Prachi says

I want my sidewalk back!

2011-11-08T21:59:00.000-08:00

Chop, chop, chop. How can they do this? Chop, chop. Shameless, dictatorial, outrageous. Chop chop, no more onions. OK, the tomatoes. Onion tears condense vapour rising from my fury into sweat beads all over my red face. An ugly fountain on the corner of our street has encroached upon the precious little space we had to walk. With footpaths as rare as caviar watching a fat ‘beautification project’ come up on our size zero walkway is unbearable. With few people displaying as much concern as me, I have resorted to some cathartic chopping. The tomatoes are bleeding by now and the pressure cooker is about to blow its lid. But I still have steam to vent. So I decide to grind.

I think I should prepare some super hot kolhapuri chicken rassa for the politician neighbor; thanks to who, this monstrosity of a fountain has usurped a key pedestrian junction. A double dose of garam masala combined with some gun powder chutney podi should serve him right. Oh boy will he need that fountain after that!!

Or should I take the Munnabhai approach to conflict resolution? How about a big jar of strawberry jam to make him see red? Or, some chocolates to make him melt? I know. Fortune cookies with ‘get well soon’ and other nasty notes inside. All right then, it is time for some CSR- Cooking for Sidewalk Revival.

A full circle

2011-10-31T20:12:00.001-07:00

The joy of watching your roti roll out into a perfect circle, lift off the rolling board in a single sweep and puff up into a buttered balloon as soon as it has exchanged pleasantries with the pan, is unspeakable. Today I bid adieu to years of haggling with stubbornly sticky dough that held on to the rolling pin like glue. Farewell to the roti impostors that refused to rise to the occasion despite greasing the pan. Deceptive shapes, which looked soft but cracked at the slightest touch, adding audio to the already visual embarrassment, are now history. Enter; the delicate, dusky or should I say wheatish, slim and yet perfectly curved heroine of the meal. A conquest over my longest culinary struggle.

Flashes of sepia toned days. I pull a stool to match my eye level with the stove on the kitchen platform. Mother rolls, pats, flips, packs. Roll, pat, flip, pack. It is like a one woman assembly line. It is almost mechanical. They are all identical, symmetrical like carved out of moulds. I ask my daily question. May I try? The last ball of dough always comes my way. I labour over it. There are several retakes. Eventually the ball is toughened with several rounds of rolling, flouring and rolling again. An undefined geometrical shape hits the pan. When it’s done it is hopelessly chewy and unservable. But it is my roti. And I know the trick. For the perfect cover up, lap it up hot. Wait for it to cool down and the cookie will crumble. Straight from pan to plate, plate to palate. Utter satisfaction. My own roti.

Today, that same feeling. I made it. And this time it won’t disappear before being discovered. It will proudly take its place at the table.

In defense of bhindi

2011-10-25T18:18:00.000-07:00

Bhindi is my favourite vegetable. The crunch it creates when cooked with the right quantity of oil (read generous) makes it less of an entrée and more of a side. Despite that it rules the plate. That it is green puts the beeping health meter to rest too. But it tops my chart for holding its own in the easy to manipulate breed of vegetables. It has a distinct flavor that no cooking method or masala can put down. Combine it with any other vegetable and it will stand out. Not like the fickle potato that can be anything you want it to be. Or populist paneer, that prefers to star only in multi-cast potboilers. So this morning as I stood engulfed in aroma of slowly sizzling bhindi, I didn’t think of any way this could go wrong. Sure the web of gooey strings had wrapped the kadhai making the under construction masterpiece look highly unpalatable. But I smirked at it cunningly as if to say,’ I’ll let you play now, before I fix you’. Because I know if you squeeze lemon and cover the pot, the sticky strings vanish without a trace.

