Tyger, Jeeves, Hobbes, Junglee Maharaj... Duffer!

Thaaaaaaaaat's Duffer!

I am surprised that little Duffer doesn't have a whole post dedicated to him yet. Not because he's just so significant an entrant into my life, but for the simple reason that he occupies more head space for at least a dozen people I know already! And he's been in town only a month!

Like every new kid in the family, he's had some specials for him. He has not only been adopted by mommy - PU (me that is), but also has a creche and weekend getaway, a godmother, a granny and a couple of aunts. He must also aspire for the grumpy expression that Sajani's gift to me carries - a ceramic cat face mounted on a copper ring, not to mention toil hard to escape the shadows of a name so cruel.

So it turns out what Hitanshu said about the feelings of mothers feeding their children is in fact, a fact We are indeed orgasmic about it. As I watch Duffer, aka Junglee Maharaj finish his rice-and-fish breakfast, a comforting calm sets in inside of me. I know little about motherhood. Even less about childbirth. But when this closet butler hops about at play, eats to what we may think – his heart’s content, shits the right colour and texture, and sleeps like he were living Lennon’s Imagine, a mother couldn't ask for more.

Adopting a cat away from home had always been on my mind. City hopping more than twice seemed to be a self-disqualifying criterion. And my record was superlatively appalling.

And just then, opportunity knocked. Aditya’s mail brought to life an almost dormant ability. Of course, Sajani made the journey literally, a breeze. Perhaps it had been the wish to take care of another being and give one’s all. Some of us enjoy being depended upon. Even if at times the pressure may get to us, we continue doggedly towards being carers: carers of the sick, carers to the old, carers to our spouses and children. I chose Duffer – my tom cat of about 6 weeks now. Yet, using words like chose and adopt fall flat. It is always the other way around with them felines. They just deign upon us the privilege, really.

In the past month, many lessons have been wielded my way. From the everyday phenomena of worms and gas, to more startling realizations about forced stability, independence and channelling energies and one’s attention.

My hot hangouts and places to meet new and interesting people are vet clinics and pet stores or pet sections in malls now. I bond over felines and canines and read up about food grade diatomaceous earth online.

Feminism, existentialism, communism, cataclysm have all been tossed out of the window. People are judged on the basis of their ability to get along with quadrupeds, not bipeds anymore. Compassion and not sympathy are prized. Education or the lack thereof is completely ignored. All that rules… is instinct.

I am poor today

But I just don;t learn.

I have recorded this on this blog before. That I've been broke. At 24 it seemed ok. at 27, it feels a little beneath dignity. How does one explain such phenomena? Yes I'm on a guilt trip. When the bank account has less money than what you've lent people, and you are yet to pay the month's rent, bai's pagaar, your share of the electricity bill, phone bill, and then your contribution for the month's groceries... yes. I'm poor.

Season of song or song of the season?

My jazz teacher wrote the most wonderful words for me in a mail two days ago. Not like ‘you move like a gazelle, my love’, more the sort that could only come from him. For my poems, for my words, for me.

Allan is on the mailing list of my poetry blog along with only 9 other people since quite a while. From time to time, when my verse strikes a chord with him particularly, he responds on email. I don’t know if the personal note is a conscious effort to not make too much of a footprint on the public web, or just his way of showing he’s not flippant.

Either way, his mails have always been thoughtful. Barely a few lines. Usually one or two, Allan would never end at just one empty word though. 'Nice's and 'good read's are not his thing.

But this time, his mail was not only different from usual, it became something of a short conversation. He asked if I wrote what I felt or just random thoughts. In my response, I told him that usually it's just collated thoughts - ideas of which one may think, thoughts others voice or just words I may have read somewhere.

He replied with appreciation for my 'capture of emotions'. He said they are 'the kind of thought that one thinks, staring at the ceiling or when silent tears soak the pillow' and signed off with this line "Lie, that you want to lay beside me".

