Noon: Aatish Taseer: A review

Any in depth analysis of Aatish Taseer's books would be quite incomplete, in fact, impossible without having an insight into his life and what shaped him and his words. He was born of Tavleen Singh, one of India's leading lournalists of the 80-s and 90-s, and Salman Taseer, a Pakistani businessman and politician. His parents didnt get married. Salman Taseer had a house in London where Tavleen Singh stayed with her son until she decided to return to India and start afresh.
Hence here is what Aatish grew up with, without a father figure, with his mothers overbearing loud garrulous family wherein he was accepted but where he always felt alienated, the odd one out. Also by faith he was Muslim, and he was growing up in a Sikh environment, with Hindu influence all around him. He went to London to study but returned to India to write and I suppose "find himself".

All his three books are heavily autobiographical. Hence giving that strange idea when you read gossip columns without names- you know some of it fictional but other things are true and cant really tell how much. Therefore that voyeuristic pleasure gives an added element to reading him.
All his books run into the next one quite seamlessly. You can read one or you can read them all. The voice is mature and yet the under lying angst is palpable through his telling.

"Noon" is about Rehan Tabassum, the 'other' Taseer, with the same background. It shows him travelling to Pakistan to meet his estranged father because he is 'curious' about him. Here he comes in contact with his fathers family, cousins, uncles, and falls bang in the middle of a power struggle where his half brother is fighting his uncle for the attention of his father.
It also shows him in his writing setting in Delhi, is a very domestic situation which bares the underbelly of petty Delhi crime and the role of the police. In the farmhouse where he is staying that season from his break in London, two laptops and a safe with jewels get stolen, and the servants, till then all trusted long time folks with families, come into the firing line of the Delhi police.
There is no plot as such, the narrative is broken and the book is written like separate stories. What it does though, is that it brings out the society of both countries in all its stark reality. For Rehan is only a high class son of influential people in both countries... yet he talks about people who come in contact with this class, and are not part of it, the servants, the sycophants, the homosexual partner who can be used and thrown... totally a 'sex, lies and videotape' situation, literally.
But none of the characters really gain any flesh throughout the story, not his father, nor his step father, nor his mother, or grandmother, hot the servants, or the gay characters. In fact one can never really know how he feels about any of these characters- does he sympathise with them? Especially his step father- I never really understood how Rehan wants his step father to be known- for he treats the man with varying degrees of respect through his narrative. In fact the character of Rehan himself is not clear. What is his role in the storied events. Surely even in his Pakistan experiences, he plays a very important role which leads to the climax of the story. But it seems very suspiciously like he is trying to remove himself from the events, like a hovering angel figure, not really part of the mess on the land. In fact sometimes it seems the voice of Rehan is too mature, too demure, too all-knowing to be comfortable.
One can hope that he will slowly lose his leaning toward heavy autobiography and tell different kinds of stories (he definitely has the range of experience for it), but for now, one can look forward to the next installment of insight into society, politics, sociology, power play and fanaticism in his two lands.

Leela's Book- Alice Albinia: review

While it describes the journey of Leela, the protagonist from New York to Delhi, it traces the lives of two families to be joined in marriage, and links them up in ways which are quite alarming. It is quite clear from the beginning that the father of the groom is enamoured by Leela, the aunt-by-marriage to the bride. What is the connection between Ved Vyasa Chaturvedi and Leela- after all Ved Vyasa was married to Leela's sister till she died. The plot includes the driver-servant love story, where the servant is raped by the brides father, the steamy love affair between the groom and the brides brother, the brides sisters marriage to a Muslim boy and being thrown out as a result (progressive, mind you, he asks his wife not to cover her head) and the brides father's own thwarted political and social ambitions. It is too convoluted and the connection with Ved Vyasa and Ganesha of Mahabharata is far fetched and somehow woven into the tale. But the characters are fun to know, and they stay with you for some days after finishing the book.

Alice Albinia is the author of Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River (2008) which won a Somerset Maugham Award, the Dolman Travel Prize, and the Jerwood/Royal Society of Literature Special Prize for non-fiction. Alice read English Literature at Cambridge University and South Asian history at SOAS. In between, she lived for two years, in Delhi, working as an editor and journalist with the Centre for Science and Environment, Biblio: A Review of Books, Outlook Traveller and various other Indian newspapers and magazines.
(From her blog http://www.alicealbinia.co.uk/Leela_book/about.html)

Baani: Winner of Elle Fiction Awards 2011 (3rd)

