Careless whispers...

I just love this time of the day. It is 6.30 pm, and the light is glorious and dim, the sky is buring in orange and hot white, and the evening descends gently, easing up the frown on my forehead. The crows have gone 'to bed', so instead I see groups of sparrows, and little green parrots flying in twos or fours, very close to the balcony. Their excited screams make them sound like little kids let loose by their parents to play ball after a whole day at home. And they do endless rounds of the building, in perfect sync. I am listening to a Celine Dion CD. It's so soothing... I could be anywhere in the world. This light makes every big city look alike. I could be happy anywhere in this light and cool breeze. I feel so calm, that I could let anything go, anyone walk all over me, anything happen... I can feel my heart overpouring with love for my family and friends. It is when I think of the most. And hope they are happy and fine, and thinking of me too. It's beautiful!

Marathi power

This morning, I woke up to a whole new neighbourhood. When heading to work, I realised that there was something changed about the shop signs and billboards all over Colaba. The local Vodafone store had its name plastered in Marathi right accross the original (which was something like 'translating' Coca Cola??), a tailor had hastily glued a piece of paper with the Marathi equivalent of his already Marathi name under the original signage, and even the local pet shop owner was furiously scrubbing off the Marathi sign that he had mistakenly fixed upside down. And if you are sitting down, you may also want to know that the Colaba branch of McDonald's also had a sign in Marathi right underneath the original. Some shops had more permanently-looking signs, no doubt from the previous wave of violence inflicted by the Shiv Sena fascist party on the war path of saveguarding Maharashtra only for Maharashtirans, and reviving the 'pride' in the Marathi language.
I am all for local languages and their flourishing. I am all for Maharashtrians speaking their mother tongue and being proud of it. I am all for the preservation of local culture and expression. I think every language is beautiful and unique. And I have all intention is speaking Bulgarian to my kids one day.
However, I think Marathi now will forever have a negative connotation for me, because of the 'methods' Mr Raj Thackeray is employing to convince people to do just that. Breaking shops and property of people who are feeding a family with their businesses; treatening; going on a rampage; lecturing and imposing on others what they think is 'right'.
Mr Thackeray, if you are so hell-bent on saving the Marathi language, why don't you fight for teacher's salaries to become more adequate? Why don't you sponsor a few marathi-medium schools with the same amount of money which gets wasted in the chaos and destruction your 'men' cause? Why don't you encourage Marathi book stores, search for talented writers in your native language, spread leaflets promoting the beauty and importance of it, start a magazine... I heard that you are now putting pressure on TV channels to start programmes in Marathi. Will you pay for the air time they may lose if those programmes are not watched? Will you compensate all these shop owners for whom it may be detrimental to have their business names displayed in Marathi? How can you force any private initiative to change its name to suit your purpose?
I can sit here and endlessly think of constructive ways and means to achieve your purpose. But of course, it is so much easier to break and destroy; it is so much more 'profitable' incensing a band of not very intelligent 'men' with nothing better to do in life, to go on a rampage and take out their frustration on people who actually work, call them your 'party workers' thus almost giving them a legitimate 'designation' allowing them to throw their weight around.
However, I really think the cherry on the cake was when your 'men' demanded that the Bombay Scottish school, a hundreds of years old institution, change its name to Mumbai Scottish. You are a genius, Mr Thackeray. I will not be surprised if tomorrow you send your 'men' to all public libraries and ask them to destroy all historical or age-old volumes which still mention 'Mumbai' as 'Bombay'.
With what guts do you think, Mr Thackeray, that you will be able to change a nation's history, an essential part of which is the English language, thanks to which now your compatriots can study in the best universities abroad, land profitable jobs, travel the world and communicate, read literature, and have such a big advantage over other Asian countries (completely underutilised, but this is a different subject). You are like a bully in a school yard, loathed solely because of your 'muscle power'. Only in your case this power is combined with lethal intelligence, able to manipulate people in following you in your destructive and power-hungry aspirations.
I will not be surprised if soon you demand Maharashtra's independence from the rest of India and proclaim yourself the king.

The 'imported' daughter-in-law diaries?

