3rd June

And here it is again, Washed in Rain

Drenched in Memories. June.

Big, fat droplets hanging on to

Dark Green Leaves and peeping through

Tangerine coloured monsoon blossoms

An exterminator is coming today

To put to rest some bugs,

and maybe some memories

Of a cold funeral

and the funeral of a wedding

But soon, the wastelands of June will disappear

in it’s own flood

And as I wade, I will carry you dry and safe,

As I have these past 8 years

To live my year

In tears of laughter, in moments of truth,

in old forgotten songs, on my next holiday

A lump in my throat, You will be

My Christmas, My Ouzo, In the spring of

My every victory. 

La Dolce Vita

There are some memories which are so perfect, that one is scared to pen them down. One is scared that putting them into words might taint them, lower their sheen a little. But on the other hand, I am scared that if I don’t write things down, I may forget them forever. So here I go, painting my impressions before the business of every-day living wipes my heart clean of the November love of my slipping memory “My last vacanza.” And the journey begins…

Venice: A medieval city wrapped up in sea and mist. Little bridges cutting across emerald green canals. Suitcases trundling over flagstones. Sunday washing stretched across crimson skies, crisscrossing from pulley to pulley. Small restaurants nesting by the waterfront,  serving all kinds of sea people.  Masks, Columbine, Pantalone, Arlecchino, made in China. A garden made of glass in Murano, an old lady spinning a lace wedding gown in Burano, the endless colours of Vivaldi, the strange nude in the middle of an Ocean, the only blemish on San Marco’s Square. Difficult not to be enchanted!

Florence: A cobbled city of palaces and art. Bangladeshi hawkers in San Lorenzo market promising to sell original Prada bags without labels. Dark taverns with drunk tourists. Some drunk on art, others on the chill, some on the opera but mostly people drunk on just being in Florence. Tutti shops selling winter fashion. The beginning of the Gelato trails. Mikhalangelo’s Dawn and Dusk crafted from stone, teasing out tears from many wasted hearts. A small city that makes you wish, you could spend a lifetime in it. Just standing on the Ponte Viccio, watching the sun set over the arched bridges of Florence.

Tuscany: A late orange tree in full blossom, resting against a yellow house crafted from old stone. A land bursting with colour. The colours of a season past, the colour of a season to come, the colours of waiting and then blue.  Blue of an infinite sky, reflected in a fall choked river. A smooth ride,  cruising up and down little lanes and resting churches. The many towers of San Gimignano, the world famous Gelato shop in the main market square, roast boar at the end of an immense curving courtyard in Castiglion Fiorentino , the open markets of Barbarini, and the valleys of orange and yellow shorn of it’s purple fruits; remnants of a summer wine in Tavarnalle, Chianti .

Assisi: Forbidding religion on white cliffs. The looming castle of the Dominican order. Friars, priests and nuns walking solemnly from cathedral to cathedral . A road built at 90 degrees. A lost car shivering in the night, bumping along.  Cold, dark, lights. Here lived the God from the Old Testament, all alone and then Rome….

Rome: A city of tourists and friendly taxi drivers. A mad lady in a bnb recommending lots of short eats. Little stores selling hot suplee, pan-seared risotto balls with fresh mozzarella cheese, fried fish, aracinis (rice balls with mince and cheese) , platters of antipasti and house wines from all over Italy. Bernini’s Rome, handcrafted with churches, pizzerias, fountains, catacombs, angels, peepholes, gardens and ruins scattered in equal measure across it’s many miles. Rome, with it’s umbrella pine trees still and endless on both sides of a languid Tiber. Rome, with it’s fashion divas packed into little cars rushing off to work. Rome, with it’s many mysteries. Why doesn’t it rain through the big hole in the ceiling of the Pantheon? How do you maneuverer your schedule to see all the wonderful sights in the short window when the Roman is not closed for breakfast, lunch, mid-day siesta, tea, mass or mass protest? And how do you manage not to fall in love with it all?

The Vatican: A city built to acclaim the temporal power of God On Earth. A city, intricately woven in marble legend and golden leaves. A city, filled with busloads of tourists, all queuing up in the immense courtyards for a glimpse of Papa Francesco. A city which does not belong to Italy but to  the world. A city of incense and more Bangladeshi Muslims, manning stalls selling Christian memorabilia.  A city of brotherhood and then… the Sistine Chapel. A mammoth work of fear imagery , invoking the punishment of the afterlife, and then the Pieta. The longing of the Pieta, the suffering of the mother and thehumanness of it all. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust under the watch of the Swiss guards.   

Amalfi: The coast of Amalfi is like a piece of wedding cake wrapped up in the foamy tissue of the sea.  Houses cut into rocks. Communing with the sea from a potty. An orchestra made of drunk limoncello bottles, bathing in the sober light of day. Prosciutto , wrapped in cheese, dipped in chillie olive oil. Sail boats on a sunny day. Porcelain shops selling painted jars. A lazy breakfast , which rolls into a long wintry lunch. A story book on a small terrazzo. Droopy eyelids lulled to sleep by sunlit waves and a full belly. A blanched almond coloured Moorish church glowing, as the sun slips into a roset sea. A ship glides across a silver ocean, which lashes and licks the house, while a descending night inks out shapes, horizon and perspective. The stars burst into being and the living God blesses all those who roar at the waves, claiming their life to be divine.

The Isle Of Skye

The Isle Of Skye

Broken pancakes of islands on a sparkling, sunlight sea

Cradling a little white church, the winding road rides

from Mallagh to Skye,

Light headed from excitement and salt air,

We set sail for Black Pudding Island

Skye, a Renoir painting of orange skies, purple land, virulent yellow and pink sheep

A hidden beach, 2 men kayaking, one goes bottom up

I sit on a broken stone wall, hair blowing in the wind

Tummies tucked in, I feel glamorous

The lens discovers two purple penguins flapping

The zoom finds twins in identical jackets

Brown haired babies, picking pebbles on a stony white beach.

Anne’s blue Clock Glass House, nestled in a cliff

With the softest feathered beds in the world

Hot scones for tea with 20 kinds of home-made jam

4 girls baying at a red moon at the witching hour

Fresh lobsters at The Schoolyard, with a bit of melting butter and parsley,

And then our journey to the end of the world..

Where the cliff broke into ridges and the ridges leaped into the Pacific

And we leant against ancient rocks, bathing in the pink of a setting sun

I hummed a tune and wrote a picture postcard to my “bluest self”,

Explaining to her why it was all worth it , this business of living .

