The Bangle Shop

Long, long ago, in villages and towns across India, the 'bangle man' roamed the streets. A cloth knapsack slung on his shoulders, he called out his wares - glass bangles in resplendent colors, some plain, some decorated with gold or silver paint - and made the rounds of his beat perhaps once a month, but more frequently during the marriage or festival seasons.

Inside the knapsack - fashioned out of a large cotton cloth whose four ends were knotted together - the bangles would be strung on long jute strings tied up at the ends to make a garland of the bangles. Many such colorful garlands nestled together in the knapsack.

The soles of his feet cracked from walking miles and miles on dry, dusty roads in worn out sandals or in bare feet, his head wrapped in a towel to ward off the heat of the sun, his teeth stained from years of chewing tobacco, the one-man, walking, talking bangle shop was a welcome sight nonetheless, his sing-song call a cause for great excitement especially if you'd been waiting for a delivery.

Women-folk (like my mom-in-law's mother, for example) hardly ever left the house, even to go to the market. They got their vegetables and grains from their farm and nearly everything else was home-delivered, including saris. Each family would have their favorite street hawker, one who knew the family's needs and would make special trips to his suppliers make sure he had what his customers needed. The same for bangles.

Most homes had a porch, screened with mesh or metal bars, where the bangle man and the women-folk would settle down to pore over the bangles, trying them on for size, flipping their wrists back and forth to check out the feel of the bangles, the clinking sounds providing a rhythm to their conversations. It was more than likely that neighbors would gather together on one porch, saving the bangle man from having to pack and unpack his knapsack over and over.

An old home with a screened porch
This little interlude was a welcome break for the women from their household chores and a welcome respite for the bangle man, a chance to rest his aching feet and take the load off his shoulders.

I wish I had a photo of one for myself and to show you because these days, the bangle man is a dead breed, especially in cities and the larger towns. Although street hawkers can still be found in the older residential neighborhoods, their wares are limited to vegetables in most cases.

The bangle shops have taken over. Even a small shop is able to carry a much larger variety than a hawker ever could. Street-side shops, such as the ones below, are quite popular in Bangalore.




And then there are ones like Bhavani Bangle Shop, which is a shop of the bone fida variety and is spread across four floors in Jayanagar, one of the busiest commercial areas of Bangalore. In all the years I lived in Bangalore, I dissed that shop. I grew up hating the thought of having to wear bangles or bracelets. Now it's a different story. Every time I've been back in the past few years, I've visited that shop, trying on and buying what a few years ago I thought was junk.

In the picture above, the owner receives boxes of new supplies for his shop.

The rows and rows of bangles and ear rings are mesmerizing. They are all costume jewellery, many of the designs (even those of the 'bindis' or the dots worn on the forehead) inspired by the heavily bejewelled heroines and vamps of the Indian soaps that rule the airwaves at all times of day and night.

Costume jewellery has caught on so well that this shop even offers to put together an entire set (bangles, necklaces, ear rings and other accessories) that will match your sari or other dress you might be planning to wear for a special event. I'd never heard of such a service before!



Most interesting of all, have you noticed something? The sales people are all men. A holdover from the bangle-man days, perhaps?

The Hurt Locker: A Review

The Hurt Locker is the tale of a trio of soldiers that makes up the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), a bomb disposal squad, attached to an army regiment on rotation in Iraq. Of the three, Staff Sgt. William James (played by James Renner, nominated for a Best Actor Oscar this year) functions as the bomb-disposal technician, Specialist Owen Eldridge (played by Brian Geraghty) and Sgt. JT Sanborn (played by Anthony Mackie) serve as look-outs, scouting the area for threats (other than the bomb which obviously everyone is very aware of) and keeping it clear so the expert can focus on the job at hand and there is as little human casualty as possible.

The movie starts ominously, with the nail-biting suspense of the team heading out to diffuse a bomb. Just the visuals of the team preparing to approach the bomb in full protective paraphernalia - including the act of putting on the elaborate bomb suit - set your pulses racing. Of course, the fact that the very first outing goes horribly wrong and the team has a dead bomb-disposal expert on its hands (Guy Pearce in a short appearance) does nothing to dissipate the tension.

Thus it transpires that the EOD must now find a replacement, which arrives in the form of a barely-restrained ball of energy known as Staff Sgt. William James. We soon find out that James is a strange animal - he courts danger with a vengeance, does not heed sensible advice, likes to get into violent fist fights in the barracks with his fellow soldiers, and has difficulty adjusting to situations that do not involve tons of explosives, nails and a tangle of colorful wires.

James' proclivities cause tension within the team, which has only a few days left on its rotation and the two original members want nothing more than to finish up and go home to their families. How the team learns to work together and comes to respect James' uncommon ways and his leadership forms the rest of the movie.

People who've been in the military might find aspects of the movie wrong from a factual point of view (like such and such gun was not in use during the year in which the movie is set), but The Hurt Locker does a stupendous job of conveying to the layperson the horrors and the vagaries of dealing with explosive devices - which has become an unavoidable aspect of war - and the grit, dedication and determination of a band of soldiers.

