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Monu’s World: Communist Pachcha

It was the summer of 1989. Monu was ten years old. Her school had closed for the summer break. As is wont with the summer vacations, Monu’s father had got train tickets booked months in advance for their trip to Kerala. Since her father was a government employee, Monu’s dad got free train tickets once in two years under the Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) policy. Going to Kerala was much anticipated by Monu’s parents as they longed to visit their native place and see all their near and dear ones. For Monu, the trip meant a brief sojourn in God’s Own Country, which translated to a whirlwind time of journeying up and down the length of Ernakulam and Thrissur districts. More often than not, the trip would involve getting bang in the middle of the unruly South-Western Monsoons. Still, Monu did not mind because she looked forward to meeting her grandparents and all her cousins. So, Monu set off with her family from New Delhi railway station on the Kerala Express bound for Thiruvananthapuram. T
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Of Painful Abscesses and Acquiring a Breather Through Thakkaali Tambuli

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  I have been suffering from abscesses all my life. They started bothering me when I was 15 years old. I tried many treatments including Allopathy, Ayurveda and Homeopathy. The latter gave some relief, but the resilient and bothersome abscesses never really left me alone.  So, it was with utter resignation that I noticed a couple of abscesses forming over my belly few weeks ago. Usually, I just dab a bit of prickly heat powder over them and they subside over the course of a few weeks. This time, one proved rather too irksome and decided to burst forth with all insolence. The past few weeks have been quite challenging with my mother having suffered a foot fracture and being incapacitated. I was just coming to terms with the daily grind of cooking, cleaning and looking after the children assuming complete sway over my time, when the dreaded abscesses struck. Once the abscess burst, there was no other option than to consult a doctor. The affected area had become like a battle site with bl
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Thoughts on ‘Dahaad’

The newest web series ‘Dahaad’, streaming on Amazon Prime and starring Sonakshi Sinha (in her OTT debut) and the brilliant Vijay Varma as protagonists involved in a cat-and-mouse crime thriller, is one that gives the term ‘binge watching’ a tremendously satisfactory appeal. Although, married women especially mothers busy with their home routines and work might not exactly get time to ‘binge watch’, this latest crime series expects the viewers to do just! Unable to watch the show in one go, I managed to derive my pound of satisfaction by watching it over the course of a few thrillingly ecstatic days. The main drive was the superbly talented cast out of which Vijay Varma shines forth as the villain who steals the show. Although, he had stiff competition from the rest of the cast, especially Sonakshi (‘Dahaad’ is easily her best on-screen performance so far), he manages to keep the viewers rivetted to the unfolding drama anxious to see his next move in this pulsating crime series. The sto
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Few Cherished Childhood Memories

  I was fortunate enough to have a childhood that was full of memorable times. Among them a few stand out, more for their verve and enthusiasm than anything else. The summer vacations were undoubtedly the best time of the year; a time when two, (well, actually it was one and a half) months stretched out before me like the never-ending horizon, the hot Delhi summers notwithstanding. We were a group of five younger children and four older ones. Evenings meant playtime and I would find myself inevitably in the midst of one game or the other during those hot and dry months of May and June. Our parents could never understand why the extreme heat (Delhi summer temperatures can touch 45 degrees Celsius) never bothered us or made us ill. Even the hot dry winds call Loo (I saw it mentioned even in my Geography school textbook) never made us cringe even though most people were put off by the omnipresent dust that the Loos would generously blow about. I still fondly remember the exciting times we
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Dowry: The Blot on Rising Kerala

  More than 125 years have passed since Swami Vivekananda called Kerala a ‘lunatic asylum’. This was in relation to the abhorrent caste system prevalent in the erstwhile state of Travancore, which is now a part of present-day Kerala. Back in time, when Travancore was an independent state, one of the taxes imposed on the lower castes and untouchable Hindu women till 1924 was the Breast Tax ( ‘Mulakkaram’ in Malayalam), if they wanted to cover their breasts in public. The baring of breasts by the lower caste and untouchable women was a longtime Travancore tradition and a sign of respect to the upper castes. While today, in modern Kerala, we might agree that Swami Vivekananda was right in calling this outrageous tax as symbolic of insanity, the fact remains that Kerala – the most literate state of India and the state with the highest sex ratio -  has a sordid underbelly in yet another blow to womanhood, the dowry system.  While the dowry system, despite being declared illegal by the Dowry
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Monu's World: Teepi K and Teepi A

