite of all the online newspapers I can never do without reading the newspaper in its printed format, with all the pages spread out on the floor in front of me.

I think it's the south Indian tradition of having the morning cup of coffee with the newspaper that is built into our daily routine, that we miss it no matter where we go. I always appreciate hotels which provide a complimentary Sunday newspaper to their guests. The Sunday edition is most attractive for its supplement that would contain miscellaneous articles on lifestyle, health, current affairs and topics of general interest. Spending about an hour going through these articles somehow eases all the tension of the week and is the best way I can start my Sunday.

When I traveled to the US, I was surprised to see my own relatives, not buying newspapers everyday in their homes. They had got used to getting the news through various other sources, and local news was more important than national news. When I tried to read the local newspapers there, I understood why people didn't want them everyday. I found them too bulky, containing a lot of junk mailers. I had to reconcile myself with altering my Sunday routine. I finally satisfied myself with a newspaper called the "Independent" which focused on art, movies and culture in North Raleigh. It was a weekly newspaper and had a lot of good movie reviews, restaurant reviews and news about local shows and exhibitions.

I think Indian newspapers play an very important role in the Indian society as they cater to a much diverse and vast population. No matter where we travel in Tamil Nadu or south India, we can be sure to get an issue of 'The Hindu' which would reassuringly have the same format excepting for a few changes relating to local news. It would be interesting to see the changes which will come when FDI is introduced to the newspaper industry. While the good changes like competition, quality of writing and reporting are always welcome, the unnecessary burden of advertising is going to be cumbersome. Newspapers in India are still focused on news rather than advertising. But slowly I guess we will be bombarded with paper, we will have to find ways to cut the paper overload, in the form of pamphlets and mailers. I don't know what will happen to my Sunday routine, I might have to spend ten minutes just removing all the junk to get to my favourite sections of the paper.

Compassion at Home

The Times of India group has come up with another social inititative, called the Compassion Day, today. I think compassion is a very important human emotion  that is sometimes seen lacking in big cities in India. So it is good to be reminded about this important emotion, at least once a year.

Go to any big city in India and you will see extreme poverty and affluence growing side by side. Big malls and bigger shanties coexist in the same area. You can see beggars standing at major traffic junctions, temples and shopping complexes. 'Compassion', according to Wikipedia, is the understanding or empathy for the suffering of others. People like me who live in big cities often become immune to the feeling of 'compassion' when we constantly encounter squalor and abject poverty in our surroundings. 

In my own neighbourhood, I have always seen beggars sit right outside a popular ice cream shop and a restaurant. Whenever I go into the shop or the restaurant, I see the beggars and feel extremely guilty and aware of the fact that I am splurging when they are starving. When I visit popular temples, I am often irritated by the line of beggars outside the temple. The more popular the temple, the longer is the line of beggars. The cynic in me sometimes argues that it is just clever positioning on the part of the beggars. But there is no escaping the fact that poverty in India is glaring and there is no way that we, the citizens of India, can exclude ourselves of the responsibility of creating a more equal society.

There are so many invisible people in our society, the watchmen, cleaners, waiters, hawkers, vendors, cobblers, maids and all kinds of helpers. You only get to enjoy their services or products, you never pay attention to them as individuals. So may be today can be dedicated to these faceless people to whom you can show gratitude in one way or the other. They live on the fringes of our society and yet we cannot imagine our lives without them. With respect to begging, I am still confused as to how we can reduce the number of beggars in the city, I think the only way to deal with it is to give, and give wholeheartedly. Only movies show people who are professional beggars. May be they exist, but so do professionals who cheat and steal and lie their way to the top.

Whither parking space?

If you live in Chennai or any other metro in India, you will know that finding parking space in the city is the most difficult task that you can imagine. I live in central Chennai and I constantly see changes around my neighbourhood, be it houses turned into flats or apartments or houses converted into commercial spaces. Whatever be the case, what is missing is the space for parking vehicles near the building.

