I am really happy to announce that the end of the world (predicted by some to be caused by an inter-religious war in which no side will win, all will lose), has been deferred indefinitely. The reason may be found in the following news item:
CLERICS URGE CENTRE TO RETHINK GAY STAND BEFORE GOING TO SC (TOI, 10 July 2009, pg. 13)
or at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/SC-admits-petition-challenging-HC-gay-ruling/articleshow/4760022.cms
Hmm…. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Usually, they don’t agree on whether to break an egg at the big end or the small end (sorry, Mr Swift, for plagiarising), but the minute there’s talk of “making dem queer guys legit”, they come together to form the homophobic morality police, warning the courts and the government that the moral fibre of human society will be destroyed forever.
Wow! With utter delight, I watched leaders from various (otherwise) warring religious groups take the platform together (AHA!) and jointly address a press conference about the HC’s ruling on article 377. Just as, according to the history books, Indians of every hue came together to fight for “freedom” from British rule in 1857, all religious leaders have decided to pitch their lot with each other in order to fight this GREAT EVIL called homosexuality.
I don’t think there’s any point, in fact, of countering any of their arguments. Many fellow scribes are already doing that and we really can’t know for a fact whether God would actually object or not to the High Court’s view. What is of great importance here is that they CAN agree on something! Call it “unity in diversity”, the “sangam” of opposite minds, the basic commonality of religious streams, whatever…
So, I see this as a reason to celebrate; to call it the harbinger of religious harmony. What we should do is quite simple: place a challenge before this august board of homophobic fanatics – set them a task that REALLY needs to be done. And in our country there are far more important goals to be achieved. Let them come together to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, ill-health, etc. etc. etc. We must capitalise on this rare moment of camaraderie between forces that at other times tear apart the very fabric of social harmony they are now together to protect.
Let us allow them to exercise their moral superiority over lesser beings who are obviously not as connected to God – by turning their hand to something constructive for a change, so that they cannot see through this act of God.
Really, I’m serious!
We need to act quickly to divert their minds from this path-breaking chapter in God’s plan for humanity… You see, they have missed the sub-text in God’s script: basically, the religious clerics have got the obvious part of the Delhi High Court’s ruling that the following two things will happen to humanity immediately: 1) by legitimising homosexuality, all the closet gays and lesbians will come out into the open, thereby destroying the (out-dated, patriarchal) institution of heterosexual marriage; 2) by ensuring that heterosexuals begin to feel hopelessly out of place in the newly-expanding gay milieu, that they too will turn gay to keep up with the Joneses.
Like I said, our sage leaders have got this part bang on. But they have missed the reason behind this grand plan: why, to bring down the human population by 2050 so that every (gay) human that survives this Immoral Flood (and the one connected with global warming) actually has a bit of earth on which to live!
P.S. This may actually indicate that God is female rather than male since such delicious lateral thinking for problem-solving has usually been beyond the capabilities of men!
By the way, Sara (who goes to church as often as she can hitch a ride) was INCENSED the other night at Father Emmanuel’s suggestion that homosexuals were usually from broken families. According to her, "Well, du-uh! this is totally ridiculous!"
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The Labour of Love
When the D’Avrincourt family were leaving for Mauritius three weeks ago, they discovered a lot of uncooked stuff in their kitchen. Some of it, being the immediate neighbours, was inherited by us. Early in the morning (it was about 5 a.m.), Sara was handed various packets and bowls, and asked to put some into the fridge, some into the freezer and some into cupboards. One such freezer-destined bowl had something, she said, called calamari.
It looked like nothing I had seen (and certainly never cooked) before. (In case any of my readers are vegetarian, and/or squeamish, perhaps I’d better not try to describe it here.) And, I’m ashamed to admit this since I edited several books on cooking and eating out during my tenure with Penguin Books, my culinary vocabulary is rather limited. Not only that, the title of my autobiography may well end up being The Rather Reluctant Cook. Those who know me well, or have asked me, “Are you fond of cooking?” already know that the stock reply is, “I HATE cooking, but I love my kids!”
