Tales of home and homecoming

"I let it go. It's like swimming against the current. It exhausts you. After a while, whoever you are, you just have to let go, and the river brings you home."

~ Joanne Harris

Last month, somewhere between the joy of basking in the elusiveness of a tropical spring and the sinking realization that it was almost summer, the river did bring me back home. There couldn't be a more befitting sequel to my search of home, my Bosphorus of the previous post. It all started with a trip home, with friends who had come from the exotic Mediterranean to see my state, Odisha. And the sights and smells that were once so familiar and so much a part of who I am today, came rushing back to me and how. 

Despite the initial moments of foreignness, I refused to succumb to the touristy trap of continuously being taken as the 'outsider' by the presumptuous guides and vendors. All the time, I was acutely aware of being armed with a certain pride, one that comes with the prior knowledge of one's homeland. Also, seeing it anew, after more than a decade and half, with people who did not belong to those places gave it a fresh coat of perspective. The scenes that once upon a time coloured the canvas of our childhood, had gradually, over the years, faded into the banalities of adulthood. But the fact that they were still somewhere inside me, the significant details, while answering the curiosity of our friends was no less than heroic. The exquisitely-carved dancing girls of Konark, the roadside display of vibrant colours and mirrors shimmering in the hot sun, the crimson dusk framed by groves of coconut trees - little by little, it all came back to me. Or perhaps, I went back to it.   

The lush green paddy fields. A melange of various greens; roadside poetry at its best. The Sun Temple at Konark, a world heritage site popular for its Kalinga architecture. Where Tagore had once claimed "the language of stone surpasses the language of men". The glimpses of a reluctant spring on a red cotton tree. On the ground, roadside swamps blanketed with beautiful water hyacinths and the cacophonous croak of frogs. The centuries-old Udayagiri caves which were built as monasteries for the 'arhats' (Jain monks) during the rule of King Kharavela. The Shanti Stupa at Dhauli, that magical place that offers one the perfect sanctuary away from the bustle of the capital city nearby. Blessed by Buddha, and an important site in the history of the Kalinga empire, an overwhelming serenity veils the place. Pipli, the little village known for its popular mirror-applique work. A visit to the Bay of Bengal sea mouth at Chilika Lake, the brackish wetland that's home to the endangered Irrawaddy dolphins, scurrying red crabs, and more than a hundred species of migratory birds that visit every year during the winters. A refreshing drink of tender-coconut water, the perfect cure for a hot, sticky day. Rowing back to the shore amid the soporific ripple of the waves and a breathtaking setting sun. Surely, homecoming couldn't be more picturesque. Or poetic.

Puri

"When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood."

~ Sam Ewing

During the last weekend, I took a rather sudden and short getaway to my maternal hometown, Puri. Ever since our return from the States, the visit had been long due and also, I had to get away to some place kind and nourishing, before the hustle and bustle of the life here engulfed me entirely. And how the three blessed days fled past me like an uninterrupted and peaceful dream - aai's (grandma) simple yet scrumptious meals; mausi's (mother's youngest sister) overwhelming concern for me as if I'm still her fourteen-year-old, scatterbrained niece; and mamu's (mother's youngest brother) countless tokens of affection. A Puri visit, even if just for a day, has always been special, one that often leaves behind a treasure trove of perfumed memories. Therefore, after every return, it has always been difficult to let go of the joy, this absolute childlike joy, which now lingers in my thoughts and in the persistent 'in Puri...' narrations to the husband.

Puri. The little seaside tourist town throbbing on the edge of the roaring Bay of Bengal. Where I grew to know myself, who I am, and what I will turn to be one day. Where many a memorable summer vacation is still painted in warm, orangish tones, tinged with a faint whiff of the salty sea air. Where I would sit by the window of my favourite backyard-facing room and weave my first tales of imagination and love. In grandpa's two-storeyed, white colonial house, this window once opened to a myriad of musings, and for hours I would sit gazing at the moody swaying of the coconut leaves, notorious monkeys cackling on boughs laden with ripe kendu, and write my diary, my sacred diary in fact, for it kept many a precious secret of an early teenage tucked inside its doodle-stained pages. 

It has been two bustling days since my return, and by now, I should have fallen back into the drab, demanding ruts of my routine life, yet all I care to think about is the simplicity of life back there, where people still know the art of living. Just like yesterday, the coconuts trees still stand tall, the kendu still bears fruit, and the monkeys haven't moved from their choicest pad. How I would love to go back and live there, in that uncomplicated world of my childhood, a thousand miles away from this maddening crowd of corporate buildings, suffocating shopping malls, and pretentious faces. If only I could look out that window now and see the things I used to once upon a time. If only.

