On lockdown rituals

 A year ago, the world went into lockdown. I was in India, on what was supposed to be a ten day vacation, and what had turned into a two-week quarantine. My flights back had been cancelled, my work had gone remote, and so I had decided to stay back - for what I thought at the time would be a few weeks.

That first month, all of us started doing all these zoom calls, with different groups of friends. We caught up with more people in that one month than we had in a year. Those fizzled out after a while, when we realised this wasn't ending any time soon.

But one sustained, and has continued.

My father used to play bridge with his friends when he was in college. Over the years, he didn't keep up with the game, save during the occasional getaway they did once every few years. A couple of his friends have stayed connected to the game, at varying levels of interest. So at some point during those early zoom calls, someone suggested hey, why don't we all start playing bridge online?

So this group of 60-something men, all with varying levels of comfort with technology, sitting in different countries and continents, started playing bridge online. Four times a week, without fail. 

My mother and I watched, first with amusement, then with some consternation, as our daily schedules began to revolve around his bridge calendar. Meals, shows being binged, evening walks or drives, calls with the brother and SIL - they were all planned so that the bridge was not impacted.

A few months later, he discovered that another friend has a whole other group of online bridge players, and he asked to get in on that. So suddenly, he was playing every day, and was beginning to juggle these two groups of fellow players. The mother meanwhile started texting with the wives of his college gang, with debate over whether an intervention was required as yet.

It got to the point where we ended up creating a shared Google calendar, the parents and I. He faithfully goes in every week and enters his upcoming games, and we have continued planning everything else around them. Even now, being back in the US for three months, while my parents and I do try and do a call a few times a week while I'm having breakfast and they're having dinner, I check the calendar before calling him, because God forbid I call in the middle of a game.

With his college gang, a fair amount of drama has taken place of the past year of bridge. They started by having video chat on at the same time, which some people found very distracting, tried doing just audio calls for a while (some people didn't like that either), and now just do text chat apparently. Some people in his college gang seem to be a problem child, and are a source of great personal amusement to me, because they very much remind me of certain problem children the gal pals and I have had to deal with in our own time.

The father, being a diplomatic sort of chap, will never overtly bad mouth this person, even to me. But he lets drop enough hints for us to catch on when things are more cray cray than usual. I understand there was a huge brouhaha between this problem child and another friend a few weeks ago, bigger and more dramatic than usual, leading to friend leaving the group I think? And said friend has refused to play with problem child anymore, so I think they have now split into two groups, and alternate between the two who had a fight?

This morning, they called me while I was making my chai and toast, and they were prepping dinner. And the conversation began like this:

"Your gift arrived! Trust you to think of this!"

"Hain? I haven't ordered my gift yet?"

"Then who sent him this book on Bridge?"

Apparently someone has sent him a gift for his upcoming birthday, but we don't know who. So that's a puzzle we have to solve. 

For the next hour, we ate, we chatted, I rolled my eyes only a couple of times. After a while, I started hinting that we should end the call. 

"Why, are we boring you? Do you have things to do? What time is it? Oh GOSH, it's 8.30! I have bridge in half an hour! Ok bye!"

On the fear of loss

If I think about my favourite Bollywood movies from the last several years, there are two that stand out - Piku and Kapoor & Sons.

I've only watched Kapoor & Sons once, in the theatre, with friends. And I'm fairly certain I sobbed through a good chunk of the second half. I've never gone back to watch it a second time, for some reason, despite loving it so much. I've watched clips a few times, and it's on my watchlist on Amazon, but I've never gone back to it.

Piku, on the other hand, I watch at least twice a year, if not more. Once, when I need something playing on Netflix as I potter around the apartment, at least once when my parents come to visit and we can't agree on anything else to watch together, and potentially again, a day or two later so my mother can see the second half because she fell asleep halfway through the previous time.

There's a scene in Kapoor and Sons where one of the protagonists sulkily tells his brother that their parents have always loved him more, seen him as perfect, while he himself can do ever do anything right in their eyes. His brother tells him not to be silly, all parents love their children equally. This line is followed by a beat of silence where the two look at each other, and both burst out laughing, because you know that's just not true.

There's a scene in Piku where a get together of family and friends is taking place, to honour a woman who dies before the movie begins. The protagonist places a bottle of ghee on the table, Jharna ghee to be precise. The first time I saw this movie, the week after it released, in a theatre full of Bengalis who had all flocked to take advantage of the 50% discount offered by that theatre for Indian movies on Wednesdays, the lady in front of me and I simultaneously exclaimed out loud during this scene, "Jharna ghee!"

There's another scene in Kapoor & Sons that is described far more eloquently by Raja Sen in his review of the movie - the family drama that goes on while in the backdrop a plumber works diligently to try and fix the pipes. [UPDATE: Shakun Batra, the director of the movie, did this delightful video that was shared with me after I published this post, on how this scene was constructed.]

Years ago, when my parents were building their first home, they would... disagree on how certain things should look. It took them a while to realize that when the contractor would excuse himself for a cigarette break every few minutes he would time it just when he could sense a storm brewing, and would step out so my parents could come to a decision before he returned.

The protagonist of Piku spends half the movie yelling at her father, out of sheer concern and exasperation at his behaviour. But minutes after squabbling with him, she laughs and starts singing a Bengali song with him.

A while ago, when my parents were visiting, we were driving home one evening, and my mother was munching on the snacks I keep in the car for my evening commute. I found myself turning to her at one point, and saying exasperatedly, "Will you stop eating so much? You won't be able to eat dinner if you snack so much now."

After watching Piku, as we walked out of the theatre, I was commenting that almost every character in the movie reminded me of someone I know. There are pieces of people I know and love in almost every character in the movie. A friend, who at the time was months away from his wedding, to a Bengali girl, sheepishly admitted his future father-in-law was quite similar to the father in the movie.

Both Kapoor & Sons and Piku struck chords with me, more than any other movies in recent years that I can think of. There are daily lives and tiny anecdotes that shine through these movies and remind me of episodes from my family in the past. There are moments that make you smile, then sniffle, and then potentially start sobbing your heart out, but only because you know someone who's gone through something similar.

