Babba

It is strange to miss a parent who has not been around for almost as long as they were around. Because it is not so much a missing them as it is a regret of not having the memories one could have had with them.  And there is also the trepidation of whether those memories in the alternate universe where they were still around would be as pleasant, as sweet as one would like to think they would. Because, as Philip Larkin put it, they do f*** us up, our mums and dads (NB: they don’t mean to but they do).

 So it feels strange trying to pen an ode to my Babba. I could have gone the tried and tested Facebook route of posting up a picture of the two of us together in earlier, so much happier days with a “miss you” and waited for the likes (why else does one ever engage in the public narcissism of Facebook?). But, it never was all that simple. To begin with there aren’t that many pictures. He monopolized the camera, a huge contraption from the medieval days, and took pictures of strange compositions of mist and mountains and honestly, they weren’t that good. Oh, he did photograph us a lot as well- but would not let his precious Zenith out of his hands for long- woe betide if I played with it, but there is an overexposed picture of him- so maybe he did allow his lil girl rare liberties.

And there are the plants. Chrysanthemums and Fuchsias, lowly Geraniums and those awful Cacti in their terracotta pots. Rotated once a week or so and put into places where one was sure to trip over them and break a pot and a great to-do was made of it all. Or he would spend a day hunched over them chain smoking, and then complain of his bad back. He used to complain of his bad back a lot- it was usually self-treated with a hot water bottle and something or the other accompanied with lots of sleep in a darkened room.  Though now, when I throw my back out or hunch too long on a computer, I sometimes am inclined to sympathize with his supposed hypochondria.

When I do remember him, it is usually through a haze of cigarette smoke- rising up suspended as blue curtains near the fluorescent lights. He was good at giving up smoking. He did it again and again- though when he finally did, it took him. Funnily enough, tobacco smoke never seemed to stink as much when I was a child. Now it is just rank and dirty.

He used to read. Building battlements of books around him wherever he sat. Anything and mostly everything. And inscribe his name in a flowing hand in those books. Work late into the night fueled by black coffee, cigarettes sometimes leaving the TV on all night, till it showed only static, waking up only to snap at the person switching it off “I am watching it”.

He was not very demonstrative. Indeed, I usually remember him dour and sometimes quite ornery, but there were these little things he would do, like take me for long walk picnics, with an orange and a bottle of water (for me) and his precious Zenith- and tell me stories. And more than once in a while he would materialize the most fun things: little scented erasers, animal shaped pens, beads, little dolls, and such things, once even a sun hat. And when I sat up all night working on my ICSE Geography and History files, he was up too smoking silently but making coffee and sharpening my pencils.

It is strange that after sixteen years of not feeling, then not trying to think and then letting the memories get more and more faint, the patina of time adding a layer of protection from the raw emotion perhaps, that I feel the need to remember him now. But of late, I have been wondering about Babba the person. Maybe it is the one photograph of my then un-bearded father rowing a boat in 1967, laughing at the camera that makes me want to know him. That laugh, that pose is very familiar, yet strange because I know it from personal habit. Parents are people too, you know. People with whole lives that are and should be separate from ours. So I wonder about the person. Would he have liked me, as another person? Would we have found things to connect on? Or would our relationship have just been of father and child, bound more genetically than actually… 

The Ballad of the Higgs Boson.

(Image from the CERN website- http://public.web.cern.ch/public/)

Of the Higgs field non-zero

Only I am the hero.

From the 1960s only predicted

In 2012 CERN scientists detected.

My raison d’etre fundamental

Giving mass to particles elemental.

With no sign of a spin intrinsic,

Possess neither charge color nor charge electric.

When energy with energy collide

I was there, it was spied.

Unstable I don’t  exist long

Gone by the end of this song.

With a field scalar, I my own anti

Weighing in a whopping 125 GeV/c2.

Celebrate my being full throttle

My potential resembles a champagne bottle.

There was a Big Bang

All the doubts scatter.

I am the Higgs Boson

I make the Universe matter.

(Image from Cosmiclog at MSNBC- http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/05/12585302-lighter-side-of-the-higgs-boson?lite)

The woman in the picture

She sits on the ground in the front row. Her hair is neatly parted to the left and tidily draped with her sari.  Her eyes are focused away from the camera- not exactly to the ground, but inward as if she were contemplating the future.

(My grandmother is in the white sari with the dark border, her head covered,  in the front row, fifth from the left)

I have often looked at the picture and wondered what she is thinking of. In her eyes, the set of her mouth, the way she holds her arm on her lap I see glimpses of a cousin or an aunt or a fleeting likeness to my mother. She is my grandmother, my mother’s mother.

