When the last time you celebrated Navratri at home was as a 17-year-old fretting about endless DAV exams and pathetic scores and friends visiting you for birthday, you can be forgiven for forgetting much. Like that you’re not supposed to touch the dolls on the kolu display, that you simply cannot keep leftover sundal in the fridge to eat the next day, and that dolls that you played with as a child haven’t been passed on over to another child but safeguarded by mother for display year after year.

Celebrating Navratri and kolu at home after nine years also shows you how much you haven’t grown as your parents wish you have. You simply can’t draw a rice kolam to save your life, you don’t know how to quickly grate coconut in time for the neivedhiyam, and you still don’t get which direction to give guests vermillion, leave alone understanding why it’s done.

Needless to say, Navratri 2012 has been a re-revelation for yours truly. I suddenly realise that dolls that were ‘recently’ purchased are actually over ten years old. I get to know with sadness that the old Dashavataram set broke, so it’s been replaced with a stone-carved version I had bought at a school trip to Mahabalipuram in class twelve. My two-year-old choppu saaman set (yes, bought two years ago at Vijaya Stores because I wanted it) sits together with the Barbie kitchen set bought in 1995 after a tantrum in Bombay. Wine glasses and toasters share space comfortably with a wooden kudam and a wooden chakki, while my nephew’s battery-operated Ben10 fan cools the chettiyar and topless chettichi (apparently 30 years ago in Calicut, this seemed appropriate – I’ve always maintained Kerala is cool, man). A series of new dolls, representing gods and goddesses I have long forgotten or never knew, adorn the shelves, as my mother takes a deep breath and tries to educate me (and tests me too – we visit a temple and she asks me to identify what the goddess has been decorated as for the day: green face, parrot in hand – Meenakshi! I say with joy, much to her relief). There are battles fought as parents try to come to terms with what my marital home might demand me to know (demand?  they must be nuts to expect anything!), and my desire to appease poor and tired mother, and chipping in with everything ranging from plucking vetthalai from the creeper, sitting next to her and trying to decode and recite the Soundaryalahiri, to obliging with her some of her favourite Carnatic songs.

It’s quiet old Coimbatore, so Navratri isn’t quite the same as in Chennai. With no relatives, visits are restricted to the few neighbours who’ve been here for so long that they can step in and immediately tell which dolls are new this year (no kidding!) As I politely decline to sing in every house with a kolu, I take in the sights and sounds in the display. I’ve only seen two, but one of those gave mom and me plenty of reason to chuckle in amusement. This one had the Dashavataram in any random order, and the lady had decided to throw in any doll she could find in the house that wasn’t broken – or wait, there were a few broken ones too – so much so that we found one decapitated doll with an elephant’s head stuck to his broken neck. Breaking into fits of giggles, I pointed this to my mother silently, but she thought it was some Gajamukha-contraption. I turned out to be right, though – this unfortunate person on display was earlier Parashurama. But the Dashavataram has ten dolls, I told the lady – there are two Krishnas, she said. It was difficult to not cross the amount of good-natured laughing allowed at such occasions.

Otherwise, it’s been three evenings of yummy sundal, sweets, new clothes and special treatment. Add to this the delightful five-year-old nephew who was the only one to notice that the Krishna standing amid the Gopikas has the end of his flute on his cheek, and not his lips. And throw in spells of laughter with the older sister. All of this is, of course, in addition to the delightful rasam Amma makes, the few minutes of sitting on her lap as she calls me chubby (I’m not!), dozing off with the unda mayakkam that accompanies a lunch that doesn’t involve paneer or a tomato-onion-based subzi, dad excitedly discussing his Economist subscription, my career prospects and the Mani Ratnam article on The Hindu – being home has its perks. 

P.S.: Yours truly also turned 26 at the beginning of the month. The number is increasing so quickly I don't even want to get excited about posting about it on the blog! 

It's bye-bye to Singapore. Spent my last few days in the country frantically meeting people, saying goodbyes, taking endless photographs, packing stuff into cartons and suitcases, weighing things endlessly on the weighing scale (only to know I’ve still screwed it up!) and trying to pack everything special about the country with my friends into few days. 

And when I reached Mumbai in less than 5 hours (on an Air India flight that took off and landed on time, yay!) I felt completely disoriented. It was hot, sweaty, I was amused with how I was actually making my way around in Hindi, and finally the fact that from having my own room, a queen-sized-extremely-comfortable bed, I had reached an apartment I shared with 5 other people, to a bathroom that had a long creepy worm and promised to invite snails when the monsoons arrive. 

