Dept. of Minor Amusements

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Got this from the incomparable Ziglacious One (I have a permanent link displayed in my list of favourites to the right) -- but I imagine you can go to the site and find out which great leader YOU are by just clicking the picture.

Birdy!

It's my 53rd -- the same number as my birth year. Weird, isn't it? I never thought I'd make it to 40 never mind beyond fifty! Amazing.

Well, the main event of the day was taking my Mum to the hospital to get her stitches removed. The hero of the day (and of the surgery) was my cousin Khi, who made the appointment, arrived at our house with her driver and her Hyundai at 1.30 to collect Mum, Mum's day-girl attendant and moi. Apollo Hospital is an extraordinary place, a cross between a railway station, a 3-star hotel and an asylum -- there are crowds of crazed people milling about and noise but ... the floors are clean and the place functions, despite all. We had only a ten minute wait, and then another ten minutes before Mum was out again.

She wore a sari for the appointment, the first time in two months and looked fresh in her crisp cotton burnt-orange ensemble. She was tense all the way, until we had arrived and she saw that there were wheelchairs right at the entrance to the hospital, with young attendants always on the hop to transport new arrivals away. She had no fear of the procedure, having had enough surgeries to know that this is the least of the problems. When she was done, the young doctor attending to her told us that the wound had healed well -- it was a small incision, a key-hole -- and that she needn't return for a month. So we went home feeling a great sense of accomplishment. She wanted only to lie down, and of course all movement is slow and painful but ... it's not the pain that wracked her for two months before the surgery, so she's very grateful.

And moi? Well, for some years now, I've been following an idea that no-one else is interested in, of not taking birdies very seriously. I mean, sure: I'm thrilled to acknowledge another anniversary of my existence! But I don't mind or care very much if no-one else is, or if it's forgotten. I'm glad for what there is in the way of good wishes and gifties -- I got a great one, this time in spite of my efforts to fend it off when it was suggested to me earlier: a new cellphone which all but brushes my teeth for me! I tried to resist it, saying I had JUST bought a new phone, like three months ago, the day of my departure to the US (because my previous instrument was a terminal case and it is precisely while arriving/departing on journeys that one wants one's instruments of communication to wurk!) and though it was the India's Best model -- i.e., super cheap -- it worked very well and -- and --

What can I say? It's VERY NICE to have a cutting edge model -- oh, of course NOT the fanciest, most expensivest one! -- which is yet within the range of mere mortals, with a wee camera and a radio and COLOUR ...

So yes, there was that, and there was much cake too -- one baked by my sister G, who alas was not in Madras for the birdy, but left for Bombay early in the morning and another sent by M, a lusciously chocolatey one, fresh from the Chola Sheraton! And flowers from my sister S, all the way from the US (of course the flowers themselves are local) -- pink roses and cream-white orchids -- and good wishes from various friendly corners of my world, including, most thrillingly, from VERONA in Italy! Where an intrepid friend/nephew Sumant is currently enjoying the staging of Midsummer Night's Dream for which he created a fabulous set.

At night Mum, my brother-in-law GCD and my niece M and I had a pleasant dinner downstairs, of aloo-ka-paratha and cake and red wine (a very smooth and likeable Merlot). MaiTai, my little niece-let was buzzing about industriously, and Mum's night-nurse, her cook and the upstairs cook were all having a small get-together of their own, watching the downstairs TV and eating their cake.

It was good.

Elsewhere once more

It's been awhile ...

And I'm no longer in the same sector of the galaxy as the dandelion featured in the picture. I got back to Delhi earlier than planned and am currently in Madras, having flown in on Sunday the 18th. My mother had surgery to fix the terrible back-pain she's had for the past couple of months and though I'm no Florence Nightingale, there was a general feeling that it would be good if I could be here while she's recovering. So here I am. And she is recovering. Every time there's a medical episode in the family, we're all reminded of the fragility of our lives and the complex web of chance that dictates so many of the most crucial decisions we take.

In this case, for instance, my mother would probably not have had the surgery if my cousin Khi hadn't visited her just as a young doctor was leaving the house, having paid a visit which was part-professional, part-friendly. He was upset enough from seeing Mum in pain that he talked to Khi, a complete stranger, about getting a second opinion from her orthopedic surgeon. My cousin had been trying to suggest this course of action for some time, but the conversation with the doctor at the gate gave her the confidence to go ahead and call her surgeon -- who just happened to be in the neighbourhood and thus in a position to stop by for an impromptu house-call. It all just fell into place -- and a week later Mum had her surgery. She's 87 and so of course the recovery is going to take a while but: the wound has healed well and though she says there's still a lot of pain whenever she gets up from a reclining position or stands on her feet, the fact is, she can now walk using her walker and before she could not.

My main contribution here is to be encouraging and companionable. She has two young women who take care of her physical needs, one for the day and one for the night, and also a live-in cook. My sister G and her family live upstairs and are always available for help and company too. But there's no real limit to how many people can be on hand to cheer her along, or to eat her meals with her so ... well ... here I am. Doing that.

I expect to be back in Delhirium on the 28th.

Meanwhile, I've been reading at a furious pace -- on the aircraft I had a volume of McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of ASTONISHING STORIES edited by Michael Chabon to keep me entertained and the moment I landed (or thereabouts) I plunged straight into both volumes of Ruth Reichl's highly entertaining food-centric memoirs, TENDER AT THE BONE and COMFORT ME WITH APPLES. She writes such extraordinarily vivid descriptions of flavours and textures that I have been putting on weight just reading about all the food she's eaten in the course of her highly active, productive and well-nourished life. I am told there's a third volume but I'll probably need to go out for a quick jog before I start on that one! I wish I could understand how food writers and professional cooks avoid looking like blimps but I suppose they burn off their calories with the sheer intensity of their devotion to food.

