I find myself unable to concentrate, watching the news wondering when some camera for some news agency will show me my grand aunt's home in Kerala, and how high the flood waters reached there.
I am in the U.S. We do not stay in touch on Whatsapp. I know they evacuated early because she needs oxygen 16 hours a day. They have an aging German shepherd. What became of him I wonder. In the living room there used to be cassettes of Hindi movie soundtracks from the 90s. My uncle remains a devoted fan of Raveena Tandon. I loved taking a different tape up each night, when we visited, and listening to them while lying on the raised, spare bed, with the windows open. I have an almost paralyzing fear of spiders, and every bathroom in this house had at least one. I suppose they got washed away in the flood.
In the space below the stairs my grand aunt had a little puja room- she would do some hocus pocus things with incense every evening. It never took long and the house always smelt nice afterwards. No one else in the house participated, or was ever required to.
As a child the drive way held the greatest fascination. It was filled with smooth little stones, which must have been brought in from some river bed somewhere. I spent ages selecting the smoothest and prettiest stones, as on every trip I was allowed to take a few back with me to Bangalore. The residents of the house wouldn't have minded letting me go with handfuls, but my grandmother knew I couldn't resist collecting stones, and that if allowed I would have been incredibly greedy.
Jyothi chechi's fridge was the second most exciting thing. She stored her nail polish in the door, and I was allowed to examine all the colours. More often than not there was a strand of jasmine flowers, woven together for the hair, sitting about getting disgusting, as the person it was intended for forgot it and moved on with life. The smell of fridge-aged jasmine will always take me back to being six again. Also they had a Sodastream. This was a big thing in the 90s. No one I knew in Bangalore had that. And there was always Orange crush.
I am sad that the place of my best childhood memories is gone. Even if the house is structurally sound after the last week, it will need extensive repairs, and will lose its lovely, shabby cosiness.
I hope my grand aunt will be ok.
Showing posts with label sickness and health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sickness and health. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
That Thing You Do
Someone reminded me on Twitter that That Thing you Do is 21 years old today.
When I was in the 7th std my best friend at the time had a sleepover to which the entire class was invited. Of the 25 people maybe 15 showed up. Her older brother disappeared into his room to avoid us, too impossibly cool to hang out. Her mum ordered in pizza- it might have been U.S Pizza, Dominos wasn't there then, and Pizza Hut hadn't reached Koramangala yet either. She put out biscuits and and Pepsi and left us to ourselves for a bit.
After we had eaten she moved us to their drawing room and put on a tape of That Thing You Do. Most of us were going to sleep in that room, and mattresses were on the floor. I remember sitting in front of a not very big screen, falling asleep on the shoulder of a boy, A, who had just joined the school that year, thinking being next to him was rather nice. My other best friend V was on the other side, he was sweet on N, our host. This did not keep us from all being really close. V drowned in the school lake a year after high school finished. He hadn't liked college much and returned to school often, taking up all kinds of conservation projects. Such a waste. We're not a very close-knit batch but we all miss him. I miss him.
I still see A occasionally. He's done a drug too many and is mostly unreachable at this point- no trace of the rather sweet boy who joined our class in middle school. He's still usually the tallest person in the room, and rather the most attractive.
N moved to the U.S. after the 10th standard. Her father had died some years before and her mother wanted to set up somewhere new. We met last year, after 15 years. Her American husband and my American husband were also there. It was very nice.
When I was in the 7th std my best friend at the time had a sleepover to which the entire class was invited. Of the 25 people maybe 15 showed up. Her older brother disappeared into his room to avoid us, too impossibly cool to hang out. Her mum ordered in pizza- it might have been U.S Pizza, Dominos wasn't there then, and Pizza Hut hadn't reached Koramangala yet either. She put out biscuits and and Pepsi and left us to ourselves for a bit.
