DREAM A LITTLE DREAM FOR ME ...

I am supremely confused on most days … I wonder why I choose to sit around in a boring air conditioned office rather than do all the stuff I love doing …. write, read, cook, embroider, make herbal cosmetics, clean, organize, paint, garden. Well I guess the answer is simple, all the things I love doing I have been unable to monetise … and that’s the quest I am on. I have forever dreamt of a small coffee shop with a library, a craft and storytelling centre for children. A place where adults could come over lounge around read and kids can learn to paint say a paper mache bell… This I dream hard and strong, and I hope someday I have enough courage and perseverance to see it through.

I grew up in a small gold mining town in south India. I was uncorrupted by KFC and cinema halls and nurtured by walks and lots of books. Much to my mother’s exasperation I loved collecting leaves, feathers, tamarind seeds and pebbles. Life was organic on most fronts, some of us girls walked on Sundays to collect Aloe Vera from the rocks behind home, this we used as hair conditioner. Shampoo was freshly ground Hibiscus leaves. Tapioca and pumpkin were grown in the backyard and shared with neighbours. Cycling on empty village roads was the only option when one wanted to get way. Summer was all about mangoes soaking in chilli powder and salt. Life was simple, but the city always lurked in corner and lured.

I moved to Bangalore for my graduate studies in 1999 and have lived here ever since. It is here that I met the man I love and finally chose to marry. It is here we have chosen to have our baby. When I first moved in I cherished the city for all it had to offer. It is great to be a another face in the crowd. The freedom that comes from being unrecognized is like a head rush, it gets you to do many mad things. In these years I made some great friends and met some really interesting people. We did rather unusual stuff unlike the many party heads around us. The mindless conversation, coffee and friends were the very factors that made me confident and ready for all that the city was going to dish out.

Time has gone by and now the city fails to charm as much. But I am glad for the experiences I have had. I hope my child will experience both the freedom that comes from simplicity and the freedom that comes from anonymity just as I did. For both of these together are immensely powerful.

Till then I walk on with dreams of the coffee shop with an over flowing book shelf, overjoyed children with grubby hands, strung beads, colour paper, crayons, feathers, marbles, the joy of a new story shared and a new memory picked up.

RHYTHM OF THE SOUL ….

For years I have maintained that I would have married a Tamizh payan (Tamil Boy) if not for my husband. There is inexpressible love I feel for the language, Tamizh to me is like Italian, lyrical beyond comparison. As a child I had Rajettan my maternal uncle who I always spoke to in Tamizh, it was our secret bond. Then there were Chakravarthi, Raja, Kumar, Sheela and the entire entourage from my grandmother’s printing press who spoke to me in Tamizh and introduced me to songs like “Adi Ennadi Rakamma”. This was all many years before A.R. Rahman arrived and made Tamizh music cool.

My husband and I have lived in Austin Town a predominantly Tamizh locality for over four years now. Everyone from my help, vegetable vendor and the auto driver love the fact that a Malayali Ponnu (malayli girl) speaks such good Tamizh. Austin Town never ceases to amuse be it the drunken brawls or the festive processions there is always entertainment promised. Year after year I have watched the Dusherra procession awestruck; there are chariots with all sorts’ of colours, and gadgetry. This time I watched with a heavy heart for there might not be a next time, we move out of here next year.

Each year as I watch the Dusherra procession go past, the sweaty and hysterically agile Tamizh boys dancing before the chariots catch my eye. They do the DappanKoothu a dance form made famous by the suppressed Dalits of Tamil Nadu. With migration to cities the Koothu (meaning party) is now popular in urban slums. There are drums of every possible size; there are moves that would put Prabhu Deva to shame and the music has a delirious trance like quality. Rhythm seems intrinsic to these dancers, they move in absolute carefree abandon. Loud clapping, firecrackers and whistling accompany the deafening drums; this is truly the poor man’s Mardi Gras. The drummers tease by changing the beat ever so often and the boys never fail to come up with a unique dance move. Every single time I see one of these processions I tell Sidharth, “If only I had detachable boobs, I would have danced with these guys.” I say this each time knowing I will be called porki (loosely meaning loafer ) I bob my head endlessly, I run into the bedroom do my own small dance routine, come back running and watch again wonderstruck and jealous. The woman folk don’t join in; they walk alongside the procession, with plates of vermillion, flowers and turmeric. I wonder how they resist the urge to jump in and let loose, for this form of dance could only be therapeutic. For all you know the custom must have eroded owning to the pressures of middle class shame, pride, honour, morality and city living.