Anyway, I invoked the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Dida, for inspiration. For, if I hate anything more than cooking, it is wasting any kind of food (perhaps I was a Native American in a previous birth since I’m almost fanatical about this!). A quick Net search later (yes, the Net was running faster that day) I discovered that calamari was actually squid. However, since I wasn’t any better equipped to handle cooking it now that I knew it was squid, I fished for some recipes. To cut this long story short, I managed to turn it into something edible (which both Sara and Tyger enjoyed – really, it was cooked beyond recognition) within a day. What’s important here – all the while I was cooking it, I kept thinking of Dida and how much she cooked and how much variety there was in the dishes she churned out with seeming effortlessness.
A few days later, I discovered a frozen packet in my freezer, which, upon opening, turned out to be some type of gigantic prawn, in its pristine glory. OK, again will not describe what this looked like, but the smell was crazy! The smell reminded me again of Dida. She did cook prawns for us, many times, and only because I spent a good amount of time hanging around the kitchen that I remember how they have to be cleaned. Banning the squeamish Sara from entering the kitchen (what’s the point of cooking it if she won’t eat it?), and firmly pushing Tyger out as well (although he isn’t squeamish, and decided that it looked like catfish) I embarked on a journey Dida had undertaken several times.
Through the whole process of cleaning, washing and cooking, she was there in spirit beside me, guiding my hands, reminding me of spices and procedures, making sure that I did not overcook or undercook. Although acute memory failure reigns, I have a sense that she used to keep up a running commentary on how to cook different stuff, so I learnt a lot by just hanging around. Again, the dish that turned up on the dining table had suitably disguised the raw material. But when I sniffed my hands, I could have cried. For it had the same smell that Dida always had after cooking prawns. And now, having cleaned, washed and cooked them for the first time, I recognised for the first time that every day that we spent with her during the summer vacation, she laboured in the kitchen to bring tasty dishes onto the dining table – her labour of love.
I’m not sure whether she was truly fond of cooking or not. But I’m definite about why she cooked – she REALLY loved feeding all of us. The only one who protested once in a while was my younger cousin (who lived in the flat opposite theirs) who was the designated taster throughout the year as Dida tried out recipe after recipe in that little kitchen of hers. The rest of us always went back to school after the summer break much fattened!
Unfortunately for me, she passed away before I really had a chance to get to know her. Injured in an accident (she was 73 and completely fit and active), she struggled on a hospital bed for a month before moving on, just a day or two before Durga Puja. I was just 21. Receiving the news from my uncle’s office over the phone, I was shocked and shattered, and alone since both my parents were in Calcutta with her. When I spoke to my grandfather, Dadu, later that day, his words were broken for the first time in all the years I had known him.
And again, drama comes into real life with Dida. A couple of years before she died, she and Dadu were in Delhi on their annual visit. She had just visited my maternal uncle and family in Pune, and arrived at the railway station with armloads of shawls. Apparently, she had spent the long train journey knitting shawls for the entire family. The one for me was a beautiful pale peach colour – I treasure it till this day, especially since it turned out to be the last garment that she knitted for me. But where drama comes into it is my involvement with a play and how she bridged the gap between my mother and I that autumn.
We were preparing an adaptation of a play (I’ve forgotten the name of the original – but please forgive me for it has been 23 years!) which we called Sher Nikalkar Bhaga. As the “senior” members of the theatre group, we took on all the back-stage responsibilities for our productions, and for this one I was working on the sets. Since the target audience was to be children, the sets were elaborate, colourful and very expressive. There were 6 flats, 9 ft by 5 ft, to be painted on both sides, and one cut out of the Delhi skyline. So, I was spending nights at the Nizamuddin flat which the group used as a base, painting till my arms hurt (luckily, I’m partially ambidextrous), sleeping for a couple of hours, and then getting onto the first Mudrika of the day, attending college (mostly dozing through lessons except the ones involving Macbeth), going back to Nizamuddin, etc. etc. etc. I’m sure you get the picture. For approximately three weeks, my mother and I had not seen much of each other as I only stopped by the house to bathe and change – and she was miffed. Well, that’s putting it mildly. She was angry enough to declare on one of those occasions that she, for one, was NOT going to watch the play.