This week, my very talented brother-in-law Raj Patel (Gurtaj's sister's husband) launched his much-acclaimed book, Stuffed and Starved (www.stuffedandstarved.org), in Delhi. And while Harper Collins India made a mess of the whole exercise (topic of another post), there were a few light moments. One of the panelists started with a speech about Indians wanting everything foreign. He started with the lowest creature in the food chain - the worm. He bemoaned how worms are killed with pesticides, and then 'we' import worms from Mexico to do vermiculture. He continued with the more noble seeds and grains, went through the vegetables, and reached the sacred cow - which, it seems, we also cross breed like mad, or just import, with disregard to our biological heritage. "But that's not all," he raised his voice even more, with a glint in his eyes, proud of having found another soundbyte, "We are now not happy with Indian daughters-in-law, and prefer to get foreign ones!!!" He could have not known that the girl turning crimson red on the first row was an 'imported' daughter-in-law, but there were Gurtaj's friends (some of them with a lethal sense of humour), Dr Vandana Shiva whom I had interviewed, my in-laws, a bunch of relatives, the culprit who 'imported' me, my in-laws AND of course Raj. They all bursted out laughing (some of them going as far as pointing at me) - with double the strenght they would have usually - because the pun was oh-so-unintended. And the speaker beamed even more, proud of having cracked the joke of the evening.
So now, friends, it is good to know where I stand in the Indian tree of life:
worm
seed
grain
vegetable
cow
daughter-in-law (imported)
Or should I say, in the food chain of essential consumatives???
Thank you, sir!!!

The recent blasts in India

I was far removed from any 'reality' when the bomb blasts happened. I was in the peaceful island of Bintan, in Indonesia, basking in the sun and the warm Chinese Sea. When the blasts in Bangalore were flashed on the internet, it gave us a heavy heart, but we continued partying. The next day, we logged on to follow up on the Bangalore investigations, but instead whet the screen was screaming at us was '17 blasts in Ahmedabad'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The feeling was nothing short of shattered. What is happening to our country?! Aren't we ridden enough with dirt, poverty, diseases, overpopulation, and now this? And why do such things always seem to moslty affect the common guy, out there to earn an extra buck, taking the train to go back to his family, or barely making ends meet. The guy far removed from any agenda other than what to put on his family's plates the next day... I know I sound populist and naive here, but I feel there is complete disconnect between means and ends, as misery is added to more misery. And human life seems to be so cheap...
People due to travel to India were scared... But honestly, today, this could happen anywhere, even in the most developed country. I was in London when the subway and bus blasts happened.
What personally scares me here is that when something similar happens in India, you never know if an ambulance will reach you or not. You don't know what hospital you will be taken to. I am scared of the fact that chaos breeds more chaos. Bodies are being lifted without concern for the kind of injury they have and whether this would make it worst. People are left to fend for themselves and do with whatever resources they have on their disposal. I am sure the police does a great job, but sometimes they just seem so archaic and so pathetically underpaid and undisciplined. Uneducated crowds gather immediately to stare or to help, which completely destroys a lot of evidence. Cameramen step all over each other to get this shot of a torn off leg or arm, or a splatter of blood, which channels will repeat in a loop again and again and again.
What also scares me is the sophistication and arrogance of the attacks - they did not even wait for a few days before hitting Ahmedabad!

THE COMPANY OF WOMEN

I am not going to be discussing Khushwant Singh’s book here, but I can’t think of a better title! Because this is what is happening to me here! From a household dominated by a man and a male housekeeper, I am now in an oestrogen-filled apartment in Sofia – my aunt, her two daughters (pictured here), my grandmother, and the dog – female! Somewhere in between all this – my uncle, always nervously smoking in a corner.
Flashback to an episode of Friends I saw some time ago – the one where Rachel is moving out as Chandler is moving in with Monica. The two of them are remembering the good times and the little signs of attention they used to give to each other, and the small ways in which they took care of each other. It all ends with Monica letting out a teary wail: ‘You are moving out! And now I have to live with a booooooyyyyy!’
Yep… living with other women has its advantages. You can borrow anything – from cellulite gel to tweezers. If you say you need hair volumiser they actually know what you are talking about. They empathise when you say you did not sleep the whole night as this new slimming product makes you pee every 15 minutes, and they notice the impeccable stitching and finish of your new dress. They can tell that 3 months ago you had blond highlights which still look not that bad, and they can tell you whether your khaki or green shoes go better with your trousers – to a man, both would look exactly the same! They know the difference between normal sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar and sweetener. And the difference between slow carbs, fast carbs and fibre. They know the latest celebrity gossip and don’t mind discussing it with you as if their lives depended on it. They don’t think you are nuts if you cry watching the latest Brazilian TV series. And yes, they understand why, when you see a pile of dirty clothes on the floor or a stain on the tablecloth, you feel like someone is wrenching your guts!
In this house, we can walk around half naked without a worry in this world, pointing out each other’s flaws without taking it personally and feeling like s…t for days. We can take cleaning and storage tips from each other. We can bitch about men and feel human. We can discuss what the gyanec said last time we went for a checkup, without fear that someone will get turned off.I LOVE this time spend with them… Until the day I have to take the plane to Bombay and go back to ‘living with a booooooyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!'

