+: etcetera :+

Am back from a number of fun, but at times fun in a Spanish Inquisition sort of way do’s - a trip to and from India that involved being trapped on seemingly endless Kuwait Airways flights (one more serving of rice and dhal and paneer might have snapped the spirit forever), and a few days after my return, being trapped on Ellis Island for several hours, and finally being trapped (this last was voluntary) on the West Side, where I watched six movies over two days.

The India trip was, well, the closest to the Spanish Inquisition, and not of the comfy chair sort either. There was a wedding in the family, which gives one an excellent opportunity to meet lots of folks without having to travel even more, but does also give these assorted folks the opportunity to make inquiries about one’s own manless, childless and in their minds life-less existence. I ticked off those members of the family I could afford to tick off, with anything ranging from offering to shack up with the first man I met after I landed in New York to remaining single for the rest of my life. But mostly, I nodded a lot and let them believe that am waiting for them to find me the perfect man, which a number of them believe they have ready. The question of marriage, I find, is a bit like non-vegetarianism. Meat-eaters and pro-marriage freaks both seem to think that it’s all a question of finding that perfect chicken, and once you’ve had it, you’ll never go back to your old ways - conveniently ignoring the fact that there are millions of people who lead perfectly content lives that are chicken-free in every possible way. But since I’ve already bored all my friends with this rant, I shan’t crib anymore.

Moving on to Ellis Island. The office threw a party there last Friday. A grand affair, I admit. But the one principle that all office parties must abide by was thrown to the wind, literally, in this case. The principle, of course, being that escape is to be made possible at multiple points during the evening - after cocktails, after dinner, after dessert, during boring speeches, etc. By fiendishly shipping us over to an island and by dismissing all ferries back to Manhattan, all 1200 odd people (spouses and significant others included - suckers!) were trapped there till at least 10:30 PM. Of course, the palliative of an open bar was available, and many took full advantage of it. But since one had to risk a trip back on potentially choppy waters, one didn’t want to complicate matters any further. The folks at work think badly of me already, puking all over them won’t help one bit, come review time.

As for the West Side - the New York Film Festival kicked off this weekend. I caught four movies - short reviews will be put up are up on the other blog (don’t want to bore you fine folks, who being in possession of a more balanced approach to life are not into silent German versions of Hamlet) at the festival, and caught two more because I was in the neighborhood. I’ll confine myself to audience reactions to Lust, Caution here. The audience at the show I was in was 99% Chinese / Chinese American. Considering that this is an Ang Lee movie and a non-English one at that, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

Till yesterday, I’d wrongly assumed that watching movies with highly inappropriate companions was an exclusively desi habit. One of my cousins watched Boys, sandwiched between an aunt and said aunt’s mother in law. A friend watched Omkara with her aged mother in law. I’m hardly guilt-free - I remember watching Carry on up the Jungle with my parents - fortunately I was a kid, so they were more embarrassed than I was. But that was till I noticed (and was noticed) by a teacher from school in the row in front of me, and then we were all embarrassed - by the movie, by each others’ presence… But it was interesting to see that Chinese families seem to have the same approach to big name movies as Indian ones do, which is to treat it as a family affair, MPAA ratings and reviews be damned.

Lust Caution provided plenty of those unenviable “kill-me-now” moments to young Chinese folks, trapped as they were between grandparents, or people who looked old enough to be great-grandparents. The saving grace was that they didn’t have to also deal with 6 year olds (remember, this is an NC-17 movie) who might have asked questions rather than stoically sit through the movie or pretend to be mature and treat it as a scientific experiment in how bendy the human body can get.

It was also odd to watch a non-desi movie in the presence of an audience that mostly didn’t need the subtitles. Several times, it was obvious that 99% of the audience was watching one movie, while the “me no speak Chinese” suckers’ illusion that they too watching the same movie was subtly undermined. While the English-speaking audience was being told perfectly bland things such as some character’s need to get a job, or a wife being glad that a husband was late from work, the Chinese audience was laughing out loud. And it’s a bummer that reading subtitles at desi movies won’t work as revenge - it’s the opposite with our movies - the subtitles are where the humor is. My 15 seconds of cheap thrills came from a single scene in which someone speaks a line or two of Hindi / Urdu, and there were no subtitles for that bit! Ha! Take that you gigglers, you!

All said, it’s good to be back.

New York is filled with tourists at the moment. It is a long weekend, after all. I’m staying in, as I have for most long weekends this year. I haven’t yet adapted to this city’s habit of leaving the place to outsiders during holidays. Besides, this is the weekend before I leave for India for a short holiday. A wedding in the family, you see. Fortunately, not my own, so I look forward to the food.

I’ve spent the last two days walking about town, popping in and out of trains, accumulating a growing pile of gifts in the process. As I’m stopped now and then and asked for directions, I realize with a start that I’ve lived here for over a year now, and can actually give directions.