But in the picture, she is not. She is just a young woman, beginning her life. So many dreams, so many hopes, so much potential. There will be six children, so many grandchildren- but of course she does not know yet. Maybe she is focused on the more immediate Quit India Movement, or some political meeting she will attend where she will meet the tall, handsome freedom fighter she is going to spend her life with. Or maybe she contemplates the intricacies of Math or Logic from a lesson not long ago. Maybe her mind lingers on some philosophical discussion she had with her peers. Or perhaps her mind is engaged with the more mundane, some forgotten chore or other.

I have no way of knowing. She died a long time ago, when I was eight. All I really have is this picture and one other and disconnected memories. Memories of a UNICEF birthday card sent every December. Memories of her threatening to tie me and my cousin up if we continued bothering our mothers. And then a half-seen shadow in the room on the roof after she was gone - I just knew it was her- maybe I was thinking of her.

I try to look for glimpses of her when I look into the mirror, but I do not see any. I suppose the fraction of her genes which I inherited are present in more subtle forms. Perhaps it is some part of my temperament. Perhaps it is my love for tart food. Or the preference of a color over the other. Or maybe, a propensity to some malaise. Whatever, it is- a part of the woman in the picture is me. And so maybe, that I never knew her much, nor have anything more tangible to remember her by does not matter so much after all.

M F Hussain dies and other observations

The Indian media and a lot of the general public often remind me of Gus Portokalos, the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding who always found a way of attributing everything to having been invented , discovered or originated from the Greeks.  The desire to associate an Indian connection with everything is almost as strong if not stronger.

We have been quick to claim the Nobel Prizes of  Hargobind Khorana and S Chandrasekhar though they did their lives work in the USA. But these are at least direct connections. Sunita Williams  is claimed as one of our own- through a more indirect connection ( her Slovenian roots are not mentioned much). The president of Mauritius  is a local boy from Bihar. Every child of Indian descent winning the US Spelling Bee a national achievement. Neil Kashkari also has an Indian connection and of course Vikram Pandit and Indra Nooyi are our own. 

So one would think that actual Indian-grown-Internationally-renowned talent would be lionized a great deal more. After all one does not have to look for some tenuous connection to go into the throes of Indian- connection induced ecstasy, like with Obama's pocket Hanuman charm. So Salman Rushdie should have statues made in his honor as should M F Hussain.
But the former's book was banned in our land, the second country to do so. While India's Picasso  has died in exile. Both exiled for "offending" the sensibilities of people too ignorant to understand their work. Now, while Rushdie may yet earn his way back into being another Indian-doing-great-things maybe by winning the Nobel- the Booker of Bookers is obviously not enough, Hussain unfortunately has passed on.

Food from the Hills

( on the urging of my friend Kathakali, who is statistician, poet chef extraordinaire, for her  blog here)

Thanks LBK for reminding me of this food.

________________________________________________________________

“That is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die.” Spake Rudyard Kipling in Namgay Doola..

While I still have a lot more of wandering the world left to do, not planning to die as of now, yet I do keep returning to some of the tastes of my childhood.  They say the food of Kumaun is like its people- simple, yet wholesome. Neither fancy ingredients nor elaborate exotic spices characterize it, instead there is a comforting simplicity in those foods. 

One of the easiest things to prepare is Aloo ka Guthka.  You need a few large potatoes, some chopped green chilies (the finer you chop them, the hotter they are), cumin seeds, ground coriander seed, asafetida, turmeric, mustard oil and  salt to taste. Oh and you will need lots of cilantro leaves.

Boil the potatoes in a pressure cooker or bake then in the microwave. Skin and keep aside, cubing to largish pieces. You may want to slightly undercook them, rather than overcook- the taste is great either way, but presentation better if the potatoes are not falling to pieces.

In a heavy bottomed iron wok, or a kadhai, heat more than a smidgeon of mustard oil, till a warm nutty aroma fills the room. Toss in the cumin seeds watching them splutter in a frenzy of smoky abandon. Add a trace of asafetida, you will know its done when it ceases being malodorous.  Throw in a few green chilies and let them blacken. Now add your potatoes, carefully coating them with the oil and spices. Add the salt, coriander powder and turmeric. Kumauni cooking uses turmeric liberally not only because it is a wonder-spice but also because the yellow it unleashes in food is an auspicious color. Coat the potatoes evenly with these condiments. Cover and reduce the heat till done. Serve garnished with the green chilies and cilantro leaves.

