My Little Satchel Of Dreams

Have you ever wanted something badly? So badly that you were ready to genuflect in front every god mankind worships? And deep down you knew even if you did genuflect in front of every God, Man, animal and aliens of this universe, your progenitors would frown upon your dire need and squish it with the distinctive negation nod of their worldly wise heads. So here I am, racing to the 30-35 checkbox at breakneck speed and mildly bothered about it, with many a dream squished, squashed and pickled. Most of my “I-so-want-to-have-it-!-dramatic pause-NOW!!” dreams did not follow me even to my early teens. But some dreams stayed back with me to become realities of my present. Some dreams I promised myself, silently, without making much ado about it and some I swore on God, my tiny plump fists pointed to sky, (yours truly has always been a drama queen) “I will have it. If not today, someday!”

My mother-in-law says the happiest place on earth according to me would be a book shop.Oh!!I simply love them. I truly think they are my heaven on earth. I run from corner to corner, browsing and re-browsing the shelves. Both my mom’s have a tough time luring me out of a book shop. It’s like trying to get a kid out of a patisserie.

As a kid, I used to wait for the annual day function. It was the day the class toppers are awarded gift vouchers from PAICO. This was an incentive to study. More A1’s you get bigger the voucher amount would be. Then would be the well-planned trip to PAICO.I would ask my dad a million times about a free evening. We pick a day, usually a weekday to make the trip. I would come back home, bouncing all the way from the bus stop. I take out of my shoes and keep them on the shoe rack instead of throwing them in air. The bag would find its place on my study table and in less than 15 minutes of entering the house, I would be at the dining table waiting for my tea all washed and spruced up. There is no fuss about the evening snack. I would never do anything to jeopardize my trip to PAICO. Amma adds, sarcastically, “If someone sees my daughter today they would definitely think you are the best daughter anyone could have. Little do they know.”

I would ignore the barbs and flash a smile at Amma which I know would melt her. I would wear my best dress and go over to bring new books home. Some years I saved my Vishu kaineetam* money to add to the voucher amount so that I can buy more books. Even then there were too many books I wanted and too little money. If I am not wrong, those days, most of the books I wanted were by foreign publishers. I don’t know how many of you remember the Nancy Drew 3-in-1 series for Rs100.I do. I thought it was the “bestest” deal on earth.Anyways a trip to PAICO meant that Acha has to shell out some money from his pocket to pay for my excess shopping (Yeah,I started quite young!).At times Amma complained how Acha has to pay almost the same amount as my prize money and in some years even more on my yearly book-shopping binge. In college there were no prizes to be won and hence no books could be bought. I still browsed book shops in Trichur even when I had only just enough money for the bus fare back to hostel. I would open a book, read the covers, slide my fingers over the edges, and sometimes inhale the smell of paper. That’s the fourth best smell on earth after the smell of hot piping coffee, of wet earth and of a baby.

That is my cozy corner !**

I think it was on one of those soulful sad evening of penury that I promised myself, that I would never ever go to a book shop and come out without a book. I would always have a spare book in my bag to read. I will never ever run out of books to read. Even if I run of spare chaddi’s, I’ll live. But I will never ever ever be without a book.

After I got my job, I allocated a monthly budget to buy books. Every time I travel to a new city or country, I buy a book from a book store there. It may sound silly, but I ask the book seller to stamp their shop’s seal on the book. So every time I come across the book I would remember my trip and the memories would come flooding back. It would be my special time capsule. Each time a book is bought, I jot down the date and name of the book shop I got the book from.

Over the last few years I have managed to build my own book collection.

It has fairy tale from 1980’s by Dreamland publication to Calvin and Hobbes, Tintin, LOR, Poirot, Miss Marple, Mr. Holmes and many more. I am happy about my book collection and very passionate about my dream of having a personal library.

Some day I will have a home. It will be a Colonial bungalow look alike with red terracotta tiles, cool white walls and blue windows. There will be billowing curtains in pastels with sunlight streaming through them; washing the rooms in a soft golden hue. There will be trees around the house and the garden will be alive with bright blooming pink and white bougainvilleas. And in that bungalow will be a room with high ceiling and red chettinad floor tiles. It will have wall to wall book shelves in deep brown polished wood (anti-termite ones).And in these shelves would reside my lifetime collection of books. Each carefully picked over from multitude countries over the years. The room will have a plush seats to curl in and coffee tables to rest the coffees. There will be large windows overlooking the garden. I will watch the sunset, I will watch it rain and I will read my books while sipping my cup of coffee.

And someday as I am leafing through a thriller, it will drizzle. I will put the book down and take a sip of my coffee. Just then, at that exact moment, sun will peep out of the dark clouds. The rain would seize and a beautiful rainbow would crown the sky. In that golden yellow light, dragonflies would fly over the green grass of my lawn. I will close my eyes, smile, and exclaim,” This is my heaven on earth!”

