Going loony

No no, don't go by the title of the post. Though it sounds very similar to my previous post's title, I'm not about to inflict another stunning "song" on you. This post is about entirely something else.

Like almost the whole world, I was a big fan of Hergé's Tintin comics as a kid. Well, even now for that matter. The only difference is that now I know that the author's name is not pronounced 'herj' like I did as a kid, but air-zhay.

I couldn't wait for Xena to get started on Tintin. So when I found out that a neighbour was giving away a lot of books, including five Tintins, I JUMPED. Not just with indignation that someone should be giving away their Tintins, but also with excitement. You see, my Tintin collection is probably still at my parents' house in India and considering the number of times my sister and I had devoured them as kids, I don't think they are in a state to be used by Xena. So I JUMPED and got the Tintins from my neighbour.

With a flourish, I handed them to Xena. I waited with bated breath for her to fall in love with them instantly.

She read a page and a half and then returned them to me.

"I don't understand anything." She declared.

Of course. I should have known.

Even though they are comics, I'd momentarily forgotten how grown-up they are. There is a lot of geography and politics and social commentary and other elements I was unfairly expecting a 7-year-old to grasp on her own. So I told her how much I used to love the books as a kid, and read one out to her. It took us about an hour to get through about 10 pages because I was pausing and explaining literally every dialogue and every scene, and also answering questions like "Is this a bad guy? Is that a good guy? Why does Captain Haddock love whiskey?"

So over a few days, we read and re-read all the books together. Slowly, she started to laugh at the parts that I had laughed my guts out when I was a kid. It started to feel like a worthwhile effort. She would giggle whenever Thomson and Thompson made an appearance, or sympathise with poor Snowy and the number of accidents he had.

"Mama, Snowy is not really talking. He's a dog. He can't talk. But he can think. The speech bubbles are showing what is is thinking, not what he is saying." She 'explained' to me. I nodded.

And now, finally, she's on her own. Consuming Tintins at such an alarming rate that the library can't keep up. Thankfully, like me, she's also re-reading them a lot.

Last week, I popped by the library and got her 'Explorers on the Moon'. Unfortunately, they didn't have the prequel — 'Destination Moon'. Nevertheless, she was thrilled to see a new one. We have been reading it together because it has way more complex concepts than she has gotten used to. And because she hadn't read 'Destination Moon', she needed a lot of background information.

The other day, Viv was reading it to her while I was making dinner and a thought struck me. Did Hergé actually write the two Moon books before the 1969 Moon landing? As a kid, I had never really given it a second thought, but now I was dying of curiosity. So I flipped to the first page to see the year of copyright and I almost fell down in shock.

Not only had Hergé written the books before Neil Armstrong and co. got to the Moon, he had written it even before the Space Race had started, even before Sputnik I had gotten to space! A quick Google search revealed that the Moon books were printed in strips between 1950 and 1953, and converted to books in 1954. I'm still reeling from the accuracy shown in the books, given that space travel had not started, and people didn't know much about the Moon, and there was no Google.

Even though he had consulted aeronautics experts in order to write the books, a lot of it was his own imagination and extrapolation of things people had not seen or experienced, e.g. the details on the Moon, the blobs of Captain Haddock's whiskey floating inside the spacecraft and how astronauts on the Moon would be 'hopping' instead of walking.

What a genius.

And oh, I also found out that after the Apollo 11 landing, Hergé sent Neil Armstrong this picture as a gift. Hilarious!

Pray tell

"So he's very powerful... he lives on the Moon... and he protects us." Said Xena's friend.

Xena's jaw dropped. So did mine.

We were at a restaurant in a big group and to occupy the kids, I'd asked them to play this random game where each kid gives three clues about something/someone and the other kid has to guess what/who it is.

"I don't know..." Said Xena uncertainly. She looked at me. I didn't know either so we looked at the kid who had given the clues.

"So easy! It's Sai Baba!" She laughed.

Xena looked at me again, but this time accusingly. All she knew about the Moon (she devours the kids' Science magazine I work on) was that it was a natural satellite of the Earth and it didn't have its own light and as far as we know, has no life forms on it. And here was a 7-year-old with very advanced knowledge of a powerful dude who apparently lives on the Moon and protects us.

I blinked and nodded at her. It's code for "It's ok. We will discuss this later at home."

And what would we discuss at home? DFDR. Different Families, Different Rules. We try to talk about our choices vs others families' choices without judgement. Comes in real handy when trying to explain why she doesn't have her own iPad or isn't allowed to watch TV unlike other kids, and why we don't have a car or a helper aunty, and why we don't do puja in our house, etc. etc.

Speaking of puja, we were recently invited to a navratri puja at an Indian neighbour's place. When we reached, the kids were all sitting on the floor cross-legged in front of the idol. Every kid present there attends something known as the Bal Vikas programme. They know all sorts of bhajans and mantras (there was a 2-year-old reciting the Gayatri mantra in the cutest voice ever!). Of course, it was a little weird because Xena was the only one sitting among all the kids, not singing along. She probably sat there wondering why all these kids her age (and younger!) knew all these songs, while she only knew Coke Studio Pakistan songs. In spite of some sympathetic looks, I was neither embarrassed nor proud about that fact. I looked at her, blinked and nodded. The usual routine. "It's ok. We will discuss this later at home."

