H is for Head Wash Day #AtoZChallenge

Sundays were head wash days when I was growing up in the late seventies in Dehradun, India. In fact, they were all about washing. Sundays, I mean: heads and laundry and cars (if you had one) otherwise, scooters and cows and dogs and cats, even if you didn't have one. You could wash your neighbour's or friend's cat or scooter out of the goodness of your heart.

"Kal time se uthh jaana, sir dhona hai."  

"Wake up on time tomorrow morning , you've got to wash your head." (The literal translation of sir is head but  the inference is hair.)

For the purpose of this post, imagine a head full of lush, dark tresses when you see the word 'head'. In salons and beauty parlours in India, even today, it's non un-common for the stylist to offer you a head wash before they cut/style your hair.

Most daughters got tucked in beds by their mothers with those words on Saturday nights. I say most because back then most of my friends had long hair which needed extra time and effort to wash, oil and plait. Mine, however, was short. I wore mine in a boy's cut because my mother refused to fuss over hair styles first thing in the morning. Plus, if one got lice, short hair was so much easier to tackle than long tresses. My mother was extremely practical.

I didn't mind. I was once teased by a group of boys at the local temple who called me Indira Gandhi (on account of our matching hair styles). Hers was salt and pepper whereas mine was oily black. I didn't mind one bit. Heck! I was sure I'd end up as the next PM of India. I was almost ready. My hair, at least, was.

Sundays dawned with activity everywhere in the house. The kitchen sang with sounds of garam, garam, paronthe (hot, hot, flat bread) sizzling on the tawaa with ghio (ghee). The wadda veddha (the big veranda) thumped to the beat of damdi (a fat and blunt stick used to beat heavy bed covers etc.) and the queue to fetch garam pani ki balti (bucket of hot water) shrank as the morning matured into early afternoon, outside the gussalkhaana (bathroom) in the nikka veddha (small verandah).

There was only one electric heating rod (knows as immersion rod to us) to heat up the water in our household. Beji would tell us tales of times when water had to be warmed up on a chulha (an earthern or brick stove) and how it would take the entire morning for the family to wash their heads and how amazingly lucky the new generation was to have electric heating rods which warmed up a big bucket in just 15 minutes and there was no smoke to singe your eyes or the need to blow on the fire with a metal rod (I forget what they called it) and deal with the soot.

The only and a tiny disadvantage (as I saw it but never pointed it out to my grandmother) was the mild electric shock one got when one checked the water temperature in the bucket while the rod was still plugged in. And when we did do such foolish things, we tried our best not to cry out or we'd get a big telling off and a HUGE dose of 'I told you so' from ALL the adults in the house. And there were a few of them then: grandparents, parents, two uncles, and  an aunt. Who wants to be passed from one adult to the other with a string of 'I told you sos'? They'd start off soft and concerned but by the time the fifth adult was roped in by the other adults, it sounded more like a loud sermon given collectively by an orchestra of upset family. Neighbours were welcome to join in in this collective telling off. After all, a village raises a child, so why can't an entire village chide the child,too? Indian parenting knew no boundaries back then. Believe me.  

I would stand in a corner, by the bathroom sink, shiver a little with the after effects of the shock and very quietly go back to fetch my bucket and wash my head.

Warm water and shampoo?

No, silly! Shampoo or Sunsilk as we called it back then was rare and precious. Most heads were washed with Shikakai soap (a hair soap bar) which claimed to clean your hair and up till the point I used Sunsilk for the first time, it did a decent job, too. 

But, once my older, college-going cousin, Mamta didi, shared her bottle of Sunsilk with us, there was no looking back. Shikakai soap? Please...how backward do you think we are Mummy? Besides, that soap is awwwful! 

There were the die-hard herbalists who soaked shikakai and amla in an iron karahi (or bowl) with reetha (soap nut) overnight and put the yucky looking paste on their heads first thing in the morning and washed it off approximately at the time when pressure cooker whistles went off in kitchens of the neighbourhood. So around lunch time. Head washing came in all sorts of shades back then.

Sikh turbans, washed and starched, would hang like colourful flags from rooftop banneri (parapet). Duppatas would be hand dried by pairs of women. Children would play ball and get a yelling if their ball hit a white dupatta. Darji (our Sikh neighbour) would look like an Indian Santa Claus with his glowing beard and flowing hair, drying in the sun. Young sikh boys would play marbles or stapu (a street game) all Sunday morning with hair flying everywhere.

Before dusk, though, I'd sometimes sneak into Darji's house and watch him prepare his beard and tie a scarf around it, like a bandage when one has a bad tooth ache. I would watch him, spell bound and fascinated, tie his turban, like a magician, turning a very, very long piece of starched cloth into a majestic padgi (turban). He'd put it on before going to the Gurudwara in the evening.

Temple bells would mix with sounds of evening ardaas from the Gurudwara and we'd know any time now our mothers and fathers would be calling out to us:
"Homework ho gayaa? Bag ready hai?"  Is your homework done? Are your school bags ready?

Sundays, our head wash days, would end with clean hair and tired little bodies, for we only went indoors for meals or the evening film on Doordarshan. Our Sundays were mostly spent outdoors or in and out of neighbours' homes and kitchens, but never in ones own home and never entirely indoors. No, sir.

*****

Did you have a day assigned for hair-washing when you were growing up?

