Housekeeping

Dust lies on the shelves of this blog. The haiku hasn't been changed since the summer, the air is musty, and everywhere, cobwebs of abandoned posts.
But soon - a post on Kashmir, which I visited last month, my story on Zambia, where I travelled in July, a header change, some thoughts on the moon... much!
In the meantime, I post now because I'm running very very fast from a deadline that is upon my heels and will slay me if I don't wrestle it to the ground. Wish me luck.

A gala time

It has been a crazy month. I was swamped by deadlines of varying levels of clinginess – it was just one thing after the other. In the middle of all this though, there was something I was determined to do – attend the Park Hyatt’s Masters of Food & Wine event. This is a series of sophisticated culinary and beverage experiences hosted at Park Hyatts across the world. Award-winning chefs, sommeliers and experts are invited – it is a celebration of food and drink.

The Park Hyatt in Hyderabad is fairly new and they were holding their first Masters of Food & Wine between 19th and 22nd September.  The Masters in this case being Spanish 2 star Michelin chef Koldo Royo, Thai chef Maitree Polboon and French cheese affineur Eric Mickael.

The whole programme sounded fascinating but work! But I managed one night off – donned a dress and took off to a five course gala dinner at the Tre-forni where Chef Koldo Royo’s offerings would be paired with wine from the house of Torres. It was a lovely experience.

Some lip smacking Sangria and fritters whet the appetite, strawberry gazpacho followed and then buttered and herbed mushroom on a bed of mashed peas. Two desserts – a convent-style coffee custard and a rice pudding flavoured with Spanish anise. The wines were fabulous too and I was taken with the dessert wine Floralis - Moscatel Oro – a sweet mouthful with tints of rose, geranium and lemon verbena.

The Spanish Ambassador, Gustavo De Aristegui, honoured the evening with his presence, and he came by to talk of wines, India, culture, Japan and Bollywood movies. Has Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara made a difference to tourism, I asked. Emphatically yes, he said, in fact the filmmakers and cast may be meeting the King of Spain to receive his appreciation.

I wish I had attended the Thai event as well. Another time.

What I did

There were so many things I meant to blog about but there wasn’t enough time when the mood came upon me, some posts needed an elaborate gathering of thoughts and links, some needed notes to be collated.

Still, I have a few updates. I spent the first fortnight of this month in the most unusual fashion: I was at the Isha Yoga Center to volunteer. They somehow had three programs lined up with a day’s gap between each and it seemed a good idea – at the time. Had I known how demanding the stint would be, I may have had second thoughts. I had attended all these programs last year and had been struck by the wholehearted devotion of the volunteers who had served the programs. It seemed very appropriate for me to do this as well. A part of it was a desire to ‘pay it forward’, and partly, having heard so much about the experience of volunteering, to taste for myself what such giving can do to the giver.

So I landed there on pournami, offered my services, my body, mind and presence in any manner they thought fit, and came away on amavasya – a poetically arranged period. It was quite a unique experience, something that broke quite a few notions of myself that I had lived comfortably with. I no longer know for sure. An advancement, of sorts.

Woh bhi kya din the, ke har veham yakin hota tha
Ab haqeeqat nazar aaye to use kya samjhoon?
-Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi

वो भी क्या दिन थे के हर वेहम यकीं होता था
अब हक़ीक़त नज़र आये तो उसे क्या समझूं ?
-अहमद नदीम क़ासमी

Now the prospect of other interesting travel faces me – excited, happy-excited. There are things beyond our imaginings, our wildest hopes… what a good thing we don’t always get only what we thought to ask for.

Barsan laagi...

...kari kari baadariya...
umad umad ghir kaare badal, nanhi nanhi boondariyan aayi

After a long time today, I have arranged it so I listen to a monsoon raga as it rains. Nazakat and Salamat Ali Khan with Megh Malhar. I remember doing this once many many years ago. Favourite music lay in tapes in those days and I had a second generation recording of Shiv Kumar Sharma playing Megh. Side B was, if memory serves me well, Jasraj singing Dhulia Malhar.
Inspired by tales of the elements pouring down when Tansen sang his own Malhar and diyas catching flame when he sang Raag Deepak, I tried it myself. Played the recordings a couple of times back to back, sent up the rain yearnings with as much intensity as I could manage. And it rained. For hours. All day. And the next. I had no doubt at all I had caused it. There is something to be said for faith and innocence.

Phool khile hain...

The rains are here again, everything is beautiful and our jasmines are flowering. We have four plants around the house and mercy be, they’re all putting out buds.

One of these is a particularly insane giver. Once spring arrives, it kicks gears all the way up. No holding back, no spacing out… just whooooosh. For a week or ten days, the whole creeper turns white with abundance. My mother – grateful and dismayed at this bounty – would need several pairs of helping hands to haul them in. Then she would sit and laboriously try to string as many as humanly possible into garlands.

