My life and lies at Express!

High on Rushdie

Another book; another journey through some one's childhood. But this one is so different from the 'mockingbird'! After almost a month, I finally finished Salman Rushdie's 'midnight's children' and the book simply haunts.

Children born at the stroke of midnight of August 15, 1947... The significance of the date binding them to the history without them playing any role in it...

The dreams and the reality, truth and myths, prophesies and predictions, unwept tears and untold confessions, guilt and pride... phew! From childhood fantasies to Indo-Pak partition; From Jantar-Mantar to post-independence India, Rushdie takes you through the labyrinth of all human emotions.

The book just persistently nags you day and night till you finish it and leaves you feeling bewildered and surprisingly empty once you are done reading it. Well I don't have more to say about a book that is so widely popular!

To kill a mockingbird...

Nothing else tastes good for a while after I finish a particularly good book. I can't pick up anything to read for some time. When I finally finished 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' by Harper Lee and closed the book last night, it was almost 1 am and my eyes hurt. But I just could not go to sleep for a very long time.

A week back, I plunged into the book and was lost and transported to another world that was vaguely familiar. A world that comprised innocence and insecurities of childhood, fun of school days, father-the role model... A feeling of something like sadness, but not entirely so, lingered long after I finished the book. An inexplicable sense of loss engulfed me.

I always prefer reading books to watching movies. According to me, when you read something, you have the exclusive privilege to imagine everything explained in the book. You can imagine the places and details how you want them to be. Characters in the book come out alive in your mind. It becomes much more real and much more personal.

'To Kill A Mocking Bird' is one such book which takes you through the journey of childhood of a brother and sister in a small town in Alabama. Having grown up in one such small town myself, I could relate to every word of it. My imagination took wings, I became the little girl in the book that transported me back to my childhood. The experience was so real!

I mused for a while on the title of the book, how true! mockingbirds don't harm you in any way. They sing and fill your ears with the melody of their music, make you happy, lift your spirit and it's indeed sin to kill these songbirds...

It rains memories...

It's pouring. Again. Rains always stir powerful emotions in me. Rains always bring back memories from my childhood, my school, my mother and father, old granny, a pair of damp socks, those carefree days...

Mom wanted me to study in a good, English medium school. So I and a small group of other kids with like-minded parents were enrolled into this school which was about 25 kms from my home. We had to travel up and down by bus that used to be so packed that we kids became invisible after boarding. We had yearly passes and hence even if we managed to 'catch' a seat, we had to get up and let the elders sit. So we stood with our huge school bags that weighed no less than a kilo.

Schools always start on June 1 after the 2-month-long summer vacations - a time when rains lash mercilessly. When it rains it pours in the sleepy little town amid Western Ghats where I come from.

Till class 5, I wore raincoat to the school. I would climb the bus hitching up my raincoat in one hand and carrying my lunch pack in the other, trying to balance. Other passengers would sulk at the very sight of us kids. We were oblivious to the water we sprinkled on people as we passed by them and to the fact that our bags got inevitably stuck when we tried to move, we just wriggled our way through the overcrowded bus pulling our bags along, attracting 'ooooohhhs' and 'awwwwwws' and 'ooooouchs' from people who then cursed us loudly.

As a kid I always craved for one of those stylish umbrellas. Every year I pestered mom to buy me one. She just wouldn't listen. She thought I wasn't old enough to handle umbrellas, beat it! And all I got was lousy raincoats year after year which mom would button up and warn me not to remove till I was safely inside the school.

My bus always reached just 4-5 minutes prior to my school time. I never wanted to cross our PT miss, a rather stern woman, by reaching late for the prayers. So I would start running the moment I got down. The geometry box inside my school bag made a rhythmic jingling sound as I ran.

Panting and puffing I would reach school just in time for prayers and struggle to remove my multi-buttoned raincoat. Phew! those rainy days...! Occasionally it rained so much that the school authorities anticipated danger and declared holiday! We celebrated then. Any excuse to skip school was welcome.

Walking in rain was fun (with our raincoats on of course!) water clogged everywhere filling up the pot holes and we would deliberately step on them as hard as possible splashing water on each other. We ran and chased each other to the discomfort of the vehicles on road who honked in panic as we ran haphazardly.

Mom would give me hot milk and biscuits as soon as I reached home. I always begged her to add a few drops of coffee from her own steaming coffee mug which she refused most of the time. ''I will drink coffee regularly when I'm as old as mom,'' I would think. It wasn't that I was fond of coffee, I just wanted to imitate the elders.