I spent a whole day in my new institute, and was tested right at the start with the extreme inefficiency still rampant in my country, sadly. Documents I’d sent all the way from Singapore were promptly lost, and I had to do it all over again there and then. I was asked for a way to calculate my CGPA (apparently, Second Upper Honours don’t quite tell you about my performance in university!), and asked for a migration certificate although it’s been three years since I graduated, asked for originals of documents whose scanned copies I’d sent via email. I was irked to the extent that I asked the officer how a reputed institute such as this was still stuck in age-old procedures of faxing and original copies, only to shot back to say all that might work in Singapore, but not in India. It was a great ‘Welcome to India!’ 

I was shocked at how much prices had gone up (somehow things are different when you’re not with your parents and are spending your own money!), confused with the endless cellphone provider options, suddenly felt like buying an iPhone only to realize 750MB data plans cost over Rs.2,000 a month. All the same, it was a relief to be able to go into any restaurant and know that you can order a vegetarian dish freely.  

It feels strange. This blog was started when I was new in Singapore, a way to help me connect back to India and laugh at and adjust to things in Singapore. Now, I’m convinced that I’m returning to Singapore in a few days after this vacation. That I will take a flight, sleep a few hours and get to work. Think of lunch, dinner, and where Chinese, Thai, Greek, or Italian food would be part and parcel of everyday dining out. It’s strange that these are things of the past, at least for the next couple of years. 

Oh well, for now, things have been put on hold thanks to a comfortable trip back home, with my delightful nephew keeping me extremely amused and occupied (this deserves a whole new post!). But Mumbai beckons next week, and it’s back to figuring out life once again!

- I should rethink the name of this blog. Really. To quote one friend: 'Idhu boangu!' Chennai gal is moving. Back to India. Far from Singapore. Far from Chennai. To Mumbai.

- I have always thought of myself as a less materialistic person. My prized possessions are notebooks (the kind you write in), greeting cards given by friends, scribbles on the back of flight tickets, my camera stuff, books - basically, things that are tied more to experiences than the happiness I get with possessing them.

- Oh, how wrong I was. Over three years of working, I've amassed nearly 40 kgs of clothes. I don't even want to check how much the carton of books weighs. I've always dreaded this moment, but for reasons cited in the above point, I'd always thought my worst nightmare when moving would be the books.

- Going back to studying is incredibly exciting. The feeling of being responsible only for myself, and not for an organization, a team, a boss or a client. Even though I'm worried about how I'm probably going to be among the oldest in my class.

- Going to Mumbai is even more exciting. Never mind I'll be staying in some corner of the city, far from anything happening. Never mind that after three years of comfort in a room all for myself, I'll be sharing a room with two other people. Never mind the dollars will stop coming in. It's Mumbai!

- With just over ten days left before I make the second biggest move of my life, all I want to do is write, and write. Keep listening to music. Praise MSV's genius in Ninaithale Inikkum. Forget work and handover. Forget packing, shipping, 20kg boxes, and Air India flight strikes.

- And if you're wondering why this title (if you do understand it at all) - just two Tamil words I haven't used in ages. I suddenly realized they used to be part of everyday vocabulary!

It's stupid of me to want and write now. I've just come back from a photography class that lasted three hours and was led by one of the most can't-teach-for-nuts-and-is-uninspiring teacher ever. Worse, it was a photo critique class, I had lost my photos because my desktop decided to fail the day I brought a new laptop home (it was as if the desktop, my 7-year partner in crime, knew...), and had to pull some old photos from Facebook to take something to the class, all of which had problems (I cringed as we went through each photo, finding one issue after another, amazed at how much difference a few weeks of lessons can make to composition and all that...)

Anyway, on my way home from the class, I cursed myself for being over-ambitious and loading my life with so many things. Work is unimaginably hectic already, and I insist on doing things outside of work just to make sure there's more to life than work, but ruining any chances of free time in the process. I want a weekend with nothing to do, and I don't think I've had that for over a year! All the same, with my typical indecisive air, I tell myself I'll never be happy if I don't have enough things for my mind to think about. I want to work hard, learn something new, sing, read, write, swim, try to take good photos, travel, work on Spark and spend a weekend afternoon yapping away with a friend. How can I want everything!