After we had eaten she moved us to their drawing room and put on a tape of That Thing You Do. Most of us were going to sleep in that room, and mattresses were on the floor. I remember sitting in front of a not very big screen, falling asleep on the shoulder of a boy, A, who had just joined the school that year, thinking being next to him was rather nice. My other best friend V was on the other side, he was sweet on N, our host. This did not keep us from all being really close. V drowned in the school lake a year after high school finished. He hadn't liked college much and returned to school often, taking up all kinds of conservation projects. Such a waste. We're not a very close-knit batch but we all miss him. I miss him.
I still see A occasionally. He's done a drug too many and is mostly unreachable at this point- no trace of the rather sweet boy who joined our class in middle school. He's still usually the tallest person in the room, and rather the most attractive.
N moved to the U.S. after the 10th standard. Her father had died some years before and her mother wanted to set up somewhere new. We met last year, after 15 years. Her American husband and my American husband were also there. It was very nice.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Thoughts- some but not all related to Father's Day
It is Father's day and my Facebook feed is a stream of people putting up sepia tinted pictures of their fathers.
I cannot relate. I love my father, and I wish I could see him more often, but I am unable to channel all of this on Father's Day.
At the moment I am trying to get him to send me the phone number of my grandaunt so I can call and check on her. He is in Bangalore and I am in the U.S- the time difference matters and if he doesn't get on this within the next ten minutes or so I will have missed my window to make this call for yet another day. He is in the middle of dealing with his own mother, who has Alzheimer's and has of late been hitting the young girl we have hired to help care for her. I doubt my father can relate to the way we think of Mother's Day. Loving and caring for his mother have changed him, just as her illness has changed her.
Every day we try to hold on a little bit more to the memory of who she used to be, so that we can handle who she has become now. Doing that hurts too, because things are so different, and we wonder how we became this way. Old age is horrible. Let no one say otherwise.
On Father's Day I think to myself, I hope I can be as present for my parents as they were for their own. I am all the way across the world, and have a decade or so to make it possible for them to live here, or convince myself that life would be better if I moved back.
What this means is that in my father's best years, and my mother's, which are now, I will be far far away. We are missing out on having fun with each other but there isn't a way in the world you could get me to move back to Bangalore at this point. I am so happy to have grown up there, but it now it makes me sad. Landing there and not being at the little airport near Indiranagar makes me sad. The long long road back to Koramangala makes me sad, as does the visible evidence of the corruption linked to the new airport. The air is impossible to breathe, and I feel the grime coating me- settling on me as I settle into the city. All the bisibelebhath and lunch thalis in the world cannot make up for the loss of the city I grew up in.
Landing in Delhi or Mumbai do not have the same effect. No matter how unbearably hot, or noisy Delhi is it will always have my heart. Delhi was ever uncomfortable- you just accept it and move on. Mumbai I have no feelings for- so landing there or not landing there have no meaning to me. Bangalore was my home, and I am having trouble accepting that it has changed so much, and become so very unlivable.
I cannot relate. I love my father, and I wish I could see him more often, but I am unable to channel all of this on Father's Day.
At the moment I am trying to get him to send me the phone number of my grandaunt so I can call and check on her. He is in Bangalore and I am in the U.S- the time difference matters and if he doesn't get on this within the next ten minutes or so I will have missed my window to make this call for yet another day. He is in the middle of dealing with his own mother, who has Alzheimer's and has of late been hitting the young girl we have hired to help care for her. I doubt my father can relate to the way we think of Mother's Day. Loving and caring for his mother have changed him, just as her illness has changed her.
Every day we try to hold on a little bit more to the memory of who she used to be, so that we can handle who she has become now. Doing that hurts too, because things are so different, and we wonder how we became this way. Old age is horrible. Let no one say otherwise.
On Father's Day I think to myself, I hope I can be as present for my parents as they were for their own. I am all the way across the world, and have a decade or so to make it possible for them to live here, or convince myself that life would be better if I moved back.
