Here's the third instalment of my attempt at a short story series...

Taste 3: Bitter

“All students are requested to get into their classes. Prayer is about to begin.” As clichéd and boring as this may sound, that’s how college always began....every single day for the years that I was there. And as an extension of the cliché, students who were otherwise as high spirited as wild horses would simmer down to sniggers and inside jokes while the speaker blurted out the pre-recorded tones of our ‘dear’ principal, a bob cut bearing woman of the name Mrs Jebaraj. I slowly walked in and sat down at the first bench, a place that I had staked simply because no one else was willing to do so. As I was trying to wipe the sleep out of my eyes, I turned back as I did every day to see the sparkle dance in her eyes. My Avi’s eyes.....

Avi and I had been best friends for the last 5 years, ever since I moved to the city after my parents’ bitter divorce. She was always the cheerful sort, never short of a smile and always ready to counter anything I said with a cutting remark, initiating arguments that became the norm every day. Everyone around us always thought there was more to us than met the eye; and they were right, just not in the way they thought they were. Avi and I loved each other like siblings and our greatest regret was that we weren’t actually so. Those eyes that lit up my day and that twinkle meant only for me were what I lived for and what got me through everything life could throw at me. We were so happy....till ‘she’ joined.

Alaina came to our class in our second last year as an exchange student, but never left after experiencing life around here. She was actually a very sweet girl, smart, pretty, affectionate and most of all, helpful. Avi and I instantly gravitated towards her and the three of us began to spend a lot of time together. But I knew I was losing my hold over Avi when she started paying more attention to Alaina, leaving me in the dark many a time. It started with little things: a coffee after college, partners for a quiz competition and jokes. But things slowly got worse, with them going off on trips without me, having their own inside conversations and most of all, being very secretive around me. I was starting to disappear from both their lives and become a non-entity to the rest. Life became constant agony as I could neither tear myself away from them, nor bear to watch as they got closer and closer. The day we graduated, Avi was asked to give the valedictory speech and in it, she spoke the words that haunt me to this day,” Life has so many twists and turns, but when you have friends to help you on your way, it becomes the greatest journey you can ever make. Here’s to Alaina, my one and only true friend. May the world be our oyster!”

 I’ve never stayed back in college before, but that day I felt like it was the only thing I could do to clear my head. After everyone had left, I decided to take a walk around college. Nostalgia dogged my footsteps, not of classes and experiences, but of Avi and the things we had done together. There was a wall where we had convinced everyone to write what they wished about any teacher they hated and then showed it to the teacher concerned at the end of the year. Here was the canteen where Avi and I mock fought about what to get for lunch and who was on a diet. A bench there, a small step there....everywhere I looked, I saw me and Avi. Before I went home, I decided to go back to the stage one last time, just to take in the fact that it was all over. When I got there, I saw the both of them under the lamplight holding hands and talking as if they’d never see each other again. I stayed in the shadows where they couldn’t see me and watched them embrace, kiss each other and walk out of college hand in hand. And just like that, it was all over. My Avi was gone...

It’s been 20 years since that cold day when we graduated. And today, as I sit on a park bench in the frosty morning air, I look back on everything that happened. I heard the both of them got married a few years ago and now have a little family of their own somewhere. They never contacted me and I didn’t try to find them either. Sometimes, I wonder why things had to turn out the way they did. But then it strikes me; maybe it was because I loved Alaina too...

 

Temple Run

Being from an extremely orthodox Brahmin family, temple visits are as unavoidable as the rolls of fat that overflow from the not-so-young mamis in their saris. And my palace of constancy is the Guruvayoor temple in Kerala.
Now, I have no problem with coming here since somewhere deep down, I love the atmosphere around it. But it's hard to get excited about the atmosphere when you have to get up at 3am to beat the rush and get a glimpse of the idol. But then, no one ever said God sleeps (though I'm sure he does wink or two in an attempt to deal with what is expected of him). But, as with every trip I go on my family with, it always seems like there's an appointment to attend at every temple so all it boils down to is a sort of 'temple run' as we move from one temple to the other in an attempt to cover as many of them as possible, to have an insurance policy of sorts; if one of them doesn't hear us, the other 20 definitely would have. To my knowledge, it's been a very long time since I ever went on a proper vacation with my family; no temples, no prayers and definitely no relatives whose names and relationships I can never seem to memorise. This inability to have a virtual family tree spanning at least 2 generations at the tip of my fingers gives my mother another weapon to tease me: "How many times do I have to explain who Jaya akka is? She's Ammaji's cousin's daughter-in-law and Rammohan mama's sister. Don't you remember how she got you cashew nuts when you were 5 years old? How can you forget these things?..." and so on and so forth.
Food seems to be the only solace I gain on these trips, seeing how I get a full breakfast, lunch and dinner to make up for the constant energy drain of standing in lines, travelling several kilometres and appealing to a dozen Gods to provide happiness and a good future. I gave up questioning these constant temple trips long ago and just follow my parents wherever I must go in order to maintain a façade of family time. "We're doing this for you only! Stop sulking so much and pray properly. Otherwise God will not take care of you", a constant refrain of my mother's. With the recent demise of my MP3 player, I've also lost my only source of release from the boredom of the trip, both during the journey to and from the temples. Staring out the window during a train journey has replaced this pastime of mine, but with the person beside you trying to engage you in a treatise on morality and Tamil literature, even that has begun to lose its charm.
And so, I do my best to survive these trips of torturous boredom with my camera as and when I can, but it remains to be seen if I shall ever be rid of them. I can almost smell camphor burning again...