Bhindi is no fast food. It takes its time to come around and just like a lady, will open up and reveal itself on slow fire over hours. By the time it was ripe and ready, the sun came up and the husband staggered out from the bedroom. ‘I am not eating bhindi’ he blurted out as soon as the smell caught him. And there, my labour of love received a blow. Suddenly the delicate bhindi became harsh okra. My husband has never eaten bhindi and is prejudiced against it, thanks to the slimy web I had so smartly dealt with. I showed him it wasn’t there anymore. I made him touch the crisp hexagons I had so artfully chopped to keep the symmetry. But once a bhindi hater, always a bhindi hater. The slime he was subjected to in childhood had scarred him for life. After a long trial where I submitted all evidence to prove that bhindi is innocent of being gooey anymore, alas I lost. But the defense won a minor relief by being allowed to serve potato fingers cooked with the bhindi. Well at least it is a beginning. Bhindi has no doubt rubbed off its distinguished taste on the potato and will introduce the uninitiated to its charm. As for me, I can now have it all.

Soul food

2011-10-24T03:13:00.001-07:00

It is 4 am and I am frying onions. The smell is overpowering. It is filling up not just my tiny kitchen but my soul. Now I admit that most people may like their serene mornings to be perfumed with flowers or incense or at least an aromatic tea or a fragrant sweet .Onions are not particularly known to please noses, especially the purist’s, at any hour. But for me this is the beginning of a new chapter in life, one that if full of flavor. Like the opening to a buffet of never ending delicacies, a recipe book without a last page. I stand at the cooking platform staring into the kadhai looking at myself, my 30 years. Like love at first sight, there is a sizzle when the onions touch hot oil and the crisp noise cuts through the silence of a sleeping city. But my thoughts remain unchained, running amok like escaping smoke, the frying only making them wilder. So here I am, back into my kitchen after 2 months. Awake because of jet lag, awakened by the days spent away from the kitchen, the house, the city, the people.

Sometimes when you go away changing everything around you, you also leave yourself behind. This trip was something like that. Getting out of my skin, to see who I am sans my items of identity. I am no more a journalist, a wife and mom, a girl good at whatever she does but never satisfied with what she did. Now I can be all of these and yet none of these at all if I wish so. This discovery of me is truly what I got back from my trip to the United States of America. So as people ohh and aah at the Macy’s and Herseys tumbling out of my unpacked bags, it is I that I consider my souvenir. So as I dress up every day to please myself with the image in the mirror I am also going to do the one thing that gives me extreme creative satisfaction. Cook. The tang, the spice, that essential sweet and an odd bitter or bland touch on the palate. They make me happy, my sense of being complete. Mixing, heating and beating raw ingredients until I see my imagination turn real. Creating from scratch! No excuses, no alternatives. Busy day or boring, the magic potion in the kitchen must brew. You may wonder why I had to go all the way to America to discover the cook in me. Because the torch in Lady Liberty’s hand is the ‘imprisoned lightening’ according to Emma Lazarus. And you never know where lightening strikes.

Fear

2011-07-25T06:05:00.001-07:00

I tore a page

I shed a tear

I bit my lip

I showed my fear

My eyes hurried

My brow flickered

I wondered if this was me

Was it I who wondered?

He was gone

I grew up strong

I believed that lie.

But he never really left me

After he left.

He lingered on

Under my skin

Grew with me

Or didn’t let me grow?

Now I want to know

Is it him?

Or is it me?

Think, think

2009-10-07T06:31:00.000-07:00

24 hours. A long time to ideate. And sometimes, too short to hold even a single thought. Three months of domestic life and I am already struggling to stay afloat fighting the deluge of thoughts. All kinds of thoughts. Of my yesterdays that were filled with an actionable idea a day, sometimes two. Today I am living on an hourly basis. Feeding hour, sleeping hour, eating hour and feeding hour again. Its difficult to call it a day, there is no definite end to one and the beginning of the next. So thoughts have very little shelf life. A random one might stay longer than another, but it may not be deserving of my precious little mindspace. Just good timing can get it attention. So I consider myself incapable of rational judgement, for the time being.
But most important are future thoughts. And thoughts of the future. As a TV journalist I am used to advance planning. The kind that is always accompanied by the caveat of uncertainty. Plans often get shelved in the hurry of breaking news (or someone else’s plans, not necessasarily better). But those are story plans. Insignificant things that matter for 90 seconds. It’s funny how you can give something all you have, and then find it insignificant from an armchair view. Life is longer than 90 seconds. Plans have to be definite. Certain. Clear. Life cannot depend on breaking news. Rather, it better not. So what will tomorrow be like? What’s my day plan, MIS? Any ideas?

