Chez Moi

This post is special - really, really special.

Why? Not because it is a milestone related to my blog - number of days it has been in existence, number of posts etc. It is special ‘cos it is the first one that is being done from my brand new laptop.

My very own MacBook!

I still cannot believe it! I keep re-reading the above statement but it still feels a bit surreal. I have been glued to the thing since we brought it home earlier this afternoon. My own laptop, my very own. Mine and nobody else’s! As I was coming back home from the Mall this afternoon, I couldn’t help but smile at how it used to be whilst growing up. Dad being in the forefront of IT related stuff meant the comp will get a total rehaul any time. Any files that were dumped on the desktop previous week might disappear any day.

The number of times I had lovingly stored favourite photos, poems, stories only to find the whole contraption gone - well, they are well and truly behind me now! Anyone who touches my spanking new machine will be first fingerprinted and allocated no more than 2.5 minutes at a time. And strictly no games or downloads allowed!

Bring on sem 2!

Don’t panic - I am not going over 18 or anything. This is the oft-repeated search tag / phrase for folks who stumble onto my blog. This statement astounds me on many levels.

1. How? How did you type those words and land up here? There ain’t anything about deepa venkat nor bras nor any blessed shows! Boy you must be one pissed chappie to realise that, eh what?
2. Why? Bra shows, I understand but Deepa Venkat? She is pleasing to the eye, is a halfway decent actress, absolutely wasted on mega serials and all that but she isn’t what I’d consider a babe. So why a bra show featuring her?
3. Where? Where in hell are you if you cannot find decent maal in Cosmo and Playboy and have to resort to d.v.b.s?

My mind boggles!

Who am I? This is a question I have often posed myself since I could formulate those words. Not because I had amnesia like Jackie Chan in that god-awful flick but when I was old enough to differentiate between dialects and accents, I figured the dad’s side of the family in the Village spoke totally differently to us folks in Madras. And this was before taking Madras baashai into account.

One of my earliest memories of visiting the paternal relatives in the Village was sitting down for lunch with most of the cousins in one or the other of the aunts’ houses and the first taste of sambhar neatly lifting the roof off my mouth. After losing my fair share of taste buds, I remember screaming for water only for everyone to hoot:

“kaarardha? Appo bus uduma?”

(Sorry – loses essence in translation. Suffice to say I said it was hot and they made fun of the words employed. Simply put, kaaram, uraippu = spicy hot

Apparently, in the Village one must say ‘orakkidhu’ – I had uttered the TamBram equivalent of that, which was found to be incredibly funny. After that, though I tried to watch what I said, it was still a difficult task as those were the only words I knew and I couldn’t come up with different words just to stop them from wetting themselves.

It was during those lonely, puzzling days that I figured my mum and dad came from different communities. As my dad had always spoken like the rest of us at home, I never had realized the difference.

That was when the problem of what I am and where I belonged started. I tried to say it was to the maternal side as I grew up with them, spoke like them, behaved like them, ate like them, and dressed like them, so I should be one of them, right? My school was inhabited predominantly by TamBrams so it was easy for me just to fit in. And I continued to think I was one of them till the day a (maternal) cousin said ‘but you are not Iyengar anyway!’, bursting yet another bubble.

It was confusion time all over again. What the hell am I? Annual trips to the Village reiterated the belief of ‘never the twain shall be met’ and I came back more confused than ever. Being surrounded by proper TamBrams and wanting to belong made me exaggerate the accent and the behaviour and every time it was checked by dad’s remark that I wanted to be a Brahmin. Well, I wanted to belong, that’s what I wanted, without having to choose between one and another. Mum choosing to follow whatever Iyengar traditions she was comfortable with, dad speaking Iyengarese when surrounded by Iyengars added to the layers of confusion. Not knowing much about the paternal culture and background didn’t help me in identifying myself with them either.

This confusion continued for a long, long time, even till my wedding day. When the time came for the wedding pandal to be put outside the gate, I had thought it would be the tricoloured strips of cloth being strung from pillar A to pillar B, like I had seen in most houses nearby. Till mum shushed me and said ‘adhellam non-Brahmins podaradhu!’

I wanted to scream “then what the heck are we?” I was tired of being stuck in the limbo land and desperately wanted a way out.

Well, I found a way out – to far off UK, by way of my Telugu husband. Whose family preferred to highlight my Brahmin roots as it was much more amenable to their clan than the Padayachi dad half.

If I had thought I had left my confusions back in India, I seem to have taken on new ones. Now to which country do I belong? I have been living in England for almost seven years now and it feels home in many ways. But I still do not inherently understand the English and their xenophobia makes it hard to make proper friends. But I am cut off from Madras and India and cannot understand 100% what is happening there – the societal issues, the changing culture, the politics, mega serials….

At the same time, I cannot fall in with Eastenders, the celebrity obsession, the near-zero importance given to academic achievements, the cold shoulder, the prejudice….