Çiao!

Here's the not-so-long awaited sequel to that clichéd short story I put up a while ago. I wonder if this one is any better...

 Taste 2: Spicy

 

It was another lazy afternoon. The beach seemed crisp and powdery, a shade of bronzed yellow almost, mimicking the voluptuous blondes that were sun-bathing themselves. While the tourists seemed all eyes for the pristine beauty, both natural and otherwise, no one noticed him slip into a wicker chair outside the cabana, overlooking the sea. As the sweet ocean spray wafted in the breeze, Juan España sipped a Cuba Libré, enjoying the breeze. A thin scar ran down his temple, a reminder of his past….

Sao Paolo had always been a discovery for him. The back streets filled with the gaiety of life and the scent of paprika blending in with the maracas, celebrating the vitality of life. And Mardi Gras was just the culmination of the city’s entire energy. She had fallen from heaven, literally, as he had caught her when she fell off her float. One look and he had fallen too, fallen into the passion that seems to run within the very veins of Latin men. She apologised and leapt out of his arms to join the float once again. But he had made his mark and when he lay in bed, he heard the door open and felt her slither in beside him, a smell of paprika and roses melding into him. All night, as the city made merry, they did the same, their passion blazing like the Brazilian sun. The morning brought reality back to them but the bond had been made. He had continued to meet her and their romance blossomed amongst the shaded cafés and streets. She was free-spirited, lively and a woman of impulse and passion, a complete contrast to Juan, who was a quiet, soulful man. Yet they found bliss in their dichotomy as they frolicked all throughout Sao Paolo. The entire world seemed to pale before their love as Juan could not help but dream of their future together. But his dream was shattered one evening when, as they walked back, a hustler stuck a knife in his back and demanded his belongings. Quick as a flash, Juan tried to grasp the man’s wrist and incapacitate him when the hustler swung wildly, scraping his temple. Blinded by his blood for an instant, he did not see him stab her and make off. The world seemed to slow down as he saw the blood gushing from her heart. That night was a blur of activity as he somehow found help to get her to a hospital and rushed her to the Operating Room. He could hear his heart drumming against his chest, blotting out the whole world. All of a sudden, he heard the doors open. All he could make out was the doctor’s silhouette, blood-spattered and ethereal, the light blocking his face…

Juan suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and a whiff of paprika and roses swept his senses. “You always did love that perfume, didn’t you?” he said, with a hint of smile, looking into the same eyes that had ignited his passion 30 years ago.

The 'Bai' Commandments

Childhood is always a very carefree and inhibited time in all our lives; and this inhibition pervades even in the way we talked to everyone. Manners and etiquette were taught early in life but somehow, we never used them much and continued speaking our minds, no matter what. Of course, most normal people would realise that this isn't how we are supposed to act and augment their actions to be more courteous and socially acceptable. But then, I've never been able to fall under the category of 'normal' under any circumstances...
When I was 7 years old, my mother asked me to clean and lay the table with place mats. Now, unlike other mothers, mine believed that no child is too young to learn how to be independent and must learn to contribute to the household chores, be it through cleaning, laying the table or conversing with those who ring the doorbell. Me, being the perennial lack-wit, got angry and thought I could hit home as to what I thought was 'child labour' by saying, "Am I your servant?!" My mother looked at me for a few seconds, burst out laughing and told me to just lay the table. Not the greatest victory then, I guess.
But the concept of a servant is something we are so used to now that we cannot seem to live our lives without them. Society, being ever so pseudo-caring, decided that 'servant' doesn't have a very positive ring to it, and so replaced it by a number of different terms, foremost of which being 'the Bai'. Each region does have its own term for the 'labour class', but the universal term tends to be 'Bai' (in borrowing from Maharashtra, home of everything Indian and Bollywood...apparently). Now, every household has one (or maybe more) and those who don't are marvelled at their ability to still keep living without falling dead from exhaustion. There are certain parameters that every 'bai' must qualify in order to be allowed to work in a house hold. I would like to call them the Five Commandments:

• Thou shalt not steal from thy owner's house (my mom's major concern over work even)
• Thou shalt not take leave unnecessarily.
• Thou shalt not ask for unreasonable (very subjective, of course) amounts of money in lieu of thy services.
• Thou shalt clean thoroughly and to the owner's satisfaction.
• Thou shalt not flirt with the husband of the house.

