The Idea-smithy

Jack’s eyes lazily scanned the room, taking in all, accommodating none.

Gillian paused mid-speech, in spite of herself and her breath stuck in her throat. Then she caught herself and smoothly moved on, ramming her words into each other to create an artful slip of tongue. The ripple of amusement that passed through her listeners washed away the traces of anyone noticing her real mistake.

From her peripheral vision, Gillian knew that he had moved into focus and was weaving his way slowly but definitely towards her group. She never did the ‘corner of the eye’ thing…it was too obvious and blatant, a real pathetic ‘I can’t help looking but I don’t want to be seen looking’ gesture. No sirree, she was never pathetic. No sidelong glances, no downcast gazes, no secret looks, she didn’t do those.

What Gillian did do was yoga. It kept her eyesight as flexible as her fingers, her mind as nimble as her feet while dancing. Yoga allowed conversations to become like dances. Where you could move, navigate and control without actually thinking or making an effort to. Doing without trying. And what Gillian was doing without trying was turning herself and her little knot of people into a Jack-magnet…by sheer non-magnetism.

The man on her right turned slightly to accommodate the newcomer. Jack was smiling as he looked at the guilelessness in the eyes that seemed to be focusing and finally noticing him. Interesting, he thought.

And then, inspite of herself, Gillian smiled. Graceleness was her art and artlessness was where she was most graceful.

* Yes, the title is an unabashed rip-off of “I am Jack’s cold sweat” from the movie Fight Club.

I’m convinced that it must be my karmic destiny to live a reverse-life. To enjoy things that most people find boring or bizarre. And to agonize over things that ought to be fun. I’ve been racking and shelving and cupboarding (okay, I’ll stop!!) my brain to come up with something to write that is ‘different’ from my usual style.

What is ‘IdeaSmith’s style’ , incidentally? Weepy, sappy? Poetic and eloquent? Biting and sarcastic? Verbose? Narcissistic? Intelligent? Pretentious? Easy? Identify-with-able? And what is that supposed to mean?

*Sigh* And I thought this would be fun! Not a philosophical exercise!! Gah.

Poetry, how-tos, rants, fiction, cityscapes, causes, journaling…I’ve done these. What next? Oh okay…how about….a recipe? So here my ‘food’s-just-fuel’ gastrophobe self takes on a culinary recount…is that different enough? Here goes…

How to make a Bradtini (followed by an Ideatini)

You need:

60ml Bacardi Reserva rum
Half a glass of pineapple juice
A stirrer
2 ice cubes
A bottle of Tabasco sauce
A taste for spice

Do:

Pour the pineapple juice into the Reserva till it turns opaque but not quite as yellow as the pure juice.
Stir. Lick stirrer. (Yes, this is necessary).
Drop ice cubes in. Stir again. Lick stirrer clean. Keep aside.
Splash 2 drops of Tabasco sauce. Do NOT stir.
Taste. If you’ve licked the stirrer clean, the surface-lying pineapple juice would have left an aftertaste which is a great prelude to this drink.
If you can taste pineapple, add more Tabasco sauce.
Stop when you feel the sting on the tongue. Tabasco has a sneaky way of tasting really nice and then abruptly setting your tongue on fire. You want to be taken just to one second before combustion and then doused just in time by cold pineapple.
Drink up!

How to follow it up with an Ideatini

Substitute the pineapple juice in the Bradtini for gauva juice.
And add about 2 teaspoons less than the quantity of pineapple juice added to the previous drink. This results in a more full-bodied but lighter-flavoured drink.
If dragons roar within you too, you could use chili powder on the rim of the glass as well. SLUUURRRRRPPP!

Footnotes

If you want to experiment, try other fruit juices but only those that are thick-bodied and/or have a sharp tang like citruses. Watermelon doesn’t fit either description and makes a gawdawful concoction that I wouldn’t name after my worst enemy.

Alternately you could also try white rum; it doesn’t mate quite as soulfully with fruit juice as golden rum but its a workable combination. Steer clear of dark rum though, it doesn’t go well with the sunny nature of this drink.

And if you’re wondering, the A.E. introduced my uncultured palate to the first drink, whereupon I christened it after him. The second is my version of it and hence I pronounce that it goes by my name. Bottoms up!

