35 Pieces of Pasta

It was one of those mornings today. 

My maid (cook) called in sick at 6:20am.

Good news - I was awake and reading an unputdownable book.

Bad news - it was "Bad Mothers United" by Kate Long.

I didn't even work out 'cause I was lazy. 

And she had early school today. 

I ploughed on, I am 43, I can deal with one measly lunch box.

'How many farfalle does she need?' I mused aloud.

'35' he answered promptly. God bless him.

Sometimes your questions need precise mathematical answers.

'How do you know how much sauce to add?'

'Well, I just do' 

Sometimes I surprise myself with how good I am at food.

I blundered on after, all a-tizzy, 'cause today was going to be a good day.

I was going to make up for last week's unproductivity at work. 

The sambar thingie splattered down as I picked it from the fridge.

There was sambar (small onion) pretty much everywhere.

Including the ceiling, oh heaven help me. 

I calmed down as I cleaned. 

I think I deserved it 'cause I was whining. 

About the fridge which is over-flowing with stuff. 

Shouting in my head at the maid (cook).

Anyhow the kitchen got a good wipe.

The cloths are all done for & I found sambar in the MnMs.

But order prevails, generally! 

As for the lunch box? 

It went with a long note from her father.

It was all ignored. 

She shared the sandwich with a small boy. 

She rolled the used fork in the cloth napkin.

She brought back 10 farfalle, if you must know. 

On beauty and black eyes

one of those impossible girls in college was busy classifying us all. a good exercise for a lazy afternoon, and worth the effort since we were a surprisingly large number of girls, twenty in all (okay, it was some 5% of the total class strength nevertheless). so the categories were as follows:
(a) beautiful
(b) beauty conscious
(c) both

it was an interesting exercise. there were many in category (a). mostly they live in bangalore now (for some strange reason), though there is one in new york as well (yes, i mean you). there were some in category (b), as declared by the girl-friend, herself leading the list. thanks to modeling herself after certain ladies of foreign climes, i suppose chox found herself categorised in (c), along with a few others.

i was totally curious to know where i would be. of course (b) was out of the question. but since i am fair (for a south indian that is, okay fine, wheatish complexion if you will; okay now, i am not that fair, but i am surely very very just), i was totally sure that i would be in (a). come on now. what else could be the criteria except complexion? my hair. well. my big fat nose. there is that.

so of course i fell off the chair and felt like hiding in a dark corner when she said i am

(d) none of the above.

in a separate category all by my own lonesome self...

i was so upset i hardly talked to her the rest of the day (who am i kidding? i felt so proud to have my own category!) . the next day i cornered her again and asked her to state her reasons. then the story came out.

see, a month or so prior to this exercise, one fine day, we were playing basketball. since a tournament was sort of round the corner, the coach had brought in these kids from a nearby school (all boys) for us to play against. yes, its true. these were kids in the VII and VIII standard mostly. height-wise, it was okay with me, but there were other girls on my team that were normal. so anyway i was being my usual aggressive self (so what if they are boys half my age? i have never let that stop me, even now, from going nuts). the boys were trying to play a game amidst all the pinching and so on (just kidding, my girls were cool, never pinched or bit).

suddenly from somewhere two of us, one slightly rotund boy of VII standard, and my own self, skinny and wheatish with scraggly hair, collided in mid-air, presumably after the same basketball. the ball went on its way and found itself in other hands. my face hit his upper arm or elbow or some such, but when i landed back on the ground, i went away from collision spot muttering a sorry. later when examined in the hostel, it panned out that i had a nice wonderful black eye. people that have experience with black eyes know that they are also blue and tinged occasionally with flecks of purple and green. all in all, it was a beaut.

i went to class, merrily, my war wound on proud display. "basketball injury" i would tell people if (i mean when) they asked me. "oh ah" they said and went on their way. the professors kept their cool and silence, knowing that i was eccentric and crazy.

the girl friend in question was watching all this with avid interest (and much horror). she tried to pull me aside and advise me. "stay back in your room, don't step out" she said. "oh why on earth not? already my attendance in that class is close to bad and anyway it hardly hurts, just some discomfort" i replied. "no its not that" said she. "its just that its so ugly your eye and if i was in your place i would take every measure to ensure that no one sees my face looking like that."