The title of the movie refers to a figurative place of intense physical or emotional pain. The film succeeds in opening a window into that dark and little-known space, and into the psyche of a person who is very, very good at a job that most of us would never entertain even for a second as a viable career choice; it shines a light on a situation in which showing even the slightest bit of humanity might bring swift retribution (such as when James - who has left behind a wife and a toddler son at home - befriends a young boy near the army base and a few days later, in a particularly gory scene, finds an nearly identical boy killed and wired with an explosive that James must diffuse by inserting his hands into the boy's dead body). Mind games played at a dangerously high level of intensity, the stakes ratcheted up so high the protagonists (and the viewers) can barely hear themselves think.

We might think we know something about roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices given how much of it we hear in the news every single day. But what do we really know? What do we know about the devious minds that build bombs to extricate maximum damage? About how any one of the innocent-looking onlookers, that you are trying desperately to protect, might hold the trigger that sets off the bomb? What do we know about how to tell who the enemy is or who might be the victim? Do we really know what kind of human being it takes to willingly walk into a trap knowing fully well that one wrong move could blow him and everyone else within a radius of a few hundred feet into smithereens?

The film ably crafts the message that in urban warfare all bets are off, that the only rule in modern-day combat is that there are no rules, and draws the viewer deep into the characters' tension-filled world. From the moment the team hears of a possible explosive device that must be diffused, as their truck winds its way through dangerous streets and alleys, as the look-outs scour their field of vision for suspicious movements, as the technician makes his way to the wires and the odd-looking lump on the rocky, dusty ground, we see every aspect of the scene from their perspective and feel their nerves and desperation. The reaction is visceral. I wouldn't be surprised if you jumped out of your seat once in a while or found yourself trying to brush off the dirt and grime off your clothes as you walked out of the theater.

Before The Hurt Locker I had never heard of its director, Kathryn Bigelow, and I was rather surprised to see Ralph Fiennes in a small role as the leader of a band of British mercenaries (which the protagonists end up fighting alongside in the middle of the desert), but apparently she is a prolific movie maker with a cult following, and they had both worked together in Strange Days as director and actor early in their careers.

The movie is certainly deserving of its nine Oscar nominations and with a win at the Directors' Guild Awards, it looks like Bigelow is well on her way to a Directors' Oscar as well. And I'm on my way to mining Netflix for more Bigelow movies.

The movie's IMDb page. Image from.

Patterns

Book Review: Karadi Tales' Will You Read With Me? Series

Hathaman is an accomplished yogi. Before the sun reaches the mid-way point in its journey across the sky each day, he's finished up a hundred and fifty Surya Namaskaras, the Dhanurasana, the Bhujangasana, the Mayurasana and the Sarvangasana. Hathaman, however, is not one to rest on his laurels. He wants to do more and be more. He wants to walk on water and fly like a bird. In other words, he wants superhuman powers.

His quest for these super powers and whether he succeeds in getting them is the story told in Karadi Tales' Super Hathaman. Written with tongue planted firmly in cheek by Kaushik Viswanath, the narrative is superbly illustrated by Chetan Sharma. Delight, greed, irritation, frustration, desperation, suspicion - the emotions flit across Hathaman's visage as vividly as they do in Viswanath's descriptions.

The most intriguing part of the package, however, is the fact that Super Hathaman is part of Karadi Tales' Will You Read With Me? series and therefore also comes with a compact disc - this one narrated by actor and comedian Jaaved Jaaferi, with background music by 3 Brothers & A Violin.


Another title from the series, A Hundred Cartloads, written by Devika Rangachari and illustrated by Bindia Thapar, is a lovely, heartwarming tale of the loving relationship between Ananda, the ox, and Billa, his master. When circumstances conspire to unravel their friendship, will they learn to trust each other again and get back to the way they were before? Thapar's eye-popping illustrations ably support Rangachari's lucid and simple writing style. Soha Ali Khan's competent narration of the story is accompanied by another winning musical score by 3 Brothers & A Violin.

One evening, recently, on one of our innumerable daily car rides to and from my children's after-school activities, we popped the Super Hathaman CD in the car's stereo and settled back for the half-hour ride. The series title song composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy was followed by brief instructions on how to read along and a short intro by Jaaferi. And then, the story began.

As the awesome music of 3 Brothers & A Violin filled the car and the first words of the story spilled out of Jaaferi's striking vocal chords, it is safe to say that listening to Super Hathaman was well on its way to becoming a favorite activity during car rides. We have since listened to the CD more than a few times already.

The music sets the scenes - particularly the ones in the Tibetan monastery - with admirable precision. Jaaferi conjures up mesmerizing images with his now naughty, now bewildered, now impatient vocal calisthenics. My three-year-old daughter broke into giggles at Hathaman's antics. And at one point, when the music managed to elicit goose bumps, there was a distinct "wow" from my nine-year-old son.

Each of the Will You Read With Me? series titles comes with a note to parents about audio books. In it, Karadi Tales lays out its case for why children should be reading books along with their CDs. Expressing a preference for teaching children 'sight' reading over 'phonetic' reading, it asserts that reading along with the CD "increases the sight vocabulary of the child." It goes on to say that listening to storytellers able to emote effectively (Jaaferi's counterparts on other series titles include Vidya Balan, Sanjay Dutt, Soha Ali Khan and Rahul Dravid), children learn to speak better and are able to hone their listening skills, thereby improving their attention spans.