Last year, I wrote about laundry on L day. If you'd like to, you can read on here:

L is for Laundry

I came across this chulha recently on a trek. We were passing through Ali Bugyal, one of the most beautiful high altitude meadows of Uttaranchal. It's perched at 10,000 ft above sea level in the Himalayan range.

Tea (Indian style) was being cooked in this pateela (pot) on the chulha.

I will be here with 'I' (don't know what the I will be...but It will be)

N is for Naada and Nirona #atozchallenge

I was all set to do a photo essay on Nirona village in Kutchch when a comment I heard this weekend made my brain cells go PING! and I decided to go down this route instead.

Naa-da (Punjabi) or Naa-la (Hindi) is the drawstring that one uses to keep the pajamas from falling.

But before we get into the seams to find our way out of the casing, let me explain a little about Indian clothing. 

When Max, the doctor, (played by Patrick Swayze in the movie) is attracted to the idea that Indian women don't obsess about their waist sizes like the western ones he'd come across in his fictional life as a character in the book, City of Joy (by Dominique Lapierre), I, the reader of the book, smirk. I smirk because Max is not acquainted with the fact that Indian clothing (to cover the bottom half) almost always comes with an adjustable waist band.

Here in the world of  salwars, pyjamas, churidaars and petticoats, there's never any need to fit into a size 2 or 8 or 12. You can grow as big as the proverbial piece of string or in our case, the naada. What Max doesn't realise is that when he was being set as a character in the novel in the 70s India, a typical Indian woman was making her trip to her tailor, who was measuring her waist and cutting the cloth she'd brought with her to fit her waist (whatever her circumference) and not the other way round.

Teaching your kids to tie the naada in India is the western equivalent of teaching them how to tie their shoe laces. Only difference is, while a shoddily tied naada can cause you immense embarrassment, a sloppy job with shoe laces can trip you up and cause a different kind of pain.

Once you've mastered the art of tying your pajame ka naada  (drawstrings), you can go and get married. I mean you are ready to embark upon your life's path as dreamed up by your parents and as depicted in stereotypical western dramas (dare I say, not without reason): A+ school student, engineer or doctor, holder of a safe and well paid job, married with children, etc.

But, wait. Hang on a tic. It's not the tying of the naada that's an issue, it's the ruddy untying of it that leaves emotional scars so deep, one seeks counselling even when one doesn't believe it works. One is Indian, you see.

In the 70's and the 80's, as a wee one, you had the right to shake your mum or wake your sister to help you to untie the naada in the middle of night when you needed to wee and your fumbling fingers refused to co-operate. It was acceptable. Of course, the elastic band had been invented by then but there were times when you ended up wearing that one pj which hadn't been elasticated yet.

It's when you're all grown up and dressed up in the 90s and you're going out for a night of merriment, dressed in your best salwaar kameez, kurta pajama or saree that comic and life shattering experiences abound.

Imagine an evening of dance, music, good food and wine. Everyone's happy. You decide to go to powder your nose. The ladies' loo is unusually queue free. So you decide to pee too. Why miss a chance like this? You feel so good about your terrific timing and presence of mind. Now you can go on for another couple of hours and not stand in a queue. Happy with this thought,  you yank the naada to undo the knot. It seems stuck. Did I tie a double knot? You can't remember. But you try again and this time you tease the knot to ease it up a bit. The cotton threads that make the naada soft and washable decide to behave like steal wire today. You yank a little, tease a little, then yank a little more. You keep your cool. It's a naada, after all. You've done this in your sleep. It'll yield. It has to. You didn't even need to pee. But now the bladder has sensed that you're in a loo. So he gets all excited and decides he needs a release. The brain is trying to cope with two conflicting signal: bladder vs fingers. Who will win? You breathe in and tell your adrenaline to shush and just let the fingers do their thing. You can hear a few voices outside the door now. People are starting to shuffle close to the cubicle. Then a knock. Yes, you tell them, it's occupied.

That knock tips the scales and the adrenaline takes over completely. Fingers get sweaty and bladder is blasting to explode. No! You get the tweezers out (the tiny ones you always carry with you in your bag for the pesky chin hair that seem to show up only on your nights out and only after you've hugged and air-kissed all your friends at close quarters). Fumble. Fumble. Plop. The tweezers look up at you from their watery grave and the sight of water makes the bladder weak at his knees.

You know you've lost your battle and any street credit you may have picked up that evening when you feel the first wet drop.

You unlock the cubicle door and holler, does anyone have scissors? My naada is stuck.

Universal sisterhood rises to the challenge. You are saved just in time. You tinkle like you've never tinkled before and see the Divine right in front of you. That feeling! That release!

You step out, wash your hands, avoid eye contact, slink out without saying goodbye to your friends. And promise yourself to never, ever, go close to a naada. It's elastic from now on or hooks or buttons or zips...not zips, you tell yourself. Remember that scene in that film? But that was a man, you justify and feel a smile spreading inside of you. Safe in the comfort of your home and pull up pants, you can see the funny side of the evening.

Wardrobe malfunction stories are a dime a dozen when it comes to naada tying, untying, breaking in half while tying , or old naadas giving up their ghost while you're in the middle of a busy bazaar bargaining.

Have clothes ever put you in a pickle? Do share (if you can or would like to).