i laughed at her and assured her i care a damn what other people think. and really, i was extremely of my black eye. whats there to hide? i wanted to portray this rough and tough and tomboy image, belying my five foot forty five kilo body structure. at any rate i hate fussing over small injuries and so on and would rather do everything to get back to normal conditions soon.

but that incident, coupled with myriad others of similar nature, put me in category (d), back then, all those years ago, in a college with twenty other girls (okay nineteen others if you want to split hairs), amidst three hundred smelly boys (none of whom were even considered for classification so i was, in a sense, one up on them).

this sunday, in our friendly game of basketball meanwhile, the husband, love of my life and what not, hit the ball when it was in my hand. it landed on my face. i tried to cleverly claim a foul which he refused to grant. at any rate the ball was still in my hand after that and ignoring the twinge of pain i continued the game, cursing him and calling him a brute all the while. when i got home i had a nice black eye, not as big as the earlier one, but there, nevertheless.

i remembered the good old days. i remembered and rejoiced at being in category (d). i refused offers to ice it (i suppose he felt a bit regretful about it later, considering i am just a month out of typhoid and stuff), and proudly went to office with it. nothing has changed, in these twenty odd years...

Let no one accuse me of missing out now

You know, all you glib people out there. I know you are there. Smirking at me. Laughing, rolling on the floor, snigger snigger. And why? Simply because I am so out of touch, have not even seen Ghajini (or Jaane Tu or Rab Ne or Dilli6 or oh fucket about it, any movie at all since Usual Suspects). Of course, full of bluster, I yell back at you. Why should I see these movies? I have read all the reviews no? Yours, and yours, and well, yours too, you smirker. Not to mention Mayank Shekhar.

But take this now. Yesterday. Sunday. Green distemper on the walls. The lizard's underside visible on the window glass. The husband referred to the squirrel as Anil (apparently, that is the correct Tam word for it. File away for Chennai usage). He had a death grip on remote as usual. Flipped here and there, to the scene where Monaca is in a white towel and Chandler is very thin. Then back to some dark looking HBO thing with Nicole Kidman looking thin (more thin than Chandler) and scary. Back again to SRK wearing something outrageous and blue and being remarkably clever (I think he is a smart guy, not just in comparison to that dork fellow of Preity Zinta's). Back again to some vague channel where Ghajini was just starting. I was about to go away, clutching head, saying, I have to study, when he requested, yes, he actually requested me, to watch this movie with him. I tried to reel off some bits and pieces from various reviews that I have read about it, to prove that it was a pain and I am better off studying my books. I also tried to convince him that if I watch it, he will have to forego the pleasure of flipping through our 90 odd channels in a sort of frenzy, and that includes the times when songs (although meaningless and having little bearing to the main story-line) play. He, however, accepted my terms, and requested me again. And I agreed to not insist on watching the ads. See, the stuff old marriages are full of. Simple compromises, and a child thankfully taking a nap in the other room.

So now I have seen the movie. I can honestly say that it was a pain. Made as little sense as a Govinda movie overall, and come to think of it, and at least Govinda never shows us his nipples. The feeling of fleeting youth stayed with me throughout. Despite the nipples and six pack and all, peoples, Aamir Khan has become old. Its very sad. You think of 'Chikni Soorat' when you, me, and good old Chocolate Boy AK were young and had our whole lives in front of us. Cut to now. All fit and all. Buff. Musculature is visible. But old ya. We are old. You, me, buff AK, all of us. Time to move on. The ad breaks when (flip) I got to hear all that SRK and Lalit Modi and Preity Zinta had to say about the IPL, while that guy of her's looked on in manner of demented person, were almost welcome.

Anyway now its done. Now I only have Luck By Chance and Rock On and Jaane Tu and Delhi 6 and Rab Ne and Slumdog and Little Zizou (really do want to see this) and so on to go. Fine, laugh away.

You missed that one!

I am not a good driver. I don't think I am a particularly unsafe driver, but I am not good. I admit it. I am not particularly fond of driving. I occasionally like the fact that I am in control of the vehicle (as opposed to a smelly driver or a rapidly degenerating to unspeakable Tamizh curses road rage filled husband), and I like to be in control definitely of the Bollywood crap I blare from the radio, but I don't like it all too much.

