A few days ago I was startled by the hysterical barking of Munni and the utterly funny puppy barks of zoozoo and rushed to check on the provocation. A tall, beautiful great Dane was at the gate curiously peeping in unperturbed by all the ruckus. Looked like she was making a social call.I was surprised that she was all by herself unchaperoned and wondered if she had managed to escape and was lost. Then I spotted a woman a few feet away calling out to the dog. Must be the domestic help of the dog's owners. So I asked her : hesaru enu? meaning what’s the name?”
She said “Rajalakshmi”.

I have heard some funny improbable names for dogs. My own before Munni was named Sabapathy.
I remember the time we were trying to decide a name for Munni. One of the maids thought she was very beautiful and hence should be named Divya. The other one thought we should name her Venkatesha after her favorite deity's name! Ya, it didn’t occur to this other maid that the sex of the dogs needed to be considered while naming them. Even Zoozoo was called Ramu by the guys at the truck under which she had made her home initially but she was quite ready to wag her tail and run to them without a murmur of protest!
In fact I know some friends who smirk when we refer to our dogs as He and she. They feel all dogs deserve nothing more than “it’. So how does it matter if IT is named Divya or Ramu or thotho as babies call them? But some of us do take our dog's names quite seriously. My husband tells the story of an uncle who had named his dog after a boss he hated. He thought he could have his revenge by swearing at the dog and ordering it about using the boss’ name. The plan misfired when he began to love his dog and finally had to change the dog’s name. We are all familiar with Aaamir’s Shahrukh khan of course!

I tend to judge people by the names they give their dogs. I was so upset when I saw an Alsatian named Rosy that I wanted to steal the dog or report them to CUPA - well, this is nothing short of cruelty when you inflict a delicate name on an impressive dog resembling a lioness. Julie is a suitable name for a Pomeranian , not an Alsatian. So I was a bit distressed when this lady said that the Great dane's name was Rajalakshmi and shared it with my husband. He snapped: “That dog’s name is Cleo.”
I was a little confused and checked with her the next day. Turns out Rajalakshmi is HER name and the dog's name is, indeed, Cleo!
hmmmm, I must be losing it but isn't 51 a bit soon for senility?
But then I have always been a little precocious!

There are a few things you don’t ask a woman about : one is her age and the other is her weight. Everything else – her salary, her husband’s salary, how annoying he is, how pathetic their sex life is and her favorite fantasies – Ya sure, what do you want to know? Everything is alright to talk about but her age and weight, a strict NO. It seems like all the people in my life missed the memo as the first thing they would talk about when they meet a person after a while is about her weight.
If it is someone from the family-tree they would almost always say that I look famished, /stick-thin/ anemic and wonder if I had been ill recently. I feel touched by all this unconditional love that considers my 68 kg frame as underweight and thin.
On the other hand are the ruthless friends who are worse than a personal trainer. They seem to keep a tab on every gram and millimeter I gain and they critically examine me from every angle every time and tell me all the areas where I need to lose some more to get that ideal figure for my height. There is no point trying to tell them that I have no desire to achieve that level of perfection – ‘come on yaar’ , they’d say, ‘don’t give up that easily’ and then they’d tell me success stories of those who lost 10 kgs just living on sprouts for 6 months and someone who lost 10 pounds by walking. ‘I have done that too’, I’d say, ‘I once lost a 10 pound note too while walking in London’ and all I’d get is a look people reserve for pathetic losers.

Now this must give you a clue why I resent occasions involving meeting these two categories of people. Weddings are the worst because they are filled with specimens from both categories. I usually come back feeling crushed from these but over the years I have developed some retorts for weight-watchers – that is the people who watch your weight. You use the appropriate number depending on the type of person you have to deal with. Of course there is not an iota of truth in any of the statements but this is not about truth but about killing the topic effectively before it gets out of hand:

1. For the Bhartiya Naari types here’s a totally unbeatable response:
My husband doesn’t like thin women.
End of story. Case closed. No one argues with that one. After all, isn’t it the supreme duty of a woman to be how her husband wants her to be!

2. This is for the health freaks and medical maniacs:
I have a medical condition called Parumanitis which affects my memory if I go less than 65 KG. Apparently it is a very rare kind of illness found in one in a billion.
Of course medical conditions , real or feigned, are valid reasons to be as fat or as thin as you want to be. And the fancier the name the better.

3. For the fashion-conscious:
Oh I just had a whole new wardrobe designed by Arun Ahliani . I don’t want to lose weight and spoil the fit.
Oh, the sacrifices one has to make for the cause of fashion – people will understand this and even sympathise. You might even find them viewing your weight with respect now that it is draped in Arun Ahliani outfits! (They will never know that Arun is actually the name of your street-corner tailor!)

4. For the ideology-oriented::
This is a one woman movement against body-image slavery . I defy any attempt to reduce me to numbers. Underneath these layers of fat is the person who matters!
And I stand up for my freedom to consume as many calories as I want and my liberties shall not be curtailed by anyone who dictates how fat or thin I should be.

5. For the Bindaas types:
Who cares yaar! Life is short, enjoy and be happy! Let us have another slice of that Blueberry cheese cake.

6. Then there is always the genes card:
In our family we have always been plump. There is only so much you can do to defy your genes.

It usually works for me. If you are surrounded by clones of my friends and family and please feel free to use any of these tips. Absolutely free - see, fat people are usually very generous!
And once you have dealt with them effectively, you can go home to the privacy of your bedroom, curl up in fetal position and cry over your weight. Very cathartic I tell ya!


****************************************
Added after 15 comments:
Here are a few more valid excuses to ward them off:
1. Rads has a regional angle - Telugus are trim while Tamils are like this only. Judging by the number of Southern film stars who have telugu origin, it seems possible. Possibly something to do with our diet? The paruppu sadam dripping with ghee and thayir sadam may be. Like the other day someone told me that people from Andhra are extremely good at math - perhaps because of all those chillies they consume.

