Just heard from our publisher that Amazing India has sold 7000 copies! It has gone into reprint already - in just 3 short months! We are so thrilled, and a bit dazed. It’s nice to know that in just 3 months the book has managed to reach so many children. Big thanks to the folks at Scholastic for such a wonderful job – at both printing it well and at using their school network to ensure that the book was really OUT there! All we wish for now is that it would be picked up by retail stores as well.
We worked on Amazing India at a time of great personal loss and sorrow, and it was sheer grit that kept us going. But the book was also a wonderful distraction, absorbing us entirely into itself, like a dark, comforting current.
There are many reviews like the one in the Timeout, the Deccan Herald, in the CLCD, the Newshouse and Robinage.
Don't their word for it, though, and go out and order your own copy at a bookstore near you!(Some stores have it, but others need a small prod to make them procure it...)
Monday, October 05, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Amazing India at the CLCD!
Uma Krishnaswami, a writer and illustrator who lives in America has reviewed Amazing India for the Children's Literature Comprehensive Database.
She writes:
India is a treasure trove of diversity on almost every front—artistic, historic, cultural, linguistic, geological, ecological, and more. Here is a paperback reference book that manages to pack an incredible range of facts and figures into just over 70 pages, along with a vast array of colorful spot illustrations, maps, and “fact file” sidebars. Organized by region, each spread deals with a single state, presenting a wide range of interesting tidbits of information about it.
The spread on mountainous Himachal Pradesh, for example, mixes landform and history by telling us that Punjab’s Beas river originates in the high passes of this state, and was probably called the Hyphasis by Alexander’s soldiers “who refused to go any further east from this point.” The capital in exile of the Dalai Lama, snow leopards, Nicholas Roerich and the Roerich Pact under which countries agree not to bomb each other’s cultural monuments, and a village that claims to be the home of the world’s oldest democratic system—all these find room in two densely packed pages on this one state.
Each one of the twenty-eight states and seven Union Territories is treated in this way, so that readers can learn in quick sequence about a chariot-shaped sun temple, prehistoric rock paintings, and the endangered Olive Ridley turtle. The back matter contains additional questions for the curious as well as two consumable pages for young travelers. While some of the text in the book assumes a basic knowledge of the country, much of it, presented in an encyclopedic format, will be fascinating even to readers for whom this is new material. Presented from an Indian perspective, Amazing India offers a refreshing take on a colorful, interesting part of the world.
TO find out more about the CLCD, click here.
She writes:
India is a treasure trove of diversity on almost every front—artistic, historic, cultural, linguistic, geological, ecological, and more. Here is a paperback reference book that manages to pack an incredible range of facts and figures into just over 70 pages, along with a vast array of colorful spot illustrations, maps, and “fact file” sidebars. Organized by region, each spread deals with a single state, presenting a wide range of interesting tidbits of information about it.
The spread on mountainous Himachal Pradesh, for example, mixes landform and history by telling us that Punjab’s Beas river originates in the high passes of this state, and was probably called the Hyphasis by Alexander’s soldiers “who refused to go any further east from this point.” The capital in exile of the Dalai Lama, snow leopards, Nicholas Roerich and the Roerich Pact under which countries agree not to bomb each other’s cultural monuments, and a village that claims to be the home of the world’s oldest democratic system—all these find room in two densely packed pages on this one state.
Each one of the twenty-eight states and seven Union Territories is treated in this way, so that readers can learn in quick sequence about a chariot-shaped sun temple, prehistoric rock paintings, and the endangered Olive Ridley turtle. The back matter contains additional questions for the curious as well as two consumable pages for young travelers. While some of the text in the book assumes a basic knowledge of the country, much of it, presented in an encyclopedic format, will be fascinating even to readers for whom this is new material. Presented from an Indian perspective, Amazing India offers a refreshing take on a colorful, interesting part of the world.
TO find out more about the CLCD, click here.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Our target audience approves!
A book review by Sidhharth Bugtani, a 9-year-old student of PG Garodia School, Mumbai
Sunday, September 06, 2009
The naming of things
They watch tv together – Malayalam channels in general and Idea Star Singer, a reality show, in particular. They find the anchor woman Ranjini pretty, rivetting and yet hilarious. Her affected Malayalam accent makes them call her a ‘foreigner’. They gasp at her chandelier earrings and laugh at her ‘acting’. 
The other day n came home from grandma’s and said, “Ammu’s tv isn’t working… "
"Hmm," I said, staring into my comp.
"It’s ruthless,” she added.
I looked up and asked, “What? Ruthless?”
Amit, overhearing us from his desk, said, “Ruthless? But how can a tv…”
“Yeah,” she said dismissively, continuing to fiddle with the scab on her knee, “Fully ruthless, it is.”
Mom had been complaining about her tv and how it was on its last legs. Maybe n meant it wasn’t working and was therefore tormenting her? Ruthless that way? My child was a po-et and I didn’t know-et?
This morning while having breakfast, from out of the blue, she said sleepily, “I told you, no, Ammu’s tv is ruthless. It's not that. It's hopeless. It’s a hopeless tv.”
Ah, I see. The penny drops.
The other day n came home from grandma’s and said, “Ammu’s tv isn’t working… "
"Hmm," I said, staring into my comp.
"It’s ruthless,” she added.
I looked up and asked, “What? Ruthless?”
Amit, overhearing us from his desk, said, “Ruthless? But how can a tv…”
“Yeah,” she said dismissively, continuing to fiddle with the scab on her knee, “Fully ruthless, it is.”
Mom had been complaining about her tv and how it was on its last legs. Maybe n meant it wasn’t working and was therefore tormenting her? Ruthless that way? My child was a po-et and I didn’t know-et?
This morning while having breakfast, from out of the blue, she said sleepily, “I told you, no, Ammu’s tv is ruthless. It's not that. It's hopeless. It’s a hopeless tv.”
Ah, I see. The penny drops.
Friday, August 14, 2009
come here, i say!
since no one will ever accuse me of being too feminine, and since n is growing up to be smthing of a geek, i find i have no problems with feminine tropes the school sometimes explores for festivals like janmashtami. [though i must say i also loved the fact that on rakhi, teachers tied cheerful thread for them all - n's had a rabbit on it - and then said, 'thank you, dear sisters' to n and her kind. having sat and made the rakhis with the boys, the girls would have been cheesed off if none had been tied on, i guess.]
anyway, this is the song they were supposed to be dancing to today.
said in a sweetly sing-song voice:
come here, my dear, krishna-kanhaiyya,
maine tere liye hriday mein hai
mandir banaya
dudh, dahi, maakhan hai tere liye banaya.
there must be more of this poetry - there has to be - but it has been forgotten in the school-less days. they had learnt 'steps and stuff' as n calls it. walking like gopis - one hand on head, one on waist, and with a lachak (or a wiggle). and shocked finger-wagging towards young krishna + throwing / dropping of the cardboard matki or pot when he thows a paper ball. 'anju teacher' had been making the cardboard pots and colouring them too. (another note will someday be written on how much these teachers slog man, how much cutting and sticking they must do, for example!)
for some reason, young krishna had been told to cover his eyes in anger and then open them. there must be some deep stuff here, only our eavesdropping gopi seems to have forgotten the details.
anyway, this is the song they were supposed to be dancing to today.
said in a sweetly sing-song voice:
come here, my dear, krishna-kanhaiyya,
maine tere liye hriday mein hai
mandir banaya
dudh, dahi, maakhan hai tere liye banaya.
there must be more of this poetry - there has to be - but it has been forgotten in the school-less days. they had learnt 'steps and stuff' as n calls it. walking like gopis - one hand on head, one on waist, and with a lachak (or a wiggle). and shocked finger-wagging towards young krishna + throwing / dropping of the cardboard matki or pot when he thows a paper ball. 'anju teacher' had been making the cardboard pots and colouring them too. (another note will someday be written on how much these teachers slog man, how much cutting and sticking they must do, for example!)
for some reason, young krishna had been told to cover his eyes in anger and then open them. there must be some deep stuff here, only our eavesdropping gopi seems to have forgotten the details.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Our 15 seconds!
Interview with the Scholastic newsletter, conducted by Rahul Vij of Class X, The Lawrence School Sanawar, about the process of writing 'Amazing India'.
Anita Vachharajani was born in Mumbai and grew up in a neighbourhood that smelled faintly of molasses. Despite having a childhood devoted almost entirely to books and sweets, she loves nature and is an eco-enthusiast. Apart from writing for children, Anita has also translated nonsense verse and traditional stories. Her stories have appeared in The Puffin Book of Bedtime Stories and her translations feature in The Tenth Rasa: the Penguin Book of Indian Nonsense Verse. Anita takes writing workshops for children and focuses on helping them express themselves more freely.
Amit Vachharajani was born in Junagadh in Gujarat and spent a lot of his childhood reading, doodling and going to nature camps. He studied briefly at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad but got bitten by the film bug and moved to Mumbai for a career in film-making. Apart from illustrating for magazines and children’s books, Amit also works with international documentary film crews. He has illustrated two books for Scholastic The Mystery of the Secret Hair-oil Formula and Grandpa fights an Ostrich and other Animal stories. His other books are The Puffin Book of Funny Stories and The Shepherd Boy, a Ladybird Favourite Tale.
Anita and Amit live in Mumbai with their daughter and more books than they can handle.
In conversation with Rahul Vij, Class X, The Lawrence School Sanawar
Rahul: What kind of research did you have to undertake to bring forth facts and figures about every part of India? Did you visit all these places?
Anita: Doing the research for this book was like re-discovering the wonder and magic of the Indian subcontinent. It was like going back to history and geography classes, except that this time we could choose what we wanted to learn – and we could have fun doing so! Ideally, we would have loved to experience every single thing we wrote about and drew, but given the wide scope of this book, that might have taken us a little over a lifetime to accomplish.
So we decided to focus on material from multiple sources: encyclopedias and books; the official Government of India websites on each state; and finally, the human source – where we would simply call up friends or researchers living in each state and ask for confirmation on the facts that we found. We checked and re-checked each piece of information many times.
But gathering the information was just one aspect – presenting it was the greater challenge. Because, you see, we didn’t want Amazing India to be just a collection of dry facts and figures. Each person or place, animal or forest that we read about, opened up our minds a bit more to the sheer diversity of India, to its vast landscape, its variety of people and ecologies, and its truly inclusive spirit. So more than just list out plain facts, we wanted to share the excitement of living in a country with so much diversity, and so many natural and man-made treasures in it.
Rahul:You must have collected thousands of facts about each place, how tough was it to condense and present them all it in a double-spread for each place?
Anita: Yes, we had lots and lots of details. Imagine that the Indian subcontinent’s artistic, ecological and historical heritage is part of a huge maze of knowledge, facts, legend and history. We wanted to offer you a peek in – one that would hopefully make you curious to look harder and deeper for yourself!
But we also had to work within the restrictions of the page size. The text, the map, the table, the illustrations, the arts and crafts section – all had to fit in. Deciding how much information we could use, on which topics, was a constant struggle. For example, do you know the famous Lalbagh Gardens of Bangalore? They were laid out in 1760 by Hyder Ali. Between fighting various battles against the British, his son Tipu Sultan painstakingly collected different species of plants for this botanical garden from Afghanistan, Persia and France. Later, Indian and British horticulturists added to it. This was such a lovely nugget because that garden is still visited by every tourist in Bangalore. It had to be dropped, unfortunately, but we managed to squeeze in the fact that Tipu was the first to send for silk worms from Bengal and start 21 centres to develop Karnataka’s silk industry.
We wanted to create something exciting and visually rich, and so we chose to present a mix of facts, laced with a bit of humour. It bothered us that history, art, culture, geography and ecology are usually presented very dully in our books. Our aim was that each child who looked at Amazing India – irrespective of his or her age and interests – should find something engaging, attractive and useful in it. We did focus a little more on ecology, though, because in India today, animals, wetlands, forests, farms, rivers and mountains are all in grave danger.
Rahul:How long did it take you to put this book together?
It took us about two and a half years, between researching the information, doing the visual research, the writing, the drawing and the designing.
Rahul:How did you come up with the idea of using a ‘?’ sign for any new fact that would raise the reader’s curiosity?
Anita: I was simply curious about some terms. I didn’t really know –technically and precisely – what a national park, a biosphere reserve, a wetland, a world heritage site, a Buddhist chaitya or a vihara were. I didn’t know exactly what Project Tiger did, or how an ape was different from a monkey. And I certainly didn’t know how a monolith was different from a dolmen – though, as it turned out, there are monoliths, megaliths, menhirs and dolmens all over the Indian subcontinent.
And I imagined that if it was tough for me, it would be tough for my readers too. Which is why a small reference section at the back made sense. The choice of the ‘?’ mark as an icon was easy – after all, at the bottom of all our knowledge is the need to ask questions!
It was also a sneaky way to pack in more. For example, when I was trying to understand what exactly a wetland was, I read that mangrove species which grow in wetlands play a key role in keeping seaside cities safe from erosion and floods. The Ramsar Convention held way back in 1971 in Iran recognized the importance of wetlands and mangroves, and worked towards preserving them. I wanted to share this fact with readers, but there was no way to do so within any one state. The ‘Are you curious?’ page became a nice space for slightly more detailed explanations.
Rahul:The illustrations, I am told have been drawn and coloured by hand; you have blended facts with imagination beautifully. Have you professionally trained in art and design? How long have you been in this field?
Amit: Yes, all the illustrations are hand-drawn and hand-colored. I used pen-and-ink and watercolors. Illustrating this book was a huge challenge. There was a lot of visual research to do – finding a clear and correct reference and drawing each picture so that it would be interesting and yet accurate.
Though my natural instinct is to make funny illustrations, this book required a realistic style. Sometimes I would get bored with drawing realistically and we decided to find some facts which would need funny drawings so that the book would also become more interesting. If you take a look again, you’ll find that the Koli and the film-star dancing in Maharashtra, the hippie running towards Goa, the tiger mask in the Sunderbans, the tiger and the ghost in Sariska, the boys at the Wazwan and the Manikaran Springs, are all drawn in my favourite cartoon style.
I have always loved to draw and drove my teachers crazy by doodling constantly – till I landed up at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad after school. I was there for two years and learnt a lot about art, conceptualizing ideas and of course the basics of drawing. After NID I ended up taking film making as my profession and didn’t pick up the brush for years till I met Anita and got interested in children’s books. She encouraged me to draw once again. Over the past eight years we have worked on some books together. I have also collaborated with other writers.
Rahul:I like the book cover very much. How did you decide what must go on the cover? How long did it take you to design it?
Amit: It’s great to know that the cover caught your eye. I put a lot of thought into what it should look like and tried many ideas on paper. The most important thing about the cover was that it had to be visually attractive and had to have a promise of what was inside the book. Above all it had to be inviting enough to make a child want to open it. Once I had the design, the fonts and the background color in place, putting in the illustrations did not take much time. The cover must not have taken me more than two to three days from idea to final design. The tough part was choosing which of our favourite illustrations would go on the cover. Those favourites that did not make it to the cover got their place on the title page and in the introduction.
Rahul:Do you plan to do any more such books in future? If yes, what theme would you choose next?
Anita and Amit: Anita is writing for two anthologies and has four picture books coming out this year. One of them – Nonie’s Magic Quilt – has just been published. It is a completely crazy story told as a poem and has been illustrated beautifully. She has written stories about ghostly grandmas, elephants, lost owls and others. Amit is in fact illustrating two of her picture books. Doing informative books like Amazing India is very, very hard work, and though writing fiction is challenging too, it’s a lot easier in terms of actual footwork. Having said that, we do have an exciting idea for an informative book – again on India – so watch out for it!
here's international children's writer uma krishnaswami on amazing india in her blog. she'll be reviewng it a little later...
Read more reviews here.
Anita Vachharajani was born in Mumbai and grew up in a neighbourhood that smelled faintly of molasses. Despite having a childhood devoted almost entirely to books and sweets, she loves nature and is an eco-enthusiast. Apart from writing for children, Anita has also translated nonsense verse and traditional stories. Her stories have appeared in The Puffin Book of Bedtime Stories and her translations feature in The Tenth Rasa: the Penguin Book of Indian Nonsense Verse. Anita takes writing workshops for children and focuses on helping them express themselves more freely.
Amit Vachharajani was born in Junagadh in Gujarat and spent a lot of his childhood reading, doodling and going to nature camps. He studied briefly at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad but got bitten by the film bug and moved to Mumbai for a career in film-making. Apart from illustrating for magazines and children’s books, Amit also works with international documentary film crews. He has illustrated two books for Scholastic The Mystery of the Secret Hair-oil Formula and Grandpa fights an Ostrich and other Animal stories. His other books are The Puffin Book of Funny Stories and The Shepherd Boy, a Ladybird Favourite Tale.
Anita and Amit live in Mumbai with their daughter and more books than they can handle.
In conversation with Rahul Vij, Class X, The Lawrence School Sanawar
Rahul: What kind of research did you have to undertake to bring forth facts and figures about every part of India? Did you visit all these places?
Anita: Doing the research for this book was like re-discovering the wonder and magic of the Indian subcontinent. It was like going back to history and geography classes, except that this time we could choose what we wanted to learn – and we could have fun doing so! Ideally, we would have loved to experience every single thing we wrote about and drew, but given the wide scope of this book, that might have taken us a little over a lifetime to accomplish.
So we decided to focus on material from multiple sources: encyclopedias and books; the official Government of India websites on each state; and finally, the human source – where we would simply call up friends or researchers living in each state and ask for confirmation on the facts that we found. We checked and re-checked each piece of information many times.
But gathering the information was just one aspect – presenting it was the greater challenge. Because, you see, we didn’t want Amazing India to be just a collection of dry facts and figures. Each person or place, animal or forest that we read about, opened up our minds a bit more to the sheer diversity of India, to its vast landscape, its variety of people and ecologies, and its truly inclusive spirit. So more than just list out plain facts, we wanted to share the excitement of living in a country with so much diversity, and so many natural and man-made treasures in it.
Rahul:You must have collected thousands of facts about each place, how tough was it to condense and present them all it in a double-spread for each place?
Anita: Yes, we had lots and lots of details. Imagine that the Indian subcontinent’s artistic, ecological and historical heritage is part of a huge maze of knowledge, facts, legend and history. We wanted to offer you a peek in – one that would hopefully make you curious to look harder and deeper for yourself!
But we also had to work within the restrictions of the page size. The text, the map, the table, the illustrations, the arts and crafts section – all had to fit in. Deciding how much information we could use, on which topics, was a constant struggle. For example, do you know the famous Lalbagh Gardens of Bangalore? They were laid out in 1760 by Hyder Ali. Between fighting various battles against the British, his son Tipu Sultan painstakingly collected different species of plants for this botanical garden from Afghanistan, Persia and France. Later, Indian and British horticulturists added to it. This was such a lovely nugget because that garden is still visited by every tourist in Bangalore. It had to be dropped, unfortunately, but we managed to squeeze in the fact that Tipu was the first to send for silk worms from Bengal and start 21 centres to develop Karnataka’s silk industry.
We wanted to create something exciting and visually rich, and so we chose to present a mix of facts, laced with a bit of humour. It bothered us that history, art, culture, geography and ecology are usually presented very dully in our books. Our aim was that each child who looked at Amazing India – irrespective of his or her age and interests – should find something engaging, attractive and useful in it. We did focus a little more on ecology, though, because in India today, animals, wetlands, forests, farms, rivers and mountains are all in grave danger.
Rahul:How long did it take you to put this book together?
It took us about two and a half years, between researching the information, doing the visual research, the writing, the drawing and the designing.
Rahul:How did you come up with the idea of using a ‘?’ sign for any new fact that would raise the reader’s curiosity?
Anita: I was simply curious about some terms. I didn’t really know –technically and precisely – what a national park, a biosphere reserve, a wetland, a world heritage site, a Buddhist chaitya or a vihara were. I didn’t know exactly what Project Tiger did, or how an ape was different from a monkey. And I certainly didn’t know how a monolith was different from a dolmen – though, as it turned out, there are monoliths, megaliths, menhirs and dolmens all over the Indian subcontinent.
And I imagined that if it was tough for me, it would be tough for my readers too. Which is why a small reference section at the back made sense. The choice of the ‘?’ mark as an icon was easy – after all, at the bottom of all our knowledge is the need to ask questions!
It was also a sneaky way to pack in more. For example, when I was trying to understand what exactly a wetland was, I read that mangrove species which grow in wetlands play a key role in keeping seaside cities safe from erosion and floods. The Ramsar Convention held way back in 1971 in Iran recognized the importance of wetlands and mangroves, and worked towards preserving them. I wanted to share this fact with readers, but there was no way to do so within any one state. The ‘Are you curious?’ page became a nice space for slightly more detailed explanations.
Rahul:The illustrations, I am told have been drawn and coloured by hand; you have blended facts with imagination beautifully. Have you professionally trained in art and design? How long have you been in this field?
Amit: Yes, all the illustrations are hand-drawn and hand-colored. I used pen-and-ink and watercolors. Illustrating this book was a huge challenge. There was a lot of visual research to do – finding a clear and correct reference and drawing each picture so that it would be interesting and yet accurate.
Though my natural instinct is to make funny illustrations, this book required a realistic style. Sometimes I would get bored with drawing realistically and we decided to find some facts which would need funny drawings so that the book would also become more interesting. If you take a look again, you’ll find that the Koli and the film-star dancing in Maharashtra, the hippie running towards Goa, the tiger mask in the Sunderbans, the tiger and the ghost in Sariska, the boys at the Wazwan and the Manikaran Springs, are all drawn in my favourite cartoon style.
I have always loved to draw and drove my teachers crazy by doodling constantly – till I landed up at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad after school. I was there for two years and learnt a lot about art, conceptualizing ideas and of course the basics of drawing. After NID I ended up taking film making as my profession and didn’t pick up the brush for years till I met Anita and got interested in children’s books. She encouraged me to draw once again. Over the past eight years we have worked on some books together. I have also collaborated with other writers.
Rahul:I like the book cover very much. How did you decide what must go on the cover? How long did it take you to design it?
Amit: It’s great to know that the cover caught your eye. I put a lot of thought into what it should look like and tried many ideas on paper. The most important thing about the cover was that it had to be visually attractive and had to have a promise of what was inside the book. Above all it had to be inviting enough to make a child want to open it. Once I had the design, the fonts and the background color in place, putting in the illustrations did not take much time. The cover must not have taken me more than two to three days from idea to final design. The tough part was choosing which of our favourite illustrations would go on the cover. Those favourites that did not make it to the cover got their place on the title page and in the introduction.
Rahul:Do you plan to do any more such books in future? If yes, what theme would you choose next?
Anita and Amit: Anita is writing for two anthologies and has four picture books coming out this year. One of them – Nonie’s Magic Quilt – has just been published. It is a completely crazy story told as a poem and has been illustrated beautifully. She has written stories about ghostly grandmas, elephants, lost owls and others. Amit is in fact illustrating two of her picture books. Doing informative books like Amazing India is very, very hard work, and though writing fiction is challenging too, it’s a lot easier in terms of actual footwork. Having said that, we do have an exciting idea for an informative book – again on India – so watch out for it!
here's international children's writer uma krishnaswami on amazing india in her blog. she'll be reviewng it a little later...
Read more reviews here.
Friday, July 31, 2009
We've been read!
By the good people at Timeout, Mumbai
Amazing India – A State-By-State Guide Ages 8+
"This is no ordinary geography atlas. Kids can read about subjects as wide-ranging as wazwan, the 36-course meal in Jammu and Kashmir, “scraptures” in Chandigarh and filmstar Rajnikanth in Tamil Nadu. Amazing India celebrates the diversity of our 28 states and seven union territories not just with facts and figures, but through cultural anecdotes, legends and trivia. Most of the factoids are accompanied by striking illustrations, and will have children spouting sentences starting with “did you know...” for weeks after."
And the good people at The Deccan Herald
Amazing India – A State-By-State Guide By Anita and Amit Vachharajani, Scholastic, Pp 72.
"This book does a good job of condensing the essence of the natural, cultural and historical wonders of our homeland into simple, brief capsules. Each state has two pages of devoted fact files, and brief notes on history, natural beauty and cultural heritage. These tantalising snippets of information will encourage young readers to read more books, watch films and actually travel to learn more about the places and facts that they find most interesting. Did you know that a "Chaitya is a large prayer hall made of rock and teak wood, with an apse or a half-dome-shaped gap at one end? Karla and Bhaja caves, in Maharashtra, have large and elaborate chaityas." Read this book to learn the difference between the terms Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.
"Learn about wetlands, biosphere reserves, the Bhavai folk theatre of Gujarat, the rare and endangered red panda of Sikkim, and more. There are pages for young readers to stick their own personal photographs and notes about interesting places they have visited. The colourful illustrations on each page are instructive and lively. Handy and easy to read and remember, books such as these can also be a great guide for impromptu quizzes and other activities."
And there was a tiny review in the DNA as wel, but can't seem to find it online...
:)
If this doesn't inspire you to run out and grab yerself a copy...
An interview with us by a student.
Here's more about what it was for us to work on the book, if you like to read that sort of thing.
Amazing India – A State-By-State Guide Ages 8+
"This is no ordinary geography atlas. Kids can read about subjects as wide-ranging as wazwan, the 36-course meal in Jammu and Kashmir, “scraptures” in Chandigarh and filmstar Rajnikanth in Tamil Nadu. Amazing India celebrates the diversity of our 28 states and seven union territories not just with facts and figures, but through cultural anecdotes, legends and trivia. Most of the factoids are accompanied by striking illustrations, and will have children spouting sentences starting with “did you know...” for weeks after."
