fickle, funny, flawed, gorgeous

Eating Well - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 08:14:00 +0000

"Langanam parama aushadam", my beloved great aunt Chiththi would say whenever one of us would mention feeling bloated or unwell. This wonderful woman who had never studied beyond ninth standard at school, married young, raised a brood of her own before adopting another ten when her sister-in-law passed away, with the kindest and gentlest of outlook on life had a simple remedy to fix any minor digestive ailment. Fast, for it's the best medicine. I can say with some degree of certainty that she had never heard of intermittent fasting but knew what would fix a system that was probably groaning from being overworked. Give it a break and it should sort itself out. It is the equivalent of asking 'have you tried switching it off and on?', when something doesn't work. Whatever happened to such sound common sense?

Every day I see people discarding intuition and common sense in favour of unquestioned and dubious nutritional advice. It's probably something that's been creeping on us for a while now. Back in the nineties, all of a sudden rice-eating families like mine in Chennai switched en masse to chapathi/roti for the evening meal as it was touted as the healthier option. Overnight rice which we had always eaten was a bad guy, the staple of our house had fallen out of favour and in its place was the interloper wheat. This meant poor women spending a lot longer in the kitchen making individual rotis when in the past they would have finished sooner by making rice in one go.

Increasingly I find people around me getting worried and anxious about the food they eat. I say I had potato curry and rice and someone remarks that it's carbs on carbs. I tell someone that I am a vegetarian and they ask how I am getting my protein. I add some salad to my plate and someone remarks that it's good to get some micronutrients in. While I don't deny that eating a balanced meal is important, what I see happening (first hand, admittedly) is that people are losing the joys of eating and instead are overwhelmed by confusion and cacophonous and conflicting nutritional advice that borders on fear mongering and thrives on demonising food that people have grown up eating.

Years ago I came across a term called 'orthorexia' which describes a kind of eating disorder characterised by obsession with healthy eating. Everyday I see more and more people who are obsessed with healthy eating. Those who measure every morsel on their plate or dissect every dish into its nutritional components. It's never just bonda but something with carbs or starch. It's never pesarattu but something with 9 grams of protein per 100 grams. What a sure fire way of messing up relationships with food!

Most people have a reasonable understanding of what constitutes good food (cooked from scratch, fresh, simple) and what doesn't (comes out of a packet, bears no resemblance to its origin, has lots of spurious ingredients). Most people also seem to have outsourced our inherent common sense to others who claim to know better with abject disregard for our individual history, our preference and our origins. My recipe for eating well? Put the phone away, cook what you like, eat in moderation and share with those you love. Something my darling Chiththi would wholeheartedly approve of.

(concluded)

Eating Well - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 08:01:00 +0000

I was 35 when I first saw a photo of my maternal grandmother who had been dead for decades at that point. I began asking my mother questions about her mother and since she was just four at that time, she had just a fleeting recollection of her mother but there was one thing she would always recall. My mother would always mention the milagu kuzhambu her mother had made even as she was bleeding profusely before climbing into the waiting ambulance never to return home again. Ever since that recollection, each time I make milagu kuzhambu I find myself thinking about that 27-year old Ramalakshmi who had contracted tetanus in a botched abortion and died a painful death leaving behind five young children. In some ways it is that invisible thread that holds us together. A thin sliver of molten brown pepper sauce that flows across generations to bind us in its common humanity.

It is a small comfort to know that this woman from whom I have descended would have made this very dish just days before her death. That she too would have soaked some tamarind pods in warm water, heated sesame oil in a stone pot, toasted chana and urad dals in it before adding dried red chillies, curry leaves and the eponymous peppercorn and some asafoetida before emptying into a pestle and mortar where the mixture would have been pounded coarsely. The pot would have remained on the wood fire stove where she would have added some more oil, thrown mustard seeds, waited for them to pop before scooping out the ground paste and tossing them into the pot. She would have given it a quick stir and then added in the tamarind extract. She would have stirred the sauce briefly and covered it as it came to a boil. Using a piece of hand cloth, she would have removed the pot from the fire, added salt and possibly a thumb of jaggery to bring out the fiery pepperiness.

In my mind I then imagine her wiping her sauce-stained hand on her saree - a gesture my mother remembered vividly given that at four years of age her mother's hands was what appeared to her at eye level - before wobbling into the ambulance unaware of the fate that awaited her. It is some consolation that I make this milagu kuzhambu as Ramalakshmi would have made it as her mother before her and her mother before that, and countless women before that for hundreds of years whose names are long forgotten. We are somehow united across time in this enduring act of feeding our families.

Food is about history, it's about stories. It is about Ramalakshmi and Shyamala and Abhirami standing in our respective kitchens thinking about our grandmothers and our grandchildren and nourishing them with love as the main ingredient as only we can. To reduce it to mere nutrients is to ignore all the richness it stands for and that would be tragic.

Eating Well - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 07:58:00 +0000

Nearly all of my fondest memories are linked to food. When I look back on my growing years the highlights inevitably inextricably involve food. Be it the dinners on the terrace under a full moon during the holidays when we had kai sadam where we sat around in a circle around an aunt who would roll mounds of rice and place them in our extended hand. Or that summer when we all spent a fortnight or so in Madurai eating mangoes with the juice trickling down our elbows as we raced to lick it before it dripped to the ground. Even the years when my sons were young my fondest stories of them somehow relate to food. Like the time I beat eggs and milk together, seasoned it and it rose so well in the oven that we named it 'wow' and it is now firmly a part of our family lexicon. When I first moved to the UK, food was also how I made friends. I would offer dishes to neighbours and school mums and in an instant a rapport would be established. In short, food is how I communicate, it is how I connect.

When I think of people, I often think of a meal we shared or a dish they cooked for me (can there be a more definite action that communicates love than to be cooked for?). Some years ago, for a birthday a dear friend sent me a message about how we both loved food and how so many of our conversations were about food. I had no idea I did that and I was delighted that she had noticed and thought to point it out to me.

Over the years I have never stopped to think of the components that make the meal. I don't pause mid-mouthful to wonder if there is enough fibre in the sambar sadam or if the aviyal would go towards contributing to my daily protein intake. I do not look at yogurt and satisfy myself that I am getting the requisite calcium. What a travesty that would be and a real thief of joy of eating. I do not read a book against a checklist to see if it is intellectually stimulating or if it nourishes my imagination, so why would I do that to the plate of food in front of me?

Cotswold Way - Days 7 & 8

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 21:46:00 +0000

Day 7

Woke up at 5.45, went down to the bar area for breakfast at 7. The landlady would not crack a smile despite my polite attempts at conversations. I gave up and ate in silence. Ate a cold breakfast of cereal followed by a full English veg and left at 8.17. Decided to take it easy. I took one or two wrong turns at the start but I soon corrected myself. During one particular stretch, when I came back to the trail after taking a wrong turn, I reached a gate beyond which was a large herd of cows. Luckily for me, I saw a couple and we decided that we would cross the field together. They were walking the Cotswold Way in parts and they have walked it over two years, one day at a time. Not long after that I came across a message box and left a little note in it. After a stone stile and a V-stile, I reached Cold Ashton. The shepherd's hut I was staying in was a bit off the track and I wondered about taking a bus but when I saw that the next one was not due for another two hours, I called Uber. The Portuguese driver took a wrong turn and I was charged more. I ordered some food from a supermarket and made myself pasta and salad for dinner. Went to bed at 6.30 and was woken up a couple of hours later by fireworks. Bed linen smells of detergents. Tomorrow, I finish!

Old Sodbury to Cold Ashton

8.5 miles/13.5 kms

Stay at Shepherds Hut

Day 8

Woke up at 5.30. After breakfast and ablutions, called an Uber to take me back to the Parish hall where I finished yesterday. A black cat kept rubbing itself against my legs and I was worried that that was an ominous sign. Sikh woman Jas picked me up in her taxi at 7.30 and she was very surprised that I was walking on my own. Mother of three, she drove Uber taxis when her kids were in school. I began walking at 7.55 and quickly covered ground. Soon I walked past the site of Landsdown battle in the 17th century but otherwise, it was fairly unremarkable. But the last stretch on Dean Hill near Weston town seemed interminable. I looked at every church steeple and wondered if it was Bath cathedral. I walked through Weston and then up a steep stretch on Primrose Hill and through all of Bath city. Once in the city, signs were less obvious and I had to look for it on lamp posts and bollards. Every gold acorn (no more yellow acorns as this was Bath after all) I spotted was bringing me closer to the finish line and after the Royal Victoria park and the imposing Royal Crescent, I walked through crowds of busy tourists out on a sunny Saturday. One final turn left and I found myself standing in front of Bath Cathedral. And at its foot was the plaque that marked the end of the Cotswold Way. I was overwhelmed with gratitude for all the fickle set of circumstances that had made this adventure possible. I said my heartfelt thanks for my 104-mile expedition and began making my way back home.

Cold Ashton to Bath

10 miles/16kms

Stay at home!

Total distance - 104 miles/166kms

Cotswold Way - Days 5 & 6

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 16:13:00 +0000

Day 5

I was up at 5.45 and after ablutions and breakfast of porridge (last night's posh dinner was a small portion), I was ready to leave by 7 when Ramu texted to say that he will be here for 9. When I stepped out of the hotel at 0850, I saw two familiar figures climb out of the car. The boys were here too! What fun! We stepped back into the hotel to breakfast and left around 10. After some typical arguments over the correct direction to take, we began walking and very soon, we were climbing. The directions at this point were very sketchy and some more arguments ensued. I was not about to complain as it made for such a welcome relief from walking on my own. Freed from carrying my bag, I just pointed this way and that as we fell into familiar patterns. My sons would alternate talking to Ramu and I and without the insidious distractions of a screen, we covered a lot of ground - from politics to sport to whether it was a discreet spot for a quick pee.

I only wish they had brought some snacks with them as everyone grew quickly hungry and my own small stash was not enough to feed the mobs. At the end of a long sunken path with trees rising on both sides, we stopped to catch our breath on a bench in someone's garden and out came a lady who offered us tea and coffee. We accepted gratefully and resumed walking. There was some vociferous disagreements over whether or not to climb a small peak and I overruled any dissent and soon we were huffing and puffing our way up Cam peak. If we thought we were done with climbing, we were wrong as shortly after lunch at Dursley town, we climbed and climbed to reach yet another a golf course and not long thereafter arrived at Black Horse Inn which was to be my abode for the night. They served Indian food and after a quick shower and change we came came down for a big meal. The boys left by taxi to go back to Selsley where they'd left the car and I nodded off with a big grin on my face. Nothing could compare to today, I was sure.

