There is Something about Mangoes

There is something about mangoes that makes the hottest Indian summers cool. There is that first eager anticipation of the mango blossoms, and the consequent prayers not to have the weather go all beserk at the wrong time so that the trees get a chance to blossom to fruition. Then the little green mangoes, making appearances like tiny tots on the first day of school, failing miserably to match up to the bully tree-bats who harrass them. Then there is their fight to thwart stone attacks launched in a bid to fell a few of the green ones to relish with salt. The privileged ones take cover behind the foliage till their greeness melts to match the golden of the sun. The journey is long and hard, but the hotter the summer, the sweeter seem to be the mangoes…and then the whole town is ablaze with golden yellow, and awaft with an aroma words will fail to describe. If there is to be royalty among fruits, the mango is undisputed as king, queen and annointed heir.

And so the Mangifera floods the nation with its majesty: Alphonso, Amrapali, Badami, Bangalora, Banganapalli, Bombay, Bombay Green, Cheruku Rasalu, Chinna Rasalu, Roomani, Dasheri, Fajri Kalan, Fazli, Fernandian, Gulabkhas, Himayath, Himsagar, Imam pasand, Jehangir, Kesar, Kishen Bhog, Komanga, Lalbaug, Langra, Maldah, Malgis, Mallika, Mankur, Mankurad, Moovandan, Mulgoa, Nattuma , Neelum, Pairi, Pedda Rasalu, Priyor, Rajapuri, Raspuri, Ratna, Safeda, Sammar Bahisht, Suvarnarekha, Totapuri, Vanraj, Zardalu…endless names, endless choices, endless flavor...

And so this season, each of my mornings began with a mango. Each scoop like a spoonful of sunshine. The sweetness unmatched. The texture smooth and delightful. The entire experience of relishing a mango is better than anything else.

Yes, better than anything else. Share a mango? Never! Bother about weight? Never! Control the indulgence? Never! Gorge on the slices, or eat them scoop by scoop or hedgehog style, a mango will always remain unparalleled.

There is the politics of mangoes, recall the attempts at sweetening Indo-Pak relations with the gift of mangoes? There is also the economics of mangoes. The mangoes you eat can help slot you in the appropriate economic bracket. Alphonso, means you have arrived, Baiganpalli for those who cannot afford the Alphonso…and all the other varieties in betwen...there is mango for each and everyone. Bottomline, if you’ve eaten mangoes this summer, you are above the poverty line.But seasons come and seasons go and there is always a last date to the Mangifera Magnificence. No more mangoes in the fruit bowl. Farewell then…to the last Mango of this summer, you made every bit of the hot summer worthwhile.

Face it...

“Everyone’s on Face Book!” Not me...and no, I am not going to wave placards to denounce it. Just that I’ve decided to bide my time and explore it along with my daughter... I have several invites and they are still pending patiently, while I debate if it is politically correct as a mother of a pre-teen to be part of a social forum where all and sundry can ‘poke’and even ‘super-poke’ each other to their hearts content. A forum where one's ego (fragile as it is in these days of recession) is given the boost by the number of friends we have added on in a desperate bid to show the world how much people like us and that we are not only connected but very well-connected indeed. Everybody is a somebody here and it feels good.

So, all and sundry seem to be on some online social forum or other—from the age range of 10 to 100. The peer pressure is overwhelming. The need to keep up, and have it all and let others in on the details of the ‘all’ is the order of the day. But aren't we couch potatoes enough that we need to add ourselves to another social forum in cyber space that requires us to glue our already exercised-starved gluteus maximus to the chair? Aren’t we leaving behind the simpler low-tech ways of having fun outside the door? I remember how I told my mother about how bored I was one summer vacation and how she challenged me with the retort: “Probably you aren’t being creative enough.” Aren’t we as busy parents using online socialising, PSPs, Nintendos to fill the gaps of boredom in children who have way too much in life to ever be bored? Do we need TVs and computers in our bedrooms however much they are needed for recreation and doing the homework?