I was on the phone with Mom later, telling her about how I hardly had to cook that week because of all the navratri pujas happening at neighbour's and friend's places, and adding on to that, the free flow of kanjak food that just kept coming home. I love attending these pujas. They have such a nice, vibrant, colourful atmosphere, yummy food and a chance to meet people I haven't seen in ages, and also encounter some new faces. I love the fact and I take it as an honour that I still get invited to these things, despite the hosts knowing that I'm probably the least religious person they know. For me at least, it's a social gathering more than anything else. And of course, the big pull -- everyone wears saris. (I'd go anywhere if you tell me the dress code is a sari. Sari ke liye sala kuchh bhi karega! #sarinotsorry)

"You should also have a puja and invite them na..." Mom suggested.

"I can't, Mom. You know me."

"I know..." Mom sighed.

Mom has a puja room with idols and photos of multiple gods and goddesses, and prays to them daily. In spite of that, she has not even once tried to force me to pray or do anything religious. I'm just not sure of the gods' existence, but I do respectfully acknowledge that others are. I don't even do the "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual" thingie, for I do not know what that means. Just try to be a good person, is what I tell Xena.

When I was a kid, Mom would sometimes tell me during "tough times" (not sure if I'd get 100/100 in that exam, or that scholarship, etc.), "Pray to God and you will get it." I would look at her indignantly. NO WAY was I going to pray to God (if there is one in the first place!) to ASK for stuff when I'd never even bothered to spare a thought for Him/Her during other times.

"If I were God, I'd be mighty pissed if some kid approaches me only when she wants stuff." I'd tell her, and she'd laugh.

But then, I've always loved following customs and traditions (Need someone to go rangoli for Diwali? I'm there! Some aunty needs mehendi done for karwa chauth? Summon me at once!), but it was always to do with the 'fun' aspect of it, and never the religious one. I loved making the little Lakshmi feet at the entrance to our home with rice flour paste, not because I believed it would bring the goddess of wealth home, but because it looked SO KAYOOOOT! Even now, I selectively follow traditions and customs (let's spring-clean the house for Diwali, but not for prosperity -- for the fact that a spring-cleaned house IS SO NICE!), and once in a while, question myself on my 'na idhar ka na udhar ka' stand on religious festivities.

Sometimes I've been told that as an NRI, I need to make sure I keep Xena in touch with her roots by following Indian traditions and customs. But deep down, I feel like there has to be some meaning to it. As a DAV school product, I was well-versed in many mantras like the Gayatri mantra and the Athaishwarastutiprarthnopasna mantra (yes, that's just the name of the mantra; the mantra itself is about 7386274387642 times longer), but when I think about them, what meaning do they have -- or did they ever have -- in my life? What is their significance that would make it worth it for me to teach Xena all that?

"But you can still just have a puja na... they all have it and invite you." Mom insisted.

"Mom, can you imagine me having a puja at my place? Can you imagine me establishing idols and pictures of various gods and praying to them? Following the proper procedure of doing stuff? I hardly know which finger to use when people offer me haldi-kumkum at these pujas. My leg goes to sleep in 3 seconds if I sit cross-legged on the floor, and then I'm flicking it like a mad person in a sari. If I did a Lakshmi puja, even Lakshmi would be appalled. So many people are doing the pujas properly, faaltu ka why should I irritate Her?"

"Yeah, true..." She agreed.

"Yep, so that's that. I do follow some of the customs and traditions but only the fun ones. Can't really do the serious pujas and stuff..." I said.

"Hmmm. Yes. I know. Haan toh then just have a party." She said, with an air of finality. The total lack of judgement in her voice was palpable.

Attagirl, mommy! Love you to the Earth's natural satellite and back. :)

S is for six

Every once in a while, I look at Xena and go, "Oh my goodness, she's SIX."

Seriously, sometimes I can't believe I have a six-year-old on my hands. She seems so -- for lack of a better term -- 'grown-up' sometimes. Was I like this at six?

And then I got down to thinking -- what was I like around that age?

I only remember snatches of my life back then. Some of it is hazy and some of it crystal clear. But boy, was it a big contrast from Xena's life as a six-year-old.

My dad had just gotten posted to Patna. An alien city in an alien state with an alien language. I had joined Std I in a school which was about 150 metres from my house. (Distance was the most important -- and probably the only -- consideration when it came to choosing schools in those days.) The nearest big and important road to my place was called West (or was it East?) Boring Canal Road, or just Boring Road as most people preferred to call it. Only now do I see the humour in it.

I used to walk to school every morning. There was one particular point in the lane in front of our house, where I would pause and look up at the living room windows of my home. Mom would always be there, waving. I remember one day I was mad at her for something and I didn't look up and just kept walking. (I had no idea how hurtful it must have been for her. If Xena did this to me, I would be heartbroken. Sorry, Mama!)

My best friend in school was the class teacher's daughter who used to be top of the class before I joined. Then I took over, but somehow we still remained 'best friends' in spite of the competition. She was Muslim, and I remember thinking that that made her qualified to answer my inane questions such as, "So tell me, what's the difference between ikhtiyar, ibtida, intehaa, imtihaan, istakbal and inteqal?" I still remember the horrified (and sometimes terrified) looks she used to give me. You see, Hindi was very new to me, and so was Urdu, and I was just trying really really hard to pick up the languages, using whatever means I had. I used to listen to a crazy amount of Hindi film music and would spend a lot of time dissecting the lyrics and trying to really understand them.