And the good people at The Deccan Herald
Amazing India – A State-By-State Guide By Anita and Amit Vachharajani, Scholastic, Pp 72.
"This book does a good job of condensing the essence of the natural, cultural and historical wonders of our homeland into simple, brief capsules. Each state has two pages of devoted fact files, and brief notes on history, natural beauty and cultural heritage. These tantalising snippets of information will encourage young readers to read more books, watch films and actually travel to learn more about the places and facts that they find most interesting. Did you know that a "Chaitya is a large prayer hall made of rock and teak wood, with an apse or a half-dome-shaped gap at one end? Karla and Bhaja caves, in Maharashtra, have large and elaborate chaityas." Read this book to learn the difference between the terms Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.
"Learn about wetlands, biosphere reserves, the Bhavai folk theatre of Gujarat, the rare and endangered red panda of Sikkim, and more. There are pages for young readers to stick their own personal photographs and notes about interesting places they have visited. The colourful illustrations on each page are instructive and lively. Handy and easy to read and remember, books such as these can also be a great guide for impromptu quizzes and other activities."
And there was a tiny review in the DNA as wel, but can't seem to find it online...
:)
If this doesn't inspire you to run out and grab yerself a copy...
An interview with us by a student.
Here's more about what it was for us to work on the book, if you like to read that sort of thing.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Yes, Virginia, dreams do come true! Or, YAAAYYYY!
There are healthy ambitions, and then there are those you should worry about. Like my old, old, old one of writing picture books for children in India and hoping to have them published. About 10 years back when I first began taking my manuscripts around, editors would smile indulgently when we mentioned the words 'picture books'. It wouldn't work, their marketting guys would invariably say, and that would be the end of it. (Of course it didn’t help matters that my stories themselves weren’t so great!)
Over the years though, more and more Indian picture books have begun peeking out of shelves in stores. About a year and a half back, I was directed by a friend (thanks, Arthy!) to Saraswathy Rajagopalan, the editor at Tumbi Books, Kerala, who was coming out with original, Indian picture books. Luckily for me, she liked this long story-poem of mine, and felt it would make a nice read. They got one of my favourite children's illustrators, Anitha Balachandran, to draw it. The book – which was expected to come out in September – suddenly turned up today!
We opened it excitedly, and as usual, Anitha's done a wonderful job. She's captured the spirit - the fun, the mischief - of the poem so well, it's amazing. It's like she was sitting next to me while I was writing the poem, chortling with me and planning what all she could draw in. Which never happened of course - we've never met or even mailed - so well, hats off to her! She's drawn in details I’d never thought of, adding a whole new layer to the text. I also personally like the way she brings in real things - tiny details, like a stamp or a bit of a newspaper - to give the page a lovely, slightly scratchy and tactile quality.
The story itself was inspired by N, who becomes Nonie in the poem. Nonie refuses to sleep - she plays, runs and generally never tires. But her parents are exhausted. So mum sends for a magical cousin, who arrives in a swish of beads, colours and baggage which leaps and moves with life. She hints at flying on a broom, and whips out a snake - Somu - to measure Nonie for a magical quilt. As a poem it's great fun, and thanks to Anitha, it's now visually magical too!
Sorry if I sound a bit breathless - apart from the fact that the book's looking lovely, for me the fact that my mad dream of doing a picture book has come true is a bit overwhelming.
Tumbi Books are available in most bookstores, I think, and if you don't find the book the first time, do make a request for it with the sales staff. It might make them want to procure the books!
Friday, July 03, 2009
Gimme hope, Liberhan, gimme hope!
It’s strange that my memories of the years leading up to Dec 6, 1992 and the bloodbath that followed have sort of frozen into one sharp image which in itself isn’t particularly remarkable. We lived in a primarily upper class unstatedly Hindu locality, but of course, had secular thoughts and beliefs, which were slowly, slowly being questioned on a daily basis in the papers and in the news.
One day, waiting at the dhobi’s – Kismet Laundry – staring up at the stickers of devis, ‘good luck’ and ‘sceneries’ or strange posters of a park in Thailand as he tied up our clothes, my friend and I were startled to see a new sticker, orange in colour, full of swastiks and trishuls stuck on the beam above the shop. It said, ‘Garv se kaho hum Hindu hai’. We were embarrassed and a bit angry. My friend got into a conversation with him, her voice starting to get shrill and both our faces tight with disapproval. Recognizing hysterics when he saw them, the dhobi smiled laconically and sniggered and gave our anger a cold shoulder. Politic and measured, he just kept smiling at our annoying yapping. Finally, swallowing some paan spittle, he snarled, “Aage aage dekho kya hoga...”
Those years were full of these conversations where fissures appeared even as people spoke. It was like every second person had a personal stake in the Ram Janmabhoomi non-issue. Malayalee expat relatives from the Gulf, who by all rights should resent a daft Aryan agenda, suddenly turned belligerently and militantly Hidnu in their words. They were full of anti-Arab feeling, I guess, and every time they landed here, exuding an air of poshness, they would pronounce that it was time to ‘teach the fellows a lesson’, coolly forgetting that it’s one thing to hate your rich Arab boss, and totally another to want to unleash genocide on a large part of this country’s citizens.
Then suddenly one morning – on the 6th December – the unimaginable happened. The hate that Advani and gang had been steadily pushing us towards sort of erupted in the destruction of a heritage structure. I couldn’t believe they had done it, I couldn’t believe they had gotten away with it, and I couldn’t believe the spiral of hatred that we descended into.
One of our neighbours – a wealthy Marathi lady whose daughter had sung Catholic hymns and secular songs with the rest of us in school – made a little moue as she said, “Good ya, high time someone showed these Muslims good.” It distressed me that she was a school teacher, someone with access to kids on whom she could inflict her hatred.
I feel the whole progressiveness of the ’70s and the ’80s was carefully demolished by that single party and its determination to make a non-issue into something it could win an election with. It’s taken the Indian polity what, 30 years, to give the BJP the kind of trouncing it deserved? I’m not a great one for karma, but for every innocent’s death, I hope Advani, Joshi, Bal Thackeray and that gang of wretched fundamentalists writhes in a hell fire made specially for them. Or as my mother put it one day – wish someone would chop off their family jewels and put them in the sun to rot and die.
The thing with this sot of fissuring of a populace is that it serves your immediate goal of winning an election. It creates a need out of nothing – the standard practice of good advertising – and then where that need takes you, into what sort of despair and grief and trauma, it doesn’t care. But coming back to the fissuring – it doesn’t just end with religion, does it? I mean after you’ve take the whole Muslims-are-bad thing to its logical conclusion, you start needing more enemies. Marathis, then? Or maybe as we’ve seen in Mumbai, non-Marathis? Bhaiyyas, perhaps? Madrasis, maybe? Or how about Gujjus? Sindhis? Parsis? Catholics?
The MNS worked with a Marathi theatre group on a play called Bhaiyya haath-pair pasare about a dhobi who began by ironing in the landing of a building and went on to own the building one day, thanks to his industry and his native cunning. I’d like to meet the dhobi from Kismet all those years back. He’s a father of three now, managing a paan shop next to the laundry and a middle-aged paunch. I’d like to ask him if he had any stickers about how proud he was to be an Uttar Pradeshi Hindu in a city which was suddenly finding his kind uncomfortably competitive.
But that’s really asking the wrong guy for answers. I mean, all he did was put up a sticker. If a mob attacks tomorrow, chances are this poor guy will lose his life’s savings and his limbs. Safe in their homes, spouting hate, thinking votes will be the idiot ideologues, the Advanis, the Sudheendra Kulkarnis, the Manmohan Joshis, the Raj Thackerays, the Balasahebs.
Thank god the Liberhan Commission has blamed them squarely – the hate-spewing BJP morons and the dozing fiddlers like Narasimha Rao and Kalyan Singh. But more than the Commission’s finding, the trouncing of the BJP at the elections gives me hope. It means the sort of slap in the face that seasoned politicians like Advani and Modi and Jaitley can sort of begin to feel!
Oh, and all those who plan to leave nasty, anonymous, pro-Hindutva comments? You can be quite sure I won't be publishing them, especially if they contain the word 'pseudo-secular'. If anything, I think the secular agenda is the only one that isn't pseudo. I mean, in a country of such staggering poverty and so much social injustice, what can be more pseudo than raking up a mythological figure who may or may not have lived and fighting over his birthplace? It doesn't get any more false!
One day, waiting at the dhobi’s – Kismet Laundry – staring up at the stickers of devis, ‘good luck’ and ‘sceneries’ or strange posters of a park in Thailand as he tied up our clothes, my friend and I were startled to see a new sticker, orange in colour, full of swastiks and trishuls stuck on the beam above the shop. It said, ‘Garv se kaho hum Hindu hai’. We were embarrassed and a bit angry. My friend got into a conversation with him, her voice starting to get shrill and both our faces tight with disapproval. Recognizing hysterics when he saw them, the dhobi smiled laconically and sniggered and gave our anger a cold shoulder. Politic and measured, he just kept smiling at our annoying yapping. Finally, swallowing some paan spittle, he snarled, “Aage aage dekho kya hoga...”
Those years were full of these conversations where fissures appeared even as people spoke. It was like every second person had a personal stake in the Ram Janmabhoomi non-issue. Malayalee expat relatives from the Gulf, who by all rights should resent a daft Aryan agenda, suddenly turned belligerently and militantly Hidnu in their words. They were full of anti-Arab feeling, I guess, and every time they landed here, exuding an air of poshness, they would pronounce that it was time to ‘teach the fellows a lesson’, coolly forgetting that it’s one thing to hate your rich Arab boss, and totally another to want to unleash genocide on a large part of this country’s citizens.
Then suddenly one morning – on the 6th December – the unimaginable happened. The hate that Advani and gang had been steadily pushing us towards sort of erupted in the destruction of a heritage structure. I couldn’t believe they had done it, I couldn’t believe they had gotten away with it, and I couldn’t believe the spiral of hatred that we descended into.
One of our neighbours – a wealthy Marathi lady whose daughter had sung Catholic hymns and secular songs with the rest of us in school – made a little moue as she said, “Good ya, high time someone showed these Muslims good.” It distressed me that she was a school teacher, someone with access to kids on whom she could inflict her hatred. I feel the whole progressiveness of the ’70s and the ’80s was carefully demolished by that single party and its determination to make a non-issue into something it could win an election with. It’s taken the Indian polity what, 30 years, to give the BJP the kind of trouncing it deserved? I’m not a great one for karma, but for every innocent’s death, I hope Advani, Joshi, Bal Thackeray and that gang of wretched fundamentalists writhes in a hell fire made specially for them. Or as my mother put it one day – wish someone would chop off their family jewels and put them in the sun to rot and die.
The thing with this sot of fissuring of a populace is that it serves your immediate goal of winning an election. It creates a need out of nothing – the standard practice of good advertising – and then where that need takes you, into what sort of despair and grief and trauma, it doesn’t care. But coming back to the fissuring – it doesn’t just end with religion, does it? I mean after you’ve take the whole Muslims-are-bad thing to its logical conclusion, you start needing more enemies. Marathis, then? Or maybe as we’ve seen in Mumbai, non-Marathis? Bhaiyyas, perhaps? Madrasis, maybe? Or how about Gujjus? Sindhis? Parsis? Catholics?
The MNS worked with a Marathi theatre group on a play called Bhaiyya haath-pair pasare about a dhobi who began by ironing in the landing of a building and went on to own the building one day, thanks to his industry and his native cunning. I’d like to meet the dhobi from Kismet all those years back. He’s a father of three now, managing a paan shop next to the laundry and a middle-aged paunch. I’d like to ask him if he had any stickers about how proud he was to be an Uttar Pradeshi Hindu in a city which was suddenly finding his kind uncomfortably competitive.
But that’s really asking the wrong guy for answers. I mean, all he did was put up a sticker. If a mob attacks tomorrow, chances are this poor guy will lose his life’s savings and his limbs. Safe in their homes, spouting hate, thinking votes will be the idiot ideologues, the Advanis, the Sudheendra Kulkarnis, the Manmohan Joshis, the Raj Thackerays, the Balasahebs.
Thank god the Liberhan Commission has blamed them squarely – the hate-spewing BJP morons and the dozing fiddlers like Narasimha Rao and Kalyan Singh. But more than the Commission’s finding, the trouncing of the BJP at the elections gives me hope. It means the sort of slap in the face that seasoned politicians like Advani and Modi and Jaitley can sort of begin to feel!
Oh, and all those who plan to leave nasty, anonymous, pro-Hindutva comments? You can be quite sure I won't be publishing them, especially if they contain the word 'pseudo-secular'. If anything, I think the secular agenda is the only one that isn't pseudo. I mean, in a country of such staggering poverty and so much social injustice, what can be more pseudo than raking up a mythological figure who may or may not have lived and fighting over his birthplace? It doesn't get any more false!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
After many a ghisaai
If you passed by Chembur in the months from January to mid-May, you probably saw two people lying in a heap on the benches of diamond garden. If they looked exhausted and bitter and were muttering angrily at one another, that was probably me and Amit. We weren't going through a Giant Marital Crisis, though it sometimes did feel like that, but were working on wrapping up this book, this product of our two-year-toil which we now 'umbly present to you!
In case you're wondering, it's a book on the states of India - the 28 states and 7 union territories, to be precise. One doublespread, or two pages are devoted to each state. Each spread has a map, important facts on the state, and about 10 or 12 interesting things about it - covering aspects as vast as the history and geography of the state, its stories, its monuments, its dances, and its forests, national parks, biosphere reserves and endangered or special animals, if any. There are also about two to three indigenous art and craft forms which are described for each state. Each spread has about 12 illustrations by Amit, drawn and coloured by hand.
Our focus was basically to pique a reader's interest about this large and diverse country, to help them springboard into a deeper awareness of India. So we tried to stay off the beaten path as much as possible, tried to find and highlight issues that are rarely discussed in books on India for kids. Like the rebellions fought against the British by tribals in Central India prior to 1857. Or the story of how Islam, Judaism and Christianity reached Kerala. Or how Paithani saris of Maharashtra were often designed by Princess Niloufar, the daughter-in-law of the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Often we'd find this uber-cool fact, but not be able to back it up; or having backed it up, not be able to find a visual reference. If finding the information was tough, then letting go of some of it was even tougher. Picture this: on a spread with a map and about 12 to 13 nice, colourful drawings, plus a table of facts, how much room do you think text is going to get? So no colourful and scintillating metaphors, no extended descriptions, just the bare minimum prose, cut to a crisp.
Choosing what to put in was a huge struggle, and it meant some tough choices... Like, being a malayali, i felt that any TV commercial on Kerala would tell you about the Thrissur Pooram, but what about Edakkal caves and its neolithic carvings in the forests of Wayanad, that even I didn't know about? And what about the fact that that the Koodiyattam dance form, 2000 years old, was deemed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO? Not to forget Silent Valley or Sairandhiri Vanam, home to the lion-tailed macaque, saved from being made into a hydro-electricity project by conservationists?
So it was a continuous fight not just with ourselves, but also with the limitations of the software we were working with (the slightest text change, of an adn to an and would be enough to hide a word behind a drawing somewhere else on the spread) and the exhaustion we were feeling thanks to being so sleep-deprived.
Now, seeing this book in technicolour, it sort of makes us forget those months of exhaustion and bitter mutterings. Sort of like having a baby and forgetting those 9 wretched months of puking and gas. And labour.
So yes, please say Hello to our new baby and try to meet her at a bookstore or a Scholastic exhibition near you!
An interview with us by a student.
Read reviews here.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
PollyAunty
once upon a time, my clothes never matched. they still don't but that's more of an accident than the style-statement it once was. when i was 21, i believed in something vague like a sense of rhythm in your over-all look rather than matching colours. so if the light greeny-blue bead on an earring you wore sort of resonated with the dots of bluey-green on the white block print of your purple salwar, which in turn 'went' with the bottle green trim on the blue kurta you were wearing, you were home safe. i think youth is a lovely concealer, so it didn't matter what one wore - thick jute like block prints and lots of bangles, etc. - it all sort of came together, glued firmly by youthful confidence. when well-coordinated older cousins complained that i was SO mismatched, all i did was smile. i tended to imagine that i was throwing them into a muddle of serious envy and self-doubt.
back then i had an older friend who was fat, a mother-of-one and terribly unhpappy in her marriage. i'm very very ashamed to admit now that it used to bother me a bit that her clothes matched ane - shudder - were made of cotton blends and even synthetics. it surprised me back then because she was SUCH a bright, funny woman otherwise. and i thought EVERYone knew that bright, funny, sexy people's clothes DON'T match, and were made of natural fabrics! her clothes had laces and embroidery and trims and fusses, and matching dupattas, and were all very proper.
i'd look at those sleek bizzy-lizzy kurtas, the sad attempt at streamlining with discretely embroidered terrycot nighties, and wonder when she would grow some taste again... to me, high on life, wearing thick maroon jute with black block print in a bombay summer, her choice of blends and sometimes 100% synthetic fabrics was not just pointless and shocking and vaguely morally reprehensible, it was also just so sad.
17 years, one kid and a weight gain of 20 kgs later, i find there's been a slight shift in perspective. at the shops yesterday to buy myself some ok togs before i hit amit's home town, i found myself doing the unimaginable - straying cheerfully towards the bizzy-lizzys, the terrycots, the downright synthetics. where once i would have dripped disdain, i admired the colours, the patterns. because i get out so little, the sheer clevernesses in fabrics boggles me in shops. i get giddy from the prices, the prints and the textures.
boggled and giddy as i am, though, it doesn't stop me from trying to match in order to contract the silhouette a bit. those same pathetic attempts to mask the burgeoning bod with pollyester are made... bizzy-lizzy, a thickish blend, is my new friend. it is a wee bit flattering - in that it doesn't make up its own little bulgy lies unlike thicker cotton, and it doesn't quite glimmer and flow like synthetic either. but that's my range these days - bizzy lizzy, to the odd paisley-printed 100%synthetic, to thinner, finer cottons simply because i still can't resist block prints that run colour with every wash and will eventually become as comfortable second skin... i steer clear of the 'thick' cottons, getting totally seduced by the supposedly slimming fluidity of the synthetic.
but i do try and put up a fight with myself. i stand at the counter, biting my lip, wasting the poor shop man's time, wondering about the heat, the sweat and the 'immorality' of it all somehow (don't ask me why, but buying synthetic has always seemed morally a bit suspect to me). of course i succumb and buy the lot eventually. sigh... how the sartorially advanced have swollen and become pollyester-punjabi-dress-wrapped auntyjis...
this, from my favourite doonesbury, speaks of youth and age so well... it's about a middle-aged woman being sent to recruit a young male fbi agent. i think her reaction would be mine...
back then i had an older friend who was fat, a mother-of-one and terribly unhpappy in her marriage. i'm very very ashamed to admit now that it used to bother me a bit that her clothes matched ane - shudder - were made of cotton blends and even synthetics. it surprised me back then because she was SUCH a bright, funny woman otherwise. and i thought EVERYone knew that bright, funny, sexy people's clothes DON'T match, and were made of natural fabrics! her clothes had laces and embroidery and trims and fusses, and matching dupattas, and were all very proper.
i'd look at those sleek bizzy-lizzy kurtas, the sad attempt at streamlining with discretely embroidered terrycot nighties, and wonder when she would grow some taste again... to me, high on life, wearing thick maroon jute with black block print in a bombay summer, her choice of blends and sometimes 100% synthetic fabrics was not just pointless and shocking and vaguely morally reprehensible, it was also just so sad.
17 years, one kid and a weight gain of 20 kgs later, i find there's been a slight shift in perspective. at the shops yesterday to buy myself some ok togs before i hit amit's home town, i found myself doing the unimaginable - straying cheerfully towards the bizzy-lizzys, the terrycots, the downright synthetics. where once i would have dripped disdain, i admired the colours, the patterns. because i get out so little, the sheer clevernesses in fabrics boggles me in shops. i get giddy from the prices, the prints and the textures.
boggled and giddy as i am, though, it doesn't stop me from trying to match in order to contract the silhouette a bit. those same pathetic attempts to mask the burgeoning bod with pollyester are made... bizzy-lizzy, a thickish blend, is my new friend. it is a wee bit flattering - in that it doesn't make up its own little bulgy lies unlike thicker cotton, and it doesn't quite glimmer and flow like synthetic either. but that's my range these days - bizzy lizzy, to the odd paisley-printed 100%synthetic, to thinner, finer cottons simply because i still can't resist block prints that run colour with every wash and will eventually become as comfortable second skin... i steer clear of the 'thick' cottons, getting totally seduced by the supposedly slimming fluidity of the synthetic.
but i do try and put up a fight with myself. i stand at the counter, biting my lip, wasting the poor shop man's time, wondering about the heat, the sweat and the 'immorality' of it all somehow (don't ask me why, but buying synthetic has always seemed morally a bit suspect to me). of course i succumb and buy the lot eventually. sigh... how the sartorially advanced have swollen and become pollyester-punjabi-dress-wrapped auntyjis...
this, from my favourite doonesbury, speaks of youth and age so well... it's about a middle-aged woman being sent to recruit a young male fbi agent. i think her reaction would be mine...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
so many comments, so little heart
the post below and the related one on olive ridley turtles have seen such a buzz of angry comments, it's not funny. it's dire actually. so many people wrote about 'obscure little animals in wetlands' and how it was time to ignore greenpeace and support the tatas. so much anger, so many anonymous comments (some which sounded suspiciously like they were from tech-and-blog-savvy staff at the port itself). this after the singur fiasco.
and hardly a comment or two from the other side. makes you realize that in these as in most other matters that seem to capture our country's imagination, the only people who stand up to be counted are the upper class, right wing, pro-destruction sorts.
sad really...
and hardly a comment or two from the other side. makes you realize that in these as in most other matters that seem to capture our country's imagination, the only people who stand up to be counted are the upper class, right wing, pro-destruction sorts.
sad really...
Thursday, March 26, 2009
so much for corporations that care...
This came in a mail... Sad, isn't it?
Greenpeace India:
We've been trying to reach Mr. Ratan Tata for weeks now but to no avail, forcing us to release an ad in the two newspapers he subscribes to, Financial Times and International Herald Tribune. Have a look at it[high quality:http://greenpeace.in/turtle/images/ad.jpg] and help us get it published in all editions of prominent Indian newspapers by the end of this week. http://www.greenpeace.org/india/supportus/support-nano-turtle-ad
their facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenpeace-India/30290552843
and here is a link to our older post on the ridley issue.
Greenpeace India:
We've been trying to reach Mr. Ratan Tata for weeks now but to no avail, forcing us to release an ad in the two newspapers he subscribes to, Financial Times and International Herald Tribune. Have a look at it[high quality:http://greenpeace.in/turtle/images/ad.jpg] and help us get it published in all editions of prominent Indian newspapers by the end of this week. http://www.greenpeace.org/india/supportus/support-nano-turtle-ad
their facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenpeace-India/30290552843
and here is a link to our older post on the ridley issue.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Coloured Pictures
(I wrote this for the November 2008 issue of The Book Review - an article on classics among children's books - stuff that left an impact on my mind, as well as picture books I wish I'd seen when I was a kid. Here there are a few tweaks and illustrations you won't see in the original!)
Among my first ‘friends’ in the world of books were two Russian girls named Masha and Zhenya. While Masha was resourceful and clever, with a ready wit, Zhenya was more me: a bit greedy, a bit dull, and definitely careless. Masha was to be admired, while Zhenya—so much like me—was just accepted. In case you haven’t guessed already, my ‘friends’ were characters in Soviet picture books which seemed to dominate the Indian children’s book scene in the ’60s and ’70s. Delightfully written (and translated), beautifully drawn and designed, they were cheap even for the time. Their illustrations covered a breathtaking range from the detailed, jewel-bright Russian-folk-style rendering, to pellucid watercolours, and impossibly scraggly black-and-white lines. If there is one thing I can blame for my abiding desire to look at and hoard children’s picture books, it has to be those bits of Soviet-era publishing. 
G.K. Chesterton once wrote in a book he gifted a child:
…Stand up and keep your childishness:
Read all the pedants’ screeds and strictures;
But don’t believe in anything
That can’t be told in coloured pictures.
There is a curious sort of cyclicality in finding these words—I love Chesterton’s crime-busting Father Brown series. And Chesterton is supposed to have written the above words as part of a longer inscription in a book of 
Randolph Caldecott’s illustrations. Interestingly enough, Caldecott (1846–1886) a British artist and cartoonist, drew 16 picture books for children, which were subversive and highly textured, and went on to inspire generations of artists.
But picture-book illustrations are really more than just coloured pictures. As a writer of children’s stories and a mother, I think the illustrations in a picture book are supremely important. Primarily because they add another layer to the text—one that the non-literate child often ‘reads’ by herself. In the best picture books—where illustrations mischievously suggest more than is said by the actual words—this second level often breaks the fetters of the first. Not only do they create a playful other dimension, but illustrations also extend the frames of reference for a child, creating associations and levels of meaning that would be uneconomical if done with words.
When I read out or tell a story to children, I know that what is grabbing their eyes, making the words ‘real’ and enchanting for them, is the artist’s version of it. Of course the story is paramount, but the drawings are actually the bridge that takes the story to them. I’ve grown to understand that illustrating for kids is as much and perhaps more difficult than writing for them. The same rules of thumb apply: don’t talk down to your reader / viewer; be mad; be good; and most importantly, be a bit bad.