It is not just residential buildings or office complexes, even new schools, hotels and restaurants are opened in prime locations, without any thought or space given for parking vehicles. They seemed to be concerned only about the destination, the don't care about the journey to the destination. It would be a swanky new boutique where all the women arrive in chauffeur driven cars but you will only see three or four car parking spots, all of which would have been occupied by the owners of the building. If you need examples of such shops, just go around Alwarpet, you can check out Tulsi Silks or Rangacharis or Rasi or even jewellery shops like Khazana or NAC which specialise in platinum and diamond jewellery.

I recently saw a new cafe ( I am always delighted to see new cafes) that was opened near  Hotel Savera. I wondered at the choice of the location and the access to the cafe. The cafe, a well known chain, is located right outside the exit gate of the hotel. I wondered whether it was put there to attract those who wish to go to a hotel but just do not want to waste time waiting for their coffee in a five star hotel lobby. It has no parking space other than whatever is available on the already narrow, busy road where it is located. So I wondered about the clientele this cafe was attracting. There was only space enough for two-wheelers to be parked in front of the cafe. So who are they attracting, students who wish to impress their girlfriends or overworked office goers who want to take a coffee break or chauffeur driven people who don't have to think about where to park their cars.

How many people visiting a cafe that prices its coffees at Rs. 75 a cup will be driving there in their two wheelers? This makes me wish we had parking assistants in almost every main road of the city. We must be able to hire these assistants to get our cars parked and be saved from the head ache of finding a spot in the scorching Chennai heat. I think this should be a good business, 'Any time Parking Service' (APS)  for Chennai. There is no point in waiting for parking lots to appear, so all you need is a clever, skilled driver who can park your vehicle in front of unsuspecting individual homes or apartments or even abandoned school compounds. Actually a skilled driver is the most sought after job in Chennai, second only to a good domestic help.

Living in the Past

I recently got my wedding video converted into a DVD. This was after years of my mother's requests to do so. The first time I watched my wedding video was about 2 months after the event, when I was beginning my life as a married Indian woman in the US. I felt a little sad, nostalgic and bored watching it at home, all by myself. I thought it should have been edited and made into just one video, cutting all the so called special effects that the enthusiastic videographer had included.

There are various reasons why people record important events in their lives, the most important being, they want to save it for posterity. They want to relive their cherished moments, they want to show it to the next generation. I seriously don't think anybody watches their wedding videos just to look at themselves.  Firstly, it reminds you of how thin, young and naive you were. Secondly, it is uncomfortable to stare at a normal non-photogenic person for about three hours. Thirdly, it shows you when you are talking, laughing and generally in all the wrong angles for the camera ( how easy it is to blame the camera!).

Our traditional Indian weddings are actually quite interesting to watch, if you are not the ones arranging it. There are so many events, so many changes in the bride's clothes and hairstyle that it has potential to be a very good 'family' entertainer. But alas, we are at the mercy of the video guys who have their own ideas about background, colour and music that accompanies these videos. In my wedding video, I have no idea why there were so many 'Shankaracharya' photos and videos included. The video guy had chosen a good song sung by Balamuralikrishna as the background for most part of the wedding but he had included these random shots of Kanchi Shankaracharya in between our wedding ceremony that you actually thought that he had probably come to bless us. I don't know if that was the intention, but it was extremely confusing. Especially now, when I was watching it for the second time with my daughter, I was as surprised as her and had to explain the whole thing to her.

The fun part of the video consisted of awful close ups when I was looking sleepy, when my husband was yawning, and when my mouth was wide open in laughter. Let me remind you, wedding ceremonies in south India start at the crack of dawn. I was woken up at 3 am and made to wear the heavy saree and jewellery and made to sit quietly next to a purohit or vaadiyaar for about an hour. So I stared sleepily as the videographer and photographer eagerly took their first shots of me sitting for the pre-wedding ceremony.  As soon as the thali was tied, the videographer got really creative in his work. There were random flowers and hearts and chariots surrounding the bride and the groom's face. It reminded me of the Mary Poppins movie where they go into the magical land and suddenly ride horses and go on a carousel. Only difference was it was a badly edited video-mix with the outline of our heads starkly visible on the backdrop. I am thankful it didn't remind me of Bhagyaraj's films with the shower of flowers or rose petals.

