My mother and her surprises

I have strange memories from when I was a child. The sun felt different against my skin and retrospect makes my vision clearer, the dust of wisdom gained from disappointment doesn't cloud my vision in memory.

I was listening to this throwback compilation by U-Penn's desi a Capella band and realised I'm a child of the 90s. I may have come chocking, kicking and screaming into this world in 88- and yet the music that makes my heart melt (unconsciously and embarrassingly) is from what the screen tells me is the 1990s.

Yes, this isn't where I started but I get side tracked by the opening dusty little rooms in my mind and the people who inhabit them, you will forgive me.

The memory I have listening to this compilation is, again, of my mother. Always my mother. She was and continues to be the greatest advocate of surprises. The small things would come gift wrapped in the bubble wrap of happy, the big things would shimmer and shine with a certain dazzle nobody else can conjour. My brother has picked up on this fascinating art but Amma is, without a doubt, the ruling queen of all things surprise.

Now, I was born a morose old soul who felt the weight of the world and lashed out in dark mood swings. It's quite a shame really to be born into a large family that is so energised by the thought of every breath and a life that has given so much, to find that the one dark unpredictable cloud in the room is really- the baby of the family. I like to think that it adds a dollop of the "unexpected" and spices things up in the family. That is far from the truth and I will be the first to admit it, but let's not pay heed to the truth for today, for today we will believe the version my kind family at their patient best will explain to me and I will get on with the memory that drove me back to this blog after so long.

Chennai is a very hot city. For a child with trouble being in a good mood, the heat that wrapped itself like a thick blanket around my mind filled with the worries of the world. This is bad news.
In Madras (yes Chennai now but we ignore that as we do my sullen demeanor) it is inescapable bad news. For a child sitting in the front seat of a navy blue Maruti van powered by an LPG cylinder and cooled by an AC that would only work on being fueled by acceleration... I can't begin to explain the tragedy. Nobody should be subject to such melodramatic tragedy.

Amma would drive us, the world and God knows who else all over the city in this car. We had a music player that I think may have been more important to Amma than the gas tank. I can sing more RD Burman and Mohammed Rafi songs than I can explain to the people who catch me singing along, or in fact myself, thanks to the many car drives to music, dance, tuition, schoool, I-35, birthday parties and everything in between.  

I was just discovering going out with my friends when the film Na Tum Jaano Na Hum released. I can't explain why this was the movie we (and I don't remember who else was part of this group) chose to watch but I remember coming back and announcing that at some point of time we should buy the cassette (yes that is how long a time back this was, we bought cassettes). 
Given the tone of this post so far you get no prize for guessing that a few days later on our way back from somewhere, while we sat baking in our trusty Maruthi Van at the traffic signal in Annanagar's famous Roundtana, I announced that whatever new music was playing on the cassette player royally sucked and Amma had no taste in music.
I have always thought that Amma deserves a Nobel Peace prize for calmly telling me that this was music from Na Tum Jaano Na Hum before gunning the accelerator to cool, I suspect, my head.
I destroyed her little everyday surprise and it wasn't the last time.

The other time I remember with frightening clarity is when I was forced to move with the family out of one house to where we now live. I had my reasons, very many actually,that I continue to think are more than valid. I explained my point of view to my parents over and over again. I think I even went on a hunger strike and some strange version of mouna vrath  that only the two then villains in my life- my parents, were subjected to. The thing about my parents though is that they have never ever given into a tantrum, a lesson I am grateful (now, most certainly not then) to have been taught very early on in life, and we moved to this new house.

Unlike often before I suspect Amma felt guilty about this one. She knew what it meant to me for them to give in just that once and just how alone I felt for not winning. So one day I came back home to find Lalith and Amma working together to set up a Tata Sky Set Top Box. This was the year it was just introduced and Chennai unlike any other city in India could not access cable TV without a digital box. In that world I was one of the few privileged children, who despite my atrocious 10th standard results still had access to cable TV. I couldn't be less impressed. I was too upset, or so I let her believe.

I'm quite sure I'm screwed now. Karma is finally catching up.
Amma I still love the surprises, nobody shall ever know but it is true. Whether it is the surprise of a special dish at dinner, kulfi in the freezer on a hot summer day, a note in my suitcase when I walk into yet another new life, an elaborate party, the not-so-surprising-anymore surprise-birthday-party or a carefully and secretly thought out gift, I will always love all of it not because it is about me (ok, maybe a little) but because it captures who you are- the master happy maker.

If you've ever met my mother you know what I'm talking about.
Tarun Menon, sharpen up those skills, if you've got all the good genes you might as well make the best of them.

Here's the compilation that started this up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lErtjguuvSw

To be ugly

When I was a child, I was a professional dancer. I don't think anybody who has seen my stiff response to music in the last few years would believe me but it's true. I was a professional jazz dancer, or something like that anyway.

I was part of a group called the <insert famous dancer whom I will not embarrass'name>'s Junior Dance Company. Stage shows, music videos and dancing with South India celebrities was part of my everyday as a 10-11 year old. We wore shiny sequinned clothes, spent endless hours every week perfecting choreography and even left school early every once in a while.

I guess I was living the dream. There was a purpose to my life, however trivial, before most people discovered there was even need for one. I didn't grow up with social media, I wonder if it even existed then, but there are pictures in a trunk somewhere of a group of 15 awkward adolescents, our faces full of make up posing with confidence that only comes from being a child.