There is an essential and perennial confusion in the world of children’s books—what adults feel children 
should read versus what children themselves enjoy reading or seeing. This confusion—which enters the world of illustration as well—is a path both publishers and parents have to negotiate delicately. While there have to be the ‘good’ stories—the fables, the pedagogic tales, the ‘useful’ books, there also has to be enough of the mischievous, the naughty, the merrily subversive. Take Punch cartoonist E.H. Shepard, whose black-and-white, scratchy, seemingly-rough drawings were not considered the best choice 
for Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) by A.A. Milne. Milne still agreed to have him draw When we were very young (1924) and was so delighted, that he went on to commission him for the Pooh books as well. Pooh bear—inspired by Milne’s son’s toy in the story and by ‘Growler’, Shepard’s son Graham’s toy, in the illustrations—was captured by an artfully rough style (in fact you can see Growler/Pooh's precursor at the bottom right of the b&w drawing here). The stories and their endearing characters went on to enthrall generatio
ns of children (till, that is, the Disney machinery swept in with their trademark yellow-and-red bear, a far cry from the homely toy of Shepard’s imagination). Shepard was to extend his subtle ‘roughness’ to create far busier visuals for Kenneth Grahame’s timeless The Wind in the Willows (1931).
One of my favourites (though I must admit it took me time to realize that) has always been Ludwig Bemelmans’ Madeline books. Written and drawn by Bemelmans, Madeline (1939)—illustrated in a flat, uni-dimensional style, largely in black-and-white with a studied and painterly abandon—was considered too sophisticated for children. At first glance the visuals do seem forbidding—but one reading down, most children are glued to the fast-paced rhyming narrative and the seemingly off-hand illustration style.
The very spare classic Goodnight Moon (1947) by Margaret Wise Brown was illustrated in a rich yet somewhat muted style by Clement Hurd. ‘Goodnight’ is said to each thing in an anthropomorphized baby rabbit’s room. As a parent you can recognize the love for rituals that children have, and with subsequent readings, will sense how the book actually helps unwind. Goodnight … slowly reveals its illustrative richness—little details are noticed by the child in the ‘clean’ artwork, and a lot happens independent of the words. A tiny mouse, for instance, appears on every page, and children have fun spotting it.
When it comes to the mischievous-yet-delightful in children’s books, practically nothing can b
eat Theodore Geisel’s oeuvre, written and illustrated by him as Dr Seuss and sometimes as LeSeig. When asked by his publisher to create a picture book for children using less than 250 words, Geisel took 9 months to create the completely farout The Cat in the Hat (1957). A cat in a red-and-white striped top-hat drops in on a pair of unsuspecting siblings, and tries to entertain them while turning their house upside down, much to the consternation of their pet goldfish. It was funny, riveting, and literally ‘… a karate chop on the weary little world of Dick, Jane and Spot’ (Ellen Goodman). The Cat … was published under the imprint of ‘Beginner Books’ and much more literary mayhem was to follow.
As a parent and a writer, I marvel at the stunning simplicity of Geisel’s words, and at the vivid madness in his minimalist books. Geisel is in turn funny (as in the very basic Hop on Pop), crazy (as in Green Eggs and Ham, Mr Brown Can Moo, The Eye Book, The Tooth Book and Wacky Wednesday) and sometimes even political (like in Horton Hears a Who). Beginner Books went on to publish many fantastic titles by other artists and writers as well—the laugh-inducing Put Me in the Zoo (1960), written and illustrated by Robert Lopshire, is just one.
Eric Carle is another innovative children’s illustrator whose work simply refuses to conform to adult notions of ‘child-friendly’. With a background in graphic design and advertising, Carle created colourful books out of collage, using layers of hand-painted paper, that are stylish and yet earthy. Beginning with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What can you see? (1967), he went on to create many classics like The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969) and The Grouchy Ladybug (1977).
A British artist who caused something of a paradigm shift in how publishers and parents would view illustrations forever was Quentin Blake. His seemingly casual, scratchy sketches have brought so many of Roald Dahl’s stories to life (The Enormous Crocodile of 1978 is a perennial favourite) that children often think he writes the books as well. Blake’s delightful illustrations have a breathless quality, and he has not only drawn books, but also written some like Mr Magnolia (1980), Fantastic Daisy Artichoke, (1999) and the Mrs. Armitage series.
The thing with children is that they recognize immediacy and sincerity in art. So whether or not a picture is ‘good’ by adult standards, a child’s response to art that grabs him is usually quick and instinctive. Often a book that I think will scare my daughter or alienate her, in fact ends up appealing to her the most. Artists, I conclude, must know something about her responses that I don’t!
Tuesday (1991) by David Wiesner and The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher (1980) by Molly Bang—both Caldecott Honor Awards winners—were startling examples of this. Tuesday is a wordless book, where you build the narrative as you go, finding new details and images with every reading. 
Just before
It was a book I was sure would terrify my toddler. It had a quiet eeriness to it and the painstakingly rendered frogs were not your average picture-book froggies. But she found it riveting, enjoying the sheer craziness of the story and laughing at the frogs’ glee. The novelty came from discovering a new frog in the swarm, a new expression, and a new detail with every reading.
If Wiesner came as a surprise, then Molly Bang’s The Grey Lady … was a shocker. A wordless book again, it ‘tells’ of an old lady who buys a basket of strawberries for her family. Leaving the shop, she is followed by the ‘Snatcher’, a skinny, gangly-limbed blue-coloured man wearing a yellow-and-purple shawl and a red hat. Deviously, he follows the Grey Lady, making many grabs for her basket.
The Lady dashes into buses, hides in a swamp, climbs a tree, swings from a vine, and finally escapes the relentless Snatcher only by a last-minute authorial intervention. Fed up, he spots a mulberry bush, and eats enough to have his hair stand up on end in a blissful, orange afro.
The challenge of the book is not just the fear of the chasing Snatcher, but the fact that Bang uses a complex narrative style. The same page has the characters in two different positions—before and after an event. Surprisingly, kids actually get Bang’s complicated shifting of perspective and her elliptical story-telling device. Surprisingly, they seem to like rather than fear the Snatcher.
It took Bang two-and-a-half years to illustrate the book. When it came out, it was panned by critics as being ‘too flashy’ and ‘weird’. When Bang won the Caldecott, she writes, she was surprised and asked a committee member if they had read the reviews. The member replied, ‘We don’t make our decisions based on reviews.’
In
Target, a children’s magazine, seemed to attract the best talent in the ’80s, with illustrators like Atanu Roy, whose richly intricate lines were dramatic and nutty; Ajit Ninan who drew the 
hilarious, pot-bellied Detective Moochwala; and Jayanto Banerjee, whose Gardhab Das, the donkey-musician, perennially plagued us with his lousy singing.
Mario Miranda’s quirky, whimsical and sometimes even serious sketches in our Class 2 English reader left a huge impression. I’ve forgotten much of what I learnt, but his fat, funny, robust illustrations for Dhondu and the Rotten Eggs, and his solemn turn for a travel piece on
So the next time you want to pick up a picture book for your child, explore a bit and try to find exciting artists—the ones mentioned above are at the extreme, outermost tip of the iceberg. Look a little deeper and there’s a whole world of picture-book illustrators out there (flapping about like eager penguins, perhaps?), just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed!
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
two worlds in one city
i remember when there was just the times of india, when it's moron-like obsession with the rich was beginning to grate on my nerves. after feeling like a shredded cabbage in pain for the longest time, i switched to the indian express which was kind of substantial but still a bit thin for my taste. i used to rant against newspapers at large. i still do, but now i have a choice - all papers have their problems, but at least the Hindustan Timeses and the Indian Expresses of the world offer deeper stories.
i never thought i'd find my peace with newspapers, but in the face of the annoying, grubby faces of arnav goswami, his lizard henchman (you know the thin, fair guy, i never seem to catch his name), barkha dutt and the like, print - whatever it says - seems a lot more comforting, inclusive and thoughtful.
and then you come across something like this; something that sorts of puts its finger exactly where your pulse is pounding, and you thank the good lord for newspapers.
though we watched the program with daft wanker simi garewal mentioned below and saw her saying all this, there was nothing we could do except stare open-mouthedly. and wonder why no one from the audience or panel jumped up and pulled her by her hair-sprayed bouffant till she shrieked. well, trust a paper to find the space to do so nicely, politely, crisply.
over to mukul kesavan, in an article for The Telegraph called: The Mumbai tragedy and the English language news media:
i never thought i'd find my peace with newspapers, but in the face of the annoying, grubby faces of arnav goswami, his lizard henchman (you know the thin, fair guy, i never seem to catch his name), barkha dutt and the like, print - whatever it says - seems a lot more comforting, inclusive and thoughtful.
and then you come across something like this; something that sorts of puts its finger exactly where your pulse is pounding, and you thank the good lord for newspapers.
though we watched the program with daft wanker simi garewal mentioned below and saw her saying all this, there was nothing we could do except stare open-mouthedly. and wonder why no one from the audience or panel jumped up and pulled her by her hair-sprayed bouffant till she shrieked. well, trust a paper to find the space to do so nicely, politely, crisply.
over to mukul kesavan, in an article for The Telegraph called: The Mumbai tragedy and the English language news media:
“Go to the Four Seasons and look down from the top floor at the slums around you. Do you know what flags you will see? Not the Congress’s, not the BJP’s, not the Shiv Sena’s. Pakistan! Pakistani flags fly high!... You know what I think? We should carpet-bomb Pakistan. That’s the only way we can give a clear message.”
Simi Garewal later apologized for this little outburst on the television show, We, the People. She said she had mistaken Muslim flags for Pakistani ones. She had a harder time explaining away her ‘carpet bombing’ prescription. She claimed that she had meant to suggest a covert attack like the below-the-radar missions Americans so often undertake in Pakistan’s borderlands. Carpet-bombing is hard to do discreetly, but we shouldn’t make too much of this because the point isn’t Simi Garewal and her gaffe: it’s the way the English language news media covered the Mumbai tragedy.
The idiom of the coverage of the terror attack on Mumbai was in part shaped by the need to say something, anything, in the face of horror and evil. The need to voice not just their own feelings but the need to be a proxy for the People, to anticipate and echo a public revulsion, seemed to overwhelm reporters and studio anchors...
...it's fantastically-written and there's more here.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
is it just me?
am i really the only one grossed out by the media frenzy over the terror attacks? i get the feeling that the old and the breathless - the barkha dutts and the arnav goswamis and all the other little idiot tiddlywinks - really are getting their collective knickers in a twist simply to justify their fat salaries finally. it's mind-bendingly sad and gross and tacky and just somehow so immature.
so bad, in fact, that the govt's finally seemed to notice and has asked for them to stop repeating footage of the attacks aimlessly (today's hindustan times, front page and page 6). i expect the media to go a bit off-centre, to look under the obvious, to somehow be a bit liberal, a bit thoughful. but they've turned out to be real jokers and vultures this time, literally using this whole incident to up their precious trp's.
gouri was asked by some pakistani left-leaning friends as to why the indian media seemed to toe the govt. line so obsessively; why did there seem no independent thinking almost? she felt like replying - and rightly so - that the govt. didn't seem to have as much of 'line' as the media, which seemed to be playing judge and jury in this rather sensitive case.
friends who went to the rally at the gateway said that the only sad thing was the amount of anti-pak feeling and sloganeering. it was overwhelming to see the collection of so many people without an obvious political focus (though the rss types were there too), but with a deep underlying sense of sorrow, anger and disappointment; but it was also scary to see how top-of-mind war was.
this is totally a product of how the tv channels have swung it for us. they've made pakistan and its establishment out to be so evil that if you're watching tv for a lot of time, like many people are, it's easy to get swallowed by their jingoistic tirades. there is total anarchy - here as well as there. how would fighting a war between states help? i really don't know what the way out is, but i do know for sure that if there is a popular push for war, the tv channels are to blame.
here's something small by my favourite author amitav ghosh on the subject.
so bad, in fact, that the govt's finally seemed to notice and has asked for them to stop repeating footage of the attacks aimlessly (today's hindustan times, front page and page 6). i expect the media to go a bit off-centre, to look under the obvious, to somehow be a bit liberal, a bit thoughful. but they've turned out to be real jokers and vultures this time, literally using this whole incident to up their precious trp's.
gouri was asked by some pakistani left-leaning friends as to why the indian media seemed to toe the govt. line so obsessively; why did there seem no independent thinking almost? she felt like replying - and rightly so - that the govt. didn't seem to have as much of 'line' as the media, which seemed to be playing judge and jury in this rather sensitive case.
friends who went to the rally at the gateway said that the only sad thing was the amount of anti-pak feeling and sloganeering. it was overwhelming to see the collection of so many people without an obvious political focus (though the rss types were there too), but with a deep underlying sense of sorrow, anger and disappointment; but it was also scary to see how top-of-mind war was.
this is totally a product of how the tv channels have swung it for us. they've made pakistan and its establishment out to be so evil that if you're watching tv for a lot of time, like many people are, it's easy to get swallowed by their jingoistic tirades. there is total anarchy - here as well as there. how would fighting a war between states help? i really don't know what the way out is, but i do know for sure that if there is a popular push for war, the tv channels are to blame.
here's something small by my favourite author amitav ghosh on the subject.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
he's coming, he's coming. oh darn. he's not...
some days back, these obscene posters were put up all over chembur. huge hoardings for the bhoomipujan of the chembur-sandhurst rd monorail link. they bore pix of manmohan singh, sonia, gurudas kamat AND a big shiny unbelievable long, whizzy and phallic-looking monorail train. each poster had a different monorail train from the other, depending on the ingenuity of the dtp guy and which country his photostock-cd came from. one was yellow, another was red, a third was white and blue. all had 'chembur' written on the train. one was morphed on to an actual flyover above the market - and the flyover was labelled 'chembur railway station'. yeah, right. the gandhi maidan had been cleaned, grilled and painted, roads around it freshly paved (three in all), the footpath blessed with paver blocks that actually fit.
and now, all that is over. without even a whisker of our dear pm's beard landing at the domestic airport. nearly all the posters have come down. luckily the roads and footpaths haven't been dug up yet in a fit of civic pique. what saddens me is the overall ad-hoc-ism and expeditiousness of our approach to everything. i think this marks and mars each of our institutions, our responses and our processes.
the pm is coming, so quick, patch up roads on his route. don't do anything about the bad roads all over chembur in general (forget about the rest of mumbai); the broken paver blocks that people trip on; the homeless slum dwellers struggling in mandala; the noxious dumping ground in deonar and the colonies next door; a simple thing like the rusted, broken play equipment in diamond garden and other public parks - and so much more. i'm only talking about a few of the issues in our part of chembur because it strikes me as funny how even in this tiny microcosmic area, the pm's visit-that-wasn't did not bring anything more some pots of paint, and repairs to three roads.
this ad-hoc band-aid type approach of ours is everywhere. amit's mns friend was telling him about the numerous people he saw dying at cst when he happened to be there that fatal night - the cop, a friend of his, who told him to stay inside the chowky and stepped out only to be shot instantly; the street child who took a bullet to his brain; the overworked cop who wrote 600 panchnamas in one night and got them photocopied at his own cost (i believe cops have to do this, only to be reimbursed - sort of - when they retire. no wonder they are easily bribed); of the rusty jammed revolvers our cops use (and we all know about the hockey-goalkeeper-type bullet-proof shields they are given, don't we?). his stories are profoundly moving. and i wonder if he sees the irony in all this. just last month the mns was holding the city to ransom - beating up people, killing them. it was interesting to watch an interview with Mr Zende, the vt station announcer who saved many lives. his hindi-speaking UP colleague was with him that night, and while zende spoke, he switched off the lights in time and helped the continued broadcast of messages. NOW do parties which polarize people - the mns and the shiv-sena-bjp - see how stupid and petty they are? will the bjp ever see how myopic it was and is? how religion, ethnicity, language - nothing in the end is more valuable than or matters more than human life? and how easy it is - when you're having a good time kicking someone small - for a larger boot to find you and kick your head in?
i doubt that would have been top-of-mind when advani, munde and modi zipped to their various assignations in mumbai on what, the day after the attacks? they stood outside the oberoi and the chhabad house looking like idiots and daft wankers, causing near-riots. but votes are all, right? and what about so-pretty-it-hurts rahul gandhi who spent the whole of thursday - 8 hours of the actual hostage crisis day - at some party where among other things, cricket was played? wow.
another example of our immaturity is the rash of vaguely unsettling sms's doing the rounds - the anti-raj thackeray ones specifically. i hate the thackerays as much as the next rational person. but that message had this weird, sinister quality to it - it was annoyingly petty where it could have been a lot more profound. as if the mumbai cops (marathi or otherwise) who fought valiantly to reduce the damage - some of who died doing it - didn't count; that somehow being 'sons of the soil', they were simply cannon-fodder. i mean how small is that. why must we - in our attempts to be witty - sink to the level of idiots?
though i've totally rationed my tv-viewing, i watched a bit of times now last night, and the channel's coverage had me shaken. another instance of how quickly and easily we resort to wrong-doing. they seem to have 'exclusive' coverage of kasav the terrorist's confession and some more 'exclusive' cctv footage of the cst shooting. tell me, did all of that come for free? no bribery happened to oil that footage, those words out of there? now isn't corrupting officals for the sake of trp's expeditious and wrong? doesn't it ease the way for the next set of bribers to come in? the tone of their reportage as well - i think arnav goswami is a self-righteous little prig, but that fair, gaunt guy they have? he sounds a 100% bigot, and simply way he spoke could bring up the communal pitch. he went on and on and on about 'madrassas spewing hate' so much that i wanted to ask him if he'd heard of the rss.
the whole of our terror porn - starting with our dear star-struck cm - frightens me. when the nsg guys were requesting tv channels not to show their strategies on air, these same self-righteous announcers didn't care to respond. and they kept showing stuff - never forgetting to add those magic words 'exclusively brought to you by your channel, ...' - in this breathless, semi-orgasmic way. it all shows me that between our daft politicians and our trp-hungry channels, we haven't a hope.
the few things that do give me hope are peoples' reactions, the anger of the bereaved. Mrs Karkare's refusal of modi's tainted bucks, for one, and Sandeep Unnikrishnan's father yelling at the kerala cm (i mean, it doesn't get more humiliating in malayalam than poda patti). it's that pitch of post-bereavement rage, when your loss is so huge that even the smallest thing will drive you to anger beyond despair - the white-hot fury when you feel that with everything gone, you have nothing left to lose. i know because i felt it 8 and a half months back.
there's no hope for us, really. not unless someone funnels some wisdom into our heads in small trickles.
or does an obama on us.
(ps: after i posted this, i read paro's piece, and i think it says a lot that i felt as well but couldn't articulate... please to read. also look at the first post - her friend's comments on what she feels is wrong with the media. very taut and again, manages to focus my anger the way i couldn't!)
and now, all that is over. without even a whisker of our dear pm's beard landing at the domestic airport. nearly all the posters have come down. luckily the roads and footpaths haven't been dug up yet in a fit of civic pique. what saddens me is the overall ad-hoc-ism and expeditiousness of our approach to everything. i think this marks and mars each of our institutions, our responses and our processes.
the pm is coming, so quick, patch up roads on his route. don't do anything about the bad roads all over chembur in general (forget about the rest of mumbai); the broken paver blocks that people trip on; the homeless slum dwellers struggling in mandala; the noxious dumping ground in deonar and the colonies next door; a simple thing like the rusted, broken play equipment in diamond garden and other public parks - and so much more. i'm only talking about a few of the issues in our part of chembur because it strikes me as funny how even in this tiny microcosmic area, the pm's visit-that-wasn't did not bring anything more some pots of paint, and repairs to three roads.
this ad-hoc band-aid type approach of ours is everywhere. amit's mns friend was telling him about the numerous people he saw dying at cst when he happened to be there that fatal night - the cop, a friend of his, who told him to stay inside the chowky and stepped out only to be shot instantly; the street child who took a bullet to his brain; the overworked cop who wrote 600 panchnamas in one night and got them photocopied at his own cost (i believe cops have to do this, only to be reimbursed - sort of - when they retire. no wonder they are easily bribed); of the rusty jammed revolvers our cops use (and we all know about the hockey-goalkeeper-type bullet-proof shields they are given, don't we?). his stories are profoundly moving. and i wonder if he sees the irony in all this. just last month the mns was holding the city to ransom - beating up people, killing them. it was interesting to watch an interview with Mr Zende, the vt station announcer who saved many lives. his hindi-speaking UP colleague was with him that night, and while zende spoke, he switched off the lights in time and helped the continued broadcast of messages. NOW do parties which polarize people - the mns and the shiv-sena-bjp - see how stupid and petty they are? will the bjp ever see how myopic it was and is? how religion, ethnicity, language - nothing in the end is more valuable than or matters more than human life? and how easy it is - when you're having a good time kicking someone small - for a larger boot to find you and kick your head in?
i doubt that would have been top-of-mind when advani, munde and modi zipped to their various assignations in mumbai on what, the day after the attacks? they stood outside the oberoi and the chhabad house looking like idiots and daft wankers, causing near-riots. but votes are all, right? and what about so-pretty-it-hurts rahul gandhi who spent the whole of thursday - 8 hours of the actual hostage crisis day - at some party where among other things, cricket was played? wow.
another example of our immaturity is the rash of vaguely unsettling sms's doing the rounds - the anti-raj thackeray ones specifically. i hate the thackerays as much as the next rational person. but that message had this weird, sinister quality to it - it was annoyingly petty where it could have been a lot more profound. as if the mumbai cops (marathi or otherwise) who fought valiantly to reduce the damage - some of who died doing it - didn't count; that somehow being 'sons of the soil', they were simply cannon-fodder. i mean how small is that. why must we - in our attempts to be witty - sink to the level of idiots?
though i've totally rationed my tv-viewing, i watched a bit of times now last night, and the channel's coverage had me shaken. another instance of how quickly and easily we resort to wrong-doing. they seem to have 'exclusive' coverage of kasav the terrorist's confession and some more 'exclusive' cctv footage of the cst shooting. tell me, did all of that come for free? no bribery happened to oil that footage, those words out of there? now isn't corrupting officals for the sake of trp's expeditious and wrong? doesn't it ease the way for the next set of bribers to come in? the tone of their reportage as well - i think arnav goswami is a self-righteous little prig, but that fair, gaunt guy they have? he sounds a 100% bigot, and simply way he spoke could bring up the communal pitch. he went on and on and on about 'madrassas spewing hate' so much that i wanted to ask him if he'd heard of the rss.
the whole of our terror porn - starting with our dear star-struck cm - frightens me. when the nsg guys were requesting tv channels not to show their strategies on air, these same self-righteous announcers didn't care to respond. and they kept showing stuff - never forgetting to add those magic words 'exclusively brought to you by your channel, ...' - in this breathless, semi-orgasmic way. it all shows me that between our daft politicians and our trp-hungry channels, we haven't a hope.
the few things that do give me hope are peoples' reactions, the anger of the bereaved. Mrs Karkare's refusal of modi's tainted bucks, for one, and Sandeep Unnikrishnan's father yelling at the kerala cm (i mean, it doesn't get more humiliating in malayalam than poda patti). it's that pitch of post-bereavement rage, when your loss is so huge that even the smallest thing will drive you to anger beyond despair - the white-hot fury when you feel that with everything gone, you have nothing left to lose. i know because i felt it 8 and a half months back.
there's no hope for us, really. not unless someone funnels some wisdom into our heads in small trickles.
or does an obama on us.
(ps: after i posted this, i read paro's piece, and i think it says a lot that i felt as well but couldn't articulate... please to read. also look at the first post - her friend's comments on what she feels is wrong with the media. very taut and again, manages to focus my anger the way i couldn't!)
Monday, November 10, 2008
Holy Cow - Shooting with Paul Merton in Junagadh
Last March I worked on the now-infamous British documentary series Paul Merton in India. The most talked-about, debated and hated/loved story in the show was Paul visiting Junagadh, a town in Saurashtra, Gujarat. Lots of Hindu groups and individuals in the UK found the story on Naga Sadhus at the Shivratri festival offensive and insulting to the Hindu faith. Read the comments here on the Telegraph site and here on the Hindu Voice site.
Lots of Desis in the UK, stuck in the typical NRI time-warp, felt any mention of a Shivling and penis in the same sentence was insulting to the Hindu faith. As one of the production coordinators on the shoot, I took the crew to Junagadh to meet the crazy Naga Sadhus.
I know about Junagadh because I was born there and grew up there. I had seen the Shivratri fair and the antics of the Naga Sadhus since childhood and saw nothing particularly odd or bizarre about them. These were a group of men who had discarded everything including clothes and if they could pull trucks with their dicks, it just meant that Hinduism was too big or too huge for us to comprehend and this was just one of its manifestations - however bizarre.
It was a revelation filming the Shivratri festival, the sadhus and the millions of devotees who came from villages all around Junagadh. The devotees' reverence and faith for this crazy lot of Sadhus was amazing - it was there for everyone to see. Often we'd find a poor farmer or a bank official in a Safari suit sitting amicably with a stark naked sadhu and sharing a chillum - knowing that his faith allowed him this minor digression and the sky would not open up if they enjoyed a couple of heady drags. There were strange sights all around, and that the religion and society had space within them for this extreme-ness was exciting in itself.
One of the Sadhus was dressed like Merlin - with a pointy hat, dark glasses and purple hair - right out of Hogwarts School, and a female Sadhvi walked around wearing a pink hat and nothing else. One of the disciples of the Sadhus we were sitting with said very proudly, "Maharaj can perform 501 tricks with his ling (penis)!".
