At the price of a postage stamp

(From a letter to a friend)

You know what I liked about ‘Wake up Sid’? The part where they exchange emails cause she didn’t have a phone. You know what I like about ‘You’ve got mail’? Well, all of it. It’s simply so beautiful to sit on your bed with a huge letter pad and pen down your life’s silly everydays. Even typing in your tiny laptop, lazily sipping coffee, and smiling at the stuff you think about as you sit to write. And the joy of waiting a reply… nay I’m not going to attempt to describe it. I know it’s visually playing in your mind right now.

It’s different when you write to a far-away friend. The distance somehow sweetens the whole episode… from the moment untidy ink marks spurt out of your leaky pen, to the words diving out of the flimsy nib, to the final signature and dotted endings, to the clumsy folding of the paper and crumbling of an old yellow envelope, to the long trip from one red box to another (I know this is now how it works ), till it knocks on your door and touches your hand. Sigh, I say letters are the biggest travelers of this world… where do they not go to? What corner of the world have they not touched? Wish I could pour myself into these white pages and hide behind these blue words. With them, I could travel around and see the world… at the price of a postage stamp!

One song, one evening

She sat down by a small tree shade. From one of the street shops, a slow instrumental music sneaked out of the radio to come rest by her side. As she slowly let her eyes close and open again to the gentle tune, she saw across the street, him – standing with one leg resting on a shattered wall, thick with old movie posters pasted one on top of another. He was looking at her as if she was a picture from an old memory that soothed him on evenings as these, when the sun took back from earth all its ultravioletness and simply stayed back late to watch her people. She looked back, something about the way the music floating across her hears and his eyes resting on hers, telling her there was no need to look away. Not searching for any meaning, she let her eyes smile.

 

He moved his eyes now to look at her hair and raised his brows. She inspected her curly tufts to find a dry brown leaf clinging on a lose strand. She let it fall and in turn looked at his shoe laces come lose. He followed her gaze and bent down to tie it. Tit for tat. Before they could come back to play their gaze-game, a fast dog running down the street made her stand up agile. As she heaved at its retreat, he let her see him laugh gently. She looked down to hide her blushes. When she lifted her face up, his eyes asked her to look yonder at the skies above. Tiny dots of birds circled a far away hill as the sun was preparing to start its journey down the horizon. The music, now led by a violin seemed to have brought him along to her side. She didn’t know how long they stood there watching the beautiful evening slid into oblivion or when they started walking uphill to personally bid goodbye to a magical day. The radio was now far away, but the music never left her side – it stood between him and her, letting her dream on and not fall back to reality.

From the windows of a train

05:50 – Wish the sky stayed the same dark shade of blue all day… when trees are black and jasmines gray. No green, no red. Only the colors of peaceful slumber

06:20 – Like everything else in the world, the sky’s turned a different shade in a few minutes. Much lighter. New colors are born everywhere. Man dares to catch the first drop of sunlight in his eyes. And as I look on, I fall in love with the lightness of the sky I vowed to hate before.

07:00 – You can’t take your eyes off for a moment, the blue has grown into a shy little shade, blooming bright in its youthful splendor. Black birds loom up the sky like bees to honey. They must wonder when they’d ever touch her.

07:20 – In bits and pieces, white clouds spread their wings across, like the first drops of corruption marring her youthful innocence. I gaze down to see some of that white, like tiny snow flakes, on little buds scattered outside every house in the village you pass by. It’s the same white flower I saw everyday as a child and never bothered to smell, all that smell now rushed their way through the past to come rest on my nostrils. It is the smell of childhood… a smell I’d rather leave behind for time to kill.

08:00 – The clarity of it all scares me. If only, I could let such clarity enter my mind and chuck out everything that blurred it. But now the tiny ponds and streams carry fading reflections of the dark tree tops. I wish the darkness stayed longer. Maybe, clarity was just not my thing.

09:00 – I let my head droop down a tad too long to realize the first tan of the day is now waiting at my window sills ready to come in and soak me in its bloody heat. The day as I knew it has begun. The scorching sun and the merciless burns it carelessly dropped everywhere… Squinting a bit and letting my palms fight the rays awhile, I give up like everyday, letting the day take over. Maybe, just once, I could win the battle and let the night stay over for a day.

