~
First things first: Ladies Coupe is published in India by Penguin and has a lovely cover. I'm particularly taken by Namas Bhojani's photograph of the woman in a train window that appears on the Indian edition; there's a North American edition available here but it's got the type of exoticizing Indian-village-belle-cover that I loathe! It's writer Anita Nair's second novel; she's since published a few other things that I'll check out soon.
Now for the book itself: I'd give it a B+, where an A+ is Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and an F is Pankaj Mishra's The Romantics. (Aside: I liked Mishra's Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, which I actually read while travelling through Bhopal on the way to and from Sanchi my last time in India but just couldn't get into The Romantics.) Dutiful Brahmin daughter and sister Akhila, who has a boring clerical job and lives with her sister and her family suddenly decides she's had enough and buys herself a one-way ticket to Kanyakumari. She finds herself in the "ladies' compartment" on the train and the book explores her story alongside the stories of the five other women who share this space with her.
It's a nice conceit for bringing together six women of different ages, classes, statuses and temperaments. But each of the women's stories are narrated rather than spoken... so what we get seems more of an overview or a summary of each of their lives rather than a sense of how they would tell their own stories. In fact, while the stories are different, the narrative voices and tones aren't distinctive enough for us to identify the character who goes with each story. I found myself turning back to the establishing chapter in order to figure which of the women's stories I was reading.
Anita Nair's style also fluctuates: there's an exquisite passage that chronicles Akhila's furtive introduction to eggs that begins with the line "It was Katherine Webber who brought an egg into Akhila's life" and ends so: "To Akhila, an egg was an egg only when surrounded by a shell and baptized by boiling water." In between, we find out that for Akhila, eating a boiled egg plain, with a bit of the white and a bit of the yolk, is "the composite joy of surreptitious pleasures." We find out how Amma, her chastely Brahmin mother, deals with her becoming an "eater of eggs." Much of the book, though, feels a lot clunkier than this airy bit that flirts with comedy. There are too many lines that make me want to roll my eyes. Take this one, for example: "Dare I dream again? Now that the boys are men, can I start feeling like a woman again?" Or: "it was only natural that he should be the one to show her the wonder of being a woman." Unexceptional sentiments, perhaps, but not expressed either originally or movingly. I know that I'm supposed to feel for Nair's characters at such moments but the triteness of the words simply block that response. It's in the details of the lives of Nair's characters that an original turn of phrase offers an original interpretation of a life or an experience. And there are enough such moments in the book to make it worth savouring.
I'm off to savour something else now: kachoris!
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Dumbledore Thing
~
The Gay Dumbledore thing has been convulsing the world for the last week so I thought I might as well weigh in. For the record, I'm not surprised -- there were, as more eminent readers have pointed out, lots of hints, particularly in Book 7 -- but I also don't quite see it as necessary. It's an interesting thing to know about Dumbledore but I'm not sure how it changes the story any -- now. It might perhaps have added some depth to his disillusionment with Grindelwald had it been made apparent, and not merely been hinted at, in the book itself. Other than that, I'm not sure what the narrative point of posthumously pointing out his gayness really is. I'm a fan of the books; and in general, I agree with the moral and ethical points brought up in the books. In brief, I think they can be summarized as upholding the values of a kind of mild multiculturalism -- in the saga, clearly those on the side of "purity" and "bloodlines" are evil, corrupt, jealous of their privileges or a noxious combination of all of the above. On the other hand, the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army -- those defenders of difference and valuers of variety -- are good liberals.
But.... I have a problem with the way in which we're supposed to read the vanquishing of the Dark Lord and his followers as a victory for the different. Many of those who embody difference most are killed in the course of the "Second War": Sirius Black, who is rendered unstable by his long imprisonment in Azkaban, Remus Lupin, the werewolf whose difference is manifest every month, his beloved Nymphadora Tonks, who both chooses to be different (by loving Remus) and who is also born different as a metamorphmagus, her father Ted Tonks, whose very name suggests his lower class origins comically, Mad Eye Moody, whose years of Auroring have left him physically and mentally scarred, Dobby, the house-elf who will not accept his "natural" position, the unicorn which chooses to forsake the neutrality of all of its kind in order to fight , Severus Snape, who is physically unattractive and almost universally disliked and dislikeable, and Dumbledore, now newly revealed to be gay. I'll grant that not all who are different are dispatched for good: Luna Lovegood and the half-giant Rubeus Hagrid make it through, for instance; and nor would I suggest that all who die somehow embody difference from the mainstream of the wizarding world. But, it's awfully convenient that so many of the magical persons and beings whose place in the magical world is made precarious by the would-be-purists don't survive into the morning after the "Battle of Hogwarts."