When I give the matter further thought, there are plenty of other signs of my having made inroads into becoming a New Yorker. I now know instinctively in which direction a train’s doors will open, an event that used to fill me with anxiety and complete surprise before. Not only have I gotten over my initial frustration at having to shop at multiple places for all the things one needs – other Americans have malls to go to for their odds and ends; New York has a mall, but as far as I know, no native New Yorker actually shops there – I’ve actually come to like it. The knowledge of where to go for what was one I’d feared I’d never master. But now, I have my own little system, not necessarily the same as that of other New Yorkers, but it’s the fact that I have a system at all that counts. Where one buys Jasmine Tea is very different from where one buys Indian Chai, and one does not buy pants from store A and no one ever buys shirts from the store where you get the pants, and there’s an entirely different set of stores for coats and shoes (broken down by the type of coat or pair of shoes one’s in the market for), and there is a right side for every elevator ride depending on what one plans to do while riding said elevator. A grown man in full Superman costume, red cowboy boots and a white cowboy hat passed me on the road today. A sight that would’ve stopped me dead in my tracks a year ago doesn’t even make me pause now. I kept walking, with just a passing thought, wondering where a man would go to get red cowboy boots in the city. And of course, one avoids areas around Herald Sq. and Times Sq. at all costs during holiday weekends. They’re filled with tourists, you see.

All my life, I’ve moved to a new city roughly every three years, and adapting to a new life is something I should be used to by now. But I doubt that I’ll take to it. I was warned off about New York by plenty of friends, even the ones who liked me, and the city. It gets too cold, too windy, too dull and depressing when it rains, they said. You’ve to keep walking, and fast. No matter what romantic notions you have in your head about this city, you will eventually settle down to a boring routine – work, sleep, TV, laundry, and groceries. I’ve found all of this to be true.

But, and c’mon, you knew there was going to be a ‘but’, I’ve taken to it all with a rather cheerful enthusiasm, I think. I’m not sure when exactly a strange place starts feeling like home. When the local politics isn’t gibberish any more? When you learn to curse the “sick passenger in Grand Central” who’s holding up all trains in your direction rather than feel sorry for this poor sod? When you learn to be proud of your pairs of pretty but essentially un-wearable shoes, and slightly sheepish about those other infinitely more comfortable pairs of shoes (“they’re my walking shoes, you see”)? Not really.

I think the precise moment when a city feels like home is when you experience a minor panic attack at the prospect of leaving it for more than a couple of days. I leave next Saturday, and it’s already starting to impact my life in those tiny, but significantly annoying ways. I’ve film festival tickets to buy, and they go on sale Sunday – as always, everything happens exactly the day after you leave home on a long visit to anywhere. The Walter Reade Theater which’s been closed for renovations for the last few days is going to open this week, and will no doubt have fabulous movies when am gone (I refuse to check and have my heart broken), fall television season will have started, including a whole bunch of new shows that I will probably not understand a word of because I’d have missed vital pilots… Heck, for all I know, subway rides will have become more expensive and the effin’ leaves on trees will have changed color.

Yes, all of this sounds pathetic, even I realize that. And I know this because a few years ago, I felt exactly the same way about Madras. The city would get miraculously cooler, rare Oscar winning movies would be released in theaters that normally featured the latest Ramarajan oeuvre, friends who did absolutely nothing all year would decide to do fun things together – a thousand reinforcements of how crazy you were to ever dream of leaving the city, especially at that time!

And there’s the fear that someday, I’ll have to leave this city for good. Goodness knows I’ve a history for leaving places. The day I moved to New York, all “good Tamil boys” apparently up and left for California, at least according to my family. There’s been an overt and covert campaign at making me friendlier towards males in the West Coast. I’ve nothing against good Tamil boys, but do admit to a newly minted New Yorker’s instinctive lack of enthusiasm for a place where you need a car to survive. People from all sorts of cultures, when they decide to find a mate, usually start with people from the same geographic vicinity as themselves. Indian females, on the other hand, must be prepared to move to the ends of the world for a “good match”. Of course, all of these irrational fears might come to nothing – I might get fired, and then will have to move, just to put food on the table. Or the INS might decide to kick me out. I worry about all of that too, being an equal opportunity disaster neurotic.

But for now, I suppose I’m going to have to make the best of things. After all, there are some things to look forward to. Given my longer stay this time, I can do the idiot tourist act in Madras. I can insist on visiting the line of samadhis at the beach, and complain about noisy crowds at the theater, and ask for the rest of my coffee (have you seen the portion sizes in Madras? Are they kidding us?). And on my return I can boast of having eaten the best, most authentic South Indian food there is, and further solidify my already unchallenged Tamil authority (unchallenged of course, because the group is composed of one Eastern European, one Anglo-Sri Lankan, one Chinese American, one Argentinean and one Bengali).

Oh well, I’ll be back soon enough, back to this city filled with people who carry idealized images of mythical homelands, places in which they actually feel like tourists during their periodic pilgrimage. On September 22, I’ll be home, provided, of course, the gods of JFK are in the mood to be kind to a home-sick New Yorker.

By Sukhetu Mehta

What’s it like to be a member of an organized crime gang? Is it fun being a professional assassin? What’s it like to kill someone? Is the pay any good? Is there such a thing as a straight transsexual? What is it like to live on the footpath? To dance in a bar? To make a Bollywood movie? To get arrested and be “interrogated” by the bad cop? Or to be the cop doing the interrogation? To give all your money away and become a sadhu? If you’ve ever wondered about any of these things, Maximum City is a must read. Sukhetu Mehta’s answers to these questions and more are chilling, funny and devastatingly sad.