While all this may be true, if it is one thing I've realized from being in the thick of bringing up two children, it is that no two children are alike. My son subscribed to the phonetic method right from the time he started learning to read (he still uses it to decode polysyllabic words in the chapter books he reads), and if early indications hold true, my daughter is a strong candidate for the sight-reading camp. She recognizes words by sight – even those that are easy to string together phonetically – faster than she sounds them out.

However, no matter what reading strategy a child leans toward, it is axiomatic that parents must create an environment in which young children get excited about reading and want to read. As long as the books are child-appropriate, it doesn't really matter whether the books are considered classics or are written by newbie authors. To that end, if a book is able to entice a child to open it, look at it, flip through its pages and finally read it (or have it read to them), then it's a surefire winner as far as I'm concerned. In that department, the Will You Read With Me? series executes its mandate wonderfully.

The audio component is definitely icing on the cake. While I'm not generally a fan of software embedded in books that prompts a child with the correct pronunciation when he or she struggles with a word, having the software (the audio) separate from the book ensures that, with parental guidance, the child does not end up using the CD as a crutch every time he or she sits down to read. Children can listen to the CD a couple of times and then try to read the book on their own.

Quite apart from the aspect of reading along with the CD, there is the listening aspect to the audio books. Watching a child listening to a story is pure magic. They get this faraway look in their eyes, their imagination fully engaged, their attention riveted to listening and understanding. When you have polished storytellers such as Jaaferi assisting you, the task just gets that much easier.

The series does not alert parents as to what age-group of children the books are appropriate for. While any child that is able to focus even for a few minutes could benefit from just listening to stories on the CDs, the books seem to be targeted at children who have already started reading and are able to handle many of the most commonly occurring words on their own, and who have some facility with the English language.

The idea that children should grow up listening to stories is nothing new. It is as old as civilization and as widespread. But by pairing the art of story-telling with the academic imperative that children learn to read (and well), and by adhering to excellent production values every step of the way, Karadi Tales has hit upon a combination that is sure to keep both children and parents happy.


For more titles, go to http://www.karaditales.com/.

The Heene Story: Has Crying "Wolf!" Gone Hi-Tech?

By now you must have all heard of the story of the boy who was thought to be flying thousands of feet above the ground in a fly-away balloon. Alone, cold, scared and in mortal danger. As an entire nation (and probably a good portion of the rest of the world) followed every twist and turn in this improbable tale, we were sick with fear for the boy, we felt sorry for the parents and, finally and happily, we were relieved when we were told that the young boy was safe and sound and on solid ground.

Little did we know that the tale had yet another incredible twist left in it - turns out, if what the police say is true, the entire story is a hoax. We were set up, we were suckered in, and our emotions played on, just so the parents, allegedly, could attain their ultimate goal of appearing on a television reality show. The Larry King Interview where the six-year-old Falcon Heene suggested that he was told to hide in the attic of their home (fully stocked with snacks) "for the show", more television interviews where the boy threw up on camera, the subsequent police investigations, and now news that the parents had hired lawyers to defend them and were ready to surrender to the police - each one of them leading to stratospheric levels of disbelief and leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

The daily news and the internet are chock full of reactions to this story, all, as you can imagine, expressing shock, disgust and anger, even a feeling of being betrayed.

It also left in me a sense of wonder. The act of crying "wolf!" had undergone a seismic shift in tone. No longer was a lone boy yelling from the top of a mountain to the people in the village below. If the story does turn out to be a hoax, what we saw was grown people - a mother and father to boot - calling news stations directly with desperate appeals for news helicopters to chase the errant balloon, calling the police, imploring them for emergency help, giving hysterical television interviews over the telephone, and appearing on camera to perpetuate sympathy for an ordeal they had not suffered.

How we - the villagers in the ancient fable but in the twenty-first century a nation punk'd - behave the next time around may not be apparent right now but might become all too clear when we turn on the television and come upon another father crying inconsolably on camera at the disappearance of his child, begging for help.

What will we do then? Will we watch, riveted to our seats, and pray for the safe return of the child? Or did Aesop already give us the answer all those centuries ago? Will we roll our eyes, click the remote and move on to the next channel?

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Updated to add a link to Wikipedia's page on Aesop's The Boy Who Cried Wolf and to the latest development in the story.

Memories of Deepavalis (Diwalis) Past

My brand new clothes that I will wear tomorrow sit neatly in a box in front of the altar (the mantapa) in the prayer room, as do my brother's and my parents'. The heady aroma of our favorite sweets that mom has made, Mysore Pak, Coconut Barfi, Besan Unde, has been taunting us all day long. The prayer room has been cleaned, the idols washed and the pooja (ritual) items readied for prayers tomorrow. Fresh flowers, coconuts and betel leaves are arranged neatly in two or three plates for the prayers and to give away to guests that will arrive all day long the next day.