The video had covered all the important events, even the food. But what it lacked was the spirit of a real south Indian wedding since the background does not include any chanting or talking or chatting that usually accompanies the ceremony. I think it would have been so much better if the guy had recorded the live sound that must have accompanied our wedding. All you had to do is keep a mike near the purohits as they loudly recited their mantras. Another mike could have been put in front of screaming kids and chatting maamis (ofcourse without their knowledge).

My own feelings about the video have surprisingly remained unchanged. This is so even though its been years since I watched it and I am now back in India with all my loving family surrounding me. People say that living in  the past is not good. It only drags you down and doesn't really help you move on. I must say that I totally agree. My feelings as I watched something recorded about 14 years ago, nostalgia, a little sadness and a feeling that so many years have passed.

There is something about the passing of time that makes you realise how temporary everything is. It made me feel that afterall, I haven't really changed so much. I am still naive and ignorant in so many ways and yet there have been so many changes on the outside.

The good thing about watching a family video: well, my daughter loved it and yes I could show her my grandfather, grandmother, her late great grandparents, and others whom she will never get a chance to see. A pity, she couldn't hear them talking and laughing and just being alive......

10 Inspiring Blogs

Why don't we have an ad which says, be the 'complete woman' like the Raymonds ad? May be its because it is so difficult. I am always trying to identify women who will inspire me and help me become a complete woman. Or to be more precise, a complete person.  In my quest to find inspiring women, I have often searched the web for fellow women bloggers, especially in India, as I can associate more with them. I am indeed surprised and delighted to find the number of intelligent, articulate and accomplished women out there. If it seems a bit weird that I am focusing so much on women, let me tell you, I do think women's lives are complicated and have more twists and turns.

Here is a list of some websites where you can see the life and work of some really creative and interesting urban Indian women. I have often enjoyed visiting these websites and learning something from them.Most of these women blog and write about what they do, so it is both their writing and their work which drew me to their websites. I found some of these blogs through common friends on Facebook or through  references on other blogs. Brasstacks is a shop that I visited and liked. I got included in their mailing list, from which I got to read about the owner and creator of the brand. The last two are food blogs, but they have something extra, a little touch, which makes for good reading.



1. Just a Mother of Two
2.Blogeswari - 
3. Mommygolightly
4. Radio Parul
5. Compulsive Confessions
6.Y on Earth
7. Woman and a Quarter
8. Brasstacks
9. Padhuskitchen
10. Edible Garden

Money- Ye Dil Maange More

My maid's husband often comes to borrow some money. Sometimes, I don't exactly feel like giving him money, I just feel he is taking the easy way out. But then, I force myself to stop and think about his life. He works through the day for the corporation and sometimes moonlights as a watchman at night.  For the last twelve years that I have known him, there is little change in his lifestyle. He has borrowed money to educate his children and marry his daughters. And the struggle goes on. There is a good possibility that his children would have done as well as me, if they had had the same opportunities in life. There is an equal chance that I would have been born in a household like his, where money is spent faster than it is earned.


Money, you are damned if you have too much of it and damned if you have too little of it. If you have too much of it, you worry about how to save it, invest it, hide it, launder it and sometimes even distribute it or gift it. If you have too less of it, life is just hell. The difference money can make to people is tangible.

You need money to think, to cherish life, to create beautiful things, even to become better human beings. It is only when you start asking for more and more of it that you lose everything. Look at the plight of the cricketer, Sreesanth. He could have lived a wonderful, successful life, with enough money and a loving family around him. But he wanted more and wanted it quick and easy. If he can look for a shortcut to get more money, why do we blame others less fortunate, who do the same. The autorikshaw driver, the watchman, the policeman, look for extra money they can earn, one way or the other. It is the same greed that brings about major corruption scams at the higher levels of society.

