Excuses

Dudes, this year has not started well at all. At the end of last year my parents lost a family friend and at the beginning of this we lost an uncle.

And of course despite the best intentions I have not kept to my promise of writing more. As usual I have the excuses. And normally I would pooh pooh them away as immaterial, call myself a procrastinator and move on but this time hear me out willya? I had a terrible case of bacterial tonsillitis: one so painful that I was in tears when the doctor was checking them out. After a 7 day course of antibiotics which knocked me back into exhaustion I have rarely felt, I was all better. For the first 3 of those 7 days I relied heavily on V to look after the kid each evening and then finish his work. He was as exhausted as I but held in there like a trooper and all round good guy.

I then had a week of feeling fine. Back to work and evenings of play food bathe milk story and sleep routines with my child. We flew to snowbound Switzerland for the weekend to attend a farewell party for friends moving east. All in all life was back to normal. Then on Monday afternoon my throat started playing up again. I could feel my tonsils inflate like lifeboats trying to make their escape. It’s back and this time its viral, a different ball game apparently. As painful nonetheless. I am on a combination of painkillers as apparently antibiotics will have no effect. And I literally have no voice.

I guess this is when all that writing will help…..I am reduced to working by passing notes to colleagues and using sign language with my child. Such are the days. I am going to see a nurse practitioner tomorrow. I am going to lobby to have my tonsils removed. I have had a long and unhappy relationship with them and I think it’s time we break up, gateway to allowing unhealthy germs in be damned.

I can only hope February is better.

That Great White Sofa

I first learnt about death when our dog died - I was just about to enter my teens. I only understood its permanence and the meaning of absence with two deaths in my early twenties, first losing my grandfather and then a few years later my college flatmate. Both were sudden and unexpected, shocking jolts to the heart which I thought of only as a muscle and not so much an emotion.

I haven’t been writing at my unbelievable pace(!) because at the very start of the year the vast but close circle of my mother’s first cousins has suffered a terrible blow. We lost my Ravi maama, first cousin to my mother, beloved husband to M maiji and father to my cousins M and R. Even coming after an illness it was sudden and unexpected, a text alert from my mum in the wee hours of the morning. My mother was distraught, her sobs disallowing any words to be spoken as I uselessly held the phone and let her cry. It is impossible, in my view, to find words that adequately describe how empty the world can suddenly seem. She needed to cry and I needed to listen and tell her I loved her.

My tears came later. I am not big on crying, preferring the comfort of a closed bathroom with a running tap to mask my own. But no matter who says what, sometimes just crying through it can express some of how you feel, whether you do so in private or public. When the crying is done what’s left are all those memories of his big laugh, his amazing sense of humour, his bravery in the armed forces and how adored he was by us all. He told me at my brother’s wedding recently that my son had our family’s mischievous smile but that his cheeks could do with a bit of Mathur fattening up. That is my last memory of him. I know that lives are to be celebrated but that is the world’s hardest thing when it seems bleak and harsh and less one very important person.

I cannot even imagine what my cousins and my aunt are going through but I know that each of them has a life of memories to do with maama and these will bring a smile to their faces in time. There are no words that I or anyone can say that will bring them closer to closure - that is a course each person must run alone - but I do hope that knowing so many people have them in their thoughts helps in some small measure. And as unreal as it sounds while in the very middle of very real grief, I can only add that time takes away some of the raw pain and leaves behind a plethora of memories.

I like to think of life after this one as a large white sofa; the image gives me peace. And everyone I know that’s gone before us congregates at it for their evening drink and a bit of a chat, sharing jokes and passing on news about us to those gone before. I can imagine my nana and his brothers sipping martini’s, smoking pipes and the odd cigar and cracking jokes only they get. I know they wait for news of us and I know maama will be most welcome, his smile and infectious laughter joining theirs to be the murmur of the heavens above.

Hello

Hello New Year!

I'm still here!

I'm still here?

Yes!

Really?

I promise.

To do better?

One can only try!

Please try hard, ok?

Will you still come read my endless series of things and random lists?

Maybe.

Well, see you tomorrow then.....

Happy New Year!

