I broke Tony's legs

The script said the superintendent broke Tony's legs. He took a big hammer and smashed both his knees because he tried to run away from the shelter. Because he didn't want to be anywhere but the platform.

I broke Tony's legs. I broke his legs in every rehearsal, repeatedly for ten days, ever since I was told to fill up for Rahil who left the play because of his knee surgery.

I was trying hard. Trying hard to be a good actor. To be a good woman actor who can play the boy who plays the superintendent, who breaks Tony's legs. I was trying so hard to have a good image in front of people who know me and were going to watch me. Too caught up in my worry of being revealed as an actor. Too caught up in issues of my time on stage, my dialogues, my monologues, my spot light, my body, my voice, my new look. I was trying hard to be my nameless character. And got so caught up in the act that I broke Tony's legs again and again, without the slightest hesitation.

Why would I hesitate?

On stage, in the glamour of fancy lights and a full auditorium, I performed the scene again. Was patted on my back for pulling it off, for not fudging lines, for having evolved as an actor, for having cracked it. I had cracked it by breaking Tony's legs - a story I knew was real.

I don't know what happened the last time I performed. In spite of its familiarity, the goriness of the image hasn't left me. I don't know what I saw that day.

I just know that that day on stage, I broke Tony's legs. Muntizer cried uncontrollably. Priya laughed uncontrollably.

Do you know the name of the hospital you were born in?

It doesn't matter. But do you?

Turn your toaster sideways to make grilled cheese!

Art of Studying

I returned home this evening and found a notice which is currently being circulated in my colony. It says:

ART OF STUDYING

Art of Studying is conducting parent student interactive session with an aim to help each other cope up with pre-examination stress with special focus on How to score maximum marks with same preparation?

Date: 19th February, 2012

Time: 3-4 pm

Venue: Badminton Court

This happens to you too

Too lazy
to sharpen

my kajal pencil,

I poke myself
in the eye,

every morning.

Hair and Care

Now that I look like a boy (which I'm thoroughly enjoying) I can't help but notice other girls who have short hair too. But the problem is...where are they? I've known/seen so many women with short/fun hairdos, why can't I find them when I'm consciously looking for them?

I spent my day travelling in the metro (I'm a proud owner of the metro smart card now! All these years I was only an unsure visitor to the city, hence never bought one). I woke up in the morning and decided to let go of the rude autos and only walk or metro it to the places I had to visit. So on this busy day I did Hauz Khas to Chattarpur. Chattarpur to Rajiv Chowk. Rajiv Chowk to Hauz Khas and then back two times! I really traveled! In the ladies compartment. And saw soo many pretty women. Hundreds of them!

But not one girl with short hair.

I know they are there. But why in such minority? I wonder if I'll ever be in a place where all women have short or no hair. And the ones with long hair are stared at, looked upon with suspicion, judged for possibly being heterosexual. How many women can let go of that length, not bother to straighten, curl or blow dry, not own bands and clips - and just live a life where length, volume or quality of hair didn't matter, where hair was not associated with notions of beauty, where family members didn't freak out at the thought of a potentially marriageable girl looking like a boy!

I must confess, it took me a long time to convince myself to cut my hair this short. Some of my friends (and even random acquaintances!) are still recovering from it. Some tried to talk me out of it, saying it won't suit my big face, the shape of my head is not good, that I wont look graceful etc etc etc. Why such discomfort! Its only hair right? It will grow! Or maybe it wont. You will cut it, colour it, go bald, go patchy, go stripey! Do anything!!! Whats the big deal?

I think I want to do a study on this. People and their association with women's hair.

Coin Baba

Reluctant to brave the cold, I decided to spend a few more minutes in the warmth of my quilt. As I lay quite in my bed, I heard someone make a jarring sound with our iron gate outside. My mum calmly but quickly attended to her visitor and was back to her kitchen within seconds. It was a Saturday.

Every Saturday of our childhood, a man dressed like a baba - long hair, rudrakshed neck, overgrown beard, kajaled eyes, orange robes (or so I think) - used to come to our colony, to each and every doorstep on the ground floor, and scream 'Jai Shani Dev!!!'. My brother and I would promptly get up, borrow coins from our grandfather and run outside to meet our visitor. We would climb on to our grilled iron gate, careful to never open it, and pass our tiny hands through the narrow black grills to drop the silver coins in an open container he held out at us. It was filled with yellow-mustard oil. We would stare fascinated as the coins cut through the oil and settled at the bottom to join other coins and distorted figures with vermilion marks all over them. He would then chant some mantras in a cryptic language and move to the next door.

We did this every single Saturday. We never waited for him. But we always knew he'd come. He did. For years. I always wondered if he went back home and spent an afternoon cleaning the coins to give to his children. I also wondered if he reused the  mustard oil week after week.

