Did I Tell You

Did I tell you

How this city of glinting sweeps

Leached diamonds from my eyes, after you had gone?

It slapped the stones aflutter into a million drifts.

It caught me by surprise.

Like an unexpected smile.

I watched the burning embers

Edge into open windows and float under expressways,

Settle onto the hairs of revelers and saints on the sands, and

Trickle into cars sighing at stop lights, tired but insistent.

I neither grasped at the gems, nor rolled them up in my scarf

To pin them to my chest.

I watched them set aglow the colors of this

Forest of restive multitudes

Who now knew a love like yours.

It's Festivus for the Rest'uv Us, with Salisbury Steak & Grilled Aubergines

                   Jerry Stiller (Frank Costanza) recounts: "Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way..out of that, a new holiday was born..."

                   When all of your friends have family home for Christmas, or are travelling to celebrate with family, or are just travelling, and no one’s around to meet up and chat…you realize, like Frank Costanza, that there has to be another way. That holidays often end up being cosy, mostly family-only affairs, unless everyone in your circle is free and therefore available for a potluck...or better still, if there is an obliging soul who feels pressed to throw an annual bash.


Mr. Pickwick lived it up at Mr. Wardle's (The Pickwick Papers). We, ahem, enjoyed a much tamer affair

                    Our idea of a 'good time' - hanging up the American’s silver gingerbread man and paper turkey, the Singapore Singaaran’s snowflake and foam reindeer, the holiday wreath stuck with partridges and pears, and taping paper cut-outs to our windows.

   
                  We set the table with our best plates and silverware, lit candles and incense, and laid out dinner – Salisbury steak, roast chicken, grilled aubergines, and pita bread.

                     There was no pole…although there were some ‘airing of grievances’ and feats of strength (if you take into account our sons’ pouts and heroic attempts to finish their dinner).

                     It was a beautiful end to four days of family fun, reading together, building blocks and elaborate train networks together, making ipad home videos, watching holiday movies on ION, cooking comfort foods, shopping together, snuggling in bed together…even having colds together! Understandably, we look forward to the next weekend when some friends will come home and with us, ring in the new.

                      Merry Christmas!...especially to my friend and neighbor KB, who always presents us with a box of homemade assorted cookies during the season. The cookies are phenomenal, as is my friend, a musician and teacher, and mother of 2 affectionate boys - apple-cheeked A, and J the jellybean. God bless her family, Ameen.

Salisbury Steak:

1. Grind together - 2 slices of bread soaked in 1/2 cup milk, 1 small onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 egg, 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce.

2. Mix this into 2 lbs. of ground beef, together with 2 tsps. salt, and 1 tsp. ground black pepper.

 

3. Shape into palm sized patties, and dust with flour (or cornstarch, if you like).

4. Heat skillet with 1 tsp. oil, and fry the 'steaks' till done (about 4 mins. on each side). If you fear the 'steaks' will lose their moisture, then just cover the skillet and lock in the steam. Keep cooked steaks aside in your serving dish.

The Sauce:

1. In the same skillet, caramelize 1 large sliced onion with 1/2 cup butter. Add 2 tbsps. Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbsp. mustard, 1 tsp. brown sugar, and 2 cups broth (I just made my own instant stock using Maggi veggie cubes), and bring to a boil, stirring constantly to incorporate all the delicious sticky bits in the pan. 

All right, I used another pan - the one in which I stir fried chicken. Same thing. Almost. 

2. Whisk 2 tsps. flour (or 1 tsp. cornstarch, whatever's at hand) into 1/2 cup of this 'sauce', and add to the pan, stirring over a medium flame till the whole thickens.

You're aiming for a rich brown here...

3. Pour over the waiting steaks.

Grilled Aubergines:

1. Slice 2 large aubergines.

2. Toss them with olive oil, salt and basil, and lay out on a baking sheet.

3. Bake @ 350F till done.

After Sandy Hook...

                     Guess who has a $500 million (>6%) stake in the company that produced the Bushmaster rifle used in last week’s tragedy? Ironically, the California State Teacher’s Retirement System, a pension fund for Cal public school teachers.

One:

                     Estragon: “We lost our rights?”                                

                     Vladimir  : “We got rid of them.”

                     (Beckett, Waiting for Godot)

“Guns are only the tools,” they said, in the comments section of major newspapers online. “Guns are not responsible for what people do with them.”

                     Which, I suppose, is why they are sold to all and sundry who can produce an age certificate (>18 years) and the cash.

                     According to the Gallup Poll, 47% of Americans think handguns are the best security for their homes. I once read that it is more dangerous to own a gun, than not. More civilian gun owners end up hurting themselves than they do intruders.

                     Shooting is said to relax and develop one’s single-minded focus. I have nothing against it, if the situation so demands. In India, gentleman farmers often stock guns to guard against dacoits North India. Some use guns to control animal populations, within the state laws. In the U.S., some of our friends hunt to feed their families in Colorado and Wisconsin. So I understand where this statement is coming from, and why. But does this mean everyone has a right to a gun? So now, an 18 year old needs a gun to feel like a man? What does that say about us as parents?