365

This is post 365 - a pretty poor showing for a blog that's been around since before I turned 30. Maybe it's a sign that this is not sustainable. I am still pondering my decision. I won't go without saying goodbye though.

This between Christmas and New Year week we are just chilling at home and in the local area, playing silly games and running around with our son, eating chocolate and pizza, reading avidly and sleeping loads. It's the one week of the year when we get to unwind unwind rewind unwind. And so that is what we are doing, earnestly. You?

Memory Box 6: Christmas tree

We are not christian but so many of our friends and neighbours are that we celebrate with enthusiasm. The Fernandes's, the Kurien's, the Coehlo's, the Elley's, the Ghosh's. For many years of my Delhi childhood we go to midnight mass with my parents friends (more for the carols and a chance to stay up till past midnight in the warm company of friends on a cold Delhi winters) , we eat a jolly tasty Christmas day lunch and enjoy 'tasters' of christmas cake for weeks before and after. December is undoubtedly a fun month to be a child.

But of all the Christmas days of fun and food the memory most endearing is my very own Christmas tree. My ingenious mum has taken all the bangles off her wooden bangle stand and decorated it with cut green crepe paper, a star on top and a number of homemade decorations from my childhood and hers. On Christmas morning there is most certainly a present for me next to the tree. The tree is smaller and happily the present usually drwarfs it.

There is a picture of me and my christmas tree languishing somewhere in an album. In it I am around 6 years old and standing next to a wicked Christmas tree with a somewhat toothless grin.

I want to find that picture next time I go home. In the meanwhile, Merry Christmas world.

The Fake Malayali

Ok so I'm not doing a travelogue because this place has been done and done again many times over by people far better equipped and verbose than I. Kerala. Where half my genetic material is from and a place I am sad to have ignored for most of my adult life. So this time we spent a week in Kerala, staying at a very beautiful hotel in Cochin, going to my hometown Palakkad briefly, attending a family wedding, visiting Guruvayoor to pray and offer in weight bananas and sugar equivalent to my beautiful son, spending a day on a houseboat in the stunning backwaters and attending the most beautiful temple festival in my uncle's home.

BTW I hate blogger with an amazing intensity as the bleedin pictures refuse to do as I command. So here are a few pictures from our trip which are all haphazard and incorrectly marked (and for once I am not to blame!)*:















The view from our hotel room in Cochin

'aaati' or 'aaaa' (aana) as my kid says

















the very beautiful Guruvayoor

















the stunning backwaters

the elephants decked in their finery at the temple festival

*(with a rubbish camera, whose lens has seen cleaner and child fingerprint free days)

The Five XII

1. I wish I could say that it's the snow and freezing weather that's kept me from blogging, but really it's just sheer unadulterated laziness.

2. It is freezing though. And all I want for Christmas is to stay in doors and drink mugs of hot chocolate and watch mindless television. Chasing around after our very little person will have be taken in turns with V as I intend to come back to work in 2011 very relaxed and unwound.

3. I've been to India on holiday (one of my many reasons for not blogging is food, rest and laughter induced laziness). I shall not blog lengthily about this but over the break shall endeavour to post some pictures of our lovely break from the routine of work.

4. Here are 3 book recommendations for the holiday season: The Confession by John Grisham (whose last book was a terrible disappointment - this is a return to form); The Help by Kathryn Stockett (absolutely one of my favourite reads of this half of the year); Shadow Princess by Indu Sunderesan (the third in her series about the Mughals, after the Twentieth Wife and Feast of Roses, this book has taken it's time getting here but is absolutely worth the wait - read them in order if you can although it isn't necessary for the continuity of the storyline, just for the timeline of history). Beg/ borrow/ buy them, curl up with a blanket and/ or cup of something and enjoy the mind food.

5. To blog or not to blog, that is the question. In this already overgrown garden of cyberspace I am begining to feel quite weed-like, insignificant and in need of a good pulling out from the soil. I am going to mull this over and make a decision over the next 10 days or so.: to begin again elsewhere or resolve to re-discover my love for blogging my mundane life and what amuses it right here or to just stop completely. In the meanwhile I will blog regularly (everyday? with pictures?) for the next 10 days. I bet you don't trust me. Well, honestly, neither do I.