In the evenings, I used to attempt to play badminton with the bhaiyas and didis of the colony. I also insisted on playing cricket, and because "girls were not allowed to play cricket", the boys would say "iska doodh-bhaat hai" which pretty much translated to "she's totally inconsequential, but we can use her to fetch the ball and stuff". I did that for quite some time and then I got really good at fielding and then they just had to let me bat. (I had paid my dues after all.) Woohoo! Highlight of my year, I tell you.

Soon, they let me in, and tried to teach me how to fly kites and play marbles and spin a top (I got surprisingly good at it. Haven't spun a top in decades though.)

Every evening, I would go downstairs to play and come back only when it started getting dark. All the kids did that and none of the parents worried. In spite of the fact that no one, including ourselves, knew where we would be heading each day.

Our landlord lived in the same building as us, and he had this huge dog called Jimmy. And because it was always leashed, we would dance in front of it, singing, "Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy! Aaja aaja aaja!" (Remember the song?)

We didn't have a phone. In fact, there were only two phones in our building, and we were really fortunate because one of them was in the apartment just opposite ours. But we had strict orders from our parents never to give out the number to anyone because we had an understanding with the neighbours that we could use their phone for "making and receiving very urgent calls only".

There was an aunty in the neighbourhood who had a mehendi tree in her courtyard. She would pluck the leaves, make the paste and invite us to go nuts over it. She had a tenant who was newly married and used to put the mehendi on her lips. I kid you not. She looked scary, sporting the mehendi-orange lips.

Some evenings, the dosa wala would come by. He would use his steel spatula to make loud clanging noises on his griddle, and all the grown-ups would rush down and surround him. Buying authentic dosas from a Tamilian in a small colony in Patna. It was the real deal. It was a big deal.

It got really cold during winters (I think the lowest was about 6 degrees), and sometimes some uncles would collect newspapers from everyone and make a bonfire in a side alley! I think it was just for the heck of it. I mean, no one needed a bonfire. But it was such an event. We would huddle around it, all excited, warming our hands.

Maybe it's time to share with Xena what her mommy was as a six-year-old. I can already imagine her baffled look when I recount all this.

One for the books

"Whatchu reading?" My neighbour asked me as he walked by. He's a friendly, middle-aged guy I often see around the pool or the gym, and he always stops to chit-chat.

I was sitting by the pool with my book. Xena was in the middle of her swim lesson.

"You're not going to believe it." I said.

He stopped, looking really curious now. I showed him the cover of my book.

"HO!" He said. It sounded like something between surprise and delight. Exactly what I expected.

I was reading 'The Naughtiest Girl in the School'.

Yes, that book written in 1940 By Enid Blyton.

That book that I happened to chance upon because of a crazy craving Viv and I had for Coffee Club's muddy mudpie the other day. It is one of our favourite desserts, and when we crave that mudpie, we are willing to travel across the island for it. Both the branches we were aiming for had shut down (no, not closed for the day, but shut down omg), but it was not a wasted evening. We found an open-cart book sale, and it wasn't just any book sale. A book sale that pretty much felt like someone had filled up a sack with my childhood and emptied it into the carts. Famous Five. Secret Seven. Nancy Drew. Hardy Boys. St. Clare's. Malory Towers. You name it, they had it.

And... The Naughtiest Girl in the School.

My dad had bought me the book when I was maybe six or seven. He even wrote on the first page, "To the naughtiest girl in the world". (Gosh that was SO NOT TRUE -- I was always the teacher's pet and the nerd of the highest order in each of the seven schools I attended.)

Over the years, I read the book so many times that by the time it was time for me to come to Singapore, the book was in no state to accompany me. It lay in a box with other tattered and yellowed books from my childhood that my dad refused (and still refuses) to part with.

But now, not only had I found that book, I'd also found the next two in the series. And it had brought back some amazing memories. Of how wonderful boarding school used to sound, with the lacrosse and the horse-riding and the tuck boxes and the nature walks and the school meetings and the midnight feasts. Oh, how appealing the strange foods that I'd never had before sounded -- scones and sizzling bacon and potted meat and treacle and cream cheese and marmalade and golden syrup and ginger beer. Heck, she even made boiled eggs at a picnic sound mouthwatering. In later years, I had a chance to taste many of these items and to my utter dismay, most of them elicited nothing more than a 'yuck' from my taste buds. (Except ginger beer, of course. Nobody say anything bad about ginger beer, okay? Okay. Especially my all-time favourite - Bundaberg ginger beer.)

Viv hadn't been sure about me filling up our recently-Konmari'ed bookshelf with these books, but I knew I had to. He had no clue about the joy they sparked in me.

I had two big reasons to buy them.

One, I want Xena to read them some day.

Two, I want them for myself. Right now, later and forever. 

C is for captured

"Mama, when will my baby teeth start falling out?" Xena asked me some time last year.

"When you are six or seven..."

"Yayyyyy! My teeth will fall out! I'm gonna get new teeth!"

Her excitement and enthusiasm amused and also disturbed me. I don't remember being that thrilled when my first tooth fell out. I was never a big fan of the whole tooth-shaking-and-falling-out process. I had bawled my eyes out, not when my first tooth fell out, but when I realised that the process would occur nineteen more times!

