Word Attack!!

A long day!

Its been a long day, starting with Saboor’s results in school. He’s been promoted to 4th standard by the way. His teacher gave me the usual grief over his handwriting and I said, ‘yes’, ‘yes’ to everything she said. Saboor looked properly chastised, an effect that lasted until we were in the school premises. Once outside, he was his usual rowdy self.

There was Azhaan’s passport application to take care of today, and we had to make sure we had all the documents. Since we’d taken the appointment online, we also had to go and take print outs of the application form. The printer at home had run out of ink, so the four of us, yes, Mansoor, me, Azhaan and Saboor walked to the nearest cyber center and took printouts. We had a couple of ice creams on the way back because it was so scorchingly hot. Azhaan refused the icecream and started clamouring for water. ‘Panni!’ he said, about fifty times till we reached home. He says ‘panni’ and not ‘paani’…a bit like ‘paennni’

We got back home, had lunch, and headed out to the passport office with MIL whose passport also had to be submitted for renewal. There we reached just ten minutes before our token number was called out, and we had to fill in all those forms and stick passport sized photos and everything before our number was called out. I felt like I was back in school and I had to write quickly before the bell rang or something!

After all that was sorted out, we wanted to check out some stuff in Big Bazaar. Yes, the same Big Bazaar that’s more of a ‘Big Bezaar‘ at most times during the week. I had wanted Ammi to come there so she could point me in the right direction. All this is in preparation of the move to Koramangala to our own place(rented)…own as in, its my own household and gosh..I have to take care of things like making sure I have filled water on the days it comes and complicated things like that…! Whoa!

We got back home, tired and my shoulders were aching after carrying Az so much. Then, at home, I realized that his Pampers were over, so again I headed downstairs to the medical shop next door and picked up a packet of Pampers and some other stuff. By now, I was feeling like I needed a shot in the arm with something really powerful!

Back up stairs, Saboor started behaving real funny. He kept complaining of cold and then he also had a bout of loose motions. I touched his forehead and realized that he was burning up with fever. So, after giving him crocin syrup, I settled him down to sleep. He’s still running a temperature, but I hope it will be fine by tomorrow, or we’ll have to take him to the doc tomorrow.

Whew! That’s it for now. I’m off to sleep, after maybe writing a paragraph at least in the new novel I started. Good night! Shabbakhair!!!

Himmesh in the making??? Aaargh!!!

Azhaan has developed a new hankering. He wants to wear his cap all the time. The moment I remove it, he starts screaming, ‘Inna, Inna’ by which he means, put it back on, put it back on!

He’s gone to sleep wearing the cap and even after he fell asleep he refused to let me touch the cap. I tried pulling it out, and he started screaming in his sleep!! What’s with the cap fixation? And he’s not even two years old!!! Sheesh!

Biting real hard

Azhaan has a habit of biting Rayaan. Sometimes he bites him just like that. For fun. Sometimes he’s provoked and he thinks this is the only way he can retaliate. And sometimes I don’t know what gets into him.

Tonight, he bit Rayaan on his back. I don’t know why because I was in the kitchen making rotis. I only heard Rayaan wail and scream and Parvez bhai(Rayaan’s father) who was in the kitchen, making a noodle stir fry for himself went running to see what the matter was. Before I even entered the room, I knew what the problem was. It was Azhaan obviously. He bit Rayaan so hard that blood was coming out of the wound. Anjum(Rayaan’s mother) cleaned the wound and applied some cream. While I dished out a lot of spanking to Azhaan. I know. Cruel of me. But I don’t know what to do. I couldn’t stand there just like that while Rayaan screamed his guts out and Parvez bhai looking so much in pain himself, and feeling helpless.

To top it all, Az was trying to be cute. He puckered his mouth in a bow and tried to trick me into believing he’s an angel. And he started saying ‘BeeBee’ which is what he calls Rayaan. I got really mad at him. Anyway, I behaved badly too.

