baby n mamma

hey there!!! thats my lovely boy, been busy being pregnant, having a baby, changing nappies and what not! its a wonder how surprisingly life changes with a litttle one...still remember the moment when he was born...the immense joy it gives you - the pride with which you look at the new dad...oh my god its all so priceless, ,,, Now I know why people have so many babies :-)

li'l fella is 7 and a half months now busy babbling and crawling across commando style - the smile that he gives is soooo priceless and makes everything in life 'worth it'!

it almost feels like Ive been a mother all my life..! I mean I think this is what they mean when they say 'maternal instinct' there was a time when i used to get scared at the thought of holding a new born - now I know to change even when the legs and hands are dancing in different directions...!! and my lill one is just too naughtly already, he loves to pull ladies hair, eat any dirt in sight..ill just go on!!

an ode to a memory long gone....

reallly loong time since I blogged....just been zipping along with the pace of life 'no time for liesure'....

been busy...dont know doing what - catching Mumbai locals, making program papers, snatching away little moments of bliss with 'da loved un', missing home bro & parents (always a call away ...still..)...no time at all for liesure....

managed to read a few books in the time I get in the train (close to one twelfth of the day)...been busy fading in to one of the million too familiar people in the world with no opinions....till I saw a few blogs from people I didnt know all from MICA, my post grad school...

woke up with a thud you can say, for if there is one thing that is my schools claim to fame apart from the other claims to be loud , party loving and outgoing, it is the ability to see the multilayers in the world we live in...and I was so glad to see that it is seen across MICAns (Atleast from the blogs of the faceless that I read..)

sounds complicated....?? want to talk abt Vikram seth, calvin, mahabharat, brands and acid bugs...all in a span of 15 mts, catch a MICAn...

Its amazing...! I mean to be able to read the most outlandish book and still find 15 people who would have an opinion on it, to have found an 'insight' and share the 'a-ha' with people, to argue passionately about the political system we care two hoots about....and to wonder abt richard brosnen being a maverick affecting the brand imagery of 'virgin'...ooh hoo those were the days - of feeding the intellect....!

I used to finish 4 brand books in one week and dream abt being the next brand guru - time really is slooow...when am I going to be writting that brilliant book on brand strategy basis my experience with youth markets on Pepsi/ my stint at P&G..pray when...???!!!

I do miss the joy of living with nature - be able to completely detach yourself from the world around - and still live in a campus with 150 individuals like you - there were days when all the 32 women in the hostel used to just not talk or even whisper and just go about doing what we liked - one to the library, other playing the music loud, and another silently reading a book...we were all different ... we were all together in our loneliness...!!

you would not find a single person there who would say he doesnt write/ appreciate poetry - in fact my first boss was joking to me abt how every MICAn he interviews claims to have written poetry...my first reaction was - but most of us do..! only a few exceptions like me understand the world of numbers..but for many of them I met there world was just a streamer of beautifully written words, expressions and books...

was reading suketu mehta's maximum city - he says that the city mumbai is made up with a lot of similiar selfs - but multiple selfs which are dteached from each other...

I feel to some extent same goes to MICA...just that the umbilical cord stays the same - for all my misgivings and hatred for the superficiality rampant in that place, one thing I wouldnt deny is what a storehouse of thinking and dreaming it was....

and snap..zoom - I cant be living in a place that was more different...am sure that everyone who has lived in an hostel would agree to that...

well the concrete desert has an oasis in a lovely mister who celebrates his birthday today - who happens to be my reason d'etre in life and for bearing with this maximum city...

mr. J - thanks for listening to the rants, dreams and pulambals....now you know where they come from :-)

Of teachers and divine kids...

Was reading silverine's latest post (poomanam.blogspot.com), and couldnt help dvelving into nostalgia on my school days as well...

Somehow, after I have moved north, people's impression of me has been that of a totally studious girl....I even remember someone asking me -' you must have always been the teachers favourite na' - I just give an enigmatic smile in return when i come across such glorious presumptions...This again is some kind of regional bias - like southies are good at science and maths theory...

When I was a kid - I was always hated by teachers unanimously - I mean, hate not in a' I- dont - know - if -she-exists' way but more as 'oh-my - god- she - exasperates- me' way. The fact that I was the sister of school's naughtiest boy just didnt help my cause either - Most of my 1st day classes of every year would begin thus.