                     As for gun restrictions, psychological tests can always be fudged – so out goes one way of limiting access. How about disarming the larger public altogether?

                     Tougher gun laws after a 1996 massacre brought down homicides in Australia. Australians don’t see home protection as a “justifiable need” to own a gun. In the U.K., 35 people are killed by guns every year. In the U.S., this number is 12,000. The US could go with tougher background checks, permits, high annual license fees, waiting periods. Why not adopt an ethically sound system that prioritizes public safety with LESS guns, not more?

                     In a country where one is supposed to surrender without protest to a police officer in any kind of encounter, why arm civilians to question that authority? Maybe the assumption here is that everyone is of sound mind and judgment, and that crimes of passion do not exist in the U.S.A.

                    The latest we hear of is the need to equip each school with one armed police officer. There could be other avenues for weapons manufacturers to grow their pie...? Just saying...how about a long-term diversification strategy...security systems…safe/locker box manufacturing…self-defense training schools…lesser profits - sure - but also long-term pie growth. You don't want to arm everyone so that your market totals itself through extreme reactions - either through violence or against violence. In any case, another poll showed a change in attitude almost immediately - 52% of Americans (yep, the ones who earlier defended handgun home protection) now want tougher gun laws.

                     How about corporate social responsibility by investing in greater mental health treatment access for those Americans that need it, at a lower cost (given the current lower reimbursements)? Don’t we owe it to the scores of soldiers coming home, who’ve fought using these very weapons?

                    What would happen to the fixed assets of weapons manufacturers upon diversification? How about a government incentive to destroy captured weapons, and to help transition companies into other industries? It’s not as though the world does not need arms protection, but how about answering this need without creating a mass hysteria leading to uncontrollable gun consumption, while helping veterans transition back to civilian life? Guy Kawasaki’s map of mass shootings around the world says it all:

Two:

Here is another stock comment – “I’ve always played violent video games and I’ve NEVER felt the need to shoot anyone down!!”

                    This comment and a slew of similar ones were made after numerous news articles appeared, linking emotional sterility and increased aggression as the effects of long-term exposure to violence/pornography in videos/games, regardless of age and gender (proven by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the International Society for Research and Aggression).

                    No, we're not talking about premises defended by selective evidence. Remember Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and what they had to say about violence and the media? On another note, here's what Susan Sontag says about the objectification in media - "To suffer is one thing; another thing is living with the photographed images of suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be compassionate. It can also corrupt them. Once one has seen such images, one has started down the road of seeing more - and more. Images transfix. Images anesthetize."

                     So much is said about PTSD, the effects from the exposure to violence, the role of domestic dysfunction…Sure, maybe not every gamer would feel the need to shoot anyone down, but perhaps Adam Lanza faced a set of peculiar emotional challenges that sparked off his mental imbalance. Not all of us undergo the same kind of stress, and not all of us react to the same kind of stress in the same way. Adam’s brother Ryan experienced similar trauma upon the break-up of his family – yet he coped better.

“He was a nice kid…he was just very withdrawn and quiet.”

                     I’m not sure if Adam’s parents divorced because of the stress of caring for a mentally imbalanced child, or if Adam buckled due to emotional stress and the subsequent absence of his secondary father figure, his older brother Ryan.

                     I’m not an expert in psychology. Still, from my observations and conclusions of life in general, I can't help thinking that the pressures of the social network in the U.S. that is marked by the pressure to conform certainly contributes towards the isolation of the more timid, insecure, and quiet members of society. Not every brooding individual blossoms into a world-famous artist. So what happens to kids like Adam Lanza who don’t redeem themselves with a talent (remember how Michael J. Fox is suddenly the popular guy when he has a 'cool' identity, in 'Teen Wolf')? 

                     Sometimes, all that is needed is a listening ear, some kindness and empathy. If not for Adam, then at least for his mother, who was clearly worn out by the demands of caring for a mentally ill child as a divorcee, however well she held it together. 

                     The Sandy Hook families will be spending Christmas without their loved ones, and the surviving children might just forever be paranoid about safety, and terrified of loud noises or chaos (I pray they do not succumb to some nervous or mental disorder). We will be failing them all and ourselves if no action is taken to change the gun laws, regardless of the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms).

                     A glimmer of hope that we are moving in the right direction: real estate billionaire Mort Zuckerman pledged $200 million towards mental health research at Columbia University. If more such donations are made, perhaps we can move towards rebuilding a robust mental healthcare system – better than the one that was disbanded in the 1980s.

                     As for those who scoff at the mentally ill – hey, don’t be so sure about yourselves. We are all a little crazy, and we all need a little help.

Istanbul - 3: The Midnight Serenader

                      Our hotel formed the corner of one of the many streets branching off Istiklal Caddesi. Its front door overlooked the main Galatasaray  thoroughfare Rafik Saydam Caddesi, some 300 feet away. You could refresh yourself with a little walk along the river, but if you really wanted stunning views, then you could take the elevator to the little restaurant (under construction) on the top floor and sigh over the bit of the Bosphorus called ‘The Golden Horn’. 

