Of Security Blankets and Malory Towers...

Between the ages 4 and 7 I had a doll, and I'd christened her Neetu. Or maybe the shopkeeper had christened her Neetu when handing her to me. But anyway, she was this dolly I carried all around (sometimes holding her by her hair, it wasn't a pretty sight and I feel for the poor girl now!). I insisted my dad reserve tickets for her on the train, and buy her her own slice of chocolate cake (OK, I was a sly one.) When we had annoying guests over, I'd stalk off to my room (again probably holding her by her hair) and sit and teach her to sing till they were gone. (Maybe the singing drove them away, but well, goal achieved.) There was one trip that we took where I'd forgotten to take the bag in which I'd packed her (that's right - I didn't always go dragging her around holding her hair. Hah!), and all hell broke loose. For the three days we were away, I felt like the world was coming to an end. The sweet aunty who's house we stayed in looked like a witch in one of those fantasy movies, I thought the juice they gave me was poisoned, and actually said so, much to the dismay and ire of my parents. Yeah, can you imagine, 5 year old girl nodding sadly at the glass of juice and saying, "she's trying to kill me."

I didn't even smile when we went to the zoo, except a little bit when I saw the panda (I love panda bears.) but I quickly pretended to be wiping my mouth when my dad caught me smiling. (Of course I'm not happy, you cruel grown ups. You didn't let me go back and bring my doll, so you suffer my cold silence.) The trip was mostly a disaster. My parents, learnt the trick, and just ignored my serious accusations after that. They had a wonderful time. I just sulked. Neetu was my security blanket. At that age, of course, I had no frigging idea that a five year old was feeling as complex an emotion as "need for familiarity". I just wanted to see Neetu again. 

After we reached home, I hugged my long lost friend so hard that I broke her neck, but that's a story we'll reserve for another time. 

Once I grieved and moved on, I soon found another security blanket. We'd just started library hour at school, and I'd discovered the genius of Enid Blyton. I would just greedily read Malory Towers, St Clare's, Famous Five, Secret Seven and the Five Find-Outers one after the other, feverishly hoping that when I looked up from the book, I'd actually be sitting in one of those schools, maybe with Pat and Isabel O'Sullivan. I loved the glimpse I got into this whole other world out there, with everything so different from the one I knew. I'd read these books at every available opportunity. I'd carry them to read on train journeys, I'd read them when I was ill, I'd read them when we went to weddings that I absolutely didn't want to go to. Of course things got a little out of hand when I once burst into tears because my mum didn't make scones and tea for my birthday party. But I loved to read about the adventures Julian and his gang had, and once attempted to form my own "Famous Five". It wasn't exactly a success. There were nine of us, for starters. You can imagine the mayhem. (I'm the leader, no I'm the leader). 

After what can only be described as the golden period of my reading career, I progressed onto R.K Narayan and Ruskin Bond. Narayan's Malgudi had an earthy charm to it, open plains, and open lives, while Bond's Mussoorie had a mysterious charisma with the Victorian bungalows and the nip in the mountain air. 

Now, in my adult life, I still feel the need for a security blanket when I'm in an unfamiliar environment. It changes after every few months. Sometimes it's chick lit novels, sometimes it's reruns of sitcoms that have ceased to be funny after the tenth watch, but what the hell. A lot of time it's talking on the phone. I drive my husband crazy with my obsessive need to read something or watch some show, or endless phone conversations. But after all this while I think he knows that without it, I'd drive him crazier. 

I think we all feel the need for a security blanket at some point in time or the other. For some of us, it's a blanket, for some us it's a book. But it feels good to know that there's something familiar when everything around is new and strange. 

Pondering about paranoia...

I am what you'd call fatalistic.  Mmm, actually, that's just a euphism for what I am. I'm the kind who, if someone asked me what my plans were after finishing this blog post were, I wouldn't be able to say. And that's because I'd have thought of a hundred different ways in which writing a blog post on a laptop could kill me. Electrocution. Dangerous worms breeding in that bitten apple symbol on the laptop. You get the drift, right? It's paranoia. If I went to a shrink, I'd probably pay thousands of rupees to hear how some monster story someone told me when I was little,  has left such a deep imprint on my mind. There, I just figured it out myself. It's so easy to blame everything on one's childhood that shrinks don't have to worry about dealing with anyone who comes in.
 "Doc, I can't sleep...".
"Oh, you must've been scared of the dark when you were a kid."
 "Err, doc, I was just about to say that perhaps it's the mattress?"
 "Hmmph, why did you come to me then ?"
"Err.. my wife made me."