Its been soon many years since I saw him. 

So when I heard the iron gate beat again this Saturday. I asked my mother if it was the same baba. She told me his daughter comes to collect the coins these days.
Coin baba died.

Bom-Del-Bom

Then I wrote from there.
Now I write from here.
I have arrived.
Hi!

Day 1

Today

Tak and I

1. Met the landlord

2. Booked a ticket

3. Called the guy to take the AC away

4. Allowed strangers in the house accompanied by a broker

7 days to go

Then the 2 of us will go

Something really pretty happened here

Friends who work together and live together often forget to hang out with each other. So Takloo and I just left. We left the city in the midst of chaos. The chaos of finishing work in its last two weeks, the chaos of packing up the house we are so emotionally attached to, the chaos of our emotions. We left the madness of this noisy city to hang out with each other in Kochi.

Totally unprepared. Without an itinerary. So unprepared that I kept wanting to go to a cyber cafe to at least find the right places to eat.

The paranoia of missing out on good food.

Our modus operandi in this dire state was to just grab each and every tourist brochure that came our way and quickly screen through it to remember some, if not all, of the recommended places to visit (to eat) We felt so rushed. So much to do in four days. Not knowing where to start. Stop.

Kochi at first was a little disappointing. The spice market we went to, the beach we saw was nothing like the pictures we had in mind. Mental pictures are often photoshopped. But we are hopeful travelers. It started to grow on us, slowly, as we spent more time with it, as the sun signaled to set, as the evening breeze floated on water and the magic of the night took over. Its like we got over our photoshopped expectations and something started to happen!

Fort Cochi was our first stop. It is not a fort. Its an island of sorts connected to Ernakulam by a 10 rupee ferry ride, known for its huge Chinese nets meant for small fish fishing. Made in the 1840s, these nets are a major tourist attraction. Lots of people come here to watch the sunset. But the trick is to come here after the sun sets, evading the shadiness of the night, to hear the water and watch the light ripple from afar. The trick is to trip on your trip.

The trick is to walk down the Princess Street just when the night has taken over, when gorgeous stars hang from small arched doors, from old archaic dutch balconies, with the lights and shadows of closed antique shop windows - the trick is to walk and explore - and once tired to sit at the Loafers' corners - cafe on the first floor which allows you to watch the entire street (through old dying windows) and watch the purposeless tourists move  about - and the trick is to do this while sipping a good cup of coffee or while stealing Takloo's well ordered banana milk shake!

Yes the trick is to discover a walk. And in the walk discover quaint shops (we found one selling stationary made from elephant poop), and buy a filter less Charminar and smell the streets perfumed with Kerala oils. The trick is to walk through a spice market and for once really know what a walk in a spice market feels like (in your nose, in all your senses) as described in one of those novels. The trick is to enter the Dutch museum and find the prettiest ever wall paintings in natural dyes, to notice the greens of the hands and feet and find a pattern, and to slowly move away to find another pattern.

The most important thing to do is to do the backwaters. Tak and I were picked up from a folk and theatre museum in a yellow minibus which took us 45 min outside the city to Viacom. And this is where we found some magic. A small row boat took us through small canals and riverlets by small villages. We met the trees, the birds, the weeds, the ducks, the fishermen and found the palms hiding the sky from us. Suddenly someone made some noises and a young man wearing his mundu came to give us two bottles full of toddy. Then we floated on toddy, streamed under small water bridges and saw some green and some brown and more green and more brown!

Then we moved to the glamour of a big house boat and sailed on Vembanadu to find a boat man sing to us from afar, and to find a man bathing fearlessly in the deep and have a fisherman's wife cook hot baby mussels with coconut. The backwaters are not like the photoshopped photographs. They are far more magnificent and deep and serene and hued and calming than we can imagine.

Since food is important. One last thing I'll tell you about is the Ceylon Bake house. I actually found the best place to eat in the city. They served us karimeen masala, roasted prawns, fried fish, parontha and idliappam. Absolutely brilliant! And arguably cheaper than any of the fancy places in Fort Kochi or Mattancherry. This place is beautifully modest and sincere. Nothing fancy shwancy except for the food. The ambience is simple, shockingly plain, the mood is nothing extraordinary. You come, you eat, you love it and you leave. Full and satisfied. Maybe the reason I liked  it so much is because its glamour and fame has not gone to its head.

We did so much and saw so much and ate so much! So overwhelming in such a short trip. The art of not doing anything while doing some things. The art of finding an itinerary which flowed so beautifully. So effortlessly. We are all such artists!

And it ended with a perfect train journey. With a long train journey up the west coast. So long that it threatened to get tedious. But stopped just when we had soaked it all in.

Now I'm back to the madness, to a city I'm going to leave. Wish me luck!