Many educated, well employed, upper middle class Indians get very self righteous about corruption in India, I think it is first important to think about the everyday life of an average Indian who is just above poverty line. How different is the lifestyle of the privileged and the underprivileged in India? Have you done or do you do anything by yourself do bridge this gap?

People think that reforms by the Government can act as a magic wand to put everything straight. But it is ultimately the individual attitude that goes a long way to correct such deep rooted problems like corruption. Think about the amounts paid to the daily labourer or the domestic help or the policmen or traffic constables. I think they need to be paid much more in order to bring about some correction in the distribution of wealth among people in India. So go ahead pay a little more, Rs  20, or Rs 50, as much as you can afford, to the auto driver or to the coolie, atleast once or twice a month. That would bring about some change in their lives.

A little each day

Am I the woman next door, I wonder ?
That's someone I hardly thought about, for sure
I used to think that I would be different
Be involved in something bigger and important
An archeologist, a teacher, a singer, banker, the list is redundant
But here I am, consumed in matters between the back door and the front
As I struggle each day to do more, to create and explore

Some words, some thoughts, helping me improve myself every day
A little each day, is all I aim for,  making a difference in some way

Something Different that spiced up my week

This week I am proud to say that I have done two things I have never done before in my life. One is that I have attempted to stitch a dress for my daughter's doll and the other is I made Pani Puri (well almost). As you read on, you will understand why I am surprised that I did these two things. Pani puri is the most easily available snack in Chennai and I would never ever have thought of making it at home, but for my daughter's request. She loves the snack and somehow managed to persuade me to make it for her. Stitching is an activity I normally don't indulge in as it requires a lot of patience. But when you have a nine year old looking so hopefully up at you, it makes you believe in yourself.

It seems to me that whatever else happens, it is important for us to try out new things, atleast once a month. Its almost like pressing the refresh button for our brains. When I spent one hour stitching a tiny piece of cloth, I realised the amount of concentration it needed. It took my mind off any other brooding topic. It was extremely relaxing and I felt like one of those characters in a Jane Austen book, who carried on with their 'needle work', sitting so beautifully in their picture perfect living rooms or parlours. Sorry, I don't have a finished picture of what I am stitching. I would like you to believe that its all in the process, or work in progress. I am yet to complete the dress and it seems like it would require another couple of hours.

Cooking a new dish is always a creative experience but what I don't like is attempting a dish that I do not really enjoy eating. Pani puri is a snack that I almost never buy or never really feel like buying and eating. It is because of two reasons, one it is too messy and two, I hate to stand and eat or gobble one puri after another, right in front of the person who is making it. So it took a lot of persuasion for me to agree to attempt this dish. And even then, I decided to buy the puris and the pani puri masala. You might wonder what I actually made myself. Well, I made the spicy potato masala, cooked to my daughter's taste. I cooked and pureed the date and jaggery to make a sweet thick chutney. And I served it with some finely chopped onions and boiled chana. So, I am proud to say that I did manage to make the plain puris quite delicious.

I don't think one needs to attempt bungee jumping or sky diving to experience that adrenaline rush or feel alive. All you have to do is try out something that you have never tried before. You might end up not liking it but hey its all in the effort you take to think and act outside your comfort zone. 

Reunions

This was the second time I was meeting up with my school mates. It was not planned and was decided out of the blue when one of our classmates from Australia visited India and wanted to get together. It was last minute and I was reluctant, moreover I haven't really got to know these people ever since high school (I had changed schools after class X). Finally, I decided to go and meet my friends and did not regret it. So what is it about classmates, that brings back a smile, a happiness, may be a reminder of the hopes one had during childhood?

Is it the fact that we have been together and understood each other and accepted each other blindly at a time when our egos weren't so big.  It was a weekday evening, so only five of us got to meet each other. I tried to place the young, childhood faces that I remembered to each of the matured, grown up faces that were in front of me. The conversation ranged from old buddies, to teachers to our current lives. The topic of marriage and children did come up and it was really funny how each of us was trying to be a responsible parent.