For KT

Was by chance I checked google reader today and saw an update on KT’s blog. Happily went to read it first, having waited a long time after her last post in September. Read seriously the post written about losing ‘Amma’ to cancer. I thought it really sad that mother and daughter had the same disease – KT too has cancer. I also thought that this was not at all KT’s style of writing. It was when I went through the comments that it suddenly struck me – the blog was not written by KT, but her child. Which meant, the Amma in the post was KT…

I went back to reading on and on again. I didn’t want to believe it. The commenters had to be mistaken. Desperately I wrote asking whoever blogged it, to tell me if it is true.

I had to somehow prove it couldn’t be so. I was sure she just emailed me last month. No, that was in July. What other proof did I have? We never talked on phone or sms-ed. All our talks were on the internet. Except the one time we met. She wanted to meet the volunteers of TidyCity to discuss a project. It never took off. But I was so pleased when she wrote about us and, me in particular on her blog. (http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-triple-century-in-blogsphere.html)

 

“And I had the pleasantly strange experience of meeting my blogger friend in flesh and blood. Crisgirl or cris seetha. She was everything I thought she’d be. And more. A a petite, smart and soft-spoken girl…”

 

The blog that I throw upon everyone boasting the kind of intellect and smartness and sense of humor a Malayali middle-aged woman possessed. I somehow felt so proud when people said thanks for giving them the link of such a wonderful writer. I told Amma, see she’s blogging on her own, you could do it too.

I first landed on KT’s blog from silverine’s. It was a post about shaping eyebrows. I immediately fell in love with her language. I imagined she was a young thing in college (I didn’t realize she was narrating an old episode from her life). Hers became the first blog I checked everyday. My favorites were her lighter veins. Those days I tried to run multiple blogs and one was to review interesting blogs. I wrote about KT’s. She thanked me. I started regularly commenting on her blog. I was on cloud 9 on days she would visit mine and leave a comment. And cloud 18 when she would sometimes say ‘well-said’ or well-written. Meant so much to me.

In one of our first emails, she said I could call her KT like I did in my comments. Or Molly if I preferred it. I chose KT. We’d write occasionally. I remember suggesting some stuff for her blog design and she first claimed to be tech-unsavvy but later managed to make it so beautiful.

After reading one of her posts on English-speaking, I wrote to her telling, I sometimes stutter when I am nervous. She wrote back saying she was so till recently; but the important thing was to concentrate on “what” was to be said than “how”.

And when she made a post about missing Trivandrum, she had mentioned our TidyCity – http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-miss-trivandrum.html

I learnt she had cancer from one of her blog entries. But her later posts were so packed with energy and enthusiasm and knowledge, you’d think cancer is just another cold cause she seemed able to brush it off with her little hanky.

 

Whenever I emailed her, I got a pretty fast response. So I worried a little when I couldn’t find an update for so long on her blog. But I didn’t email her. I brushed it off as silly. She could get busy, she could be traveling or in the US like last year. Or maybe she was just fed up of blogging. Maybe that’s just what it is now. Maybe that’s what I will believe it to be. Cause KT just has to be there.

 

And I didn’t know this, but KT, you meant a lot.

 

 

G and B – Full Story

Warning: Lame story in three parts. Not suitable for anti-paingili folks

Part 1

“Please?” she tried to pull a sad face unsuccessfully.

“There could be people there who know me!” he shook his heads, sipping his coffee.

“Oh B, they won’t know a thing. We are just doing this to pass it off in front of him.” She spoke, jabbing her cutlet.

“G come on. I could come with you, but what good does it do to pose as your boyfriend?”

“Look. You can call it ego, call it anything you like. But two years after his wedding, I can’t go in front of him like some lonely pathetic case who still couldn’t find someone.”

“So you wanna show your Ex? Hey you have a wifey so what. I have this handsome dude bf”

“Minus the handsome dude part, you fit in perfectly.”

He frowned again. But he was coming around. “Well you know I’d do it any way. I get to have free food.”

“Plenty of it. We are attending a marriage lovah boy.”

“Oh ye honey I like that.”

It wasn’t tough to spot him. He stood next to the groom, looking as good as he always did. She bit her lips. “B maybe this was a bad idea. We should just leave.”

