Metaphors & Patterns

Sometimes, a mediocre book is redeemed by a single phrase. Four hundred pages of printed words and five-hundred rupees later, you may not relate to the angst of the characters or the pathos of the oh-so-quaint-bylanes-of-some lost-city, but it is a turn of phrase or the play of words that remain with you.

Recently, I read this book by Ameen Merchant called The Silent Raga. I found the plot to be interesting and picked it up mostly because it was set in my cultural context.

At the start of the book was a description of the protagonist drawing out a kolam. As someone who has seen the kolam being an essential and everyday ritual in her life, it caught my attention. After all, any mention of the complex patterns of dots, squiggles, flowers and criss-cross of lines that is the traditional welcome mat to my world demanded my attention. Drawing the kolam has ceased to be an art and now falls under the mundane rituals head. Each morning the dust of the previous day's scattered remnants pushed away and a new pattern is created. Come into my house, it implores, till the newspaper vendor flings the newspaper with little regard for your early morning labour of love.

My mother has been drawing kolams for as long as I can remember. Over the years, the size, complexity and number of dots have certainly reduced, but the kolam still remains. The more elaborate ones are reserved for special days and the occasional Fridays. My mother never asked me to learn the art. When I started living in a house in Bombay, she gave a sticker kolam. Please paste it outside your house, she said. I didn't use it till I moved to a house by myself. Not that my room-mates would have objected, but I didn't think I wanted to thrust my definition of the morning welcome on them. When I moved back to Madras, I found that mom's kolam drawing continued and I belatedly realised that I wanted to start learning to draw these as well. My mother was happy to teach me.

Drawing kolams wasn't as easy as I had imagined. There is a way in which you need to hold that kolapodi. You should at any point have the right amount of it to get unbroken and even lines. You need to understand basic mathematics, the concept of space and symmetry. You need to think of something different each day. You need it to not be so artistic that neighbours ask you if it is a special day, or make it so minimal that whoever it is that you are welcoming does not feel so. And once you draw it, you have to guard it for as long as you can. My grandmother would tell me that the kolam was actually a metaphor, each kolam told you something, about the house and the woman's state of mind that day.

And that brings me to the book, the following excerpt from it.

With the bucket of water in one hand I would grab the broom and the kolapodi tin with the other and walk around to the front of the house. I would sweep up the dried leaves and dust from the path leading to the front door, scoop it neatly into the pan and empty it into the big, rusty metal bin beside the gate. Then I would moisten the ground with fresh, cold water sprinkled from my cupped palm and level it smooth.

The kolam I designed would depend on how I felt that particular day. On some mornings it was an elaborate welcome to dawn, ambitious and full of snaking grandeur, and my hands would weave a tapestry of blooming flowers and intertwined stars. I would grab fists full of kolapodi – one, two, three, even four sometimes – and pour my heart into my masterpiece, my sublime welcome mat to the sun. And on other days it was a hurried note of dots and curves – a snappy, perfunctory kiss of cordiality – achieved with just half the amount of powder.

I have not dipped my hands in kolapodi for many years. I can't say I miss the grainy feel of powdered rice and white rock on my fingers.

I am no longer a prisoner of pattern.

I loved the way that the writer juxtaposes the mundaneness of pattern creation and that of an important life changing decision that the protagonist makes.

Look Ma, I have a Personality

If you are old enough to have grown up reading Linda Goodman and her book on star signs, you will know that it is easy to justify and explain certain behaviour.

Oh, he who cannot make up his mind? Must be a Gemini.
Grrr, that conceited pig? Ah, Leo.
Good god, what is with the swinging moods? Weird, Cancerian.

So on and so forth. It was a fairly long time ago and I can't say I remember much of it now, but, it was easier to classify people and more importantly kinder on them. If a behaviour was inexplicable and it was to be attributed to when they were conceived, what could be done, right? Perhaps it made us more tolerant of aberrant behaviour. But not anymore.

Now, when I come across mood-swings, pig-headedness, stubbornness, conceit, etc, I attribute it to a personality disorder. However, since I suffer from some/all of the disorders I notice in others, I have learnt to handle and if necessary ignore many of them. So, I have an automatic reflex action against certain types of behaviour. The aggressive acquaintance is dealt with in a certain manner, the serial-envy sufferer in another manner, the I-wallow-therefore-I-am in another way.