My dad, on the other hand, thought it was a momentous occasion and had a picture taken of me, displaying a wide grin, but with a front tooth missing. He loved the picture so much, he had it framed and hung on the most prominent wall of the house. I didn't mind it all that much initially. In fact, I was quite proud of the fact that such a giant picture of me was up on the wall. My sister would sometimes play this ridiculous game she'd invented called 'How high can I fling my slipper up?' and one day, she flung it up so high it hit my picture. The picture didn't fall, but I was enraged and cried for a full fifteen minutes. That's how possessive I was about that picture. 

However, as I grew older, I soon realised how hideous I found the picture. I don't know if it was the missing tooth, or the lop-sided fringe (I'm pretty sure it was the handiwork of my sister again!), but I could say with confidence that it was the worst picture of me ever. And I only have like 10 pictures of me as a kid. I hated it. I would ask dad to take it down, especially when we expected guests, and he'd refuse, saying he had captured a special moment of my childhood and the world needed to see it. Sheesh.

Years passed. All my baby teeth had fallen out and new ones had taken their place. The photo and the frame hadn't budged from the wall, even though they were showing rather extreme signs of aging. One fine day, dad realised that it really was quite dilapidated, and it was indeed time to take it down. And he did. I was sure that even if he hadn't, it would have fallen down by itself; its condition was that bad. Anyway, the photo went away and I breathed a sigh of relief. I moved to Singapore and sent him better pictures of me to hang on the wall. He did, but somehow, he never printed any of them that big.

When Xena and I started discussing the fall of her first tooth, the first thought that struck me was that of my photograph. For some strange reason, I longed to see it. Was there a chance that it was somewhere? If not, was there a chance the negative had somehow survived my dad's multiple transfers? Was there a chance I could print it and show it to Xena, and perhaps even do a collage with her photo when her first tooth fell out? 

I didn't dare to ask dad because he'd have said, "Oh, now you like it? Now you want it??" So I casually asked my mom when I was there last year, "So what happened to that photo of me with my first broken tooth?"

"We took it down, remember? You insisted we take it down. I'm not sure where it is anymore."

"Erm, yeah. You wouldn't happen to have the negative, would you?"

"The negative??"

"Yeah... you know, for printing it again..."

"Why? I thought you hated it?"

"Erm, yeah. I'd like to show it to Xena..."

"Hmm... we definitely don't have the negative."

Oh, well.

So I gave up the hunt.

However, I was in for a surprise. Last week, my cousin sent me a message on behalf of my mom. There was no message actually, it was just a photo of a photo.

A photo of the photo.

So there it was, staring at me, that hideous photo of me with one tooth missing. I still hate it, I do. But I also cherish it. Dad had indeed captured a special moment of my childhood.

I had no intention of posting the picture, but I know that if I didn't, some of you would have been after my life, "Photo, or it didn't happen."

So here it is, that hideous photo of me, concealed behind the most extreme filter I could find, which just about gives you an idea of what it is, hopefully without giving you enough material to point and laugh. Hmmmph!

Broken record

So one day, I found myself added to my school's WhatsApp group. I didn't know such a group existed. And they didn't know that I existed on WhatsApp. Anyway, other than the very annoying 'good morning' memes, 'interesting' forwards ('drink coriander juice every day and you will NEVER get cancer') and Santa-Banta jokes, it hasn't been too bad. A lot of reminiscing. A lot of leg-pulling. A lot of laughter.

You see, my Dad moved a lot when we were kids, so I ended up going to some 7 schools in 12 years. I conditioned myself not to get too close to my classmates, because it was too heartbreaking to have to move two years later. But this was the group that I was the longest with - four years. That too, when we were in the 15-18 age range. So obviously, this is the group that knows me the best, the group that I remember the most, and connect the most to. So I got a warm welcome, and within half a day, someone shot this question at me.

"So Sayesha, do you still like toota-phoota ("broken") songs?"

"Toota-phoota songs??"

"You know, the dukhi aatma ("sad soul") kind of songs?"

"What?! When did I like dukhi aatma kind of songs??"

Before I could even protest properly, they were all nodding in WhatsApp unison. Seriously? That's how they remembered me? That's how they ALL remembered me?

And then I tried to remember. It's true that I used to sing a lot of songs back then. On demand. In competitions. Anywhere and everywhere. I tried to jog my memory and think of the songs they had heard me sing - 'Tere bina zindagi se koi', 'Tere dar par sanam...', 'Rulaake gaya sapna mera', 'Dil kehta hai chal unse mil', 'Saare sapne kahin kho gaye', etc. etc. And I had to admit that most of the songs I sang were sad, or at least kinda romantic, but sad. But it was not because I was a dukhi aatma. It was because these songs had the most amazing, heart-touching lyrics.

So I decided to stand up for myself.

"Heyyyyyy! I liked songs with meaningful lyrics, okay??? I did not sing random toota-phoota songs like 'Tum toh thehre pardesi' and all that!" I protested.

I could sense their amused smiles in WhatsApp unison.

Hmmmph.

And then it struck me. Sometimes, it's your school friends who really know you the best, who can sum you up in a way that no one else, not even you yourself, can. And sometimes, it's okay to just accept it graciously.

