Pigeon hole

Pigeons are born cat food. That I've maintained for a while now. Even if they're all huddled together on a ledge or a tiled roof, at the appearance before all but flat frantically away to safety.

The foolishness of the species does not end there, of course. Pigeons have been known to hole up at the oddest spots - sometimes even among live electrical wires in exposed fuse boxes whose doors may have been miraculously unhinged by strong winds. But what do pigeons know of the dangers of being electrocuted, right? So what if they're the most thriving creatures in urban cityscapes around the world, after perhaps roaches and rats? They're really just vermin with wings, as the latest Sherlock Holmes film declares.

Then again, their utter lack of perception isn't even limited to that. Do you know that they can't even make out dust laden glass on aluminum shutters? So a couple manages to sneak in as often as we forget to close our living room windows. This morning was no different. The two made their noises as soon as they'd perched on the cupboard by the window in the hall. Obviously the sudden absence of any real smooth and warm surface caused much disconcert among the two. Anjie caught them amid this commotion and tried shooing them away. The idiots are too dim to understand what the onomatopoeic shoo refers to, and flew all over the living room - finally being driven away by yours truly with carefully guided claps.

I seem to be cursed or haunted by the pigeon gods. When I was in Bombay the first time around, I met NiNa who positively hated the poor creatures. Little did I have an idea of just how much, for warding them away seemed to be every Bombay resident's primary home mission - nets over balconies, shutters, open areas closed later, sealed AC windows and even makeshift blockages like a pillow against it.

Even the next time I was there, two of them slept on my window sill. How easy it seemed to have been for them to find accommodation in Bombay. How few were their needs. One look at their home would tell you neither did they know how to build a nest, nor did they seem to need to know. They didn't need a बाई to clean up after them. They seemed to love the mess. I was almost their janitor, for that matter!

And now here...

Choccywoccydoodah!

Sure there are things more healing and wholesome than chocolate. I do not know of any though. Call me an ignoramus or just stubborn, but really, what can stand tall in the way of a hard bar of dark chocolate, bittersweet, hell, like life itself! And have you ever seen a man, woman, old or young, resist the ultimate temptation for long?

This show on TLC has captured my rapt attention every evening after I'm back from work. It's called Choccywoccydoodah and profiles the daily exploits of a creative confectionery by the same name in the coastal town of Brighton that delivers custom-designed wedding and birthday cakes of every size and theme imaginable. I have never attributed my 'devotion to something afar' [god, my obsession with PB Shelley and my prospective tattoo are taking over] as when I do to this hour-long show. Choccywoccydoodah takes you through the motions of client profiles, the designing, the hard work of melting and etching and carving slabs of chocolate into sculptures of awe. Their goal, the beholder must go, "wow!"

Not many of us remember our first trysts with chocolate. No one really cares about its damn history either. But isn’t it amazing, when whether you’re pmsing, or need to get out of break up blues, or want some after-dinner मीठा, and chocolate suddenly acquires gargantuan dimensions of eminence in the scheme of things? So I’ve decided to put down five of my favourite chocolate desserts with which my spirit soared when the going was good and sailed me through when times decided to act tough.

Tiramisu

Before all of you pounce on me, yes yes, Tiramisu’s prime flavour is not cocoa, I’m aware. It’s only the side spike along with liquor skirting the strong incense of espresso soaked cookies slathered top ‘n bottom with heavenly cream. But as are all things Italian, aphrodisiacs are integral to our Miss T as well. The chocolate is not invasive; it’s just that light banter that verges on flirting with your palate whilst sending your senses on a gastronomic frenzy.

Belgian Dark Chocolate ice cream

This is a dessert I would never forget for I only had it in Hyderabad. The Cream Stone at Banjara Hills whipped up these dollops of rough, creamy and heavily textured Belgian Dark Chocolate ice cream with roasted peanuts crumbled for the extra effect. I believe both Baskin & Robbins and Scoops have the flavour, but they’re not quite there. Of course BDC (in thick Dharam pa’ji accent) became a staple for many a late night jaunts at the township with my roomies. Sushmita and I have walked eons since – she has a marriage for a milestone crossed, me a new city, and we still miss each other over the lecherous BDC!

Chocolate éclair

For long enough, Chocolate Éclairs made my post-split closure. I was even superstitious about it and never touched it until the end of another heart-breaking romance. The teenage therapy has now become a sacred affair every time I’m in Baroda. Goodies’ restaurant may have begun to suck big time, but their confectionary and bakery still rocks with the thick chocolate dipped palm-sized light cream stuffed pastry.

