Halleluijah?

I sat down today to study some Puberty and Adolescence. I pushed the digital clock my room-mate and I read the time by every hurried morning two minutes before the bell behind the big plastic bottle of drinking water-which is still is use although it says "CRUSH AFTER USE" in big letters on the label. Distractions thus set aside, we proceeded.

It is a LITTLE hard to concentrate on Lutenizing Hormones and their functions however when yours ears are being veritably ASSAULTED by booming music accomapanied by a voice singing " For the lord is my tower..." or something along those lines. A retreat you see is going on in the college chapel.

Brother Joseph I believe...miraculous victorious.

I could.not.study. I could not think. I listen as the singing segues in to a barrage of voices...Brother's rising voice, magnetic, spell-binding. Accompanying, the gradually rinsing voices of the congregation. Praise you Lord. Thank you Je-sus. Haleluijah. And as I re-write the names of tongue-twisting hormones all over my notes, I can see it. The up-raised hands, the closed hands, that feeling of power trembling through the air and always, ALWAYS, Brother's voice in your head. Creeping through you while the oragn music hammers against your skull. You are powerless. And suddenly it seemed so calculated to me. The rising voice and the matching music. The people blindly responding. Because blind it is, your intellect does not function, you react instinctively like a trained animal to its master's call.

How would I know? I've been there, a very simillar retreat. I only went because I would have got hell ( ha ha) from our hostel warden if I hadn't. And I, the skeptic, felt the same as them. The pain in my side was healed by The Spirit and I as I closed my eyes,trembling because I felt something completely out-worldly, I knew that some thing was going on.

Brother was walking around, going up to the people who seemed a little skeptical, their eyes still open. Let God speak to you he would whisper, give in, give in, my child. And they would. They'd drop in to a damn dead faint right there. All of them, like flies.

I closed my eyes tighter because I did not want that man anywhere near me. Nowhere near me. Because I knew at that moment that if he touched me I would be out. It as frightening, I was terrified. of losing control, of giving in to something I could not by any means explain.

Now I think. What was it? Is it really the spirit. Is it our mind, telling us, do it, give over. Is it brother, the miraculous healer who says don't praise him, it's all Je-sus. Is it just psychosis? What is this faith? And I don't question because I don't believe. I believe in a God who can do miracles. I believe in a God who gave me the mind to ask these questions and this soul which refuses to bend easily.

What I might not strictly believe in are these people. Who might do this today. And tomorrow spurn a beggar or force a Bhuddist to convert if he wants to keep his rented home. That's what I don't believe in.

Geography

Back again.
The faces smile and wave
Acknowledge a friend
We're all sailors on this boat
Education,like it or not.

Different and yet
Familiar as home
The roads, that shop,
The juice bhaiyya,
The guy who tops up
My phone

The accent comes
Effortlessly
The intonations
The emphasis
The rolling of the "r"
Which is softly derided
At Home.

Distance is but a matter
Of miles-
But is geography
That bane of the Eight-grader
More than just a scaled map
Showing green nations
Divided
By thin strips of
Blue?

Or is it
An attitude.
Of now being
'Far away'?

Bus chronicles

Since,
a. I have a driver's license which I don' t use
b. Tuk-tuks drivers are exorbitant
I travel around Colombo during the day by bus, private not so private.
There are the the obvious disadvantages like men who are over-observant when it comes to any exposed female leg and smelly, sweaty armpits which have never know deodorant or hair-remover...but THEN there is also the fascinating cross-section of society which one gets to observe. Mu.ha.ha.
Like that day, I was in a 177 at the back where there was room. Next to me on the left was an enormous guy, asleep and softly snoring, no doubt dreaming of rice and his wife's yummy chicken curry, with his Nokia phone on his gently undulating, well-fed tummy.

On the RIGHT was this other large dude. The first thing that attracted my attention to him was the fact that this joker was in a green and white checked shirt and an orange cap. My fashion-conschious friend Ni would have died a slow. painful death.

Next to him, sort of enveloped by his girth was the Girlfriend, whose face I never got to see!
Checked-Shirt Guy had one of his arms entangled in both of hers and was breathing very heavily. I could swear I tried not to look, but then I'd lie!
The arm on my side was large and hairy and was often engaged in turning the girl's face towards him what was probably a very sloppy kiss, judging by the soubnds emenating from that quarter! These kisses were punctuated by about 5 minute breaks...and several heavy, sternorous breaths. And sweet murmurings of course!!