Asia, from Europe

                       The narrow streets running between the four-storey pretty pastel Venetian-style buildings were anything but a hindrance. They were criss-crossed by smaller lanes and I’m sure if I’d stayed there a while longer, I would have figured out the best shortcuts…which no doubt may have been the purpose for such a grid, developed over centuries.

                      These lanes were not more than 10 feet wide and cobbled, so that one’s shoes made that deliciously romantic ‘click’ as one huffed and puffed up to Istiklal. Of course, not the best streets to push a child’s pram along, but just imagine how it might have been a century or two earlier, with only foot traffic and the occasional horse-drawn carriage, with gleaming feathered horses, and the well-dressed visitor.

The 'Cafe de (ahem) Paree'

                       Beyoglu has existed since the Rennaissance…Bey meaning ‘son of’ and Oglu, ‘Lord’ (therefore, ‘son of a Lord’ in Turkish) – a reference to Lodovico Gritti, the son of Andrea Gritti, the Venetian Bailo (ambassador) and later Doge of Venice in 1523. I’m not sure if the building we stayed in was more than a hundred years old, having been named after Guiseppe Donizetti, Instructor General of the Imperial Ottoman Music (from 1808-1839). If this were true, it certainly was very well preserved. Of course, not sound proof at all. All through the week I spent at the hotel, I heard each and every noise from the street one level below, well into the odd hours of the night. It was an authentic Istanbul ‘immersion’ of sorts.



Oops!

                     My room’s large windows could be opened by merely flipping up their sole security – a brass latch. It was very tempting to swing these glass-paned wood-framed panels open at least once a day to amuse myself with all that was going on down there. I once spotted some classmates coming back with kebab rolls wrapped in paper, water bottles in hand. There were always suppliers delivering fresh fruit and vegetables to the grocers, party-goers with their arms over one another, musicians and artists hauling their instruments up the slope, and of course, motorbikes, cars, little vans, pushcarts…

                      The most memorable of all this traffic, and whose voice distinguished itself amidst all the cries and yells from the street below, was an old man. A sad sack, dressed in a dusty black pant suit, ratty black shoes, a white cotton shirt, and believe it or not, a black felt bowler hat. With his thatch of salt and pepper, and his bulbous nose, hand outstretched, he sang a sad tune with pure lung power. From 9pm till 4am. No kidding.

                      
                      There was one particularly raucous night when every group of young men who passed him yelled their heads off with some war cry in response to something he sang. It was complete hysteria. It sounded as though someone were being murdered, or tortured, or bitten by a mad dog, or given our medieval surroundings, put on the rack…And through all the mindless screaming, this old man sang away.

                      He serenaded J, J, M, M, Y, E, and me. I know they all had rooms on the first floor, like me, because our classroom was across the hall and we chatted about it during breakfast…”Which floor are you on?”…”Is your room sound-proof?”…”You know, I couldn’t sleep a wink last night…!”…YAWN. And so we happily dug into our delicious breakfast of cheeses, breads, pastries, fruit, eggs, cold cuts, salads, coffee, tea, juices…until the carbs made us sleepy again by 9:30 a.m., and we downed flasks of spiced Turkish coffee and munched phenomenal Turkish cookies through the day…or, in some cases (mine, I'll admit), succumbed to our cravings and fetched Starbucks lattes and blacks from Istiklal up the hill.

                       Of course, our other classmates on the higher floors had heard him as well. The guy was a powerhouse, belying his skinny frame. He sang with a passion that matched the torch songs of Edith Piaf, the spirituals of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, or the songs one hears very often in the busy streets of India, sung by street performers with fervor and a fever, almost. Songs in praise of God, love, one’s homeland…songs that moved the listener simply by virtue of the artist's depth of feeling.

The Performer



A country for men

                     As Bayram Kurban (Eid-al-Adha) neared, so the old man’s performance lengthened. I had already slept away one morning of classes due to jet lag and the noise at night, so I was very close to throwing open my windows and deliriously yelling, “SHUT UP!!!” But the Turks had been so friendly and polite…besides, there was a clause for ‘acceptable behavior’ in my graduate school course agreement that I couldn’t very well disregard. Most of all though, I caught myself feeling sorry for the old man. I wanted to go down and hand him some cash, but it was 2 a.m. and I didn’t want to invite unwanted attention. So I stood there, my head poking out of the window, the warm air flooding my room, and watched the old guy waving his hands and shooing off hecklers...while, I'm guessing, my classmates tried to drown his baritone with their pillows. We really had no choice but to endure this captivity, like the Wedding Guest collared by the ancient Mariner.

                      He certainly didn’t look mentally stable to me, and the lack of nutrition had rendered him gaunt and feeble, at first glance…except for his voice. To witness his unbroken spirit that poured itself into his full-throated numbers was reassuring, in a way. We often hear, “One can’t live on love and air alone”. But this old man was actively trying to beat the odds…of not having a steady job perhaps, of an untreated mental disease…of being homeless…who knew? He had gone beyond the here and now, and had transcended his own place to share his message with the world.