“Oh no G, I am not missing all that food for nothing! Girl, do you know how pretty you are looking today? And with Mr Handsome by your side, this guy is going to be the jealousest person in the world today.”

“That’s not a real word, but I will let it pass considering you laughed like a hyena seeing me in this dress before.”

“That’s my girl. So you ready?”

“Yea, hold my hand B. Not to show him, I just wanna make sure my legs don’t fail me.”

“Hush you are doing good. Just remember you are one awesome person. See, I am not even winking.”

He did not seem to notice her at first. Or maybe he was just ignoring her. “Should I smile at him? Or just pass by?”

“Let’s be like normal people and wish the bride and groom first. Don’t you think they deserve our attention after all that food?”

“Oh yea, sure.”

It was the groom who finally broke the ice. “G, you remember E. He came all the way for my wedding. And this is his wife, Mrs E.”

“Hi E”

“Hi G”

“Hi Mrs E”

“Hi”

Pause. Embarrassing smiles.

“Oh and I am B, G’s boyfriend.”

It was only for a second, but G noticed his brows twitch and his eyes narrow, before he smiled. “Hi B, how do you do?”

“Good. I have heard lots about you from G. And how do you do Mrs E?”

“Splendid.”

Maybe Mrs E has heard of G before. Maybe they weren’t looking forward to this meeting. Yes, that made sense. “Well I better get going then. Bye,” G said.

“Yea, take care,” he said. And she thought there was a pinch of affection in his words. She walked on, not turning back, and before she knew it, B took her hands in his and kissed it.

When they were out, she pulled away. “Why’d you do that for!”

“Hey it needed some originality. You should have seen the look on his face!”

And he did indeed look lost. “Oh come on E, they are just pretending. He is not her boyfriend. She wanted to show you she’s doing fine.”

“I know dear. But she doesn’t know she really is doing fine… with him.”

 

Part 2:

He was a little annoyed when the call came. “G, I told you I was at work.”

“Sorry B, I am sorry. I will call later. Later I will call you. And yea. Bye. Am sorry.”

He immediately repented his words. She never called unless there was a good reason. And knowing G, it would have taken a really strong reason to call. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh yea. Oh yea. You go to work. Work B.”

He could hear some vehicles in the background. “Where are you?”

“Out. I am out. Out.”

“Ok what is wrong?”

Silence.

“G? Are you there?”

Silence again.

“Ok I am coming. Where are you?”

“No no you work. You are working. I shouldn’t have called.”

“Just tell me where you are.”

She told him.

 

When he finally reached her, she didn’t even seem to recognize him. “G? What on earth happened? You look so unwell.”

She stared at him. “You are B”

“Of course it is me.”

“Then where is he?”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Geez G would you just tell me what happened.”

She turned to look at him as though just finding him there. And said in a matter-of-fact casual tone, “I was raped.”

He just stared at her, letting his mouth fall. He stopped the first words that came to his mouth – are you joking. No. It really happened. And she was not herself. “I… but how,” he couldn’t stop himself.

“I lost my way to a place I had to go to. And they tricked me.”

Her tone was so casual he wasn’t sure if she was just telling a film story. “I don’t know what to… G, should I take you to a hospital?”

“No”

“Shall I take you to your home?”

She jerked up and looked at him, buried her face on his shoulders and cried hysterically. “Mom… mom is home… I can’t go home. I can’t.”

He held her that way for some time and said gently: “Ok will you come with me?”

She nodded.

He took her to his home. “No one here today,” he added on the way so she’d feel at ease. She seemed absent minded. “I want to take a bath, I have to bathe,” she said.

“Of course. You can use my bathroom.”

He led her to his room and went out to come to terms with what just happened. G just got raped? What was happening. His head seemed to whirl. “B!” she opened the door and called out.

“Hey what’s up? You want something?”

“I can’t do it B. I can’t take a bath. I can’t I can’t.” She was panicky like a child about to face an exam.

“Don’t worry. Can I help you with it?”

“No no no no.”

“Don’t worry you won’t know a thing.” He made her sit on a stool and gently poured water on her.

“My dress is getting wet B.”

“So I will give you my clothes. They are really awesome.”