Teepi K and Teepi A were best friends and classmates too, if they got lucky. The school they studied in had a policy of mixing up the students at the beginning of every academic year, and consequently, the students had no choice but to mingle with new classmates and make new friends every new school year if they ended up in a section that their friends were not in. None of the students liked it and every year in April when school reopened for the new academic year rows of students could be seen crossing their fingers and fervently praying that they could be with their friends in the new class. Teepi K and Teepi A would be seen doing the very same thing and they would be glad about every opportunity that they got to be together in school if it turned out that they were not in the same section. If, on the other hand, they were in the same class then they would be inseparable and would gleefully celebrate their good luck by buying the 50 paise vanilla ice cream from the ice cream seller
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Monu's World: Tinchu and the Detergent Bar

The great Indian South-West monsoon dawned a trifle lazily at first, but soon picked up momentum as the wet and wild month of August came with its typically heavy showers that spanned almost the whole of the Indian peninsula. Most of northern and central India receives the bulk of their annual rainfall during this month. And rather fittingly the festival of Janmashtami or Sree Krishna Jayanti is observed and celebrated with much fervor across the country.  Monu and her friends loved the rains as any Delhi-ite does and used to have races in the pouring rain. It was during one such race that something unexpected happened that the children would remember with amusement for years to come. It was a Sunday morning and the neighborhood was rather silent with not even a hint of any movement or sound. Being the weekend, the younger children would be sleeping late while the elder ones would be engaged with household chores. For Radha, Shree and Neeba, weekends always meant that they were up t
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Monsoon Rain and the Five Senses

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June is the month when the Southwestern Monsoon hits the tip of the Indian subcontinent, geographically speaking. It is also the month when we used to spend our childhood summer vacations in Kerala, mostly commuting between the houses of our various relatives spanning the districts of Ernakulam, Thrissur and even on a couple of occasions reaching as far as the capital of the State and from there to Kanyakumari! Arriving tired from the 48 hour train journey that commenced all the way from New Delhi railway station and ended at Thrissur, we'd be greeted by the familiar face of our maternal grandfather or one of our maternal uncles. Then hopping into an ambassador and going along for about an hour into the interiors of Thrissur till the car reached a small place by the river called Manalur ('Manal', literally meaning 'sand'). After spending a few carefree and unforgettable days playing with cousins, watching latest Malayalam movies and eating the delicious food made
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Monu's World: Raka's Kite

It was almost the end of March in the Spring of 198-.  March was the ideal month to laze around doing nothing and fall asleep on the green grass, just looking up at the sky. Studying was the most difficult during this time as Monu used to inevitably find during her final exams. After all, Nature conspired against all futile attempts at sitting still trying to read any sort of printed matter. Thankfully,  Monu's third standard final exams had just got over. She was a good student and enjoyed school life. But once she got back home, anything connected with school depressed her and she'd procrastinate doing her homework as long as she could. Instead, after having lunch and her afternoon nap, all she would want was to get out of her house and go search out her friends and play with them.  So, now that the school had closed for the end of term, and the holidays, even though only ten-days long, had begun, Monu was going crazy thinking of ways to enjoy every single day of the short v
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Mia

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She smiles, she smiles a lot; She'd started smiling even before she'd learned to focus. We used to wonder at her Smiling away in her sleep, lost in dreams Which only she - an infant a few days old - could have. Mum said she was smiling as she played games With her buddies in her dreams I was convinced it was the Angels Whispering to her as she lay asleep. Whatever the reason, she had us all Curled around her little fingers As she grasped our own When we held her hand. As I put ink to paper She's turned a little short of seven months. She sat on her own for the very first time Just a few days ago; I watched mesmerized As she nonchalantly played with her toy Albeit a little wobbly And completely unaware Of the tiny step she'd taken In her journey towards growing up. I'd been meaning to write about her, Put down all the mystique of motherhood Since a long time, even before she was born
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Monu's World