                      His voice commanded the scene before him for that brief week he stood in that street, wedged in by palazzos that blocked out the sun even on sunny days. His voice cut through the night, through hunger, pain and misery. His voice was an affirmation of survival and hope during Bayram Kurban, under Christmas lights hung between buildings in secular Istanbul. Of seeing beyond the superficial, beyond the smugness that comes of holding on to the material and the immediate. Maybe he was a jinn or the ghost of the Ancient Mariner who had taken human form to remind us that we are one, no matter how different our religions, races, and cultures -

"He prayeth best, who loveth best,

 All things both great and small;

 For the dear God who loveth us,

 He made and loveth all."

A fitting end to our European Regional Business Environment course in Turkey.

                      Needless to say, I spent the next week with my sons and husband in Atakoy, far away from the madding crowd of the party districts of European Istanbul – Galatasaray, Beyoglu, and Taksim.

Goa (May 1997): Looking For Bebinca - 4

                      Tourists zooming along on hired scooters were a common sight. Every single self-respecting tourist spot was not without its ‘Scooter For Hire’ stand and Panaji was simply bursting with these two-wheelers. Panaji, as the state capital, also burst with people. People going to the office, people going to the beach, people going to the market, people going to tourist spots, people going to meet other people, and people hanging around to bump into other people. Old Mai’s in blue, pink, and cream jazzy silk frocks, carrying woven baskets that were filled with groceries; nattily dressed office folk wiping the sweat off their foreheads with their white handkerchiefs, and squashing their files under their arms; innumerable loafers in their trademark dirty pants, smelly clothes, and their sweat stained caps.

                        The funny thing was, the ones who were in the greatest rush were the tourists – Gujaratis, Punjabis, Mumbaiites, Malayalees…They shouted and swore (in their own languages). They blared their horns, and pulled long faces. When they saw a gap in the lane, they tried to squeeze their cars and bikes through. They were on a holiday and it seemed as though they’d left their good manners at home. The Goans, on the other hand, seemed untouched by the blazing sun. They went about their business with good humor and great calm. If they frowned or spoke sharply, it was at an erring child or an utterly sloppy character they’d had to deal with. And even then, they seemed to sing out their frustrations.

                         We trundled past stacks of tea shops, endless restaurants, provision stores, STD (‘Standard Trunk Dialling’)/ISD booths, hair salons, Bata shoe shops, bakeries, pharmacies, sweetshops, and roads full of people till we connected with Panaji’s main road. This medium-sized road hugs the Secretariat, the Mandovi Hotel, a park, a few bus stops, and a great line of shops. What distinguished it most was its picture-perfect look. The buildings were all not more than two storeys high and they stood in a neat line, painted white, prim and proper. On the other side of the road lay a narrow promenade that traced the Mandovi River.

                         We parked near a row of shops and I strolled down alone to the Secretariat. It stood out on the Panaji landscape with its white stucco walls, red tiled roof, square dark windows barred with wrought iron. It belied its small size with an incredibly imposing face and squatted, ushakeable and solemn, in its corner. I could see why Goa might have elicited memories of Lisbon. The distant authority of the ruling country had replicated itself in a far more exaggerated fashion here. The architecture of a colony often overwhelms itself in its intent to remind native and ruler alike of the utopian ruling power that lies across the seas, far far away. It aims to be inspirational, grandiose, grave, commanding.

                         In Goa, Roman Catholicism had given colonial architecture a severe and punitive face. It was the face of massive grey stone, piled row upon row, fortifying prisons and retreats and convents and monasteries. It was thick , impenetrable walls that held within them immeasurably romantic courts, near Moorish in design, green with palms and creepers, scented with jasmine, whose arches and walkways had their silence broken by the calls of the birds, and where the bees themselves were drowsy and spent,

                         “Until they think warm days will never cease,
                          For summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells
                          ...with patient look
                          Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.”

                         Time stood still, broken only by our footfalls on the wooden boards and tiled courts. It seemed like an uncertain paradise. For still the walls cried down upon us – “Repent and you shall be forgiven!”

Goa (May 1997): Looking For Bebinca - 3

                    By the second day I had become a permanent fixture in the verandah, having glued myself to the cane swing chair. Given the chance, I might have set up camp there.

                    My sister broke into the scene, bouncing as she always did, into the verandah. “Hey sis! You’d better get dressed. The bathroom’s free now. In half an hour we’re having breakfast and then we’re off to see Santhani Aunty.”

                    “Who???” I didn’t connect as fast as she spoke.

                    But she was off, and she’d made sure I’d heard the bit about the ‘free bathroom’. Oh well!

                    We rocked in the car as it bobbed along tiny road bumps. These could hardly be classified as ‘speed breakers’. To be honest, they were little raised bits of tar and gravel. But they were infuriatingly frequent and they occurred in instances of twenty or thirty at a time, each stretch about a meter or two wide. They were very effective in slowing down all vehicles, with the exception of cyclists who simply took to the untarred sides of the road. 