I remember a long while ago we had relatives from Kerala who visited our home at KGF. While traveling to our place they were stuck behind a hearse van. Now, the hearse van was mistaken for a wedding procession due to the bunch of drummers and dancers who were leading the van with the tunes of DappanKoothu! TheKoothu on the occasion of death is supposed to signify the death of a great man who never bowed. This honorary gesture however was never understood by my relatives who were too shocked at what they discovered. This incident sealed our fate as a family, who lived amidst pagan, uncivilized, Tamils! And cousins in Kerala used it against me at every give opportunity.

I wish I could have told my brethren that I prefer a funeral with dance and music to wailing. Or even better to the boring western concept of a stiff, upright ceremony with black veils, shades and all!!! There could be no better way to bid adieu to life than with music.

The only other person I know of who had a radical outlook to death is my late father-in –law. He told his kids to have a whisky party for him on his death anniversary and to remember him in giddy happiness. So each year we light a lamp, place a drink at his photo and down glasses of his favorite whisky. Be it the whisky party or the DappanKoothu , celebrating life that once existed is the best way to both remember and say goodbye.

Musician and friend, Christopher Avinash once told me that the appeal ofDappanKoothu lies in the fact that it is an even time signature making the rhythm both repetitive and predictable. I cannot help but believe that this powerful, native, raw music is the core of all of us. Maybe this is why the same loved one who calls me porki cannot resist sporadic movements at times on hearing this rhythm.

Years ago I stayed at the Kanuvu (Dream) School in Wyanad, Kerala. The school is run for Adivasi children from the surrounding villages and aims at keeping the traditional community ways of the Adivasi’s alive. Over other customs the children are encouraged to make indigenous musical instruments, learn folksongs and dance every night before they go to bed. Each night the children and the guests assemble around tribal drums, flutes and musical instruments to dance to the music of their soul. I vividly remember the energy from this night of dancing as astonishingly cleansing and liberating. I also remember now that the tribal music at Kanuvu was the repetitive even time signature!

The boys dancing at the Dusherra procession wore pants that threatened to fall off the next second, berets, converse shoes, and Bob Marley t-shirts. The coloured spiked hair and bling reminded me of the Hip -Hop artists I see on VH1. On a normal day, I would have disliked these characters as much as I dislike most Hip Hop icons. But every time I see these Austin Town boys dance I melt. I feel fuzzy warmth when I see that their western appearances have not succeeded in killing their native rhythm. I feel respect, for unlike many of us who feel ashamed to dance the koothu which is considered lowly and crass by many, they do so in absolute abandonment. They do not mind surrendering their bodies to the pure joys of rhythm, dance and music. We have a thing or two to learn from them.

Year on year I have seen this ritual of faith and raw energy unfold and all walls of judgment collapse. What remains is the sheer pleasure of rhythm and spirit set free.

Lets talk Caca !

Today is one of those days … I long for a puff … a nice loooonnnngggg deep one at that, with Sid on the balcony …. Maybe we could throw in a couple of beers too…. The guilt I feel while expressing this desire annoys me to no end. But, then I am pregnant which means my fears are irrational, my guilt comes from years of being told what “acceptable” social behavior for a pregnant woman is.

Yesterday was different. When I was asked how I see my pregnancy, I replied I don’t romanticize it. What are my fears I was asked. I fear there won’t be us, Sid and Me, I said. The cuddles will have to be shared. Our dictionary of obscenities will have to put away, our dirty jokes, words like caca, kakoos etc. will be used only after furtive glances over, behind, and under, each others shoulder and armpits! And ya most importantly we won’t be “meeting” as often! (*meeting is a key word used by many doctors/nurses to avoid embarrassment to themselves. This is a word used to describe the very act that results in parents becoming parents!!! )

And ya, I fear there won’t be any me left. There won’t be a bank balance for a while. There won’t be mindless indulgence (like a totally unnecessary scented candle for the toilet!). I will be “milked” empty day and night, and reduced to a brimming, squirting, sleepless, oversized milk tub!