Selsley to North Nibley

13.5 miles or 21.5kms

Stay at Black Horse Inn

Day 6

Deepavali today. I called family and wished everyone before downing my customary porridge. Being mindful of the fact that I had to cover quite a bit of ground today, I left at 7.17 and soon began climbing. I was treated to some glorious views from above. I walked through fields and more fields, some of them through lovely countryside. At the next village, I stopped to get myself a coffee - my second this year! - and a banana. Later that afternoon, I was being overtaken by a lady who said that she had spotted me earlier. We walked and talked for a little while. There were gurgling streams that ran alongside the path which was really very pretty. Soon I came across two old friends who corrected me and set me on the right path. But not long thereafter there was a very long unmarked stretch and I walked back the way I came to check and took a detour before finally reconciling myself to the first route. I arrived at the Dog Inn with still some miles in the bag. After my second bath of the week to soak my tired limbs, I ordered a delicious roast veg tart with new potatoes and salad, brought it back to my room and ate it watching TV and fell asleep to dreams of Deepavalis past.

Woke up several times in the middle of the night with cramping calves, then realised that it was actually hunger pangs. Had some porridge and promptly fell back asleep.

I had just two days left on this trip! Do I break my promise to myself and start celebrating too soon?

North Nibley to Old Sodbury

15 miles or 24 kms

Stay at Dog Inn

Cotswold Way - Days 3 & 4

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 17:48:00 +0000

Day 3

After a porridge breakfast in the room, I left at eight quickly climbing Cleve Hill and its winding paths realising just how easy it would have been for me to get lost in the dark last night. I had to keep consulting google maps to ensure I was following the right path and before I knew it. I had covered a couple of maps in the guide book and I was starting to celebrate too soon (never ever do that). I kept pushing my lunch hour until I found a nice spot and soon found one on Charlton Kings Common with beautiful views. Soon I came to a junction where I could follow one of two ways. Google pointed me one way and the signs on the route another. I followed the signs and at Crikley Hill Country Park cafe I had a gnawing feeling that I had missed the turning. One of the rules I had made up for this trip was that when I had had enough, I would not hesitate to call a taxi to take me to my hotel. Just as well I am not in the plateaus of Tibet! My Uber arrived within 10 minutes and took me to my hotel. I was only half-a-mile or so short so it was alright. For the first time in 17 years I filled up the bath and lay in it and soaked my tired legs. Stepped out for battered halloumi, chips and peas for dinner. Early start tomorrow!

Clevehill to Birdlip

15.5 miles or 25.5kms

Stay at Royal George Hotel

Day 4

Alarm at 5.45, hotel breakfast at 7 and checked out at 7.37. Brisk walk until signs pointed me to turn left but confronted me was a steep hill of trees* with the path hidden under a thick bed of leaves. I began climbing and soon a fell runner came skidding in the opposite direction telling me that what I was doing was much harder. I was dripping with sweat from the exertion when I reached the top but unsure which way to go, I turned left and found myself on a boggy path when all of a sudden, the fell runner came running back to check if I had dropped a key. I replied no and began squelching my way down the path. On a particularly slippery stretch, I lost my footing and ended flat on my back saved only by my backpack. I picked myself up gingerly and after a bit of a wobble found myself back on the trail.

As I walked through a golf course, I turned my wrist to check the time only to find that my watch was gone. I called the hotel to check but it wasn't there. My trusty Timex must have slipped out sometime after the fall. Sadly no fell runner followed me this time to check if I had dropped it.

A little while later, I arrived at a Trig point but found that there were loads of Fresian cows and not wishing to walk in their midst, I took another path and soon enough I was lost. A mother and her son who were out walking their dog pointed me in the right direction. She told me that she wasn't scared of cows and that once in Australia she had once herded 10,000 cows, 800 at a time. She had hung up her cowboy boots and was working as a PCSO these days. Presently I found the steps I had missed on the maps and began climbing it. Within a 100 metres, I went through a gate and a man coming the opposite way asked me which way I was headed and when I told him, he pointed me the right way. It turns out I should have descended the steps instead of climbing it. Ian is a retired insurance salesman who climbs and walks in his free time. His 60-something wife was climbing a wall in Bristol that day and he was out walking. "Your company made my walk more pleasant", he said, waving me off. I walked on but soon our paths crossed again and we walked amicably for a touch longer. I climbed over stone stiles and squeezed through squeeze stiles. I walked towards Selsley but got lost in the fields and had to be redirected more than once. I walked past a vineyard and at the next town I had one of two options for the route to take. I took the shorter route and promptly got lost again at which point I had been walking for eight hours and done my mileage for the day. Fed up, I sat by the roadside and called a cab. I arrived at the posh 16th century inn which was to be my abode for the night a short while later. I showered, changed and went down to the pub where I was the object of curiosity for a few locals. For the second time in two days I was asked by a man what my husband thought of my adventures. I replied I didn't know as I had not checked with him but the fact that we had remained married for as long as we have must mean he was supportive of it. I brought my delicious butternut squash rice back to my room and called it a night.

Soon it will be Deepavali. Who knew I would be celebrating it with a walk on the wild side?

Birdlip to Selsley

17 miles or 27 kms

Stay at Bell Inn

*Later I learnt that the steep hill I climbed is not far from the place where the annual cheese rolling competition is held.

Please note: the collages above are a mix of both days 3 & 4 and not exclusively each day.

Cotswold Way - Days 1 & 2

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 20:08:00 +0000

Day 1

I slept badly last night. Nerves kept me up. I had planned to take the 6.56 train but lay in for a bit deciding to take the next train which was due to leave an hour later. My anxiety was high and my stomach was twisting. After ablutions, I had a breakfast of porridge and left at 7.35. Just a few minutes into our ride to the station, I realised I had forgotten my poles behind and went back to pick it up. As I bid Ramu goodbye, I asked him if I would be alright. You have done it 6 or 7 times already, you will be fine, he said. I had to dash to catch my connecting train to Moreton-in-Marsh. A few minutes after I arrived, I boarded the bus to Chipping Campden.

The card machine on the bus was not working, so I rode free. Loads of roadworks and diversions meant it was almost 45 minutes before I arrived at my destination for the start of this adventure. A quick ask around and I found the starting point. A circular plaque placed on the foot of the market hall with a line of poetry by TS Elliot would mark the beginning of a 102 mile journey on foot. It was a gentle walk, some easy climbs and some gentle slopes past a tower and some fields. Blue skies and stunning autumnal colours all the way. Stopped for soup and bread lunch at a pub in pretty Cotswold village of Broadway with some questionable items on the menu (local faggots?). Fell into conversation with Helen - a 50-something woman with a campervan who drives to a campsite by herself every other weekend, takes photos of insects (dragonfly is a favourite) and tries to identify them without the help of Google but using her big book of insects instead. Postcard pretty countryside. Found the Vine B&B. My room has a shower in the room but the loo is in the corridor. Had tea on arrival and porridge for dinner later. Hit the sack early.

Chipping Campden to Wood Stanway

Distance - 12.5 miles/20 kms

Stay: The Vine at Stanton

Day 2

Met an American family of five - husband, wife and 3 daughters - from Oklahoma at breakfast which was not served till 8. They homeschooled their kids and led a gadget-free life. We sat chatting with the unmentionable American election looming large in the corner. The cooked breakfast was slow to come and by the time I left it was close to 9 and since the clocks had gone back an hour I wish I had left sooner. As I had come to predict, I began walking the wrong way before correcting myself. Some easy stretches in the morning and then some really steep climbs where I found myself repeatedly lost in fields. Then took a slight detour into an orchard to pick some apples that had fallen on the ground and was held up by a tractor rally. By the time I arrived at Winchcombe I was not hungry at all but for some reason, instead of carrying on walking, I stepped into a pub for a bite. The pie I wanted would take 45 minutes and so I asked for a salad instead. By the time it arrived and I had eaten it, it was 50 minutes since I sat down for lunch. Kicking myself for taking it easy and worried that it would be dark by the time I reached the hotel, I quickened my pace. As I began climbing I saw a man a bit further ahead dawdling. He had neither a bag nor a dog with him which made me queasy. Rather than climb ahead, he was pacing side-to-side which seemed a touch odd. There was no one else in sight and when I saw the man turn around to take notice of me, I instinctively exaggerated my slowness. As I was on an incline, it wasn't so hard to be slow but sooner or later I would have to pass him, so I made a group call to my family but when it went unanswered, I sent them my live location. In the blink of an eye I did a mental calculation. If he wants my money or phone, I’d hand them over but if he were to assault me, I’d use the sharp ends of my poles to attack him, throw my bag at him and run down to the town I’d just left. He was bigger than me but relieved of the bag, I figured I can still get away quickly.

I recited my favourite line from Hanuman Chalisa* and kept walking. As I passed him, I said my usual hello while trying to keep my voice from shaking. Don’t mind me, he said, I’m injured. I brushed aside my instinct to offer help and quickened my stride to get away as quickly as possible. Once away, I checked to see where he was, he was much further back and quickly receding. Soon I met another lone woman walking the other way and I asked her if she knew if the local area was safe for women. I hope so, she replied and waved me on. I was angry and upset that the lecherous bastards who had molested me as a young woman walking along the streets of India had managed to reach beyond time and space to strike terror at my heart. I reminded myself that the walks I do are in defiance of what we have endured. That they will no longer hold power over me and that I refuse to be a victim of their perversions. As I walked on, it was starting to get dark and I walked through some woodlands, I began making a note of places I could stop and call for a taxi. I passed a B&B and soon I reached a field which warned me that there were horses roaming free. And sure enough, there were two horses by the gate blocking my way. Just as I was wondering where to go next, I turned to see a couple emerge from a path that was descending towards mine and they asked me if I needed help shooing the horse away. The man used my poles to jab the air in front of the horse and after a couple of attempts, they moved away but not very far. The wife told me that they would walk with me across the field but soon realised that they would have to walk past the horses again to get back on their actual trail.

The man asked if it would be better for me to go with them to my hotel. I only had another half-an-hour's journey left but it was getting dark and I would have to step off the trail to get to my hotel. So I agreed instantly. Julian and his Czech-born wife Anna were spending some time with his mother in the Cotswold. We walked back the way I had just come and we had a wonderful conversation about everything and nothing really and before long we were at their car and they dropped me off at the hotel wishing me a safe rest of the journey. I ordered an Indian take away dinner and fell asleep shortly thereafter. I had just completed a quarter of the journey, what new adventures lay waiting for me?

*tum rakshak kahu ko darna - why fear when you are the protector?

Wood Stanway to Clevehill

Distance - 11.5 miles/18.5 kms

Stay - Rising Sun Hotel, Clevehill

Wooden Doll

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 13:49:00 +0000

This was my entry to this year's Mozhi translation prize. It did not make the longlist which means I am free to post it here. You can read the original story titled Marappachi by Uma Maheswari in Tamil here.

Appa, who went up looking for something in the attic came down holding something else in his hand. Dust from the past had settled a dull patina on him. His face had the tired grace of someone who’d tumbled over memories along with old things. Appa called out to Anu - he’d found a rare child-like moment within him that stood on the precipice of a rushed life threatening to break into pieces at any given moment and it needed to be gathered and planted in her immediately. He held it out to Anu with a magical smile. A small parcel carefully wrapped in an old yellow cloth bag. Anu flipped it around enjoying the fascinating mystery of an unopened parcel. What was inside? A stack of tubers? A pencil box? A rolled up picture story book? Eight-year old Anu could not stand the suspense of the puzzle. Her dad however was keen that she should like it. When it was unwrapped urgently, out came a small figure of a woman made out of dark wood. Its age alone seemed novel to Anu. It lacked the unsullied beauty of temple idols and the dumb smoothness of plastic dolls spat out by machines. It had a uniform rough texture that wasn’t abrasive. Its small body was ideal for an easy grip. Long folded arms, legs that stood on a pedestal, eyes that brimmed with sadness of living in its curves, frozen lips. “It’s even got a plait, Appa!”. Anu caressed it one by one with growing wonder.