NOSTALGIA

I have been in Sofia for almost five days now. I am mostly home looking after my grandmother. So every time I step out for a breather, it is like a brainwave of nostalgia. It is funny how the people we have been slowly vanish into some secret compartment of our brains, which gets unlocked by the strangest of things. In my case, songs I hear on the radio while in a cab, names and faces in newspapers (now mostly gone white and wrinkled), ad jingles, old book covers, old jokes… And suddenly I am 15 again, carelessly walking the streets of ‘this town where I was born’ (another old song I heard in a cab today). I am my old lanky and carefree self. Memories flow in and I almost have the feeling I am peeking into someone else’s life. I look at the people around me, and I can see how their dreams, lives have changed since I have been away. And I realise how far removed from all this I have become. And honestly, I can’t decide if this is wrong or right… I feel home, and yet I feel completely lost. I realise that my brain takes more time to process information delivered in Bulgarian. I ask people to repeat things and explain again. They must be thinking I am retarded or something! When Gurtaj calls me on the phone, I suddenly get an Eastern European accent I have never had before, and I feel I speak English with a Bulgarian sing song in it.

THE WORLD FROM THE AIR

I am on a flight from Bombay to London (final destination – Sofia) and I am flying over the most amazing landscape of arid mountains, gorges and plateaus. As far as the eye can see, all there is, is brown land, at places creased and wrinkled like old cardboard. No water. A lonely little town is in the distance, and I can see a long, straight road cutting through, going into the unknown. Ashkhabad and Mashhad. This is all the tangible information I can get from the map provided on my screen. Never very good at geography, I am clueless as per what country I am flying over. I will definitely have to look it over as soon as I get an Internet connection. My heart swells as I look down at this land so far removed from my reality, and from the reality of most passengers on this airplane. I am trying to imagine the lives of those living underneath, how they cope with this unforgiving landscape. I wonder what animals live down below… Will I ever visit this place in my lifetime? We are soon going to fly over Baku, Yerevan (and several other ex-Soviet strongholds with exotic names) and Kiev… Then on to Vienna, etc. etc. The world is so incredibly big! So much to see! So many stories and different lifestyles, most of them never to be known to me! It is amazing and sad at the same time. A strange feeling of insignificance and loneliness also creeps in. I feel a particle of something far beyond full understanding.

A FEW DAYS LATER: And here is some information on Ashkhabad:

It is the capital and largest city of Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia. It has a population of 695,300 and is situated between the Kara Kum desert (which I must have seen from the plane) and the Kopet Dag mountain range. Ashgabat has a primarily Turkmen population, with minorities of ethnic Russians, Armenians and Azeris. It is 250 km from the second largest city in Iran, Mashhad (another name I saw on the electronic route map). The name is believed to derive from the Persian Ashk-ābād meaning "the City of Arsaces." Another explanation is that the name is a dialect version of the Persian عشق (eshq meaning "love") and آباد (ābād meaning "cultivated place" or "city", etymologically "abode"), and hence loosely translates as "the city of love."Ashgabat is a relatively young city, growing out of a village of the same name established in 1818. It is not far from the site of Nisa, ancient capital of the Parthians and the ruins of the Silk Road city of Konjikala, which had been destroyed either by an earthquake in the first decade BC, or by the Mongols in the 13th century. It remained a part of Persia until 1884. In 1869, Russian soldiers built a fortress on a hill near the village, and this added security soon attracted merchants and craftsmen to the area. Tsarist Russia annexed the region in 1884 from Persia under he terms of Akhal Treaty, and chose to develop the town as a regional center due to its proximity to the border of British-influenced Persia. It was regarded as a pleasant town with European style buildings, shops and hotels. It was re-named Poltoratsk under Soviet rule. A merciless earthquake in 1948 killed 2\3rd of its population... Pictures on the Internet show a beautiful city with gold cupolas and impressive buildings, nothing to do with the arid landscape I saw...

Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans

I love this quote (which today I found out is from a John Lennon song) and I find it is so true! You just have to look at all the disasters happening around in the world and realise how fickle any sort of major life plan is, even if it is for a short period of time.
I am talking about another sort of disaster here. While I was busy planning a blissful first month in our new home, in complete privacy (with the cook, driver and maid on leave!), my grandma in Bulgaria fell (after a very strong dizzy spell which caused disorientation – yet not diagnosed why) and injured her back. She is bed-ridden now and my aunt has been looking after her. My mum, just a few months before retiring from the Bulgarian embassy in Delhi, has been grounded by me – I have put my foot down that she can’t travel now. So to make her feel less guilty, I am heading to Sofia to spend time with my granny. Life happened, with all my other plans going into flames.
I have been strangely stressed about leaving, almost feeling like I will be traveling ‘abroad’ and thus uprooting myself from my Bombay life. And of course, having to face some harsh realities:
- my family getting older and frailer
- rubbing in the distance factor
- domestic issues that are so well taken care of here, which drive my family and friends in Bulgaria insane
- complete lack of control and comfort in the country that used to be my own
- my mother being in the same position one day and me being the only child
Weird realizations…