Being my own best friend is probably even more powerful than it sounds. I’ve been groping in the dark for faith, for reason, for light. And then, I find this, written three years ago, or slightly longer…by me. And to think I’ve been brooding over bad traffic, space constraints and petty mind games. When I wrote this, my maternal uncle was battling cancer and the family plunging deeper and deeper into the despair of watching a second loved one dying before their eyes, in the space of 4 years. And I was encountering the disillusionment and vileness of the working world for the first time. Surprisingly, I pulled through. When did I forget how to?

This morning I thought that real rejuvenation could only come from the company of the young, untainted by cynicism, unbroken by disappointment. But I guess real inspiration comes from those who have weathered it already. I stand in awe of both, youth and old age.

14 October 2004

Yesterday was voting day and I left home early so I could register my vote before going to work. I felt a little silly especially since all my friends who were working shrugged and begged off and the lucky ones with a holiday decided to ‘enjoy it and chill out’. As I walked into the schoolroom, deserted as it was at the early hour, I realised I must be the only voter there below 50….and one of the few below 60.

Today I drifted back home wondering whether I’d missed a cycle and somehow the nightmare world had got interchanged with reality…I seem to be going through 18 hours in a dazed state and 8 hours in complete comprehension…instead of the other way round. I walked down the road, my vision a blur as I kept dabbing at my eyes and finally I broke down. For the first time in months I cried….and cried…and cried.

A little old lady in snow-white hair and a sleeveless terrycot dress ambled up to me, patted my shoulder and said

Are you feeling alright dear? Is there a problem? Are you not well? You can talk to me.

I managed to shake my head and indicate the phone in my hand. After the call I went to say thank you to her for caring enough to ask…and I had to stop and talk..and listen to her story. So many little things she told me….that she was 80 and loved people and life, that she had lost her husband to cancer 10 years ago and what a wonderful, loving man he had been and how much he loved her…her eyes gleamed as she said,

Cancer is a very bad thing. He was 80 years old when he died. I am 80 now.

She told me how she loved coming out for walk and talking to nice people like me, how her neighbor had taken over her house and was trying to oust her, how she cooked for herself, cleaned her house and walked and talked and was never sick.

Life has come to me in huge, overpowering waves recently.
I am watching a loved one sink into an abyss where no one can pull him out.
I am holding together like a dam against the flood of the grief of the people around me.
I am fighting battles that everyone says are routine but rough nevertheless.

Yes, there is a lot of pain in this world
There is injustice and grief and jealousy and manipulation and cruelty and sadism and weakness and terror.
But there is also hope, blind optimism perhaps but hope nevertheless
…I have seen it in slightly breathless but determined faces of the senior citizens who believe that this country is theirs to respect and run.

There is courage and compassion and inspiration….in the eyes of an 80-year old widow who fights worse battles than mine and more bravely.

Yes, life has its miracles.

2 October 2004

Sometimes life comes at you
like a thousand asteroids rocketing through space
And hits you,
one at a time and then more and more and more

Till the reality sinks in
That there is no planet, no sun or galaxy

All there is, is the vast, still brooding space
That you are.

I’m thinking of F who gave me my first lesson on my work at my interview. At an office lunch, shortly after, she skipped dessert. Diet, I assumed, till I saw the others pass on their plates to her for inspection before digging in. She liked looking at sweets and sometimes smelling them, she said. At the traditional cake-cutting ceremonies at office, F was the designated knife-handler since she was the only one who could be trusted to not gobble up the cake before the others got to it. F and I worked together for a year. Then she got married, moved to an overseas office, came back and resumed work. She recently delivered a baby boy. I hope her little one will inherit her impish grin and her warmth.

I’m thinking of my old tuition teacher, alternate mother. Aunty had a reputation for turning near-fail marks into top-of-class grades. She had been a regular housewife till her husband lost his job. And then she took her degree to use by starting to teach one kid. In ten years she had become the best tutor this side of town. Aunty was stern and effective. Dedicated to her calling. A frail little lady who seemed to tower over all us. Except on an occasional afternoon, when she’d apologize for failing health and proceed to take lessons lying flat on her back.

I’m thinking of my uncle, former bad boy, echoes of which still remain in the back pockets of his faded jeans. Mama was always a good cook. I’ve had such exotic things like authentic Italian pizzas, Chinese-style noodles (not Maggi!) and vegetable Stroganoff. Mama doesn’t eat most of these delights anymore. And his late nights/late morning brunches have dropped off. The wild one has come home.