We had to be satisfied playing indoor games like carom board and chess (So boring!) as elders never let us go out during rainy season to play meaningful(!) games like 'coco' or 'kabaddi' which involved a lot of running and chasing around.

How I wish I could rewind my life and re-visit those days...

As I grew up I left for Mysore for studies and then to Bangalore for work. But when first showers of rains starts appearing, wherever I am, I always make excuses to go home for that is the only place which can quench my thirst for rains!

There is something about Su

Su called some days back to tell me that it was raining! ''Ok. Ok. Got to go!'' she said and hung up after whispering that precious piece of information. Su is my cousin. With just about one year age difference, we grew up like friends. We are both this typical dreamers and connect very well. I, for one, believe that I have no existence outside my imagination. I literally live in my own world of fantasy. Su is crazier.

Su lived in this very beautiful fairy tale-like house full of people. My aunt and uncle welcomed anyone who they knew, who wanted to study, into their home. So about 8-9 of our cousins of different age group lived there. I would visit them regularly during vacations.

The house had bamboo furniture and a showcase that held so many little things from an amazing miniature model of Great Wall Of China made of bronze that my aunt had got from China to huge, shapeless, unrecognisable things made of plaster of Paris by Su. It also had a terracotta Ganesha, a note that Su wrote to her mother when she first discovered pen in some yet-to-be-recognised language, a picture of Su as a kid (not that she was any better looking then!).

The house had spiral staircase that led to the charming library with a lot of old-looking books stacked neatly on the shelves. Su had a little room for herself which she had covered with Shah-Rukh Khan's posters and I think there was Su's study timetable written on a lousy paper that had somehow managed to worm it's way in to the room. (I have a strong suspicion that my aunt had something to do with it)

But our favourite place was the terrace. We literally lived there. Even during mid-nights we would sneak to the terrace and lie down looking at the stars. Mild fragrance of jasmine wafting from the garden below, a small battery operated Walkman, and two mindless teenagers with our impossible dreams... We would spend hours on end up there. I think my love for open terrace began from there. Whenever I had to choose hostels I always went for the ones with terrace.

Su has a whole chapter dedicated to her in my memory book from teenage. She no longer lives in that house now. My aunt and uncle sold it and moved to a rented house closer to their workplace. But whenever we happen to pass that street we look at the house, "our house'' longingly.

Su completed M.Sc in Bio chem with flying colours and now works for Bio Con. She hates her monotonous job and dreams about travelling around the world. Su did not attend my wedding. She had no offs. I reminded her over and over again about her promise to put 'mehendi' for my wedding so long ago and tried to make her feel guilty (It had very little effect on her though. She is immune to such things.) ''OK. Here's an idea!'' she said, after I nagged her for the umpteenth time, ''You don't attend my wedding either!'' ''Forget it. You are hoping for too much,'' I replied.

We got so busy with our lives that we have very little time for each other now. But I love her for she has enough craziness left in her to call up to say it's raining!

Time, you thief!

"Jenny Kissed Me"

by Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,

Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kiss'd me.

There are moments in your life that you want to capture and freeze in your memory forever. A simple look of appreciation from the guy you secretly admired... Someone special holding your hands to help you cross the road... Sit on the steps of girls hostel during nights knowing, that the guy who is madly after you will come by on his bike and when he does, pretend that you are annoyed by the attention...

Moments pass by... But certain things remain fresh in your memory. Just before my wedding, while packing my stuffs I came across this old text book of mine. I think it was from class 6. I turned the pages and between the pages, there lied a little, multi-coloured peacock feather!

For some strange reason my eyes started welling up. I remembered how as a kid I preserved bird feathers between the pages of my text books and believed them to multiply in the course of time. So did many kids in my class. I held the peacock feather close to me and wept. I wept for the innocence I had lost. I wept for I knew now that peacock feathers never multiply. Tears trickled down my face.

Time you thief, who love to get sweets into your list, put that in! I have so many sweet little things I want time to put in his list. I love this little poem by Leigh Hunt... It's as sweet as the peacock feather between the pages of my old text book...

hi-fi sounding masochism and plain craziness

One fine day I just went to Jewellers' Street on Commercial Street to this tiny shop owned by one Simon Don Bosco straight from office and got my naval pierced! Just like that.

It certainly was wild even for a person like me. My friends called me crazy. But I liked it. I refused to take it off even when there was pus formation and the whole area looked red and swollen. It healed like I knew it would but my craziness did not.