Jasmine

"Plants that wake when others sleep. Timid jasmine buds that keep their fragrance to themselves all day, but when the sunlight dies away let the delicious secret out to every breeze that roams about."

~ Thomas More

Sam came home yesterday with a surprise - a garland of jasmines (my birdbrains had expected samosas instead)! For his flower-loving wife, it was certainly a big deal. Now it is very common here, in Southern India, for women to adorn their hair with jasmine garlands. Therefore, to find the roadsides laced with vendors selling fragrant flowers in heaps and bunches is quite a familiar sight. However, instead of going local, I chose to hang it from the mouth of a tall vase in the hall. How soon the little white flowers filled our home with their sweet, hypnotizing scent and with that tumbled along the bittersweet jasmine nostalgia.
When we were kids, how we cousins would get up at the crack of dawn and pluck the full-bodied jasmines in our grandmother's garden during the summer holidays. Groggy and half sleepwalking, the seven of us would tip-toe on the ticklish, dewy grass, lest we commit the unforgivable sin of waking up any of the parents. We had to be really quick because once the sun's rays fell on the flowers, they would go back to their shy sleep. Later in the morning we would all sit with grandma, over breakfast and mythological tales, and sew jasmine garlands for our gods and goddesses.

It has been twelve years since dear grandma passed away and since then we children have more or less qualified the huge test of being called grown-ups, managing tight, tiny universes of our own. But despite death, distance and differences, these small joys linger forever. Just like the unforgettable fragrance of jasmines.

Fruitcake nostalgia

A little kick-start to the festive baking with these easy-peasy strawberry muffins aka 'the muffin with a heart' because of the slice of strawberry sitting prettily on the top.

The post-Kansas inertia still throbs inside me, beating together with a tired and insomniac heart. But tarry it must no more, for the time has arrived to give shape to things. Red and gold, green and bold. Golden bakes and boozy cakes. The day seems to have almost arrived.

But before I head to the kitchen and don my baker's hat, I must share a golden thread with you. One that keeps my childhood tied together in its gossamer embrace.
I still remember the X-mas holidays (that's what they were called back then in India) when we were in school. How we would hoard and treasure every single day of that! Unlike its superior cousin, the summer holidays that lasted for about two months, this counted down to just a fortnight. But like all grey clouds this too had a silver lining - no holiday homework! Hence to romp about was our singular motto, much to the parents' vexation. But the highlight of the holidays was Ma's fruitcake, the aroma of which would fill the home and spread warmth everywhere. Every now and then I would rush to the oven and try to see the puffing cake through the glass. I would even count how many cashews and raisins had plumped up to the surface of the cake. As I write this, it brings back a faint, fond smile on my face like all cherished memories do.

The time soon came when I would leave home and set out for an independent hostel life. I would be home for the winter holidays again and this time Ma would bake an extra cake. It would be packed neatly and wrapped in a special package for its journey on train to Hyderabad where my friends would be waiting to devour it. What gluttony that was! And one of the very rare times when my figure conscious girlfriends wouldn't mind the calories at all. Of course the guys cared little anyway.
Even when my parents came visiting, Ma would be there with her bag of goodies of which her fruitcake was the star. But more than that what actually shone was her smile, warm and so very child-like. I cannot wait for April to come when I would see that smile again and at last I wouldn't need Skype for that.

Such lovely and simpler days they were. Gone with the wind and lost in the years, leaving behind a trove of fragrant tales... And cakes.

My summer of love

Humans have an inscrutable tendency to keep returning to things of the past. For me, summer is one of them - the summer of childhood, the summer of love and sometimes just the nagging sultriness of the season. With summer there comes a bundle of green memories that stir one to the very soul - the old and stubborn habit of recollecting tiny fragments of the past like a child gathers seashells on a seashore, and in the due course giving birth to a myriad of unexpected emotions. Memories that one loves to revisit, sometimes relive too, despite the inevitability of fate. Despite your own faults. 'Pleasing pain', the oxymoron is called.
Just like I keep returning to one of my most potent elixirs - Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez which is pure, unadulterated poetry in the guise of prose. A truly vintage read. If only there was a man like Florentino Ariza made of flesh and blood, and love, that walked this earth. If only love could actually transcend age and years, and hover on flapping its wings for an eternity of fifty-one years, nine months, and four days. That's how long he waited for Fermina Daza. Despite his six hundred twenty-two affairs of heart, very carefully in the dark whirls of his being, he had preserved his soul for her. I know it is magic realism at its best, but then what is life without a dollop of magic?!

