Padmajav’s Weblog

When I was five or so, I was spending my summer holidays in Coimbatore. One fine day, my aunt decided to take us to Ooty. So she somehow got hold of an address from my mother’s family, (I still don’t know how she did this. Nobody had phones and snail-mail would have taken days) bundled us all in a bus to Ooty. The journey is too hazy for me now, but I remember knocking at a door of a distant uncle who was stationed in Ooty then.

Not only they were not expecting us, but they had no clue who we were! He was(is?) my mom’s brother’s wife’s brother(phew!). He’d have probably met my mom during his sister’s wedding years ago. But he was nice enough to take us in for the night, arranged for a sight-seeing trip the next day and sent us back on our way in the evening. His wife cooked us tasty meals and his kids played with us and even came sight-seeing. And after that, I never saw them again.

Now I try to imagine opening my door to complete strangers who want to shack up with me for a couple of days to see the city. My first reaction would be to shut the door on their faces…

Maybe for people living in holiday spots like Ooty, its an everyday experience. But I still squirm to think how we actually barged in on that poor family!

 Or is it just that we’ve been fed too many western notions about having our own space and privacy?

In the past the doors of the houses were always open. People dropped in for meals without any prior intimation. And the kitchen was always equipped to feed a few extra mouths. So much so that there’s a saying that an uninvited guest is God in disguise…

People had all the time in the world to chat up with distant cousins or aunts or uncles. Normally a visit to a relative’s place meant a few weeks or sometimes even months if its a parent or a sibling.

Now we hardly have the time to talk to our own parents. Sometimes living under the same roof! The pace of our lives is scaring me at times. I  look back at those far away days spent in either my grandad’s farm or in  my mom’s village, where summer holidays meant endless days stretched with so much to do. There were no summer camps, no movies, no television.

I spent morningspicking flowers in the garden or in the communal lake, and aftenoons learning to stitch or draw kolams with my grandmother. Late afternoons were for exploring the place with a handful of kids when the elders were dozing. Evenings were fun when the entire household got together for coffee in the open courtyard (or some such spaces) as the sun went down.

During those idyllic  days, anybody dropping unannounced were welcomed warmly, given something to eat or drink and exchanged family news with genuine interest.

Now my 4 year old shuts himself in his room when someone drops in for a visit. Whatever I do to make him share a few moments with the guest is thwarted with ‘I don’t want to!’

I suppose he’s so used to being in a nuclear family that he does not need the warmth of  bonding with people outside his immediate circle.

Whatever it is, these days, an uninvited guest is never a God in disguise!

I’m generally a sitting duck for con-men. I’ve fallen for so many stories all my life, but I still never ever learn.

Here are a few samples…

When I’d just moved in to a new house, I was home alone, trying to organise all the stuff from various cartons to the respective cupboards. The doorbell rang. A young man wanted to know if I had a milk card. If I didn’t have one, he could organise one for me. I was so thrilled because, I had been worrying about whom to contact to get one and how tedious it’d be to stand in a queue for that, etc.

So I jumped at the chance to get someone else to do my dirty work. He wanted 400 rupees. He said that the office was closing in half an hour and he had to leave immediately. I quickly rummaged my purse and could come up only with 350. He said he’ll manage and take the rest from me later and charged off.

I never saw that boy again.

Another time I was traveling to Mumbai alone for the first time. The last few times a senior colleague who’d lived in the city for years had accompanied me & she took care of everything. I had strict instructions from my boss to join the queue for taxis just outside the airport. The taxi number is duly noted down by the airport authorities and you can never go wrong. ‘Just wait for your turn, tell the driver the address and you’ll reach there safely’, was the advice my boss had given me.

However, when I walked out of the airport, there was no queue for taxis. A huge man dressed in white came towards me and asked “Taxi?” and grabbed my suitcase without waiting for my reply. Flabberghasted, I broke into a run to keep up with him. “How much?” I asked him in my broken Hindi. “500 rupees, ” he replied.

“No”, I told him. “I was told it was well below 200 rupees”

“No Ma’m, those are the taxis outside the airport. You’ll have to walk another kilometer for them.”

He put me in a taxi and sat in the front seat with the driver. He asked for the money and I gave him.

We rounded a corner after driving away from the airport and the taxi stopped. Both of them got out and fiddled with the bonnet as I watched nervously from inside.