*****

And here are nine (clever, right?) pictures of Nirona village in Kutchh to give you a little flavour.

For more details about this village of artisans, check out NIRONA

 Wooden utensils and toys made by hand and coloured with natural pigment and mustard oil.

Ordinary moments of ordinary days 

is all that my heart desires.

Leaving you with a few lines from The Sage's Tao Te Ching

by

William Martin

Every Ordinary Moment

Our thoughts are becoming clearer,

and our needs are becoming more simple.

Enough to eat,

a comfortable bed,

and the glow of friendship

suffice to delight us.

*****

Holi springs colour

Photo Courtesy: Google Images

Flowers of Jungle flame aka Tesu ke phool

I love colour. Therefore, I love Holi. It's my favourite festival. As a child, drenched in the innocence of small town India, I played Holi with abandon, gulaal (colour) and dhamaal (utter madness).

Gujjia (stuffed and sweet pastry) and pichkaaris (water pistols) and Tesu ke phool (flowers of Jungle flame) occupied my thoughts and senses for days leading  up to Holi.

My sister, brother and I, along with half a dozen kids from our neighbourhood, would fill water balloons -- their rubbery necks stretched around the spout of a tap attached to a tank or any tap that was free to use. It didn't matter whose house we were in. Almost organically, a band of bandits would form. I remember, as a seven year old, I would hang out with teenagers and toddlers and our jhund (band) of mismatched heights and ages would behave like one organism, safe in numbers, with only one goal in mind: to play Holi. Angry aunties whose water supply would be in serious danger of running dry couldn't dampen our enthusiastic balloon filling quest one bit. The entire mohalla (neighbourhood) tuned into a giant aangan (courtyard) filled with multi-coloured faces, white kurta pyjamas and shrieking kids.

70's turned into 80's in Dehradun. Economic progress came wrapped up in plastic. Metal pichkaaris which worked perfectly well were replaced by plastic ones which looked better than they worked. The effect was never the same. The plastic water pistols squirted a frustratingly feeble trickle compared to the roaring jet of the metal ones. The shiny plastic button that one had to press hard to release the jet of water would break within the first hour of purchase. We would then use the fiddly things as mere holders of coloured water and unscrew the top or the bottom to tip the water over friends/foes to play Holi.

The novelty of these toys would wear out quite quickly and in the excitement of all the colour that had yet to be smothered, the poor plastic pistols would lie orphaned and abandoned in some neighbour's garden or worse, in a naali (open drain) somewhere. Until, of course, the mothers and fathers yelled at the children to go look for such an expensive purchase. They would, sometimes softly and often hysterically loudly, explain to you in front of the entire mohalla (neighbourhood) that it was your fault this cheap contraption had been bought in the first place and that it was you who had pestered them to get it by saying your Holi would be incomplete without it. Before long, the neighbourhood would split into us (the children) and them (the parents). Long after we, the children, had forgotten the yelling, heads of parents would be seen shaking to each other to the tune of, "Yeh aajkal ke bachhe...paise ki kadra nahin jaante." Kids these days don't know the value of money.

Collective and public telling off would be followed by 'discipline' in the privacy of homes, after dinner and before bedtime, when the probability of a neighbour dropping in unannounced was almost zero: a bit of ear twisting or a serious sounding threat to never buy you another toy for as long as you live or a stinging slap or anything that was seen as appropriate punishment by the respective parent. It all depended on how strict or kind your parents were.

Don't worry, neither the children nor the parents will remember this next year and the entire episode described above will get repeated, only the plastic pistols will change as those would've been bought new, you see.

Back to the actual Holi -- so when all the blubbery balloon missiles had been used up and almost all the powder colour lay plastered on us or the streets, and none of the pichkaaris co-operated anymore, we'd  resort to the 'balti ka paani'...the murky water in the communal bucket where everyone and their khandaan (extended family) had mixed their colour to fill up their pichkaaris and gubbare (water balloons).

We knew instinctively that once this 'balti ka paani' was over, our mothers would call us  back in to get cleaned up and become human again. In other words, Holi would be shown its 'THE END' slide as soon as the 'balti ka paani'  finished. Magically, the bucket never emptied.

"Bunty, enough! Come in NOW!" some neighbour would call out to her son/daughter.

"Abhi balti ka paani khatam nahin hua Mummy!" The bucket is not yet empty Mum!

Dehradun lost its innocence almost as soon as I turned twelve. Suddenly. Holi came with its own instruction manual. Do this, Don't do this. Go there, but not there. Don't mix with those people. Avoid boys at all costs if they were not from your family or neighbourhood.

For the first time, I was warned to look beyond the vibrant haze of Holi ke rang (colours) and take notice of the filth that may linger in the minds of humans dressed in pure white kurta pyjamas wearing colourful smiles.

Words like chhedd-chhadd (eve- teasing) and sexual harassment cropped up like weeds and took root, deep and damaging.

Back then, the burden of growing up was gifted exclusively to girls, innocently wrapped up in tameez (etiquette) and sanskaar (values)

 "Girls should play Holi sensibly beta... Mundya da ki hai (What of boys?)"

This rhetorical question bothered me! What of boys? Why were they never asked to be careful when they turned twelve? What made them different?

Hormones, tameez (etiquette) and riwaaz (traditions) muted the colours of Holi and for a good many years I played the censored version, called insanon wali Holi (the way humans play Holi). It wasn't bad but the rebel in me would look at all the gangs of boys hanging out on the chaurahas (intersections) without any curfews or restrictions and wonder why?