And both movies showcase the fear, and the reality, of losing a parent.

This is one of those posts that has been sitting in my Drafts for a few years now. Every few months, I pull it open, reread it, tweak it a bit, save it, and then close it again.

When I first started writing this, a couple of articles had gone viral on my timeline. Rohit Brijnath had written a heart wrenching piece on parents' mortality, and the constant fear those of us who live a world away from our parents learn to live with. And then Jai Arjun Singh had responded with a piece that reminded me it's not that much easier to watch it happen in front of you, either.

A few weeks ago, someone shared a website called See Your Folks, that asks you to enter your parents' ages, and how often you see them a year. It then throws up a stark number on just how many times you have left in this lifetime to see them. I may or may not reacted somewhat... emotionally to this site, and ended up doing a bit of a twitter rant about it.

https://t.co/sb0Y8eWU3e

This has got to be the most absurd and depressing site I've come across in a long time.

— a traveller (@a_traveller) October 30, 2019

The last tweet in that rant was posted almost four hours later, after a two hour marathon call with the parents. They weren't told about this site, but given at least one of them stalks me on Twitter and follows this blog, it's possible she knew, or will know when she wakes up in a few hours.

(Chill, Ma, I'm not stressing. I'm just rambling. And trying to distract myself from these impeachment hearings I've been watching for the past week (and mayyyybe from some of the daughterly stress I've felt after the last couple of This is Us episodes).)

But to end this post on a sufficiently emotional note, here are two songs I had on loop after I spiraled about that stoopid site, for your listening pleasure.

Of solo trips and chocolate nostalgia

At this point, if you're still a reader of this blog, chances are you know me from real life somehow, and therefore have a sense of the amount I travel, as well as a vague sense of the how/why behind it. From 2014 to 2017, according to the site I use to track these things, I have apparently averaged nearly 83,000 miles of flying every year. And have already crossed 25,000 miles in 2018.

A lot of that flying was for work (I could tell you exactly how much, because that site tracks everything about your flights), but a significant chunk was for personal trips as well. The personal trips probably make up most of those miles, to be honest - work trips might have been more frequent, but the personal trips have been to more distant places.

I've done all kinds of personal travel in the last four years - solo trips, random day trips, trips with friends, trips with family, 24 hour trips, 48 hours trips. The one thing I hadn't done so far was a solo trip to a place where I don't speak the language.

Well, that changed this weekend.

I finally got around to applying for and getting my Schengen visa at the end of last year. They gave it to me for six months, and I knew I had to use it at least twice to make it worthwhile. A longer trip is being planned for this summer, but I wanted to use it over a long weekend as well. We get Good Friday off, and I figured... why not Germany?

So I flew to Frankfurt Thursday evening, landing Friday morning. I chose a hotel using my usual criteria whenever I travel alone - look at the chain I usually stick to, and pick whatever hotel they have closest to the main area of the city. In this case, Frankfurt's Central Station, because the plan was to to do a day trip to Heidelberg on Saturday, which was today and then fly back Sunday, i.e., tomorrow.

There is a reason I wanted to go to Heidelberg, and I'll come to that towards the end of this post. But first, a few musings on this trip overall:

• The kind of a traveler I am makes it easy for me to travel alone. I like seeing historical things, and I like seeing cliched touristy stuff. So it's easy for me to pick up a travel guide, and just hit the road. Every single guide book I own has every place I've seen or visited meticulously ticked off, a fact that makes friends who then borrow said guide books from me roll their eyes.
• The kind of introvert I am also makes it easy for me to travel alone, but also has issues. I invariably realise either halfway through a trip, or after the fact, that I know someone in the city I've visited, and it's too late to reach out.
• Selfies are hard to take. Thankfully, the world is full of tourists who offer to and/or agree to take a photo of you (and your group, if you're not alone), and then gratefully accept your offer to take a photo of their group. I met a very sweet German couple today who agreed to take a photo of me, and then very shyly agreed to let me take a photo of them. The gentleman asked me very grimly if I was from India, which initially made me wonder if we had done something to offend him. He and his wife respectfully minded the gap and stood three inches apart for their photo, and then he coaxed her to take out her own camera to get me to click some photos on that as well, which she blushingly did. He then proceeded to ask me where in India I was from, and when I asked him in return if he had been, he said no. He's only been to Karachi in Pakistan. Which left me even more confused.
• The one thing I am not good at doing is dining alone in restaurants. I invariably grab something to go, or get something back to the hotel room to eat. I need to get better at exploring restaurants and cuisines when I do my solo trips. This trip was relatively easier though: a touristy curry sausage place in the square in Frankfurt yesterday, a crepes stall in the MarktPlatz, and of course, a McDonald's at the train station - none of these needed me to walk into a restaurant and ask for a table for one.
• Yes, McDonald's. I have now been to this chain and had their McChicken burger in at least half a dozen countries (except Japan, where I ended up with a Chicken Teriyaki burger). And every single country I've been to does it better than Amreeka. But no one does it better than India. 
• This trip is my first time to Europe since moving to Amreeka. I've done the UK several times, including a two month "study" abroad stint, but never mainland Europe. Which also means this was the first trip to Europe since this wonderful trip. And I am pleased to report that I have neither lost anything nor been robbed so far. Of course, we have another twelve hours or so till my flight takes off tomorrow, so who knows what'll happen in the interim.
• The big thing I was worried about was the language barrier, because like I said, I've never travelled alone to a place where I don't know the local language. I've always had at least a friend with me who knows the local language enough to get us by. I mean, okay, Chennai a decade ago when I used to go for work might be the exception, and I might still have nightmares about my trips there, but other than that I mean. Surprisingly, it wasn't as much of an issue. Most people knew enough English to understand me, which was great since all I know is Danke, which I realised I'd been saying wrong all along only this evening. What was actually trickier was navigating, because the road signs are all in German, and the walking tour maps I had was using English names for a lot of places.
• And lastly, I may need to revise my hotel picking strategy. Years ago, when I would plan trips, tripadvisor was my first stop. In the past five years, my interest in  loyalty programs has grown into a full-fledged obsession, so for the most part, I simply use my chain plus location plus price method of choosing where to stay. And so I've stopped looking at reviews as much. Which is why I didn't realise, till I was looking at the Yelp reviews of a very highly rated curry sausage literally right next door to my hotel, that the two streets on either side of my hotel are red light areas. The street in front of my hotel is fine, and two streets over is the main street of the city (complete with Indian restaurants, including a Saravanaa Bhavan, obvs), but those two streets are to be avoided apparently. Which was reiterated by the hotel receptionist when I was asking what to go see in Frankfurt. She point out points of interest, and then drew big crosses on the two streets on either side, telling me to avoid them completely. Oh, well. ¯\(ツ)/¯