Reading books like this reminds me of an odd truth about myself: though I do sincerely enjoy eating, I'm not in any real sense, a connoisseur (-euse?). The reason is simple: my taste-buds are not capable of making fine distinctions, no doubt because I have a meagre sense of smell. I cannot, for instance, make out the difference between types of meat -- not unless it's really extreme, say ham versus beef steak or chicken and shrimp. But I don't notice the difference between mutton and beef (for instance) and it always amazes me when people know at once when they're eating one or the other. I used to think people who could take one mouthful of curry and say: "not enough ginger!" in the same way that I might say "not enough salt!" -- were just play-acting. All I can manage is the knowledge that something is curiously pallid or else that it's alive with flavour, without ever being able to identify what's missing or over-used.

I've improved slightly over the years; it's got something to do with recognizing that cooking is like painting, but with a palette of tastes and aromas, rather than colours. I realize that good cooks REALLY CAN tell when there's a pinch of rosemary missing from a stew and I can, just at the outer periphery of sensation, understand what it adds in the way of dimension to a dish. But when I read a book like this, written by someone who lives in a world dominated by virtual Himalayas of taste, flavour, texture and fragrance I can only stand back and applaud. And drool a little.

Weather Update

This cartoon was drawn about three weeks ago -- and at that time, temperatures were lurking in the lower brrrrrrs -- but believe, even now, for some of us tropical flowers it's not exactly summer. I don't know about Suki, but I am wearing, at this moment, aside from underwear: a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved tee, a camisole under the tee, tights and -- as a surprise, because I dressed in a hurry and didn't pay close attention to what I was doing -- a pair of cotton pajamas between the tights and the jeans!! You can see that the weather has had an effect on my attention centres. So -- THREE layers of legwear and TWO layers of upperwear -- and IT'S SUMMER!!!! Oh -- and socks with closed, water-proof shoes with warm lining.

Needless to say, everyone else in VT is wearing one layer or less (those who are wearing less are generally children. Or else very short adults). Sz routinely wears no shoes -- but she does that in all weather conditions so I have told myself that she has superior circulation and her feet apparently don't NEED the same kind of temperature control that mine do. Sometimes my feet get so cold I begin to understand what it must be like to be a reptile -- i.e., a creature that actually CANNOT heat itself up without external aids. Maybe I am partially cold-blooded? Sort of like a mermaid, but a land-model only, and with no scales?

Well. Anyway. It's all due to end. Tomorrow ... I leave for warmer climes, i.e., sunny BOSTON. And then Pennsylvania. *sigh* I'll be able to sing mournful songs about missing the green, green (c)hills of VT!

Eau de Joy

That title is NOT about a variety of perfume. It is supposed to be pronounced OH THE JOY and is a reference so obscure that I can't bring myself to mention it (except in brackets. Here it is: Many eons ago, when my niece M was a young thing of 17 and had recently returned from Australia, she had with her a cassette filled with cheery Aussie songs. On some occasion, when she, I and my sister G were all stuck in a car, in Madras's Pondy Bazaar, and M was in a towering bad mood, the three of us were all made to suffer a continuous loop of Aussie songs, in the sweltering heat -- and the one we all remember from that time was some ghastly thing with the refrain "Oh the Joy ..." in a powerful kangaroo accent)(so -- got it? OH THE JOY refers to something BEASTLY UNPLEASANT which is also idiotically funny).

Anyway, so here's the thing: I took a written test to get a Learner's Licence to drive -- and FLUNKED. Aarggh. Aargh. Guh-fooey. YUCK. And so on. This is NOT the Driver's Licence Test which most people fail at least once -- this is just the every-dumb-twit-can-do-it test for merely getting a LEARNER's PERMIT and I was assured that it was so simple, I could do it with my eyes closed. Well ... I couldn't. It is especially annoyingirritating because poor Sz (this is to distinguish her from St, my co-host in Vermont) had to detour from her son's piano lesson to get me to the location of the DMV (Dept of Motor Vehicles -- and I probably don't need to add that it is HALF AN HOUR away, in the direction of the piano lesson, but still NOT actually next door to it) where I could take the test and wait while I flubbed out. It is somehow immeasurably worse to tank at something if it means that another person is going to have drive me out to that location YET AGAIN next week. And she was supremely kind and unbothered by it! There ARE saints amongst us.

I have kicked myself so thoroughly, I am feeling a-glow with masochism.

And because I am helplessly inclined to look for reasons-to-be-grateful (I'm convinced it's got something to do with neuro-chemicals. I believe I have a chemical mix in my brain that ensures a sunny disposition REGARDLESS of my actual circumstances. This is not really a good thing, though it sounds like it might be. It means that even in the ultimate hell of the Inferno, I would be saying something like: well, it could be worse -- I could be in a better place but living in terror of being HERE!) I've decided that it's really for the best coz ... ummm ... most things come so easily to me that I don't value them. In this case, for instance, I glanced at the questions and thought, Ooo! I can DO this! Whereas now, on account of this ignominiosity the next time around I'm going to be crazy with anxiety!!

Right. And now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to that nice warm whip ...

SUKI in Vermont!

Well, and for those of you who have been wunnering about how I pass the time in Vermont, here's proof that it's not all fresh air and emus ...