Weighed down by all these emotions lashing around my head, I lie down to watch some TV and something worse happens- I smell baby PUKE! The white watery puke that happens after a feed …. I could swear to you I smelt it! It was like a whiff of my future! My mind screeched at the thought of the many other gooey’s that await me, purging, caca filled diapers, endless bouts of susu! I chose to fall asleep to escape the smell and my overtly imaginative mind.

Yes! Yes Mothers already! I know it won’t matter once the baby comes along. It’s gratifying; it’s an act of martyrdom, selflessness and kindness, to some it is therapeutic too. It is also a wand that will be used when you child turns 18 and tells you how UNCOOL a parent you are. You will buy silence by saying - “I have washed your puny butt! How dare you talk to me that way?

It did not take long to decide that Sid my savior from bugs, beetles and all other flying insects, my hunter of rats, could do with some baby bottom therapy. All my mommy friends can have long conversations on cleaning baby bottoms and its many joys with my husband.

Now that I have handed the wand of power to Sid, I could focus on other preggy issues - my mid morning, mid noon, midnight, mid dawn snacks and my oversized, overfilled, overactive, over enthusiastic bladder which demands that I stop NOW!!!

5 Month Rant

It's wonderful to be pregnant or is it really all that wonderful? To feel an itchy bloated stomach and feel your legs heavy like logs is not exactly lovely is it? And the heartburn that makes me run a mile away from all the food I once loved, is not a pretty thought.

What I have discovered these past 5 months of being pregnant is mothers don’t always remember the pain and the discomfort associated with pregnancy. It is the same old clichéd, Oh, I saw my baby smile, I fell in love and all the pain vanished or " my husband made my pregnancy so perfect the pain did not matter" ” When I heard the latter remark I decided, I am NOT telling mothers how I feel physically. Because the lack of memory they exhibit makes me feel like a crabby bitch!

Don’t get me wrong I love where I am! To know I am the chosen one in the marriage to carry this bundle of joy, is definitely a reason to celebrate. Aparna who does not drive, who cannot change tube lights, who cannot handle technology, who cannot handle speed, CAN be a mother! Even nature knew that Sidharth would be no match to me on this one front! And yeah that makes me feel AWESOME.

To know I can nurture within me and will nurture for many more years to come is heartwarming. And also, this is truly the only thing that Sid and I have created that is only OURS! Yes, Gibran says otherwise. But then Gibran was never pregnant so he would never know how it feels! The scans are lovely, and the first sight of tiny a nose and itsy bitsy hands wring my tear ducts and force them to over perform! The feeling of butterfly wings moving inside is completely divine.

But the truth is also that my jeans don’t fit me no more! My sexy lingerie will have to be wrapped put away sometime soon. Half my wardrobe has been handed over to my sister who is young, pretty and slim, all in anticipation that I will not need most of these clothes in a long time. I can’t have a beer without feeling guilt. Oh yes all the “be positive” talk is beginning to get me super annoyed! And then to top it all bloody Cosmopolitan magazine says 75% men place flat stomachs on top of their sexual fantasy list! (Sid better fall under the balance 25 %!)

Excerpts Conversation with unmarried friend:

Unmarried friend: Hope you are drinking milk every day.

Me: I cannot handle milk, makes me feel sick.

Unmarried friend: Oh no but you should its good for your baby.

Me: Dude it’s not good for me, makes me want to throw up!!! My Doc says it is ok not to have milk.

Unmarried friend: What is a little throwing up for your baby’s’ sake? You should drink milk.

Me:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why don’t people just keep their opinions to themselves??? Everybody Tom, Dick, Harry, Jane and Jill has something to say! Go have one of your own is all I have to tell them all. It’s very- very hard to handle all the concern, and free advice that flows in all the time.

The society we come from makes it nearly impossible to get others uninvolved. But I am sure we women could begin by not sugarcoating motherhood as much as we do. Why can’t we call discomfort by that very name? Would it not be ok when I tell my child 20 years from now, “You know what baby when I carried you my legs killed me and I hated this part of my pregnancy. I cried on certain days because I felt sad about the stretch marks I was developing. That your father and I could not share a cigarette anymore was not pleasant. I was not positive all the time; life was changing so drastically I worried at many points. But I still tried the best I could. I enjoyed you to the best of my ability and loved you immensely from the minute I knew you existed.”

Would it be ok to say this? I hope I will have the courage to say so if need be. Or maybe like the many mothers out there I will see my baby smile and forget I ever said all of this ….