Hot Chocolate Fudge

I think every Delhiite swears by Nirula’s Hot Chocolate Fudge sundae with its insane toppings of roughly chopped peanuts cannot be had enough of. When I was first taught to have this ice cream, the principle to keep in mind – 10 seconds in the microwave and let it melt a little before you begin the feast! Now I just can’t have ice cream in its stony ice-crystal-ly form.

Chocolate Cookies

Subway probably made chocolate chip cookies ‘world famous in India’, but Hide-n-Seek brought them to the bag and haversack of every college-goer, budget traveller, and kiddie lunch box. They made it the go-to midnight snack for every hostelite inn her/ his rich days (read – the first three days of the month). And then of course there came the biscuit variants with Desire and Milano and now Oreo making it to the top of the elitist chocolate biscuit charts. And then humble old me chances upon a sidey confectioner at JM Road whose name I remember not, and decides to pick up a pack of chocolate cream cookies and voila! These turn out to be the mood lifters of the subsequent few days for both occupants of the office cabin along with friendly nibbles for those who care to visit.

Even as I wrap up this little missive about the to-die-for grain, infinite images of god awesome chocolate lendings come to mind. The chilli chocolate bar of which I had copious cups melted in milk, with Neel, and the Death-by-Chocolate at Chocolate Room and the chocolate mousse I devoured at Brugge’s early this week… Oh! Stop me!

Song for all seasons

Concert going audiences across this country, it can be safely concluded now, are alike. They can be identified explicitly by their body language. Something in their eyes, their gait, their stance speaks of their discernment. They may not walk straight, or walk at all, they may speak their strange dialects, they may squint despite bottle thick spectacles or stoop from being a genetically mad race, but they all know their ‘shit’.

If they have come especially for the concert, they’ll most definitely be at the very least jacketed or cocktail dressed, flannel trousered or silk stoled. If they have reading glasses, they will be tipped low on the bridges of their noses to read the evening’s programme. They will look for seats farthest from the exits and respect each movement with appropriate applause.

Even pre-performance drone will be in hushed whispers, not cacophonic banter, they will discuss common acquaintances too, but it all stems from a musical reference on the menu. Their next choice, if they’re young, will be jazz or opera. Somehow, Rahul Khanna’s Kabir in Wake Up Sid was highly reminiscent of this profile (of which I stole some snatches last evening with Anjie).

I was at a soprano performance on Saturday when these thoughts intermingled with my sense of gratitude to Aditya for probing me into making it even on my own (much like my good old MA-in-Hyderabad days) came visiting with soul-stirring music for background. Of course, Aditya as well as Veeram were of the opinion that I should have stuck to just enjoying my privilege. But perhaps it was a bigger kick for me to know that I could write with such superior music in the background. Sometimes the focal point of an event makes for stimulating background for another concurrent activity.

Patricia Rozario, Joanne D’Mello and Susanna Hurrel were accompanied by Mark Troop on the piano, bringing songs composed by Handel, Mozart, Bizet, Dvorak, Puccini, Johann Strauss II and more to my ears. More than the music, though, it was a bringing to fore of emotions from history like I may never know. These sopranos sing as if they express in song. The way you and I may animatedly describe our favourite books or films, or weep in excruciating melancholy or even scream in menacing rage.

And in the classical tradition of students carrying their teachers’ legacy a notch higher in quality, Joanne and Susanna carried forward what teacher Patricia probably taught them to toil after. The matronly Rosario on the other hand is no dull wad. Here’s a weathered voice rippling with experience not only of men, and the world, but also of being drenched in her own emotions, prodding all those who will listen or care, or both, to take that risk around the blind bend.

And Mark Troop’s piano work on the Bluthner brought back an old fantasy. Sometimes I imagined being in company of a pianist. One who knew what to do with his lambs and not stand around like a dandy. Nimble fingers, quick on feet. Always a tune on his notes stand, forever ready to break into a number. I recently realized pianists can be of the soul as well. Slender hands and lithe palms trace their way even in the most velvet darkness, a song that is meant only for me. Just like Saturday night.

What shall I say about the songs themselves? From the show, I mean. Mentioning each one would mean nothing. I’m an illiterate. But let it suffice to say that each one was sung with a certain abandonment of inhibition of the beholder: a flamboyance that was meant to be felt, rather than witnessed. The experience of so many travails, practicing in so many halls, trials in so many green rooms and post-performance cuisines from a hundred backstage dinners came through in the level of confidence each performance exuded.