2.This from a friend who says:
'Don't worry about the number 68. Sixties are the new 50s.'
Well, so I am only 58 - No wonder my dear ancestors think I am underweight.

I love lipstick. Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by it. In my childhood, in most conservative families this was a banned item. You could apply thick Kajal under your eyes which was considered very appropriate and even good for the eyes; on festive occasions grown-ups could use betel leaves and lime which reddened their lips which was completely acceptable. But applying lipstick was a strict no-no. My father said only ‘chattaikaris’ (anglo-Indians) used lipstick. – to my young mind it seemed like there was some sort of a law against non Anglo-Indians using it. And there wasn’t even the possibility of stealing lipstick from an adult’s cosmetic bag – none of my relatives used it. So lipstick came to symbolise all that I wanted to be when I grew up – rebellious, liberated and free to do what I wanted.

In my high school days whenever we participated in school plays or dances we were allowed to wear rose powder and lipstick which was all the make-up we knew about. The teacher in charge of these cultural activities had the budget to buy one container of the said powder ( cheapest of course – might have been Ponds in those days, not sure) and one bright red lip stick which was applied across the board irrespective of the colour of their dress and their own complexion. On those rare occasions I felt like Miss world and as Ugich Konitari mentions in this post, we always hoped we would be allowed to sleep with the make-up on. Most of us would be scared to close our painted lips for fear of erasing it. Imagine having to use words with sounds like M and P! That would have meant danger to the colour on the lips and we were quite sure that the teacher would not have entertained any request for a touch up. I remember rushing back to the house after the event with all the powder and lipstick on my face making sure that the lips were pursed inward all the way home. It might have meant trouble if any adult we knew had spotted me with lipstick on the street.

Lipstick and trouble seem to go together as though they were meant for each other. Remember the ‘lipstick on the pig’ remark by the American President-elect Obama during his election campaign? And of course ‘lipstick on the collar’ has always meant trouble for married men!! In ancient Egypt it was a source of much trouble because ancient Egyptian women squeezed out purple-red color from iodine and bromine, leading to serious diseases and hence it came to be referred to as ‘the kiss of death’. Cleopatra’s lipsticks spelt trouble too - not to her but to certain species of insects. It is said that Cleopatra’s lipstick were made from carmine beetles, which when worked with pestle gave a strong red color pigment. This was mixed with ant’s eggs, which provided the base. And in recent history, a certain Mr. Naqvi may not have had much peace since he mentioned the word lipstick..

I have courted trouble too with my obsession with the lipstick. When I was in the seventh or eighth grade, there was this friend in our class who was very fair and had naturally pink lips. She had this habit of biting her lips every now and then which made her lips even redder. I remember spending many an evening trying to bite my lips in the hope of turning them naturally red and finally I only ended with sore lips, blood and all. And then came the discovery of Asha. My mother used a sort of wax as the base before applying her kumkum on the forehead – it was called ‘asha” for some reason. Perhaps that was the name of the brand. Now this was a bright red wax much like today’s lip balm and a little of it was enough to give a bright red colour. For a while it became a favorite clandestine activity to steal ‘asha” and apply it all over the lips. Suddenly one felt all grown up and ‘sophisticated’ – there was a change in the way one spoke and walked with ‘asha’ on the lips. One fine afternoon, my father caught me red-handed ( red-lipped rather) and he asked me to wipe it off right away – he said I looked like a monkey .

I was twenty-one by the time I owned by first lipstick which was part of a make-up set gifted by my college friends for my wedding. And by the early eighties it was quite common for middle-class working women to wear lipstick though generally not among teachers, doctors etc. Just as the lipstick was coming within my reach there was a change in fashion which made the un-made-up look popular at the workplace unless you were in the entertainment or hospitality industries. Otherwise people wore lipstick only for parties, weddings etc. Or they wore shades that blended naturally with their lip colour which made it almost invisible. None of the maroon that actress Rekha sported and looked gorgeous and which I so longed to wear. Not that I'd have been able to carry it off but did I care? And on the rare occasions that I actually got to use a lipstick I realised that I simply did not possess the panache to keep it on. One glass of juice was enough to get rid of it all; and I don’t think I would choose to starve in order just to keep the colour on.So finally I have accepted that I was never born to wear a lipstick and yet, if you see me lingering in a page in any magazine it would most certainly have an ad for some brand of lipstick.

Now that I have established clearly that I do not wear any lipstick, Mr. Naqvi, may I shout some slogans against you?

Many of my friends tell me that they find haircuts,facials and pedicure very relaxing. One reason could be the feeling of well being that is born of looking good. Another could be the primitive sense of bonding that dates back to primate life.

“social grooming” is a common practice of primates. They “spend hours each day ruffling through each other’s fur, removing bits of loose skin or burrs caught in the fine hairs”The frequency with which any two individuals groom each other appears to be a reliable index of the closeness of the social bond between them--that is, the extent to which each can count on the other for support.

(source:article here.)

Reading this took me back in time to a long forgotten memory of women of the household combing each others hair, checking for lice and cleaning them in the days when beauty parlours were rare and expensive and even shampooing was considered harmful to the hair. Washing hair was a weekly ritual. Thick and long flowing tresses could not be handled on one's own and usually they helped each other in washing it off. Oiling and combing of hair was usually kept aside for the leisurely afternoons; Snarls would be delicately untangled with least damage and then the hair oiled with pure coconut oil or delicately perfumed Tata oil or the strong keshavardhini or cathredine for special occasions. Finally it would be carefully plaited ensuring that all the hair stayed in place and every plait was of equal tension resulting in a symmetric design. And the finishing touch would be a strand of fresh flowers. All of this was done with ritualistic care and involvement with women of the family helping each other in combing and plaiting. A lot passed between the women during these times - shared gossip, confidences and counsel and plenty of laughter. I had an aunt who would always insist on combing and plaiting my hair whenever she came visiting and my grandmother did this too - this was their way of showing that they cared. Any hair damage that they noticed would meet with severe disapproval and by the end of the stay they ensured that the damage was fixed.
It now occurs to me that they did this only for their favorites - not to all the women and children in the house. Grooming to express alliance!