The guy in white appeared near my window. ‘Taxi repair, Madam. I’ll get you another one”, he announced. Stopped another taxi, transferred my suitcase and waited for me to get in. “Don’t pay him Madam”, he told me. “Everything has been taken care of.”

I sat at the backseat feeling rather stupid as we sped towards the city.

After a while I asked the driver how much he had been paid. “Nothing”, was the reply. “You pay me according to the meter once we reach your hotel”, he said.

“And how much will that take?”

“Around 150 rupees, Madam”.

I never lived it down in office for years to come…

You think Imust have learnt my lesson by now.

No.

Recently two men rang my doorbell. They were selling some homogeneous detergent made by their starving family in Punjab. He offered me a bottle. My first reaction was to shut the door on his face. But he bent forward suddeny and cleaned the floor at my feet. (He had a cloth soaked in his detergent ready with him)

The floor where he wiped was really sparkling. The rest of the surface was so off-colour. I was shocked. He demonstrated an entire tile. It really stood out bright and clean and the rest of the floor looked so murky. I wavered.

He suddenly put some of it in his finger and licked it.

“Totally made of herbs, madam”, he said. Very safe to have around children.

“How much?”

“150. But please buy a pack of six. My family in Punjab will be eternally grateful to you”.

“No way”, I was firm.

After a lot of pleading I took 3 bottles.

Excitedly I called my maid. I gave her the bottles and asked her to clean the kitchen floor. That was the dirtiest.

She called me after scrubbing. There was a marginal difference, but the floor did not sparkle like that guy had demonstrated.

Puzzled, I tried with the cloth. Same result. I tried with my normal detergent. It was better.

Still not giving up, I went to my front door. Squatting I tried it on the tile near the one he’d scrubbed. Nothing happened.

I was sure my maid was silently hiding a smirk.

“Never mind”, I told her airily. “We can try this again tomorrow. I have lots of work to finish”.

I strode to my desk purposefully and typed somethimg randomly.

God! Do I ever ever learn from my mistakes?

There was this security guard in my office (not the one in Valentine’s Day story, but same office though) who looked like a caricature.

A tall wiry chap with a big mustache twirling upwards, he made us laugh by just being there. But he had some fantastic logics in life. If at all an award was being handed out to the most innovative thinking in interpreting things you didn’t understand, he’ll win hands down.

Just a sample. We officially closed office at 6 pm. And once the receptionist was off, the security guard took over her desk and answered the phone.

Most of us worked well past 6 and invariably got a little peckish. We usually ordered short-eats from a restaurant opposite or sent out the office boy to get us something like spicy molaga bajjis or bondas from a cart-wala down the road.

Once a colleague who didn’t know a word of Tamil, sent the boy to get her some peanuts. After waiting for half an hour, she called the reception to check if the boy had left to buy the groundnuts at all. The Security answered the phone. Another colleague was sitting at the reception, talking to a friend who’d come to visit him. The following conversation was narrated by him.

Phone rings.

Security: “Hello., Gooood eeevning madam’

……..

“Yes madam, he’s here”

……….

“Ok madam, I’ll send him right away”

Hangs up. Urges the boy who’d been gossiping with him all the while to go to the shops.

Turns around and tells another chap who cleans the office.

” She wanted some internet oil urgently”

What’s that?” Asked the cleaning chap.

“Its for the computers. If you grease it using the internet oil, the computers will run fast & smooth”

My colleague fell backwards laughing….

The last few days have been a whirl…

The day after the Principal’s refusal to meet us, I sat in the school’s lobby waiting for my son.

I was depressed.

I’d spoken to the affected mother and told her subtly, how the school had turned tables and claimed that she’s not a mentally stable person… Told her I’m pulling my son out of this school.

She was still feeling down. Told me she’d just transferred her older son to this school and she’s planning to withdraw him too.

I assured her that its the right decision and asked her look for a school where they treat parents with due respect.

I didn’t send my son to school for the next few days. Went school-hunting. Knocked on the doors of 2 reputed schools in the neighborhood. But since this is not the season for admissions, both the schools asked me to come back next year, in spite of me explaining the reason for the desperate need to change schools.

One school however was sweet enough to let me apply and promised to add us to their waiting list.

