Yay, It's Back To School!

This morning, the colors of our garden seem brighter than ever. The scene is straight out of a photoshoot for Vogue. Vivid, lush greens, heady violets, the startling blue sky, the sun dappled street, the pleasantly cool morning - heaven itself. My senses have been awakened and primed. A little too much perhaps. Why, I even imagined stunning birds fly up from the bushes and into the trees in this Eden, violins playing in the background, the breeze lifting my hair in the most flattering way. No, I'm not on drugs...although I very well could be, given my delirium.

These, my friends, are the symptoms of a parent giving thanks to the Lord upon the departure of his/her child off on the adventure that is the first day of school. To know that you will be, for the first time in 2 months, savoring your solitude for a full 5 hours, and to be able to stand straight and wave serenely to a cheerfully chugging yellow school bus despite the full comprehension of this fact (appearances must be kept up, after all) is a feat not unlike the swan's regal bearing as it paddles furiously underwater. My little mite and I regally waved the Singapore Singaaran off to a great start in Grade 1, before turning around and walking earnestly into the glass storm door in a reverie.

For most of the summer, this is what I descended down to by the end of the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMI4rE-WHs ('Clean up this mess!' clip, from 'Mommie Dearest'). So you see, really, I have no control over these psychosomatic reactions.

Last night, celebrations were in full swing as I did a jig - Gangnam style - by my elder son's bedside - "Yay, He's off to school! He's off to school! He's off to school!" Of course, he refused to join in prancing around with his crazy mother, choosing instead to bury his nose and giggling into the Amar Chitra Kathas his Dad had lugged home from India. Tales from the Jataka or something to that effect, if I remember correctly. Hmm, an Indian fable is never amiss at such times, my boy.

Anyways, I'll admit I felt a pang as he happily skipped away. Now, to get the other one - my American - up and running - while I'm pumped up on Psy's anthem.

I'll leave you with 'Gangnam Style' - his refreshingly irreverent Korean rap video that has been infecting all of South East Asia (and the world, probably, who knows? 100 million hits so far on youtube). It was heartening to see that there still exist people who don't take themselves too seriously, and who don't mind making perfect asses of themselves. Am especially fond of the chap who beams and wags his hips at us inside the elevator as if to say, "I don't give a fig!" (No, really, that is what I wanted to say). Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

Dear Little Texan Girl

Little 11 year old Hispanic Texan Girl
Who wore make-up
And a mini-skirt atop your high-heeled pins,
Who flaunted your body,
Lacked parental supervision,
And a decent upbringing,
And everything else the media said,
To justify the reason why you were gang-raped over 3 months,
Repeatedly, by allegedly 19 men,
Those very readers would avoid on any street.

 

Forgive them their ignorance, dear one,
For they know not
How you lost count
After they set upon you
One after another.
That you lived after this crucifixion
When others might have died
Is a testament to your purpose.
Embrace it like a Seer
To lead the world from talk into action.

 

Dear little Texan Girl,
Walk with your head held high
Like a South American Goddess
With your tresses flaming the sky
And your eyes clear.
Slay those animals at your sacrificial altar.
There is a dawn after this death, dear
Goddess, Priestess, Oracle.
Embrace your strength, dear one,
And love yourself again.



Granted - not a poem that would pass muster...but just letting loose in disbelief and fury at the insensitivity and judgment cast upon this poor Hispanic child since 2011, both in her hometown of Cleveland, Texas, and on internet news forums.

Here was an 11 year old who, for some reason, had found herself trapped in repeated, brutal sexual abuse by not one, but 19-odd men...and women both in her hometown and on the web were demeaning this girl for her dress sense, provocative and brazen conduct, etc. So they thought themselves righteous enough to point a finger at her for having 'split a town in half', instead of reaching out to counsel and heal her? 

Even if this child had been ostracized by her peers for "looking older than her age", surely her teachers might have cared enough to catch on? Did a friend's mother try to connect with her mother? Didn't a neighbor observe her routine? Or was this one of those stories where people just look the other way because no change or good would come of interfering? Whatever be the reason why the community support system did not work, there is no way the rape of a child can be justified.

In a country where the "woman was asking for rape" argument has been thrown out of the window, where child beauty pageants are all the rage, and where (despite the shrill voice of feminism) women have come to associate physical beauty and sex as a positive affirmation of their worth, why ever should it matter what this child was wearing or painting upon herself? She is a child.

The last article I read about her reported that her family had been driven out of town, in the aftermath of her father's efforts to secure some justice. A small relief that one of her rapists will be locked away for 99 years. The legal system in the United States conferred some ruling against the perpetrators - well, mainly because they were poor, jobless loafers themselves. Who knows - had her abusers been rich men, or had she been born in another country, the poor child might have "disappeared"...

As a mother, I feel stricken when reading this little one's trauma. May time heal this poor child, Ameen.