Monu lived in house number 72 in the first row of houses overlooking the main road. Theirs was a sprawling housing complex having rows of single-storey government flats, all neatly laid out, and strategically located right in the heart of the city.  A network of criss-crossing narrow roads connected the various rows with each other. So, each row of houses had a small tarred road of its own in the front and a small pathway led from each house to road. On either side of this small pathway were little patches of garden in which the residents grew different varieties of flowering shrubs and bushes. The first row houses were rather lucky, for they had an additional strip of garden in the front, on the other side of the narrow tarred road in the front. A low brick wall ran along these garden strips, parallel to the first row houses, and fenced off the housing complex from the main road on the other side. The red brick wall was the barricade, the red color forbidding any crossing over. Beyon
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Mayflower Memories

One of th e most striking and perhaps symbolic images associated with the Malayalee New Year 'Vishu' is that of the Mayflower or the 'Kanikonna' as it is known in Kerala. The Mayflower has a pride of place along with various other brightly-hued flowers and vegetables, ornaments, money etcetera in the 'Vishukani', which is an offering to Lord Krishna. Early on Vishu morning, after getting up and with their eyes still shut, all members of the household are supposed to walk up (stumble rather) and see the Vishukani as their first glimpse, thus signifying an auspicious start to their new year. The Mayflower magic begins much earlier. Bunches of Mayflowers in resplendent yellow adorning the gardens and roadside pathways are a common sight from the month of April onwards. The flower itself reaches its pristine peak of brilliance in the hottest month of May and continues to be in bloom well into the latter half of September. Of course, the period of its bloom mig
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A Question of Identity

"I'm nobody! Who are you?" - Emily Dickinson It is past two in the morning But sleep eludes me, albeit not completely Gently, it hovers over my eyelids Taking care not to walk right into my eyes Making my mind go foggy, ever so slowly... So, a foggy mind struggles To lose itself to sleep But elusive, sleep doesn't come As has been wont to occur For some time now. This time, the culprit is a bit hard to nail down Literally, I mean Figuratively, it takes the form Of a singular matter That persistently tickles my sleep- deprived brain And consequently fuels a channel of thoughts That float around like cottony clouds In the deepest recesses of my mind. "You are a Mallu!", he'd said with a smile lacking warmth "No. You are." I'd replied defensively, weakly "We are Keralites.", came the prompt and emphatic response He'd not been alone There was another 'he' And together they had become 'We
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Circles of Prime Numbers

What  possible connection could there be between  prime numbers and the circular shape? Well, I'm not talking about any remote connections (to my mind) that might exist in the realm of Geometry or even advanced mathematics. I'm actually referring to any commonly found 'liaisons' between the two. On the face of it, it seems there exists none. However, of late, a mysterious relationship between the twain has come to haunt me in the most unexpected sphere of my life - the kitchen! It seems rather weird and warranting an explanation of sorts, but whenever I've made rotis, paranthas or puris in the recent past, eight times out of ten, they've turned out to be in the series of prime numbers - 13 rotis, 17 paranthas, 23 puris and so on. Now, I don't have anything against this rather unusual choice of the wheat flour that chances to land under my rolling pin. But the fact is that I'm more of an 'even number person'. I find it immensely comforting when
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The Fog

She slips in silently, almost slyly, Wrapping her damp habit around everything she comes close to... Winter is her mother and dampness her lifeblood, And she'll run a mile when the sun attempts to intersperse her gossamer With His spools of golden thread. She glides along stealthily, Descending from the sky be it late night Or before Lady Aurora makes her appearance. Sometimes she may cause ol' Aurora to wait a while tho' Before she'll allow the Goddess to turn on her charm And turn the wet and the dark to the bright and the gold. But while she is about The whole world is one big ocean; Everything submerged in her moist whiteness... The hills, the houses, the deserts and the trees, Even animals and homo sapiens too! All enveloped within her wet shroud And appearing as if out of a storybook; Their very essence bathed in her mysterious glory. She is around everything and everyone She is inside everything and everyone And everything and everyone seem to have a bit of her
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