In A New York Minute

The curtain unfurls and the musical begins,

The underground roars kaboom, kaboom

Costumes and masks weave their way through hurtling yellow trains

Beaded knots and broken hearts, brief-cases and painted-over easels

I-phones and straightened hair, accents melting into impromptu conversations

The stage clears…

An ice-cream truck parked in the middle of Central Park

Shorts, shades and picnics,

The resilient joggers run to a fitness trainer

On a tv show, who keeps time, kaboom, kaboom

That noise again. The ghostly steel scrapers of power

Silently dance on a still pond covered in fall colours

A pair of lovers lean against an iron railing locked in an endless embrace 

kissing little crevices and moles on arms and legs

Chinese dolls with weathered hands and my grandmother’s silver hair

Bargain with many camera’d tourists

A few coins drop into a pool, a few into a guitar case, a few in a slot machine

The stage clears … that sound again, kaboom , kaboom

A Show within a show, The Rock Of Ages- plays tribute

To that great 80’s notion called the lust for life and then

A recently found old friend in a jalapeno cocktail pitcher

As the naked man strums his guitar, kissing mid-western tourists @Times Square

The stage clears and a ballerina dances across an old museum

She is a dream, she is sculpted, she is a billboard, she is the muse, she is art

Donated by merchants and bankers, a tear kisses a damask cheek and says

Here he is with his lilies and his yellows and his blue leaves and then

Right next to him that terrifying silent scream

The stage spins around, an old musty basement in a bottle of jazz,

A trickle of happiness running down a frosted glass of whiskied laughter

Fingers wrapped around melted artichoke pizza,

The comedian insults four Indian girls into a little corner

While an Ethiopian beauty rescues them with mulled wine

and her infinite black eyes

The Stage of New York welcomes actors from across the world

To play themselves in the unfolding drama of a city

whose underground roars Kaboom , kaboom

Waiting To Exhale

Another summer is drawing to a close, and am I happy! I detest the summer with it’s bright skies and orange sun. Time loses it’s capability to birth exceptional  , exciting, unique days. Factory crafted afternoons filled with a heart breaking stillness.  This summer, work spilled over, cementing the crevices , wrinkles and gaps in time, deleting the reality of a mid-year break.
Some evenings did bring a bit of drizzle with them, but they were more fragrance than water. The earth perfumes herself for two hours before and after every light shower. Like a courtesan, all fragrance and promise and then …nothing. A smoke and mirrors act.

Three pleasures are left.

The promise of a performance in August, the gathering of the divas, the building of the mask, the men stuck in traffic. Juliet has been found.  Romeo has run away. All one needs is a waif who can play three parts: Apothecary, Nicholos and …..then I would have to kill you.

Natural’s mango ice cream. Little creamy chunks of flavored melting milk. The tongue leads the tango of itty bitty bits of mango dancing a swirl.

And a little pleasure felt in the longing…the longing for a black sky, fat raindrops, a missed heartbeat as one catches summer lightning streaking across the sky like a figure skater, and the deep roll of thunder….action,  momentum, happiness ......

Waiting To Exhale

Dark Summer

The Sky is streaked with endless summer

A still skeleton of a tree, gnarled, thousand fingered, stark

A green parrot hops between the bones

Probing into the empty ghosts of fruit

Long leaved brown husks still hanging

I am leaving this window soon

For another shell in an industrial park

In this city a thousand cancers are being removed today

And I sit here nursing my death wish

My blessings

Force me to accommodate

My Life

It has come upon me too soon again

This death wish

While I Float without Meaning or Reason or Purpose

Exiled to life

Exiled to life

The Revenge Of The Non Geeks

Every person has one large fear which they are obsessed with. For my flat mate, it is running out of bandwidth. We have 2 wi-fi connections, one which is 20mbps and can supply the needs of the floors above and below us. Just as a back-up , we also have a Tata photon and a Reliance dongle because lord forbid, both routers may conspire and go on strike simultaneously. However, since the single woman’s mantra is always “back up the back-up “, we have discretely collected all our neighbor’s wi-fi passwords. After all, you never know, on some dark night all 4 connectors might fail us and then we will be left with no choice but to become Bandwidth Hackers.

But we are middle aged women who like reading, writing and listening to music, we are not geeks.

I went for a holiday with my 3 of best girl pals. Apparently for a 20 day trip we did not need clothes ( one can just buy them along the way), we did not need shoes (one pair of floaters works fine) , we did not need trinkets (because they get lost on long road journeys),  but what we critically needed were

1.       4 cameras- A digital SLR, a digital which is almost an SLR, an instant with a Leica lens , an old non digital SLR and  a baffling number of other lens. You see, we had all been asked to take up hobbies to cope with the stress of our lives and everyone knows it’s really easy to look cool behind a camera. On the other hand if we had taken up yoga, we would have to spend a lot of time with our heads between our knees and our bottoms up. Not Cool

2.       4 phones: 1 Fablet, 1 IPhone, 1 Nokia Lumia, 1 Google Phone. We obviously  liked to distribute our affections and don’t want to piss any smart phone manufacturer off

3.       3 tablets: 2 IPADS and 1 Google Nexus tablet because how do you navigate without a tablet and check your mails and put Fb updates at the same time, so what if the GPS in the car is shouting itself hoarse , the only purpose that GPS ever serves…..is to second guess it.

4.       5 laptops: 4 regular laptops and 1 mini lap top. The mini is  for downloading movies from torrentz and the 4 lap tops are for that terrifying holiday minute when  one gets a call from office and one has to suddenly get out in the middle of nowhere and start building charts or do some complicated excel work on a balloon ride or at the end of a bungee rope.

5.       4 kindles: We started with 2 kindles and we bought 2 more as gifts because as mentioned before, we love reading and writing and know other middle aged women like us who do the same things.

6.       2 IPODS:  We call it force of habit, since they were all the rage 5 years back and our classics were stored on them.

7.       A  JBL “bug” as a back-up for the car stereo (what if a loose connection disables the surround sound and one has to drive without music )and an army of headphones and hard drives to back up all the content one is generating , downloading or copying.

However if you called any of these girls geeks , they would be shocked as would some of our male buds . When I was in the market for a cell phone, I was told by one of them “ You should buy an I-Phone , after all you wouldn't know how to use half of the android apps.”  For god’s sake, I have yet to download a difficult app.  it’s an app, its supposed to be super easy , don’t make it sound like it’s the last frontier.

 But what would I know , I am not a geek! Geeks have engineering degrees, drink beer and know all the right terminology, we are mere social scientists , drink wine , and keep nick names for our tech-wares. We can't be geeks.