“Each atom contains its sculptor’s language of touch, echoes of the chisel”, said Appa as he pointed to fine lines etched along the elbow, legs and face. Having noticed her astonishment with satisfaction, he left to allow her to play alone with her new friend.

In her small hands lay miniature wood chips, a small stove, a pot, a pan, a spatula, a pitcher and a ladle that mimicked her future kitchen. The array tired her. A shadow of sadness like the hum of a small train running on a circular track spreads across her heart. The language of parrots, myna, pigeons and bird puppets is constantly stirring the clouds. The plastic girls are too slim to bear the weight of her imagination.

Amma is forever busy cooking, rinsing, washing clothes and sweeping. Once done, she anoints the baby sister’s tender hands and legs with oil before placing the baby face down on her legs to give her a bath. She dries the baby, warms her in sambrani smoke, swaddles her in a saree, holds her close to her chest and sits in a corner for a long time.

“Amma, shall I rest my head on your lap?”

“Are you still a baby?”. With her pregnant belly coming right up to her chest, Amma is panting even as she speaks. Anu is weighed down by the inadequacy of love that her mother partakes with her.

Appa leans on a mattress, and cradles baby sister on his raised and folded legs. He shakes the rattle and amuses her. He talks in baby language to her, babbling ‘nnggu, akku…’.

And if Anu were to ask about “this king” or “in that story”, he would scold her saying, “what questions you have like a grown up, stop being a nag.”

“So, who am I? Am I a grown up or a little girl, you tell me” Anu's questions to the wooden doll would be met with silent stares.

“Who do I have? I’m all alone.”, Anu’s entreaties would be listened to attentively. When she rubbed a dried gourd on the ground, and placed the scorching kernel on its cheek, the doll would grimace, saying “oh, it stings!”. Anu’s belief that if you hull the black husk of a tamarind seed without damaging its inner brown skin and placed it on top, even your wildest dreams would come true, found a ‘yes man’ in the doll. It became the student in the school that Anu managed, the baby in her cradle, at times her mother, and a dream angel who remained at Anu’s side all the time.

When the wooden doll would narrate new stories to her, its eyes would emit a blue light. Stories that the doll knew from when it was the heart of a tree, delightful stories that were kissed by the scent of the tree, rainbow stories that spread under rain drops…every day, she slept in the lap of a different story.

The years melted her and cast her anew. Long, shimmering arms, rolling shoulders, pliant, folding waist, and once whilst having a bath, when her fingers brushed against her budding breasts for the first time, she ran terrified to the wooden doll and confessed to it. In turn, the doll showed her its own cone-shaped breasts.

Amma was worried when she locked herself alone behind bathroom doors. “Let me wash your hair”, she would say.

“No need”, says Anu moving away. Amma is mystified at the burgeoning, billowing screens between the two of them which only multiply each time she tries to progress by pushing them aside. She longed to run her hands along the shape of her daughter visible behind a thin but permanent screen.

At nights when everyone was asleep, Amma would sit on a corner of Anu’s bed. Amma’s wakefulness would penetrate Anu’s sleep and rankle her. Amma’s palms would seek something as she gently patted Anu’s body. If she were to wake up and ask, “What is it, Amma?”, she would murmur “nothing”, and turn to lie with her back to her. Anu would sense eyes and questions pouring at her from her mother’s back.

These days it is Amma who straightens her top as she leaves for school. And if she were to be late by even ten minutes returning home, Amma would wait for her at the door anxiously. Wherever she went. Amma’s eyes guard her with warmth and tenderness.

Anu marvels at how the wooden doll dulls and shines in sync with her own fatigue and joy. She notes how the wooden doll trembles with excitement and terror in the same way she does. She senses herself being bound by an invisible filament to the wooden doll. Its open body and eyes that shine beyond the lines, the space created by the hip and the folded arms, and lips that part as if to absorb everything in. Anu’s world would slip, slide and shrink within it.

Other little girls invite Anu to play and then turn away making a face. As lights from television shows that ended a long time ago, wriggled and danced on the living room floor, as darkness seeped into the night, as the window doors waved about in the wind, Anu lies curled up in a corner of the cot. From the desk, the wooden doll’s eyes weave a gentle web that cradles her. Its breasts have crumbled and in its place the chest has grown a dense carpet of hair. The shapely waist straightens, the body thickens to a manly figure with a swirling moustache which is both strange and somehow attractive. Slowly it moved close to her bed. Its long shadow stretched over the bed and consumed Anu. As its dark veins spread across the entire mattress, they formed into new, new shapes; piece by piece.

Its hands were those of a prince who gathered princesses and hoisted them on horsebacks in fairy tales. Its legs were of a lover who chased his paramour in the movies. Lips were those that kissed the cheeks of a drowsy woman on television. Its blinking eyes were those that flashed at her in crowded street corners, snapping her emotions. With a gentle likeness to her mother, and the fierce attractive movements of her father, as all the pieces of the silhouette spilled and coalesced, a rare rhythm of a man melted together.

She’d never set eyes on him and yet he was always moving within her and how strange that she could see herself being penetrated like this! There was a blossoming cool delight to see him dominate the intimate corners that were only known to her. That night stretched uninterrupted, undisturbed even by the urgency of the morning.

Anu loved her body like never before. Her days floated from hiding secrets of the dreams. Once school was over, the wooden doll wound bound over and scoop her up; “why so late?”, it would ask with a long face; lengthy secret canoodling; kisses when Amma was not around; occupying her bed well before she got there. And if Amma were to try to snatch the wooden doll away from her from under the blanket, she would grip it tight even in her sleep. She delights in spending time burying herself in its wide hands, playing with the curly chest hair, laughing and tugging at the tips of moustache. She spins on the steps of passion. Without the will to move away but lacking the courage to dive deep, she dips her toes into the edges of desire.

During Christmas holidays, when her aunt was visiting, Anu had gathered her skirt between legs, bent down to plant a pumpkin flower in a ball of cow dung in the kolam design in front of the house. “How you’ve grown, Anu!”, exclaimed her aunt as she scooped her in her arms. On the table were special dishes, served with care and attention by Amma. When aunt asked if Anu could go back with her for the holidays, Amma’s face broke into beads of terrified sweat. “Aiyo sister-in-law, would we eat her alive? And what’s wrong if she does come of age at our house? Do we have any other kids? Send her with me for once”, said her aunt, pulling Anu close to her with affection.

Anu was baffled when she saw her mother in agony, as if one of her limbs were being amputated. As she was about to place the wooden doll in a suitcase packed with the rest of her clothes, her aunt said ‘there’s plenty of dolls there’ and snatched it and cast it aside. Anu felt sorry about it. But she found the trip pleasurable. Plenty of trees, joyous wind, leaning blue mountains. Everything was brand new.

When Anu’s uncle saw her in the dark green skirt Amma had compelled her to wear, he was also surprised at how much Anu had grown. From the second her uncle saw her, Anu squirmed as she sensed something leaping from him towards her. It writhed under her uncle’s stagnating gaze below her neck as he asked her, “Which class are you in? Eighth? Ninth?”, but didn’t listen to her response. It wriggled in the heat of his breath as he coddled her saying “How you’ve grown! Are you the same little girl with a runny nose in a little dress?” and tugged at her waist while she kept pulling away. It seeped from the palms of his hands as they patted her and searched up and down asking “Is your shirt tight here?”. Anu extracted herself from her uncle's hands and ran.

Aunt however was affectionate. She kept offering her food and practically fed her with thickly sweet jaggery appam, semolina paniyaaram and lentil fritters soaked in sweet milk. “Shall we plait your beautiful thick hair into a thousand legged braid?”. Once plaited, she threaded pichchi flower buds from the back garden on a needle, sewed them into a braid, turned her to stand in front of a long mirror and handed her a small mirror. “Look Anu, see if it’s good!”

The pages of love that had been hidden with Amma tumbled open with her aunt. Anu would forever cling to her aunt, curling up close to her at night near a corner of a wall, trying to fall asleep while keeping an eye on her saree edge. But in an instant the man would erase the entire distance between them as he set out for her from within the wooden doll. He would introduce himself in the narrow gap between aunt and herself settling down gracefully. He would churn and stir in her muscles and nerves as she slept. Their uninterrupted trance and everything else is ripped by the sudden entrance of alien eyes. Anu startles awake. She feels as if she desperately wants to go to the toilet. Open the back door, past the coconut trees, coral jasmine and henna plants, in the cold darkness…aiyo, it is scary. Should she wake up her aunt? Tcha, poor aunt. Dull, tired, and deep asleep. Her nosepin would glint with the rise and fall of her breath. In the jagged ends of hair by the edge of her ears, in the sprouted sweat beads on her cheek, the hidden child inside of her aunt is visible. Somehow she would go back to sleep. No, she is unable to hold. Her bladder stabs on her lower abdomen.

Rising slowly without waking her aunt up, without letting her anklet roar, walking like a cat, banging against the dinner table but managing somehow, she feels around for the switch in the dark and turns it on. In the gentle silence, the tiny sound of keys turning in the door lock explodes loudly. Her aunt rolling over can be heard. ‘Would it be too dark?’. Scared and trembling, she removes the lower latch loudly and opens the door to be greeted by the blinking cheer of bright stars. Yellow light from the electric lamp wriggles little nails on the ground. Very beautifully, without causing fear. She is able to laugh now thinking about her fears. Billowing skirt in the wind. The fragrance of pichchi flower. The raw scent of plants. The heady pleasance of henna flowers, the low swinging string of stars. The infantile light of the moon. Even the screech of the toilet door is sweet.

The body is supple once freed of urine. It is tempting to sit by the henna bush. Aiyo, but aunt would search for her. As she returned, Anu realised that she was not on her own. She prickled under the swarm of a hundred eyes. When she began running reflexively, she collided with something, hard hands held her tight, the same hot breath of the morning. ‘Chee, no; was she possessed or something?’ Her face is held against a dark chest with thick, grey hair. Pouring kisses - on the cheeks, on the lips, on the neck, groping fingers that seek something that has not sprouted or even taken root within her, but end up crushing and destroying it.

She wailed when her small breasts were squeezed. With the wordless shriek her aunt was woken up. When Anu’s body was laid on a bed of dried leaves, she plunged to the depths of consciousness. Her uncle’s body pressed heavily against hers. As her aunt came rushing, her uncle quickly got away. Her aunt shaking her asks, “Anu, what happened, Anu!” but there was no sign of life in her. “Looks like she fell down when she went to the toilet”. Uncle manages an explanation. Silently, her aunt embraces her, carries her and lays her down on a bed.