I just sat there next to them, smirking, knowing I'm a superior bitch but lovin' it anyway!

A dia from any other angle...

A Dia (lamp/pahana) from any other angle...

What can I say I love taking pictures of the changing moods of fire :)

Hostel might not allow us to light our fire crackers but at least the dias are pretty :) Shub Diwali!

In the wee hours of the night...

I'm more often than not playing Barn Buddy on FB, busily trying to harvest my plants before some thieving busy body steals my brinjals. This is what is occupying my time this study holiday/leave/break call it what you will. This AND FiryLand this totally rad application that allows me to grow my own garden in the fairy realm! The name of my garden is the Tipsy Toadstool (*much winking*) and the name of my Purple fairy-who incidentally is a naughty flutterer, dayem!-is Fancy.

Below is Gary the Psycho Snail, created while I should have been studying Language Development of the Neonate- a singularly boring bit in an otherwise veery interesting lesson. Added to the fact that I had to read a xeroxed note that looked like it had been through a World War for all the xeroxed scribblings and other nonsense on it, I was also having "issues". When issues occupy the mind...language development of my future children does not register and time is spent doodling Garys and thinking much, deep thoughts.

Gary the Psycho Snail!

Durga Puja-Bengali Style

Went for a Durga Puja today. The 10-day-long puja is part of the Dussera celebrations of the Bengali community. The whole festival culminates in the immersion of the statue of the Goddess Durga in water. The Bengalis apparently give more importance to Parvati-considered by some to be the Mother Goddess-as compared to the South Indian Tamils in whose festivals Parvati (and her other form Durga and Kali the Goddess of destruction) hardly feature. Durga is said to be the wife of Lord Shiva, and mother of Ganesha (The Remover of Obstacle and God of wisdom), Karthik, Lakshmi and Saraswathi .The family-tree of the Hindu Pantheon is complicating and varies a lot depending on who from WHERE is telling the tale. Various communities differ in the importance given to each God and Goddess.

This Durga Puja in Bangalore was organized by the Bengal Association here. Almost 4-5 lakh Bengalis live in Bangalore which is a startlingly large number for me the small-islander! Ha ha J The vast ground near Ul-Soor lake where the puja is held is full of non-Kannadiga-looking, fair, aquiline-nose people speaking with a lot of o’s and sho’s in their speech in an accent I personally find rather cute.

The main marquee has a big stage set up at the front where the 5 statues of Durga and her children set in a Gold painted frame worked with frieze-like designs. The statues are made of mud from the banks of the Ganga delta…now that is a lot of mud. HOWEVER as D points out, it goes back to where it came through the immersion of the statue in the lake J Smart hai na?

Durga herself is a slightly scary lady with kohl-ed eyes and ten hands holding a number of frightening and unfeminine things like for instance, a spear. She sits atop a lion-her vehicle-and is trampling a hideous, green, grimacing demon. Ganesha her son-supposedly created from the saffron off her own body-is a pink-bellied, elephant-headed God with the rat as his vehicle. Lakshmi is smaller version of Durga with a decidedly Hedwig-esque owl as her transport while Saraswati keeping in tune (haha!) with being the Goddess of Music has a sitar in her hands and a delicate swan at her feet. Karthik’s aight.

We have yummy Bengali food in the lunch tent-kichri, which is a mixture of rice, dhal and spices like Jheera, an Aloo and Gourd curry and a pineapple “chutney” which is such that if I was at home I would have had it for dessert with cream ;) We have rasgollah, a white version of the Gulab Jamun for dessert (which is OF COURSE put right into the plate with the other food) but I still hold out that Gulab Jamuns are the yummiest sweets in India.

The rest of the stalls house everything from books to a Rajasthani home-made pickle stall with MANGOE pickle etc. Yummy stuff which they let us taste with small, wooden spoons. I go all tourist and take a million picture, which calls for hastily-covered snickering by my so-called friends!