Teacher - gud morning children...
children - good mooooooooorrrrrrrrrrninnnnng maam (me very vociferously)
Teacher - (looks around with a spy like look on her face) - So I heard that yogesh's sister - is in this class
Me (proudly) - its me maam!
Teacher - come here - 'SLAP'
me 'Doiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.....' a vague ring in my ears....

Post shedding copious tears at home, brother would reveal that he just happened to break the teachers scale into two/ made rockets during tests etc etc last year when she was his teacher - I wouldnt blame the teacher who decided to be more pre-emptive and defend her terrain with me....

But even this problem was averted soon by yours truely by denying the existence of a brother profusely once i was old enough....

An even worse problem that posed itself was my latent dislike to homework and my sob story with uniform - The damned blue ribbon or the black socks or the badge had an almost morphy lawish love for me and they refused to appear when I summoned - which led to me being summoned in the prayer hall - I made it look like I was the 'school' monitor by looking very proud! - talk abt leadership skills at a young age ;-)

And then comes the pain - homeworks - I remember taking almost everyone's help in getting them done - my naani had the habit of writing down recipes from magazines - I offered her to do that and made her do my homwork - all these ingenuous methods notwithstanding , most of the days my homework note was empty. This led to teachers almost gang attacking my dad when he came for PTA meetings....My dad was just bothered abt one thig..

'Does she score well??'

teacher - Yes - she has been scoring 90+ ...but...

Appa again -then what is the problem maam - she is a bright girl u need to 'channelise' her 'energies'... Over time teachers were so fed up with me that they just stopped with giving comments like 'intelligent but lazy (??!!) on my report card...

Eventually it took a while for me to bear with school, once i figured out my passions like debating/ quizzong and so on...but till now I cant bring abt myself to say I 'enjoyed' my school days - I think it was really ridiculous, the way they bothered abt absoultely inconsequential things like ribbon being in black or blue/ lizard picture missing in zoology book...

I see it happening even today and I just wonder when will our system grow up to let kids have fun and enjoy learning....!Damn the socks - just get into the class and have fun with maths..!

Hey you all - been a long time since I blogged - am indeed having a 'blast' in this town thank you...hope all other mumbaikars are fine & safe...

I really dont want to ramble on about who dunnits and more such conspiracy theories....am sure we have heard enough of them - after seeing the way media reacted to the blasts I somehow have a vague fear in my underbelly that there is a news editor who jumps in glee everytime there is a crisis - one man's sorrow is big business for everyone...if ratings were given to TV programs, most of what we saw on tuesday should have been banned, thanks to the amount of gore on splendid display....

To me the biggest impact of these events is the paranoia gripping the city - I was in the first class compartment yesterday with other women returning from office - there was an (ahem!) 'unidentified' bag in the luggage shelf and there we all went our eyes widening with fear and looking suspiciously at each other - One girl just asked whose it was and an eerie silence filled up the compartment - A proper cool chick ( with shocking pick jacket et all) came running from the other end , picked the bag and said to all of us 'cool it guys its mine'....there was a palpable relief in everyones faces....And suddenly the journey started breathing life again...

Me, a mute spectator to the event decided that Am just being 'mute' - I mean here I was all my life believing that I am 'idealistic' and I have something to say on anything that concerns the nation - But the first thing I did after the blasts was to call up my husband, enquire for his safety and stay put at office - the blast sites were just 2 Kms away - and loads of hands & blood were needed...My husband calls it 'denial'...may be - but more honestly could have also been selfishness - all this so called resillience from Mumbaikars is plain 'collective denials' according to me...If it didnt happen to me, it didnt happen to anyone is the attitude...

Or may be I am just measuring the world in my colours...but heck, right now the world just seems to be black...!

Was reading a column from Washington post, which said that 'India has been too patient' with Pakistan - another column says ' we are bearing the terrorist attacks as stoically as we bore the foreign invasions'....As a nation are we timid???

My theory is that this is largely the effect of the religion of the majority Hinduism - sorry for getting philospohical here - but the main teaching from bhagwat Gita - is to Just do ones own duty and not bother about the result' we have the right to follow only our own Dharma and not influence what others do.... - a far cry from the 'hand for hand' and 'eye for an eye' prophesicing....

Well of course, all these3 scriptures in any religion are open for interpretation thats why we have fundementalism is present in all religions...

Would like to recollect what I read when 9/11 happened....

'Terrorism really has no religion, it stems from fundemantalism of any nature and it affects anyone irrespective of religion...'