My Rainy Day Woman : Rest In Peace

My didu, Shibani Ray Chaudhuri (nee Shankar Ray) died yesterday at the age of 93.

To describe my didu,( my maternal grandmother) as an intelligent style diva with a quiet sense of humor , a heightened sense of poise , and an incredible sense of adventure  would be unfair.  These are ordinary descriptors used for ordinary people and my didu was extraordinary. At a time when most women did not study beyond class ten, my didu had one masters from The University of Calcutta and one from The London School of Economics.  Her classic good looks had the fellas begging her to “leave that blackie-my grandfather” and run away with them.  Come 1947, she was asked to represent the Indian community In London by hoisting our flag in British soil for the first time. Back in Kolkata, she became the director of a large government financial institution, at a time when most women were homemakers.

She knew no fear and did not suffer from the “I need a man to help me cross the road” complex, an affliction some women still suffer from today.  She loved travelling, so she bought a Euro rail pass and just went ….. A ten year old goggle eyed me had asked her,” Weren’t you scared travelling alone?” And she smiled and said, “A beautiful woman never lacks for company”. I had hoped fervently at that time that my wit would be a suitable substitute for my limited beauty.  We had promised to do a trip together but we never made it. That’s life, what are you going to do about it?

My Didu pampered herself with long two and a half hour baths for 93 years of her life.  She believed that when you step out of the house you should look like a million bucks. When you opened your mouth, people should be charmed with your sparkling witticisms.  You must be kind and loving, erudite and secure, polite and exceptional.  She took great pride and delight in being a fine hostess. She showered love through intricately planned menus and delicious  , rich food. However , because she was a working woman , she rarely cooked. She believed in managing the help and employed the services of a large family to manage the house. She never entered the kitchen, delicately picked her fish with a knife and fork and was a huge fan of Agatha Christie.

 Some grandchildren may remember their grandparents for their signature dishes. I remember getting hammered with my didu. She loved her scotch and my complete inability to consume whisky and insistence on drinking vodka worried her. We used to drink and talk and laugh at this whole crazy world of social boundaries. It was not for us. She taught me how to read at the age of 5 and introduced me to crime fiction at the age of ten.  I once cut out a portion of her sari to feel her smell near me always.

Life , for my didu was tough, but that never ruffled her. She was a fighter and all about the stiff upper lip. You could be breaking inside, but the world should only see you smiling. Insanity dances in our genetic pool like wispy hair and buck teeth in other families. Summer brought mangoes and the van from the asylum. Schizophrenia afflicted our family year after year. But as the matriarch, she never allowed it to break her or disrupt her dreams for the rest of us. Through long summer afternoons, she created a world for me to believe in, a better world which could be mine if I would work hard enough at it.

A world where self -pity was not acceptable. Circumstances happen and you move on.  Weak people wallow but people like us “Keep calm, and carry on.” This world was filled with things which had given her comfort and identity when she was tossed between insanity, cruelty, deprivation. This world which I was going to inherit would be filled with laughter, travel, lotions, fine wine, soirees, style , impressionist paintings, little flowers on white couches, bathtubs filled with milk and roses, music, make up , lipstick and many many high heeled shoes.   

She is gone. And I will never feel that familiar caress, see that quiet smile, kiss those milky cheeks , share that private joke. All I can do is love her and love her and love her. That’s all any of us can do. I cannot fill the void of losing my father. I cannot fill the void of losing my didu. But people like us do not indulge in self pity, we pick ourselves up, put on our “face” and make that dream that has been dreamt for us come true. If we don’t get what we want, we upgrade, we don’t do leashes and we live our lives on our own terms.

My “ Rainy Day Woman” , my diva, my friend, my world, my life ….I will hold you in my heart for every minute of every day till we meet each other on the other side of forever

The East Of Eden and my love for Steinbeck

Once upon a time, a silvery old man, on a hard wooden chair, nursing an unlit smoky pipe introduced me to a moth eaten, hard bound Reader’s Digest version of Steinbeck’s “East Of Eden”. He was my grandfather and I was eight, an age when you grasp only absolutes. The “wise Chinese houseman Lee” the dreamer inventor “Samuel Hamilton” and the “murderess Cathy” left an indelible impression on my still untarnished soul. But my eight year old memory buried the book under a pile of Neville Chute and James Herriot imagery. My only memory of the narrative was the half –dreamt “Cathy”,  a character who had shocked and  threatened to end the beliefs securing my childhood .

As I grew up, every once in a while, I dived into musty bookshops crammed to the gills , and started hunting, randomly reading paras from old books , desperately seeking  the name, the author, the unapologetic evil Cathy who burnt her parents, slept with her husband’s brother, delivered twins silently like a cat , abandoned them , killed the town’s Madam , usurped the town’s whorehouse , introduced S & M practices to pep up the place and built a “Reputation” in the same town  where her children and husband lived.  Stenibeck’s Cathy could bring Emily Bronte’s Cathy of Wuthering Heights fame to her knees. The latter may have tormented Heathcliff , been free-spirited, beautiful, spiteful, arrogant and childish but she could never fall to the depth’s of naked evil that Steinbeck’s Cathy could.

In the book, Sam Hamilton says, “I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. To a monster, the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To a man born without a conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish”. To mark my bad luck, before I rediscovered the book, I found Cathy, twice. There is such a thing as pure twisted evil.  Feeding on the young, the warm, the weak and the good there are wretches in this universe who consume their victims, unleashing torture, madness, death, breeding hatred and in spite of it all sleeping fitfully, living , thriving, bursting with health . You must have seen them too.

And then one day, a year back, possibly  two decades after my original encounter, in an apple orchard in Raison, Kulu, surrounded by sheets of rain, I found it. The East Of Eden by John Steinbeck rested in an old walnut cupboard, beside a creaky wooden stair case, in a faded jacket cover. I couldn’t finish the book even though , I read through most nights. Though the rain poured steadily, there was too much laughter in the storm. The days were spent jumping mountains, cooking , singing, teasing and loving  my wealth of friends’ who were on holiday with me.

But the book possessed me. When I got back to Bangalore, I took a sabbatical and read as much of Steinbeck as I could …. till I was forced to work again.  East Of Eden, Grapes of Wrath, Sweet Thursday, Travels with Charlie, The Cup Of Gold, Log From The Sea Of Cortez. He gets it, the grittiness of human emotion, the way life often packs a double punch when you are down, and yet somewhere in the lost causes , out in the distance there lies some hope, as unreal as the “The Cup Of Gold”  and as real as the truth spun from those who claim to have seen it.