With kids, these things are bound to happen everyone says. Well, if Rayaan and Azhaan had been twins, I might have handled this differently. But Rayaan is a baby belonging to another set of parents. Parents who cannot even vent their frustration out because the situation itself is awkward.

Anyway, once we go to our separate homes, I hope these biting incidents will really slow down. They have to!!

Saboor’s skating classes

Saboor’s skating classes have been fantastic. For him and for me. He found a group of friends and he’s learnt skating, and he seems to be having fun too. He also seems to have lost some weight which he had put on recently due to too much junk food and watching TV.

Meanwhile I too have found a couple of friends and its surprising to even think that I didnt even know they existed three months ago. Nazima, in her early thirties is a harried mother of two sons, Safwan(5) and Hisham(2), and I really admire how she carries on everything, considering that both her son are so naughty! She is a Unani doctor and was practicing before she became a mother. Now, she doesn’t have time for anything else, but she brings her son to skating classes without fail.

Akhtar is a slightly older woman, although I really can’t figure out her age(I haven’t asked her yet!). She has two kids, but I haven’t seen her daughter as yet. She’s never come to the skating classes as she’s in tenth standard and has to study for the ongoing board exams. Anyway, her son, Yahya skates pretty well, and he’s not even six!

Well, as much as Saboor will miss his skating classes when we leave BTM and move to Koramangala, I will miss my new friends too! I might enroll Saboor in a skating class in Koramangala but it will not be the same for him and for me.

My short story in Good Housekeeping Magazine!

Yes!!

I had emailed a short story to Good Housekeeping some time back. More like two or three months earlier. And they called up on Monday. Apparently they liked my short story very much and they have used it in April’s issue. The lady who spoke to me wanted to know if I have more stories, and please can I try and send them happy stories?

I told her I’ll have to write more stories, but I didnt tell her that I feel I am quite incapable of writing happy stories. Are there any really happy stories out there? Stories that are low on the mush factor but can still bring a smile on your face? I’d like to read a couple of such stories myself.

The story that is appearing in Good Housekeeping is called The Phone Call and you can read it on my website. Gosh! At last a magazine has chosen my story. Yes. I say at last, because I have been trying to get my stories in magazines from the past twelve years! While I’ve faced success with Open Sesame and other writing avenues, this one had eluded me for a long time!!

Saboor-isms

January 20th, 2008

I wish I had collected them in a diary right from the time he was saying it. It never, ever occurred to me that I might forget some of them! Kids can say the oddest things and without ever meaning to be funny, they can make you laugh and laugh. Saboor used to say a lot of these kind of things, ask these type of questions that i’ve termed Saboor-isms. In fact, I actually started writing this Yahoo 360 blog because Ayesha told me I should write about these funny things that he says in a blog. (I did write some stuff in the early days, but deleted it for some reason)

Anyway, here are some, right from the time he was about four and in kindergarten. I’ve put them down in dialogue form because they sort of lose their punch when I narrate it to someone.
S - Saboor, A- Andy
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S: “Ammi, do you know what Sri Hari did in school today?”

A: “No. What?”

S: “She jumped up and pulled…”

A: “Wait a sec…Did you say Sri Hari?”

S: “Yes. She was jumping and pulling….”

A: “But Saboor, Sri Hari is the name of a boy!”

S: “But then….she has long hair….”

A: “Well, some boys wear their hair long….”

S: “Then…shouldn’t he be called Sri Hara?”

(Hope you got the joke….)

***********************************************************

S: “Why do I have to spit the banana?”

A: “Who asked you to spit the banana?”

S: “Then why is it called banana spit?”

***********************************************************
A more recent one…in fact, this one was just last month.

S: “What is this strange looking building?”

A: “Its called Jal Bhavan.”

S: “What does that mean?”

A: “Well, its to do with water…’jal’ means water in hindi, remember?”

S: “Then why is this building so dry?”

**************************************************************

Can you believe it? But I’ve forgotten so many of them and I realised it as I sat down to write those which I remembered. Anyways, if I remember any more, I’ll put them up here. Even if no one else finds it as funny as I do!!! Childhood is something to have fond memories about especially since he’s growing so big, so soon, mashallah!!!