So. The reason I wanted to visit Heidelberg. Years ago, when I was still in high school I think (so literally, 15-20 years ago at this point, because I'm old), the father had visited Heidelberg for work a few times, and had always come back with gorgeous photos of the castle. And this one time, he attended some sort of conference, where they gave him a box of chocolates to bring back. Called Heidelstones. They were cubes of chocolate, and inside were layers of jam, nuts, cake, and more chocolate. And they were amazing. And for years I've tried to find them, without success. I once found a website about them, but it was all in German, and it didn't seem like they shipped anyway. That site seems to have now shut down. 

A friend started looking into them a few weeks ago, when I started planning this trip, and didn't have much luck either. The closest thing she could find was dominosteines, which seem to be close, but I'm not entirely sure. You get them only at Christmas though, apparently, so I didn't see any to try either. I went into a couple of chocolate shops today to ask about them; only one person knew what I was talking about (so they do exist!), but had no idea where you actually get them.

So, while this trip has been fantastic, the main purpose remains unfulfilled. And I'm now sending an appeal into the universe at large - if you know what Heidelstones are, and/or where to get them, let me know please?

We may have to prepone that

I can't remember how old I was when this happened, but at some point in my childhood, the father came home and asked me, "Did you know prepone isn't a real word?!" Shock and awe was felt.


Turns out, he was interacting with a Japanese company at the time, and in the pre-Google days, they would take to the Oxford dictionary to make sure they understand every word of English written by the Indians. The word prepone, as it happens, was not listed in the dictionary. It was a perfectly appropriate word Indians had invented, which, in the decades since that conversation with my father has in fact been added to the Oxford Dictionary. Mirriam-Webster, on the other hand, still considers it a word they're "watching." And Blogger's spellcheck clearly doesn't recognise it.

*******************************

I have an American coworker who has worked in and with too many countries for his own good. He speaks Spanish fluently, and has huge German and Portuguese dictionaries sitting on his desk. He once spent several months in India on a project, and has opinions on several things about India as a result.


He sits close to my desk, and is able to hear a lot of my conversations at work, and observations about them frequently ensue (a favour I equally frequently return). He'll comment on how my voice automatically sounds more Indian if I'm talking to someone from the subcontinent, he'll chuckle at the first hint of a turn of phrase I might use that may not be native to the US (did y'all know "cribbing" is not a word Americans use?! They say grumbling, it seems), he finds it hilarious that Indian Standard Time has "that whole 30 minute thing going on" (so what if his country has half a dozen time zones, and an incomprehensible Daylight Savings thing that some states don't even follow), and he loves to talk about the words Indians have invented. Like prepone.


So this morning, I was on a conference call. I stayed on mute for the most part, but had a 30 second update to provide in the middle. As I finished my update, and went back on mute, he suddenly piped up.

You had the perfect opportunity to use the word prepone and you squandered it!

What? What did I say?

Didn't you just say you may have to move up something?

Yes, but...

Why would you not say prepone? This was the perfect time to use it and spread the use of the word!

I didn't think of...

You're becoming too American in the way you speak, that's what the problem is.

*gasp* I am not!

Maybe I am, y'all. This is very sad.
 

March musings

The parents left to go back home yesterday, after visiting me for a month.

That first evening alone, walking into an empty apartment, always feels the weirdest. And the hardest, even though you've spent a month rolling your eyes, complaining you can't find anything in your kitchen, and generally wanting just 30 seconds of me-time.

I'm never going to be able to live with anyone again, ever.

**************

Does it feel, after a point, that your parents kind of turn into your kids?

I mean, don't get me wrong, I was pampered for a month, being woken up with a cup of tea every morning, having oil applied to my hair, etc. But when you find yourself exasperatedly glancing back while driving home in the evening, and hear yourself saying "don't eat any more chips, you won't be able to have dinner otherwise!" it kind of makes you wonder when the tables turned.

**************

Just once I would like to be able to complain out loud that the mother is turning into the grandmother without the father or brother promptly pointing out, very helpfully, that I am turning into the mother.

**************

A couple of years ago, I wrote about, among other things, how I love flying, and love looking out of the window of an airplane. A month ago, I sent the father a link to an article I came across linking a certain medicine given to patients of epilepsy with birth defects when those patients become parents.

I sent the article to the father because I had epilepsy, as a child. And was on medication from the age of 8 to the age of 13. And while my medication was changed several times over the years, I faintly remembered being on the aforementioned medicine for some time at least.

I received a note from the father after I sent him this article, which said, among other things, the following:

I was in an airport. Hong Kong. Returning from a PRC trip - my first. And I got the news that the doc has finally stopped the medication. Glad I had a window seat. And always love flying out of that airport..... One of those positive memories... there are some things always, to be thankful for....

**************

I was going through old posts, trying to find the one where I talked about my love of window seats, and found an older post, from four years ago. Where talk about the things I don't like about flying.

And given my current life, and the fact that I travel by myself every other weekend these days, I find that post so very ironic on so many levels.

Oh, if we knew then what we know now...

Parental conversations, Part 2

This post is a complete cop out because I realised we're almost at the end of October and I haven't posted anything this month. Having said that, these gems have been collected here over the past year or so, just waiting to shared with the world. Characters, my parents are.