So yes. I like toota-phoota songs. What can you do?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and put my latest toota-phoota discovery called 'Tu hai ki nahin' from Roy on loop. 34798236948327043280 times.

The phoren trio

Okay, so I am now officially 'phoren-returned'.

Confused?

When I was growing up in India, 'foreign' or 'phoren' as it was known as where I grew up, was a noun. It was a place. Even movies used 'phoren' whenever they wanted to refer to any place outside India. Remember the scene in Hum Aapke Hain Koun where Mohnish Behl comes running to Alok Nath and reports that "foreign se abhi abhi fax aaya hai"? Like seriously? You can't say the name of the city or even the country? You're holding the frickin' faxed document in your hand. It really says 'From: Foreign'? Anyway, my point is that this is how it was. Unlike today, back then, phoren for me was this very faraway impossible-to-get-to place with awesome clothes and yummy chocolates where the cool people of the world lived.

I used to have close brushes with phoren during some of my summer vacations when my mom's sister would fly down from London with suitcases full of clothes, toys and chocolates for everyone in the khandaan. And to me, that was the real phoren. London. Over the next few years, under the influence of Bollywood and more Bollywood, New York and Paris also got added to the phoren list and this trio was what defined phoren for me. And I dreamt that maybe, just maybe, some day I'd travel to these three places. Or maybe just two of 'em. Or one perhaps?

But things changed. 16 years ago, I got the scholarship to come to Singapore and it became my base, my home. And I could go anywhere I wanted. So I did. I checked off London from my list in 2003 (I'd been working for a year and saving up for it), New York in 2006 and finally last month, I went to Paris. After I'd climbed up the 704 steps up the Eiffel Tower and paused to take a breather, I looked at the view, speechless. And the little girl in me only had one thought - I've done it. I've been to phoren.

And now with that kiddy-bucket-list-item out of the way, big fancy cities don't hold much of a charm for me anymore. I'd like to explore the nooks and crannies of the world. Though my dad's job took us through a lot of places in India, there is so much unexplored territory there too. Like the northeast.

So yeah, now the big dream is to really see the world. But the sad truth is that seeing the world can be expensive. Viv and I generally live a very simple life, but the one thing we do set aside money for every year is a good holiday. It's a little more difficult now with Xena, but we have been managing and hopefully can continue. I find that nothing opens up the mind like travelling. There is so much beauty to marvel at, so many people to meet, so many unknown things to discover about ourselves, so many journeys to experience, and so many experiences to live.

And it is humbling to see what a tiny speck we are in the grand scheme of things.

Every time we travel, we meet so many elderly couples who have retired and their children have moved away and now they just travel the world. And Viv and I look at each other and think, some day that might be us. Hopefully. Life is so unpredictable that sometimes planning anything seems silly and futile, but hope is what the world runs on.

In the words of RL Stevenson - There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign.

R is for Radio

I was racking my brain thinking of an 'R' word for today's post when of all people, Himesh Reshammiya, came to my rescue. While fiddling with Saavn radio, I stumbled upon his song, "Mann ka radio bajne de zara", from his movie 'Radio'. This was apparently his 500th (!!) song, and his first after the rumoured throat surgery he had in order to acquire another (a non-nasal) voice. Sure enough, the song starts off in a very low-pitched non-Himesh way, but soon switches to his trademark style. Complete with atrocious lyrics like 'Fultu attitude de de tu zara'. And I thought radio was the perfect choice for today's post because of its significance in my life.

When I was a kid, I remember Akashvani playing a lot at home. I still remember 'Yeh Akashvani hai', Amin Sayani's Cibaca geetmala, and even narrations of Chacha Chaudhry and Sabu stories on radio. But it was the songs that mattered the most to me. I used to get very upset when someone of national importance died, not because I cared, but because they would stop playing the songs and play only some depressing shehnai tune all day long. I never learnt music formally, but I'd sing along with any and every song that played on radio. I could rattle off the lyrics of any song you named. The other day, my Mom asked me on Skype for the lyrics of 'Mann re, tu kaahe na dheer dhare' and I spouted it all out in no time. She asked me how I knew the lyrics of a song which was so old. I figure it must have been all the radio that I listened to as a kid.

When I came to Singapore, I was introduced to the world of English songs. I spent four years at university listening to the likes of Backstreet boys, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Alanis Morissette, Boyzone, Madonna, 98 Degrees, Toni Braxton, Ricky Martin, Robbie Williams, Enrique Iglesias, Santana, Cher, Ricky Martin. TLC, Whitney Houston, Sugar Ray, Savage Garden, Creed, Pink, Brian McKnight, NSync, Christina Aguilera, LeAnn Rimes, Mariah Carey, Blue, Destiny's Child, Eminem, U2, Kylie Minogue, Marc Anthony, Macy Gray, Whitney Houston, etc. etc. It was a whole new world for me. It was massive, it was different and it was totally new. I used to walk all over campus, listening to radio, all the time. Some of the RJs in those days were really amazing and funny and they were just as fun to listen to as the songs.

However, after I graduated, I grew out of it. Radio became a thing of the past. My radio time was split between MP3s and TV shows. Until I discovered the expat radio channel that plays Hindi songs every day from 5 to 8 pm. It reminded me of my childhood. It was kind of comforting to just listen to Hindi songs randomly playing at someone else's will. Once in a while, I make chai for myself and just sit back and drink and listen.