Trust me, I value the power of technology—would not trade it for anything! I am amazed at the virtual dogs inside that Nintendogs that you can pet, walk, feed, and even clean. I am enthralled by the knowledge I can access at my fingertips. Without the Internet I would be lost—it is what links me and countless others to family and friends near and far. It keeps us connected and makes the world a much smaller place. I believe that the Internet should be added to the list of oceans right after the Pacific Ocean.

And that’s exactly what it is—an ocean with sightless shores. Kids are swimming in it already but for some reason I hesitate about them surfing the bigger waves. Are they aware of when the Internet become too much of a good thing and how it can bring in another set of issues and consequences? Cyber-space is a place of no boundaries. There also seem to be few limits on rules, loopholes, transgressions and eccentricities. Do they know when information becomes too much information? Click in a name and you can pull out photos, addresses, and other trivia and tidbits that leave a trail to trace someone’s life if they are not careful. Can they gauge what is real out there or unreal in Cyberspace? You can mask who you actually are. You can have aliases and morph yourself till you mutate into something unrecognisable. How soon can they have Face books and Orkut profiles? As parents we take the call on when they are ready for it but what do we expect them to be ready for?

Ready to know that it all depends on the choices they make? That what’s good is they can choose to take it slow, recognise the responsibility that goes with surfing the internet, prioritize their time, empower themselves with what advanced technology offers and evolve to the fullest potential. And hope that till then they don’t go chasing waterfalls…

“Don't go chasing waterfalls.
Please stick to the rivers
And the lakes that you're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way
Or nothing at all
But I think you're moving too fast…”*

* Waterfalls, TLC

Monkey see and monkey do...

We’ve taken their jungles away, so what they want is restitution of what is rightfully theirs. So ‘twas on a bright morning, the house had just been cleaned of every single dust particle (well, almost). The glass top dining table was gleaming and what with the sun pouring through the French windows (why do the French call doors as windows?), the overall picture was one evoking images from an interior design magazine. Then I turned to walk into another room and I came back to see a Simian guest, making himself very much at home, sitting cross-legged on the dining table, hugging the crystal fruit bowl with one hand and helping himself to an orange with another…!

He/it looked at me quizzically and I just could not get myself to welcome it. So, I said “Hey, there!” Obviously, I didn’t get the tone menacing enough on the first go, because, he let go of the orange and picked up a pomegranate. Then it struck him, when he saw me rolling the newspaper into a baseball bat, that I did not want him around at all, and he made a dash for the exit, with cherries. Unfortunately, like many of us, he couldn’t distinguish between what is real and what is not. The cherries were fake and as I closed the doors, I could see him spit it out and give me a reproaching stare for endangering the environment with dreaded plastic.

From then on, we’ve been forced to keep the French windows closed. The monkey band was however, intent on getting back not just their rights but their pride too…fancy being caught stealing fake cherries! So they sent an emissary on a day when my visiting mother, ignoring our counsel, had the kitchen door wide open and aromas of her many dishes wafting out. The monkey walked in, mummy screamed. I cannot tell, who was more scared—Mummy or the monkey. My always unflappable and eternally dignified dad, recalled that the scream wasn’t nearly as loud as it had been the day she had spotted a full of beans jumpin' green frog of Orissa countryside in the bathroom, hence we had nothing to worry about. But for the monkey, it was was way too much—he bolted for his life and it must have taken a great deal of cajoling to get him back into the war against humans. But the rest of the band were spurred to plan another onslaught. They launched it the day my mother and I, were tending to the green gladiators, and your’s truly, left the doors of the balcony open. There we were digging and repotting my grateful plants, when I heard my kid say a very feebly questioning and trembling, “Mimi...?!” The proper noun hung there in unabashed trepidation, causing me to turn around and see a fairly large sized moneky (they finally sent the big guy) on the dining table holding on to the whole bunch of bananas, and proceeding to climb down the table. As he sauntered through the room to make a very unhurried getaway, he passed the piano, and looked at it. I almost thought he would put down the fruit of his labor on the floor and play a simian sonata for us! But I think he was smugly satisfied—he had squared for the fake cherries, the closed French doors, the scary scream…he had the whole loot, the real Mcoy.

