25,869 Words in 30 Days

I couldn’t think of a better title for this post but this says it all - 25,869 words in 30 days. November is traditionally recognised in writing circles as the National Novel Writing Month - an event that brings together professional and amateur writers from around the world challenging them to write a novel of no less than 50,000 words.  The goal is to write every day so that in the end one would be done with a 175-page novel.  The concept of NaNoWriMo has in recent years been extended to blogging giving rise to the concept of NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. NaBloPoMo requires bloggers to post atleast once every single day for 30 days in November including weekends, and holidays. I didn’t register for this year’s event but was keen on attempting it. Any regular blogger would know it takes a lot of discipline, perseverance, and undying enthusiasm to blog day after day and to keep the ideas churning.  I set myself a target of writing 30 posts every day on my other blog Li’l General Rules. Today, on the last day of November, the number of posts clocked stand at 26, falling short of my goal by 4 posts.  But I’m glad on having attempted it and coming so close which instills me with the confidence and energy to try again next year.

This November has been a significant month when it comes to writing. Between this blog, Li’l General Rules and my daily writing projects, I’ve written over 25,869 words - the highest ever for a month since I started writing about a year ago.

An Urban Indian’s Identity

“Where are you from?” is a simple question that doesn’t warrant any thinking; it’s akin to asking “What’s your name?” Unless one is an absent-minded professor, the reply should be a reflex reaction. However, of late I find people respond to the place of their origin with a “It’s slightly complicated” or an evasive “Umm..” followed by what they think is appropriate at the moment after due consideration. I’m with the group that chooses a place per convenience. Weird? Well, let’s see as I draw the picture for you.

Born in Southern Tamil Nadu. Studied in places across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Bahrain. Parents living outside India intending to settle in a different town where neither have roots nor were raised. I’ve worked in Bangalore, Pune, and Chicago not necessarily in the same order. Married to a Bengali who was born and raised in Punjab and speaks Punjabi, Hindi at home. I currently live in Bangalore. So when people ask me where I am from, I answer “Bangalore” though I’ve never lived in the city continuously for more than four years. The fact that we own an apartment here brings that affinity for the place. Wonder what people with multiple apartments in different cities would say? After all, real estate is no judging factor to be rooted to a location for an identity.

A few weeks ago, a lady (let’s call her Ms. S) at met had a similar story to narrate. Her father was in the armed forces which in turn implied she had schooling in more number of schools than there were grades to study in (sometimes one grade in more than one school). The “Indian Identity” was not uncommon to folks from the Armed Forces and with parents in transferrable jobs such as those in banks. But to majority civilians when job-hopping was considered a big career mistake, it was a strange feeling until a few years ago to not have a place that you could call home. It’s an increasingly wide-spread phenomenon. Every second person you meet in India’s metros today are like Ms.S and I. Our kids in that sense will have more Indian-ness in them. And for all you know, they might just start calling themselves an Indian instead of a Bangalorean or a Delhite.

Regionalism is still pretty much intact in tier-2 and tier-3 towns of India. The cosmo experience has its own advantages. With the stay in every city, you take away some aspects of it that change your lives permanently. Pune, how-much ever I detested initially, always made me feel good for its community living. I regret spending the festive season in Bangalore. Be it dahi-handi during Krishna Jayanthi or pandals during Navratri and Ganesh Chaturthi, the city came alive taking in Puneites and outsiders alike in its festivities with an open embrace. My best Holi moments were in Pune. Bangalore, for all its claim of a blend of traditional outlook and modernity of a cosmopolitan, has that inherent aloofness, a cold feeling that’s difficult to describe.

Living across cities opens a wide array of culinary choices. I find it rather interesting at the ease with which we have sabudana khichdi one day, idli the next, paratha, and pohe the following days. Until a few years ago, we would have been discouraged to welcome Maharashtrian or Bangalorean food home out of a lack of understanding. What was restricted to experimentation in restaurants has entered our kitchens now.

Where you live transforms one in ways that’s difficult to comprehend at times. Sometimes it’s beyond reasoning. It was only natural for V to have immense faith in visiting Harmandir Sahib every time he was in Amritsar because that’s what he believed in during his growing up years. He may not live there anymore but that doesn’t shake the faith you’ve harbored all your life.