I
February 2002
As a girl of nine, the last thing on my mind was the waif who suddenly appeared in our house and in the periphery of my consciousness. ‘Appeared’, for she was more an apparition, a shadow crouching among shadows. Light made her uncomfortable; cringe even, as did attention. And it suited me fine, for there were a zillion things to do, rather than notice the wiry, skeletal figure, almost half my size.
A new maid had joined, brought in by the cook- the latest in the throng of helping hands in our colossal house of four floors- and this was her daughter. She was in charge of sweeping, replacing the old lady who had just left.
The girl was hardly visible and never heard; she seemed to have found her favorite nook at a corner of the family room, where she settled as soon as her mother came in to work, and stayed till they left. My mother would try to coax her out with food but they would wrap up their lunch rotis and carry it back, for she also had a brother with whom they would share the food. They would come again in the evening and after her work mother and daughter would take away their dinner. We never heard the child say a word, even to her mother.
In late winter, the sun starts to get some of its power back, but not quite; it is a time when the still short afternoons can be spent lolling on the terrace, amongst drying boris¹ on pristine white sheets, orange peels for home made ubtaans, maturing lemon achaar in humungous glass boyem²-s, and the drying hair of mother and aunt. Their backs turned to the suns feeble rays they would be peeling fresh oranges, and talking nineteen to the dozen with each other.
This afternoon though, as I tried to sneak out some of the achaar from one of the cloth covered jars, no one seemed to notice. Surprised, I paid a little more attention to the group and their conversation. Kanan, our cook was the one speaking as she combed my mother’s hair, in almost hushed tones, an impossibility for her. This made me curious enough to sidle up to my mother and sit with obvious disinterest to my environment, stuffing my mouth with the sweet-tangy orange slices my mother cleaned of their white threads and handed me.
Kanan was talking about the new maid, ‘Baani-r Ma’, they called her, in the fashion of lower class villagers, Baani’s Mother, for that was the waifs name. She was eight, her brother, who I had not yet seen, Goutam, was seven, and the family of three lived with their aunt, temporarily, for it seemed they had just reached this place, having run away from Bangladesh.
“Udbastu” my aunt’s conspiratorial whisper was quite loud, “refugee”, “they infiltrate the border, bribing the men there and will come in whenever they want; criminals”.
“Hush”, said my mother, “she could be right here”.
“We should not keep her in the house. We will start losing stuff soon; you mark my words, chhoto³”.
“Kanan, why did they flee? And why come here when they could easily have gone to Calcutta. There would be more work there. And what about her husband, she wears sindoor.”
“Ive heard the husband is still in Bangladesh. They have land there and a house”
“They all have lands and houses there”
“Hush”
“So, whatever it is, he is still there, and they ran off, or I hear, they had to escape. They have come here to Chandannagar because her sister lives here. You would know her. She works as a cook in the Doctor Babu house. Her name is Purnima. That is how I came to know of her and brought her here to work for you, boudi⁴”
“Bamun?” my mother quipped. “Brahmin” For the Doctors family was Banerjee, and a Brahmin house, would only employ Brahmin cooks.
“Of a sort” Sniffed our cook, “Haldar; not a bona fide Brahmin like me”
II
February 2002
Baani-r Ma would come to sweep the room when I would still be in bed, half awake, and my mother, fresh from her bath would be lighting aggarbattis or placing flowers at the small cubicle in the wall which held her gods. The day after the terrace discussion, my mother was finishing with her pooja when the maid came in. My mother, circling her hands with the smoking incense sticks and placing them on the holder, amidst the tinkling of her bangles was asking her where she was staying.
“At my sister’s”, she said, with the peculiar accent of some regions of Bangladesh with its particular stress on ‘s’ as if their delicate tongue could not hold the more harsh ‘cchh’ of this land. “But, soto boudi, I cant stay there for long. Her husband does not approve. As it is we sleep on the verandah. The weather is still cold. Goutam is a strong one but Baani always has the sniffles since we have come.”
“What made you come here Baani-r Ma”
My mother had a reputation of kindness and philanthropy, especially among servants and this one would have heard of it, for she was already keeping the broom aside and squatting on the floor.
“Boudi, may my worst enemies not face what I have faced. I used to be soto bou⁵ of a household too, boudi, just like you. Our house was not as big as yours, but it was a two storied home, with a pond, a small aadi lakshmi temple and land where we grew sugarcane, along with betel nut and coconut trees. Banana trees grew in groves on all sides, and we had mango, kathal and guava trees too.
My father had moved to India back in the 70s and settled here, where my sister married. But he married me into their family, linked through business, because they were the richest in the village of Deutala Bazaar. They had many businesses, they ferried produce from the land to other villages and haats⁶ by boats. We had 2 boats of our own, one for each son in the family. My father in law was an illustrious man, a patriot, and part of the village elders committee.
We had braved wars, Boudi, and were part of the country, our country. People around us, other Hindus, left family by family, one by one. I wanted to leave too, my father kept asking us to come, but my husband would not go against his father, who always said, “This land is our Ma. I can trace back ten generations at least in this very village. I’m not going anywhere”
Then the boys came. Mere teenagers went door to door in the remaining Hindu families, maybe 30 in all, threatening us to leave or else. The elections were due the next month, in October, and there was tension in the air. That was the first year we did not have Durga Pooja in the village. But the temple was generations old, and the Lakshmi Pooja had to be done.
We sorted what we could and the only thing left was the sugarcane for the pooja. My unmarried sister in law said she would go out and get a few stalks. She and Baani, excitedly chattering, went out into the sugarcane fields behind the house. That was the last we saw of her. She was only 20. I don’t know what my daughter witnessed. When she came back running she was screaming, “Tene niye gelo, O Ma ore tene niye gelo.” They have taken her, mother, they have dragged her away. Then they came with the sticks and da-s⁷. They broke into the temple and ransacked it, damaged the statue beyond repair. My father in law tried to reason with them, stop them. They dragged him out and hacked him and hacked him… we saw it. She saw it. She hasn’t spoken since.
We left that night with my brother in law and his family. I would not stay there one more day with my children but my husband stayed back. It was hopeless trying to save the land or the house, and the last rites had to be completed in his father’s beloved land, he had to trace his sister. We came to Dhaka but the few relatives there made it clear they could not risk their lives for us. They lived in mortal fear themselves. Some had taken false names, Parveen, Mahjabeen; married women had stopped wearing sindoor.
We left along with some others, and crossed over to Badalpur, the border village. We had to pay a lot of money, Boudi. My gold is all gone. I’m left with nothing. My brother in law’s family travelled to Calcutta to try and find work. I came to the only place I knew, my father’s house, now my sisters and her husbands. We travelled like cattle, on lorries, or goods trains, we walked miles.
I have heard from my husband once in the last two months. I don’t even know if he is alive.”
III
March 2002
The days went by. I started noticing Baani with more attention now. I was horrified even imagining what she would have been through, what she had seen. I made it my personal mission to cajole her to talk, to smile even. She was just a year younger than me. I gave her my old school books; she took them from me with bowed head, kept them beside her, treated them with god-like respect, but took no further interest in them. I cannot say that I wasn’t a little disappointed with her lack of responsiveness to my efforts. Her eyes always held a vacant faraway look, and the goddess of smiles seemed to have deserted her forever.
She also never gained in health. My mother was concerned, in her own way, which was no white-man’s-burden like mine. She fed her, gave her my old clothes; the girl accepted the daily glass of milk with gratitude on her face, and she wore my clothes which always hung from her bony shoulders like from a hanger. But if anything, she looked sicker with every passing day.
They changed their home to a one room shack, with a broken tin roof, further into marshy land, for even in 2002, there were areas which were unlivable in Hugli district, which were given out to the ones who could afford nothing else. Goutam started going to a corporation school, but Baani would not. She stayed in her corner, morning and evening.
IV
June 2002
A new academic year in June drowned me in hectic schedules of a new course, homework and projects. I still tried reaching out to Baani but I saw her rarely. She had started staying back in their shack, cooking and cleaning for the family as her mother took more and more work to make ends meet.
One development was that we managed to pass on our phone number to Baani’s father, and he called once a week. It was quite hopeless with the land or his sister, he said, he was being hounded almost every day to leave, and he had had to go into hiding in Dhaka for some time too. They were just waiting for him to go so they could take over the land, and if he didn’t leave soon, he would most certainly be killed. He would be joining them very soon.
The call would come every Friday, exactly at noon, when the streets and the payphone in Deutala Bazaar would be deserted. The family of three would be by the phone, and Baani’s eyes would shine when her father spoke to her, but she didn’t ever speak back, and only when she heard her father would be joining them, something resembling a smile seemed to cross her face.
V
July 2002
The rains started early.
As is wont, every morning, school time would be rain time in Bengal monsoons. And everyday Baani’s mother would come sloshed in mud, knee deep. Their tin roof leaked, their mud floor seeped water. The pond next to their shack overflowed and submerged everything surrounding their home. She asked my mother for some money to buy a wooden charpoy, something to save their bedding which was always damp now. She was ashamed to state the conditions they were living in.
“Where is Baani”, my mother asked one day.
“She is always sick, Boudi. Sneezing one day, coughing one day, body ache another. It’s the damp. It gives her fever.”
“You cant leave her in that snake pit of yours, Baani-r ma. Get her here. You can stay in the outhouse till the rains subside.”
But they would not come. They would not live on anyone’s charity. She took the money my mother pressed on her for a doctor, though. But the medicines were not helping.
“The neemonia is in her mind, Boudi. It is as if she wants to fade away from this world” She said in tears, “She relives that day all the time. I see it in her eyes. She screams inside all the time.”
“Take her to a hospital in Calcutta, Baani-r ma. Don’t worry about expenses”
“Let her father come, Boudi, he will take her. Soon.”
A few days later we were rained in. It had poured non stop for two days and the water had reached the top stair of our main door. The maid had not come in three days but this day she arrived in a state. Their home was waterlogged, she said. Baani was very ill. She was raging with fever. For days she had been delirious, screaming in her sleep all night, finally speaking, calling her lost aunt, and her murdered grandfather, slipping in and out of consciousness. Now she was not responding at all.
“Go home right now and bring her here. We are calling Doctor Banerjee. And here, take rickshaw fare. Don’t make her walk.” My mother was screaming.
She did take a rickshaw back, but she came with Baani prone in her arms. She laid the girl very gently down on the verandah. Her face was mud streaked, and they were drenched through, hair streaming, sopping wet. She was eerily calm.
“Boudi, can you check, I don’t think we need the doctor anymore“
Doctor Uncle left, shaking his head. There would not even be a death certificate. They were Bangladeshi-s. In this country they were state less; rather, they simply did not exist.
No one remembered it was Friday till the phone rang exactly at mid day. Baani’s mother stared as the phone’s urgent ringing echoed through the house. In a low voice she started keening, rocking her body to and fro, as finally tears mixed and ran with the rain water coursing in tiny rivulets down her face.




Glossary
1. Bori: Sun dried in cone shapes, mix of paste of pulses and spices, used for savoury dishes.
2. Boyem: Large ceramic or glass jars traditionally used to store pickles
3. Chhoto: Small, in this case younger sibling or sister in law
4. Boudi: Sister in law
5. Soto Bou: In the particular dialect, Chhoto Bou or Younger Bride
6. Haat: Weekly market, held in villages and towns
7. Da: Sharp weapon, usually used to hack crops in fields

The Death Clubs

What a waste. With the death of Amy Winehouse, the list of prodigy musicians who died at 27 climbed by one more. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison. Drugs, alcohol, rock and roll! But have you heard 'Back in Black'! In my top 5, any day.

When I turned 30 I finally reached the age when Sylvia Plath had died. But the fact that she left her son, a mere toddler in the room, went to the kitchen and put her head in the gas oven, took away the legitimacy of a troubled poet dying young! My shock ultimately turned to conviction when that son grew up and killed himself. Imagine living with that picture in your mind!

Did you know Jesus was 33 when he died? That's how old I am now. And i can tell you lot of famous people died at 33. Sanjay Gandhi for one. Eva Peron. Eva Cassidy. John Belushi.

And Im still to reach Diana and Marilyn Monroe's infamous 36.

Storm in a gender teacup

Welcome Storm, he, umm, she, umm, well, no one really knows so they call Sotrm she/he.

Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, a Candian couple has decided to keep the sex of their newborn third child a secret from the whole world. Only they and the siblings will know, as they themselves put it "what is between their legs". They feel that gender creates restrictions which would damage and constrict children. Theirs is a "tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? ...)."

Very unlikely that the "world" would see any revolutionary progression in the next 50 years. The change is probably more evolutionary. My mother wore sarees and was confined to college and home by the time she was 16. Even a movie had to be watched in secret. Boyfriends were taboo. My mothers mother died for want of a kidney. She refused treatment, not taking the medicines meant for her. They say she died of a broken heart when her youngest daughter would not end an affair. My other grandmother baulked when our fridge was bought, when we were just kids, saying, that my dad should not spoil us, just in case we dont get the same luxuries in our in laws house.

My generation has seen a different world. In my economic class, girls mostly have been given equal opportunities as boys. Even though I have been reminded again and again by aunties sundry and even by my mother what "good" girls do as opposed to "bad" girls.