Baby to be

2009-06-25T02:46:00.000-07:00

Your jelly feet
my wobbling tummy
your tiny turns
its a call for mummy

I can see you in the ultrasound
hip-hopping
sleepily knocking

Open up, let me out....

Wait tiny nose
hold that little pout

Wait a little more
you growing embryo
let the heartbeat steady
let the world be ready
for your tiny hands
and the promiss in them
for your closed eyes
and the light in them

Baby,
wait to give me life
as I wait
to give you birth.

-Mama to be

Small mind Big mouth

2008-09-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Jaya aunty,
What were you thinking ?
So Raj Thackray used your family's name as a shortcut to fame. And you happily walked into the trap and decided he even deserved a reply.
Then you do nothing to shut your party collegue Abu Asim Azmi up who it seems has taken an oath of fanning every possible divisive sentiment humans are capable of feeling.
And now this completely uncalled for controversy? When matters seemed to have settled for the time being.

I am sure you know what I am talking about aunty. For those who are not glued to the tele 24*7, let me explain.
It was a regular bollywood do. Film launch, everybody praising everybody else, saying how this was the best thing that could happen to them etc. Nothing out of the ordinary (the Bachchan's presence too is ordinary these days given their visibility of late).

And then comes that bolt from the blue.
"Kyoki hum UP se hai, hum Hindi mein bolenge. Maharashtra ke log hume maaf kar de"(laugh)
No we have not lost our sense of humor. But yes we have not lost our sense and sensitivity either.

There are a few things we must keep in mind when we analyse what seems like a light hearted dying-to-be-cheeky one liner.
First. This is an MP speaking at a public forum poking fun at an issue that is sensitive.

Second.Suddenly Hindi is a regional language spoken by people who come from UP.
Since when did that happen? I thought we all spoke the National Language. The one that seeks to be the unifying thread running through a diverse fabric we call Nation.

Third. She apologised to 'maharashtra ke log' (for either speaking in Hindi or belonging to UP. I guess both). And that drives home a vital point. She, in one irresponsible sweep, equated Raj Thackray's bigoted views to a sentiment shared by all Maharashtrians. Thats tragic. If this is how all 'Maharashtra ke log' thought she and her family would not be in business.

My suspicion is this may not have been a momentary laspe of reason, a spur of the moment joke. Raj Thackray is gaged till the end of this month by a police order. Aunty knew this is the best time to attack. So why not take a chance. Be brave while you can.

But aunty you hurt me. I loved your movies even though they were in Hindi. And I dont think the entire film industry or anybody for that matter should be apologetic about speaking in Hindi in Maharashtra. 'Maharashtra ke log' do not accept your apology. So save your sorries for later. Infact I feel sorry for you.

Love (though a little sour)
Prachi

You said tit
I said tat
you said this
and I that
oh! what a gentleman's game we played
my concience the ball
your soul the bat
-the struggling poet

Awakening

2008-07-29T05:35:00.000-07:00

When I opened my eyes I saw a mosque
green
serene
cold.
The marble was white
it seemed to invite
my feet shifted in hesitation.

I moved to the fountain that never seemed to dry
I looked into the pond and saw a reflection
It stared back at me with a smirk
Why are you here it asked
faith?
But I'm not muslim
curiosity?
Do I really want to know?
doubt?
Who could I question?
the walls?
the marble?
the water?

I heard a blast
I heard a scream
I saw a man enter in pain.
I dipped my hands into my reflection
It smiled and vanished into waves
I poured the water in man's bloody mouth
He took your name
Allah! he said and died.
I saw the waves overflow the pond
They washed the blood from the cold white marble.

I gave him a bit of myself
but he did not live
Why?
And then I saw a gun in his dead hands.

I came a doubter and left faithful
He came infidel. Died infidel.
I had no questions
He had no answers.