When someone writes to you and chooses also to add just one more simple thought, can you help but sit back and recall your favourite memory of such a being?

Allan had taught me my first jazz number. When I was barely quitting teens and in the middle of my first college play (managing music, and still in school myself), Allan and I met a second time and spent much time bonding over my lack of any awareness of Western Classical music and his expertise in it. Not only did he teach me the basics, but also tested my voice right then.

There are few people in the midst of whom I feel rather small. My music teacher is one. Singing to Allan Rodrigues was only the second. And then it happened. He taught me Summertime. I’ve probably heard more versions of the song since than I can remember – Sarah Brightman, Louis Armstrong, a Latino version, and more.

In my following mail, I told him of how this thought keeps visiting me from time to time – I don't see him for such long interims, it's not funny. But I feel honoured that despite his utterly reclusive disposition, he chooses to stay connected – and I don’t mind the seeking of an appointment the previous night on text or early morning on mail. His presence at my sister's wedding, all the music sessions with him at King's Circle...

I also told him how much glee I still experience when I sing my version of Summertime with a Malkauns bandish to those who will care to listen. How much surprised they look, and how thankful I am to him.

Somehow, the line he had signed off with  fit into my poem harmoniously. I felt compelled to weave it in and asked if I could flick it. The beautiful soul that he is to me, here's what he said...

"Your writing moves me and makes me want to respond. Strangely, whenever I am at my busiest, your writing appears in my inbox. Am at a day long workshop and here's the lovely poem...

Sing away. Summertime was my gift to you. Your rendition of it is your gift to me and others who hear it.

And to think that you want to use my line... feels nice inside. Didn't think I had an atom of writing in me.

Remember the time I used your line that said 'And some midnights,/ Many miles away,/ A text stirs you mid-slumber.'

I often hear your voice in my mind and think of songs you'd sing. I'd love to hear you again..."

Here's Lie on Mush Room, my poetry blog, with Allan's line incorporated.

Highway to high way

3 days. A long weekend. Many cat lovers. And a chocolate cake. As soon as I had moved to Pune three months ago, I knew this place had energy in store for me. I began to unlearn all my previous paces: of home, of Nizami thaat, of hapless filth. Even before I had arrived, I had been sold its lures. And the lure didn't lie so much in the monuments, in the food, in the city's chaos, oh no. Just people.
Plain vanilla people. 

Women with pishvis, men in collared tee shirts or bush shirts, young techies with id cards dangling around their necks like nooses, kids in uniform with oil drenched hair, the big cars and their humble drivers, the autowalas and their माझ. Indeed, the rosy winters and the perennial bougainvillas did their bit in making me fall in love with Pune, but it has, honestly, been the people who have visited me or the friends who I've met whilst they were here on business, that have strengthened the heartstrings even more. I am yet to strike out any of the items I had jotted down on my to-do list while I'm here. But no matter. There's a vintage Beetle, ragged and rusty, cobwebbed, with its paint chipped, waiting each day for me to turn right from - a landmark not preempted. A charm that has the power to surprise everyday.

And yet that is also not it. What about Veeram's house? What about my own? What about my favourite restaurant? And its काली दाल and बैंगन bharta that I've yet to savour again?

So Sajani was here over the weekend. Here only to see me and, on short notice, also to rescue Duffer, my newly adopted tom. Having known Saj for almost seven years now is a tad hard to believe, because really, it was only that first week of spending concentrated hours with each other several times that account for our experience of each other. For our knowing of each other. For our comfort of each other. We have never lived in the same city, leave alone studied or worked together. We come from culturally diametrically variant backgrounds. Our achievements differ from one another's, and so do our losses, but expression has been so liberating with her! And perhaps our judgement and opinion of each other came about painstakingly slowly, but it is only a thing of wonder how often through both our car rides to and from bombay this time, we seemed to have been having two parallel conversations with each other: a verbal one, that goes yaketty yakk, and then there's our eyes that meet almost as often as there is stupidity prevailing. And Saj's talent allows her to speak even with a poker face, where I may be tempted to break into a giggle, roll my eyes or simply hit my palm to my face.