Ekaambaram

My mother named it Ek-aam-baram.

A name born of Urdu and Tamil,

Like us Dekkanis trilingual in our native tongues -

The vernacular, the Mother, and the coloniser’s discourse –

Because it stubbornly bore

Just one and only one Banganapalli

At the end of each sweltering mango season,

Weighing green from its stem,

Ponderous, solemn, decided.

Manjula and I planted the slimy seed one muggy summer afternoon,

After we had scraped its flesh off with our teeth,

Flinging the skin over our shoulders into the shrubs

Surrounding the sun-bleached trough where we eight year old’s crouched,

In a worn blue pavadai sattai and a white cotton slip,

Shoulder’s wrapped around her bony and my chubby knees.

Ten years later, Manjula visited to ask for help with her newborn daughter’s surgery

Because her drunkard painter husband was

Dipping into an arrack glass as thick as his head.

My mother gave her Rs. 500 back then

And a basket of mangoes from the shower

Ekaambaram defiantly pummeled us with that summer

To be carried by our new domestic help from the slum

As Manjula walked home barefoot on the blistering tar road

And I watched from my cane chair, in jeans and a literary classic.

When I visited my parent’s home the last time,

A mother myself, with my first born in my arms,

Manjula’s striking 13 year old slung the mangoes home in a gunny sack

While her mother and I cried at the casual divergence of our lives

After our girlhood summers,

Our eyes squinting from the glint of the kaleidoscopes we called our separate paths,

As many hued as Ekaambaram’s fruit scattered in my mother’s backyard.

Manjula carrying my first-born in December 2006, in my mother's garden, Madras, India.
As is evident, her beauty remains as youthful as ever thanks to back-breaking labor on construction sites, while I was already sagging even 11 months after my very first delivery (!).



Breakfast of Champions...

...alternatively titled 'Goodbye, Blue Monday' by Kurt Vonnegut, prods the reader to take a second look at reality and fiction, compassion and inhumanity, and the grey areas in between...in this hilarious story about 2 old white men who meet and experience a mental combustion of sorts...in the unmistakably-named fictional town of 'Midland City'.

Of the 2 men, one is a writer still waiting for worldly fame. Only one person has heard of him after all these years, apart from readers of adult sci-fi magazines. The other man is an extremely successful car dealer who has devoted his life to the worship of Mammon, and has been suitably rewarded. What do these guys have in common? Like I said, a kind of an ignition, a candesence, stemming from a glorious, uproarious, misunderstanding - the car dealer, now slowly losing his mind, meets the rather bitter writer, and takes his fictional works as the whole truth. What ensues is what my realtor friend would describe as a "hoot!".

'Breakfast of Champions' is itself an easy read, but blows you away with its spiritual message - that in a flawed world, as illustrated by this haunting, quirky, tragic tale, there is still hope for humanity. Vonnegut addresses the insanity of our world via his characters, his tongue-in-cheek observations, his typically zany humor...as though explaining life on earth to an alien audience. Becoming his own character, as it were, writing his sci-fi stories, accentuating the process within the process, and encouraging us to take a second look at ourselves.

Thank you, Vonnegut. Although your novel is 30-odd years old now, it still contains a message for us even now, and probably will address our stupidities in the future. I would say, a most appropriate novel for the times...for those who get its lyrical prose.

But to take a step into my here and now...the 'breakfast of champions' I actually want to describe is the breakfast we had this morning - 'Khaaraz' or omelets studded with 1 deseeded, chopped, jalapeno, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and chopped white onions...

 ...lovingly drowned in a 'Saalan' (sauce) made with sauteed onions, tomatoes, ginger-garlic paste, chilli powder, turmeric powder, cumin seeds, and fresh chopped coriander...

...and served up with 'Dosaas' or Indian crepes, made with a fermented rice and maash/urad dal (black grams/pulses) batter...

The cherry tomatoes and jalapenos were left on our porch one evening by our friend and neighbor KS, who is a teacher, healer, and nature-lover with a fabulously green thumb, to whom we are ever grateful for her tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and so on...An American Shakumbhari Devi (an Indian deity worshipped by North Indian Hindus, for her powers to provide a bountiful harvest), one might say.

Thank you, KS! Your organically grown vegetables are outstandingly intense in flavor and beat the grocers' anyday.

A Beautiful Day

Well, I'll be! More than a month has gone by sans a post from yours truly. In all fairness, it was one thing after another - my MBA finals, the month of Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr - the big day, making serious investments, trying to keep the Singapore Singaaran amused during his summer holidays, potty training the American, etc, etc...

Although I have to run in 10 minutes, I thought I'd squeeze in something about Eid, that was celebrated on the 20th of August this year, in the U.S.A., upon the sighting of the new moon the night before in North America. As always, there were those who chose to celebrate it on the 21st, following the calendar of the Indian subcontinent...Really, this difference of opinion when one has made one's home 1000's of miles away!