On the first school’s suggestion, I tried another school yesterday, but the response was negative.

In the night I touched base with the affected parent.

She said the child has resumed going to school. Because she gets too depressed at home. And she has to prove to people that she’s mentally stable. She also said that she feels this is not going to affect her son in anyway since he’s in a higher grade. So not withdrawing him from this school either.

However she’ll start looking for another school for her daughter next year. Till then she’ll attend this school.

Am I the only fool here, who fought so crazily for a cause, kept my overactive son home for almost a whole week, ran from one school to another, begged and pleaded my case to various authorities and ended up with nothing but bouts of headaches and depression?

I ask myself as I bang my head against the wall.

Stupid, stupid, stupid me…

What’s the point in having a blog if I don’t air my grievances?

Here’s my recent one.

My son’s classmate was molested in school. She’s three and a half.

Her only fault is , she’s born to parents who are not aggressive. Who are unaware of their rights as parents. Who are not capable of taking the school to task.

I came to know of it by chance. When I contacted the mother on an issue not connected to school.

It was 2 weeks after the incidence, when she blurted it out to me . Said she’s been meeting people in school, but though in the beginning the school authorities seemed supportive, they refused to admit the offender was a staff of the school. They tried to brush it off by saying it could have happened in the restroom when she went unaccompanied. The offender could have been a cleaner who’s not in their rolls. From an agency whose under a contract with the school. But we’ll make sure from now on all the students will be accompanied to the restroom by an ayah.

She told them that she had her daughter examined by a doctor who was horrified and said she was lucky that her daughter spoke to her about it. There are lot of children who silently suffer because they’re too young to know that its an offence. What if he’s still lurking in school? He might try the same thing on another child.

The school did not take her seriously and made her sign a letter in English. Its content was not explained to her.

I was furious and told her the school had given her the brush off because she’s not aggressive. I promised to round up some more parents and confront them together.

During the course of the weekend, me & a fellow-parent called as many parents we could. We joined forces, entered the school only to find the coordinator too busy to meet us. When we raised a hue & cry, another coordinaor who hasn’t heard the problem before (we believe you) came forward to address us. After we briefed her on what had happened, she assured us that the school will take necessary action and how they’re equally concerned, but we as parents should not spread this among other parents since it’ll damage the school’s reputation. Fair enough, we said. Catch the offender and kick him out and we’ll keep our promise.

She asked us to wait in the lobby, till the Kindergarten coordinator and the principal came back from whatever was keeping them.

So we waited.

A little later the affected parents walked into the office again to see if they can secure a picture of the employees of the school, so they can make their daughter identify the offender at home when she was in the right mood.

The minute they went inside office, The principal and 2 more coordinators came back, hijacked them into the Principal’s office, before we had the chance to join them.

We waited outside, even after our kids had come back from their classes and were ready to go home.

The parents emerged a while later to tell us the Principal was furious that they’d told other parents. And had asked her to send us home, since she had no time to speak to us.

“We are taking necessary action. You can tell the other parents the same” was her instruction to the parents.

We have a handful of celebrity parents at school and its hilarious to see the correspondent & the princi fawn all over them whenever they walk in to drop or pick up their kid.

They even held up the Annual day celebrations till all the celebrity parents had taken their seats in the auditorium.

It got me thinking, will she have reacted the same way had it been a parent who’d been atriculate in English and was well-connected?

Had we been told so subtly to get out of their premises, if one of us waiting parents had been a celebrity?

And you know what takes the cake?

When a friend called the school to find out if this incident about child abuse was true, the coordianator tells her breezily, “oh, nonsense! the mother is mentally disturbed due to some harassment at home and is just spreading stories…”

Even if that’s true, how will a father go through his wife’s stories and bring harm to his own daughter’s name?

Which mother, however disturbed, would say something so shocking about her own daughter?

For what gain?

The child is now undergoing counselling to come out of the trauma. The parents are harrowed and has totally lost faith in people.

Now my ego is hurt too, because I’m not entitled to see the principal to address any issue because I’m not a celebrity mom.

A friend told me this is the trend with schools. They’ll never admit to any mistakes on their part and hush up anything unpleasant. When a similar incident occurred at her daughter’s school (very reputed school in the city for years, by the way) the parents had to fight tooth and nail to kick out the offender. The explanation the school gave was that he was on their roll for 30 years and they just cannot dismiss him in one day.