One day soon, I shall go to Salinas and like the good Catholics do outside the Pope’s Roman verandah, I shall kneel and kiss the grounds outside Steinbeck’s house. I will show obeisance to the man who used the simplest of words to spin one of the greatest tales in the world. A man who said,  “When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influences and genius, if he dies unloved, his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.” 

Who' s The Mature Grown Up Now?

In theatre practice two days back, my friend Stephen and I were trying to fix a meeting for Saturday night. The " young ones" came down on us heavily , saying -NO NO, Saturday is Party Night, and surprisingly       " The Golden Oldies" echoed their sentiments. Apparently the only two people who belonged to Loserville and wanted to spend their Saturday Night," Play Reading" was the Middle Aged , 30+ idiots.

The middle ages have crept upon us slowly. First it slowed down our thirst for free alcohol, then tightened up the jeans of our youth, then made sleep a necessity not a hangover effect and finally produced  entire generations of younger people who had wispier goatees, dirtier clothes , newer pulp faiths .Before we knew it , we had turned into Hicksville ,our music started playing in the " Classic " slots and " Our Gods" started dying on us.Another more serious sign of middle age is the " changing relationship" which we have with our parents. Suddenly, you become the " mature- sensible " one. Let me share a few examples:

1. G's Dad is convinced that he is going to win the Reader's Digest Sweepstakes! He has been at it for 3 years, bought more encyclopedia's , plants, bric-a-brac, medicines, foot massage chairs than his family would care to account for. Entire rooms in the house have been sacrificed to the junk that Reader's Digest sends him, at  bargain prices of  Rs XXXXX ONLY! The man who used to rule entire mining colonies with an iron fist has now capsized to the lure of one of the biggest cons in history!
2. S & D's Dad has transformed from a "Chilled Dad" to a "Worrier". A father who had taught his daughters the pleasures of travelling ,being bohemian, and " getting comfortable with a nice book"......doesn't even let the poor things sit down anymore. He pursues them with long "to do " lists of what must be done immediately, and what must be done, 5 Min's from "immediately". If he so much as sees one of them lowering half a butt into the sofa, the sulks break loose!
3. Then of course, there are the " muzzers" My mother for example, has spent the entire year changing her mind about where she wants to retire. When she is in city A , she is sure that City B would suit her better. As soon as she lands in City B, she wants to go back to City A, from the airport , if possible. Then someone enlightens her about the pleasures of City C , and she believes them! I predict , a lot of furniture getting misplaced or damaged en route.This from a woman who was so sure of her mind, that she used to be called " The Queen Of Stubborn"!
4. L's mother is mortified with her workaholic daughter. Ahem...now then taking a step back.This lovely lady,  through school and college banned her daughter from meeting, mating, or even speaking to any sort of male form. No college trips were permitted, for fear of compromise. The highlights of poor L's then social calendar were CPA exams, CA exams., MCOM exams etc. Now that poor L is building her home independently and climbing the corporate ladder of success, her mater inquires of her twice a week, on " Why she has not gotten herself a  husband, or even a boyfriend yet? ", proclaiming great shock over her daughter's state!

Welll, ....Who' s The Mature , Grown Up Now? 

A Side of Emu !

Life can be a laugh riot!

A snippet from my Monthly Dose: Our grocery store has started stocking emu meat. There is a refrigerator full of emu sausages, emu curry cuts , emu kebabs – a Sunday kitchen of emu . The first time this refrigerator came in, I saw the owner proudly lounging by the spring banner which displayed happy emu birds with cartoon bubbles emerging from their beaks. In rhyme, they informed the customer about ‘how jolly it was to be organic red meat’.  Always ready for a chat, I seized the moment and got into a long discussion with the man about ‘who was buying the meat’, ‘how much had he invested, ‘the benefits, features , advantages’…. and I took a pamphlet home.

After three weeks I went back to the shop. To the naked eye it seemed that nothing had moved but the lounging owner assured me that he had already sold 25 kgs of Emu and had requested for more. I broke into a sweat. I imagined all my favorite neighborhood restaurants, buying the meat at half price and serving it to me as chicken, lamb, or beef.  I waited for the man to move and then I delved into the refrigerator. I did my own check and smiled in satisfaction- not a piece had moved!

The poor man , may have lost some money, but his pride was intact. It has now become our monthly ritual. I buy my veggies, stock up on my meat/fish and bounce along to have the ‘emu conversation.’ We play this little game of hide & seek, he ducks, I chase. Across grocery aisles, Behind the Fish, Between the Bananas and the Litchi cluster-sometimes I catch him, and sometimes he leaves the shop! The flow of emus has both of us living a lie. It is my belief that we have warmed to the charade, him pretending that everyone prefers emu and it is the wisest choice that he has made in a long time and me firmly inspecting the refrigerator content , to check the outflow.  To stir things up a bit, I have googled information about emu farming and I am waiting for my next weekly visit to exchange information.

Snippets from My Daily Dose:

On the route to office, there is a ‘Multi-Cushion Restaurant’ which conjures up pictures of ‘Happy Bottoms’
There is also that Remote IT Helpdesk Boy whose status message reads,’ Love me when I am down because that’s when I need you the most.’ Imaging the CEO of the company, asking him for help!         There is of course the building manager who distributes pamphlets like,
'Dropping rubbish from windows may be fetal to Passers On.’

But the funniest of them all, are the Thumping Sunday Believers from the corner AG Church, who go into paroxysms of Hallelujah, accompanied by Jumps and Shivers, 5 minutes into the service. It is their belief that this is the time the sacred Holy Spirit enters them. My Nana would call them ‘devil worshippers.’  I however feel that the poor souls are just acting out. Having grown up on a diet of Shivaji-The Bose(as they say in our part of the Vindhyas), they see the church as a stage and themselves as supporting artists in a gang-war shot!

A Snippet from My Last Holiday:

But the funniest thing which I have heard in some time was in the heart of Munnar. An excitable Bengalee Ledeej, asked the hotel manager, in her loudest Hindi –for all to hear.

‘Whaaat is there in this jongol, you are taking us to, tomorrow, leopards hai, Tigerrrs hai, Elephaaants- how many?’

The man, in his dusky drawl replied calmly,’ Maydum there is Gaaaaaad.’

Maydum had not expected this repartee and said in a shocked and trembling voice,
'Tomorrow you will take me to see God’!

To which the man said ‘ Yes, Gaaaaaaad is in the jongeel’ .

The Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, near the town of Munnar is famous for the Niligiri Tar, or the Nilgiri Goooat!... Next time you think life isn’t hilarious, call me !