I know I wont create girl- boy issues with my daughter. But somehow I also happen to dress my daughter in androgynous fashion. She is mistaken for a boy often among strangers. I dislike her girlie traits, she loves wearing bangles at the age of 4, and screams at very small things... but I dont discourage her. Maybe she is learning it from her girl friends in school. But she will absorb everything and retain what her nature allows her to retain. Thats fine with me. I will be the eternal tomboy mum with a girlie girl daughter!! EEEEK.

Isnt the key term "choice". Storms parents have decided to have Storm decide what she/he wants to be when the time comes- girl or boy. Thats too progressive, even by my standards, but what if my daughter said one day (aint gonna happen, given her present behavior, but just hypothetically)- I am a man trapped in a womans body. What am I supposed to do. I will really really mourn the loss of my beautiful daughter, but maybe I will celebrate the birth of a son. Who knows. I sometimes wonder what is left to shock our generation of parents with. Free love, drugs, hippiehood, fast cars- The Baby Boomers have been there, done that. Drugs, homosexuality, raining money, sex change, rock stardom- we have done it all. What else is left for them to do? In 10-15 years we will know.

Till then, let us continue our experiments with gender, freedom, hope and not judge... we are all our parents children and every generation of parents have to make their own mistakes.

Flying cattle class: Or, Why I am afraid to travel on low cost airlines anymore

Shashi Tharoor is a genius. His (in)famous train ride spawned one of the most expressive words of this generation. Its not even the aam aadmi, its a subset. And such an apt one too. Now, I have travelled from my childhood on buses, trains, trams, metro and graduated to planes when I started working and could pay my way.

Once upon a time, long long ago, when I was studying in Manipal, my family and I took the Air India flight from Kolkata to Bangalore. We were scheduled to take a bus from Bangalore to Manipal. As Air India flights go, this one was more than two hours late... and we missed the bus. Which resulted us in having to take a seat in another bus, which broke down mid way, after which we had to scramble on to another bus in the wee hours of the morning. This was a local bus, packed to capacity, which took us to Mangalore, where we got one of those high speed inter city buses which would take us to Manipal by noon. Instead it ended up crashing into the back of a loaded truck, and resulted in my broken face and teeth which would trouble me ever since. All for the want of an in-time flight.

But generally planes could be a nice experience, with pretty enough attendants, food and water aplenty. Then came the age of the low cost airlines. Truth be told, my meagre salary allowed me to fly only because the low cost had arrived. Air Deccan made everything possible. The rickshaw puller could fly, and frankly I was not much better off. And apart from having to buy sandwiches at 4 times the cost, it was not a bad experience. Of course, one heard of people opening tiffin cases and having their lunches in flight, and I must say I saw some truth to that. Its good sense after all. Get your cakes and biscuits from home instead of letting them rip you off on board.

Still, the teeming millions of India are a meek lot. As is usual, they took some time to open up to the idea of taking to the skies. But when they did, wow, did they ever!

Lately I have had to take a number of flights on various sectors in the domestic circuit. Chennai-Bangalore, Chennai- Kolkata, Delhi- Kolkata. And I need to chronicle some of the experiences I faced in the last couple of months.
Just yesterday on the Delhi-Kolkata flight, a gentleman (not so much!) refused to switch off his phone. This, after being told by the attendant that he must, and we were just by the runway and would take off soon. "Madaaam", he screamed, "I have to send a message". My neighbours on two flights had to be told to switch off, one was an elderly gentleman who gushed into the phone what an experience it is to fly, and another young boy of about 20, flying with his mother, who kept leaning over two seats to look out the window, probably quite disappointed that he could not see the houses below! The boy nodded and switched off, the older gentleman, I suspect, never did, and the whole flight his phone was on. I need to suggest to airlines that on their domestic flights, they should make it a point to check everyones phones, much like they do at security check. If things go like this, there would soon be a couple of people on every plane with their phones on.

I had the bad luck of sitting by the in flight toilets on my last flight. The plane had already started taxying. The attendant had already taken her seat. One man was insisting that he needs to go right now. The attendant was begging at this point. Her poignant "please"s were hard to hear. Its not a train fellas.

Once upon a time Air Deccan had first come first serve policy when it came to seats on the flight. So usually when the boarding was announced there would usually be a mad dash for the plane to take the window seats. That is history now... but the other day I saw something which defied explanation.
Two overweihgt gentlemen came on at the last moment. One had an aisle seat and the other had the middle seat on the other side. He wanted to sit "beside" his mate, on the aisle seat, and he vehenmently argued that he could sit where he chose. The attendants were two very young girls, and I wonder in their training if they have courses to teach them to deal with such wonders.

Anyway, so trains and planes, not many differences nowadays. Apart from the price of the food, which to my woe, I HAVE to buy everytime, as I end up revenous hungry with all the standing at bus-stop-like boarding stations at airports, bus rides in the hot sun to reach the plane, and jostling with Indian Men to get to my seat with a cranky 4 year old and achey brakey back.

Book Review: The Sirens of Baghdad

Yasmina Khadra/ Mohammed Moulessehoul

Not in many best seller lists and not as sublime as Nadeem Aslams ‘The Wasted Vigil’, this book nevertheless does to Iraq what the other does to Afghanistan.

The protagonist is a young man in his early 20-s, a Bedouin who has left his village to study in Baghdad, become a doctor and make his family and village proud. He has already built a world of dreams when it comes crashes down. American GI-s take over the country and what follows is the continual denigration of a race too proud to sit and take it. He returns to his village where tragedy after tragedy strikes. Uncalled for killings of innocents by an over excitable marine troop, bombing of a marriage party mistaken to be an arms stronghold, and then a village torn apart by the military, young men taken away, old men insulted in front of their children. Blood will have to be spilled to avenge an insult. That is the Bedouin way.

The story starts in Beirut, where the protagonist is already a fedayeen, then moves to tell his history to Kafr Karam, his village, Baghdad and then moves back to the present. The changing mileu is so well presented. Proud of their bread earning status at one time, men now have become effeminate, reduced to arguing about who is to blame for their countries downfall. Saddam? The West? They themselves? And to taking money from their mothers and sisters. Sisters revolting against the tribe to go for higher education and become doctors. Sisters living “in sin” in the big city. Homosexuality. And of course, the growing “waiting list” of would be fedayeens.

This morning the newspaper talked about 2 car bombs going off in Baghdad killing 30 people. The book talks about groups who are actually responsible for this. Who think it is justified to kill children and innocents to avenge a wrong done to their country by the west. They are not warring against their own, but they end up doing just that. And some lose their minds in the process, like Hassan who is not quite there after he saw his best friend mowed down by police after a botched suicide bombing. Or the man who became stark mad after he blew up a school bus full of kids. He bound himself with bread loaves to look like a human bomb and walked into a checkpost.

Whats best about the book is that it supports no one and damns everyone. Humanity suffers in a war between two factions. It is the women and children who are left to pick up the pieces when the men are bombed away. It is the frail and old left to mourn their youngs’ passing. And it is a generation of machines moulded by a thought process which no one can justify. Be it the young marines killing civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan or they who blow themselves up for Paradise. Or for country.

The conscience of the book must be Dr Jamal, not a main character in the book but a professor who used to support the west at first, and then switched sides to support the Iraqi voice. And then realizes that every one is wrong in this war. And gets killed for it.

Of course the ending itself is a bit tame. I wont give it away but the weapon he is supposed to carry to end half of humanity is pretty clichéd and the way the book ends itself, unravels the tightness of the book and keeps it from raising itself from good to great. That of course would be a spoiler so I will refrain from telling. I wish it ended better. But a subject too relevant to ignore.

Book Review: Tarquin Hall's The Case of the Man who Died Laughing

Publisher: Hutchinson, London
Indian Price: Rs 550
Available: All major book shops

“Have you met Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator?” http://tarquinhall.com/