I’ve always enjoyed gathering these flowers, which I found a bit surprising. I used to have a very low boredom threshold and surely this is boring, repetitive work? But I think now there is a meditative quality about the activity. Giving, taking, loving, thanking… a sweet transaction.

I was so pleased yesterday to have samples from all four shrubs, I took the trouble to document it. For whiteness and fragrance, I do believe our big ones could rival the mallis of Madurai.

And here, simply because the malli is the recipient of the hero’s confidences, being asked to bear witness to the woes that beset his life, this song. Also because I love Ghantasala’s extra long caress of the phrase “mounamuga unnaaaa…ra?” The song actually begins at 4.28 so jump ahead please – this was only video I found.

King Jack

I have been told once or twice that it is impossible to be ambivalent about jackfruit. I’ve come across people who shudder and blanch at the smell, but I unequivocally love it. I have even tried on a couple of occasions to use the seed – peeled, boiled, peeled, chopped and put into sambhar. What an amazing fruit it is! Such perfect packaging, its smell the very embodiment of tropical lushness… I wonder at its audacity in growing so high up on a tree. Surely something this enormous should grow along the ground?

I’ve confessed here and there that I’m a city girl with deep country love. Then you will understand how much it galls me to eat halasina hannu out of a packet thus. Five measly pieces sold for Rs 10. 

There are whole fruits available but it is impossible to convince my father to buy one. He baulks at carrying it home from the local market, for which he has my sympathies. Besides he jibs at the possible waste, which is nonsense. I would eat it, cook it, pickle it, worship it. Also he suspects (with good reason) that he’ll be lumped with the job of disembowelling it. Which, as anyone who has experience in these matters knows, is a very difficult business. The hands must be oiled; considerable muscle, skill and patience is needed.

   

What I need is a Man Friday. To cut up jackfruit, peel coconuts that have fallen in the garden and disappear conveniently the rest of the time.

Azaan

Do you find that it tugs you just there?

The cavity below the ribs, a throbbing hole

Every evening as dusk falls and then, a few minutes after,

The azaan goes up.

Plaintive, my neighbourhood muezzin!

His voice soars and dips, and I soar and fall in sympathy.

A grief grips me sometimes, a sadness, a trembling –

Call it existential angst.

A few brief minutes and he trails away,

And I return, blindly, to my computer screen.

Dhuan dhukhay mere murshid wala…

….jaan pholaan taan laal ni*


My heart was cleansed anew two or three days ago. It had gathered debris, a film of dust perhaps, or to borrow and stretch a metaphor: like a lit cigarette that has a thickness of ash still clinging. A small flick and the ash has fallen – the flame breathes and smoulders red again.

Earlier this week, I attended a lecture on Daag Dehlvi and the speaker quoted this evocative sher by Sauda, which appealed very much.

Aadam ka jism jab ki anaasir se mil banaa
Kuchh aag bach rahi thi so aashiq ka dil bana

आदम का जिस्म जब भी अनासिर से मिल बना
कुछ आग बच रही थी सो आशिक का दिल बना
 

When the five elements blended to form Adam’s body
A leftover flame went to making the lover’s heart.

========

*From Farid's Mae ni mai kinnu aakhan
[Trans. My Master’s fire spits and smoulders
Red hot, everywhere I blow]

Cleaning Day

Have I told you about Oome, ever? That's not his name - but he's this deaf and mute man who comes around, has come around to do odd jobs for decades now.

His name is Mohd Something, but if he ever managed to communicate it to any of our households we have forgotten it. Oome is Tamil for mute and somehow (without the least intention to diminish, I assure you), that is what he has stayed. Or, if you prefer (as my maid seems to), Umesh - either  Sunita's attempt to civilise a name that appears insensitive to her or she likes to finish the word off properly.

Oome is a character - quirky, whimsical, self-willed... a fakir-like man. Silent for the most part - I don't mean that he can't speak because he's chatty enough when the mood seizes him - but keeps hisself to hisself. He has got the most amazing work ethic. Such a solid worker that his services are in demand across several colonies. He knows precisely what needs to be done, goes about hunting for the tools he needs (and knows which household can be tapped for large shears or that extra large hammer) and so enormously effective at any, but any task you put him to.

Once Oome's on a job, you can retreat to making him tea and snacks, coming back occasionally only for the joy of seeing him work - which he does with intelligence, economy of movement and quality. You know, the feeling that THIS is the best way to do this. He's a great beloved of Shweta's. She had a workshop for a while a few years ago and he helped her set it up with an amazingly intuitive understanding of what she required.

