Reflections, Diwali 2012

It has been a month and a half since I went back to work. I am busier than I have ever been. Between the children and home and work every second of each day is accounted for. It is more difficult than ever to find the time for the things that I really love like music and books and writing.

And yet, every day I ask myself why I did not do it earlier. Considering this is my second innings, I am aware of the pitfalls that await me at every turn and while I have no pretensions to being wiser, I am consciously taking a slightly different approach to things than I did the last time around.

Cutting out the noise. There are people who can do many things and all of them successfully. These people are normally very tired folks. I have no such claims. I am here to do two or three things and everything else is noise that I have no time for. So, I work and I raise my two kids. "I do one thing at a time, I do it well and then I move on." Full points for guessing who said that without resorting to Google.

When it comes to raising kids, I have finally internalized the very important distinction between the tasks of raising kids and the relationship that I have with them. I am not one to find joy in the washing of bums and the belaboured feeding of meals. I know mothers are somehow expected to burst into song at the opportunity to deliver at these jobs. Some really do like it. I don't. I like reading to them and I like talking to them and I like baking with them and I love to tell them stories but those to me are the joyful parts. The tasks, well, I have done them for a long time and I am very happy to outsource them and I do. There was an article about this I read somewhere that I just cannot seem to place. Oh well, next time.

My friends ask me if I face any guilt at being away or if I am stressed at spending time away from home. Again, something a person said resounds true in this context. People are stressed when they are asked to do things that they don't want to do. It is not the quantum of work or the extended hours or the intensity with which it flows - if one wants to be there, there is no stress and no unhappiness. Simple. True.

There is no point in debating the choices everyday. I cannot question the rights and wrongs of my being at work every time I have to leave a sick kid at home. Those are just days, just situations and they have to be handled. The larger picture cannot be questioned every time life presents a hurdle.

In other news, we are chess parents. Well, what did you expect from babies borne of the union of two nerds? Adi has taken to chess and the family now has to balance their already overflowing schedules with chess tournaments and classes. It seems to strike something deep within him and to see him at the chequered board to me is like being at some strange Tantrik ritual that I know nothing of. For the sort of child who cannot sit still even while watching TV and has to jump from one piece of furniture to another, it seems to have quietened him down in ways that we cannot even begin to fathom. Last evening, we all trooped to see Adi receive his first medal and I am currently catching hold of complete strangers on the street to tell them about my firstborn's feats.

And Diwali is around the corner. We have bought all manners of rang-birange kandeel and diyas and the decorations will begin in right earnest today. I hope you, my dear ever-present, ever-welcome reader have a great festive season ahead. Go ahead, have that laddoo. I will.

Sold! To the man in the corner....

....or to the lady in Westland, in my case. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the third book has been accepted by Westland, the same kind folk who published Bringing Up Vasu and By The Water Cooler.

I am very happy to report that it does not get old. When D, my editor messaged me saying that I could breathe easy because they liked the story and would take it on, I tried to play it cool with my family and friends. You know, just looking nonchalant and going about the business of life - today I made breakfast, went to work and sold another book, ho-hum - but by the end of the day, the facade was totally breaking down and I wanted to go to the same rooftops (no wait, they have already been covered, should look at increasing penetration) from where I had declared my joy about BUV and BTWC. I can't help it. It is just the most exciting feeling.

Anyway, so after crowing about it on Facebook and Twitter, I felt a little better.

This new book is about....haha, you didn't really think I was going to give it away, did you? But I swear, it's a good story and I've worked awfully hard on it and it's going to be a long time before it hits the shelves but hey, in the meanwhile, we are talking here, no?

So, that's my big news for now. How I am going to find the time to work on the edits, hold down my job and raise my two punters is anybody's guess but damned if I am not going to try till it hurts.

Floatsam, jetsam and kidsam

I was chatting with Mona the other day and we were discussing our kids' swimming lessons. I realized that I had not written about how Adi learnt swimming this past summer. We joined a club nearby just so the kids would get access to some sort of sporting facilities. Being quite new to the club and its workings, I had no idea how coveted the swimming class slots were. I thought we would have a leisurely first few days of summer vacations before we got down to these dirty duties. My husband, the esteemed M, was laid up after his surgery and so he was not jumping around in his usual methodical fashion, organizing lives and so on. It was left to me, the artist of the family to go and see the coach and figure out fees and such like, a task that I usually abhor.