I have no way out other than to wear myself out doing all of the above, take a breather and get back to the manic mode of doing it all, all over again. And that's just what I'm doing. I lull myself into sleep reading a book. I effortlessly shift from Harry Potter to Milan Kundera to Nikolai Gogol to Ruskin Bond to my current massive project, reading Ponniyin Selvan in Tamil. I make my computer/iPod want to cry out in pain with endless repeats of Norwegian Wood, Rehna Tu and Pudhu Vellai Mazhai. I work till I feel like I never left the office and have exhausted all the 'take-away' lunch and dinner options. I read the newspaper on the way back from work, enjoying IHT's brilliant stories, and read a book on the way to work, dozing off mid-way. I crave for tea every four hours, but restrict myself to green tea instead. I fall asleep thinking of walks with ice-cream in hand, of spending an hour updating my diary on this manic life, and of packing the tripod one Saturday and going to Little India for a photo shoot.

I've probably said this countless times before, but I think this is the busiest I've ever been in my working life. It's also the most exciting, though, thanks to the umpteen things I've managed to cram it with. Anway, at 12.04 on a Friday the 18th of March, things can't be looking any better: I'm watching Rahman perform some 20 hours from now, a dream come true (I'm probably going to burst into tears of joy when I see him, or screech till I lose my voice). And Greece is barely a month away, and hopefully there are more things to look forward to.

Oh, what the heck. I'll survive. And survive well, that I know.  

... take the most amazing turns. Starting off with how the day went, and what I did (‘Did you call your cousin? How did the practice go?), the conversation turned inevitably to, yes, food. 

'What did you cook?'

 'Cabbage curry yesterday, and rasam today.'

'How was the rasam?'

‘Err…’

‘Let me rephrase. Did you eat it?’

‘I eat anything I cook, ma… I had to cook on Friday because all stores were closed.’

‘Excellent! What did you make?’

‘Dal… there wasn’t anything else at home…’

Resigned sigh. I can feel it sitting thousands of miles away. I decide to perk the conversation up. 

‘Oh, and guess what, I think they sell chow chow at Fairprice here… but I’m not sure if it is that…’

‘What does it look like?’

‘Like chow chow, but with fewer ridges…’

‘Oh, just buy it anyway, what’s the harm. You know what, it might be sorakkai…’

‘I thought sorakkai is smooth, like a cucumber?’

‘No, no, they do have pear-shaped varieties too, very healthy, it’s a pity we don’t eat it at home!’

‘Oh, I’ve had it at university!’ I quip, remembering the first time I’d ever heard of the vegetable a few years ago. ‘Or wait, was that noolkol…’

Mom loses patience, I think. ‘Then?’

‘I should start working on the next issue of Spark… it’s on womanhood, totally up my alley!’

‘Speaking of Spark, what’s this story you’ve written?! Living Together?! I read the title and I knew it had to be yours…’

‘So what?’

‘Writing about gay relationships, then this.. un poakke seriyilla…’

‘Part of being a writer is to be able to think up scenarios and transfer the emotions…’

‘Yeah, yeah, porum…’

‘It’s ok, one should experience everything in life, you know… writing about it doesn’t mean anything…’ my voice trails. I sense she’s ready to move off the topic. 

‘Did you go swimming?’

‘Shit! It’s 8!! I wanted to go at 7.30. Now it’s too late…’

In the short span of ten minutes, I realize I’ve disappointed and annoyed her, got her amused, and shake her head in disbelief. Boy, shouldn’t she be happy to be entertained by me like this! 

PS: shameless plug: read the stories mom mentioned here and here! 

1. The flight I came in had no row number 13. 12 and then straight to 14.

2. Half an hour into the flight, I look out and I see a beautiful sky - a brilliant blue that gradually fades away into white only to merge with soft, puffy clouds. The clouds look so beautifully white, like snow - I feel like I'm flying low over the Arctic or something. The sun shines brilliantly on my back. We're at an altitude of 38,000 feet, and we're crossing the seas comfortably. I don't think I'll ever be able to get over the fact that man invented planes.

3. The old man sitting next to me - I'm sure he was in his 60s - started off with gin, then had two glasses of wine and two glasses of orange juice.

4. It's amazing how within 45 minutes of seeing blue, clouds which were fluffy white soon got tainted with a tinge of setting-sun pink.

5. On my way home in the taxi, I saw a SQ flight taking off (or landing) on a bridge a few meters above the road on which we were going. It was brilliant, and I was shamelessly staring open-mouthed.