A Fine Balance

March 17th, 2006

I picked up this book in Landmark a couple of months back, and realised I had time to read it only now. I finished reading it a couple of weeks back. Let me start with why i wanted to read the book.

I suddenly developed this great interest to know what life was like for people in the seventies and eighties. Well, I’ve been around since the late seventies, but then, I wanted to know what it was to be an adult at that time…you know what I mean…young and raring to go or just young.

I think I was romanticising the entire age, especially the early eighties and I started speaking to a few people (who were already adults at that time, and by default are middle aged now) and started asking them what it was like to grow up then. To me, life without internet, mobiles, computers, satellite TV had suddenly become something so exciting and quite out of the dark ages. But what most people seemed to talk about was the Emergency in India in 1975.

Somehow, that period had left such a deep impression on their lives, that they werent able to think about the mid seventies without thinking of the Emergency. I hardly knew what the Emergency was all about. I had heard about it vaguely, but had absolutely no idea what actually happened, and why it had happened. I guess I wasnt interested enough.

Someone suggested I read A Fine Balance to know more about the Emergency and about the seventies. And dutifully, when I spotted the book at LM, I picked it up. Here’s what I have to say about the book:

The book has an amazing sense of atmosphere. You have to just read it and you can have a pretty good understanding of what it was like to live then. For the few days it took me to finish this book, I was living in a parallel world.

The story seemed to have some sort of knack of falling together and tying up in neat circles wherever you turn. Whichever way you go, someone is connected to someone else, or they will be.

Every character from the main protagonists to the not so important characters develop some kind of reason to exist in the book.
I didnt like the toilet language that crept up in the book every now and then.

The ending depressed me. I know I didnt want a happily ever after ending, and it wasnt even possible. But the sheer dreariness of it made me world weary.

Tears of the Giraffe

April 7, 2006

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this book. And I had no idea who Alexander Mc Call Smith was. Now I know, and I think I’d like to read more of his books.

Tears of the Giraffe is the story of an African lady, Precious Ramotswe, who runs a detective agency called No.1 Ladies Detective Agency in Botswana. The book took me completely by surprise. Set in modern day Botswana, written in simple, yet evocative prose, the author paints a hauntingly beautiful picture of modern day Africa. It is a place where some people are slowly losing a sense of their belonging, but there are those, like Mma Ramotswe who are entrenched deeply in the past, who can glean the good things from it, like courteousness, and inherent goodness, while equally embracing the practical aspects of modern life.

The story is about an American lady who arrives at Mma Ramotswe’s agency asking her to find out what happened to her son who disappeared on the edge of the Kalahari, nearly ten years ago. She has a feeling that he has died, but still, she would like to know what exactly happened. She wants closure. That in a sense is what the story is supposed to be, in a nutshell. But there is so much more. With each turn of the page, the image of Mma Ramotswe emerges as a strong, and wise African lady who sees more than what the ordinary person sees. No, not in any supernatural way, but just that she senses a lot more than what there really is on the surface.

I really liked her character a lot. Also, her fiance, the mechanic, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni. A cynical part of me wondered if there were such people in the world. Such nice people. Or rather people with such inherent goodness. Maybe there are.

The story is rather straightforward. But what appealed most to me was that it was told with such stark simplicity. Although, at most writing workshops we’re told that we don’t need to use big and fancy words, and I too agree that simple language should suffice. But still, I have read books, feeling uncomfortable when I see the ease with which the writer turns poetic, using words I havent even heard of. I felt reassured when I read Tears of the Giraffe.

Madras on Rainy Days

May 5th, 2006

They say, we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But that is exactly what I did a year ago, when I traipsed into Landmark with hubby and Sab.

I took one look at the cover of Madras on Rainy Days and immediately bought it. The cover intrigued me, and well, it turned out to be a good buy after all.