I showed my naval ring to every girl in the office. Even to my immediate boss, Bharti, who I knew would be scandalised. She was. But she asked me after a few days to write a piece on why women go piercing themselves at weird places for the Sunday edition. She, not without a good reason, thought I was the person for it as, in addition to my naval, I had also four holes each on my ears and one on my nose!

I spoke at lenght to Simon and got all the details as to how many people came to him in a day for body piercing. Spoke to a few teenage friends of my cousin's and invented a couple of quotes myself. Then I decided to talk to psychiatrist just to see if it falls under some kind of behavioral disorder!

No prizes for guessing. It certainly did. My friend Priyanka thought I suffered from many kind of behavioral disorders! Well... I think if you go asking psychiatrists, everything is a behavioral disorder.

The psychiatrist said it was masochism. Like sadists enjoy hurting others, masochists enjoy hurting themselves. He said people who cannot cope with mental agony often hurt themselves physically. Extreme depression, remorse or guilt can prompt people to pierce themselves. He said even tattooing is a form of masochism. (There you go! what did I say? psychiatrists take pleasure in calling everything abnormal)

I never thought of all these complicated 'isms' when I pierced my naval or my ears. I could not associate myself with the hi-fi sounding masochism. I was plain crazy and I admitted it gladly whenever my friends pointed it out. I was neither depressed nor guilty. But a surprising number of people I spoke to later embraced pain as a source of comfort from depression.

I remember a girl back in my school used to slash her wrist whenever she had a fight with her boyfriend. She was with me till I completed my PU and by the time we reached II PU she had so many cuts on her wrist that they looked like dozens of bangles. Her hands looked dark. I always wondered how come her parents never noticed it. She was even proud of it. She would tell anybody who cared to listen-about her latest fight and how she slashed her wrist and made the guy ashamed of all he did. They eventually broke up and predictably she had more cuts.

We all laughed at her behind her back. It was our favourite pass-time to narrate her latest story to each other. Recently, after all these years I heard she got married. I'm sure she got over her er...behavioral disorder! Wonder what happened to the scars on her wrist?...

I can never stop gaping at them...

First time I came across this curious tribe was on the day of my wedding. They swarmed the place in large number. You could see their stubbornly curly hair and eager faces everywhere. Children and elders alike they came up on the stage to wish us as well. They looked exactly like African Indians. Same face, same built only these were wearing typical ethnic Indian outfits! I kept craning my neck to find more of these. But except for my friends and cousins, none others seemed intrigued by these strange people.

''Did you see them?'' I asked my husband when the curiosity got the better of me.

''See whom?,'' my husband apparently thought I was referring to one of the VIPs or political bigwigs the place was littered with. ''Those African Indians of course,'' I said.

''Oh them. They are not African Indians. I mean, well yeah, that was where they initially came from. But they belong to 'Siddhi' community,'' replied my husband without much enthusiasm.

But they had all my attention and I had an imaginary documentary piece featuring them ready inside my head. From then on, till date `siddhi' community never cease to surprise me. I always look in awe each time one of them pass by. Just a few days after my marriage we visited this Shiva temple close to our house. It was supposed to be the auspicious 'Shivaratri' and hundreds of 'Siddhis' thronged the place! All women draped in saree with big 'bindis' and men in traditional lungi (sort of loin cloth). I was so engrossed in looking at them that I hardly paid attention to the pooja rituals we were supposed to be performing.

''Get a grip Divya. Stop gaping at them like that. They are the inhabitants of this place and been here from generations. They are not used to people staring at them,'' said my husband one day when he could stand it no longer. '' Oh. But look, this 'siddhi' speaks Hindi,'' I said thrilled, ''How does he manage that?'' My husband answered patiently that he was a 'Muslim siddhi' and asked me to stop staring for god's sake. The muslim siddhi in question also looked at me with mild interest as he nodded at my husband touching his heart, a sort of gesture for salute.

Apart from speaking 'Konkani', which is the native tongue of this place, 'Siddis' also speak fluent Kannada and of course there are 'Muslim Siddis' that speak Hindi as well. People say that they were brought here by the Britishers for labour. Some of them stayed back and formed their own tribe. They belong to the schedule tribe and majority of them are Hindus. They perform Poojas, dress up in traditional clothes. This particular tribe can only be found in Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka. They are mostly labourers and are physically very strong. They are also apparently known for their promiscuity!

'' They are all 'diluted' now if you know what I mean. Married to 'brahmins' and other castes other than their own tribe,'' said my father-in-law.