After what also seems like an eternity of the commencement of my quest for the perfect live performance. Mazda Hall in the Dastur School compound seems to have presented itself as the prize for all the years of waiting, struggling through commutes, risking late nights, suffering some atrocious fusions and even more irksome pure forms, and worst of all, tolerating the most ill mannered and uninformed audiences in Hyderabad and Mumbai.

As I stood on the lawns outside the hall under an ominously beaming moon, I awaited the opening of the second part before leaving the delightful show. Yes, show. The women didn’t just sing, they enacted each song to the hilt. They became the song. They became Cleopatra, Juliet, queen and pauper…

Pondy Shondy VII: You didn't do Auroville?!!

Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry, a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road in the middle and its occasional motor vehicle, an adjoining ten-foot pavement and its decorative pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.

A series of seven posts have covered some aspects that kept me preoccupied during the last five days. As the last in line, I can't help but touch upon spirituality as a major element that attracts several to its realms.

So even before we returned from our holiday, the prospect of the refrain has been involving inventive responses in me. While on one level, it has proved to be daunting, at another, it is as simple as “No.”

The last place of worship I did was, yes, on my birthday. You might even call it an overkill, ‘two churches?!” And I was drawn not to their obvious proportions or intricate pieces of beauty, but the subtle peace and mundaneness. The ceremonious silence of every Ashram campus is a little hard for me to fathom (at least here at Baroda and at the one in Delhi). To me it is yet another form of violence. Almost rendering the visitor feeling a little unwelcome.

Why must serenity be so overtly compelled? Why can’t a place evoke the feeling? And if it cannot, then what is the difference between its almost suppressing discipline and the suffocating straight jacket of an imperialist boot camp. Sure, many benefit from the institution’s dicta and generosity, but that at the cost of one’s freedom of expression? I see a problem there.

Pondy Shondy VI: The Retreat's own queen mother

An old lady walked into the dining hall the night of our arrival as we hogged supper. Solo, in a confident slow gait, the wrinkled demeanour did not succeed in veiling the beauty she must have surely been of her time. In her pale pink salwar kameez and well set salt and pepper hair, she settled alone on a small table to dine. We noticed in her plate unusual portions for a woman that old and that petite. Even we ate less!

“Please,” I said, holding the door gesturing for her to pass first at the reception later that night as I made to go for a stroll with Twara after our meal. “No, no,” she insisted I pass through first. After a short battle with the obstinate old woman, I relented. It was embarrassing of course, but the beginning of a rendezvous that would last the duration, at least of our stay at The Retreat.

And of course we invited her to join us for breakfast next morning. Over the period of our time there, we ate several homely meals together at the guest house dining hall. Conversations revealed that she has been a regular to Pondicherry now for 11 years and spends a full two months beginning each December.

But here’s where this ancient relic became an indelible memory of my second trip to Pondy. I got shamelessly greedy for an extra birthday wish on my birthday and let it slip over breakfast. Not only was she the loving Punjabi granny to embrace me on the morning of my 27^th, but when we returned from our jaunt the next day at lunch, we found a plum cake from Grand Bakery waiting for us at the reception, the tag said “Best wishes from Indira Kapoor, R. 211”.

The ways of knowing someone’s name…

Pondy Shondy V: Keepsakes

Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry, a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road in the middle and its occasional motor vehicle, an adjoining ten-foot pavement and its decorative pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.

A series of seven posts cover some aspects that most appealed to me and kept me preoccupied during the last five days.

As I think of all the things I could be doing in Pondy, I get the feeling even my three and a half days aren’t enough. If you’re looking for loads of souvenirs to carry back, visit Auroboutique (the handmade products store next to Surguru), Casablanca (near the Hidesign main store) or the Ashram store at Auroville. This is also the time of year for local handicrafts exhibitions so loading up on giveaways is never a stressful affair.

I did Auroboutique and found everything from handmade soaps and paper craft and diaries and incense to essential oils and wax products. I’m also particularly in love with Casablanca’s baby clothes section – not only are these charming, but the prints are unique and quality above par.

Pondy Shondy IV: Putting up and getting around

Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry, a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road in the middle and its occasional motor vehicle, an adjoining ten-foot pavement and its decorative pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.

A series of seven posts cover some aspects that most appealed to me and kept me preoccupied during the holiday.

If you’re a lover of trees and the colour ochre, and if rising wave and ebb means music, then hiring one of the many gearless motor two wheelers would not be an option for you. And a bicycle might be more your thing. Staying at one of the several guest houses on the promenade or on the road running parallel to it is a great idea – for they are fairly inexpensive, located conveniently in the midst of all things nice and clean.