When I got married, my license to play 'jhallon wali Holi' (mad aka fun Holi) was renewed. My husband became my bodyguard and I'd go and play with abandon and dance like Amitabh Bachchan till my feet hurt and still carry on. My husband would hold his glass of thandai or beer and stand near me, not too close but close enough (he's not so keen on dancing). This way I'd be able to have my fun and not get hassled by eager or drunk revelers! Perfect!

The fact that I need a man (my husband) to feel safe among other men when playing Holi says a lot about this land of  Shakti and Kali and Rani Laxmibai and Sita and Meera and Durga.

Although I miss my bhachpan ki (childhood) Holi, to tell you the truth, these days I don't need balloons or colour or pichkaari or thandai to feel its abundant joy. Grateful to be alive, I like to relish the gift of a new day when I open my eyes in the morning to witness another day unfold, another flower bloom, another blade of grass kiss drops of dew, listen to birds sing a new tune or even an old one, watch the sky fold its cover of day and spread the sheets of night, speckled with stars. Everyday is a celebration of colour.

Every now and then, I do get sidetracked by the mundane busyness of the day to day ('functioning as a human' as my yoga teacher calls it) and then some unknown force makes me click on Sadhguru's video and I hear him say how one must smile when one gets up in the morning for it's a precious gift, this life we live.

"Notice the things that you are drawn to." says Anusha when we, her students, look up to her in wide eyed wonderment and some sprinkling of doubt on our quest to find who the real 'us' is.

I pay closer attention to my day. Paying attention brings up even more to be grateful for and even more to be joyful about. Holi no longer comes in a plastic packet of synthetic colour.

Spring sprinkles his colours and shows me the way. I follow with a smile.

Come and feast your eyes on the colours that a patch of green has yielded this spring. It doesn't get more blissful than this:)

Group shot:Onion, neem, cabbage, cualiflower, spinach, fenugreek, mulberry, basil and papaya

Ripe mulberry (almost ready to eat) Shehtoot

 Waiting their turn...the young ones.

Baingan ka phool aka Eggplant Flower

This shiny gem was made into a yummy baingan aaloo ki sabzi by my mother-in-law today.

Velvet and butter...the pretty pansies.

Blooming onion

Tomato flower

and tomatoes

Problem in paradise!

These two are not on talking terms: each waiting for the other to say 'sorry' first!

Yup..they're a couple.

I'm not sure what these flowers are called. I've always referred to them as local larkspurs.

 Zinnia

Lantana

I bought this sapling from a local nursery because I like the shape and colour of the leaves. 

Please enlighten me with its name, if you know this shrub.

Wabi Sabi

 Newly born neem leaves tickling the fluffy sky. 

Purple Basil in fragrant bloom

 Aparajita or Butterfly pea

Lit up and lighting up -- I love sunflowers:)

May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day. May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free. May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be indifferent.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Thank you Archana for posting this beautiful quote.

One LAST offering: A ghazal written by Faiz 

sung by Tanya Wells.

Enjoy:)

Thanks Anu for sharing this gem.

K is for Krishna

Re-posting this one to celebrate Krishna's birthday today.

Happy Janmashthami!

Butter thief or makhan chor was how Krishna was introduced to me. I was little. Stories were my classroom. My mother and grandmother were the storytellers.

Who's Krishna?

Our God. Or rather, my mother's favourite God. My mother's family (her parents) called Krishna their Ishta Devata or their favourite deity.

It may sound strange to you -- this business of favourite deity and choosing a God to worship. In fact, I've been asked this question many times by friends, acquaintances, colleagues and students- Why do Hindus have so many Gods?

When my eleven year old students in London asked me this question during a RE (Religious Education) lesson, I read up and researched a bit to find out a way to explain to them. I used an explanation I found online to make my point one rainy afternoon in October of 2005.

'Do you wear the same clothes to go swimming as you do when it's snowing outside?'

No, Mrs Jain. (in unison)

When you look at your holiday photos, or birthday photos or school photos, do you notice you look different in different clothes?

Yes, Mrs Jain.  (in unison)

Do you become a  different person every time you change an outfit?

No, Mrs Jain.  (in unison)

Here's Kelly's photo when she went to Spain last summer, and this one was last week at her nana's 90th and today Kelly is in school uniform. Is that 3 Kellies, then?

The shuffling shoes and loss of eye contact meant I had less than 7 seconds to wrap up and make my point, and I did.

Our different Gods may look different, they may have different qualities, but they are all representing the One God. Just like you look different in different clothes but you are still the same person. As a Hindu, I can choose which God I like and make him/ her my companion and friend and guide. Isn't that the point of Faith? To find a way to make the best versions of ourselves with a little help from a friend?

Looking back, I sound like such a boring teacher! Poor poppets.

I digress.

As children, we would listen to our grandmother tell us tales of Krishna stealing butter and getting caught, lying to his mother and getting punished for it, being naughty and teasing his friends. He seemed so accessible.

His antics change as he grows into a young man. In his youth, he is a model lover. His girl friends (gopiyan) adore him. He adores Radha and teases her all the time. He plays the flute and herds cows. And you thought that Bollywood heroes are a modern invention?