Well I met him finally this week, and I must say, Im totally bowled over. England has Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple. Belgium has Hercule Poirot. US has so many. Even Sweden has its Lisbeth Salander (Millenium series- Stieg Larsson). Its time India had one of its own.
To be fair, we have our Felu da, the Holmes-esque Bengali genius. But he is so niche, that so few even in the country outside of Bengal know of his brilliant exploits. That’s the problem. Our detectives are so regional, so bound by the foibles and tics of a particular race, that outside of it, so few know of them, even if translated.
Tarquin Hall comes to somewhat bridge the gap. Vish Puri is quintessentially a Delhi-wallah. With his Punjabi quirky habits, aloo parantha-s and family ties, he is still a part of the cosmopolitan middle class baby boomer ethos. With his “arrrey”s and using “no?” after sentences (he is supposed to be here by now, no?) he talks our language. He says every thing is just “tip-top”, so “no need to do tension”. Its so us, no?
Oh and finally someone having ghee dripping aloo paranthas and aloo tikki masala, and similar saliva inducing stuff, finally finally, Indian street food on a world class book.
The story?
The “Guru Buster”, Dr Suresh Jha, takes on Maharaj Swami on television and incurs his wrath. Maharaj Swami promises his death on a certain day due to his non believer’s attitude. On the said date, in full view of the world, while attending the morning session of the laughing club in the open, a twenty foot Goddess Kali appears, levitating in all her terrible glory and with a sword, strikes Jha dead, disappearing without a trace after the act. It falls on Vish Puri to trace down the murderer. Science, religion, magic, logic, superstition… every thing is rolled into one. And adventure. The must-have of a good detective novel, DISGUISE. Vish Puri is master of disguise. His helpers and side kicks, male and female, are dependable and masters in their own game. And it’s a page turner too.
Here is what I liked about this book apart from its innate Indian ness. The book makes you guess much in the fashion of Agatha Christie. Its got genuine detective flair. It is topical. And with the guru-frenzy still very much on in the country, it is very relevant. You wish someone would make your mother in law read this. Talking of which, the mother in law herself in this book is a detective of sorts. So yo not only have your “Indian Poirot” but a bit of your Indian Miss Marple as well. And its so much fun. You cant help laughing through the book. Who else had made murder such a joke?
Here is what does not work. The book is too Indian. So while Indians will totally identify with it, readers in other countries would be a little lost. But seems after reading the book, it is meant for a predominant Indian audience, either in the country or the huge diaspora spread across the world. In that case Tarquin Hall did a brilliant job.
There is too much going on. There are three separate cases in the book. You sometimes wish the chapters would not keep going to Mummy Ji-s kitty party case. It is enjoyable in itself, and is perhaps meant to be a comic relief, but the whole book is comic, and the action never reaches feverish pace, so probably comic relief is not required at all. However the characters all being believable and lovable, it does not become too much of a hindrance, though it mars the overall composition of the case.
The third point would be a spoiler. The end of the book and the solution of the case, the murderer, so to say, is a anti climax. You so wish it were someone else. But its ok as all the bad guys are actually bad guys and they all will get punished. But gee, the murder… something is missing about the ending. It needed a better tying up. Then again, the journey is so enjoyable that the destination in itself can have its faults.
Finally it does what any good detective book should do. Get good word of mouth, and make the reader buy the other books in the series. Im definitely reading “The Case of the Missing Servant” next.

Rate: 8/10

About the author: from his website

Tarquin Hall is a British writer and journalist.
He was born in London, 1969, to an English father and American mother. Hall has spent much of his adult life away from the United Kingdom, living in the United States, Pakistan, India, Kenya and Turkey, and travelling extensively in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. He is the author of five books and dozens of articles that have appeared in many British newspapers and magazines, including the Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Observer and New Statesman. He has also worked in TV news and is a former South Asia bureau chief of Associated Press TV. His chosen subject matter has proven extraordinarily diverse. He has written features on Wilfred Thesiger, Texan rattlesnake hunters, the Taliban and British-Asian Urdu poets.
Hall’s books have received wide acclaim in the British press. His second, To the Elephant Graveyard was heralded by Christopher Matthew in the Daily Mail as “a classic.” His third, Salaam Brick Lane, about Brick Lane in the East End of London, was described by Kevin Rushby in The Guardian as “charming, brilliant, affectionate and impassioned.” Salaam Brick Lane recounts a year spent above a Bangladeshi sweatshop on Brick Lane.
In 2009, Hall published his first mystery novel The Case of the Missing Servant introducing the Punjabi literary character Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator. Hall′s second novel in the Puri series, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing, is scheduled to be released on 15 June 2010. The sequel follows Puri as he unravels who really murdered a renowned Indian scientist.
Hall is married to the Indian-born BBC reporter and presenter Anu Anand. They have a young son.

Pritish Nandy's article

Some days back we were shocked out of our dinner time reverie by the news item that a Class 8 school boy in Kolkata has committed suicide, allegedly because he was caned as a punishment in school. Here is an article, I dont know the source, it came as a forward, by Pritish Nandy which sums up what many of us thought.

Learning starts with irreverence
Pritish Nandy, 14 June 2010, 09:42 AM IST

La Martiniere was the only school I ever went to. I joined it at 3 and passed out completing my Senior Cambridge. This is the school currently in the news because a student hung himself after the Principal caned him reportedly for not doing his homework. Corporal punishment is always a silly idea. It achieves little, hurts a lot. Depending on which part of your anatomy gets the stick. In our time it was the posterior, and as we all padded that well in advance with notebooks and towels, the Principal (who swung the cane) would first instruct us to drop our pants.

No, I wasn’t caned for not doing homework. In our time, students were far more irreverent. Not doing homework was the least of our transgressions. But the ecology of schools was so different then that even when we were punished, we took it easily in our stride. Studying was never a big deal. Learning was. And the real things I learnt out there were either on the rugby field or in the boxing ring and, yes, I made a few friends who have stayed on for life. That’s what schools were about in those days and La Martiniere was a fine example. It was there that I learnt music, theatre, swimming, writing, waltzing, carpentry and how to smoke grass. Geography I learnt much later while travelling the world. Poetry I found after I unlearnt Shakespeare. History I picked up from the movies. But the subject I hated the most, maths, is the one I love today thanks to Martin Gardner who taught me the art of artfully resolving any complex mathematical problem.

Caning was commonplace then. No one gave it a second thought. If anything, your classmates saw you as a hero if you got whacked. Like the time the watchman caught me climbing down the waterpipe at night from the Girls School dorm next door. A sudden burst of pigeons from the corner of a ledge woke him up and almost killed me. Another time I was caned for scribbling love notes with strong sexual undercurrents to my junior school teacher, Miss Martin. I was also whacked for helping a friend during an exam. The notes in his underwear had fallen off. The hardest whack I got was for writing an essay which questioned the existence of God and said that if I had a choice I would rather go with Madhubala. Yet I was let off with a warning when they found me, at a social, waltzing with a girl not where the others were, but behind the Tech School in the dark, under the starry skies. My school tie was off. So was her shirt.

Yes, we were punished for many reasons. But we never felt humiliated. We went back and did the same things again, just making sure we were not caught. Caning was like a badge of honour. We were heroes every time the Principal (Mr Chalk and Mr Vyse, the two fine men who wielded the cane on our bottoms) announced our names sternly at the morning service and called us to his office. We knew what that meant. But it never embarrassed us. In fact, I took bets on how many whacks I would get. Three was the max. I always got away with one. I suspect we were caned only because the Principal felt it was his duty to do so. It was an intrinsic part of the Coming of Age ritual. There was no viciousness there. Nor a mistaken belief that caning would make better young men out of us.

Today, the entire ecology of schools has changed. The charming irreverence that made our years there such great fun has all but vanished. What we have instead is a strange combination of fear and stress. The love, the warmth, the humour, the camaraderie that was an intrinsic part of our growing up years has gone. Everything is judged purely by academic performance, the marks students get. It’s an edgy, competitive scenario where you perform or perish. Everyone’s under great pressure. When I got a first division, I remember how disappointed I was. It was not what I wanted in life. I would have much rather run off with Mr Vyse’s charming daughter, the lovely Suzette who danced like a dream and won every race at the school sports. But no, she was not mine to be. She finished school, married an Anglo Indian boy and vanished into the Great Outback.

It’s this ecological breakdown that makes corporal punishment look even uglier. When a young boy in Class VIII kills himself for being caned it can only mean one thing: A total breakdown of communication between him and the world around him. School is not where you go just to get some good grades. It’s a place where you grow up, make friends, learn a few sports, discover yourself and the world around you. And if someone whacks you once in a while, you take it in your stride. There’s a whole world out there to be conquered. You can’t give that up so easily.
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Breakdown of communication: That must be it. Parents, most of all, need to be aware of this bane, in their busy schedules and dawn to night jobs. Children need to be TALKED TO. To be UNDERSTOOD from their viewpoint, not yours. Most of all, in all spheres of life, in every problem, the most important cause is lack of communication.

The one thought that kept troubling me for days is that, I was caned too. So many times, one lost count. I was hit on my thigh with "double scales"- two scales joined together to make the sting worse. I was hit on my knuckles for not doing homework. I was made to stand in the sun for hours for not bringing my exam admit card. I was made to do sit ups for shouting in class. I was made to stand outside class for talking.

I showed the scale marks to all and sundry, with pride, like being 'the marked', or 'the chosen one'. We all laughed about how the angle of the scale affected the knuckles, which hit harder, the face or the edge. We winked at each other while standing outside class. My legs hurt for days after the sit ups but I carried it like a badge of honour. And when a couple of my friends fainted, standing in the sun, we ran to get water and fanned them, and cursed the school and our principal, Sister Andrea, and compared her devilish treatments to the other angelic Sisters... but we did not think it was the end of our lives.

Failing in exams were not the end of our lives, we just picked up and moved on... sometimes a few beatings/scoldings later. But the message was clear, nothing is a personal agenda against me or you or anyone... its the SYSTEM. And the system aims to make us "persons" in this way, and we just survive this bit.