It made us happy to know that we remembered so much and sometimes so little about each other. Our own perceptions of ourselves have changed so much during the past few years that it was nice to be reminded about who we were or are. I am not one for having lavish reunions but such small gatherings are a nice way to look back at the way we have grown, together or apart. Looking back today, after 20 odd years, I just feel that things were good after all and we have turned out alright. It is true, life has a way of balancing things out.

Random mails

For the last one year I have been getting random emails sent to my email address. They have been clearly sent to my mailing address by mistake. The kind of emails I received ranged from general 'hi' 'how r u' to family photos, matrimonial ads to details of new flat purchased. I seriously don't know how and when my name became so common that I seem to be getting one such erroneously sent email every month.

I recently have been getting photos and profiles of pretty young Punjabi girls waiting to get married! This was so interesting (provoking) that I thought I must let it out.

Guess what, I am supposed to be the 'eligible' bachelor! The emails are from the girl's side, either by herself (modern) or by her parents or siblings (traditional).  I don't know how my name has got included in this email mix up. But it is hilarious to see the matrimonial ads which seem to resemble resumes for a managerial post.

With the popularity of the various matrimonial websites, it seems like arranged marriage and the related businesses are flourishing.. Arranged marriages in India are not so simple to arrange. Its not just a question of putting up yourself as available and finding the most eligible partner. You have to search and find your way through the whole maze of your caste, community, religion, sub sect etc etc.  In the south, I am sure there are various specialised websites like 'Tamil brahmin matrimonials', 'Iyengar and Iyer' , 'Thengalai', 'Vadakalai' , 'Palakkad Brahmin' websites which help people improve their search criteria.

I have got about 5 emails so far, containing descriptions of Punjabi girls wtith their photos attached. I have just been deleting the emails thinking they will just get auto corrected or deleted and will stop appearing in my Inbox. But it is not happening. So I had to politely send an email stating that it was being sent to the wrong email address. Just take a look at the content of some the emails . I have removed the name and other details for the girls' sake.

"Stays in Paschim vihar. Persuing MBA . 1991 born. 5'4" height. Weatish complexion. Contact: 9213...... ( mother)"


Here is another one:

"Date of Birth : 20th Dec'85
Place Of Birth : Delhi Birth Time : 8.30 A.M..
Height : 5 '5' Residence: South Delhi
Mother :Housewife. Father : Expired.
Siblings : 1 Sister Married   2 Elder Brother Unmarried (Own bussiness in ..... )
Qualification & Job : Graduate  from Kamala Nehru College Delhi University ,MBA from Symboises pune And Having Over 3.5
years of Work Experience, Working With A Private Bank in South Delhi
 As Senior Manager - Operation (Branch Banking). Package 4 Lacs"

And another

Let us introduce ourselves first. We are punjabi Khatri, well educated
and cultured family.  This proposal is for our elder daughter. Her
D.O.Birth is 6.1.1987, height is 5,5" , weight 75
extremely  beautiful & smart, confident,  fair & charming. She is a
convent educated girl
and has done B.A. (Hon's) English, MBA in Marketing & HR and working in a Tata
 sky in Managerial post. Presently placed at Chandigarh but ready to relocate.
Professionally very promising career prospects ahead.   I am working
as senior executive with a PSU.  We have our own 3 bedroom apartment
in Gurgaon, presently staying in .... Delhi.
 

There were three more mails that I deleted but which contained more elaborate descriptions of the girl. Almost all the girls had very good educational qualifications, especially an 'MBA". So these days it seems like having an MBA is as good as having a "convent education". Another important qualification is the "working in an MNC" . I wonder what the 'eligible bachelor' does then?

I decided to take a look at some of the matrimonial ads that come with the Sunday newspapers. What I found after glancing through them is that the importance, atleast verbally, to tall, slim, fair, beautiful, homely girls has come down. Most girls are described with respect to their profession or job and educational qualification, which is such a drastic change from the matrimonial ads that were placed, say ten or fifteen years ago.