You may replace the green chilies with dried red chilies- but you will need to fry them with the cumin seeds and asafetida. If you really want to go fancy(and authentic Kumauni) you can try to find a little known Tibetan herb called jumbo. Though, frankly, I wonder if its inclusion in the meal is more to evoke images of the earliest Bhutia traders who carried tea and herbs from Tibet and staples from the lower Himalayas back. Most aloo guthka recipes mention jumboo, yet cheerfully dish out the mostly authentic guthka without it. Oh, and if you do go the jumboo way, let me know where you found it.

Relish the aloo guthka with some Kakdi Raita. Creamy yogurt, cool cucumber, a trace of kala namak, a tinge of turmeric for the auspicious yellow and a soupcon of sugar, tempered with ground mustard seed for the kick combine to make this dip fit for the kings. Just be sure to grate the cucumber and squeeze out the excess water before stirring it into the yogurt. Add the salt and sugar and turmeric and ground mustard. Keep it a while to let the mustard work its magic. Then garnish with chopped cilantro- green chilies if you wish and some roasted ground cumin. 

What began on 9/11...

... is hopefully over now. I remember watching the twin towers tumble down in the Meghdoot Hostel Common room. It was the most horrible thing I had ever seen on TV. And 9/11 shaped most of my adult life. Finding a job,  moving here to the US.
I have never flown on a plane as an adult without that Orange Alert Security.  Never known a world without DHS and its forms. Without the "... are you a terrorist" question . Or the SEVIS reporting structure. Or almost felt criminal when producing paperwork for every government document here and elsewhere.
I hope  the news of Osama Bin Laden dead changes the world for the better as his heinous acts did for the worse.


And I am so glad my favorite world leader brought the world this news.
This is one of those moments that is defining in world history. And the feeling of relief for being on the side of the good guys, the non-terrorists is very palpable.

Lesson 4: So Feminism did not ever do anything for you?

Seriously? Yes, very seriously? You mean to say you actually believe it. Well, good for you!

You say it is because access to education is no big thing- the women in your family have been educated for generations before feminism and will continue to be so till the ashes of feminism get cold. So really, it does not matter to you that you have the freedom to study what you want to attend any educational institution you like is not such a big deal. I do not know about your foremothers, who I am sure were enterprising women, but my grandmother (who also happened to be highly educated, and yes feminism did a lot of things for me and my mother) needed her brother to champion her cause for higher studies and then needed special dispensation from the University to be allowed to study Mathematics, because it was considered out of the brain capacity of women. And not only her, but also that representative of higher education for women, Marie Curie, the winner of not one but two Nobel prizes, had to leave Poland to move to Paris where she was allowed to study science. But hey, what does it matter travel broadens the mind.

Being an equal inheritor of property and wealth with your brothers does not mean much? Because your family always made provisions for their women. Well, wouldn’t it take only one or two people to change that dynamic in your family too (with all due respect to their sense of justice).  After all what a benevolent family hath given it can as easily take away.

And really having the right to vote does not matter much either, right? And women politicians should really stay at home preferably barefoot and pregnant. Because all this stuff about equal rights is just talk and what actually counts is privilege by accident of birth. You deserve to enjoy the privilege because you were born to it, the other women, tough luck to them.

Access to equal medical care, birth control or the right to manage your own contraception is also no biggie. Of course not. It is so much nicer when your husband or the men in your family have the right to grant you the privileges to call your body your own- after all what are you but a vessel mostly for helping give brith to more masters of the human race.


And you never had any problems ascending the corporate ladder at the workplace despite being a woman. Because you had a really good maid and excellent support in the shape of your mother, mother-in-law to substitute for day care. And it is people's bad luck if they do not have it. And maternity leave is for losers- because men never get medical leave for sickness- medical leave that becomes half pay and then without pay depending on how long they are away from work. After all women must choose between family and work- just like men do- what is that? Men don't, because more often than not they have someone managing their homes for them. I guess there is equality, one gender gets more of it. 

Oh feminism really does nothing for you because you are a man. And it really is not a big deal that you have to conform to rules as rigid as those that govern the other half of the human race. After all it is great to always have the burden of being the provider the hunter the gatherer the decider. And it is even more wonderful to not be allowed to have any kind of weakness. And your spouse is an inferior not a equal- but that is how it is- with you in charge of her, like with any other possession.

What is that? It is not feminism that bothers you, rather that those pesky feminists look for equality even while not giving up their seats on the bus? I agree that is a huge deal. I am sure they would love to give those up as long as they were guaranteed penny for penny the exact same wage for the exact same work, the right to be respected as much as men are, the right to be heard without being viewed through the lens of the weaker sex, the autonomy over their bodies and decisions regarding those, not being objectified as things, being as human. Oh and they are “respected” if they do not cross over the goddess line and continue being nurturing giving and sacrificing? Well, what if they do not want to be objects of worship, rather allowed to be human- you will not allow that.