6. Trips to India can just make you feel totally disoriented. I was up till 2 in the morning trying to fall asleep, went to the office in a daze, ate at 2 pm (this from the person who wants lunch at 11.30 am), was starving at 5 pm, and was craving for noodles with a dash of Amma's pulikaachal.

And I know that by tomorrow evening, home, rasam, nephew and Salem's setting sun will feel ever so distant.

I’m officially allergic to Salem. This is the third time I am visiting this city and been sneezing unstoppably. People try to convince me that it’s because I’m getting too used to the ‘pure air in Singapore’. Rubbish. This has never happened when I used to go home to Chennai. Never. All the same, it is highly annoying to be doing one of the following all the time: a) sneezing; b) trying to avoid sneezing; c) going through the painful moment when you have to sneeze but it’s not happening.

Sunsets in Salem are beautiful. The hills just provide the perfect background, and it’s amazing to watch the red ball of fire go down every day, painting brilliant streaks of orange throughout the sky.

Mom tries to interest me in cooking – again. She asks with complete incredulity: ‘Why can’t you make proper rasam?’ (she’s been trying to teach me for the last five years) Having been subject to my brilliant doubts such as why ulutham paruppu is labeled ulundhu (she was shocked when I said ‘Ohhh! You mean ulutham paruppu and ulundhu are the same?!’), she should know better than to expect more from me. My bad luck, I screwed up while cooking something as simple as oats, eliciting the oft-heard ‘Yevan unkitta vandhu maataporaano…’

It's 12.30am and I really should be going to bed soon if I want to wake up on time tomorrow, but I just had the sudden urge to type, to write... and in a way, chronicle the thoughts running in my head at this hour. Given their disconnectedness, I should perhaps number them!

1. I've been spending hours trying to praise myself and it's not easy. I've never found it difficult to describe myself.. give me a couple of minutes and I can write a page of what I perceive myself to be. Despite this modest declaration, this exercise has been challenging, exciting and taxing. I wonder if this exercise will eventually have a successful outcome! (There, could I be any more vague?!)

2. There is so much happening in life. I'm struggling to divide my time between work, Spark, photography, books (The Count of Monte Cristo currently), my singing, friends, swimming and myself! Weekends - those magical days that I used to relish for their nothingness - have now become packed with attention to the abovementioned. It's amazing to feel that your days have more meaning than just what work affords, though!

3. It's been two years since I started working. Can you believe it?! It's shocking (and great!) how the mind still feels like it belongs to the gawky, enthusiastic, I-am-going-to-save-the-world 21-year-old.

4. Inception was brilliant. I can't wait to watch it again! And for the record, I really enjoyed Raavanan too. Yup, alright, it's not a usual Mani Ratnam, but is it so difficult for us to appreciate when a storyteller strays off his usual way?

And dreaming of the trip to Phuket that's coming up, I shall stop this ridiculous chronicling and sign off.

Wow, it feels strange to even be writing on the blog - it's been THAT long! I've really missed blogging... ever since the birth of Spark, things have been incredibly busy. And for some reason, I feel that every spare minute I have is being used up for something, and for the longest time, I've felt like I've been leaving no time for myself. But I guess it's good to be busy too!

After what seems like ages, I finally had the whole of today's afternoon free... all to myself! I completely enjoyed it - reading, watching videos, napping at odd hours... ah, such bliss! It just makes you so much more energised about going to work the next day! (I'm sure that is in large part because this Friday I'm going home to India!)

For a strange reason, started listening to Carnatic songs, and needless, got swept away by a wave of nostalgia. I have trained in Carnatic music for almost nine years, and quit when I was 15 - in large part, it was due to teenage angst, I guess - not wanting to be forced to do anything, hating the teacher for only criticising me and never encouraging me, pressure from the family, and so on. My mother's words still echo in me - she used to keep saying that I'd regret it some day.

Thinking back on those years, I guess I don't regret it so much now - I do regret the fact that I stopped practicing, which led to my pitch sinking as low as maybe DK Pattammal's. As I struggle to touch the high chords when singing for a concert I'm taking part in, I feel angry - my voice has never been suited for high pitches, but somehow, this felt very disappointing.

Browsing around for songs, I chanced upon Santhanam - a very popular singer, a chubby, old man, long gone, with an arresting voice. I will always remember Santhanam for the songs of Oothukaadu Venkata Subbaiyer songs. Having first heard those songs as a 4-year-old, they were probably the very first Carnatic songs I listened to. They used to play so often that I learnt nearly all of the songs simply by listening to them. He was perhaps the most popular singer of those kritis.