Consciousness tumbles in waves of semi-stupor. Is it this? Is it that? Like this? No, usually faces come next to each other, then suddenly a flower and another dance close together, new birds will fly in the sky. Blue skies and verdant fields meet in a close embrace, the sweet sounds of flute spreads in all directions, isn’t that how it’s shown in that song? Oh, if it had been that way, would she have liked this better? Would you like a different approach then? No. What, this uncle? Greying along the ears. Stench of cigarette in his mouth. A gnawing decrepit lust in the tight grip of frail shoulders. Chest feels acrid. Body scorches. Chest smolders in pain. Eyes burn.

“Aiyo Anu, the skin is hot. Please at least have this tablet”, sobs her aunt covering her mouth with her saree . She runs to uncle’s room and shouts something angrily.

‘Can I not be myself anymore? Uncle’s touch is not like my father’s. It must be at least a thousand years since Appa even touched me! Is he the first man for me? What else has been destroyed when his body collided into mine and crushed me? Can the images that have been scorched by the flames of coercion and have drooped ever be reclaimed? What had uncle squeezed and discarded out of me? Something has happened to me. What have I lost?’ Sleep falls on her eyelids like a wet gunny sack.

Faded sounds in the morning. The click of a lighter in the kitchen, the whistle of a milk cooker, the sound of milk being frothed in a tumbler. “Drink this coffee, Anu”, says her aunt to Anu who lies awake. “Don’t want it, I want to go to Amma now”

Anu paid no mind to her aunt’s pleadings. Her uncle folds the newspaper and comes next to her. Unconcealable guilt is etched on his face, hideously.

“Shall Uncle buy you a new frock?”. Anu pushes away the hand that touched her shoulder immediately. As aunt’s frowns, uncle moves away. How long does the journey stretch? How slowly do the wheels churn? Her aunt’s silence breaks her heart. She appears as a worn out version of Amma. ‘Amma, Amma! What do I tell you? How do I tell you about this?’

“What happened? Why have you returned so soon?”, asks Amma as she comes running with the baby on her hips. She lunges and embraces Anu with her sight. Aunt forces a smile as eyes weigh heavy.

“Your daughter caught a fever from being away from you for just one day” she says but Amma’s eyes refuse to believe it and move to caress Anu, as if she were a porcelain object that had been dropped by mistake and then grabbed with alarm to check that it hadn’t cracked.

Anu runs inside without a word. Sorrow stains every direction of the house. An inhuman silence has scabbed over it. “Where’s my wooden doll?”, searches Anu. On top of the tv set in the living room, amongst the dolls in the kitchen, inside the baby’s cradle, but it is not to be found anywhere. ‘It would have scratched and broken. Crushed into a hundred pieces. Amma would have swept it, gathered it and thrown it away.’ Tears pooled in Anu’s eyes. When she collapsed on the bed crying, the wooden doll stood on the window sill. But it didn’t see her at all. Its sight was scattered elsewhere, across everything but her. It clung to a corner seeking to avoid Anu’s touch. Her mind sobbed to think that she would never be able to reclaim their intimacy. Upon close inspection, the wooden doll had once again regained its shapely waist and a feminine body. Anu looked with disgust at its breasts which had started to sprout again.

Amma Commits A Murder by Ambai

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Mon, 22 May 2023 17:59:00 +0000

This was my entry to the Mozhi translation prize. It was longlisted and received excellent feedback from the jury including "it was a great attempt" and "a very strong contender in the contest".

You can read the original in Tamil by the incomparable Ambai here

At the mere mention of ‘Amma’ just a few events come flashing and strike at my heart. My older sister Kalyani used to swoon quite regularly. I was not at an age when I could understand. Four years old.

I wake up early in the morning. I hear something like a thumping. I go near the door to have a look. Kalyani has been made to sit on a wooden plank. A strange man stands in front of her with a bunch of leaves in his hand. My baby brother of a few months who I made laugh with my ‘AAA’s and ‘OOO’s is now in a cradle in the room with me.

“Neerajatchi, go get it”, says someone.

I look at Amma.

I remember the dark black saree. She’s knotted her hair loose. She enters the small room adjacent to mine. She removes her saree top. She slowly squeezes milk from her breast into a small bowl in her hand. Her eyes water.

Every day Amma wakes up in the darkness of early morning to stack firewood under the buried metal pot to heat water.

One day I watch her. Amma’s hair falls free from the knot. Amma sits squatting. Half her hair spreads out over her cheek and the rest of it over her ears. Once the stove is lit, the fire’s red heat flashes on one side of Amma’s face as she bends down to check on it. That day, Amma is wearing a red saree as well. As I am absorbed in her she stands up suddenly. Her hair hangs down to her knees.

From within the saree top that’s fallen away, beneath the blouse whose hooks have come undone, her breasts, creased with green nerves appear. Standing there she seems like a daughter of fire who’s flown in from afar. Is she Amma? Is she really Amma?

Why do I remember the mantra “Kali, Kali, Maga Kali, Badrakali namosthuthey”?

“Amma”

Amma turns her head to look.

“What are you doing here, dee?”

I am unable to speak. I break into a sweat.

There’s a homam at home. Perhaps it’s the crimson of her lips, perhaps it’s the ferocity of the vermillion, I see her reflected in the roaring flames.

‘Agniyee swaa-aa-aa-aahaa…” , they elongate the ‘swaha’ as they pour ghee into the fire. With each ‘swahaaa’, my sight goes to the fire and then to Amma.

Amma rubs oil in my hair to give me a bath. She hitches her saree high and tucks it into her waist. Her fair, smooth thigh shows. When she bends and rises, I can see nerves threading through it.

“Amma, why are you alone so fair? And why am I so dark?”

Laughter.

“Go dee, who has your beauty though?”

These occasions were totally unconnected. Amma was their sole queen. She was the fire that burnt and cleansed filth. With just a smile, she could make a festoon of a million smiles dance across the heart.

Creator absolute. When I rest my head on her lap, she’d run her long, slim cool fingers over and say something so pedestrian as, “I will teach you to dance. You have an ideal body”, or “what thick hair”. Yet my heart will burst into bloom.

I cannot recall if Amma fed me these feelings about her or if I imagined them myself. Just as many beautiful things took root within me, I do not know what she established within herself.

I was thirteen at that time. Long skirts had started to grow short. Amma would lengthen every one of them.

One evening when I was resting my head on her lap, I suddenly recalled a line I’d read somewhere.

“Amma, what does adolescence mean, Amma?”

Silence.

A prolonged silence.

And suddenly she says,

“I suggest you stay just the way you are, letting your skirt sweep about, running around …”

It seems cousin Radhu had a girl seeing ceremony. Amma went there. On that important day, Amma was not there. On Deepavali day, it was only Kalyani who rubbed oil and washed my hair. Skies which hadn’t yet shed their darkness could be seen from the bathroom window.

“Kalloos…you’ve woken me up too early-dee, there’s no sound of firecrackers yet”

“Don’t I have to give you an oil bath and then have mine? You are thirteen. Still unable to have an oil bath yourself. Bend-dee”

Kalyani has no patience. She rubs my head like she would peel husk from a coconut.

Amma had sewn a satin long skirt in aubergine-flower purple for Deepavali. My heart was smitten as it slid down from the sewing machine as it was being sewn. On that occasion, Amma had taken my measurements before sewing the long skirt.

“I need to measure you, come here-dee…you’ve grown tall”, she says looking up from measuring.

“This girl has grown two inches”

The aubergine-flower purple long skirt is not short like other skirts. It glides down to reach the floor.

Kalyani shakes me awake and dries my hair. I run into the altar room wearing my inner vest. Appa reaches into the pile of new clothes on the wooden plank to give me mine.

“Here you go, darkie…”, says Appa typically.

Sometimes when Appa calls me that, I stand in front of the wide, hanging mirror in the lounge. It was as if I could hear Amma whisper “How beautiful are you”.

Like the fish in the glass box in Sarala’s house, my skirt keeps slipping. Velvet blouse. I wear a pottu on my forehead and go stand in front of Appa.

“Not bad!”, remarks Appa.

I take the firecrackers to the front room and run to climb the magnolia tree. Every morning, I am tasked with plucking flowers from the magnolia tree. Fill the flower basket with flowers and take it to Amma and she’d remark wide eyed “what a loot of flowers” as she caressed them. Her fingers would disappear.

The satin skirt slips. I am unable to climb the tip of the branch. It’s dark still. As I climb down, bang goes a firework in someone’s house. Shivering I jump down from the tree. Run straight into the house. Breathless.

I calm down and run to the front room and burst my share of fireworks. That’s when I remember the flower basket. Dawn has broken. I lift my skirt and bend down to retrieve the flower basket lying at the bottom of the tree. Flowers have scattered. When I bend down properly to pick them, my skirt spreads on the ground. The new skirt is stained here and there. Is it from climbing the tree?

“Kalloos…”, I call out as I come in and stand in front of her to ask, “my skirt is all dirty. Will Amma scold me?”. Kalyani stares at me for a minute and leaves yelling “Appa”.

Everything from Kalyani’s look and her running inside without even taking the flower basket from me make feel like there’s a caterpillar squiggling inside my heart. I look at the satin skirt. I run my hand on the velvet blouse. Nothing has happened, has it?

Dear God, has anything happened to me? I ask myself. But even as I do that, I know that something has happened. I hear fireworks going off everywhere. Holding the flower basket in hand, I stand there breathing fast, my body shaking, my lips trembling. I want to cry out loud.

I want to see Amma. I want to press my head deep against her chinnalam silk clad shoulder. “I am so scared”, I want to cry unabashedly. Amma will stroke my head. Something horrible has befallen me…

From somewhere, Kalyani has managed to get the tonsured old woman who makes fried snacks. The old woman comes close.

“Girl, why are you crying-dee? What has happened now? What has happened that’s not happened elsewhere?”

I understand nothing of what the old woman says. However, my instinct had a chilling understanding of something, but my head grasped nothing of it. From deep within my heart, like an unquenchable thirst erupts a single entreaty…” Amma…”

Once again, I recall the time when I got lost once when I was five years old. In a big park without realising the deep darkness seeping around me, I walk. Suddenly the darkness, the trees, the sounds and the silence create fear within my heart. It was Appa who searched and found me. But it was when I saw Amma that I broke down howling.

Amma lays me down next to her. She strokes me. “Nothing has happened. Everything is okay,” she whispers gently. With her ruby lips blazing like a flicker of fire, she rests her face on mine.

Yet again, my heart hammers as if I am lost somewhere. I sit down, rest my head on my knees and cry. It feels like something has come to an end. Like walking out of the cinema after ‘The End’ card appears on screen, I feel I have left something behind. Right now, I sense that I’m the only one in the entire history of the world to have been beset with such a tragedy. I cry as if I am carrying all the misfortune on my slender, velvet blouse-clad shoulders.

I wonder why Amma never told me about it on evenings when it was just the two of us. My heart is occupied by just fear. It is not the common fear that hits when in new circumstances, or with new people. It’s the frightful scream at the sight of a snake that renders one speechless in terror. Even in the far corners of my mind tendrils of fear hang like a spider’s web.

