Friday, March 08, 2024

Writing pro

On the penultimate day of reporting duty at the photography festival, the boss of the English writing dept, came and told me: When we both are free, you should give me a master class on how you write your features. 
She praised the one I did that day on a dinosaur excavation photos, and said the wealth of information in it will make her save it for her toddler daughter. 
I told her many of the terms in it were new to me and I had to research them in the 2 hours allotted for writing an article. PR industry deadlines are tight at 90 minutes for each report, during which time I often try to understand the speaker's profile and their works (like the Nayla one below where I didn't have enough time to understand the movies she had made). Often, I don't feel satisfied with what I churn out.
Anyway, this was the best compliment I had received recently and I was almost teary-eyed as I told her that I have no strategy, and I just say a silent prayer each time - though I am not much of a believer - that I get it right. 
To tell the truth, sometimes I feel at sea after attending a session, either because of the accent or the poor translation (Arabic to Eng) or the lack of interest in the topic discussed. 
But here I am like the girl in the Rumpelstilskin storypresenting a satisfactory product :)

Monday, March 04, 2024

Twinning

Two little girls in identical printed abayas, probably going to their Sunday morning Quran class, walked in front me of me as I made my way to the photography festival. A traffic police car was parked in front near the entrance, and the policeman lightly waved at them. They waved and walked on.
You just need little things to bring a smile and make your day.

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Birthday (old) girl

Another year, another birthday. It went well _ the celebrations began with a dinner treat by a BA classmate visiting from Doha (meeting her after 25 years), the customary greeting over the phone by our vicar in the morning, calls from an old Assumption roommate, mother, brother, daughter and a sis in law from Madras. An hour each and my day was half done.
Topped it with dinner at Paul. Ditched plans to buy a cake and used their free cake instead since we are off too much sweet stuff.

Thursday, February 08, 2024

Homemade meals

The husband's cousin brother works in Dubai and lives in a bachelor pad. Once in a while, when he craves Kerala-style fish curry and well-cooked rice, he calls us and informs us that he will be visiting. So we prepare his favourite food - salmon curry or fry, rasam, idli etc - and await his arrival. Often, V takes over part of the cooking - for him, it has to be a feast with a delectable spread of Kerala food.
The guest has his fill, and when he leaves in the evening, I pack food that he can have the next day for breakfast -- for instance, idli and fish curry, or puttu and boiled egg masala, or even rice and side dishes. We also pack and take when we go to visit him at Global Village where he works during the winter months.
His wife in Chennai asked me why I go the extra mile. I told her that I can understand the craving for homemade food in someone who has no means of cooking it themselves [he has access to a shared kitchen, which he doesn't use except for basic cooking]. I had gone through that for about 10 years after I left home for a college education. The 5  years in Assumption, Kerala was okay but the 3 years in a Chennai convent hostel was hell food-wise. My classmate Usha would give me a little of the grilled sandwich she brought from home. She would also invite me home on weekends, and I spent many Saturdays at her home - sometimes staying the night - enjoying the lovely homely meals her mom prepared for the family. Her chicken curry was awesome, and I have never managed to cook something like that myself. I vibed well with her as she was also a Kerala native like me - someone with a longing for life and relatives in Kerala. I chatted with her as she fed her hens or cut veggies for lunch or took a short break over tea. She laughed and smiled all the time despite the burden of taking care of a large family - inlaws, husband, children, hens and dogs, and often extended family visiting. On my first trip to Delhi for my journalism entrance, she packed a chocolate cake for me to have on the train.
Then there were the meals I had in Usha's cousin and our collegemate Viju's place when she took me along after classes to visit his grandma. And the occasional meals in Annie's house. In Delhi, it was dad's ex colleague and my local guardian who fed me homely Kerala meals when I visited her place occasionally.
So I think this is repayment time. I understand the loneliness and helplessness of a boarder. Although I wonder if he knows that it is our (V's rather) greatness and not his goodness that make me do it _ since they never went the extra mile when I stayed as a pg at their home in Mds and I would buy bread omelette from the railway canteen on my trips to Kerala.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Pakkaran's son