The good thing is that the control freak in me is finally starting to lay lower, understanding that the more I want to control something, the more life is amused to throw a wrench in the wheel of my just about steady bicycle wheel. So all of you control freaks out there, remember: hope for the best but be ready for the worst; if you have the chance to finish off something, do it NOW; if you want to do something positive for yourself or others, just jump at the deep end, don’t start with endless excel sheets and daydreaming – just do it if you have the time.
Another positive thought: the definition of ‘luxury’ for me today is the fact that I can just get up and go because I have to and because I want to. I can lean back on an incredibly supportive husband and a really cool boss, and I don’t need to worry financially. I am so grateful for that!

So now my plans are to spend quality time with granny and finally get around to doing that book on childhood recipes that make me feel home; catching up on reading and on the latest gossip in my cousin’s lives; going on a diet while I am there (!!!) and of course loading up on my favourite Bulgarian designers whenever I get the time to go shopping!

And by the way, here’s John Lennon’s song with the above quote:

BEAUTIFUL BOY
Close your eyes
Have no fear
The monster's gone
He's on the run and your daddy's here
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Before you go to sleep
Say a little prayer
Every day in every way
It's getting better and better
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Out on the ocean sailing away
I can hardly wait to see you come of age
But I guess we'll both just have to be patient
'Cause it's a long way to go
A hard row to hoe
Yes it's a long way to go
But in the meantime
Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans

DAY DREAMING

At office... My soul feels like a trapped bird. Today I want to...
- feel winter air in my lungs
- look at fresh blossoms
- plant basil on my kitchen window sill
- browse a shop for vintage clothes
- sit in the Tuilerries garden and sip on a Perimenthe
- hug a dog
- walk and feel the fresh spring air in my face
- explore a city with a camera in hand
- see something excruciatingly beautiful and feel my heart swell
- take black and white photos of Gurtaj
- have coffee with my mother
- arrange flowers
- learn to mambo
- eat strawberry sorbet at Ile Saint Louis
- visit my grandmother and talk about the old times
- run my fingers through her white curly hair
- create a beautiful living room
- rinse my hair with diluted apple vinegar for extra shine
- look at a clear blue sky and feel like crying with joy
- take a bus and miss my stop, just because I felt like
- I want to be greeted with a smile and smell of cinnamon at the neighbourhood baker
- sit on a wooden planks floor and listen to jazz while leafing through magazines

Thought of the day...

Virginia Woolfe's interpretation of incandescence in ‘A Room of Her Own’:
Being independent and owing nothing to anybody is essential to achieve the state of mind necessary to produce great art. With material and financial independence, "no force in the world can take from me my five hundred pounds. Food, house and clothing are mine for ever. I need not hate any man; he can not hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me" Material independence grants its owner an emotional independence, it allows one to be free of "grudges and spites and antipathies," to have one's mind unclouded by "alien emotions like fear and hatred". Woolf calls this state of mind "incandescence".

Just wasting time...

This little girl was blissfully playing with her own hands at the Kemps Corner traffic light, creating a little world of fun, all her own.

Dia

I met her at Tanah Lok temple in Bali. She was trying to sell me some colourful souvenirs with quiet desperation on her face. She had no time for my niceties. She was here to do a job. There are plenty of street children in India trying to sell me stuff, but Dia somehow tore my heart with her grown up almond eyes, neat ponytail, clean clothes and sling bag, translucent flawless skin and serious expression. I could not touch her on the head, as I read in The Lonely Planet that here the head is considered the home of the spirit, and it is very rude to touch it. So I just made eye contact and spoke to her gently, asking her to smile and then showing her the photo on my digicam. This somehow brightened her up, until she disappeared into the crowd of tourists, on a mission.

Of dogs and golfers with soft hearts

What you see is the most expensive grass that a golf course would have - "The Green". No one, and I repeat, no one is allowed to step on it without special golf shoes. And no one (except the caddie) could even dream of hanging out there while a golfer is putting towards the hole. But at Tollygunge Golf Club in Kolkata, the rules are different. Here, stray dogs are allowed, loved and welcomed everywhere.

