A Muser tagged me. Again! Looks like I am her favorite person to tag as I must promptly be doing her tags under the pretext of not having blog material, but see the secret is tags are easy material.

I could very well write about the really intense heat that had us stifling, gasping like fish in a dried pond, and about the fact that I roasted myself in a silk sari sitting in a sweltering noisy auditorium, surrounded by disrespectful, loud, impolite desi janta, and about how some idiot brat pulled the fire alarm and made us evacuate and stand for 35 minutes in the 105 weather with 90% humidity until my $40 smooth haircut turned worse than what I’d look if I had a bunch of crazed kittens were let loose on me.

I can also write about how I made a 5 quart bowl of sambar for another annual day event Sunday where again little girls are let loose with absolutely no respect or regard or consideration for folks watching or filming the performances. Seriously, what is with kids these days? More so, what’s wrong with parents, especially moms? No, am serious, some of the women behave like it isn’t their kid at all, while the dad at least pretends to discipline the kid! What’s wrong with the lady who sat next to me allowing her toe-stamping daughter to toe-stamp me every single time – after 6 I lost track – by walking in and out of her seat, while my munchkin sat still enjoying the dances. No, am not saying mine’s the best, but she sure made me proud behaving as I had told her. After awhile I just about had it with this kid and told the mom to hold onto her, and it really wasn’t acceptable to keep doing this. She looked reasonably upset. I pushed past her and occupied her hsuband’s seat while the man took off elsewhere. Now the daughter could toe-stamp her mom for all I care.

I could also write about how the noble king did a valiant attempt at MCing the show. No, he did fine. Except when he started speaking in a language no one could understand. It was cute and novel and the point he was trying to make sailed through just fine within minutes of the evening. Then every few items later, just as a apprentice magician would pull rabbits out of a seemingly innocuous black hat, or even better yet, how the dwindling woebegone sad performances have halftime shows that no one understands or gets or cares to understand or get, he’d have a 2-3 folks dialoging away. Sure, I understood, and so did the husband, but I wasn’t quite sure what the purpose of it all was. Coz, if folks laughed politely, it was more so coz of the gist of what happened over the span of 3 minutes, more than the word comprehension. The guy’s passion is praiseworthy, but as I tried telling him, unless channeled and channeled with the right force and direction, efforts are wasted. Then again, maybe he knows something I don’t.

Oh yes, I swore am never participating in the annual event again, coz if there was an award for the most ridiculously organised evening, the place would have snapped it up without a blink. The height of it all was when dutiful male volunteers stood outside the cafeteria like bouncers outside bars (not that an average desi man could ever pass off as a bouncer unless I was a frail midget, which am not) and ensured that only children according to age, baby children with moms and then moms were allowed to step inside and make a meal out of two dishes. Men were made to stand outside, and were to be allowed inside only after the “the fairer sex” and children were done filling their sacks. This happened as a sudden dawning when some men as a natural line went on ahead anyways. My already frayed patience was torn to shatters after 15 minutes of this circus and I went up to the self-crowned chief volunteer and asked him why men were’nt allowed in?

To which, with a sheepish grin he replied “I don’t make the rules ma’am, let the kids and women eat first!”

Excuse me but which era are we living in? For a second I thought perhaps we were re-enacting the scene of the sinking of the Titanic! I made my displeasure known, and am quite sure I’ve been nicked a few not-so-pleasant monikers. O well.

I also think heat and temperature smokes the Ms. Hyde in me out.

Phew! ..and there’s still so much more to tell! All this happened the weekend of 7th. In a striking contrast June 13-14 was plain awesome. More on that later.

Where were we? O the tag. Yes, here we go. Sorry about the digression Muser, but certainly I needed to provide some entertainment via the sorry social life I lead or this tag would just put folks to death. I mean, what more could I pull up from within I wonder..