None of the villagers or even the very respectable middle-class Hindu Gujjus found any of this strange - nobody's faith was threatened and nobody raised an eyebrow. Well, nobody except the devout in their plush sitting rooms in Leicester and Southall.
Naga Sadhus and Akharas are extreme forms of the Hindu faith - they are strange, bizarre and outlandish - like many other things in India and we were just there filming it. India is a fascinating mix of cultures, religions and no film can do complete justice to its huge store of bizarre and strange stories. It might embarrass us, but it's all unmissably there.
An Indian from the UK I bumped into at a hotel recently told me that she thought the Paul Merton show made fun of India. Well Ma'am, slimy, cunning Westerners did not put all those nutty things there - they have been among us ages and will continue being here forever - or at least I hope so!
While we can live happily amongst the squalid and the bizarre, there is a strange coyness about showing any of it, especially among fatcat NRIs who have happily abandoned all of it to live in the sanitised West, and are suddenly very protective about the image of 'their' land and religion. Yes, the Tatas have bought Jaguar, and we are a booming economy, but that doesn't stop your average Naga sadhu from enjoying his occasional chillum. Bum Bhole!
- Amit (for a change!)
Lots of Desis in the UK, stuck in the typical NRI time-warp, felt any mention of a Shivling and penis in the same sentence was insulting to the Hindu faith. As one of the production coordinators on the shoot, I took the crew to Junagadh to meet the crazy Naga Sadhus.
I know about Junagadh because I was born there and grew up there. I had seen the Shivratri fair and the antics of the Naga Sadhus since childhood and saw nothing particularly odd or bizarre about them. These were a group of men who had discarded everything including clothes and if they could pull trucks with their dicks, it just meant that Hinduism was too big or too huge for us to comprehend and this was just one of its manifestations - however bizarre.
It was a revelation filming the Shivratri festival, the sadhus and the millions of devotees who came from villages all around Junagadh. The devotees' reverence and faith for this crazy lot of Sadhus was amazing - it was there for everyone to see. Often we'd find a poor farmer or a bank official in a Safari suit sitting amicably with a stark naked sadhu and sharing a chillum - knowing that his faith allowed him this minor digression and the sky would not open up if they enjoyed a couple of heady drags. There were strange sights all around, and that the religion and society had space within them for this extreme-ness was exciting in itself.
One of the Sadhus was dressed like Merlin - with a pointy hat, dark glasses and purple hair - right out of Hogwarts School, and a female Sadhvi walked around wearing a pink hat and nothing else. One of the disciples of the Sadhus we were sitting with said very proudly, "Maharaj can perform 501 tricks with his ling (penis)!".
None of the villagers or even the very respectable middle-class Hindu Gujjus found any of this strange - nobody's faith was threatened and nobody raised an eyebrow. Well, nobody except the devout in their plush sitting rooms in Leicester and Southall.
Naga Sadhus and Akharas are extreme forms of the Hindu faith - they are strange, bizarre and outlandish - like many other things in India and we were just there filming it. India is a fascinating mix of cultures, religions and no film can do complete justice to its huge store of bizarre and strange stories. It might embarrass us, but it's all unmissably there.
An Indian from the UK I bumped into at a hotel recently told me that she thought the Paul Merton show made fun of India. Well Ma'am, slimy, cunning Westerners did not put all those nutty things there - they have been among us ages and will continue being here forever - or at least I hope so!
While we can live happily amongst the squalid and the bizarre, there is a strange coyness about showing any of it, especially among fatcat NRIs who have happily abandoned all of it to live in the sanitised West, and are suddenly very protective about the image of 'their' land and religion. Yes, the Tatas have bought Jaguar, and we are a booming economy, but that doesn't stop your average Naga sadhu from enjoying his occasional chillum. Bum Bhole!
- Amit (for a change!)
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
The rest is silence
I'm not sure about this, but I suspect I'll never write a book because everything I want to say has been said already by two gentlemen: Berkeley Breathed in his Bloom County books, and Garry Trudeau in Doonesbury. Of the two, I enjoy Trudeau in his current form, and I LOVED Breathed in his '80s, '90s form. Of late, Breathed's comp-coloured extravaganzas somehow lack bite. I think a great comic artist-writer is a sort of oracle, spotting trends, and being able to see the pitfalls and blunders we are heading for. That was what I loved the early Breathed for. Now, only Trudeau sems to be doing it. Here he is on the elections - is he cool, or what??
PS: As i clicked publish post, news came that the O-man has won. Amazing and truly wonderful, but really given the royal republican mess made by GBW (who Trudeau symbolizes using a battered Roman-legionary-type helmet), was there any doubt? I mean, I was scared and had doubts that McCain would win - nothing against him specifically, but because it would mean an endorsement of everything gross that the republicans stand for. In true oracular style, Guru Trudeau at least had no doubts.
PS: As i clicked publish post, news came that the O-man has won. Amazing and truly wonderful, but really given the royal republican mess made by GBW (who Trudeau symbolizes using a battered Roman-legionary-type helmet), was there any doubt? I mean, I was scared and had doubts that McCain would win - nothing against him specifically, but because it would mean an endorsement of everything gross that the republicans stand for. In true oracular style, Guru Trudeau at least had no doubts.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Cracked pots?
N's school has a good rule. No chips, biscuits, cookies in the tiffin box, except on Friday, which is 'favourite food day'. To N, it's 'junk food day' and she loves planning what will go into her dabba. I have slimily convinced her that nuts, banana chips and nankhatais are junk food, which they are of course, but compared to the Bytes and the Kellogg's Chocos and Lays chips, almost perhaps of a lesser sort. Every once in a long while, she gets a few monstrously sweet treats like Chocos and Lays. So if she grows up into a snack-guzzling, cola-swigging teen, we know who to blame for having let her have a deprived childhood, right?
Packing the daily tiffin-box - how to make it fun and healthy and mess-free; how to fit it all into a small oval steel dabba; how to whip it up toot sweet - these are Big Issues that trouble me. I do my darndest, but this, I thought, was bordering on the surreal - Japanese style. The Bento box is, according to wiki, 'a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware.'
I'm cracked alright, but not as touched, thank god, as the moms who go to these seemingly endless lengths. Fun to see but must be such a pressure to pack the frickin' thing and then take photo, cries of jaldi, jaldi, school bus chali jayegi ringing out (in Jaapani bhasha, of course) in the background. Nice, but I cannot see it happening in the Nair-Vachharajani household.
Meanwhile, I religiously - and shamelessly - go to the Bento Anarchy (hahahaha!) page every few days. Worry about the food colours they seem to use so merrily, and the plastic dabbas; and ogle at the impossibly clever cookie cutters they seem to have. Food porn for me.
Packing the daily tiffin-box - how to make it fun and healthy and mess-free; how to fit it all into a small oval steel dabba; how to whip it up toot sweet - these are Big Issues that trouble me. I do my darndest, but this, I thought, was bordering on the surreal - Japanese style. The Bento box is, according to wiki, 'a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables as a side dish. Containers range from disposable mass produced to hand crafted lacquerware.'
I'm cracked alright, but not as touched, thank god, as the moms who go to these seemingly endless lengths. Fun to see but must be such a pressure to pack the frickin' thing and then take photo, cries of jaldi, jaldi, school bus chali jayegi ringing out (in Jaapani bhasha, of course) in the background. Nice, but I cannot see it happening in the Nair-Vachharajani household.
Meanwhile, I religiously - and shamelessly - go to the Bento Anarchy (hahahaha!) page every few days. Worry about the food colours they seem to use so merrily, and the plastic dabbas; and ogle at the impossibly clever cookie cutters they seem to have. Food porn for me.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Olive Riddley troubles
One of the annoying things about working on something for children to read or to see is that it makes you frighteningly conscious about the future. We are working on a children’s book on India – researching, writing and illustrating it. While it pays so little it’s not funny, what we’ve gained in terms of knowledge and sheer awareness of this large and complex country is awesome. Researching for pictures and textual information means going through a set process: mild curiosity to begin with, and then as we read more and more, awe, shock, delight, wonder, and sometimes, anger and dismay.
Take the case of the highly endangered Olive Ridley turtles which come every winter to nest on the beaches of Gahirmatha, Devi and Rushikulya in Orissa (illustration by Amit for the book). Following an unerring instinct, they come from faraway Sri Lanka and even Australia. They come all along the coast – to Orissa, parts of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Khambat and Kerala.
Though numerous eggs are laid every winter by the Olive Ridleys, only one in a thousand hatchlings survives. Trawler nets, pollution and poaching kill many of the turtles, the eggs and the hatchlings. Once hatched, the baby turtles rush to the sea using stars, the sea’s luminescence and moonlight to help them navigate. Reaching the sea is absolutely crucial, and thanks to road lights, they often blunder in the wrong direction. Activists and villagers manage to turn them the right way sometimes.
To add to the mind-boggling dangers they face, a new menace has been approved by the state govt. – the Dhamra port at Gahirmatha beach, 15 kms from the nesting ground of these small sea turtles), gravely endangering an already fragile population. Though owned by the state, it is to be built by the Tatas, who frankly, should know better by now, I think. Apart from the many different kinds of ecological damage the Dhamra port will do, it will have artificial lights which will mislead the baby turtles much more than mere road lights. The port will also seriously harm the livelihood of fishing communities there. For specifics on all the kinds of ecological and human damage, read this.
While creating something for children to read, for the future to see, one realizes – with great shame – what it is that we are doing to the world. How foolishly we are squandering its few remaining treasures, instead of proudly protecting them. I think the world over, a place like this would be preserved, as a sign of human restraint and wisdom. It shames us to sense that only in India, perhaps, would we be ignorant and greedy enough to willfully destroy something so timeless and wonderful.
The Tatas – for all their bad record at Singur – are signatories to the U.N.’s Global Compact for Corporate Responsibility. Tata Steel, for one, is pledged to something called the Precautionary Principle, which, according to Wikipedia, is ‘a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action. But in some legal systems, as the European Union Law, the precautionary principle is also a general principle of law. This means that it is compulsory. The principle aims to provide guidance for protecting public health and the environment in the face of uncertain risks, stating that the absence of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason to postpone measures where there is a risk of serious or irreversible harm to public health or the environment.’
So while the 'developed' world sees protecting the environment and rights of the poor as a sign of progress, only in India, peculiarly, do we see both of the above as signs of weakness and stagnation.
If this disturbs you as much as it did us, go here and add your voice to those of activists and environmentalists from the world over. It may not seem like much, but there's no point not trying, no?
Monday, July 21, 2008
Technosqueak meets her nemesis
Though I use comps all the time, I am a certified, card-carrying techno-duh, a techno-phobe, a techno-squeaky-scaredy-cat. A friend once observed that I will learn just as much tech as I need to get by, no more. Over the years, I've been both proud and ashamed of this. But always, always I've been hopeful of one thing - that my daughter will be like me: wiling to learn, able to, but not, like, champing at the bit to get at a comp, dreaming of macs, willing to spend hours figuring out comps, etc., like her dad. I'm terrified of exposing kids to tech too early, because we all know, don't we, where that goes? Addiction to gaming, refusing to write on paper, whatnot. I've seen kids as young three years figuring out games on cel phones (and playing them obsessively). It freaks me out.
Amit was saying something the other day about the level of tech knowledge of the youngest members of society being indicative of the tech awareness of that society. I got an insight into that recently. To get to our house you have to climb interminable stairs. It fatigues everyone, esp n with her small legs, and no one ever carries her up. As she climbs the stairs holding the shiny metal handrail, she says with a smile: See, I'm loading, amma, slowly, slowly. While going down to school every morning, she says, See, I'm downloading.
Who's to blame for this? Me of course. Trying to distract her by showing her the Dora website on the laptop, and when she says, Where's Dora?, telling her to look at the bar sliding up slowly, slowly because it's loading.
Bah.
Amit was saying something the other day about the level of tech knowledge of the youngest members of society being indicative of the tech awareness of that society. I got an insight into that recently. To get to our house you have to climb interminable stairs. It fatigues everyone, esp n with her small legs, and no one ever carries her up. As she climbs the stairs holding the shiny metal handrail, she says with a smile: See, I'm loading, amma, slowly, slowly. While going down to school every morning, she says, See, I'm downloading.
Who's to blame for this? Me of course. Trying to distract her by showing her the Dora website on the laptop, and when she says, Where's Dora?, telling her to look at the bar sliding up slowly, slowly because it's loading.
Bah.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Through a fishbowl, darkly
What do you do with an empty fishbowl? What, for that matter, do you do with a hole in your life that measures about 6 feet? Nothing in the case of the latter except avoid looking at old photos like they were a portal into a spiral of tears, guilt, more tears and depression.
For the former, you make a plan to grow something else in it. A terrarium maybe, which could be assembled at the local nursery. We had gifted Siya one - where the nursery owner promised to make it in front of her (I am ever the educative auntie)- and being slightly fey, she handed them a care sheet that suggested they find a name for their terrarium - like say Terrarium Bob. And where are we, I asked? In New Texas?
When ours came home, we kept joking and calling it Bob, till n declared that no, not Bob, but Tinkle. Terrarium Tinkle. I love the sight of a terrarium, and had many ambitions to make one on my own in a large, broad bottle used to transport acid; make it the old-fashioned way, with self-crafted tools (basically, spoons, forks tied to a strongish stick); putting in layer after layer of mud / compost with care, and planting low-growing plants in it. But apart from lack of enthusiasm, I see myself as a bit of a Typhoid Mary just now - one who shouldn't be allowed near delicate things that might need nurturing.
So here's our terrarium, nothing as handsome as my acid-bottle-dream, but still, a good thing to do with an empty fishbowl, no?
For the former, you make a plan to grow something else in it. A terrarium maybe, which could be assembled at the local nursery. We had gifted Siya one - where the nursery owner promised to make it in front of her (I am ever the educative auntie)- and being slightly fey, she handed them a care sheet that suggested they find a name for their terrarium - like say Terrarium Bob. And where are we, I asked? In New Texas?
When ours came home, we kept joking and calling it Bob, till n declared that no, not Bob, but Tinkle. Terrarium Tinkle. I love the sight of a terrarium, and had many ambitions to make one on my own in a large, broad bottle used to transport acid; make it the old-fashioned way, with self-crafted tools (basically, spoons, forks tied to a strongish stick); putting in layer after layer of mud / compost with care, and planting low-growing plants in it. But apart from lack of enthusiasm, I see myself as a bit of a Typhoid Mary just now - one who shouldn't be allowed near delicate things that might need nurturing.
So here's our terrarium, nothing as handsome as my acid-bottle-dream, but still, a good thing to do with an empty fishbowl, no?
Saturday, July 05, 2008
The Girl with the Camera...
…shoots a favourite subject: Sangita Maushi, our sweet, diligent cook. They really have a great rapport, and after the first pic she clicked of us, n wanted the second to be of Sangita, since, I think, the grandma wasn’t around. What with one thing and another, Marathi is n’s second language, English being her first (please don’t even ask about Malayalam and Gujarati – we had wanted her to speak fluently in those two first – or at least Malayalam for now – but we were told to put a sock in it till she was four by People Who Know).
Since mom and me speak Marathi ranging from extremely well (mom) to passably (me), we’re most thrilled. N has learned many Marathi songs from mom and another maid, Kalpana. Sangita, apart from making the world’s thinnest chapattis and its dullest dals, is a great purveyor of Marathi songs. I’ve forgotten many, but, deviyon aur sajjano, paish karte hai, what I remember of the Marathi hums which n hums (all errors in transcription, translation and lyrics are mine):
They range from the sweet –
Ye, ye ga sari, majhe matke bhari,
Sar aali dhaavoon,
Matke gele vaahoon!
Come, come, waves, fill my pots,
The wave came rushing,
And my pots went off!
To the cute –
Naach ga guma, Kashi mee naachu?
Ya gaavcha, tyaa gaavcha,
Aala nahi maali, ani mala nahi veni.
Naach ga…
Aala nahi shimpi, ani mala nahi choli.
(from Kalpana)
Dance little girl! How will I dance?
This village’s, that village’s
Gardener hasn’t come, and I don’t have a flower-garland.
Dance little girl! How will I dance?
This village’s, that village’s
Tailor hasn’t come, and I don’t have a blouse.
To the cloying –
Pusa dole rumaalane,
Radathe kashaala,
Shaleth jani N, chukena kunala
Kelisarkhi wadavili, jai sarkhi phulavili,
Aai bole n majhi, shalela geli.
Wipe your tears with your kerchief,
Why do you weep?
N goes to school, never harms a soul,
She’s grown like a banana plant,
Blossomed like a jai flower,
Mom says my N, she’s gone to school.
To the obscene –
Aalyacha mala madhe kon ga ubhi?
Vaangi todathe mee, raavaji, raa-va-ji,
Haath naka laavu, bagheen konitari!
Who’s there in the vegetable garden?
It’s just me, sir, just plucking a few brinjals.
Please don’t touch me, someone will see!
(A highly feudal song, sung in the original with an erotic, false sort of coyness… Positively EWWW when your 3.5 yr old sings it.)
To the bawdy –
Ye, ye ga pahune, Sakkuche mehune,
Sakku la baghoon hastoy ga,
Kaay tari ghotala distoy ga!
(This is an Omana-ammu rendition of the Dada Kondke classic.)
Come, come dear guest,
He’s Sakku’s brother-in-law,
Look how he’s smiling at Sakku,
It looks like something’s up!
And the hilarious:
Ambyachi ddhalki var baslaay mor,
Navryacha bapoos kaute-chor!
Ambyacha dhalki halveelli,
Navryana navrili palvili.
There’s a peacock on a mango-branch,
The groom’s dad is an egg-thief!
The mango-branch was given a shake,
And the groom ran off with the bride!
There’s also the odd ethnographical one –
Dokevari paati maura chi,
Kaay kolin chaalli bajari.
Yevda vata laavlay mota,
Aavar ye ga maushi, aavar ye.
On my head is a basket of fish,
I’m a Kolin setting off to the market,
Look at this large array, Auntie,
Come, come and finish it off!
The maniacally religious –
Hey Bhole Shankara,
Aavad tula belachi, aavad tula belachi,
Belacha paanaachi!
Oh Bhole Shankara,
You love the bela flower, you love the bela flower,
And even the bela’s leaves!
And this one which makes me cry – for obvious reasons – even as I type and translate it -
Sonya cha thati, ugalleli jyothi,
Ovalhathe bhau raja, yevda bahinichi vedi maya,
Gaadi ghunghurati, majhya maherachi,
Ovalhathe bhau raja, yevda bahinichi vedi maya,
A plate of gold, and a circling lamp,
I’m doing an arati for my prince of a brother, for that’s how much I’m devoted to him.
The tinkling bells of the cart from my mother’s village,
I’m doing an arati for my prince of a brother, for that’s how much I’m devoted to him.
(I’ve kept the translation bare on purpose – didn’t want to rhyme and poeticize unnecessarily – because I wanted to keep the Marathi meaning untouched.)
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Revenge of the Nerds - Part 2
One of the best books I've read in the longest time is Robin David's City of Fear. If the crappy books I got sent to review were any indication, I was sure that City... would be very well received indeed. The book was released and got like maybe 3 reviews in print and some more online. And that was it. No buzz, nothing. Apparently, the publishers were a bit nervous that Modi would get mad, really mad, and decided to keep things a bit low key.
In the nicest bit of news I've heard so far this year (and 2008 has been terrible, miserable, horrible for me and my family), The Indian Express informed us that City of Fear has been nominated for the Crossword Book Awards in the non-fiction category, with, hold your collective breaths, the likes of Ramchandra Guha and William Dalrymple. So whether the book finally manages to win or not, I think Robin's courage and the conviction and strength of his writing have already won. Proving finally that in some quarters at least, it's what you know and how you write that count, and not the buzz and weird publicity that you manage to generate...
In the nicest bit of news I've heard so far this year (and 2008 has been terrible, miserable, horrible for me and my family), The Indian Express informed us that City of Fear has been nominated for the Crossword Book Awards in the non-fiction category, with, hold your collective breaths, the likes of Ramchandra Guha and William Dalrymple. So whether the book finally manages to win or not, I think Robin's courage and the conviction and strength of his writing have already won. Proving finally that in some quarters at least, it's what you know and how you write that count, and not the buzz and weird publicity that you manage to generate...
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Of cousins, kids and the big Bang book
My cousin Rekha's visits from Canada always, always means one thing - the most delightful, surprising picture books. And not in ones and twos, mind you, but in bags - plastic bags, glossy, shiny, truly phoren ones that are strong and can bear the 5-odd kilos of picture books she stuffs them with. There are always three or four such bags, chosen and filled with great care by her, and while n studies the chocolates and the art stuff or the toys, Amit and I go into a huddle over the books. Juggling two jobs and a family, she still manages to scour her city for the nicest old (some from the '50s, '60s and '70s too) and new picture books. She always manages to strike a balance between the parents' greed 
and the child's needs - so they are the sweeter books which will appeal to n, and the darker, older, more esoteric ones that she feels Amit will like, or I will.
One of the books she got us this time was this beautifully painted book called The Grey lady and the Strawberry Snatcher by Molly Bang. I took one look at it and clearly classified it as one of the darker books - certainly not for the resident rabbit. N's favourites just now - to an obsessive degree - are The Berenstein Bears who are sweet enough, and intelligent too, but after a while, their American-style clean living just gets to you. Unlike before, she refuses to experiment with genres. Normal, I guess. So I didn't even bother trying to show it to her and put it away, till, one meal-time, in a defiant sort of mood, I took it out and showed it to her.
The book was a surprise to both of us. For one, it didn't have words - any words. Then, one of the two main characters was an old, mysteriously-named 'Grey Lady', who appeared in tones of a dull, light brown. The other was a thin, sinister-looking fellow - all gangly-limbed and a startling shade of blue. He wore a bright yellow-and-red shawl and a purple hat, and slunk around the book, sometimes looking casual, sometimes evil, sometimes clever, sometimes determined, relentless, and finally, just hysterically happy.
I thought n would be scared of the images, of the snatcher's furtiveness; of the sliver of shiny danger that runs through the book. But she was intrigued by the story, rivetted by the old woman's courage and the snatcher's determination. And, most of all, by the artist's clever, bright pictures and the swift-though-wordless pace at which things move.
There is a wonderful urgency to the story. It starts sweetly enough. An old lady goes to a shop to buy strawberries. On her way out, the Snatcher sees her. He follows her, making many a dive and grab for the basket of berries. Magically - with a lot artist ex machina - she manages to stay safe, often missing his gnarly blue-fingered, red-tipped hands by a hair's breadth. She dashes into buses, hides in a swamp, climbs a tree, swings from a vine, and then, just as the toothily grinning Snatcher almost reaches her (also by vine), she disappears into a light-brown-coloured page, leaving the Snatcher puzzled and a bit defeated. Till you turn over and see that he has spotted the most delightfully detailed mulberry bush, and eating a few berries, looks blissful, content. So happy, that his hair stands up on end in a stunning orange-coloured afro. The Grey Lady is home safe, and her family - including the pets and sundry babies - are all delightedly biting into the berries.
What I thought would freak n out was the complexity of the detail and the slightly scary tone of the illustrations - much like in Tuesday. As with Tuesday, she liked it unexpectedly, she didn't get scared of it, and every time we open it, there's a new detail to be seen. Like there is an exotically dressed lady who rolls into frame on a red skateboard, holding a pail of eels. As the old lady dashes into a bus that is in the extreme right edge of the spread, the Snatcher bangs into the eel woman. Something that is only suggested by the eels flying all over the place on the next page. The Grey Lady disembarks from the bus at her stop and you see that the Snatcher is waiting for her there. How did he get there so fast? You realize only on the fifth reading that the Snatcher has snatched the eel lady's red skateboard. Then, after many, many readings you spot something magical and strange: the tiny mushrooms that sprout in the Snatcher's footsteps.
Also, somehow, Bang's narrative on each page is multi-dimensional. So in
this pic, for instance, you have the Snatcher peering out and spotting the Grey Lady, and him following her, all casual-like. The visual is separated by that door there, and I thought it would be confusing for n that there are two parts of a narrative phrase here, and not two sets of different characters. (Click on it for a better view - the scan is bad.)
But intuitively, she got it. That's not surprising; kids these days are bright. My point is something else. I googled Molly Bang and found this. Read it because it tells you about the sheer cussedness of people, how they refuse to consider that kids can like things that are slightly off-centre too. When it comes to children and what they should read or watch on tv, everyone is an expert. And everyone usually gets it wrong as well (of course, this is more apparent on tv than in the world of books).
Getting published can be tough, uphill work. Often creativity seems like only a tenth of the process. The bigger, tougher part is sheer dogged determination you need to - like Bang - keep on submitting, re-working, re-thinking and then submitting again.
and the child's needs - so they are the sweeter books which will appeal to n, and the darker, older, more esoteric ones that she feels Amit will like, or I will.One of the books she got us this time was this beautifully painted book called The Grey lady and the Strawberry Snatcher by Molly Bang. I took one look at it and clearly classified it as one of the darker books - certainly not for the resident rabbit. N's favourites just now - to an obsessive degree - are The Berenstein Bears who are sweet enough, and intelligent too, but after a while, their American-style clean living just gets to you. Unlike before, she refuses to experiment with genres. Normal, I guess. So I didn't even bother trying to show it to her and put it away, till, one meal-time, in a defiant sort of mood, I took it out and showed it to her.
The book was a surprise to both of us. For one, it didn't have words - any words. Then, one of the two main characters was an old, mysteriously-named 'Grey Lady', who appeared in tones of a dull, light brown. The other was a thin, sinister-looking fellow - all gangly-limbed and a startling shade of blue. He wore a bright yellow-and-red shawl and a purple hat, and slunk around the book, sometimes looking casual, sometimes evil, sometimes clever, sometimes determined, relentless, and finally, just hysterically happy.