What this means is that in my father's best years, and my mother's, which are now, I will be far far away. We are missing out on having fun with each other but there isn't a way in the world you could get me to move back to Bangalore at this point. I am so happy to have grown up there, but it now it makes me sad. Landing there and not being at the little airport near Indiranagar makes me sad. The long long road back to Koramangala makes me sad, as does the visible evidence of the corruption linked to the new airport. The air is impossible to breathe, and I feel the grime coating me- settling on me as I settle into the city. All the bisibelebhath and lunch thalis in the world cannot make up for the loss of the city I grew up in.
Landing in Delhi or Mumbai do not have the same effect. No matter how unbearably hot, or noisy Delhi is it will always have my heart. Delhi was ever uncomfortable- you just accept it and move on. Mumbai I have no feelings for- so landing there or not landing there have no meaning to me. Bangalore was my home, and I am having trouble accepting that it has changed so much, and become so very unlivable.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
in the summertime
things to do while spending the summer in switzerland, generally understood to be among the most lovely places to spend a summer.
1. write 60 page long papers over 2 weeks. field e mails from anxious professors over missed deadlines. this only makes the situation more enjoyable.
2. decide to work part time at what must surely be the most boring job in the world, paying bills for serbian policemen who are being sponsored by the swedish national police board to learn 'strategic management'. try to figure out what strategic management might entail- not that it matters though because all your time will be spent dealing with cantankerous accountants, one of which has a single gropey hand (the right one).
3. develop a repetitive stress injury from using the computer too much, because staying in and furiously banging away at your keyboard is what summer is all about.
4. stop signing in on skype. your friends want to meet and go to one of the concerts being held in parks around town, but you cannot keep saying no because it makes you look un-fun, and forces you to acknowledge how slowly you are progressing at your writing. avoid them instead.
5. develop a bizarre obsession with daily talk show hosts and their work, craig ferguson for example. you must choose a show that has been on for at least 5 years, if you choose the late late show, which has been on for 8 years. 8 years x 40 minutes a day gives you plenty of time-wasting fodder on youtube.
6. eat vast quantities of biscuits. in the little time that you do have to spare you must concentrate on sending yourself into one sugar coma after another.
7. get yourself an earworm. here. this will do for now.
1. write 60 page long papers over 2 weeks. field e mails from anxious professors over missed deadlines. this only makes the situation more enjoyable.
2. decide to work part time at what must surely be the most boring job in the world, paying bills for serbian policemen who are being sponsored by the swedish national police board to learn 'strategic management'. try to figure out what strategic management might entail- not that it matters though because all your time will be spent dealing with cantankerous accountants, one of which has a single gropey hand (the right one).
3. develop a repetitive stress injury from using the computer too much, because staying in and furiously banging away at your keyboard is what summer is all about.
4. stop signing in on skype. your friends want to meet and go to one of the concerts being held in parks around town, but you cannot keep saying no because it makes you look un-fun, and forces you to acknowledge how slowly you are progressing at your writing. avoid them instead.
5. develop a bizarre obsession with daily talk show hosts and their work, craig ferguson for example. you must choose a show that has been on for at least 5 years, if you choose the late late show, which has been on for 8 years. 8 years x 40 minutes a day gives you plenty of time-wasting fodder on youtube.
6. eat vast quantities of biscuits. in the little time that you do have to spare you must concentrate on sending yourself into one sugar coma after another.
7. get yourself an earworm. here. this will do for now.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Fish
So on my last visit home my orthopaedist uncovered a pretty glaring vitamin D3 deficiency, and made me pledge to drink milk every day and eat fish at least twice a week. Yesterday I decided to conquer my fear of dealing with raw fish, and marched off to the supermarket with a friend in tow- she once fed me the most delicious baked salmon, I would count on her to guide me through this confusing shopping experience. We picked out some salmon, and this afternoon when I cooked it. Margo was at the library, so after some frantic texting I left her to her books, and got on to the fish prep on my own.