I reckon that our judgement of people comes partly if not entirely, not only from our experience of the world, but also from our mothers. We often don't get their kinks, and yet. For hours, we would lie in our PJs analysing the people we love and hate, and when a third person would enter, suddenly shut our eyes - Eyes, gobs, tolerance too actually.

Bus ride with Sajani, Bombay, 2010

And that familiarity manifests itself in myriad ways. Whether it is her calming me in my own house after an especially tiring trip by articulating my thoughts exactly, whether it is to get chatty with my roommate, whether it is taking a bus ride across town right after a long flight or train journey, whether it is to wait in the lounge area of my office as I get my stuff and swipe out after bunking half the day in my boss's absence, whether it is to tolerate an especially irritating boyfriend for his inane and dated arguments and fielding each one with a hard verbal slap back in the days, whether it is cycling in the hot sun across her university campus. And yet none of these episodes quite define the scope of our friendship. If she were a guy, I'd have probably professed my undying devotion to him. Not only for what he'd've been, but for what he was doing to me.

Her pune trip, like all her visits to all the cities I've stationed myself for a while in, was short, but not meaningless. It was rich in conversation, in experience, in details and in thought. She fished out a teracotta ring for me with a grumpy cat on it from Milan. She took care of Duffer in his most critical first journey across towns. She ate whatever I gave her. And she drank simply. She walked, because she enjoys roads and trees just as much as I do. She warmed up to Veeram simply for the warmth I had for him. She fussed not. She complained not. She remarked. She judged. She dismissed.

She got me a box of strawberries so I could sing for her and we could smoke outside a shut shop sitting on the ledge in Aundh.

To be friends with Sajani is not an ordinary honour. She takes forever to warm up. Her mocking smile is hard to fathom - am I her subject of scorn, and therefore ridiculed, or does she truly respect me? Three years it took me to know what she thought of me, and she chose to bare all one evening in 2009 when all was beginning to look bleak, loss seemed inevitable, and abandonment seemed to look like the only way out for us cats.

There are people we feel the need to understand in order to love. Then there are people we must accept and love.

Diveagar

You must be a sea lover to trudge all the way to a Konkan beach. Not a swimmer
nor a boating or paragliding enthusiast, someone who could listen to the song of
the waves in the mild January sun, or stroll aimlessly picking up tiny red shells and
purple ones…

Diveagar is like that. At the end of a 10-mile diversion from Shriwardhan is this quaint little village. Apart
from a rundown MTDC shack, some clean facilities have come up in the past couple of years in the area.
Most are palm clearings of private land owners, who have erected some absolutely functionary brick
cottages. There are no views, except the one you can walk up to in a jiffy (c’mon, what would you call a
pristine beach five minutes from your stay?). But I’m jumping the guns here.

So the Konkan was on my list of destinations to visit for a longish time. Being a salt mist breather in
the Max City was never enough. But as soon as my guy got himself his first high power bike, I began
prodding him to go do test runs to the outskirts. Little did he know that I’d pounce on the first offer he
made to ride out. Where, was the question we both contemplated. After some discussion about my
aversion to the hills (it was COLD) and his to early morning rides, we zeroed in on Diveagar.


LOST & FOUND

Coordinates were googled. So were directions and things to see. Directions, we found alright, but things
to see, zilch. So when we got lost on the NH7 and couldn’t find the Goa Highway, we had the good mind
to stop for breakfast (we’d packed, please do, no vada pao wala at 7 in the morning, sir) and take in
the sun. Once on the right path (thanks to brilliant directions from a couple of petrol pump attendants
that my lovely man had the brightness of asking), the going wasn’t too tough except the last muddy
patch under construction. The red variants of flame of the forest flowers added to the arid beauty of the
Western Ghats.