This image was sent to me by my friend Mimi who took a photo of a wall mural in a restaurant. 

I love it.

Murali Manohar or flute charmer is another name by which we call him.

He will kill demons and destroy corrupt Kings. He will recite the Bhagwad Gita. His words and their meaning will be sung and recited in Hindu homes all over India and abroad by aging grandparents. Sometimes, these words will enter the souls of the young and take root. Most times, they'll become another hymn to be recited as a ritual, without any thought given to their meaning or relevance.

Krishna has been many things to me in my lifetime.

Lying on a charpoy in our veranda under the twinkling shadow of sapta rishi (Ursa Major), my mother's chiffon dupatta (scarf) would flutter over my eyes in the evening breeze. I remember covering my eyes with it, while listening to her Krishna stories, imagining him stealing all that butter, some smeared on his mouth while he protested his innocence. Only the yellow light of the lamp was visible from our veranda. Rainbows appeared around the yellow light when I saw it through the dupatta. Playing hide and seek with the rainbows, I'd beg my mother to tell us another Krishna story, the one about his evil uncle, or the one when he stole all his friends' clothes when they went  swimming, or the one when he showed the entire universe to his mother...or....or...the requests were many, the time was limited.

I met Mark, an ISKCON devotee in Budapest yesterday. He told me about organic farming and I said I'd like to volunteer once my son goes to university. This chance meeting with Mark gave me my K. I was pondering over Kabir, Kolkata, Kareri while flying back to Doha, when Krishna presented himself. I was saved.

It's impossible to write about Krishna in a single post and that too when I'm typing with eyes half shut --I'm shattered. It's late and I've had a long day.

I'll leave you with a quote from Bhagvad Gita. It's easy to understand but very difficult to imbibe. I try and fail almost every day. But, I try gain. It's the reward bit I get stuck on. I'm working on it.

You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. 

For more information about ISKCON:

http://www.iskcon.org/

Y is for Yoghurt bath #AtoZChallenge

When we were little, my mother used to bathe my sister and me with yoghurt. Ewwww! You say.

Precisely!

Courtesy: Google Images

The whole tamasha (fiasco) used to take place in the open. My grandfather's house, where we lived till I was eight, had a big rectangular cement water tank in the garden. It was tucked in a corner, almost next to the metal gate that we used to swing on and get told off for on a daily basis. Spiky fronds of ginger foliaged to the right of this grey water tank. A stubby pomegranate tree stood behind it. It flowered beautifully but its fruit was pitiful; the seeds never managed to plump up. I jumped off this tank once because a boy dared me to and landed on the balls of my feet so hard that I thought I saw stars (like in comic books) for a few seconds.

So, come Sunday morning, usually once a month, a medium sized steel bowl (katora) full of yoghurt (dahi in Hindi) would appear with a couple of drops of mustard oil in my mother's hand. The two of us would be ordered to march ourselves to the water tank (paani ki tunkee) clad only in our cotton kuchhees (underwear).

Even before my mother sat down on the low wooden stool (chowki) and even before she removed her dupatta (scarf) to settle down to get to her business, the pungent smell of mustard oil would hit my nostrils. I would've done anything to escape the ordeal.

Mummy would scoop out a dollop of curd with her fingers, place it on her palm, rub her palms together and she was ready to go. First stop: the arms, starting at the shoulders, she would rub the yoghurt into our arms, tut-tutting at the dry elbows. Discovering dry patches on our little bodies always renewed my mother's vigour to rub in the yoghurt with added pressure. Legs followed arms, then the toes and the spaces in between the toes that always tickled and the heels, then the back and then the tummy. AND THEN the bit I HATED the most: the face and the hair! Ewww! Ewww!  Her four gold bangles would jingle-jangle as the dreaded mustard oil smell came closer and closer to my nostrils: the cheeks, forehead and chin, the neck, behind the ears and then the hair.

We were washed down with warm water and patted dry. Rajma chawal (Kidney beans and rice) was our Sunday meal. By the time we got dressed, my grandfather would be getting ready to eat his lunch outdoors, under the big mulberry tree and we would hear him call out our names to hurry up and get our ghirais (morsels). You see, back then, humans at home started lunch after a chapati had been set aside for the cow (who'd wander up to the metal gate at precisely lunch time) and another for stray street dogs. That was my grandmother's routine. My grandfather ate his lunch after he had fed the first couple of  morsels to his two granddaughters, my sister and I and then my brother when he was born. He used to say that his food tasted better after we'd taken 'bhog' (offering). Those morsels are what I'm looking forward to when I meet him in my next life.

Once we moved out of my grandfather's house, bathing with yoghurt stopped. Maybe we were getting old or maybe my mother's depression was getting worse. I don't know.

For a long time, I kept yoghurt bathing a secret I was ashamed of. I didn't want anyone to find out that we had yoghurt baths on Sundays when we were kids; beats me why I thought like that. Because, your skin feels like silk after a yoghurt scrub. Try it, if you don't believe me. Word of caution: the hair smells yoghurty afterward, but it feels so velvety.

Many years later, I came across a short story in Hindi (I think it was grade 7 or 8) called Usne Kaha Tha by Chandradhar Sharma Guleri (1883- 1922).

It's considered to be the first short story in Hindi by some. It's certainly an amazingly written one. I read it when I was 12 or 13, but I remember the character, Lehna Singh and his question to the girl, 'Teri kudmayi ho gayee?' (Are you engaged?) as if I read it only last year.