With some olive oil, garlic, onion, fresh herbs, salt and a squeeze of lemon it turned out like this.
It turned out pretty well I think. Next time I shall be adding some ginger and a tiny bit of soy sauce.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
13.3.2012
i'm at the airport trying to go through security check but my enormous hooded cape of a coat is not cooperating. my eyes hurt. i'm going home in a rush, trying to see my grandfather one last time before his lungs lose the battle they have been waging for the last 6 months. instead of being incapacitated by grief i have, instead made a list of everything i need to do in geneva before taking off for a month, and worked through them methodically. last night three of my friends gathered in my room to sit with me while i packed. it was no more grim than usual, just with more frequent morbid jokes. i found myself describing how we no longer cremate people on wooden pyres, using an electric facility instead. its not something i want to think about while my grandfather is still alive but i cannot stop myself from skipping ahead. as if by doing so i can avoid dealing with how painful the situation is right now.
i also feel silly. in an excess of nervous energy i have bought my sister a bright green watch from the swatch store at the airport. i have also been unable to stop myself from buying a boz of chocolate passion-fruit macaroons. my grandfather loved these the last time i took them. this time he is unconscious and unlikely to revive enough to recognise me; worrying us with his disregard for his diabetes by making enormous inroads into the stuff i bring back each time, so that he might eat little bits of the nicest things is no longer on his agenda. i have also bought an over priced cup of coffee from the kind of boutique bio faux-vegan restaurant that i despise. i don't drink coffee. i haven't done so for years. it is the price for not bursting into tears every 10 minutes. i cannot afford to do so, i have been dehydrated for the last 3 days as crying and mopping up do not leave enough time to rehydrate.
at security check the man says to me- do you have a laptop inside. yes i say. take it out please. boarding card please. smile please, you cannot go through my security check with a face like that.
it surprises me and makes me laugh. i tell him that i did not know smiles were required to go through security. next time i will take the train.
he laughs and lets me go through.
my flight is not boarding yet and i am losing patience. i want to get in and eat my sandwich.
i also feel silly. in an excess of nervous energy i have bought my sister a bright green watch from the swatch store at the airport. i have also been unable to stop myself from buying a boz of chocolate passion-fruit macaroons. my grandfather loved these the last time i took them. this time he is unconscious and unlikely to revive enough to recognise me; worrying us with his disregard for his diabetes by making enormous inroads into the stuff i bring back each time, so that he might eat little bits of the nicest things is no longer on his agenda. i have also bought an over priced cup of coffee from the kind of boutique bio faux-vegan restaurant that i despise. i don't drink coffee. i haven't done so for years. it is the price for not bursting into tears every 10 minutes. i cannot afford to do so, i have been dehydrated for the last 3 days as crying and mopping up do not leave enough time to rehydrate.
at security check the man says to me- do you have a laptop inside. yes i say. take it out please. boarding card please. smile please, you cannot go through my security check with a face like that.
it surprises me and makes me laugh. i tell him that i did not know smiles were required to go through security. next time i will take the train.
he laughs and lets me go through.
my flight is not boarding yet and i am losing patience. i want to get in and eat my sandwich.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Priest at large
My mother asked her physiotherapist if he had a priest in the family (because she imagines that any Malayali named Austin must have at least one relation in the church, and because he said he liked to have Sundays off).
He looked at her aghast and said: Ma'am I never allow priests to enter my house.
This blog is an exercise to get me to start writing again. I shall aim for 5 lines of sense three times a week. Though two times a week is also ok. And sense is optional. So on days like today, this is all you can expect.
He looked at her aghast and said: Ma'am I never allow priests to enter my house.
This blog is an exercise to get me to start writing again. I shall aim for 5 lines of sense three times a week. Though two times a week is also ok. And sense is optional. So on days like today, this is all you can expect.
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