Kitchen confidential – 5

Note: All this in the past but I feel compelled to finish this narration. Bear with me.

1. Wednesday has been terrifyingly disorganised. Instead of clothes shopping I spend the day signing in materials as they are delivered and packing enough stuff to make the move simple yet effective.

2. The Sahara like sand dune makes it impossible to even make a cup of tea. I resort to a walk to the mall for a cold sandwich. The old kitchen lies like an empty shell of itself in our living room blocking any TV viewing.

3. On Thursday we can only move in to the New Place after 4pm as they clean after the last guest checks out at noon. The New Place is in the serviced apartments across the courtyard from our building. We are given a choice of apartments by the kind lady who manages it – either the very large penthouse which is in shoddy condition after the last long term guest checks out today. Or a 2 bedroom place for the first 4 days and then a smaller 1 bed place for the next few days. Guess which option we took? Go on, guess?

4. So penthouse. Not so shoddy people. Utterly beautiful and about 5 times the size of our apartment. A huge entrance hallway. Two floors. 3 huge bedrooms. 4 bathrooms. A large eat in kitchen. A formal dining area in a glass conservatory with a table to dine 16. A huge double height formal living room with 3 walls of floor to ceiling glass. A smaller informal living room. And a terrace the size of my apartment. It needs its cable TV fixed and maybe some touch up painting but with 5 TV's to choose from and views to turn teh eyeballs square I am certainly not complaining.

5. My kid thinks he is in heaven. He comes in to the flat and runs around like a loon, giggling with joy after the cramped space he has had to contend with for a few days now. The main bedroom is big enough for a large bed, wardrobes, chest of drawers, his travel cot, a bench, an armchair and there is still enough space for him to run around in. Our bathroom has a bath and a shower, double sinks and enough space to fit 4 normal sized bathrooms in. If I were him I too would be thrilled with all this space to run around in, spread my toys in. Life is good when you are 1 and your biggest problem is where to stack your 10 blocks.

6. We do go home everyday to look at how much the sand dunes are shifting i.e. what if any progress is being made.

7. The old kitchen has been given away and the new kitchen arrives all wrapped in plastic. I can't envision what it will look like at the moment ( I can't see the kitchen for all the dust!), but I think that what we will end up with will be dramatically different from what we had. More different that we imagined when we began.

8. I spend Friday in the builders van being driven around outer London buying things like grout and tile adhesive besides going from showroom to showroom choosing the perfect tiles and the most gorgeous new wooden worktop in the history of worktops. I still have no new winter wardrobe. At this point however, I am too tired to care.

9. This very designer living is messing with my head. On the weekend we have friends come and marvel at the wonder that is our temporary living accommodation. We eat cold and late pizza and ooh and aah at the space in and the views from this amazing flat.

10. The builders work on Saturday and we can see how quickly it is coming together as the tiles go down, re-plastering begins and the first of the units is assembled. If it goes at this speed we should be back home by the end of this week. We should be thrilled right? Builders who are hardworking and committed to delivering on time - who has them? But the real question is not when will they finish? Or even, how amazing is my kitchen going to look? The real question my friends is this: How oh how will I ever adjust to my humble abode after this amazing place?

Kitchen confidential - 4

1. I have a week off. When I applied for the week it was because I am in desperate need of winter additions to my wardrobe. Not because the kitchen was on the plan.

2. Coincidentally it has turned out that this IS the week the builders plan to start work. My intention has always been that I would take 1 day off is to give the builders the keys, show them where all the electric and water mains are, where the kettle, mugs, tea, coffee, sugar and milk are, and then leave.

3. I fully intend to go into central London and buy a new overcoat (winter is coming despite all my mental powers to avert its path) and some proper winter office clothes (I have been a bum in jeans too long)

4. Over the weekend of shoving all our furniture into the tiny room that doubles as guest room and kid’s room it has become apparent that living in the flat is going to be a chore while the work is continuing. Possible dust aside, it seems that we will have to confine all our activities to our bedroom. This is not much bigger than a postage stamp, especially now that kid's cot and playmat and all his toys also live in it.