In this story, Lehna Singh (the protagonist) is asked to fetch yoghurt from the bazaar for his uncle who wants to wash his hair. 

That day, I felt normal. 

'There's comfort in numbers', a friend recently wrote on facebook. I certainly felt it that day.

I don't bathe with yoghurt any more, maybe I should start. But, I do mix up a face pack with yoghurt that I apply at least once a week. This recipe is the result of many years of applying home-made face packs. This one works for me.

Mix all the ingredients listed below. Apply on face. When it's dry to touch (20-30 minutes), wash with lukewarm water. Pat dry. Smile.
Warning! DO NOT get the door with the mask on--it looks pretty ewww when it's on the face.

Yoghurt: 1 or 2 teaspoons
Instant coffee granules: 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder: 1/4 teaspoon (if you have fresh turmeric, then grate it and a few drops of its juice should do)
Honey: 1/2 teaspoon
Lemon Juice: 2 drops.

Play around with the consistency and see what suits you best. 

Have a glowing Saturday :)

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If you are fond of reading short stories in Hindi, here's Usne Kaha tha in Hindi.

Q is for Questions

In the first decade of my life, say between four and seven years of age, the following three questions (along with their sub-questions) occupied my thoughts and dreams:

Question #1: What magic makes the woollens shrink in the trunk?
Early October, every year, the big trunk in the store room was opened and emptied out. Warm clothes stored in it were aired in the sun to prepare for the inevitable winter. Shrunken balls of naphthalene would roll out of the creases of warm jackets, knitted jumpers and sweaters made by my mother and shawls with Kashmiri embroidery that were stored with extra special care (usually wrapped in old muslin cloth). Despite the mandatory airing, the smell of naphthalene would cling to all those clothes for a good few weeks. Even now, that smell takes me back to the in-between time of the year when autumn is almost out and winter is just getting started.

I remember being made to stand by the big trunk while my mother took out sweaters and 'garam baniyane' warm vests, knitted with white or cream coloured wool, which we wore under our white school shirts. Overpowered by the strong naphthalene smell and the scratchy wool, I'd squirm and squiggle and get my ears pulled or bottom smacked to stand still. Almost always, my favourite sweater would be declared too small for me and passed on to my sister. 

Who makes my clothes small every year? Are there fairies who live in the trunk? Are they related to the little people who live in our radio? Why don't they shrink Daddy's suits or Mummy's favourite 'angoori' (green like grapes) cardigan? 

Question #2: How do people move houses?
Do they get a huge saw, squat and start sawing at the base of the house? How do they load the house on a truck? How big is this truck? Do houses have roots like Papaji's (my grandfather) radishes? Those milky white ones he yanks out of the soil, shakes off the dirt before offering them to us to eat, ignoring my mother's instructions to wash EVERYTHING. 

'A little dirt will only make you stronger.' he would say and take a big crunchy bite of the unwashed white radish that tasted like sweet milk.

And the last one is deep...real deep:

Question #3: How does Rajesh Khanna (Indian film super star of the seventies) come back to life every Sunday? 
There was a time when I was perhaps six or seven, Doordarshan (Indian TV channel) telecast Rajesh Khanna's three super hit films in quick succession. They were Aradhana, Anand and Safar. He dies in each one of them and in two of the films his death scenes were so potent, our entire neighbourhood was in floods of tears. We were one of the first houses to get a black and white TV set, thanks to my father.  It was quite normal for a crowd to gather around our TV set every Sunday evening for the film. In fact, once the TV had to be moved out into the veranda to accommodate all the people. It was a religious film, I think. I wasn't interested. But I remember watching a neighbour climb up the guava tree in our veranda to secure the best seat in the house.

Back to the question--this business of Rajesh Khanna dying, followed by my crying and feeling sorry for him and not being able to sleep because 'babumoshaye' (famous dialogue piece) kept ringing in my ears and then finding him frolicking around trees or cracking jokes with Amitabh Bachhan a few Sundays later, did my head in. 

My grandmother's tales of reincarnation didn't sit well with what I was witnessing at a young and impressionable age. Who was this super hero who died of cancer and then came back looking just like his old self, all grown up, a few weeks later only to die of cancer again?

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The only question that haunts me these days is: Do I look fat in this?

I guess, I was more evolved when I was little. 

A couple of years ago, at a school fair, I spotted two photographs that reminded me of question number two of my childhood.

The first photograph is at the top of this post. The second one is here, along with an explanation:

A bit about the photo at the top of this post...

I'm reminded of this oft shared quote of one of my all-time favourite writers: Roald Dahl.

N is for Nagin Dance

Dancing is like breathing to me. It exhilarates me. It energizes me. I never need a reason to dance. I've never felt the need for a teacher to show me how to. Just like breathing, I can do it. I may look like a total buffoon doing it, but I don't care. I dance with abandonment- in private, in public, on dance floors and in Holi parties. But my favourite place to dance is at an Indian wedding. The dhols and dholaks (drums) demand dance. My two favourite moves are Nagin (snake) dance and the Bhangra (Punjabi folk dance) followed closely by Amitabh Bachchan style thumkas!