Meet Julie, supposedly 18 years old. I watched her with my heart in my mouth, shuffling with her arthritic legs to The Green, and lying down there, blissfully soaking up the sun. A group of golfers were all around, and one of them cautiously started approaching her. Just when I though he would tap her with his golf club and prod her to go away, he... bent down and patted her with utmost care and affection!!! Julie is also the only dog allowed within The Shamiana - the open air cafe at the club, where players and guests can have tea, snacks or breakfast. She has her own little food and water bowls in a corner, and is a permanent 'fixture' around. She was sleeping peacefully one morning, until a table of elderly gentlemen (the type I would normally assume hate dogs) was served hot steaming omelettes and toast. Almost blind Julie woke up, smelled the air, and slowly limped towards their table. She stood there for good 5-10 minutes, patiently. Until one of the men lovingly cut a piece of omelette and gave it to her, patting her on the head for dessert. The fact is, The Shamiana was full, and everyone's table was laden with delicious treats. Why did she go to this table?

The next day at breakfast, I saw a lady giving Julie her daily dose of vitamins (!). She told me that on days when the kitchen is closed, she comes especially from home to make sure the old lady is fed and happy!

It would have been hard to miss a horde of small puppies running around. In the evening, the club staff secures them in an old concrete tub, and covers them with cardboard, so that the jackals which abound around the premises, don't eat them up at night. Someone is responsible for taking them out at the crack of dawn. And yes, "a doctor did come around last week to check out their skin disease, madam". And part of the watchman's duties is to make sure the puppies stay off the drive in alley of the club (which he demonstrated proudly, gently using a short stick).

Thought of the day...

I recently discovered an amazing blog by Janice, living in DC, a musician fascinated by jewellery. If you need something to spark off your creativity on a dull day, visit http://goddessfindingsjewelsforthespirit.blogspot.com/

I am grateful to janice for publishing an excerpt of one of my favourite books, Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel:

“In 1669, Brandt, a chemist from Hamburg, was searching for the philosophers stone discovered phosphorous. My grandmother Morning Star, she was a Kikapu Indian, she used to say that we’re all born with a box of matches inside. We can’t light them by ourselves. Just like in this experiment, we need oxygen and the help of a candle. Except that in our case, the oxygen has to come, for example, from a lover’s breath. The candle can be anything: a melody, a word, a caress, a sound anything that pulls the trigger and sets off one of the matches, Everyone has to discover what will pull his trigger and enable him to live because it it’s the explosive flair of a match that feeds our souls. If there’s nothing to trigger the explosion, our box of matches becomes damp an then we’ll never be able to light any of them."

So what lights up your inner fire?

American Gangster follow up

I recently saw American Gangster and as I always get super excited about real stories, I decided to read up a bit more on Frank Lucas. And stumbled upon this amazing piece by a New York Magazine journalist who actually spent a whole day with Lucas and recorded his memories. A rare, mesmerizing insight: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/3649/

Glimpses of Kala Ghoda

Once a year, in February, the heritage area of Kala Ghoda ("the black horse", named after a statue which is now in the Byculla Zoo of Bombay), transforms into a bustling non-traffic zone full of street stalls selling crafts and books, open air exhibitions and performances, and all kinds of cool stuff. I love this time of the year!

The nip is still in the Bombay air...

Love, actually...

Have always looked forward to reading The Speaking Tree, the spirituality column in The Times Of India. And I really enjoyed this one. Wishing everyone happy Valentine's Day!

ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT LOVE

By Ashok Vohra, published in The Times Of India, February 14th, 2008
Love is a basic emotion, yet you cannot plan to fall in love or create conditions for being in love. It is something over which you have no control. Either you fall in love or you do not. It is ordained. Ramakrishna explains this with the following analogy: "When a huge tidal wave comes, all the little brooks and ditches become full to the brim without any effort or consciousness on their own part”. However, there are some criteria for judging whether one is in love or not.

The first test is that you do not want exclusive possession of the object of your love. You wish the world to know of your love. You could declare your love from the rooftop. And you wish to do or say whatever makes the person you love happy. M K Gandhi said: "Love and exclusive possession can never go together. Theoretically where there is perfect love, there must be perfect non-possession”.

The second test of love is that there can be no bargain. It does not recognise reward or punishment. Love itself is a merit, and itself its own reward. Beyond itself love seeks neither cause nor outcome; the outcome of it is one with the practice of it. You love something or someone for its own sake and not because you want or desire a favour in return. Love is not a means to some ephemeral or non-ephemeral end, but is an end in itself. Love is not a response to a certain positive situation. You can go on loving... for when you give your love it comes back millions of times more. The notion of giving is so consequential to love that "if you do not give it, it goes, it becomes dead, it becomes a dead weight on you. It becomes hatred — it turns into its very opposite. It becomes fear, it becomes jealousy, it becomes possessiveness”, said Osho.