I thought n would be scared of the images, of the snatcher's furtiveness; of the sliver of shiny danger that runs through the book. But she was intrigued by the story, rivetted by the old woman's courage and the snatcher's determination. And, most of all, by the artist's clever, bright pictures and the swift-though-wordless pace at which things move.
There is a wonderful urgency to the story. It starts sweetly enough. An old lady goes to a shop to buy strawberries. On her way out, the Snatcher sees her. He follows her, making many a dive and grab for the basket of berries. Magically - with a lot artist ex machina - she manages to stay safe, often missing his gnarly blue-fingered, red-tipped hands by a hair's breadth. She dashes into buses, hides in a swamp, climbs a tree, swings from a vine, and then, just as the toothily grinning Snatcher almost reaches her (also by vine), she disappears into a light-brown-coloured page, leaving the Snatcher puzzled and a bit defeated. Till you turn over and see that he has spotted the most delightfully detailed mulberry bush, and eating a few berries, looks blissful, content. So happy, that his hair stands up on end in a stunning orange-coloured afro. The Grey Lady is home safe, and her family - including the pets and sundry babies - are all delightedly biting into the berries.
What I thought would freak n out was the complexity of the detail and the slightly scary tone of the illustrations - much like in Tuesday. As with Tuesday, she liked it unexpectedly, she didn't get scared of it, and every time we open it, there's a new detail to be seen. Like there is an exotically dressed lady who rolls into frame on a red skateboard, holding a pail of eels. As the old lady dashes into a bus that is in the extreme right edge of the spread, the Snatcher bangs into the eel woman. Something that is only suggested by the eels flying all over the place on the next page. The Grey Lady disembarks from the bus at her stop and you see that the Snatcher is waiting for her there. How did he get there so fast? You realize only on the fifth reading that the Snatcher has snatched the eel lady's red skateboard. Then, after many, many readings you spot something magical and strange: the tiny mushrooms that sprout in the Snatcher's footsteps.
Also, somehow, Bang's narrative on each page is multi-dimensional. So in
this pic, for instance, you have the Snatcher peering out and spotting the Grey Lady, and him following her, all casual-like. The visual is separated by that door there, and I thought it would be confusing for n that there are two parts of a narrative phrase here, and not two sets of different characters. (Click on it for a better view - the scan is bad.)But intuitively, she got it. That's not surprising; kids these days are bright. My point is something else. I googled Molly Bang and found this. Read it because it tells you about the sheer cussedness of people, how they refuse to consider that kids can like things that are slightly off-centre too. When it comes to children and what they should read or watch on tv, everyone is an expert. And everyone usually gets it wrong as well (of course, this is more apparent on tv than in the world of books).
Getting published can be tough, uphill work. Often creativity seems like only a tenth of the process. The bigger, tougher part is sheer dogged determination you need to - like Bang - keep on submitting, re-working, re-thinking and then submitting again.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Because I can't bear to write...
...here's another photo post. N and her father discovered a train of ants in our jade plant. So this delicious-looking soap solution was made (using the tandurusti ki raksha karne wala Lifebuoy) to pour on the plants. Ironically, the jade's leaves were ruthlessly plucked by n and shucked into the solution, making it a lovely Zen-like discovery of a morning for me. When you're feeling as low as I am, even small things give pause for thought.
N, meanwhile, has been feeling triumphantly evil over her 'cruelty' and has cast herself in the role of a witch. She keeps humming to herself as she sprays the plants: 'Sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle / I'm here to pour Lifebuoy water on you...' Struck by the lurid strawberriness of the potion, she rushed and got a sticker of a strawberry and stuck it on the outside of the plastic container so that, she said excitedly, 'the ants will see it and think it's a tasty strawberry milkshake, and then they'll drink it!' I could almost hear the mean 'muwahahaha' laugh in her voice.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
In Manori...
...Man meets hammock,
Child meets bullock cart.
Crab colonies on the beach - less fragile, it strikes me, than human life.
N's first drawing ever - inspired by the softness of the sand, and framed by a fatherly toe. In case you're wondering, it's a flower with a leaf. Wonder if any of the aforementioned colonies were sacrificed while creating this.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Tag! I'm it.
I've had a dull sort of day. Finished off two bits of work yesterday, and thought I'd give myself a rest. Spent the day feeling d-u-l-l. Read other people's blogs and loved the way the write, and felt like I shouldn't be writing at all, since I can be neither brief nor clever. Then found this and it cheered me up mariginally - in the way pop quizzes in magazines used to when I was younger. So here goes.
A -Available?
In my dreams.
B-Best friend:
Umm. Am a Hard Kaur these days, and not thinking 'bast frands' at all.
C-Cake or Pie?
Actually, paal payasam, pressure-cooked till it's light pink.
D-Drink of choice:
Can't believe I'm saying this: Peach Iced Tea
E-Essential thing used everyday:
Chashma and cushion!
F-Favourite colour:
Turquoise maybe, or red, or sea-green.
G-Gummi bears or worms:
Worms, any day. I hate GBs.
H-Hometown:
Chembur
I-Indulgence:
Comics - like Bloom County, Doonesbury, Asterix and Tintin
J-January or February:
January. It has so many possibilities.
K-Kids and names:
One. N.
L-Life:
Short, painful, brutish. But with some lovely moments, of course.
M-Marriage date:
Dec 8
N-Number of siblings:
One
O-Oranges or apples:
Oranges
P-Phobias:
LIZARDS!!
Q-Quote:
Mars needs Moms!
R-Reason to smile:
N. She makes me grin, giggle, groan.
S-Season:
Monsoons
T-Tag three people:
Can't. Practically all the other bloggers I know have had this done to them. Will tag just one, and hope Paro doesn't mind it.
U-Unknown fact about me:
Better let it stay that way, no?
V-Vegetable you do not like:
Paapdi
W-Worst habit:
Talking on the phone. Incessantly. Being able to not work even when there is a lot to do.
X-x-rays you have had:
Many.
Y-Your favorite food:
Oh god, where do I start. I LUHVE food. Dahi batata puris and chicken biryani are the stuff I dream about.
Z-Zodiac:
Scorpio
A -Available?
In my dreams.
B-Best friend:
Umm. Am a Hard Kaur these days, and not thinking 'bast frands' at all.
C-Cake or Pie?
Actually, paal payasam, pressure-cooked till it's light pink.
D-Drink of choice:
Can't believe I'm saying this: Peach Iced Tea
E-Essential thing used everyday:
Chashma and cushion!
F-Favourite colour:
Turquoise maybe, or red, or sea-green.
G-Gummi bears or worms:
Worms, any day. I hate GBs.
H-Hometown:
Chembur
I-Indulgence:
Comics - like Bloom County, Doonesbury, Asterix and Tintin
J-January or February:
January. It has so many possibilities.
K-Kids and names:
One. N.
L-Life:
Short, painful, brutish. But with some lovely moments, of course.
M-Marriage date:
Dec 8
N-Number of siblings:
One
O-Oranges or apples:
Oranges
P-Phobias:
LIZARDS!!
Q-Quote:
Mars needs Moms!
R-Reason to smile:
N. She makes me grin, giggle, groan.
S-Season:
Monsoons
T-Tag three people:
Can't. Practically all the other bloggers I know have had this done to them. Will tag just one, and hope Paro doesn't mind it.
U-Unknown fact about me:
Better let it stay that way, no?
V-Vegetable you do not like:
Paapdi
W-Worst habit:
Talking on the phone. Incessantly. Being able to not work even when there is a lot to do.
X-x-rays you have had:
Many.
Y-Your favorite food:
Oh god, where do I start. I LUHVE food. Dahi batata puris and chicken biryani are the stuff I dream about.
Z-Zodiac:
Scorpio
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The Gourami also rises
I’ve always, always longed for a fish tank. Or maybe just one bowl, round, perfect, like a bubble with a golden blob of a fish bobbing in it. Growing up there was no question of it, of course, people at home wouldn’t hear of it. Then, with Amit, there were these prolonged discussions when he’d say, “I’ve had a fish tank, and the fish keep dying, and you’ll feel sad…” Hahaha, I’d laugh out loud, my head thrown back evilly, and say that I see fish only as food, not as friends at all, so no one’s going to catch me feeling really sad about a dead fish. Which, for some reason, instead of reassuring him, only made him blanch.
Time passed and n happened, and we got given a betta fish in a tiny fishbowl by Priya. She had researched the fish carefully: it was a native of the paddy fields of
Two days after the betta – who n named variously: ‘black-and-white’, ‘spotty’ and ‘swimmy’ – came home, we googled it and found that you should change the water every two or three days to prevent toxicity. With great care and dexterity we transferred it from small bowl to large bowl via a tea cup and an old sieve and it never once popped out and writhed as we were told fish do when you change the water. Yes, well, that done (we nearly sprained out pecs patting ourselves on our backs), we set out for some photo session at n’s school.
Back home an hour later, I looked at the fish, thought there was something odd about it, peered closer and saw that it was belly-up. Of course. The net doesn’t warn you about the chlorine in Mumbai’s water and how you need to pour in a de-chlorinating fluid before you blithely change the fish’s immediate environment.
Calmly I called Amit, who was first sad, then bitter, then devastated – when he heard of the chlorine thingy. That evening he flushed it away mournfully, as I patted his back. For days he lectured us about the pitfalls of having a fish at home; and how he wasn’t worried about himself, but see how it was upsetting ‘everyone’. N registered it in passing, but, typically of someone her age, I think, discussed it only days later when I was asked, ‘Why Swimmy died, amma?’ Before I could think of a suitably deep and yet simple answer, she said, ‘Now Swimmy dead no, so you must get me a pet rabbit.’
Now the grandma has taken it on herself to get a new fish and make it survive, or else. So today – despite parental disapproval – a Golden Gourami has come home. With blue pebbles for company and a packet of dried Red-Sea worms, and a bottle of de-chlorinating fluid. He / she is from the Laotian paddy fields (where there must be no fish left at all), a cousin of our old friend the betta. We are still not sure of the aggression levels (some sites say Gouramis love company; others say they just love to eat company), so the poor sod just has us and the pebbles to look at.
He / she is a stunner, though. Gold and with black stripes and spots, and with a lovely pair of long, thin whiskers… Fingers crossed that this one doesn’t end down the loo as well!
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Kapkapi - The Shivers
I hate the cold. I’m from the coast originally and have lived in
No thank you, I say, keep your winter snobbery. It’s warm weather for me (regardless of how much I crib in summer). It’s so cold this year that - unusually for this city - you don’t need to turn on the fan ever. And if you do, it’s only to keep away the mosquitoes. It's so cold that you got out in the evening for a walk, the wind blows, and leaves a welter of angry goose pimples on your skin. Forget nippy, it’s like the air has grown a million sharp little teeth with which it bites into you. I’ve seen people shivering and huddling around makeshift fires all over Chembur, fergodssake, and I cannot tell you how unlikely a sight that is.
I do not like the strange sense of stasis that this cold brings: the reluctance to put my feet on the chilly floor, the numbing cold of the water that flows out of taps, the fact that we don’t have the woollies or the mindset needed to take this weather on the chin. I don’t like it being so dry that my skin stretches after a bath simply because it’s too darn cold to cream up before you cover up. I hate the thought that if we find it hard to cope living in our warm flats, how horrendous it must be for street people, and even for the average, very poor Bombay-ite who doesn’t have the money to buy warm clothes.
I wouldn’t want to agree with any of the Thackerays on anything, but when young Raj Thackeray calls Vilasrao Deshmukh Khallas-rao (khallas means the end, destruction), I find myself pausing to think. Apart from selling off all available open spaces to the builder’s lobby, the man has other fine points. One of them is a blind-spot towards the very poor – evident in his cruel, totalitarian slum-demolition drives. You’d think any right-thinking government would start some donation drives of warm things, or maybe give away blankets to the poor. Some way to help people who have always lived in a balmy city to deal with the cold, right? Nothing short of a cold wave and people dying would wake this one up.
The bitter cold puzzles n too. She asked me, “Why this winter not going away, amma?” Why, indeed. It reminded me of my friend Gouri Patwardhan’s film on seasons. It had a small animated traditional story – an Eskimo myth about the rotation of seasons – called Kapkapi. One year, Old Man Winter refuses to leave the earth. People shiver and huddle together, because the trees and plants have shrivelled up and died, and they have run out of food and firewood. There’s frost and ice everywhere.
Finally they pray to the Sun and he comes down. “Go away!” he says to Old Man Winter, which just makes the short, bearded, dark-eyed fellow angrier, more determined to stay. Grim, sullen, he waves a fat palm at the sun dismissively. The sun blows at him, a warm, yellow-orange breath that makes him shrink till he finally sits on a white owl and flies off.
I love this little sequence because Gouri’s rounded figures and lovely colours are so delightful. In the climax, the ice on a pond cracks, the water gleams through and then morphs into colourful birds. It’s breath-taking. Done in pre-comp days, the entirely cel animation has a lovely, uncluttered feel to it. The vo, because it was recorded back in them days, is dire. But watch it a couple of times, and you begin to enjoy the animation and forget the sepulchral narration. Weather like this really makes me think of those shivering people and how they must have longed for the balmy touch of spring. Wish I could find an image and put it here, but hard luck on that one. Might rig up something in the future though, so watch this space.
Any winter food favourites? Mine is the lovely sweet potato snack outside CP in
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Brown-paper packages...
I once raised a storm when I was 8. I was a bit of a dimbulb, loser type of kid, and had banded up with three nice, equally low-wattage girls in class. One was called
No one at home was really saying anything about any party, and I had had one the previous year, so in my slightly duh way, I decided to take matters into my own hands and invite S and L over, and maybe, well, shoot the breeze a bit? Eat some cake, perhaps? You know, just hang out some? Thursdays were our weekly off, and I asked them to come over, at, say, six pm? Comes Thursday morn, and just as mom was setting out to office, I remembered the party. I mentioned it to her, casual like, and the house imploded around me. My mom was / is one of the chilled-out-est people on earth, but even she completely freaked. Cousins were sent out to get cake and who knows what else, while I just sat back, frankly a bit dazed by the yelling and the scurrying. That evening when all of my three guests – S, L and S’s brother came – it was a bit of an anti-climax. I think the family were expecting droves and were a bit startled to see the rag-tag company which walked in. After that, the memory grows duller – I remember everyone looking a bit embarrassed, and that’s it. My memory spikes again at one point – S had got me a tiny paperback of Birbal the Wise. It was from a popular, cheap imprint of them days, but I can’t remember the publisher’s name. I studied it for days and weeks later, turning it around and marveling at its small, rectangular perfection. It was the only gift from a fairly disastrous birthday party (I still didn’t know what I had done so bad), and I was soooo delighted, so grateful.
Why I remembered this is because N walked in from school today loaded – as usual – with a bag of 'return gifts'. For some reason, in her school, every child hands out these bags full of amazingly crappy, expensive, prodigiously over-packaged stuff. Today, for example, she came in with a toy gun, a mask, a monginis three-cake set called 'stripe tease', two toffees – all tossed into a plastic bag. Costing – at the very least – 40/- per head, and there are 52 kids in class. Do the math. And this is one of the smaller return gift packs. There are days when she gets bigger things, and more of them – cups, sun visors with dark-glasses built in, imitation patent leather back-packs, tetra packs of drinks, lays, perks, and more strange Chinese chocolates. And they are all, without fail, looked at for two minutes and then forgotten.
There’s very little thrill left in gift-receiving or giving any more, because it’s all a matter of going to Crawford Mkt and picking up the cheapest lot of Chinese stuff, bunging it all into a plastic bag from the next shop, and handing it out in class. We were traumatized by the loot bags that came in initially – they were all so expensive, so environmentally unsound and so gross somehow (I mean, those chocolates and weirdly coloured candies? They are so strange-tasting, so acidic somehow, that I’d fear for the health of any kid who ate them. And let's not even go to the Lays and the tetra pack drinks.) One child even had an event-managed bash in school which had a ventriloquist, a magician and a massive loot bag. How great was it? When we went in to pick her up, n was among the 40-odd kids sobbing and shrieking in hysterical fear. The ventriloquist’s jokes were loud – as in decibel-levels – and went right above the kids’ heads. The magician was the scariest I’ve ever seen.
When we went in to hand out toffees and a couple of books at n’s birthday the next week, one child heard the words ‘happy birthday’ and burst out sobbing. Looking back, I feel we really didn’t have to, but just then, we were anxious – would n have registered everyone else’s celebrations and would she feel bad? So we did something small and kept it plastic-and-crap free – I hope!
Where I’m going with all this is really nowhere great. Just felt a bit chagrined by the way n casts aside each loot bag after the initial excitement; at how the mere fact of receiving isn't a novel experience any more. I remembered how I gazed at that book for months later. And something else just struck me. That impromptu birthday bash had my cousin’s new fiancé who was visiting in the middle of all the confusion shocked. When he was growing up, there were shortages everywhere, and parents expected older kids to stand in ration-shop queues and lug back bags of rice and dal. Understandably, my cool cheek must have startled – and who knows – saddened him. But he used to grin and predict in a mock-dire voice that my next party would be my own wedding bash which I’d organize and plan myself.
Each generation has something to be distressed and shocked about in the next, I guess…
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Did you bandh the batti?
We did. For a whole hour. It was great fun because n loves power outs - since, thank god, they happen relatively rarely, and because the candles come out. So we put out the lights, burnt the candles, and turned off the tv, laptop, etc. We chatted like in the old days, mom and me, before comps and tvs happened.
I realized that I could bear the lights being out, and the fans being off, the phone being off, but what I couldn't take, finally, was the laptop being off. We've got used to such 24/7 connectivity, with a constant state of activity, that I really, truly felt like a drug addict on cold turkey. My fingers literally itched and I kept wanting to switch on, to just surf a bit, a teensy bit, I'm mean who'd know... But I'm proud to report, I didn't!
Anyway, the Batti bandh campaign - though well-meaning - seems a bit overoptimisitx, if you ask me. One hour of power-saving will save the planet, reduce global warming, save the beaches, etc. etc. I don't think so. It might have conscientized people - which it sadly didn't in any large, mass sort of way. It held the promise of becoming one of those post-Rang-de-Basanti campaigns (like the anti-reservation stir) where everyone hopped on largely because it seemed like such a cool thing to do. Everyone - and here I count myself in too - fwd'd madly and hopefully - but finally nothing much happened. I wonder why.
I was a bit sceptical - I mean what does one hour of switching off do? Actions towards saving the environment have to be more comprehensive, holistic and regular. So I loved what Sampath, the books editor at DNA wrote when I fwd'd him the mail (he's put it so well, that I simply have to quote him):
I am sorry but this one-hour thing- even if it is totally voluntary - seems to me only a smoke-screen that hides the real issues - our unfettered industrialisation, obsession with 9 per cent growth, investment in stock market (how can your stocks grow without the economy growing? and how can your economy grow without more of global warming caused by more industrialisation?), our refusal to respect or even tolerate subsistence economies wherever they are - our exporting of alternative ways of living and thinking (the tribals, for example) into the past as outdated.
then there is our patronising attitude towards all that is not 'cool' - and 'cool' is really a marketing invention that is tied up with global warming - ironic as it seems - right from tata safari dicor to rock concert in a flood-lit stadium, this sounds just like a silly rant here - but if i get some time off from not heating up the globe - i can elaborate on it. this is just a response - on the spur of the moment. nothing personal.
So there you are. Angrily, but succinctly put, I thought. I fully agreed with him, especially the bit about people only attaching themselves to 'cool' issues.
Only this: forget about global warming (towards which NOTHING can be done bec of all the problems mentioned), but if people can just conserve a little power, and hopefully it will be mapped by the BSES, then I think that it might be at least a few steps towards - well, power conservation - and nothing more!
I realized that I could bear the lights being out, and the fans being off, the phone being off, but what I couldn't take, finally, was the laptop being off. We've got used to such 24/7 connectivity, with a constant state of activity, that I really, truly felt like a drug addict on cold turkey. My fingers literally itched and I kept wanting to switch on, to just surf a bit, a teensy bit, I'm mean who'd know... But I'm proud to report, I didn't!
Anyway, the Batti bandh campaign - though well-meaning - seems a bit overoptimisitx, if you ask me. One hour of power-saving will save the planet, reduce global warming, save the beaches, etc. etc. I don't think so. It might have conscientized people - which it sadly didn't in any large, mass sort of way. It held the promise of becoming one of those post-Rang-de-Basanti campaigns (like the anti-reservation stir) where everyone hopped on largely because it seemed like such a cool thing to do. Everyone - and here I count myself in too - fwd'd madly and hopefully - but finally nothing much happened. I wonder why.
I was a bit sceptical - I mean what does one hour of switching off do? Actions towards saving the environment have to be more comprehensive, holistic and regular. So I loved what Sampath, the books editor at DNA wrote when I fwd'd him the mail (he's put it so well, that I simply have to quote him):
I am sorry but this one-hour thing- even if it is totally voluntary - seems to me only a smoke-screen that hides the real issues - our unfettered industrialisation, obsession with 9 per cent growth, investment in stock market (how can your stocks grow without the economy growing? and how can your economy grow without more of global warming caused by more industrialisation?), our refusal to respect or even tolerate subsistence economies wherever they are - our exporting of alternative ways of living and thinking (the tribals, for example) into the past as outdated.
then there is our patronising attitude towards all that is not 'cool' - and 'cool' is really a marketing invention that is tied up with global warming - ironic as it seems - right from tata safari dicor to rock concert in a flood-lit stadium, this sounds just like a silly rant here - but if i get some time off from not heating up the globe - i can elaborate on it. this is just a response - on the spur of the moment. nothing personal.
So there you are. Angrily, but succinctly put, I thought. I fully agreed with him, especially the bit about people only attaching themselves to 'cool' issues.
Only this: forget about global warming (towards which NOTHING can be done bec of all the problems mentioned), but if people can just conserve a little power, and hopefully it will be mapped by the BSES, then I think that it might be at least a few steps towards - well, power conservation - and nothing more!
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Baby on beach with crabs
Finally took a chhutti - a small one - to
We usually stay in
Which is why the first time we were in
We went back this time, after three years, and things had changed. The power boaters were there, stinking up the air and oiling the water, and offering you 'dolphin rides'. There were tons of small, ugly resorts. Suddenly, it was Calangute again, without the milling crowds - for now.
And there was a new vulnerability around as well, a certain fragile air - because small fishing villages were clinging on to the fringes of the land not bought over by the resorts as yet. We saw this in many places: great Uglinesses of concrete nestled in clumps of green. There's nothing even remotely after-the-fact-ish here. It feels as if you're standing by and watching a murder; sighing even as they gut the body while it's still alive.
The village near our resort seemed sturdy, though. The houses were spacious and prettily painted, and pigs, roosters and kids frolicked around. (Early in the morning, the cock crowed - I'm sorry, but this thrilled me beyond belief!) The five or six large houses which made up the part of the village that we could see were literally squeezed between resorts, the Railways guest house and the Indian Oil one. It made you wonder how long the villagers would be able to hold out, and once they sold, where they'd go, what they'd do, and how compromised their lifestyle already was.
There were large smelly dumps on street corners and en route to the beach. When we suggested that the nearby hotels could get together and clear them regularly, we were told "we do that, but the 'locals' keep dirtying it." Aside from being monumental cheek, it seemed untrue simply because most of the garbage was made up of mineral water bottles and plastic bags. Which seem more touristy in nature, and obviously tourists come to resorts, don't they?
When I hear people talk about Travel (yes, important enough in our mags and papers to merit a capital letter) without reference to the human and geographical ecology of a place, I feel a bit surreal, like I've been transported to a Victorian text. I wonder for instance how the people of beach-side villages in Goa - who once must have been able to see the sea from their houses - feel about the sea view being a premium commodity now, accessible only to the privileged few.
I suspect it's just a matter of time before the rest of the village left near our resort sells up. Their resilience in the face of many offers makes them seem more fragile somehow... Our driver, for instance, spoke about how foreigners and other outsiders were buying up so much land that prices were escalating beyond belief. 'Goans, we were happy with small house and paddy field...' He seemed to imply that Goans almost sat back and watched the land being lapped up by others...
This was one level of feeling of course. Confusing me at the other was the sheer joy of being in a place where each sunset is a work of art. When people say 'painterly sunsets' they must mean those lurid shows put up by the beach and the sun and the sand at Colva. Seriously, it has to be seen to be believed - I mean, imagine a blue-grey sky lined with streaks of fluorescent pink! N enjoyed the sand with an almost devout fanaticism. She loved standing in the water as it pulled her - 'it's making me travel!' she'd shout. We'd be with her on the beach and keep telling her to watch the sunset and the huge, dome-like, pink-flecked sky, and she'd look up for a bit and then start her elemental sand-worship again. She found transparent, large-eyed crabs scuttling around and watched them in awe. It was beautiful, sad and then, beautiful again...
It made me feel that by bringing n up in a city we were robbing her of so much. Like my mom keeps talking about her childhood in her 'native place', and I think n wants to match up too. The only place she can think of with similar 'natural' attributes is goa. So the other day she tells my mom, "
Sigh, the eternal confusions of the liberal mind. Just aware enough to not be able to lose oneself and yenjaay, and too cowardly to actually do something about anything.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Came the dawn
So my 36th came and went quietly. Normally I feel this small giggle in my stomach around a month before the actual date, and it swells and grows into a giant laugh of excitement by the time that the day actually dawns. There is such an air of self-generated, fairly hysterical joy, that a good time is had – No Matter What. (Like Gouri says, since birthdays seem to be the only things our generation celebrates, we might as well do so religiously.) Every year on the morning after my birthday I resolve to grow up next year, to not make such a song and dance about it, to not do so much natak, and have a quiet sedate time. An adult birthday in other words.