P: S: Paradise is a library with free flow of drinks, chocolate fountain and pani poor stall and only Sundays ~ Blue Lotus

*Vishu kaineetam: Vishu is a Hindu festival celebrated in Kerala marking the New Year in accordance with the Malayalam calendar. On the day of the festival (usually on April 14), elders of the family gift money to children.

 ** That is my cozy corner: This photo won the “BOOKSHELF Contest” conducted by Youth Express.  I won a signed copy of Durjoy Datta's Latest Book and CCD's Coffee Mug!!

The Dethronement II

 (Not read the first part?Shame shame!!)

What is it with mother’s and their obsession to pamper their sons? To portray them as poor waifs incapable of taking care of themselves? If the boy leaves his sock on the dining table he is careless, if he leaves his room looking like a war zone; he is messy and if he does not bother to put on a fresh shirt to office, he is too cool to care about his looks. Bull shit! That is what it is. My mother would’ve socked my ears for that careless sock and she would’ve given me a good dressing down for the messy room. Oh well! If I did choose to wear dirty clothes for work, all hell will break loose. Now Al’s mother has no qualms about her child like perfect son. Her concerns were pointedly at my presence in her son’s home.

She complained and complained about almost everything. She said the curtains were not of the right colour and cushions were not classy enough. She did not like the way the bed was made and the closet was kept. She even counted the wine glasses to see if I had broken any without her “poor little boy’s” knowledge. I did not respond. She had the right to know. I had a good mind to show her the door but I did not. She is Al’s mother and there was nothing I could do about that fact. That fact kind of sealed my fate and my future looked very bleak in lieu with Al.

I was able to survive the torture of being commanded every single moment waking moment of those days only because of Al. Nothing had changed with Al even though I overheard his mother advising him to get rid of me. The discussion was loud enough for me to hear too, as though I was an intended audience too. At least I did not feel like I were eaves dropping.

“Al, you have given her a free reign in this house. What is wrong with you? What is that she cooks everyday? It is not healthy and it does not even taste good. Gosh! You are just letting that woman rule over you!”

Al had replied without taking his eyes off the TV screen, “I do not know Mother, I like the way she cooks and she uses perfectly healthy way of cooking food,” (I beamed from behind the pillars in the dining hall) .He pressed the pause button of the remote leaving Sheldon and Leonard of Bing Bang Theory frozen in mid of an argument, “Mother, she is a darling. I think you are being unnecessarily harsh on her. She is quite unlike other women you have seen in this house. She has made this a home and not just an apartment I return to after work. You should try being friends with her.”

I was speechless at Al’s reply. Not that anyone was expecting an opinion to be flung at them from the shadows of the pillar. Well Al had me speechless, what his mother said gave me asphyxiation!

“Friends with that tramp! Are you out of your mind?” She stood up and towered over Al, blocking his view of the television, her eyes blazing with fury of a thousand hot springs. I jumped at the sudden outburst and barely suppressed the squeal that came out my throat.

“Son, it is your money she is after. The moment you tighten your purse strings you’ll see her true colors. Now she lives in luxury befitting the Queen of England and all you have to do it is cut down on her luxurious life.”

Oh! The witch! That is what she thought I was all about. Few thousand dollars! Did she even know I have a heart and that actually I might have love for her son in that heart? And then it dawned on me. Probably she did. That was exactly the issue. I’m taking care of her son and his home much better than she ever did! Lady Volcano was not yet done. Mrs. Rizweigh was still fuming and spurting lava at Junior Rizweigh.

“Get rid of her Al.I’ll bring in someone better for you in a week’s time. Listen son, I understand these kinds better than you. Give it to my age or the fact that I am a woman. Let me handle this for you.”

This is the point when in a movie, the accused comes out of the shadows of the pillar , hair billowing behind, eyes turned to slits of rage and gives the accuser the “Die-Fiend-Die” stare and continues to deliver a monologue intended to relieve the emotional audience of a few paltry sniffles and a flurry of applause at the best. I did no such thing. I simply turned and walked back to the kitchen. I had vegetables to julienne for the salad.

I basked in the glory of my wisdom. I had controlled my natural tendency to snap in defense at accusations hurled at me. Pride goes before the fall. And I fell right of out Al’s heart and home in exactly one week.

(To be continued...)

The Dethronement - I

(Authors Note:There is a lot of anticipation that goes with this post.I have not written anything in the past one month.I have my reasons.I promise (No,I won't break this one) I 

will tell you what kept me off from my second favorite (first being the worn out faux leather couch on which I read) space on earth.I feel like a student who comes to his class with out a leave letter after being absent for a long long time.)