Have you noticed that it makes you feel good when someone ruffles through your hair? In fact we even have an idiom in Tamil when two people bond closely they are described as scratching each other's backs - yet another allusion to grooming and bonding. With the break-up of joint families and opportunities within the family to bond, we seem to have found the closest alternative in parlours. A famous hairdresser had once said in an interview that a lot of his regular clients confide in him when he treats their hair. Not every one uses the hairdresser as their confidante but there may be a reason why they find grooming relaxing. And the article quoted above tells us why:

Being groomed is reported to be a very pleasurable experience. As Dunbar points out:
"In fact, we now know that grooming stimulates the production of the body’s natural opiates, the endorphins; in effect, being groomed produces mildly narcotic effects."

The article discusses the interesting theory that language evolved as an alternative for grooming in the effort to socialise and form alliances - as grooming was individual bonding and required more time. It seems that language evolved basically to fulfill the urge to gossip. Anthropologists at the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) in Oxford, UK, say chatting on the phone is the human equivalent of social grooming among chimpanzees and gorillas. Could it be that humans are constantly in search of an alternative to fulfill the early needs met by the act of grooming? perhaps there lies in the deep recesses of our subconscious an unsatisfied urge: ah,If only we could sit in groups and look for lice in each other's hair!!!
So next time you swipe your card at the parlour for that fat bill, don't be filled with guilt. You probably just gave in to a basic primitive instinct - blame it on our common ancestors:


(Pic source :http://www.phpsolvent.com/images/monkeys-grooming-749185.jpg via google images)

I am comfortable only with doctors with a sense of humour - who can make you laugh about your condition by seeing the funny side of it. A friend even goes a bit further and declares that the most successful doctors are those with a sense of humour because in a profession where you deal with so much of suffering, you need it to cope and be successful. I am not so sure because I have come across doctors like the ones you see in films who look at you gravely, remove ther spectacles solemnly for effect and declare that you have Acute viral nasopharyngitis as if it is a terminal illness and you want to know how many days more you have to live.

My trips to hospitals take this to the extreme - I find each experience more hilarious than the other. Not too long ago, I shared this with you and had another of the kind yesterday and today. DIL has been complaining of a pain in the gluteal region and I assumed it was an allusion to her boss. It turned out that she had a huge abscess in that region and the quack she went to initially treated it like a pimple and gave her a couple of painkillers which did nothing to reduce the pain. For a couple of days we waited for it to burst on its own and it just grew worse. So finally we decided to go to one of the fancy hospitals closer to home.

We completed the registration formality and she was sent in to see the doctor while I waited in the waiting area. The doctor examined the affected area and explained that it was an abscess and asked her if she knew what that meant. She replied in the affirmative (Let me kiss the hands that created Google). Then he recommended an I and D procedure to drain the fluids and she said "ok." May be he expected her to panic or react a bit more. The unperturbed OK seemed to have confused him. So he again asked her if she knew what he meant. At this point she thought that probably there was more to it and she did not know what he meant and called me in. But the doctor was too busy initiating the admission procedure to notice my entry on the scene. After several phone calls to surgery, admissions, registrar and back to surgery, he finally noticed me and said "we are admitting her." I asked him why and he explained that the procedure was the only way she was going to be rid of the pain and there was no way the abscess would comply with our wishes and burst on its own. 'But surely there was a way to do it without admission?' I queried.
'Then you won't be able to claim insurance. I am assuming you have insurance?' he said.
"Ok. you go now and get admitted. Don't be fussy about your choice of room. Take whichever they give you. Then you can have it changed tomorrow."
All this seemed like a huge emergency - getting admitted even before we knew who the surgeon was. May be the surgeon was going to be paged to come and perform the procedure right away.
'So when will the procedure be?'
"oh the surgeon will be in tomorrow morning. Dr Bhat will do it."
But of course, Dr.Bhat for an abscess in the butt!

So we went to the admissions counter, still a bit unsure of why she needed to be admitted and what the huge hurry was if the surgeon was coming in only in the morning.
Counter no. 5 or 6 , we were told and we asked the young man the procedure for admission.
"you pay 10000 and get admitted and before surgery you pay 80% of the operation cost" and then he went on to elaborate on the forms required from the insurance guys.
My thoughts went: '10,000 for a boil - ok ok that is trivialising it a little. It is NOT a boil but an abscess but 10 k for an I n D procedure?'
"And can we have the type of room we want?" asked DIL sounding like she was booking rooms in a resort.
"No ma'm, we only have the general room that is shared by 3 people."
"And the bathrooms?" asked DIL probably hoping every bed had a bathroom attached.
"They are shared too."
That was the clincher. We did not want to go in with a boil and pick up more infections sharing rooms with people with other ailments. And certainly not share bathrooms with strangers.
So we decided to have a chat with the surgeon and take a call on the admission while making a booking for a separate room.
We went back this morning and the surgeon simply drained the fluid without so much as local anesthesia and neatly dressed the affected part and told her she could go back to her normal life. Total cost:consultation Rs.350+ RS. 320 toward lab charges for the Pus culture and Rs.303.21 toward cost of medicines.
We still do not know why we were being hurried into admitting her with an advance payment of 10 k. May be the first doctor missed the classes on the day they taught A for abscess. Or may be he gets his bonus based on the income to the hospital from his clients.

