Encyclopedia Geographica

Most families discuss politics at dinner. Some well read ones bandy about famous words, and talk of Rushdie and Khalil Gibran. Still others watch soaps and grin at the vamp’s evil machinations. In my family, we talk. But none of that normal stuff for us. Being the dysfunctional unit that we are we talk geography. If this conjures up visions of people talking of Darfur and Patagonia, again dispel those. Let me elaborate.

Appa or Amma will start with where they went that day. The travelling spouse’s modes of transport would be acutely examined and then a long and protracted discussion would occur. Major roads would be discussed, the number of signals computed. The number of panwallahs, gutters to be navigated and the closest relatives abode from the point of destination would all be taken into consideration. Then the weather comes in. Mumbai being what it is, and more importantly where it is, you wouldn’t want to be flushed away in the rains. Hence all previous parameters would be voided in the face of the south western winds and newer, drier routes plotted.

Hinduism neatly divides the year into two halves, one replete with festivals, the other conspicuous by their absence. Travelling secular Mumbai in dakhshinayan compounds life. Amidst all the mandaps, mandals, makeshift temples and human detritus thronging them appointments must be made, offices reached on time and examinations be vomited upon. This is where we really excel. Sample this actual quote by my father to a bewildered rikshawallah: “Don’t take the left at the Church like you normally do, instead take a U-turn, immediately get into the housing society, pass through it and leave form the other gate. Never mind their watchman ill take care of him (!). Then get into the bus depot, circle the lake, go the opposite direction through that one-way and you will see a small gap between two trees, go through that, and you will be the first to reach the station today. Don’t thank God, thank me, and you will live to see another traffic jam”. Needless to say rickshaws avoid us like the plague.

Bandhs and political stirs leave all people scared and wary. My parents call too, but with detailed instructions on reaching back avoiding all the ‘political hotspots’ of the city (usually involving walking alongside stinky gutters, trespassing through several plots of private property and in one case, going through a tabela. No the cows weren’t pleased either).

Records, inevitably are set. “My husband can reach the mall under heavy traffic in a matter of seconds” Amma will proudly boast. In a benevolent mood she might even confide “We take a right turn at the vegetable market. Cuts 13.7 minutes, but watch out for cabbage peels.” These candid confessions sometimes lead to us bumping our rival families on one of ‘our’ secret routes leading my parents to froth at the mouth and devise newer, faster (and decidedly shadier) routes. We could give Google Earth a run for their money any day!

Talents rarely stay hidden and we are the local neighborhoods preferred database. Recently my father went a step further and lectured a cousin on how to find her way. Nothing wrong in it except that she was in Chennai and he in Mumbai. “Don’t listen to that autofellow, no train comes at that level crossing, just go across and you’ll reach home in time for dinner”. I was stumped. Amma, unfazed added for good measure that if my cousin took a particular lest turn she could pass by a temple too (and thank God for geographic mastermind relatives?).

All this knowledge isn’t gainsay. We have an original Rand Mc Nally atlas 1985 edition. It is a work of art no less. Mapping the entire globe form Cambodia to the Caucasus, Buenos Aires to Bangkok (with helpful footnotes on how to get to Juneau from Jakarta). The bloody thing must weigh a ton if anything at all. Then there are countless Indian atlases, from various publications. Also every time we take a vacation, as souvenirs we collect maps. So we have maps of almost all major Indian cities, two towns and some vague scribbles detailing a hidden Shiva temple a few kilometers off the railway tracks at Arakkonam. And then Appa bring maps from his sojourns abroad. So I know the way to wadi Haifa from Sharjah, and that the river through Gloffhausenbach has no bridges on it (leading me to pontificate if all Germans prefer wading to walking, but there is a time and place for every discussion). The digital age taught us to operate Google maps and latest versions of Google Earth are downloaded as soon as they are available.

A few weeks ago, I saw Amma reading a book on the Solar system (National Geographic special edition, weighs another ton and is a beautifully informative book). Houston, be scared. We are almost up there. “Beam me up Amma”

Mama Stores

“Good morning ma” I said, conscious of the time difference.

Instead of the bleary, sleepy voice I expected, Amma said in chirpy tones “Good morning kanna, You know what happened yesterday?”