Five Years

I knew a man who wasn’t scared to laugh or cry or ask for comfort

I knew a man who never ran away from giving of himself

I knew a man who always believed in living for the moment and for his dreams

I knew a man who was a traveler, never finding the home he was looking for.

I knew a man who loved the business of living …

Who was just a man, not a good man, not a great man

But  a man who could love and whom you could love very easily!

But he died five years ago

 and so I started walking his road…Being

The woman who is never scared to laugh or cry or ask for comfort

Who never runs away from giving of herself  

Who lives her dreams in every moment

Who travels with her home in her heart

A woman who enjoys the business of living , A woman, who is just a woman,

Not a good woman, not a great woman but a woman who can love just as easily!

Stuck!

Dramatic broken skies of picture post card quality. …And the rains are here again. There is a huge nude outside my office window. It is a bare tree with a thousand scorched arms.  As twilight is cut short, lightening darts streak across the sky, stopping short , curling, tangoing , following the wind tunnel around the tree. The sound of a fresh shower unsettles the evening calm . Washed by pleasant memories of well spent drenched hours, I sit and gaze into nothingness while the data crunchers around me dial it down. Hunched over laptops, body orifices plugged with gizmos, they shamble off to re-fill their coffee cups ….and discuss the difficult question of ‘How to negotiate the home bound traffic .’ And that’s where the romance ends. The best way to understand the innate competitiveness of the human spirit is to drive down a blocked, water logged, inner city road.

The Terrorist; Owner of The Truck: I own the bloody road. Being huge means that I can come and go as I please and anyone who wants to curtail my timings, will get a swollen lip and an abused mother. I will hog the middle of the road, get stuck in it, if I so wish and bring slow traffic to a complete halt. That is the only way I will get people to respect my girth, and beware of the terror that I can unleash.

The Suicide Bomber; Owner of The Motorcycle: I am wily and weak. Hence I will weave in and out of every available gap, change lanes as much as possible, scowl at and terrorize the cretin who drives on 4 wheels. I will also pretend that everyone is out to kill me while I go and block their ‘right of way’ and gently graze against them, leaving streaks of torn paint in my wake.

The Schizophrenic; Owner of The Auto-Rickshaw: I believe I am a truck. I will therefore behave like one. I will also hog the middle of the road, and splash my passengers and other cars alike. I will physically spit in the direction of anyone who nears me and suddenly stick my leg out to support and push all fellow autos who get stuck on the road. I will sometimes get amnesia and forget I am a truck and behave like a motorcycle weaving my way in and out of lanes while balancing the other auto with my leg.

The Passive-Aggressive; Owner of The SUV: I will treat the waterlogged road like I am on a hunt in the jungle.  I have paid a lot of money to pretend I am a macho maaaan and have a higher sperm count than anyone else. The salesman has sold me the divine right to try and mow down anyone who comes in front of me, failing which I will throw a tantrum and just block all the parts of the road which have been left available by trucks and auto rickshaws.

The Manic Depressive; Owner of the small car: Here I am and here I will be for the next three hours. The world has it against me. The only day that I am able to get out of office early, I get stuck in this god forsaken mess. If the water level rises, it may get into the engine. Then I will have to get out and push, while I am roundly abused by the world. I am going to curl up in my seat, hit out viciously at mosquitoes and listen to my ‘rainy weather compilation of 125 soul washed songs all beginning with ‘ Bheegi Bheegi.’

The Over Compensated Egoist; Owner of the Large Sedan :  I am going to yaaak yaakkk yaaaak on the phone , crib crib crib about the traffic and the ‘Naaaarth indians’ who are obviously the root cause of every problem in Bangalore. I will intermittently scowl at the driver in a half-hearted attempt to lay the blame at his door. I will be unable to play golf tomorrow and hence sack a few employees to feel better about myself again.

Dramatic broken skies of picture post card quality. …And the rains are here again.

A singleton's challenges with houses and babies

Have you noticed that as soon as you step into your '30s , the significant village elder finds his or her way to your doorstep. Then he/she looks at your tummy and your rented digs reprovingly, does the head wag much like a ' bewildered elephant with really floppy ears' and volubly goes 'tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock'.
This kind of 'tick-tocking' sends most happy couples  into a fit of life-changing frenzied pregnant mortgage.
But what of the singleton?

I am surrounded by people who make buying houses and popping twins , seem like an easy breezy thing to do. While i make detailed route maps of my next vacation, or get  really excited about this month's 'wine club' order catalog,..most of my couple friends are getting pregnant and going under the 'EMI' hammer.It gets worse in your mid thirties when they are already on their second mortgages and second children and your still 'thinking about it.'
My question is How Do They Do It?

I too keep trying to buy houses. I too set out , on fine Sunday mornings , sacrificing my regular jaunt to the second hand book store and attend marketing events organised by 'new age builders.' These events normally take place in huge vacant plots, populated with colorful canopies, multi-purpose cars and hassled parents.  I sit on masked plastic chairs with the 'drooling dreamers' and squint through animated presentations of 'Tropical, Italian, Moroccan, Affordable Paradises, right in the heart of the city, just 10 Min's  away from everything which matters.'

But , how do you commit to spending the rest of your life with a bunch of  'mine is a bigger than yours' strangers? How do you commit to 1200/2100/or 3000 sq feet tucked between similar other 'carpet areas' for the rest of your life? How do you sign up to sharing germs and other effluents with your neighbor's children in the common pool? It seems like an end , and i don't want to give up on myself so fast.
I keep thinking , I can do better than that. The truth is, 'nothing you want is affordable.' The houses which beckon to me are never in my budget. The hovels which i can afford, just wont do. My councilwomen  have advised me to just invest for investments sake, but i don't agree. To think that i would deprive myself of a much needed vacation because of 'some 1200 sq feet' of brick and mortar which i don't ever want to live in , does not add up.

Similarly babies: I went to the gynecologist for my yearly appointment and she started 'tick-tocking' me from the word go. Not convinced with my carefree singleton status , she wanted to weigh me down with possibility. The absence of fertile sperm bearing partners in my life, did not seem to deter her one bit. All she wanted was to turn my Rs 300 for 10 minute session into a year of fertility jabs, donor eggs and IVF's.
I kept trying to convince her that i did not want to join the dance, but like a strict housemistress who stands guard by the prom door,she would not take no for an answer. She offered me a range of fiercely potent sperm all artificially seasoned to produce the best swimmers possible. I pointed out that I might be an unfit parent, since i worked all the time and had no support structure. She pointed me to Japa Maids . For the uninitiated ,' Japa is is a traditional way to look after a neonatal baby and mother so that both parties remain alive.' Japa maids cost Rs 900 per day. ha ha ha-evil laughter ( Read Contract Form)http://www.caregeneration.com/CareContract.pdf........ and so the finger pointing continued.