Yep. I felt Suki needed to be taken out for a run amongst the lush hills and fields of the Green Mountain state. She seems to be enjoying herself! I plan to upload fresh strips every couple of days. I wanted to add screens to this one, but it was proving too much effort to wrestle the image into AppleWorks so I thought I'd just go ahead and post this as-is and maybe if I'm feeling energetic I'll edit it and re-post latah.

Those of you who are feeling especially alert will notice that there's a slight change in my signature ... I'm experimenting with the notion of adopting "Magnolia" as my nom-de-web. Comments welcome.

Meanwhile, in other news, I've been dying to post a message about a GREAT restaurant we all had dinner at (exactly one week ago today!! Just shows you the current rate of time-lapse around me) -- called RAINBOW SWEETS, it was a haven of wicked deliciosa!! The owner is Italian, ex-Brooklyn (NYC), been in business for the past 31 years. The restaurant looks like a small private home just by the side of the road. You enter a warm interior, scented with bakery fragrances and Bill (the owner) greets you like a horde of hungry Huns! His appetite for customers is infectious: quite aside from wanting to eat because the food's good, you begin to want to eat to please HIM! He's part of the experience -- this is one place where it WOULDN'T work to take the food home because then you'd miss Bill's inimitable commentary.

He and his family go away to Europe for two months every year and always (so I am told) come back with wonderful tales of their travels. This year it was Croatia: so -- history, geography, architecture were all part of the evening's dishes! And the dishes were just OOOOOZING. He keeps the desserts out where everyone can see 'em and it doesn't matter WHAT you eat for the meal, you've just GOTTA have dessert by the end of it! I had a succulent Greek spinach pie and avocado salad, and for dessert, two sugar-glazed profiteroles smothered in fresh Vermont cream -- collectively entitled Johnny Depp's B**ls!! If you're a diner of the male persuasion, you get Gina Lollabrigida's B**ls ... just so you know.

ANYHOW! That was last week, right? So this morning, I woke up in an absolutely gleaming-sparkling mood coz I had a dream in which -- despite many obstacles and terrors -- I pushed through and came out smiling!

The dream involved being somehow stranded in Chandni Chowk -- not the REAL CC, but a sort of make-believe nightmare place in the vicinity of the Red Fort. Ruined buildings competed with crowds of Haryanvi rickshaw pullers and sleazy snake-charmers (all right, all right -- turn those Freudian laser-probes off!) and herds of wandering cattle to make my search for a taxi in which to get home utterly impossible. HOWEVER, in the course of the dream, NOT ONLY did I successfully find taxis, but I also (instead of just going home) CHOSE to wander into the heart of the old stone building which appeared to be a haven for snake-charmers and tourist-trapping cobra-wranglers and instead of being oppressed by them, relaxed, was friendly, and was shown their secret methods of frightening the weak-hearted -- which, once they were shown to me, no longer frightened me, of course.

It was a very long dream, so I'm not going to be able to go into all the various details, but I came out of that place not only with no bites, but one of the snake-charmers gave me a (he said) traditional ornament, like a kind of ring/bracelet, which looked as if it had been made from tissue-of-rubies(a kind of pastry-layered gemstone). Towards the end of the dream, I was showing this object to some friends who were knowledgeable about traditional crafts and one of the girls confirmed that it was indeed a very rare and old-style jewel -- not especially valuable, but precious for the craft.

It isn't unusual for me to direct the events of my dreams -- I hardly ever have really bad dreams coz I usually manage to force out the nasty bits before waking up -- but the thing that made this dream especially satisfying was that it didn't require the usual effort. There were the scary bits and then an easing of the fear followed by a calm, philosophical acceptance of whatever-happens-is-okay. And it was (okay, I mean).

And yes, yes -- I am STILL learning to drive ... am STILL struggling up and down the driveway ... But the trees are looking a little more relaxed. Maybe the dream was a message from them??

Cellular Help ...

THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELLPHONE COULD DO...

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for
survival. Check out the things that you can do with it: -

EMERGENCY


The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find

yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is

an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing

network to establish the emergency number for you, and

interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is

locked. *Try it out.*


Have you locked your keys in the car? Does you car have

remote keys?


This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:

If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call

someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your

cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your

home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end.

Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to

you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away,

and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your

car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk). Editor's Note: *It

works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell

phone!*


Hidden Battery power

Imagine your cell battery is very low, you are expecting an important

call and you don't have a charger. Nokia instrument comes with a

reserve battery. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will

restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50%

increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge

your cell next time.



>>> And to all this, I just have to add: ... if only I could find my cellphone!!!

FINALLY ... here is the emu that I've been trying to upload all these days. It turns out Internet Explorer doesn't function well on Macs and AOL doesn't function well on anything. So: while using the iBook which I borrow from my friends when I'm at the "office", I haven't been able to upload on IE. And at home, using my own ThinkPad, and dialing up via AOL, no action there either. But all is changed -- because this office iBook has now been installed with FireFox -- and ta-daaaaa! Emu surprise.

All good.

Meanwhile, on other fronts (mentioned in the title), I am learning to drive. Okay, okay -- no hysteria in the audience, please -- better late than never and all that ... so it's been a stressful time for all the young trees along the driveway at my friends' home, where I am gaining valuable experience, and losing much sweat. S, the particular friend who is teaching me, has shown enormous reserves of patience, wit and serenity as we rattle up and rattle down the driveway, scaring goats and dogs and occasional (no doubt) field mice. It's only been about 10 days and there are faint glimmerings of understanding appearing in my cerebral cortex (or wherever. My liver, perhaps. I don't know where the Driving Gene is located).