However, the problems arise with people who don't exhibit one consistent behaviour pattern. The ones the polite world refers to as 'moody'. Let me clarify, having occasional mood swings is normal and desirable even. People have sugar low days just as they have sugar high days. I am known to be mildly charming when I am on a sugar low. Or is that on a sugar high? I forget. Anyway, that isn't the point. I am talking about people, who shift moods as rapidly as the heroine had costume changes in a 80s Hindi film song. Within five minutes, they go from sugar highs, lows, coma to death. The thing is, your defence mechanism against them is not able to keep pace with their rapidly changing emotions.

I feel very ill at ease with moody people. I think, too much of social media interaction serves to heighten this moodiness. So, they are friendly enough over email, mildly confrontational on Twitter and troll like on Facebook. After a while, it is tiresome and I want to shake them up and ask them How are you feeling today? Choose
a) Friendly
b) Wallowing
c) Confrontational
d) Loathing
e) Jealous
f) ______________ (Insert Appropriate Feeling)
g) Don't Know Can't Say

See, once you classify your feeling under one or the other, I know how to handle each of these. However, that works only if you stay with that feeling for at least an hour.

I must admit that with my advancing age, I am feeling less tolerant of people with violent mood swings and am more comfortable with people who are consistently cold or warm. Plus, I lost my Linda Goodman in one of the many house moving exercises, so I don't feel as charitable towards them. So like my Yoga teacher tells me, I suggest all the crazy mood swingers try this.

Wallow – Hold – For as long as you can
Militant – Hold – For as long as you can

It might just work. Yoga is known to have given Kareena Kapoor her size zero. Such things happen.

But then like a friend of mine told me recently, thank god for personality disorders. Else, most people would have been without any personality even.

Name Dropping

Remember that girl? The one who understood simultaneous equations as soon as it was taught by the teacher, while you sat there, still lost amidst the 'x' and the 'y'. Or remember that boy who had such a great backhand that you were certain he would turn a professional tennis player someday. Remember that girl with such a great voice and how her rendition of, Diamonds and Rust, gave you the goosebumps?

You may take a while, but once you jog your memory a bit, it will come back to you. Those spectacularly talented people, whom you knew, befriended, loved, hated and envied – all at the same time. Yes, the pretty girl, the mathematics whiz, the best one down batsman or the freakishly bright scientist friend. Many years later, you run into them again. Not on Facebook but on TV or a newspaper report. You were right after all. They had arrived. Someone got a scholarship, someone won a medal, someone had become an young entrepreneur, someone had become a movie-star, someone became one of the 'youth' ministers of the country and so on.

Suddenly, you own them. No matter, how minuscule their fame and achievement be, you point at the TV and shove the newspaper under everyone's nose and say with pride, I went to school with him. Yes, I did. You forget the fights you might have had with the person. You forget how much you may have disliked the person. You forget how you barely knew that person, you merely gloat in that moment of shared achievement.

There is a certain amount of selfishness when you acknowledge and celebrate this achievement of a person. It is like a sign that you might achieve something too. After all, somebody whom you knew, who was much like you, survived all the classes that you endured too has gone and achieved something. I am next, I am next, your head is buzzing. And if nothing else, you vicariously live your life through them.

The friends of mine who became minor or major celebrities, have all been acknowledged by me and introduced into random conversation topics. Very subtly and gently, of course. For example, if someone is regaling you about their conjunctivitis (and let us be honest, do you really want to hear about that) you quickly talk about how a school friend of yours won the Miss Beautiful Eyes sub contest in a Miss India pageant a decade ago. Also, with a lot of practice you will realise that, all names can be dropped. A word of caution though, don't make up celebrity connections, it may come back to bite you.

And now, may I come to the purpose of this post? Hah. Remember how you always wanted to write that book? Didn't you? Come on, admit it. There is no shame in it. How you hoped that someone will read your everyday angst filled Blog and offer you a book deal? Or that one day you will send your manuscript to somebody and they will send you a reply saying, we love it, the cheque is in the mail?

It seems, I know one such person. And now is the right time to drop the name. So ya, I am assuming most of you know about Parul's book Bringing Up Vasu: That First Year by now. If you don't, go check that out at a book store near you. I managed to pick up the book two days after it hit a book-store in Chennai. I admit that, I might have been less enthusiastic about picking it up had I not known the author from another world. But, I do and so, I did.