The father, on whatsapp, on being sent photos of wounded hand compared to the previous week:
"Looking much healthier.
Letting the nail polish show itself now."

************

Conversation between me and the parents before the mother came to stay with me for two months:
Me: Can Mamma's phone be fixed so it logs into her Skype account and not Baba's?
Mother: Arre we are ek jaan since 1983.
Me: Yes but if you're here and trying to call him on Skype you'll end up calling yourself na.
Father: Now that is a good example of a closed loop as used in circuit designing and programming languages. :D
Father: And. i will not be able to call M on Skype because... :(

I don't even know what the man means half the time. And he uses way too many emoticons.

************

The mother, seeing me the morning of her day of departure after a two-month stay with me:
"Are you dressing up so much today because I'm leaving?"

************

Mother: Listen, when you land for the wedding, there'll be just a week to go. You're not going to insist on going to China Bowl for dinner, are you? There'll be a lot of work to do.
Me: Yeah, but we'll still have to eat, won't we?

************

Late night Skype calls on wedding outfits:
Mother: For the sangeet toh I am going to buy.
Me: Everything else you're going to rent or what?

************

Over whatsapp:
Me: Look at these amazingly comfortable linen pants I bought. They're perfect for summers, do you want a pair?
Mother: No, I have plenty.

Two days later, on the phone:
Mother: I have to tell you what I did. I didn't want to spend money on new pants, so I got all my pants shortened and made them into capris.
Me: Well, what are you going to do in the winter then?
Mother: ....oh.
Me: Sigh.
Mother: Achha, I hope you know that when I said no to those pants I was just being polite.

************

Mother: Have you talked to your brother lately? Why is he losing so much weight?
Me: I *just* told you how much weight I've lost. Why do I not get asked that in such a tone of concern?

(In all fairness, the brother has always been a stick who just doesn't put on weight, the lucky schmuck. And I'm... not like that.)

************

Me: Next time you call me on Skype at 6.30 am on a Sunday to watch a puja the entire khandaan is present at, can I get a 5 minute heads up so I'm dressed a little more appropriately? I had to wriggle off camera before I let anyone see me.
Father: I noticed.

The master of understatement, this man is.

Of dreams, conversations, and voices in the head

So I had this dream, right. I dreamed I was going somewhere with a friend, and I was driving, and all of a sudden she looks at my dashboard and says, "you need to get gas, the gas light is on." And I respond, "what rubbish, I got just got gas the other day, the tank's full."

And then I woke up, realized I was incredibly late, and practically ran out of the door to get to work. And halfway to work, the gas light does indeed go on, and I think to myself, "but I just picked up gas the other day." And then realised that was in the dream.

*************

So I called the father this morning, and for once it wasn't handed over to the mother without so much as a hello, not that we are complaining or anything, and I chatted with him after more than a week, not that we are complaining or anything.

Anyway. I asked how the monsoon in Delhi was going, and got the following rant:

Listen, all I know is as soon as the Power Minister visited Gurgaon, and announced Gurgaon will never have power cuts again, we started having power cuts after weeks of none of them. And then as soon as the IMD announced the monsoons had arrived all over India, the rains in Delhi stopped completely. And now our Prime Minister has gone and announced India's going completely digital, so...

One needs to learn the art of whining without sounding like one is whining from the man.

*************

I saw Inside Out last night. Nothing is cuter than the short movies Disney/Pixar has started playing before their movies. I was practically holding my breath thinking Lava was going to end in tragedy and I would start crying less than ten minutes into the movie (oh, like you don't do that every time you watch Up), but thankfully it all ended quite happily.

The movie itself, btw, was totes adorbs. I now know what was happening inside my head when the parents made me move from Chandigarh to Delhi at the age of 9. And I could see the little red man with Lewis Black's voice driving inside my head when I was driving home last night and again to work this morning.

And it might be soon to tell, but this movie might just end up messing with my thought processes the same way Everybody Says I'm Fine did. Because the voices in my head still go from 0 to completely panicked and crazy every time I go for a haircut or even just a head massage.

*************

I was telling the father about a coworker who gets... excited over everything. And after giving him a few examples of what had agitated her over the past couple of weeks, I made the mistake of saying I could see myself turning into her in a few years. To which I got the response:

Can we just be clear that I wasn't the one to say that? I may have been thinking it, but I didn't say it.

Sigh.

 

Where we force ourselves to end the writer's block

I suppose I should take solace in the fact that I stuck to my two-posts-a-month plan for at least a year. I suppose the streak was bound to end sometime. I could offer the excuse that it's been a crazy, hectic month, and I haven't known if I've been sitting or standing half the time for the past few weeks, but since I'm the only one interested in those excuses, how does it matter?

It was a bit of a doozy of a month, though. I moved apartments - well, technically, on January 31, but it's never just the actual day of moving, is it? It's the week of packing that precedes the move, and the weeks of unpacking that comes after. Luckily, I was very strategic about my moving plans - I made the father come stay with me and do it all. He landed three days before moving day to find I hadn't even started packing, and left three weeks later. Based on those three weeks, I can report that it is just nice to have a parent around to take care of you when you're sick, no matter how old you get (more on getting old later), and I'm pretty sure he now has seen more of the DFW metroplex thanks to all his gallivanting with a college friend who happens to live in the area.

I would also like to report that contrary to the impression the previous paragraph may have given, I am a wonderful daughter who really doesn't get enough credit for doing things like actually getting through an entire dinner with said college friend of the father without once informing him how utterly obnoxious an individual he is.

I write really long sentences.

Moving on. The highlight of February, though, was the weekend after the father left. Actually, let's face it, it's probably the highlight of the year because I'm not sure how anything is supposed to top going to Australia to see India play South Africa in the World Cup and have them actually win the way they did. The trip was something I'd been talking about doing for years, had been met by skepticism by all near and dear ones, made actual, concrete plans for almost nine months ago, and the fact that it all actually worked out is something I'm still finding a little hard to believe.