As pale lips lie split open, I recall a figure. A skull smashes on a rock. A pale pink bald head walking ahead of me suddenly becomes a cave mouth from which splutters black-red blood. In an instant, blood pours over the head. I stare at the blood. Its red appears to have spread everywhere and it flows leaping into my eyes. My mind is agog again and again. “Aiyo so much blood, so much blood” but no sound originates from my mouth. A bed of blood. The old man opened his mouth, the eyes stared vacant, the heart burst forth.

How fearsome is blood…lips go pale…limbs inert…

I need Amma. My heart yearns for Amma to rescue me from this fear the way she embraces and consoles me when I’m scared of the dark. Couldn’t Amma be here to touch me on my shoulder with her cold fingers to say, “this is beautiful, too.”?

“Get up-dee, please…how long will you cry-dee?”, pleads Kalyani as she joins me in tears.

“Amma…”

“Amma herself is coming next week. I have just sent her a letter about it. She’ll be here once Radhu’s girl-seeing ceremony is over. You now get up-dee. You’re a right pain the head.” Kalyani is starting to get angry.

“What has happened to me-dee?”

“Your skull head has happened to you, how many times do I have to repeat?”

“Can I not climb trees again?”

Kalyani raps me sharply on the head with her knuckles.

“You thicko! I’ve been pleading with you for the past half an hour to get up and get changed out of your skirt. You’re asking me questions on top? She’s being such a bother, Appa!”, says Kalyani calling out to Appa.

Appa says, “You musn’t be silly. You must listen to Kalyani.”

The fried-snack-making tonsured old woman adds helpfully when Appa is out of earshot, “Why is she being difficult? This is a fate that befalls everyone”.

Seven days. Seven more days until Amma returns. After Radhu’s girl seeing ceremony is over. Seven days of stumbling around in the dark. The maami5 from next door and the maami from across the street all land up one day.

“Aren’t you making her wear a half-saree dee, Kalyani?”

“Everything will be after Amma returns, mami**. This one is an uncontrollable devil. It only listens to Amma.”

“From now on she will calm down. From now on she will be disciplined and obedient.”

“Why? What will happen from now on?”

Why should I wear a half-saree? Didn’t Amma say ‘stay just the way you are, letting your skirt sweep about…’? Why should I change? No one explains why.

They sit me down like a doll and talk around me. When Appa appears, they whisper beneath their saree tops.

On the fifth day, Kalyani hands me a bowl of hot oil saying “You rub the oil yourself.”

I weep as I struggle with my waist-length hair, then stand in front of the mirror in the lounge wearing my inner vest.

“From now you should get dressed in the bathroom, understood?”, says Appa.

I shut the door once Appa leaves. I remove my inner vest. The mirror reflects my dark body. I run my hands along shoulders, hands, chest, waist, smooth thighs which are only slightly less dark than my face. Am I not the same girl? What will Amma say?

I wear my school uniform. Kalyani enters once the door opens.

“What will you say when they ask you why you’ve been absent-dee?”

I stare at Kalyani. Like a bird that had been freed I was getting ready for school joyfully, but now my pace falter.

“You needn’t say anything. Just be quiet.”

I was unable to play at games lesson that day. I hide behind a wide tree. Once before I have abstained from playing. The next morning Miss Leela Menon asked in class, “who were the fools who didn’t play yesterday?”. I didn’t stand up.

“Why did you not stand up?”, she asked.

“I’m not a fool, Miss”, I replied. She noted that I was ‘impertinent’ in the progress report.

That day my mind was not even afraid of being scolded by Miss Leela Menon. I sense that nothing could ever bother me more than what’s happened to me now. I no longer sit under the tree and read Enid Blyton like I used to. I ask the ripe leaves that have been falling in the dug-up ditch. “What the hell has happened to me?”

Like an accused in the dock watching the judge’s mouth, my heart awaits Amma’s word alone. Would she look at me with her eyes lowered and say, “this thing that has happened to you is also beautiful”? With just a scorching ember of her smile, she would cast aside that intimidating fried-snack old lady, Kalyani and all others. Amma is different. Where she stands, everything superfluous is destroyed and only beauty reigns. For her everything is beautiful.

Amma feels very necessary. Something must be explained. Look, I break into a sweaty shiver at the mere thought of the aubergine-flower purple satin skirt. Why, my tongue thickens to a wooden block and falls flat in my mouth. It’s as if darkness envelops suddenly and before I know it, I hear a ringing sound, blood flows over and a stiffened body seems to appear in the darkness. Someone should explain this with gentle words to me.

I feel as if there’s no one there. After the gardener wakes me up, I leave for home slowly.

“Why are you so late-dee? Where have you been?”

“I didn’t go anywhere…was sitting under the tree”

“Alone?”

“Mm”

“Still think you’re a little girl-dee? What if something had happened?”

I fling the school bag. My face becomes hot. I shut my ears with my hands and scream out loud.

“I will sit as I please. Nothing has happened to me”

I elongate and emphasise every single word as I scream with mad shriek. Appa and Kalyani stand dumbfounded. I get angry and go up to sit on the terrace. I can remain there in the scent of the magnolia tree. Kalyani and Appa are not allowed here. Just me and the scent of magnolia tree. This unspeaking, untouching scent seems closer to me than the people in the house. Wouldn’t it be nicer if they didn’t speak? A wide-eyed smile like Amma’s.

When Amma looks (at me) like that something happens within me. I would want to laugh out loud. I would want to sing. Amma is a creator. With a mere turn of her head and a smile, she conjures joy, energy, and beauty into existence.

Kalyani comes upstairs.

“Come for food-dee, your little Queenship, Amma has spoilt you by indulging in you.”

I purse my lips casually and rise.

The next morning Amma arrives. Opening the taxi door, in a dark green creased saree, she enters the house.

“What happened?”, asks Appa.

“Apparently, she’s too dark to be a bride. He turned her down, the wretched fellow!”

“What does your sister say?”

“She feels bad, poor thing.”

“We’ve also got a daughter who’s dark”

I stand in front of Amma without any preamble. I think I should explain it to her myself in more detail than Kalyani’s letter. Gently, in the crease of her neck, with trembling lips, in a soft voice I want to wail about it all. I am raring to share the fears that are slithering in my heart.

Like some sort of a mystery - like a feeling that blocks the throat when you lie down at night, the struggle of not recognising my own body – I keep looking at Amma expecting her to explain it to me gently. She’s going to embrace me with the long banana stem of her hands. And I am going to cry loudly. I am going to bore my fingers into Amma’s hair and with big gasping wails, I am going to cry.

Amma looks at me. I don’t know if I’ve become Radhu in her eyes.

“Why did you have to rush into this misery-dee? We now have to bear this burden as well”

Who is she accusing?

Soundless wails blockade my heart.

Amma’s lips, her nose, the vermillion on her forehead, her nose ring and her eyes appear to spit blood red flames. In the fire, the divine form that had cloaked her unravels and she appears naked as a human mother. Her heartless words rise like a sharpened knife and blindly hack away all the beauties that had sprouted earlier. Interminable fears cling to the heart like a black painting.

Agniye swaa-aa-aahaa…it wasn’t just the filth that was burnt. Buds and flowers were scorched too.

கத்திரி

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:56:00 +0000

இதுக்கெல்லாம் நேரம் காலம் பார்க்க முடியுமா? வீட்டுல எல்லாரும் தூங்குற நேரம் தான் நல்ல நேரம். என்ன செய்யவேண்டும் என்று ராஜி ஏற்கனவே நுணுக்கமாக திட்ட மிட்டிருந்தாள். எந்த கத்திரிக்கோல் இந்த காரியத்துக்கு உதவும், எங்கே போய் இதை செய்தால் குறைந்த தடயம் இருக்கும் என்றெல்லாம் ஏற்கனவே யோசித்து வைத்திருந்தாள்.

அன்று பரிட்சை முடிந்த கடைசி நாள், அரை நாள் தான் பள்ளிக்கூடம். பிரண்ட்ஸ் எல்லோருக்கும் டாடா சொல்லிவிட்டு, வீட்டுக்கு வந்து, பாட்டி செஞ்சி வெச்சிருந்த சாம்பார் சாதத்தை அவசர அவசரமாய் அள்ளி போட்டுக்கொண்டு, பாட்டியையும், அம்மாவையும், சித்தியையும் "ஏன் இன்னும் தூங்க போகலை?" என்று மறுபடியும்-மறுபடியும் நச்சரித்து, வீடு மொத்தமும் ஒரு வழியாக ஓய்ந்து அடங்கி, மதிய மயக்கம் அடைந்ததும், ராஜி அவசர-அவசரமாக தையல் பெட்டியில் இருந்த கத்திரிக்கோலை ஓசைப்படாமல் எடுத்து, பாவாடையில் ஒளித்து மொட்டை மாடிக்கு கொண்டு வந்தாள்.

கயிறு போல் தொங்கிய இரட்டைப்பின்னலை கையால் வருடி நீளம் கணக்கிட்டாள். பின் மெல்ல கத்திரியால் ரிப்பன் கட்டிய நுனியை வெட்டினாள். 'சருக்-சருக்' என்ற சத்தம் ஏனோ அவளுக்கு இனிமையாகப்பட்டது. சுட்டெரிக்கும் வெய்யில் ஏனோ சட்டென இதமாகப்பட்டது.

இனி வரும் காலத்தில் "நீ அம்மாபாளையா? பொம்பளையா?" என்றெல்லாம் கிண்டல் அடிப்பார்கள். அதெல்லாம் அப்புறம், இன்று ராஜி மெல்ல மெல்ல தான் யார் என்ற தேடலை தொடங்கினாள்.

Running On Tough Girl

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 14:31:00 +0000

Our new house backs onto a national woodlands and for the past weeks I have got back to lacing up and jogging through the winding, tree laden roads which lead to the ancient reserve. Im all these years it has never occurred to me to listen to something while running. On the odd occasion when I tried listening to music, I found the device too fiddly, the headphones too unwieldy, the music too intrusive to my thoughts and so gave it up to instead jog to the rhythm of my own footfall and to whatever song was looping around in my head. This time however, when I discovered my decade-old iPod - a gift for one of my birthdays from my thirties - I decided to give it a whirl.

Headphone designs have significantly improved since I last tried them and I was delighted to find a pair that fit snugly in my ears. When I finally worked out how to find my way around the extremely clunky iTunes (why is so user unfriendly?), I realised that I'd downloaded a some podcasts earlier. Among them was one called Tough Girls. So one morning a couple of weeks ago, I slipped into my shoes, stuck on the iPod and got jogging. What followed was an hour of gripping story telling by women who have gone on to achieve the most unimaginable feats known to humans.

Sure, there are stories of endurance runs and biking through hostile terrain and much more. But the ones that strike me are the ones with unlikely heroes who overcome demons that lurk within. Of the ones that I have listened to so far, the podcast that stands out the most is the one about Paula McGuire.