I landed up at the pool at peak sunshine hour and spotted a multitude of children splashing about. I hoisted up my skirts (literally for I was wearing a floor length skirt in keeping with the theme of inappropriate dressing) and tried to locate the coach. I caught sight of him at one end and scurried to catch up to strike a deal except that by the time I reached there he had already swum to the other end. Acutely aware of providing entertainment to the watching millions - a task I am becoming really adept at since an incident involving me falling down on my ass after slipping on a wet floor, mind you - I finally managed to catch hold of the slippery eel of the coach. He laughed at my request and told me that there were about a hundred kids in waiting and I could technically put my son's name at the bottom of the list but he wouldn't hang his hopes on it.

I came back home and dolefully recounted the story to M who muttered something about having to crack the system, something I don't do very well given the other full-time responsibility of entertaining the milling crowds. Well, anyway, after repeated requests and so on, a slot was miraculously obtained for the boy. Now began the task of getting him to actually swim.

The scene just before the lesson began was a harrowing one. The kids would emerge from the dressing rooms and be marched off to the lifeguard to put their floats on. After that it would all get really disturbing. Some of the kids would wail for all they were worth and would hang on resolutely from the mothers' legs as they determinedly hobbled towards the pool. Others would get into the pool but scramble over the sides and make a dash for safe land before being caught by the agile mothers and being dragged back to the water and others would just give their watching mothers tearful achha silla diya tune mere pyaar ka looks that the maters completely ignored. It was madness of a scale hitherto unseen. The pool would soon be teeming with children of age 5, their mothers watching from the sidelines. Now the coach spoke in a very strange accent and it was difficult to understand exactly what was being barked at the kids. I think by and large the kids guessed the instructions judging the tone. Or maybe sign language, who knows.

The mums were also really cool. Some of them actually swam as much outside the pool as their child did inside, making graceful swimming motions with their arms and looking really silly and not giving a damn. Remember that when you are deciding on our old-age homes, you kids.

For a few days, I valiantly stood by and cheered on the boy, my heart in my mouth. Then Thatha arrived from Singapore and this duty was transferred to him. Thatha is a man of technology and vision and sometimes he likes to combine the two. And so, armed with his tablet, he would land at the venue and then make videos of his grandson as he tried to stay afloat and mail them to us. The madness continued but in a week's time or so, all those crying, bawling babies had kicked their floats. They were swimming! They were diving from boards! They were swimming! It was most gratifying to see those little tadpoles actually traverse the length of the pool.

Most exciting. We have it on video. Multiple videos, in fact.

Office office

And so, just like that, I am back in an office. Not just any office. My old office. The one where I spent hours and hours poring over data, drinking endless cups of murky chai, laughing with my team and going through breakdowns as deadlines came rushing at me.

My first day back was bittersweet. All the old faces are gone. They got married, had children, moved jobs, moved cities, countries and continents. And yet, I am back once again.

Everyone seems surprised at this decision of mine. I think I had convinced everyone that I would be a starving writer for the rest of my living days.

Just like that, the last six years have whizzed by. I have no qualms about how I spent them. I wrote books and took care of my children. Sure, I had the occasional nervous breakdown about what the hell I was doing with my life but those moments passed with the aid of cocktails.

The thing is, I have been thinking about reintroducing my old job into my life for some time now.

It's not because the kids are all grown up. I mean, of course Ragini started pre-school a few months ago and is gone for a couple of hours each morning. And Adi, the baby after whom this blog was once named is a kindergartner now!  They come back from school and after some loafing around, it is time for lunch and then the baby goes off for a nap and Adi has playdates and tennis and chess. For the first time in years, I do not have the demands of a small baby. But that's not it.  

It's also not because the trusty Padma has been with me for the last several years and my mum stays with me. It does have an impact, sure, but I am of the school of thought that Aditya and Ragini are to be raised by M and me. Not M's parents, not my mum, not Padma, though all these people have really helped over the years. Still, the buck stops with us.