School was fun. School was where we had our best times, our best friends, our bonds for a lifetime. School was were we did well in some tests and failed some, but it did not matter. We had exam fever too... we woke nights to make notes and solve trigonometry problems. I did so badly in my 10th standard exams that I actually thought life had ended. But it didnt.

We are good at certain things. We are not good at others. Its better that parents keep an open channel of communication with their kids, and put this into their minds.

Messi hair day

What happens when a football dud like me starts writing about football. It becomes all about hair, thats what.

Btw, my husband went into mourning yesterday after England lost. So has half the world I know. Going on like that about the goal that wasnt given. Shame on you, as if it had anything to do with the other 3 goals that Germany sent into their post. Now Germany, thats one serious team. Im going to put my amatuer bet on them to win the cup this time. All the "Go England" people- HUMBUG! "Go Germany" is what I say.

As I was saying, so many people lost their appetite, that too at dinner time on Sunday night, this part of the world. Which is better than losing your job, I say, which the England Goal keeper, whatisname, has coming. What can you expect with that kind of hair... and facial hair too, yuck! So very yesterday. Now Rooney, thats a name I know... he's been playing for aaaaaGes. Look at his receding hairline. He looked so crestfallen after the first half hour of the match, I was almost expecting Beckham to come in and give him a peck of encouragement on the cheek. So sweet of him to cheer on his team, no? Looking so dapper too, sigh! They dont make them like that anymore.

So much talk about Messi, I finally HAD to watch what he is all about. And he reminded me, I really do have to get a haircut. Ive started looking somewhat like him. Not that he looked bad with flying hair and all, when he was running with the ball... from 3 kmph to 30 kmph in 3 seconds flat, according to some. (They actually measure these things nowadays!!! and they cant say when it is or isnt an actual goal!!!!!!) In fact a lot of their team is about flying hair and bad haircuts. Speaking of which, Maradona, shouldnt he be really banned from coming within 10 feet of anyone or anything during a match? All the raving and ranting, shouting and screaming, jumping and pacing, is not good for his heart at his age. Who listens to him anyway, apart from Pele, who does a lot of talking back too, from what I hear in snippets between my E-news.

No wonder the Mexico goalie was too green to stop their shots from sailing in. He has only a shining bare scalp to show.

A Whole New World

A month of servant-less existence has finally made me sit up and take notice on where my life is headed!!! Of all things, yes it is true. Why, I was a destitute this last one month, a veritable orphan without my cook-and-housework person. For the first time in my life I was waking up sharp at 7 every morning with or without alarm, for day after day. Not for me the luxury of getting another 40 winks, for if I overslept, my office work would not get done and I would be spending all morning boiling dal and frying fish. Not to speak of breakfast.

I would roam about the rooms in the morning with the look of a lost kitten on my face, wondering where to start. Shall I dust the shelves now, or after I make the tea. When do I fry and keep the egg for my daughter. Almost forgot to take the fish out of the freezer, bloody things need hours to thaw, and then to marinade them... and the horror of frying fish. I could not do it to save my life, the fish ends up half its size, with the rest stuck all over the wok.

Ill be proud to proclaim, I did not pull my family of three to dinner every night, only some. I cooked and I cleaned, and I dusted and I washed. And I fed my daughter religiously 4 times a day. And believe you me, feeding my daughter is not the work of the faint hearted. I must declare that my heart is much the worse for wear now, after 1 whole year of single handedly feeding her at least 3 times, if not 4. Oh well, she wont feed herself and I cant wait for the day that she finally gets so independent that she wont let me feed her any more. Or when she does not want to stay home for dinner, or hell... when she wants to leave and set off on her own in the world. With all my blessings, dear one, with all my weary boned droopy eyed blessings.

Here is where a confession is due. I was a kitchen virgin till 24, when I was rudely yanked from the comfort of home food or the convenience of hostel food, and after my then-boyfriend-now-husband ran out of money to feed me in expensive Bangalore. Therefore at that impressionable vulnerable age I was forced to peek into the confines of that room in the house which had always been farthest from my repartee till that time. Alladin sang in my ear - "A whole new world", and with the most fallen of faces, I gingerly took an egg plant in one hand and the knife in the other, and proceeded to make baingan bharta much like Juhi Chawla did in QSQT... only much worse.

How times have changed.

Back to present. So, when I was finally left home- um, cook-less, I finally had to take it on to my own two hands to feed my little devil of a daughter and very patient-in-food-habits husband. And would you believe it, I make the best chicken I have ever tasted, save one. (That one is of course another story.) But thanks to a dear dear friend, who introduced me to the fearless world of cooking chicken, and newer ways of doing it, I am now the mistress of all things chicken. Oh not quite, I have tried three recipes, variations of them, but Im glad to say, everyone liked it. My husband went as far as to say that its the best chicken he had ever tasted, even better than restaurants. And no benifit of doubt, darlings, for he says that every time I try that particular recipe.

Its my ssssssecret recipe of course, only that its not so secret, being taught me by my friend as I was talking about, and so I shall tell you my secret ingredient. English Mustard, the kind you get in a bottle in any self respecting grocery shop. Instead of curd, if you marinade the chicken in some mustard oil and this mustard paste, and then add some mustard seeds crackling in your mustard cooking oil before putting the rest in, its a true blue chicken variation of SHORSHE ILISH!!!

Who would ever... ever... ever imagine, that one day I would be writing about cooking in my blog. But hey, it truly is a whole new world. Its even, wonder of wonders, therapeutic. I tended to be my most calm in a year during this time. It was single handedly the cure for my onsetting depression due to my condition which can be summed up as follows "My jobs a joke, Im broke, My love life's.. what love life, Ive been with one man for 10 years, married for 5"

Coming up next- Chinese Chicken. And Chicken Stew, Payal Mukherjee style, you have not tasted stew so good! Crossmyheart.

Oh My Darling Kolkata, Where Have You Disappeared

Lets get right to the brass-tacks, shall we?
My last three days in Kolkata.
Day 1, Jan 13 2010- I had to take baby to the hospital. Park Street- Neotia Hospital. On the way back I had taken the Anwar Shah road route. Road closed. We thought that this was a routine road block by the locality people, common in this area. So we drove down some alleys to Ashutosh Mukherjee road, the plan was to go straight down to Tolly Metro, where my house is located. Tollygunj Phari crossing- A band of people, holding hands has just closed down the street as we cruised to a stop at the crossing, one of the first cars to be stuck. Traffic bearing down behind us already. I got down and asked the police officers how long it would take. "Only they know, sister" is what he said to me. "THEY"- Trinamool Congress supporters, and their chakka jam. This was a spot where I was not familiar with any detours. But the officer pointed out a narrow alley and said you can take this and see what happens. So before our tail got completely blocked we decided to go for it. At 2 pm with a hungry sleepy baby in the car, to think of standing there for an hour or two... unthinkable. The narrow alley became narrower and people who moved fast enough were all in there, but we got through it, after much shouting at errant rickshaw drivers, and more silent prayers, we reached home, and lunch.

Day 2, Jan 14 2010: My in-laws place is in Brahmapur, near Bansdroni in Tollygunj. Its about 4 kms from my parents place at Tolly Metro. And easy to reach if you know the inside roads. This day there is a "bandh" in that area, south of the canal, by the 'ruling party' CPM, so that much tougher to get through. I have a baby in the car, travelling from my inlaws to my parents. I was stopped thrice, the third time they wanted to see my id card. And when I said Im taking my child to the hospital they refused to believe me. I said how dare youstop a woman with a toddler in a car. They got a bit hassled. And when I shouted some more, shaking with anger, they let me pass, to freedom. For a moment, I felt trapped, imprisoned in my own city. For a moment, I realised how some men and women, one group of people with nothing to do on a weekday morning, can hold millions of people to ransom, making them walk miles with baggage and children to reach schools, and offices. For a moment I shed some tears to what my beloved haven of freedom had come to, a dear city, fighting for survival between some bands of ruffians, illiterate, semi-literate, who think nothing of stopping ambulances, and people who want to work, and people who just have to work to get their daily bread.

Day 3, Jan 16 2010: My flight to Chennai is at 5 pm. I come out at 2 pm from the house, the plan is to pick my father from his office in Esplanade and reach airport. Park Street flyover at 2.30, we grind to a halt midway up the flyover. It takes us the next hour to reach Esplanade crossing. Trinamool again, they have closed up one side of the road for a rally. And thousands of cars in the busiest crossing of Kolkata waited patiently for hours to let the police get them through one tiny strip left open, one car at a time. The poor Kolkata police force. Kudos to them. When they retire they would have been there done it all... probably not as adept at encounters as the Mumbai police, but world-best in handling bandhs and rasta roko-s and chakka jams of all kinds. I did make it to the flight, reaching the airport at 4.45, the last possible minute. And they allowed us on, the last passengers, because I had called and told them I was stuck in a Trinamool rally with a kid. Everyone knows about it. Everyone in Kolkata.