Once you take the gala turn towards Diveagar from Shriwardhan, the road is pretty much one straight
path and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a sleepy sea town. But everything was so dry, that
we doubted just how far the beach would really be.

Typical home in Diveagar

STAY WHERE YOU MUST

We decided to head westwards and found ourselves one of the many cottage stays (@1500/- a night,
I’d say it was a bit steep, but options across these pristines are governed by Mumbai standards). A
comfortable bed, fairly clean and cosy, plenty of storage space and a bathroom as neat, we couldn’t be
bothered more about our accommodation. Having changed into beach gear, we decided to play it safe
on our first day and against our cottage keeper’s advice, drove down to the sea face. Two minutes flat.
Despite asking twice. We must’ve looked like two idiots.


SPARSE SURPRISE

At 4 in the evening, the beach was as crowded as it could be at any given point of the day. 20 people
(give or take a few) on a 5 km stretch. Some firangs and a couple of families, a horse carriage and a

camel. That was all the commercialisation one could see for as far as the eyes stretched.

By the time my partner had parked his vehicle, I had already run about a foot into the waves. We had
been told dolphins frequent these waters at the time of year. We forgot to look out, sorry. The kiss-n-
embrace happy couple was too busy to notice the hours spent lazing there. We promised ourselves an
early morning treat back on the beach. Not ones to rise before 11 on a weekend ever, Mr Boyfriend and
his girl caught each other staring wide eyed at 8 am, in anticipation of the surprise in the waiting.

View from our room

BREAKFAST ON THE BEACH

A giggle later we were already in our beach wear again. But mornings at the Diveagar beach are an even
greater digression from the evenings. A chai wali and a nariyal wala greet you without much ceremony.
We decided to make a breakfast date at the nariyal wala’s – resplendent with impossibly sweet malai
and the water, chilled as I remember it.


SERENDIPITY

The sun was beginning to get hot and we decided to head southwards on the beach. The walk wasn’t
one bit tiring, what with the breeze being a constant companion. Then the ornithology enthusiast in me
spots a mob of birds at a distance. White and gracefully moving in tandem, I decided to move closer.

A half kilometre down on foot and I realise there was water both sides of me. A river (Vashisti, I was to
later discover) met the sea here! Why didn’t anyone tell us this piece of detail, hullo?! On closer look,
we found the birds were migratory seagulls here for the mating season. One also saw another migratory
bird, the ruff, which few people would spot unless they went really close. These birds nest in the sparse
grass that sprouts on the muddy banks near the confluence and run around as if a mini football match
were on.

Only the river bed itself was firm,
everywhere else the feet sank at least 6-8 inches deep!

SINKING SINKING

The sand sinks really deep – almost like quicksand – and it is pretty hard to walk. We still waded the part
to land ourselves into the last bit of river water (do not even THINK of stepping onto the beach on the
other end here – you can spot the carpet of seagull poo from pretty far off). Our trigger happy boy shot
a few hundred snaps before calling it a day.


FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Surprisingly, for a couple who thrives on great food, we weren’t too fussy about the lack of variety.
Diveagar is still a budding destination (and may God keep it that way). For a town so tiny, the take aways
are too many to count. Be sure to leave at a sane morning hour and savour the vada pao around the
bend. A couple of the most melodious and dignified bhajan singers visit in their finery, with a well tuned
harmonium and tabla.

Accident ho gaya rabba rabba

So almost a year after my last right leg injury, a new one decides to make its presence felt. I've always seen accidents as signs. I've now had three fairly major ones with men whilst riding pillion on their bikes. Same leg. Different spots (god's been kind?). Heck I love them. And accidents with a man for company are even better. Not the injury, of course, just the whole follow-up frenzy ensuing the mishap.