In other news, my phone is slowly but steadily seeing all its organs fail. No, really, I don't know how else to describe it. Six months ago, the camera stopped working. I mean, I'm in Chicago, clicking photos of the mother, and one second she takes a really nice photo of me; the next, the camera just fails. Then, a month ago, it stopped playing any music files. So how I'm supposed to listen to any Bollywood music, I dunno - especially since no matter how many times I clear my Saavn queue, that darn playlist I made the mistake of listening to two years ago keeps popping back up. So yeah, I might need to replace my phone soon, but I've promised myself a tablet as a birthday gift this year, so munnies will go to that, and I'm being all indecisive about things.

Speaking of. Birthdays. Sigh. The big 3-O is nearly here. Can we have February last forever please? Let this month just... not end.

More woes.

This is the transcript of a call that happened between my father and me on a Monday morning in June 2014, and as is usual with my passport and visa related woes, I'm going to wait a while before I actually publish it.

Father: Hello?
Me: Father!
Father: Ye...ah?
Me: It is official, I am jinxed.
Father: Now what happened?
Me: My I-797 came in, and the I-94 at the bottom says I'm a citizen of Nigeria*. And I waited to talk to the lawyer before calling you and he says to let it be till I get my license renewed and then send it back to him to get it corrected because it'll take several weeks for the correct one to come and I have only a month before my license expires and WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?
Father: *muffled laughter*
Me: This is NOT funny.
Father: *sniggering* I know it's not funny.
Me: Just once I would like all passport and visa related processes to go through smoothly without giving me a panic attack. JUST ONCE.
Father: Well you have several years ahead to achieve this.
Me: Do I? Do I really? This has happened every time, all my life.
Father: Well that's not true. It's only been happening in this century. Nothing happened in the last century.
Me: Is that supposed to comfort me?
Father: I'm just saying.

I would like to point out that my father continued to snicker through the entirety of this conversation.

Gah.

* For those not in the know, I was born in Nigeria, but I hold Indian citizenship. Makes filling official forms that ask for country of birth followed by country of citizenship a lot of fun.

** I showed this post to the father five minutes before hitting Publish, and he chuckled all through it. At one point he claimed he hadn't said any of this, but when I retorted I had typed this minutes after the call ended so that I wouldn't forget any of it, he went back to saying all of the above is factual. He would also like me to clarify the reason I'm an Indian citizen is that I was born in Nigeria but of Indian parentage. Apparently that wasn't too clear above. Uff.

Parental conversations

Conversations with and about my parents over the past few months.

The mother: Why are you coming now if I can visit you in a few months?
Me: Umm, you do realize you're not the only reason I like to come to India?
*offended silence*
Me: There are other people and places in my life, you know...
The mother: I got it after the first line, you know.

************

Me: So I renewed my lease for a year.
The mother: But... what if you finally meet someone?
The father: One of them can always sublease or something.

************

Me: It's really sad how awful my Hindi and Bengali is. Even the brother speaks better Hindi than me now.
The father: All of that may be true, but you have the best understanding of lyrics to Bollywood songs out of anyone in this family.

I felt so proud and validated.

************

The brother: What are you getting Baba for his birthday?
Me: He sent me his usual email of what he wants.
The brother: I didn't get this. What was on it? Was it for everyone?
Me: No, I get one every time I visit home. Things to work on - my health, my temperament, my ambition, the way I talk to people...
The brother: Oh. Are you doing any of that yet?

************

The father: You've been silent these past few days.
Me: Umm no, I Skyped with your wife almost every night.
The father: Oh. I wasn't informed.
[less than an hour later]
The mother: You can call your father, but not reply to my whatsapp message?

Competition nahi hain, bhai.

************

The father: So my eye surgery's on the 14th...
Me: Oh good, you finally got around to scheduling it.
The father: Yeah... but I need to talk to the doctor if it makes sense.
Me: If what makes sense?
The father: If I should have eye surgery after I've been up all night watching the World Cup final.

Stressful ramblings

The phone rang on Friday evening, but stopped after one ring. I realised it was from the father, and promptly called him back, thinking something must have happened for him to call me so early. Only when he picked up did I realise it was actually past 8 PM, and therefore a fairly reasonable time for him to call me.

I don't know if it was the stress of the week, or just my subconscious catching up with me, but I ended up startling my father by bursting into tears out of relief.

Aurora, Colorado, two weeks ago. Pune, five days ago. And then Oak Creek, Wisconsin, this morning.

None of them impacted me at a personal level. Not even in a minuscule way like Delhi and Mumbai in 2008 might have. But they all make you wonder, what is wrong with people and the world?

Close to a year ago, there was a bomb blast in the Delhi High Court. This was less than two months after I had moved to the US, so even though very few people I know were likely to have been close to the site, it freaked me out no end. And then I had a conversation with the BFF, which helped put things in context. A bit.

me: how do you deal with it?
everytime something happens back home?

BFF: I remember a line from a "poem" we read in class 6 or 7

do you remember the atomic bomb shelter announcement one?

there's a line in it that goes something like 'there will be casualties... statistically it is not likely to be you'

and so I use stats, and work out how much I need to worry based on distance

so GK, CP, Sarojini, Saket etc. means worry

saket would mean xtra worry cos mum's there

MG road means worry

malls means, unlikely you need to worry but check just in case

me: I love you
I am going to save this conversation
and keep coming back to it
and someday
when I've internalized it

BFF: :)

me: I will blog it

BFF: ok :)

I am happy I helped yay :)

I wish I could remember that poem, it was eerie.

but that line was so reassuring it stayed

me: happens that way

I try to apply that these days. Pune meant some worry because the godfather's family and sundry other family and friends live there. Wisconsin and Aurora were scary at entirely different levels, but more for the mother than me. Other events, across India and elsewhere, have been worrying and frustrating because it's just so hard to get information that isn't juvenile and completely screwed up in the way it's relayed by the media. I had to email the brother a few weeks back, because I couldn't find a single report, article or blog that helped me understand what exactly was happening in Assam.