Anyhow, please pay my respects to everyone else under that rock with you. Privilege is wonderful when you have it. Not so much if you view people who do while you do not.

On Blogging

In the life of a blogger

There comes a time

When the virtual world

Loses it charms

Blogger and its new templates

Even the lure of monetization

Or adWords

Seem lack lustre.

The prospect of moving to wordpress

Or getting your OWN DOMAIN

( at a price, what else?)

Is just not attractive

Anymore.

This is usually the same day

When you suddenly find

Everyone has a blog

And they blog religiously

And your least favorite cousins'

Mundane musings

About an even more boring life

Are eagerly read AND commented on

By more people

In the last week

Than have even clicked on

Or lingered

( there is an app for those stats, didn't you know)

On your (hopefully)

More literal, witty and amusing

and less idiotic pieces

and heartfelt poetry 

In all of the last year!

Existential Crisis

Suddenly I am not who I thought I was. Rather who the daily newspaper said I was. One of the roughly half a billion people born under the sign of the archer. So I am no longer painfully honest, nor child like, nor brightly oblivious to others nor any of the other things wise folk like Linda Goodman, or Bejan Daruwala said I had. Worse I think I am no longer fiery like fire signs.

 Maybe they have a new element  ( let it one of the cooler ones from the Android Alchemy game, maybe Radium if not....) for me- after all I am the newest of new, an Ophiucan. Or Serpentauran( sounds cooler). Actually I am not sure what to think of it. Half man half horse is very cool in a Greek mythology kind of way. But a person wrestling a serpent is either foolhardy or someone who needs a PETA intervention.  

And now I wonder if I am even compatible with Kalyan, who by his Taurean bullishness remains his sign. Or are we more compatible now than ever( provided we were zodiacally so in the first place). And then what becomes of my horoscope- and just when everything was supposed to begin to be awesome. Woe is me.

So pardon me while I make a few human sacrifices to some non-Babylonian deity, and ponder on who I really am. Though I am really glad I did not get any tattoos nor spend money on that sign-themed gold pendant.

Long time no see....

We laughed

Lived a little

Parted

Our separate ways

Distance

More than physical now

Do relationships

Also have expiry dates?

At the Dali......

This picture is so hypnotic. The Hallucinogenic Toreador makes me look on and yet on into it.

What I find amazing about The Disintegration of The Persistence of Memory is how it seems to move as I look at it. Every one of the elements of the older picture has another layer underneath it.....And the idea that this represents the quantum nature of the universe is just fantastic.

Apparatus and Hand is almost profoundly disturbing. And yet so fascinating.

Of course the one painting I would like to see is The Persistence of Memory

Conversation

Gulls will be gulls.

Past tense.....

Sometimes I run into her
Wandering down
Those half remembered hallways
Of Memory
My decade ago self
With her naivete
At the ways of the world-
Only ignorance now
Ignorance from knowing yet not knowing how to live it.
Seeming innocence
Of everything
Outside that cocoon
Gauche - adulthood too new
Yearning to go out
Fearing what might be
I see her look around
Excited yet scared
Wondering
take those first steps
into life
loneliness
heartbreak
love...
So from the secure
Confines of the Future
I encouragingly smile
As she timidly sets forth.

Greener pastures.....

Oh sure, now that I am happily (well mostly) part of a couple I can pontificate about how the single life is not too bad! But I am not going to. The single life is not, not too bad. It is pretty good. And fulfilling and very complete. For the record people are not half circles floating around waiting to find their perfect fits and so on( I cannot for the life of me remember where I read about that, but in those days, I used to feel like an incomplete square or triangle with all these semicircles).

We are fed this lie from the beginning. That there is someone out there made just for each one of us. That the default state is the state with that someone. And of course this is a very hetereonormative myth- the whole opposites attract, for every yin there is a yang and so on. Every princess in pink has a knight on a charger dashing up to meet her. And the single state is looked down on- the suffix un-attached to words, as if it were not as desirable. And of course folk lore and literature is rife with this element of undesirableness-  villains are mostly the lonely, unattached kinds  (Macbeth and his lady were an exception, then she went and killed herself to balance things out).

So the pursuit of happiness seems the pursuit of that elusive other- labeled the significant other. So much so that people spend a major portion of their lives looking and still looking. And all too often finding the wrong someone. And settling, adjusting, compromising , sacrificing peace of mind, material resources time, all to maintain that illusion of not being alone.