We have been asking for an afternoon of his time for a long time now. But the man has been ducking out of sight, crossing the road when he sees us approach and, when actually pinned down, has made several false promises. We are very sympathetic. He has been this way ever since my mother died. He really liked her, and so, inarticulate as he is, we can see that he can't bear to come to our house. But there is this ominous growth of peepal protruding out of our water tank - and we need it removed quickly. It's also a job requiring intelligence because we don't want to damage the wall or we will have no water tank. Oome's the man to do it.

He came today and it appears that he has decided to allot the day to us. We had four smallish jobs but he looked around and set his own agenda. Our yard and garden tends to be a little unkempt - mostly on purpose, because wild, leaf strewn surfaces have more interest value for the birds and creatures about here. But Oome didn't see it quite like that - he wrinkled his nose and set to work. So we have been engaged in supplying gampas, screw drivers etc and been called forth to decide on a dozen matters. Excuse me, while I deliver him some Roohafza.

Paagalaan

Hyderabad is crazy sometimes. It is something like 42 degrees outside and we wondered, a little boldly, if we could catch the 2.45pm show of Vicky Donor. The movie has been on for four weeks now, it is a weekday and plus this heat wave business on... all things considered, we might get four tickets, you know?

What do you think? SOLD OUT. And people still streaming in, haranguing the man at the counter to try a little harder (this is our local stand-alone cinema hall where pressure or blandishments actually stand a chance), and when all their efforts failed, settling for Jannat 2.

+++++++++

I just caught the promos for the second episode of Coke Studio Pakistan. Looks good. Again. The first episode was excellent too - they haven't lost their touch.

Atif Aslam is going to be singing a version of Ghulam Farid's Mera ishq vi tu... and this wonderful troupe called the Chakwal group with Meesha Shafi.

Because I can't hear myself think

The children at the playschool next door are getting an enthusiastic education... a live band is right now playing 'Summer of '69' and other nostalgic numbers that must make a lot of sense. Too bad most of them will be deafened before they pass out into kindergarten.

I wonder at them, the people who're doing the educating, I mean. They ruthlessly cleared every shrub and tree from the place, laid down plastic turf, covered the play area with plastic corrugated sheets and greenhouse nets. Having gotten rid of the teeming birdlife that lived here, they have paper birds hanging all along one wall in the hope that their charges may be charmed and inspired. And to create an illusion of the green outdoors, they now have a large photograph of a rainforest forming a backdrop to their newly renovated swimming pool.

I'm not suggesting the children aren't happy - they are, they are! But I notice they're happiest when they're left alone, not being harangued to come inside and dance to Justin Bieber's Baby every day of the week, or plagued to put up drill displays (it's a pre-school playschool!) or indeed, being subjected to horrendous concerts like today's.

A tangent. About this cartoonist who knows a bit about kids, and dispatches regular reports on her own with warmth, lots of funny and insight.

My neighbours should take this leaf out of Oormila's book, but on second thoughts, it's probably too subtle for them.

Cartoon copyright: Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad.
Her page, Adventures of the Renaissance Mom is on Facebook. Take a look, she's hilarious!

Tanhaiyaan

Youngsters won't remember but a few years ago, when blogging was the thing to do, we played many jolly games, one of which was to tag each other. My cousin Gayathri had a lovely 'master-list of lists' tag for me that I thoroughly enjoyed doing - though I can't remember if I finished it. The first item was "Nine songs I would pick if those were the only pieces I could listen to for the rest of my life".

In my response, at #9, I picked two ghazals: तुम नहीं, ग़म नहीं (Tum nahin, gham nahin), and कौन आएगा यहाँ (Kaun aayega yahaan). This was seven years ago (!) and the list would read differently now but I am intrigued to see that I am still very fond of these songs by Jagjit Singh.

I've always loved his voice - it's gorgeous - but have been less happy with his lack of versatility, even vivacity. Like many singers, Jagjit Singh wasn't a great composer and I thought he'd have better albums if he outsourced that particular skill instead of doing it himself. I don't remember now who set these two songs to music but the arrangements are lovely.

Tum nahin from youtube, where some enthusiastic, kindly soul has strung a series of images to assist the imagination.

वो करम उँगलियों पे गिनते हैं
ज़ुल्म का जिनके कुछ हिसाब नहीं

woh karam ungliyon pe ginte hain
zulm ka jinke kuch hisaab nahin



And Kaun aayega yahaan, from my own repository.

गुल से लिपटी हुई तितली को गिराकर देखो
आँधियों तुमने दरखतों को गिराया होगा


gul se lipti hui titli ko giraakar dekho
aandhiyon tumne darakhton ko giraya hoga

Play the song

Enjoy!