When I was in school I was one of those to whom you could tell a story about the haunted games room and easily get away with it. I'd have bought a rosary and kept it in my pocket all the time, clutching it with fear every time I passed the games room. I may not have believed that there was a ghost. But something about my disbelief would have scared me, and mocked at me for being so confident. Phew, it's complex, and it's TIRING! Crossing roads is a himalayan task for me, and my husband has borne the brunt of my indecisiveness several times. But after 4 or 5 fights about why I can't make up my mind about when to cross the road, he's accepted that this is the way it will be :)

Such people often become very superstitious. And I'm not an exception at all. I throw salt over my shoulder and all that. And, of course, I told you about the rosary beads.
Now that I've convinced you all that I have the most negative attitude towards life among all the people you know, let me tell you about the up side of this paranoia. I feel happy every time I cross the road ok, and I skip the rest of the way home. I say to that Dude up there "phew, thanks!" and wink at him.
Recently, the death of a very close relative made me realize that even in the cases where you know it's the end, and it's unavoidable and looming large, it shocks the wits out of you. So I think the only way to deal with my paranoia is to look at the positive side of it, and make sure I wink at the Dude up there to tell him I'm grateful for everything that's happened until now. 

To Ma'am(and Sir) with love

During the course of a conversation with my mother, she casually said, "you know I'm going to need a keyhole surgery done on my knee, that's what the ortho says". I was taken aback, naturally. It wasn't that it was completely unexpected, but she sounded so casual, and I thought I heard a hint of something; wait, was it pride?!! Ok, some background - she's a lecturer at a college, and her job involves hours of standing in front of a crowd of pretending-to-be-oversmart teenagers and belt out Shakespeare and Byron. So I said, "and you are sounding so smug because....""Well, the doctor says it's because of all the strain on the knee". I just couldn't understand. Nothing would rattle the woman because she was so happy doing what she was doing that the whole keyhole surgery thing was just a tiny glitch along the way.
(By the way, if you ever tune into ETV Kannada or Udaya TV, you may catch a glimpse of her standing at freedom park with a sign that says "We need better furniture for the PUC board exam halls" or something like that. So, you can see why the knees are crying out for help, what with teaching, going on strike, and oh, wait, I haven't even come to playing throwball for the teachers' team yet.)

What amazes me is the spirit of the teacher. And I am saying this not just about my mother, but about so many teachers I have seen along the way. They lose themselves completely in what they do, and yes, I agree, some may be in the profession because of reasons other than the love of teaching, but still, the spirit they show is truly something.
There was a teacher in my school who'd been teaching for decades, and she was suffering from renal disease, by the time we were in class 10, she had to have dialysis every week. She had become pale and weak beyond recognition. But every sports meet, it was only her voice that was heard booming over the microphone announcing event after event, encouraging the young athletes to excel. With her glasses perched over her nose, she could give you a look that said "I can't tolerate any of your nonsense" and "I'm here whenever you need me" at the same time. She isn't amongst us any more, but what she has left behind is something none of us who knew her, will ever forget.
Another teacher recognizes my voice even when I call her after two years just to say hi, and while I hadn't seen her in years, she was still there at my wedding to say congratulations. Oh, and she probably remembers my Computer Science board exam score even. She's that kind of a lady :)

My mum remembers the names of students she taught even five years ago, and recognizes them if she runs into them at the cinema or else where. In spite of my constant yelling, she still plays for the teachers' throwball team, coaches the debate team, takes special classes when required, and what not. Well, it's a part of their job description, you may say. But whatever said and done, the passion with which these teachers don their role is unquestionable.
Their spirit, is indomitable. 

Slaving it out

Would you work for  a firm where you're called a "slave"? I recently came across this posting where a firm that organizes backpacking tours was hiring freshers to do some Sales related work, and content writing, etc. And the email address to send their resumes was slaves@xyz.co.in. Sometime in the past, I met a guy who was starting his own company which did something similar, and he was telling me about how he was not too thrilled about having people from the corporate join him. The reason, he said, and I quote - "they're too used to earning s*** loads of money and here they will have to work for a slave's salary". There is reality in what he said, but put me off when he said that. Several months later, I see this posting and I thought to myself - who would wanna work at a place where the resumes get sent to "slaves@xyz.co.in"? One may say, what's the big deal? It's just an email ID, it's not as if they're going to treat you like a slave there.
I have this mental image of robots in the office who do the boss's bidding, and it's hard to think of it in any other way. Come on, a slave is someone who has absolutely no rights. Is this really cool ?

Hola

It seems fitting to say hello in Spanish considering the way those guys salsa'd their way to a win over the Italians in the Euro2012 finals! It's been a really long time since I fought the biggest hindrance in a blogger's life - laziness - and wrote anything. But then I got really insecure and thought of all you forgetting me was so overwhelming that I decided to say hello, at least. So much seems to have happened between the time I put up the previous post - Sachin Tendulkar's turned down a house in the capital (well, have you seen his house in Bandra?), Presidential candidates have been named and made to suck on lollipops while their names are being bandied about by didi and the likes, films like Rowdy Rathore have been setting the box office ablaze ("don't angryyyyy meeeeeeeee" - with a dialogue like that, who needs a story and all that ?), and the monsoons are FINALLY showing some signs of gracing Mumbai !
I'll take leave here, and if I don't come up with another post for another six months, I know you won't forget me :D Ciao ! (Seemed befitting to say goodbye in Italian, for the very same reasons as the opening was in Spanish) :P Ok, tacky tacky. Bye ! 

