I think

Wishes

"I wish I could take a binocular with me to school and look out of the window".
- 6-year-old

Summer Blockbuster

What was your favorite movie of the summer?

AIW

Fried Brain, anybody?

In my job, there are three periods of intense, high temperature, brain-frying - January, September and November. Deadlines come one on top of the other like contractions during transition.  I know I am ready for a break when I walk around like a zombie, seeing unseeingly, hearing, unhearingly and so on.  When I am cross-eyed with staring at the monitor for too long. When I see nanoarticles and capacitors and batteries and composites flying when I close my eyes. My vertebral column ceases to exist after two weeks of excruciating pain.  Even a single look at a technical paper makes my stomach knot up and I feel an intense need to go to the bathroom just to escape the abstracts, introduction, experimental, results and discussions and conclusions staring at me. 

Don't get me wrong here. I love the job. I love the frustration that precedes "getting an idea" for a proposal. I love the "Eureka" feeling when the idea finally makes its presence felt.  And as I see the idea morph into words, it is not unlike seeing the face of my offspring, covered in goo, as the doctor plucked her from my midsection. 

But when I have written a half-a-dozen proposals back-to-back, within two weeks, my eyes can't help glazing over, and the MS-Word document becomes ridden with red squiggly lines telling me that my spelling skills would put my 6-year old to shame and that I had better start reading my Wren-and-Martin again, especially when my singular nouns start being followed by a plural pronouns and so on.  When that happens, I start counting the years until I can retire. 

I know it is only temporary.  Between deadlines, when I am comatose, I feel brain dead. Between brain death and brain frying, I think I prefer the latter. 

But then, for now,
I have deadlines to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep...
 

நம்ம Chennai

This picture was clicked by dude during one of his weekly returns from Bengaluru last summer.  For the uninformed, this is our main train station, locally known as "Central Station". I love this picture. .

Central_Station

I also love this city, don't ask me why.  It is large. It is infernally crowded. It is dirty.  But it really tugs at my heart strings.

Language of the soul

This video, sent by my father, brought tears to my eyes. 

Lunch Rambles

I should ideally be having kittens over my deadline now. I have about ten days to finish up at least five proposals and I have no idea which ones to work on yet.  And here I am in VOX.  Isn't that just so typical of me?

This morning, my daughter forgot to take her lunch bag to school and  I rushed to school with the midday nourishment. During my eternal wait in pouring rain for the darn red signal to turn green, of course, I had to remember my own lunch sessions in school.

We had a huge open ground outside the classroom buildings, where we'd have lunch in groups - "gangs" as we used to call them. I had a bright yellow lunch bag that my mother had woven with nylon wires. A three-tier "carrier" tiffin box.  A red water bottle with straw that I was ordered never to sip from ("don't put your saliva on the bottle-  lift and drink"). A spoon wrapped in a hand towel. 

For twelve years of my life, the tiffin carrier saw nothing other than curd rice, vegetable and lemon pickle, in the three tiers respectively.  Friends would bring interesting items - fried rice, sambar rice, chappathi, puri, puliyodarai.  But mine would always be curd rice.  I would grumble constantly about it, but now, as a mom, I realise how sensible curd rice is for packed lunch.  My daughter follows her mother closely.  She grumbles about the thayir saadam in her three-tier tiffin carrier (carried in an orange lunch bag, NOT knit by her mom - mom is a tad less talented than grandmother), and just to make her feel better, I alternate it with fancy things, just for the heck of it.

We'd sit under trees and partake of our lunch. "Sharing" was almost a ritual.  Not just with each other, but with the crows galore.  Sitting strategically such that we are not under the blazing sun, and yet not directly under a branch on which a crow would sit and choose to relieve itself was quite a feat. 

Lunch hour was 45 minutes. We'd finish eating within two.  The rest of lunch would be spent playing.  Some kids would rush to the merry-go-rounds, swings, monkey bars and the like, scattering sand over other peoples' tiffin carrier in the process.  The more athletic of us would take refuge in our high jump and long jump mounds.  There would be throw ball and volley ball matches.  Another group would play kho-kho, a game I could never master, for lack of speed, strategy and stamina.  A few studious kids would sit in the shade and finish their homework, or study for the next test. A few others, just sit around, chatting. The ground would be like a fair.  Noisy, crowded, and so much fun.  It is quite a wonder how the moment the bell rang, ending recess, we'd rush back to our "gang" head quarters, pick up our stuff and rush back to class, all under two minutes.