The reason I am making this effort, after nearly-53 years of non-driving existence, is that I am tired of being a sort of animated parcel, in the US, always having to be collected and delivered from one location to the next. It is an immensely humbling experience, to suddenly be immobilized for lack of taxis/scooters/camels/dog sleds in which to move around. Also, when one is living in a rural area in the US, it becomes positively dangerous to be actually UNABLE to drive -- it is so much taken for granted that every normal adult has this basic skill that it could cause panic and riots if it were to be commonly known that I am Automotively Challenged.

I am discovering all kinds of interesting facts. Such as: I have two feet -- and ONLY two feet -- rather than the three most people seem to have, or SHOULD have, so that they can rest one appendage each on the Clutch, Brake and Accelerator pedals. Such as: there is such a thing as slipping backwards into oblivion when the parking brake is released. Such as: some cars DO NOT HAVE A (functioning) PARKING BRAKE. Such as: yelping and letting go the steering wheel -- mysteriously -- does NOT result in the car coming to a dead halt. Such as ... ohhhh. Never mind. I think I've said enough.

But I haven't yet actually hit anything. Which seems to me to be a good sign. At least till my next lesson ...

98 or 2? Which one r u?

At the end of this message, you are asked a question.

Answer it immediately. Don't stop and think about it.

Just say the first thing that pops into your mind.


This is a fun "test"... AND kind of spooky at the same time! Give it a try, then e-mail it around (including back to me) and you'll see how many people you know fall into the same percentage as you. Be sure to put in the subject line if you are among the 98% or the 2%. You'll understand what that means after you finish taking the "test".


Now... just follow the instructions as quickly as possible.



Do not go to the next calculation before you have finished the previous one.



You do not even need to write or remember the answers, just do it using your mind.


You'll be surprised.



Start:

How much is:



15 + 6

























3 + 56



























89 + 2

























12 + 53





































75 + 26




































25 + 52





























63 + 32

































I know! Calculations are hard work, but it's nearly over..



Come on, one more...




























123 + 5






















































QUICK! THINK ABOUT A COLOR AND A TOOL!
















































Scroll further to the bottom...






















































A bit more...























You just thought about a ... (okay people -- unless I see a minimum of three responses here, I'm not posting the END of this amusing message that came to me by e-mail. Just follow the instructions and post the FIRST RESPONSE that comes to mind.)


---and a mere half day later, five responses -- CONGRATULATIONS, people! You've just proved something to me -- i.e., that there are many more 2%ers than the original testers thought there might be! Here's the end of the message:


You just thought about a red hammer, didn't you?







If this is not your answer, you are among 2% of people who have a different, if not abnormal, mind.



98% of the folks would answer a red hammer while doing this exercise.



If you do not believe this, pass it around and you'll see.



Be sure to put in the subject line if you are among the 98% or the 2% and send to everyone, including the person that sent it to you.

Emusements

I have been trying to post the photograph of an avian friend for several days but the various computers I have at my command (? did I use that word, COMMAND? I wonder what it means ...) have been misbehaving, each in its own way. Currently, I believe I have uploaded a pic, but at this moment, cannot see it anywhere. Maybe it will be here, magically, when I click *publish*. And then again, maybe it will not ...

I have discovered much further information about the Emus since I first became fascinated with them. For instance, I now know that the person who owns them keeps them for THEIR OWN SAKE. Not for food, not for emusement, but just to give them A Room Of Their Own. Maybe I should apply for a home? Wearing an emu-costume of course.

Emu-factoid for today: their eggs are a gorgeous deep green colour. I have not yet seen one (egg, I mean) but the lady across the road from Emu Heaven told me.

A Many-Flavoured Feast

We’ve been in Vermont for just over a week now. The weather is brisk-going-on-cold. We’re living with our friends S & S, their two children E & T, aged 8 and 4 respectively and their two dogs Lobo & Skylar (the reason I’m naming the dogs while leaving the humans only initialed is that I’m guessing that dogs have fewer issues about privacy)(I may be wrong here, of course).

Amongst the varied pleasures of being here is (Amro, take note …) the food. S, who is a passionate believer in food-as-medicine-and-as-joy cooks only with organic ingredients, sometimes plucked from her own herb garden or vegetable beds. An excellent meal we had the other day is worth mentioning – but I should stress that it’s been one of many. I am singling it out for special mention only because I happened to make a note of the recipe (but I didn’t write it down so if I have mis-remembered it when I reproduce it here, that will only mean that some of you will have to try it out, realize something has gone wrong and then write furious comments to me, cursing my poor recall) – Star Pasta with Mussels in Scampi Sauce. You begin (of course) with the Mussels. Four tablespoons of butter, melted with olive oil – enough to just cover the bottom of a medium-sized pan – into which you add the mussels – S used canned baby mussels, three tins of about 400 gms each, including the water. She added a fistful of fresh-plucked chives, three medium-sized heads of garlic (peeled and crushed) and a cup or two of white wine and maybe three-quarter cup of lemon juice. Add salt to taste (though the brine in which the mussels are canned provides quite a bit of flavour). Cook for about 15 minutes and voilà. It is done and delicious.

The Star Pasta was something I’ve not had before. It’s just pasta, like any other, but shaped into TINY little stars – looked at edge-on, a cooked star looks exactly like a grain of rice – and when served, looks like a mound of grains except that they’re NOT grains. For some reason, the starry character of the pasta enters the mind and imagination of the diner – well, this diner, anyway -– so that the act of eating becomes quite ravishingly twinkly. I cannot describe it any other way! T in particular, caught quite a number of stars in her hair, on her elbows and on her cheek and whereas spaghetti similarly distributed about her person would have looked ridiculous, the stars looked frankly delightful.

