The Unforgettable Birthday Sari

It was my mother’s birthday sari. A beautiful mustard cotton sari, bordered with deep red, with just a hint of zari running through. I fell in love with it at first sight.

“Please Mom, can I wear it for my college day? Please, please!” I begged her.

Amused at my excitement, she gave her assent, which sent me soaring onto cloud nine. I shopped eagerly for matching red earrings, bangles, and a slender gold chain with a red pendant. I wanted to look my very best.

When the day dawned, it was a doubly important day. Not only was it our College day, it was the final day of the inter-collegiate fest in our neighbouring college, and we had won the rolling shield! Naturally, I was thrilled that I had such a beautiful outfit for such an important occasion! All the girls oohed and aahed over me when I got ready. To say I was happy is an understatement!

Off our team went to the neighbouring college first. We proudly received the rolling shield and posed merrily for pictures. Then it was time to go back to our college. We waited and waited for our college van which was supposed to pick us up. The clock was ticking , and my tension mounted. I simply had to get there before the function started, because I had choreographed the very first dance with my juniors, and I had promised to get there in time to help with their costumes and setup the music, etc.

There was just half-an-hour more to go, and still no sight of the van. I felt sick in the stomach, and prayed hard for the van to appear. Just then, one of my classmates came up to me, and told me there was a two-wheeler available, and if I wanted, he could drop me. This was like manna from heaven! I jumped at the opportunity, thanking the kind soul profusely, and hopped on to the pillion.

Off we went, with me heaving a big sigh of relief! Little did I know what was in store for me. About a kilometer later, we heard a whirring sound, and the moped appeared to have developed some problem. Drat! I thought, as I looked down, just what I need right now!

To my utter dismay and profound shock, I found that the sari had got sucked into the rear wheel! I tried getting off, but couldn’t even do that. I was well and truly stuck! We were in the middle of nowhere, with my poor classmate all flustered. For some reason, I was very calm. I didn’t panic in the least. When some workers appeared from the nearby fields, and offered to help, I didn’t hesitate. My sari was mostly undone – the palloo was still however neatly pinned to my blouse! They tugged and pulled, and finally cut the sari out of the wheel. It was already 45 minutes past, when the mess was all sorted out.

I requested to be dropped back to my hostel, and the rest of the journey was completed in ominous silence,as I held the tattered sari together. I asked my classmate to wait outside, while I quickly changed into another dress, and then we proceeded to our college.

Puzzled queries from the girls was met with a terse “I’ll tell you later”, as I swiftly got down to my behind the scenes work for the college day festivities, which kept me occupied till rather late in the night. It was only when I lay my head down on my pillow after a great evening, it hit me.

What would I tell my mom? She hadn’t even worn the sari once! Gosh! This was even worse than I thought. I had an awful panic attack, and all the pent up emotions of the evening swept me away in cascades.

It was almost a month later when I got home. I didn’t mention the sari to my mom at all, and she didn’t bring it up either. Guilt hung like a millstone around my neck, and finally when I could take it no longer, I broke down.

“Ma – remember your birthday sari? I’m so sorry, but I ruined it completely! It…it…got stuck in a wheel and we had to cut it out… I’m so…so…sorry…please Ma, don’t get mad at me….”

“What sari?”

Her response knocked me speechless!

“Your sari, Ma – the mustard one with the red border?”

She looked puzzled.

“You mean, you don’t remember that sari? The really pretty one – the one you got for your birthday - the one I wanted to borrow for college day?”

Still drawing a blank.

I pulled out the ragged sari from my bag.

“This one – you don’t remember it?”

“No, I don’t remember it at all!”

My relief was growing by the moment.

“You don’t even remember it? So…so….you’re not mad at me?”

She laughed.

“Oh Ma!” I hugged her gratefully.

She held up the torn sari and said, “You know, this palloo could make a very pretty lehenga for your niece.”

And so it was.

Fast Forward

I'm really beginning to adore the fast forward option on my DVD Player!