To my mind, it would only have been possible to judge whether the kinds of difference embodied by so many of the "good" characters in the Potterverse were reintegrated into the wizarding world by keeping some of them alive. And now by "outing" Dumbledore, Rowling has just given us another character who is both on the side of the angels and different.... and dead.
It is, at best, a liberal vision of the magical world. A more radical one would perhaps have allowed for some of these different beings to survive and make a place for themselves in the difficult space of the living, as opposed to that of the safely dead and memorializable. Don't take this the wrong way: I'm still a fan of the books and I think that the Muggle world is a better place for having them in it than not. But to me their impossibility to imagine even a triumphant wizarding world in which difference is actually both alive and celebrated suggests the impossibility of even such an imaginative writer as JK Rowling escaping the constraints of the real world in which we live.
The Gay Dumbledore thing has been convulsing the world for the last week so I thought I might as well weigh in. For the record, I'm not surprised -- there were, as more eminent readers have pointed out, lots of hints, particularly in Book 7 -- but I also don't quite see it as necessary. It's an interesting thing to know about Dumbledore but I'm not sure how it changes the story any -- now. It might perhaps have added some depth to his disillusionment with Grindelwald had it been made apparent, and not merely been hinted at, in the book itself. Other than that, I'm not sure what the narrative point of posthumously pointing out his gayness really is. I'm a fan of the books; and in general, I agree with the moral and ethical points brought up in the books. In brief, I think they can be summarized as upholding the values of a kind of mild multiculturalism -- in the saga, clearly those on the side of "purity" and "bloodlines" are evil, corrupt, jealous of their privileges or a noxious combination of all of the above. On the other hand, the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army -- those defenders of difference and valuers of variety -- are good liberals.
But.... I have a problem with the way in which we're supposed to read the vanquishing of the Dark Lord and his followers as a victory for the different. Many of those who embody difference most are killed in the course of the "Second War": Sirius Black, who is rendered unstable by his long imprisonment in Azkaban, Remus Lupin, the werewolf whose difference is manifest every month, his beloved Nymphadora Tonks, who both chooses to be different (by loving Remus) and who is also born different as a metamorphmagus, her father Ted Tonks, whose very name suggests his lower class origins comically, Mad Eye Moody, whose years of Auroring have left him physically and mentally scarred, Dobby, the house-elf who will not accept his "natural" position, the unicorn which chooses to forsake the neutrality of all of its kind in order to fight , Severus Snape, who is physically unattractive and almost universally disliked and dislikeable, and Dumbledore, now newly revealed to be gay. I'll grant that not all who are different are dispatched for good: Luna Lovegood and the half-giant Rubeus Hagrid make it through, for instance; and nor would I suggest that all who die somehow embody difference from the mainstream of the wizarding world. But, it's awfully convenient that so many of the magical persons and beings whose place in the magical world is made precarious by the would-be-purists don't survive into the morning after the "Battle of Hogwarts."
To my mind, it would only have been possible to judge whether the kinds of difference embodied by so many of the "good" characters in the Potterverse were reintegrated into the wizarding world by keeping some of them alive. And now by "outing" Dumbledore, Rowling has just given us another character who is both on the side of the angels and different.... and dead.
It is, at best, a liberal vision of the magical world. A more radical one would perhaps have allowed for some of these different beings to survive and make a place for themselves in the difficult space of the living, as opposed to that of the safely dead and memorializable. Don't take this the wrong way: I'm still a fan of the books and I think that the Muggle world is a better place for having them in it than not. But to me their impossibility to imagine even a triumphant wizarding world in which difference is actually both alive and celebrated suggests the impossibility of even such an imaginative writer as JK Rowling escaping the constraints of the real world in which we live.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Lunch and the Limits of Liberalism....