The night before Deepavali is a culmination of days of preparations for one of my favorite festivals of the year, and if you grew up in India, I suspect yours too. The bathroom has been washed down, the stone floors scrubbed clean with a heavy brush and every single utensil cleaned to a shine. A massive brass vat encased in stone and cement sits in one corner of the bathroom, with a medium-sized hole taking up one half of one of the two cement walls that has been cleared of all ash residue, wood pieces and coal. The brass vat is now filled with fresh bathwater and fresh firewood is at the ready to be lit the next morning for boiling it.

My brother and I and any of the assorted uncles, aunts, cousins and friends have already been to one of the massive outdoor fields that has been converted into a firecraker market. We have braved the crowds, shouted at the top of our lungs to make ourselves heard to the man or woman running a particular stall, hurried from one stall to the next to get our hands on the most popular firecrackers and come away with bags full of goodies for the next day.

When at last the last of the relatives have gone back home to finish up their own preparations and every little thing is in order in our home, we reluctantly get into bed, with the very firm resolve of waking up at 3 a.m. The goal, every year, is to be the very first in your neighborhood to burst a firecracker. Tradition demands that firecrakers be set off before sunrise so their light can chase away the darkness. Three a.m. is the goal so we have ample time to be properly oiled down, to have a bath and for a small ritual, where those sweets are the first thing we eat, before we are allowed out on to the street to light the firecrackers. We most certainly do not want a repeat of last year when someone else's firecrakers woke us up. Oh, the horror and the ignominy!

Groggy but excited we - all three of us, including dad - line up in front of the prayer room as mom pats some oil onto our heads and hands us our new clothes. It's a race to the bathroom to see who gets in first. In a matter of minutes, we are ready. It's barely even four. We tear into the firecraker boxes, pick the one that has the reputation for the loudest sound (aspiringly called the atom bomb), and head out into the street. Not a peep from anywhere else yet. Dad and mom walk out behind us with a matchbox and a box of incense sticks. We each hold the fuse of the atom bomb between two fingers and carefully snip off about an inch of the paper encasing the thread of the fuse. This, so that the fuse doesn't light as fast and gives us time to get away after lighting it.


A ten-thousand firecracker round

It unspooled to this length. At the far end, another family well into their celebrations.
Dad hands each of us one incense stick, we light them and with the firecracker in one hand and the incense stick in the other, both held far apart so they don't accidentally come together in our hands (that would not be funny), we approach the middle of the street. We stand a few feet apart from one another and light our respective fuses and run back towards our gate. We stand there, all four of us with our palms covering our ears. (We know it's loud, we chose the loudest firecraker, we want it to be loud. Pray, why then do we cover our ears? I look at photographs of Deepavali and the most I have are of a whole lot of us with palms, sometimes forearms because the palms are holding lit incense sticks, over our ears.)

Two loud booms and Deepavali has well and truly begun!

A few more varieties of firecrakers - a string of the longer ones, flower pots, sparklers - and we head back in. A couple of other early risers are already up and we hear sounds popping up from the homes around us, but content at being the first, we are ready to climb into bed again. The day has arrived but it's a long way to go before we'll allow ourselves any rest, so we might as well catch up on sleep before the house and the streets get too noisy.



Flower pots
A couple of hours later, it's breakfast time and then family starts arriving in drips and dribbles. By lunchtime we have a full complement of everyone in town. The more the merrier, especially at Deepavali. There's good-natured ribbing of the less brave among us, someone makes a loud noise just as your incense stick approaches the fuse making you jump, bravado and machismo are on full display as one or the other consistently picks the largest, loudest firecracker.

Soon this too gets tiring and it's on to a game of cards or carrom board. Bravado and machismo and teasing on full display here too. There is no space for everyone to sit down and eat together. But we've all been eating all day long and it continues well into the night when it's time for another session of firecrackers. This time around, the neighbors are also out in full force and somehow all the firecrackers get pooled and we're all into each other's stashes, laughing, running, hiding and covering our ears together.

Nighttime on Deepavali always has a different flavor. It's time for the more visually spectacular firecrakers to come out - the flower pots, the bhuchakras (they spin on the ground), the vishnu chakras (held in the hand), the rockets that shoot off into the sky (when they work as they're supposed to, or else they land on your neighbor's roof to be discovered months later). It's definitely time for the oohs and aaahs.

A rocket ready to be lit. It's in an empty bottle to coax it to shoot straight up.
Bhuchakra
The next two days of the festival are more religious, with the Lakshmi Puja (prayers to the goddess of prosperity) and Balipadyami. More visits from relatives and more visits to relatives' houses, but nothing compares to the pure fun of that one day.

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My family and I wish you and your families a very happy Deepavali, and whether you celebrate it or not, no matter which corner of the world you live in, we wish you a very prosperous and healthy year ahead.

Indian Rituals: A Hairy Tale

It's not that I'd never fiddled with my daughter's hairstyle before. I've had her hair up on both sides of her face in tiny pig-tails, turning her into the spitting image of Boo from Monster's, Inc (which, by the way, if you have not seen, you must. I will guarantee you will laugh more than the kids). I've pinned all manner of clips in her hair. I've tried to pull it all back into a severe pony tail only to have her silky strands escape the bondage a few at a time until there was not enough for the band to hold and it too fell away.

One fine day, however, I was seized with an urge to braid her hair. I sat her down on the bathroom counter top, partitioned her hair into two zones and proceeded to weave two plaits. She good-naturedly complied and held her head still while I tried to get the motions right.