This wasn’t an easy book to read. The first hurdle was to get over the jealousy I felt over Mehta’s feelings for Bombay, his unshakeable conviction that the city of his childhood is “home”, irrespective of the fact that he’d spent more time out of it than in it. I’m afraid I can’t claim his roots. Although I’ve spent more time in Madras than in any other city, I’ve always been a bit of an outsider, no matter where I’ve lived. Every childhood memory Mehta associates with Bombay reminded me of my own lack of such associations.

Once I got over that challenge, then came the moral dilemma of what to think about disturbing truths: a killer’s calm account of his murder routine – he takes a bath, prays to Hanuman, eats a vegetarian meal (he isn’t one normally – just turns into one after taking a human life), and finally takes a long and peaceful nap; an ultra-religious father who makes his ill babies drink the urine of a cow twenty-ones times a day in lieu of taking them to an allopathic doctor; a young and beautiful girl who’s slashed her wrists so many times that she no longer has any sensation in some of her fingers; corporate greed so insatiable that an entire city may be irreparably damaged, affecting the lives of millions and millions of people; a graphic description of a cow being slaughtered, listing every last twitch, and spurt of blood… The list goes on and on and on. When I was younger, my faith in the belief that all knowledge is good for you was unwavering. I don’t know about that any more. This book is one more reminder that perhaps there are many things in the world I have no wish to know about. Mehta’s simultaneously fascinating and repulsive account steam-rolls on and I clung on for dear life, literally reduced to watching a Cary Grant movie a day to keep at least some of my illusions about life and my cheer intact.

But what a ride it is. From the systemic rot in our country’s urban planning policies to the existence of God, there’s nothing that Mehta’s colorful friends and acquaintances don’t touch upon. For any one who grew up in India, this book is incredibly tangible, filled with people you’ve heard about (much of Bollywood is featured, including Sanjay Dutt, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and guest appearances by Hritik Roshan and Preity Zinta), or can very easily imagine being. All of which makes it very easy to care about these people. And makes you reach surprising realizations about your own life. Personally, I’ve never felt more grateful for having had a plain vanilla life or over-protective parents than when reading this book. If I had a dime every time I felt “there, but for the grace of sheer fucking luck go I”, I’d have at least a month’s rent money, if not more.

Mehta’s writing isn’t fantastic. There are no big “so whats”, despite his rather desperate attempts to wring out a message or two every now and then. And one certainly doesn’t want to think about what writing this book must’ve done to Mehta himself. What this book is (once you’re well stocked on self-cures for possible nightmares and bouts of depression) is refreshing. To hear real versions of these stories, as opposed to the Bollywood version is worth every gasp. And for once, it appears that Bollywood actually tones things down. Reality is way more melodramatic.

Ironically, the book that Maximum City reminded me the most of was Bill Buford’s Heat (reviewed here). If Buford’s attempts at becoming a professional chef made me fantasize about quitting my day job and following my own dreams, Mehta makes me realize just how good that day job and my boring life are. Every one of us is curious about at least some of the topics that Mehta digs into. I’m ever so grateful that the spade is in Mehta’s hands and not mine.

This evening, running late for a movie, I take a cab. Balkar Singh, the cabbie, is a polite sort. Starts the conversation by asking if I am from India. Can’t exactly deny this, so I agree. We go on to establish that I’m from the South and that he’s from the north. So far, the conversation happens in a mixture of broken Hindi and broken English. No subtitles. Then comes the question, “So, do you live around here?”

From my considerable experience in these matters, I know that this question is one of those select few that automatically turn on subtitles inside the heads of inquirers, irrespective of the language in which the conversation is happening. If I say yes, it comes out as “wastrel” or “rich bitch” when translated, depending on who’s doing the translation. Since am not in a mood to feel defensive or offer justifications, I decide to play. I say no, I was visiting a friend. So where do I live? After a quick pause, I say “Newport.” He asks, “Where is that?” (Now this surprises me, and am glad I picked a place that I’ve actually been to) Before I start going into PATH schedules, he moves on. “So”, he asks, “going to watch a show, eh?” Since I’ve asked him to take me to the Lincoln Center, it makes sense to agree. He goes on, “Show first, phir dinner… maybe some drinks-shinks, eh?” I’m starting to get offended, but smile and shrug.

Maybe he is somewhat sensitive, for he changes tack, “You work in the city, yes?” I nod. “Wall Street?” I continue to nod. Then comes another seemingly innocent question, “Is your family here only?” I say no, the family is in India. I should have seen this coming, for god knows I’m asked it often enough. And am just cursing myself for stepping into that trap, when it predictably snaps, “So are you married?” But this time, I’m prepared. I say “No, but am going to be married.” There’s an imperceptible tremor as the world starts to right itself.

“Soon?”

“Very soon,” I reply.

“Marrying an Indian?”

A pause, as I wonder just how far I want to go with this. I’m tempted to be outrageous, but decide to take it slow, since this is my first time inventing a fiancé, “Yes.”

I appear to have made the right choice. “Ah good. Indian is always best. Some people, they marry these whites. No good. They don’t take anything seriously. So many divorces…”

I let him carry on, nodding along and offering further evidence of my new status as a “good Indian girl”. He continues to approve when I tell him that the wedding will be in India. He asks when I will go back to India, and I tell him the fiancé is going to move here. Oh, he asks, so the fiancé is not here? Another pause, I say “No. He goes to school in…. <mentally short list suitable American cities> Boston.”

“Ah Boston. I was there only last week. Harvard?”