I've mentioned earlier, I think, that some years ago, after another blast in Delhi, a friend called from Mumbai to find out if I'm fine and mentioned that he had actually made groups in his phone's contact list - one for each metro city of the country. Made it easier for him to react and find out about family and friends every time a blast happened.

The way the world's been over the past few weeks, and longer, it seems to have become increasingly important to be able to do that - reach out to people.

Oh and because the BFF is awesome, if you recognize that poem, tell us, yeah?

A dash of self-analysis

The last few weeks have been somewhat... stressful. A variety of things has happened, most of which I can't get into the details of**, that pushed me to the point of completely shutting down and going into a funk last weekend, till finally a few conversations with two or three dear souls got me out of it.

What I realised over this period, however, is just how much my upbringing, for lack of a better word, has influenced the person I am, for better or for worse.

Both the parents, especially the father, are incredibly private people. They've never liked the world knowing what's going on in our lives. It's our problem, we deal with it. And some of that has rubbed off on me. I have never been able to call a friend and say, this is going on, I need your help or even just talk about it. It takes me ages to reach out to anyone for even the smallest bit of help. And the problem is, being this way completely conflicts with the person I am, who, well, talks a lot, quite frankly. And who needs to tell people what's going on.

So there's always this urge to tell friends back home what I'm stressed about, but at the same time there's also this hesitation because, well, I can't. Or shouldn't. Sometimes I rationalize it by telling myself they're busy anyway. Or stressed about things themselves. Or don't want to hear me keep whining about things. But all makes for a fair amount of misery. And loneliness.

And then sometimes it all gets too much and I send frantic, misery-filled emails to people. Or furiously and/or tearfully type out a huge rant on Gtalk. Or just call and pour it all out. And always feel so much better. And wonder why I didn't earlier.

The other thing the parents have always drilled into me is that you really can't ever take anything for granted. We were always fortunate, growing up, that we never really lacked for anything we wanted. If the parents had to figure out ways to give us all of that, they never let on. But they always reminded us that a lot of what we had was thanks to the father's job, and you never knew what could happen when.

So when I started working, while there was no doubt in anyone's mind (particularly my mother's) that I could be extremely extravagant and impulsive with how I used my money, I also saved a fair amount. And frequently went into panic mode if I found my bank balance going below the magic number in my head that was the minimum I should always have. There was no rationale behind this number, and no amount of arguments presented by dad along the lines of how my investments also counted could make a difference. If the cash in my bank account was not a certain amount, I would be constantly palpitating.

And that continued when I came to the US. Despite living on student loans, I have by no means been the most frugal person around. But I make sure that there's always that minimum balance in the account. If not, I hit the panic button. Which usually involves calling the father and asking what I should do.

Among the various stressors of the past few weeks was the fact that there was a problem with my paperwork for the internship. And as a result, I hadn't been paid for nearly a month, despite the contract stating that I was to be paid every two weeks. And while this was troubling, it was a minor ripple compared to the tidal wave of everything else going on, because truth be told, I have enough savings at the moment to last me a while, if necessary.

At dinner with the other interns some days ago, it came up in the conversation that I hadn't been paid. And almost everyone's first reaction was to ask me if I was fine financially, or if I needed money. And I found it interesting that almost everyone at the table was completely startled when I assured them I was fine. I seemed to be the only one there who wasn't living from paycheck to paycheck.

When I would hear this from friends and colleagues back in India, I always assumed I was at an advantage because I lived with the parents and didn't have much in the way of household and living expenses. But here, as students - most of us international students, at that - I would have assumed we're all in a similar position. And it struck me, for possibly the first time, just how glad I was that I had been brought up the way I had.

**UPDATE: Two years later, I went into the details. Here.

Conversations on the phone

The father and I just had a chat on the phone, while he was waiting to board a flight back from Bombay to come home, during which I tried to articulate a lot of what's been bothering me for a while now. We both rambled, and jumped from topic to topic, so I can't quite present the whole thing. Snippets that I can recall, in no very clear order are presented below. Oh and if you haven't seen Ishaqzaade but plan to and don't want spoilers, avoid the third snippet, which pretty much gives away the main "twist" of the movie.

Baba: What did you think of the Satyamev Jayate episode yesterday?

Me: Wasn't bad. I broke down while watching it, of course. Thrilled they're finally talking about CSA, and SO awed by how brave and incredible the survivors were to come and talk the way they did. But I wish Aamir Khan wouldn't lead the conversations so much. Let the people articulate things their own way na, instead of saying "so what you mean is this...?".

Baba: Hmmm. Some of the folks I met here saw the show. People don't seem to have liked the show much. 

Me: Yes well, from what I see on twitter these days, people like to be cynical because they seem think that's what's expected.

Baba: People seem to be worried "intelligent actors will now be determining government policy."

Me: But... he's not going into policy. He's stopping at spreading awareness. Which, yes, could be a complaint, but at least he's spreading awareness. Who said this?

Baba: Oh, the educated folks of Bombay. And fool editors who print such letters to the editor.

Me: Yes well, your reform is never going to come from the educated folks. They're too busy try to convince themselves and everyone else that everything happens in other homes and classes, not in their own.

Baba: Come on, that's not entirely true.

Me: Oh come on, not to take anything away from the tragedy, but one hit-and-run happened in Gurgaon, and people are organizing silent marches to protest because they knew the persons involved. How many such incidents happen with people the "educated people" don't know, and who organizes marches for them?

Baba: But then the question is, which one will hit? And make the point?

Baba: I hear all the "young MPs" were absent from the 60th anniversary celebrations in Parliament yesterday.

Me: I'm impressed the old folks showed up.

Baba: Who's being cynical now?

Me: But that's the thing no? Where do you see hope? Our politicians are useless, social reform is not happening, so what do you have that you shouldn't be cynical about? But I'd like to think my cynicism is not because I feel I need to be, but because I can't help it!

Baba: Mindsets need to change.

Me: But where do you start? We just came back from seeing Ishaqzaade, and yes, the crowd was horrible. You know what I hated the most? There's this scene where the lead pair has just slept together, and he's walking away from her after informing her that he only pretended to fall in love with her because he wanted "revenge" for the slap she gave him. There's a woman crying on the screen, Baba, and the men in the audience are hooting with glee. What do you do with such mentality? How do you begin to change that?