She looked up and for a moment seemed to forget her predicament. “Yea”

She kept quiet as he continued to wash her hair and face. He brought a towel and dried her hair. “Now G I want you to dry yourself up and wear these clothes I have laid out ok? They are going to be big for you but you will look great.”

She nodded. And mechanically obeyed him. He waited outside and started smoking. There was no time to even reflect on what happened. She needed him now more than any other time. Yet what could he do?

 

“Can I have a smoke too B?” she asked timidly.

“Of course, but do you smoke?”

“No. Will it make me feel… good?”

“Tell you what. Why don’t we have something to eat?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want anything.”

“But it would make you feel good.”

She said nothing as he brought a plate of rice. “Only curd and pickles to go with it, you like that?”

She nodded but didn’t seem interested to eat. He was doubtful what to do but when he made balls of rice and took it to her mouth, she didn’t resist. “It’s like mom’s pickles,” she said dreamily. He smiled. When she seemed lost, he showed her to his balcony, talked about his neighbors and gardens and made her eat. She seemed to listen to all that he said with great interest. “What happened then?” she would ask sometimes. Her eyebrows would shoot up and her eyes widen as he cooked up stories to get her attention.

 

“Do you want to rest a bit?”

“Okay.”

She fell asleep as soon as he tugged her in. “Don’t go away B,” she murmured.

“I will be here.”

Two hours later, she woke up with a start and told him she was ready to go home. “My clothes are not dry yet.”

“I will bring them to you later.”

“B… what will I tell mom?”

“I think you’d know best G.”

She nodded.

 

 Part 3

 

She was getting wet in the rain waiting for him. He saw her standing there from the distance, stealthily walked to her side and hugged her from behind. She shrieked and looked back to see him. “B! What are you doing? This is me.”

 

“I know,” he couldn’t stop smiling.

“You make me wait for 10 long minutes and then hug me for no reason?” She was definitely back. No more of that helplessness he couldn’t bear to watch on her face. He smiled. She never said thanks, she never talked about it. But the way they dealt with each other, it was clear. It was over and done with.

He said now: “G, I got it.”

“You what?”

“I got it! I cleared it!”

“Really?”

“Really!”

“Really really?”

“Really really!”

“Wow”..

This meant he was going away for higher studies. Away from her. For how long, he had no idea. But that didn’t seem to matter right then. They jumped around excitedly holding each other. She took his hands, kissed them and dropped them fast. He in turn, held her face and kissed it.

She pulled away from him and let her face down. In shock. Between fighting her tears that got lost among the raindrops, she could just mumble “What is wrong with you?”

“I am so sorry G! I am in… I have been for long. I never meant to say it but now it just came out. I am so sorry.”

“Why…”

“I am sorry…”

“Why did you wait… why didn’t you say it?”

“Cause I knew you didn’t want it. I knew you didn’t feel that way.”

She tried to kick him but slipped and fell on his shoulders. “How did you know without asking me?” she asked panting.

He held her up, “But does that mean you… you…?”

She shook away his hands. “Don’t ya try to help me.” She was trying hard to look angry but her dimples gave her away. “Yea I do dumbo. Now don’t make a scene of it.”

He hugged her and kissed her again. She was still trying to kick him.

Disclaimer: G and B in this story stand for Girl and Boy. This is fiction, any connection to real life or other stories you may have read about is possibly coincidental, or else I may have lifted it

To Sir Or Not To Sir

One of the first things that the HR told us on our entry into the Infy Mysore campus was ‘we don’t use Sir here. Everyone including NRN is addressed by first name’. Was a little difficult at first – having Sirred all our professors in college, not Sirring someone in the authority felt odd. But once you fall into the practice, it seems the much more sensible option. Whoever invented Sir and Madam, must have thought that a single word could inject a lot of respect and command into the system. Wrong. Respect does not come from Sirring someone. Respect is an action, not a word, it is a behavior, not – I repeat, a word.

Unfortunately we still live in a world that enjoys being Sirred and Madammed. Not all, but yes the number is not less. After infy life, I continued with the first name rule at several places before I started sensing the displeasure it created. The how-dare-she expressions people wore were too obvious to be missed. I could not quite grasp it because I shuddered everytime anyone called me Madam. I took a lot of pain to stop them! And so it seemed weird to me that there are people who actually enjoy it. There were exceptions too. I was the only one calling Anoop John by name during my short stint in Zyxware and he said: “I tried telling them not to call me so, but they don’t seem able to digest the idea.”