I used it last to watch the movie "Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears". I'm not sure why I picked up this movie in the first place, but I found myself attracted to it many times during my visits to the library. I finally picked it up, and wound up with a movie that was set sometime in the nineteen-fifties in Moscow. It's about these three girls and how they go about living their lives.

I watched it for about half-an-hour, and was in serious danger of dozing off. That's when I hit the FF button. It was so cool - I watched the entire movie in half the time! I might have missed some cinematic, dramatic pauses, the background score, and such, but I felt both relieved and happy at the end of the viewing!

"Finding Nemo" is another story altogether. I just loved the movie, simply marvelled at the animation, and of course, my favourite character was Crush, dude!! Totally rocks!!

A Day at a Time

Just one more day to go...

For the first time after li'l D's arrival, DH has gone away on an official trip. Earlier, I marked his time away with humongous quantities of junk food, endless couch-potato hours in front of the idiot box, and restless nights alone.

This time, we both were slightly nervous at the prospect of me having to manage everything alone, including li'l D. The cook and nanny posts have long fallen vacant, not likely to be filled in the near future. The housemaid too had some health problems and had opted for long leave. So that left the entire running the household engine to me, in addition to my office work.

Surprisingly, the going has been quite smooth. The daily schedule runs like clockwork, and I've had my nose to the grindstone, with nary a moment to pause and take breath. The long hours and extra work seem to have had no adverse impact - only a strong longing for a good, long nap!

I'd also love to take off on a holiday. Put my feet up and rest a bit. But I know it will be a long time before I can do that.

Right now, I'm waiting for DH to return. So is li'l D. We both miss having him around.

A Lost Love

“Hi!” He whistled as he wandered into my room.

“Who let you in?” I growled, my unhappiness at his appearance quite obvious.

“Well, you had left the door open, you know”, he shrugged.

He took a look at me, sitting defeated on my bed, and said, “You’ve been to see him, haven’t you?”

Read full story here.

A Feeling of Joy

It's a long time since I felt the delirious exhilaration of a joyous moment. Not to say that I've had no moments of joy, but none that have swept me up and away.

I remember a moment like that from before.

I had just received my tenth standard results over phone. To say I was very happy is perhaps an understatement. I had exceeded my own expectations, and the icing on the cake was that I had bested both my sisters' records, which was no mean achievement considering my immediate sibling was a consistent topper.

I was now on my way to school to collect the marks sheet. As I travelled by bus, I couldn't help smiling every now and then to myself. It was a sweet feeling indeed - the first milestone of my budding life.

I got down at the bus-stop and began walking towards my school. As I went along, I saw an old lady walking before me. Rather, she was staggering under the heavy load she was carrying. She had at least a couple of parcels in her hands, along with her handbag, and then what seemed to be a very heavy bag, hung from her arm, almost tilting her with its weight. Every now and then, she would stop, readjust her burden, and stagger along a few more steps.

Now, I'm the sort of person who takes the don't-talk-to-strangers far more seriously than intended. Being extremely shy, self-conscious, and diffident, it was entirely uncharacteristic of me to approach any one I knew, let alone a complete stranger. Even when good deeds shone from a mile away, with a neon sign strapped around them, shouting "Do Me", I would scoot exactly in the opposite direction. This left me with many lost opportunities to accumulate some plus points in my punya deposit.

However, on this day, it was quite different. I was so bursting with happiness, that all my inhibitions seemed to have evaporated.

I walked right up to her, and said, "Excuse me, ma'am, can I help you with the bag?"

She looked at me like I was a miracle.

I took up the bag, and plodded alongside her at a sedate pace, till we reached the point where she wanted the bag dropped off.

"Thank you, and bless you, my child", she smiled.

I literally skipped all the way to school. It was as if I was as light as a feather and the wind could just scoop me up and whirl me around. The "God's-in-his-heaven-and-all's-right-with-the-world" feeling totally overwhelmed me.

Perhaps it's just the memory that gets exaggerated over time, but I'd really love to feel like that again. It was truly refreshing.

Open Letter

Yipee! I finally did it!

I watch this channel called POGO with li'l D. It's quite a nice channel really, and D enjoys stuff like Tele-tubbies, Barney, and Boo-Baah.