That’s when Dida and Dadu arrived, and over lunch one day, Dida asked which day they were going to see the play. I continued to eat silently, waiting for the explosion. It came. My mother said, without mincing words, that as a general protest over my sudden lifestyle change, she was not going to see the play. First Dida looked shocked. Then, in a very gentle voice she asked, “My grand-daughter is doing a play, and we won’t go to watch it?” With great difficulty, I kept out of the discussion, and focussed on the food (some of which was cooked by Dida and was extremely tasty!).
The decision was taken. EVERYONE, due to Dida’s gentle diktat, was to watch the play, and I was asked to book enough seats as near the front as possible. Hiding my relief, for if Ma had persisted, no one from the family would’ve dared to oppose her, I quietly left for the evening rehearsal.
And, since the sets were there, going on and off in each scene, Ma was able to see how much work had really gone into it. Though not much was said, she was proud of my work – which, but for Dida’s intervention, she would not have even got to see – and said so when I reached home later that night. It was not the last time we clashed over my passion for theatre, but at least this one ended well.
For many years after Dida’s death I spent as much time as I could with Dadu, who was really lonely without her. I did not want to miss the opportunity to get to know him too. I travelled to Calcutta between jobs, and he, till the last year of his life, always made a visit to Delhi once a year. That was his labour of love; at the age of 85+ it couldn't have been that easy travelling up and down by train. We had a connection that went beyond DNA, I think. He could tell when I was upset even if I put up a cheery face. And just a hand on my head was enough to calm me down or, make me break down completely. He left me his precious Roliflex camera and books on photography as he saw how involved I was with it, appreciating the dark room where I developed and printed roll after roll of b-and-w photographs, teaching me about angles, light and shade, composition. Even more importantly, he taught me a lot about pranayam, meditation and yoga – what to do and what to avoid. In terms of a life-style, I can’t think of anyone else who worked so diligently on leading a clean, healthy and active life.
Well, not to be too uncharacteristically mushy, in the years after they both moved on, I think I missed not having them around to a point of feeling physical pain sometimes. There are so many times that I know they would’ve really appreciated what I came up with – stuff that no one else has ever really been interested in. Like the teddy bears I knitted for Sara and Tyger two summers ago. Or the blankets I am still trying to complete knitting. Dadu would’ve been delighted with the photographs I’ve taken recently of the hiking trips around the school.
And Dida would certainly have been very proud of the culinary achievement with the calamari!
It looked like nothing I had seen (and certainly never cooked) before. (In case any of my readers are vegetarian, and/or squeamish, perhaps I’d better not try to describe it here.) And, I’m ashamed to admit this since I edited several books on cooking and eating out during my tenure with Penguin Books, my culinary vocabulary is rather limited. Not only that, the title of my autobiography may well end up being The Rather Reluctant Cook. Those who know me well, or have asked me, “Are you fond of cooking?” already know that the stock reply is, “I HATE cooking, but I love my kids!”
Anyway, I invoked the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Dida, for inspiration. For, if I hate anything more than cooking, it is wasting any kind of food (perhaps I was a Native American in a previous birth since I’m almost fanatical about this!). A quick Net search later (yes, the Net was running faster that day) I discovered that calamari was actually squid. However, since I wasn’t any better equipped to handle cooking it now that I knew it was squid, I fished for some recipes. To cut this long story short, I managed to turn it into something edible (which both Sara and Tyger enjoyed – really, it was cooked beyond recognition) within a day. What’s important here – all the while I was cooking it, I kept thinking of Dida and how much she cooked and how much variety there was in the dishes she churned out with seeming effortlessness.
A few days later, I discovered a frozen packet in my freezer, which, upon opening, turned out to be some type of gigantic prawn, in its pristine glory. OK, again will not describe what this looked like, but the smell was crazy! The smell reminded me again of Dida. She did cook prawns for us, many times, and only because I spent a good amount of time hanging around the kitchen that I remember how they have to be cleaned. Banning the squeamish Sara from entering the kitchen (what’s the point of cooking it if she won’t eat it?), and firmly pushing Tyger out as well (although he isn’t squeamish, and decided that it looked like catfish) I embarked on a journey Dida had undertaken several times.