The third test of real love is the annihilation of the ego. It obliterates the distinction between the self and the other by an unconditional surrender to the other; rather it is a total merger, a complete synthesis with the beloved. In true love the lover and the beloved are one. The sense of your own identity and individuality vanishes. The other, therefore, does not place a limit on the lover’s freedom; rather, communion with the beloved leads to unbound freedom. It frees us from limits imposed on us by our ahamkara — ego.

The fourth test of real love is that it knows no fear. Fear could be of unfulfilled desires. If your love springs from fear of punishment, or from your desires being fulfilled, then it is no love at all. Love and fear are incompatible, because in love there is no place for desire.

The fifth test of love is that you love what you consider to be the best. Therefore, the beloved person, object, or ideal is unique. It is the highest from the perspective of the lover; from others’ perspective it may not be so. For others some other ideal could be higher than this one. But for the lover the beloved is the best.

The sixth test of real love is that the lover does not so much believe in pedantic and powerless reason which merely argues but is not able to establish a direct contact with the beloved. The lover gives up the fruitless intellectual groping in the dark, and trusts his own direct experience. He does not give reasons and argu-ments, nor depend upon inference but depends on direct perception and lived life experience.
The writer is head, department of philosophy, Delhi University

A Day In The Life Of Bombay

- The fascist party of the Shiv Sena is at it again, beating up 'outsiders' and vandalising signs in English. Newspapers are overflowing with letters and interviews where people inanimously say that Bombay is for everyone and its beauty lies in its cosmopilitan natur. Anyone listening?

- a couple drowns (!!!) in the sea near Bandra Bandstand

- real estate prices are soaring - again

- 6 LeT men were arrested just before blowing up bombs at Churchgate station

- a headline in the newspaper says that in the 21st century shining India, child sacrifice (mainly girls) is rampant in West Bengol.

I am angry.

Sick to the stomach.

Speechless.

Furious.

Wondering.

Sad.

Then a phone call comes. Gurtaj tells me that cars on Bombay's busiest intersection all stopped so that a man can shift an injured pigeon from the middle of the road to the foot path.

I am hopeful.

Kinky Boots

Mom and I had a movie marathon recently, and caught one of the best feel-good movies I have seen recently - Kinky Boots. A very Brit comedy, I found out today that it was actually based on a true story: Charlie Brown's family has been running a shoe factory for more than hundred years. And just as Charlie decides to defy the family tradition and move out of town, his father dies and he has to take over the reins of the factory. He very soon finds out that his father has been steadily losing business without telling anyone. After laying off several people, Charlie decides to do something to save the factory... A chance meeting with a drag queen, Lola, changes everything... And soon they come out with their very own collection of drag queen foot wear (built to support the weight of a man on stilettos). Really cool, really light, and really inspiring.

THE KABUL BEAUTY SCHOOL, By Deborah Rodrigues

Just finished reading this book and I am eager to share with everyone Debbie's incredible story. At first glance, a small-town American hairdresser volunteering in war-torn Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, would have strictly nothing to do there. But here's a typical, amazing example of being at the right place at the right time, and turning a small advantage into something much bigger than yourself.

Shyly standing amongst her co-aid workers, Debbie listens at everyone being introduced as doctor, epidemiologist, educator, and dreads what explanation would be given about her presence there. But at the moment she is introduced as a hair dresser and beautician, the whole room of foreigners living in Kabul erupts with applause, and before she knows it, she is busy, from morning to evening, cutting hair, giving highlights and pedicures to people from all different nationalities.

From here comes an idea, which, little she knows, will start a mini-revolution in the lives of many an Afghan women. Debbie realises that in the patriarchal Afghani culture, being a hairdresser or a beautician, is one of the very very few professions which give a woman the legitimate reason to leave her home and earn money. So she decides to start a beauty school, as a mean of empowerment and livelihood for Afghani women. Back in the US, she starts collecting donations from customers and even manages to involve big cosmetics companies to contribute money and supplies for the school. Ecstatic, she goes back to Kabul (leaving her mother and two teenage sons back in America) and thus starts a story worth a blockbuster - a lone American woman struggles with prejudice, threats to her security, finances, the rough conditions in the country and bureaucracy, to not only initiate social change, but also change her own life forever (getting a glimpse of life behind the veil, committing every possible cultural faux pas, and even marrying an Afghan man 10 years younger than her - knowing she is his second wife). This is a story of incredible guts, living life to the fullest, of unlikely friendships, and a simple truth I only too well understand - sometimes it is hard to change an injustice happening right in front of your eyes. It is not easy to go into a country with such harsh realities and ancient, rigid culture, and just wave a magic wand. It needs a lot of patience, understanding, treading with a velvet glove.