Which, if actually analyzed is the default state. After all one is born a singularity and except for special circumstances dies that way too. Every single instance of life is a unique event experienced by one alone. After all even if you had someone to see a sunset with, only you would feel it your unique way- the same applying to opera, a book, even life itself. For one’s life is just that- one’s own life. The stage where one is the star. Shared by other folk from time to time- but essentially a one-person act in its entirety.  Everyone else is supporting cast, with their own one-star plays where you may play the supporting role.

Oh yes the selfish gene dictates the need to pass it on- so the desire to mate is deeply ingrained.  But that is a physical necessity, not a mental state. The latter is socially imposed. And yet the real natural state is s looked down upon. And this is regardless of culture- despite some places being more individual-inclined than others.  

So why do we fall for this lie? Or let me wonder even more simply, why did I fall for it? And in the hunt for that someone- who by the way turned up when I decided to be me- this twist in the tale in totally incidental to the point I am making, (not some sort of lesson as in  “The Alchemist” or some such deeper philosophy- to the effect that the fairy tale ending is there and it can be yours for 19.99) – why did I tend to overlook just how completely awesome my life is, just by virtue of being my life. Which of course is not to say that the not-single state is any inferior to the prior single state, at least not in my case. It is awesome, just as the last was awesome too. What was not awesome was the fact that I did not appreciate the awesomeness for a long time. Yes, the grass is greener on the other side- and maybe in some cases it is a superior quality of grass. But it does not become better, just because it is on the other side. 

The Rain Gods must be so angry......

As an Indian I have grown up on a steady diet of how our neighbor to the West is funding terror and trying to destroy us by infiltrating Kashmir. The more  I read the history of the case, the more complicated it seems- as indeed are most matters of geopolitics. There are no black and white areas- just varying shades of grey- the perspective on which shifts depending on where one is located. So I do not know who was wrong in the first place, if indeed such a point in time can be fond. And right now I do not even think it matters 

Right now Pakistan is facing what the UN calls the greatest humanitarian crisis in its history, with over 20 million displaced and  thousands dead. With  wide swathes of land engulfed, the country faces imminent criss in the shape of deadly water-borne diseases that only grows worse as the days go by. And yet, it seems to be a largely forgotten place. Foreign aid is slow in coming, much slower than in other disasters. Everything seems to be blamed at this lack of response, right from a criminally corrupt government, to former aiding and abetting of terrorism  to even poor marketing of the crisis. 

Personally, I know that for a fortunate displacement in Geography this disaster, like any other humanitarian disaster, could have happened to me. And by the common humanity we share it does impact me. And every petty political excuse of not helping erodes my innate humaneness. I appeal to the few who read this blog( if any do) to help.

Here are a few places one can give aid and know it is money well spent.

Non-believers giving aid

 A list from the New York Times

Why I blog

Staring at his image
Narcissus bloomes eternally
With no clear pool, I blog

Walking in your shoes

I walked for a mile
Wearing your shoes on my feet
My feet just hurt now.

Temple Grandin on TED

This review has spoilers, but we do not call them so because everyone and their other half (or quarter or eighth or any fraction you like) has seen the film.

The best thing about watching THE FILM OF THE YEAR after it becomes THE FILM OF THE YEAR is that your reaction to it becomes so easy to classify. You either LOVE it enough to want marry your first born/leave your inheritance/ write odes on blogger or compose tweets to the director or HATE it enough to do the same. The decision depends on whether you are a dittohead who swears by what they said after omg!!!! at the Golden Globes/ SAGs/ Oscars/ replace film appreciation society or if your strongest opinions are expressed in internet forums expressing alternate opinions.

So it was only providential (ok Richard Dawkinseal- wicked atheist and all that!) that we got turned away from the 3D theater two times before watching Avatar. Or in Na'avi terms "We weren't ready."

Only that the reaction is not quite as easy to classify. I mean with Slumdog Millionaire, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (or is it the dragon that crouches) even No Country for Old Men it was easy for me to be a sellout. But this movie is harder.

Visually it is mind blowingly brilliant, awe-inspiringly gorgeous. And for goodness' sake the guy invented a whole language and evolved flora and fauna with Latin classifications( I guess even the Na'avi could not beat Linnaeus) to live in the alien world- which I must say is impressively alien. Where else can you have this excitingplanet with an unbreathable atmosphere and humanish creatures which are interconnected to all life. Where else but in vintage Asimov( Green patches anyone?). Hey but that is the good part. Also the cat people. I cannot help but have only good feelings for a feline-friendly director.

The innate human-ness of everything is the other part. Noble savages. Extremely evil humans bent on mining unobtainium at any cost. That too. A whole language and then UNOBTAINIUM, James Cameron, you could have done better! And the whole former bad guy turns Toruk Makto after learning the way.