There were two theatres -- or cinemakottaka as we called in Malayalam -- near our house, both about 2 kilometres from our house. We favoured one of them, Sindhu Talkies, because a relative of our dad whom we called Edathitta appachen worked in the ticketing or in some supervisory role in that modest theatre with a thatched roof, and we would first visit his house before heading for the movie. The last bus passing by our house would've left by the time the first show was over, and we walked home in the dead of the night guided by torchlight and the moon on the middle of the road mostly - since there was no traffic and to save ourselves from snakes on the roadside and bushes. As it was a long walk home, my toddler brother would sit on the shoulders of our male help Paakkaran, a corruption of the name Bhaskaran (was that because Dalits weren't entitled to a decent version of the name or was it because they couldn't pronounce it any better?). 
Young Paakaran was dad's trusted aide de camp (ADC) then while his father and uncle took care of more serious chores around our house - farming and other field work, cattle rearing and rubber tapping. According to mom, when dad was building a two-storied bungalow in the district headquarters, Pakkaran would travel every day to take care of supervision and other chores on dad's behalf. He was a soft and sweet person, so it was a sad day for us when he prepared to leave for Surat to work in a textile mill in the late 70s or early 80s. Dad lent him some of his shirts and trousers, and that was the last we saw of him for many many years. Slowly, the family lost communication with him and we tried to believe that he was living happily with a Gujarati wife and children. 
However, Pakkaran returned alone in the mid-1990s if I remember it right. He hadn't got married nor had he made a fortune. His father found a bride for him who bore him two children in due course. By then, P's first younger brother KK was dad's preferred help so much so that dad donated him land and helped build a house partly with government grant. The second younger brother, Vish, who spent over 10 years of his life in our home as a live-in help cum school student - probably from the age of 10 to over 20 which won him three square meals a day - had left our nest and gone back to his parents' place and their relative poverty.
Pakkaran's stint in Gujarat remained a mystery to us - maybe he was imprisoned or went through some serious ordeal but he never revealed anything more than what we already knew. P's wife worked as a domestic help or home nurse to supplement his income as a daily wager. The daughter's wedding put the family in fresh debt and to cut a long story short, made me promise a job in V's company for her son last September. The youth was an electrician, and though an entry-level low-paid job in a factory was in no way better than what Kerala could offer, the Gulf dream of the family was rekindled. They had already lost a sizeable sum to an agent who promised them a Gulf entry. I was sympathetic and felt we needed to right certain wrongs - recent as well as from bygone days when settler Christian families must have usurped their tribal land. A Dalit family that had worked for three generations for our family (the present and 4th gen doesn't) needed justice, and last week the youth embarked on his maiden flight to Dubai with V, who had gone down to Kerala for a short vacation. A suitcase full of hopes, dreams, loan burdens came along with his new clothes, shoes and snacks the mother lovingly packed for her beloved and much-pampered son.
p.s. The boy seems happy with the job on offer and he will hopefully settle down the way Jason, who we brought two years ago, did. The gods, especially his namesake Vishnu, must be smiling on him, and life in a men's accommodation will be the bed of roses he has willingly traded for life in the Lakshamveedu colony. Before he got into his new abode, we gave the young chap a glimpse of all that Du-bai is famous for -- the world's tallest building and mall and their many attractions, followed by a hearty Kerala dinner of parotta and beef.
I took lessons on humanity from the husband and son -- who by their actions showed me that caste and class alienations have no place in a modern society. The son called him chetta and shared his bunkbed, and the husband supped with him and carried some of his luggage. The progeny of Pakkaran, whose devotion as he carried us on his shoulders on moonlit nights, deserves it from us.

Tuesday, January 09, 2024

End to suffering

Three people close to our families passed away in a month's time _ my aunt's husband bedridden following a stroke, the  Changanachery maid's cancer-stricken husband, and a grand aunt. All of them suffered in silence, the last alone at the mercy of a home nurse.
The last journey of the matriarch today to church.

On the penultimate day of reporting duty at the photography festival, the boss of the English writing dept, came and told me: When we both a...