The book's premise is there in the blurb and the synopsis. As a rule, I don't do book reviews. Not that I really have any rules, but you understand, right? I also think that it is tough to review a book written by someone who was separated from you by a few roll numbers. Sure, if I were a professional reviewer, I would do it. But, I am not, right? I don't think that anybody who is part of the 'group-hug' should review books/art/music/cinema.

So, all I am saying in this un-review is this – it is a great fun book. It is warm, funny, loopy, clever, wise and over-the-top. As a reader, you feel engaged with the protagonist and shake your head often saying, good lord, she stole my story. You don't have to be a mother or a woman to appreciate it. That is a fairly ridiculous exception at all if anyone makes. The cover is a bit much, but to quote that cliche, never judge a book by its cover, yes? But read it for the writer's voice – wise and mad in equal measure.

And dudes, in case this post doesn't make it amply clear by now, I know a real author. Take that, suckers.

Above Average

My first job was in Bombay. I shared an apartment with a couple of batch-mates from B-School and one of them even worked in the same company as I did, albeit in a different division. The first week of working and the first experience of traveling using the Bombay local trains drained us. The monsoons didn't help. And neither did the bad dabba food that waited for us back at home. Also, both of us were unambiguously single and didn't have any boy angst to compete with our oh-my-God-I-am-an-adult angst. What this meant that by the time we got to Andheri, we whined and concluded that our lives were a failure. I distinctly remember one of those days when she announced, I want to turn sixty and RETIRE. It was a comforting thought. Eventually, we moved on. I began to like my job. Enjoyed the adulthood for a while. Found other things to angst over. And while work angst remained, it didn't threaten to occupy my every minute. The plan to fast-track to age sixty was put away somewhere.

I did reasonably well for myself. Got promotions, got respect and was mostly satisfied. I was not perhaps the over-achiever corporate goddess, but I stayed close to the ones at the top. And I was satisfied with that. All through my life, I have been reasonably average in most things that I do. I am what most polite aunties and the parentals would call, Above Average. I did well in exams, but I was not spectacular. I sort of got into the courses that I wanted, but I didn't get into the one course that I really wanted.

Thankfully, my parents were always realistic and never put undue pressure on me. While, they certainly didn't encourage me to be average, they didn't in the fine tradition of many Tamil Brahmin families demand that I become the next Srinivasan Ramanujam. In my family, there was no premium on ambition. In fact, it was considered to be somewhat vulgar even.

Perhaps, it was that, but I have made many of my career choices with little regard for – does this impact my career growth and future in some manner?

So, when I had to make the decision of moving from Bombay to Madras, to stay with my family, I made it as a personal decision. Even if it meant that, I would be working in the metaphorical backwaters of the advertising and research industry, I did it. I fitted in well with the city and the culture. Not just because it was my home, but most of my colleagues shared my similar and I daresay somewhat apathetic work-view. Mind you, they were all very bright and good at their work, but they just didn't give enough emphasis to ambition or had the 'CEO by thirty' as one of their stated life goals.

The only time I realised that I had made a less than prudent career decision by moving to Madras was when I interacted with colleagues and batch-mates in other cities. There was a certain smugness about the work that they were doing. The quantum of business that they were handling. The number of weekends they toiled in office. The number of mileage points that they clocked in their work travels. While such comments part annoyed me and part amused me, I wasn't too bothered about it. I was happy enough in my own niche and cocoon. Plus, I never had to work over weekends. Duh!

However, things were not always as angst free. On a number of occasions, I would crib to friends, family and even colleagues, I am quitting this. I hate the concept of working, I would say and many people empathized. May be, I will find a sugar daddy or write that book which has been inside my head for really long, were oft repeated and simplistic solutions that I offered to myself.

During these moments, my mom, ever the voice of reason, would ask me, what will you do once you quit? Won't you get bored, she would follow up.

No, I insisted. I will paint. I will write. I will learn new things. I will travel. I will never have to interact with clients. I will be happy.

When I finally decided to take the much aspired for work sabbatical some nine months ago, I was excited. Some of my friends were even more excited, as they greeted my news with a mix of envy and wonder.

And if I were to be entirely honest, I have enjoyed this break. It is beautiful. The nights merge with the days and the weekdays merge with the weekends. I have at least accomplished or started on some of those things that I had promised to one day. Plus, there is something to be said about weekday afternoon television. It is fantastic and there is at least one movie with a hot actor during the day. And even if I watch reruns of 10 Things I Hate About You, I am not complaining.