So, where are you from? A straightforward answer would indeed arouse my curiosity in you :)

Your Biggest Critic?

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.” - William Arthur Ward

I’ve made peace with myself, finally. Criticism and comparison has plagued me all my life. My best critics were at home: my family - brother in particular. My parents were very sparse in their words when it came to appreciation for fear of letting success get to my head, as I understand their intentions better now. But in their own subtle ways they encouraged us by rewarding with simple gifts that I wish I had treasured. They were more attached to the trophies we won as kids - my mom going to the extent of polishing those brass and bronze statues every year. Sometimes it amazes me as to how these objects have made through our years of moving across cities and countries so much so that the hand-written note on the bottom of every prize citing the year and the name of competition is still intact. My mother would get me an audio cassette of the latest Hindi releases of my choice every time I stood first in class. I recall getting Aashiqui and Dil cassettes in the consecutive months. My brother always reaped the benefits of my hard work, in a way :) So mom would be never like, “Great or Good job.” but more of the sort, “You’ve got to aim for 100 in the next term or finish this year with an overall first”. The bar was always raised higher pushing me to achieve the next best. In a way, it motivated me to take challenges I would never have dreamed of.

My dad of all, has been very proud of me all along. He has never missed an awards function in which I was due to receive a prize. The most vivid one in my memory is that of the Independence Day in 5th grade when I received 5 prizes. It was raining cats and dogs and the school had erected a make-shift tent under which hundred odd students and parents had assembled. Dad kept scuttling back and forth to receive the prizes on my behalf as a bunch of we students were stranded at the other end of the school getting ready for a skit (which was eventually canceled) unable to reach the venue due to the downpour. He counts that among one of his proudest moments. Appreciative of kids in front of others while absolute silence and no acknowledgement to us has been his stand all these years until recently. While mom maintains a dignified silence talking absolutely nothing about her kids to others, which I consider cool because it takes a lot to be that way. With LG around, I know what it takes to keep mum about your child.

Constructive criticism is good. It’s finding fault for every action that can get to one’s nerves - something I’ve never been subjected to. The greatest compliment in all these years that nearly moved me to tears came recently. It was from Dad a few weeks ago when he said he was proud of what I did now. This is HUGE. Encouraged by the words, I read the mail over and over again pinching myself to believe it wasn’t a dream. It was for REAL. I love what I do now, to write. Nothing has made him more happier than to see my name in print. I’ve reached the stage where I don’t look for validation of everything I do. Writing is a path of self-discovery for me; it’s not a full-fledged career yet because the “C” factor is missing. Confidence of making a living from writing will come once I start f  believing in the written word and devote more time than the current 2-hours-a-day.

Do you have a critic at home?

Parenting Outsourced

Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. - Elizabeth Stone

How one takes care of a piece of one’s heart is individualistic. Let me start with mine. The decision to have Li’l General was not momentous : a carefully thought and well-timed decision when I felt I’d had enough of my career and was ready to take a break without the nagging urge to go back within three months of maternity leave. Yet, I did not have the slightest idea of what was in store. As I look back at those 39 weeks now and read the blog posts dating back to my pre-delivery days, I realize it was very much taking one day at a time. So it was a total shocker on the operating table on the D-day as I realized how naive I had been to not think about it or even understand the whole process. V and I did not invest in any baby literature - books, videos, DVDs, anything for that matter. The only information related to what was going on was through the Baby Center Newsletter - a good friend at work casually mentioned this site sometime during my 27th week. What ensued in the following weeks after our son LG’s birth was even more funny as I reminisce now. One morning eight days after LG was born, we were to take him to the Paed for at-birth vaccination that had been delayed due to his calcium-deficiency condition. Three adults - V, my mother and I - were sprawled over the bed trying to figure out how ISRO managed to plant the tricolor on the moon. Alright, jokes apart it was serious stuff that required an equivalent amount of brainpower. We were discussing which was the front part of the diaper and how it should be secured around LG’s hips. I was holding the newborn diaper pack that my dad had got from Bahrain (wish I had known the imported pack was available at the pharmacy round the corner) while V and my mom were holding one end each as I narrated the steps. It took us 17 minutes to get the damn diaper on. More experimentation followed for various other things in the following weeks from how to bathe the baby to hey, there’s something called wipes to clean the baby after you-know-what. In the end, we gave up on new age parenting and LG grew up as a baby in the old-times co-sleeping with me and bathing on my legs.