                    “Mmm - bop - ba - doo - bi - da - ba - doo - bop - ba - doo - bi - da - ba - dooo…” my sister droned Hanson with each bump.

                    It was 10 a.m. and I was sweating already. I ran out of tissues and I had to turn to our picnic towel for relief!

                    I looked back. My mother was fast asleep, snoring, and my father stared out of the window, his camera slung around his neck. Mr. Rosario was squinting at the road and seemed lost in the serious intent of doing a good job.

                    I turned to the road again and asked, “Mr. Rosario, how long will it take us to get to Panjim?”

                    “25 minutes?” he replied. He sounded confident, as he always did.

                    We eventually made it in 45, not counting out stop on the Zoari bridge.

                    The road to Panjim is not straight. No road in Goa is straight. The land is rocky, uneven, stubborn, and in all the 4 days we spent there, I can honestly say that the only straight stretch of road I remember is the Causeway, about 3 kms long, that lies just before the Zoari bridge. I clocked the distance on our way back and I discovered that the only time one could breathe a sigh of relief in one’s seat is but for a short 7 minutes, on that particular stretch. Other times, you fought to sit still as the road curved and went up and down sharply and threatened to throw you out of the door.

                    We were doing 70 kms per hour and we were driving very dangerously, at that. The bus drivers here, like everywhere else in India, were maniacs! To add to the road race was competition from countless tourist vans, smaller and lighter, and jampacked with mummies and daddies and uncles and aunties and grannies and screaming kids. Their suitcases had been lashed to the tops of the vans and with each flashing vision through their barred windows, I could see tiffins being exchanged, shirts getting changed, and songs being yelled out with enthusiasm. And on the sides of some vans, the tiffin had been spewed out in the shape of a muddy yellow-green streak.

                    They zipped along the narrow palm-lined roads like spaceships, in their brilliant colors, proclaiming their names in bold lettering on metal boards pinned above their windshields. While bracing ourselves for an impending collision, my sister and I tried to read as many names as we could – “Roseanne…Mahalakshmi…Saraswati…Teresa…” And ‘Immaculate Mary’ too, that was painted in a glorious pagan celebration of red, black, and yellow. But truly, it was not so much a colorful irreverence as much as it was the flaming passion of the Goans for their respective religions. It was touching to see the love with which they’d decorated and painted their vans and trucks, each of which bore a Saint’s or a Goddess’ name…and in many cases, a sweetheart’s name, I'm sure. And near the hawker’s stalls which were clustered around the fringes of every tourist spot, these vans stood, with their drivers jealously guarding them.

                    To drive into Panjim, one must cross the Zoari river. It was a sight I hadn’t been prepared for. Travelling in Tamil Nadu during the summer, I had grown accustomed to seeing dried up streams half-heartedly chugging along river beds. The sight of this immense, brimming river was overwhelming. It stretched as far as the eye could see and if we hadn’t been crossing it over this massive bridge, I might’ve mistaken it to be the sea. It glimmered and shimmered and sparkled like diamonds on a carpet of grey in the distance. And with the great expanse of clear blue sky soaring above it, it was an awesome sight. It took me a while to realize that my mouth was hanging open. I caught Mr. Rosario looking on with happy pride as we spilled into the car to look over the cement railing.

                    As we continued driving to Panaji, he spoke with my father.

                    “Bridge finish this year, Saab.”

                    I felt my father nod beside me. 

                    My mother, who had fallen asleep again, woke up with a start and sleepily asked him, “It fell down some years ago, Mr. Rosario?”

                    “Yes, Madam.”

                    My father rustled his arms over the camera and adjusted his specs, “We read about it in the papers. Very sad, it was. Quite a few people lost their lives in the tragedy.” He was quiet.

                    “Well, at least they completed it and have done a good job.” Mummy murmured, after the silence, before nodding off again, like Alice's dormouse. And with that, we entered the first busy street of outer Panaji (or Panjim, as it was once known).

Goa (May 1997): Looking For Bebinca - 2

                     We were lucky to be staying at the Goa Port Trust Guest House – for the view alone. Our rooms overlooked the entire harbor at Vasco. Every evening, when we were done with sightseeing and excellent dinner at the Guest House’s dining room, I would settle into a bucket-shaped swing chair in the balcony and sketch the view in the balmy sea breeze. When it got dark, the lights would come on, and you could fool yourself as being in a fantastic movie. I pretended we were an alien spaceship that had landed on this tropical paradise that was strung with fairy lights, and promised many treasures in the form of fauna and flora. It was the anticipation itself that made this thought exciting. At least, that was what I liked to imagine then.

                     The modern ivory colored Guest House bungalow, with its tinted windows and wide lawns, stood atop a hill and I could look for miles into the horizon, and point out the various shades of blue the waters took. The bay I gazed over was curved, like a ‘c’, and beyond this there was a similar ‘c’ that peeped out. And beyond that, another one. It seemed as though someone had munched around a gigantic cookie, and then set it adrift in the ocean. But Goa is not an island.