I just hope these professionally qualified girls are indeed valued more for what they do than how they look. I hope they find nice, sweet, suitable bachelors who appreciate them and their marital status adds another feather to their already beautiful crown.


Meanwhile, I will continue to post interesting emails that I receive, especially from eligible Punjabi girls.


Dated: 21 May 2013

Do people ever stop to verify the sender's name when they send such personal emails? I still receive these emails from people in response to some advertisement supposedly placed by me in the HT Classifieds.

Birthdays

As I complete one more year of my existence, I wish I was a little more remarkable than what I am now. I wish I didn't sound so spoilt, lazy, cynical and predictable. I am a bundle of contradictions with no direction.

I wish I had some of the wonder my daughter has in her eyes. To her, life is still about waiting for her birthday parties and wishing for a birthday every day.

When does that change? When does achievement and success take the place of joy and wonder? I guess when ego makes itself felt. When ego is dominant in me, I feel more about my own individual desires and achievements than when I am without ego. During our childhood, ego is still hidden in all the fluff and magic. As adults and parents we do the disservice of bringing our children out of the cloud and call it growing up.

I know that life indeed is beautiful and is a gift in itself. Everyday is a birthday and I have been given the opportunity of knowing and loving myself better. But its unfortunately not so simple or it is so unbearably simple that its difficult to practise.

Cafes

Third Place, coffee house, Raleigh

I don't know whether it is the coffee or the ambiance, but there is something about cafes which makes them seem very warm and welcoming to me. I remember my first impression of a coffee house. It was the India Coffee House in Bangalore, MG Road. We were walking around MG Road and it seemed like the perfect coffee place to take break.

India Coffee House, MGRoad, Bangalore 

It was a simple and clean place where the coffee and tiffin was just perfect. It had a colonial look to it with its solid wooden furniture and high ceiling and liveried waiters. Unfortunately, the Indian Coffee house has now shifted away from its prime location on MG Road. It is now relocated on Church street. More swanky stylish cafes and bistros have come up to take its place on MG Road.

Back in Chennai, I never really went to a coffee house because I did get the best coffee at home. The only time I had coffee was when we ate a snack (tiffin) at restaurants like Woodlands Drive In or Ratna Cafe or some such place. These places certainly did not inspire anything intellectual or profound in me. They seemed like machines which served food and coffee in a steady stream. You just went there for the coffee and did not want to spend any more time there. Having said this, I will admit that Saravana Bhavan in Chennai serves one of the best filter coffees that I have tasted. Again, can't say that I would like sitting there for ever with a miniscule tumbler of filter coffee.

Woodlands Drive In
Many people think 'the late' Woodlands Drive In was the best coffee place ever on earth. I have been to it during my college days a few times. I seriously do not recollect anything more than a run down place, resembling a mess, which was too hot and humid and needed some amount of lighting. It seemed like an open smoking house which always had men sitting around doing nothing but drinking coffee and smoking. Sorry to say this but the Woodlands  Drive In was not my type of coffee house.

It was only after I got married and went to the US that I became more nostalgic about coffee and tea and the coffee houses. Thankfully, I got a husband who was interested in cafes, whether he cared about the coffee or not. It was there that I got introduced to the concept of 'cafes'. Cafes are more than just coffee houses. But the food was usually limited to sandwiches and soups, pastries and cakes. My husband and I used to spend a lot of time in cafes around Raleigh which served a variety of teas and coffees. They also had unique tea cakes or biscottis or pastries.  It was there that I learnt the difference between Assam Tea and Darjeeling Tea. I learnt to differentiate between tea leaves and dust. i realised that I liked a single shot of expresso in my short cup of coffee. I realised that I liked Latte or Mocha to Cappuccino.

