charukesi January 28th, 2008
This month, a cover story in Windows & Aisles (the inflight magazine of Paramount Airways) - ‘ballet in the backwaters‘…
And in HT Cafe, an ode to the sun - a piece on Konark ‘the wheel of time‘ (Though why it was filed under ‘Indian Odyssey’ I cannot understand - ‘Indian Odissi’ was what I thought it was… heh!)
charukesi January 23rd, 2008
I have been interested in the idea of Ayush since I first heard about it - a collabortion between Arya Vaidya Pharmacy in Coimbatore and Unilever. I was tempted to visit the local centre in Vashi for a while now, but somehow I was sceptical about the idea of corporatized Ayurveda. I mean, how authentic can branded, neatly packaged ayurveda be. Not for me, well dressed (in spotless clothes - where does all the oil go?) women and feather touch massages with pleasant smelling, even fragrant oils. That is cosmetic, a feel-good massage if you will, even when sold as the “ancient science of ayurveda” - as it is all over Kerala and Goa. For me, the genuine stuff is that which is oily, smelly and otherwise sensorially unpleasant! In other words, therapeutic and healing.
I finally walked into Ayush here at Vashi after two whole weeks of insomnia thanks to one of the worst attacks of fibromyalgia in recent times. I was tired of living with the pain and not being able to escape for the usual eight hours at night either. I was tired of not sleeping all night and waking up feeling exhausted. and I was tired of the double life I was leading - trying to be “normal” and cheerful through the day while fighting the pain. But that is not new for me, And that is neither here nor there.
At Ayush, I am happy to discover all the familiar and comforting elements - including the smelly oils and the awful kashayams and a doctor with a reassuring heavy Malayalam accent - packaged well and presented in a do-good meets feel-good manner. I have been going there for two days now and I am willing to give the treatment course a chance. As long as the authenticity of the treatment is preserved, I have decided I do not care if the attendants wear spotless uniforms and the medicines are given out in an Ayush branded carry bag (though what is inside is the real thing - as I know from several months of consuming them).
There is something to be said for consistency, a range of such clinics across the country, supported by the solid knowledge of the Arya Vaidya Pharmacy. And who better to take this as a project than Unilever with its distribution reach and range of products that include bestsellers like the safe-for-skin Hamam. Apart from therapies and traditional medicine, they also have a range of products - from the website, the Ayush Spa Range is classified into products that protect (Rakshak), nurture (Poshak) and eliminate or reduce discomfort (Naashak) - and this too I am willing to overlook kindly, having experienced the treatment at the center.
charukesi January 14th, 2008
At home in Chennai, the TV is always on, background noise to drown the noise of the T nagar traffic. And for my parents, noise that is vital in an otherwise silent house with just the two of them. And so kolangal kolangal, la la la la it goes in the late evenings, and news headlines through most of the day, and assorted soaps and game shows, interrupted by thunderous voices announcing indiya tholaikatchiyil mudal muraiyaga - for the first time in the history of Indian television - and what? a movie released six months ago to be shown on Sunday afternoon. History of Indian TV, indeed. And what is with that thunderclouds and lightning announcement tone?
… As I write this, Barkha Dutt is asking the studio audience what they think about writing explicitly about sex on personal matters on blogs. And I have one eye on the TV, and my peripheral vision shows my mother deeply interested in what Meenakshi Madhavan is saying there, and someone in an armchairy analytical way is saying something about blogs being “self-affirming and empowering” - “holding forth to an audience…” (turns out she is a psychologist… sociologist?). Oh, never mind.
About when the fates conspired.
Last night on one such Tamil show, two “teams” sit opposite each other, women in their twenties and women in their forties. Mothers and daughters, perhaps. Definitely women from two different generations. I do not know what the discussion is all about - till one of that twenties says on the mike - I was always jealous of my mother while growing up - she was more beautiful… she had “more color” (local term for fairer). I kept cursing fate for being so dark And when I got married, my mother-in-law said, I hope your children do not take after you and take after your mother instead… But vidiyin vilaiyaattu (game played by fate?) and my children are also dark…
Thunderous applause from the audience… I wonder if the woman is happy - atleast my children are not growing up jealous of me?
charukesi January 5th, 2008
SelAm tags me on a meme he says is so last year - All you have to do is select and upload one photo that you have clicked this year that is special to you. Could be anything…aesthetic, technical or personal. Also, put in a short note why it is special.