- The struggling poet

A tale of two women. A tale of two cities.

2008-05-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

Rama and Rupa.

When I met Rupa, I had this uneasy feeling in the stomach. Stomach. Not heart or head beacuse I met her over lunch. Maybe that was my gut feeling.
So I met this 19 year old on a street in South Mumbai. I was waiting for her in her home, the pavement. She lives on this pavement with her mother, 4 aunts,7 cousins and grandmother, all of who were born on the same pavement, except the grandmother. The story is too common to be retold here...the beginning at least. Old lady moved into this street with her husband in their poverty stricken young days from another part of India.They came here to ride the famous rags-to-riches waves that brush the shore of Mumbai regularly. Only the riches never came. While the old lady had 4 daughters, old man drank himself to death. The daughters sat by their mother's side as she spent days, weeks, months, years eating what poeple gave her, sleeping when there was no food to be cooked or eaten. They begged to survive the day and waited for that wave to come and sweep them off the pavement to a life more comfortable, secure and meaningful. Youth came to the daughters but unlike for many of us, it did not bring ambition, or aspiration or that fire-in-the-belly to change their plight, to them. Their youth got them husbands, also from the street. 4 girls with 8 hands did not consider putting them to any use beyond holding them out waiting for food/money/luck to drop from the heaven. It didnt.The husbands drank themselves unconcious keeping the family tradition alive. The daughters had more daughers and some sons, no work, no income. Rupa is one of them.
Could it be possible that able bodied people find no work in a city hungry for hands for a full 40 years? The pavement leads to many homes, shops, mills and now malls. None of the daughters thought it worth a walk to any of these just to check if they fit.
A job was offered to one of Rupa's aunts, as domestic help in a nearby high-rise. She was bringing up a child on that pavement at that time so the opportunity meant money and contacts. As is often the case, one home becomes 2 and then 3 and soon you have a full 1000 rupees in the purse on the 1st of every month. Pocket money for many but a good foothold for those who could not be worse off. Yes it meant hard work, honesty and courage to keep going untill you get there. But for this daughter of the old lady cleaning a whole home for 300 rupees a month seemed too much. Gave it up in less than 30 days. Back on the pavement, saying she is better off sitting there 24 hours doing nothing, watching her child do nothing. The kid is growing up all right, just as she herself did, right there, with no education and no idea about what is, what can and could be.

Rama wakes me up with the doorbell at 7 am. She makes me a cup of tea even as she helps herself to one with an extra spoonfull of sugar. She needs it, certaily more than I do. Rama helps me run my home, while I help her run her's. But as my day begins with her doorbell, she is already a few hours through her's. She wakes up at 4 am, cooks for her family of 4 women, packs off her daughters to school and college, puts everything her ill mother-in-law whould need in order, and then travels a full 45 minutes by train to shake me off my bed. Married into the city as the second wife of a widower, she is the pillar of a family waiting to collapse after her husband died a decade ago. Left with a daughter,a step daughter,and a mentally unstale mother-in-law Rama stepped out of thier shanty after her husband died. With no education to back her, she took on what came her way and what she had hoped to do all her life, albeit in her own home. She cooks, cleans and does everything I need her to do, so I can do what I want to do. And mine is not the only home she helps keep in order.
Rama is now worried. Her step daughter needs to take up a job so she can support her in keeping them going. She asks me to counsel her on what to do. I offer to pay her fees so she can study further. Rama refuses. She must work and study, since she is now 18. Is she not worried about her daughter's marriage, I asked. No. No marriage untill she is capable of making it on her own. What if her husband dies like her father did. Will she wash utensils then? Anyway, the men who live in our locality and belong to our community are alcoholics. No point depending on marriage.