Another moral of the story for me, personally, is: even if you are wondering about a place and thinking 'what the hell am I doing here?', you never, absolutely never know what life has in stock for you, and sometimes the most unexpected thing can empower you and give a meaning to your existence.

Read more on http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/11/DDG5SP5EOE1.DTL

CLICK!

Recently, stuck at home with high fever and an awful cough, too tired to work online or even read, I found solace in some long-forgotten daytime TV. Sweating it out under a blanket, amongst mountains of used tissues and swigging from a bottle of nicely intoxicating cough syrup, I spent two days into a blur of movie repeats, soap operas and shows that I would normally miss while in office the whole day.

PASS THE SOAP!

THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Can you believe this is still going on? I mean, at this point, everyone has married and re-married everyone possible in this series; Brooke has conceived every single or married hero’s child; Stephanie has plotted and implemented an evil plan against every woman her sons cast an eye upon; all imaginable disappeared or illegitimate relatives have shown up… Many of the heroes already have gray hair. But no, the action continues, and honestly, even if you have missed a few hundred episodes, there’s no problem in catching up thanks to nagging flashbacks. And yes, Brooke is still sleeping around and crying, Ridge is still not sure about her, and Stephanie is still as evil as can be.

THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS
This is where The Bold and The Beautiful rejects live a parallel life, with their own affairs and plots. Switched channels within 5 minutes.

THE BEST OF FRIENDS
Did you know that Zee Studio shows back to back episodes of Friends?! I didn’t, and it made my day. This is one show which never bores me or tires me up. Each joke is a gem, each episode is unique!

HEROES
Ok, everyone is watching it. But allow me not to be part of the herd. Already past the freshness of the first few episodes, the protagonists’ tricks and travails have become like something the dog chewed on and then left in a corner – stale and boring. I love the way Claire (Hayden Panettiere) has transformed from a high school cheer leader into a beautiful young woman, and the Brit accent of India-born Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy), but that’s about it…

NEVER WATCHED BEFORE…

HANGING UP
I was ecstatic to catch this movie with Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow. I had read some reviews and was looking forward to a feel-good two hours. But fell flat on my face. I didn’t quite understand why the two sisters played by Diane and Lisa never went to visit their dying father, while a Mother Theresa-ish Meg never left his bedside despite all the mean things he had said to her. And the three sisters dynamics was somehow weak. At least it helped me fall asleep…

REEL TO REAL

WIFE SWAP
The person who invented the concept must have been a genius, and the way the show has been shot and edited is just brilliant. Imagine two families, can’t be more different from each other than that (a couple with two sons and a daughter living as pirates vs a super-organised household where each and every thing is labeled; or a family where the kids have to go to the bathroom on schedule and sign against their daily chores graph vs a family where the three sons are allowed to do whatever they want, with mommy succumbing to their every wish). The two wives swap homes for two weeks. The first week, they have to live as per the existing household rules. The next, they have the right to implement their own rules. Watch the fun as clashes and fights occur, while also subtle, gentle change happens, and both families find balance in their extreme existences.

COOKING UP A STORM

I could finally get a glimpse of the much talked-about celebrity chef Nigella Watson and see for myself what all the fuss is about. Men find her very sensual – tick against that point – I agree nature has gifted her the right assets (and some more, having in mind that at the end of the program they showed her going to the fridge at night and polishing off the leftovers). However, I found her drawl very unappetizing, and her cooking too oil-heavy.

KYLIE KWONG
From the way she talks food, to the frequent “mmmm”s interspersing her demos, everything about this program is absolutely delicious! I watched her for half an hour, mesmerized and hypnotized, dishing out a Peking Duck with plum sauce and fresh condiments. And decided the first thing I’ll do after getting better is dust my cookbooks and re-arrange my pantry.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN: NO RESERVATIONS
This man’s taste for adventure and unusual flavours is just too sexy! The way he can describe a place and its food, and mingle with the locals, is extremely down-to-earth, honest and raw. Love it!

PAST PERFECT
It’s official – daytime TV gets all the old, done to death movies. Several times I got stranded flicking channels for something decent to watch, only to end up recycling ancient UFO movies and horror flicks (although I must say they are much less scary during the day – The Grudge would normally get me screaming with nightmares, but this time I survived through it like I would through an episode of Sesame Street). However, I was very happy to catch up on an old favourite of mine - Practical Magic, with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. Brought up by two aunts who are witches, these two sisters are also witches, and so are Sandra’s character’s two daughters. It is a cute, heart-warming story about love, family, loss, fighting and making up. Plus, I can’t remember a movie where Sandra has looked more sexy, feminine and absolutely beautiful! A must-see! I balanced the very girlie aftertaste of this movie, by watching, back-to-back, The Jackal. Bruce Willis and Richard Gere… Need I say more?