But it is not just awesome looking film with crappy story. Nope, that classification is too simplified. Nor is it jerky director's post white guilt feel good film- it lacks the gravitas to be so. Both gravitas and story.

Because it is for lack of a better word uber-cool. In an Apple Products kind of way. Uber-cool and way too designed for the function it should serve. Though unlike Apple i-Pads, every Pandoran being has USBs and ports , even those that connect to a universal grand central docking station.

Jake Billi or Gup-na'avi?

Sita Sings the Blues- Nina Paley

A must must must see

http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net/

http://givingaid.richarddawkins.net/

Sir Isaac: To Commemorate Newton's Birthday

Will not go
Unless something makes it
Will not rest
Unless made to either
Activity provoking reactivity
In apples
And keeping orbs like planets together
Even non-orbs
While what goes up must come down
Removing heliocentric doubts.
White light has seven colors
Generalizedly expanding something raised to an nth power
Voila a power series born
All the while integrating and differentiating
All done without a computer or mechanical aid
Nor electricity
Theologian, Alchemist, Physicist, Astronomer, natural philosopher
“boy playing on the seashore”.

NOTE: Newton would refer to himself as a boy playing on the seashore.

Have a Relaxing Time!

moar funny pictures

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

And you are called, What?

“I am sorry ma’am we cannot find any record of your cat here”

Well, that was because he was under Kalyan’s last name and his “real” name. So we looked for Leo, under Vedantam and managed to get a Vet’s appointment.

My cat has a nickname. How could we help it. We named him Leonardo when we got him from a friend. And added Licorice on Anoushka’s suggestion- black cat and all and the Bolt got tacked on because he runs fast ( re- TS Eliot- a cat should have three names). But he is also very cute and somehow we found ourselves calling him Guppy. Which became Guppanova, Guppitzki, The Gup, Gupton and took on other forms like Guppalu, Guppanu- which became Paanu and the crowning jewel in this nomenclature Giovanni Guppy- don’t ask why, it sounds so aristocratic. And he is not the only pet so called, my dog Bink was called Binks, Kalu Binks, Astro Bink Comet Doglet.

But then, my family has strange nick-naming traditions. At least my immediate family is interesting in what all they call each other. Take my mother for instance. She is called Chhotki or the little one, but she is trhe middle child. Her younger sister is Badki- the elder one and the youngest is Nanhki- or the tiny one. Which would maybe make some kind of convoluted sense. But her younger brother is Chhotkan- the little son, but he is older than Badki the elder one. As for my eldest uncle, let’s not go there, Ok? My aunt, who is elder to my mother, has a nickname that does not fit into the established nomenclature. She is called Kunni, indeed so much that no one, not even her coworkers know her as Vidushi.

And the town I grew up in was not too different either. One of parent’s friends had a son called Bittu. Which was fine, till another friend had a daughter they called Bittu too. So these two, due to the unoriginality of their parents came to be known as Ladka Bittu (the boy Bittu ) and Ladki Bittu (the girl Bittu). Names that they carried right through college- both of them had the misfortune of studying in the same town we all grew up in and going to the college their parents and parents colleagues taught in. Must have worked wonders for their confidence and esteem I am sure. Now the girl Bittu had two other sisters, who rhymingly enough are called Kittu and Mitthu- I know all their real names now- Facebook is useful sometimes.

So with this backdrop (the Bittus were much older to me), it is hardly surprising that when I was born, my name and nick name had been predetermined. Alankrita, I am officially. But at home I am Muskan. Which is pretty good, considering that one of my cousins is called Peachy at home- and by the same fruity analogy, her daughter is Plum ( I wonder if that is what prevents her producing Apples and maybe an Orange or so). But Muskan is too much a “real” name. So it dimunitizes to Muku or Meeku or other variations thereof. With the name handicap, I learned to compartmentalize early enough. So I was always Alankrita in school. I would pretend not to know any Muskan. Till they started with Alan, then horror of horrors Alu. MBA saved the day and I became Allie to most people. Till I came here and am now known as Critter! Yup that is what my professor calls me ( that and Crit). And worse horror, that is what his collaborators know me as- I have been called Critter at AOM meetings!

I was really surprised to learn that Kalyan does not have a nickname. He has been plain vanilla Kalyan all his life. Not anymore! Kalu is just the beginning. He responds to Avya ( that actually came from a watching of the film Eklavya, We are NOT fans of any of the Bachchan trifecta) and has had various prefixes( not to be mentioned here!!!) attached to it. Lately he has taken to answering to KCV with the Bond intonation. Oh and Red Rocket Singh too (we went for a screening of Rocket Singh- and I liked it please do not think any less of me!- and he used to work for a company called Red Rocket Solutions).