It took me back to our ancestral home in our village and how we used to wage a battle against the monkeys when we visited during the summer. I remember there was one particular one, who had his hair arranged in a middle parting, and for some reason, he felt that our house was his. All my grandma’s efforts to keep him out, by keeping all the food and the kitchen locked up wouldn’t work. Then one day, perhaps to protest the lock out, he opened a bottle of her blood pressure medicine, swallowed all the pills, and moseyed off into oblivion, making us think that he had done a Marilyn Monroe on us. Ma was wailing that she was probably responsible for his ‘alleged’ suicide, and upped the prayers quotient for all her children, till some one spotted him waking from a deep dream of sleep like Abou Ben Adhem. Needless to say, he came back, unreformed and back into monkey business.

It’s hard to change, for monkey

…And for man?

Fourteenth on a Tenth

The irony of it is that it all happened in the Valentine month 14 years ago. The consequences of that is yours to bear because only you can bear it...What diference does it make? The sun came up this morning, you got to hug your child, layout breakfast on the table and do whatever it is you need to do.

And then there’s the dream of a time machine that could take you back to the point from where you would change things…

But, the bottomline: “No longer mad like a horse, I’m still wild but not lost, from the thing that I’ve chosen to be......Whatever it may bring I will live by my own policies. I will sleep with a clear conscience. I will sleep in peace”.*

So it’s a celebratory stride with a smile, through a day that would-have-been, could-have-been, but wasn’t an anniversary with:
Something old, something new,
Something black, something blue,
And…deadly, pointy, high-heeled boots.

*Sinead O Connor

A School Bag of Prayers

She hops off the school bus, slides into the car, giving her mother a perfunctory smile and wave but her eyes are fixed in a direction out of the car window. “See, look at them,” she says. “Those kids carry their books in plastic carry bags.” The mother looks out, and sees three children—two girls, aged around 10, 7 and a 5 year old boy, walking the dusty pavement with three plastic departmental bags stuffed with their school stuff. They are the children of a domestic help in their apartment and those plastic bags are probably from their house. The bags look worn out and the little one seemed to not be able to carry it so his older sister took it from him. As they walk on, the mother drives home, as her child keeps looking out the window.

The next day, same time, while she parks at the bus stop, the mother spots the three children again with their worn out plastic covers. Her child gets off the bus and once again looks out at the threesome walking down. “I have some old school bags but they are just too old…the fasteners are all worn out and besides who would like getting an old school backpack, anyway?”

That evening, as her child kneels down to pray, the mother hears her say, “Please Hanuman, or any god who has free time. It’s the New Year. Can you please get those kids new school bags?”

A few days later, she’s off from office early and has time till the school bus rolls in, and she passes by a shop selling school bags…

The next day, at the bus stop again, the child is all smiles as she sees the three kids proudly carrying brand new school backpacks. She knows now that she can believe in prayers.

Just that sometimes, you have to be the prayer.

Back to school…For Auld Lang Syne!

The lovely daughter has been coming back to me with all kinds of complaints since the day she took her first steps to letter herself.

In PrePrimary II, as a mature 4 year old she announced that she hated Rohit because he said he wanted to marry her. Her father said that he would first check his bank balance then follow him around with a gun before he would allow any such thing to happen. She found that reassuring. Then again in Class I, it was the older boys who were teasing her in the bus. She swept aside my lectures on how she should elegantly ignore it and deal with it on her own and once again called in the big guy who with all his fatherly tactlessness, stood his big frame firmly in front of them and warned the guys off his daughter. It worked. She also took to smugly walking into the bus with her elbows jutting out, so that she could knock all and sundry out of her way. This was on the advice of a particularly interesting colleague of mine with a soft corner for guerilla tactics.