The other thing about cafes in the US is their connection with books. Many major bookstores which were still running successfully then, like 'Borders' had their own coffee shops within their stores. We could just grab a book and almost finish reading it with a cup of coffee from the Coffee Shop. The connection between cafes and books were also seen in the location of cafes. They were very likely to be located near Universities or near old book stores. We have been to several old book stores and hopped into the cafes near them and spent an entire Sunday evening in this manner.

Third Place
Third Place in downtown Raleigh was one such place that I managed to get a picture of here. On a wet or cold evening The Third Place would be packed with people, making the place warm and cozy. On beautiful spring days, you could see people spilling out on the pavement right outside the cafe. They would read and sip a cuppa for hours as though it was their own living room.Inside the cafe, you could see the sandwiches being made and grilled to your taste. The walls of the cafe had paintings of budding artists, notices of various items on sale or exhibition. You could get to read a host of different magazines and newspapers.


It is said that JK Rowling used to spend her days writing in a small cafe in Scotland. She would write every day from morning till evening, keeping her baby in a stroller next to her. The cafe that she used to haunt, The Elephant House, has now become a tourist attraction .
 
So what is it that I like in a cafe? Well, firstly, it should serve reasonably good coffee or tea. The decor should be simple but comfortable. It should not be too tiny and should not be too grand or luxurious either. The setting must be open and inviting and the lighting is very important. I like cafes which let a lot of natural light into them. Many good cafes are great locations for people watching. If a cafe is facing the road and has wide open windows, its simply lovely to sit and watch the people walking by.


If there is one thing I hate about some of the new coffee places that are coming up these days in Chennai, it is the loud music played inside. They make the whole atmosphere resemble that of a disco or a bar. The highlight of the cafe should be that you have the freedom to be left alone and enjoy the coffee or the company. The Cafe Coffee Days would be certainly much better if they could tone down the music. 

The best cafe in Chennai, according to me, is 'Amethyst'. It was originally called the Mocha Cafe and was located in the ground floor of the Jaipur House in Gopalpuram. It has now shifted to a place on Whites Road, near Mount Road, near Sathyam Theatre. The first time we found out about this, we were so proud that someone had found the right way of presenting coffee and tea to Chennai. The owner, Kiran Rao has done an excellent job in creating the perfect atmosphere for coffee and conversation. I have spotted many a celebrity sitting quite unnoticed amidst the quiet and relaxing atmosphere of the Amethyst cafe. In that last 10 years in Chennai, many new cafes have been opened, but very few have been able to sustain themselves. It is heartening to see that Amethyst and Anokhee both owned by Kiran Rao are doing extremely well.

The merging of the classes seen in places like The Indian Coffee House cannot be seen in the modern day cafes. The Ratna Cafe and Rams Cafe are still the places where you can see people sit and get a good cup of coffee. There is no confusing the two types of Cafes. One creates an intimate setting, an atmosphere for creative pursuit, the other just serves good coffee. It is up to you to choose from the two. Is it the coffee or the cafe that is more important to you?

Local News

A community feeling and initiatives to improve the life of our fellow citizens is a positive sign in any city. I first came to know about 'The Mylapore Times' in the year 2000 or 2001. I don't know about Mumbai or Delhi, but back in 2000, a free local newspaper was a rarity. It is now 12 years and the number of local newspapers have increased steadily. Every major locality in Chennai like Adyar, Annanagar, Mogappair have their own weekly newspapers distributed free to the residents.

The reason I am so enthusiastic about these local newspapers is that it is not for profit and is totally centred on distributing information or making a public forum for people to interact or air out their grievances. Every Saturday, I look forward to browsing the Mylapore Times to know about activities for my child or new restaurants or advertisements for various exhibitions or just to know what is going on around me. I have myself written about a nice experience which was included in the online edition of the newspaper http://www.mylaporetimes.com/2013/04/a-tree-walk-for-kids-at-nageswara-rao-park/.

 Such newspapers give a feeling that you can make a difference in your community. It narrows down the focus to your home and your neighbours which is extremely important in a huge crowded city like Chennai.