I don't remember ever forgetting to take my lunch bag,  I don't remember any of my friends forgetting their lunch bags.  Our parents were a more responsible set, I suppose. I wonder what would have happened had we forgotten our lunch bags.  I suppose we'd have just shared with our friends and get done with it.  In fact, I remember that we had a couple of girls from Vietnam, I think they were refugees from the war, in our class.  One of them was probably from a more affluent setting, while the other was apparently not so.  So the latter would bring a banana for lunch, and we'd share our lunch with her so that, by the end of lunch hour, she would be so stuffed up. Both girls were tremendously atheltic.  The former was a high jump champ and an elegant one at that, while the latter would run like a bullet. We were mighty proud that the runner girl was in our "house" and we'd pile up trophy on the track. I ran into the first girl on facebook and was glad to see that she moved to France soon after high school and is now settled well in Paris.  What a romantic ending to a fairytale adventure - Vietnam war, to India, to Paris !  I wonder what became of the banana-lunch girl. I vaguely remember that she had Indianized her name to "Shiela" or something.

I suppose that is enough ramble for a day.  All from one missed lunch bag !

  

The Clicking of Cuthbert and Other Golf Stories - Book Review

The Britt-understating, stiff-upper-lip, self-deprecating good-natured dig is truly timeless..and priceless. "The Clicking of Cuthbert and a other golf stories" were apparently written, when the Sir Wodehouse was in throes of agony of carefully preserving the handicap at eighteen and not let it slip into the twenties, unlike his other works that were written with a perpetually cheery disposition.  If this were the soul-pourings of a "very nearly desperate man",  one hopes that he were desperate more often.

The Penguin publication that I possess, is a collection of ten stories, not counting the dedication "to the immortal memory of John Henrie and Pat Rogie who at Edinburgh in the year AD 1593 were imprisoned for 'Playing of the Gowff on the link of Leith every sabbath the time of the sermonses' and also of Robert Robertson who got it in the neck AD 1604 for the same reason" and 'fore'word , which themselves are vastly entertaining. In all but the last, the story is narrated by "The Oldest Member" of the golf club, who is well past his prime, most of which was, you perceive, spent golfing.  Now he is an arm-chair golfer and a store house of tales that enthrall.  He has one for every occasion - for souls seared by romance of the fairer kind, for friendships, family.  Each story is wholesome, and gives the reader a feeling of positive glow, at a romance that worked out, at a stroke improved. And while reading it, as with any Wodehouse, you feel not the need to guffaw, but smile constantly so that you reluctantly close the book for a small break to thaw your mandibular muscles.  The exaggerated style makes the setting all the more ridiculous, but in a nice sort of way.  Although you were born way after Wodehouse, and do not know of life in England at the turn of the past century except from reading tedious prose in high school, you can relate to the emotions and a wave of nostalgia sweeps through, like the feeling you get when you think of your grandmother's house you visited every summer vacation as a kid.  For someone who had a crush on Bertie Wooster, the feeling of yearning is intense as she reads the stories, which don't even feature Bertie anyway. My favorite is the last story - The Coming of Gowf, a hilarious fable of how the new religion, Gowf took a kingdom by storm.  You can almost visualize the story taking shape in PGW's mind as he became "piqued, peeved, or -in many cases- chagrined"  while taking an eleven at the third hole.

If I had to choose a country other than the one I live in now, to live in, it would be England.  At least to join the P G Wodehouse Society.





 

Earlobe Wisdom

Many years ago, when I was in the prime of youth, burying my nose in books, arrogantly believing that I am the next Einstein, I permitted myself one small vanity.  I pierced my ear lobes. Not for the first time, though. I had my ear lobes pierced when I was one year old, in a ceremony attended by all and sundry, with priests chanting mantras, blessing me a long and happy life.  In my hormonal prime, I pierced my ear lobes a few millimeters above the existing diamond-stud filled aperture. I can't figure out what made me do it.  I spent most of my youth, in the most uncharacteristic fashion - studying all the time, with no time or inclination for skin-deep beauty. Still, somewhere inside, natural instinct must have forced its way out at the jewelers'.  A psycho-analyst would probably say that it was the need for comfort to tide over my mother's death - my mother wore double studs on each ear and perhaps I chose to identify myself with her.  Those were not conscious thoughts at that time, but now as I think back, I wonder.

Much later, when I had "achieved" a few academic milestones that I had designated for myself, for no apparent reason at all, I removed the second set of studs and let the second holes close.  I never gave it another thought.