The trend was set early. As soon as we turned sixteen, my best friend in school (March born) and I (April born) set off one fine day to the RTO. Sat around sweatily and got our learners permits. Then did the stipulated wait of whatever it was (six months? Not very sure anymore) and went back to get the actual license. This was for a bike of course. "Gearless Two Wheeler" they called it. A TVS Champ belonging to my sis was my poison, and a TVS 50 (I think it was called that) belonging to her father was hers. We had a fair bit more leeway with the Champ, because quickly, within a year of acquiring it, my sister lost interest in riding it, and was happy enough to sit behind and pass comments and give detailed feed-back.

So, this is where the trend comes in. I was ECSTATIC that she would allow me to ride her precious bike, and also a fair bit proud. But then, when she sat behind me, she noticed a definite tendency I have when I ride or drive. And that can be described as "an undeniable attraction to pot-holes." I still remember her one day, thoroughly irritated with this habit of mine, tell me when we reached home as I was (proudly) parking the thing, "You missed that one out there", sarcastic like no one's business. Airspy used to occasionally allow me her Champ in college. But I never rode it outside the campus so my deplorable habits were probably not obvious to her. The campus roads being real nice and all.

Everyone knows of course that the key to avoiding things like the seven year itch etc. are to learn your driving from a school. The most avoidable situation in a marriage is when the husband teaches the wife to drive. The opposite may work out okay, not sure, have my doubts, but this one is an absolute no-no. So I went to a school, several in fact. One in India where I drove a Maruti 800 pretty well. I was young. 21 years old. Unmarried. Then I had an old guy teach me in the US. He was nice. I was sucking it up a fair bit though, I got quite spooked with driving in the US though the determination to overcome it was strong.

And I still had to drive several times with the husband 'for practice.' That was horrid. He was a major pain. His style of driving and mine don't match. At all. He is aggressive. I am the opposite. People that would like to pass in front of me on the road are ALL welcome. He will move heaven and earth to ensure that you 'fuckers' don't mess with him. If you are walking and want to walk in front of my car, again, you are welcome. I will wait. (This he does too, especially if its women, even if ugly). I am never in a tearing hurry. He is always in a major big hurry to beat all hurries. If there is a chance to weave through a gap in the traffic, zip, zap, zoom, etc., I will ignore it. I don't need to. He will grab the opportunity with both hands. The way I argue it is, all that zipping and zapping might save me about three minutes of driving time, which is nice, but it will chip three days at least off my life span, which is sort not too desirable. I am not sure on his thoughts on life spans etc. I have also retained the tendency with pot-holes. Like my sister, he hates them and therefore avoids them through clever maneuvres.

A conversation with him, of late, in my new and improved, no temper tantrums state may go like this:
Him: Do you drive this route everyday?
Me: Yessss
Him: Then you KNOW that there is this giant big pot-hole here?
Me: Yes of course, I go into it everyday. One day it hurt my neck a bit.
Him: THEN WHY THE HECK CAN YOU NOT AVOID IT?
Me: See, in order to avoid it, I have to move into the right lane. But then I have to make a left turn, and nobody will allow me back into the left lane after that, so, I catch hold of the left lane well before the pot-hole place and just stick there.
Him: BUT THE LEFT TURN IS STILL 200 METERS AWAY
Me: Yes, just 200 meters. And so many trucks. And if a BEST bus honks, I totally flip out.
Him: Watch me pop a vein in my forehead. Chicks suck. Chicks make the WORST drivers ever.
Me: You should not generalise like that. I am special, you know it.

& so on. Ends in a fight. Gets ugly. I see his point sometimes, even my mum laughs because SO MANY people cut into my lane from all directions. But then I am cool. Crazy Kiya Re is on Mirchi so I am not too bothered, have to anyway wait for the song to finish. At any rate I have a 3 km radius within which I drive usually not more. The furthest is 10 km from home. And one trip to the airport in seven years in Mumbai.