''What is their culture like?'' I asked. ''Nothing interesting. Most men work hard all day, later get drunk and beat up their wives during nights. Their weddings are very similar to ours and they observe all our festivals as well. But apart from that no distinguished culture as such,'' replied my dad-in-law. He was very amused at me and promised to get them to pose for me.

Distinguished culture or not, They always arouse my interest and I can never get over them wearing saree and can never stop asking questions about them!

Nostalgia...My favourite word

I really miss my crazy friends, a pair of my favourite jeans that could put rag-pickers to shame. I miss those days I used to sit on the steps of my old college building sipping kaka's chai occasionally with `channa' or something.

I miss going out with crazy friends and sitting comfortably on the steps of the posh Safina Plaza eating raw mangoes, cucumber, pineapple all neatly cut and spiked with salt, pepper and lime from road-side, eying men who passed by and attracting weird looks.

Gone are the days when I would sit up all night on terrace just to see the moon. I just have to think of those crazy times to know what exactly the word `nostalgia' means.

Once I just decided I was into philosophy and bought loads of Osho and JK's books and piled them up in my room much to the despair of my poor aunt. She was just looking at the heap of books scattered all over the immaculately clean floor when I dreamily asked her if I could shave my head?

She was too shocked to even react for a moment. She said she would promptly kick me out of the house if I ever tried anything like that and banned me from even talking about it. And just when the shock was ebbing, I decided that I needed to learn whistling! (I had just watched a wacky, Rajnikanth's movie)

I started to practice by putting my thumb and fore finger inside my mouth just above my tongue that was folded upwards so that they (fingers) touched the roof of the mouth and blew as advised by an expert. After several attempts I succeeded! I would whistle day in and day out just for the kicks of it.

My aunt loved me too dearly to admit to others that I was losing my marbles. But she clearly thought I was a goner. And I could see it on her face. She winced every time I whistled. My cousin Appu on the other hand laughed at all the stupid things I said and did. ( It was much later that I realised he was actually laughing at me all the while!)

My aunt always kept my dinner in the fridge as I did night duties and got back home as late as 3 am sometimes. I would open the door with my spare key and enter. Occasionally I would find small notes on the stove or stuck to the fridge which read, `No need to wash your plate just eat and sleep' or `There is grape juice in the fridge. have it' and stuffs like that.

Once I found a note that read `mom has kept some wine for you in the fridge' scribbled by Appu. I was half way through my dinner and thought I was hallucinating. I jumped up from the chair I sat in and opened the fridge coyly. Sure enough, there was a small glass half filled with red wine! I gulped it up in one sip!

And then I would get up in the mornings as early as 10.30-11 and get out.

I miss those days I used to wander aimlessly on the streets thinking up unimaginable stuffs and day-dreaming. I miss those hours I would sit all by myself in some coffee bar with a book.

I would just call up or leave a message to my aunt telling her that I was staying with Malu when it suited me. And we would leave, me and Malvika on my bike at midnight from office, both singing. Malu sings like a dream and my singing has always been a nightmare. I sang nevertheless. It didn't bother me. ( Occasional pitcher of beer actually made me think I could sing! )

I miss those nights me and Malu used to sit on her terrace. Malu playing guitar...

So many memories... I'm reeled in nostalgia...

As soon as I realised that I was pregnant the first thing that came to my mind was how to make best use of this. However, I soon realised that I wasn't going to get any extra allowances after all. For one, when it came to household chores and other such non-complementary works, I anyway enjoyed exemption even before I got pregnant.

I thought may be I'll just sleep in late and blame it on morning sickness (not that I ever got up before 7.30 am) but that wasn't going to happen. My mom-in-law asked me, as I got up at 8 and came down, ( coz our room is upstairs) ''Have you been sleeping all this while?'' ''No,'' I replied, ''I have been throwing up.'' Well, she did not comment but as I saw all others up and about I must admit, I felt a strange sense of shame. I mean I was the 'bahu' after all and cannot expect to be treated like a guest always.

As for my husband, he is the kind that always pretended to care and continued to do so. I always threw tantrums and my husband almost never reacted. So why?, I asked myself, did I get pregnant? Not that I don't want to have baby but thinking about forever- urinating, drooling baby did repulse me sometimes I must admit. Leave alone the horrors of child bearing!

I mean it's fun when the baby belongs to someone else and you just play for while and promptly hand it over to the mothers when it starts bawling but who will I transfer it to when it's my own? ''Mothers come in handy during these times, when my daughter started bawling I always refered her to my mother,'' said a cousin of mine smiling. Well, it all actually comes down to this right? mothers! bless their souls! And I am going to become one! not that bad I guess...