We 'Highway On My Plate' 30 + singletons are facing some severe challenges. True we don't have to battle with the pressure of in-laws and double mortgages, but what with the fall of morality and no one going ' chee chee' over single parents anymore, we are on our way to getting trapped by all the ' responsible symbols of middle age which we have tried so hard to avoid' - Ghar, Bachha aur EMI ka Kharcha.

So here my cry , fellow middle aged singletons-rally around
As, Bill Pullman says in   'Independance Day'-
We will not go quietly into the night! ( Read-We will, as they say in the South Of India- Make Purty till Don ) 
We will not vanish without a fight! (Read - into little cubic cms of block flats) 
We're going to live on!( Read-Travel The World, drink champagne in shoes, and not cry about salary packages)
Today we celebrate our Independence Day - (Read- We have just this one life and since no one gets to go to heaven with a mortgaged flat .. kindly excuse us from participating in social trauma traps)

Enjoy Maadi :)

Where Have They Gone?

Believe it or not , each of us are riding on our private space shuttles. Sometimes we embrace change to avoid unpleasant memories or leave behind unworthy opponents. We spearhead into another dimension, erasing habits, cruising along the bylanes of ‘happy times’ trying to make a forever stop. As we move from experience to circumstance to phenomena there are some artifacts which get left behind, which history stops producing and we stop consuming and this blog is dedicated to those lost crafts.

The Dooley: In Anglo Indian houses , in times before the refrigerator became a necessity, there lived a small wooden cupboard with a netted front. This was called the Dooley or meat-safe. The Dooley was a cool dark fragrant cupboard, which nurtured in it’s recesses, left over meat curries , sambol, tomato rice and Christmas cake . No one quite knew the science behind the Dooley or how it kept Christmas cakes from spoiling from December to March. It was store crafted by the ‘hand of god’ and many grandmothers and grace said, we left it at that. Goodbye Mysterious Dooley..the flies have flown to Canada.

The Round Oven: In little cantonment towns , thirty years ago there lived a small steel round oven with a black coil which shuddered and sparked and sometimes sang ‘ping’ when it got too hot. These towns were home to army colonies, forest rangers , mining engineers, and were also known as temporary posting sites. In these sleepy little nooks where life revolved around the mines or the dam or the army, the local excitement was provided by the monthly trip to the ‘nearest big city’ and afternoons spent in competitive baking. Pies, cakes, biscuits, breads and toasties were manufactured in those little tin ovens marking the ‘true colony wife and mother’ from the ‘ just landed new-bees’. Goodbye Round Oven…Your coil is going to remain forever unchanged.

The Aalna: The clotheshorse or aalna has become a ‘curiosity piece ‘in heritage hotels. Yet in a time not so long ago, there lived in the red tiled, flowered patterned corridors of old Calcutta, the mighty Aalna. An aalna was truly an essential piece of furniture in a tropical land. It had a wooden frame with two beautifully carved side stands which held twelve rods between them. You took off your once worn cottons , drenched with the afternoon sun, spread them across the aalna to dry, sprinkled some talcum powder on it , switched the fan on and let it be. You bought time for yourself, you could stare at the aalna, and contemplate on the dirt quotient of your clothes, without them getting in everyone’s way. You could decide if you should iron them out and wear them once more or did they need to go into the wash a.s.a.p. Nowadays, the choice does not exist. OCD freaks like me possess a bunch of faded clothes since everything goes into the washing machine after a one time wear. Or you spend your time sniffing naphthalene and day before yesterday’s perfume on people with bright clothes.( It went straight into the cupboard)Goodbye Aalna..you are sorely missed.

The electric water heating rod: In cold, paying guest accommodations across campus towns there lived a wicked, heating rod with an evil temperament. In Hudson Lines, North Campus, PG’s were treated worse than dung beetles. They had no coolers, no working kitchens, no dignity and no company after ten, when uncle ji locked the gates. In this waste land, the only kicks one got was from using that little bit more electricity, without informing the landlord. To stay alive in the cold Delhi winter, students would hide electric heating rods under clothes and behind books. The rod would be attached to a bucket and it was a mean ingrate. It would give us shocks so that we sported permed frizzy hair , burnt our buckets, tripped the electricity and got us caught. I for one, am very happy that the electric water heating rod is no longer a part of my life. Goodbye and good riddance!

The Sataranchi: Parents of the seventies did not have ‘Little Champs’ and ‘ Voice of Young India’ to indulge in, so a whole lot of us were chased off to learn classical dancing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday’s . An important part of the Indian classical dance training experience was the ‘on the deathbed’ guruji, with absolutely no teeth but enough spirit in his bones, to whack you on your legs whenever you bungled a move. This cadaverous old gentlemen would be seated on a sataranchi, which looked like the illegitimate union between a wooden platform and a bed. There would also be a disinterested ‘tabalchi’ seated beside him, keeping lack lustre rhythm and looking out of the window. The guriji would more than make up for the tabalchi’s lack of interest, by keeping his own beat. He would hurl the child beating baton against the sataranchi beating out ' dha dhin dhin da' ( if it was a monday it would be kathak) or ' talanku jhum'(if it was a wednesday it would be bharat natyam), as the occasion demanded.
Who knows if in some small dancing school in the middle of a market , a podgy little cross eyed child is still trying to measure her footsteps to the ‘na thin thin tha’ of a beaten sataranchi?

The Festival Of Food

Come October, nostalgia fills the air. Airports get clogged as the 'last minute Kolkattan' rushes back home to participate in the Durga Pujo binging . In little and large corners across the world, pockets of Bengalis gather, get organised and chomp their way across 'cultural programs' and ' Kabiraji cutkets' , the focal point of all pujo celebrations.The important questions which dot the day are- 'Which artist is coming?' ' When is the Sit and Draw competition', ' Did we finally get that biryani stall we wanted?'

While the rest of India, goes into a nine day fast, the Calcuttan goes into a 5 day hyper-food festival mode, with 'Silly Chicken' and 'Moten Biryani'. Continuous feasting without fasting. The best thing about the Pujos though, are that they are completely divorced from religion. Growing up, it was as much a part of Indrani Chakraborty's social calendar as Elina Da Silva's or Nitasha Islam's. We didn't grow up thinking we had different gods, just specific cuisine occasions. Come Id , we would line up outside Nitasha's or Shabnam's door, come Christmas the good Brahmins would sit on the overstuffed sofa tucking into the 'beef vindaloos.'