So there was none of that air of birthday breathlessness. But Amit rallied around manfully by taking me out to lunch, and getting me not one but three books (plus a Tony Ross story as a return gift which N had asked for pointedly)! Unfortunately, he had to go for a shoot in the evening, which left n and me at a loose-end, so much so that she actually asked me ‘Why no friends have come for your birthday, amma?’. Thankfully, Geeta and Hemant dropped in after a terribly hectic day with a home-baked pizza – saving me from n’s disappointment and making the evening a little more celebratory.
The three lovely books Amit got were all favourites: Candy is Dandy by Ogden Nash (which I’ve always loved, but been too much of a kanjoos to buy); Extravagoria a collection of bilingual poetry by Pablo Neruda, who I love; and a brilliant, illustrated book by Paro Anand and Atanu Roy called Wingless. Amit says he’s bought that last for himself, but I don’t care – he might as well have bought it for me, because I am a die-hard Atanu Roy fan. He’s an old Target hand, and something about his work – like Mario Miranda’s – makes my toes curl with pleasure. I don’t know about the writing in Wingless, but the illustrations are just too too delishyus.
So signs of adulthood so far?
1. No profound sense of excitement about birthday – see above.
2. A general drop in my vanity levels – I think one of the nicer things about having a child is the way it takes you out of yourself. Being a parent whacks you out emotionally and physically so much, that you (or at least I) simply don’t care about the Inconsequentials any more. I’ve always bordered on being careless about the way I look, but for the past three years, the greatest thing on my agenda has been catching up on my sleep, and holding on to the shreds of my back-health.
Like I said, though I’ve never been beautiful or terribly vain, there are always a few things you treasure in yourself right? Relatively nice skin in my case, and the fact that I’d managed to sort of keep a check on my weight problem for the past 20 years. And now here I am – as fat as I was in school (the biggest I’ve ever been) once more, and getting by without slitting my wrists, thank you. Never thought I could survive without the occasional face ‘clean-up, toning and massage’, but I have a weird rash that has made my skin unusually sensitive, and guess what, I can live without the facials and the clear skin. Never thought that I’d end up looking like my paternal aunts who always reminded me of variations on the White Queen in Alice with their big bones and weight problems, their weird skin, their hair loss (though I don’t know if you can call it loss if the hair seems to travel south to your chin!). But I often see them in the mirror now, and it doesn't devastate me as I used to imagine it would.
Sheepish admission no. 1: How shallow do I feel really? This was a terribly bitter piece till I did the math and realised that I was 36 and not, as I had thought earlier, 37!
Sheepish admission no. 2: Everything fell into perspective with a resounding thud when I suddenly remembered that it was at 36 that my mother, who was three months pregnant with her second baby then, lost her husband in a fatal motorbike accident in Kerala. She was always a blithe soul, forever joking, singing, mimicking people and generally being youthful, childlike almost, chatty and friendly, till this huge horrible thing happened. She had the baby, picked up every piece of her life, consolidated dad’s chaotic business, held on to her job as an engineer and brought up a confused, angry ten-year-old. And she never lost her smile, her sense of humour or her good cheer.
My gift to myself this year has been the realization (unlike before when it was a mere awareness, I think) of how huge a challenge it must have been for mom. How brave she must have had to be then to plumb within all that sorrow and the morning sickness to find the determination to go on. She too must have felt like an adult finally, losing not just her husband, but also some of her innocence.
Suddenly the world must have been full of sharks – some of them very close home as I remember – and life must have been full of negativity and pain.
Suddenly, at 36, she must have felt shockingly grown up.
Suddenly, at 36, my life seems more than full of gifts and joy.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
After many a scream-fest....
...Comes the laptop. It crashed on the 5th, bunging a spanner in my blogging chakra. And here's a word of advise from the new, bitter me: when you buy an HP laptop, beware. We were one day away from expiry of the warranty when the thing conked, and the fuss they made! Claimed that ours was a fake invoice; that we had logged a complaint 15 days before we bought the laptop, and hence our warranty had expired (go figure!). Anyway, sheer perseverance, angry phone calls and endless emailing finally paid off.
Meanwhile, it's that time of my life again. When I make desperate, foolishly hopeful visits to the nutritionist. Before I had N, weight loss and weight gain were both easy-peasy. Now the gain part of it is miraculously easier. The loss part is tough - it's almost like what I'm trying to melt isn't fat really, but some sort of soft, pudgy-but-determined cement.
I hate the diet - as I guess I do all diets initially - and will grow to love it slowly, slowly, only if the scales start to shift a bit. If, in other words, my waistline goes back to the large it was - as opposed to the gianormous it is just now. (Then of course I'll turn into one of those diet bores who go on and on bending people's ears about their miraculous weight loss plans and this lovely dietician they know!)
I think dieticians are the Used Car Salespeople of the medical world. I mean look at how they dress - most I've met are women, and are almost always so poshly manicured, coiffed, and clothed. Always with that sheen of tastefully-used accessories and make up. Plus (now don't know if this is true or just the bile of a relatively-empty stomach talking), they always have this chirpy, twittishly happy and confident air about them. Sort of to say that you have to eat this crap, but by god, are you going to love it! They have these desperate oh just squeeze some lime over it and even death would be yummy, kind of suggestions. I think the super chirpiness comes from the fact that if you cheat a bit on your diet, you aren't going to turn over and die. Or lose a vital faculty. Unlike other medical people who you go to with this ask-me-to-swallow-glass-and-I-will air of obedience, dieticians know that they have to actually sell you a suffer now to gain three months later kind of plan. Poor things.
I am not a nice person to know just now. Expect some turbulence, everybody - those I meet every day, as well those I see here.
As if to prove my point, here's what I found on Wondermark!
Meanwhile, it's that time of my life again. When I make desperate, foolishly hopeful visits to the nutritionist. Before I had N, weight loss and weight gain were both easy-peasy. Now the gain part of it is miraculously easier. The loss part is tough - it's almost like what I'm trying to melt isn't fat really, but some sort of soft, pudgy-but-determined cement.
I hate the diet - as I guess I do all diets initially - and will grow to love it slowly, slowly, only if the scales start to shift a bit. If, in other words, my waistline goes back to the large it was - as opposed to the gianormous it is just now. (Then of course I'll turn into one of those diet bores who go on and on bending people's ears about their miraculous weight loss plans and this lovely dietician they know!)
I think dieticians are the Used Car Salespeople of the medical world. I mean look at how they dress - most I've met are women, and are almost always so poshly manicured, coiffed, and clothed. Always with that sheen of tastefully-used accessories and make up. Plus (now don't know if this is true or just the bile of a relatively-empty stomach talking), they always have this chirpy, twittishly happy and confident air about them. Sort of to say that you have to eat this crap, but by god, are you going to love it! They have these desperate oh just squeeze some lime over it and even death would be yummy, kind of suggestions. I think the super chirpiness comes from the fact that if you cheat a bit on your diet, you aren't going to turn over and die. Or lose a vital faculty. Unlike other medical people who you go to with this ask-me-to-swallow-glass-and-I-will air of obedience, dieticians know that they have to actually sell you a suffer now to gain three months later kind of plan. Poor things.
I am not a nice person to know just now. Expect some turbulence, everybody - those I meet every day, as well those I see here.
As if to prove my point, here's what I found on Wondermark!
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Who’s afraid of Barbie Doll?
I was. Still am, to some degree. What with the horrendous price tag, that pincer waist, those plastic-perfect legs, the general airhead demeanour (not to mention the toxic paint and glitter), the doll seems more like some rich paedophile’s fantasy than a toy. Barbies are structured so that they can't stand - their feet are arched exaggeratedly to convey high-heeled shoes. Way to go, doll-designers at Mattel. Let every kid aspire to grow to be a woman with a pretty face, big hair, long legs and no way to stand on her own!
Amit and I are official members of the Hate Barbie Club. We’ve always been. We were cussed enough to refuse my American niece a ‘Baahwbee’ and got her a tea set instead. When Amit’s niece wheedled for a Barbie kitchen set (“But it’s for my doll!"), we bought her a book instead. When I think of those moments of adult bull-headedness now, I cringe.
As with everything, it took a child to change us. When n was a little under two, we caught her staring up at a wall of bubblegum pink Barbie boxes in a toy store, an unusual gleam in her eyes. She said she wanted them. We took down one box and – cleverly, so cleverly – told her that she could play with the box here, but couldn’t take it home. She’d have to give it back to the Uncle in the store. It was his.
She fell for it twice. The third time she went ballistic. “No,” she screamed, “I want to take it home!” Cussedly, we distracted her and brought her back Barbie-less. It slowly grew into a rant, this Barbie craving of hers. The craving grew into an obsession, and we almost gave in, till Geeta stepped in and got it for her.
N grabbed the blonde vision and went straight for the chest. She looked up at me in wonder and said, “It has babu, amma”. Babu was the word that she’d invented for breasts. She played with the doll all evening, making us wince a bit. Our kid? The Barbie fan? Ah well. Toot sweet, her aunt Vanya got her a second Barbie, an Indian version – nicely brown-skinned, dark-haired and all – a tad more human than the blonde vision.
But after about a week or so of receiving both the dolls, n had nothing to do or say with them. She couldn’t cuddle them, play with them, nothing. Too young to care about their clothes still, I think she liked they pink packaging more. When we went out for dinner or to the park, she’d insist on taking one of her ‘babies’ along – a motley crew of seven or eight cuddly dolls, bears and a My Little Pony – to show them a good time. But never the poor Barbies. They seemed the lowest in the doll heap.
And they stayed there. She’d smile at them occasionally, and gawk at the glossy Barbie ads on TV. But nothing more. Till I noticed the other day that both the golden and the brown-haired ones were out of the toy drawer. When mom came to play with n that day, I realized the secret of its sudden appearance.
Granny and baby had invented a new game. There was a child-gobbling yakshi (Malayalam for witch) on the prowl, and all the fat teddy bears and dolls were at risk. Mom lunged at them, brandishing each Barbie in turn, and screaming, “I am the yakshi! I want to eat the baby!” N grabbed her nearest doll and scooted, laughing and screaming for her life and the doll’s. She rushed to me, flushed and excited, and said, “I saved my doll from the yakshi!”
I was surprised to see that Barbie – uber beauty queen – was named the witch. How come, I asked mom. She said that when they were planning the game it was found that n was ‘too attached’ to the other dolls. They had been named by her, and she didn’t want any of them to be made into witches. So the only thing they could find was good ol’ Barbie! Also, said mom nodding gravely, a yakshi has to be conventionally beautiful in order to draw unsuspecting people to her.
I think perhaps we – amit and me in particular – fear wily marketers (and their choice of gorgeous bubblegum pink for packaging) too much. I don’t think we trust the average child’s robustness enough (or granny’s for that matter!). Give them their Barbies, I say, and they’ll realize how useless the dolls are soon enough. Not cuddly, not believable, and simply not worth much love apparently.
(Maybe Mattel should come up with a Barbie in Macbeth? All done up in basic black with a broom and all. Might make the poor things a little more interesting.)
Friday, September 28, 2007
Magic in the pot
Walked into the loo bleary-eyed last morning feeling bitterly tired (am not a morning person) and saw a gorgeous dragonfly on the door frame. It had lovely diaphanous wings and a red, lipstick red, deep scarlet body. Like a bloodied, aerodynamic dart. I called n and she dashed in. It was exactly at her eye level and she was thrilled. I wondered aloud why it had come there (because though we have lots of pretty birds outside, even owls, coppersmiths and golden orioles, I've never spotted a dragonfly before). So question asked, and big silence followed. I sleepily formed the thought in my head, 'It's landed to die of course, poor thing...' when n pops up with a "It's come to do susu." Of course, why else would it be in the loo?
This morning, she was shown a snail in the loo, a medium-sized, active little bugger with a tingling pair of antennas. Last night Amit spotted it on one wall (how had it reached the second floor, for god's sake?). It had circumnavigated the loo - if you can do that with a rectangle - and n spotted it this morning on the ceiling. Now she thinks of the loo as an extension of her park, Diamond Garden, with the gogalgaays and the dragonflys. (Gogalgaay is marathi for snail - I just love the word. So much more evocative than the English!)
Why the sudden influx of the insect world? Amit's theory is that maybe the white light of the new CFL is attracting them. Or maybe we've had them before but never paid them attention - this is the first time we're making a really big deal bec of n, our captive audience. You are welcome to add some of your own!
This morning, she was shown a snail in the loo, a medium-sized, active little bugger with a tingling pair of antennas. Last night Amit spotted it on one wall (how had it reached the second floor, for god's sake?). It had circumnavigated the loo - if you can do that with a rectangle - and n spotted it this morning on the ceiling. Now she thinks of the loo as an extension of her park, Diamond Garden, with the gogalgaays and the dragonflys. (Gogalgaay is marathi for snail - I just love the word. So much more evocative than the English!)Why the sudden influx of the insect world? Amit's theory is that maybe the white light of the new CFL is attracting them. Or maybe we've had them before but never paid them attention - this is the first time we're making a really big deal bec of n, our captive audience. You are welcome to add some of your own!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
The penny drops...
For years I've wondered why librarians and figures of authority associated with books are so brusque with me. They LOOK at me, and in that instant, they seem to spot the inner space-cadet. I am rapidly filed away - I think - as the person most likely to read a book on the bus and dreamily leave it behind; the one who's going to shove a book behind the bed and leave it there two months after the due date; the one who appears to love books but seems to see them more as friends she can eat and drink and sleep with, rather than as teachers who you sit with primly at the table.
But I've never clearly understood why they hate careless people like me so. Stupid question of course. One with an answer that I am aware of intellectually, but am unable to accept at the emotional level. Put me in a large library with an ocean of books behind the counter, and I always bridle and cringe at the same time, feeling a mix of guilt and anger. Almost instinctively I start thinking, Shit, what have I lost now; and
why-the-hell-are-they-so-anal-can't-they-smile?
Finally I've sort of got a peep into the archetype of the librarian. I re-read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose after many, many years, and had this eureka moment when I understood and - more importantly - accepted the Dirty Looks given to me by all librarians past.
Eco's book is a detective story set in a medieval abbey where monks spend their days illustrating manuscripts in a large scriptorium. The most fascinating parts of the novel (for me ) are the ones that dwell on the monks who illuminate the manuscripts carefully - with gold, silver, jewel-bright colors, strange figures and animals. The scriptorium and the library hold precious books. They are painstakingly hand-crafted, and are therefore irreplaceable and priceless.
The library at the Abbey is also a fulcrum of seething emotions. On the one hand, there is the fact that it is a cleverly-constructed lode of knowledge (it's built like a maze and only the librarian and his assistant are privy to the route through it). It is a store-house of learning, but there is a school of thought within the abbey which feels that while books are precious, what they contain is not suitable for everyone. Knowledge and learning untempered by piety are considered dangerous. And intellectual joy and pride are both viewed with clear suspicion.
Plus of course, each hand-crafted, hand-written and hand-bound manuscript is a delicate treasure. Too much handling might destroy them. Effectively, the library is a place that hoards books for themselves and for the future. It is not storing up on them to help young monks broaden their minds (and perhaps their desires as well).
So the monks need permission from the librarian and sometimes the abbot as well before they can read a book. The young men seethe with intellectual curiosity and many resent the system of restricted access to the library. So much so that they are willing to trade sexual favours to be able to read certain books. To frighten the curious young illustrator-writers and keep them from exploring the library at night, it is locked and hallucinogenic herbs are burnt. Rumours of ghosts-of-librarians-past are fed.
Central to all of this ferment is the librarian, a man who must be well-versed in Arabic, Greek and Latin to qualify for the job. He needs a prodigious memory and must guard his treasure passionately. The librarians are next-in-line to becoming the abbot and as the abbey is a rich, powerful one, the post is obviously covetted. Young monks and old lobby for the post. Eco's librarian, Malachi, is a clever creation - a complex man who is insecure, has power, is sexually promiscuous and not-very-learned.
I think centuries of not being able to be sure that what you write can and will be preserved in handy, sturdy hardback (or now, soft copy), has imprinted on us a fear of and adoration for the written word, and for the books where they are collected. Though often full of abstruse theological debate (which you can skim through shamelessly), The Name... puts into perspective our general tendency to regard books as things that are to be prized, to be cherished, hoarded, and generally be considered irreplaceable. Printing has been with us for a couple of centuries, but it obviously hasn't penetrated our racial subconscious yet!
Coming back to my original point: The Name... made the librarian's anxiety clear to me. If books are fragile treasures, and if I were responsible for tens of thousands of them, I don't think I'd want the likes of me to hang around either!
But I've never clearly understood why they hate careless people like me so. Stupid question of course. One with an answer that I am aware of intellectually, but am unable to accept at the emotional level. Put me in a large library with an ocean of books behind the counter, and I always bridle and cringe at the same time, feeling a mix of guilt and anger. Almost instinctively I start thinking, Shit, what have I lost now; and
why-the-hell-are-they-so-anal-can't-they-smile?
Finally I've sort of got a peep into the archetype of the librarian. I re-read Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose after many, many years, and had this eureka moment when I understood and - more importantly - accepted the Dirty Looks given to me by all librarians past.
Eco's book is a detective story set in a medieval abbey where monks spend their days illustrating manuscripts in a large scriptorium. The most fascinating parts of the novel (for me ) are the ones that dwell on the monks who illuminate the manuscripts carefully - with gold, silver, jewel-bright colors, strange figures and animals. The scriptorium and the library hold precious books. They are painstakingly hand-crafted, and are therefore irreplaceable and priceless.
The library at the Abbey is also a fulcrum of seething emotions. On the one hand, there is the fact that it is a cleverly-constructed lode of knowledge (it's built like a maze and only the librarian and his assistant are privy to the route through it). It is a store-house of learning, but there is a school of thought within the abbey which feels that while books are precious, what they contain is not suitable for everyone. Knowledge and learning untempered by piety are considered dangerous. And intellectual joy and pride are both viewed with clear suspicion.
Plus of course, each hand-crafted, hand-written and hand-bound manuscript is a delicate treasure. Too much handling might destroy them. Effectively, the library is a place that hoards books for themselves and for the future. It is not storing up on them to help young monks broaden their minds (and perhaps their desires as well).
So the monks need permission from the librarian and sometimes the abbot as well before they can read a book. The young men seethe with intellectual curiosity and many resent the system of restricted access to the library. So much so that they are willing to trade sexual favours to be able to read certain books. To frighten the curious young illustrator-writers and keep them from exploring the library at night, it is locked and hallucinogenic herbs are burnt. Rumours of ghosts-of-librarians-past are fed.
Central to all of this ferment is the librarian, a man who must be well-versed in Arabic, Greek and Latin to qualify for the job. He needs a prodigious memory and must guard his treasure passionately. The librarians are next-in-line to becoming the abbot and as the abbey is a rich, powerful one, the post is obviously covetted. Young monks and old lobby for the post. Eco's librarian, Malachi, is a clever creation - a complex man who is insecure, has power, is sexually promiscuous and not-very-learned.
I think centuries of not being able to be sure that what you write can and will be preserved in handy, sturdy hardback (or now, soft copy), has imprinted on us a fear of and adoration for the written word, and for the books where they are collected. Though often full of abstruse theological debate (which you can skim through shamelessly), The Name... puts into perspective our general tendency to regard books as things that are to be prized, to be cherished, hoarded, and generally be considered irreplaceable. Printing has been with us for a couple of centuries, but it obviously hasn't penetrated our racial subconscious yet!
Coming back to my original point: The Name... made the librarian's anxiety clear to me. If books are fragile treasures, and if I were responsible for tens of thousands of them, I don't think I'd want the likes of me to hang around either!
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Barn Owl's Dismal Capers
I was very excited when Suniti lent me her copy of The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers. In fact it was around Hansa's birthday, and I wanted to rush out and get her a copy because she'd seen it somewhere and admired the drawings. Also because it seemed quite interesting to begin with. The bookstore didn't have it when I checked. And thank god for that. Because cross the first 20 pages, and the book loses its act completely.
The story is a retelling of the legend of the Wandering Jew. Here he lives in Calcutta of the 1700s as Abravanel Ben Obadiah Ben Aharon Kabariti. He records all the scandals of contemporary Cal - especially those of the British administrators - in a book called The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers. Pablo, our hero, wants to find the copy that his grandfather had picked up once in Paris. At his grandfather's death, the book was given away, and Pablo sets about looking for it in Calcutta. He meets many people in the process and this story is a little about each of them. Interesting premise, interesting beginning, but somehow, it doesn't come together at all. And it goes on for a massive 280 pages.
The problem with The Barn Owl..., I think, is something that is common to many urban Indian writers (and here I count myself in too). We have, I feel, a multiplicity of stimuli, and we want to bring it all in. Unlike people who live in sanitized societies, living in India offers you so much everyday madness to play with, that you can't bear to leave anything out. And I suspect the temptation to do so is higher in a form like the graphic novel, since it's so visual and thrives on the kitschy, the slightly batty.
In The Barn Owl... it feels as if every thing that has ever struck Banerjee as odd or delightfully eccentric about Calcutta is brought in - irrespective of its role in the larger narrative. Yes, cities have their incredibly fascinating idiosyncrasies, but does it all have to come together, like, right now?
After a point, each vignette is treated in the same way. New characters are introduced and described and located every 5 or 6 pages, and then the story carries on to another character. You feel like there's going to be a crackling crescendo at the end, but there's just a whisper of drama there. In fact, hardly any at all.
It's all very wry and ironic, but finally, it simply doesn't pull together and become that convincing story.
About the visuals: opinion in this family is divided. Banerjee, though inventive and well-schooled in the storyboard-like delineation of a graphic novel, is not a skilled artist. His drawing is honestly a bit amateurish. Amit, as an artist and illustrator, can't tolerate bad drawing in a graphic novel, because well, you wouldn't put up with bad writing in a prose novel, would you? I see his point. But initially, I was like, ok, so it's not great drawing, but I'm all for democracy in these matters. Like, I loved the mixing of old photos of Cal with illustrations. And I admired the cinematic feel in general.
In a graphic novel, I can look at the drawings as being a part of the narrative and therefore not to be considered separately (unless of course the illustrator is so good that the work becomes art!). The bigger deal for me is the story. So long as the visual style merges with the story-telling, or at least, so long as the visuals tell the story well, it's ok with me.
At the end of The Barn Owl... though, I felt massively irritated because the story hadn't worked and neither had the art. It just seemed so self-indulgent and vapid. Amit has seen reviews of Kashmir Pending, a graphic novel published by Banerjee and he says it's a whole lot better than this one - at least in terms of skill. I certainly hope so.
The story is a retelling of the legend of the Wandering Jew. Here he lives in Calcutta of the 1700s as Abravanel Ben Obadiah Ben Aharon Kabariti. He records all the scandals of contemporary Cal - especially those of the British administrators - in a book called The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers. Pablo, our hero, wants to find the copy that his grandfather had picked up once in Paris. At his grandfather's death, the book was given away, and Pablo sets about looking for it in Calcutta. He meets many people in the process and this story is a little about each of them. Interesting premise, interesting beginning, but somehow, it doesn't come together at all. And it goes on for a massive 280 pages.
The problem with The Barn Owl..., I think, is something that is common to many urban Indian writers (and here I count myself in too). We have, I feel, a multiplicity of stimuli, and we want to bring it all in. Unlike people who live in sanitized societies, living in India offers you so much everyday madness to play with, that you can't bear to leave anything out. And I suspect the temptation to do so is higher in a form like the graphic novel, since it's so visual and thrives on the kitschy, the slightly batty.
In The Barn Owl... it feels as if every thing that has ever struck Banerjee as odd or delightfully eccentric about Calcutta is brought in - irrespective of its role in the larger narrative. Yes, cities have their incredibly fascinating idiosyncrasies, but does it all have to come together, like, right now?
After a point, each vignette is treated in the same way. New characters are introduced and described and located every 5 or 6 pages, and then the story carries on to another character. You feel like there's going to be a crackling crescendo at the end, but there's just a whisper of drama there. In fact, hardly any at all.
It's all very wry and ironic, but finally, it simply doesn't pull together and become that convincing story.
About the visuals: opinion in this family is divided. Banerjee, though inventive and well-schooled in the storyboard-like delineation of a graphic novel, is not a skilled artist. His drawing is honestly a bit amateurish. Amit, as an artist and illustrator, can't tolerate bad drawing in a graphic novel, because well, you wouldn't put up with bad writing in a prose novel, would you? I see his point. But initially, I was like, ok, so it's not great drawing, but I'm all for democracy in these matters. Like, I loved the mixing of old photos of Cal with illustrations. And I admired the cinematic feel in general.
In a graphic novel, I can look at the drawings as being a part of the narrative and therefore not to be considered separately (unless of course the illustrator is so good that the work becomes art!). The bigger deal for me is the story. So long as the visual style merges with the story-telling, or at least, so long as the visuals tell the story well, it's ok with me.
At the end of The Barn Owl... though, I felt massively irritated because the story hadn't worked and neither had the art. It just seemed so self-indulgent and vapid. Amit has seen reviews of Kashmir Pending, a graphic novel published by Banerjee and he says it's a whole lot better than this one - at least in terms of skill. I certainly hope so.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Want to be put off buying books?