My favorite from last year is this one of Nandini, an old young friend from the Kala Ghoda area where I first met her…
Meet Nandini. She lives somewhere around this area. She is not very sure where. She can’t tell me anything more about herself and her family. But she knows one thing for sure - she likes pani puri. She has no idea what it is called; will she have dhokla? nahi. khandvi? nahi; she quickly dismissed these foolish offers I make in the assumption that the kid would like the less spicy things on offer. Yeh nahi, woh gol gol jo hota hai - her little fingers making whirring circles in the air… oh, the round things? realization dawns as I point to the kachori. She directs a withering look at me (how dumb can you get?, it says in loud tones and I duly wither), gives up attempts to explain and instead leads me confidently to the stall, her little hands in mine. She takes ages to eat the first puri - the tiny mouth can open only so big. So the panipuriwala fill the other puris, piles them up in a leaf cup and she takes them away to a corner by the tree to eat them in peace.
Read her story where it was originally posted - the Kala Ghoda Gazette…
And while no one is looking, can I sneak in another favorite quickly? (Say two pics of kids equals one of an adult?)
(Taken at the primary school at Hampi on independence day - I have posted this pic on this blog earlier) - I call it the colors of freedom - what story does this tell you?
And oh, photographically speaking (if one can do that), one of my aims was developing skills at street and portrait photography - and these images prove how intent was translated into some action. A beginning…
charukesi January 4th, 2008
As Annie has said so eloquently, the new year brought. Reading news reports and specifically, blog posts on this incident, I realize now that I was expecting some comment on how the women were at fault - partially if not entirely. Bracing myself for that line. They were asking for it? In what way, please?
Harini has written about an opinion she heard - so what did they expect? Sure, the person was not exactly saying the women were asking for it, but what did they expect? Perhaps a fun night out in the secure company of male friends (husband!). Why, I stood on Baga beach at midnight on new year’s eve with my husband and another couple, humanity spilling out into the sea, some drunk, some sober, feeling the crowds around me but never actually crowding me physically till we tried to make our way through the narrow lane past Tito’s into the main road. Even then I assumed it was the rush of happy people trying to make their way past crowds, just as we were. Call me naive, call my faith in people misplaced. I ought to have expected something like this? And taken precautions - stayed away from any crowded place instead of wanting to watch the fireworks light up the sky over the beaches for an hour?
So is the solution to stay away, stay home, stay covered, stay sober, stay with male company…? Does any of this make you safe? Another thing that really pisses me off is to see women drunk to death. At the hotel where we were partying, no exaggeration here; there were more women literally puking their guts out in comparison to men - says Sakshi - I wonder how much drunkenness had to do with what happened that night - I do not know if these women were drunk or sober, but does that make a difference?
What kind of eye is it that judges a woman wearing Western clothes (jeans, shirts, skirts - as “modest” as Indian clothes) and with a glass in her hand as actually inviting the male glance? and the grope? Does this instinct have anything to do with drunkenness (all that mobs need to be drunk on is the strength of the crowd), migration (I read in several places comments about people migrating from the bimaru states - but Delhi has already claimed that excuse for her own), frustration - economic? (they have the money, they have the looks, they have the opportunity? what about us?) - sexual? (any woman is easy target, all that is needed is a chance?)
Such incidents on one side, it is such reactions that sadden me, but not entirely surprise me…
The Lady writes - In 1977, Anne Pride’s war cry rang out in Pittsburgh. Take Back the Night, she said, and the women of the world took up the chant. In Mumbai, we too, are shouting the slogan, but the night never did belong to us. Was the night then never ours then? Or the day? Or is it time to reclaim them? (there, I have linked to Annie’s post twice here - so read it now if you have not already)
charukesi January 3rd, 2008
I finally saw washing machines being used for making lassi in Amritsar and I thought I had seen jugaad at its best - till this recent experience on the roads in rural Karnataka - stacks of hay and wheat(? rice?) laid out on the road early in the morning, passing heavy vehicles threshing them, free of cost and at no inconvenience to the workers. Though not for the vehicles themselves since this slows down progress on already narrow and bumpy roads but in all that annoyance we had to stop and admire the way work went on. At the crack of dawn, men and women set to work, briskly spreading out the stacks of hay, while others go about quietly sweeping the finished product into bags…
More photographs from this recent road trip - On the road to Timbaktu
From very long ago : Innovation or jugaad?