                     The state of Goa is a tiny triangle cutting into the larger state of Maharashtra, that is globally known for its film industry ‘Bollywood’, and by its state capital Bombay, now Mumbai. The ‘islands’ of Goa are really bits of mainland intricately traversed by the Zoari and Mandovi rivers, that flow past Panaji, Goa’s state capital. The Terekhol river separates Goa in the north from Maharashtra. To its east lie a range of mountains called the Western Ghats that ensure Goa’s coastal climate by blocking the Southwest Monsoon. To its west lies the Arabian Sea that brings the monsoon to Goa.

                     With an area of 3,702 sq. km., Goa is the smallest state in India, and it lies on the western coast of the Indian Peninsula. Its size, and reputation for romance (‘The Golden Beaches of Goa!’, ‘Come to Golden Goa!’, ‘Sunshine and Song!’, cried its tourist brochures) made it seem bewitching.

                    Perched safely upon the Guest House verandah in my cane chair, out of reach of the pounding surf below, it was tempting to get lulled to sleep. The rhythmic crash of the waves and the warm sea breezes felt like a balm. The wind was strong up here, and it carried snatches of Goan songs and guitars from the houses built on the lower ledges of the hill. A few employees of the Goa Port Trust lived there. In the mornings, they would climb up the steps cut into the hill and make their way to the road above, in their dark pants and knee length dresses and cheerful sarees, carrying their lunches in shoulder bags. They seemed happy and content. If they didn’t have a smile on their faces, the shadow of one lingered near their lips. Their radios played on in the evenings, occasionally broken by the sound of high busy beeps from tiny fishing boats and pint-sized trawlers and the low bass hoots of the big giants. On my second night in the verandah, I noted that it was 9 p.m. and the ships were still working at transferring loads.

                     I wasn’t always by myself on the verandah. My sister amused me a great deal, unconsciously, and she enjoyed the view and the sound of the waving coconut palms as much as I did. Fresh from a school skit, at 13, dialogues came easily to her.

                       “Goa harbor…what an entrancing sight!” she exclaimed dramatically, one hand up in the air and another upon her heart. Her audible and long-drawn sigh at the end of this statement made me smile widely.

                       I couldn’t resist her sunny nature and good humor, and I used to look forward to unwinding on the verandah together. She would count the ships every morning and evening and make her observations about their movements. She noticed that the one we’d spotted yesterday had moved out to drop anchor just outside the harbor precincts.

                       My handbook told me that after tourism, Goa’s next strength is trade. Iron ore is slushed in gigantic pipes from Kudremukh (so called because the mountain there seemed like a horse’s face) in South Canara district (Karnataka state, south of Goa), to Mangalore (also in Karnataka) by the sheer force of gravity alone. It is thereafter pumped to Vasco where it is loaded on ships to Japan and elsewhere.

Goa (May 1997): Looking For Bebinca - 1

                  Travelling in Goa is in its own way like travelling in Portugal, I suppose. Not that I’ve been there – but the profusion of Portugese names such as Rodriguez, Paes, Gonsalves, Menezes, Pinto, give you the impression of having moved to a place that is not fully Indian and yet not fully foreign.

                  I couldn’t help remembering a joke I’d once read, where a man relates, “Some two years back, my colleague and I had to visit Portugal for business. My friend, who had never travelled much out of Bombay, was amazed! He kept looking at all the signs he could see, as hard as he could, all the way from the airport right up to the hotel. Then, turning to me, he said, dumbstruck, “I can’t believe it! There are so many Goans here!”…

                 Coincidentally, Goa was once known as the Lisbon of the East. Although its Portugese settlers once fondly recalled ‘Lisboa’, yet their children were keenly aware of their own mixed identities as Indians and Europeans, and of their loyalities too. Hence Leon Gonsalves (played by Dilip Tahil, in Shyam Benegal’s 1986 award winner ‘Trikaal’) passionately rebels against his colonial family in the fight for Goa’s transition into an Indian state in 1961.

                 My first memory of Goa is its cheerful light blue sky. I was there during the summer. India has largely two seasons – a scorching summer and a monsoon that tries to make up for the hellfire that preceded it. In this season of showers and grey skies, one helpful man told me, the rain fell in torrents.

                 He wiped his friendly face with his sleeve and squinted at the sky anxiously. The stain of his sweat had darkened the green checks that covered his arm and the cloth stuck to his skin, near transparent. His brown polyester trousers were dusty and he grimaced as he tried to shake the grit off them by stamping on the bare ground. He swiped his shoe fronts on his calves in an effort to polish them in a single stroke. Then, blowing on his glass of tea at the Shalimar Tea Shop in Vasco, where we were staying, he said, “You should see Goa then. My nephews hop around like frogs…”

                 When I had moved out of the tea shop after buying a bag of cashew biscuits, I heard my sister begin her chant in the distance, “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy, when are we going to eat Bibiki, Bibiki, Bibiki?”