I remember my friend and former colleague Sanjeev telling me “I hated it when you called me Sir. But I didn’t want others who enjoyed it to be ripped of that pleasure because of me.” Friend and one of the best writers I know – Sabin – made it clear on the very first day (when he was editor and I was reporter at Yentha) – ‘Please don’t call me Sir!’ And now Ayyappan at Deccan Chronicle, tells me “In Indian Express when you were an intern it was fine. But now we are colleagues, so please call me by name.” There was Madam trouble too – I first called Saraswathy by name and later Madammed her when someone advised me to, the time I freelanced for Metro Plus.

I still maintain that people who teach us call for a Sir or Ma’m or Mister or Ms or at least a Professor. But the problem however is there is no particular system in work places. So we will have to rely on instinct to decide who prefers what. Safer route always being to call all seniors Sir until they tell you to please stop. I don’t have any problem in calling people Sir – if it makes them happy, I’d be glad to give them that bit of happiness. But for sure, that is not where my respect comes from. Respect is a feeling, and I repeat again – not a word.

(Silly aside to serious post: My friend just read this and told me my entire professional resume seems to be in here )

Spying

Fancy pal Jim had just woken up from a 10 hour siesta.

Jim: I’ve got a hell lot of things to tell you

Me: What is it?

Jim: What? Do you have to know everything right away?

Me: Okay, tell me tomorrow then.

Jim: I will think about it.

Me: Oh come on, what else have you got to do?

Jim: What? You think I sit doing nothing all day?

Me: Yep

Jim: Have you been spying on me?

Start, Camera, Action

I was on a lift and as is usual when I am on a lift (by self), I started singing, acting, dancing, talking. “I wonder how, I wonder why, yesterday you told me about the blue blue sky and all that I can see…” I sang.

“Is just a yellow lemon tree,” chipped in fancy pal Jim. We went on a chorus: “I am turning my head up and down, I am turna turna turna turna turning it round, and all that I can see… is just another lemon tree.”

“That wasn’t too bad was it?”

“Absolutely not. Absolutely nothing”

“Uh ah… is everything alright?” – in singing mode again. “Absolutely nothing,” Jim sang. We had our tough guy expressions on which meant a lot of frowning and teeth clattering – for some reason.

“What would I do without you Jim?”

“Very little Miss Cris, very little.”

It was our floor. I knew there was something odd as soon as I stepped out. Everyone was staring at me. Some of their faces looked familiar. Finally I reached a room where I saw Prithvi Raj. Ouch! I was on a shooting location, interrupting a scene. I ran back to the lift. “Oh no oh no oh shit shit shit”

“Cris you are using the s-word.”

“Shut up Jim. Aww gee that was so embarrassing. Do you think they will arrest me?”

“For being in a shooting location? Nahhh. Well it is a sort of trespass and considering that they took a whole floor for this very purpose… maybe they will give you a fine… hmm Cris I think they will arrest you”

“Forget I asked”

The lift opened, the security caught me and took me right back up.

This was it, I was going to be put in jail. “But I didn’t do anything wrong. There was no board saying no entry,” I was nervous.

When the lift opened director Priyadarshan was waiting. “Priyadarshan,” I hissed.

“Glad you recognized. Would you please step in?”

“Listen Mr P, I had no idea. Look I am sorry alright, but you can’t really hold me up like this. I am a journalist!”

“We were towards the end of a long scene when you interrupted. So we will have to do the whole scene again or explain your presence.”

“Oh. Does that mean I should pay a fine? I know the rules! I am a journalist!” I blurted out. I looked at Jim for support. The coward was hiding behind me.

At this point Prithvi joined and I reddened.

“Young lady…” he began.

“I am not young”

“Ohh. Ok Miss…”

“Everybody knows I am not married,” I sighed turning to Jim. Jim smirked.

“It is a big menace shooting the whole thing again”

“But you can’t arrest me for that!”

“Would you mind if we keep the scene that way?”