Until a few months back, that is.

My six-year old, as with most South Indian kids, had her ear lobes pierced when she was around one year old, not in the traditional ceremony, but at the jeweler's.  For five years, the hole and its stud were fine.  Then, one day she lost the silver stud she had been wearing and to prevent the hole from closing, I plugged it with a cheap metallic stud temporarily until I could get her another silver stud.  Two hours was all it took for her allergic reactions to start and I was forced to remove the stud to prevent further damage.  Her ear-lobe aperture closed within a day.

Once her wound healed, I took her for another "gunshot". At which point, some weird nostaliga worked its way into my mind and I wondered if I should go for the second one too.  It was a distant, feeble voice and I ignored it involuntarily. The kid was fitted with a nice gold ear stud which served its purpose well for a couple of months until, well, she lost one of those. See the pattern here? To prevent last time's mishap, I rushed to the shop to replace the gold stud with another one, and that little voice inside me was a little stronger. At the shop, I ran into a friend, who was getting a second-shot on her lobes.  I wondered if the universe was giving me a hint.

Two weeks later, believe it or not, the kid lost THAT one as well.    This time I decided NOT to invest in gold, but buy half a dozen silver studs so that even if she loses one of them, I wouldn't have lost too much money.  All was well, except that the voice was now beginning to use a microphone.

So there...

Piercing body parts

I asked the piercer woman two questions: How much will it hurt?  How long will it hurt?
"Very little", she said to the first and "two days" for the last.

She was right with the first.  The "thud" of the gunshot a few centimeters from the ear drum was more unnerving than the pain as the needle pierced the flesh.

19072009334

But for the second question, she had not imagined that the victim had, at her house, a certain six-year old, for whom, hugs are neither rare nor gentle.   Tiny hands fly all over the place, especially towards the ears, tugging at the lobes, smacking them, kissing them, and generally mishandling them in all the glory of innocent love. Each smack, each touch at the auditory center takes me to the depths of pain hell.  To my angst, now, everytime she is in the room, I am suddenly alert at possible show of affection,  and keep my hands in readiness to stop little ones from inflicting more pain on the already-sore sense organ.

And I realize that nothing, not even gorgeous second studs, is worth stopping those little hands from its language of love.  If I could rewind time, I'd boot that stupid voice out of my system forever.
 

Hairy Science

"Ionic"  means "made of ions", ions being charged entities in molecules.  Sodium chloride, the most common example, is an ionic compound.  Ionic compounds tend to be soluble in water *hydrophilic, and so on and so forth, I believe we were taught in sixth class in school.  However, there are more meanings of "ionic" than catches a chemist's eye viz.

1. (n.) A verse or meter composed or consisting of Ionic feet.
2. (n.) Ionic type.
3. (a.) Of or pertaining to Ionia or the Ionians.
4. (n.) A foot consisting of four syllables: either two long and two short, -- that is, a spondee and a pyrrhic, in which case it is called the greater Ionic; or two short and two long, -- that is, a pyrrhic and a spondee, in which case it is called the smaller Ionic.
5. (a.) Pertaining to the Ionic order of architecture, one of the three orders invented by the Greeks, and one of the five recognized by the Italian writers of the sixteenth century. Its distinguishing feature is a capital with spiral volutes. See Illust. of Capital.
6. (n.) The Ionic dialect; as, the Homeric Ionic.

"LED" is a Light Emitting Diode. It is a semiconductor, that is electroluminescent, meaning, emits light when charged.  "Led" is also the past tense for "lead", and is the name of a LaTeX editor as well.

"Ionic LED" in a branded hair dryer, is supposed to "add shine to your hair".  Can someone please translate "Ionic LED" into some form of science, or at least English, I can understand ?  And while at it, explain how this "ionic LED" softens hair?

Salone shine

 

FM Channels

During my daily pickup-from-school duties I have the unenviable situation of going half-hour earlier than the school bell to get a parking space that is not miles away from the destination, so that I don't have to dodge the vehicular avalanche for too long with three kids in tow.  I try to catch up on my reading during the half hour, or attempt to get my usually scattered thoughts into some semblance of order, with not much success.  During such efforts I switch on the radio for some entertainment, a practice from the distant past, when, while being caught in cursed peak-hour jams on the beltway, I'd switch stations from rock to jazz to pop and settle to M.S.Subbalakshmi on CD. In the present case, I'd switch among FM-Gold, Rainbow FM, Aha FM, Radio One FM (would that be the same as Radio Mirchi?) and Big FM. 