I hated her the moment I saw her at the door. She was tall, lean, and young. She was dressed in a pale pink chiffon top, white pants and matching white sandals. Her thick black hair, carefully brushed slung over her right shoulder in a low pony. I eyed her carefully in a careless manner. Ah! The cheap perfume! Nothing misses my eye or, in this case, my nose. I could smell the flashy thing a mile away. I flashed a polite smile whilst battling my urge to strangle her at the threshold itself. I smirked inwardly.” She is going to replace me. What a pity Al!” I ushered her in and quietly returned to my room to pack my trivial belongings of a few clothes and, well, a truckload of memories. The luggage charges are going to be paid by Al and for the memories, I have to pay with whatever love I have for Al and our home. That is going to be some heavy baggage charges!

It was not my idea to move in here. It was Al’s idea. I was happy coming in on week day evenings and keeping the weekends for myself. Al suggested I move in to this house so that I can be around always. George Albert Rizweigh is a spoilt young man. He cannot find his socks in the mornings and cannot make himself a toast without burning it. Therefore, he needed me for everything, all the time and I have no qualms in being his right hand man err woman.

Everything about the arrangement was perfect. Al leaves at 8:30 am sharp. All I need to do in the morning is wake him up at 6:00 am for his daily workout, which lasts an hour. Then keep his clothes ready and his toast crisp by 7:30 am. Once he leaves, the house is mine to rule. Though he has never said anything, I know he silently appreciated my tastes in keeping our home. I made sure the house is neat and there are fresh flowers in every room. I cooked what he liked, making special effort in finding out what he likes. For his age, I should say, he is reticent and fails to communicate his needs. You should have seen the happiness on his face when I baked that mango-chocolate layered cake for his birthday. He squealed and hugged me like a kid. That was the first time he said it aloud in his British baritone,” Susie my sweetheart, I love you so much and I do not know what I will do without you! Promise me, Susie; promise me, that you’ll never ever leave me and our home!”

I was touched; he had said “our home” and not “my home”. I held his hands and solemnly promised. Now he is pushing me away for this minion that has come knocking on the front door of our home. Promises, I always believed were made to be kept. Now I have learnt that some promises you make get broken not because of your fault but because in the first place you had no right to make such a promise. You are an underdog, an orderly of fate! And orderlies never make promises they just suck up to the lowly life laid out to them by their master, Destiny!

My perfect world ended with the arrival of Mrs.  Rizweigh, Al’s mother. She took the house by a storm and my perfect world turned in to the movie set of a village with a wild elephant running amuck. I had one in my house too and this one had no control over what she did or what she said. At least wild elephants do not speak!

(To be continued...)

The Ottoman Chronicles –I

   

I’m an avid traveler. E-Traveler. Every single minute I have free on my hand I browse through the sites like Lonely Planet, Discovery, Booking.com etc. Gazing at those beautiful pictures from far away lands and choking over the astronomical flight ticket rates which burned holes in my pockets and heart just by glancing them; I had been content to be what I was, the e-traveler.

So when we made a plan to visit Turkey. Booked hotels and packed our bags. People kept asking me “Why Turkey? Why not Greece or Europe?” To be honest, I had no definitive answer.

Turkey is under explored if you ask me. The place has so much to offer and I only had a paltry ten days to spend there. So the trip planning itself became difficult. There were too many beautiful places to see. We had to pick and choose. It’s like being in Baskin Robbins if you know what I mean. You run from one end of the counter to the other to make sure that every gram of your cup is worth it. Same way we ran our fingers back and forth the map of turkey to see what we could accommodate in the ten precious days we had. So finally we decided to do the west coast of Turkey. We would fly to Doha and after then to Istanbul. That would be the first leg of our trip.

Turkey has its presence both in Europe and Asia. Istanbul happens to be in Europe while its capital Ankara is in Asia. There are two bridges that connect the two continents as well – Bosphorus Bridges.

Turkey was ruled by Byzantines till around 1200’s AD and from then on till 1923 (when Turkey was declared a republic) they were under the powerful Ottoman Empire. In fact Ottoman Empire happens to be one of the longest lasting empires in the history of the world. Turkey was never a colony to any country of the west. Thanks to this fact there is an absolute absence of the colonial form of racism-Whites and Asians are treated with equal respect; a welcome change after being in the Asian environment for a long time and assuming “white man gets priority” was the way the world worked.

After eight hours flight from Singapore to Doha, a nine hour stop over at Doha inclusive of a half hour spent at Doha air port hospital* , four hours flight to Istanbul and numerous meals in between we landed at Istanbul Airport. All my life I have been a tropical creature and was suddenly placed in a near chilling temperature with cold winds so that by the time I walked into the hotel I was shivering so much that I thought all my teeth would fall off. We had a nice dinner at the nearest restaurant. Lovely tomato chorba as they call it and a variety of vegetarian options.