Everyone in Kolkata now sigh once again when they hear about another bandh. They curse beneath their breath, all those who will not let a city rise from its ashes. They hang their heads when their colleagues from other cities laugh, they try to laugh and joke along with them. But in the end they know that they are the ones to blame. To have stayed at home during bandhs, fearing lathi bearing toughs- the political supporters, who would beat on the cars and deflate tyres. To have been afraid of being threatened on the road. As a Kolkatan, Im sorry to say, I am ashamed of what my city has allowed to be done to herself. Im ashamed of myself and of all those I know who has not raised their voice.
I fought the toughs to get my daughter and me through... What if we all shouted, if we all screamed, if we all cried out- CHOLBE NA CHOLBE NA... No- you cannot keep me from my work, from my play, you cannot force me to be home for fear, you cannot keep my freedom from me, from us, from all us Kolkatans... if only we could...

PS: On 12th Jan, a fire broke out in a slum in Ultadanga, 70 huts were gutted, 1 dead, about 2000 homeless in the bitter January cold... the reason why the whole slum burnt down before any help could reach- Auto rickshaw drivers (alleged Trinamool supported) had blocked the road and would not let fire engines through to the fire... a fire burnt homes down, thousands watched, while some men refused to let fire fighters save lives and homes. Oh Kolkata, Kolkata!

Great Indian Wedding Time again

One of my very first blogs were on the Great Indian Wedding... the media going crazy with it, the whole world conspring to look like one huge marriage party. Little has changed in the two years since, and now at the end of 2009, wedding season is here again!
Lets start- prices of gold are daily news now. We thought they had touched the roof when I got married in 2005. Celebrating our 4th anniversary this month, my husband thought it more prudent to gift me the new refridgerator Ive been nagging him last few months for.
Magazines- Vogue had a wedding special in November, Marie Claire beat it by a month, their wedding issue came out in October. Elle had a wedding supplement, last one I saw was the Cosmopolitan, with its own wedding issue! Weddings sell, then. Some of us are getting married, some of us are waiting to be proposed to with everyting crossed, some of us are having family getting maried, and some of us have to buy expensive presents for those getting married.
Well there are also people like me who are just voyeurs... who love to peek into the lives of the rich and/or famous, and gasp at the thought of buying a 1 lakh lehenga, or the diamond set that so and so would wear, or the farmhouse that so and so's daddy would rent for darling princess.
I guess Ill never buy either the Judith Lieber purse recommended with the Manish Malhotra lehenga, or the Louboutin heels which perfectly goes with the traditional churas. And I cant think of anyone who can either. Who are these magazines targeting anyway. What is their readership? How many people care for Moroccan or English rose themes for their wedding in India?
I do not know, but I know this. When I got married, all I wanted was two Benarasi sarees in nice colours which I would be able to wear all my life and pass on to my daughter, if I had one. I wanted my mom's lovely necklace I had coveted since I was a little girl. I wanted everyone to love the food. And I wanted to get done with it and start the rest of my life. To have the family circus end and get to be a couple once again.
Well all that is ancient history now. Now Im a little scared of weddings. Im scared that my present wont be good enough. Im scared of not getting parking space near the venue and having to walk a kilometer in my sky high heels and saree. Im scared of not being blinged up enough. Im scared of having a stomach upset afterwards. And Im scared of hearing about who next is getting married. Best of luck guys... Ill send you all my blessings and heart full of love, but just keep me out of it.

Oh, for a story to tell!

Heard of the book "The Rozabal Line"? One in the series of fiction based on 'research' that shows Jesus spent a considerable part of his life in India, Kashmir specifically.

The author, Ashwin Sanghi (pseudonym Shawn Haigins) is an Indian businessman who writes part time. An immense amount of research has gone into the book, 90% of it google searches. (All the links are provided in the glossary.) As I read the book I keep thinking what a person like Dan Brown would have done with this material, or John Grisham, or Ken Follet for that matter. For the material is mind blowing, stuff that best sellers are made of, but the writing swings madly back and forth from BC something to AD 2012. And when I say swings madly back and forth, believe you me, you will be left with a headache at the pendulous madness.

But anyway, Mr Sanghi wrote a book. He probably spent years deciding just what he wanted to google and then made a story out of it. I wish I could tell a story, any story! I do not want to be a poet, nor can I even succeed in it. A poet can see the whole beach in a grain of sand. Me? I see the setting sun and I think- poached eggs.

No, not for me the blank verses and rhymed couplets. I would rather be a story teller. How fortunate are they, how blessed, those who can spin yarns, those who can pluck stories out of co passengers travelling in trains or lonely warehouses on the waterfront. I suppose life itself is full of stories, one has just to look at the right places.

How i wish I had that imagination, to make young boys and girls fly on broomsticks to play ball, or make trees walk and wage wars, to tell the world about a teacher in Afghanistan, or a tribe elder in the African jungles... oh but I cant, I cant. I just cant tell a story.

Archie marrying Betty??????

Oh come on! I finally thought its happening. Betty?? Really??!! Compare that hare brained goody-two-shoes geek with the hot catty oh-so-stylish Veronica, and really, where can one go wrong in this. Betty is a good match for Dilton, Im sure, but I suppose even Dilton is too intelligent to know the real world from the ideal one.

But it figures. Considering that Archie is neither too good looking (carrot top with freckles, remember?), nor rich (jalopy), nor intelligent (only Moose seems to be more Duuh than him), and also insensitive to boot (how many times has he jilted Betty to go with Veronica)... I dont know which one serves him right, marrying the bitchy Veronica or the so-dull Betty.

20 years hence he might be fielding questions or vases from a fat, couch potato Betty, in cheap Paris designer rip-offs (her clothes were mostly that while Veronica had the originals) in XXL sizes, while Veronica finds herself a dude and zips around in her personal jet to those exotic locales in her designer bikini-s on her designer body. Hell, when she is 40 she would afford to do a Demi Moore.

Yeah yeah, when the whole world went ga ga over Betty, I thought Veronica was so sauve... so have-it-all, so cool-cat to Betty's loyal tail-wagging pooch. So what if she also made the mistake of running after Archie and giving Betty, her best friend, a tough time due to him. She would get over it Im sure. Girls like her have all the fun. All hail Veronica.

Proud of our Didi

Chennai papers were full of Mamata Didi yesterday. 'Duronto' is coming to town... the non stop super fast from Chennai to Delhi. Then there is the "gift" of Didi to Chennai women- all women trains to ply intra city.

Then there was the instance of her refusal to move in a bungalow in Delhi and decisionto stay back in the apartment which was originally provided her. Now Mamata Banerjee is being touted as the new face of the Congress frugality brigade. The minister to walks the talk.

Kolkata women had the benefit of Didi's thoughtfulness long back, her last tenure as railway minister. And now we are seeing women all over the country hailing these moves. The need is there... Chennai just came out with the 'Pink Cabs'... all women service cabs for women and children. No more fear when we need to travel alone at 2 am to catch the 4 am flight.

Seeing Didi's face flooding the papers, suddenly seemed not so different from Kolkata papers. And I should say... for once I am proud I voted foryou, Didi.

September 3, 2009

Just finished watching Kite Runner on HBO. When it began I underestimated it. Like all those who read the book before they watch the movie I thought it would fall short. But half hour into the film and I knew this was something special. Years ago, the book had made me cry for days. In two short hours, this movie made me cry again.

In any conflict, women and children suffer the most. But it is the children who will have to grow up with the pain of whatever has befallen them. Of course Nadeem Aslam's next, A Thousand Splendid Suns was a masterpiece in itself, but nothing portrayed the tears of a country for its lost children more than Kite Runner.

Another book I recently read was The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, set in the Congo of the 1960-s through 90-s. To know more about the history of Congo, I started searching the net until I came upon this- http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20071007/ZNYT03/710071133?Title=Rape-Epidemic-Raises-Trauma-of-Congo-War

Where doctors break down with stories of the brutality of men, of little girls and boys not knowing what happened to them, of their internal organs, not yet fully formed, being torn and spoilt for life, if they were lucky enough to live...

"Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair."

The Rape Epidemic, as it is called, continues till this day, even as Hillary Clinton visits the country. It has been called the worst assault against women and children in the world till date, worse than even Rwanda in the Hutu- Tutsi conflict, where rape was seen as a weapon of war, meant for ethnic cleansing.

I could not read the whole report in one sitting. The reports get more and more horrific. Can one even imagine living such a life, where your grandmother, your mother or your little 3 year old daughter might be raped at any time? A doctor says “There used to be a lot of gorillas in there,” he said. “But now they’ve been replaced by much more savage beasts.”

What kind of sickened hardened mind can do that to another human being, and a mere child. Can they look into their eyes? What is in the minds of these men, who can steal innocence forever and inflict such violence.

These are countries at war. What about a country in peaceful times. India- Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, lovely tourist destinations, has something more to attract a special kind of tourist. Available children. These places specially are paedophile destinations. There was recently a newspaper report on orphanages in the Mahabalipuram tourist stretch, which sold children, girls and boys. If you had the proper contacts and especially if youhad white skin, its not much trouble landing the 8 yr old boy you always wanted to destroy.