Through the whole process of cleaning, washing and cooking, she was there in spirit beside me, guiding my hands, reminding me of spices and procedures, making sure that I did not overcook or undercook. Although acute memory failure reigns, I have a sense that she used to keep up a running commentary on how to cook different stuff, so I learnt a lot by just hanging around. Again, the dish that turned up on the dining table had suitably disguised the raw material. But when I sniffed my hands, I could have cried. For it had the same smell that Dida always had after cooking prawns. And now, having cleaned, washed and cooked them for the first time, I recognised for the first time that every day that we spent with her during the summer vacation, she laboured in the kitchen to bring tasty dishes onto the dining table – her labour of love.
I’m not sure whether she was truly fond of cooking or not. But I’m definite about why she cooked – she REALLY loved feeding all of us. The only one who protested once in a while was my younger cousin (who lived in the flat opposite theirs) who was the designated taster throughout the year as Dida tried out recipe after recipe in that little kitchen of hers. The rest of us always went back to school after the summer break much fattened!
Unfortunately for me, she passed away before I really had a chance to get to know her. Injured in an accident (she was 73 and completely fit and active), she struggled on a hospital bed for a month before moving on, just a day or two before Durga Puja. I was just 21. Receiving the news from my uncle’s office over the phone, I was shocked and shattered, and alone since both my parents were in Calcutta with her. When I spoke to my grandfather, Dadu, later that day, his words were broken for the first time in all the years I had known him.
And again, drama comes into real life with Dida. A couple of years before she died, she and Dadu were in Delhi on their annual visit. She had just visited my maternal uncle and family in Pune, and arrived at the railway station with armloads of shawls. Apparently, she had spent the long train journey knitting shawls for the entire family. The one for me was a beautiful pale peach colour – I treasure it till this day, especially since it turned out to be the last garment that she knitted for me. But where drama comes into it is my involvement with a play and how she bridged the gap between my mother and I that autumn.
We were preparing an adaptation of a play (I’ve forgotten the name of the original – but please forgive me for it has been 23 years!) which we called Sher Nikalkar Bhaga. As the “senior” members of the theatre group, we took on all the back-stage responsibilities for our productions, and for this one I was working on the sets. Since the target audience was to be children, the sets were elaborate, colourful and very expressive. There were 6 flats, 9 ft by 5 ft, to be painted on both sides, and one cut out of the Delhi skyline. So, I was spending nights at the Nizamuddin flat which the group used as a base, painting till my arms hurt (luckily, I’m partially ambidextrous), sleeping for a couple of hours, and then getting onto the first Mudrika of the day, attending college (mostly dozing through lessons except the ones involving Macbeth), going back to Nizamuddin, etc. etc. etc. I’m sure you get the picture. For approximately three weeks, my mother and I had not seen much of each other as I only stopped by the house to bathe and change – and she was miffed. Well, that’s putting it mildly. She was angry enough to declare on one of those occasions that she, for one, was NOT going to watch the play.
That’s when Dida and Dadu arrived, and over lunch one day, Dida asked which day they were going to see the play. I continued to eat silently, waiting for the explosion. It came. My mother said, without mincing words, that as a general protest over my sudden lifestyle change, she was not going to see the play. First Dida looked shocked. Then, in a very gentle voice she asked, “My grand-daughter is doing a play, and we won’t go to watch it?” With great difficulty, I kept out of the discussion, and focussed on the food (some of which was cooked by Dida and was extremely tasty!).
The decision was taken. EVERYONE, due to Dida’s gentle diktat, was to watch the play, and I was asked to book enough seats as near the front as possible. Hiding my relief, for if Ma had persisted, no one from the family would’ve dared to oppose her, I quietly left for the evening rehearsal.
And, since the sets were there, going on and off in each scene, Ma was able to see how much work had really gone into it. Though not much was said, she was proud of my work – which, but for Dida’s intervention, she would not have even got to see – and said so when I reached home later that night. It was not the last time we clashed over my passion for theatre, but at least this one ended well.