Paula suffered from severe anxiety and had tried and failed various therapies to overcome her crippling condition after years of living with it. Until one day, a switch went off and she decided to believe in herself and in true hero-redemption route, set herself a challenge of trying every Olympic sport in a space of two years. Never mind if she did not how to cycle and never mind if she was aqua phobic. In the podcast, Paula documents her trials and tribulations throughout her attempts at various sports. How she felt when she rode a bicycle for the first time or how she completed a triathlon while wearing a float, each experience reinforced Paula's belief in what she was capable of doing.

Having done the first challenge she set for herself, Paula then attempted to swim around Britain. But when her old fears returned and it got too much, she had to give the attempt up and turned her attention instead to other experiences. She has since gone on to write about her in a book called (what else?) Paula Must Try Harder.

Tough Girl podcast follows an interview format with the host Sarah Williams (herself an adventurer) asking intelligent questions steering the conversation with a firm but friendly hand. These days, despite the colder weather and the shorter days, I eagerly look forward to going on runs with the rickety old iPod. The other day, without intending to, I ran a comfortable 23 kilometres fuelled entirely by the podcasts. I'm not about to start running the Sahara any time soon, it is enough that I can experience it vicariously.

Listen to the Tough Girl podcast here.

After The After

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 14:30:00 +0000

Years ago, when I was a member of the Rajeshwari Lending Library on Kutcheri Road in what was then still called Madras, I would pick up Mad magazines and one such edition had a series called After The After. There would be an image titled 'Before' followed by an image titled 'After' and a third image titled 'After The After'. Typically, the images would be like this - a large woman in the first, a thin woman in the second and a larger woman in the third. The whole series would roughly follow the same pattern where the 'After The After' would be significantly worse than the 'Before'. Bald man - full head of hair - balder man with no eyebrows, and so on.

I was reminded of this series following the several 'coming out' stories of historical sexual assault in India. It must feel terribly empowering to all the women and men who have shared their own stories in public, both anonymously and while fully disclosing their identities. How must it feel to have the oppressive weight of their own secrets finally set free into the sunlit world of the living! Fly away truth! You no longer hold the power to pin me down and suffocate me! The disclosers may even feel a moment of hope and freedom and believe that fairness and righteousness will prevail after all. They may even want to chastise themselves for holding their tongues for so long. Why had I not spoken up earlier? What had I feared? How could I have not trusted this kind and supportive world? How could I have feared demons around the corners which only hold friends?

The disclosers will be hailed as 'brave', 'truth seekers' and 'path breakers'. Their stories will be held up as shining examples for all to follow. There will be meaningless words like 'closure' bandied about. They may as well call it 'band aid'. As if, speaking up aloud is going to be some kind of retribution and payment for all the suffering. As if we could burst into applause, draw some curtains around it and disperse while noisily analysing the movie.

But once the initial burst of excitement following the disclosure dies down, the fangs begin to come out. Don't expect support or kudos from those closest to the situation. There will be a lot of scepticism, lot more denial and incessant doubting. What took you so long? What did you do to provoke? What proof have you got? I cannot believe this happened in such a respectable family as yours. Are you sure you are not imagining it? (True! The last from a classmate.) You may be prepared for bile and rancour of the sourest sort but what will surprise you is the silence. Stone cold betrayals and helpless shrugs from those whose support you had banked on.

Following my own disclosure, I sought my father's assistance to see if there was any legal recourse that I could seek. But his reaction was one of cowardice. He did not wish to be drawn into it (I see him cowering behind his hands begging to be left out of it). My mother may have shown more anger if a stranger had reported a lost handbag. "Why did you not say anything then?", she demanded," "your father would have hit him with slippers." No Amma, even if I had found words to describe my ordeal as I did 32 years after the incident, Appa would have done nothing about it.

No, After The After is often not the rosy picture we believe it to be. It is sometimes a lot worse than the Before. But wait, there is an After The After The After where eventually, once the debris from the disclosure and the ugliness that spurts in the immediate aftermath has cleared up and the heady rush has given way to a kinder way of dealing with things. There are no hushed conversations or embarrassed euphemisms - a friend who found her way to my blog once remarked, 'you know, your incident' to which I asked, 'which one? The one about my sexual assault?'.

After The After The After, there are only loud acknowledgments and hearty, bold stories of strength. From the bitterness that once clogged the mind now flows a gentler, calmer spring. Where there was once heaviness, now a briskness. A vivid, thrilling anger that knows what it can achieve. An anger that singes and can burn if it wants to. It knows its power and it is within.

Click on image to watch a short animated video I worked to document my own sexual assault.

Also you can read the 'Voicing Silence' series of blog posts here.

Serving Erissery To Germans 2

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Mon, 13 Aug 2018 15:10:00 +0000

With the owner and the co-worker who helped
make salads and taught me the most

"Excuse me" the customer called out to me. "You have forgotten to clean my table," she said pointing to the food that had spilt on the table that needed a good wipe. "Sure," I said "but let me put the plates back in the kitchen first." As I wiped down the surface, I could not but wonder what a remarkable turn of events had lead to that very moment. How all of my grand-standing ambition and my lofty plans for a decorated career had gradually whittled away to that very precise second when all that was expected of me was a clean table.

A few months earlier, I had walked into the small, vegetarian cafe and got myself a job cooking Indian food once-a-week. Tired of being at home alone all day and being unable to go much further in my limited German I had yearned for some work, any work. And this was the one that was available to me. The pay was low but the experience would make me rich, so I signed up. Some people who came to know of my decision were surprised by it. They could not understand why I would do something low-paid like cooking when I could spend my time gallery-hopping or at the spa or going skiing during the week. Why would I put myself through such rigorous work for such little returns? I couldn't come up with a convincing enough answer, so I stopped trying to convey to them how it was so much more than what I was making (peanuts, since you wonder) and how much I was growing personally when faced with challenges of the sort I had never encountered up until then.

You see, cooks at our cafe did not just cook. We served, cleaned and manned the till as well. So every week I cooked a soup and a main course for forty customers till noon and spent the afternoon serving them. It was physically demanding work and I would return home barely able to muster enough energy to string two words together. But it gave me an opportunity to try something I had not done before - cook for a paying crowd that would often be merciless in its criticism. So I stuck with it. Here are some things I learnt along the way:

- I realised that how you feel on the day somehow feeds into the food. If I was nervous about getting the recipe right, it would reflect seamlessly on the plates. If I was particularly relaxed on the day, I would see the customers smiling, chatting and complimenting me on the food. I taught myself to relax (I would sing along to whatever was playing and that would have an instant effect) and to enjoy and savour the experience. As the months went on, I grew a steady clientele who would turn up Friday lunch time for their curry fix.

- It is important to experiment but more crucial to deliver. The small cafe had a regular clientele who came there for good, honest homespun food. They did not expect Michelin star, instagram-styled food. They did not care for the little drizzles or the fancy decorations on the plate. So long as it tasted delicious and looked half-decent, the cook could take her fancy garnishing elsewhere. The crowd came to be fed so they can then return to work, they did not give two hoots for swirls of this or droplets of that.

- Plan ahead but also be flexible enough to throw it out of the window. The cafe was mainly there to use up the veg that the owner could not sell in her organic veg shop because they were mangled and a bit sorry-looking. With that in mind, any recipe should be adaptable enough to accommodate whatever veg was there, lying unsold. Some weeks I have been met with a glut of pumpkins past their prime, waiting to be used up for me. I had to be inventive and quick to come up with a recipe. To my credit I don't think any German cafe has ever served Erissery before.

- Don't take it personally. This was a hard one for me to accept and one that I have to constantly remind myself of. When an old German lady tells you that yes, she is there to pay, but no, she will not hand over the money to you, don't take it personally. When a very pregnant customer shouts at you for not feeding her quickly or feeding her enough for the money that she is paying, don't take it personally. When in your eagerness to get it right precisely, you've let things burn and now it is beyond redemption and there are eight orders pending and the owner is apoplectic, do apologise profusely but don't take it personally.

- Savour the experience. To be given a chance to feed people and watch them tuck into something that you have worked to create and have them thank you for their lunch, what a priceless honour it is! It is tempting to reduce value of everything to monetary returns and to wonder if all the effort was worth the few paltry quid at the end of the day. But I find it vital to recall that it is a privilege accorded to few and one worth cherishing.

If I were to plot my personal growth on a chart over the past two years, it would show a vertiginous incline. What I have learnt about myself and what I am capable of is not something I could have imagined just two years ago. And to be accorded the opportunity to learn as an adult is a precious thing and I am enormously grateful for it.

In a few short weeks my family and I return to our old life and last week was my last working day at the cafe. A few customers shook my hand, took photos with me, handed me handwritten good luck cards and hoped that I would return one day to the cafe to cook for them. Now, I don't know about you but this is not something I can ever put a price on and charge at the till.

Serving Erissery To Germans - part 1 here

Sports-Loving, Naturally

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 16:50:00 +0000

On my last visit to Madras, when we went around looking for a flat for my in-laws, I heard the current owner describe with great enthusiasm how the flat was close to this madam and that kovil. She regaled us how it would be ideal for a septuagenarian couple as they would not have to go far for their daily dose of religion. What if, I later wondered to my sister-in-law, the average pensioner looking to buy the property were more interested in a night of partying than a day of prasadams. We both laughed at the unlikely image such an elderly person conjured up and made our way to see the next flat.

The conversation came back to mind a few days ago when a friend shared an article with me in which an Indian man talks about what it was like growing up with a sports-obsessed mother. Clearly, the man thought that it was an anomaly for a woman of a certain age to have anything other a passing interest in sports. He, like most others, had reduced most women to being overtly obsessed with food and children and once the children had consumed the aforementioned food and flown the nest, then religion. Evidently, he thought his mother who followed cricket and football and taught herself the complicated scoring pattern of tennis by religiously following Wimbledon, was somewhat of an (affectionate) aberration and therefore, merited a mention. He clearly had not looked around.

A few days ago, on our weekly conversation, my mother-in-law commiserated us on Germany's loss in Russia a few days earlier. She lamented how a country that gave the world the likes of Beckenbauer had fallen to such dismal standards. Germany to not get past the group stage at the World Cup! Unheard of! She reckoned that the gecko that had been predicting a victory for an Asian country may be right after all. South Korea had been playing rather well and (at the time of speaking) Japan had thrown a couple of surprises.

From a F1 race we saw recently. One of the few sports my
sports-loving mother-in-law cannot understand.

My mother-in-law is not alone in her fondness for sport. There was once an aunt who would set an alarm to watch Olympic Games in a distant land and would fight with her children to be the first to read the fortnightly Sportstar magazine that you would be forgiven for thinking it was Vikatan or Kumudam.

It annoys me no end when Indian women in their sixties and beyond are routinely reduced to a limited palette of characters - hard-working, selfless, god-fearing, kind and sweet. In other words, dull and harmless. As if all the vibrancy of their youth would give way to a plain, bland version once they cross a certain age.

The next round of World Cup football matches are scheduled for this weekend I have yet to ask my mother-in-law for her predictions. I am certain she has already studied the fixtures and has picked her favourites.

What Has Learning Got To Do With It?