                 My sister A had been lured to Goa on the promise that we would spend our days exploring the streets of Panjim, and that we would shop for ‘Bibiki’, among numerous other things she wanted. My mother, although she didn’t know it at that moment, had got the name of this Goan pudding wrong.

                 “We’ll see”, she replied. “Keep a sharp lookout, okay?” This satisfied my sister who slipped her hand into my father’s and sprung away, trying not to miss a single shop on the road. We passed Vasco Tailors, then a provision store, then Miranda Book House where an old man sat bent on a wooden stool, dressed in a worn white shirt, dusting second hand books, then Miranda Lodge. In this sleepy part of town – and to be honest, almost all parts of Goa seemed sleepy to me – with its narrow winding streets, and its one-storey buildings, and grassy lots of coconut trees, every tea shop was full and every eating house had its patrons dipping their hands into dosas and sambar or plates of puri and potato. Cars stood jammed against the metal railings that protected the sidewalk, and where there weren’t any cars there stood stacks of cycles and scooters, some chained to the railing for security.

                 The sleepiness induced by the sun kept getting broken by the busy commerce that was flourishing in the shade of these dark shops. I looked around and there seemed to be something missing. Then it struck me.

                 “Where have all the young people gone?” I asked Mr. Rosario, our driver.

                 “Them missie?” he answered, rubbing his grimy hands on his uniform. “All gone to college in Panjim or Bambai.”

                 “Bombay?”

                 Yes. Goa university only here. And some Medical colleges. I have one son, Ivor. He also going to Bambai missie.”

                 “Everyday???” I couldn’t imagine spending half the day in a bus, 5 days a week.

                 “Yes, everyday! Morning wake up 5 a.m. Then leaving for college 6:30 a.m. Coming back 6:30. College only at 9, 9:30 missie.” He wondered if I wanted to ask him more questions. I didn’t. I was too shellshocked to reply. Attending college from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and having the rest of the day to myself to do as I pleased had softened me obviously. And made me shamefully suspicious of long hours. Now, I had a new respect for students in Goa.

                 My sister piped up again. “Mummy! There’s no Bibiki…anywhere!”

                   My mother looked harassed, and sweaty. “Let’s keep looking then. All right, why don’t you ask Mr. Rosario to get the car here? My feet are simply killing me. Look!” My father bent down to peer at Mummy’s swollen feet.

                   “Rosario uncle!” my sister gaily called out. He’d disappeared in the wink of an eye across the road.

                   My tired Mum shot her an irritated glare. “Don’t shout on the road like that! AA (at me), why don’t you take her along to look? Your father and I will wait here.”

                   My heart sank. This meant I’d have to fight my way through a crowd of noisy men to locate this guy. I gritted my teeth and balanced on the road divider, preparing to cross the other half of the road when Mr. Rosario appeared miraculously, his face wet and washed.

                   My sister was not going to waste a single moment. She piped up in the car, “Rosario uncle, where can we get some Bibiki?”

                 Mr. Rosario blinked. “Bibiki? What is that?”

                  My sister, by nature, did not give up easily. “Bibiki”, she repeated. “That’s a Goan sweetmeat.”

                  Mr. Rosario had a brilliant smile for her now. “There is one Bebinck.”

                  “Bebinck?” My sister was unsure.

                  “Yes. Not Bibiki. Bebinck!” Mr. Rosario had hit the right button, whammo!

                  “Ok, good. Thank you. So where can we get it? Do they sell it anywhere here?”

                  Mr. Rosario was certain, ‘dead sure’ – “Yes missie! Here…anywhere…you look.”

                  “Then can you take us to the shop?”

                    This is where he stopped. He concentrated on the road ahead and cradled the steering wheel with his hands. “Oh…I don’t know…” He brightened, his eyes never left the road though. “But you ask and see…?” This whole day we’d been combing the streets of Vasco for this Bibiki that my mother remembered from her childhood days. Never mind, we would look again – and say the right word this time.

Skyfall: The Queen is Dead. Long Live the King!

Alert: This is not a review per se. More a feminist perspective of 'Skyfall', and a very personal response.

                    “Orphans make the best recruits,” M says, while she and 007 stop along a stream, on their way to Skyfall. Of all the eminently forgettable lines in a Bond movie written for grown-up kids, this line stuck in my head.

                    When I hear or read stuff like the dialogue above, I torment myself with how an orphan might feel tossed about, of having no one to call one’s own, of being exposed to dangers that children with parents don’t conventionally face…well, at least to a lesser degree. Who does one confide in, speak about one’s fears to, consult, confront, rebel against? Who tucks one into bed, waits up when one is home late, or kisses away one’s boo-boos? And how does the absence of all this influence a child as he grows up?

                    As a parent, then, I really felt for 007 and the villain Silva, not because of the thought of a parent’s mortality but because of the hole in the heart of a child who is orphaned, and of how this hole has the potential to be filled either by positive action or by deliberately taking the wrong path as a reaction to trauma and abuse. In Skyfall, we have the prime examples of the results of having taken either path – Bond vs. Silva…with an additional exploration of how one might also recover from a 'betrayal' by an idealized, substitute parent of sorts…in this case, M.