We do see a lot more cases of surgeries that people undergo these days - I wonder if the instances of surgeries have increased since the availability of insurance claim. At least there are a lot more cases of by-pass surgeries these days. Is surgery becoming the first option in most cases just to be on the safer side? And because insurance covers the costs anyway? What about the side effects of surgery etc?
I do know a lot of people who prefer to get admitted rather than be treated as Outpatients even for simple procedures - so that it is covered by insurance. Otherwise they would have to pay it out of their pocket. No wonder there is such a demand for beds.
And what about cases that really need surgery but where people cannot come up with 10k+ 80% of the cost of operation immediately? It could be a Saturday and banks do not open till Monday or one of those many bank-strike days or festival holidays - what happens then? We could get away laughing about the hilarious encounter but I am not sure it is so funny for many people who go to these hospitals.

I am always amused by something or other when I go for for the annual medical examination (which, by the way, I do once in 3 years when threatened at knife point by my Gynaec). For me it is just a chore to be completed to keep my physician quiet for another year (or three) but when I look at the others in the same room I suspect that this may have a far profounder significance - like some sort of a war against disease or something. My amusement starts when I watch people deliver samples of urine and stools. Most people put them in plastic covers and then add a good length of BOPP tape to make sure that the contents don't spill out and then put it in another plastic cover which they staple neatly. Only thing that is missing is a gift wrapping. Outside the room for sample collection, they carefully unwrap the package and deliver the contents. It was the same this morning but even I was shocked when two Kissan Jam bottles emerged out of one such package - I was quite curious to know just what quantity the person decided to give for the test! I think he did not want to take any chances and brought the entire output of that morning!

Ultrasonography is technology's revenge on human beings - that scanner moving on cold gel applied over your abdomen, tickling you all over when your bladder is full is sheer torture. I usually go through it by switching off from my immediate surroundings and letting my thoughts wander to scenes which have nothing to do with water. Normally the doctor asks a few routine questions and goes about his business without engaging the patient in conversation. This one today was also the same but all of a sudden while taking the scanner over my navel he decided to ask me "Actually where are you from?" The question did not register initially and I blurted out: "What?"
I think when you lay on a table with your fat belly and all the abdominal tires exposed, you do not think of manners and politeness. Normally my response would have been "pardon?" or "sorry?" but I said "What?" As plain as that, and the doctor repeated the question. "Actually where are you from?' I do not know why he decided to ask me this question. was this his version of navel-gazing? or did my navel reveal something which made him suspect that I might be an alien creature or something? Did he suspect I was hiding something? I would never know but I gave an honest response and went back to wondering what might have prompted this strange question. Someday when and if I meet the doctor in more pleasant circumstances, I will perhaps ask him for an explanation.

Then came the mammography test. While I was in an unseemly state of undress waiting for the mammogram to be inflicted on me, the technician walked in along with three or four other young girls. I do not know if they are medical interns or apprentice technicians or just some school girls on a trip to the hospitals. I think it might be the last because one girl actually asked "ma'm , is the mammography test only for the breast or is it done for other parts also?" Can this be from a doctor or a medical student? If yes, I am worried about the future of humanity. Anyway, during the mammogram and the mammo sonogram which followed, I found myself becoming a specimen rather than a person who had paid through her nose for the test. Midway through the sonogram, the doctor would stop and tell the girls: "look at these lymph nodes. But presence of these does not necessarily confirm Cancer." And in my mind I would go: 'WHAT? Did she just say CANCER?" and make a mental list of all the things I should do in the little time I may have. When this went on for some time I wanted to protest but then endured it all in the cause of the medical profession. As my reward the doctor cleared my case as having 'no problem'.

Anyway after spending 5k and wasting 5 hours in a million tests, undressing and redressing a few million times, the doctor pronounced what was standing between me and perfect health : 9 kgs.of excess baggage, I mean body weight. As if I did not know that already. This is precisely why I am sceptical of these annual health check-up s (checks-up?) or whatever. I think it is a ruse devised by hospitals to make you pay and then become a 'specimen' on their tables to teach other interns and apprentices. Ok ok, not really but you understand my frustration, don't you? I have had a hard day, please don't argue with me.

Lekhni
desires that I reveal 10 secrets about myself. I wish I had so many secrets - that would make me so mysterious and intriguing. But given my penchant to talk about everything in the open, I wonder if I can even dig up 2 or 3. But a tag MUST be respected - it is an unwritten code of blogging culture, an integral part of good blogging behaviour so I would rather invent some secrets about me than break the tag.
So some of the following are true and some aren't. Let us see if you figure out the false ones.

With all my bitchy posts about Karan Joker and Shahrukh Khkhkhan, I watch every program hosted by them.(the slime!)

I actually bought a tube of fair and lovely cream once to see if it would help get rid of the black patches on my arms! ( so sue me)

I lick the cake box clean before throwing it in the trashcan and the foil that covers the cornetto? mmm yum... Now of course I give it to Munni. Can't bear to see such good chocolate or cream go waste. (even the birds have a word for me. cheep, cheep!)

I am not comfortable eating with a knife and fork. I usually come back hungry after such parties. (Junglee, country bumpkin -ya,that's me alright. But then why do you think nature gave you fingers? and seriously, have you ever tried licking a finger after curd rice? losers!)

I was offered a role in a film once. ( well, I thought Sridevi needed it more than me. I could always find another career. Poor Shri!)

I never learnt to swim because I could not bear to be seen in a swim suit. (I was ashamed of my 36-24-35 figure. go figure!)

I feel bad to give an honest opinion when people ask for my honest opinion on some personal issue. I would sooner kill myself than say something to hurt them. (but tell me when people want your honest opinion on what I think of their fiance/e, how they look, how good is the glass painting they made etc. do they really want you to be honest?)