It wasn't such a happy run though. In a world that demands perfection- manufactured or otherwise, it doesn't matter how young or innocent you are. I knew I was ugly before I even knew that was the word to describe me.
I loved dancing. Every bones in my body would thrill at the sound of music and I would dance because it was my natural reaction to music but when you're a professional dancer, that is not enough. The popular girls, the pretty ones would always get to dance in the center where they weren't tripping over cables or breathing in smoke from "smoke machines". Us uglie-s tuned out of the world, tuned into the music and filled space.

I didn't hate it. I don't remember ever realizing I was being slightest despite family and friends asking all the time why I wasn't dancing in front. Truth be told, I was glad to dance in the second row. I didn't have to remember any of the steps really.
But it was upsetting when people would walk into rehearsal asking to "audition" for something or the other and the instructors would only point to a few people. It isn't nice, knowing as a child, that you're ugly. That you- because you are too skinny, too dark, have weird hair and buck teeth, don't deserve every opportunity to shine.

I stopped dancing in the eighth standard. I can't remember if I missed it, I was too busy sailing to notice. I can't remember if I felt different for being seen for more than my scrawny adolescent body.

I wish I could still dance. I wish I could forget I'm ugly but more than anything I wish I could erase my ability to see people as ugly and pretty.    

An afternoon learning

I like to think that there is goodness in this world, that unlike the movies, even bad people have their reasons, reasons grounded in goodness. I blame my parents for this silly belief despite trying to take owness for my delusions.
My parents are a good middle class Indian couple who worked very hard to instill in us the best of the values their parents and life's learnings gave them. They worked very hard to give my brother and me the many privileged we have had, one of them being a safe environment to grow up in where people look out for each other.

I, only recently, started exploring the world outside my bubble and what a horrifying journey it has been.

Our cities are not very kind to pedestrians. Between the exposure to heat/humidity/rain, broken pavements, angry bikers and hawkers, I have discovered it takes a special kind of strength to walk down Chennai's road. I have made it a game, every thing worthy of disapproval, and the list is very long, gets a special face, there is even one for the not-so-occasional flasher. My game keeps me occupied most days and protects me from everything that I don't want to be affected by and yet some things still make it through the armor.

Through the famed Kathri Masam I have walked under an umbrella shielding myself not only from Agni's obvious anger, but also the many sights that are hard to walk past otherwise. Perhaps I should have turned on the music that day but I didn't and I heard instead an old, weak cry for help.

I seemed powerless to do anything but turn around looking for the origin of that voice and found an old bandaged man. He told me in his failing voice about being a construction worker from Trichy who fell off the second floor. He said he had no money to go home and had nobody to care for him in Chennai. His story took time to tell and in that time my pedestrian armor had re-built itself. When he finished I politely told him that I couldn't help and scurried across the road to ensure he couldn't ask me again.

While crossing the road and walking away I could only think of this man who was so alone in a city unfriendly to people who can't afford it's luxuries.I thought about the ice candy I was craving and the clothes I bought the previous day. I thought of my father who isn't young anymore and works away from home. I thought of myself being lost and being turned away by a skeptical pedestrian. I picked up the pace and my thoughts seemed to follow on cue.

I'm not sure what did it, perhaps it was a sudden breeze I didn't notice but I felt such a deep shame in myself and my scuttling figure on tat hot afternoon. Instead of shrugging off my thoughts as I had taught myself to, I felt compelled to cross back and look for this man, still shuffling down the same road, well behind me looking forlorn.

I walked up to him and apologised for walking away earlier and offered him my phone to call somebody he knew. He turned down explaining to me that he had lost his son's phone number midway between the second floor scaffolding his slipped on and the ground that caught him. I then decided, while patting myself on the back for my goodness, to ensure he gets home. I checked my wallet found a little less than Rs.200. With my experience now I know that a ticket to Trichy can cost about as much and started guiding him towards a local bus stand from where we would travel to the inter-city bus stand from where I would buy him a ticket to get home safe. I explained to him that I would take him till CMBT and buy him a ticket on the next bus to Trichy.

I know I have taken long but this is where the story gets interesting.
This old frail man suddenly looked at me quite intently and explained to me that it was hot and that I had no business making him walk or even walking with him wasting my time. He explained to me in a tone that sounded much like an order, that I must give him the money to get to Trichy and leave him alone. He accused me of being the worst kind of help because I didn't believe him and accused me of being a cheat. While making his speech, he turned around quite suddenly and stomped off in the opposite direction.

I know I have no business being shocked. I have spent a large majority of my life in cities and I have been warned of this scam a number of time. I know as well as you probably do that it was silly of me to agonise over this episode for almost two weeks and yet I can't help myself. I can't help but think, with much bitterness, that people like him should be locked and punished severely. I can't bring myself to forgive him for that betrayal, of proving to me that I truly shouldn't stop and help a stranger, that the human race deserves no kindness. I hate him for having taught me this lesson, of the many many he could have. My mother and many friends have hinted that I should thank him for teaching me a worthy lesson and be grateful it didn't get worse, and yet, I cannot help feeling that he stole a part of me that was good, a part of me that I am unlikely to ever find again
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The man in the picture most certainly is not the man this story is about.