Experiences

I’ve read this about hyper dimensions a long time ago (I’m paraphrasing freely, of course): If you are a species that cannot perceive the dimension of height, then if I slip a hula hoop on your head and place it around your feet, you will be my prisoner forever, because you wouldn’t know how to step over it. I never learned to ride a bicycle or a scooter or drive a car because way back when I was a teenager, girls were not allowed to learn such things.  By the time I was no longer in small town India, the diffidence was overwhelming. “Terrible sense of direction,” I said. “Such a bad sense of space that I’m lethal with the airport cart,” I joked. But really, it was just a hula hoop that imprisoned me. I am driven everywhere, mostly by men—drivers, friends, and relatives. Even our all-girl trips by road usually has a male driver. Off late, a small percentage of rides are with my girlfriends, but these are strictly within city limits. So when A suggested a 2000 kilometer ro

…talks a lot. And it is a good thing. A few months ago, my nephew, the budding film maker, made me walk through the streets of old Madurai city, as part of recci for his script. We randomly rambled around one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, feeling a little awed by its imposing history and complex cultural subtext. Then suddenly, we arrived at the site of some personal history. It was the street where his parents were married 31 years ago. Never before have I felt the weight of three decades as heavily as I did that day, because I wasn’t able to locate the wedding hall. There were a couple of them, neither carrying the name that is on my sister’s wedding card. We asked the guards and they scratched their heads. I called my mom, who also was not able to recall which end of the street the hall was. 31 years were long enough to change things around even in a forgotten little street in a city where changes happen very slowly.   31 years a

It’s been observed that the only time I’m quiet in a group situation is when I’m posting pics and writing about them on Facebook. I get very antsy and existential (“nobody loves me!”) if I don’t get at least six “likes” in the first 15 minutes of posting something. Recently, I cribbed so much that everybody in the group “liked” my post just to shut me up.   It’s also been observed that my selfie arm has become some kind of a bionic extension of me and I take incredible selfies and groupies. It is true that the same bionic arm posts pics on FB almost real time.   When I was of a suitable age (probably 10 or 11), my dad said: “Read the newspaper. It improves you!” Never did. Still don’t. Cannot. Read. Newspaper. The FB news feed is my newspaper. I find it pretty absorbing, entertaining and educational. I don’t understand when people say they have quit FB because it was getting to be “too much.” WhatsApp and its Babel-eque group chatter is too much. Twitter with its opinion-a-minu

Circa May 2012. Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve. I was standing on the grassy carpet that would be a lake bed in monsoon. But now, the water had receded far, drunk by the greedy sun that was beating down at a relentless 45 degrees. All around me was the deceptive quietness of the forest. As I walked around, training my camera at anything of interest, I discovered something profound. Under my feet was a universe of microscopic dimensions! What I took to be grass was not really just a homogeneous spread of indistinct greenery—it was actually a teeming world of multiple species. What’s more, every single one of them was blooming in a kaleidoscope of colors, much like the coral reef. Deep purples, shocking pinks, striking whites, bright yellows, and arresting blues were the flowers whose detail I could see only through my 70 – 300 lens at tight close up! And they were fed on by even tinier insects, bound to this world in a symbiotic marriage. And my God they were busy—with this

15 years ago, I met a boy from South Bombay. He was quite ridiculously intelligent and creative. He was funny and crazy to boot. I was a neophyte in Mumbai, all wide eyed and wondering, with the metaphorical small-town-South-Indian-coconut-oil still on my hair. For all our cultural differences, we could’ve well been from two different planets. No this is not a love story. Definitely not one with a happy ending. This is the story of the fast vanishing Art of Conversation a.k.a. “talking shit.” We talked miles and miles of deserted streets in Fort, Church Gate, Nariman Point, Colaba and Marine Drive. We talked hours and hours of Roxy, Metro, Sterling, and Eros theatres. We talked years of All Stir Fry , Under the Over (alas, not there anymore), Churchill and Crystal. We talked shit man. From “leading a life of quiet desperation” to Douglas Adams, Martin Scorsese, Incubus and Succubus, Warm Water under a RedBridge , sizzling brownies and the “greater creative question.”

Season of Love It seems like every young person in the 16 – 22 age group in Tamil Nadu is in love—with someone unacceptable to their parents. They are expressing their feelings vocally and dramatically, through TV music channels, FM channels, friends, WhatsApp and other social media. They are shaking up the very fundamentals of societal structures and hoary traditions. They are eloping or standing up to opposition; they are marrying in police stations, registrar offices and temples. Some end tragically, but a lot of them seem to be thriving, as parents are resigning to the new order. Sociologists might talk in terms of social mobility, aspirations, westernization, urbanization et al. Be that as it may, every time I call home, I hear one more story. Of clandestine actions, dramatic proclamations, and cinematic gestures. And Tamil movies—that bastion of “ energetic physicality and frank passions ”—supply the voice, plot, lyrics and music for these micro-epics unfolding in

Every city of character has that one book shop that defines its past, present and future cultural health. Isn't it strange that these book shops are invariably old, cramped with books, and curated in a way that will always surprise you? Sarvodaya Ilakkiya Pannai (Sarovodaya Literary Farm – a place that sows the seeds of knowledge) in Madurai is one such place. It matches the ranks of Strand Bookstall in Mumbai and Citylight Bookshop in San Francisco for the sheer variety, quirkiness and general lack of modern bookshop fancy-factor. A place for serious book worms, this! As I was browsing the Tamil pop literature aisle, several titles such as CIA Secrets, FBI Files and KGB Facts jostled for attention with some serious red books. But my fancy was captivated by a thin volume titled (I translate) “Aliens and continuing Mysteries.” It was just the book for me and my reading companion for the past three weeks – my dad. A rather unconventional book to read with my 78-year old fath