Here's how you do it in two easy steps:
1. Enter your local branch of Crossword.
2. Engage with any of the cretins on call - the sales staff. Their daftness, rudeness, lack of awareness, will make you want to turn and flee. Or it will make you want to do them such physical harm that the cops will have to lock you in.
At Crossword they've never ever given discounts (unless it's during an annual sale). Because, after all, you are paying for the experience, the aahm-bey-ahnce. What with the air con and the coffee-shop attached, suddenly, it seemed nice to be able to do frilly stuff while browsing for books. And what's a 10 to 20% discount as compared to that?
Where Crossword - like most chain stores - suffered a bit was in their choice of staff. They hired pretty kids - chirpy and bright as buttons, but they weren't you know, book lovers. Chalo, so not everyone lives to read, ok, and you put up with a degree of ignorance. In fact, till about 6 to 8 months back, the Crossword Ghatkopar staff was decent, vaguely knew where the books were, and were at least enthusiastic enough to try and find you stuff. And more importantly, they weren't rude creeps.
But recently, I think there's been some policy-and-management change, which has been reflected immediately in the quality of the people they hire. At least this is the case at the Crossword in Shopper's Stop, Ghatkopar. Boy, I never thought I'd miss the button kids, but compared to the new bunch of yobos they've got, those kids were great! We had a shockingly unpleasant and painful experience there two days back. Don't want to go into the gory details here, but suffice it to say that the staff were nothing short of crass, ill-mannered louts.
The dip has happened ever since the Shopper's Stop guys bought up the place. At least in Ghatkopar, the staff are: 1. lazy, and they don't believe in looking for a book beyond checking their database - and as everyone knows, databases are not always a perfect reflection of what's on the shelves (I say this because I've had this experience in a Crossword); 2. ill-mannered louts who don't have basic skills like communication and - I'm so sorry to even say this - decent manners; 3. just not aware of or or interested in books.
I don't blame them for this. But what were their employers thinking when they hired them to man bookshops? Having hired them, how about training and / or orienting them a bit? Or say, giving them a crash-course in basic courtesy? And one in understanding books - not the literary criticism stuff, mind you, but where they are stacked and how they are to be referenced on the shelves?
You go to a small book store like Fort Book Distributor or Strand or even our Chembur-station Jayesh Book Store, and you suddenly re-realize that hey, you don't need coffee to buy a book. Because you get decent service, a discount and generally, a pleasant feeling of being attended to. Mind you, the salespeople here aren't MAs in Eng Litt either. They are aware of what they have in their shelves, and want to make sure - or at least try - that you get what you are looking for.
I called the Crossword shop-in-charge later that day and complained. She was pained and appalled at her staff - I think. And offered to come over and apologize. See, this is where people lose perspective. Can you imagine the busy, highly dignified manager at the Strand desk offering to do something so daft as come over and apologise to a customer? No, because they do their jobs all right, and don't behave like jerks in general. Cussed they might be, creeps they are not.
I wish chain store managers had an awareness of what a bookshop needs to be to its customers. It needs to be no-fuss, it needs to be a wee bit generous, it needs to have staff who at least know where the goods are. That's it. Nothing more.
(Ooh, on a prophetic note, I had a dream, just two nights before this incident, that for some reason, a Japanese guy was willing to open up a bookstore with us in Chembur! Cost no issue, he said. I woke up to change n's soaked PJs thinking busily to myself: ok, we'll buy the paper bags which they make from recycled newspaper at Sevadan, and not keep any plastic, and have an old-books bargain counter. And what shall we call it... etc. I switched on the light in the loo and told myself to calm down, it was a dream. Blah. My subconscious is getting too literal. )
1. Enter your local branch of Crossword.
2. Engage with any of the cretins on call - the sales staff. Their daftness, rudeness, lack of awareness, will make you want to turn and flee. Or it will make you want to do them such physical harm that the cops will have to lock you in.
At Crossword they've never ever given discounts (unless it's during an annual sale). Because, after all, you are paying for the experience, the aahm-bey-ahnce. What with the air con and the coffee-shop attached, suddenly, it seemed nice to be able to do frilly stuff while browsing for books. And what's a 10 to 20% discount as compared to that?
Where Crossword - like most chain stores - suffered a bit was in their choice of staff. They hired pretty kids - chirpy and bright as buttons, but they weren't you know, book lovers. Chalo, so not everyone lives to read, ok, and you put up with a degree of ignorance. In fact, till about 6 to 8 months back, the Crossword Ghatkopar staff was decent, vaguely knew where the books were, and were at least enthusiastic enough to try and find you stuff. And more importantly, they weren't rude creeps.
But recently, I think there's been some policy-and-management change, which has been reflected immediately in the quality of the people they hire. At least this is the case at the Crossword in Shopper's Stop, Ghatkopar. Boy, I never thought I'd miss the button kids, but compared to the new bunch of yobos they've got, those kids were great! We had a shockingly unpleasant and painful experience there two days back. Don't want to go into the gory details here, but suffice it to say that the staff were nothing short of crass, ill-mannered louts.
The dip has happened ever since the Shopper's Stop guys bought up the place. At least in Ghatkopar, the staff are: 1. lazy, and they don't believe in looking for a book beyond checking their database - and as everyone knows, databases are not always a perfect reflection of what's on the shelves (I say this because I've had this experience in a Crossword); 2. ill-mannered louts who don't have basic skills like communication and - I'm so sorry to even say this - decent manners; 3. just not aware of or or interested in books.
I don't blame them for this. But what were their employers thinking when they hired them to man bookshops? Having hired them, how about training and / or orienting them a bit? Or say, giving them a crash-course in basic courtesy? And one in understanding books - not the literary criticism stuff, mind you, but where they are stacked and how they are to be referenced on the shelves?
You go to a small book store like Fort Book Distributor or Strand or even our Chembur-station Jayesh Book Store, and you suddenly re-realize that hey, you don't need coffee to buy a book. Because you get decent service, a discount and generally, a pleasant feeling of being attended to. Mind you, the salespeople here aren't MAs in Eng Litt either. They are aware of what they have in their shelves, and want to make sure - or at least try - that you get what you are looking for.
I called the Crossword shop-in-charge later that day and complained. She was pained and appalled at her staff - I think. And offered to come over and apologize. See, this is where people lose perspective. Can you imagine the busy, highly dignified manager at the Strand desk offering to do something so daft as come over and apologise to a customer? No, because they do their jobs all right, and don't behave like jerks in general. Cussed they might be, creeps they are not.
I wish chain store managers had an awareness of what a bookshop needs to be to its customers. It needs to be no-fuss, it needs to be a wee bit generous, it needs to have staff who at least know where the goods are. That's it. Nothing more.
(Ooh, on a prophetic note, I had a dream, just two nights before this incident, that for some reason, a Japanese guy was willing to open up a bookstore with us in Chembur! Cost no issue, he said. I woke up to change n's soaked PJs thinking busily to myself: ok, we'll buy the paper bags which they make from recycled newspaper at Sevadan, and not keep any plastic, and have an old-books bargain counter. And what shall we call it... etc. I switched on the light in the loo and told myself to calm down, it was a dream. Blah. My subconscious is getting too literal. )
Friday, August 24, 2007
The pleasure of being good, so good...
Guilt is my constant companion. I think it has to do with listening to nuns for all of your school life, but I'm willing to lay the blame at other quarters as well - like my mom, for instance (who, interestingly, was also with nuns thru her school years), female hormones, or finally, reluctantly, my own demented self. Whatever its source, guilt drives me nuts, and because I'm basically not a doer, it sits and froths inside me like 3-day-old dahi.
My biggest bugbear in recent years - among other things of course - has been the amount we throw and how it clogs the world. More so now, since my recently-acquired small stake in the future. I did a piece for the Mumbai Mirror on rag pickers and recycling where I learned more about the Deonar dumping ground and the crazy task of segregation that rag pickers undertake at great risk to their health, for fairly low earnings. Then Amit got a look into the huge recycling industry in Dharavi and told me about the amazing amount of plastic and polyallsorts that land up there. It's staggering to think of what would happen to this city if Dharavi's recyclers stopped, or for that matter, if the rag pickers weren't so assiduous.
All in all, I was prime for the kill, but being a creature of great inertia, I was reluctant to take that fatal step and get the two bins; to join the ranks of The Segregators.
Because finally, two questions remained in my mind:
1. How to educate the bai and cook?
2. How to deal with the fact that the dust lady at the doorstep politely takes your two bins and pours them into one?
Ans. 1.: It's not rocket science - domestic help are smart and know the ola-sukha (wet-dry in Marathi) funda and pick it up quickly, especially if you discuss it and look over their shoulders a bit for a couple of days.
Ans 2. Continue giving the wet garbage to the dust lady in the building, and collect the dry waste for about 7 days till a designated rag-picker from Stree Mukti Sanghatana (or someone ear-marked by your ALM) picks it up. No point segregating it and then handing it over to the building dust-lady / man, because they'll just bung into one bin. The BMC doesn't give them separate bins, I think. Some bais might even appreciate it if you ask them to take it and sell it / barter it (I think most plastic waste like tubes, plastic bottles, lids, etc., can be exchanged for things like garlic).
The BMC keeps threatening to make it compulsory, but I think it's gone the way of the ban on plastic bags. Poof! A nice little mirage that turned out to be.
At the end of the day, we could do tremendous service to rag-pickers and the environment, if, as generators of garbage, we segregated it at source. It's not hard to learn or do, and here's the Stree Mukti site. Call their Chembur office and find out about a service near you - if you can talk your entire building into it, nothing like it. If not, at least one small step, etc. The SMS women can also answer your queries as to what precisely is dry and what is wet, etc.
Why am I crowing about my good garbage behaviour? Because it's the morning after n's b'day and usually I am wracked with guilt staring at the mountains of plastic that comes from gift boxes, glasses, packing, etc, etc. I still feel rotten looking at the amount we throw, but when the SMS lady came this morning to take all of it, I felt a bit less tortured...
And because it's taken me two years of thinking about doing it and being my lethargic self before I could get started. So please pardon the soap-box stuff!
My biggest bugbear in recent years - among other things of course - has been the amount we throw and how it clogs the world. More so now, since my recently-acquired small stake in the future. I did a piece for the Mumbai Mirror on rag pickers and recycling where I learned more about the Deonar dumping ground and the crazy task of segregation that rag pickers undertake at great risk to their health, for fairly low earnings. Then Amit got a look into the huge recycling industry in Dharavi and told me about the amazing amount of plastic and polyallsorts that land up there. It's staggering to think of what would happen to this city if Dharavi's recyclers stopped, or for that matter, if the rag pickers weren't so assiduous.
All in all, I was prime for the kill, but being a creature of great inertia, I was reluctant to take that fatal step and get the two bins; to join the ranks of The Segregators.
Because finally, two questions remained in my mind:
1. How to educate the bai and cook?
2. How to deal with the fact that the dust lady at the doorstep politely takes your two bins and pours them into one?
Ans. 1.: It's not rocket science - domestic help are smart and know the ola-sukha (wet-dry in Marathi) funda and pick it up quickly, especially if you discuss it and look over their shoulders a bit for a couple of days.
Ans 2. Continue giving the wet garbage to the dust lady in the building, and collect the dry waste for about 7 days till a designated rag-picker from Stree Mukti Sanghatana (or someone ear-marked by your ALM) picks it up. No point segregating it and then handing it over to the building dust-lady / man, because they'll just bung into one bin. The BMC doesn't give them separate bins, I think. Some bais might even appreciate it if you ask them to take it and sell it / barter it (I think most plastic waste like tubes, plastic bottles, lids, etc., can be exchanged for things like garlic).
The BMC keeps threatening to make it compulsory, but I think it's gone the way of the ban on plastic bags. Poof! A nice little mirage that turned out to be.
At the end of the day, we could do tremendous service to rag-pickers and the environment, if, as generators of garbage, we segregated it at source. It's not hard to learn or do, and here's the Stree Mukti site. Call their Chembur office and find out about a service near you - if you can talk your entire building into it, nothing like it. If not, at least one small step, etc. The SMS women can also answer your queries as to what precisely is dry and what is wet, etc.
Why am I crowing about my good garbage behaviour? Because it's the morning after n's b'day and usually I am wracked with guilt staring at the mountains of plastic that comes from gift boxes, glasses, packing, etc, etc. I still feel rotten looking at the amount we throw, but when the SMS lady came this morning to take all of it, I felt a bit less tortured...
And because it's taken me two years of thinking about doing it and being my lethargic self before I could get started. So please pardon the soap-box stuff!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Amit, Amitji aur Supremo
People in the West use the term ‘fixer’ to describe what we call production. ‘Fixing’ for international crews has taken me to some strange and wondrous places. Starting with Dharavi, to a mass marriage for the famillies of cotton farmers in Vidarbha, all the way to the sets of Ram Gopal Verma’s Sholay (or Aag or Matchstick or whatever it is called now). I was working with a BBC crew for a programme called Imagine, where Alan Yentob interviews Amitabh Bachchan.
I was thrilled to be meeting the great man, but we were introduced briefly, and then he got busy grooving to a butchered version of ‘Mehbooba’. I stood back and watched the 65-year-old Jai - Gabbar shoot for the song.
Months later, this Saturday, the same crew was back for a long interview scheduled with him. I had carried our copy of the Supremo comic with me. After three-and-a-half hours of a great interview (and some equally good snacks from the chef at AB’s office), I snuck up to Mr. B and gingerly took out the comic from behind me. He held it close to his eyes, peered, and exclaimed, “Ah, Supremo!”
Then he excitedly flipped through the pages and saw the letter written by him to his fans after his critical illness. He then looked me straight in the eye and said, “Bhai you have to give me this!”
Being a fanatic book collector, I refused to part with it. But Mr. B very sportingly autographed the comic. I promised to give him a photocopy instead.
Our valuable comic has just turned priceless – bids are hereby closed!
Amit
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Mouse, My Uncle!
See when you need to think up a new lullaby every 30 days, you sometimes hit a dry patch. Which is when I remembered Munna bada pyaara / Ammi ka dulaara / Koi kahe chaand, koi aankh ka
Undra mojea mama,
aik aum sangtam tuka
mazorichea pillea laguim khell manddi naka.
Undir mama ailo,
ani pette kuxik liplo
mazorichea pillean taka eka ghansan khailo!
Which is:
Mouse, my Uncle,
Listen, I’m telling you:
Don’t try playing with the cat’s little kittens!
Mouse Uncle came
And hid under the trunk
And the cat's kittens ate him up in one mouthful!
John summed it all up for me by saying, "Bohot kadva philosophy hai!" True, of course, especially when it's said in John's cool, Cheera Bazar style. I think that's true of most kiddie songs in Indian languages – punches are rarely pulled. Like this Gujju song Amit sings for n:
Ek bilaadi jaadi
Eine peri saadi
Saadi peri pharva gayi
Talav maa to tarva gayi
Talav ma hata magar
Billi ne aavya chakkar
Saadi chhedo chhuti gayo
Magar na mooh maa aayi gayo
Magar billi ne khaee gayo!
Which is:
There was once a fat kitty
Who wore a pretty sari
Wearing the sari she set off for a swim,
Seeing a pond, she jumped right in!
In the pond was a crocodile
Kitty felt faint seeing his smile!
The sari came off in a pile
It was snapped up by the crocodile,
Who quickly gobbled up poor kitty!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Thalli-ho!
To fulfill my craving for robust Gujju veg food, Amit and I decided to go to Rajdhani, the new branch of the Opera House place in Ghatkopar. The first time we were thrown by the size of the Gujju mob outside who braved the heat and the rain to eat authentic Gujju food that they could, yes, eat at home as well. This time there was no crowd, and so we were happily set to sample their Kathiawadi cuisine. Amit was knife-keen, given that he’s from Kathiawad. But sorry, no specials, only the thali.
I've nothing against thalis, except that they are too fast-paced for me at times. But this one seemed ok, beginning with Surti Patiss and Khandvi. The meal went along at its usual clip, and slowly, very slowly, the surreality began to creep in. For one, we noticed that the waiters were using some strictly-coded, Stock-Exchange-type hand signals to communicate with one another. So the manager’s fingers twiddling magically as he chatted with a patron meant ‘Finger-washing needed here!’ If the captain (a tall, nice-looking Kathiawadi with earrings and a spaced-out manner) snapped his fingers in the air and held up three fingers, it meant ‘table three, rotlis!’ It was all very complex and entertaining, especially because I think it was meant to be discrete, but fell short by a couple of kilometres!
Then, as we chomped through the rotlis, mug ni daal, chaas, kadhi and ringna nu shaak (fantastically robust brinjal bhaji), there was a weird banging noise and people yelled loudly and discordantly. Whatthehell!! Were they coming for us finally? We turned in a panic and were surprised to see normal, smiling faces.
After this happened twice, we finally figured out what was going on. See, there was this gong, positioned cleverly at the narrow doorway, and planted firmly next to it was the solid manager. As you tried to leave, he’d tell you, “Hit the gong!’ So you struck the gong, and as soon as you did that, all the waiters – each and every stressed-out, harried, thali-serving, partitioned steel vessel-bearing fellow – would let out a loud ‘AAVJO!’ Nice way to keep up employee morale and self-esteem; and to interrupt any stray thoughts or talk that lunchers might dare to have.
After that, we were merely chewing between gong-watching. To please us, a family of gujjus left, laughing merrily and cheerfully and sounding the gong many times as they left; yelling out ‘AAVJO!’ in reply to the waiters’ continuous, raucous bellows. A five-member mallu family was next to leave, and I swear I saw the first guy try to sidle out. He made it past the Gong Meister, but the next guy got caught. He gave the gong an insignificant little tap, and scooted away. (Next to the whole shebang was a large sticker that said, ‘Mazaa aaya? Thali bajao!’) It was all too bizarre.
I hate places that take a simple, nice, enjoyable thing like having a meal and make it into an exercise in showy dementedness. More hip places – like a coffee shop in
Friday, June 22, 2007
Blame it on the rain...
Such as it is, the monsoon has begun taking its toll on me. My fragile resolve to eat sensibly and shed some excess baggage has been shattered. Something about the rains makes me long for chaats (as in the dilli ones - aloo tikkis and papdi chaats, and the squishy, wintry sweet potato chaat you get outside Desmond's house in CP). Longing, lingering, lolloping thoughts of chat-pata sinful veggie food - the gujju kind, the marathi kind, and the debauched northie kind. And oh, the A-1 samosas at GK in Sion, with their madly tingly chhole. Strangely, for a confirmed carnivore like me, the thoughts are all about veggie stuff...
So I bought a packet of Kurkure, and ate it, hating myself. If things go on like this, I might be reduced to the Monaco-biscuits-and-tomato-ketch combo of yore...
What do the rains make you long for? (And it doesn't have to be just food!)
So I bought a packet of Kurkure, and ate it, hating myself. If things go on like this, I might be reduced to the Monaco-biscuits-and-tomato-ketch combo of yore...
What do the rains make you long for? (And it doesn't have to be just food!)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Oddballs, seedballs and Monet
Reading about BMC making people sign a petition for a toilet in the face of criticism from the Heritage Committee. So much bally cheek that is! This is the same corporation which doesn't maintain the gardens, loos, or municipal pools that it already has... The same article mentions a loo two minutes away which is in a dilapidated state. Why isn't that being renovated with some of the 50 lakh rupees being spent on this new one (by, not to miss, a 'kindly' builder)? Why must everything we do be so narrow in vision and focus, and so exclusivist somehow? Why is it either the loo or unspoilt heritage? Why, for once, can it not be both - so that one is not sacrificed for the other? Why are we perennially at war with ourselves? Shouldn't the city - with its precious monuments, mudflats, salt pans and its fragile green cover - come before interests like those of builders, babus and other fatcats?
Deep breath.
Ok, also found this blog thru a link that Hansa had sent. It's about Guerilla Gardening - the only way for us to go in this city, I think ! GG is where - if you're green and you care for the city - you use clever, fairly secret things like seed balls (aka seed bombs!) to convert vacant lots into gardens! Ha! Sucks to you, State!
And also on this site, a peek into Monet's beautiful garden - it's like so much ambrosia for the eyes!
Deep breath.
Ok, also found this blog thru a link that Hansa had sent. It's about Guerilla Gardening - the only way for us to go in this city, I think ! GG is where - if you're green and you care for the city - you use clever, fairly secret things like seed balls (aka seed bombs!) to convert vacant lots into gardens! Ha! Sucks to you, State!
And also on this site, a peek into Monet's beautiful garden - it's like so much ambrosia for the eyes!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Spinning, spinning!
n's realised that if she shakes her head back-n-forth and back-n-forth, almost like she's spinning, she sees multiple images of surrounding objects. on the day before, as i was wiping her hair, inevitably shaking her head, she looked up at me and said, "all aniammas are coming!" then she shook her head in front of the teddy and said, "all teddies are coming!"
now life is full of the wonders of multi-vision (is that what i should call it?)...
now life is full of the wonders of multi-vision (is that what i should call it?)...
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Girlz and the Good...
When I was young and giddy, I read Linda Goodman. No, I didn't so much read her books as I inhaled them, walking around in a psychedelic cloud of weird, astro-erotica, well-cushioned in mellow marketting... I usually read up Scorpio-Taurus and Scorpio-Aries and all those more exciting ones, and felt this delicious frisson (shows what a loser love-life I had, dunnit?). Finally, out of boredom one day I read Scorpio-Gemini and shuddered. It sounded scary. Well, why wouldn't it? My mom's Gemini. Avoid Gemini men, I sternly instructed myself; Linda Aunty says they are too different. Then I grew up, grew out of Linda, and much later, met Amit; full-blown Gemini, with his birthday a mere two days away from my mom's. Resolutions never work, and here we are.
Suddenly, after all these years and so many lessons in life later, I thought of the uber-trashy Love Signs yesterday. Why, you ask. Well, we're making a Big Buy, the first time we're getting into a loan situation, and I am all a-twitter. To say that I am risk-averse is to merely skim the tippiest tip of the iceberg. I am not cautious, mind you, I'm just superstitious and terrified of money matters. And Amit isn't just my diametric opposite; he's not just more confident in the process than me. He's positively blithe. He has faith in people, that they won't gyp him; that if we do enough ground-work, we can't be gypped. See, that's where we differ. I know the universe is out there, waiting with an anvil to drop on my head as I pass under a conveniently-located cliff. No matter what we do, I know we're going to be robbed blind, and - shudder - I know we don't have what it takes to stop Them.
So after nearly two months of obsessive, mind-numbing research, worrying and fretting (these last two on my part alone) and fighting (again, mine was the main voice), we finally did the deed yesterday. We came home, after the whole soul-sapping exercise, me feeling like a spent, limp dishrag, and Amit looking his cheery self.
It struck me then that he's this smiling, blithe spirit who hops from cloud-to-cloud, positive that their silver linings are at least a foot wide. I'm this dark, sulking spirit who lurks under the earth's crust, thinking bitter thoughts with a furrowed brow, and examining stray silver linings for the grey clouds attached.
The image made me smile. Till I realized that it has a touch of La Goodman to it. Clearly, you can take the girl away from the Goodman, but you can't take the Goodman out of her. And this on the day I discover that Surabhi has tagged me as a Thinking Blogger. I could have timed it better, no?
Suddenly, after all these years and so many lessons in life later, I thought of the uber-trashy Love Signs yesterday. Why, you ask. Well, we're making a Big Buy, the first time we're getting into a loan situation, and I am all a-twitter. To say that I am risk-averse is to merely skim the tippiest tip of the iceberg. I am not cautious, mind you, I'm just superstitious and terrified of money matters. And Amit isn't just my diametric opposite; he's not just more confident in the process than me. He's positively blithe. He has faith in people, that they won't gyp him; that if we do enough ground-work, we can't be gypped. See, that's where we differ. I know the universe is out there, waiting with an anvil to drop on my head as I pass under a conveniently-located cliff. No matter what we do, I know we're going to be robbed blind, and - shudder - I know we don't have what it takes to stop Them.
So after nearly two months of obsessive, mind-numbing research, worrying and fretting (these last two on my part alone) and fighting (again, mine was the main voice), we finally did the deed yesterday. We came home, after the whole soul-sapping exercise, me feeling like a spent, limp dishrag, and Amit looking his cheery self.
It struck me then that he's this smiling, blithe spirit who hops from cloud-to-cloud, positive that their silver linings are at least a foot wide. I'm this dark, sulking spirit who lurks under the earth's crust, thinking bitter thoughts with a furrowed brow, and examining stray silver linings for the grey clouds attached.
The image made me smile. Till I realized that it has a touch of La Goodman to it. Clearly, you can take the girl away from the Goodman, but you can't take the Goodman out of her. And this on the day I discover that Surabhi has tagged me as a Thinking Blogger. I could have timed it better, no?
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Magic - Soviet Style!
One of our first posts was on Russian picture books for children. Amit and I both read lots of Russian books growing up; and their images and words are still vibrantly alive in our minds...My favourite book as a child was called The Rainbow Flower and it's vivid images and story stayed with me for ever - though I'd forgotten its name. Recently, I found it in a raddi shop to my utter delight. And now we've discovered that it's online too! I cannot believe that someone's had the love, the time and the sense of dedication to actually scan and put in the entire story accompanied by the book's beautiful drawings.