It's not because I am an over-achiever who has a point to prove. I am not.




It's not because I am done writing. I am not.

In fact, it's just the opposite.

My work involves meeting lots of people from varied sections of our society. I used to find them fascinating and I still do. And I really and ardently believe that interacting with new people will enrich my writing.

I may be wrong, which is why I am treating this as an experiment. If I find I am so immersed in office work that I am not finding the time for my other job, I will have to rethink my decision. But for some reason, I have a feeling I will be able to do both and one will feed into the other.

The kids. They are used to me working on mysterious documents that sometimes result in books anyway. In their strangely adaptive way, they just sort of took this change in their stride. Ah, she is going out in the morning instead of lounging around in eyesore-inducing pajamas till late afternoon. Well, more power to her. 

Things have changed.

And change is good.

The many moods of Kashmir

Kashmir is a confusing travel destination for most people of my generation. Unlike people such as my mum, who visited in 1973 and remembers nothing but its incredible, jaw-dropping beauty, we cannot help but process it as a palimpsest of violence, geo-politics and war set against an absolutely astounding example of Nature's uncanny strokes.

People have been visiting Kashmir of late. Our facebook timelines are regularly inundated with pictures of our friends smiling against the backdrops of its rivers and mountains. It's difficult to suppress that travel gene which rears its head as soon as it notices a place not yet seen. And yet, when we decided to go, I didn't honestly know what to expect, aware as I was throughout of feeling different than I normally do before travel.

The flight was uneventful as it gets when the children get older. I look at the parents of handheld babies with a mix of empathy and relief. I want to tell them - these days too shall pass. These ear aches, the diaper-changes in cramped airplane bathrooms, the hostile looks from fellow passengers - all these will soon disappear but you do the right thing now by bringing these little creatures out of the warm familiarity of your homes because oh, the places you'll go and the places you'll see!

Srinagar Airport. We stepped out and located the car that the hotel had sent for us. The driver drove as recklessly as they always do and paid as little heed to my pleading cries of 'Bhaiyya, thoda dheere chaliye' as they always do. Soon though, my heart settled back into its designated cavity and I was able to look around at the trees that seemed taller than anywhere else. The car swerved and turned and sped on and there, the Dal Lake, larger than I had imagined, its banks lined with bits and pieces of Srinagar. There were fountains that the children found fascinating but I found myself wishing away.

Our hotel is a new property, bang on the banks of the lake. My children, to the manner born are already more comfortable in places like it than I, with no childhood context to the same, can ever be. The grassy lawns, the views, the flowers - they all rather take your breath away. We did the mandatory tourist things, the army men fading in the background, their guns glinting in the sunshine. Hazratbal, Pari Mahal, Chashmeshahi, Nishat Garden. We pointed out the apple orchards to the children, look, that is how they look before they are plucked and packed and sent to supermarkets. The day sped past in a happy blur. Except for that one time in Gulmarg where we refused the starved, bony looking horses, wanting to walk the distance to the cable car (it really is a picturesque walk) instead and the ghode wallah shot us an accusing look and said, 'I've waited fifteen years for my deshwasis to come back and now you tell me you don't want my horse?'

We woke up to the news of a strike in protest of an anti-Islam film in the US and wondered if this was indeed a good day to go clambering off to Pahalgam and in what later turned out to be a wrong decision, opted to go. The same driver who had brought us from the airport turned up to drive us to Pahalgam. The streets were deserted but there was no problem till we reached Anantnag. There, a mob of about twenty five young boys blocked the streets. They surrounded us and shouted at the driver and did all the things that scare people. Soon though, the group bifurcated into two - those who thought it was alright to let us go and those who disagreed. The children looked on curiously at these people, some of them the same age as my own son. The pro group prevailed and we were on our way again, wondering if we would really regret this trip. Soon enough, at Seer, about twenty five kms from Pahalgam, another group of boys blocked our way. And this time they would not capitulate, would not let us pass. We were wondering what to do, turn back and drive all the way to Srinagar or wait till things settled down when the kindness of strangers opened new doors.