I’m thinking of my thatha. Upright, honest government servant to the world. Doting grandfather to me. Terribly stubborn spirit to the rest of the family. My earliest memories of thatha are of going hand-in-hand with him to buy an ice-cream off one of the carts parked near India Gate. And badurshas at the sweet market. Rock sugar at home after the morning puja. Those were the early days. And once catching him scraping the remains from the ghee-making pan to eat with sugar. And wondering…when do you start policing those who’ve laid the law for you? Around the same time I learnt that his feet, eyes and kidneys were all susceptible to failure. All of them succumbed.

And finally, most of all I’m thinking of mum. Chef par excellence, wit beyond compare. I’m thinking of the puddings, diwali sweets, chocolate cakes and numerous other delicacies that churn out from her kitchen. I’m thinking of her fading eyesight. I’m thinking of her still-lean frame. I’m thinking of how she never touches the delights she makes for us. I’m thinking of the weekly reading on the meter. And the syringes stacked neatly in our ice-tray.

I’m thinking of all the people I know who are part of the statistic that calls India the world diabetes capital. And I’m thinking that among the many problems each of us face, some wage a daily war against their bodies every day. And live among us, spreading their brand of sweetness, unaided by sugar.

Today is World Diabetes Day. It isn’t an occasion to wish anyone. It isn’t a day to start movements. All it seems to be, is to think of some people. Do it anyway.

Be it ever so dirty, polluted and crowded, there’s no place like amchi Mumbai!!!!!
Need I say more? If a picture speaks louder than a thousand words, here’s two thousand then!

I forgot that I sometimes detest pink when I saw this…

La Deb asks me to write about writing. Hell’s bells! Since I claim I’ll go to the ends of the earth to do what my friends ask of me, I’m bound. But what…would…I…know…about…writing? Moreover, whatever will I say that hasn’t been said by her, talent par excellence herself?

Here goes nevertheless….

Writing is a conversation. So talk. Then again, most people don’t know how to talk. Let’s start again. Writing, like talking should be as simple as thinking. You don’t try to think. You just do. The ideas just appear in your head in pictures, in images, in sounds, in smells, in words. As you instinctively understand them without needing to string them together into coherent sentences, assume that your listeners and readers will do the same. You’ll be amazed at how easily people understand each other.

Writing is not a performance art. It is a technique, a medium of expression at best. And don’t look for ways to use a certain word. Maybe you really love that word. Rest assured that if your love is true, it will find a way into your expression without your having to engineer a sentence for it. Contrived ideas and sentences are painful. The effort shows and real class is in being, not in trying.

Writing is an art but a disciplined one. This is pretty basic but still true. Use correct grammar (but don’t agonize over it). Check your spellings (that’s what Spell Check and the dotted red lines are for). Try to use short sentences. This isn’t a definitive rule but try not to exceed more than 2 lines for a single sentence. And please, please, use paragraphs. It really makes reading easier and your writing more coherent.

Writing is the art of revealing and concealing thought. There is real power in saying something in fewer words. Short stories, advertisement taglines, joke punchlines all rely on this. Bloggers, do try fifty-five word stories. These are an excellent way to practise concise writing.

And finally, don’t ever forget that writing is expression. There are no rules about writing styles. Think of what makes you laugh: sarcasm, spoofs, mimicry, slapstick, nonsense, fantasy, irony. There are as many kinds of writing as there are people in the world. I think it is a grave mistake, at least in the beginning, to follow anybody else’s work. Find your own style and develop it.

I’d really like to hear these people’s thoughts on writing:

Neha Vishwanathan, because her writing is simple, straightforward and unaffected, celebrity-blogger status notwithstanding. Poetry, narratives, fiction-fragments, each post on Neha’s blog is a delight to read.

Alphabet Soup, because I’ve watched her writing grow practically at super-speed from basic potential to bestseller material. Her output never ceases to amaze me. How do you do it, girl?

N, because I have the good fortune to know her offline as well and I know that her expression is always top-quality. Neat, slick and impactful…these apply to her speech, emails and posts. Let’s hear it from the pro!

Manuscrypts, because no one can write a short story like he can!

Mum was my first teacher, especially in English. I think I get my love of language and words from her side. Oh, and the sense of humor too, perhaps?