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 17:12:00 +0000

Last week, I decided that I wouldn't write the impending German B2 level exam. Strangely enough, once that decision was taken, I found my bi-weekly German lesson infinitely more bearable, enjoyable even. We had a mock oral exam (mundliche Prufung) a couple days ago and the class was unanimous in its agreement that I had done the best of us all (don't need to be modest here). That's when the penny dropped.

In my anxiety to do well in the exam, I had lost all the excitement around learning the language. I had become so entangled in the myriad grammatical traps that German so eagerly flings at you, that I had failed to recognise the joy that accompanies communicating - even if it is only haltingly - in the language. Instead, I had become so focussed on passing the exam as if it were a box to be ticked and not a tool to be learnt, practised and eventually, gradually and sometimes even painstakingly mastered. I had become blind to the singular sense of victory that follows comprehending a complicated article in a German magazine. I had bought into the whole myth of passing "with flying colours" (a most beloved expression used specifically in the context of passing an exam. I have never known anyone to pass an exam well, or pass it reasonably. It was only every with flying colours as if they were some aircraft that plumed colourful smoke out of its back to mark a very special event).

Years ago, when I was studying French, I would be asked repeatedly why I was learning the language. Was it because I wanted to study in France? Would it help my job prospects? Did I want to become a translator? Endless questions wondering about the reasons behind my pursuit. Sometimes it would be that, sometimes it would be this. I would tailor my answer to suit what I thought the questioner wanted to hear. But even back then, I knew with a gnawing feeling that none of this was accurate. Because I had no particular reason why I was learning French other than the fact that it felt good to learn something new.

Not long ago, when a close family member was writing her tenth standard board exams, I watched agonisingly from the wings and winced at how little the schools and their primary preoccupation with getting the children to pass exams had changed since my time. I cited the very wonderful Ken Robinson and talked about how we are killing everything that was wonderful and joyous and creative about our children by subjecting them to this egregious practice called examinations.

In my mind I saw children children lining up on a carousel, all tightly packed with invisible rollers carrying them inevitably towards a levelling machine that would at first, chop the tops off and trims the sides so they looked more like a stack of pencils than a gorgeously disparate gathering of young people. Then the carousel would taken them to a feeding machine with a huge, gaping hole for a mouth and into this, the children would tumble one by one. They would roll and twist around in the machine like they would if there were clothes in a front loading washing machine before finally being ejected out of the other end, into one massive pile. Each child, indistinguishable from the other, their eccentricities and vagaries wiped out to form a uniformly bland creation that slotted straight into a shelf somewhere.

When I shared my nightmare with a friend who had just surrendered her two daughters to this very system and who had both just endured tenth and twelfth standard exams, she rolled her eyes and said that of course, I would say that. After all, I had the luxury of keeping my children away from this system. Not every one had an ivory tower from which to talk from, she remarked.

How had I forgotten so readily the very lessons I preached so passionately to others? How had I let myself believe that somehow passing the exam and securing high marks was more important that learning a skill? And how dare I accuse others of succumbing to the antiquated exam-driven learning system and suggest to them that they seek alternatives for their children, when I had thrown that option right out of the window to seek a certificate in an exam that had no consequence? In an exam whose outcome had little bearing on my life or its course and whose only purpose was for me to then sign up for the next level?

German, Down, Down!

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Mon, 04 Jun 2018 12:54:00 +0000

Venus and Amor
by Reinhold Begas

I am officially giving up on German. It's just too hard a language for me to get my grasp around. It is not intuitive in the same way as French was for me and after trying really hard for almost two years, I think it is prudent to surrender (aufgeben). Now, how do they expect any sane, self-respecting individual to hold in their heads a language with such an utterly incomprehensible set of grammatical rules that it makes groping in the dark in a maze while blind-folded a more sensible option.

Before you wag your finger at me and tell me that I should try harder or put in more effort before I dismiss a language that after all, millions speak and is the national language in all of three countries, let me tell you this. I have passed my B1 in the language with rather high scores and this putting-my-hands-up-in-abject-surrender has been arrived at after multiple and persistent attempts at deciphering the logic behind its grammar and trying to decode a pattern in its rules. But it has eluded me, time and again and therefore with the glee of someone who has managed to free themselves of a yoke around their neck, I hereby announce that I am renouncing all further attempts at understanding and learning German language. I am going to seek solace in Google translate and resort to semaphore wherever necessary.

Auf wiedersehen, Deutsch! Ich werde dich nie vermissen.

What's Cooking?

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Tue, 01 May 2018 20:12:00 +0000

On my last visit to India, I decided I would self-publish a book. A food memoir, to be precise. It's a collection of essays on food that I grew up eating and I have decided to call it 'Life On An Eversilver Plate.' The manuscript has been submitted and it is being edited as I type this. After two rounds of editing and once the cover design has been finalised, it will be laid out and then go into print. I look forward to what it will look like and if I can read the book without cringing, then I should consider it a good outcome.

This blog was the place where I used to write down regularly but somewhere along the way, it lost its steam (how I make it seem like that had little to do with me.) Although I have been lax here, I've been writing elsewhere. Apart from the book, I have been writing a theatre piece - on and off - and if all goes well, it will also be the start of an exciting project.

If you are still visiting this blog for an update, then watch out for a post with link on amazon on how to buy the book. Would be nice if you can give it a flip through.

Thank you!

Venerated No More

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 14:19:00 +0000

A story. My paternal grandfather was a gambler who'd gamble away hard earned money at the card table. Money that was desperately needed to run the household which he shared with his brother. Between them the brothers had sired seventeen children and cash was always in short supply. The story continues that late one night upon finding that his brother had not returned home, my grandfather's younger brother made his way to the local club where he knew he'd find him. There, the younger brother is said to have simply called out my grandfather's name and together they returned home wordless. My grandfather quit cold turkey and would never grace the club again with his presence.

What he however did, was replace his gambling addiction with an altogether more socially acceptable obsession. Religion. In particular, he became a staunch supporter of the Kanchi Madam. He would follow the chief pontiff of the monastery around the country. On various occasions, his daughters and their offsprings would join him on the journey across the country and I've heard how he has been as far north as Rishikesh as part of the entourage.

Appa with Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal at home,
sometime in the mid-80s

Whenever the pontiffs came to Madras, they would pay a visit to our house and it is said that on one such occasion, the then chief sage is said to have left his wooden sandals behind and walked ahead barefoot. When my grandfather ran after him to return them, he supposed to have said that he left them behind intentionally. The sandals remain at my parent's house to date, where they have since been given a silver sheath for protection.

And in my growing up years, even though my grandfather had passed away, the rest of his multitudinous family continue to worship the Kanchi Madam although I could never decide where I stood about revering human beings. On one occasion, I asked someone what the seer had done to deserve being prostrated before. And my impertinence was swiftly curtailed with some vague response about divinity and meditation. My ambivalence has never really gone away.

Such was the influence of this particular monastery and its pontiffs on our family that once when I was about eight or nine, some well meaning uncle suggested that I spend my summer holidays helping out at the Madam. Doing light chores that included reading out from the number of letters that came to the pontiffs as they liked children to read them out aloud to them. Innocent enough, but with the benefit of hindsight, I shudder to think what other chores I may have been asked to do. Luckily, I was never sent away and I never got to find out (the blasphemy of such a thought!).

It might be sacrilegious to even think that but my disquiet with such institutions returned when some fifteen or so years ago, criminal charges were filed against it and the chief pontiff was taken into custody. There was much uproar at such an eminent person being treated like a common criminal. While I initially bristled at the images of someone whose photos hung all over the walls of the house where I grew up, being handcuffed, I found myself shrugging my shoulders and moving on. These were not the gods I was worshipping and I no longer held them in the same level of esteem as I had when I was a child.

Then news arrived this morning that the presiding pontiff Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal had passed away. My old ambivalence returns. There's a mild sadness that the man who was venerated as god incarnate in my family circles is no more. The pontiff had, in his time as head, made significant departure from the establishment and moved the Madam in a direction that incorporated social good into the religious practices. He had recognised that as a religious unit they needed to go beyond simply preaching and had to have a greater common purpose for the people. In that respect, he had also invited criticism but had stuck to his principles.

Despite these significant ventures, I am less than convinced about what made this order of monks special (I confess, I do not know enough about their teachings or more about the social causes they supported). They are good, kind, decent, generous people but I doubt they have superior powers (there! I've said it!) to the rest of us. My own uncertainty lives alongside the strong conditioning of my childhood years. And I'm fine with that.

Addendum: When I called my father to commiserate on the passing away of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, he spent more time talking about another godman (a well known con) that he is currently representing that the other more respected recently-deceased sage. We all move on, I guess.

A Queen On Screen

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:42:00 +0000

At around nine or ten years of age, a popular question among friends was, among others, 'Sripriya or Sridevi?'. I don't remember what we did with the attendant answer. Chances are, we then followed it with a 'Rajini or Kamal?'. And even back then, I remember picking Sripriya because I seemed to think Sridevi was just too beautiful. She was nearly as tall as the men that she acted alongside (it was rumoured that Kamal would insist that she wore flat shoes on screen and that he would never be filmed standing too close to her) and very slim unlike her more matronly contemporaries that allowed her carry off dresses and sarees with equal ease. There was something about her near perfect looks that made her seem unattainable.

Sridevi couldn't be ours, she could not belong to us in the same way as we claimed other favourite actors, she was somehow beyond all rules of playground possession. She seemed to be floating in her own ecosystem, far removed from us normal people.

Once she had moved to Hindi movies, that gap widened still and Sridevi would cease to be a part of our binary questions. Somehow her face had changed and she was speaking a different language. The last movie I saw of hers was English-Vinglish and I found myself continuously distracted by her very immobile face and a voice that seemed unlike the one I had heard coming out of her in her earlier movies (her voice had been dubbed over in Tamil and this was the first time I was listening to her actual voice, I later realised).

It did not help that in English-Vinglish, Sridevi was playing a housewife who was preoccupied with domesticity and kitchen affairs. It was not a role for someone with the looks of a goddess. She could have elves doing it for her, at the snap of her fingers. And yet, the movie portrayed her as a powerless, hapless woman because she spoke little English.

Sridevi has always seemed regal and even a touch aloof (who could blame her? One look at some of the men she had to romance on screen and you'll understand why she may have wanted to remain distant). This was not a woman who needed rescuing but someone who could hold sway independently. And she so often had, even while acting opposite alpha men.

Even in her death (How could she? When she had just the other day been seen on the pages of a fashion website and been called queenly? It makes no sense) she seems to have made a clean
exit. None of the ickiness of old age and impaired living but a swift, decisive end. Almost like the plot lines in the movies she played where all loose ends were neatly tied up and everyone exited the screen as the credits rolled. Only this is desperately sad and all too real.

Today I watch some of the old songs from her movies and I realise that the question from all those years ago, really should have been this - Sridevi and Rajini or Sridevi and Kamal? For this woman was a given. Her presence on screen is so strong, such a constant that she needs few embellishments to prop her up. She was one of the few women who could well and truly hold her own.

Goodbye, Sridevi and thank you.

What Do You Call A Polish Skier On A Slope?