Once again, I’m asking myself – who am I? What am I? Where are my loyalties?

Who has the answers?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, tag time again. But for once, it is a nice one. A cuddly-wuddly, squidgy one. And of course Ams tagged me on to it! So here goes:

I am to list

1. ten things I miss having in my life now
2. ten things I hope to accomplish in the next decade

Oh boy! Next decade - scary thought, that! Esp as I am staring the big 3-0 in the face and I cannot, for the life of me, envisage staring at the bigger 4-0. And, this is a big and, my itty bitty baby boy will be a teenager! GAK! Anyhoo, here’s ten things I miss having in my life just now.

1. I miss the fact that I cannot just take a rick and land on my gran’s doorstep and let her spoil me rotten. And get her to make me upma with contraband (read onions) !
2. The last time I was at college, I used to get up well after 8 AM, have a lazy coffee and grub at the right time, which miraculously appeared on demand, pocket money and a licence to roam the streets of Chennai. Things cannot be any more different this time around!
3. Hanging out with my mates - didn’t appreciate it enough when I could do it whenever. Now, when I go for days without getting the opportunity for a good chinwag, I so miss having the girlfriends around.
4. Going to the beach - there’s nothing to beat going to Elliot’s beach as the sun is setting. The English beaches always leave me with the feeling of ‘is this it?’
5. Gangothri - that delectable haven of chaat and assorted stuff, opposite Stella Maris, which was one of my favourite joint throughout my college years and where the bhaaisaab did his best to remove my stomach lining. Ahh!
6. Summer holidays from when I was a wee thing, which were spent guarding the vathal from the evil crows - which meant we get to eat the half-dry vathal and blame it on the winged beasts. BWAHAHA!
7. Sitting on the walls of the colony well in the grounds of Krupa Colony, under the shady gulmohar trees and watching the world go by.
8. Those innocent days of fun when going out with friends meant a samosa at Hot Chips and a Tamil movie at Udhayam theatre. When we graduated to Sathyam Theatre complex, boy did we feel grown up or what?
9. The auto ride to the Std X board exam centre with my gang of friends - and being chided by my once-close friend on my woefully lacking prep!
10. Sitting around vetti on an afternoon surrounded by the whole family including my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Though my granddad invariably shouted us down or hogged the remote, it was still fun!

Now for the second, arguably difficult part of the tag. Ten things I’d like to do before I hit 40! (Ye gods!) Well, I made a fundu list for the 3-0 - I think I did about 2 out of the 10. Let’s hope I have better luck with this one!

1. Bunjee - I really, really want to bunjee jump. Possibly somewhere spectacularly scenic like Switzerland or NZ.
2. Visit New Zealand. It has been my dream place to visit since Lord of the Rings. Oh and Ireland too. The West Country, to be exact.
3. Learn to play the veena. I started learning and as with everything with me, lost interest after about 3.5 seconds and that was the end of that. No, I’m lying - I lost interest when I tightened the strings a bit over zealously and the ruddy thing twanged and slashed me across my face!
4. Go trekking - which means getting decently fit first!
5. Get a driving licence. Anyone who laughs will be shot unceremoniously.Ditto for swimming. Ditto threat.
6. Get back into pre-Pratik shape. Double ditto threat.
7. See the Taj Mahal in the moonlight. Hopefully that’ll mean less hawkers and gawkers around and the joint will seem less blah and more wowee in the soft light.
8. Get a pet dog. A Labrador who comes to me as a wee pup and then grows up to tower over us all. Who scares the pants of anyone who comes near but dissolves into a puddle when I pet him
9. Have my own company - terribly successfu, of course, making us pots of money.
10. Another baby - a girl this time. sigh

Ok time to pass it around. Don’t beat me up, saddos. This is such a nice tag to do so wipe that grim look off your faces and hop to it. With that, I tag Apu, Dee, Suj and MM.

Lavs of Myownpenseive tagged me with a Middle Name Tag. I am not sure how I am to go about it as I do not have one - a middle name, that is. So I shall take a leaf out of MM’s and go with expanding my blogging handle, DesiGirl.

D - Desi. 100%

E - Enthu; in some cases, OE or Over Enthu

S - Sarky; one of my closest friends once said ‘you are one of the sarkiest bitches I have ever known and if I can get past you, then the official mauling wud be a piece of cake’. One heck of a compliment, that!

I - Inventive; I wish I could spin stories at the drop of the hat like my son. More importantly, I wish he doesn’t lose that ability.

G - Girly; that is one thing I have always wished I was. I don’t mean I took a left turn half way thru college and got a sex-change. I just wish I was soft and girlish like most girls around.

I - Imaginative - in desperate short supply. Help!

R - Rowdy; I was one, growing up. Have been called less flattering versions of the same.

L - Laughter; cos that is the most precious thing, IMO. Have belly, will laugh.

Anyone who hasn’t been tagged for this one, please feel free to take it up.