I saw the movie Changeling some days back. Reminded me of our very own Nithari killings where two men rapes and butchered no one knows exactly how many women and children. (The Nithari killings made headlines for months but now no one seems interested in that anymore. Salman Khan's latest movie is more interesting, I suppose, now that the gory details are all out. Who cares about the victims.) Reminded me of all those news items of little girls kidnapped and imprisoned in base ments for decades, held as sex slaves to men, often with full cooperation from their own wives. Sometimes the girls were not kidnapped... she would simply be the man's daughter.

Girls are routinely taken, often bought for as little as Rs 500, from villages in east India to be sold off to higher and higher bidders in cities like Kolkata, Mumbai or even sent as sex slaves to families in Delhi or anywhere for that matter.

I read and I read and I read, and I feel sterile, helpless, empty. Sometimes I scream to myself to do something, but what can I do, where do I start. I know in the end I will do nothing but seethe inside at the monster that is humankind. I am too domesticated, too engrossed in my childs school, my months targets, and my evening doughnut to stand up and act. I am in awe of those men and women who work to free such victims of lust and god knows what sickness of their own brothers and sisters. Those who spend their lives to bring maybe one ray of hope to those who have none. To bring a smile to those who have gone beyond tears.

Sometimes I feel it was a crime to bring a child into this godforsaken world. For where there can be a Nazi Holocaust, an Ahghanistan laid to the ground by its own men in the name of patriotism, where you can chop off children and dump them in the sewer, where men and women use children to gain pleasure or money, or to take revenge against a race... there God would not be, could not be.

Baby's School Annual Sports Meet

What times have come... now I am taking my daughter to the school sports. Didmt we grow up, or is it really not that far back that I used to go to school sports myself.

My school St Josephs Convent Chandannagar, where I studied till the sixth standard, was a massive range of buildings, with hugest green fields and its own inhouse church, complete with organ et al. The sports events would be held on the schools fields itself. I used to do gymnastics then, floor and balance beam. I was good at the balance beam and bad at floor. For the life of me I could not do the peacock arch, but cart wheels were my thing! My house came last in gymnastics that year, and I blamed my fall while doing the peacock arch.

I participated in the short races. 100 mts or the 4*100 mts. There were 3 girls faster than me in school and in two of the three years that I participated, I came in fourth. In the third year I somehow got past the third girl and came in third. I was beyond myself with elation thinking I had won the brinze finally... until I heard that that particular year there was no bronze medals. The world conspired against me even then!

In South Point High School, Kolkata, sports was an unknown thing until we reached the final year, the 10th standard. I was so sure of my performances till just a day before the events I took a fall down the stairs and sat through the annual sports with a crepe bandage round my ankle.

And now its my daughters school sports. I thought she was too young to participate until they announced races for pre KG. There were 5-6 participants from each of the two sections, all boys. I wonder why no girl was participating. I, for once, didnt know anything about the events till the previous day, when I was handed the invite. So my daughter and I sat through the beginning march past and colourful presentation by junior students, and the pre KG races, and then got too hot and bored to sit through any more and sidled out.

So much for School Sports. Maybe next time.

Ready for Parenting your parents, Generation Me?

People in Shanghai can now have two kids.

China till a few years back, just stopped short of executing parents for flouting their "one couple- one child" norm. And now this? It seems that the population of China is ageing very fast. "438 Million people in China will be 60 and older by 2050, leaving just 1.6 working age adults for each elder." says Newsweek.

We with our "Hum do, humare do" policy, which was not that strictly followed anyway, would turn out little better. But from my absolute lay persons view, consider this. All my friends are either alone, or have a single sibling. Our parents come from the great Indian middle class of the 60-s to 80-s. They were educated, politically motivated and ambitious about themselves and their children. Most were still single income households. The middle classes decided to stop after their first two.

The next class didnt quite. Hence we still see lesser privileged cousins who have 4 or more siblings around.

With time its gone worse. To provide the best for their children many have stuck to their only child. By then we have come into the "upper middle class" strata. We own a house, a car, and gadgets. SEC (socio economic) class A. We are shrinking at a much greater rate than other SECs.

The first to relise it is the doctors of government hospitals. My sister, who is a gyenecologist, have assisted in the births of more than 4 children from one particular woman in the last 6 years. Rest assured, she is not the only one, nor is my sister the only doctor experiencing this.

Another study, another country. USA- "According to futurist Andrew Zolli people born after 1975 could end up taking care of their mothers longer than their mothers took care of them" (newsweek) Women of our mothers generation are likely to live 18 years into their retirement, a new record! Men follow right behind, though. And USA hit with financial woes, is seeing a new trend of having 3 generations or more under one roof.

We Indians have been there done that long enough to know that it is possible to live that way if there is mutual respect. The kids get company, the grandparents get mental peace and joy, and care in their own house, and that goes on to create a more stable society.

The age of the world is changing and thats changing everything. And how!

Coming to town

Getting used to life in Chennai is so difficult when I think of what I am missing. Another BANDH!!! Yoo hoo! Kolkata knows how to enjoy its bandh days.

This morning I had a fight with my husband about the "Kolkata attitude". He has to say that Kolkatans dont have any aggressiveness. They will stand in line in all their wide eyed stupidity while the world goes by into the entrance. (BTW, I thought that was the Lucknowi "pehle aap" theory.)

I replied- do you know where most freedom fighters on our country came from? West Bengal, maaan! Revoltution is in our blood.
"Bhenge dao, guriye dao"... just look at the Maoists.
We are the Argumentative Bengali who can also follow a call to war, are we not? Case in point, Netaji!
We are the born non conformists. Whatever the rule says, we would do the opposite. We love our food, and our adda, we love our Victoria Memorial, and we love to hate Victoria and all the gora-s who helped build it. We still cry buckets of tears for our partition, and we still shout ourselves hoarse at the ghoti-bangal debates.

What Kolkata Attitude!!! OK we love our bandh afternoon naps, and we love to do nothing but talk politics and football all day, but pack us into an overcrowded sweaty bus on the way to work and see how our fighting instincts blossom and bloom. Put us in line for a train ticket and watch if anyone wants to come in between. We can stand for our rights just as much as the next non Kolkatan can, so help me God!

And Im coming back to Cal for my much awaited visit. Short one this time but cant wait to have phuchka and Ma-yer haater luchi - aalur dom again!!!

Chennai- 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration

Im super excited about creating a new Chennai blog which will be very partial towards Besant Nagar. There is hardly any source of info on this part of the world on the net. I mean apart from the cursory two liners on temples and stuff, and google maps. What about the cool place on the beach where you get childrens clothes within Rs 150. Or the little restaurant which has chocolate filled chocolate doughnuts (yes man, its heaven in your mouth), cheese smothered fries with cilly flakes. Oh god, Ive got my mouth watering already.

I found a great lending library which is pretty affordable and with very friendly people. In my hunt for libraries I ended driving km after km yesterday with little success, I could not locate 2 Sardar Patel Road. Also, I found an old place which is overflowing with thrillers and the Goergette Meyer types, not what I read. It advertised itself as Airconditioned. But I almost melted in there.

And Fab India near the beach has these wonderful single cane chairs for Rs 800. Im sure they actually cost Rs 250 somewhere else, but someone please tell me where that is, and Ill go there.

All this and more, in my Chennai blog. Coming soon!

Somehow, feel the absolute urge to say how great a morning I had today, but thats all I am allowed. BTW, great morning reminds me, there is a Ayush (Unilever's) center here where you get full body massage at Rs 750, head/ foot massage at Rs 350. Tried their full body thingy, it felt completely relaxing, though did nothing for my chronic lower back pain. Will have to try their foot and head next month. As of this moment, I am broke in the bank and very very high on the happi-meter.

Its a beautiful world.

O Esha. E ki bidombona.

Esha says I dont write anymore. I am suffering from a non-writers block. Outside this room is a boiling cauldron than is Chennai. Inside this room is a pleasant 25 degrees which induces me to sleep. And the brat who I call my daughter, goes to school for 3 hrs in the morning, which is all the time in the day I have to wash, clean, work, write, read, rest, and eat my days meal till dinner time.

Yesterday night, finally, after weeks, I felt I could write once again. That pain which makes my hand itch, not with Harry Potteresque magic, but with my own story, of love and losing, of pain and betrayal. Yeah, my life is a Shakesperan tragi comedy. Only, I am THE FOOL. And no comedy has a happy ending for the Fool, as any student of literature would know.
Yesterday I learnt some things.
1. When Chennai has a power cut, you will boil, singe, roast, burn... all at once.
2. Love is just another four letter word, and the others at least are real.
3. All that I can count on in this world was in this little room last night.
4. When someone agrees to marry me, (me, as in, you-got-no-idea-what-kinda-bitch me), he has worn a noose willingly for life. It takes guts to do that knid of thing, man. I should be grateful to this guy.
5. Hope is a bitch. You get that knife and plunge it deep into her heart or else she will kill you. When you finally get rid of her, you can breathe easy. Dead hope is actually such a release, like a huge weight being lifted from my shoulders.
6. My daughters weight increases exponentially with the minutes I am holding her and walking.
7. Fever can get you a bit of rest from duties of hearth and home.
Even seven. Devils number. One of my favourites. Ill stop there.