A vivid memory to do with Santhanam is from when I was probably five. My sister and I had just returned from school and were untying our shoes sitting on the sofa, when my mother came rushing in, looking anxious. 'Santhanam died,' she said, 'in a car accident this morning.' She was very upset, while my sister and I were simply puzzled. We both looked at each other and shrugged, unable to understand why that mattered so much to my mother.

Listening to these songs - Paal Vadiyum Mugam, Alaipayuthey, Thaaye Yashoda, Kuzhaloodi Manamellam - have simply brought so much joy! My mother will probably have a 'I-told-you-so' face if she ever happens to read this. I just want to tell her this is also so much fun; I know she'd much rather I'd continued to learn, practised, but having dipped a toe into the wide world of Carnatic music, the ability to enjoy parts of it, are sheer fun too.

What a random post! Totally loved rambling :D

And here we go with another issue! This time around, it's a trip down the memory lane!
Read it and let us know what you think!

http://sparkthemag.wordpress.com

On a side note - this is probably the first time I've missed a blog birthday. My blog is now 5! I'm quite upset that I've not been able to spend much time here now, but at least my writings have gone on to another level and I hope anyone who's been kind enough to still look at my blog for updates goes on to read Spark!

Below is what I had written yesterday when watching the last twenty minutes of the Ind vs. Aus 5th ODI in Hyderabad. It's been long since I'd engaged in such manic writing, scribbling while I was watching the match. Slightly over 600 words in about 30 minutes - that's a crazy feat for me given the length of time that's passed since the times I could sit down and write a story in one stretch. Anyway, this is hopefully a sign of times to come and more tales to tell!

"How long it’s been since I watched Sachin the God in action!! And today I watch as he bats in his fullest glory, crossing the 17,000 mark and at 170 at the moment, battling to help India reach the target of 351 to win against Australia. It’s a closely fought match – they need 43 from 33 balls to win – so close! It would be such a pity if… I shut my mind desperately to these negative thoughts, hoping they will make it. My heart beats fast, praying fervently that Sachin’s such-a-brilliant knock is not in vain. That will not be fair, oh, so not fair! 350 is a formidable total and the team has done well to score more than 300.
What’s going to happen? It’s been years since I watched such an interesting match closely fought, probably not since the 2007 20-20 Ind vs Pak final that India won after a nail-biting finish.
The tension is too much to handle – my stomach churns and my head hurts. I can’t stop frequently wondering how on earth Sachin is able to stand at the crease facing every ball, while the crowd waits with bated breath for some miracle to happen.
A four! From Jadeja. The crowd is jubilant. A miracle from just anyone will be highly praised about now.
33 in 26 balls.
My heats skips a beat every time somebody catches the ball – caught? I scream every time somebody throws the ball, praying it’s not a run out.
A wide. Four overs left.
Two fours!
23 from 22 balls.
The crowd is going mad, and so am I. Jadeja, the unlikely man.
Sachin on strike. 22 from 20. OH COME ON!!!!
I’m scared to move or inch anywhere from my seat for fear of disturbing some cosmic balance. This is getting too hard to bear. If I were Sachin, no, worse, Jadeja, my head would burst now.
The ads are annoying!
SACHIN IS OUT!!!
Dude, I can’ t believe you just hit that ball. YOU. That ball.
I sit in stunned silence and watch as Sachin walks out, raising his bat in acknowledgement for the crowd’s ovation. Thatha is thoroughly dejected. We were this close – it was one run for one ball.
It’s annoying to think how close we are and yet anything could happen.
Jadeja, standing yards away from the crease gazing at the ball nearly got run out now.
Damn, that idiot just got run out in the same fashion. B******, you’re not as old as the kid in Lagaan. Didn’t you learn??
I could just kill SRK in his stupid Airtel ad right now.
The Indian team is unbelievable. 180 from Sachin and we’re this close to losing.
17 from 14.
Thatha’s left the room having given me the responsibility of telling him how we lose.
We just nearly missed losing another wicket by a run-out. Gosh, don’t bowlers know these things? They’re the ones at the stumps so often trying to get the batsmen out!
Nehra just handed the Aussies his wicket on a platter. Halwa catch.
Sigh. What a waste of effort!
If I see the Itchmosol ad once more, I think I’ll cry.
SIX!!!!!
10 from 10 balls.
God, God, good God.
Everyone is on the edge of their seats now.
Some guy in glasses just closed his eyes. To pray, I think.
LAST OVER.
I think tears are forming in my eyes.
Thatha can’t stop chanting ‘My God.’
7 from 5 balls.
Batsmen discussing.
5 from 3.
A six, God. PLEASE!
And I think he’s run out.
HE IS.
Australia wins by 3 runs.
How effing unfortunate!!!!
3!?!? THREE????
Ponting is clapping to his heart’s joy.
Sigh.
Yuvraj looks like he’s about to cry.
SIGH.

after Hong Kong

A year of working (almost!)