The event is quite obviously thee place for the Bengali youth in Bangi to ahem “socialise” and generally check out the market for prospectives. We give a coochy’ing couple their privacy and sit down in the main tent to gossip and exchange myths.

Rosh is a Tamillian and D a Bong (As the Bengalis are called). They have different versions on seemingly every myth. We talk about the hilly regions of Uttaranchal, the pollution that’s set into the picturesque tourist town of Darjeeling and taking cold-water baths from the Ganges at some unearthly damn hour in the morning. It just makes me want to visit these places so badly.

I love my little country with it’s 20 million nut jobs and I know I haven’t seen half of what Sri Lanka offers to the anyone who bothers to look but here, in India, away from stupid restrictions like transport and friends who think where you’re going is duh or people worrying about their other holidays, I seem to have more scope to travel wherever I want to go. And the choices are literally endless.

We then decide to have paan. Paan is basically betel leaf wrapped around well a lot of things including a lot of sweet stuff. That might not be too clear a description I’m afraid. I’ve had it once and although it was an interesting experience it tasted decidedly leafy. This time my God. Yummy. The minute you crung down on the bright green outer covering an explosion of tastes just bursts in your mouth-leaf, sugar, bitter, sour. Paan uncle is thrilled when I ask him if I can take a few pictures of him and the stall. This is the perfect ending to a great afternoon. Chewing on the paan is a companionable, friendly business which leaves more than just the after-taste of betel leaf and sugar on your tongue. Three buddies eating their paan has a simple, almost village-esque feeling to it.

We take off. This has been fun :)

Things are better at home

it;s raining outside..started quite randomly I have to say as it always does in Bangalore...you never know when the damn skies are going to open and out forth their showers of blessings. As an added blessing of sorts, the lights went off and I'm currently typing by the mellow light cast by my lap monitor and blind (ha ha!) faith.
I THINK I want to eat something but I don't feel like hogging so yeah.
Sometimes I wish I was at home. If I was at home, I wouldn't have to figure out a way to maneuver my torch and my toothbrush together at the same time to brush my teeth. And, if I was at HOME, my father would fix the light. AND if I was at home I would crib about how hot it was under my mosquito net, but I would wear my raggiest night-wear and go lie like the dead on my parents' bed, in their room where the windows would be open and the cold wind which comes with the rain would blow in to the darkened room. And malli and nangi would come and lay likewise and there would be screams as one abused the other. And there would be mundane gossiping about random people we know.
If I was at home, I'd still be thinking about the things I think about against my will, but somehow things might be better, because although you don't realize when you ARE home, things-even random rains and power failiures-are most often better when you're home.
Now that was a bit of a homesick rant.

Arre! lights came!

Kannada Gothilla

Something I posted on the ILP blog-



Going in with the enthusiasm of a new-comer to volunteer at the Community Library, the importance of a common language as a starting point didn’t strike me. My last session at the library started off ordinarily enough with two little girls coming and sitting next to me for a story-reading session. Both in 8th standard-but like most of the children there, very small for their age- M was quite the outgoing one and read the story in stumbling phrases but with reasonably good pronunciation. S on the other hand with her retreating smile, shied away every time I asked her something-including her name!-with a “Miss English goththilla”. Helplessly I would say “Kannada goththila”, my usual ticket to eliciting at least an attempt at English, but to no avail.
However, one thing I really love about the library is how a story or an activity can spark the interest of the most recalcitrant child. Soon, S was vying with her friend to read and there was a general battle….but the thing is that even though she read the story, most of the words were empty expressions followed by colourful pictures to her. Also, even after reading almost three stories, she wouldn’t speak in English to me.
There are some words you can explain with gestures and picture but even so there would be a constant poking in M’s ribs after I explained something, and S would ask in muttered Kannada what so and so was. Without even the advantage of basic Tamil, you feel helpless sometimes because the kids DO want to learn, they want to do rhyming words (Sometimes with disastrous results-“Why can’t hill rhyme with smell, they have the same ending letter?”!), they want to be given dictation and they really want to be part of everything.
The same happens even to people who can in some way communicate with a close-enough language- Rosh who speaks Tamil was wracking her brains trying to think how you explain why the past tense of “go” becomes “went” and why “he comes” is the present of “he came”.
The system is doing and awfully shoddy job is the children in Public Schools are taught to read but not to understand what they’re reading out, because in that case the whole joy of learning a language is lost. Idealistic joys of language aside, it is of minimum practical use as well.
On a happier note, thanks to this little handicap I’ve started picking up little bits of Kannada, although I have to say that when I explain a tree to be a “mara”, and then say a wood is “place with a lot of maras”, I can’t help but join them in the giggling!