Old friends of my parents' descended upon us yesterday and invited us for lunch today... actually, it was more than an invitation -- I think it fair to say that they insisted that we turn up at "1ish" and eat. I wasn't all that keen but couldn't think of a way out so off we trooped. They live in an area of Mysore called "Yadavagiri"; it's pronounced more like "Yadhogiri" -- you've to kind of run the "dha" and "va" sounds together. I mention this because it's the neighbourhood of Mysore that I'm fondest of. Not that I have many memories of this period, but I lived in my grandparents' house in Yadavagiri for 4-5 years as an infant and little kid. Really, all I remember is a large black Lab named Jumbo who wouldn't let me ride him and who could be quite scarily loud when I tried to do something I wasn't allowed to (like, cross the tiny little road we lived on).
Anyway. As we drove by, I saw that my grandparents' house had shrunk! Well, ok, it hasn't actually shrunk but I had an object lesson in perspective! The house had seemed huge to me as a child: I remember the 2nd floor terrace, with bright pink and white bougainvilla blossoms trailing across the top to form an intricate and ever-changing "roof" -- but in my mind's eye, it is a vast space. It has high walls that you can't see over and is bedecked with potted plants and rattan (wicker) chairs. It's where I had my first "moonlight feast" with my best friend from six doors down. My mom and aunt and grandmother passed us food from the open screen door that led into the house. But looking at it from the outside, I notice how the walls are barely knee high; and since the house is empty these days, there is no bougainvilla tree to shade the grey cement floor of the terrace. Even from where we were on the little road, we saw the bright hot sun reflecting heat off of it; it looked like nothing like the greeny-shady shadowy place of my memories.
So lunch. Lunch was an elaborate meal of balay-kai bonda (salty green banana fritters ((yumm)), a delicious Northern Karnataka style eggplant curry (made with curry leaves and powdered peanuts), channa masala, chappatis and rice and youghurt and all the other bits and bobs that made up a proper Indian meal. But the most interesting thing was that my very Ancient and Grand grandmother who insisted on bringing along a shelled coconut (one of our own -- from a tree by our front door!), fruit, flowers (again, from our gardens), a silk "blouse-piece" in a rather gorgeous shade of red (a blouse piece is a bit of material just big enough for a woman to have a sari-blouse tailored, generally about 3/4ths of a metre) and assorted jim-jams. After lunch, she borrowed a silver tray and some "arshan-kumkum" and made the woman of the house sit down and accept the trayful of artfully arranged gifts from my aunt. I'm afraid I rather put my foot in it by asking why my aunt had to do the honours. It turns out that as a widow, it's not for the Ancient and Grand one to offer "arshan-kumkum" to a married woman. Gah!
I knew -- vaguely -- that women don't apply "kumkum" after they're widowed but I didn't quite understand the intricacies of such customs. This side of my family is very liberal and a lot of the "rules" that don't make sense are dismissed with -- for instance, I hadn't really caught onto this because my Ancient and Grand one still applies a sticker "bottu" because she's not used to a "bare" forehead but apparently she doesn't apply the powdered form of the "kumkum" that's been sitting in front of the family Gods. And apparently that's not the case even in their comfortably middle-class and more than well-educated milieu. I also heard that widows aren't supposed to wear flowers in their hair. The hosts for our lunch were a husband and wife, both doctors, both of whom I would have called liberal and Westernized.... but.... but.... The Ancient and Grand one thinks that they would still have been offended if she'd offered the "kumkum." I have to admit that I find it baffling, not to mention offensive. Widowhood in India is bad enough as it is -- yes, yes, Water the film but I don't think that those practices are common today, and certainly not in this class. But the pettiness of this little ritual humiliation of widows really gets to me; after all, as my great-grandmother is supposed to have remarked when she lost her husband nearly a 100 years ago, it's not as if little girls wait to be married before they started applying "kumkum" and braiding flowers into their hair, so why then should they discard these little pleasures just because their men are gone?
Anyway. As we drove by, I saw that my grandparents' house had shrunk! Well, ok, it hasn't actually shrunk but I had an object lesson in perspective! The house had seemed huge to me as a child: I remember the 2nd floor terrace, with bright pink and white bougainvilla blossoms trailing across the top to form an intricate and ever-changing "roof" -- but in my mind's eye, it is a vast space. It has high walls that you can't see over and is bedecked with potted plants and rattan (wicker) chairs. It's where I had my first "moonlight feast" with my best friend from six doors down. My mom and aunt and grandmother passed us food from the open screen door that led into the house. But looking at it from the outside, I notice how the walls are barely knee high; and since the house is empty these days, there is no bougainvilla tree to shade the grey cement floor of the terrace. Even from where we were on the little road, we saw the bright hot sun reflecting heat off of it; it looked like nothing like the greeny-shady shadowy place of my memories.
So lunch. Lunch was an elaborate meal of balay-kai bonda (salty green banana fritters ((yumm)), a delicious Northern Karnataka style eggplant curry (made with curry leaves and powdered peanuts), channa masala, chappatis and rice and youghurt and all the other bits and bobs that made up a proper Indian meal. But the most interesting thing was that my very Ancient and Grand grandmother who insisted on bringing along a shelled coconut (one of our own -- from a tree by our front door!), fruit, flowers (again, from our gardens), a silk "blouse-piece" in a rather gorgeous shade of red (a blouse piece is a bit of material just big enough for a woman to have a sari-blouse tailored, generally about 3/4ths of a metre) and assorted jim-jams. After lunch, she borrowed a silver tray and some "arshan-kumkum" and made the woman of the house sit down and accept the trayful of artfully arranged gifts from my aunt. I'm afraid I rather put my foot in it by asking why my aunt had to do the honours. It turns out that as a widow, it's not for the Ancient and Grand one to offer "arshan-kumkum" to a married woman. Gah!
I knew -- vaguely -- that women don't apply "kumkum" after they're widowed but I didn't quite understand the intricacies of such customs. This side of my family is very liberal and a lot of the "rules" that don't make sense are dismissed with -- for instance, I hadn't really caught onto this because my Ancient and Grand one still applies a sticker "bottu" because she's not used to a "bare" forehead but apparently she doesn't apply the powdered form of the "kumkum" that's been sitting in front of the family Gods. And apparently that's not the case even in their comfortably middle-class and more than well-educated milieu. I also heard that widows aren't supposed to wear flowers in their hair. The hosts for our lunch were a husband and wife, both doctors, both of whom I would have called liberal and Westernized.... but.... but.... The Ancient and Grand one thinks that they would still have been offended if she'd offered the "kumkum." I have to admit that I find it baffling, not to mention offensive. Widowhood in India is bad enough as it is -- yes, yes, Water the film but I don't think that those practices are common today, and certainly not in this class. But the pettiness of this little ritual humiliation of widows really gets to me; after all, as my great-grandmother is supposed to have remarked when she lost her husband nearly a 100 years ago, it's not as if little girls wait to be married before they started applying "kumkum" and braiding flowers into their hair, so why then should they discard these little pleasures just because their men are gone?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Rains
Did I ever tell y'all that one of my pet peeves is about the use of the term "monsoon season"? The word monsoon is derived from "mausam" which means season so it's as redundant to talk of the "monsoon season" as it is to order a "pizza pie." Pedantic rant over for the day.
In Mysore, the tail end of the monsoon falls between Dasara, (last weekend) and Diwali (early Novemeber) but this year, its seems to be determined to go out with lots of bangs. I suppose I should say that technically, it's the tail end of the Retreating Monsoon. The more important monsoon rains -- often called the Advancing or Summer Monsoons -- occur between June and September, when there are days of torrential rainfall. By May, the land is parched and cracking; there's nothing green left on the ground and you breathe in lungfulls of dirt every time you inhale. When the rains hit Kerala (they come up the Indian coastline), there's a giant sigh of relief -- farmer and city-dweller alike is thrilled because the coming of the rain means the end of months of heat and dust, temper tantrums and water shortages. But by the time the monsoon clouds have made it up the Indian coasts and then begin to "retreat" back, everyone is tired of the rain. Where once the parched earth gulped down the moisture almost before it hit the ground, by October, there are dismal puddles everywhere. The streets never seem to be completely dry; everywhere there is the smell of wet newspaper and mold begins to creep insidiously across your clothes if you are foolhardy enough to think of drying them on clotheslines.
But I have to admit to a special fondness for the rains, with apologies to all the soggy schoolchildren I see squelching their way home after school everyday: I like the lower temperatures the rains bring, and I rather enjoy the smell of mud. I don't even mind that at least in Mysore, the Retreating Monsoon rains generally start in mid-afternoon and continue into the evening, those prime hours for running errands and visiting! It reminds me of the days when I was happiest grubbing about in piles of red mud, building cities, villages, bridges and embankments on my grandfather's farm while the adults went about adult business and ignored me. And this time around, I'm grateful that the Dasara Procession wasn't washed out by them.
I also like the look of monsoon clouds, be they Advancing or Retreating ones. Remember the opening scenes of Lagaan, where the villagers watch the rain-swollen rain clouds gather and then tragically blow away? Well, I'd never understood the pathos of that -- the shadows the black clouds cast are a potent marker of how near salvation lies and yet how far it really is -- until I came to India before the onset of the Summer Monsoon one year. And truly, monsoon clouds look just like they do in the film: they loom over the landscape, looking as though they're barely skimming the rooftops. They're black and grey and silver; and I've always thought that if you touched them, you'd find that they're as dense as bread-dough and that if you tasted them, they'd taste like rain-water flavoured cotton candy that's slightly burnt at the edges from the lightening within.
I've had two drenchings in the rains since I've been here and I'll admit to enjoying them. After the year in Halifax, when I felt as though I could never warm my bones up after even a mild soaking from a measly drizzle, there's something wonderful about being drenched in warm water that simply pours down. Lovely!
In Mysore, the tail end of the monsoon falls between Dasara, (last weekend) and Diwali (early Novemeber) but this year, its seems to be determined to go out with lots of bangs. I suppose I should say that technically, it's the tail end of the Retreating Monsoon. The more important monsoon rains -- often called the Advancing or Summer Monsoons -- occur between June and September, when there are days of torrential rainfall. By May, the land is parched and cracking; there's nothing green left on the ground and you breathe in lungfulls of dirt every time you inhale. When the rains hit Kerala (they come up the Indian coastline), there's a giant sigh of relief -- farmer and city-dweller alike is thrilled because the coming of the rain means the end of months of heat and dust, temper tantrums and water shortages. But by the time the monsoon clouds have made it up the Indian coasts and then begin to "retreat" back, everyone is tired of the rain. Where once the parched earth gulped down the moisture almost before it hit the ground, by October, there are dismal puddles everywhere. The streets never seem to be completely dry; everywhere there is the smell of wet newspaper and mold begins to creep insidiously across your clothes if you are foolhardy enough to think of drying them on clotheslines.
But I have to admit to a special fondness for the rains, with apologies to all the soggy schoolchildren I see squelching their way home after school everyday: I like the lower temperatures the rains bring, and I rather enjoy the smell of mud. I don't even mind that at least in Mysore, the Retreating Monsoon rains generally start in mid-afternoon and continue into the evening, those prime hours for running errands and visiting! It reminds me of the days when I was happiest grubbing about in piles of red mud, building cities, villages, bridges and embankments on my grandfather's farm while the adults went about adult business and ignored me. And this time around, I'm grateful that the Dasara Procession wasn't washed out by them.
I also like the look of monsoon clouds, be they Advancing or Retreating ones. Remember the opening scenes of Lagaan, where the villagers watch the rain-swollen rain clouds gather and then tragically blow away? Well, I'd never understood the pathos of that -- the shadows the black clouds cast are a potent marker of how near salvation lies and yet how far it really is -- until I came to India before the onset of the Summer Monsoon one year. And truly, monsoon clouds look just like they do in the film: they loom over the landscape, looking as though they're barely skimming the rooftops. They're black and grey and silver; and I've always thought that if you touched them, you'd find that they're as dense as bread-dough and that if you tasted them, they'd taste like rain-water flavoured cotton candy that's slightly burnt at the edges from the lightening within.
I've had two drenchings in the rains since I've been here and I'll admit to enjoying them. After the year in Halifax, when I felt as though I could never warm my bones up after even a mild soaking from a measly drizzle, there's something wonderful about being drenched in warm water that simply pours down. Lovely!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Bangalore!
To help me recover from the trauma of the ending of Dasara, which meant no more parades or processions, a childhood friend (now all grown up and fashionably employed by the name-brand Indian B(usiness) P(rocess) O(utsourcing) giant Infosys) decided to take me to Bangalore and show me how India's changed since I was last here nearly 5 years ago. I've been missing books, music and Thai food since I've been here and I was promised all three of them. Infosys Grrl also promised to take me to Fab India -- if you've never been to a Fab India store in your life, check out the website and start saving airfare -- it is one of the things about the new India that I love. How could I resist?! Even the notion of departing Mysore at 7 am (!!!) failed to deter me; and if you know me at all, you know that I'm a night-owl, and that I don't willingly wake before 9.
Superefficient Infosys Grrl made me set my alarm the night before and then called me at 6 am "just to make sure" that I was actually up. The plan was to make a dash for a Volver Bus and having seen the Almodovar film, I was tempted to pack a steak knife or two. But I'll just say that we made it onto a *Volvo* Bus for 7 and bumped our way into B'lore for a back-breaking, nausea inducing 3 hrs. For the record, I hate buses and travelling on buses in India raises that hatred to a whole 'nother level. Gah. But. Books. Music. Fab India. Thai Food. Rumbly Volvo bus followed by an Auto driven by a young punk (this is clearly a sign that I'm getting old) led us to them all.
Re: Lunch. Tofu, how I have missed you. Also you, broccoli. Mmmm. Someone remind me when I bad-mouth malls and mall-culture again (as I will) that I enjoyed this trip to the Forum.
The music selection was kinda lame at the big mock-American bookstore we went to at the big mock-American mall but I picked up Mira Nair's The Namesake, which I'd been meaning to see since before leaving Toronto. An odd little book called The Astral Alibi by a woman called Manjiri Prabhu caught my eye and I picked it up: the cover blurb claims that it's the tale of a detective agency run by a woman -- big hoohah, you're probably thinking -- but it's supposed to be set in Pune.... that armpit of Maharashtra that's semi-Bombayized. I'm intrigued. Preethi Nair's 100 Shades of White, Anita Nair's Ladies' Coupe, and Amitabha Bagchi's Above Average all seem slightly more predictable but I've brought them home for a read anyway. There will be reviews soon. I also bought myself lots of fluff reading -- including the new William Sutcliffe book, New Boy -- but I'll spare y'all. There will be no reveiws of fluff here. Unless I change my mind. Oooh. I also picked up a book by debut novelist Advaita Kala: Almost Single, which I'm tempted to call "chick-lit" on the face of it. Again, I'm intrigued. We'll see how long the intrigue lasts but this trip is going to be perfect time to catch up on Indian writing in English. Maybe someone somewhere will let me teach a course on it someday.
I promised you elephants so my elephant related news for the day is that I bought a skirt with elephants on it. Also other non-elephant printed kurtas (for the days when I need to pretend to be a decent Indian woman) and long flowly skirts (for the days when I can appease my inner hippie). And a scarf/shawl/dupatta that I've fallen in love with. It's pretty and that's all I can say in my defense.
After all this, and some more Auto-ing and traipsing around, I refused to climb aboard another bus -- Volvo, Volver, whatever -- so we took the train back. I love trains. Traveling in trains in India is fantastic. Ok, if you can ignore the smells and the dirt and find yourself a seat or two, traveling by train in India is fantastic. And I love it so much that I'll deal with the stink from the loos and silently roll my eyes at the discarded plastic bottles along the track and climb on board and search for that elusive thing: a seat. Once you have a seat, then the pleasure begins: you open the windows and watch the houses flash past as you munch on "time-pass snacks" and gossip the trip away. Sheer joy to do that again. Tonight, we whiled away some time eating Maddur vadas. If you don't know what they are, I'm sorry for you. If you do: mmmm. Mysore came before Infosys Grrl and I had done more than sketch out our plans for world domination but there will be other trips and other planning sessions. And fear not, dear Reader, you'll be treated to more of my raptures on train trips in India.