A year in the house and now on to a new one

The new house is windy, bright, with large shelves, swimming complex a few minutes away, and on the 18th floor – which is what I’m most excited about!

Will miss the bookshelf in the old house, though. The bookshelf based on which I chose the room (talk about priorities – my room had only a wardrobe and nothing else).

May has gone by in a flash – May was when I got my first peek into the world of fashion (one that got me incredibly bored once I got over the ‘I’m watching a fashion show!’ mood), of homosexuals (I mean, real ones, not boys that we make fun of – and that was a first too), late night parties with new people, and well… models who had no butts or boobs (why do designers want to model their clothes on people who look sick? There’s a reason I won’t understand fashion). A month of a lot of responsibilities, late nights at work, a bit of falling sick, and oh, how could I forget, the month of Tioman!

Tioman was brilliant. The amazing beach (a little rocky, though), the I-can’t-describe-how-it-was waterfall, good food, lazing about, and my first successful snorkeling adventure (yayyy for swimming!)! it was awful to get back to work after the trip, but I was soon so caught up that – like now – Tioman didn’t even come up high on the list of what I did this month!

It’s amazing how work seems to swallow so much of your thoughts. But screw that, it’s the weekend and I’m busy packing my stuff and quite pleased with how less chaotic it’s been.

Thanks for all the lovely times in the old house and a toast to the new house and the good memories it is to bring!

This was what April was all about:

work.

Work.

WORK.

Weekends that disappeared in no time.

Sleep, books, a bit of swimming.

And before you knew it, May is here and that means the long awaited vacation comes. Hope it's fun and is the much-needed break. Of course it'll be - it's a beach, a resort and blue waters! Tioman, here I come!

On a bleary Saturday afternoon that can be best described by the word 'blah', for all its dreariness, nothingness, for the lack of promises it held for the rest of the evening, I set about a task that gives me the energy and mood for the rest of the day.

We had made semiya upma, our kitchen lacking everything except the basic spices and a pack of frozen vegetables lying frozen in the refrigerator. Lazy to step out of the house in the sun and buy anything back, which must be washed, chopped and whatever, this was the easiest alternative.

As we cooked in the nickel-aluminium (?) wok that Amma had bought for me last year in the hope that I would step up and become interested in cooking my own lunches and dinner, I felt annoyed. At all the brown marks that the wok had come to bear, products of overheated oil in which me and my friend had tried many a time to make something edible (no, I'm not getting into what came out from the wok - things I have cooked deserve a special story of their own, and this blog has come to witness many such in its years).

Annoyed, half an hour later, done eating the semiya upma that might have needed salt but we still stuffed in by coating it with spicy pickle, I set down to scrubbing it clean. I toyed with the idea of soaking it in soap for a while, but didn't have the patience to wait before cleaning it. It was one of those times when you are so bent upon finishing your task that you have no patience to wait for the in-betweens.

I put on those bright yellow rubber gloves and grabbed the mesh of wire that had been strung together to make a scrubber. Turning the pan inside out, I scrubbed with all my might.

Scrub, scrub, scrub. And more scrub.

About five minutes later, I ran some water over the wok. Lo and behold! The scrubbing was working, and the brown parts were slowly turning golden. Encouraged, I scrubbed harder, unmindful of the ache in the right arm that was vigorously promoting my cause.

I turned the wok this way and that, trying hard to reach those unreachable parts near its handles, the rims, and pretty much every part of the wok I could see.

Ten minutes later, when the wok was covered with soap that had turned black (courtesy the metal scrubber), I ran water on it.

The wok shone quite brightly.I put the wet, dripping wok on the shelf, and gave a grin and left the kitchen.

Only remnant of that enthusiasm now is in my urge to go shower quickly, and get all the grime from the wok that stuck to my palms out and feel clean.

My eyes burn and I despair at the phenomenon called ‘Monday’, of the start of the working week, of the pain of waking up early, going to work, and living through another week.