I wondered which of my aunts had committed what sin. Or maybe the bai was playing truant. Or was Appa up to some mischief?

Amma went on to describe what she called the brilliantest bloodless coup of this decade. Yesterday while buying vegetables she casually happened to notice that the vendor was wrapping coriander in a page from some comic book. Further inspection revealed it to be Indrajaal comics. Amma jumped, coaxed, cajoled and bought off the vegetablewalli’s entire stock of coriander wrapping paper. Back home she was in her own world of childhood reminiscences and nostalgia, Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon and the ubiquitous Henry. I nodded ferociously in agreement. “Brilliant” I screamed into the phone.

Twenty more minutes of less mundane topics later I was back in my own world and wished I magically found my own piece of nostalgia wrapped around some rotten coriander. ‘Gokulam’ would be found only at Mama Stores (No one knows the real name, that’s what all of us called it). In a corner of this western Indian island Mama Stores was the sole link to Tamil Nadu, selling exotic kizhangus, aromatic kapi podi, and all other paraphernalia required to please the good Tamil Gods and the fat Tamil priests. While parents queued to buy Kumudams and Vikatans, I would jump up to get the magazine. For some strange reason, mama hung Gokulam from a clothesline high up. For an hour after we returned home, feeling like exiles in a strange land with bags full of strange Tamizh goods; I would be absorbed in Gokulam; reading pen pal’s letters to each other, enjoying the illustrated tales, fables and episodic stories. Of all that the magazine yielded I delighted most in the stories of king Jayabalan. Written by the witty J Vasanthan they revolved around a fat, foolish egomaniacal king and his more foolish ministers. I was too young to get any political satires that might have been planted in the stories but at that age I thought naming the minister of communication ‘tholaipesi’ and the defense minister ‘kavasam’ the height of satire. As I grew up and drifted off into wider literary circles, Gokulam took a backseat. On my acquisition of a bike, Amma sent me far and wide to shop for Tamizh goods and Mama Stores lay ignored.

Today that part of my childhood came and hit me, making me miss home all the more. Of the twenty days that my unforgiving schedule allows me to go to India, I must somehow find time to say hi to ‘mama’ and see if Gokulam still exists. That thought alone brings a wide smile to my face.

Books

My friend G who we last encountered while buying a top here, is moving. Well actually she’s just moving 2 blocks away, so it isn’t anything drastic, but to me it means lugging infinite number of boxes and trash bags full of stuff to her new house. “The new house is terrible, cobwebs and all” G said. Apparently, the harami landlady had refused to clean it before handing it over, but G, clever that she is managed to shave off 50$ on her first month’s rent as a compensation for cleaning it herself. Enter yours truly. So on a lazy Thursday afternoon, G and me, went to her new house which she hated. The house was nondescript enough like so many others, old and lived-in. One step into the house and my jaw dropped open. Where G saw cobwebs, untidiness and blasphemy; (she must worship Poirot secretly, I have concluded) I saw heaven.

Every square inch of the house was piled with books. Tottering towers of Enid Blytons, carelessly discarded boxes labeled Shelley, Hemmingway and Frost. A shelf on the farthest wall held bound volumes; Tolkien’s complete works including the history of middle earth. I was salivating. While G muttered and devised devious plans to fool her roommates and grab the prettiest room for herself, I quietly poked around.

Flying off a small tangent here I am a complete sucker for books. A dodo if you will. And the one thing I like apart from reading is browsing in bookshops. A thrill just in seeing books, reading the back-cover, leafing through pages lazily (a thrill compounded by the emptiness of my wallet). One of life’s greatest pleasures, this. Tucked away in a leafy by lane in the heart of Mumbai, The Strand had piles and piles of books. Books were squeezed into crevices and lay carelessly on every surface. Exactly my idea of a bookshop; unlike crossword which I find sterile and impersonal. One of my primary reasons for hating Mumbai is the dearth of books there, which kind of makes me want to live in Bangalore (Gangaram's) or Chennai (plenty of places, all on leafy lanes!), book paradises. Also some moronic politician conspired to remove the second hand book selling people off the pavements at Flora fountain, making my life much sadder, and thereby ensuring that I never vote for his party again (democracy rocks!).