I always look at the prices on the menu before ordering in a restaurant. I can never buy something simply because I want it unless I know the price and know it is worth so much for me. Even if someone else who can well afford it is buying it for me.
(I know, totally middle class saar. what to do, we are like this only.)

I can't sleep without a blanket and my ears should be covered.(If I cant hear them monsters they can't hear me also right, that's the idea I suppose!)

I cannot count up to 10. I always say 10 after 8. So that is ten now!

This was tough. So I am not naming anyone to take it up. But if any of you like it, please feel free and do it secretly.

When I was growing up, meals at home entirely consisted of Tambrahm home food. For lunch (eaten around 9 a.mon working days and around 10 a.m on holidays) we had rice, sambar, vegetable and buttermilk; Dosas, idlis, upmas and adais were for evening tiffin and dinner menu was sambar or rasam with rice and curd rice. Variation was only in the vegetable and the type of Sambar. The menu varied on festival days with special dishes to mark the respective occasions. Chapatis were still not accepted as a substitute for rice and bread was only eaten if you were ill. This was the 1960s and 70s. Chaat counters were available in a few restaurants which also served north Indian food that tasted suspiciously like South Indian sambar and kootu disguised under North Indian Spices.

After marriage I moved to Calcutta and as a new bride, I was invited to meals by many of husband's friends and colleagues where I was introduced to dishes with fancy names like Alu mattar, Channa masala, Bhaingan Bhurtha,Palak paneer etc and the food at the Chinese reataurants of Calcutta. My sambar-ravaged taste buds woke up to hitherto unknown pleasures while tasting spices other than chilli and pepper. I loved them and craved them and began to eagerly wait for dinner invitations! Once they started dwindling, I armed myself with a few Tarla Dalal recipe books and quickly learnt to make a few of my favourites and decided to surprise the husband and the father-in-law with a lunch menu comprising entirely of these divinely delicious dishes.
Come lunch time and I made a production of it. I waited till they were seated at the table to unveil the dishes expecting a few audible signs of excitement and delight. All I got was a puzzled expression as the duo inspected the spread. And then the husband blurted out: "Looks very nice. but where is the food?"
"What, What do these look like -clay models of food?"
"No, I mean our food, like sambar, rice and all that."
I could have killed them with just a bit of poison in the Sambar next time but I resisted and simply said:
"Sambar does not go with this menu and yes, there is rice in the pulao and some plain rice."
There was ominous silence and the normally hearty eaters pecked politely at the food and fell with passion on the rice and curd.
The barbarians, philistines, Food fascists, Culinary Chauvinists - I could have gone on a la Captain Haddock but I was a new bride remember and rather young, and it was two against one. So I endured it all with a smile.
Anyway I lived on left over food for the next two days while cooking (no prizes for guessing) Sambar , Rasam and vegetables for the rest of the family.

I decided that the family I married into are culinary cowards who refuse to eat anything that their mothers did not recognise as food. But over a period of time, I have come to realise that almost everyone of my relatives brought up in Tamilnadu prefers the sambar, rasam, vegetable menu day after day after day without ever tiring of it. They actually think that it is the best kind of food in its taste, variety and nutrition! Last year I went on a holiday to the U.S to a cousin's place hoping to finally get away from the tyranny of sambar and rasam as this cousin has lived in the U.S. for over 20 years. I was secretly hoping to try out American and Mexican and whatever-else kind of food but imagine my dismay when my cousin assured us that we would get "our food" every single day. Her kitchen looked like a replica of her mother's in Bengaluru, well stocked with all the ingredients and when we went out to eat, we went to places serving Dosas and Puris! When my son comes back from his trips abroad, relatives of my generation are usually concerned about what he did for "food". I am tempted to tell them about the existence of "food" other than sambar, rasam, kootu, curry but then I do not want to offend their sensibilities so I tell them about the availability of our "food" almost everywhere in the world these days.

I read other blogs and people talk about experimenting with cuisine from all over the world and wonder how they got so adventurous. In my family people go to five star hotels and order Dosa from the menu (and that is what we have at home for breakfast about 3 days in a week.) They can claim to have eaten Dosa in Dubai, London, New York and San Francisco! Ask them about the local cuisine- they never tried it but mostly lived on salads and yoghurt and by the time they come back they exhibit serious symptoms of sambar withdrawal!

I sometimes think that to my family, food is not just a thing to tickle our tastebuds, satisfy our hunger and provide nutrition. It is much more than that - it is a relationship that links them to their roots and more specifically to their mothers. It reminds them of their mothers and childhood and gives them a sense of comfort and belonging.That is why it is important for them to be able to see it, feel it and taste it in a certain form so they can finally feel that they have come home. When I was newly married I noticed that even though the dishes were similar between ours and my in-laws', there were minor variations to the recipe and I was urged to follow them strictly. Being a bit of a rebel I once made Morkozhambu the way my mother makes it and was politely but firmly told that it tasted good but they preferred it the way my mother in law and her mother in law made it.
In the west they have one day to celebrate their mothers but for generations, men of our family have celebrated and honoured their mothers at every mealtime by recognising as "food" only what their mothers fed them. Everything else is just decoration on the table.

Happy mother's day!

There is a new TV serial of the Ramayan. While channel surfing I arrived to watch it during a moment of intense drama and stopped. It was the moment when Bharath had come with about half the population of Ayodhya to request Ram to return and take charge of the kingdom. Ram looked extremely intrigued and fascinated by everything - you know the kind of expression that firangs have when you bring them to an Indian wedding? Somewhat lost but aware that the proceedings have enormous significance to others and not knowing how to react? I seriously think he is hearing the story of the Ramayan for the first time or he still cannot believe that he got the hero's role. Lakshman - now this guy reminded me of this cricketer, the brat Sreesanth, alternating between anger and tears! Bharath has a great hairstyle and Shatrugan is really good looking.