To age or not to age. That, simply is the question!

I distinctly remember getting through every one of my exams from class 5 till the last semester of engineering by telling myself that when I grew up (!) I wouldn't have to write any more exams, and I'd be free of all worry. My dad would walk into the room when I'd be silently shedding many many tears and praying more than studying, and he'd shake his head sadly and ask "you're crying again about an exam?" I'd quickly pretend to be down with a bad cold and mumble something about chronic sinusitis. He'd say, "there are bigger worries in life than a two paisa exam." I'd want to yell and say he didn't have a clue about the efforts that went into juggling calculus, formaldehyde, C++, and some pathetic characters in a B grade novella in Hindi. But then, he wouldn't have even been moved by the half-hearted fit I threw. He was a man of the world. Little did I know he was so right!

Back then, all I wanted to do was to "grow up". This meant - no exams, eat all the junk possible, without supervision, not having to attend dumb social dos, have a knight-in-shining-armour who'd bring buy me pretty stuff. Being older was a glamorous thing. Of course it depended on the stage in life - at 6, it was simply to be in middle-school where I would start wearing a pinafore to school, and get rid of the dumb frock. At 12, it was to be 16, where I'd be the oldest and among the most revered in school, with little girls in frocks and pigtails asking for my autograph on graduation day. At 16, it was to be 18 and in college where one had a chance to be "cool" (which meant screw up your academics so bad and be known as the rebel). And then, there's the whole world of the corporate where there is a chance to rake in the moolah, and make a career (ha!).

Then something strange happens around 25 or so. Ever since I got on to the "wrong side" of 25, all I've been thinking of is that I want to go back to being 12 ! My dad's words ring in my ears, and it does seem like that was a simpler time. Forget about 25, 40 year old people want to go back to being 25. 60 year old people want  to go back to being 40. It's just so ironic! My neighbor's daughter who's 5 wants to look like Deepika Padukone. Her mother, too wants to look like Deepika Padukone. Oh boy, our minds are so messed up!

 If there's a God up there, I'm sure He's either sighing exasperatedly, or smirking away that his little trick's working.

A cup of heaven

I don't know how I've maintained this blog for almost two years without writing about one of my favourite things in the world - coffee! The first name of this blog was "ramblings over coffee" and then it was something else about coffee. People started wondering if I had taken a liking to the one and only Karan Johar. So I changed the name of the blog to "My cup of tea". But, whatever. I like tea only three-fourths as much as I like coffee.
I vaguely remember being given coffee in a feeding bottle when I was six months old.That's just bad parenting. OK, please don't call my mum to verify this, she will disown me for having slandered her good name on a public forum. She's slowly getting the hang of using the internet so she may just read this post two years later. By then I'd have bought her such beautiful presents that she will forgive me. Until then,  sssshhhhh. But anyway, I think I probably got introduced to coffee when I was maybe ten or twelve. It's a rite of passage in a Tam-Bram household. Kids drink Boost or Horlicks or Vivita or something like that. Adults drink filter coffee. Nothing else. If you drank tea, you were a "Northy". If you continued to drink Boost, well that was forgiven because you'd go on to study in IIT Madras and do great things with your life. Well my grey cells were meant to be deadened by coffee. And I would have it no other way. So once the right of passage was done with, there was no going back.
Every morning my mum would make me a steel tumbler full of coffee brewed the South Indian way. And once it seeped into my twelve year old insides, I knew the day would be good. I sound like a thorough stoner. Well, you can't quite get stoned on coffee, quite the opposite. But it was a high anyway. My grandfather would be up at 5 30 am for his coffee and if I happened to be up studying feverishly for an exam, I'd get a cuppa too! And I would like to take this opportunity many years later to thank the Coffee God for making me pass all those exams. I owe you one. OK, many.
Then came the advent of Cafe Coffee Day and Barista and the rest of the cafe jingbang. My first sip of cappuccino was a revelation. Hmmmmm...so there are different ways of making coffee too. And then there has been no looking back. But my favourite is the South Indian version which my mum and several other mums make. I've become a total coffee junkie. One of my closest friends is a thorough coffee junkie too. And she totally understands why I have to have a shot of caffeine first thing in the morning, wherever the hell I am, to even begin to think. Ambika - hi5!
I've tried so many different types of coffee. My ideal pastime would be to sit at a cafe in Vienna, drink coffee and blog. And I sure as hell want to try out Kopi Luwak at the Shangri-la. Perhaps if I saved all that money, I could have probably bought a house in bloody Bombay. Well, no regrets. I ain't taking any house back with me, but I sure as hell have enjoyed a zillion cups of coffee !