                    M is made out to be an exacting – sometimes, cruel – mother, whose love must be earned via jumping through MI6 hoops. Is she beyond compare? That’s something ‘Skyfall’ cannot make up its mind about. We know from the Bond universe, that M is efficient, ruthless, an excellent leader…and yet she is made to fail in this movie.

                    For some reason, Mendes and Fleming decide to let the elderly lady in charge slip up and be saved by (who else?) two men – her life is protected by a strapping male agent whom she is sweet on (or so we are told…she bequeaths him her porcelain bulldog, and allows him to return despite his not quite making the grade...!), and her mess is cleaned up by a male colleague who takes over the ship’s lead.

                    Does Mommy regret or show remorse for her betrayal…or even try to patch up with an explanation? M says to a visibly fragile 007 (who will then go on to fail his physical), “I had to make a judgment call!” And for Silva, who keeps reminding her to “Think upon your sins”, she has no words...just a communique, “You will spend the rest of your days in…” – spoken unemotionally, even without coldness. 

                    Silva has forfeited the right to expect any feeling from M, whose secrets he valiantly guarded while being tortured by the Chinese, only to discover eventually that it was Mommy who had given him up in exchange for 6 British agents...following which he makes his judgment call. It is not the torture or its memory that hurts Silva…it is the fine edge of being tossed away once more that cuts deep, everyday.

                    Javier Bardem is outstanding in capturing the frustration that a fallen angel might torment himself with, upon discovering his effeteness in making any impression whatsoever upon his Oedipal fixation. All he wants is to sleep calmly, after having heard the approval he once enjoyed, and it hurts worse than hell to realize that he does not make any difference at all. Bardem is beyond brilliant in portraying the anxieties that rule those who walk the thin line between genius and madness.

                    Of all the silly villains I have been forced to endure while watching these male-centric Bond movies – only because I love my husband – I have to say Silva is the only one who sends a shiver down my spine. This is not a man you would want to meet.

                    Can you imagine a physically well-built, intellectually handsome man who speaks softly –no matter the subject – because he has experienced so much depravity that nothing surprises him anymore? He has completely shut down his emotions and functions solely as a logical machine…the only passion driving him on being an obsession to get even…This is a case that not even serious psychiatric help can mellow because the nightmarish memories are still screaming, and they are screaming too loud.

                     But to return to the scene where M and 007 take a breather while fleeing…”Orphans make the best recruits”…Thus, in the midst of their short respite, they give us an inkling of the inner workings of secret agents. What makes them human. The ‘whys’. This is what made ‘Skyfall’ more bearable than all the other boring Bond movies that preceded it. A peep into the psychological unknown.

                      We are emphatically told that MI6 is no longer a treasure trove of gadgets and gimmicks – no more funny pens or phones. Q tells 007, "We don't go in for that kind of thing anymore" ;). And yet it can’t resist the lure of the Empire…when all else fails, Bond leads M to a dusty garage in the bellows of London, to reveal a shiny GOLD Aston Martin that purrs valiantly and sweeps M away to a chez (where else?) Bond. Of course, when this car is smashed by Silva, 007 can’t help but bring out his big guns. Sigh!

                       The land that surrounds these two en route to Skyfall is ruggedly beautiful. Mists roll in from the hills along a landscape that itself roils and twists, mossy, peaty, golden brown and dull green. With these colors and strong lines that reiterate the erotic machismo of George Bellow’s paintings, Sam Mendes hints at the strife-torn history of Scotland that in turn picks up the urgency of the ‘Skyfall’ itself, and suggests what is to come – the battle of all battles that will end M’s reign.

                       Yes, M faces her nemesis in this film, and her place is taken by the worthy Gareth Mallory, the new ‘M’ – played by the inimitable Ralph Fiennes…(him of the twinkly blue eyes and dreamy smile!).

                        With this, Mendes firmly sets the sun on M’s rule and raises a new monarch – not one who is a maternal (read ‘stifling’, boss who makes poor judgment calls…Ok, we women get it) – but one who understands Bonds needs and attaches a perky, sexy assistant for his benefit – Ms. Moneypenny. Also, lest we forget, we are shown the new office with the man in charge – no longer massive and onerous, but sunny, buoyant, and ready for action!

Fiennes as Mallory, with enlightenment shining from his face, as he awaits his turn in M's brooding office (!)

                        With these myriad changes, I dared to hope that Bond would be female in the next film…only to realize the heresy of my thoughts...

                        For all my rants about the treatment of women in the Bond tradition, I have to admit this latest movie was very enjoyable. Craig is impeccably fit, Bardem approaches Hannibal Lecter, and Dench is awesome, as always, for the manner in which she introduces vulnerability into her character. As for Fiennes, my visual treat and the only reason why I wanted to watch this film...I would not be alone in saying emphatically, "He is SO worth it."