Well! That gives you an idea of the kind of stay this is turning out to be. Marked by unusual thrills – which aren’t really thrills so much as daily life experienced through the prism of being an outsider to them. Another example: down the road from the house, there’s someone who maintains an emu farm. There are at least 12 or 15 of the creatures prancing around their out-door enclosure. They are about as tall as I am (when they stretch up) – i.e., five foot five – and extremely curious. As soon as they catch sight of someone walking by they trot towards the fence with a jerky-hoppy motion, their brilliant gamboge eyes glittering, their dark beaks closed and their long necks coiling this way and that, snake-like. They are covered with iron-grey feathers which look more like a pelt of long, stringy fur and where it thins out a bit on their throats, the skin shows beneath it, coloured a delicate shade of cornflower blue. From within those serpentine necks and despite the closed beaks, there comes an eldritch BONG! sound … Quite remarkable.

It’s fairly cold, even though it’s the end of April – and just in case you’re inclined to think I might be exaggerating let me inform you that yesterday afternoon, the mild rain had the cheek to turn into snow!! Not very serious snow, to be sure – it did not so much as remain on the ground – but it certainly turned the air into a fine blade, with the wind using one’s nose as its whet-stone.
This morning the puddles of rain that remained from the day before had frozen over, then cracked into muddy shards that looked exactly as if someone had broken a plastic dish and then thrown the pieces carelessly out into the yard.

I am pleased to say that, despite the many distractions, I have even managed to do a bit of reading. Over the weekend, I demolished a book called NOT BUYING IT, by Judith Levine. It’s definitely a must-read item even for someone like me – i.e, someone who doesn’t especially like to shop. The author has published four books besides being a free-lance journalist. She and her partner Paul live half the year in New York and half the year in Vermont (yes … there IS a connection … all will be revealed soon).

As she explains in the preamble to the book, it was while struggling to complete her Christmas shopping in late 2003 that she was suddenly overcome with disgust at the sheer overwhelming chaos caused by Homo Consumerensis. Instead of merely brushing aside her sense of unease at the volume and urgency of the shopping frenzy in which she and her fellow shoppers were wallowing, she chose to do something about it – by deciding to write a book about one entire year during which she refuses to spend money.

In the hands of a less honest, determined and conscientious author this might have been a dreary compilation of temptations resisted or obsessions revealed. Instead, it goes from the early days of 2004, during which Levine experiences real pangs of withdrawal from an activity she knew she enjoyed but had never before considered especially obsessive, to a greater and deeper awareness about the philosophy of runaway consumption that she and others like her are immersed within; about the impact upon the planet of such an attitude; about the echoes she sees in it, in the political realities of the US, particularly in the days just before and then following George W. Bush’s election victory at year end.

By the time her year of denial has come to an end, she is neither especially relieved to know that the “ordeal” is over nor does she truly regard it as an ordeal, now that it is almost behind her. She has learnt to appreciate economies that she hadn’t seen the value of before and she has discovered the painful bald spots appearing in the once healthy and vigorous public domain of America – the libraries that are pitifully over-used and under-funded, the public services that are running down.

During her stay in Vermont, she and Paul become involved in a protest against a proposal to build an unsightly cell-phone tower not far from where our hosts/friends S & S live. They had become intimately involved in the protest. Believing as they do in the urgent need to re-think economic priorities with ecological sanity and the planet’s best interests in view, they were of course passionately opposed to the cell-tower. Levine refers to them in her book – which is of course a powerful incentive to read the book for a guest living in their house! – and by the end of the year, the tower, though sanctioned, is down-sized so that it is less of an eye-sore. It has not yet been built (it may never be) and so, to this day, we do not have cell-phone reception here. But the phones work perfectly well, and so does the Internet and in all truth, without traffic jams to be stuck in, or a social round to maintain, the lack of cell-phones hardly matters AT ALL. And that’s from me, a gadget-lover and SMS-fiend.


In a sense Levine’s book formed an interesting – might I go so far as to say piquant? – counterpoint to the book I had JUST finished reading, called Julie & Julia (I mentioned it in my previous post but didn’t get around to posting a link) which was, by contrast, entirely about consuming – food, that is, of the richest and most gourmet kind. Julie Powell (the author of that book) also created a year-long programme for herself and wrote a book around it and became something of a celebrity too – though it is unclear whether she will go on to sustain her place in the sun with more books. It’s silly, of course, to compare the books, because they really have very little in common and would probably not be mentioned in the same context except for the fact that I read them one after the other. Still – since I DID do that – it interested me to hear echoes from one book to the next. The powerful allure of food and eating in the first book, the way that it connects so many people to the thirty-year-old author’s personal aim of cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering The Art Of French Cooking and the powerful siren-song of the shopping plaza sounding in the ears of the second author, as she struggles to resist the urge to buy herself new clothes or see the latest films or buy an unnecessary trinket as a present for her niece upon her Graduation Day from University.

If it isn't already obvious, I strongly recommend both books. Dunno if they're easy to find/order in Delhirium, but I expect The Bookshop, Jorbagh and also Strand Bookshop in Bombay would be able to order them.

Arrived and on the move!

So ... my recommendation for THIS year is AIR FRANCE. We boarded our flight in Delhirium at 1.00 a.m. and were greeted at the aircraft's entrance by airhostesses wishing us "Bon Soir Madame/M'sieur!" -- it was a great start for any Francophile -- and the rest of the flight confirmed that first impression. Yep. By the end of it, E and I were chattering away in French, like a pair of parrots that have been taught a series of stock phrases, and are eager to try them all out!! I don't know what it is about the french language, but being immersed in it makes the immersee feel supercool, elegant, sophisticated, pleasantly perfumed and even (at a stretch) slender.

