A calf caught in the headlights...

Post marriage, daughters become daughter-in-laws or 'daughter like' members of an acquired family. And it does not stop at that. They try to win appreciation from the husband's parents and assume, as if in an illusion, that they are the chosen ones for this new family-the saviours, (a job thrust upon daughter-in-laws) of family pride and salvagers of wounded egos and hurt feelings of those she is made to believe she is ritually/dutifully married to, as all these and more are part of family bureaucracy and tradition of marriages as a whole.

Their path in their chosen life gets altered to meet the curves of expectations that are a mountain a minute and a mole hill the next. And this becomes a routine of a living disguised in the feel good adjectives 'sacrificing', 'understanding' and whatever familial terms that end with 'ing'- a token of appreciation for the adjust'ing' daughter in her different family.

I caught a glimpse of a calf trying to find her way home in the busy sounding traffic. She was given new direction, every time she decided to find her own road to safety. The vehicles on either side made matters worse as she finally stopped short  outside of a vegetable mandi, chewing on the dried plantain leaves before being shooed back to the road. A calf caught in the headlights and so very caught up that her fears have drowned in that confusing noise.

Strangely enough, I could relate with the plight of the calf while taking my evening walk home. She seemed out of place but not out of context. The only difference was I tried acting courageous whenever I felt lost and was even more confused when I tried being their daughter. This truth unto myself has made the intensity in this overwhelmingly warm relationship less stifling and my place as a daughter-in-law in my
(not anymore) new family that much natural. Being oneself is not rocket science. And marriage is not mechanical science either.

Our duties are not iron clad uniforms that rust with age-while in them, we defend or attack only at our own fears. Get out of them... Stay happy with yourself and unassumingly committed to those you've widened your hearts for. Set yourself free. They deserve your love too.

'English Vinglish'

Sridevi's comeback in 'English Vinglish' is as graceful as the movie in itself. The star looks and feels completely at ease with her role and performs without much ado, while carrying the entire weight of this simple classic on her shoulders.

Bollywood is a common metaphor for 'stardom' and translates into '100 crores' in filmi grammar. Whereas Sridevi is the unique voice from the crowd of stars who speaks a successful acting/actor's language quite her own, making 'English Vinglish' the movie that it was meant to be-a value addition in the list of masters of the film craft.

As a mother with a quivering pulse for English, her vulnerability in dealing with an unknown language in an unknown country creates an anxious block for her to break in the first half of the movie. Finding her own voice and rising to the occasion in her finale speech wins the much needed respect and appreciation from her family and her new found friends from the English speaking class.

This movie is a sure standout for the peoples theme in its choosing, for the common locales of character picturisation, for making a star the girl next door and for a heart warming tale of a woman who chooses to reassert herself breaking all language barriers.  

Shades of 'Grey'

'Grey's Anatomy'-the title justifies the show: a show of bodies and their complications, basic instincts and anatomy of several lively emotions and a shade of grey in an everyday intern's life.
The Chief of Surgery, the Resident, the Cardiothroraic surgeon, Neuro surgeon etc are heroes of a 'non clinical' medical drama series. They operate on victims or cases with their acting finesse, while the interns vie to scrub in with their finishing touches. The human life as a medical novice and as a student gets told through different cases and even if their personal lives kept away from medical emergencies, there are no skeletons in their closet-none that can be kept closed for far too long.

There are enough body complications that become themes of their own and high voltage emotional entanglements within the closely operating team that cannot be defined within the (Seattle Grace) hospital limits. Divorce, extramarital affair, live in and live without are certain patterns that recur in their relationships though.

Close to life and unimaginably creative, this anatomy does manage to keep the audience's interest alive.


  

The 'Karva Chauth' connect

'Karva Chauth' is a Hindi version of karadaya nombu from the South. It is performed by the wife for her husband's health longevity and prosperity-a day long fasting diligently followed by the wife, chanting prayers and reading mythological/epic stories that witness the triumph of good over evil, of life over death, and faith over practicality.

The transition of the 'husband' figure from an everyday presence to elevated heights of love and hero worship is quite bollywood inspired, which is an Indian culture by itself. The 'nombu' or 'vrath' is a day of full on high loyalty as the sacred yellow thread around the wife's neck is a miniature thaali for the married and a prayer of protection for the brother from his married/unmarried sister.
 The moon is the source of ethereal connect that once when witnessed is a sign for the woman to seek blessings from her husband and break her fast.
And hence the feasting begins as another year of Karva Chauth time comes to an end.