However, my quitting the job has coincided with the recession. Damn! And while the recession may have had no or negligible impact within my own industry, it has brought along with it several uncomfortable moments. For one, there is the the extended family. What is life without a little family drama, yes? And so, they often ask me a little cautiously, did you lose your job? Some of them hold my hands and look so sympathetic, I can't find it in my heart to correct them. At other times, I scowl at them and have to force the words through my gnashing teeth, I chose to quit. Really, they always ask.

Of course, people will talk. There is even a RD Burman/Anand Bakshi/Kishore Kumar song that describes that much better than any post I write will. But, it did put some doubts in my head. And your sense of self, no matter how inner driven you are, is bound to be shaken every now and then. Everyone assumed that when I quit, I had a well thought out plan. For two months I was 'allowed' to dawdle. And then the questions began. Some were vague - What now? What after this? Some were presumptuous - Have you started freelancing? Have you started talking to consultants? Have you spoken to somebody in ABC Company? Some were full of advice – You must join some part-time course. You must become a freelance something, I know someone who became a millionaire after that.

When five months had passed since I quit, my extended family officially gave up. It was almost like magic, when one day, they all decided to quit bothering me. It was also the day when I became their favourite charity case. Some volunteered to pay me a monthly allowance to maintain my lifestyle, while someone else volunteered to fund my root canal treatment. The number of things that were gifted to me, suddenly rose. And no, I am not complaining at all. Of course, it was mildly claustrophobic and annoying, but it was mostly touching and made me feel thankful for the family I was born into and the friends I had managed to accumulate.

But in spite of everything, the doubts were planted in my head. Speaking with ex colleagues and friends and discussing their promotions and best employee awards upsets my sense of equanimity even further. Of course, you didn't want to be the rat in the race, but that doesn't mean you don't want to at least complete that race, right? A month back, I dug out the resume and met one HR consultant. He told me that these are tough times. No kidding, Sherlock. He also gave me loads of unsolicited advice and made it seem like I had ruined my life for now and forever. You have lost out, he said. And all the juniors have gone ahead of you, he added in a smug tone. I shrug and he was astonished by my lack of worry.

But at the end of the day, I ask myself, has the trade off been worth it – one year of a career versus one year of awesome amounts of happiness? I think it has. And sometimes, that is all that matters.

My daddy is the strongest...

I am always keen to examine the trending topics on Twitter. It sometimes gives you insight into things and people around you. And I like that. Steve Jobs had Liver was trending yesterday. Two weeks ago it was, Congratulations Nick. I am not even sure what it meant, but that is alright. Now, I see, it is all about Father's Day and Dads. We have men and women, gushing and getting sappy about fathers and regaling us with all that they did to celebrate their hero.

Reading it, makes me feel a bit odd and a little low. Not that you need a day to remind you of your loss. But, it doesn't help either. It has been four years and seven days now, but the memory of that day remains vivid.

Anyway, what was funny and good to see is that, Dads were ahead of the much discussed Iran elections. Yes, dads trump even democracy, don't they? It was fun to read all the my-daddy-is-the-strongest stories there. Equally fun were the, I-just-don't-get-my-dad stories. And of course, that made me think of mine.

Appa was peculiar in many ways. But the one thing that I remember is something which annoyed Amma and several people. This was his ability to respond to a question with a song. Or in the way that he sometimes would jump into a conversation with a song. Mind you, the song had no connection to what was being discussed. At best, there was some phonetic and/or stretched connection that it had with the conversation.

Over the years, I have come to realise that, even though it is annoying for the one at the receiving end of this kind of singing, the one indulging in this, enjoys it immensely. The last few years, I have adopted this too and recommend it to everyone. Let me give you some examples.

Amma: When will you get yourself a job?
Me: I have one.
Amma: Not this one. A proper one.
Me: *raised eyebrow*
Amma: You know, where the company will give you their laptop? When will you get yourself a proper job?
Me: Soon
Amma: When?
Me: Soon
Amma: How soon?
Me: Sun Saiba Sun... Sun... Pyaar Ki Dhun

A: What is wrong with theotherA?
Me: What is wrong with theotherA?
A: I am asking you that.
Me: I don't know. So, I am asking right back.
A: You have become very silly in your old age.
Me: Silli hawa choo gayin...

It ensures that you win all arguments. Or at any rate, end them. Works best with Hindi songs.

Thank you, Appa. How much cheer you continue to bring to my life.

Miss you.