It was truly a beautiful and peaceful day - beginning with prayer, good spirits, a sumptuous repast of Dekkani Indian food, and ending much on the same note. The delightful exhaustion of a day fruitfully spent in brotherhood both among one's community and with the larger American community! Best of all - the kids were so tired from playing and visiting, they simply fell asleep after dinner at 7pm :), allowing the First Mate and I to just relax and savor the rare quiet evening.

On our way home in the afternoon, we spotted a distant shower, about 2-3 miles away...

...which moved to our neighborhood in a short while as a sunshower or 'Jackal's Wedding' ('Lomdi ki Shaadi'), as they describe it in India:

Hope your day was as great as ours. Peace and goodwill to all of you!

Dance to Your Own Beat

A few weeks ago, we were invited to a friend's son's arangetram. Whether or not the word 'etram' (ascension) applies to all art or just 'arangu' (dance), I'm not sure, but in this case, it was a debut music concert...so I suppose apply it does. The instrument was the mridangam (South Indian drum), accompanied by the mandolin, violin, veena, and the Jewish harp.

But for some high school students playing tennis, the surroundings were quiet. No one would have guessed that inside, a carnatic music concert was in full swing (yes, we were late). A dark theatre scented with jasmine...the rustle of deeply hued saffron, crimson, peacock blue, deep purple Kanjeevaram silks...and an audience thoroughly enjoying the reverberations and following the beat with their own thaalam.

As we walked up to the high school auditorium, kolams adorned the path. Our sons were intrigued by these patterns on the ground and they tried identifying images in the kolam. South Indian kolams integrate flowers, birds, and fish into their design...and while fish look more or less the same regardless of the species, the flowers and birds are peculiar to India. And so our elder son pointed out a 'Lily' (not the Indian Lotus), while the younger one mistook conch shells for snails. At least the parrot was correctly spotted, by its unmistakable hooked beak and its beady eye...!

In the USA, one sees kolams drawn with sidewalk chalk or just a vinyl pattern stuck on. The ones above seem to have been made with rice flour paste, with chalk highlights in pink.

In Madras, most Hindu homes have a kolam in front of the compound gate and the main door. The kolam is drawn afresh every morning for it gets stepped on and blurred as the day progresses. Kolams are meant to invite prosperity into one's home. To discourage evil spirits, all lines in the kolam are unbroken in a neverending knot, a talisman as it were.

During my childhood, white rice powder was popularly used to make the pattern. The artist would gather a sizeable pinch between her thumb and forefinger, from a screw of paper, and steadily release a trail to form a line. To draw another line, she would gather another pinch and so it would go on.

"Why ricepowder?", I asked a friend once. "To feed the birds and insects", she replied. Her mom told us it was a good idea to keep the ants at bay. So, drawing a rice powder kolam is shooting 4 birds with one stone - positive energy, starting afresh every day, doing one's bit in feeding other creatures, and protecting one's homes from invaders of different kinds. I've heard - never seen them myself - that during festivals, entire streets are covered with kolams, in the agraharams near the Mylapore temple - drawn quickly and surely in the morning, on sunny days - of course, necessitating kolam contests!

Last year, when visiting the Museum of Art in Hong Kong, I saw this...

I was reminded of the Indian kolam and its unbroken lines...

It appears the Chinese endless knot is a Buddhist auspicious symbol, introduced to China by Indian Buddhist missionary monks 2,500 years ago. The 'endlessness' of the lines represent the Eternal Divine, while their fluidity symbolizes the everpresent change and the ephemeral nature of time. Nothing is permanent. In the manner of the Thai Buddhist sand paintings that are destroyed upon completion, so also does a kolam fade away through the day, only to be reborn the next.

At the end of the concert, my friend's guru blessed the performers and spoke of 2 ideas - abhyaasa (practice) and vairagya (a state of non-attachment). In other words, to practice those principles and values in one's life so as to move onwards in the spiritual journey towards the Eternal Divine (in Islam, we know this as jihad, or the constant 'battle' to live life ethically)...and to avoid stagnation as a result of too much 'attachment' to one's surroundings/relationships.

Today businesses are told to "practice, practice, practice" those management principles, processes and strategies that make them optimally efficient, and to remain non-attached to any situation that makes them too comfortable for their own good. Vairagya helps in keep things in check, and reminds a business to exercise agility as and when needed to re-align itself to the immediate market pulse and greater macroeconomic forces. To change its 'thaalam' as per the beat of its external and internal factors, and thus perform successive arangetrams in the theatre of the global marketplace.

Small surprise

My sons were badgering me for some grapes shortly after lunch and look what we were thrilled to discover...

A jumbo punkin' shaped grape :)!

It appears they will not eat this curiosity, but consecrate it in the fridge...who knows, their dad might want to do it justice after Iftaar today.