The results of a marriage are in the everyday-there are good days, there are boring days and there are cold war days and patch up days in between like the phases of the moon. We women need days like these to embrace the light within us and shine on come rain or shine.

The Kollywood Phoenix

'Nayagan' was a movie for the masses and not a cult hero movie.It was 'inspired' by the 'Godfather' and had a star studded crew to make 'Nayagan' a hero of a movie.

Kamal never ceases to be himself, on and off the screen.His obsessive compulsion with himself clearly comes out in print in an article in The Hindu Magazine(a supplement with the newsdaily) dated October 21. Besides self claiming to be the trump card of 'Nayagan', he partners in glory with the artistes of his likes and considers them worthy of his mention and compartmentalizes the ones who were not and makes no bones about saying it loud.

The film has reached its 25th year and has been voted one of Time magazine's top 100 films. And Kamal has donned a 100 odd roles since then ('Nayagan' was released in 1987) in many standout movies that etch his every emotion and his unforgettable screen presence. A celebration of the art in any film goes beyond publicity, even negative.

A phoenix bird is symbolic of a hopeful soar, higher than the dark clouds that come on its way and even if struck by lightning, it rises from the ashes to fly all over again. And Kamal is kollywood's version of a phoenix. He has proved time and again that he can be the standout from the flock of stars in the tamizh film galaxy and rise beyond industry standards.

As audience, we still are positive that he'll reconnect with movies that become better versions of him as an actor and as a person too.

Sampradhaya-a musical tradition

Sampradhaya 2012 was an event that marked the parampara folk music or music spanning generations on folk lore of the regions across India. Be it Gurbani of the north(Punjab), tillana of the south, popular bhajans like vaishnav janato and the kannada devotional bhaghyada lakshmi baramma...Shankar Mahadevan and Aruna Sairam sang them all and this musical rhapsody marked the fusion music flavours of a truly unique India.

Music that can move even non-kutcheri goers like my husband and me to stay tuned in silence at Narada Gaana Sabha, Chennai, and be present for the entire 3 hour show was magical moments rediscovered.
We felt the rhythm and the pulse being part of the audience and stayed affected  by the sheer soul of their individual voices echoing even after the concert long being over.

Chennai is home to a distinctive food culture that is music to many a foodie's ears!! The crispy vadais floating on spicy and tangy rasam and sambar, with boondi on top, the ghee seasoned dollap of pongal that snuggles warm with smooth coconut chutney and the quintessential coffee or kaapi, sweet kesari and a whole menu for an evening tiffin outside of the hall at the canteen is a welcome feast prior to the main celebration!!

Unabashed and sitting pretty, we took in the whole aura of a music lover, of what it takes to be on an outing, specially in such a city and place where traditional/carnatic music (good food inclusive) is not just content matter on a brochure, but  at the back of every musically inspired Chennaiite's mind.

An accidental journey

I look around the raging flames. Iam the black cloud that circles the dark body. Iam inextinguishable and am in the heat of the moment. I've travelled many journeys and each felt like a beginning to an end...except this one...it ended in ashes, and I don't make any bones about it. The deserted train compartment was once full of sleepy heads, but I see skulls that I identify were my neighbours. The hand that rocked the baby lie in joined heaps of remains. I cry at their love and only death did them part. The water hose(s) of the fire ambulance wipe my tears dry, as its time to move on. I smoke out in dark circles, floating higher into an uninvited heaven. 'Rest in peace', I tell myself, as this journey by accident has just begun.

Chennai Chapatis

Cooking is a daily culture with most housewives and Iam one of the depressed blue faces when it becomes too daily a chore. I love food being cooked across various travel and lifestyle channels on T.V. and the delicate delicacy plated up for an eye feast. But when home food (almost!) is a call away and 'Chennai Chapatis' comes to my rescue, I thank my city for being on the food prefix for a whole menu of reasons:)
Yeah..food can be a place of solace and I feel redeemed when simple chapatis and dal, sambar rice/curry rice and that warm and fluffy curd rice consoles my stomach to a contented sigh finally.

It's my home away from home here...but eating humble is a cheerful reuninon with the food I knew from my past and today was one of those past perfect days.  

Dramatic memoir

Madras Players' 'Silence! The Court is in session' is a 100 minute play, featuring internationally renowned voiceover artiste P.C.Ramakrishna, Indrani Krishnaier and others. Directed by Vinod Anand, this is Vijay Tendulkar's Marathi version of 'Shantata!..."