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 12:49:00 +0000

Have you ever tried skiing?, asked a woman at the school where my children had just moved to from England. She was dark-skinned, seemed to be in her sixties and had a huge, friendly smile on her face. We had just moved to a part of Germany that sat right at the bottom of beautiful mountains. And where there are mountains, there is usually snow and where there is snow, there are crazy people throwing themselves off the hilltops. I wanted to quickly erase all memories of skiing but my husband intervened quickly and answered that yes, we had indeed gone skiing the previous year and why was she asking us about skiing, he wondered.

The reason was because Srilankan-born Shireen and her British husband Dan ran Ski Saturdays every year for the families at the school. And if we signed up to their programme, they would arrange for us to go to different resorts in the area for seven Saturdays between January and March. Before I knew what was happening, we were signing on the dotted line, buying ski gear (and spending a fortune!) and setting the alarm for a ghastly 5.30 on a Saturday morning to go skiing.

It was just as terrifying as I remember but the genial group atmosphere, friendly coaches and long indulgent lunches made it much less daunting. By the time the seven Saturdays were over, I could fling myself off the side of a mountain (no logic to this sport, I tell you) and remain standing when I reached the bottom.

We signed up again this year but this time, I'd injured myself in the foot and was advised to stay away from sport. In the intervening period, my fears had returned and after excusing myself the first week citing injury, I didn't want to go on the second week. But my husband wouldn't listen and insisted that I lace up. I resisted but as ever, he held sway and I found myself skiing downhill. It all came back to me and dare I say it, I even enjoyed submitting to gravity this time.

Last week, we went on a short ski break and for the first time, I ended up on a red run (they are coded in order of ease - blue, red and black) inadvertently. Despite being terrified and being completely alone, I managed to negotiate the course while still on two feet (you have the option to slide down on your bum - I passed on that one). Over the next couple of days, I would go back on red runs, but this time by choice. And each time, my fears eased a little and my confidence grew a bit.

There's still three more Ski Saturdays to go before we hang up our boots for the season. Skiing has taught me that I am capable of way more than I think I can. That once you are on a course of action, you just have to get through with it, there's no point looking back when you need to have your sights ahead. That no matter how skilled you might be, the mountain will always win. The only thing you can do is to surrender. To yield gracefully.

Answer: Downhillski

What Do You Call A Polish Skier After Skiing?

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 11:11:00 +0000

On the last day of our ski break, my husband insisted that I go with him on the ski lift with him. I

would have none of it and he would not let me give up. So I slipped on the several layers of accoutrement and yet again, got trudging up the perilously icy stretch to get to the ski lift. The chair lifts are the ones that most celebs on a ski vacation get photographed sitting on. They dangle their beskibooted feet nonchalantly and wave to the attendant paparazzi. How anyone could smile while sitting on a suspended park bench dangling hundreds of feet from the ground is beyond me.

By the time I had got on to one with my husband by my side, I was a weeping wreck. After my first tumble on the slope, I had lost all sense of shame and now, all I really cared about was survival. What others thought about me was a thing of the past. And all through my howls, my husband sat resolutely still, not giving into my pleas (what was I pleading for? It was too late anyway).

Chair lifts slow down as they approach a landing and you need to lean forward, push yourself off the moving chair and be away skiing. As we slowed down, I would panic and instinctively lean backwards, the skis would run ahead of me and I would land on my back with a smack. This happened again and again - panic, slip, bang. It's a miracle that I didn't injure myself seriously as I seem to have been hell bent on it.

As I slipped off my ski boots that afternoon, I swore that I had seen the last of skiing. Little did I know that just eight months later, I would be signing up for it again.

Answer: Apresski

What Do You Call A Polish Skier?

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 09:46:00 +0000

The first time I slipped my skis on, it took me a whole morning to get used to it. It is not normal to walk around with two long slats attached to your feet. It is positively weird. I had worn thermal underwear, ski top, ski trousers, ski jacket, helmet, googles, ski socks, ski boots and ski gloves. I held two ski poles in either hand and looked more like a bulked up Michelin man than a skier. And there was this whole other business of slotting your feet into skis and trying to walk uphill to reach the teaching area.

I spent three to four hours just trying to get across a few feet uphill. It didn't help that the rest of the group was negotiating this tricky manoeuvre with grace and ease while I looked like a stranded mammal trying desperately to get out of water. Gasping, spluttering and failing miserably. I'd take one foot ahead and slide back three and I would start again. Then there was this utter humiliation of falling. I kept falling, over and over again and needed assistance to stand up. And all the time, toddlers were racing past me with pity-filled eyes.

But look at me now!

There was one memorable instance when I was trying to go uphill on a button lift. These contraptions, if you have never had the good fortune of standing on one, work like this. They are round discs attached to metal poles that dangle from a carousel overhead. You are supposed to hold on to the stem of the pole and let yourself be dragged uphill from where you can ski down. Simple enough. Except it was anything but.

The wretched discs go round and round and as soon as one has left, you should get into position so you can grab the next one and be dragged up. I had issues with timing and would always be too late to catch them. And even when I did, my skis would not be parallel and within seconds my legs would be tangled and I would fall into a twisted heap. I would be led to the back of the queue and the ordeal would begin again. The next time I would get into position and ensure that my skis are parallel, only to have the discs knock me on the back of my head and make me lose control. Once when I had got myself into position, someone at the back of the queue had had enough and jumped ahead and unable to stand on a slope, I slid backward, fell down, watched the skies and wondered why I was putting myself through this.

By the third day, my legs were bruised badly and I didn't want to do it anymore. It didn't help that my instructor (memorably called Vlad. Everything was downhill from there) had yelled at me for not following his instructions. As an otherwise capable adult, I could not comprehend my abject inability to come to grips with this new skill.

I sat in the cafe, drank hot chocolate, marvelled at the French Alps and felt utterly miserable. The next day I had an hour's private lesson with a kinder and altogether more easy going French woman and it was marginally better. That Saturday before we were due to leave, my husband insisted that I go with him and he took me on my first ever ski chair lift ride. What followed next is not something I would forget easily.

Answer: Parallelski

Joke courtesy: Firstborn

On The Beaches, In The Fields, German Everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 14:33:00 +0000

The German B1 test is one that those who are looking to live in Germany permanently need to take. People generally do that after having lived here for a few years. I have no intention of staying here for the rest of my life but having been here for sixteen months, I thought I'd take the test anyway. For weeks leading up to the test, I beavered away at it. It wasn't hard work in the way that I had worked for exams before, learning by rote and slaving at it dawn to dusk. But this was altogether a more enjoyable way to work for an exam. No German magazine or newspaper would go through the household without having at least an article read by me. Some I understood but most, I had a minimal grasp of. Still, I put in the hours reading and reading some more.

At the cafe and elsewhere, I spoke as often as I could to others in German and most were polite enough to humour me. I booked myself in for a training course and spent a Friday evening learning tips on how to pass the exam - mind you, this came after I'd spent eight hours earlier in the day cooking at the cafe. A colleague from the cafe spent an afternoon speaking to me in German ahead of the oral exams and I cooked for her as a thank you.

"Wir werden an den Stränden kämpfen,
wir werden auf dem Landeplatz kämpfen"

The exam itself was not that hard but concentrating for hours at a stretch was exacting. I'd not taken a German exam up until then and wasn't sure what level I was at and decided to keep my expectations low. The results would come later that evening and I asked my son whose school had finished early that day, to join me in the city while I waited. We watched The Darkest Hour dubbed in German, marvelling at the irony of watchingWinston Churchill vowing to fight the Germans on beaches and in the fields in German.

The results were to be called out by a woman from the Goethe Institute who would then hand out the certificates. I was really not certain about the outcome and chose to remain in the corridor while my son sat on the sofa in the waiting room where the results would be announced. The woman walked in. My son beckoned me inside. I shook my head. Come in, he mouthed. No, I said. You will have passed, he assured me. Don't think so, I mimed. You are so good, Amma, he said. I'm rubbish, I pleaded. The woman started calling out names alphabetically. Mine wasn't the first one like it usually is (initials AA). I was about to leave. Mine wasn't the second name either. I was on my way out. A pause. Then I thought I heard my name. That's my mum, said my son clapping for me. The woman said something about my marks which didn't register.

I came out into the corridor clutching my certificate. I had passed. 83% in reading, 80% in listening, 77% in writing and 90% in speaking.

That's when I realised how seamlessly our roles had reversed. My son was the reassuring parent and me the child riddled with self-doubt. He was cool and certain about my abilities while I was a wreck. That evening I knew what I was most proud about. The tall, ridiculously handsome and utterly charming son who became the parent when I needed one? Or the language skills? That's easy. German's a doddle.

Penny Drops On Crutches

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 13:08:00 +0000

I fell down on Christmas Day. Out for a jog and back home on crutches. One minute I was jogging and the next I was done clutching my ankle which had swollen like a balloon. A kind stranger offered to take me to the hospital, but I had left my mobile behind at home and we needed to make a stopover to collect it so I could call my husband and update him (he was away with the boys on a bike ride on a different route).

So the kind woman drove me home and I gave her the keys to let herself in while I remained in her car. I called out directions to her as to where to find my mobile - luckily, I remembered where I'd left it and she didn't have root around for it. She helped me get off the car, brought me a wheelchair and waited for a while with me at the hospital. The X-rays revealed nothing at first glance but a doctor called two days later and informed me that I'd chipped bone and that my foot had to be in a brace for six weeks. We'd booked to ski for seven Saturdays from mid-January but he strongly advised me against doing any sport (an advice I paid heed to selectively) as it could hinder the healing process.

On Christmas morning, I'd complained to a friend about how I was still struggling to get used to the German brusqueness citing a recent incident when a rank strangers asked me if I really didn't speak much German or if I was just "being lazy". It rankled me a lot as I'd put in a lot of effort into tackling their bewildering maze of language. Why are they being so rude?, I'd bemoaned to my friend over the weekly catch up, why can't they be civil to foreigners?

And yet, barely a couple of hours later, there I was being accosted home and taken to hospital by someone whose name I forgot to ask and whose whereabouts I was in too much pain to find out. Came out of nowhere and offered to help a foreigner in need. Bloody Germans!

Easy Merry

noreply@blogger.com (ammani) — Sun, 24 Dec 2017 07:34:00 +0000

You're supposed to burn the candles one per week leading up to Christmas, pointed out a German woman who'd come home last week. I had had no clue that there was a candle lighting tradition and had simply picked up four candles on a bed of foliage as it looked pretty and having lit one, it seemed a shame not to light the others.

We have no Christmas tradition and make up our own stuff. Neither me nor my husband grew up celebrating the festival and so have nothing to recreate from our childhood or pass on to our kids. Our Christmas tree is a stand for all things special - from drawings to medals to flags and our Christmas lunch is usually something I've cobbled together on the day. Yes, there is gifts for the children but it's not very different to other holidays - for me at least.

On Christmas day we might go for a walk or watch some TV. This year, perhaps some skiing, if the slopes are open for business. But barring that we are newcomers to this festival, which of course has little religious connotation and instead is almost entirely about buying. And to that effect, we have bought into it but, as for the rest, it's all a bit rough and ready.