5. We decide that it is worth our sanity to move out for a week. Of course it’s Monday morning by the time we come this decision.

6. So on this, the first day of my week of leave for relaxing and shopping, I am on the phone calling every estate agent and rental service apartment in the vicinity to see if anything at all affordable is available at such short notice.

7. Of course there isn’t. What’s affordable isn’t available and what’s available isn’t affordable. I begin to use contacts I have to suss out any deals. Monday has flashed by in the blink of an eye and I have not yet one new item in my winter wardrobe. And no place to move to. Damn.

8. It’s Tuesday. The builders are here. Today and tomorrow they will remove the kitchen, unit by unit, appliance by appliance and tile by tile. They will disconnect electric points, bring down walls and begin to put up new walls and re-plaster.

9. I spend the evening entertaining my son by showing him ducks and staying out of the house till bath and bed time. And then perched on some very dusty dining chairs late that evening, eating microwave dinners off our laps, we have a breakthrough for a place to stay. From Thursday.

10. When I said ‘possible dust’ (pt.4) I clearly had no idea. It’s like the Sahara in here. All that's missing is an oasis.

Kitchen confidential - 3

1. Over the weekend, and a few days before even, we began to pack up our kitchen in preparation for what is no doubt going to be a star kitchen. IN fact it is not going to just be a start kitchen it is going to be THE star kitchen.

2. So we were given 3 cardboard boxes which fitted all the main big cooking utensils and some of the smaller knick knacks that we seem to have hajaar of.

3. Then we bought 4 plastic boxes and began to fill those up. They filled up fast what with plates, masalas, other kitchen crap. We stuffed the first one and it broke as we tried to move it. So we had to dump it in a corner (still stuffed) and cover it with a bedsheet. Lesson learnt was to spread out the heavy stuff, share and share alike.

4. Then we moved our sideboard out of the kitchen. Now this is a beautiful sideboard we bought a few months after we moved into this house. It has provided all the extra storage we have needed so far. I have no intention of getting rid of it. Where I shall keep it in this already cluttered house is altogether another matter.

5. The sideboard and most of the living room furniture has moved into the kids room. The kid has moved to our room. His toys and floor mats are spread out between both rooms. The sideboard has been stocked up with what we are likely to need as a functioning kitchen over the next few weeks. Cutlery, plastic utensils for us, ready food for kid.

6. The dining table and chairs have moved to in front of the TV as has the giant bookshelf. The bookshelf has been emptied and serves as part 2 of our makeshift kitchen with kettle and tea and coffee things for the workmen. TV in front of the dining table is kids dream come true as now he can watch M.I.C.K.E.Y while he chews on every meal....

7. The second bathroom has been cleaned and sterilised so that it can be used as a makeshift kitchen. This level of hygiene will have to be maintained as it is also what the builders will use for water for things like plaster beside using it as a loo.

8. Coffee table glass and other breakables have been balanced delicately on the spare bed.

9. Cooking has become thing of the past as all utensils have been packed. For now I am enjoying takeaways and home delivery but I can already see how much I miss the ritual of cooking and eating something I made most week evenings.

10. The kitchen hasn’t even started but already we are exhausted.

Kitchen confidential - 2

1. My dream kitchen is IN the catalogue. I did not know it was my dream kitchen till I saw it. Also I am easily swayed by pretty pictures and the most impractical yet beautiful design. I am a marketers dream.

2. Turns out that that was my dream kitchen only in THAT dream. I turned the page and lo and behold another kitchen is calling out to me.

3. I am not going to be indecisive. I show V the shortlist of 2 from the catalogue. He points at the one he likes best, says we should ‘go for it’, and with his winning smile makes me think that it was all my bright idea to begin with. I love this man.

4. So I look some more and finally decide on which kitchen I want from the catalogue. Although I don’t want its appliances or tiles or worktop.

5. I want an American two door fridge freezer, a pull out larder, a wine cooling fridge thing and an island. Yes, an island. One of those big block things in the middle of the kitchen around which my many friends and family sit and sip wine while I cook Boeuf Bourguignon a la Nigella Lawson. An island with hidden storage and a genie/housekeeper that will bake us muffins and iron clothes.