Once again, I’m deeply tempted. But decide to play it safe. By now, I’ve started to actually enjoy this, so it’s easy to smile as I say, “No. Not Harvard. Boston University.”

“That is also a good university,” he consoles me. I agree, “Yes. He’s looking for a job here, and will hopefully find one by the time we get married.”

Before I have to make up other details (am short listing possible professions in my head now), we arrive at my destination. I get out, and he tells me “Get married. Soon.” I laugh, and hope he’ll mistake it for a bride-to-be’s blush, and promise him I will.

As he drives off smiling, I start to feel a twinge of guilt for lying to this nice man. But then, I remember the drinks-shinks comment. From a slut out on an evening of debauchery it took very little to turn myself into a nice Indian girl engaged no doubt to an equally nice Indian boy. Any guilt I might have felt is smothered by the satisfaction of finally conforming to someone’s idea of what I should be doing with my life, even if that someone is a rank stranger I will likely never meet again. And this way, no one loses. The stranger goes away with the satisfaction that there is one less freak in the world. I don’t feel angry or defensive. And the fiancé, well, he just got himself a Wall Street woman.

So much for strangers. If only I could come up with a suitable response for friends. These are the people who know that if I spent an evening in that part of town, it was probably spent watching some movie with subtitles (and they aren’t wrong. Danton was the object of this evening’s adventures). What these friends (with minor exceptions) don’t understand is why I choose to throw precious hours away on celluloid men with unpronounceable names (btw, if any one knows how to do this one “Wojciech Pszoniak”, please let me know), when I could have so easily spent those hours on the internet, “expressing interest” in nice boys who, for all we know, are about to graduate from Boston University. My response, “and trade Robespierre for that?” I know will not please them.

Perhaps, I’m being paranoid. Mr. Singh might have simply thought that chatting me up will lead to a better tip. But I can’t help thinking that men, desi or otherwise, don’t feel the same pressure, if at all they are subjected to this sort of grilling-by-strangers in the first place. Or perhaps 30-something men have their own demons to slay. But that’s another post, for someone else to write.

Later in the evening, I have dinner by myself, musing about my Boston hero. The introduction of a fiancé, even an imaginary one, can apparently work wonders with more than just cab drivers. The fortune from my cookie is more interesting than the usual drivel, “Look around yourself. Your answer is nearby.” At a table for one? You bet. The answer is very much around myself.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A book like this is difficult to review, especially for someone who has lived a life that is charmed, especially when compared with Ali’s. It feels churlish to disagree with her opinions. For it is well nigh impossible to establish any sense of authority in your disagreement, without having so much as encountered a fraction of the difficulties this woman’s survived. On the other hand, agreeing with her also doesn’t feel completely right – it feels in fact, like just the sort of thing a liberal westerner would do, fueled by equal parts of condescension and bewilderment at this alien world she hails from.

I shan’t go into the details – she has been in the news enough for most folks to have a general idea of her story. As for the book itself, Ali’s language is nothing to write home about, and there is at least one glaring typo (Enid Blyton becomes ‘Enid Blighton’, a mistake unnoticed by the book’s American publishers, but one that will be hard to miss for millions of ex-colonials like myself). It is her story that is so compelling, making the 350 pages go almost as fast as the latest Potter for what is essentially a biography-cum-political commentary. The first part, while horrific in parts, is the easiest to read. Apart from feeding your curiosity about a culture most of us haven’t been exposed to, this is the part that’s in black and white, and therefore easy to pick a side. In contrast, the second half of the book, where Ali talks of her escape to Holland and the persecution she later faced, is more difficult to deal with.

Ali has a keen mind that can strip away most situations to their basics. While much of her childhood memories is about the condition of women in Islamic countries, she also explains why Islam holds such appeal to African masses. Systemic rot of the political infrastructure has forced people to seek out order any place they can get it, and Islam, with its conservative approach could very well be the one thing that saves your life, literally – be it from AIDS or from something simpler (it is the Brotherhood that offers free healthcare, not the government). Of course, there is a price to pay. And this price, as is often the case, is paid the most by the weakest members of the club – the women.

The second half of her story is set in Holland and the United States, where she escapes to from war-torn Somalia. There are many admirable aspects to her story – for an immigrant who doesn’t so much as speak the language to rise to the position of a Member of the Dutch Parliament is a rollicking tale of the victorious underdog that should please anyone who’s ever enjoyed a Rajinikanth movie. Ali is enterprising, hard-working and courageous, and it’s immensely satisfying to see a live example of how playing by the book can lead to success, even in this cynical world. But whether she did play by the book is the crucial question. Yes, according to Infidel, but I’m not sure if there wouldn’t be a different version of the story were it Rita Verdonk (then Minister of Immigration) or Jan Balkenende (then Prime Minister) or the family of Theo van Gogh (the slain director), all of whom directly suffered as a result of their association with Ms. Ali, doing the telling. The case can definitely be made that if they suffered, it was because of their own actions, or because they became targets of terrorists, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for these people, who’ve ended up as little more than collateral damage in Ali’s holy cause. The last few pages of Infidel feel too much like a justification for her actions and opinions, as opposed to a straight forward narration of facts that the first half of the book is.