Next three days in Istanbul was not tightly packed, but we saw a lot of things, bought a lot of stuff and generally had very relaxing days. One of the days I walked from my hotel down the town to stand by the sea. It was chilly but I felt at peace. There I was standing by the sea, in a strange country with a language I could not speak, alone watching the sea gulls.

So here’s what we saw:

Blue Mosque:
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is a historical mosque in Istanbul.The mosque is popularly known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior.It was built from 1609 to 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice. While still used as a mosque, it has also become a popular tourist attraction.

Hagia Sophia: Built as a church converted to a mosque,the silent witness to conversion from Byzantine to Ottoman,the church stands a testimony to the history of Turkey.The dome and the walls of the church are covered by images from Bible in  mosaic and tiles.They were later covered by Koran scriptures by the Ottoman Rulers.The archaeologists have painstakingly uncovered one of the faces as seen in the picture(top left).

Basilica Cistern:The Basilica Cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul. The cistern was built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. The enlarged cistern provided a water filtration system for the Great Palace of Constantinople and other buildings on the First Hill, and continued to provide water to the Topkapi Palace after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 and into modern times.

Grounds of Topkapi Palace: 

Oh yeah, we were busy photographing every cat and dog on the way that by the time we got to the palace, it was closed.So we got around photographing the entrance of Topkapi palace.

Whirling Dervishes: I am not an expert on Sufism and Dervishes. We managed to catch a show featuring them. The mystical music and the dervishes whirling in a trance, I felt I was part of an Arabian Night story.

Museums:

I simply love museums.I was in for surprise this time.I got to see the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great.Woohoo 

Bazaars of Turkey:
This is one you don't want to miss.Exquisite crystal works,spices,textiles,hand made soaps, sheesha's or nargil's and lot more.  

Bosphorus Cruise: 
There we sat on a boat,chilled to our marrows,assimilating the knowledge of being at the borders of two continents,where east meets west. 

After the three days in Istanbul, we took a flight to Denizili to visit our next destination. (To be continued...)

The Mistake

I sit in the backseat of the taxi; cradling her. Her body is cold and almost of devoid of life. I ask her to be silent, but she keeps groaning. Sometimes there are quick gasp that feels like beeps off an ECG machine.

I ask the driver to speed up. I need to get there before it is too late. I am worried; it is entirely my fault. If only I was not in a hurry to get back home for the long weekend and celebrate…I look at her. A bead of sweat breaks from my forehead. She is sleeping now. Not a sound; I resolve not to disturb her.

I sit back and try to drink in the beauty of the evening sun about to sink into the depths of the blue ocean. I am unable to enjoy the golden hue over the sky and the cool wind that is blowing through my hair. My mind is too flustered. I sit there like a mannequin; not moving not speaking. At some point, I could not even hear my breathing. The only thought that kept roaming was “it’s entirely your fault. All of this...”.I shake my head in resignation. I know it is.

She is not the prettiest thing you will see. She is not lean or suave. She is, well, the unassuming friend everyone has. Petite, average looks but highly efficient for her size. It brings a smile on my face to remember the numerous times she saved me from forgetting things. She reminds me of all my friends’ birthdays. I forget, but she remembers and cheerfully tells me to call them. Off the records let me confess she is the one who is manages all my appointments. I mean it, all of them. From buying grocery to paying phone bill, she handles it all. She was a gift from heavens to a miserable small memory enabled clumsy oaf of a mortal (read me).

Still I let her down. Inspite of all my misgivings she had stuck to me. Sometimes I completely forget her and go out on my own. She rarely complains. Nevertheless, what I did on Friday surpasses all the evil I had ever done to her. (Is it something I did or something I did not?).Now she lays still, cold and there is a pall of gloom behind which death lingers.

The cab stops with a jerk. We have arrived. There is still time I console myself. I rush to the lift lobby, pressing the floor buttons. (People keep doing that, on normal days much to my chagrin, pressing the lift buttons continuosly.Dumbheads; it is not going to make the life arrive faster! Duh!)The lobby is almost empty and the people stare at us in curiosity. I jump into the lift before the people come enquiring.

I fly out of the lift running toward the cupboards. My hands tremble as I pull out the key. I chance a glance at her, prostrated on the table. Silence engulfs us.

I rummage through the papers, mentally cursing for not keeping the cupboard tidy, and finally find the lifesaver. I plug in the charger for her and she coughs up to life. The battery shows a charging sign. She will live. I let out a sigh of relief. In gratitude she beeps meekly,”5 new messages”. 


P:S This is in loving memory of my Nokia Express Music,which was nabbed couple of weeks back.I still miss her.