The rush to the closest clinic to get the injury checked, being lifted by three men because I’d have fallen otherwise, to be bought and brought a way-too-big bar of chocolate and glucose to prevent me from fainting, the cleaning of the wound, the stitches, the dressing, the affectionate care, buying medicines, getting me to eat (evidently I’m pretty difficult to bring to that at such times), the making me comfortable… The process is much like taking a trip with someone. Suddenly you know so much about him or her. Kind'a in isolation, because he or she takes on the carer's role. And when you're away from home, you can't really take them for granted unlike the mother at home.

I reckon, like anyone else, I too prefer physical injuries to hurt of the heart.

But I think what I’m already beginning to enjoy even more than I did last night, as I told Veeram, is his house. Our Saturday night haunt, Veeram’s house aka The Weekend Getaway (TWG :P) is truly just the therapy one wants at the end of an especially unfavourable week. Of course, when you arrive at the humble 2 BHK abode, the clutter of mattresses, antique furniture, clothes, curios, books, condom and cigarette boxes, rum bottles, sheaves of papers, musical instrument first hits you and you want to flee as soon as. Then a veteran privileged holds your hand and leads you to the sanctum – the shrine of Veeram – and then it dawns upon you  as you take in these extremities, that this house is really beautiful!

To be absorbed into V’s space is a lot about one’s personal fortune. By nature, the man (and one of the most cultured hosts) is a recluse. His space is so his and shut away from all things commercial and dispassionate, that you’d have to be a musician to gain license to enter. And once you have won his approval, you could be a third grade architecture student or even just an ordinary copywriter, and yet be personally invited for successive weekends to spend hours elaborating and exploring the intricacies of Raag Desh punctuated with some Puriya or the dreaded Todi, and gracefully end with Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.

And yet V’s place is not even about the things in it, or its people. It’s really about him. How warm he makes one feel on the coldest winter nights, how free he can set you from the clutches of where you come from and where you must head afterwards. You might get to listen to staples and a few new numbers. Some classical, some jazz, some baroque melodies.

There is of course, the conversation that meanders with sharp turns and steep falls and sudden heights of passionate discourse about music, love, freedom, values, religion, food (of course!). To most, V would seem something of an idealist oddity amidst compromising commercialization of our time and place. And even that is not what defines his home. One time he might tell you how he egg-napped a pigeon’s egg to teach it a lesson to not hover around his balcony again, and then he would also keep it safe. One of those puppy kidnappers, this.

I have still not managed to articulate what it is about V’s place that elates me each time I’m here. Veeram says, (about the walls in his house) “they have absorbed everything in the past two years.” And why not? The evidence is all over the place. Dates, arbitrary mind-thoughts, caricatures have been graffitied on all the walls of the house – in paint, felt pens, pencils even (like a 4-year-old that’s just learnt to write and draw)!

I have now flown kites here, spent nights, taken in the night’s horizon and the day’s view of the hills, swum, cooked, lay injured, sang and confessed in this house.

Comfort is an understatement for what one experiences here. Let it suffice to say then, that it’s the only place in years where I sleep like a child. For someone who is a light sleeper, it’s like letting a mask slip. Deliberately. In blind trust.

 

Love, of course!

Mushy Bollywood songs galore at the office this morning, and while I was just beginning to nauseate, Paroma laid her cards - I hate all these pink love songs! On impulse I reasoned that the Beatles too wrote them, but then I withdrew it. Not because I was suddenly confounded by the feeling that I was wrong, but because Valentine's day seems to have lost all meaning.

Someone at work asked me a few days back if I was doing anything special. And pop came the answer, "Valentines Day is for love. Not awkward fumblers." And a few days later I was told "I hope you're not expecting something spectacular...(for Val's day, that is)", and of course i dismissed it with all the dust and smoke doing the rounds in the confines of Aditya's 1 BHK.

Subir once told me that I wear my heart on my sleeves. Not so much a cassanova as a दिल फ़ेंक. Back then, it felt like a jab. A jab of judgement. Of being told off. For having just the infinite ability to love someone to bits, to love selflessly. Anyone. Anyone who was willing to receive. Anyone who was willing to acknowledge. Not even return. Just tolerate it. Honor, perhaps. Respect it. Keep it safely, if at all (?), in something of a sealed treasure box so no one stole it.