6. My kitchen however, is not co-operating. It is too small and everything appliance wise will have to stay exactly where it was. No big fridge freezer for this home, no siree.

7. You know how people say ‘your eyes are bigger than your tum’? Well it turns out that my eyes are bigger than my kitchen. Waaay bigger. My real kitchen would fit on the island in the middle of that dream kitchen - such is the discrepancy between my mind’s eye and the real dimensions.

8. The sad reality is that I am the island in the kitchen. I will stand in the middle of the units and whirl about being the genie/ housekeeper who only whips up sad sandwiches.

9. Now that I have made my peace with the ‘no island’ part of the programme I am digging in in earnest to make sure that my chosen kitchen will suit our small flat, limited space and budget. Does such a creature exist?

10. I have decided on a kitchen with black units and oak worktops and Travatine wall and floor tiles. I have negotiated what I think is an expensive but fair deal with my builders to pull this one out, make a few structural alterations, fit the new kitchen, paint and clean up after themselves. Let the games begin.

Kitchen Confidential – 1

1. Being a maha-procrastinator it has taken 4 years of grumbling about the lack of space and general condition of the kitchen before I have bothered to do anything about it.

2. I know that builders are not to be plucked out of thin air. I have watched Rogue Traders you know.

3. So I have turned to the cyber world and a local group of people I mostly trust – mums in my area - to advise me on how to find builders.

4. Not long before there are plenty of recommendations; helpful mums writing in with anecdotes of who has done what for them, honest criticisms and plenty of advice on what to expect, especially with a small child in tow.

5. I go to see my neighbours efforts at re-doing their bathrooms which can now safely be called Glorious Wet Rooms Of Super Deluxe Hotel Standard. They designed it and then sourced the materials themselves. By learning how to do large chunks of it themselves, they only paid for part of the labour. My mad head nodding at their proud pronouncements only confirms (silently) that I will never be interested in DIY, I have not thought about the design and have no clue as to what I want beyond the all encompassing ‘I want a new kitchen’.

6. I get the feeling I am going to have to throw money at this. The design, the kitchen and builders. As I am certainly not talented nor inspired I have decided I want and need to be rich. Or miserly.

7. Most highly recommended builder in local area is called. He is part 1 of a duo (henceforth BP1). Part 2 (BP 2) is on holiday (probably with the oodles of money he has earned off other beleaguered mums looking for counter top space for sterilisers {!} like myself).

8. BP 1 comes to see us. Has an Italian name and accent to match. Brings a kitchen catalogue. Is upfront about the fact that he can get us a huge discount if we use this company and that he will make a good commission. But completely open to us choosing a kitchen from anywhere. Or even helping us design one ourselves - from scratch. As if.

9. The catalogue is thick and the colour pictures very enticing. I am imagining/ dreaming/ visualising how lovely my kitchen will look when all this crap is pulled out and replaced by one of the state of the art kitchens.

10. Of course I have not factored in the size of my kitchen or what a big hole this shall blow in the bank account. I am nothing if not a dreamer.

The Five XI

1. If you live on a tropical island and / or it is sunny and balmy where you are look away now for there is more complaining to come. August was rubbish as far as summer went. Every time I exclaimed how lovely and sunny and bright the day was it would promptly turn cloudy and piss it down and turn windy and cold. Bleh! I am hoping for some lovely last of the summer sunshine from September though and so far it looks promising. As for now always talking about the weather like a British person I guess I am a reluctant convert. I understand the need to talk about it ALL.THE.TIME. because mainly it’s perpetually mucking with transport (come snow, hail, shine or rain) and everyone’s plans for everything from weekends to birthday celebrations or night’s out depend on the mood that has been set by the weather. As fodder for conversation it helps that some days (like Sunday past) we have all seasons in the 24 hours - that can keep our conversations going waaaay long!

2. There is a Tube strike (another thing mucking with the transport). Which means nothing if you work from home or walk to work or better still don’t work at all but instead meander to the park with a small child and his trike behind you. However if like me you do use the system, today’s breakdown could mean an hour and half of rubbish commuting packed into a bus of sweaty people instead of 2 zippy tube trains and a 20 minute journey. I think I shall have to leave right after lunch. No mean feat considering I got here only in time for mid-morning tea.