At this point, my son walked in and said "As if Ram looks like that!"
I turned to him and asked if he had seen Ram and he replied "No, I grew up watching Arun Govil as Rama. And this actor is so different."
I remembered then that I grew up thinking that Krishna looked like N.T.Rama Rao. This actor (who later became the CM of Andhra Pradesh), played the role of Krishna in every mythological film in Tamil. Apparently he played various other Gods too in Telugu films with the result that everyone began to think of him as a living God. In the mornings, we used to find a lot of buses full of shaved heads around T.Nagar club - people who came for a Darshan of NTR garu immediately after visiting Tirupathi. Such was their belief.

So it required a major adjustment for me when handsome and young Nitish Bharadwaj played Krishna in BR Chopra's TV Serial of the Mahabharatha. Initially it seemed like blasphemy and imposture but he looked so much better that I decided that Krishna, my favorite mythological character, is more likely to have looked like him than NTR.

We are so used to imagining our Hindu Gods in ways that artists envisioned them and gave life to them in their art that if Ganesha were to come down with a normal face, we might ask for an identity - preferably a ration card. It might be rather disappointing if any of the Goddesses looked less beautiful than Aishwarya Rai right? And the bluish black Krishna and Greenish blue Ram might get eliminated in the first round of audition for their roles and might lose out to someone who looks like N.T.Rama Rao.

Isn't this in a strange way a reflection of the nature of Faith itself? We make up our own mental version of a God and we begin to believe in it and depend on it so much that we are unwilling to let anyone give a different version, even if it is better and more true and hence more beautiful. At some point our belief becomes more important than Truth itself. I guess that is when it stops being Faith and becomes Fanaticism.

Meantime on the screen Bharath is walking away with Rama's sandals on his head and Rama has the same bewildered expression - It appears as though he is wondering where he is going to get another pair of sandals in the forest and whether he can manage barefoot for 14 years.

Looking in the basket for onions, my eyes fall on a bag of tomatoes left to rot and I quickly rush to suppress the evidence. I tilt the trashcan a little, place the incriminating evidence in the bottom of the can and tilt it back so it is covered. Just to be sure I take an old sheet of paper and cover the contents and hope she won’t notice. My hope is short lived. A few hours later comes the dreaded question:
“you left the whole bag of tomatoes in the basket and forgot about it? Why didn’t you keep it in the fridge? You just buy, let them rot and throw them”
I pretend not to have heard her, all the while seething inside. Why the hell couldn’t she have kept it in the fridge? or told me they were outside? It is almost as if she waited for them to rot so she could score over me.
Sound familiar? Your MIL/ SIL has done that to you or something similar? Ok, not the same thing in this case. It is NOT my MIL or SIL ; it is my maid, my domestic help.
When you have had someone working for you for over 20 years, I suppose some amount of role confusions happen.

Just because I trust her with the house in my absence and tolerate her eccentricities in consideration of her loyalty, she has begun to assume more rights than she is entitled to.
I do not believe in constant supervision and tolerate a little shoddiness once in a way because I understand that her job involves doing chores that we try to avoid the moment we can afford it. Cleaning/ dusting etc. can be fun and cathartic if you don’t have to do them for a living and in someone else’s house. So I don’t make a fuss if I find dust in some places; I just pick up the duster and clean it myself. And some days while I would have happily lived on left over food , I make the effort to cook for her. I do it because she is there working in my house when it is lunch time and I also do it because I feel it is my responsibility to see she gets her nourishment as it is her only meal of the day. No big deal – just a sambar and a vegetable with rice.

I do not know if I have sent the wrong messages to her with my attitude and behaviour. Of late I think she suffers from a delusion that I look upon her as the mother in law I don’t have. While she will implicitly follow orders if it is from the male members of the household, she will always have something to say if I ask her to do something.
“Yellamma, use this polish for the brass things.”
“No ma, this is no good. I will use pitambari powder. And I will do it tomorrow ”
“Why not today?”
“Today is tuesday.”

What has tuesday got to do with polishing a vase? She thinks she is a pundit and I am some vagabond gypsy unlearned in the way things are done. Don’t cut your hair on tuesday, don’t plant something on new moon day, don’t pay money on friday.

“Water those pots in the balcony. they are drying up.”
“Oh they aren’t drying. I water them on alternate days so their roots will get stronger.”
“says who?”
“Oh, I was brought up on a farm and grew up with plants. As if I don’t know.”
(With a sigh I water them myself after she has left for the day.)

“Can you give a bath to Munni?” (Munni is my 1 year old hyper-active dog)
“No, She might catch a cold if I give her a bath in this weather. May be tomorrow if there is bright sunshine.”
“Ok, can you get her brush?”
“How do I know where you have kept her brush. You keep it all over the place and forget.”

And this is when I snap and tell her “ So that is why I pay you. Please go and find it.”

She is stunned. This is not how the game is supposed to go. She knows that she has crossed a line and the game is over. It is back to the employer/ employee relationship. At least for the moment.
Next day, I start boiling milk. Something distracts me – a phone call or door bell and then I forget the milk and go sit with a book or wander elsewhere. In a few minutes I smell burnt milk and come back to the kitchen. Only to hear her mutter:
“You do this every time . I rushed when I heard the milk rise up but it had already boiled over on to the stove.”
Sigh. Mummy returns!

I know I have to lay down the rules. I have to dispel her delusions rather than play along. My husband sometimes says that I am in an abusive relationship with her and feel helpless to get out. But she is old and she may be unhappy in another house where she will be treated like a domestic help. People tell me how lucky I am to have someone as loyal as this. 23 years, they say they don’t find people to stick around for that many weeks. And they see that I leave my jewels all over the place and they remain there untouched. And if my son has chicken pox or jaundice, she prays to the village goddess as a proxy for her employer who doesn’t “know” any of these things. When I grumble about her impertinent ways to my aunt, she tells me that I do not know how lucky I am. She should know because she has had three maids in the past three months.