It’s been a good 9 months since I started working, and Mondays are still not something I can come to terms with. Why do I have to work, I wonder, and what’s the point? And this stretches into deeper, unfathomable ponderings about why we invented so many things, when all we need are the basic food, clothing and shelter, and ok, hospitals – which means there should only be four kinds of jobs in the world – farming, weaving, construction and medicine – why are there THIS MANY jobs and kinds of things to do – stretching from banks to Public Relations and advertising and insurance? How did the world become this complicated? Why did it grow so big that we need trains to get from one place to another and engineers to design those trains and how they run and architects to build those stations and technicians to run them? Why did people start earning so much and have the concept of ‘money’ that we needed banks, which finally grew so enormously shady and everything and ended up ‘lending’ money and now owning what we call ‘toxic assets’. Why did we have to start manufacturing the same soap across hundreds of countries and sit and plan the numbers of these soaps that have to be produced? And why did these companies have to so LARGE that they all need machines to do their calculations supervised by humans, and have humans write codes to run these machines? And me, as a ‘Public Relations professional’, help all these organizations deal with these changes and help maintain/form a good impression for the company among the people’s minds.

Gosh, when did things take such a complicated turn?

Pardon the random musings of the Chennai gal on a bright Monday morning, but writing things like this helps me get ‘closure’ (I’m using this word very often these days, I realize, and what’s more interesting is ‘closure’ is only temporary for me) and get practical about the fact that despite all my thinking and philosophical exercise to the mind, these things still happen, we still slog, work day in and out, earn money, spend and do other things that we hope compensate for the fact that we have little/no life, and spend our long-awaited-weekends doing more things that help console us about the sad truth that ever since we turned 3, we have lost the simple pleasures of life. Excuse me, the phone rings, work beckons.

P.S.: This rambling took all of ten minutes, but now I'm charged, and ready to face the week!

It’s been ages since I sat down and typed anything sensible in my blog – I must say I’m getting really depressed with the quality of all the writing I’ve been churning out lately; they all just go to show the state of mind I have been in all these days – confused, aimless, happy at times and unhappy quite often too – and one look at the archives of the blog was enough to irritate me into consciousness.

The blog was started when I was new and wide-eyed in Singapore, and those were days when I had something to write about everyday. I am stunned at how these days I hardly make a joyous note of the insignificant things in my life that brighten my day. Guess working does that to people, and I hate it. Working has made me busy, uninspired, mechanical, and don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong with my job itself, I love it for all its nice and makes-you-want-to-break-something moments, it’s equally rewarding – but working itself, has changed me. I’m no longer carefree, I realized, and I don’t like that at all. So, well, I decided to spend some good time writing about all the insignificant but momentous things that have been going on in my life these six months of working (gosh, it’s really been that long??).

Graduating. It was joyous, but really felt like I was leaving something of my life behind. Irresponsibility, innocence, the freedom to commit mistakes, starry-eyed-ness about pretty much everything. Campus walks, project-cursing, the benches. And sigh, even exams.



The house. It’s a simple, lovely house where the landlord has generously left behind his stuff that we have conveniently gotten used to using for ourselves. The room I took has a bookcase. Pretty much why I took the room even though it’s small and hardly has a cupboard and didn’t even have a mirror when I moved in. But the bookcase, wooden, light brown, mounted on the wall, really tempted me and I knew I should have it filled. I’m well on my way! (Ignore the fact that it's the bookcase that has to hold anything that won't fit in my silly wardrobe that can ONLY hold my clothes on hangers!) Look at the books! Making way for more..

The work. I have been enjoying, much to my surprise. It’s fun to learn new things, and sometimes it’s good to do things well for that rare element of praise that comes your way. I know – I have to grow up, but heck, I’ve just been working 6 months. Only thing I don’t like as yet is the loss of being/thinking irresponsibly, of having to think twice before narrating your weekend screw-up with the danger that your colleagues think you’ve lost it looming heavily around, and finally, the horrible branding of ‘cute’ on you. While it feels nice to be the youngest in the team, sometimes I feel childish and like I know nothing. Not to say of the millions of times you feel like an idiot for having to ask how to reply to an email or handle a situation. Well, you gotta learn!