Quietly, a feeling crept up on me. There was something surreal about the act, something about making three distinct strands on either side of her head, weaving each one by turn into a single plait. I was transported to another place, another time. I was on the floor in front of my mother, her hands working deftly on my hair to produce two long (and I mean long - they came down to my knees) plaits on either side of the back of my head. Every single day of my school life, she had braided my hair using the same motions I did with my own daughter.

My daughter's plaits turned out great, and for the first time since I became a mother, it occurred to me that hair - and all the things we do to it - is such an integral part of life in India, especially in the life of a child, especially during the time my brother and I were growing up. There are daily rituals, weekly rituals, rituals that take place perhaps once or twice in a lifetime.

Mom combing my hair when I was about three.
The daily rituals first. There was the oiling of hair. Every. Single. Morning. Coconut oil applied scalp to hair-ends and massaged in until not a strand was left uncovered, the constant movement of finger tips in your hair producing the kind of stupor that renders you putty in your mom's hands. Following the oiling, my brother got about five minutes of combing. Cow licks would be coaxed down towards the head with repeated patting, partitions drawn ramrod straight and cleared of hair trying to cross over the line.

I got about fifteen minutes. First came the combing. My head would be pulled back so my mom, sitting behind me, could see the hairline on my forehead and run the comb all the way through my hair to the tips. After about fifty strokes would come the braiding. My mom had a special trick - she would weave my plaits out of five separate strands, producing a stronger braid that did not loosen even a little bit during school. My hair was long enough that the plaits had to be folded up and secured at the top with ribbons according to the school dress code.

Weekly rituals took the form of the 'head bath' every Sunday. More oil, this time castor oil (no, not the kind you put in cars, thankfully, but equally sticky and heavy). We had to let it soak in for at least an hour before it would be washed away with seegekaayi, a brown-colored powder, and conditioned with a slimy concoction made of powdered leaves (chigaré pudi) mixed with water that left our hair shiny and silky. It really did, but it also managed to get in our eyes.

So Sunday afternoons were spent with blood-shot eyes and with hair banished of all traces of oil but smelling of leaves and nuts.

Summer holidays brought rituals of their own, although thankfully it was not every summer. One that I know nearly every South Indian Hindu family savors is the moggina jadé (literally braiding hair with flowers) tradition.

On the day I had mine made up, many summers ago in my ajji's (my maternal grandmother) house in Mysore, I remember her veranda being a beehive of activity. She had already been to the market that afternoon to get the freshest flowers she could lay her hands on - jasmine buds, jasmine blooms, jaaji flowers and the white insides of a banana plant. A couple of days before she'd already readied the colored threads, sticks of various lengths and thicknesses, hair pins, and the jewellery that she would use to decorate my hair.

A flower shop at the Gandhi Bazaar market in Bangalore. The orange flowers hung on the left are jaaji flowers. Swirls of white jasmine strung together lie in baskets on the right. The garlands are the kind that will be used in weddings for the bride and the groom to wear.

My grandmother's very capable fingers gently but firmly threaded the jasmine buds onto one semi-circular sheath of the banana shoot which she had cut to match the length of my hair. Slowly but surely the flowers filled the entire surface of the banana shoot. With the help of two girls who were learning art and craft from her, my grandmother strung the rest of the flowers into braids of their own with the help of some thread. When it was all done, the flowers formed a neat, colorful pattern. Then she weaved the colored threads around the now flower-covered banana shoot to add an interesting layer of color.

By then my mother had already braided my hair into a single plait falling down my back. They sat me down on a stool and went to work. With a whole lot of pins and black ribbons, they managed to get all of their art work onto my hair and this was the result.

We hot-footed it to a studio in the city before the flowers wilted. If you looked at that picture and noticed how the shoulders are hunched, you join a long line of very observant people. But in my defense, let me say that all the stuff on my hair was heavy. Very. My shoulders just sagged under the weight. So there.

These days, the moggine jadés are available ready made in flower shops in the markets, but watching it take shape right in front of my eyes was quite something else.

I asked my mom a couple of days ago why we did that - why we went through this elaborate process and took a photo at the end of it. She said it was a great way to keep the children occupied during the summer holidays and what better avenue for grandmothers to practice their craft than on their own grandchildren! Summer was also the time my grandmother worked on a lot of craft made of cotton and colorful foil paper. She conjured up beautiful garlands and other decorative items out of them and she would use them during the many festivals of the year. She employed us grand kids as gluers of all manner of shiny things on to the cotton.

The one other ritual most Hindu families follow is the shaving of the head. This has more of a religious flavor than cultural. According to custom, the child who has just turned two (i.e., during the third year) is taken to the temple of the family deity (this is one temple that the family tries to visit at least once a year, no matter how far it is from their hometowns) and the hair is shaved off as an offering to god and as a token of gratitude for the birth of a child. In most families, this custom is followed only for the boys, but some families get it done for the girls as well.

And so, finally, we come to this photo. Because the hair is not cut at all before it is shaved off at the temple, by the time the boys turn three it is very likely they'll have grown curly, shiny locks that would put any girl's to shame. Once the hair is shaved off and it grows back, regular haircuts become the norm. So mothers and the other women folk in the family see a golden window of opportunity - the one chance to properly dress up their darling boys as girls and acquire photographic evidence of their madness and the boys' utter helplessness.

Here it is, one such photograph of a boy that, alas, shall remain unnamed in this post. I have been threatened with the most dire consequences if I told you who he was.

I agree. Very, very cute! I'll be sure to tell him you said so.

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Related Post: Grandmother Stories.

Updated (Oct 13, 09) to add a link to my post about traditional baby baths in India.

Not Becoming My Mother, Ruth Reichl

A couple of weeks ago we were in the check-out line at the library, standing right next to a shelf of newly released books. As the kids and and I waited our turn we scanned the shelf, picking up books and putting them back. One book - about the size of my extended palm, a black and white photograph on the cover with a middle-aged woman and a young girl, both sitting at a table - caught my eye. The woman's expression drew my attention as much as the title did - her face is resting on her palm and she is looking at the young girl, a gentle smile creasing her cheeks. The title of the book was Not Becoming My Mother, written by Ruth Reichl, the editor of the newly-defunct Gourmet magazine.

I know titles are meant to be provocative and grab the readers' attention, but it still managed to shock me. I added it to our pile of books and read it at the first opportunity I got - that night after the kids were in bed.

The tussle between mothers and daughters, the conflict-ridden relationships that many women have with their mothers, is not new to me. I had a classmate back in college who struggled with her mother's jealousies. That a mother could be jealous of her own daughter's good looks or appearance was unfathomable to me. Didn't all mothers and fathers want their children to be better, to do better, to have better than them? Since then I've listened as numerous friends talked about their daily fights with their mothers over trivial matters, about massive disagreements over deeply-held beliefs, about mothers not showing up at weddings, not even coming to celebrate the birth of grandchildren. And I have read about them. With all those women I could sympathize, but I could not empathize.

I could wax eloquent about my mom and the post would run ten screens long. It's not that I did not have disagreements with her, but even in the midst of my teenage rebellion years, I saw her for what she was. She was a mother looking out for her daughter and her best interests. She was a different human being than me - quite simply her DNA make-up is different than mine - so it was an exercise in futility to expect the both of us to react in the same way to a situation.

For me, in the grand scheme of things, she was and is an awesome human being with a wicked sense of humor that she turns on herself as frequently as she does on us, with a fierce sense of loyalty to her husband and her children (and now her daughter-in-law, son-in-law and the grandkids), a fantastic cook and hostess, practical to a fault ("if something needs to get done, put your head down and do it and quit whining" is her mantra), very strong sense of knowing one's place and doing what is expected, especially when it comes to respecting elders. Being a mother myself now, it is mind-boggling to me that somehow she's managed to impart much of her wisdom to us, without even seeming to try. All in all, she is trying her damnedest to do the best she can. And I love her to bits and respect her all the more for it.

Reichl has had a far different relationship with her mother. She writes that her mother was not good at many things and she was not "if truth be told, a particularly good mother. [M]y mother was a great example of everything I didn't want to be, and to this day I wake up every morning grateful that I'm not her."

The sub-title to her book is 'and other things she taught me along the way'. It gave me an inkling that perhaps the book is not the damning indictment that the title would have you believe, but my initial reaction to the book's title stayed with me until I made my way through a few more pages and it dawned on me what Reich was attempting to do.

At first blush, the memoir is a woman's effort to draw lessons from her mother's life. But it is so much more than that. If a child wrote a letter of love, appreciation, respect and deep gratitude to their mother, it would take the shape and form of Not Becoming My Mother. It is an attempt to peel away the layers and layers of hurt that had enveloped the author over a number of years. It is an attempt to put her mother's actions in context. A mother who was brilliant and wanted to be a doctor, but not that great-looking. In an age where women were expected to be beautiful but not ambitious, it was a double whammy that succeeded in decimating her chances at happiness.

It is so easy to give in to hurt, especially when the one person in the world that is supposed to love you unconditionally does not. Which is why it is all the more heartening that Reichl embarked on the journey to figure out her mother at all, to understand her as a woman. With the help of her mother's writing she finds in shoe boxes, on scraps of paper, on old receipts, Reichl pieces together the portrait of a woman who somehow figured out how to be the kind of role model that her own daughter did not want to emulate. As the sketch fills out and we slowly start to see the flesh and blood and color appearing on canvas, our viewpoint undergoes a change. We are no longer looking at the dark and foreboding image of a bad mother, we are looking at a woman who desperately does not want her daughter to struggle with the demons she did.

Meeting Mom - the real Mom - was even harder than I expected. I never thought her life was easy, but until I read her letters I had not known the enormous burden of pain she carried with her.

There are a few good reasons why it's worth reading Not Becoming My Mother. It is beautifully written, lucid, introspective and thoughtful. It is a personal memoir, but it manages to capture the life of an entire generation of women. It makes its point and moves on.

But the most important reason of all is the fact that Reichl wants to see beyond the veneer that her mother presented to the world. Some of us might undertake the same exercise and come up empty, but Reichl does succeed in seeing her mother for who she was. She places her actions in context, understands her mother's own upbringing, learns of her desires and ambitions, her disappointments and failures. And she sees that her mother tried to do the very best she could, given her experiences and her background and her circumstances. She sees that her mother manged to get her to a place where she could be happy. And she gives her mother credit for it.

The only want I see in this story is that I wish Reichl had reached this understanding when her mother was still alive.

Updated to add the first part of the second sentence in the penultimate paragraph.

Bangalore Life: A Bus Ride and a Lingering Memory

In my memory the thick stone walls rise to the level of four floors. The walls are covered with ivy and punctuated neatly with brown-colored windows. A sprawling stage backs to about a third of the back wall of the school. A little distance away is another imposing building, one that houses the convent of the Sisters of Charity. Still beyond that, a massive playground with a basketball court and another concrete stage.

A large open space behind the building is filled with girls in light-blue pinafores, white shirts, blue ties, white socks and black Mary Jane shoes. Girls with long hair have braids neatly folded in half and kept in place with blue ribbons. They are chatting in groups, headed somewhere in groups, eating lunch out of their lunch boxes in groups. Loners are few and far between. There is lots of chatter, shrieking, laughter.

From Sankey Road, a busy thoroughfare at somewhat of a higher elevation than the school (you looked down at the school from the road), it looks positively idyllic, straight out of my rendering of Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys and so different from any other school I've seen so far. This is where I want to go to high school, I tell my parents.

Our home is at least two bus rides away and then a long walk from the last bus stop to the school. In terms of time, that's at least an hour door to door with a heavy back pack on my shoulders. In India, there is no school districting. You pick whatever school you want to go to, but you figure out how you're going to get there. Some private schools provide buses, but it's not always an option. We have no car. All we have is a scooter that my father rides to work in the opposite direction from the school. There is no one else that goes to the same school from my neighborhood.

There is no dissuading me, however. So off to Stella Maris High School I go. On all my note books and text books, I write my name, my grade and the name of my school - Stella Maris High. Note the missing 'School.' That's because Nancy Drew went to Riverdale High and Joe and Frank to Bayport High.

One day after school, I walk the 20-minute walk from the school to the bus terminus (many bus routes begin and end at this one bus stop) at 18th Cross in Malleswaram. Most of you will know how crowded the buses get in India. Bangalore is no exception. Riders will make the extra effort to trek to a terminus because there is at least half a chance that they might get to sit, rather than stand in the aisles (perfectly normal in India) or even on the steps leading into the bus (yours truly has ridden many times on the steps of a bus).

Once you get on the bus, you must purchase a ticket from the conductor (unlike in the US, the conductor is not the driver of the bus - this caused a whole lot of confusion when I first arrived in the US, I tell you). When every passenger purchases a ticket, the conductor blows a whistle strung around his neck and signals the driver to start driving.

This particular day, the bus is so crowded there is absolutely no space. The conductor is trying to finish up selling the tickets as fast as he can, but people are still arriving and trying to squeeze in. The exasperated conductor and driver hold a mini-conference. The situation is untenable, they concur, and agree they should execute a plan they've come up with for conditions such as this. They decide to start driving and stop about half a mile away but before the next scheduled bus stop on their route. That way the passengers already on the bus can finish buying the tickets but the driver and conductor wouldn't have to deal with new passengers constantly trying to get in.

A few seconds later, the driver hears the whistle and we're off! The bus stops at the agreed-upon place and we all wait for the conductor to make his rounds. It is stifling, to say the least, in the confines of the bus. The press of people, the still air and an immobile bus are not helping. Soon people start craning their necks to see how far the conductor has to go before the bus can move again. The people in the front crane their necks toward the back and the people in the back look toward the front of the bus.

The conductor is nowhere in sight.

Now the driver is impatient too. He has a schedule to keep if he wants to be home on time. He hollers, "ಎಲ್ಲಪ್ಪ ಇದ್ದೀಯ ನೀನು?" (where are you man?).

Silence. Then groans and clicking of the tongues.

Just as it dawns on everyone that we've managed to leave the conductor behind, an autorickshaw whizzes past and comes to a screeching halt in front of the bus. Out comes the conductor, shaking his fist at the driver in mock anger, unable to control his laughter at the turn of events.

Then a routine that would put the Three Stooges to shame: "I heard the whistle." "But I didn't blow the whistle." "But I heard the whistle. I thought you blew the whistle." "I'm telling you I didn't blow the whistle."

At every stop that day, the driver and the conductor proceed to enact an elaborate skit to make sure the conductor is safely on the bus before it starts to move again.

Books to Die For: A Nine Year-Old's List

This post has been in the works for a while. Ra's recent post highlighting her recommendations for a children's library gave C, my nine year-old son, the necessary kick in the ... er... motivation! So here, for your reading pleasure, is a list of some of C's favorite books (fiction) of the past year with his notes on the parts he liked or disliked. Although not as extensive, he has favorite non-fiction books as well. Perhaps in another post. My notes are in italics.

1. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick: With over 230 pages of pure illustrations, Hugo Cabret is a fascinating book about a boy who wants to find out about his father's past and his automatons with the help of friends.

The book is enthralling and keeps you at the edge of your seat at all times. Hugo, who is so poor that he scavenges for food, goes on the adventure of his lifetime while finding out about other people's mysterious pasts as well.