In short, no one told me it was a 24-hour-a-day job and that parenting did not allow for annual leave, casual leave or even sick leave. It meant one could not nap when one wished to and had to time it with the kid’s nap times even if it were 10:17 a.m. And like Chetan Bhagat said in a recent article having kids could be like owning a luxury car. High maintenance stuff. When people ask you, “When are you planning to start a family” they don’t reveal it must be your lucky day if your newborn hasn’t pooped while you are having lunch or that it could be months before you and your spouse could have a meal together. This is the only way of parenting I knew from my experience with LG the past two years or had ever been exposed to.

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Why Do All Bollywood Numbers Sound the Same?

Listen to thirty minutes of Zoom any day of the week to enlighten yourself of the upcoming releases. Either there’s something wrong with my hearing or there’s a serious dearth of creativity in Bollywood right now. As most viewers, I don’t understand what goes into the making of music for a movie but what I do know is good music can make or break a movie. And it’s been a really long while since the industry came out with some differentiating foot-tapping number.

The only ones that have stood out in recent times are perhaps “Pappu Can’t Dance Saala” from “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na” or the ones from Bachna Ae Haseeno (thanks to The Boss). So much so that the originals sound very similar to the remixes. Or is it because they are overdoing the promos?

Even the popular “Singh is Kinng” didn’t boast of any grooving numbers. If it weren’t for the aggressive marketing or the chemistry between Akshay-Katrina, I doubt it would have been as successful. And don’t even get me started on Himesh Reshammiya; to think that he got the formula right once and has been rehashing ever since movie after movie in his nasal voice with the lyrics changed is suffocating. To think of Yuvvraaj being promoted as a musical with Ghai trying to replicate the success of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, it’s no where close. It’s a shame that the music took 87 days to make while the shooting lasted 90 days - whatever that means. Nothing these days makes you want to look back and hear one more time. I can’t quite recollect when I last named the movie from its music without as much as flinching an eyelid. The other day, a song from the recently released Dostana was playing and I thought it sounded very familiar - no wonder Karan Johar in action. If anything, the choreography can get better in the least. Great steps among recent movies: I’d pick the Bachna Ae Haseeno title number.

I am longing for an era as the ’90s when we had movies with almost all the songs that were chart busters - remember Aashiqui, Dil, Main Pyaar Kiya, DDLJ, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahin, Akele Hum Akele Tum, Dil To Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and much later Dil Chahtha Hai - phew that was so effortless. And I have to now really rake my brains hard to come up with even 2 or 3 movies with overall good music in recent years. Maybe I will settle for Rang De Basanti, Jab We Met (alright, this is biased because I’ve seen it like 7483 times), and Bachna Ae Haseeno.

What’s on your playlist?

GTD: Crossing Items Off Your List

Do you believe in a notepad and pencil to keep track of your to-do list?  Sounds very old-fashioned? I’m a sucker for planning things and doing most of my activities in an organized manner. One of my quirks is to get the hardest task on the list out of my way as early as possible. So, if a deadline for an article is 10 days away, I like to get the first draft ready a week before leaving enough time for review and final submission two days before its due; this saves some nights of anxious sleep and the family from my foul temper. Getting the balance right between living life one day at a time to keep the surprise element and planning every moment is tricky!The habit of getting things done methodically well ahead in time can be annoying at times. For instance, I finalized the deal with Packers and Movers 35 days ahead of our scheduled move. And I can say from experience that crossing items off list early on works great and keeps everyone sane.

The tricky part in this whole business of accomplishing stuff is identifying what needs to get done and actually executing it.  Over years, I’ve come to use different tools such as Ta-Da List, Joe’s Goals, Remember the Milk, and Google’s To-Do List. But there’s one which is not in the list that won hands down with its proven track of remarkable performance; to this day, I completely vouch for it. It’s my memory. A few years back, I wrote about using memory mapping techniques I use in How I Remember Birthdays. I extend this to keeping track of my everyday lists as well. The first thing in the morning, I do a mental run of what needs to get done that day and go about doing them one by one reviewing later in the evening as to what is pending.