For many years after Dida’s death I spent as much time as I could with Dadu, who was really lonely without her. I did not want to miss the opportunity to get to know him too. I travelled to Calcutta between jobs, and he, till the last year of his life, always made a visit to Delhi once a year. That was his labour of love; at the age of 85+ it couldn't have been that easy travelling up and down by train. We had a connection that went beyond DNA, I think. He could tell when I was upset even if I put up a cheery face. And just a hand on my head was enough to calm me down or, make me break down completely. He left me his precious Roliflex camera and books on photography as he saw how involved I was with it, appreciating the dark room where I developed and printed roll after roll of b-and-w photographs, teaching me about angles, light and shade, composition. Even more importantly, he taught me a lot about pranayam, meditation and yoga – what to do and what to avoid. In terms of a life-style, I can’t think of anyone else who worked so diligently on leading a clean, healthy and active life.
Well, not to be too uncharacteristically mushy, in the years after they both moved on, I think I missed not having them around to a point of feeling physical pain sometimes. There are so many times that I know they would’ve really appreciated what I came up with – stuff that no one else has ever really been interested in. Like the teddy bears I knitted for Sara and Tyger two summers ago. Or the blankets I am still trying to complete knitting. Dadu would’ve been delighted with the photographs I’ve taken recently of the hiking trips around the school.
And Dida would certainly have been very proud of the culinary achievement with the calamari!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
And in the naked light I saw...
A strange thought banged about my head for quite a while today. While meditating on the cosmic consciousness this morning, I was feeling quite detached (as is generally the case unless I'm very disturbed), and got to the point where I was floating far enough to make the earth appear small as a football. And yet, while everything else was left down there, I simply couldn't detach myself from two small bundles of white energy, which, it turned out, were Sara and Tyger.
I tried, quite hard, but I could simply not let them go. Was it, I wondered as I came out of it, because I am the only one on the planet on whom they can depend for survival? And then, with a flash of blinding light, came the thought, "Would Siddharth have abandoned Rahula to go in search of enlightenment, had he not felt confident that Yashodhara would be there to bring him up?"
In the parikrama of the school that followed, this thought echoed repeatedly. Several years ago, in a TIE production called "The Prince Who Gave Up the Throne", I played the role of Yashodhara. Actually, I was cast in that role by my colleagues due, perhaps, to the ease with which I could evoke emotional memory on stage - in this case, it was waking up to find her partner gone, then meeting Channa (the charioteer) who had brought back all the royal clothes and, heartrendingly, the prince's beautiful locks of hair. The scroll which, in short, said that he had left and explained why he had to go, would be explained by the audience to Yashodhara in each show through still images.
In retrospect, it amazes me that the question that bombarded me this morning, never presented itself throughout the whole time we devised and performed the play. Somehow, in focusing on the feelings of abandonment and hopelessness as the character, the perspective of the parent did not intrude! Certainly, not only did Yashodhara not feel inadequate as a single parent, she also, according to reports, did a brilliant job of bringing up little Rahula. This was a given, taken for granted. Especially since she was a strong-willed, independent-minded, socially-conscious woman.
And yet, as it happened often in earlier times, what if there had been no Yashodhara? Women died more often then during childbirth or soon after.
What would Siddharth have done? Would he still have left home to seek enlightenment?
As a single parent, my life does completely revolve around my children. Everything I do is directly related to either their present or their possible future careers. And recently, some thoughts of my own retirement have come into focus - not to be burden on them financially, as also to be able to provide a place they can come home to.
Sometimes, when my life and what I am doing here makes no sense - and there are deep, deep longings to do something more meaningful - I force my focus back onto my children. It keeps me going till the next blip or blop. I know, as surely as the fact that the sun will set tonight and rise again tomorrow morning, that I have to do this for them. And now the new thoughts about life post retirement... Where earlier I had had some vague plan of getting to an ashram, or finding a meaningful NGO that was doing what I really want to do...
Hats off to parents who do this without any disturbance throughout their lives. But this morning the ultimate "selfless" act of giving up the kingdom to seek enlightenment, suddenly seemed like one that would not have been possible without feeling reassured that someone would look after his offspring.