Baba: I think we should completely avoid the PVR in Sahara Mall. The price difference isn't worth it.

Me: Well, yes, but again, how does that change things?

Me: Did I tell you about the FirstPost article where the writer wondered why the women who'd been forced to have abortions continued to agree to have "conjugal relations" with their husbands?

Baba: Does this writer have any idea about what India's like?

Me: Uh huh. So there seems to have been such uproar that the editors took down the article and apologised, saying they are aware all women don't have that option.

Baba: Well, at least they have some sense.

Baba: Well, I have to switch off now. So you're going to Delhi in the evening? By metro?

Me: Yep.

Baba: *silence*

Me: Chill na, if I get late coming back, I'll take a cab.

Baba: Oh, okay.

There was more, a lot of which I can't put together coherently. Heck, I'm not sure this was coherent. I went to the mother to chat after I ended the call, and her first words, as happens rather frequently, were: You're worked up again. Now what?

I told her a bit about the conversation and she wanted to know if I was upset because there are problems, or because I don't know what to do about the problems. 

There's a good question to ask myself.

Suddenly, suddenly

It's funny how memories pop into your head at times. I was in the car this afternoon, on my way back from a meeting with a client, and thinking of one of the essays I still need to finish. While mentally composing the essay, I stumbled over the word "parallelly", something I often do. And then it struck me that MS Word never does recognise that word anyway, and I should probably use the phrase "in parallel".

Which is when I suddenly remembered the mother's copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. I can't remember a time she didn't have it. It was so much more than just a dictionary - it was like a memory album. Its pages contained dried flowers, little scribbled notes, and numerous photos. Photos of the brother and me, photos of the parents, photos of Dadu. Photos of my cousins as babies, reminding Mamma of the sheer joy she felt when she became a Pishi for the first time. That dictionary was to be handled with immense care, because picking it up meant picking up memories of more than a decade.

I haven't seen it in a long while, not since we moved house, actually. But it popped into my head this afternoon.

Places have memories too. Golden Dragon is by no means my favourite restaurant. It is, however, in the mall that is closest to our house, and the food is decent. By default, therefore, a number of memories have got associated with it.

September 2008 - The parents and I discovered they serve darsaan, the mother's favourite dessert, during Pujo. We also decided that since I was now working, I should treat them to dinner once a month. The father saw the bill, and decided henceforth McDonald's is good enough for such treats.

November 2008 - The mother's birthday, I was catching an evening flight out to Bombay, so I promised her I would join them for lunch.

December 2008 - The parents completed 25 years of togetherness, but we put off celebrations till the brother came home from college a week later. We went out for dinner, I got my hair curled for the first time! The father was supposed to officially gift the mother the earrings he had bought her, even though she'd been wearing them for a week already. He opened the box in the restaurant, and discovered he had got the worn, and empty, box. All captured on video.

March 2009 - My birthday fell on Holi. While the city enjoyed a holiday, I was travelling to Chennai on work. Managed to catch an earlier flight back, and joined the parents for dinner straight from the airport.

September 2009 - Pujo again, this time accompanied by a new colleague, who the parents sort of adopted for Pujo because she was Bengali and knew no one else in Gurgaon. Who knew a year later she would become such a dear friend?

2010 - The best friend was in town, and after a dozen mail exchanges, Gurgaon was finally decided as the venue for the get together between the gal pals. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get five of us together in one place at one time? Tip: Just decide the venue for dinner and inform them, don't ask them. It's what I'm doing for New Year's Eve too.

We don't go back so often now, but passing that mall tends to bring a smile to my face anyway.

The father and I still debate over who'll pay the bill every time we go out though.

Conversations from yesteryears

A random tweet that showed up in my timeline a few hours ago reminded me of one of those strange and morbid conversations that get ingrained in your memory, that took place between the father and me more than a decade ago.

We were walking on the side of the road, when a car swerved and passed by him a little too close for my comfort. Of course, I gasped dramatically, clutched him and pulled him a bit to the side, scolding him for being so careless. He shrugged and laughed, saying he was fine as long as an accident, should it happen, caused a quick and painless death rather than leaving him a vegetable.

Needless to say, I was not amused. But then he went on: if death has to come to someone, it'll come sooner or later. And his or her family and friends will have to deal with it. But if a person gets stuck in a coma, it makes everything so much more painful for his or her loved ones. He then looked at me and told me that if that decision has to be taken, I should take it.

At age 14, I was forced to admit he had a point. At 25, I still hope and pray almost every day, like I have ever since that conversation happened, that I never have to take that decision.

More conversations

I have a very entertaining family, I do.

The mother, on reading the post I put up about her attempts to reason with the princess: Why do you eavesdrop private conversations between two sensitive souls?

The brother is back home, and expected to be here for the next couple of months. He is also unwell, which means he is being more mollycoddled than usual. The mother asked him the other day what he wants for breakfast. This is the conversation that ensued:

Brother: Can you make that white thing?

Mother: What white thing? Upma?

Brother: No, no, that white thing.

Mother: Eggs? Idlis?

Brother: Arre that white thing which has leaves and peanuts in it.

Mother: Upma?

Brother: Yeaaaaaaah.......

The recent Bharat Bandh meant there were posters of all Opposition leaders all over the roads. Being clueless as ever, I struggled to recognise some of them.

Moi: That one's Nitin Gadkari, right? The second one from the left?

Father (not looking up): Does he look like a toad?

Moi: Umm, yeah?

Father: Then that's Gadkari.

BUT. It's not just my family which is entertaining. My job involves some amount of interviewing these kids who keep applying to us. Today, a girl from Bombay sent in her resume. Looked good on paper, so I gave her a call.

Moi: So before we take this forward, I wanted to check, are you comfortable relocating to Gurgaon?

Her: Well, I'm not against relocation per se, as long as the profile is good you know?

Moi: Sure, fair enough.