The result of this was that we wafted out at Boston's Logan airport in a haze of gaulic good-humour, buoyed up by TOTALLY OUTSTANDING FOOD (are you reading this, Amro?) -- not too much, not too little, but fresh and tasty and even the trays weren't too fussy or the little packets impossibly difficult to break into. Red wine both meals, and a nice, smooth dry one it was. There was a scheduled six hour wait at Paris' Charles de Gaulle and that was a bore, but the flight after it was just as good as the one that preceded it so ... like I said, we arrived in very good humour. We were out in the mild spring sunshine within minutes -- literally, I think it took about 20 minutes from the time we left the aircraft -- and that even includes the surreal 15 minute wait between the aircraft and the interior of the Immigration Hall, with all 300+ passengers backed up in one long, bewildered line in front of a locked glass door, coz SOMEBODY forgot to open it and let us in. My niece's partner L collected us in his car and took us to my niece D's sweet, pretty and pleasant-scented apartment in Arlington.

And yes, Amro, we had a GREAT dinner, cooked by my niece, of angel-hair pasta and excellent salmon. Delicately herbed and very tasty. MMMmmm.

I am not going to extend this much longer coz I actually have a life that I need to get back to right about ... NOW. But before I go, I need to say a word about two books I've been reading: one is Irwin Allen Sealy's RED -- which I found so charming, unusual and mind-tickling that I gave it away to D before I'd finished reading it, so keen was I to share it with someone else! More about it in my next post. And the second book is one that I read about in Zig's post about the BLOOKER awards -- it's called JULIE & JULIA by Julie Powell and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I would've preferred it to have included every single recipe that the author talks about, but even without them it IS, as the backcover blurb promises, a delicious read. All about the joys of cooking -- something I know nothing about, but am constantly hoping to just acquire someday without REALLY TRYING. (If you're reading this, Hurree, I hope you're feeling pleasantly jealous!! I promise to lend you my copy if you haven't got your own by the time I return ... chucklechuckle)

Preparing to Make the Jump to Light-Speed

So -- yes -- once again, we're gathering up our forces to make the Jump. It's an odd feeling, EVERY SINGLE TIME. I never reallyreallyreally believe I am going to make it through all the tiresome hoops and rings of fire that lie between me and the disembark-destination. I always assume that there'll be trolls and were-tramps all along the way, whose only aim in life is prevent me from achieving my goals.

At this moment, I am three-quarters-packed, not yet feeling the panic of wondering what vital items I have left out but already sensing the dwindling of space and time as the hour approaches. *sigh*

More later ...

Young Iraqi Ballerinas

This is going to be a slow rambling post about ... well, to begin with, this photograph. It appeared in the Asian Age, Sunday April 2nd 2006 on page 16 "Newsmakers" of the DELHI AGE section. It's an AFP photograph but has no other captions or credits and when I searched for it online couldn't locate it on the AFP site. So ... here it is, scanned from my newspaper in all its grainy glory.

I found myself gazing at it several times all through the day. I don't know whether your screen rez allows you to see the painterly texture of the image, the wonderful Degas flavour of it, echoed in the painting of a ballerina displayed on the back wall of the stage (I don't think it is a Degas, but it has the correct mood to be one). The colours, the expressions on the faces of the little girls, the curious suspension of life and reality beautifully symbolized by the pair of dancers behind the row of girls in front, of a slightly older ballerina supported on the arms of a male dancer, whom we see only from the waist down. She is all pastel and pink, her cruelly dainty shoes -- can't you just feel the tender toes cramped and bleeding within the tiny wooden cage of that unnatural footwear! -- raised in the air, while he ... well ... he's just the muscle in the picture and yet, in his uniqueness, he stands out. We don't see his face, yet we can guess that he is strangely handsome, that he lives a life that most young men only dream of, immersed up to his bobbing Adam's apple in acres of virginal semi-clad female flesh.

It is hard to know what story or moment is being depicted here. What exactly is the meaning of those tender, underdeveloped limbs, just one for each of the young girls, raised up at that ungainly angle? Are they in the midst of a dance movement or was the photograph posed, frozen for the camera? There is something so thrillingly familiar about the expressions on those very young faces -- the combination of boredom and solemn engagement, the prim sweetness of the wreaths around the heads, the flushed pink skin, the glistening eyes, the half-opened mouths. There is, about the picture, a hushed breathlessness, just as these girls' lives, one senses, are also hushed, breathless, half-open, paused: until ... time's little switches get turned on one by one; they blossom and grow full; the weight of womanly Otherness transforms them; that sweetness is gone -- replaced with other flavours, for sure --but never again that intense, that pure, that unconscious sweetness.

It is very odd for me to have these thoughts.

I have seen lots of pictures of ballerinas before; one of my schools offered ballet as an option and therefore I saw many versions of these young dancers performing in real life, and can still see them in my memory. I used to get Girls Own annuals with endless photo essays of ballerinas and their costumes, hopes, tears, triumphs. Yet none of these remembered pictures evoked in me the confused thoughts that this picture did.

Is it because I know that the girls are Iraqi and that their performance takes place against the backdrop of the war that has engulfed their world? Here's what the text says: Life goes on: Young Iraqi ballerinas perform on a Baghdad stage on Saturday during the opening ceremenony of the First Festival of Child Theatre in Iraq. The 11-day Festival started despite the death of two actors who were to perform in one of the plays in the festival. Their bodies, riddled with bullets were found last week in the war-torn Iraqi capital. The festival is dedicated to Iraqi children and aims to revive happiness among the children, who witness daily bloodshed in their country. (AFP)

On the one hand, I feel what (perhaps) the festival organizers would like everyone to feel -- that it is a remarkable achievement to be able to produce a full-fledged ballet in a country that has seen the kind of upheaval that has been the stuff of front page news for ... oh ... three years already? On the other hand, I feel it is bizarre and inappropriate for little girls to be paraded in this way for all the world to gawp at. I feel quite guilty harbouring such thoughts. But there you are: with one part of my mind, I feel that this kind of display of little girls is exactly what leads, through sad and twisted pathways, into crimes against girls and women.

With these thoughts still twitching and fidgeting in the back of my mind, today, I accessed this link sent to me by Zigzackly. It's a must-read blog-post and it makes reference to two very shocking incidents -- one that occurred in Vietnam, at My Lai, and another that occurred out of media view, to the blogger herself.

In case it seems as if I'm leading up to a grand general theory -- I am going to disappoint you -- coz NO, I'm not. I just wanted to present two very different images of reality, and leave you with the task of working out how we manage to live with both of them side by side(-- okay, not physically, but certainly juxtaposed through the magic of media) in the same world.

And that's all for today.

More Linx

It must be a sign of galloping senility that I find this funny ... (CAUTION: sound file alert -- if there are children/co-workers/sane people in the room with you, do NOT click)(if there are cats, go right ahead).

Learning about Nangla

Over the years, there's been one team of documentary film-makers who interacted with me for whom I have only praise: they call/called themselves RAQS Media Collective. I used to think of them as a three-person unit, but they are in fact (surprise!) three separate individuals, all three highly motivated, very bright, industrious and creative. Their names are Monica, Jeebesh and Shuddhabrata and amongst their several achievements is the establishment of the media resource centre and lab known as SARAI.

I'm posting below a message sent out by Monica about NANGLA MAACHI a community in transition/dislocation, in Delhi.

Dear friends,

Over last 35 years we have seen many an internal dislocation of habitations and life worlds within the city of Delhi. This is something that started with high intensity from the early 70s. Now the process of this internal dislocation has become intense and harder.

Nangla Maachi is a 30 year old habitation. It was made by its inhabitants over this period. It is along the river bank and next to Pragati Maidan (Progress Grounds). It has now become valuable real estate as it is prime land for new urban development fairly close to the centre of the city.

The process of its dislocation has, therefore, begun.

In Nangla Maachi Sarai/Ankur had set up a cybermohalla lab two years ago. Many practitioners have been through the lab.

Over these two years, diaries have been written by the lab practitioners and many of the entries have been about life in Nangla. These diary entries are also a way to stubbornly remind us all that Nangla was made into a
lively, heterogeneous habitation by countless people's efforts, and needs to be remembered for this creative act of making and finding ways of living together.

A recent entry reads - "Packing up and leaving from Nangla has begun." The diary is now a record of a contested terrain of the violence of dislocation.

We have set up a blog in both English and Hindi, to share with a wider public the various diary entries of the practitioners. Do visit it, read it, circulate it, share it and link it further. Your comments and stories will be very valuable.

English language blog


Hindi language blog

More posting from the practitioners will be made. A countdown to yet another disappearance of a self-organised urban space has begun.

best
Monica

Silly Joke Alert!

Okay, if ya hate silly jokes involving Persons of the Blonde Persuasion, read no further. There. I warned you ... This one's from my niece, M.


Blonde - Painting
A blonde wanting to earn some extra money decided to hire herself out
as a handyman-type and started canvassing in a wealthy neighborhood.
She went to the front door of the first house and asked the owner if
he had any jobs for her to do. "Well, you can paint my porch, how much
will you charge?" he replied. The blonde said "How about $50.00 ?" The
man agreed and told her that the paint and ladder were in the garage.

The man's wife inside the house, heard the conversation and said to
her husband, "Does she realize that the porch goes all the way around
the house?" The man replied, "She should, she was standing on the
porch." A short time later, the blonde came to the door to collect her
money. "You're finished already?" he asked. "Yes, the blonde answered
and I had paint left over, so I gave it two coats". Impressed, the man
reached in his pocket for the $50.00.

"And by the way," the blonde added, "that's not a Porch, it's a Ferrari".

Another joke ... ... not about blondes ... sent to me by cyber-bud Chuck.

A guy walks into a bar, notices a very large jar on the counter, and sees it's filled to the brim with $10 bills. He guesses there must be thousands of dollars in it.

He approaches the bartender and asks. "What's up with the jar?"

"Well, you pay $10 and if you pass three tests, you get all the money."

The man certainly isn't going to pass this up. "What are the three tests?"

"Pay first, those are the rules," says the bartender.

So the man gives him the $10 and the bartender drops it into the jar.

"OK," the bartender says. Here's what you need to do: First - You have to drink that entire gallon of pepper tequila, the whole thing, all at once...and you can't make a face while doing it. Second, there's a pit bull chained-up out back with a sore tooth. You have to remove the tooth with your bare hands. Third. - There's a 90-year old woman upstairs who has never reached orgasm during intercourse. You've gotta make things right for her."

The man is stunned. "I know I paid my $10, but I'm not an idiot! I won't do it! You have to be nuts to drink a gallon of pepper tequila, and then do those other things..."

"Your call," says the bartender, "but your money stays where it is."

As time goes on and the man has a few drinks, then a few more, he asks, "Where ez zat tequila?" He grabs the gallon with both hands and downs it with a big slurp. Tears streaming down both cheeks, but he doesn't make a face.