The story is simple. Zhenya, a 'good', if absent-minded girl, goes out to buy bread rings. She loses them (notice the dog nibbling at them) but is given a magic rainbow flower by an old woman. The flower can fulfill wishes, but each time it does, you lose a petal. Zhenya's wishes range from the desperate (getting her mom's broken vase fixed) to the slightly foolhardy (getting all the toys of the world - the pic shows lovely, cascading toys being sent back by a horrified Zhenya on the rooftop). But her last wish is the most useful and it gets her that precious commodity, a friend. The illustrations range from the dream-like to the very real. More than anything else, I loved Zhenya's character because she's not the most robust of fiction's kids. She's dreamy, clumsy, a bit unpopular, and a bit greedy. Zhenya was refreshing because I didn't have to aspire to be her; in parts, I was her already! Read the story and see more pics here.
There's more here too.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
B.C.
It was not just mad, over-arching ambition that drove me to try the Betty Crocker pre-mixed cake. I really felt like the universe was winking at me in a suggestive, encouraging manner. First, in a Bloom County strip Milo developed a crush on Betty, the epitome of American womanhood, and all that she stood for – clean living, mom, home-bakes, family picnics, a forgotten, pre-lapsarian America. Following a lead in The National Enquirer, he set off to find her and was shocked to meet a crusty, cynical broad, who actually didn’t know what a sheesh kebob could be.
Then, we found this amazing Betty Crocker Outdoor Cookbook at the
FBD sale. It was printed in the ’60s and was spiral bound with a hard cover. It had lively, small, two-colour illustrations, incredibly cheesy text and lurid pictures of family picnics. And this totally chatty, Reader’s-Digest tone of happy bonhomie. Plus lots of recipes for sheesh kabobs and the like. The illustration for the ‘Outdoor Indian Pilaf’ recipe (An excellent accompaniment for beef… adapted from a famous dish of exotic
In the subliminal way that we know most American icons, I felt I ‘knew’ Betty. I took my doubts to google and discovered that I knew nothing! Like the red-clad, rosy-cheeked Santa Claus, Betty was an invention of corporate
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Cake, with a frosting of Dark Thoughts
When I say I’m terrible at baking, I’m not being cute or coy. The recent cookie experience (see below) had me in raptures of triumph and joy because – trust me – it’s the first time I baked something that didn’t induce nausea and / or depression in those who tasted it.
The answer lies, I think, in my inability follow the rules and to focus properly; and of course in my laziness. I look at a recipe, and I’m thinking, ok, what can I avoid doing here? What can I do differently to create a path-breaking new twist? Must I do everything by the book? Is there no freedom left? Being creative is one thing. Being daft and not following the dictates of commonsense is another. In life and in baking, I think, I tend to throw simple, sensible ideas to the winds. (I can talk about my baking blunders; the goof-ups with life are too many and too mortifying to go into here!)
GARRRH! I'm not a bad baker; I am a space cadet.
And that’s what brought me to this deep, navel-gazing moment of self-revelation. Finally, I think I have a metaphor for my life.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Blogward bound
For those of you who have been wondering where I am (thanks for asking, Surabhi!), here's the answer: I’ve been busy resting my back. If you can call it that, since resting your back is the one thing that keeps you totally non-busy. You have to devise activities to keep the mind occupied, so that it doesn’t turn nasty and implode.
As a way to stay sane, n and I have been doing lots of crafty things. We’ve made salt-dough, shaped little things out of it, baked them, painted-and-varnished them (or as n says, ‘niced them’) and then stuck magnets on to them. Then we’ve baked cookies. Which n feels inordinately proud of. Especially as she is gobbling them up. You don’t know what an achievement this is for me – the cookie thing, I mean. Usually when Amit enters the house and smells vanilla essence in the air he winces. I’m a disaster at baking. But I unearthed a cookie recipe that was totally Anita-proof. And n and I are busy baking now. We’ve even tried a whole-wheat substitute and succeeded.
We’ve also made cornstarch colours (haldi, beetroot, palak) and I shamelessly let n splash them on her sheet of paper and splatter the wall. I decided to throw prudence to the winds wall-wise because there’s no other level at which the two of us can have fun together (the last time we went out together was two months back; and I haven’t lifted her since she was 6 months old).
The other fun thing Amit and I did was a series of workshops we took with some kids for The Pomegranate Workshop. I did writing with them and Amit did illustration – during separate sessions, of course. This was the second round of workshops for me and the third for Amit. The sessions were great fun – they helped us open up a lot more too! And the kids were adorable. Bright-as-buttons too.
Separately, we both noticed something odd and disturbing. Among kids between 11 and 14, the boys are a lot more out-of-the-box with their thinking. The girls on the other hand, tended to do well while still playing safe. We saw this across locations. Strangely, this is true only of the 12-and-above kids. Till that age, creativity levels are the same – except for individual variations of course.
Could this be a gender-related thing? Maybe a phase girls go thru? Does co-education have anything to do with it? I read somewhere that girls in co-eds tend to under-perform and try to conform to gender stereotypes… I know this sounds regressive, but sometimes I feel being in a same-sex school gives you a little more freedom to be yourself rather than trying to be your gender… Who knows, yaar?
Anyway, I couldn’t take as many sessions as I’d promised the Pommies I would, thanks to the back, but it was such fun! Gave me a fantastic headrush of joy to: 1. be out, 2. be with kids, and 3. do stuff with them and jog their minds a bit and push them and get them to think and write! Did poetry with the biggies, which was more fun than I imagined it would be – and the kids were wonderfully charged – both girls and boys!
You know, I always wanted to be a teacher…
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut died on April 12. A Man Without a Country was his last book and it ended with a poem called Requiem:
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Too much, too flawed
A review of The Peacock Throne by Sujit Saraf
(I don't usually put my book reviews here, but this once I think I really want to. A shorter version was published in the DNA of Sunday, April 1, 2007. Copyright: DNA)
It’s one thing to possess writerly ambitions; to want to examine a complicated set of historical events and weave them into an interesting narrative. It’s quite another to actually have the ability to do so. Sujit Saraf’s The Peacock Throne has all the ingredients for an epic: a stretch in Indian history that is still fairly unexplored, and a multitude of characters. But the execution of the novel – its plot and characterization – is so uninspired that reading it becomes an exercise in endurance.
Starting in 1984 with the anti-Sikh riots, Saraf touches upon the reservation stir and the Babri Masjid riots, and ends in 1998. The usual suspects from Chandni Chowk people his book – small-time politicians, a social worker, a prostitute, a ‘fixer’ type, a chaivala and some street kids.
Everyone in the novel – rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim – is tarred with the same sternly cynical brush. Now if we must be told about the mercenary nature of human beings in excruciating detail over 750 pages, the writing had better be gripping. Saraf’s relentless cynicism, combined with his highly limited craft, makes for a crudely-executed, fairly disastrous read.
To begin with, his characterization and sense of structure are poor. His people are clich̩d and sketchy Рinexcusable in a novel of this size. Of the nine or so chief characters, only three seem fleshed out. They are Ramvilas the fixer, Kartar Singh and Sohan Lal. Saraf captures their idiosyncrasies in quick flashes. Which would be fine if they were the only people in the book.
But they are not. Gopal Pandey, the ineffectually-drawn chaivala, who the back-jacket indicates is the protagonist, is more non-negative than positive in a life-affirming way. Saraf’s description of social-worker-turned-journalist, Chitra, is again facile, clichéd and childishly cruel.
While Saraf is brutally honest about the Congress Party’s many sins, he is strangely coy about naming the BJP, preferring to call his party of right-wing Hindus the ‘Indian People’s Party’. If this doesn’t make you suspicious of his politics, his treatment of the Muslims in the book certainly will. They are uniformly venial, un-likeable and often, consciously dehumanized. In comparison, the IPP members – who incidentally set a man on fire during the anti-reservation stir – are almost flatteringly drawn.
Suleman Mian, the IPP’s Muslim rival in Chandni Chowk, is another alarming cliché. His world, when it is finally described, is portrayed so uni-dimensionally that Saraf’s total alienation from the character is obvious. Women and religious minorities tend to suffer in Saraf’s hands. Out of a lack of ability we sincerely hope.
Structurally, The Peacock… is divided into five parts. Between each, years pass and many life-changing events take place. These are almost always reported as having happened in the past. As a result, supposedly important moments lose their edge. And the narrative voice becomes an incessant, amateurish drone.
There are strands both bizarre and outrageous in the book. Inexplicably, Chitra asks older boys to show the younger boys how to masturbate, believing, for some reason, that these ‘demonstrations’ will protect them from being sexually exploited! Of course the exact opposite happens. There is an outrageous plot aside which has Suleman paying two Muslim boys to blow up Babri Masjid in case Kar Sevaks fail!
Predictably, the squalor ofIndia
Some scenes stand out in the book, like that of Kartar Singh being chased by rioters at the same time as a young, hungry Gauhar. Saraf’s descriptions of mobs and their orchestrated fury, and of police collusion during the anti-Sikh riots, are chilling.
Perhaps if Saraf’s historical ambitions were smaller, his book might have been better. Long novels, when well-crafted, can be extraordinary. For instance, Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, about the Emergency, was riveting, leaving you with a profound sense of loss and empathy. Saraf’s book leaves you with mixed feelings, chief among which is indignation that a tree in a sustainable forest somewhere died to bring you this tediously super-sized tome.
Copyright: DNA
(I don't usually put my book reviews here, but this once I think I really want to. A shorter version was published in the DNA of Sunday, April 1, 2007. Copyright: DNA)
It’s one thing to possess writerly ambitions; to want to examine a complicated set of historical events and weave them into an interesting narrative. It’s quite another to actually have the ability to do so. Sujit Saraf’s The Peacock Throne has all the ingredients for an epic: a stretch in Indian history that is still fairly unexplored, and a multitude of characters. But the execution of the novel – its plot and characterization – is so uninspired that reading it becomes an exercise in endurance.
Starting in 1984 with the anti-Sikh riots, Saraf touches upon the reservation stir and the Babri Masjid riots, and ends in 1998. The usual suspects from Chandni Chowk people his book – small-time politicians, a social worker, a prostitute, a ‘fixer’ type, a chaivala and some street kids.
Everyone in the novel – rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim – is tarred with the same sternly cynical brush. Now if we must be told about the mercenary nature of human beings in excruciating detail over 750 pages, the writing had better be gripping. Saraf’s relentless cynicism, combined with his highly limited craft, makes for a crudely-executed, fairly disastrous read.
To begin with, his characterization and sense of structure are poor. His people are clich̩d and sketchy Рinexcusable in a novel of this size. Of the nine or so chief characters, only three seem fleshed out. They are Ramvilas the fixer, Kartar Singh and Sohan Lal. Saraf captures their idiosyncrasies in quick flashes. Which would be fine if they were the only people in the book.
But they are not. Gopal Pandey, the ineffectually-drawn chaivala, who the back-jacket indicates is the protagonist, is more non-negative than positive in a life-affirming way. Saraf’s description of social-worker-turned-journalist, Chitra, is again facile, clichéd and childishly cruel.
While Saraf is brutally honest about the Congress Party’s many sins, he is strangely coy about naming the BJP, preferring to call his party of right-wing Hindus the ‘Indian People’s Party’. If this doesn’t make you suspicious of his politics, his treatment of the Muslims in the book certainly will. They are uniformly venial, un-likeable and often, consciously dehumanized. In comparison, the IPP members – who incidentally set a man on fire during the anti-reservation stir – are almost flatteringly drawn.
Suleman Mian, the IPP’s Muslim rival in Chandni Chowk, is another alarming cliché. His world, when it is finally described, is portrayed so uni-dimensionally that Saraf’s total alienation from the character is obvious. Women and religious minorities tend to suffer in Saraf’s hands. Out of a lack of ability we sincerely hope.
Structurally, The Peacock… is divided into five parts. Between each, years pass and many life-changing events take place. These are almost always reported as having happened in the past. As a result, supposedly important moments lose their edge. And the narrative voice becomes an incessant, amateurish drone.
There are strands both bizarre and outrageous in the book. Inexplicably, Chitra asks older boys to show the younger boys how to masturbate, believing, for some reason, that these ‘demonstrations’ will protect them from being sexually exploited! Of course the exact opposite happens. There is an outrageous plot aside which has Suleman paying two Muslim boys to blow up Babri Masjid in case Kar Sevaks fail!
Predictably, the squalor of
Some scenes stand out in the book, like that of Kartar Singh being chased by rioters at the same time as a young, hungry Gauhar. Saraf’s descriptions of mobs and their orchestrated fury, and of police collusion during the anti-Sikh riots, are chilling.
Perhaps if Saraf’s historical ambitions were smaller, his book might have been better. Long novels, when well-crafted, can be extraordinary. For instance, Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, about the Emergency, was riveting, leaving you with a profound sense of loss and empathy. Saraf’s book leaves you with mixed feelings, chief among which is indignation that a tree in a sustainable forest somewhere died to bring you this tediously super-sized tome.
Copyright: DNA
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Suddenly, mommy!
Being two-and-a-half means that baby n is now aware that she has her own body, and is free to come and go as she likes. She’s been becoming more aware of that since she learnt how to walk; realizing, slowly, that she is mistress of her will and her legs. That awareness makes her happy, of course, but it also leads to some nervousness. You see, in her pre-walking state of mind, she and mommy were one – in true Hindi-filim style, carved out of one body, attached first at navel and then breast, never to be parted. So now along with the freedom of mobility that she celebrates comes the uncomfortable knowledge that mommy too has the same freedom, and can come and go as she likes.
When you’re three-feet-high and just learning to articulate your feelings (which means yell-storms every 45 minutes and contests of wills), this is a rather overwhelming thought. So n is worried about me in particular and all mommies in general. Does the goose in Jogger’s Park have an amma? Where is she? Does the pigeon have an amma? Where is she? Does Noddy have an amma? Does the child in the picture book? Anything that looks young and vulnerable, must be accompanied by its mother. Then the universe will be a safe place for babies everywhere, and n can relax.
And it’s not enough for the mom to be in the same frame – as in a picture or on tv. She has to be involved, doing whatever it takes to make n feel that the baby is safe. Like we have this xylophone-cum-book in which every page has the notes to a song, which is also illustrated. Sometimes she opens it and ‘plays’ each song, moving briskly and fairly tunelessly from one to the other. Last night I caught her staring worriedly at the picture of a song called Lullaby and good night, thy mother’s delight. It showed a mama bear who had apparently just finished tucking baby bear into his bed and was smiling down at him, affection oozing out of every anthropomorphic line.
So I asked, “What happened?” and she replied, “Where baby bear’s amma?” And I pointed to the ‘amma’ bear and said, “Right there.” So she stares at it some more and then asks, “Where she going to sleep?” Of course. Now I know what’s upsetting her. For someone who sleeps wedged prophylactically between her parents, the thought of a mommy ‘putting’ her baby to bed and then walking away is a crazy, nightmarish one. Especially as we all know that night is the time when 1. it’s dark. 2. bad dreams come, 3. there’s that scary thing called the moon lurking around!
Speaking of co-sleeping – or not – I spent a good year pondering over the Western concept of letting babies sleep alone. I swayed between ‘What a wonderful idea!’ and ‘How completely barbaric!’ It doesn’t work for me, but lucky are those who have the stomach for it!
Saturday, March 24, 2007
City of Fear
Robin, Amit's old friend (and now mine too), has just had a book published! It's called City of Fear and is one of the most sincere, readable and beautiful books I've encountered in a long time. What I like most about it is that though the subject is violence and after, there is no gratuitous show-casing of pain or trauma; no writerly celebration of cruelty. There is just a very clear, journalistic eye that records what it saw - and felt. Balancing all of that is the poetic quality of the writing.
More than violence though, City... is about memory, displacement and the very real objects that one clings to in order to live and survive.
Unlike many writers these days, Robin's words don't tumble into one another; they don't become exercises in futile navel-gazing; and they are not there to make you drown in painful conceits. His writing is refreshingly pellucid. In many new Indian writers of English I find a fascination with wordy conceits, and little sincerity of purpose or subject (Sujit Saraf's embarrassing The Peacock Throne is a prime example). Perhaps what sets Robin's work apart is that unlike most of us he can't afford to poeticize violence, simply because he has been viscerally close to it. What a terrible thing to be grateful for.
Now that the book is out and has to be pushed, Robin has gone predictably coy. He's got a blog going at last (after 65,000 reminders). He promises to update regularly, to network and push his book a bit by having readings in other cities than his hometown Ahmedabad. So hopefully, City of Fear will come to a bookstore near you. Accompanied - hopefully again - by its writer. Do catch it if you can...
More than violence though, City... is about memory, displacement and the very real objects that one clings to in order to live and survive.Unlike many writers these days, Robin's words don't tumble into one another; they don't become exercises in futile navel-gazing; and they are not there to make you drown in painful conceits. His writing is refreshingly pellucid. In many new Indian writers of English I find a fascination with wordy conceits, and little sincerity of purpose or subject (Sujit Saraf's embarrassing The Peacock Throne is a prime example). Perhaps what sets Robin's work apart is that unlike most of us he can't afford to poeticize violence, simply because he has been viscerally close to it. What a terrible thing to be grateful for.
Now that the book is out and has to be pushed, Robin has gone predictably coy. He's got a blog going at last (after 65,000 reminders). He promises to update regularly, to network and push his book a bit by having readings in other cities than his hometown Ahmedabad. So hopefully, City of Fear will come to a bookstore near you. Accompanied - hopefully again - by its writer. Do catch it if you can...
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Time-Space Conundrum!
How complex the world must be for a baby! That's something anyone with any baby experience can sense, of course. But if you live with a toddler, you sense this allatime! Like when baby n loves a new place - jogger's park, goa, imax, anyplace nice - she often lies in repose back at home and remembers it. Then she turns to me and says, 'Where jogger's park gone?' I've never tried telling her that she has moved away and that jogger's park is where it always has been. So I tell her it's in Bandra, leading to the next inevitable question: 'Where Bandra gone?' And so on. It must be so tough to understand that the universe does not centre around you; that life is not an ever-changing parade of places and images arranged with you as the pivot!
The same goes for language. If walk is walked in the past tense, then send must be sended, draw must be drawed, and go must be wented. When people - and babies - learn a language (or acquire it in the case of babies) they tend to observe a rule, learn it and then overuse it. It is not a mistake, it is just them sussing out the language's rules and trying to see what works. In a while, they figure out things like 'exceptions to rules' and then get the required discretion to become perfect speakers! When n makes these mistakes, I just love it! I mean, how long before she throws a complicated new coinage at me and sneers when I say, "Huh? What's it mean?"
Speaking of nice places, why is it a nightmare to be able to access a nice public space in this city? Whole families are congregating in malls these days for lack of anywhere else to go. The parks that remain - like Diamond Garden in Chembur - are bizarrely anti-poor and anti-people. Recently renovated with corporate help, Diamond Garden actually doesn't allow people to sit on its lawns! Of course, there is no proportionate increase in the number of benches, and so you have people trying to sit on the park's play equipment (which is no great shakes, but let's not go there).
Try asking the people in charge why this is so and the biases start becoming clear. 'Arre, if you let them sit on the lawns, then they will get food here!' I don't see how that can happen because the guards don't let you bring in food anyway. Probe further, and you hear the words them and they used so vehemently and so often that you soon figure out who they are referring to - poor Muslim families from nearby Shivaji Park and Govandi, of course! They 'dirty' the space and 'annoy' the 'rest of us' so that around big holidays, the garden conveniently shuts itself down! We are also told that they have their own garden given them by the BMC; can they not stick there? Talk about wanting to ghettoize people!
Suggest that there are other alternatives than this sort of apartheid, that hygiene can be taught to the poor - Hindu and Muslim alike - that the middle class is equally messy and irresponsible, and that the city owes its people public spaces, and all you get is a big fat fight. In which prejudice takes top spot, I'm afraid.
In a city that is slowly cutting off itself from this responsibility, I wonder what options we have left. Where do the poor go for an evening out? To a mall? To an incredibly-expensive multiplex? As a parent I know how restless n gets with the same spaces. But where's the variety of open spaces in this city; what can you access without having to travel in killing traffic? If you don't live in a gated township with an enclosed park and pool, are you not entitled to these simple, inexpensive joys?
Between prejudice and the monstrous greed of the powers that be, the future looks bleak. Very bleak.
(Sorry, the post started with baby's sense of space and ended in public spaces - bit of wandering happened! But it's something I feel strongly about, so am not going to cut away and put in elsewhere!)
The same goes for language. If walk is walked in the past tense, then send must be sended, draw must be drawed, and go must be wented. When people - and babies - learn a language (or acquire it in the case of babies) they tend to observe a rule, learn it and then overuse it. It is not a mistake, it is just them sussing out the language's rules and trying to see what works. In a while, they figure out things like 'exceptions to rules' and then get the required discretion to become perfect speakers! When n makes these mistakes, I just love it! I mean, how long before she throws a complicated new coinage at me and sneers when I say, "Huh? What's it mean?"
Speaking of nice places, why is it a nightmare to be able to access a nice public space in this city? Whole families are congregating in malls these days for lack of anywhere else to go. The parks that remain - like Diamond Garden in Chembur - are bizarrely anti-poor and anti-people. Recently renovated with corporate help, Diamond Garden actually doesn't allow people to sit on its lawns! Of course, there is no proportionate increase in the number of benches, and so you have people trying to sit on the park's play equipment (which is no great shakes, but let's not go there).
Try asking the people in charge why this is so and the biases start becoming clear. 'Arre, if you let them sit on the lawns, then they will get food here!' I don't see how that can happen because the guards don't let you bring in food anyway. Probe further, and you hear the words them and they used so vehemently and so often that you soon figure out who they are referring to - poor Muslim families from nearby Shivaji Park and Govandi, of course! They 'dirty' the space and 'annoy' the 'rest of us' so that around big holidays, the garden conveniently shuts itself down! We are also told that they have their own garden given them by the BMC; can they not stick there? Talk about wanting to ghettoize people!
Suggest that there are other alternatives than this sort of apartheid, that hygiene can be taught to the poor - Hindu and Muslim alike - that the middle class is equally messy and irresponsible, and that the city owes its people public spaces, and all you get is a big fat fight. In which prejudice takes top spot, I'm afraid.
In a city that is slowly cutting off itself from this responsibility, I wonder what options we have left. Where do the poor go for an evening out? To a mall? To an incredibly-expensive multiplex? As a parent I know how restless n gets with the same spaces. But where's the variety of open spaces in this city; what can you access without having to travel in killing traffic? If you don't live in a gated township with an enclosed park and pool, are you not entitled to these simple, inexpensive joys?
Between prejudice and the monstrous greed of the powers that be, the future looks bleak. Very bleak.
(Sorry, the post started with baby's sense of space and ended in public spaces - bit of wandering happened! But it's something I feel strongly about, so am not going to cut away and put in elsewhere!)
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The laughter in her lines
Revathy Gopal - poet, friend, bearer of smiles and cheer and wonderful words - passed away earlier this month. I'd lost touch of late, though we'd been friends - good friends - years back when we both worked for a magazine. Rev was amazingly youthful. That, and her writing, and her laugh and her fondness for everyone in sight, drew me to her. It seems awfully trite when I put it that way. But truly, Rev was a sheer delight to be around. She could always make you laugh, always say something that quite took your breath away with its generosity.
It's hard to think of her as having suffered physically, of having died. But if anyone had a capacity for life, an understanding of it and a love for all the sensations it could offer, it was her. I wish I'd picked up the phone and called when I first heard about the cancer from Sampurna. I wish I hadn't given in to awkwardness; had called and said, 'Rev, I heard; I'm so sorry.' She wouldn't have gone all awkward on me. She'd have smiled that generous smile of hers and said something wonderfully affectionate.
Among poets, she was one of the best. And among the most underrated. Though she was such a genuinely cheerful person, her poems were sometimes astoundingly sad. But they also had a quiet sort of laughter in them, so that while reading them, you could almost see her smile growing slowly till it filled her face and made her eyes shine.
Here is one that I found online. Not my favourite or anything, but just such a lovely piece of writing.
It's hard to think of her as having suffered physically, of having died. But if anyone had a capacity for life, an understanding of it and a love for all the sensations it could offer, it was her. I wish I'd picked up the phone and called when I first heard about the cancer from Sampurna. I wish I hadn't given in to awkwardness; had called and said, 'Rev, I heard; I'm so sorry.' She wouldn't have gone all awkward on me. She'd have smiled that generous smile of hers and said something wonderfully affectionate.
Among poets, she was one of the best. And among the most underrated. Though she was such a genuinely cheerful person, her poems were sometimes astoundingly sad. But they also had a quiet sort of laughter in them, so that while reading them, you could almost see her smile growing slowly till it filled her face and made her eyes shine.
Here is one that I found online. Not my favourite or anything, but just such a lovely piece of writing.
Picnic at the zoo
Most of the cages are empty, now;
once there were civet cats, panther and jaguar,
even a family of white tigers from the Sunderbans
that made a splash of light in the infernal dark;
a black bear and a binturong
I remember particularly,
because of its droll name.
They died or were moved
to kinder climes, perhaps.
But when the kangaroos (strange import!)
died, one by one,
the local paper said they
probably pined away.
Somewhere between the orang-otan
and the peanut vendor,
she lies stricken in the dust,
Victoria, Queen Empress,
head averted in clotted rage
as pigeons strut
and cheeky boys clamber
on that capacious lap
from which once flowed,
the long tedium of empire,
the unending reproach
of widowhood, somewhere
a haemophilic grandson;
and the men who walked away,
father, husband,
a recalcitrant son.
I wish I had met her before she died. Wish I had called. Wish I had made a trip to meet her - back and baby notwithstanding...
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about Rev was how much other people loved her. I hope she knew that, knew how many people would miss her and treasure her memory.
More tributes - by Todd Swift the poetry editor of nthposition and by another friend.
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