Her: Also you will have to arrange for my stay and food you know. I mean, food ok, I can manage. But we keep hearing how Gurgaon isn't very safe, so...

Moi: (deep breath) Well, you know, we could always give you suggestions on where to take up accommodation, but you will have to kind of arrange for it yourself. But...

Her: But you people will help? Because Gurgaon's not very safe for an alone girl you know

Moi: I suppose...?

The conversation then went on for a bit, with me saying that we'll call her again on next week when my colleagues are in office also. As we were concluding the call:

Her: But tell me, do you think Gurgaon is safe for an alone girl [NB: I swear, that is the phrase she used.] to move to?

Moi: Well, I've lived here for 15 years because my family lives here. But we have a few girls working with us who live on their own here, and they haven't had any problems.

Her: Really? But isn't Gurgaon in, like, Haryana proper?

Moi: Umm, yes?

Her: Hmm. Are you going to call me tomorrow evening again?

Moi: Er, no. Next week maybe?

Her: Ok that's fine. I'm busy tomorrow you see.

I really, really wish I was making this up.

An overdose of saccharine?

Till today, I can never tell what he thinks. He's one of those passive, non-expressive men - stoic, strong and silent. He's also the most intelligent man I know, as well as the most upright. He loves children. And animals. He thinks an experience is worth it only if you learn something from it. He has a weird sense of humour which no one gets, and uses long fancy words - correctly. I love him to pieces. He's my father.

Baba's never told me in words that he disapproves of anything I'm doing. He'll drop subtle hints. Are you sure you want to do that? Will that career option really give you the satisfaction you're looking for? Maybe you should meet some people from some other field and see if they can guide you. Do you really plan to go out of the house wearing that? But if I ask him upfront, "Do you think I'm making the right decision?", I wait till the end of time, and I won't get an answer. And when I go ahead and take decisions that he doesn't approve of, he'll still support me in them.

He never buys anything for himself, just because he feels like it. He can be very stubborn. I just watched him put tape on his old, frayed wallet, because he likes it better than the brand-new one lying in his cupboard. Both his laptop and his phone are about as useful as a floppy disk, but he won't replace them because he's "looking at options". And I mean that very literally - he's going to get the specs of ALL possible options, compare them, and will hopefully come to a decision sometime in the next decade.

I've only ever seen him break down twice - once, when Dadu passed away; the second time, when Thamma passed away. Ask him what he wants for his birthday, and he'll say he'll have to think about it. Gift him the complete DVD set of the LOTR movies, and he'll look at you puzzled, wondering why you spent money on something so unnecessary. But the first chance he gets, he'll pull them out and settle down to watch.

Till a couple of years back, he was an out and out workaholic. As kids we only ever saw him on Sundays, and the family holidays he would make a point of planning and taking us on. It was Mamma who was always there for us, Mamma I related all my day's happenings to, Mamma who I considered my best friend. Recently, that's changed. Three years ago, Baba quit his job with the company he'd been with for 28 years, and decided to do his own thing. Not only has this made him a lot more relaxed and chilled about his work, it also means I've got to spend a lot more time with him since then - especially since he pretty much appointed me as an unpaid secretary in the initial months (I'm an expert at doing travel bookings, don'tcha know?). And since I also stated working around the same time, and started needing/wanting to talk about work-related stuff, he and I have grown a lot closer than we ever were when I was growing up. Which I cannot be thankful enough for.

In terms of personality, I'm like the mother - volatile, hyper, quick-tempered, and not the most reasonable person around. The brother's like Baba - calm, logical, passive, but impossible on the few occasions they lose their cool. Despite this, or maybe because of it really, the brother is Mama's boy through and through, while I'm so much more a Daddy's girl. It's him I now go to when I need to whine about anything, when I need advice about something, or even if it's just to talk about the day's mundane details.

Mother's Day and Father's Day are a huge deal in our home - because I make them that way. The brother goes along with it (mainly because the alternative is listening to me nag), the mother just likes the gifts and the meal out - no cooking for one day. And the father, well, who can tell what he thinks really?

Last year, the brother was in town on his summer vacation. We made this huge plan of going out for lunch on Father's Day. As we entered the mall, we saw a huge banner advertising a Father's Day special fest - for two weeks later. I'd mixed up the dates, so two Sundays later, we again got up early, made him a nice breakfast, and took him out for dinner. He got TWO Father's Days. And yeah, I think he quite enjoyed the extra attention.

Baba and I are both nightbirds. When I was 17, preparing for my Class XII Boards, and applying to colleges in the US, I'd come down to drink a glass of water or get a snack to munch while studying (or pretending to) late at night. I'd peep in on the father, and invariably find him in front of his laptop, having dozed off while working. I'd shake him awake, and make him go to bed. I once asked him what he would do when I went away to college - who would come take off his glasses for him?

Eight years later, I'm still living at home (and probably continue to, till the end of time). I still stay up late, and I still go to peep in on him most night, and find that he's dozed off while reading a book. I still take off his glasses, and switch off the light for him.

A lot of people are going to react to this post by asking why the big fuss about Father's Day; the same argument comes around on Valentine's Day and Mother's Day - why do we need one day in the year to express our love for loved ones, and it's all a bunch of commercialized propaganda anyway. Maybe so, but the fact remains that in getting caught up in the mundaneness of our everyday lives, we tend to forget to tell the people we love that we, well, love them. So three hours from now, I will get up (hopefully), and nag my mother into helping me make omelettes the way Baba likes them. And I will give him the book I ordered from Flipkart because he wanted it. And I will wait for the brother to come back from his silly internship, and then the four of us will go out for dinner. All this to celebrate Father's Day.

Because my Baba may not be someone you ever heard of, but he's the best kind of father any girl could ever ask for. And I really do want to remind him that I love him to pieces.

NB: I also tried introducing the celebration of Daughter's Day into the family - unfortunately, this did not succeed. Much sadness comes.

UPDATE: I decided to submit this post to the Tribute to Dad contest being run by the BlogAdda guys. As part of that contest, I chose a mug from Pringoo.com to gift Baba with this text on it: