But why work?

I looked and looked and looked, but nothing.
My ICICI Bank account was still at zero. The account, created for the express purpose of depositing my salary (Digression alert: I had no choice in the matter, which must be illegal, I thought, but apparently, it’s not.) is still a virgin account, untouched by money, or even worked on.
I joined this office on the 21st, and I figured I’d get my salary this 20th; I remembered something of that sort being said at orientation.
I checked my account on the 20th, thought it might have to do with the whole Bakrid-Saturday-Sunday thing, and waited with bated breath for Monday, the 24th.
Logged in, and nothing!
A short panic attack followed, when a colleague said I’d be paid only on the 1st, but only for a month. But thankfully, that's not the case: (I think) I’ll be paid for forty-odd days, though I’ll get my salary only on the 31st.
When I told my mom, it didn’t even register a blip on her. “So what? As long as you get it,” she said. She clearly did not.
“You don’t understand,” I wanted to shout. “I need the salary after working for a month.”
Then, I realized I was exhibiting signs of insanity and paranoia: I almost bit my mom-in-law’s head off when she was multitasking when I related the sad news of my salary not being deposited yet. (“You don’t listen to me. My real mom always listens to me,” I lied!)
I stepped back and thought about why it meant so much to me: It probably had something to do with the fact that I was used to earning money for a long, long time. Also, the biweekly pay cycle in the U.S. had totally spoiled me. I also realized some things that are embarrassing to admit: It will probably take a few more years for me to think of my parents-in-law’s money as mine; consequently, them as my own, as well.
I had questioned this whole earning business for the first time only a few days ago when my gym master asked me, point-blank, “But why do you want to work?”
I scrambled for a suitable intelligent answer, but the truth is that I had never considered not working. As a middle-class woman with fairly broad-minded parents, there never was any doubt that my sister and I would, one day, work. Or at the very least, equip ourselves to be able to get a job at a moment’s notice. (Digression: My sister is now a homemaker, and takes care of her son, but not working still weighs heavily on her mind.)
In any case, I now think about why I want to work, and have no real answer. I guess I’ve never thought about it. I don’t really have to work. By work, of course, I mean for money. Whenever I’ve thought about switching over to a voluntary job (read: without pay), something stops me. That something is probably the reason I think I have to work.
On the other hand, I have often asked myself questions about whether or not I want a child. People are usually zapped that I’m asking the question, when it’s “the most natural thing in the world.”
I suppose I’m just asking the wrong kind of questions in life!

Santa in the Sun!

Now I miss snow. Not really, but like you miss a tooth that ached, the tooth you would caress with your tongue just to feel the pain. I miss it like that tooth.
I read reports of a giant Noreaster blowing through the entire Northeast, and couldn’t get enough of the pictures. I wanted more – more pictures of snowblowers, of trees covered in icicles and people that shovel snow.
Even YouTube videos like this one -- totally cool! I miss Boston :(

All the while (sort of) aware and thankful that I’m not among those people. But I wish I were there, where the weather dominates conversations, where the number of inches of snow in your neighborhood is directly proportional to your bragging rights. “We have 12 inches near my house,” clearly trumps “I had nearly seven inches of snow in our area,” especially if you live in an apartment.
Public transport woes can never match the horrors and hazards of driving through the snow, especially if you drive through back roads.
I think what brought this whole thing about was the whole Christmas spirit thing here.
I thought I’d miss Christmas here, but I guess not. The office is full of it – more so than my office in Boston!
I guess the difference is that in Boston, it was more personal, and not as much a community thing. But desis, being desis, like being a community in everything!
There’s actually quite a few specialty Christmas shops set up. I saw a couple just on my regular rounds. That’s quite impressive.
I’ve always thought it must be weird for Christian kids living here – I’m sure they’ve never really believed in Santa Claus, and even if they did, how would they imagine him?
If they haven’t seen snow, how can they really enjoy the spirit of Santa “dashing through the snow”? Doesn’t everything make more sense in context?
Like the Independence Day celebrations in Boston, like the Diwali celebrations without crackers (NOT the biscuit kind) in Hartford, many of our rituals, traditions and festivals lose relevance when placed outside their own context, in space and time. How can we ensure that
a. we make them meaningful, and
b. we make them relevant to the time and place we belong to?

Clearly, Santa wasn’t part of the celebrations in Jerusalem. When the West created its own Santa, why can we not create our own Banta to make it more fun for kids?
New Zealand has done just that, with this "folk song," about Santa and a barbeque!
Or maybe this Santa on the beach needs to be made our regular mascot here in Chennai.