What really bugged me about this was thing they have called Amazing Kids Awards. As usual, it focuses on Bollywood and Cricket - the two black holes of India! I've been meaning to write to them about this for quite some time now - I did it finally today!

Here's what I said...

I watch POGO regularly with my 20 month old kid and I find it wholesome entertainment for her.

However, I found your Amazing Kids Awards in exceedingly bad taste.

First of all, it appears like there's nothing else in India to vote about except Bollywood and Cricket. I think there are enough award shows and sports shows to address these areas, without requiring kids also to become part of the circus!

Secondly, couldn't there have been categories to showcase people like Abdul Kalam, Narayana Murthy, Sangliana, Kiran Bedi, and so on? Why is Bollywood always highlighted when the only thing it has to offer is an overrated glamour quotient?

Last but not the least, are there no other sports in India except cricket? You have nominees as Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammed Kaif and Saurav Ganguly. Is it so difficult to include people like Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Viswanathan Anand, Dhanraj Pillai, Anju George, or Narain Karthikeyan?

As a kids channel, I would greatly appreciate if you can show a little more sensitivity and intelligence in your contests. If, for business reasons, you must pursue the oft-beaten carrots of Bollywood and Cricket, at least try to balance it out!

I think you do have some inkling of the enormous influence your TV channel can exert over kids. May I request you to use it responsibly?


I don't know if I will ever get an acknowledgement or a response, or if it will make the slightest ripple. However, it just makes me glad that I protested!

Living Now

She slices the onions with surgical precision. Mashes the boiled potato with vicious stabs, her fingers sinking into the pale yellow meat. Tosses the onions until they turn a pretty pink. Slaps the dough vehemently and kneads with a persuasive passion. Intent on the task at hand.

Read the full story here.

From Where I am

I'm wondering whether I should feel doubly grateful for all the blessings bestowed upon me as a woman of this century and country, or if I should feel depressed at the plight of women still suffering.

I watched Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy, and Jafar Panahi's The Circle. In all these movies, women played key roles, in a man's world. I am not doing any reviews of these movies - the links will take you to fairly comprehensive reviews.

The mother's role in the former filled me with anguish. I had heard of several stories from my parents, of people living through difficult times, but the movie really brought home the message to me. Women struggling to simply exist - at their wits' end on how to survive - creating lives for others by swallowing their own dreams... and how little we offspring think or understand about those struggles.

The latter movie, which is set in Iran, reminded me of caged animals pacing up and down restlessly, yearning for freedom, straining against their restraints. A simple act of lighting a cigarette becomes fraught with symbolism.

Both made me restless and unhappy. They whipped off my rose-tinted glasses and presented a harsh reality that was a rude intrusion into my comfortable life, a grim reminder of what can be.

I think I'll settle for gratitude. Grateful that I've been born into a home where education was considered a birth-right, and a career almost mandatory. Grateful to have settled into a love, respect, and trust based relationship. Grateful for the freedom to call an auto, or hire a taxi and go where I want to. Grateful for the liberty to blog this from the comfort of my home, not having to worry where my next meal is coming from.

Cliches all, but worth cherishing. A single bug in my life's logic could have taken me down a very different path.

Dreamland Movies (An old post)

I woke up very tired this morning. You would too, if you had a full length feature film as a dream. My dream movie was entitled "Runanubanda" (relationship thru debt). It was raining quite a bit throughout, an ex-colleague who recently got married was trying to reach me, and as I tried to call him, D was creating a din with DH refusing to look after her, and so she woke up a whole lot of napping ladies who were VERY cross with me, and the movie ended with SriVidya (a South Indian middle-aged actress) dancing in the rain VERY awkwardly with the hero and heroine!

OK, I do get the more mundane dreams like falling off a cliff, or trying to find something/someone, or just floating around like in a lava lamp.

However, the dreams produced by Dreamland Movies are the ones which are so vivid, in technicolor, with Dolby sound, complete with song and dance. Sometimes, I even wake up humming the tunes! The very first movie I "produced" under this banner was that of an evil chief minister, who was bald and wore his glasses backwards! I was trying to assassinate him, and of course, there was a song and dance about it.