Only in Bombay...

... you can see "Shantaram", or ex-Australian convict and now a bestselling author of the book with the same name Gregory David Roberts, and the princess of Sweden, riding a beautiful black motorcycle on Regal Circle. Both in leather jackets, she, sporting oversized shades. Both in their late 50s, they are nevertheless gorgeous - tall, slim, fit and both with long blond hair.

Between worlds

This is an excerpt from Anthony Bourdain's book NO RESERVATIONS, based on the TV show with the same name (airing on Discovery Travel + Living). It really "spoke" to me, althought he talks about travel to many different places.

"... When you're a tourist on vacation, coming home means coming back to real life: familiar places, relationships, work, love, the rent... But when you travel for a living - when "work" is drinking ayahuasca with a jungle shaman or standing on a glacier, when you're as likely, on any given day, to be trudging down a riverbed in Borneo as standing in line at Starbucks - you start to ask yourself: Which of these is my "real" life? And if the answer is that the road is the real thing, how do you go back? How do you pick up your old life, your normal life, after you've seen all this? Returning to grilled cheese and bacon, or even a good piece of fish - sauteed Western style with a drizzle of butter sauce and microgreen garnish - seems flat and lifeless after experiencing the colours and condiments of Asia. The expectations of a meal become distorted... The clothes you see and wear back home seem shapeless and washed out... The bar at the W hotel in Westwood starts to seem alien, airless and sterile. And you fear that one day you will look at your friends and loved ones and think: "I was sitting under a bouquet of human skulls, drinking rice whiskey and eating wild pig with my new headhunter buddies last week. How do I feign the appropriate level of interest in everyday things?" It has been said that we find out more about ourselves when we travel than about the places we visit. And it's true that I always look for a universality - some common ground, a unified theory of human behaviour. A comfortable takeaway that would describe the world and the behaviour of everyone in it."

Where is home?

It's one of these days, when there's a woman inside my head, screaming and demanding answers. Looking for a meaning. Looking for a straw of logic to hold on to. Trying to reconcile "loving India" with "making sense of India". Struggling to remember the person I once was, before moving stock and barrel thousands of kilometers from everything I knew and everyone who knew me upside down. And almost burning all bridges behind me.

There are sometimes days, when I realise that I have gone through months of total haze and robot-like motions. Then I look around and it hits me: I live here now... Yes, after 8 years I still have "moments of truth". I don't know if people around me realise it: the monumental nature of this move. Although I did it totally in love, not caring of any consequences. With a heart wide open. Till recently, I did not realise it myself. I wonder if then I had this knowledge, I would have still made the move. I look at my husband, and I know - I would have done it in a heart beat.

But nevertheless, here I am today, ridden with questions and so few answers. The most important one being - who am I? Trying to put together the pieces I have left behind, and the new traits of Me in India. Struggling to remember the idealistic beliefs in humanity I had, many of which I have had to put to rest here. The dreams and visions of myself which will probably never come true. The belief that love conquers all, no matter what circumstances life throws at you. The conviction that people change, and tradition, religion and pre-conceptions of how life should be, stop to matter when you are consumed with so much passion...

With the adrenalin rush going down, it all starts to sink in. This is not an adventure, it's life. This is not a wild ride, it is a marriage, which I have accepted to live in a totally foreign, sometimes incomprehensible culture. And this is not a country on my list of 1000 Places To Visit Before I Die, this is home... This is the time when the hundreds of small rivers of life come togeher, and one big stream starts flowing full strenght to the unknown.

This is the time for some important decisions and reconciliations.

- I may never be able to raise my children the way I was raised, the way my parents are raised
- they will have very different memories from mine
- they will live customs and everyday things completely foreign to me
- I may have a son with long hair - who may be a complete misfit in Bulgaria
- I will speak with my children a language their father does not understand, and they will speak to their paternal grandparents a language I do not understand
- I may have to accept that most of my Bulgarian relatives will go through the most important moments of their lives without me around
- and I will go through some of the most important moments of my life without them around
- I may have to burry a very large part of my rebelious self and start being "more accepting"
- there are certain things about myself that my husband will never understand
- there are things I loathe about India that will NEVER change - I am the one who will become harder
- I will NEVER wear a floating white dress and will never be kissed in public
- I may have to accept cremation as a last rite, although I fear fire more than anything else
- I may have to accept that one day, after everyone around me is gone and my kids are away studying in whetever country they choose, I will be here alone

I miss home today SO MUCH! But I am afraid that if I say it to my mother, she will say "I told you so" and if I say it to my husband, he will feel guilty for no fault of his.