***

I am: a rainbow.
I think: in bright bold colors.
I know: there exist different shades of one color.
I want: to be painted in all.
I have: been lucky to be washed by many.
I wish: I could touch more of those illlusionary hues.
I hate: not being able to explain to others the colors I see.
I miss: the innocence of pink.
I fear: an achromate.
I feel: fresh blue droplets around me.
I hear: the sneaky wisps of gray waiting to crown me.
I smell: the crisp tartness of tangerine closing in on me.
I crave: the fresh taste of spring green.
I search: for yellow sunflowers/ dandelions everywhere.
I wonder: if all can experience the clarity of clear.
I regret: gray once pulled me down more than it should have.
I love: black and white and everything in between.
I ache: to feel red.
I care: for every bit of the spectrum.
I am not: an achromate.
I believe: we should move towards “going green”.
I dance: like a sundrop in June.
I sing: when am washed in azure.
I cry: when I see crimson in big fat drops.
I don’t always: like white.
I fight: for black.
I write: in the color of my mood.
I win: in shades of royal purple.
I lose: in shades of earthy brown.
I never: can imagine gray in my closet.
I always: buy more white.
I confuse: folks. Their perceptions of me change colors constantly.
I listen: to my passionate ruby-red heart more times than my clear mind.
I can usually be found: dreaming in pastels and red in turn.
I am scared: of washing the orange away.
I need: my white space around me.
I am happy about: the hues am made of.

***

The tag shall henceforth be passed on to

Kiddo, BPSK (anyone know where he is?), Amrita, Pavan (Another one MIA for awhile!) and booboosmamma

Tags: non-fiction, tag

I had read Anita Rau’s Tamarind Woman a few years ago. A friend at the college allowed me to borrow it. All I remember of the book was how true it rang to me, and the fact that I finished it within a week and returned it to her the next class. So while on a recent trip to the library, I saw the book lying in the returned pile, I grabbed it, just out of recognition, and couldn’t place it back.

I have always enjoyed re-reading books. During the days of good old times as a child, and when books were scarce in availability or access, I imagine I started this habit of re-visiting the words, story and the characters, for familiarity and especially the surprises that I missed the first time around. Words and phrases formed newer meanings, ones that may have been there all along, but now jumped up and showed a different view, a hidden emotion and even a twist to the imagination.

This book ranks as one of those that clearly is “un-put-downable”. If you had the luxury of cozy-ing into a chair next to a window cocooned in a silence around you, and allow yourself to be transported into the journal, the experience is complete in all ways. Then of course there are the others, like me, who are forced to go at snail’s pace not out of choice, but the distraction around is so heavy that it would surely be a crime to read such a beauty half-heartedly.

For the most part, I imagine, readers love, hate, or are indifferent to a particular book or literature (fiction especially) purely on how much they can relate to it. Are the characters one can relate to in real life, can one imagine the words, do they ring true, believable. Do they appeal to one’s inner muse? Is the story believable? Even in fantasy? Is it identifiable?

Tamarind Woman does just that. With just a handful of characters and spanning two generations of strong women, each from their own childhood, youth and then as adults, the book sways you in and out of time. The initial two-thirds of the book is all about the daughter. The daughter’s autobiographical journey as she tells us in flashback of the events that twined her life with her mother. The details, the small yet important facts, memories, the conversations, and the yearning. The story shifts again in first person but this time the mother – the tamarind woman – racontes teh verys ame events from her perspective. The present is now a journey on a train as the mother spins her life’s weaves into occasionally shocking but spell-binding and interesting tales for an audience.

What I especially liked about Anita Rau’s storytelling was that she made it all seem very real. This isn’t a feel good, loving story of a happy traveling family, but mostly very common placed for an average Indian household of the 80′s. The customs, traditions, though not elaborately told and described, all form an intricate pattern into the larger picture. The conversations, the words the author uses throughout, are quite Indianised in may ways, but that is besides the point. Considering the numerous dialects and languages we all come from, one can easily translate the words into any local language and it would ring true. It would be hard not to have met someone who fits the bill, or to close one’s eyes and almost hear a voice from the past who would speak those very same words.

The Mother – Saroja – in many instances reminded me of my mother, a few times of me, the relationship between the two reminded me of how I would talk with my mother. It’s all a big time-space-relation warp. For folks who’ve lived in “colonies” back home, this book would be a trip down memory lane. By colonies I mean, by virtue of being a Central Govt employee or a bank employee, the living quarters are all within a scheduled area called a campus. A place where there is a heirarchy designated by the rank of the husband/dad’s role at work. The luxuries, the issues and the challenges that come out of sharing space and to be on a constant vigil of one’s own behavior as the repercussions are stronger than just a ripple in the  lake.

So yes, read it if you can. You will laugh, smile, wince, marvel, gasp, admire and be surprised, but you have to watch out, as things are not clearly laid out for you all the while. Reading between the lines brings the essence of the fine visible words one actually reads.

Truly wish the author would write again. She seems to have stopped after Hero’s Walk and Tamarind Mem.