I’m depressed to see schools take the offender’s side (however subtle) to safeguard their reputation than the child side, whose whole life is ruined.

I’m pulling my son out of this school where the discrimination is so high even in such a serious issue as child abuse.

I’ shall try once more to see the principal to get my son’s transfer certificate if not for anything else. (Not that he needs it for preschool)

And if I get the brush off again, I shall reveal the school’s name here.

I love get-togethers. Not the flashy-poolside-party where my-clothes/trinkets-are-superior-to-yours kind, but the informal meeting-up-in-a-friend’s -place-for-a-meal types. I enjoy the sense of bonhomie which comes when you totally relax with a group of good friends.

I recently organised an informal cake-cutting for my spouse’s parent. I invited all the aunts & uncles living nearby and a whole load of cousins…

All of us had a great time. The cousins got together to rag the younger ones. The kids fought over toys.

The older generation enjoyed it too. They bonded together over Kolangal or some such melodramatic serial and sang “Happy Birthday to you” heartily and had a great time chatting up with each other, enjoyed the meal and waved goodnight and drove away to their various homes.

A month later, a friend asked why I did not organise the same thing for my own father whose birthday happened to be round the corner.

Coming from a non-tambrahm culture, she just didn’t get it.

Tambrahms are not the partying kind. Formal or informal. (This is my inference from all the tambrahms I’ve observed during my growing up years. There may be exceptions!)

Especially in my family circle, affection is generally expressed by shouting at each other.

Having married into a non-tambrahm family, the peace the house exuded hit me like a thunderbolt during the first few days of my marriage. No one shouted at anyone. No one called anyone names. Everyone wanted to live peacefully with each other.

Light years away from my own cantakerous home.

So a small birthday party was openly welcomed in my husband’s household.

But my friend’s query set me thinking.

I just imagined the same scenario in my parents’.

The images which popped up were downright comical.

My father would have been extremely self-conscious and would have masked this by being grumpy and barking at anyone who happened be within a 5 feet radius.

Any two of my aunts would be bellowing at each other about something as inane as the recipe for a dish being served.

Someone’s son-in-law would be sulking because he did not get the respect due to him.

His wife would be stage-whispering to someone how badly he was treated by the hostess (that’d be moi) by not saying”Vaango!” the proper way.

My brother would have shut himself in his room because he hates all the drama and hates polite conversation with anyone who’s not his colleague.

And I’ll be caught right in the middle of the fireworks, trying to please everyone around, including the birthday boy…

And various members of the older generation would constantly interrupt my juggling of egos by asking me “Where’s your brother?” or “Why is your father so rude to us?”

There might not be a cake-cutting after all.

Oh, I forgot! I’d have got scathing asides from various people present about serving something made with eggs in a shuddh, brahmin household.

And after everyone has gone home in various stages of sulking, I’d have had an earful from my brother about how unnecessary the whole thing was and how it ruined his peace.

Thanks, but no thanks! I’ll probably need weeks of therapy to get over the trauma…

I’ll just make do with a breezy “Happy Birthday” to my father on the phone interjected with my query on a recipe of pacchaimavupodi upma!

Peace unto the tambrahm household!!

Ever wondered why we sometimes take an instant dislike to a person, just by looking at them? The other for instance, I met this guy in the gym, who for some obscure reason put me off! He didn’t even talk to me, the poor guy! Just his face put me off! Not that he’s so unpleasant to look at. Maybe something in his face, his eyes or maybe his expression or something was irritating me.
I found it really funny…
Then thinking back I realise I’ve experienced this many times without really thinking about it. If I really get down to analyse it, I think it’s the eyes. They say your eyes are the windows to your soul. Maybe their negative aspects like arrogance, cunning, scheming minds are all reflected in their eyes.
And on the other hand, there are people who are so nice that I’d immediately wanted to get to know them better. There are some people who spread joy wherever they go.
Like one of my best friends. She’s always smiling. Life has handed some unfair cards through the years, but she smiles throughout and is so enthusiastic, that when I ‘m feeling down, all I have to do is talk to her and I’m instantly energised!
I suppose what I read a few days earlier makes a lot of sense.
” Gloom and happiness are both contagious. What are you spreading?”