The Egmore Museum backdrop and an old classic air conditioned hall added its old world charm to this 1971 play by the troupe that has come together in talented parts, while the fresher faces in the role play lend their own comeback distinction.

The court comes to a mock trial as the characters are drama performers who come to a remote village to stage their play. What begins as an imaginary accusation against Ms.Benare, takes a sinister twist as the woman is hushed into silence and tears with charges of infanticide, which in real is a well kept secret by her.

As her independent and open spirit gets mocked for by the witnesses, Mr and Mrs. Kashikar, Ponkshe, Rokade and the unassuming villager Samant, her anger against such societally salacious behaviour singles her out as an innocent victim to this vicious play.

Over dramatic in certain moments and genuinely plain and fun in some others, this social satire, for me, was a  debut dramatic memoir of sorts. And the show must go on...    

Key(e)s to a school reunion

Our school (Keyes High School for Girls, Secunderabad) has been common ground for our family ladies, young and old alike to get an induction into school education, friendships, to stay together as sisters and not cousins be it at school and while getting back home, and is not merely a school where we had studied and made grades, but made memories and lived a part of our childhood.

To me, dressed in purple uniform and walking on a pair of black and white, sweating it out to buy crispy rolls, puffy corn, spicy choley from the good old canteen(s) were moments to savour. The quick stationery pick Sardarji's shop adjacent to the canteen bought for many of us from our deep uniform pockets 'pocket money' to buy the much needed pens, pencils, orange candies, chart papers, maps and map drawing books. We drew, we wrote, we made paper planes and rode on our colourful dreams, candy mouthed and orange tongued and mumbled a chorus 'Goooood Morrrrning Teacherrrr' to mark the beginning of one of the many eventful days at our school.

The class timetable looked more like keys on a keyboard. Each subject or each note that were placed one next to the other were not quite in harmony, but was music to our parents' ears when we scored higher in them (subjects) than our earlier performance.

To be a gem of a sportsperson as in belonging to a Rubies, Emeralds, Topaz and Sapphires sports team was an essential. Diamonds are now our best friends and a luck invoking gem stone for better times ahead! We had our share of good times and not so good ones at school... Books carried our burdens, our only baggage then.
We've all outgrown them.Our thirst for good life and success much bigger than the water bottles we carried, our hunger for acceptance and competition much larger than the tiffin boxes we had bought for lunch.

Each corridor from our memories of school days will echo our primary, middle and high school times. We can all agree (perhaps) that we are the proud voices recollecting where we have come from and what we have become today! Family reunions with the ladies at home is never complete without this common slice of school times that we love to feed on.😊

Tell your own story

Storytelling is a dream job for many and seems easy to be one. And Guy Hutchins, a professional storyteller from U.K., was 'dreamworks' in animation er..motion! His fluid word/body language talk in a recently held workshop in collaboration with Story Trails at British Council, was a world beyond the ordinary.

Creative imagination that can weave a bizarre fantasy world, where the animate in the inanimate is a possibility-Where the story wins the hearts of young and younger spirited listeners and humbles itself to children's faith and preserves it without preaching morals-this is the storyteller's world as unraveled in the workshop.

Being a world traveler and  a keen observer of folk culture makes Guy's stories existential. His probing of why a particular thing/animal happens to be the way it is today, recreates history in a new story avatar.
The shape that the incidents form in sequence in order to lead an effect for the main plot of the journey are his story trails.

Life is too short for revisiting and retelling the histories from the past-but the tales, the epics, the dramas and the many other oral traditions that one can pass down to the generations that follow can be newly revisited, thanks to such story workshops.

Making magic real in a child's world is possible only if we start believing in them. Being a child all over again would someday be a dream come true.Isn't i t?

I have a dream...

An evening walk for me is all about strolling on the sidewalk, taking in the breezy Chennai air, and having enough road sense while crossing streets or stalling for a quick neighbour talk by the pavement, in order to make enough room for other pedestrians.

While being mindful of common ground is the first step towards dusky (or dusty?) city traffic, being mindlessly drunk and walking in 'full swing' is anywhere but sensible. TASMAC is the lively drunkard's omnipresent trademark. The outlet represents the flowing population that boozes the evening and the night away come what may. The masculine stupor drinks in any feminine sight in view, irrespective of the size or age. Half empty or half full, the 'clink' of bottles drowns the sounds of vehicles, as women like me wait or dodge for the senseless to pass, while our surge of fear for safety goes down the drain.

Feeling secure and safe are a dream for most metro women and feeling unsafe and insecure a living nightmare.
To talk the walk is safer a topic than walk the talk.Here's to having a dream!!