Next, he staggers out back where the pit bull is chained-up and soon the people inside the bar hear a huge, noisy, scuffle going on outside. They hear the pit bull barking, the guy screaming, the pit bull yelping and then silence. Just when they think the man surely must be dead, he staggers back into the bar, with his shirt ripped and large bloody scratches all over his body.

"Now," he says, "where's the old woman with the sore tooth?"

Joy!

COMMENT moderation rocks! I am having such a great time zapping the lice just at the point when they dangle their little suckers online. YOW! It's toooo much. I get so energized that I've even been enjoying backing into the archives to zap the resident spam-lice out of existence -- KA-CHOOOONG! Zowie! zappapapapapaZAP! Ka-BLOOOOIEEEEE!! Great sense of empowerment. Highly recommended.

Alas, I have also managed to lose one of the legitimate comments that was posted at the site. That's what happens when an over-ardent comment-moderator hits the zap-button too often. Sorry, and I'll be more careful da next time.

Also highly recommended, Bembo Zoo, sent to me by my friend Anvar -- if your eyes have been starved for candy, this site offers a feast of clever dainties. Please note, that's BEMBO, as in the typeface, and not BIMBO as in a species of nubile human.

The New Racism

An Indian friend reports that he's been facing discrimination while on a house hunt. He works for a well-heeled Australian multinational company and has recently been looking for a place to stay. The landlords to whom he speaks on the phone sound very enthusiastic. When he goes over to meet them and they see that he's Indian, they turn him down without a blush. He's been told in so many words, "We don't rent to Indians."

And where is this happening? In our glorious capital city, New Delhi.

So the next time you hear some recently returned NRI complaining about Westerners being so racist, help them wake up to the realities of their motherland by telling them this story. Me, I believe Indians can out-racist anyone, when we put our five-thousand-years-of-civilization-selves to the task. Sure I get "raced" at when I am abroad -- but it's hardly very different to the various forms of discrimination I am exposed to right here, in Delhirium. Reading the International Women's Day posts at Zigzackly's place in reference to so-called "Eve-Teasing" I am reminded of the years for which merely being a woman resulted in virulent gender discrimination.

I don't face that stuff any more, but on the rare occasions I go walking to the local market, I feel uncomfortable just because I can sense that for the street elements, I am "different". It's no longer anything very specific -- I'm not a bimbette, I'm not obviously rich, I'm not a foreigner -- but my hair's very short and I don't dress in the manner expected of middle-aged middle-class women. This is enuff to cause the local fauna to react in subtle ways -- it's nothing very obvious, just a slight flinching and clearing of throats, often accompanied by a release of spit, a bit like dogs scent-marking territory. It's not racism, so much as an instinctive dislike of anyone who doesn't conform to received notions of "normal".

By contrast, when I am away from these fabled streets, I am merely a brown-skinned "other", who is accorded a neutral space, neither fond nor unfond. Most of the time, I pass unnoticed and am often, I believe, mistaken for Latino. I find this neutrality very comfortable to live with. Sometimes I can see a clear-cut race-based reaction. On such occasions, I just remind myself of what it's like back in the motherland and feel ... well ... the familiar DIScomforts of home!

Meanwhile, on the COMMENTS front, I am enjoying the relief from spam. I hadn't realized how annoying it was until I turned it off. Like having an infestation cyber-lice. Yech. I am also finally getting around to clearing the unwanted posts out of the various little pockets into which they've inserted themselves. I am going to experiment with turning comment "moderation" on now.

Spam

COMMENTS are off for the moment -- and maybe forever -- on account of spam. There was TOO much building up. Also I've been slowly turning over in my mind, my response to the blogging experience in general. The other day, when some young journalist called up to ask questions about "celebrity blogging" these thoughts came to the fore. One of the questions she asked was, "What do you feel about exposing your personal information to the whole wide web?" Of course I had to laugh: my experience has shown me that there's about as much real exposure on a blog as standing naked alone in a desert.

On the few occasions when there IS high traffic, it is nearly always of low consequence. For instance, there was a surge of visits during the performance of my play in California last year. But the calibre of responses consisted almost entirely of emotional garbage that no-one really needed to either read or write. If I'd turned off comments then, the results would certainly have been cooler all around: maybe a few people would have e-mailed me with their furious remarks and I could have chosen which ones to present or not. But the high temperatures that suddenly flared up at the time would simply not have had the easy outlet that they did, and we'd all have had more time to spend on pleasanter pursuits.

Of course it's sad (now, in this commentless atmosphere) not to hear from the few regulars whose responses I welcome here (like Amro and gt, f'rinstance). But the irritants are in greater abundance. The only other time when it was really fun to have a blog was when the SUDOCRITTERS game was in progress. That was cool! And I can see from the traffic stats that SudoCritter continues to be a powerful magnet for one particular search engine in Europe. There is a continuous speckling of hits from France and Holland, every day. However that also means that the relentless spam-parasites (spamasites?) target those posts and fill 'em up with rubbish. I haven't been bothering to remove them, coz it's too much effort. I know about them only because they show up as e-mail.

So ... why do I blog at all? Because it continues to be worthwhile to put out a trickle of news about my patch of turf. It's a bit like sending out a newsletter -- without having to send it out. I know that friends and family visit here in order to confirm that I'm (a) still apparently alive (b) still have the use of my hands and am at least solvent enough to have access to the internet.

I also get to share my most recent amusements. For instance: this mindless-fun game, which I got from Dave Barry's Blog. And one more site, for those who are interested in serial killers ... (sent to me by e-mail by my ComputerVine buddy Chuck aka Slipshod).