Of course Pondy has enough for the five-star hospitality lover (boutique hotels, heritage bungalows turned into hotels, a sexy Accord coming up at the city entrance) who would prefer buying branded underwear and baby clothes (Casablanca’s definitely your haven!) and do the spa trip mid stay. Hire yourself a day long taxi service or even one for the entire duration of your stay (grumpy Kamraj at Autocare will be more than cheerful if you’re doing that rather than putting forth a tiring enquiry about his bus service to Auroville, said Mrs Indira Kapoor – more on her later) and you’re good to go!

Pondy Shondy III: Taking it in

Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry, a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road in the middle and its occasional motor vehicle, an adjoining ten-foot pavement and its decorative pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.


A series of seven posts cover some aspects that most appealed to me and kept me preoccupied during the holiday.

The thing to do is to pile up on the booze, because it’s cheap, and go see Auroville (which I refused to do) and buy Hidesign products and eat at Satsanga. If you love to stop and gape at anything that catches your fancy, you’d instead loaf till your legs say no mas! In the French areas. And eat when you hit upon an interesting café and plomp on one of the several seats along the sea side. Don’t touch the lentil concoction commonly sold on the promenade. It is boring.

The French fries and Café Dip ice cream at Ajanta, yes yes yum yum

Do make space for a genuine Italian meal at Corelli’s Don Giovanni, run by the jovial, always drunk and Camel smoking flirtatious Max from Bologna. The Ravioli pesto and homemade pizzas are a must try. You could also combine taking a stroll at Le Maison Rose’s knick knack store and binging on their French food. But a personal favourite was the fine dining set up at Le Dupleix. The tiramisu is to die for. Ahaan.

Or walk into, instead of by, the grand churches that may catch your fancy (photography allowed – the nuns will even bestow one of their pious smiles upon thee). One you may spot from the promenade, though you’ll have to get onto the back street. This is the church of the Capuchins (Eglise de Notre Dame des Agnes) with a rather interesting piece of history attached to it.

The Cathedral at Mission street

The defunct jetty is not open to only-women travellers

Perhaps you’d try to buy your way into the Port Trust jetty. The place is not open to only-women travellers, so make sure you find yourself an impressive bloke for the evening and then throw him over on your way back. Alternatively you could just get under! Walk all the way beyond Le Café and the back side of Park Guest House right in the corner, where a little path opens to the quay. If you’re too lazy to explore one of the beaches some distance away, this works perfectly.

Pondy Shondy II: The waves never tire at Pondicherry

Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry, a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road in the middle and its occasional motor vehicle, an adjoining ten-foot pavement and its decorative pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.

A series of seven posts cover some aspects that most appealed to me and kept me preoccupied during the last five days.

Just when you think they’re taking a breather, a swelling oblong mound advances and eventually spills a milky thrash, disintegrating into a mosaic-like bubbly. Where does it get all the energy, you wonder. Perhaps from the complex carbs of the blue in the sugary horizon? Or from all the candy floss and ice cream vendors who might secretly feed it this side of the breakers?

Unlike the sea of the west coast, its eastern Coromandel counterpart seems rather unforgiving and stern, yet playful. No wonder then, that a gigantic Gandhi statue must stand at the promenade, smiling, as if walking.

Pondy Shondy I: The Retreat

Pondy’s like poetry: everyone reads it differently. Every time. Sitting at the granite top study table by the window, as I pen the first impressions about my second visit to Pondicherry (Puducherry I’m still not quite comfy with and they’re not too bent upon it), a roaring tumultuous monsoon sea and a fishing boat risking a session at some distance, with a road and an adjoining ten-foot pavement with an occasional motor vehicle and pedestrians on this sunny morning keep nudging me to look up from my notebook and out towards them all.

A series of seven posts cover some aspects that most appealed to me and kept me preoccupied during the last five days.

There are few things about which one can say they are, as you left them. The Retreat at Pondicherry’s Goubert Avenue is one of them. Dressed just like the Sea side Guest House a couple of blocks away, where I put up last year on my birthday, this new extension of the older Shri Aurobindo Society guest house is a replica. And while same-same predictable has always put me off, the comfort of returning to The Retreat’s familiar white-and-rosewood, simple elegance is more than worth its 11:15 pm deadline. (I hear the scoffs already)

The basic layout and furniture apart, they even managed to find more from where the old fittings and frames came from! Door knobs to electricals and the back garden – it is much like taking off from where I had left.

Khushboo Gujarat Ki

Sole trees on desi meadows of parched grass, geometrical angularity on sugar fields mid-harvest, asbestos roofs and abandoned control rooms of the railways - the elements one spots on the Gujarat landscape along its rail routes are mostly dull.