And Ali’s cause is definitely holy. While she starts out questioning the status of women under Islam, ultimately, it expands to the problem of integration. Ali advocates tighter integration, a ceasing of government funding for faith-based education, a reduction in government dole-outs for unemployed immigrants, etc. As laudable as her ultimate goal is – to give disenfranchised women a shot at empowerment – it is difficult to imagine how much of this will be viable. Her stance explains the reason the European right wing finds her so appealing. And her being such a shining example of amnesty gone right also endears her to liberals. While I applaud her nimbleness in navigating these apparently opposing sets of supporters, I can’t help wondering if she also isn’t as shrewd as she is brave, and that she thrives at least a little bit on the controversies she creates.

Over the last year, she has quit Dutch politics, opting to take up a position with a conservative DC think tank. This decision was partly fueled by threats to her life from Islamic fundamentalists who objected to her outspoken opinions about Islam, and also by controversies over the status of her Dutch citizenship. It is a pity that someone who was apparently starting to get some long overdue traction on issues relating to female immigrants is now reduced to the position of being a darling of American late night talk shows. In this country, immigration is an entirely different ball game from what it is across the pond, and we equate Islam too easily with terrorism that I wonder how much importance the powers that be place on the plights of Muslim women. With two of her core competencies being more or less irrelevant in this new country, I wonder what Ali will do next. She certainly can’t run for President… Legal hurdles apart, it’s hard enough for a White non-atheist ex-first lady to so much as get a shot at being elected, can you imagine the election campaigns against a Black ex-Muslim woman who is an avowed atheist?

For the next desi guy who wants to have coffee or lunch or dinner with me because I stood next to him in a line:

Yes, I’m Tamil. And oh yeah, I am single. It’s just me and my 15month old twins. And please, do give me your cell phone number. You see, my youngest did the cutest thing this morning. Well, I call her the youngest - but she’s only, you know, 3 minutes and 7 seconds younger (it did not feel like under 4 minutes, if you know what I mean). As I was saying, she did the cutest thing this morning - she stopped sucking her thumb! Can you imagine! My son hasn’t - but I realize that as a boy, he’ll be taking his time to mature - but let’s not go into that… I keep getting distracted - yes, your phone number - do give it to me. I have so many pictures I know you’d love. I even have before and after pictures of the thumb-sucking victory! You don’t have MMS? No worries - just give me your email ID instead. And as for lunch, do you want to do it Saturday? Can you pick us up at 10:30 on Saturday morning, or we can do dinner at 4:30 in the evening…yes it is a bit early, but when you wake up at 4:30 AM, trust me, it’s time for a meal. I know the twins will just love you!

And don’t you dare try me. I will find pictures of twins to send you. Perhaps even your own.

Pressing clothes has to be the one most annoying thing about being a single adult in the US. Children don’t do it anywhere in the world. Adults in India get their friendly neighborhood Iron guy to do it. Married people in the US get their husbands to do it (at least this appears to be the desi norm). Just us single folks are dinged. Yes, I suppose it’s no fun to be a married desi man either. But as they ought to know by now, nobody gives a damn about them. 

This weekend, I finally got down to my spring cleaning. Yes, we’re well on our way to summer now. Which is why I figured I probably won’t need my winter clothes for some time. I spent most of Sunday putting woolens away to make more space for cottons. That’s when the trouble started. Unfortunately, there is a side effect to my ‘clean mode’. Symptoms include ‘let’s clean everything we can’, ‘wash everything we can’, and the lethal ‘press everything we can’. Cleaning everything is easy when all you have are two shelves. Even the washing is fine – there’s a Laundromat not one block away. And I assiduously read labels before I buy clothes – anything with a ‘hand wash only’ label is not even considered.

I would prefer to wear no-press stuff, but somehow all the pretty clothes, especially the semi-formal stuff I need for work all need to be pressed. Wouldn’t it be awesome if society were to become OK with slightly crumpled work clothes? I’ve no wish to go to work in jeans and a T-shirt (having worked for a start up for over two years, I know it can be fun. But the practice completely wrecked my work-life separation). I like wearing formal clothes. I just don’t want to press them. Am also curious why when outside of work inside-out is not only right-side up, but perhaps even fashionable, we continue to remain so straight laced about what we wear in the workplace?

One solution to this, er, pressing problem might be to do this ironing thing in batches, as opposed to ironing everything garment in sight But yesterday I was in ‘let’s do this’ mode. That enthusiasm last for nine shirts, but that barely made a dent. The pile of ‘to be pressed’ continues to be larger than the ‘to be washed’, or the ‘ready to wear’ piles. What breaks my spirit is that this task is never ending! There is no such thing as an ‘all done’ status, and if one exists, it lasts for all of one evening, if that. For, even if, by some divine miracle, one gets through every freakkin’ piece of spineless garment, there will be an army of newly washed ones to take their place. It’s enough to make a girl seriously consider marriage. Fellows - seriously, why do you think marriage is referred to as the “X for laundry” deal among female circles? (replace X with whatever reason(s) you think you’re getting married for. FYI: you’re lucky if you end up with the X for laundry package. Other packages include X for laundry + dishes, and the one I’m personally on the look out for X for laundry + dishes + grocery shopping. Please make sure to read the fine print to understand what is permissible under ‘X’. Conditions apply.)