So come October, no matter how far we are from the many miked lanes of old Kolkata and the lights which showcase the political satire of the day, if we want ,we always have a way back in. You may be crossing a Manhattan street, or nurturing a Soho beer, you may be picking mangoes in Darwin, or freezing your little bits off in Toronto. You may be eating idlis in Bengaluru or commuting in a matro between Gurgaon and Dilli. Come October, all you need to do is close your eyes, and connect with the memory of the dhak ...and suddenly you are enveloped in a circus of senses...fragrant arati , women dancing, the lingering taste of ashtami mutton, a hot kolkata evening and a gorgeous mother, who only comes visiting once a year :)

Shubho Bijoya everyone and much love

A story: How to attend the wedding of an ex – spouse without losing your sense of humor.

Mea sat on the sofa, trying to blow smoke rings.
She had just been invited to her ‘soon to be wed’ ex-husband’s nuptials. The ex was going 'next' and there she would be, cheering him on from a ring side view. Come to think of it, he had been beating the re-marriage drum for quite some time now, almost from the minute the divorce had come through. He had thrown imaginary names and invites at her through many a whisky sodden schizophrenic night text. But this time, it seemed like the real thing. She did the only thing she could do, laughed her head off and heard herself assuring him that she wouldn’t dream of missing it. And now here she was, blowing smoke rings….
An action girl, Mea stubbed her ‘Ultra milds’ and started making notes…

1. Appear: Desist from putting the invite through the shredder, hitting the bottle and watching ‘Love Actually’ for the 3000th time.

2. Inform: Mother not to turn up gushing with best wishes for the new couple. Given the mutual dislike which mother and EX share for self, this is a definite possibility.

3. Call: Best Buds meeting to define entry strategy, cover topics such as clothes which hide the ‘long’ lunches and ‘ just-for-today deserts’ , make-up which makes one look ravishing not ravished, and shoes which are comfortable yet sophisticated.

4. Compose: Sparling conversation starters for people like, the ex mother-in-law ‘who could give Vodemort a run for his Deathly Hallows, and …….sundry other predators.

5. Practice: The congratulatory body movements when meeting the couple. The polite handshake coupled with the ROFL glint for the ‘EX’, and the ‘Oh you look stunning, I wish you happiness’ gasp for the ‘Next.’ This line has to be delivered with a well-balanced, glazed yet piteous glance to assure the ‘Next’ that her sorrows have just begun.

6. Cajole: (failing which blackmail): The best looking friend available on the open market to accompany self. Ensure that companion is draped around self in manner of immense obsession or fascination at all times.

7. Remember: To brush teeth, swallow bottles of mouth freshener to negate the whole non chic ‘alcohol-cigarettes-pick me up reefer’ breath which will be consumed pre- attendance.

8. Communicate: In a tinkling voice, names of exotic places one has visited, exciting things/people one has done, conjuring impressions of wealth and fortune when random curious second cousins and neighbors balloon up to exchange gossip.

9. Leave: The wedding as soon as possible. Scheduled time-Mandatory Photograph(catch the better light, 1 min), Sparring with Predators(10 mins), Exchanging Gossip(building value proposition, 15 mins), Pretending to whisper into companion's ear(establishing that self has exciting new life,15 mins).All done in 41 mins.

10. Pray: That this is a once in a life time experience and I won’t be making a career buying wedding gifts for exes.

Mea stopped typing and thought,'I should really write a Self Help Book, this is completely unchartered territory, maybe this is how i make my first million.'

Chasing The Rains

3 weeks back we went chasing the rains across the ghats of Goa.
Since i have a memory bordering on severe dementia, Indrani thought it wise to threaten dire circumstances if the highlights of the trip , failed to get penned.
The purpose of all this documentation does not flow from an appreciation of my wit or writing capability but from our combined corporate cockroach sensibility of ,' Lets template everything because tomorrow we might be asked to produce a new measurement metric'.
The purpose of this excercise is to wrap something up in the leaves of Blog spot , hoping it will still be around when we do our 40th 'Chasing The Rain trip' at age of 74.....The brief snippets.

1. We were so busy making the most of our prepaid weekend, we forgot to visit the beach.
   


2. Well actually , Hina and I did visit the beach early one morning. The other two kept driving past them , declaring that wet sand was well wet!. They assured us that nothing gave them more pleasure than scowling at the distant beach from various available cliff tops which dotted our drives.



3. We raced across the borders of 3 states, chasing the rains , driving around in sub zero visibility until we reached the waterfall hills of Amboli.



4. Lake sodden grasslands , rushing rivulets and picturesque tea shanties dotted the misty roads while the ipod lustily sang 'Pi Lu', the popular romantic ballad of our time.



5. We ate hot pakodis and garam chai , at a fog hidden , monsoon drenched cafe , lost in the half shadows of smoke shrouds .



6. We fought with a drunk beach shack owner one night , who specialized in extravagant overcharge, and nearly escorted him to the police station when he threated US, with police action. Indu , just to drive the point home (and because she works in a sales driven financial organisation), gave him 'ma-behen ki gali' and insisted on slowing the car menacingly next to his shack , for a last invitation ...while the rest of us were trying to make a dignified exit.



7. On the bank of stringy tissues , drunk, with richad stained fingers we formulated ' Templar Associates,' who would use the blurry Cloud to provide ' Every bluhfy friggin kind of zolution..from woperations to EIIICH RRRRRRRRR.'



8. Next day, nursing hangovers we went to a little book shop called Litterati , and had warmish iced coffees . I completed my Tariq Ali,'Islam Quartet Collection ', Indu bought the William Series, Hina bought 'The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Splyglass'. while .....Pritha fell asleep in the dark musty, bookshop , with it's high beamed ceilings.



9. Hina , wanted me to make friends with the owners, so that we could understand ' their operational store management model' which going forward would enable us to one day own our own bookshop by the sea.



10. The owners however did not oblige, they were 2 Bengali women...who acted terribely busy, were quite flaky , and refused to engage in any chit-chat whatsoever , when approached , they wanted us to contribute to some charity work they were participating in !....We will have to look elsewhere ...



11. We gorged .. 5 hour breakfasts, which seeped into lunch, which waned into slow sonorous dinners .Every kind of available sea & land animal, spirits of different hues was, as they say in the mother tongue, 'Conjumed' ...leaving behind a rose tinted bubble of floating happiness.