I've had sequel dreams where I dreamt one part one night, and had part two showing a few nights later. I was running away in Part 1, and in part 2 I had morphed into my mother who was dressed in military fatigues, complete with gun. Some deep psychological stuff going on there, I'm sure!

The remakes are also a-plenty. One of my encore dreams is the one where I desperately need to catch a plane, and invariably my passport is missing, my baggage has disappeared, and the airport is so filled with such technno-funky hurdles that I have to glide, slide, stretch myself thin, hurl myself down a bottomless pit, get whirled around in a rotating thingummy - you get the picture - but finally, huffing and puffing, I do make it! Those dreams really get me exhausted, what with the Xtreme sports involved.

The tender ones leave me emotionally drained. I have so much of the agony and ecstasy going on, invariably ending in a cliff-hanger. Will or won't he kiss her? will they or won't they run away? Will the girl die or not? Will the guy walk again or not?

One other recurring theme is where I've dreamt that I awoke and was narrating the dream I had a few moments ago to someone else. Which is really very confusing, believe me! Especially when in the dream where I am narrating the earlier dream, I pinch myself to make sure I'm awake!

I've had dreams with really nasty ending (like getting eaten up by a monster, getting killed, or falling into the chasm we were crossing), which I have forcibly changed, while dreaming, to happy endings. It's almost like I've reshot the movie after the initial reviews panned the first ending!

Yawwn! I'm feeling so sleepy! I do hope the noon show is better than the lousy night show!

Cinema Cinema

I've been seeing quite a few movies these days, thanks to a library which is conveniently situated, and has a good collection.

I've concluded that I'm not a good movie critic at all, because I loved all the movies I saw!

Traffic: Fantastic 3-story piece.

Mystic River: 3 guys and a fantastic story again!

21 Grams: I picked up this movie because of Benicio Del Toro(Traffic) and Sean Penn (Mystic River). Another 3-story piece which kept me glued to my seat and couldn't get enough of.

Amores Perros: I picked up this movie, courtesy SSM, who let it be known that the director was the same guy who directed 21 Grams. I am absolutely floored by this guy. I cannot believe it is his debut film as director. I simply had to find out more about him.

Another fantastic 3-story piece. (OK, I shall refrain from using fantastic again!) Music was haunting and stayed with me for a long time.

House of Sand and Fog: After watching flicks like 21 grams and Amores Perros, the going was so slow. But it slowly began to wrap its foggy arms around me, and drag me into its quicksand. I had a melon-sized lump in my throat at the end, and anger directed at Jennifer Connelly's character, much to the amusement of DH.

On the Waterfront: Reeled from the full impact of Marlon Brando.

City of Women: This Fellini flick went whoosh over my head. I had to read a couple of reviews to try and understand what he was trying to convey. I simply suspended all preconceived notions, and watched his visions with delight.

Ran: I got a glimpse of what CEC and others were raving about, regarding the visual treats Kurosawa offers. I liked the shots of the armies assembling on top of the mountains the best. It had some sort of symmetry to it that I found very appealing. I got upset about the portrayal of Lady Kaide (yeah right! it's always the wicked female's fault!), and found the movie a tad longish, but what remains most with me are the sweeping shots, with men moving like ants, and the landscape being most prominent.

My novel

Well, I've started writing a novel. This idea has been lurking in my mind for quite some time, and suddenly, a few days ago, I was overwhelmed with the urge to sit down and write an outline.

It looks rather promising - the outline, that is.

But now, the grunt work starts. I've aimed for a wordcount of between 50K to 75K words and I've about 9 chapters marked out. So, at the upper limit, I've about 8500 words per chapter to pump in. I'm aiming to complete the first draft by this year end.

I started the actual writing just yesterday. In about half an hour, I managed to put down about 1000+ words. That felt good. But I also realized that it would take me much more than that to achieve my goal.

Well, at least I've started - that's definitely a step forward!

And miles to go before I sleep...

Sorrow

Read my new poem here.