Each and every one of these Commandments must be strictly adhered to, no questions asked. There are always exceptions to both owners and Bais, but they are very rare cases. The 'bai' who comes to my house recently quit as she could not adhere to my mother's strict standards and so, the work has been demoted to the rest of the family. It's only when you dry your own clothes, sweep the entire house, wipe it dry and cook that you realise how much respect must actually be given to these women who do so day in and day out. So, as my mother goes mad searching for another person who is willing to work here, I am left scrubbing vessels and stacking clothes. Now, I wonder where the soap powder is...

Çiao!

On the Trail of Ground-nut-Man

I’m a very big monsoon person and love the rain, though getting wet is something I’m not too fond of. But then, I’ve proved that getting wet doesn’t actually give you a cold, even though my mother still isn’t sold on the idea. Science does have its limitations apparently, seeing how nothing in the world seems to be able to displace my mother’s logic. This despite her being a doctor…

But the main reason why I love the monsoon is due to the coming of one of the most successful entrepreneur (in my opinion, at least): the boiled groundnut vendor. Boiled groundnuts are something I wait every year for since it symbolises a cherished part of my childhood. As far as I can remember, I’ve always been slightly more excited about these little nuts than anyone I know, for reasons that escape me as usual. I still remember how I bonded with one of my cousins with whom I had never spoken more than 10 words in my entire childhood over a humongous pile of boiled groundnuts during a power outage on a swing at my aunt’s place. For some reason, the darkness accentuated the taste of the nuts and ever since then, I’ve always associated groundnuts to this memory.

Now, to the rest of the world, getting a packet of groundnuts only involves walking out of their homes and buying some from the closest vendor. But then, things are never that simple around me. The minute I decide that I would like to have some, the vendor vanishes. It becomes a sort of quest to find him, almost like trying to find a nomad in a desert. My desire for groundnuts usually goes unfulfilled on most days since I can never find him. So, in an effort to defy the laws of Fate that seem to be set against me, I carefully leave my mind blank when I approach a constant haunt of one of the vendors and try as much as possible not to think about groundnuts. Over the past few months of the monsoon season, I have succeeded and failed equally but the salt of those steaming little treasures calls me to keep my spirits up and push forward. And so as winter comes, I wait for next year when I shall once again begin my quest on the trail of Ground-nut-man… 

Coffee or Tea: The Quintissential Question

This a speech I made from almost 3 years ago. To this day, this remains the only time I've ever gone up on stage and never had a mini-heart attck or the need to faint within 5 seconds. Despite my many eccentricities, I have unfortunately never been able to quite get over stage-fright...

The English, being the snobs that they are, have their own little world of rules. While some govern the etiquette of speaking and walking, others deal with which side of the road to drive on. But one of the most interesting facts about them is their mind analyses the answer to the question, “Tea or Coffee?”. If the answer is tea, then all is well and it is decided that the speaker is sophisticated enough to grace the company present. But if the answer is coffee, then you are in for a rude shock. The immediate assumption become that you are one of the lowest of the low, uncouth and disgraceful. You become so repulsive that the English hurl their worst moniker at you; American. The horror this instills in one versed in the English ways is unbearable. There have been reports of people being driven to madness by the inherent embarrassment and shame. So never underestimate the power of this Brazilian bean; it may help you stay awake but it can also be a death warrant if ever seen on English shores. Tea lovers, rejoice; for there may still be hope to revive the dying interest in tea. Now, as I sit with a cup of both tea and coffee before me, I ask you; is it right to be asked to choose between energy and sophistication? You be the judge.  

Views from the Carnatic

One of my oldest article/opinion pieces:

First things first, Carnatic music does not kill, despite what many detractors have claimed. Granted, to the unskilled ear it may sound like someone screaming randomly and for no apparent reason but this music transcends understanding. It is an art that takes years to perfect. I admit, once again to the unskilled ear, there may be no difference between a professional singer and the random neurotic outbursts of an OCD patient but that can't be helped. People have their own opinions about this specific branch of music. While some call it cacophony, others derive pleasure from its mere mention. To each his own, as people say. Note that I have said 'his' own. Fifty years ago, this would have been apt since music was seen as a purely male dominated arena, as to conform with society. Women were forbidden to practise it as it was considered too high a status for them. Funny, seeing how every single raga has a female name! I guess only die-hard fans could bear such inequity. But times have changed and as the relentless tides of change progress, sanity and equality has been restored to Carnatic music. It has been shown that no matter what music has evolved into now, the basics that govern Carnatic music govern it too. So the next time you turn your nose up to this 'cacophony' as you call it, remember that it permeates through your music too.