So ok. I decided to cut her some slack and exercise some patience for the sake of all the pluses she supposedly brings to the job. But last week she stayed back one night when I was alone and sick. And I realised a scary truth about her. She watches the Saas-Bahu serials in Tamil and Kannada with total involvement and she has a television in her house with cable connection. And here I am , totally ill-equipped to audition for a daughter in law’s role, never having lived with a mother-in-law.
The choice before me is clear – fire her forthwith or pick up some DIL offensives and counter manoeuvres by watching them myself. Since I have been counselled against the former, I think, just to get my revenge, I will watch a couple of them over the week end and launch a pre-emptive strike on monday.
Can’t wait to see her expression. Bwahahaha.*

P.S.: As the tranquiliser was taking effect, I heard a distant voice say: “she seems to be under severe stress. Will be alright when she wakes up.”

Some of us friends were discussing the new trends in baby names. First it was Arvind, Aditya, preeti and Neha; then it was Sachin and Rahul and Priyanka and Aishwarya.All these seem passé now so we wondered what was the decade’s flavour. There seems to be a preference for unique names rather than the names of popular heroes. Achintya, Bhadraksh, Adiyaman, Poongkuzhali, Aghanasini, Ahladita, Anarghya are just a few of the new baby names I heard recently. All so beautiful and sweet sounding but some are such twisters even to the Indian tongue. Imagine what might happene to Achintya and Ahladita where Padma can become bathma and mohan become a Mowgun! Recently I asked someone what his daughter’s name was and he said Ahila which I thought was Ahalya but it turns out that the child’s name is Akhila! Now some of these Anarghyas and poongkuzhalis are kids of NRI parents. I shudder to think of their fate in American mouths. They cannot pronounce simple names like Usha and kamala without making them into oosha and Camilla so why even think of names like Samarapungavan or Gnanambika. Mince meat is the term that comes to mind immediately – If you are a Tamilian think of what Udit Narayan does to Tamil in his songs. Kapisch?

I had a classmate in college with a really beautiful name – Tamizharasi. It means Tamil Queen but invariably the north Indian girls converted it to Tamilarisi making it Tamil Rice ( arisi: rice; arasi: queen)
If that was the result of inability to pronounce or ignorance of the language, there have been wanton abuse of names in the name of love . People try to shorten official names into short, cute (?) ones for daily usage and in the process end up distorting them. In our family and among our acquaintances and friends we had some classic examples of beautiful names totally annihilated:
Karpagam – Cuppu ( cuppa?)
Shivapriya – sheepri ( baa baa)
Padmini – Puppy (woof woof)
Kowsalya – Cow see ( mooooooo)
Meena lochani – Low chee ( can it get lower than this?)
Baghirathi – Baki or Bagee ( balance of what?)
Radhakrishnan – Rakittu/ Rockettu ( high flier indeed!)
and the Srinivasans who became Cheeni (cho chweet) .

And then there were those names that made you an easy target for ridicule among friends when they wanted to settle scores. There was a boy in the neighbourhood with a lovely name : Lokabhiraman. But when his friends wanted to tease him he became Lokapi (low kaapi?) and sometimes kakapi ( meaning crow shit in Tamil). Then there was a boy with a majestic name like Kulothungan ( the name of a famous Chola king ) but people insisted on calling him Clothu as if he was a piece of fabric. And Poor Savithri in our class was always called Savi one or Savi two but never Savi three.

I am not a great fan of shortening names and mangling them . But I must admit that I was impressed when I heard about two sisters named Ramya and Ranjini whose father shortened them to Rum and Gin! I bet you have seen similar creativity applied while destroying names. Please share.

A few months back I wrote about a problem that was weighing down my legs literally and my battle with matters of the flesh, actually matters that were building my flesh. OK it has been four months since and I went for the review. I cheerfully explained to the doctor how I had fought temptation during these four months staying away from chocolates and chips and how I did not miss my daily walks and more importantly, my leg pain was a distant memory. Finally I had nothing to be ashamed of when he asked me to step on his torture instrument, the scale. What has weight to do with shame you ask? While I am not obsessed with being thin, it does feel a bit greedy and selfish when you know you are building up more fat layers than is required to keep you warm in weather like the one in Bangalore - I mean what with people living on just one meal (not even square, sometimes just a small circle of chappathi or a sphere of ragi or rice ball) in parts of this very country. And don't ask me how, but it does seem like you are somehow responsible for their deprivation.

Anyway, I stepped confidently and waited smugly for felicitations to gush out of the physician's mouth. Nothing. He went back to the table and started writing on my sheet and then went on a panegyric about my excellent blood pressure levels. But what about my weight - that for which I had made so many sacrifices- all through the diwali/christmas/ new year time, hadn't I abstained from sweets and cake and wine? And it must have helped that I was down with viral fever for a couple of weeks - people normally lose weight after these episodes, don't they? So this was the moment when my physician should be tell me how proud he was of me and pin that gold star on my file; and yet, here he was solemnly writing out the prescription. Something was wrong with the script or he didn't get it.
So I asked, "erm, what about my weight? aren't you happy?
He looked up and said 'yes, you should start doing something about it."
I looked at the sheet and there it was the number: 68.5!
4 months of torturing my flesh and all for 1.5 kg!How? what?I mean,how?

An article in the WSJ here speaks of incentives for weight loss by monetising it. The startegy involves contracting with someone to pay them a certain amount ( quite significant) if you did not lose specified kilos in a specified period. The obligation of payment is assumed to act as an incentive to lose weight.
Well, these people who came up with the theory don't know me. I would rather pay than be under compulsion to do anything. And in any case what do you do if you are blessed with a system like mine that won't metabolise a normal diet and stash it under my skin in layers. Starve? Move to Somalia?
I think I know what to do about this - NOTHING. yes, you heard that right, Nothing.I am going to embrace this figure (yea pun intended) and feel comfortable about it - apparently this is the comfortable body weight for me as I feel good, have no discomfort in any part of my system. I eat balanced and healthy meals. I go for my walks and can climb 5 flights of stairs without panting. So I guess the ideal is not for me and my body has its own standards. Like they say, 68 is the new 58 for me now. That is it, end of story.