Let me tell you a story of a girl who was almost an inspiration to me until she fell from that pedestal for ever. She is almost my age, a bit foolish. She ran away from home and married without completing her college degree at a very young age. Then she ended up having kids, with a workaholic husband, so basically lonely and starving for attention, in the thankless job called motherhood.
Then she did something to redeem herself. She fell in love. Childhood sweethearts who had a slight misunderstanding and ego issues, blah blah, the usual... so they had gone their separate ways. Then they met again, quite by chance and love, unfulfilled at the tender age of 15, blossomed again, this time mature, without ego, and with certainty.
She left her husband, went off with the kids to her parents house. When I first heard of her she was trying to support herself and her kids, at her parents house, but at best ignored, at worst abused, by them at every turn... but steadfast in her will to be with this love of her life.
I admired her then. She had the guts to do something I never could. I wished I could have that foolish impetuousness, the acting-without-thinking guts, the unbending love which makes you want to be together NO MATTER WHAT.
And then years passed, two-three. Her children grew to a schooling age. Where was the money to give them the education that we would like our children to have. Not just one, but two kids. Children are a factor which mothers cant work without. It is the greatest constant in our lives. Every mothers life would be quite quite different in it were not for her kids.
Oh well, there is a happy ending to every story, depending on the angle you look at it. And this one says that she went back to her husband. Some said its the wisest thing she did. Some said she should have done this at the very beginning. For me, it was an end of a fairy tale. Romeo-Juliet turned on its head.

Amar golpoti phurolo.

The Cesarean/ Natural birth Dilemna

When I declared that I would go for an elective Cesarean section, not a few eyebrows went up. Grandmothers, aunts, mother, friends... went all out to convinve me that I was making a mistake. Their arguments ranged from

• you are not going to lose weight afterwards, to
• its just not normal, God didnt want it to be so.

Cesarean birth is favoured by doctors when the baby's size is too large for a vaginal delivery, or when there is a breach position (the baby's position is horizontal or feet first), or if there is some other complication during labour.

A lot is being written nowadays in magazines and Sunday papers about the necessity to stay with nature and prefer natural birth to Cesaream births. Its being alleged that more and more doctors are advising Cesarean births for their own monetary gains. (A normal birth costs 25,000 Indian Rupees as opposed to 75,000 INR for a Cesarean birth. There is the surgeon, of course, a pedietracian in the operating room, one or more assisting doctors, an anaesthesiologist, et al. Plus hospital stay is one to two days more.)

In many Western countries you cannot opt for a Cesarean birth unless its a medical emergency or if the baby is in breach position. But in India it is possible to choose the way you want you baby out.

The call in favour of natural birth rings sincere and vehement. Its all in the motherhood experience, that call claims. You have to feel the pain in order that you know you love your newborn. You have to push push push, for hours, sometimes for days, feel your body tear down under, get epidurals, get yourself cut too, get tongs inside so that the delivering doctor can pull out your baby's head... all in the name of natural birth.

I have heard that for a bonding to develop between mother and child it is necessary to go through the process of a vaginal delivery. I do not know how it is said. That goes to finally prove that an adopted child can never have a bonding with the adoptive mother. A womans capability of maternal love is so all-encompassing that it does not depend where the child comes from or how. It is not only a presence, it is a necessity in women to love. And personally, when I held my daughter in my arms seconds after the delivery, I only felt what all women feel at that moment, absolute awe at the miracle of God.

My lack of labour pain did neither me any harm, nor affected the love between my child and me, in any way. In fact I think its all the stronger because I hold no grudges against life for being unfair on women!!! :))

Also in the hospital, a day after my surgery, I was walking around fine, and had gone to feed thebaby in the nursery. I could hear groans from new mums who had pain moving around... and all the groaning ones had been labouring for hours to give birth. There may be trouble in post operative care and time to get back to normal, and I had to be careful not to do heavy work for three months, but it did not affect me as much as I had feared it would. And yes, I lost weight pretty fast, as I was breast feeding. My child is one and half now and I am back to my pre pregnancy weight.

You hear stories of how someone gave birth in 11 minutes flat. And you hear stories of labour continuing for days, in one case, of my friend, 3 whole days of pushing. You hear stories of how the placenta was too weak and the doctors were just minutes late in deciding that a Cesarean is the best way. You hear stories of babies born dead.

I am a mother, and believe me, when I was pregnant, I did not think of whether I would love my baby or not. I did not think what kind of money my doctor would get. I did not think what is natural and what is organic. I did not think of the pain I would have to go through to give birth normally, or the post operative care in I had a surgery.

The only thought in my mind was, I want a healthy baby. I want my baby out the safest way available to human kind today.

Yes many things are natural. Its perfectly natural to go out in the fields for your morning ablutions, but you dont, do you? Its perfectly natural to live out your life and not go to a doctor, let cancer have its way with your body, chemotherapy is after all not natural. Its natural to hunt for food and gather wild berries, supermarkets are not natural.

I did extensive research before deciding. I heard out stories of friends and relatives. I googled and went to libraries. It took me 6 months to finally decide. I will not tell anyone to not go the natural way... but I will definitely say this- I took an informed decision to have Cesarean and I have not had any problem till date about it.

And I have never felt guilty for being too posh to push.

On Facebook? At your own risk.

Here is an article excerpt from the April 20 Time Magazine.

Forget the widely unloved redesign. Facebook has committed a greater offense. According to a new study by doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and her co-author Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, college students who use the 200 million–member social network have significantly lower grade-point averages (GPAs) than those who do not.

The study, surveyed 219 undergraduate and graduate students and found that GPAs of Facebook users typically ranged a full grade point lower than those of nonusers — 3.0 to 3.5 for users versus 3.5 to 4.0 for their non-networking peers. It also found that 79% of Facebook members did not believe there was any link between their GPA and their networking habits.

Karpinski says she isn't surprised by her findings but clarifies that the study does not suggest that Facebook directly causes lower grades, merely that there's some relationship between the two factors. "Maybe [Facebook users] are just prone to distraction. Maybe they are just procrastinators," Karpinski told TIME.com in a phone interview on Monday, April 13.

Karpinski and Duberstein's study isn't the first to associate Facebook with diminished mental abilities. In February, Oxford University neuroscientist Susan Greenfield cautioned Britain's House of Lords that social networks like Facebook and Bebo were "infantilizing the brain into the state of small children" by shortening the attention span and providing constant instant gratification.

And in his new book, iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind, UCLA neuroscientist Gary Small warns of a decreased ability among devotees of social networks and other modern technology to read real-life facial expressions and understand the emotional context of subtle gestures. Young people are particularly at risk for these problems, he writes, because "young minds tend to be the most sensitive, as well as the most exposed, to digital technology."
Some experts dismiss all studies of Internet use as flawed, since there is no reasonable way to control for the myriad variables that may affect such research. For its part, Facebook declined to address the specific findings of the new study but issued a statement on Monday, April 13, saying that Facebook isn't the only diversion around; TV and video games can be just as distracting as online social networks.

Hee haa haa.

Random thoughts

Its getting hot hot hot in Kolkata. And Im gearing up in my mind to shift to Chennai on a more permanent basis. I said 'more' permanent?? Well, I dont know how Im going to do it. Ill be all alone with baby for the first time. And ALL ALONE. No office to go to (Ill be working from home), no parents to visit, friends... well, one on last count... Not going to office is going to be the biggest change Ill have to deal with. Its an escape for me, more than anything else. And what about the weather. Ive heard horror stories about Chennai summer. Ive lived for two months during my MBA summer project in Chennai and I remember trying very very hard to make it through the nights. :)

The sale season is all but over. South City Mall in Kolkata bankrupted me, almost. My credit card has maxed and I dont have money to pay the bills. So Im glad the SALE signs have come down finally! Recession my big fat... displaying that word in front of a girl is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Its a four letter word after all though. And like all four letter words it gives a perverse pleasure to fall prey to it... beating heart, flushed face, rushing blood, adrenalin, adrenalin... the works! I was just hoping though that they would wait till my next months salary came in. Oh now Ive got to wait till the next sale to get the lovely black and white top I saw at Marks and Spencer.

It rained last night. After days of scorching scathing burning sun, finally lightning and thunder in the evening and then the rain! Last night was pleasant. But its gone back to the rule of the sun this morning. When we had to read poems in school, I always used to wonder about the heartfelt joy of summer. Summer? Summer sun?? Give me winter any day I would think. But rains are what I love most. Even the seething, acid rainwater logged streets wont get me down on a rainy day!!! Cant wait for the rainy season to start.