Like the book, I must keep returning to my baking too, to keep my senses up and about lest the world discovers these fleeting moments of delusion and kick a good laugh out of them. Hence the return of the orange cake - classy and summery, yet light as fluff. Oozing with the love-like aroma, tangy and sweet at once, and laced with the orangeness of the zest, it is summer personified. And it's perfect companion - ice tea packed with fresh mint leaves and a hint of lime.

Summer sure fell on my lap like the elusive fruit from heaven!

Conquering fear

"Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains... But it can put mountains where there are none."
~ Neitzche

Tonight as I fumbled my way through butchering a chicken, my very first, my eyes feverishly trailed the blood and sinew till they could no more tell which was what. Despite the plethora of recipes and my reputation as a cook (okay, I can't help but be a narcissist here!), I had never ever dared touching raw flesh. That was always Sam's job. But tonight I had to, for the husband was 'busy'. Making my way through the wobbly carcass, I realised it's no big deal. What was I so afraid of? It's just meat and it's dead. There!

And so sprung up a string of incidents that have remained singularly unforgettable in my inconsequential life thus far...

I was barely ten then, when I had once returned home from my regular evening recreation before the helplessness of 'homework time' would kick in. How I had straight gone into the bathroom to hide the gaping wound on my thigh that had resulted from a bad bicycle fall. Lest the parents see it and give me a good piece of their mind, which I was anyway quite used to in those days. Lest I am rushed to the hospital for that much dreaded shot. But like all mothers do, mine too discovered the wound after a day or so and what followed should better be left out. Let's just say the lesson thrived well inside me, for years. Because the next time I had tumbled off and bruised myself, I had just cycled on briskly with a bleeding knee to the hospital. Shot time!

Three winters back during a rafting adventure, when almost drowning in the glacial waters of the Teesta, I had seen it looming large like a green monster. Fear. Little did I know that the life jacket would fail me when the then daredevil in me had decided to take an impulsive plunge into the tempting Himalayan waters. I was already doing the goodbyes in my mind, and all this when I was just a month-old newly wed. How supremely unreal the moment felt! Suddenly, something inside me had silenced the howling tears and strangled that sneering monster. And there I was, streamlined (what if a creature from the deep pulled me into the fathomless depths!), holding on to the boat and actually using my head. Of course, I was rescued back into the boat. Of course I cried, wailed in fact, but not before I was snug and secure in one of the changing huts.

One afternoon, when words had been whispered and blames had been hurled inside closed doors. When judgement was sung callously, the notes of which still ring deep in my ears. When I learnt that it takes only a handful of days for some people to stab you right in the heart. Just like a spell, the mirror of illusions had broken. And how I was reborn, stripped of doubts and fear. And a little respect, too. Fate lets you have only one choice (which I proudly have) and keeps the rest for herself - perhaps the most important of all lessons I've learnt.

It starts from some point. How we carry some fears with us all along and then one day we just drop it, like clothes from a tired body. One fine day, just nothing matters. Absolutely nothing.

What's in a name?

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose,/ By any other name would smell as sweet."

~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Who would dare to refute the Bard?! But I do wish to skirt around a little with some amusing stories woven from my rather unusual name. A few days back a friend, who happens to be a classmate in my Contemporary British Fiction course, asked what my real first name is. Bemused and cold-shouldering the old feeling of unease, I told her it is the one she already knows - Mickey. Now this is not the first time when someone has asked me this peculiar question. Ever since I have been put on the frills of society and have made friends and enemies on my own, my name has always been a part of many interesting discussions.

When I was a child, I would often be cross with my parents for bestowing me with such a strange name. Moreover everyone at school had it the traditional way - the perfectly poetic bhala naa (good name) and the affectionate daaka naa (nickname). My unconventional father, to avoid this whole fuss of two names decided on just one. So there I was, a girl with the name of Walt Disney's most famous poster boy. Errr... mouse?!
Then comes the second aspect of naming - the surname. I wasn't destined to have that either. Once again my parents decided to be a little creative and went ahead with - Mickey Suman - a flashy, unique name which when roughly translated means 'Mouse Flower'! In a class packed with kids with names that carried a whiff of chaste literature and Sanskrit, I would often feel like the other, the outsider.