We’ve been subscribing to the Readers’ Digest for donkey’s years now. I don’t even remember when I started reading it myself. Only that it was one of the many books, newspapers and magazines always around. I started with the end-of-story filler jokes and then graduated to the colorfully illustrated Laughter-The Best Medicine, Life’s Like That and All in a Day’s work. Before I knew it, I was reading the stories and articles as well and my parents had one more contender to the monthly issue. It was always a tussle.

In the house that I grew up in, we had a magazine stand, stuffed to spilling point with mum’s Tamizh magazines but also with the month’s issue of RD discreetly tucked away. Once it was found under a pillow after the last reader fell asleep on it and made the bed over it by mistake. But there was always a struggle over who got to read it the day it arrived.

Now, I find that RD eventually ends up in my parents’ room where both of them take their turn reading it and then it lies atop their respective bedside ‘to-read’ stacks. Then the next one arrives and the ‘old’ issue is relegated to the newspaper drawers. I don’t get to see it at all unless I salvage it before it goes to the raddiwallah!!!!!!

Foul! I cried and stole it away this month, whereupon it lay on my bedstead for 3 days with dad turning their room upside down looking for it. Though I actually got to read it only today. Sprawled on my tummy with mum idling next to me, I leaf through it and announce that I am going to do the Word Power challenge.

Aloud, she urges. So I start…little thinking that it will turn out to be another episode of Mum’s haha-pie. Ten minutes later, after I’m done, I read out the answers with the notes that follow (”knowing the root of the word improves your understanding of other related words…a trick I picked up after the CAT entrances” I tell her). She yawns in response and I am tempted to make my usual wise-cracks about…

I need all this. After all, I didn’t study in a convent like you! All I went to was some unknown village school.

All because the area my school was in, used to be a village in…godknows, the 18th century?

Ahem, ahem, I preen, anticipating a high score…and tell her that ‘tangent’ is derived from the Latin word tangere.

She says,

I’ve heard of Tanjere. I think its a place in Africa.

I interrupt her to tell her that she might be thinking of Tanzania.

No, there’s some place called…

..she continues

Or maybe you’re thinking of Tanjore, where our ancestors were from!!

And we both dissolve in laughter as she calls me a very silly girl .

Every word and its meaning becomes a new discussion, a new joke. So ferre contributing to circumference turns into a story of faireewallas who are actually those men who pull hand-carts.

Maybe they’re called that because they ferry things around, I observe.

She laughs and tells me that it’s more likely because they do feras around the city with those carts.

When I get to genus and read out the example: ‘Some trees are called oak but do not belong to the genus Quercus’ , mum says it reminds her of a childhood poem and starts to chant. Mid-way through the first word, I join in and we go

Oak before ash, in for a splash!
Ash before oak, in for a soak!

As we end in unison, she asks wide-eyed, if I had studied it too. I tell her no, I’ve just heard her say it so often, I may as well know it too now.
Parse (meaning to analyze grammatically) has mum observing in all seriousness,

So a parson is a person who analyzes the sins of the parishioners?

And she begs me not to be write this down, for fear of offending our Christian friends. I laugh her off and tell her not to worry, everyone has a funny bone somewhere.

Integer leads us to a weird conversation since it comes from the Latin word for ‘intact, whole’. This makes perfect sense to me but mum asks why we say something is an ‘integral part’ of something. I tell it that’s used to describe a part without which the whole does not have integrity. I conclude,

So it is something that brings integrity to the whole.

She disagrees and tells me that it has to do with doing what you say you will. And when I shake my head, she counters with

If I’ve said I will murder somebody, I must do it or lose my integrity???!

Great. Grammar lessons turn into philosophical debates with mum. I laugh and announce that she’s not meant to be thinking of such esoteric ideas.

Precambrian has us both stumped. The options aren’t of any help either:

a. 50 million years ago
b. 200 million years ago
c. 400 million years ago
d. 2 billion years ago

No wonder we didn’t know it, we weren’t around then!

says mum in finality which ends the discussion.

And finally there’s pedagogy which sounds vaguely familiar to me but she claims to not have heard of.

I only know synagogue!

My claim to knowledge goes kaput as I get it wrong too. And I read out:

Relating to education; the profession or theory of teaching. Greek paidagogs (slave who escorted children to school). You had one of those, didn’t you?

She bristles and says,

He wasn’t a slave! He was an orderly, a paid, government servant.