Movies, music. So many to even remember and list since I started working. Why, I watched a movie on my first day of work too! Kung Fu Panda. Hilarious. Been enjoying all the best animation, the latest being Bolt – totally worth your time! Music has been keeping life together as strongly as ever. Even during the fifteen minutes I have in the morning between my shower and leaving for work, I switch the computer on for a loop of the one song that totally fits the mood of the morning. The favourites have been Jashn-e-Bahaara, Iravu Nilavu, Taxi Taxi, Tu Bole Main Boloon, Manmohini Morey, and recently, Guzaarish and Kaise Mujhe. The CD collection is growing, thanks to my proud contributions from my salary. Yuvvraaj kinda disappointed me as I could not find his usual brilliance – and I thought Ghajini was another disappointment until I got hooked to most of the songs. Waiting for the movie to release – should be worth a watch.

There was a karaoke session in between too. Three hours of non-stop fun, where my friends were treated not just to songs they knew but even ‘Engeyum eppodhum’ from Ninaithale Inikkum, ‘Oru maalai’, and to my utter delight, ‘Pudhu Vellai Mazhai’ and songs from ABBA too! While my throat ached with the sudden overuse for singing, I realized with horror that probably the only sruthi I could sing in these days would be naalarai kattai. At this rate I’ll end up like DK Pattamaal. Shit.

Otherwise… there have been some travel trips. One to Batam, Indonesia for voluntary work, another to Bintan, Indonesia that had the most beautiful beaches I'd seen (the photo - there's the beach, the music and a book - ice cream was the only essential thing missing!). There was also a short trip home during which all that happened was rain, rain and rain like it was the end of the world. It was great fun with my sister’s baby boy and watching his antics and carrying him to various corners in the house and showing him ‘apple’, ‘rat’ and ‘bananas’ off the huge picture of Ganesha in the living room. Miss the boy terribly.

Life still seems to be a dream, like I am living someone else’s life and not mine. Isn’t that a horrible wake-up call? I mentally make a note to start off with various things like continuing my German, learning to swim and paint, but things don’t seem to stick. Maybe it’s time for my first new year resolution! Well, I’ll make it later :D

If you, like me, grew up in India, the only beaches you’d been to (unless you’d been to Goa or gone abroad, of course) would have been where you stood, holding your parents’ hands and letting the waves wash your feet. Your mother would have pulled her sari up to only reveal her ankles, and your dad may have rolled up his pants, unless he’d been the adventurous kind to jump into the sea and have fun.

Until very recently, I had no idea how beaches in other parts of the world could be. Where the water is true blue and breathtakingly beautiful that you could see the sea bed through, where people wear their bikinis and swim.

2 days back, I left for Bintan, an island in Indonesia just an hour away from Singapore. A beach freak, I was excited beyond words! And I wasn’t disappointed – the beach is the MOST BEAUTIFUL I have ever since in my 22 years! It is the kind that you watch in movies and go WOW – do such beaches really exist?

A day after spending a good few hours to going deeper into the water than you can ever imagine a non-swimmer-but-still-a-beach-freak like-me would go, I was quite stumped for a number of reasons.

I sat by the pool sipping a cool drink, watching women well over 50 splashing about in the water in their bikinis. Trust me, they weren’t the fittest babes around – but nothing stopped them from having their fun. And that really, really baffled me – why are we Indians so different? While in India, I used to think it was only the westerners who roamed around in bikinis or wore the skimpiest of clothes – you get the drift. I received quite a shock when I visited the beach here for the first time, slightly even turning red at the sight of young women in their bikinis. Even Asians do this? What surprised me even more was when a Thai friend showed me a picture from the early 80s of her family where her mother was dressed in a swimsuit too. They were just a normal family, and they’d have been like mine, had they been in India. And yet, a world of difference!

Why are we so different? Heck, I don’t even know swimming because by the time I realized I could learn, I was already grown up and the prospect of going into a pool in a swimming costume was frowned upon! Our idea of fun in a beach is so ridiculous – I know it is a LOT of fun and I still swear by it – but how come it is that we don’t know so many things? Like the sheer enjoyment of a piece of clothing that is not cumbersome and gives you the pure joy of going a few more feet deeper into the water than that you can afford to in your saree/salwar kameez/jeans?

It’s just a wholly different world, and it’s one that my colleagues can’t even imagine as I try hard to express them. “You don’t swim in your beaches?” they ask. It’s another thing our beaches are quite dirty and nobody in their right mind would want to swim beyond a point, but the very fact that we women couldn’t do so even if we wanted to is plainly horrible.

I know I should be thankful that I get to experience a lot of things, but I can’t help thinking many a time of the many of us who don’t get to do so. How much are we missing! Will it change? Soon?