As I outgrew my childhood and ploughed my way through the usual lawlessness of teenage, the name theory and my rebellion, both started growing in leaps and bounds. There even came a time when I was all set to go to the court and change my name. But sadly that never happened. My predicament of those days can be best exemplified by The Namesake, a mainstay of my shaky emotions. Like Gogol finds it embarrassing when the mental health of the Russian writer (his namesake) is discussed in his literature class, I too, wouldn't enjoy the Mickey Mouse presents that my birthdays brought along. His father, Ashoke, has a heartrending tale behind this name - Nikolai Gogol is his favourite author and if it wasn't for a page flickering from The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Ashoke would not have been spotted by the rescue team during a major train accident. Hence, the gratitude and dedication.

Another 'how I was named' incident dates back to my graduation days, when me and my best friend Asha had been theatre-hopping to catch the latest Bollywood blockbuster. All hunky-dory and free from the claustrophobia of boring lectures, it was when we chanced upon one of Asha's school seniors, a guy. While she was introducing me, he flinched and asked, "Mickey??!" Since it was almost my twentieth year on the earth of being used to this bewilderment, I just smirked. Immediately, in a desperate attempt to undo the flinch and display his humour vein he blurted, "But you don't look like Mickey! You should be Anarkali..." Just when my pride was about to take a thrilled flight, reality shook me hard - I was still Mickey Suman! May be the only common link between Anarkali (meaning pomegranate blossom in Urdu) and my name was the floral element. Taking Anarkali's legendary beauty and Madhubala's eternal charm (the epic Mughal-e-Azam just tags along) into consideration, it might just have been a bombastic compliment. I sincerely hope it was one.

Over the years I have had so many cackles over this obsessive-compulsive tirade against my name. Like everything betters with age, I too, have gradually understood and accepted, if not loved, my name, especially the singularity of it. Also, parents and Shakespeare are always right. Well, most of the times.

Forgotten blossoms

This trifle of a post springs from an assignment where we were asked to compose our own little stories in a true Austenesque style. No matter how we fared, the exercise surely brought forth the novelist in all of us!

She stopped to smell the wilted flowers on her way and wondered what it would be like to drown in their nostalgic scent, to be able to hope, live and laugh again. If only she could feel the throb of that once ticklish ache of life in the fragile petals. Couldn't she, of all people, understand beauty anymore?

She had wiled away many a summer on this river bank, lying under the spread of an azure sky, breathing in the verdure as the elfish clouds fluttered past her languid gaze. When she was a wild child, she would wear a straggly crown of these very flowers and dance under a pagan sun, one that did not judge her every carefree step. These flowers, must have been their scores of ancestors then, had been her mainstay to reconnect with life and faith. They had been her moral that guided her back to a fearless world where she could stand undaunted by the demons of society, and a few others that lived in the lair of her own soul. What happened to them, the lessons that she had learnt and spurned alike?

Of birthdays

I remember how I used to draw little glitter stars every year on the 2nd of September in my diary when I was young and happily dumb in the ways of the world. It's strange how fast, and with what vengeance the years creep ahead and very often it's with a jerk of strong emotions we realize that things have actually changed. I got my father's first email birthday wish today and needless to say, it felt 'capital'. I love the fact that in spite of the infinite miles we can communicate in more than one way. Although his mail has the natural eloquence that is expected of a retired professor of English, every time I read it I somehow stop at this one line --"Every year this day, I remember the night you were born and the subsequent birthdays we observed together." It has been more than four hours since I got his mail and I am still not able to shake off the nostalgia.

Birthday is the most awaited of all days in a child's calender and I was no different. I remember this day when Ma would prepare a grand feast for my friends in the evening and how after all the hullabaloo was over we would watch a movie that was rented especially for the occasion. A certain uncle who is a close family friend and also happens to be one of my father's oldest students would take my picture for what he called a 'memory photo'. This was an unfailing ritual for him every year and I reveled in the moment all decked up in my birthday finery. After all I was his beloved Sir's 'little girl'.

All this feels like a long lost era now. In the meanwhile this little girl grew up into a rebellious brat and now has a little world of her own. Where did those days go? Sure there are the ever faithful memories, and a trunkful of them I have, to revisit these happy days. But they don't help every time, they are not the real deal. Sometimes I wonder why do we have to grow up at all? Because then we grow out of certain moulds and fall into some less cherished ones. Here I am, a woman of 27, going on 28 arranging and rearranging the clutter of emotions inside my helpless head. Still, the one thought rules -- Why do we have to grow up?!

The gupchup diaries

Gupchup, puchka, golgappa, paanipuri... Call it by any of these names, the taste remains the same - irresistible. Gupchup, as we Oriyas call it, has very much been a part of my growing up and from the time I could understand the ways of my taste buds, it has remained a steady favourite. It's time I chronicled its meaning and memories during the various phases of my life so far.