Ye Holy Date

Trust my dad to know any Priest within a 5oo mile radius of himself. He told me during a Skype session recently that he'd got in touch a with a priest from Banaglore who was doing some time (ha ha!) in Colombo but would be returning soon.
Obviously the "daughter in India" was spoken about, the number was given etc. And of course I was told to "call him no putha when you have time".

I have to say the reason I called the priest (henceforth knows as Father) as fast as I did was because my good dad had told me he headed a Senior Citizens Home and I needed to get some elders to fill in a couple of questionnaires for a Psycho project.

Anyway, Father sounds very sweet on the phone and all that and we set up our "holy date"-I'll go to his church and from there he'll take me to an Elder's Home he knows(he does not head one, MY father as usual got his well-meaning wires crossed!)

After an amusing Auto ride during which I got semi-lost (I don't/can't do directions/roads)and spoke to my non-Hindi speaking Auto guy in broken Hindi, I reached.

I have a little game I play as I wait to meet someone for the first time. Based on what I know, what they sound like etc I build up a mental image...so that I can see how wonderfully off the mark I almost always am!

And boy oh boy! Father was not late 30's, stocky, close-cut haired or adult-acned!
Here is this tall,highly presentable, earl-30's guy in civvies!
So, Father says we can take off for the Home now...hang on he'll go get the bike.

BIKE?!

Holy Cow!Because,

a. I have never ridden a freaking bike before. and
b. Ride on the back of the bike with a Priest?!!
c. in Civvies?!

Father is now aviatore-d and helemt-ed and on the freaking bike. Oh get on he says, in a kindly pastor way. I explain that I have never done that before but it doesn't seem to bother him overmuch...so I eye the seat behind him and think that may be I should sit side-saddle, this might be more demure right? It's a PRIEST for God's sake!
Then father very helpfully says no I think you should sit astride...OKAY THEN!
i swing my leg over the seat and settle by bottom behind the clergyman's....And oh god I was sure I was going to fall off, and if I do what do I hold on to? I can't exactly wrap my arms around Father's trim waist!

I grope around behind me and find some wire-rack thing to hang onto finally and WHOOSH! we're off! And the mortification,the sheer, unadulterated mortification, the momentum of the take-off makes me semi-grasp Father's shoulder!
I heave a deep, internal sigh.

Poor Father suggests that i can hang on to the wire rack. i die.

So Father and I on our mo-bike speed away across the crowded streets of Bagalore to the Home...I spend the first few minutes cringing...My God what if someone sees?! but Father is a real sweetheart and gets me talking about school and family and all that and soon I'm enjoying my very first bike ride...with none other than the freaking clergy!!

Beat that :D

The Mad guy and the Bournvita

There's apparently a mad guy-the politically correct terms I think would be deranged individual or mentally unstable individual- roaming around "Loafer's Lane", the quintessential road opposite college where everyone basically...loafs.

When K was telling us about it today she added that he slapped our friend S in the face yesterday, in front of the college gates. The concept of unholy mirth overtook me and I snorted only to realize that shit! This wasn't supposed to be funny!
But all throughout the harrowing story, my mouth was twitching....even during the part where she told us S started crying, poor thing. No really, poor thing....S is an extremely sweet person, she comes up to me everyday and gives me a BIG bear hug, and she's all of 4 feet :)

I often have these times when something very serious is being said, and I can't stop laughing...needless to say, no one shares in my humour. It's a bit uncomfortable actually!

Now,I'm torn between going down Loafer's and buying that essential bottle of Bournevita OR taking a bath, blaming it on the mad man and just staying in.

The choices of life I tell you.

Proscribed art form,much?!