Nearly 20% of the people dead in the blasts are muslims.....

we can only say ' ishwara allah tere naam - SABKO shanmathi de bhagwan'.....

life is a roller coaster

oh yeah yes it is - am marrieddddddd....whew something I thought Ill never do (or shd I say feared I would never do)...and know what? it is great... finally you have a hapless soul who has to bear with your nagging, your cooking , your cleaning, your philosophising, your rambling and what not!

and the best part is the encouragement I get to write - well if one someone puts you on rss feed and waits for an update you've got to obligena?

so here I am guys...life really has been a roller coaster in the last 6-7 months...

it all started on a rainy day ( now pls dont think of some romantic scene from late 70s movies...!) there was a proper 'ponnu parkarathu' replete with bhajji and sojji...there I was draped in a saree ( rolled up was more like it cribs my husband)....the room was actually filled by identified and unidentified relatives and kids running ard...somewhere a soul inside me was beating saying 'shit ash this is not you - you've gone into a time machine!'

I tried my best to look like a shy bride and eventually gave up - thankfully there was no request to sing - I was prepared with my Bryan adam number - which unfortunately I didnt end up using..!we were allowed to talk (ha-ha not that primitive u c) and I did warn my cute hubby to be that iam extremely talkative...he looked at me pretty puzzled..and said it shud be ok - My heart went out to him that moment - god if someone is actually ok with that (Sob sob!) Ive got to marry him ;-)!!

anyways all went fine and suddenly an engagement happened with great food and an even greater diamond ring tucked in my fingers...my dad and mom had decided that they had given me away to the mobile phone...

what followed was a mad mad shopping spree - the amount you get to shop if you are a bride is awesome..I happily spent lifetime and half a lifetime earnings of dad and bro in buying every whim and fancy....kanjeeverams, maybellines, trinkets - you name it I had to have it...

it was one big fat south Indian wedding which started in mad mad mandap chase ( which we finally got , but only after 5 months of engagement)...a crazy saree spree - nalli, nalli and more nalli ... more jewellery, vonly t-nagar jewellery shops...

there was a twist when the caterer quit a week to go and we booked a new one - and lost some money in the bargain - my mom (as was her habit ever since horoscopes matched) prayed to any god she could think off and offered generous gifts...

as the D-day got nearer, aunties in all shapes and sizes from all corners of the state arrived, where was their penchant for so much adults only jokes hidden hitherto I dont know.. and I was bombarded with advices and make up tips -
sample 1: always remember to put cocunut oil and carry a huge dabba of ponds powder - dont forget the sindoor box....
sample 2: keep an extra 9 yards handy (??!!) you can wear it on auspicious days like friday and pooja days (and when do you expect me to go to work after getting in and out of the saree - on sunday?!)

am sure you get the drift...!

all i remember of my wedding day is being moved in and out of kanjeewarams amidst a crowd of aunties who keep yelling at the top of their voices - having a vague dazed smile to anyone who comes in to greet and generally being nervous- not to mention some 20KGS of flowers and unheard of antique jewellery put on my nose , head and waist..!

the worst part was that I was missing all the show that was happening ard - impromptu dance jigs by uncles and grand uncles, antakshari's on the spot and politics ( there is a fight which broke out between aunties on whose sarees were better - inspite of the fact that they were all bought in a same shop at same price in same design but different colours!!) - priest party's from either sides ascertaining their supremacy etc etc....

Right now we both are kinda settling down in Mumbai..with no maamis in the next 1000 miles radius...and as I run in the morning to catch the train to lower parel in my trousers, with a short hair cut - I smile to myself....

we really were on a time machine!

In quest of krrrrreeeeeeativiti

There I am, actually having brought abt myself to write the most 'murdered' term in marketing / management/ etc etc... 'Creativity'.... (forgive the attempts to decorate the word - er..just trying to be creative)

I think the first time I heard abt it is from our school drawing teacher.., when he was talking abt my brother - my brother had (and still has!) this uncanny ability to actually write every alphabet in such a way that it resembled the third consecutive alphabet rather than looking like itself... i.e, his As looked like Ds and his Ps looked like Ss and so on - dont ask me how he managed it ... he was also good at making numbers look like alphabets too - to the extent that his maths teacher gave his answer sheet to english teacher, thinking it was his english answer paper ... I can go on , but I shall only digress from the attempted subject of this post...

so this wonderful bhaiya of mine for all his twisted way of holding his pencil was good (in fact sooo good) at one thing - drawing - never mind that it was the same hut and an M with a sun in the centre. So inspired by it he was that anything and everything in our house to my book covers and sometimes even in my clothes there was this ubiquitous M and a sun and a hut - and one day in his 1st standard he was graduated to drawing sir, from ayammas, who gleefully adopted him and told anyone who could listen that he is sooo 'creative'...(it is another thing that his creativity went to the extent of drawing a boy peeing against a plant on a topic called 'water conservation!!'- again, thats a post for another day!!!)