Mental note-making may not work for everyone. There is a very obvious drawback in this primitive system. At times, I am encouraged to procrastinate things I don’t like to do such as the calling up the customer service people to get my water purifier serviced or following up with Insurance firm on the due-date for premium payment or stocking vegetables in the fridge. But then aren’t mundane tasks what most weekends are about? Some periods of the year can be particularly busy such as December for me when personal and car insurance is due, LGs birthday falls right in the middle of it all, book closing, posting seasons’ cards and so on. Similarly, keeping track of 117 items for big projects such as moving cities is not feasible. This is when I turn to my good ole friend : the notepad, for assistance in accomplishing my mission. Strangely, memory can’t compete with the power of writing things down.

There are good days when all items get crossed off the list. The high you get in checking an item is amazing. Seriously. Try it if you haven’t done it before. There can be days when nothing will get done. Be prepared as the list seems insurmountable. On such occasions, I do a little trick of just breaking them into passable pieces and handling them one at a time. Of late, I’ve gone back to my notepad days to manage my days better.

What do you prefer - the techie approach or the notepad way?

Top Favorite Eat-outs in Bangalore

It was the monsoon of ‘99 when I first moved to Bangalore. Since then, I’ve lived here for four years at a stretch and then moved in and out of the city only to return with a renewed fervour - a longing one has only for a place you feel at home. You can live for years and still not feel the pulse of a city. Pune was one such place for me - cold! The three years I lived there, I never knew which restaurants served the best Italian food or which road-side paanwala rolled the most mouth-watering paan, or which day of the week you got the best chole bature at the neighbouring sweet shop. To Pune’s credit, it was the most welcoming city I’ve ever lived in; its just that with a closed-mind of always ‘wanting to go to Bangalore’ I never made the effort to fit in. There I said it and it is a huge relief now.

Things started looking up towards the end when I enjoyed some delicious chats almost four times a week during our evening walks; never realised how those colorful chutneys could arouse one’s taste buds - an act of gluttony, is all I can say! The thought of those crispy samosas, glistening jalebis from Pradeep Sweets every Saturday morning for breakfast will make it tough for me to get into bed now. Sabudana khichdi figures way high on the list of my favorite food items now - something that I tasted for the first time there. It’s pohe and sabudana khichdi anyday over Idli/Dosa. So you get it how I felt for the food I discovered in Pune yet there was this emptiness of not knowing enough to strike a conversation when it came to places and understanding the pulse of a city.

Bangalore has changed dramatically these past few years but somethings never change like the ubiquitous Shanthi Sagars (we preferred calling them *.sagars in the good ole techie days). Even after all these years, I can confidently vouch for some of the good eat-outs around the city from where you get the best tea leaves to the most creamy malai ras, to the best soan papdi in town and where you can indulge in greasy parathas that feels like real parathas. It feels so nostalgic as I recount some of the places we have frequented in Bangalore East. Many hold fond memories - of good food ofcourse.  I am a total foodie, you can count on that; someone who eats first and regrets about calories later when the flab shows up!

  1. Casa Piccola @ Indira Nagar: Black Forest Crepes, Chocolate Mousse, French Fries, and Grilled Cheese Sandwich
  2. Little Italy on 100 Feet Road, Indira Nagar
  3. Caesar’s on MG Road
  4. Orange County @ Manipal Center
  5. Bombay House on CMH Road : Malai Ras
  6. KC Das on Varthur Road - Misthi Doi
  7. The Dhaba : Dal Makhani
  8. Lalitha’s Paratha Point near Commercial Street

What are your recommended hangouts in the city you live in?

Featured in Banaglore Mirror

Some posts from this blog will be featured in Bangalore Mirror occasionally under the Blog Talk section. First one in this series was published today - both online and in print (on page 11).  Way to go!

What’s your Favorite Newspaper?

Steaming hot freshly brewed filter coffee with a copy of The Hindu stretched on the veranda (read: courtyard in South Indian homes) : can’t be a more perfect start to one’s morning. I prefer the “Times of India” now and a hot cuppa chai instead of coffee. With online versions available for most newspapers as “e-papers”, times have changed. But there’s something about seeing it in real paper, the texture, the font, the size, the layout, your favorite columnist’s piece on that particular page, the color - it’s a personal relationship that no bits and bytes can replace! When I’m visiting my parents’ where Times is not available, it takes some getting used to to read The Hindu.

Do you remember when you first got into the habit of reading a newspaper? I can distinctly recollect reading one every evening after school ever since my 4th Standard - when I was barely nine years old, though it fails my memory if it was the Times or The Hindu. Something tells me it was “The Hindu” as I recall attempting the crosswords. I grew quite fond of the Southern Daily by the time I was in 11th grade carefully marking difficult words in the famed editorial section to be looked up later in the dictionary. With a target of learning five new words everyday, The Hindu did a good job. Cracking the crossword was a considered a great feat and I took pride in flagging the finished Saturday piece to my classmates on a Monday. That was 15 years ago. I can barely get a few right now. And it’s a shame The Hindu doesn’t publish original editorials anymore - most of its pages are filled with syndicated pieces borrowed either from The Guardian or NYT.

Gossip is like a magnet attracting one faster than good reading material. No wonder chick-lits are doing brisk business in India. The Times of India has capitalized on this psychology better than any other newspaper in the country. I once argued with the Editor of Pune Mirror that people first read “Bangalore Times” or “Pune Times” supplement before moving on to the main newspaper. He opined his tabloid had a crisp way of presenting what was happening in Pune. Sure, but people didn’t care and would stop buying if it didn’t carry the masala stuff too. For instance, burglaries in south side of town, power cuts in so and so neighborhoods, and who gets a BSNL bill of Rs. 1 Lakh is not sufficient to improve circulation. And, the media houses understand that. If people bought newspapers exclusively for news, then The Hindu should have the highest readership in the country today. But, it isn’t!

Gossip satiates people offering wholesome entertainment. Observe this - if you are in the office bus and work for an IT company, see how many who carry the newspaper read the real news sections and how many flip through the which-celebrity-is-dating-whom parts. (Don’t consider the Nerds - it’s Economic Times for them and the show-offs)!

Here I compile a list of my favorite newspapers over the years from the places I’ve lived in and the sections I like to read. Some of them I don’t subscribe to but read online.

  1. Times of India - Columnists Santosh Desai, Bachi Karkaria, and at times Shobhaa De (I know this is going to be a total put off for some of you). Sunday supplement Times Life.
  2. Economic Times - everything about it
  3. Pune Mirror - Gouri Dange (no e-version available but some of her columns are posted on her blog)
  4. The Hindu - Shashi Tharoor’s column and Reader’s Editor K Narayanan. Sunday Magazine.
  5. Chicago Tribune - I preferred this over NYT during my stay in Chicago.
  6. Boston Globe - Ditto
  7. Mint - Mitra Kalita’s columns
  8. New York Times - Maureen Dowd

I was going to compile a list of the ones that I totally detest. But after giving it a two minute thought I’ve decided against it. It would be an insult to the much experienced writers. Writing is a craft, a profession too lonely that takes up way too much time.

Your turn: what are your favorites?

Priceless Moments of Life : Father and Son

After reading this post “First Sentences” on LG, V e-mailed me a heartfelt message saying how much he misses being around his son during his growing months; the time when he has started expressing himself better and every “papa” uttered conveys the 23-month-old really misses his dad. It has become customary for me to show pictures of V and LG together to LG every morning and evening that the boy has taken our photo sessions for granted. There are days when he positions himself on the dining chair (funny, considering he is barely the height of the table) struggling to open the laptop cover and in vain calls out for me. The separation has caused the toddler so much anguish that he refuses to talk with his dad over phone but longs to see his pictures.

I do what best I can by posting frequently on the other blog - Lil General Rules to bridge the gap between the Father and Son. I was at a loss of words to reply meaningfully to V’s message because I can’t say I understand this separation. I’ve never been away from LG for more than 2 hours at a stretch ever since he has been born. At times when certain days are frustrating, I imagine it must be blissful for V to be away from a demanding toddler. But I now realize it’s not! Frustrating moments are often short-lived; separation causes more pain than one could fathom.  In a jiffy, I sent him these lines in reply –

Cost of a MBA Degree: 10 Lakhs
One-way trip home on a flight from Calcutta-Bangalore: Rs.6,000
Innocent moments - seeing LG’s expression of awe on seeing the cycle for the first time and feeling it all over : Priceless

Yea, I know very MasterCard-ly. But there it is!

[this picture was taken when LG was two-weeks old]

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