So what is this thing about nicknames? Pragya told me about how the Hungarians have name days where they may be named from a pre-determined list for the day they are born. Or a custom in Bali where names follow the order Wayan, Made, Nyoman, Ketut(she had it from Eat Pray Love). She told me how the Bengalis have Dak and Bhalo naams, a concept which Jhumpa Lahiri has so nicely explored in The Namesake. But isn’t it interesting how we try to make names our own by adding touches of sometimes maddening originality ( I knew of a Bhaiyoo, who says this nickname scarred him emotionally).

So what is your name, rather, what should I call you?

In a New York Minute

There are some places

That you cannot take in

As you stop and stare

Because everything moves

And is gone in a flash

Stop and Stare

And miss

Life going by.

A Princess' tale

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. In a desert kingdom, known for the valor of its men and the beauty of its women. Threatened by an empire spreading its influence, growing like an ink-stain on fine parchment. Her people were bound by the ancient codes of honor, valor and family. It could have been a fairytale. It is a legend. But for reasons quite different.

The eldest daughter-in-law of a princely state, in a world which respected its women for the male progeny they produced, she did not meekly go about the business of producing a male heir. Or even involve herself in political play and intrigue that always does abound at the confluence of wealth and power. She was not interested in jewelry nor fine clothing nor indeed in other comforts that the considerable wealth of her parents and later in-laws could buy. It was so very different from what everyone else was used to. True she was sweet, soft spoken and very kind. But these fell flat at how markedly different she was from everyone else around her. Uninvolved in jealousies and petty intrigues, uncaring of riches or poverty, uninterested in friends or even family, she inhabited a very different, almost parallel universe. It must have irked those around her to find her thus.

And then she began an earnest search for her divine lover. A simpler carnal passion, they would probably have understood, even while condemning it. But this was way too strange. Because it was not some quirk that could be kept in wraps. Rather, it involved a stream of mendicants and holy men and women of nondescript backgrounds moving in and out of the royal palace- the halls of which were not really for the hoi polloi. There were very public demonstrations of what most definitely was unseemly behavior for highborn women (though in fact there was very little a high born woman could do and not earn censure).

I am inclined to think it was not so much what she did, or did not do that earned the ire of those around her, as it was her supreme indifference to all the worldly things around her. She had been born a woman, to a certain role, defined as it was for others by the constraints of her society, yet she chose instead to live life by her own definition. She did not accept the mantle she was supposed to don, rather determine it for herself. And yet, she was not rebellious nor strident. Instead she quietly tended to her duties, and then retreated to her own universe. It was the silence, the lack of interest in everything else around her that must have been a sore trial.

How could someone not be moved by the glamor of her position. Yet she was. For she was held in thrall by something she perceived to be much greater. Stories always grow around things that are not quite as they seem. And what may be unusual in one age, becomes miraculous in another, colored as it is by romance, tinged by history. Such tales abounded, but they are probably not as amazing as the fact that this woman quietly, stubbornly lived her life her way- as much she could given her constraints- and then passed on- to even greater glory. For isn’t it something that nearly 500 years later while her kingdom is dust like the shifting sand on which it stood, and those so important personages who spent time cajoling, convincing then forcing her to be ordinary like them are known only because of their association with her. And the dulcet tones of Mirabai echo down history more substantial than her life was.

Pale Blue Dot

Carl Sagan

From the mouths of babes

My cousin thinks I am a bad influence. On her and I think on her children too. Not that I really care much, though the kids are rather nice. Kids usually are, then they grow up and the genes take over. I think my cousin is too uptight to have kids anyway. Or be around them. But, since life is unfair, someone as kid-unfriendly as her has two nice young-uns ,while I, with all the vicarious experience I get in child rearing by reading Mommy blogs, do not have any (life’s unfairness and the fact that I am totally incapable to be responsible for anything that requires more work than a house plant, but like I said, life is unfair).

You know, it is greatly ironic( how else can it be) that those who do not have kids know just how to rear them, because parents are always wrong. Unlike business, in this field, those who cannot do, those who can, preach. Take my cousin for instance. She is constantly hassled by what seems very immaterial things. There is an almost obsessive concern for what her offspring eat, when they do so and what the contents of their food are. Nutrition aside, meal plans for snacks, in allergy-free kids is probably over doing it a little. The same concern goes for their school work and then goes really over the top in screening out “inappropriate” content that they may hear or see or dream of. Indeed, for the last she is so straitlaced that I really wonder if the stork brought them rather than them being conceived in the usual way. Most TV is out for them, unless it is very insipid cartoons- did you know that even Disney can be suggestive? Almost all music after 1950 is banned. While books and magazines, those bugaboos of modern laxness are very suspiciously censored before letting their unsullied eyes view them.