Much like its crops are the people of Gujarat. Frayed yet revealing solidarity in times of crisis are the Kathiawaris of Saurashtra - you'd think they muster their gall from the groundnut they produce. A race of accepted norms of beauty are the Naagars. It has been said about them, that they are a strain of the Aryans that have strayed into this side of the country (highly speculative); they are to Gujarat what the Bengalis are to the country. Intellectual, educated, artistically inclined, service oriented. Add to that the obsessive fairness prevalent in the stock and a brand of humour impossible to find elsewhere, one would imagine them to be exotic creatures. Insufferable they are.

The plains of Gujarat are not picturesque as in the North. They do not overflow with pretty mustard fields. The aridity of cotton and tobacco hits first by its sheer shortness and then its lacklustre textures. Their latent heaviness prevents them from dancing with the breeze even at full length. There seem to be no tips. The Patel-like thickset grand dames have no use for such esoteric charms. The sugarcane rise high, much like the tall Gadhvis tower above other communities, keepers of rights and what must be preserved within society - tradition, values, prerogatives. Men who will storm into a nationalised bank with guns and have the security guard seal the place from outside until the backlog is cleared. The police can only turn deaf ears. Yet they are the very same that come together when a Kurien rises to modernise the cooperative dairy development model and revolutionise the way the country drinks milk!

But as one trudges southward, the breeds change. Businessmen in Ahmedabad and Surat, though birds of a feather, would never flock together. The former know not the art of pleasant speech, the latter sound sweet despite the generous slathering of expletives. Their mangroves, their chickoo orchards, their berry trees seem to seep into their veins as the most pleasant to be around.

But what about where I come from? I suppose a city where one is born and raised has so many layers of meanings and connotations for different people at different junctures, that beginning at one's own birth, or one's ancestors', or the 2500 year old history of its erstwhile fort walled contours could all seem false or unfair or both. To say the least, Vadodara is myriad things to as many people as it lends itself. Twara n I have always maintained, it's the cosmopolitan with reachable boundaries. Like a lot of the metros and mega cities, the city is host and eventually becomes home to several communities from outside the state, and from across the country.

For want of a more emancipating word, traditionally the city is like a marriage consummate, a naive cultural space with little or no regard for conventions or political agendas or ideologies. It has been like a third grader's exploits in the laboratory accidentally successful in some inexplicable and purposeless way. The Emergency was marked by one of its earliest and most controversial turn of events here with the Dynamite case. Countless communities invaded, trickled in, emigrated, got transferred, stopped by and stayed in this city. Vadodara derives its name, among other explanations, but most simply and satisfactorily, from its banyan trees. वड़ in Gujarati is what the tree is called.

Much like the aerial roots of the tree are its people. Rooted, outgoing, earthy, individualistic, subdued, its strength. And don't be surprised if our educated bourgeoisie judge you correctly on the basis of what might seem insufficient data. As the Big B proclaims in the Gujarat Tourism advertisements, प्रगति की कठिनाइयों को दिल पे नहीं लेते यहाँ के लोग... (The people here do not take to heart the hurdles of progress) कुछ दिन तो गुजारो गुजरात में (Come spend a few days in Gujarat)!

Under the Banyan Tree

The Banyan - वड़, as in the name of my city, वड़ोदरा, has always fascinated me for being perhaps the most disheveled, yet giving tree. From the one at the University campus here and the two in the enclosure in front of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Halls for men, to the giant one in Pondicherry and the two at my favourite vegetarian Italian restaurant in Mumbai called Under the Banyan Tree, the Ficus Benghalensis has held my attention wherever I've had the pleasure, opportunity, good fortune to spot it.

As a matter of fact, I feel like a banyan tree right now. A young one. But not too young. My first few ariels have just reached the ground. Perhaps not strong enough to make another tree trunk, but they sure strengthen the one that already exists. So many use me for their purposes and stay on, but nothing thrives if I try to protect. I'm a shelterer, not a shield. Something about my core refuses to change. As if I would diminish if that core ceased to be. Am I complaining? Not quite. Because this too has its advantages.

Advantage.

Sometimes the word is so favourable, and at others, such an expletive.

And so, how is it useful to the banyan to be a shelterer?

It is that much harder to destroy it. They let it be. They allow new ariels to sprout and reach out. The branches spread eider and shade more. And eventually the table turn. There is a little bit of that tree in everything it touches. Those who have gained from it, those who can't fathom its use, those who attempt to break it down, and those who embrace it in return for favours rendered. To be hated is also an impression, an element of oneself planted in another forever.