This email was sent by my friend and colleague, Abhimanyu, in response to my post. He couldn’t post it as a comment as the Net was too slow (how I empathize!!!). I am adding it here as it is truly worthy of being seen by anyone who goes through feeling useless and indispensable (alternately) with boring regularity…
I can only try and understand your situation and can never realise what you go through. However, I feel that there is no need to seek enlightenment outside daily life! That is what the Buddha taught towards the end of his life. He clarified that right action in daily life can truly enlighten you! So look for enlightenment in your children and the thought processes that chain you or free you with regards to them. I am sure you do find bliss when you wake up Sara from her slumber in the morning or observe Tyger rapt in attention observing a puppy! Don’t search outside when you have the universal consciousness truly residing in your home! Seek not so far what is right where you are... remember The Alchemist?? God Bless! Prayers from my heart for the happiness of the three of you! Abhi
I tried, quite hard, but I could simply not let them go. Was it, I wondered as I came out of it, because I am the only one on the planet on whom they can depend for survival? And then, with a flash of blinding light, came the thought, "Would Siddharth have abandoned Rahula to go in search of enlightenment, had he not felt confident that Yashodhara would be there to bring him up?"
In the parikrama of the school that followed, this thought echoed repeatedly. Several years ago, in a TIE production called "The Prince Who Gave Up the Throne", I played the role of Yashodhara. Actually, I was cast in that role by my colleagues due, perhaps, to the ease with which I could evoke emotional memory on stage - in this case, it was waking up to find her partner gone, then meeting Channa (the charioteer) who had brought back all the royal clothes and, heartrendingly, the prince's beautiful locks of hair. The scroll which, in short, said that he had left and explained why he had to go, would be explained by the audience to Yashodhara in each show through still images.
In retrospect, it amazes me that the question that bombarded me this morning, never presented itself throughout the whole time we devised and performed the play. Somehow, in focusing on the feelings of abandonment and hopelessness as the character, the perspective of the parent did not intrude! Certainly, not only did Yashodhara not feel inadequate as a single parent, she also, according to reports, did a brilliant job of bringing up little Rahula. This was a given, taken for granted. Especially since she was a strong-willed, independent-minded, socially-conscious woman.
And yet, as it happened often in earlier times, what if there had been no Yashodhara? Women died more often then during childbirth or soon after.
What would Siddharth have done? Would he still have left home to seek enlightenment?
As a single parent, my life does completely revolve around my children. Everything I do is directly related to either their present or their possible future careers. And recently, some thoughts of my own retirement have come into focus - not to be burden on them financially, as also to be able to provide a place they can come home to.
Sometimes, when my life and what I am doing here makes no sense - and there are deep, deep longings to do something more meaningful - I force my focus back onto my children. It keeps me going till the next blip or blop. I know, as surely as the fact that the sun will set tonight and rise again tomorrow morning, that I have to do this for them. And now the new thoughts about life post retirement... Where earlier I had had some vague plan of getting to an ashram, or finding a meaningful NGO that was doing what I really want to do...
Hats off to parents who do this without any disturbance throughout their lives. But this morning the ultimate "selfless" act of giving up the kingdom to seek enlightenment, suddenly seemed like one that would not have been possible without feeling reassured that someone would look after his offspring.
This email was sent by my friend and colleague, Abhimanyu, in response to my post. He couldn’t post it as a comment as the Net was too slow (how I empathize!!!). I am adding it here as it is truly worthy of being seen by anyone who goes through feeling useless and indispensable (alternately) with boring regularity…
I can only try and understand your situation and can never realise what you go through. However, I feel that there is no need to seek enlightenment outside daily life! That is what the Buddha taught towards the end of his life. He clarified that right action in daily life can truly enlighten you! So look for enlightenment in your children and the thought processes that chain you or free you with regards to them. I am sure you do find bliss when you wake up Sara from her slumber in the morning or observe Tyger rapt in attention observing a puppy! Don’t search outside when you have the universal consciousness truly residing in your home! Seek not so far what is right where you are... remember The Alchemist?? God Bless! Prayers from my heart for the happiness of the three of you! Abhi
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