As I contemplate my pile of clean but crumpled clothes, I desperately miss the winter. You can wear anything under a sweater, and if you know you’re going to be outside all the time, your winter coat gives you even more leeway…

PS: Apologies for the earlier post - I was a bit trigger happy with the Publish button. All that ironing has clearly given me carpel tunnel syndrome.

Over the last few months, we’ve come to the startling realization that there are people out there that actually read this blog. I have a feeling this alarming trend started when I stopped writing and DoZ took over… which makes it a little less alarming, if you ask me.

To better cater to these mythical people, we’ve redesigned ourselves. Please check us out, and pay close attention to the Asides section, for that’s the culprit that has been flooding your feedreaders. Also, after checking it out, please let us know who you are. I’d like to make friendships with the morons that read such drivel.

PS: By the way, efforts are underway to split our feeds. Until then, bear with us.

PPS: Efforts have been underwent, and split feeds are now available. The default feed offers the Asides, but you are welcome to subscribe to the no asides feed  here . And yes, we do offer an asides only feed , but why mention that here, right?

My friends and family have been engaged in a somewhat alarming debate in recent months - the question is just how Tamil am I. “Sure, she has that unpronounceable name. But have you noticed how she sometimes gives out the pronounceable, but mangled American version? Heck, sometimes she even gives out false names just to get coffee. Yes, the girl drinks rasam by the litre, but what good does that do when she openly refuses to go watch Sivaji? We’ve lost our old girl to crazy Americans.”

In an effort to regain some of my street-cred, I did a very desi thing over the week end - attended an AR Rahman concert. I’d never been to one of these, and figured it’d serve as a litmus test for myself. If I had a good time, then clearly, I still had at least some of whatever it takes to be Tamil / desi these days. And I’d be able to tell people questioning my cultural identity to take a hike.

⇥ Continue reading

This self-consciously gorgeous biopic rehashes the rags to riches to in and out of rehab formula one has had just about enough of. Director Olivier Dahan traces the life of France’s much beloved singer and icon Edith Piaf from her childhood to her last days. Apparently, French singers are no different from American ones – they start poor and miserable, get discovered, betrayed, married, lose loved ones, get addicted to substances legal and illegal, and die. Their music apart, the sequence of these events helps distinguish one singer from another. However, thanks to the chronological collage that passes for editing in this movie, you’re never quite sure when all of these events did happen in Piaf’s life.

This beautifully shot movie packs in a powerful performance from Marion Cotillard, as well as a first-rate soundtrack of French cabaret classics. But too many scenes feel as if created to show the world “And zis is ‘ow you make a biopic!”

The singer biopic has become the summer tentpole for Baby Boomers - story lines and performances to draw them to the theaters and a soundtrack smothered in enough nostalgia to get them to even buy a few records. What happens when we exhaust our supply of singers from the 50s and 60s? Some day, we will run out of singers no one is ashamed to own up to liking a year later. What will they come up with for this generation? Hit me baby one more time. Ouch.

I’m in Madras for the first time in five years. Practically everyone I’d met in those years assured me that I wouldn’t recognize Madras at all. I was also frowned at for continuing to call the city by its old name, with all its colonial connotations. Unexpectedly, I find myself in a city that I placed on a pedestal not so long ago, but have since started fearing. After all these years, will it feel like home? And if it doesn’t, what do I do?

After about four days here, I’m astounded by how little it has changed. Places I remember from my college days are exactly where they used to be - Landmark, Balaji Bhavan in Pondy Bazar, Sangeetha in Nungabakkam, even the little marble Pullayar near Sangeetha that I used to secretly think of as my lucky charm. The streets are as full of Mamas on their scooters as they are with younger men who look cool despite the April heat because they are on their Yamahas. After a six year hiatus, my old neighbor is moving back next door, and continues to drop in for a few minutes’ chat, but stays on for an hour or two, while my mom and I pace around in silent frustration, making eyes at my father. Mom fills me in on family gossip - cousins now have their own children, but everyone continues to have the same minor but apparently insoluble grievances as before. The television plays movies and songs from the 80s - Mohan and Ranjini sing and dance in the middle of what appears to be a thriving dhobi’s backyard, with miles of clotheslines bearing their colorful loads.

⇥ Continue reading

After a wait of many months, I was finally able to lay my hands on a copy of Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. You may have read excerpts from this book in the New Yorker – there was one about Buford’s attempts to learn pasta-making, and another about his cooking and eating a whole hog. If you do remember those pieces, the rest of the book is much more fun.

I confess to a fascination with completely useless bits of information, and anybody who can explain what a “hotel pan” is, and do so in an amusing manner, is already a winner in my books. Kitchen jargon apart, this book is a mine of colorful characters. Mario Batali, known to food TV junkies as Iron Chef Batali, is one of them. The world of professional cooking seems to abound in such characters – Batali, for example, drinks wine by the case. Marco Pierre White, one of the foremost experts of French cooking, has thrown customers out of his restaurant for daring to order meat cooked the wrong way (the “right way” being what White thinks it is, of course). Other endearing and equally eccentric characters include a taciturn master butcher (known simply as the Maestro), a Tuscan bull (who is briefly suspected of being a homosexual for being bashful about getting it on with four cows), and Frankie, the terrifying sous-chef at Babbo (my favorite quote, “You’re doing this because you know we will fucking lose our fucking three stars if we start serving fucking instant [polenta], and if we lose our fucking three stars I lose my fucking job.”).