Game for IPL?

I looked out from my drawing room window and found a boy group play 'controlled compound cricket'. They are generally a bashful group of buddies who are in their early and pre teens, swinging mature batting stroke misadventures in the apartment parameters- the tall lamp post adjacent to the parking lot blinked in broken darkness from one such recent hit and run escapedes.

Being placidly playful was a sad sight as they played golf over cricket with a tennis ball!! The submissive play has lasted for a few days now and I see them gear up for compound cricket once again. Indraya Pasanga/Ponnunga League(IPL) is for all seasons :)

Besides this religious activity, the huddling together as 'boys' and 'girls' apart, gossiping small talk, giggling, discussing games and gadgets and any given technical trivia are the things they grow on. Play lesser and win harder is the attitude that works on the field or off it, owing to limitations like space, and getting big on creative freedom for their own  uninfluenced territory and reaching a winner's end at all costs.

Given to the single child phenomenon in many households, its an 'all for one' emotional and financial investment in a single child, who is loved as if he/she is the family's world, whereas outside of such comfort and in the compound, the child is one among the many wannabe hit and run winners. Slowing the kid down with love is not happening anymore, but to gear up towards hastened success is fast becoming a theme for Indraya pullainga league.



        

Women we can't do without!

Admit it or not, maids bring out more efficiency in women.They manage to keep the feminine better half of the house on her toes and even the in-laws take a backseat here.

The chores planned for another day gets sorted out in priority lists that match with the maid's convenience which is done on time or later but usually never earlier. The woman of the house can flex a muscle now and then, but the home needs a regular service that can do well with the domestic help at hand.

Generally maids study the homes and equally the mindsets of the woman of the house in order to make quick judgments on how much they would be paid or how soon any extra perks would come in near future.

The word of mouth reviews from their peers are no less a value addition for the maids who can decide who next to house-hunt for work as their demand is ever present in one housing community or the other.

Love them, hate them, but every working woman, housewife, or the self employed need them. In fact this could be the only compatible and working woman-woman rapport which thrives not just on how much gets paid, but how much they are addressed to as fellow women who have lives of their own and are not bound to slave for anyone just because they  choose to work as domestic help assistance.



  

Soul food

With Pongal having come and gone, the rising sense of emotional sentiments, festive rituals and soul food from the past came back...a pongal kolam to mark the beginning of thai maasam, a grouped together, hands-on-earth experience-I drew designs that I thought fit well into the expanding mesh of flowers and butterflies, of a sunny chariot, held high by a sun god motif on a high flying soggy flag, run over by kids(or kite runners) running all over the compound early the next morning. The eldest of the(sister) girl bandwagon, Uma, captained this dusk-dawn colourful beginning. The D day starts with a spiritual dose of thiruvempaavai, eye half shut and winter morning mist air biting into our paavadais and skirts, to sing praise of the three eyed Lord Siva. The high praise that beckons the deep in sleep (or ignorant)village belles or paavais to rise and sing like the raag bhupala, the sweet nectar of pure faith, runs hoarse and pitched off the octave by us sisters. The venn pongal (with coconut chutney and gotsu) and sarkarai pongal eaten religiously, hand sticky with pure ghee smells all day divine! As few showed any real inch of interest in flying kites that day evening(from the terrace), the fun was in observing diamond-cut kites get bound in shard like thread, spool unwinding, the flying kite anchored, higher above the rest.Being happy for your home team or for the neighbours didn't matter.The take off, the let go, the dip, the spin and the cut off its back up, dis joint and flying homeless to reach another territory was all very moving. The kite looked more liberated and lonely than ever. On kanu pongal, we got weary of the rituals by now, waiting for out turn on the early morning hours of pre sunrise to feed the sparrows and crows leftover pongal, diced sugarcane pieces, berry fruit and some other colourful rice, rolled in palms like mini golf balls, spread in linear patterns on a plaintain leaf. I looked around and checked to see if our singing a song to mark the end of the pongal festivities, attracted any attention from morning walkers and joggers.Being on the terrace didn't feel like the top of the world experience always. And another round of kalandha saadam-this time, coconut rice, lemon rice, curd rice, fried papad, sambar, fresh curd and payasam (with vadai at times). We sisters from this joint family grew as we ate, different tastes of home food, year after year and being married to different home cultures, are now far from this inviting flavours of pongal, kanu pongal and the likes. Like the kites we've come far away from our native land, soaring and disjoint and the common spool of roots reduced in people size- soul food, a delectable memory.