And there I was younger to him by a year and hence always welcomed in firstday in class by teachers with lurvly pinches and 'affectionate' scale beatings 'oh...you are thaaat yoga's sister', and apart from the art of writing like him, one more thing I so couldnt be good at was this damned 'creativity' - everytime in a drawing class, I could not move beyond drawing two circles with a tail and convincing the drawing teacher (poor man- he expected another creative genius from the khandan...) that it was a' kitten'...I mastered it till my 5th standard...but always feeling jealous & inadequate that I cant be 'creative...'

All this was till I heard abt 'crafting class' - where I assumed this natural leadership in the class, thanks to the fact that the crafts teacher was my mom's friend - that was when the early signs of my leadership skills (Ahem!) were showing - authoritarian was my style - just when I figured someone was good at making a flowerpot, I will pour glue on it...heh heh! but two dozen matchboxes (empty matchbox houses), 20000 matchsticks ( matchstick cat, matchstick cage etc etc), and a lot of coloured papers and scissor mark on hands later, I realised that all I could manage was to take off the glue stuck in my hand artfully in the end of the class, and manage to pour half of the glue into the 'craft item'- either mine or the best one in class's !

Worried, my mom decided to take on the mantle and started teaching embroidery for me to make me a 'sophisticated bahu' types - she was sooo enamoured by the picture of women knitting baby sweaters...wanted me to become that..! I graduated from scissors marks to needle marks - and learnt to stitch buttons (a bad attempt at some kind of stitch, in which the needle got stuck in the middle - till date thats how I sew buttons ;-)

by then I was in my 8th standard, and My mom gave up - she learnt to be content with my debating (a.k.a) fighting skills...
(Till one day she was summoned by my science teacher..who showed her a very original and creative piece from me - being asked to write 5 facts about Fish, I had written a full story about matsyavadhar - the poor teacher was zapped to say the least - I was sent with warnings of 'science is not story telling' - but by then I had discovered the delirious joy of faffing ..the effects of which showed 8 years down the lane...)

Circa 2001- Ms. CEO types was my ambition and I applied to any B-school that was worth its name --- Somehow in the bunch of applications, a school called MICA was also part of -- by then I didnt give any thought of it - back-up for IIM is what the arrogant me thought...! When calls started pouring in, MICA was very much there and everyone started raving abt what a bloody brilliant creative place it is (relatives have a knack of making bad places sound like wonderful; places and vice versa -talk abt hidden motives!)- my long forgotten attempt to romanticize with creativity notwithstanding I was looking forward to MET - where they supposedly tested one's 'Creative' skills...

You can imagine the joy I had (and the shock My parents had!) When I actually got thru the best advertising school in the country --- creativity - here I come...!! So there I went in search of this absolutely intriguing 'creative skills'.... And at the end of two years, I was still searching...I was only told that 'creativity and appreciating creativity' can never be taught....

But the quest didnt end, telling myself that vanquishing the myth of creativity is my real burning passion - I went to a mad agency - where creative by definition were people with ponytail, who said juicy marathi ghali's even in client meetings...and purely psyched at the sight of them, client would say - 'oooh he is really creative' (nahi to mar lega bechare ko!) - the creative myth manifested itself in my head as a melenge of purple haircolour + earstud + wierd flea market costumes + bloody good ability at native ghali's (With no exception I noticed that the amount of dirty ghali's u know was directly correlated to your ability to understand India and its people!!)

Thats when I think I gave up - I mean so this damn thing is all abt being a freak and always in a daze thanks to the amt u smoke (in fact the more smoke ard you - the more ideating person you were perceived to be....!) disillusioned, I ran away from advertising and took solace in a bank (which is where I am till date..)

Two days back - someone at work told me that I am creative....little does he know that it made me wonder whether I am looking odd/ out of place...;-)

but seriously..what IS creativity?? the ability to think same things differently (bloody good articulation aka faff), the ability to see things which dont exist (delusion) or the good old knack of coming up with ideas (pleagurisation so sophisticated that ppl think its your idea!)

Somebody tell me pleez..!