⇥ Continue reading

Margaret Atwood is the James Bond of feminist fiction (and my apologies to feminists everywhere for that comparison). After you’ve read a few of her novels, characters and plots run into one another, and unless you’re an obsessive fan, you can’t really keep them straight. And yet you keep going back because the formula is so good, and even the nth rendition of it still leaves you wondering what’ll happen next, and convince you to return for the n+1th version.

I’m not sure if “ The Robber Bride“, “Cat’s Eye” and “The Blind Assassin” are meant to be a trilogy, but I can’t help thinking of them that way. My most recent read was The Robber Bride. It has many of the elements that make up the Atwood formula – middle aged women with a delicious brand of caustic wisdom, estranged children, siblings and parents, sappy men, and the mandatory super bitch, all glued together with some superb writing. It lacks the attractive bad boy that one can’t stop oneself from falling for. But it more than makes up for that deficiency by offering one of the most evil women in literature. ⇥ Continue reading

Lately, too many people have been showing off their reading. With obscure, impressive, and even the too-stultifyingly-dull-to-finish books already taken, we felt the only niche left for us was the embarrassing personal anecdote (somehow we always end up with that one, don’t we?) So here goes – our list of literary crushes and true loves:

The ones I now shudder to think of:

Ned Nickerson – Old Ned was pretty much the only reason I read whatever number of Nancy Drew books I did read. Couldn’t stand the girl, who I thought recognized a clue only if there were a big neon arrow screaming ‘look here for clue’, and even then she was very likely to mistake the neon sign for the clue placed directly below it. The boy friend was definitely hot, but in the long run, not hot enough to make me tolerate the ditsy she-sleuth. ⇥ Continue reading

When I moved to New York, I enthusiastically did everything I thought a ‘New Yorker’ should. I bought fall jackets and winter jackets, four umbrellas, and 25 pairs of shoes (the Mayor’s office threatened to deport me if I didn’t comply), joined a gym and promptly stopped going there. The only thing I resisted was the iPod. I felt it was too rude, too self-absorbed – you might be a M86 bus headed my way, but f*&^ you! I clearly have better things to listen to. Besides, one couldn’t just buy an iPod and be done with it. It was as bad as acquiring a fashion consciousness – it needed a life long commitment to accessorizing.

But I finally gave in. It was one of those inexplicable impulse buys, the kind you often indulge in when you’re feeling guilty about something that has nothing whatsoever to do with the object being purchased, but which at that time seems like the solution you’ve been waiting all your life for. In my case, I believed a lack of personal music was what was keeping me from the gym. If only I had an iPod, I could get myself a whole repertoire of “good” music, as opposed to the kind supplied by my gym (made by artists overdosing on crack or caffeine or both – ‘jumpy’ is the only way to describe it). This was followed by some very clever circular reasoning – I didn’t spend enough time listening to music, anyways (conveniently ignoring the fact that I am hooked to my headphones for at least 8 hours a day at work). An iPod at the gym would be the perfect way to ‘catch up’ on all I’d been missing. It would

⇥ Continue reading

New York today started out as a strong contender to London’s latest claim to fame. A day’s worth of icy rain, wind, topped off with snow was promised by the weathermen, and for once, delivered. And if all that weren’t enough to make you want to kill yourself, it was Valentine’s Day.

From what I’ve observed in the last few months, New Yorkers don’t seem to care too much about the weather (except in the summer, when they can’t stop whining). Somehow, the rainier or colder it gets the more stoic they become. But today, as they squeezed themselves into wet subway trains, juggling bunches of roses and multi-colored soft toys (a soft toy is an abomination to begin with – what can I possibly say about a mustard-colored one?) with their winter gear, even their spirits seemed just about ready to call it a day.

Personally, I can’t resist bad weather. In Madras, whenever there was a depression in the Bay, I somehow found reasons to visit the one friend who lived in T. Nagar. Once the roads were so badly flooded, that I walked all the way home to Kilpauk from the USIS, where I’d watched All the President’s Men (my mother did not appreciate the clearly indisputable necessity of that particular outing).

⇥ Continue reading

Tamils have certain rituals. What appears perplexing or perfectly disgusting to others is heavenly to us, and we swear life isn’t worth living without it. For instance, we take some rice, mash it all up, add some yoghurt to it, mash it up some more, and then we stuff our faces with it. We like our heroines with some fat on their thighs and our heroes with some hair, well, everywhere really. And we like directors called Mani Ratnam. Because that’s what we do.

If you were a kid during the 80s and 90s, you’ll remember your first Mani Ratnam movie. It’s probably different for different generations – Agni Natchatram, Nayakan, Thalapathy, Roja, whatever. It was the only movie you’d ever seen which had dialogues like “odi poyidalama?” It had jokes your parents didn’t want you to get, and the odd song they wished you wouldn’t hum. But even they couldn’t hide their enthusiasm when a new Mani movie was released. Ratnam’s movies were among the few I could be certain about watching in the theaters, instead of waiting for a decade or so for Doordarshan to stoop down and broadcast it.

I feel duty bound to hate all holy cows. They are very annoying and demand adulation, even when they’re doing very little to deserve it. The reason my enthusiasm for Mani Ratnam has remained strong over the years is because I didn’t really see him as a holy cow. His movies were just another artifact from childhood. Also, I was just a little proud of the one Tam movie personality I didn’t have to defend to my northie friends. Not to forget the feeling of infinite superiority I derived from knowing that these northie friends didn’t have a clue about Mouna Ragam or Agni Natchatram – a feeling very similar to that one has for people who discovered Tolkien via Peter Jackson. You are glad they finally got on board, but Jesus, the effort it takes to convince them!