Madras on Rainy Days is the story of Layla, an NRI muslim who’s life is divided into 6 months of America and 6 months of Hyderabad, India.

Layla is now in India, for her marriage to Sameer, a handsome engineer who dreams of moving to America for the untold riches it can offer.

The story begins with the reader’s learning of a strange affliction that Layla has. A stomach pain, accompanied by bleeding that doesnt seem to stop. Her uptight mother, a divorcee, takes her to a renowned alim to exorcise the demons within her. But the demon within her is the America she has left behind forever. Although she will return, it will never be the same as before.

Layla’s story moves on with the different days of celebration of marriage. We see her father, with his young, pregnant second wife, flaunting his virility in the view of his first wife. We see her mother, who is divorced, but who has not revealed the fact to anyone in India, for fear of being looked down upon. We see Henna, her cousin, and confidante, and now married at 18, heavily pregnant, her husband away at work in Saudi and her uncaring in-laws who have sent her back to her parents home.

The characters in this debut novel are etched finely, and we see the forms emerge one by one. Layla is not very sure of the marriage with Sameer but she enters it, and we see that all is not well there either.

We see Sameer, the young man with big dreams, who has some shameful secrets he is hiding. We see his overzealous mother, his quiet and unassuming father, and we see how Layla learns to adjust in the new house.

Layla and Sameer are expected to travel to Madras for the application of their visas to the promised land. And this is where, we see the vague patterns that had appeared before, erupt in bright colour, the turning point of the novel.

Samina Ali brings out the relationship between the husband and wife with a lot of ease, capturing the uneasy beginnings, the new intimacy, the awkward attachment.

I googled for Samina Ali and found out that she suffered from a life-threatening neurological condition after her son was born. Her only concern when she started recovering was whether she would be able to write again. And Madras on Rainy Days is a vindication to the illness that she had conquered. I am waiting to read more from her.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

May 28, 2007

This book has been getting a lot of attention in the media, with most authors, critics going ga-ga over it. I picked up the book recently, and found it riveting enough ( and easy to read also) which made me finish it within 2 days.

Firstly, Mohsin Hamid is a Pakistani writer whose earlier novel Moth Smoke also got a lot of recognition. I had borrowed it from a library about 4 years back and read it then, when I was going through a phase of reading a lot of Indian, Pakistani, Muslim, ethnic fiction. The novel was intriguing, but I didnt like it very much. I cant pinpoint the reason now.

Anyway, coming to this book, it is the story of Changez, a young Pakistani man who is a Princeton graduate, and is working in an upmarket evaluation firm in New York. This is just before 9/11 and post 9/11, how Changez changes and why he changes forms the crux of the story.

The narrative is in first person, with Changez striking a conversation with an American outside a busy Lahore restaurant. However, conversation is not what it is like. Its more of a monologue, with Changez repeating the American’s questions to us. ( We dont hear the American speaking at all). While decidedly an innovative technique, I personally felt that it was too strained. And to make an entire novel hold on to that conversation, where events wove in and out of Lahore and New York, …I’m sorry to say, it smacked of artifice. Also, Changez’s tone is mismatched with Changez’s character as is revealed in the novel in the latter half. His belligerence towards America is in direct opposition to his attitude towards the American. And this is where I feel the story has failed. The entire premise of the story built around that seemingly one-sided conversation feels out of place.

Anyway, the good parts…I have to admit that the book paints an elaborate picture of the post 9/11 world, particularly towards Pakistani muslims. Changez’s self discovery, and his increasing feeling of betrayal towards his own country, his realization that making money in America forces one to live in a microcosm, where one has to wear blinders to avoid looking at what the world is doing…all strike a feeling where one knows what he is talking about.

His love story with Erica the young American girl is complex and interesting. Where she is caught up in the past with her own demons, and unwilling to live in the present, these feelings are transferred to Changez when he moves back to Lahore.

The novel has a languorous pace, but it picks up speed especially towards the end, which makes one feel that we have rammed into a hurtling train. I still wish the author had not focused so much on technique(the conversation), because his content is worthy of better.