12. 18 days left for our next adventure...to a cold mountain desert, with barrel chested mountain yaks, and blue lakes. Getting all ready to make the next bunch of memories..............for the old creaking chair , the cottage which we will build in Amboli, the herb garden which Hina will tend to..after she retires as IBM's Cheif Strategy Director......................................after Pritha has sold her company(possibely to IBM..that is the last deal Hina will broker as she officiates as CSO ) and has got enough money to build that cottage....................and after Indu retires from AIG and becomes an undercover agent for the Mossad ........Sweet Dreams are made of these.

Mid Life Crisis: MLC Top 8

The thing about mid life crisis is that it can hit you at any age. Because no one grows old anymore. So mid life has taken on a spectacularly broad range, from 30 to whatever . You know you have MLC when....

a)You leave your job, for no apparent reason but because of a vague believe that you are meant for higher , better things. In your mind you can just see yourself hosting one of those ' Alaska in My Pajama' type shows on TLC.

b)You suddenly believe that you are immensely talented or athletic, and therefore pull out whatever stringed instrument you did not play in college, the theatrical masks, the bronzed with age dumbells, the old cult book you never read. Of course MLC makes everyone a great yakkidy-yaka storyteller/author/poet,movie maker. Tales of betrayal, lust and all the awesome things which never happened just flood your imagination, dont they?

c)You have an affair. You realise your life has rushed past .The love of your life, is probably married to you..and that means sex on national holidays and birthday's. Your children sometimes think.. but they don't necessarily think about you . So you rush off into the freshly waxed /pumped arms of another MLC patient.

d)You buy a really expensive bike . You think you would be happy that you suffer from a great Monday morning excuse called Bad Back, but NO, some red , silver, olive sheet of metal twists your heat into little pellets of Rosy love .And life seems meaningless unless the Big Baby gets his Roadie.

e)The female equivalent gets botox followed by liposuction ,a gay parade hair cut , a soap cougar personality and an evil tatto. When MLC wacks you across the many layers of your carefully acquired jingling tiers , you suffer sister, and you sincerely believe that if you change the way you look, life's gotta give. No comments, women never learn from their mother's do they?

f)MLC also finances a significant amount of the adventure touism industry. Honeymooners can salivate over their luxury hotel packages, but it is the MLC protagonist who wants to stomp the length of Antartica and width of Africa ...it is She/He who is solely responsible for all those crazy spikes on the road less travelled.

g)Our grandparents coped with MLC through religion , newspapers and frequent changes in their Wills which threatened to cut off all those children , friends and relatives who were out of favour at the current moment. But man did our parents show them how it was done. A friend's dad went off , one new year's evening to get a bottle from the corner store. He now lives in South America and is known as Ra The Lama on Facebook.

h)So here we are, getting older , filled with angst and lack of definition. Getting really pissed off with all the time that has slipped away without gathering a single rosebud. What do we do?

i) I say if we are going to do this, let's do this right..Lets get organised ...
Let's Get Started with some group discounts on motorcycles, wine ,botox, and adventure travels.
Let's start a ,MLC social networking site to exchange tips about rare recipes, installation art and of course the three most original ways to help us script/produce our Magnum Opus.
Let's get a, MLC channel which hosts progams like ' How i hate your mother,' and ' MLC Idol' , and ' How to become a Supermodel@ 40' .A channel which will guide us towards making the 'correct' wacky mistakes.
I would personally like to be an MLC Oprah...takers any one?

Mea's Story : The Day They Came

It was a cold creaky night. The wooden boards of the verandah sighed, as though stricken from a bad bout of gout.
Mea crouched on the steps of the small verandah, nursing a smoking cup of hot chocolate.
She could feel Little Bozo trying to get his sticky hands into her pocket .
‘Mea are you sleeping?'
Mariamma’s check chant bounced off the stone walls, every fifteen minutes. Closeted in her warm kitchen she talked to her rosary and her God.
Mea nudged Bozo.
‘Ssssh, or she will come checking'
Bozo inched closer to her, put a grubby finger on his lips and smiled at his elder sister.
Hand in sticky hand, the brother sister duo sat and looked for the gate at the end of the garden. The cold night fog had hidden it completely. Sometime soon , the gate would open. A flicker from a lit cigarette would pierce the fog. The cement walkway would dance with the music from mama’s clackers. Then the gate would go swing-click-shut and papa would cough.
That would be their signal to leap into bed.
The waited silently. They counted five Mariamma calls . The chocolate was licked clean from the tip cup, but the gate did not swing. Suddenly, as though called for another urgent appointment, the fog vanished, leaving behind a night with a thousand stars.
‘Mea shall we go up, to the roof of the world?’
‘We can’t, that wicked witch locks it every night and eats the key up.’
Bozo smiled beatifically, reached for his pocket and pulled out the misshaped bronze key.
‘Where did you get that from?’
‘When she kissed me goodnight, I took it from her neck.’
Mea , spontaneously reached forward to twist his deceitful little ear but Bozo was already running towards the stairs.
The roof of the old wooden house , was bare except for some cans of paint.
In the distance, the black night had swallowed the brown mountains, the river had turned silver and the fields lay bare, shorn of everything but small, silent paddy.
Bozo saw them first.
‘Look Mea , by the river , look.’
Shattering the stillness of the night , a herd of wild white horses came galloping.
Their manes flying in the air, their grunts echoing through the night like cymbals.
‘Mea, they exist, papa told me a story about them, but I didn’t believe him. Mea they are real.’
Bozo was leaping from one side of the roof to another. Mea stood transfixed.

The pack moved with a single rhythm, as though choreographed for some grand carnival.
Their hooves played the bass in the night air, leaving behind little whirlpools of white dust.
The young foals in the middle, the larger horses at the front and the rear.
They streaked across the cold valley , proud , free, fearless.

Suddenly the fog descended again and they moved into darkness.
That was the day, Mariamma’s God was very naughty.

Mea spent her entire life, searching for the beauty of that single moment. When she was twenty one, she announced to the world that she was a free spirit. Her life post this declaration, followed the psychedelic yellow brick road to innumerable rehabs. The one addiction she could not be cured of ,was her need to fornicate with men who resembled horses.

Bozo spent his life, searching for the divinity of that single moment. He joined several orders, missions, the Peace Corps. He was last seen vanishing into the mountains of Afghanistan, at the rear end of a straggly group of defeated Al Quaeda soldiers.

There is probably a reason why Mariamma’s God doesn’t share the raw beauty of the naked universe with little children. They don’t handle it very well, do they?