The experience of waiting for and finally watching Guru brought back a lot of memories. When we lived in Cuddalore (where I watched my first Ratnam movie – Agni Natchatram), we didn’t have 24 hour television, and it was possible to actually look forward to something. For some reason, I didn’t watch this movie with my parents. I watched it with a couple of friends, and a random adult who’d come along to baby-sit. I remember desperately wishing during the movie that it wouldn’t end, and I remember emerging from the theater in a daze.

One of the friends who watched the movie with me managed to get her parents permission to buy the audio cassette, and we listened to the songs for hours. We even tried to write down the words – I was in charge of the cassette player and T wrote down the words, as she was the one who knew to write in Tamil.

Perhaps thanks to being away from India, the weeks running up to Guru were, for me, quite like the weeks running up to, oh, Nayakan or Anjali. I knew it was coming, had a very vague idea of what it was going be about and who was in it, but nothing more. What’s more, I didn’t have to wait for my opening-weekend-averse parents to take me to the movie. I’m not going to review the movie here, other than to say it is an OK movie and no where in the vicinity of Nayakan, which it tries to invoke.

When I turned on Namaste America the next day (a Saturday morning ritual, if I manage to get up early enough), I found out that Mani Ratnam and other stars from the movie had been in Manhattan to promote the movie. They were all asked extremely silly questions by the desi press, to which they managed to give boring and occasionally charming answers.

That press conference, with its multitude of gushing desis was the first inkling. Since then, at almost every desi DVD store I’ve been to (and I went to several while on a mission to buy DVDs for a friend who’s recently moved out of NY), I’ve had people incessantly gush about Guru. Much of it has to do with the movie’s pedigree. I’ve finally reached the deeply saddening conclusion that Mani Ratnam is now very much a holy cow, if not one of the holiest.

It’s a good thing I didn’t come to this conclusion before watching the movie. While I was watching Guru, my only wish was for it to be not a lousy movie (and I mostly got my wish, until the very last bit, of course.) But since then, every time I read one more hyperbole about how fantastic Abhishek’s acting is or how brilliant a director Mani Ratnam is, I just want to grab the person and shake them for a minute or two. Have people become so inured to exceedingly lousy movies that a mediocre one appears superlative by default? Or is all this gushing the dues we owe a holy cow? If it’s the latter, it’s a pity, for it confirms his bovine status. And it makes it almost certain that he, too, will turn into a monstrosity, like the Big B has.

We don’t much care for good stories, high-quality acting or great direction. But mostly, we hate underwear. Yes, yes – that time of the year again – the nominations are out.

I watched a great number of movies this year. And most of those, which I consciously left out get nominated. I’m OK with that part, really. What am not OK with is this obsession with Babel. What is wrong with you, Hollywood? Gaah!

Every year I swear am done with the Oscars. And every year great movies kept getting made, and I get suckered into that fine art of torture called the Academy Awards… But if there was ever a time to stop following the Oscars, this year is it. Crazy Japanese chick who hates clothes gets nominated? Gaah!

This week-end I watched the second part of Clint Eastwood’s two-part series on the Battle of Iwo Jima. Having already watched Flags of our Fathers (reviewed here), and not being averse to buying a box of Kleenex along with the pop-corn, I felt I had to watch this one. But this movie doesn’t deliver any of the sense of completion, loads of which had been promised. Despite being touted as the “Japanese version” of the same story, it is in every way, an American movie, made for American audiences.

A large part of why I was drawn to both movies (other than that they were made by Eastwood) was the novel idea of two movies about the same incident, an extended, and considerably more expensive Rashômon, as it were. As great an idea as this is, it doesn’t really work when there is little more than a superficial connection between the two movies. The first movie is more a social commentary on a country at war, specifically the United States of America, than it is a movie about one particular battle. While some of the most spectacular bits of the movie are set in Iwo Jima, much of it actually takes place back home, where we learn the many ways in which a minor incident in the battle at Iwo Jima impacts the lives of thousands, if not everyone in the home country.

⇥ Continue reading

If you thought my posts were crappy, wait till you read this one:

My first day at the bathroom here. Deed done, I zipped up pants. And then, a sudden gush of water, and my pants got drenched. Sopping, dripping, heart wrenching wet. Yes, I did get the order of events right, Ms. Know-It-All.

Puzzled, I did what every guy does. My carefully tucked shirt came out, and I walked gingerly back. I realize I am smoking hot, but can’t these girls stop looking at my pants for some time?

A few more attempts and some more pant wetting before I realized: Stop tucking your shirt in, because the stupid thing will flush whenever the tank is full, doesn’t matter if a guy wearing his only pair of Calvin Klein chinos is in there finishing up.

We’d sit around the table eating lunch, or dinner, or smoking cigars or playing poker or doing whatever else a group of people in an alien country can do sitting around a table. We’d start off well enough - how the food sucks, why the affirmative action policy in Malaysia was all twisted, why work blowed and so on … A few minutes was all it took though, for conversation to veer back to our favorite topic: Toilets. ⇥ Continue reading