I'd strike gold occasionally with Ilayaraja or MSV watering my parched soul.  Sometimes, there would be early ARRs', which were more listen-worthy than present ARR's (including the much hyped Enthiran) (Think chiku buku raile, minnale, kaadal rojave etc.).  But more often than not, there are nondescript songs by unknown (by my standards, kids would beg to differ, I suppose) music directors and all of them sound the same to me.  Standard dakku-chikku-dakku-chikku beats, irritatingly soppy lyrics ("may I be the slippers on your feet, bristles of your toothbrush, the louse on your head" type, if you get the drift), no whiff of melody, and no differentiation between male and female voices (Oh, SPB, Oh Chitra, save my soul). "Thoorathil nee vandhaal, en nenjil boogambam" - "when you come afar, there is an earthquake in my heart", I'd like to jail the guy who came up with gems like these. There was one song that goes "Ayyayyo ayyayyo" (or was it "Acchaccho acchaccho"?) and being a bit sentimental about using only "auspicious" words, it jars on my nerves.

Some songs are downright idiotic.  There is one song that goes "Nee onrum azagiillai" and another one that says "aval appadi onrum azagillai" (You are not a beautiful woman, but I will be a martyr and love you).  If I were of the "sight"able age and disposition, and some guy proposed love to me like that, he'd see the make of my footwear, I swear. 

Occasionally you'd hit upon a nice new song, where the lyrics or music, or rarely both, would strike a chord.  E.g. a song that goes "varaha nadhikkarai oram" made its mark with me.  "Karikalan kaalai pola karthirukkudhu kozalu" was another song that I thought was cute.  But as I heard that song, I could visualize Vijay and Trisha doing standard boring, obscene steps in unison with ragged looking guys and caked girls jumping about in the background - I don't know if they did feature in that song, but the music was strongly characteristic of them.

What became of the practice of the ancient, obsolete station - Vividh bharathi - that I grew up listening to, of naming the lyricist, music director and singers before or after the song?  Are there no copyright/plagiarism/ethics issues of just airing the songs with no acknowledgment to the creators/performers?  I think it is very unfair.   

And if the songs are not torture enough, come the RJs, who seriously need a course in diction.  Especially with their "ழ”s, “ள”s and “ண”s. And humour.  I will be happy to lend them my PGW or Gerald Durrelll, or closer home, Devan ,Saavi or Sujatha.  Their idea of humour is to make a banal statement and laugh at it themselves, thereby indicating that it is a joke. Like the laugh track, you know. Only, in this case, the RJ has to do the honours, him/herself. I understand one of the RJ's won the "Best RJ" award or something, and after having listened to her for a few weeks now, I wonder if this is "best", what could be "worst"?  One of the stations has a thematic RJ thing called "Anjali Apartment" which is apparently a big hit with the FM-listening youth.  All I can do is spend a few solemn minutes in silence at the tortured soul of comedy.

These channels have quirky tag lines as well. And most of them are cheaply suggestive of nice bodily activities. One goes "Idhu semma hot machi".  ("This one is very hot, brother-in-law" bleah, it sounds worse in English). And it is announced with what the RJ wrongly believes is "attitude". Another one says "idhu pozhudhu pokkin uchakattam" ("This is the climax of entertainment" - now where is that sink to barf into?). I'd think people could be more creative than THAT. No, don't ask me.  I don't own a radio station.

The advertisements are something else.  So clichéd that I wonder if these feminists groups, or even human rights people don't do something about them.  There was recently a bakery class being advertised, that said something to the effect "all ye useless housewives sitting at home doing nothing, impress your husbands by baking cakes for them so that they will want to come home early from work just to eat your cakes".  Excuse me? There was also a shampoo-sponsored "super mom" award that would be given to women who thought they were good moms (for whatever reasons) AND had long hair. NOW I know why I keep getting a feeling that I am not a great mom, my hair that refuses to grow beyond the neck.  A station promises to award "Freshies" of colleges based on what they have done new - such as new hair style, new dress etc. (do people go to college to study any more?).  And the ad goes "Show us your stuff".  Umm..no thanks.  I prefer to keep my stuff hidden.

So, why do I listen to them? The question should be "why DID I listen to them".  To compose this post.  Now that the post is out, I shall take with me a CDs of TNS, Semmangudi, MSS, Kishori Amonkar, Ilayaraja, Floyd, Tom Petty and Don Williams. No more FMs for me, thank you.