I may never fit into chic clothing which I anyway don't fancy and may not look like the groom's sister at my son's engagement but guess what? When there is a famine, I will have reserves to last much longer than the lean and hungry types and that is what the game is all about - survival of the fattest!

In my youth, having been endowed with thick long tresses , it was always my secret passion to have short bobbed hair which was just becoming a fashion in madras - yes I am so old I actually grew up in good old "Madras" not the fashionable yuppy chennai. Now there were two problems with cutting my hair - my family would have disowned me and thrown me out of the house, even worse I might have offended the sentiments of the orthodox family members - a girl putting scissors to her hair was surely an inauspicious sign. Anyway having entered college in 1974 I had to do something to prove that I was a rebel too and in tune with the times of the golden seventies. But not having the means to afford a parlour, I asked my sister to cut my hair and she happily obliged one saturday afternoon under the stairs. And for many days therafter I never heard the end of it - some relatives, particularly my elder brother, thought I looked like a monkey, my friends bemoaned the loss of such "beautiful" hair which they would have given an arm and a leg to have and of course my grandmother thought that it was a sure sign of Kaliyuga and all the bad things that were to mark the end of the world.
Have you noticed that people tell you how beautiful your hair was only after it is lost - as if they never noticed it all the time it was on your head?
Once I was married to a man who didnt notice if I was totally bald or had my hair matted like a sadhu in Kailash, my adventures with the hairdressers began. The thing about most of these girls in the parlours is that they never suggest what will look good on you but will ask you what you want. After several attempts at imitating the hair styles of Madhuri Dixit and Dimple Kapadia and Shridevi with totally disastrous results, one day I acquired the Gyan (under a hairdresser's shears) that to look like them the hair style wasnt enough, you needed a beautiful face to go along!
So now I needed someone who would tell me what would go with my face - so someone suggested this fancy coiffeur ( when said in in french it looks very fashionable right? ya , that means a hairdresser) in a fancy 5 star parlour who was supposed to have magic hands. So I put my hair in his hands literally and came out looking like a famous personality - Michael Jackson! I had to live with that look until my hair grew back and for a year I stayed away from all parlours although I had to suffer comments from my so-called friends if there was a lot of rat problem in my house ( very funny!).
Finally just as I had found the right cut that looked dignified , I stopped working and hence decided to avoid the problems of maintaining short hair ( ya the shorter the hair , the higher the maintenance, in order to maintain the style), I let it grow anywhichway it liked and loved the freedom. Just like many other realisations that occur to you in your 40s, I realised that I should have let my hair as it was in my teens and that life would have been more peaceful. Oh, but what is life without youthful follies!
But then life is never peaceful - not for the wicked cursed by their grandmothers in their youth for their rebellion.. So slowly the problems started with hair receding on the forehead, and my "rich" experience was beginning to show in a sudden acquisition of a silver crown. People started saying "you looked younger with short hair". In stead of telling them and myself, " I was actually younger then remember?!"I started believing them. So like an addict reverting to her old habit, I went back to the parlour today hoping things would have changed.
Guess what? Somethings never change.
The lady with the scissors asked me what I wanted!
The old fool that I am, I showed the picture of Maharani Gayatri Devi in a magazine advertisement for diamonds.
Was that a suppressed smile on the coiffeuse's face or did I imagine it?

A friend sent me the link to a site containing videos of some easy-to-make recipes and when I opened the site I was struck by a particular link on”how to chop an onion.” The charming cook complete with white coat and all ( much in the manner of scientists performing complicated experments in a lab) explained the right manner to cut the onion: You had to cut the ends off and make a single slight cut and then take the peel off taking care of the soft skin in between which is very slippery ; Then you had to make vertical cuts all the way like the numbers on the clock ”like so” leaving it connected in one end and finally make the horizontal cuts to get those hundred nice pieces which can then be used in any sauce or marinate or anything. Very useful vegetable, he said. You can view it here.

I wonder what the intended audience of this video must have been doing all these days when they didn't have access to this video – coveting those luscious red onions in the supermarket and not knowing how to cut them and dropping them back in despair. Poor souls, now finally they can use them, now that the secret has finally been revealed to them in its tiniest detail. And they can even cook a dish when they have a map to the kitchen and access to videos on how to boil water and peel and steam potatoes etc.

This reminded me of another program on the BBC where the cook was explaining how to get shredded coconut. For all those uninitiated, here’s how: You put the coconut inside a plastic or cloth bag and hit it a few times with a hammer ( taking care not to hurt your fingers!!). Then take out the pieces and scoop out the white portion which can then be shredded in a food processor. Difficult but not impossible huh?

That is when I realised the number of complicated processes I was performing day in and day out without giving it a second thought since the time I was 7 when my mother just told me to cut the onions or shred coconuts without even giving me a specific demo or a “How to” manual.They were ruthless, moms of yore!

And then I decided to break down my daily cooking into all the tasks involved and came up with some hundred tasks on a normal day and many more on festive days.
My sister called me this afternoon and asked me what I did all morning and I took out my task list and started reading and I had not even got to number 10 when she stopped me and said “Ok, you cooked and then?”
Can you imagine? My mother's daughter that she is, she labels my 74 tasks (enough work for 20 videos) as just “cooking” and then expects me to do more too...I hope you understand how upset I am. Overworked and exhausted as I am, I needed to talk to someone who would sympathise and here I am!