In Class II, it was “Operation Remove Vamshi”. She simply did not want to sit next to a boy. But the teacher insisted on pairing the XXs and the XYs. But my kid gave me various excuses ranging from “he took all my erasers” to “he smells funny”, till she hit upon the one thing she knew would get my goat—she told me he had lice. I raced to school; to find that the target of her chagrin had very little hair…lice could not have possibly made a home in such sparse territory.

It’s been an amazing insight into the world of primary education from a parenting perspective—were my experiences the same? As I have followed my four-year old become a much wiser 11-year-old, I watched her drop the complaining and take on the world by herself. More responsible, more mature, she’s a natural counselor for other kids who call asking for her advice the moment we get home. The teachers congratulate me on my daughter and my parents’ gloat over her report card as they never got to gloat over mine.

Then as suddenly as it had gone, the complaining was back. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be Prefect”? Nope—was never the prefect material. “All the kids hate me!” Then why do they still call at 4pm asking for your advice? “I bet it never happened at your school…did they ever write your name on the wall along with all kind of other stuff?” Yes, they did. They even wrote on the back of contour maps and on the library books. They scratched our names on the doors with all kind of plus signs.

School isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee…but isn’t it? Was I complaining too when I was in Class VI. I really need to think back…to the last few days in Class 10.

When you’re in class 10, you never deign to think what you and your school mates would be doing 25 years later...You are so full of yourself and how things are affecting you, but time has a habit of flying and you fly with it. You had the thoughtless nicknames, the alleged link-ups, the chap in class who always came first and the bullies who wanted their way. You had groups based on height, sex, and class sections. You had writings on the walls, classroom politics, and the secret notes shoved into desks (along with the occasional frog) and they all seemed like insurmountable problems. You were misquoted, or ignored or put on a pedestal. You smirked over wisecracks, and imitated the teachers behind their backs. You were sent out of the class for talking too much, and ran the 100metres. You complained about and laughed cruelly at other kids. You also made the best friends. You learned the bad words and recognized the good deeds. You always liked what was in other people’s lunch box. You had bus stop friends, car-pool friends, best friends and second best friends. School and schoolmates were the microcosm of the big bad beautiful world out there.

Despite it all, you had to study when you didn’t want to and you would pray that the future would take you away into a rosier world, with just the right amount of rain to make rainbows, just the right amount of money to have the good things in life, just the right kind of love to make your life complete, just the right kind of success that would show them all….

Then you walk over the threshold and see what the world is actually like and you actually grow wiser. You finally know that the microcosm you left behind is the only bit of turf left that lets you be you.

Schoolmates are the ones you grow up with. They are the ones who gave you memories to laugh over. They are also the ones who with their torturous teasing tactics, toughen you up. They are the ones who have seen you at your ugliest, so whatever you look now is pretty. They won’t lie about frivolous stuff like age—because they can’t! They make you feel young. They also point out how old you are. They are thrilled to see your kids. They are the ones who really want to know about how you are and happiest to get back in touch.

So, one Christmas day, when you are talking in terms of 25 years ago…you know that things have changed, you have changed, but somewhere…time still stood still so that you could go back, sign into a online group and share a laugh or wipe a tear. And hopefully, if you keep your fingers crossed, they are the ones who will stand by you and understand.

"Rotate Your Shoulders"

For the past weeks, my arms have been aching. Literally. From the elbows to the wrists. From the neck to the elbows. It hurts even when I sleep. It is very distracting and am trying to get to the bottom of it with advice like “Check yourself for arthritis” (from the smugly youthful), “Lose some weight” (from the painfully thin), “Try alternative therapy, do Yoga” (from the chronologically similar) to Jayanthi's VERY very simplistic solution: “Rotate your shoulders” . Her daughter told me that she complained of a stomach ache and her mum replied, “Rotate your shoulders” . Tooth ache? “Rotate your shoulders”. Sad? “Rotate your Shoulders”. So despite my aching arms, I rotate my shoulders with all my might, I have cut down on the carbs and food items that are said to cause arthritis and I even throw in a dollop of Yoga every day. My arms still ache.