Rupa was lucky. Someone put her in a convent where she grew up away from the pavement. With shelter and food and education untill she passed class 12, Rupa returned to her birthplace with new hope, for me. Now, I thought, comes the moment of realisation. This family is now set to finally begin the journey to a hard but good life. To vindicate the promiss of Mumbai. She managed to get a job at a call centre. A full 10,000 rupees a month. Night shift, so better opportunity for a double income. Office pick-up and drop so no overheads. This is it, I thought. It cant get better. I didnt.
Rupa quit in less than a month. Night drive to office in the office cab, was not safe she told me. But hundreds of girls are falling over each other for these jobs,I told her,and all of them travel at night, even I do. No, she insisted, her family didnt think it was safe. Her family that sleeps under the street light, on an open road didnt think a call centre job was safe. And Rupa who grew up on charity in a hostel in another city agreed. But the job could get her a room in a slum at least, I argued. No, she argued back. Home means rent. And deposit. The street is free. And they are too many to sleep in one room anyway. So what do you want really? I asked.
'Someone should come to help us. The government maybe, or the rich people who live around this pavement. We have been here for decades now, how can they not feel for us'. How can I help I asked. 'Could you help us get the free food on the homeless card we have?The ration shop does not give us anything on this. We even met the corporator of this area...he said....and then...' I lost the rest of the conversation.
Back home Rama is worried again. She has realised that soon she will get old and her hands may not be of much use to her. She wants to know if it is too late for her to learn English.

- Prachi Jawadekar Wagh
May 18, 2008
The struggling poet says:
I took pity, gave a fourth of my wealth in charity
duty done, my place reserved in heaven
for someone I helped heal
I didnt know I would meet in Hell, those who I helped steal

Why I die a thousand deaths when someone claps for Raj Thackray.

2008-05-05T06:53:00.000-07:00

He said ‘Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it.’ And they clapped.
He said ‘Inquilab Zindabad.’ And they chanted in unison.
He said ‘Quit India’. And they threw themselves in the movement.
He said ‘as the world sleeps this midnight hour, India awakes.’ And we declared ourselves Indians. Free.

What a bloody waste of time and effort that was. Those men and the generations who followed them into getting us a country. A free country. 595 states fought each other for their little princedoms. The British smiled. Who needs to conquer a country where people are more than eager to kill each other anyway. Lets just pit them against each other and soon they will be parasites unable to breathe without us. What a farsighted people the British were. We meet their expectations even today.

It would have been better if Marathis, Biharis, Punjabis, Tamilians had fought and got their own individual independence. We would be spared the trouble of uniting billions and then dividing them again in less than 50 years of getting that bloodsoaked freedom.

Today we clap for Raj Thackray. So by that logic Gandhi should have asked only for the freedom of Gujarat. Why did he waste his time touring every village in every corner of India and striving for their freedom as well. Bhagat Singh was then, a regional leader who was only moved by the death of Sikhs in Jallianwala Baug. What did he care about the rest of us. And the Swaraj Lokmanya Tilak was referring to was actually the right of Marathi speaking people to live and work exclusively in their state. And the biggest loser was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Poor old man spent his energy uniting people speaking more than 18 Languages, following more than 8 religions and ruled by more than 500 princes. Sorry Sardar, but we don’t want to live as one nation. We want to live in our own narrow mini countries where we all speak the same language, wear the same clothes, eat the same food, pray to the same God. Whoever said there is beauty in diversity, forget about unity. So what if nature herself thought it important to have different species of everything to sustain and make this planet as lovely as it is.

Maybe we don’t fully realize what we have because we got it for free. You and I had to pay nothing to become free. So it is not worth much to us. Free Indians are the world’s most thankless lot. What was handed down to us was not pieces of land to which we could claim ownership. Freedom was an opportunity to now live and work for ourselves, not as individuals or communities but as a nation that could write its own destiny. It was the responsibility to now work for progress, not mine and my brother’s but of all those who are the children of our founding fathers.