For example, if there are civic problems in the area the best way to publicise it is through the local newspaper.

I think the biggest drawback in living in a big city is the isolation it creates. Many of us have got used to thinking that one person, one group cannot really make a difference. When the Mylapore Time was launched sometime in 1994, I am sure most people were sceptical about the success about the newspaper. But look at its circulation and popularity now.

Who takes the trash out? who cares?

A friend of mine who runs a library was trying to conduct a workshop for kids and adults about composting. She hired a consultant for this and gave out invitations to the members and her friends. But after several attempts at getting people to sign up for the workshop, she decided to cancel it for lack of numbers. She says that most people were not interested as they stayed in apartments and felt that it was messy to have a compost bin within their apartments.

When I heard this I realised that we are so caught up with the so called modern ways of living that we have to pay and induce people to do something natural.

I stay in the centre of the city near the house of a former Chief Minister. And even this part of the city has no garbage segregation whatsoever. All kinds of things are collected and thrown into one garbage truck. I sometimes wonder what would happen if the city runs out of places to dump garbage.

The problem is, garbage segregation, recycling or composting is something that has to be inculcated in our day to day lives. If segregation has to be done, it has to be the responsibility of the family members to keep the paper and the other bio-degradables in a separate bin. Many people feel that it is beneath their dignity to do anything remotely associated with recycling or segregating garbage in their homes. The don't like throw out their own garbage bags. Its always the maid who takes the trash out in a middle class household in India. Most people don't care what happens after that.

If people were forced to have compost bins, I am sure we would have a separate set of Corporation/Government workers who would be hired to do the work for us. They probably would wear green uniforms and ask us to give our biodegradable stuff to them. These people would then put the stuff in a central compost system in the locality and we would have a giant composting pit. I think this would be a more likely scenario in Chennai rather than training individual households to carry out composting.  And yet we would complain that the Government is extremely inefficient in their ways and garbage is never collected on time.

The point is not to become too pessimistic but I think to realise that the change has to be brought about to suit our unique lifestyle in India. There is hope as long as we still have kabbadiwalas roaming the streets. We still have places where we can sell our old newspapers and scrap and they do the segregation for us. There is a lot of recycling that happens through mechanics and service men who deal with electronics and appliances. An old appliance can still find a buyer in India. I  hope we see the day when we have recycle bins where we can put our plastic bags and containers in a grocery store in Chennai. Until then I will just hand them over to my maid who is always glad to get recycle it for me.

Strong Women

I came across the picture of Sarojini Naidu in an exhibition recently. It was an exhibition about the Indian National Movement and I was reminded of her remarkable career and life. People often forget that she is one of the few women who gained national importance during the freedom movement. She was one of the framers of the Indian Constitution. She was the first woman Governor in India (of the state of UP). Today she is totally overshadowed by Indira Gandhi.

 

She did her higher education in UK and yet she became an activist in the Indian freedom movement.She married a south Indian, a non-brahmin, which at the time was completely unacceptable. She led a normal married life and had 4 children. And today very few people would mention her when they talk about successful Indian women.  

I liked to look at the simple black and white photos at the exhibition which showed true and honest faces. They were not touched up or made up in any way. And what a contrast we have today when women in power have to constantly change their looks or style in order to look contemporary. Sarojini Naidu was a strong and intelligent woman who knew her mind and took her own decisions. She did not care for accolades or attention. Today, the importance has shifted only to the appearance of the famous women of power, not the substance. Whether it is Priyanka Gandhi or Michelle Obama, there is more attention given to their attire than their attitude.

Inspite of all this feminist talk, I find that I still  teach my daughter to be obedient and well mannered. Even when the child is most naturally well mannered I do check her behaviour when she expresses her disappointment with the world at large. I wish to rise above those conventional ideas and let my daughter assert herself and show her anger if she so wishes. Outward appearances and behaviour are not as important as the will power or internal strength of the person. Ultimately it is not niceness to others that matters as much as truth and honesty with your own self.