And that’s not the only problem. The car and I have been having our battles galore wherein I cleaned the battery myself and stretched the over 4 year-old battery’s life for 3 stuttering weeks more till today. Today I got fed up because there I was dressed to the hilt in trousers, shirt and boots, starting up the car to drop daughter at the bus stop and since the car refused to budge—in full-view of neighbors hanging lazily over balconies—I had to sprint down the road with high heels, hair flying in all directions (those shots of those heroines running in slow motion with their tresses gliding along with the breeze is all bunkum), with daughter's junk-fattened backpack till I reached and flagged down the bus and found the daughter very calmly lady-like, walking in leisure way behind me. "Ayesha??"!!! And with a smile to match, she has the gall to say "I knew you would catch the bus, Mimi". This is what happens, when you spend too much time with auntys Sangeeta and Preeti. As she elegantly climbs on to the bus with a very very Deepika Padukone Dreamy Girl wave, I rotate my shoulders, smooth down the hair and walk back as daintily as is possible for me and decide to work from home, call the Hyundai ERS and finally buy a new car battery. That is the story of my life: I get a bonus and God rotates those divine shoulders and thinks up dozen ways to spend it. Anyway—now at least my car will not stop on the road but my knowledge of what's under the bonnet of the car has impressed the Hyundai people enough to forget to charge me for the ERS help. Err… Hope they don’t read blogs…hope they don’t compound the interest.

It’s not just over yet—to compound my woes, my cell phone seems to have arthritis and it has no arms to rotate. There I am at home, after my humiliatingly lost battle with the car, trying to dial in for a meeting with the boss and like the armless Thakur in ‘Sholay’, the cell phone stubbornly refuses to acquiesce. “Your call cannot be completed-Please try again”. In fact, it doesn’t even let me try again, for heaven’s sake. Thank god for a boss sent from heaven (at least God rotated the shoulders right while allotting bosses)—she not only reschedules my meeting, she reschedules the team meeting. I meanwhile am pledged to get certain documentations finalized and guess what—the internet connection is gone! I breathe deep and rotate my shoulders. Then I call the Internet provider and begin very politely till the lady assures me again and again that someone will resolve my problem at 4pm—politeness rotates itself out of my shoulders and I cannot contain myself from giving that poor gal all I have in terms of verbal paranoia—I have deadlines I wail as she keeps telling me she understands. I then literally breathe deep again, rotate the shoulders again, invoke divine intervention and then as miraculously as it disappeared, the internet is back!

The cell phone is not. After furious online instant messaging with office colleagues, the advice to switch off the phone, replace battery and reboot again does work. But some calls which the armless Thakur does not like are truncated instantly. Buy another cell!!! The cell phone expert in office swings into action—what’s your price range, what kind do you want—I can sense the glee—as I am the only one in the team with a cell phone that NO one wants to steal. Forget about stealing, no one even wants to pick it up by mistake if I drop it somewhere. The same cell phone expert had walked in one day with the news that she had finally seen someone else carry the same phone as mine—the autowalla. Then my daughter does nudge, nudge, as we drive back in the cab from the airport, “Mimi, look even the cabbie has better phone than your’s, his is a Motorazor.” No please God, don’t rotate your shoulders—not just yet, leave me some moolah behind—I need that extra paneer after I lose the extra weight!

Moral of the story—even God rotates the celestial shoulders. Considering that we are from the land of the many splendoured gods and goddesses, we probably have the whole pantheon rotating their shoulders and may be not even in sync (which can probably account for all the dichotomies and dilemmas and the doldrums of our lives). May be they made a collective request to Jayanthi to spread their word? Whatever it is, my arms still ache. Then my mum calls and suggests the exact opposite: “Rest your arms”. Longing to do that but hello, Mummy! I am part of a documentation team, I have to write to make a living—I’d rather rotate my shoulders?