What's Nagin dance? Here's a video that shows all the moves one can spot at an Indian wedding, starting with -- you got it-- Nagin Dance at number 1. Enjoy:)

What I'm about to tell you about Indian weddings is purely based on my memories. This is how things were back in the 70s and 80s and 90s. It's changed a lot now. 

Weddings were a chaotic cacophony of organic, home spun music on dholaks, chattering cousins, grumbling grandmas, copious cups of tea being made and served, lip-smacking food being prepared in large quantities by maharaj jis (chefs one hires to cope with feeding the extended family and their cousins, neighbours. etc.) who, it was implied, would eat at the shaadi wala ghar (wedding house) for five days at least- three before the big day, on the big day and at least breakfast on the day after the big day.

Riotous weddings of my childhood memories rested on the following four pillars:

1. Dancing

2. Food

3. Clothes or shopping for clothes, and

4. The obligatory and almost always unintentional upsetting of important relatives, who then expressed their unhappiness by either walking out (with lots of drama) or sulk loudly in (no, not in a corner) the most visible part of the mandap (platform where the bride and groom sit). Uncannily, this sulking face will haunt you for as long as you have your wedding album because the sulker makes it his moral duty to photo bomb almost ALL of the family shots taken on the day he/she decided to throw a hissy fit.

Trust me, even today, you may manage to have a quieter wedding with less dancing or simple food or moderately priced clothes, but you can NOT have an Indian wedding where you don't upset at least one member of your family. At least one upset uncle or aunt is mandatory . We've had entire families staging a walk out on something as simple as menu choices. Say, for example, if chicken tikka happens to be on display and a vegan uncle turns up at the wrong time. We are an emotional bunch and food gets us all wound up.

Back to my favourite part; dancing, which was and still is my favourite pillar, followed by shopping and food.

Only when I sat down to write today, did I wonder about the origin of Nagin dance. The other dances you saw in the video are a mishmash of folk dances like the Bhangra and the Garba (Gujarati folk dance) and now of course, hip hop. Nagin dance, I reckon, slithered into our weddings from Indian cinema. If you know more about its origin, please share. It's always accompanied by 'been' music. That's the flute a snake charmer plays.

Wikipedia suggests that the first Indian film that used been music and Nagin dance was:

Nagin (1954).  

I'll have to rely on Wikipedia as I'm pressed for time to do more research.

The following video is the real deal. This is what most dancers try to emulate at weddings or on dance floors. 

The drunk uncles are hilarious to watch, and apologies if you are one of them.

I probably look like a tipsy auntyji myself when I have my hands up in the air-- cobra style,

 but I still feel nineteen when I'm dancing. 

And that's all that matters.

I like to move it...move it...come on, join me...shake a leg:)

I'm certainly looking forward to switching off for a day. Have a fun Sunday.

See you on Monday. 

H is for Horoscopes

Picture this: You are madly in love. You know he's the one. He makes you laugh. He has a job. He comes from the same geographical area in India as your grandfather. You want to marry him. He wants to make you his wife. It should be easy, right?

Wrong!

His mother may love you and you may find his mother adorable. NOTHING is of importance unless your horoscope matches his. NOTHING.

I grew up in a household brimming with cousins and aunts and uncles. Snippets of chatter caught betwixt homework and housework, between my aunts and sundry elders about arranging marriages of eligible bachelors among our cousins, neighbours, neighbour's cousins or, for that matter, even the poor unsuspecting visitors who happened to be single, had convinced me that this piece of paper, your birth chart (horoscope), also called 'kundali' or 'janam patri' was as important as my school leaving certificate (if not more) to secure a decent future. Many middle-class Dehradun dwellers in the 1970s believed that girls secured their future by securing a good husband. That was that. Don't go all feminist on me. I did say 'many' not 'all'. And it was the seventies. Things are SO different these days, right?

Back to the horoscopes of my childhood then.

Here's how to find a suitable match for any person of marriageable age in 1970's small town India.
Note: I use 'he' and 'boy' here but you can replace it with 'she' and 'girl' if the match is for a boy.

Step 1: Spot a good looking boy at any sundry wedding you happen to be attending and make inquiries.

Step 2: Discreetly employ the auntie brigade to do a more than thorough background check. Discretion is of utmost importance. You don't want a good 'murga' i.e. prospective groom to be headhunted by some other family, now do you?
Note: background check must include the following: health, wealth, number of family members, his eating habits, his drinking habits, his degrees, his mother's fashion sense (Ah! you caught me).That would be a bit much even for the khatris of Punjab (the proud warrior caste I belong to).

Step 3: Use a middleman (an elder, local priest or the matchmaker - yes, that's their job title and they existed then and still do) to send word of your interest in the boy to his family and ask for his horoscope.

Step 4: After receiving the document, wait for the astrologer or priest to give you his report. This would mean matching the boy's and the girl's guna or qualities-- not unlike modern dating sites.

“GUN” (“GUNA”) POINTS	PREDICTION FOR MARRIED LIFE
Less than 18	NOT COMPATIBLE. This marriage may not succeed.
18 to 24	AVERAGE SCORE. Wedding match is acceptable.
25 to 32	VERY GOOD MATCH. Marriage should be a success.
33 to 36	EXCELLENT MATCH. Marriage should be a success

For a more detailed analysis, check out: 

http://mymarriagewebsite.com/kundali-horoscope-matching-and-gun-milan-for-hindu-marriage/

Step 5:
Scenario A:  If the guna matching score is above 25, start thinking of 'how to finance the wedding'.
Scenario B:  If it's near 36, start shopping for the wedding.
Scenario C:  If it's below 25, spread the word that the boy has body odour issues or that the girl falls short of your minimum height requirement by half an inch.