Sorry you people died for us. Sorry, but we didn’t want any of this. Actually we are not worthy of your sacrifice. Because the colonial ghosts are now such a part of us that we will speak in English but not in an Indian language that is not our mother tongue. We don’t mind migrating to another country if brings us prosperity. But letting another Indian set foot in our state, no sir that’s not done. And how can the Brits or the Yankees blame us for taking away their jobs? That is against the spirit of freedom, isn’t it? We want open societies to accept us, be we certainly cannot become one. And don’t even start about culture. We respect our gods so much that every Ganeshotsav we coerce people into paying for our booze for those 10 days. And we even beat our drums and bollywood item numbers in the immersion procession so loud especially when it passes a mosque. Ganapati loves this kind of hooliganism. (Maybe because nobody told you that Ganapati is North Inidan himself, he is Shiv and Parvati's son no? So is Gautam Buddha, Ram and Krisna.) We also celebrate these festivals where ever we go, to Delhi, Hyderabad, Banglore or United States of America. But hey you cant have Chatt puja in my land. That is not MY festival, and you will corrupt my culture by praying to YOUR god. Your festivals have political agendas, mine are plain faith even if large political cut-outs are used for decoration. And you spoil my city with your slums and cabs and pan shops. So what if I cannot do without my maid or driver and I will not pay them enough so they can live in flats. I keep their income low and blame them for it. I will buy from the hawker who sells his wares cheaper than the authorized store no matter what his origin even if he encroaches public space. These are economic choices I make because they benefit me. I see no hypocrisy in it.

And Oh!The IT park in Banglore. I will now settle in Bangalore. I will call it Bangalore not Bengaluru. Nice weather, lovely city. And yes the meaty job. So what if that is not my home state. This is my country off course, I don’t need a visa. Oh please, I am not taking away the Kannadiga’s job. Its an opportunity I cant miss. Oh my god, they expect me to speak Kannada? That’s a bit much na!. They must think of the migrants who’s mother tongue is not Kannada. But I will teach my children Marathi and we will form a Maharashtra Mandal so we can have cultural programmes together. Oh no, I am not hurting their culture, I am just preserving mine. Oh what double standards we have.

And yes my relatives from America who cannot speak one clean Marathi sentence are more Indian than my neighbour from Bihar. The rich can migrate off course and become richer. But the poor cannot. They are condemned to die poorer, where they are born. The fruits of freedom are for those who can afford them.

This then is what we made of our freedom. The right to exclude. To take but not to share. Who’s pride is it when Amartya Sen was awarded the Noble. Certainly not Maharashtra’s, he is not Marathi. Marathis should not join the Armed forces and die needlessly for North Indians or any other Indians.

So what if the politician who I cheer for protects the very slums he blames for making my city ugly. So what if he says they are taking away my jobs when he took money from me to bring them back, and brought Micheal Jackson to perform ‘culturally rich’ entertainment from it instead. His men bash the poor cabbies, and enlist them a day later into his party. He allows the migration of Marathis to far away suburbs so he can build homes for the rich on prime plots. Those who buy the up-market homes need not be Marathi mind you. This two faced bigot is our Hero.

No city in the world is migration proof. Opportunity attracts people, its simple economics. The city needs them as much as they need the city. That we did not plan well to accommodate those who run our machine is our fault not theirs. That real estate prices remain high to benefit few while the majority lives in sub-human conditions is proof of our misplaced priorities.

In an age when we are moving briskly towards achieving economic well being, such divisive elements work overtime to make us sick, Thackray or Azmi or whatever name they answer to. Empowering the weak to face the strong is one thing, creating artificial and emotional ridges for political gain is quiet another.

Children of independent India inherit the duty of Nation building. To pool together our strengths for common good of all of us. To prosper as a people who are born with different abilities and resources but aid each other in hitting the goal. To further the struggle for Independence, to get freedom form economic and social bondage. If we choose to now break ourselves up into groups of language, religion, class or caste there cannot be a bigger slap on our own faces. If a Maharashtra can be exclusively for Marathis, soon a proud Konkani will bring the Western Ghats to divide Konkan from rest of Maharashtra. And soon the townies will see themselves as different from the suburbanites. There can be no end to fragmentation. It takes courage to unite, not to divide.

So when we applaud someone who is reciting the story of our own doom, I cannot but marvel at the orator’s magical spell, and the audience’s dim wit. And I die one more time remembering the real Heroes who now have to share their league with those who are out to undo their work.

- Prachi Jawadekar Wagh
The struggling poet says, 'lessons from history we shall not learn, we are cursed to light our own pyre and burn’
4 May 2008