I reflected. Cool, finally my big chance to “act”. “No I wouldn’t. Wait let me think (had to play hard to get). Yeah it should be fine.”

“It should be, considering the skills we observed in surveillance camera when you were in the lift.”

At this point I woke up. Actually I woke up a long time ago. And willfully daydreamed from where I stopped. Jim is still smirking, the idiot.

Brothers Karamazov and Ajayan Sir

“Where are you?” Ajayan Sir, in his long jubba and trying-to-look-serious eyes peering above his specs, would ask every morning when we meet in office. I smile and reply “Alyosha had a long talk with Ivan.”

Ajayan Sir’s eyes would lose all the seriousness it mustered and brighten up. “What a scene! And Dmitry… what a character don’t you think?”

Yes I do.

It was one of the most wonderful gifts I got. Brothers Karamazov. Ajayan Sir, who kept showering praises on the book and rebuked me for not having read it, one day placed it on my hands. I first gathered he was lending it. But then he said he bought a copy to gift me. But alas if I were half as expressive as Dostoyevsky I could have told him what it meant to me. And what it meant to be talking about it everyday. He’d tell me “I ask my daughter the same question. Where are you? And her mother has no idea what we are talking about.”

The book took me into it for all the three long weeks I have been with it. This is the problem with big novels and storylines. We are in the midst of it for so long it is difficult to fathom we are not anymore. I can still feel surrounded by the Karamazov brothers on all sides, different scenes flashing across my eyes… the crazy and funny father running around, making a mess of everything… the innocent but violent Mitya, the indifferent but thoughtful Ivan, the all too angelic (too good for my taste) Alyosha…. And the other characters. I was disappointed with both the women characters – Grushenka and Katya. They were represented as strong characters but I could not see any character in either of them. Sad. My liking for a book – biased as it may be – depends a whole lot on women characters. But here, the women though play a vital role did not somehow come into the crust. Even Smerdyakov (I never thought I will get his spelling right) – the man servant at the father’s house has a stronger impact in fewer scenes. And Ilyosha… oh dear, when Ajayan Sir said it made him cry, I had no clue. But little Ilyosha, his miserable dad and mom and sisters and all those boys… gloom!

Well I didn’t plan to write anything on the book except that the whole thing was special to me. It being gifted most unexpectedly, the three weeks of reading it, the inevitable discussions next morning… I will remember this book forever for more reason than one.

Johnson Master

“I am Cris, Sir.”

“So the girl with you must be Pris (pointing to Anthrappan),” he joked. We laughed. I got his phone number to do an interview. When I called him later, he was coughing. “I am not so well today, call me tomorrow can you?”

But I didn’t call. And I never got to interview Johnson Master.

Anthrappan called me last night and told me in a breaking voice, “Johnson Master’s gone”. The first thought that crossed my mind was how will Amma take this? Even last day she was going on about how Johnson’s music with its ‘naadan shaili’ and Salil Choudhary’s remain her favourite. I was at the time excited about interviewing another all-time favourite Jerry Amaldev. Johnson Master is the next I’d interview, I decided. He was only 58, I had no clue life would so cruelly depart from one of the most melodious men so soon .

It is not his songs that first endeared him to me. It is the background score of Thoovanathumbikal that Nish taught me and the two of us used to hum for hours. Lalala lalala… and then Namakku Paarkam Munthirithoppukal had an equally striking background score. It must be two strips of music I have most listened to in my MP3 Player.

But then eventually many songs I fell in love with was by Johnson Master.

Etho janmakalpanayil….
Swapnam verumoru swapnam….
Priyatharamaakum oru naadham…
Aadi vaa katte…
Kannukalil pooviriyum…
Swarnamukile…
Anuragini…   Ariyathe…..
Neram mangiya neram….
Kunnimanicheppu thurannenni nokkum neram…
Aakashagopuram…
Devangangal…. (somehow when I start singing this I end up in Anuragini… same ragam?)
Oonjaalurangi…
Maanathe vellitheril…
Enthe kannanithra karuppu niram…
Oru naal shubarathri…

Too many… wanted to write a tribute to him. But I am not sure how to do that. Really sad he stayed away from Malayalam music for long. We lost so many good songs. And so many more to have come. Will miss you lots Johnson Master.