Only for the die-hard Tams!

Have been vela and been visiting some good blogs...For a change this time visited many in Tam and was surprised to find a thriving net community which analyses every issue of Kumudam/ vikatan...'mella thamizhini vaazhum - in blogs & web archives' is what I wanted to retort to Bharathi...

As a very active Tam reader - I really feel that what Today's Tam literature lacks is a strong writer - while Old hand sujatha is still around, endearing himself to the software junta, by his brahminic musings and rajini-Kamal connections, I do think that there is noone today in Tam - literature who makes the gap between mainstream kumudam & the elite kanaiyazhi's & kurumpathirigaigal disappear.. There are some very good attempts in trying to take elite Tam writing to the masses - there is one Mr. Ramakrishnan's column in Vikatan, which talks about one best tam writing every week, but such stuff is sporadic and it is still 'bridging' gaps instead of eliminating them...

People might disagree, but I believe that may be the first (and to me the last) person who broke the difference between mass and class writing in Tamil (only next to Bharathiyar!) is Jeyakanthan - in fact he chose to write about the masses, in the most classy way possible!He recently won a gnanpeeth and I was amazed to see the lacklustre response it generated amongst Tam Junta - Tamilians have a terrible taste when it comes to appreciating writing - while the women are happy reading M&B re-hashes, the men are happier reading pseudo intellectual writings like Balakumaran's or 'oru pakka chirukathaigal' which are a miniature version of megaserials - wife suspecting husband, mother in law fights etc., Just look at neighbourhood kerala and the respect they give to 'ezhuthachans'... I can only sigh and thank god that am not a tam writer!!

And if the reason why they ignored him is because he said 'sanskrit is better than tamil', too bad !- Isnt intellectualism the ability to have an opinion and stand by it?? - he has oodles of it & thats what matters!

If good literature is something which acts as a chronicle of its time - than Jeyakanthan's stuff does even more than that - more than the fact that his plots & subjects are as contemporary (for the 1950s-1970s TN that they portray) as they can get, his ability to etch out his characters, to be singleminded about the plotline, and his amazing amazing knack of picking the most mundane of plots and settings to say something radical (read his short stories, you will know what I mean!) is what makes him my pick amongst Tam writers! no nonsense - the word is JK!

I can proudly say that I have read ALL of Jeyakanthan's works, and I think that more than just entertainment, they are a tribute to human mind, in its full glory - he does not justify his charecters for the way they are - but he just lets his reader expand his thinking and do it...

I would just to submit the plotline of his famous shortstory ' agni pravesam' and rest my case....

Agnipravesam is about a 17 year old girl, ganga who comes from a typical middle class family, we are introduced to her, as she is waiting in a bus stand on a rainy day - there is soon noone in the busstand and there is no sight of the bus either, there comes a car offering to pick her up and the innocent heroine takes it..only to be raped by the car driver in the journey.. so what - a million of stories begin like this? hold on what makes this story the best is not the subject, the event happens, and just as you expect its after effects to be revolting, we see the girl walking in to the house and crying out to her mother...the middle class mom starts crying out loud.....stops herself and just picks up some shikakai, makes the girl sit and washes away the 'paavam' - tells her 'now you are cleaned - just continue with life..' Agnipravesham means trial of fire - and indeed thats what it si for ganga...
radical??!!may be not now - but this was written in 1950s!!!!The orthodox soceity of that age almost murdered JK with its rage - propelling him to write a series of novels 'sila nerangalil sila manithargal' & 'gangai enge pogiral' here the protagonist is the same ganga, but unfortunately, her mother was not the mother of 'agni pravesham' this mother tells out the world loud about what happened to her daughter and Ganga grows up carrying the societal looking downs at her....

While the short story makes you just awestuck at its extreme audacity, the novels bring you down to earth as the writer goes on and on to what could have happened in the hypothetical ganga's life... he doesnt justify what happened to her mind you..! but as a conscious writer, he just brings in an objective view to the two sides of the same coin...

uff - just thinking abt his writings gives me goose bumps - am gonna go home now and pick up his short story collection...

Meanwhile I would like to know what readers think of JK...??

definitely not original - but beautiful!

Sorry for the mush...but had to publish this as a post........

I think elizabeth Barrett browning's poetry is one of the best...somehow it is far more relatable than a lot of other romantic poetry I have come across - and it is definitely very different mush - so not cliched... 'everyday's most quiet need'?? - now if this is not original..tell me what else is!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.