A small, half-done, hill-side resort. A kind manager. We were soon sitting inside, being served a fresh meal and welcome cups of hot tea. Raagu slept off, tired out by all the driving but Adi was still going strong, playing with stones and grass in the resort's garden. We waited for a few hours and met other tourists like ourselves, stranded in the middle of nowhere. Later, the same manager volunteered to go and speak to the boys to let us pass. Later he told us that he talked to them about God and the right thing to do and the importance of tourism and clearly the man had magical powers of persuasion. I wouldn't have believed it possible but they did let us go.

Only to be stopped by another group just a few hundred meters away. This time they looked absolutely furious. They asked the driver to get out of the car and led him away and honestly, it was all quite frightening, what with the kids and all. The driver came back a few minutes later, looking quite shaken but unharmed.

What happened, we asked.

Nothing, he said as he put the car into ignition, wanting no doubt to get out of there as fast as he could. They wanted me to shout Amreeka Hai Hai. So I did.

We drove in silence to Pahalgam, certain that we would not enjoy ourselves with all that had happened en route.

(But like I tell myself, no price to experiences.)

Pahalgam soon washed away all those doubts though, being quite simply the most beautiful place on earth. Or at least the part I have seen. It is a study in just how perfect Nature can be. The Lidder river runs through Pahalgam, streams make their way from snowcapped mountains and overall, it's all quite ridiculously beautiful. One doesn't know which way to point the camera. And since the arbiter of beauty in India is Bollywood, we were told repeatedly about the film shoots that have taken place in Betaab (erstwhile Hajan) Valley. The hotel where we stayed had hosted hosted SRK a few weeks back when he was shooting for Jab Tak Hai Jaan and so on. Here Amitabh and Rekha walked their adulterous path in Silsila, here Shammi put Sharmila to shame with his dance moves and here of course is where Sunny Deol and Amrita Singh waited for jawaani to strike. 

After being presented with this evidence, we were quite convinced that it was a worthy place.

And while courting danger doubtless builds character, we decided too much of a good thing could still create problems. We returned to Srinagar the next day. This time around though things were back to normal. Shops were selling the ubiquitous chips and cola and people were out and about.  I found myself wondering what became of those boys who were so intent in not letting a soul pass through their make-shift blockade. A godawful traffic jam that put Bombay to shame later, we were back in Srinagar. The next day, true to the theme of this holiday. was Bharat Bandh.

Well, that was that, then. Our maiden Kashmir had come to an end. The security checks start about a kilometer from the airport, everyone and everything goes through scanners. The second round of screening is at the airport entrance. Post check in, there is the regular security check. Then one needs to identify the check-in baggage. And that's it, au revoir, Kashmir.

Did it leave me feeling confused? Full of questions? Wondering if I did the right thing? Oh yes, definitely. Would I change my decision to go there? Not for the world. A certain Mr Amir Khusrau knew what he was talking about, you see. Check below for pictorial evidence.

Superlative view = Exorbitant room rates

We prowl around, photographing unsuspecting flowers

Arrey dekho, udan khatola

No black sheep, all conformists

Beats sea-view from Carter Road, eh?

Yeh dekhen, Pari Mahal

I was told, May-June mein aayein madam, tab bahaar aati hai. I was aghast. Are you kidding me? I am from Bombay. This is bahaar enough for me.

Old monument, garden, good weather, I am sold

One level of garden is so passe...here we have three

More bahaar type pictures

Pahalgam, kya kya nahin jhela tumhari ek jhalak ke liye

Behold, the famous Betaab valley. Jab Hum Jawaan Honge, Air Miles Collect Karenge

We improved upon the Lidder by repeatedly posing with it

Andaaz apna apna

You know I was fairly convinced that I'd never take to cooking. It's the same reason I don't draw or paint. My sister took all the artistic brilliance that was supposed to be distributed across the family, leaving Isha and me painting lotuses with different coloured petals and so on (true story). My mum is a fantastic cook. Not in the nostalgia induced, yaad-hai-ma-kaisi-aloo-gobhi-

banaati-thi way but in a could-have-been-a-pro sort of genius. So we never cooked. None of us. Mum was always sweating it out in the kitchen, preparing delicacies whose complexity defies cookbooks.