She has always maintained that this is entirely my fault. Had I not enlightened here about the birds and the bees at the tender age of thirteen, she would not have become so uptight about it. It is a reasoning that defies logic. I also taught her algebra- I don’t see a similar “Math is evil” reaction. Personally I think the very Victorian morals of the convent we studied in, influenced her much more than it did me. That and a certain proclivity to Puritanity. Whatever, it is, this obsession I find almost insane. After all there is a world outside and those two are not going to be insulated forever. Something that was borne out rather recently.

Last Sunday, we were at the Mall. It was gorgeous blue and gold day- perhaps camouflaging the thunderbolt to hit. For that is what it is when a lovely little three year old girl, shouts, in a fetching voice (she was always told to speak clearly) across the line for Dippin Dots “Mama, what is incest?”

There was a moment of absolute silence. The world must have gone by outside, but in that instant I understood what perfect silence really means! I don’t meant that all sounds stopped. But they seemed to have. And my cousin was a sight. She turned a bright red, slowly taking on a purple hue. Her mouth opened, then closed silently- it was a goldfish impression par excellence. She sputtered, she choked and then with a “You…you…” flung at me hastily took the little one’s hand and marched us out into the parking lot into the car. “But..” began the elder one to be silenced by a glare. The younger one tucked into her strawberry Dippin’ Dots we had not paid for.

“It’s all your fault” said my cousin “ you and your ideas about letting kids know everything.” But ideas do not usually infect people, unless they are implemented. And I was not depraved enough, despite my modern ways, to talk to a little child about age-inappropriate things. She knew that, so did not carry on that line of thought. “I know you don’t say things like that in front of her, but still.” She turned to her son “What have you been talking about?” The poor oblivious kid, not used to such lividity started a “Sorry, but what have I done.” Now it was the little ones turn “What were you asking”. “What is incest”, the dreaded I –word again. My cousins turned a deeper shade of scarlet and launched into a breathless tirade on how she was way too young to know things like that and what was the world coming to and how could she disappoint her mother so and why it was her that had these problems and why her husband was at the conference and how depraved the American education system was and why I was looking so smug.

By the time the tirade was over, we pulled in to the garage at home. Her ire wound down, I decided to step in “Sweetheart, where did you read the word”. “In my book” this was sex education super early and in a red state too, I wonder what they were teaching tots in the blue states. “Bring it here” and so she did. There beside the picture of an arthropod, was the I-word. INSECT.

Barack Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize.

You know what, Obama won the Nobel Peace prize. And you know what else. Learn to live with it. Gracefully that is. Because when the ultra right side with the Hamas and Taliban loonies to condemn it, they reveal just how envious they really are. When bloggers of the “hum kitne awesome hain” variety who showcase even wedding announcements from the New York Times as an example of how South Asians have gone up the in the world, not to mention claiming ownership for every even fourth generation Indian Child winning a spelling bee, they look ridiculous. And when ordinary bloggers use some very ridiculous comparison to Bush, they exhibit that disease of have-opinion-will-express. (Not a bad thing I am doing it here!!!!!) Which in itself would not be wrong or bad, if only they did not sound as ignorant as they do. And all this dissent or outrage makes the people seem mean spirited. Really, would it kill them to be polite, and not kind of make their envy obvious. The first two categories envy I can understand,( not condone but understand) the last lot, if it is blogworthy material they need, why not remember the age old adage of speaking because of having something to say as wise men do rather than speaking to say something like fools do.
Because, lets face it, The BO is the President of the United States and HE JUST WON THE 2009 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. And made a very nice acceptance speech about it too.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And by the way, “accomplishment “ is not awarded in the Nobel- otherwise there would be no poor dying in the slums of Calcutta ( Mother Theresa ), global warming would be gone ( RK Pachauri- this is a shout out to the “hum kitne awesome hain websites) the Middle East would be an oasis of peace ( Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat) there would be no racial discrimination ( MLK anyone), it recognizes efforts being made for the process. The Committee spelled it out very clearly their reasons for nominating the BO (In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honouring his intentions more than his achievements....). And since you dissenters were not getting it anyhow, just be happy for the guy. Ok?

Clerihew!

This morning Obama opens his eyes
To the Nobel Peace Prize
Lech Walesa screams "Too soon"
This happens when you bomb the moon.