Oh yeah, I have pathetic direction sense, am becoming fairly absent-minded befitting profession, can't see well when driving at night, and cannot for the life of me parallel park. All told, it is kind of a bummer that my driver, for all his faults, decided to go off to his village this week for good.

Samosa Chaat & Power Yoga

I read somewhere recently that a good cause of obesity in women over 35 could be career-obsessed husbands who stop paying attention to their wives. Which in turn allows the women to lose interest in maintaining themselves in slim-svelte-type conditions and results in over eating and indulgence and lack of motivation for exercise and yada-yada two years later whale alert in the home.

It reminded me, rather perversely, about a certain something a friend of mine yelled at me several several years ago. The year was 1998. To be precise, it was April 1998. Now don't ask me for the date. I would make it up of course. You would have no way of checking up on it. Anyhow, it was April, and spring had sprung on us with a vengeance. Amherst, Massachusetts, in the spring, is lovely. Flowers and trees and the right amount of warmth and all the undergrads in colourful skirts and tees and strappy sandals and shorts. I was basking in the sudden sun and on a whim decided to go for a run. I anyway wanted to check out what happened beyond that traffic light at the corner where we always turned left. So off I went, jog-jog-jogging along. A little short of breath thanks to the winter blubber and the fact that the air was still a trifle cold for my tropical lungs. I was returning home, having checked out luscious trees and a real quaint old bridge and nice American homes which were not overflowing with desi graduate students cooking chole and rajma on alternate nights.

I had just almost reached our smelly complex with its beer-stained carpeting and creaky staircases when this dear friend of mine saw me. He was heading off to the lab, for another crack at that experiment that failed in the morning or some such. KENNY he yelled. YEAH I yelled back from across the street. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? he says. UHH RUNNING. WHY? I retort, a bit upset now since I had to stop and had a good rhythm going, but in some ways relieved to have an excuse to catch my breath. BUT WHY? YOU ARE MARRIED!! he screams at me. Over the years I have never let him forget this remark that spontaneously slipped out of his mouth that day back in 1998 in a sun-filled yet cool Massachusetts college town.

I did not stop to explain that day, I just yelled SO? back at him and continued on. But over the years I have told him soberly and drunkenly about what I think is the meaning of being married. I wonder if he ever got it though. You know, the stuff about not losing your individuality and identity just because you happened to change that thing in your Facebook profile from Single to Married. I like running. I generally like to be fit, but more importantly I like to exercise and feel one with nature (or even the treadmill, if required) even if I don't lose much weight. My husband likes it too (I mean he likes exercising), but his interest is more in muscle and iron and protein supplementation. Which has nothing to do with me or what I think or what I like his body to be like.

Even though I am very nearly 35 now. And we have been married for some 11 years now. And the husband is increasingly and frustratingly busy with his career compulsions and associated travel and commuting. In fact when I mentioned it to him last night when he called me all frazzledly from Delhi, he was sure that it made a lot of sense. As in, women want to look good for their husbands, and if he is not paying particular attention, they lose interest in it and so on.

Oh! but I personally SO disagree! I hope I don't live to bite these words back. Rap me on the knuckle if I do. If I became obscenely fat, not in a healthy plump way because that is what my body is like but in a unhealthy way that smacks of too much indulgence and too little exercise, it would be pretty much nothing to do with any man, frankly. It would be something I would blame on myself, my stress levels, my loss of interest in life. But that is just me. Just like I don't use nail-polish and lip-stick or straighten my hair although my husband may like stuff like that, simply because I find it all a major pain in the neck and am not even really sure I know how to carry things like that off.

But still, I do make (and have even begun to like) the foods that he likes. Pongal and Aviyal to mention a couple of things I hated as a child and now will happily pour my heart into to make, just to watch him eat with relish. And heck! I like them too now. Anyway in general I respect him in a lot of ways and vice versa too but when it comes to how much we eat or exercise (or read! how can I forget that!) and our ideal about our bodies, well, we are really on our own there! But thats us. I cannot speak for the others, though I would think that getting your exercise and not over-doing the chips and coke is something you do for yourself. That is clear to me though I have other lessons to learn, even after these 11 years, like lowering expectations and not nagging and not micromanaging, and especially, not getting stressed out about inane things.