The upper rooms held Christie and Doyle in a huge antique shelf. Another box possessed papers, essays of Bertrand Russell and Shaw. The closet held PG Wodehouse (I was in 7th heaven by then). G had resigned to de-cobwebbing the house herself, poor thing. Apparently I did not even turn a hair when she screamed on finding a large tarantula (supposedly). The icing on the never ending desert came when I found a bundle of National Geographic’s, in the attic; 1987 to 1995. I had a silly inane grin, which I just couldn’t wipe off. Santa does exist.

This week we are going to clean the basement. My excitement is unparalleled. I also wanted to explore the attic a little more peacefully. My life is like the parched desert, which finds a rainstorm in it. I shall resist the bad puns, and most of my other activities till G throws me out of her home. Till then Adios.

Teething Tamil troubles

The frustration felt at not being able to read is something indescribable. It is like the loss of an arm, or misplacing your spectacles, forcing you to see blurred images. I can read, as evidenced by my writing (duh!). What I am trying to rant about is my inability to read Tamil. Having grown up far away from tamizhland, I juggled Devnagari scripts at school, read English and scribbled in Aryan tongues. I never realized what I was missing until the train one day refused to move. Let me explain. I and my mother, journeying across the country, and Indian railways decided to prove its unreliability. With nothing to do, amma started reading out loud a Sujatha novel. I was hooked. I did not understand some phrases, but I desperately wanted to read. And couldn’t. Chennai was a tortuous maze of squiggles. And I learnt the intricacies of pa and ba, ka and ga, the ever comforting zha. Ra ra, na na and na confused me. The absence of several consonants worried me, but if Tamil had survived two millennia without them, then it must be ok. I struggled. I read children’s books. I started watching mindless soap operas, and read characters names. I read ribbons under sun TV. I pored over Kumudam. I pestered all my grandmothers to teach me the alphabet. I fed young cousins barely three feet tall with the tastiest of chocolates in return for their textbooks. My efforts to read Tamil would often result in temporary suspension of all work in my house, with everyone in splits. I gave my parents headaches with my persistently silly questions. Suddenly the language I was speaking for so long refused to exist. It was a new language, with rules and grammar. With history. It wasn’t Tamil anymore, it was Tamizh. I looked longingly at bound volumes in my attic, stories waiting to be read, worlds waiting to be explored. I even procured an English translation of Kalki’s epic and read it in one go. Amma thought it remotely funny, Appa snorted. I haven’t given up as yet. I can now read bus destinations, hero’s names and simple jokes. I hope to read Ponniyin Selvan (hah!)..still I hope.

Rhyme and Reason

I have never been able to write poetry. Unlike most of my friends who can wax eloquent, complete with rhyming words and all, I cannot for the life of me rhyme. Maybe it is because I have a predilection to use big words. Maybe it is because when I was little, I thought every line in a poem must rhyme. By the time I learnt of non rhyming poems, my mind had already been restricted.

The joys of haiku.

Never will I sample.

Pedestrian prose I write alas.

Coming from a family of poetry lovers didn’t help either. Dinner started with Thiruvalluvar and Kamban and dessert was served with a good portion of Khayyam. All I did was eat at that time. Sure, I do appreciate the occasional poetry, it moves me sometimes. What I cannot do is ooh and aah at implied metaphorical marvels that I cannot get. Nor does it irritate me to see people get Goosebumps at the mention of a particularly meaningful line.

Prose is capable of stirring emotions and encouraging thought. Prose is abstract and grounded. Beautiful, earthly, and solid. Poetry shifts meanings, allying itself to one of the many moods of the fickle mind. Vande Mataram makes me all quiet and contemplative. Jana Gana Mana commands respect. An occasional Gulzar or Vairamuthu will stir me. Random lyricists will have me in splits. But somehow I feel the pull of prose. Poetry is like the hot girlfriend. Prose is a comforting mother’s arms. The effect Tolkien has with his words, or the way Archer moves crisply, the way technical manuals go on for pages, without actually saying anything, crappy page 3 news full of rubbish with words littering the glitterati. Words by Bachi Kakaria and Bill Bryson will have you laughing, Lahiri makes you see futility and Tolstoy reduces to a teary rubble.

I try and try

But cannot rhyme

The output of my efforts, wry

Not worth a dime