The books are calling out to me now so that's all for tonight.
Superefficient Infosys Grrl made me set my alarm the night before and then called me at 6 am "just to make sure" that I was actually up. The plan was to make a dash for a Volver Bus and having seen the Almodovar film, I was tempted to pack a steak knife or two. But I'll just say that we made it onto a *Volvo* Bus for 7 and bumped our way into B'lore for a back-breaking, nausea inducing 3 hrs. For the record, I hate buses and travelling on buses in India raises that hatred to a whole 'nother level. Gah. But. Books. Music. Fab India. Thai Food. Rumbly Volvo bus followed by an Auto driven by a young punk (this is clearly a sign that I'm getting old) led us to them all.
Re: Lunch. Tofu, how I have missed you. Also you, broccoli. Mmmm. Someone remind me when I bad-mouth malls and mall-culture again (as I will) that I enjoyed this trip to the Forum.
The music selection was kinda lame at the big mock-American bookstore we went to at the big mock-American mall but I picked up Mira Nair's The Namesake, which I'd been meaning to see since before leaving Toronto. An odd little book called The Astral Alibi by a woman called Manjiri Prabhu caught my eye and I picked it up: the cover blurb claims that it's the tale of a detective agency run by a woman -- big hoohah, you're probably thinking -- but it's supposed to be set in Pune.... that armpit of Maharashtra that's semi-Bombayized. I'm intrigued. Preethi Nair's 100 Shades of White, Anita Nair's Ladies' Coupe, and Amitabha Bagchi's Above Average all seem slightly more predictable but I've brought them home for a read anyway. There will be reviews soon. I also bought myself lots of fluff reading -- including the new William Sutcliffe book, New Boy -- but I'll spare y'all. There will be no reveiws of fluff here. Unless I change my mind. Oooh. I also picked up a book by debut novelist Advaita Kala: Almost Single, which I'm tempted to call "chick-lit" on the face of it. Again, I'm intrigued. We'll see how long the intrigue lasts but this trip is going to be perfect time to catch up on Indian writing in English. Maybe someone somewhere will let me teach a course on it someday.
I promised you elephants so my elephant related news for the day is that I bought a skirt with elephants on it. Also other non-elephant printed kurtas (for the days when I need to pretend to be a decent Indian woman) and long flowly skirts (for the days when I can appease my inner hippie). And a scarf/shawl/dupatta that I've fallen in love with. It's pretty and that's all I can say in my defense.
After all this, and some more Auto-ing and traipsing around, I refused to climb aboard another bus -- Volvo, Volver, whatever -- so we took the train back. I love trains. Traveling in trains in India is fantastic. Ok, if you can ignore the smells and the dirt and find yourself a seat or two, traveling by train in India is fantastic. And I love it so much that I'll deal with the stink from the loos and silently roll my eyes at the discarded plastic bottles along the track and climb on board and search for that elusive thing: a seat. Once you have a seat, then the pleasure begins: you open the windows and watch the houses flash past as you munch on "time-pass snacks" and gossip the trip away. Sheer joy to do that again. Tonight, we whiled away some time eating Maddur vadas. If you don't know what they are, I'm sorry for you. If you do: mmmm. Mysore came before Infosys Grrl and I had done more than sketch out our plans for world domination but there will be other trips and other planning sessions. And fear not, dear Reader, you'll be treated to more of my raptures on train trips in India.
The books are calling out to me now so that's all for tonight.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Limes and Pumpkins and more....
So
But, reader, it was all worth it. Really! Darlings, the last three days would have fulfilled every exotic dream of
Apparently, it’s a holdover from the days when kings would pray over their weapons before going off to make war; a la Billy Bragg, I know it’s wrong to celebrate weapony things but it was a *fun* day. After the Ancient Car heaved itself over the limes, off we went to a family farm and went through a similar process with spades and picks and hoes. Whee! I spent the hour-long drive taking pictures of bedecked vehicles: a bus I saw (coming here soon!) is probably my fave, though I don’t know that I’d have dared to climb on board it, given how much all this must have affected the driver’s vision!
And stay tuned for tales of the rest of the weekend – the elephants are coming! THE ELEPHANTS ARE COMING!
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