1. Summers at Puri, which happens to be my maternal grandparents' home, were the best times of my childhood. Being the only grandchild/niece then, I was quite pampered and often had my own ways. Every evening Ma and my mausis would take me to the beach where I had the time of my life romping in the sand, collecting sea shells. We wouldn't leave before having our share of soggy gupchup and jhaal muri from the beach vendors. None of the brackish winds or the prickling sands dared kill that fun.

2. Probably it was the distractions of teenage or mostly my hatred for the branch of Sciences, but it wouldn't be a lie if I said nothing interested me in those days. After school hours, we would go for afternoon tuitions which would go on for two agonising hours. The only comfort that would keep me sane in these otherwise horrid afternoons were the gupchup sessions that were held regularly after the tuitions. How we friends would circle the vendor and wait patiently for our turns when he would toss the savoury delight into our leaf bowls!

3. I left the secured walls of home for my graduation in Bhubaneswar. In the initial days I found it rather difficult to adjust to the novelties of an independent student life. The only comforting, familiar feel was that of the rows of gupchup stalls right in front of our campus premises. Like every hostel, ours too had one common problem - unpalatable mess food. So the evenings, after a day of longish lectures, meant regular calls to the attractively decorated blue stalls.

4. After graduation I moved to Hyderabad, the mecca for biryani and kabab lovers. Not being a keen non-vegetarian, I would miss the simpler fares that my home state offered. No matter what, my cravings were such that I would go for the relatively bland paani puris and wouldn't notice the vendor's mean stare when asked, "Bhaiya, thoda extra pyaaz dena" (some more chopped onions please).

We have reached the rather sad end of my gupchup diaries. Life in the States can mean so many things to an Indian, culturally and emotionally. Mine is a long list of stubborn yearnings, right out of a Jhumpa Lahiri story. I have tried the tricky but extremely simple recipe at home from the ready-made gupchup pockets that are available in the Indian grocery stores. It turns out fine by home standards, but that nostalgic aroma of belongingness is always missing. Now all hopes are pinned on that once-a-year vacation, the most beautiful dream of every immigrant. Home beckons...

A singular tale

I often hated being an only child when I was a kid. I secretly wished for a younger sister, so that together we could weave innumerable tales of childhood and growing up. But alas, this was not to be! And to add to the woes of my solitary existence, my parents manipulated me into following a long list of dos and don'ts. They worked hard to inculcate the virtues of sharing and kindness in me so that I grew up with a humble head on my shoulders. Sometimes I grudged them for my so called single syndrome in spite of my mother's countless attempts in making me see the glamour of being the 'special' one. But it was very obvious that she never meant a single word of it even though she tried hard to be sincere and tactful at it. Her sternness would always give her away at the end. And I was to follow the wheel ruts again, and behave. But technically I was a single child and so I would anyhow retain certain single child traits. My juvenile thoughts often turned to how my parents wanted me to suffer alone, especially when my friends had siblings. While I befriended people effortlessly, I also loved cocooning up in a shell of my own. As I grew up, I realised I was a failure when it came to handle comparisons in a positive way. My father, who happens to be my worst critic, discouraged my complacence which was growing in leaps and bounds during my adolescence. I would get lost in an emotional maze and would take aeons to come out of it. Quite often I would get touchy about my 'situation', most often just so because teenage angst was always in vogue! Like any other belligerent teenager, I too loved to bask under a rebellious halo. Now, years later when I look back at my foolhardiness, I can't help laughing at myself!

The world has always been a little prejudiced regarding the only child. We are often stereotyped as spoiled, selfish and bratty. But this is just a twisted truth like the patchy outline of a story. Time and again I have been complimented by my close friends for having a flair for understanding people and their plight. Ah! God bless the friends! Contrary to the universal belief of we being apathetic, I have always been a concerned ear for my friends, no matter what the day or hour is. Strangely, the world loves to operate in contradictions. I have come across certain people who possess the temperament of a single child in spite of having siblings. But the trauma does not end here! When the "oh she's the only child" tag gets carried over to one's matrimonial realm, it results in more than one pair of raised eyebrows. The air swells with questions of adjustment, acceptance and tolerance. At such hapless times I have found it alarmingly difficult to fight these preconceived notions which are mostly groundless.

This eternal urge to make oneself understood and unscrambled sometimes takes away the cream from one's life. But as they say, certain things about the world hardly change. It's an old, stubborn place after all, strewn with age-old customs and dead conventions. And so the battle continues...