Whatever…I grin and shut the issue. Dad wants to read it and my grammar lesson is over.

In the Snake Woman issue that I read, Jessica says:

Maybe that’s what growing up is….realizing the things we do don’t mean anything. Things aren’t right or wrong. They’re just impulses. They just are.

Or perhaps in the grander scheme of things, beyond everyday breaths, in an entire lifetime some things cease to matter. Even within one relationship in a few years, it may be forgotten - those details of who spoke first, who made the first move and who ended it. Where then, is there any significance of our mundane emotions and selves in the grand panorama of multiple lifetimes?

Is it possible to live several lifetimes in one? I always liked taking stock at the end, summarizing, taking one key point out of each of the lengthy stories beforehand. What if this lifetime were nothing more than a fast-forward of a thousand others, a recap, a reminder to pick one sentence, one word from each lesson? An executive summary of everything thus far.

Then that’s why there’s so much room for deja vu, familiarity and seemingly-magical connections in my life. No wonder then I’m frequently bored…I’ve seen all of this before. Who’s got the time or the inclination..or the need, to recreate the entire production again? When all I have to do is run through it just to pull out the very essence of it? Ah, no wonder I seem cold and even slightly mad sometimes. I’m running the same tape, but just at a different speed than you are. And I loved you no less than yesterday. Or was it three lifetimes ago? I forget, the order doesn’t matter anyway.

My love, my hate, my passion, my indifference, my callousness, my grief….everything was just a series of impulses. Ha.

I realized yesterday that you can’t control your friendships any more than you can control your love life. I heard someone ask, almost reproachfully,

Since love happens on its own,
Without will or volition,
Why hate someone for loving you,
Or, for not being able to?

I thought long and hard but I never had an answer to that.

You certainly can’t control who you fall in love with. Or who falls in love with you.
You can’t control who to like or not like. Or who places you up on the pedestal of friendship. Or sacrifices you on the alter of love.

All you can do, is turn your back on relationships that you think aren’t right…and hope to heaven that they leave you alone and don’t come knocking on the door of your unconscious every now and then.

J once told me that,

A relationship is like eye-contact. It takes two to maintain it. But only one to look away and it is broken.

I disagree. As long as one person is still looking, the gaze exists, the spotlight, the glare and eventually, the other must come back to look again. It takes one to start and two to end.

In my mind, I effectively killed off those that hurt me and inadvertently created the ghosts of my past. Now, I am done and wish them nothing any more. Not joy, not fear, not hatred, not love. I’ve been the response to their initiation. Each spell of wonder, of lust and of love that was cast on me, I reciprocated with a counter-spell of murky attachment, of resentful longing, of secret guilt.

I wrote this months ago but did not publish it because it didn’t feel real. And now, finally that the impulse has caught up with the truth….like colour filling into the lines of what must come to pass…here it is.

I never did learn how to make a person stay
But it seemed like I learnt how to let them go
And I’ve always known how to make sure I’d be missed

Today, after all the grand entrances and exits,
All the passing throughs and mixed memories
I acknowledge what I’ve done

And to all the people I’ve bound to me,
Without seeming to,
I set you free

I stole my freedom away from you and us
Now I give you back yours, as a parting gift

You have been loved. And hated. And indulged. And denied. And finally absolved.
Your crimes washed away along with mine. And your pain redeemed for my tears.

I don’t have any regrets
And I hope, neither do you

Go in peace.

This is for everybody I’ve had any kind of strong attachment to, especially in the past few years. Friends, lovers, foes, ex-boyfriends, rivals. I’m letting you go. Not with any ulterior motives or from misplaced pride anymore but because…it is the only thing left to do. Please let me go. And let’s just get on with the rest of our lives. And lifetimes.

I haven’t seen you in awhile.

he said.

I’ve been waiting.

I murmured.

You’re sure about this, right?

he asked in some trepidition, reacting perhaps to some hidden uncertainity in my voice.

I trust you completely.

I dimpled back. And closed my eyes. His hands moved gently.

An hour later we were done. I stood up and told him,

You’re the best, you know?

He just smiled.

He’s modest but creative, my hair-stylist.

And as I walked out of the door, his last words were,

I really like you. You give me all the freedom I want and it makes me put my heart into my work!!!

So I’m now wearing a man’s heart…not on my sleeve….but woven into my crowning glory!!