Though 99.9% of the songs these days are crap of the highest order, I need my Hindi radio station. I really cannot live without it. No matter what, the radio HAS to be switched on at 5 pm. Even Xena knows this now. I just have to say, "Xena, it's 5 pm!" and she runs to switch on the radio. I even used it as an alarm clock for Viv to make sure he didn't come home too late (i.e. after 8 pm) from work. "If the Hindi music has stopped by the time you return, be prepared to face a different kind of music," I used to tell him.

Once in a while, the channel plays the songs in the 'ek purana, ek naya' format, where they alternate new songs with old songs. They also do a 'showstopper of the week' show, where they pick an actor and play all his/her hit songs. I had reservations at first (who wants to listen to three hours of Ajay Devgn songs??), but I realised that almost every actor, in spite of some very bad movies, has some very good songs. A couple of weeks ago, I almost choked on my chai when the RJ announced that the showstopper of the week was Jacckkky (okay, I don't know how many c's and k's he's added to his name so I have played safe) Bhagnani! My first thoughts were, "Wha...??!! You're seriously going to play 3 hours of Jacckkky Bhagnani songs?? Does he even have that many movies? How much did his producer papa pay your station??" The RJ was inviting listeners to suggest songs on the station's Facebook page. I went to check and sure enough, there were many many people who were just as puzzled as me as to to how on earth they were going to play 3 hours of Jacckkky Bhagnani songs. They started off with 'Suno na sangemarmar', which is actually a nice song (okay fine, these days anything sung by Arijit Singh is erm, music to my ears), and some other random songs from whatever movies he's acted in so far. And then they stopped. I went aha, now what? And then the RJ reminded us of the date - 1 April. Good one!

Sometimes I wonder if radio is going to become a thing of the past soon. Like audio cassettes and pagers and walkmen (walkmans?).

That would be a sad sad day. 

N is for nostalgia

From time to time, we all get hit by episodes of nostalgia. Perhaps our best memories are from our childhood -- stuff that happened many years ago. That's why it is hilarious when a 3-year-old gets nostalgic. About stuff that happened just a year or two ago. Lately, Xena has been relating 'tales of her childhood' to me. And as if a reminiscing toddler is not already funny enough, she tells me these stories as if I don't know about them at all.

Here are some samples of her recent nostalgic moments.

"Mama, when I was very very small, I was inside your tummy!"

"Mama, I was splashing around inside your tummy!"

"When I was inside, your tummy was big and round. Then you went to the hospital and the doctor pulled me out and SUDDENLY your tummy became flat."

"I used to be a small baby. Then SUDDENLY I became a big grown-up girl."

"When I was very small, I used to cry for milk when I was hungry. Like this - nga nga nga..."

"When I was very small, I could not sit or stand or walk or scoot or jump or run. I was lying down all the time!"

"When I was very small, sometimes I wore only a diaper! No top or pants! Only a diaper!"

"You know, Mama... when I was very small, I did not pee and poop in the toilet. I did everything in the diaper!"

"When I was very small, I used to try to eat my toes!"

"When I was very small, I did not have any teeth. Now I have sooooo many."

"When I was small, I was not 10 kilos. Then SUDDENLY I was 10 kilos."

"We went to Australia and Poppy drove us in a blue car. I had my own car seat. I sat at the back because only grown-ups sit in front. It was very cold and I wore a jacket and a hat and mittens and we saw kangaroos."

"When I was very small, I used to say 'clockloach'. Mama, it's not 'clockloach'! It's 'cockloach'."

"When I was a little girl, I had soooo many soft toys. Then Dr. Thomas said that all the soft toys needed to go on a vacation till my lungs became big and strong. They will come back when I turn 5 years old."

I is for I

I is for I. First person singular. I in English. Main in Hindi.

I've had a really odd relationship with this word. In Hindi. My dad got transferred to Bihar when I was six, and that's how I picked up Hindi. And because it was Bihar, it wasn't the kind of polished cool-sounding Hindi we hear in most Hindi movies. It was the kind of Hindi that villains in movies like Dabangg 2 speak. The "Hum kah rahe hain na" kind of Hindi. Dad had a few more transfers in the next 12 years, but they were all within Bihar. (He went to Calcutta, Vizag, Hyderabad, etc. after I left India.) So as I shuttled from school to school within Bihar, my Bihari Hindi just got stronger and stronger. Of course we learnt proper Hindi at school, so my written Hindi was always good, but I have always spoken Hindi like a true Bihari. And even though all of the 7 schools that I studied in before coming to Singapore were English-medium schools, we only spoke to our teachers in English. Hindi was always the language of choice when we spoke amongst us. And we always used 'hum' for 'main'.

So, after a dozen years of hum-ing, I suddenly found myself in Singapore, being ragged by my Indian seniors because I was the only one in my batch who spoke like that. The first time I said something like "Hum Bihar se aaye hain...", the senior ragging me looked behind me and said, "Aur kaun kaun aaye hain tumhaare Bihar se?" I didn't get the sarcasm so I replied, "Aur koi nahin. Sirf hum aaye hain." Much to my surprise, they broke into peals into laughter. I also got ridiculed for calling them "bhaiya" and "aap", but that's a different story altogether.

My 'hum' became the point of amusement for everyone. It took me a while to understand why. No one else around me said 'hum'. One, they almost always spoke to one another in English, and two, even when they did speak in Hindi, they used 'main'. I tried real hard to change, not because I thought 'main' was cooler, but because I knew it was correct. But much as I tried, I simply could not shrug off the 'hum' that had been laminated in my brain. I'd start off my sentence with 'main' and would have switched to 'hum' halfway without even realising it. It got very annoying, so I decided to just switch to talking to everyone only in English. That was helpful in a way because it really brushed up my spoken English, which wasn't great because of my years in Bihar where I didn't have to speak much English at school. And of course, even though everyone at home read English newspapers, magazines and books, we never spoke English at home. I used to do well in the written English exams, but I wasn't confident enough to rapidly rattle off sentence after sentence in English. I'd have to think them out in Hindi, translate them in my head, think of the correct pronunciation of each word, and then start speaking. It was very stressful. But it was very helpful to me in the long run.

But I love Hindi and I always have, and I couldn't bear to stop speaking it completely. The only person I continued to speak to in Hindi was Viv, and he didn't mind my 'hum' at all. In fact, he'd use 'hum' back when speaking to me, even though he spoke to the rest of the world using 'main'. I did make an attempt to make the rest of it sound a little polished -- more Lucknowi than Bihari -- but the 'hum' stuck on. I've continued like this for the last 16 years of my life -- English with everyone else, and my hum wala Hindi at home with Viv -- and I thought I could get away with it.

Until I had a kid and my kid started speaking.

Viv and I had decided that since both of us have different mother tongues, we'd ditch both and teach Xena Hindi, a language that will serve her well in any part of India should she choose to go there, and one that we can help her out with when she takes it as a subject at school. So now was my chance to start from a clean slate. To teach her correct Hindi from the beginning. But it was hard. Bewdas who have kids will know that when they start speaking, they refer to themselves in the third person because that's how they've seen themselves being addressed. So Xena too started off with "Xena ko chahiye" for "I want it." And I followed suit by saying things like "Mama ke paas hai" and "Mama ko de do" and so on. So I still didn't have to change my 'hum' because I was not using it yet, I was using 'Mama'. When I started teaching her pronouns, I made sure she used 'main' for herself' and 'aap' for me. But in my efforts to teach her 'main', I'd not realised that I'd have to drop referring to myself in the third person too because everything was getting all mixed up. She was joining her 'main' with the verbs in my sentences such as "Mama karegi". I realised it the day she declined my "Mama ka help chahiye?" offer and said, "Main apne aap karegi."

Main apne aap karegi.

Great. This was even worse than my 'Hum apne aap karenge'. The mother was talking like a Bihari bhai and the daughter was talking like a Mumbaiya bai. At least according to what the movies show.

So I'm now trying really hard to correct it all. And I finally have a good enough reason to ditch the 'hum' once and for all, and really focus on 'main'.

Mushkil hai, lekin hum koshish kar rahe hain main koshish kar rahi hoon.

F is for Favourites

So I got this notification on Facebook that I had been tagged in a photo posted by a classmate from my primary school days. I was sure it would either be a "Like this page if you like Sai baba" kind of thing, or a "Latest research from Johns Hopkins shows that everyone has cancer cells" kind of thing, both of which irritate me to no end. So I clicked to see what it was so I could immediately untag myself. What I saw made me almost fall off my chair. It was a photo of six of us in our school uniform from some twenty years ago. My first reaction when I saw my two-decade-old self was "OMG class nerd". To verify it, I sent the photo to Viv, a few of my current friends and my in-laws, i.e. those who have never seen that avatar of mine. And the reaction I got from them was consistently, "OMG class nerd". Ditto from the comments on the Facebook photo. So when Facebook prompted me with the "Are you crazy enough to publish this to your timeline?" I hastily pressed the "HELL, NO!" button.

But then I got all nostalgic and dug out my 'opinion book' from those days. Remember opinion books? They were full of inane things that we forced our friends to write, such as their favourite animal, flower and fruit (Seriously? Favourite fruit??), which I have to admit, serve as a great source of mirth now. As I read the list of my own favourites back then, I thought it might be fun to do a comparison of what I used to like then and what I like now.

My favourite colour (then): Pink and sky blue (ahem, 'sky' blue, no less)
My favourite colour (now): Purple

My favourite food (then): Chilli chicken
My favourite food (now): Spicy roadside pani puri served in a leaf, with potato stuffing, not chana, and imli ka pani, no meethi chutney

My favourite subject (then): Sanskrit (because it was easy to ace)
My favourite subject (now): Science (because it is so intriguing)

My favourite actor (then): Salman Khan (I kid you not) and Aamir Khan
My favourite actor (now): None (To clarify, SRK is my favourite star, but I have no current favourite actor)

My favourite actress (then): Bhagyashree (still not kidding) and Juhi Chawla
My favourite actress (now): None

My favourite films (then): Maine Pyaar Kiya, QSQT, Padosan
My favourite films (now): Too many to name

My favourite song (then): Aate jaate from Maine Pyaar Kiya (I had never heard any English songs and I had no clue this song was such a blatant copy)
My favourite song (now): Too many, but if asked to pick one at gunpoint, I'd pick Naam ada likhna from Yahaan

My favourite flower (then): Lotus
My favourite flower (now): Pink gerbera

My favourite fruit (then): Mango
My favourite fruit (now): Mango

My favourite bird (then): Peacock
My favourite bird (now): Err... I don't know. I don't even think I care.

My favourite animal (then): Rabbit
My favourite animal (now): Err... rabbit again? (Incidentally, Xena was born in the Chinese year of the rabbit)

My favourite game (then): Cricket (to watch), Badminton (to play)
My favourite game (now): Badminton (to play)

My favourite place (then): Kodaikanal
My favourite place (now): Queenstown

My favourite drink (then): Maaza
My favourite drink (now): Bundaberg ginger beer, frozen mango margarita

My favourite author (then): Enid Blyton
My favourite author (now): J.K. Rowling

My favourite singer (then): Lata Mangeshkar
My favourite singer (now): Varies, the latest being Arijit Singh

My favourite ad (then): Lehar 7Up (was it the Fido Dido ad?)
My favourite ad (now): Tum chalo toh Hindustan chale (it's not exactly an ad for a product, but it always makes me tear up)

My favourite season (then): Rainy season
My favourite season (now): Mild winter

My favourite junk food (then): Binnie's pudina flavoured potato chips (I beg you, please watch this ad. You'll die laughing at "Humko yeh nahin maangta, humko woh nahin maangta, humko aur koi chips nahin maangta! Toh kya maangta?? Binnie's Binnie's!")
My favourite junk food (now): Cadbury's rum & raisin dark chocolate (though according to some very promising new research, dark chocolate is not junk food anymore, but an essential nutrient required for the survival of the human species)

My hobbies (then): Reading, poetry, sketching, playing the keyboard, singing
My hobbies (now): Singing, blogging, watching Hindi movies, reading Bollywood news

I am afraid of (then): Lizards
I am afraid of (now): Lizards

The place I wanted to visit (then): London
The place I want to visit (now): The whole world

B is for Barbie

Prescript: I just had this crazy thought that I could have pulled out my bailout card by posting 'A for April Fool Banaya!' yesterday and gotten away with it. Tchah! Too late.

While I'm on the subject of the gifts Xena received on her birthday this year, I have to share my absolute delight when she unwrapped a box with a Barbie doll inside! Her first Barbie! I was a little disappointed though because after she had examined it, she simply tossed it aside and started playing with her other toys. "It's a Barbie, Xena!" I exclaimed. "You don't want to play with a Barbie?" She didn't. Sigh. Not that I was trying to make her all girly or anything, it was just that I have the most wonderful memories of my own Barbie dolls when I was a kid, and I thought that was something I'd share with Xena.

My first Barbie was such a big deal. Back then, they were one of the most expensive dolls in the market and none of my friends had one. My mom gave me my first Barbie for my 6th or 7th birthday. The doll was literally called 'My first Barbie'. I was amazed at everything about her. She had shiny hair that could be combed and styled, she had stylish clothes and amazing heels that could be taken off and put on. Years later, I read the articles on how the impossible proportions of Barbie dolls can lead to body image issues in little girls. Wow. I guess I never had that problem because I never wanted to be like Barbie; I just wanted to own her and play with her.

The only thing about her body that bothered me a bit was that she was always on tip-toes and couldn't really stand without support. But she was my first Barbie and I adored her. When my friends heard (i.e. I called each one of them and told them), they thronged my house to see her. You know how girls name their dolls? Whenever someone would ask me what my Barbie's name was, I'd be very offended. She was Barbie. What do you mean what is Barbie's name?

Over the years, the obsession just kept growing. I emptied out the entire bottom shelf of my cupboard and set up a complete doll house for her. I used to shampoo, condition (I kid you not!) and style her hair in different ways. (My mom-in-law tells me she's very impressed with my ability to make a neat French braid on my own hair; this is totally because of the years of practice I had on my Barbie's hair.) My mom, who was a pro at the sewing machine, sewed very pretty lehenga cholis and even sarees with golden borders for her! That was also how I learnt how to wrap a saree. I used to remove the thin white rings from the top of old desk calendars, cut and colour them to make spiral bangles to match each of her Indian outfits. I'd also put matching bindis on her.

I shared Barbie and the other dolls with my sister, but once teenage hit her, she stopped playing with dolls. She busied herself with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and I had the dollhouse and the contents all to myself!

At some point, I almost had a gudiya ki shaadi for her, but I did a 'Yeh shaadi nahin ho sakti!' when my friend who had the gudda implied that Barbie would have to move to her sasural after the wedding. Nice try, sister. Hmmmph!

I believe I got a few more Barbie dolls over the years but I don't remember much of the others. I only remember my first Barbie and how very very special she was to me.

And that's why I was a little disappointed when Xena didn't take to hers the way I'd taken to mine. But that changed a few days later. I was in the kitchen and she was playing in the living room with her other toys. Suddenly I heard a loud, "Oh no!" from her. "What happened?" I asked. "Barbie needs to poop now!" She said, sounding very distraught. I laughed out loud and went back to whatever I was doing. Suddenly, there was complete silence for a few minutes. Curious, I came out to see what was happening. THIS was happening. Barbie's clothes were off and she was on a 'toilet', apparently pooping.

My joy knew no bounds. Though it was a very unglamorous start, Xena was playing with her Barbie doll! After my laughter at Barbie's state had subsided, I sat down with Xena.

Two can play this game, I think?