3. I’m not very keen on Twitter. So far none have really captured my imagination and made me come back for more. I really don’t care for the life minutiae of ‘standing at bus stop’, ‘ate undabhurji for breakfast’ variety of information, even (possibly especially) if I know you or of you as a blogger. But to be honest beside the blogs I read and their twitter feeds (that I glance at but largely ignore in fabour of the real mcCoy) I have not really explored the tweeting world. However this might be about to change as I have begun to follow a few tweets of humour that are perfect strangers to me. Following one particularly funny twitter feed at the mo: The Queen. Particularly funny if you follow the fascination of the British public with it's Royals.

4. We had a weekend in Zurich to see friends and their two boys and to bond with V’s brother who had flown to the city from Singapore on work. Kid and Uncle bonded instantly. Kid and other kids had a good time. Their house with its 4000sq ft and every toy imaginable was like landing head first in Hamleys. Kid was highly excited. Short but lovely weekend.

5. So the Indian High Commission tale finally finished. Only the week it finished I had to go abck on an unrelated matter. That was not fun except that some woman in the line started having a go at me because she thought I was jumping the line which was a huddle of people rather than a curving line. And when I apologised I could not help but add the words ‘don’t get all antsy lady’ to which her reply was ‘what is antsy? Are you abusing me? What it means? Tell me now’. Frazzled nerves at 7.15am are pleasant for no one.

Day @ IHC: A play in 5 parts – Part 5: Drama of collection

“Be back at 3.30pm ok?” And with those parting word I had left the IHC.

It’s 3.30pm and with my little receipt slip I am back to collect the notarized documents. So are the other teeming masses, there to collect passports, surrender certificates, notarised documents, PIO cards and the little OIC booklets.

We are somehow all stuffed back into that dank little basement with it strip fluorescent lighting, sweating it out in our winter clothes with the warmth of humans stood too close together. My many friends (read story gatherers and fellow complaining parties) from the morning are back. We are standing at the same glass pane where this morning we jostled for the attention of the Two-in-the-power this morning. No one is here yet.

Suddenly the Two arrive and the Superior one yells at everyone to move back as the Officer is coming. Whaaaaa? I thought HE was the officer. Turns out he was the underling to the Officer. And anyway, move back where? The whole place is packed like a can of sardines and he and his precious Officer are behind a huge counter and glass pane barricade. So then he starts calling out random people’s names – again there is less than no point in having had a token of any kind as all this is random at best .

While I wait I realise that there is no fixed time for this to end and I have to make arrangements for V to pick the Kid up from day care. My phone battery is dying, the power lines inching away all day now. In a rush to get to the counter someone bumps my shoulder and the phone goes flying out of my hand, landing in numerous pieces on the floor. Kindly people scramble around till all the pieces are back together but to no avail – the phone refuses to be revived. I am near tears and exhausted to boot. Someone offers me his phone and I make hasty arrangements for the Kid to be collected and fed etc.

It turns out that over this lunch break no work has been done. The famous Two have merely piled all the papers into 3 piles, left them on the counter and retreated to a hasty lunch. Now as each person comes forward the Officer, a portly officious looking man in a blazer and moustache, looks back and forth between the photograph and the person and throws out remarks like, ‘this seems to be an old picture’ or ‘you don’t look the same’ or ‘ are you sure this is your picture?’ etc. Then he gets you to sign in his presence and signs them himself while the Two stamp the official stamp and say unhelpful things like ‘see madam, I told you bahut time nahin lagega’ (‘I told you it would not take a lot of time’ – he clearly has no watch) or’ Aaj to bahut fast hain sab’ (today everyone is very fast) or 'double work because of holiday you see'. Of course this is totally irrelevant and efficiency and any system are totally missing because there is no weight to the token receipts we got. The pile is at best random, at worst unfair. The Two just call out names as they see fit. After about half an hour of other people getting to go forward to be barked at my turn comes. I grin (barely) and bear it while the Officer tells me how different (i.e fat) I look compared to my passport picture. All signed and dusted I leave in a rush to go home. Never Again I hope.

Wishful Thinking I Realise.