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

Televison

I was born in 1988 to a family in the Indian Navy. Colour TVs were just about making their way into Naval bases, cable networks still a long way off. Understandably, I remember little about the early years but my first lucid memory is of singing, “Washing powder Nirma, washing powder Nirma”.

My brother and I were ruled with military precision by my Drill Sergeant mother. Our lives were dictated by the clock. The routine is hard to forget after so many years. 


The truck would pick us up from school and drop us at home. We would spend an hour eating and then go out to play. 
The rule was to be home before 6 pm,when light fell and the street lamps were turned on. So focused would I be on my games of pretend, that I wouldn't notice the failing light until my brother, furious after looking for me for all of fifteen minutes, would find me to drag me home. We would then take a shower, pray and do our homework. Just as a meal ends with the very best part of it- desert, so would our day- we would all, my father, mother, bother and I sit down as a family to watch a few shows every night on Doordarshan.

For the summer we would travel to my grandfather’s house with Cable TV. My brother and I would sit glued to the TV all day long in awe of that Mecca of cartoons- Cartoon Network and yet, every evening we would watch a set of shows together as a family.Over the years the shows have changed from Buniyaad to The crystal Maze from the X-files to Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter. 

The cracks appeared as gradually as (and accompanying) adolescence. I was beginning to get as tall as my mother and she seemed less scary when I didn't have to crane my neck to look at her. I always had an answer to her questions and never found the time to wait for her answers to my, often rhetoric, questions. My father started sailing, my brother left to study and I no longer wanted to watch the same TV shows as my mother.


With inhuman patience, one that neither my father nor brother shared, my mother waited for this phase to pass. I had to leave home before this patience was rewarded. By this time we had probably all forgotten where we started from. 


With the years and distance coming between us, while each of us finds a way to our own lives, family TV time is an ill afforded luxury. It takes the funny voice of one of my nephews or nieces singing a television jingle I'm humming for me to realize we still remain connected in sharing a love for the illusive reality of the entertainment world.

I might be appalled by a lot that is passed off as entertainment, news or advertising today but my opinion of the media will always be coloured by its ability to bring people together and influence an emotion and action.
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My brother in his wisdom gained from an extra 4 and a half years on this planet read this when it was first written and announced that I had confused fact with wishful thinking. I am of the opinion that he is more right than he realises but isn't that the beauty of memory- to allow a person to colour just a little bit outside the lines for a truthful representation of a perceived fact.