Step 6: Announce the engagement (only in scenarios A and B). In case it's scenario C, go back to 'step 1' and start again.

p.s. If you think this is the end, think again. The journey from announcing the engagement to enjoying wedding bliss is a long and eventful one (for another day, another post, I think!)

More than twenty-three years ago, I squeezed inside a tiny phone booth in Chennai (then Madras), sticking my ear close to the phone when my boyfriend (currently husband) called his father to tell him that we were planning to get married.

'What's her day and date and place of birth?' was the first question my soon to be father-in-law asked after expressing his happiness and giving us his blessings.

Luckily, we scored pretty high and live to tell the tale.

If the gunas hadn't matched, I would've entrapped him into an elopement and then written about it in 'E is for Eloping'. Remember, I belong to the proud warrior caste? We don't take no for an answer.

These days, however, the daily horoscope published in the local daily comes home in the evening when my husband gets back home after work. We each pour over our star signs, reading the prediction for the day that is almost over and ask each other, "How was your day?"

E is for ESL (English as a second language)

Shekhawati, Rajasthan, 2014

A six year old is bossing her friends and siblings to sit cross-legged on a chatai (mat) in a cool corner of her grandfather's garden. To the left of this corner is the old shed with its greyish greenish tin roof and to its right--the voluptuous grape vine, hanging heavy with dark green bunches of young grapes. The six year old is behaving just like her grade teacher does with one hand on her hip and the other moving across a blackboard that exists only in the collective imagination of the pretend teacher and her not so willing pretend students. The six year old knows she will  be a teacher when she grows up.

That she'll end up as an ESL teacher, teaching adults in the Arabian Gulf, wouldn't have occurred to her in a million years.

Well, she did. Yes, it's me:) I wasn't a pleasant didi (older sister) at all--if memory serves me right.

Four plus years of teaching the language I love to students who've shown me the warmth, humour, charm and kindness of Qataris has fortified my belief that humans from different backgrounds, cultures, countries, religions, race and gender are all the same. We all have the same needs: to be loved, to be appreciated, to be understood and to live peacefully.

I may have taught them what an adjective is and that in English we put it before the noun, unlike Arabic, where it follows the noun (so old airport becomes Matar Qadeem - airport old) but they opened my heart to a culture I'd only heard of (second or third hand) from friends and visitors.

Unless we talk and exchange ideas, our understanding of another culture is based on our preconceived notions, media images and the news. I've been pleasantly surprised by my students- men dressed in pristine white thobs and women clad in black abayas.

My female students showed me how independent they are. Many choose to stay single and wait for the right life partner instead of settling for the sake of it. Divorce is not taboo. Married women rule at home, just like they do in India and in England. Married men complain about how much their wives spend on shopping, just like the rest of the married men in the rest of the world. Single men have to save money to be able to find a bride (not like in some families in India, where the parents of a baby girl start mustering together dowry from the day she's born). Single girls sometimes spend an entire month's salary on ONE handbag and then wait for the next pay day!

The topic was food. The students were learning new food vocabulary-- we were looking at 'dairy'. A student put his hand up and asked,

'Cheesus, teacher...What food cheesus? Say cheesus...cheesus...in Hollywood film...many, many times.'

'Cheesus?'I asked, puzzled and perplexed.

Moments of pondering and wondering later, it dawned, 'Do you mean Jesus?'

Lessons are peppered with funny moments like this one. Humour comes easily to the Qataris.

A friend of mine was teaching an intro level class; these students know only the alphabet and just a few words of English.

"It's odd, he keeps saying moustache in class. Apart from 'my name is...', and 'good morning', that's the only word he says." shared my friend in the staff room one day.

Both of us did a quick upper lip check for each other to be sure. No, nothing there.

Almost a month later, she found out that one of her stronger students had taught this gentleman that the English word for an 'eraser' is 'moustache'.

I quit my job this year to focus on my writing. I miss the energy and warmth of my students. I miss how some of them would tell me proudly that they were now able to help their children with their English homework or order their meal in a restaurant and not use any Arabic. I miss the pride in their eyes when they scored an 'Excellent' grade. I miss how a thirty-three year old police officer would show the smiley face I'd drawn on his writing practice to his classmate sitting next to him and how his twenty year old coast guard partner would then ask me for one, too. I miss that.  ESL games brought out the innocent child in these men of rank. They fought, tripped each other, cheated, laughed, made fun of the losing team and talked about their win in extremely loud voices over cups of karak at break-time. Lieutenants and Warrant Officers became like any other learners and students I've come across in my teaching career -- willing to give it their best shot.

 I miss the hugs my female students gave me. I miss the teasing, the sharing and the learning.

But most of all, I miss my unlearning -- unlearning the notions I'd grown up with about men in thobs and women in abayas.

Thank you ESL for this unlearning. One day, Inshallah! I may go back to teach and unlearn some more.

My last batch of students -- on a field trip.

I'm wearing an abaya and my students are all in thobs.

A birthday surprise organized by a class of ladies:
the letters on the right are their initials.