Also, someone has to take care of the eating side and at that, I am fabulous.

Since I moved out of home when I was 17, one had to polish one's cooking chops, ha, but I got by with a bit of daal and rice and that old faithful, the potato. Occasional bouts of baking and so on neither produced memorable results, nor were they repeated.

Even after I had kids, I never bothered too much with culinary delights, focussing my energies instead on fighting battles with cooks. Old readers would remember my struggles with the merry widow, Kalpana.

Things have changed of late. On a day when we had exhausted all possible entertainment options, I asked Adi if he would like to bake some cookies with me. His enthusiasm caught me by surprise. Let's just say it was at par for his love for the PS3. He measured out the baking powder and he sieved the flour. He melted the butter and he preheated the oven. Then he found the chocolate chips and spent the rest of his time eating them. But that's a tale for another day.

The cookies turned out pretty much fantastic and now this household boasts of two enthusiastic bakers. We are a team and it's a given that I don't bake without him. Also, the press that beginner's luck has received seems to be true because we have not really had a disaster so far. We've managed even macaroons which are considered to be pretty tough in the baker's world, I am told. In fact, we were so encouraged by the response to our pistachio macaroons that we even thought we'd bake bread. And tadah, even that turned out very well, displacing the Britannia loaf quite comfortably.

What could explain this? My crush on Jamie Oliver? Repeated viewings of Masterchef? All those wonderful cookbooks that we have collected for no evident reason over the years?

Actually, the thing is - we are pretty scientific and geeky about the whole thing. I mean, cooking may be an art but that part is completely lost on us. We are fanatical about our mise-en-place (yeah, totally talking the talk), we measure everything out to the gram, our conversion charts are stuck on to fridge (mental math is not very appealing when the oven is on fire) and ingredients are all checked for expiry dates and such like. If recipes have to be halved, then 75 gms needs to be brought down to 37.5. We take recipes only from the tried and tested top chefs and once it's brought in, there is no dodging of detail. Butter - softened/cold cut into cubes/melted? Sugar - Icing/Castor/Demerara/Light Brown? Flour - Self-raising/Italian 00/Plain? Basically we are removing any element of risk or doubt that there might exist. In other words, killing off the last bit of joy and making it all about the results which as I did mention earlier, are pretty much superb.

This renders us very funny to our family. Committed and experienced cooks are all about andaaz, you see. Try asking my mum or M's mum about any recipe and they always bring up swaad anusaar as the go-to answer. Namak kitna? Swaad anusaar. Mirch kitni? Swaad anusaar. I don't know how but these amazing cooks got by just fine without kitchen scales to aid every move (the horror!). Well, we are different. Plus, all that chocolate chip eating has sort of dulled the palate, throwing the andaaz totally off-balance.

In this kitchen, it's all about the science. And the eating. In fact, we are going to try the pavlova next. Now, what should be the exact temperature of those egg-whites?

Pictures! 

What two five year old boys can create. No more raucous playdates!

They tasted pretty yum too, when one got past the rather dizzying array of colours.

Muffins lead to muffin-tops, you say? Well, don't.

Oh, that yellow butter dish...anyway, so those are jam-filled muffins. Yo mama domestic goddess.

I did mention a crush on Jamie Oliver, aye? I am all 'where are me condiments, me chopping board, oven on full whack' these days...

Chocolate ganache with palmiers, that. Seriously decadent. Will set diet back by five thousand years. But worth it. Also, behold me rustic wooden chopping board on which I regularly serve things these days. The crush of a good man.

Fruit salad thingie made superlative with a pomegranate, mint, lime and sugar dressing. Bottle courtesy my sweetest friend and the original baking goddess Prachi of purplehomes.

More food porn pictures.

Pre-made Cosmopolitan awaiting its moment in the sun. When you can't please them with food, get them dead drunk.

The ubiquitous chocolate chip cookies that have been pronounced better than the crinkles from American Express bakery. I consider that a serious compliment.