I paid a visit to my favourite place in Bangalore today : B Book Shop-home of the old and yellowed-page version of every possible book in history (except Catcher in the Rye which is always mysteriously “Out of stock, madame”).
Once immersed there it usually takes something a bit more urgent than a nuclear power-plant-explosion to remove me from said immersed state BUT today I went with a purpose.
My bratty younger sister (Who’s actually an OK kid J ) is another one of those 14-year olds who would leave their homes for Edward Cullen (Ok so I wouldn’t leave my HOME for him as such, maybe take the last year off college or something), and has been hankering after the 4 books in the quadralogy…which is not a word!!! But I still like it!!
Since books which are usually very affordable in India are usually even more affordable at this joint of mine, swipe-card ready I went.
However, spotting “Midnight’s Children” but Salman Rushdie reminded me that my Tranquil Roomie had asked me to pick up Satanic Verses by Rushdie if/when I went next to Blossom.
This being because when she requested it at some other bookstore, the man at the store had given the fish eye and told her in no uncertain terms that the book was unavailable, permanently
Now the book was banned in India following a HUGE controversy in 1989, and this was even before Khomeini in Iran and his fatwa against Rushdie, which since then has been removed, I think. I had thought by now the furore would have died down.

I went to the cashier and asked him if the book was there, although I have to admit I was a bit disoriented at first because he had the most fantastic squint and I thought he wasn’t giving me his undivided attention as such, poor man.

On hearing my words, he nods and does and 180 degrees, shuffles through some random papers and files in the messy steel rack behind the counter and presents with me with what looks like a sheaf of loosely-bound papers.

Looking closer, the book is cover-less, obviously to avoid detection and the pages have just been bound together. The last page is coming off. It really has the look of the proscribed book.

I say ahhh you don’t have it with a cover do you? He looks at me and the shelf behind me simultaneously and gives a sheepish smile, nope.
So I decide to give TR a call and we decide that she will pay a visit to the place herself to see if it’s worth paying Rs.500 for it.

When I go back to the cashier and tell him I don’t want it, HE gives me the fish eye. The kind of look a closet junkie would give a plain-clothes cop I guess followed by placing the book in its unobtrusive spot again.

Now that was interesting. You’d think the ban was lifted by now, Rushdie’s other book are bestsellers hereabouts.

Very, very interesting.
.

Just Because...

Gmail is taking so very long to upload my much-thought-over Selections for the photo comp at College, I now post one of my personal favourites-which I had to leave out of the said comp because it didn't really rhyme with the theme of "Life in College".

Ok may be 2 of my personal favourites :)

Walking the talk

SINCE I've been hankering to do some volunteering work for the past say one year-read hankering as talking about it and not doing anything about it at all-I was glad when an alumnus of our College working for the India Literacy Project in Bangalore barged into Socio class(yeah we were thrilled, especially since the current class was on cultural diversity in India or some other riveting topic) and told us that they were on the look-out for volunteers.

Woo-hoo, was all I could think.

So, two weeks back on Saturday my fellow college-is-so-blah companion Rosh and I went to this supposed library-she had been there before so I had the advantage of rave reviews.



It touched me. And it inspired my world-weary (yeah I love my drama!!) soul to write. Here's something I posted on the ILP Blog.Have a look-see if you feel like it :)



http://ilpindia.blogspot.com/

Phew!

phew! finally on the Blogsphere or whatever the heck it's called. I think I'll dedicate my inaugural post to a number of things. Here goes:

a. new friends.New ideas. New ways to realise what the ef is wrong with you.very supportive.pushes you when required. death threats are delivered and company is offered when you gotta eat lunch alone.

b.love. QUITE complicated BUT life wouldn't be half as fun without it and *heavy corn alert* it does something to you.Quite against your will.

c.Chicken burgers.yummy!

d.Technology. Thank you Thank you GOD for the Internet.

e.Bad jokes. " I'm going to the Loo, coming?".

"No, you go pass Urine, I'll pass". HA HA HA!!

whaa-at?!!!!!!

f. Old friends.They know you and they still wanna hang out with you. AND they're willing to help you drag yourself out of whatever muddle you've landed yourself in.if that isn't a miracle...

g. God. yes I know he's there. I don't know about the eternal kingdom or about the fires of damnation but he's there alright. And right now he's giving me the fish eye.

h.Blueberry Philadelphia Cream Cheesecake. I haven't had thee in along time but Oh! how I miss thee!!