I even remember when this conversation with Subir had happened. Last January. Or Feb. I wept on the phone as I told him about my decision of leaving town. Almost achingly. That afternoon, because I had finally confronted my broken heart. Like often before. Of all oftens, Subir has known. Perhaps I spoke to him because he too has loved and lost but not stopped out of fear.

Somehow, every time Subir asks me to be careful, I chuckle to myself. What's love that isn't ruthless? What is love that hasn't that element of gay abandon? A certain mad glint in the eyes, a wild ring in one's laughter, some sarcasm, some confession, some forgiveness, all truth and nothing left to the imagination. Love isn't a game of reward and punishment. It isn't even an equal barter or equitably divided. There's no more, or less of it. It's not darts in the dark. It's a law that sees. Understands. And still plunges head first.

So sure, there must be quite a few who weigh the pros and cons in this transaction, but one half of the balance will always be heavier. That half will always demand more or give more or laugh more or forever weep!

So why must one love still, with that complete disregard for hurt and its ancillaries? Well, because that's how it's done. Because without love, February would be January! Because they don't call love a form of madness for nothing. It is not a task that must be carried out with preset steps, milestones and goals. Those are hurdles that cause falls. A fear of loss. And of course, like some people who think tattoos are addictive, love's hurt is no less heady! Distance, space, jealousy, indifference, callousness, abandonment - even if momentary - heck, just sleep.

But man the scar is beautiful. And to admire its story at a later date is nothing short of the greatest exhilaration, the pride of having earned it.

Tonight, I do fear losing. Tomorrow I might even lose; I might or might not be lost. It's 2012. the world is ending anyway. We lost our favourite and one of our first Profs at undergrad university on Sunday. A little bit of love can't kill anyone! So Love... Love... Love...

Hair

THIS short

Cutting my hair THIS short is always an unplanned affair. The itch begins a few weeks before though, but it almost always ends in this length or shorter. Of course, I've achieved a feat I've striven for, practiced and finally mastered over the past 7 years on several occasions. And while both roomies have been spectators, actively eventually assisted me in getting there tonight, and even applauded the outcome, the happiness is of simply losing it all. Yes, it's true. 

I've seen women cut their hair on film in a few films. One image I distinctly remember is Kalki Koechlin at it in Dev D. That is not to say, of course, that my attempt germinated from some sense of anger or suppression. If anything, it has made me so happy, I could dance all night! 

Not only does the loss of all my midway and reluctant-to-grow-more tresses that much less weight to bother with on myself, but also seems like a metaphorical unburdening from all the stress of having to cover my head and fuss over it all the time thanks to the dry and dusty weather of Pune. 

Social commentators the world over have maintained, as has research established, that short hair is the ultimate sign of confidence among women. Well I don't know about all of that. I know it doesn't make me look horrid, and I know my long and slender neck looks fabulous! 

I finally feel like shopping again! Finally going back to being the 13-year-old who cared two hoots about the frivolous housewives in the neighbourhood who thought my mother was mad not to encourage me to look more feminine (yeah, try growing up with a bunch of ruffians for boys, woman!). I don't know if I shall go back to my long hair. The only time it appealed was when I was so preoccupied with the charm of hyderabad; when I thought I didn't even have time to catch a breath because, oh god! there was so much to be done - classes, plays, concerts, assignments, my journo work, music, hanging out with friends who mattered over midnight cups of tang and elaichi cream biscuits. 

No, I am not that anymore. It was my time of being lazy, and stable. That was, actually, my only truly linear phase of life. Uf. Look at me, analysing phases and connecting nonexistent dots over a blasted hair cut!

And remember, घर की खेती... whatever makes me happy... it ain't yours babay!

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.