In case you missed it.

The saga of the chimney

One of the appliances that we inherited from the previous owners of our present house was the chimney. It was a Faber make and one had heard of them and it seemed to be alright. So we stayed with it. It wasn't very effective though and never seemed to do its job particularly well. I thought I would have it serviced and diligently called up the service center.

You know how all these domestic tales go but still, stay with me.

Two men landed at my doorstep. Madam, chimney service karenge, they declared and got right to it. I left them to it and got busy with other stuff. Minutes became hours and the afternoon gave way to the evening and they were still there. I started suspecting that they wanted to sublet the kitchen. I went into the kitchen and discovered to my abject horror that they had broken the glass that covers the lightbulb of the chimney. Much consternation followed. I refused to sign the papers and asked them to return with the glass and replace it.

They promised to do so.

They left.

One year passed.

Someone called me from Faber many months down the line. Hallow, they bellowed, are you happy and delighted with the experience with Faber? Not at all, I pleaded, the chimney is hardly working and nobody had come back with the glass. Oh, ok, we will send someone. Well, obviously nobody came.

The chimney gave up completely.

I decided to give it another shot. Fortunately in my obsessively organized way, I had recorded the complaint number and what-not. Normally, that is the loophole they catch you with. Haw, complaint number nahin hai? Then down with you, moronic customer.

So, yes, armed with the complaint number, I braved the good people at Faber once again. The woman at the helpline took my details and sounded really bored. Look, just get in touch with the service center directly, she suggested. I wanted to ask her why Faber had spent such a bundle on setting up a helpline but let it go.

I called the service center and told Sharad (I had asked for a NAME because NAMES MAKE PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE) my tale of woe. Sharad was very annoyed with me. What is this, madam, he told me. More than one year has passed and now you are coming to us with all these complaints. Had I been the person of yore, I would have lost my temper truly at that moment but I didn't. I told him that I would be grateful if he could overlook this lapse on my part (yes!) and send someone to fix the goddamn chimney.

A person landed up. I took his name down. Gaus Siddique.

Gaus got down to work and spent time trying to fix the errant chimney. Then he declared that the chimney was done for and it was time to buy a replacement.

All right, I conceded and shelled out good money to buy another chimney and availed myself of an exchange offer of some kind.

Old chimney out. New chimney in. Govind was the name of the person who put it in. AGAIN, LET'S NAME NAMES.

All is well?

Not really.

You see, last night, something terrible happened. At about ten in the night, I decided to make myself some Bournvita. Then, remembering the calorie count and so on, I decided against it.

I stepped out of the kitchen, went into the living room and the next thing I know, there is a loud crash. I rushed to take a look and there, the chimney has fallen down, denting the stove, breaking plates, shattering things. It is a heavy old thing and I can only thank my stars that my babies were not in the kitchen as they often are, specially when I am baking.

My diet saved me.

Mom and I spent the next hour picking up the pieces.

This morning, I called up the service center. Bored lady told me she'd send someone.

And guess what, Govind lands up again, chewing cud like a benign cow and looking very happy with himself.

Are you the one who had put this in, I asked.

Shayad (maybe), said he, looking most insolent. My blood began to boil.

How can this just fall down, I asked.

Arrey, ab ho gaya toh ho gaya, he tells me. Sau mein se ek ho jata hai. So basically, one in every hundred Faber chimney is expected to fall down.

Get the hell out of my house, I told him in no uncertain terms. And don't show me your face again. He left.

We took the time to inspect the holes he has drilled into the wall to fix the chimney. And you know what, he made them too large and then tried to make the screws fit by stuffing twigs (probably taken from a broom in my kitchen) into the holes. Obviously, the chimney couldn't rest on the loose screws and just came crashing down.

My mind is buzzing with the what-if scenarios since then.

Dear Mr Ravi Gupta, LinkedIn tells me you are the Managing Director at Franke Faber India Ltd. If you are reading this, please consider this an open letter to you. I hope someone, your PR department perhaps, will bring this blog post to your notice. My readers and I would be very interested in hearing what you have to say about this.