C and I started reading this book aloud. It went too slow for his taste. He ploughed on ahead and then the book had to go back to his library. This is one I want to read as well. The illustrations are rich with detail and feeling.

2. The Mysterious Benedict Society Series by Trenton Lee Stewart, Carton Ellis (Illustrator): Reynie, Kate, Sticky and Constance all have something in common - they have to take down Mr. Benedict's evil brother, Mr. Z. This book is about how the four kids work together as a team, The Mysterious Benedict Society.

What I like about this book is that you never know what's going to happen next. There's always a dilemma. I can't wait for the third book in the series, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma, to come out early next month!

3. George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy & Stephen Hawking: This book is about three friends who find out that a rover is acting funny on Mars. They use their high-tech super computer to open hole into space. When they do that they find out that someone is trying to destroy earth.


This fun-filled adventure takes you all around the universe with amazing facts about outer space.

4. The Hardy Boys Series by Franlin W. Dixon: Two young boys, Joe and Frank, are following their father's footsteps by cracking mysteries by the minute. They risk their lives with every case they take on.

These action-packed books are amazing. My palms get sweaty as I turn the pages. A big must-read.

5. A Summer Adventure, The Hidden Treasure and The Only Witness (3 Novels) by Shashi Deshpande: Dhinu, Minu, Polly and Ravi are cousins. They lead normal lives until they get caught up in huge mysteries - one involving sinister robberies, the other involving their ancestors' treasure, and the last involving their friend's kidnapping and an encounter with mysterious bank robbers.

The setting is India, one of the busiest places in the world. The books' last minute captures and saves will keep your teeth chattering. (Thanks Chox!)

6. Gregor the Overlander Series by Suzanne Collins: This is a story about a boy and his sister who fall through their laundry shaft and land in a different world. There are several prophesies about this particular boy - he is supposed to slay several evil and disgusting creatures.

The books in this series (5 of them) are long and enchanting. They are about friendship and courage, and include a mystery about his father in the first book.

7. The Name of This Book Is Secret and If You're Reading This, It's Too Late by Pseudonymous Bosch: These two books are about two dashing and daring characters who get mixed up in a mysterious magician's life. Evidently they're not the only people going after the magician. Two evil doctors are on the hunt, searching for immortality. That means having to capture the magician.

These books take the readers nearly everywhere. These emotion-filled and sometimes hilarious books are simply oversatisfying!

8. Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterston: This comic book about an irritating boy and his best friend, an imaginary tiger, talks about 1980s politics and normal household life in the uttermost hilarious way.

Each book has over 50 comic strips with most funny twists bound into it.

9. Tintin by Herge: This series, to my utmost delight, is a set of jaw-on-the-floor-ing books about an amazing detective who cracks over 21 cases with the help of his old sea-dog friend, Captain Haddock, and his professor genius friend, Calculus, and his loyal and creative dog, Snowy.
These books have off-the-scale action and great characters with huge personalities.

10. Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop: This emotional and heartwarming book about gymnastics and bravery is a great read, especially for those who think they are too short and not able to do many things.

This is a great mythical story about medieval times, about dragons and kings. It's a fantastic story about a struggling kid who tries very hard to overcome his challenges.

11. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series by Jeff Kinney: These are stories about a loser middle-schooler and his bully brother high-schooler, about how he manages to pull through every painful minute of his life and dreams of becoming famous some day.

These books have freakishly funny twists of comedy in them, and have great advice if you are in the wimpy kid's position.

12. Jake Drake, Bully Buster by Andrew Clements: This book is about a young boy who overcomes the challenge of defeating a super bully by gradually ignoring him and working together with him.
Another Andrew Clements classic and a very good read, but not the best. Frindle is the best.

13. Mansion in the Mist, The Dark Secret of Weatherend, The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb (the Anthony Monday Series) by John Bellairs: These books are about Anthony Monday and his eccentric friend. They solve mysteries of magic, mythology and sorcery by evil people.

They have so much scariness, you feel like putting them down even though you don't want to. They leave you feeling scared and excited!

14. Books on the nightstand:

Stoneheart by Charlie Fletcher

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (reading it aloud with mom)


My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (thanks a ton, Poppy!)


To be continued...

~~~~~~~~

C's list definitely reflects the sensibilities of a boy who loves adventure and mystery. Lots of action and scary stuff. Increasingly he's also leaning toward fantasy. I helped out at the book fair at his school last year and I was delighted that the librarian at his school, the wonderful Ms. P, knew his tastes. She guided me down the aisles, pointing out books she was positive he would love. We did not go wrong with The Name of This Book is Secret.

Some of the books he read in 2008 include The Magic Treehouse Series, the Boxcar Children Series, the Classic Starts Series (with abridged versions of Sherlock Holmes, Oliver Twist, Treasure Island, etc.), the Secret Seven and Famous Five Series by Enid Blyton (he thinks they take too long to get exciting and they end too quickly). He did not want to include them here because"they're for young kids" (!).

If you have other suggestions for an adventure-loving boy, please do let us know. He (and I) will be delighted!

A final note - Sujatha of Fluff n' Stuff also wrote a post about her favorites here. Please do check it out.