Every religion needs to adapt to make more sense to people who follow it.
It needs to, as one of our departments in the office is called, do some serious localization! Whether it’s software, or learning materials, or training manuals, the big buzzword here is that everything needs to make sense in a global context. So, never use local slang, or culture-specific idioms.
On the other end of the spectrum, some things need to be so personalized that we need to give them a local twist.
When Kamal Hassan was “inspired” by Mrs. Doubtfire, he had to bring in elements of Indianness that wouldn’t have made sense in the original.
Ayyanaar is such an example, where religion took the concept of venerating brave heroes, and turned them into a God that made sense locally, while retaining ties to the larger Hindu pantheon.
Of course, it is more difficult to achieve such a degree of localization in a monotheistic religion, but perhaps little things make a big difference?
A post on the Internet says, “I hated to see pics of a white Jesus when in india on homes of dark skinned people. It was offensive to me as a light skinned person that they did not see Jesus as one of their own.” Debates rage, especially around this season, as to whether the traditional representation of Jesus as white, with blue eyes, makes any sense considering he was from the Middle East.
We need to bring in an Ayyanaar (a primarily Tamil God venerated in villages, for his heroism) for things that we want to adapt, but don’t have a context. And not just in religion. In every sphere of our lives. If we want to be more Western, it may make more sense to create our own brand of rock, like Junoon did, rather than follow Linkin’ Park. After all, “teen spirit” isn’t quite the same here, is it?
So, this season, when kids scramble to sit on the laps of black Santas and white and brown, let’s figure out a way to make our own traditions that actually make sense to us.

That four letter word

Fuck. (No tricks here.)
I miss the word. Really do. I missed hearing it for over two months now, even if I used it only when I had to express extreme emotion. In fact, I can probably count on my fingers the number of times I have uttered it.
Mostly, I miss hearing it from others. Of course, there are substitutes, but nothing comes close to the succinct, pregnant meaning and emotion that the single-syllabled word signifies.
Why don’t people use it as freely in India? Or do they? Perhaps I’ll be hearing it often pretty soon, when people warm up to me, or when things get tough at work.
It’s weird that I miss it, because I’m not one to use it. But I’ve heard it said so many times by friends, colleagues and bosses in the U.S., that it sort of became a part of my “hearing” vocabulary.
The word used to bother me in the beginning, but gradually lost its edge, like a razor used to shave your underarms a zillion times.
Not once have I thought of its literal meaning when I've heard it -- only anger, frustration, overjoy (is that a word?) and surprise. I think it is a homophone, and means two entirely distinct things.
When I was in college doing my journalism, I was shocked at the generous use of obscenities by friends of mine. I had never heard swearing, certainly not by men (forget women) of the middle class. Slowly, I got used to it, then immune to it, and slowly, graduated (or downgraded) to using it myself, but carefully, and within my circle only.
Just today, the passport office got to me. Won’t start my sob story, suffice to say that my first brush with the hyped-up “online registration” system was not all that positive. I felt like shouting the F word at the top of my voice. Might have given me some relief; instead, I swallowed my anger and poured it all out on an auto driver who dared quote an exorbitant price (nothing new about that, only about my pressure cooker situation).
Now that I’m back in India, I find traffic irritating, and usually shout obscenities to rid myself of the stress, but am forever looking over my shoulder to see if the offender (at least in my eyes) is following me with a vengeance.
V. gently prophesies that I’ll probably get beaten up badly one of these days, and I think he may actually be right.
Oh fuck!

Chocolatization of India!

I did not expect this from the guy behind the counter at all -- he nearly broke my heart. One of my favorite drinks of all time was slowly but surely nearing its death -- nay, it was
being killed by a slow poison that has taken over most of the world.
Chocolate killed the Aavin flavored milk star!Yes, that dark brown seed that has dominated the candy industry so much that has come to mean candy, is slowly killing my beloved Aavin flavored milk.
When I went to my local neighborhood Aavin outlet, I spotted rows of tetra pacs of Aavin Flavored Milk. they seemed different, somehow, but I thought it might just be repackaging
that makes it look different. I asked for the elakka (cardamom) flavor, but the guy said all
they had were chocolate and strawberry flavors. Sometimes pista is available, he said, but cardamom is tough to find! Chocolate and strawberry, they aren't even native to this area, I wanted to scream. But markets rule everything today, and markets have decided that the Aavin Cardamom flavor is too irrelevant to live.
Chocolate is now everywhere. It is in cereals and cakes, and nearly everywhere else. It seems to have taken over children's hearts like crazy. Gone are the days when chocolate used to be a treat that kids pined and yearned for.
If I knew India would become so chocolatized, I would have at least enjoyed it more when I lived near the chocolate city- Hershey!

So here goes my own version of "Chocolate killed the Aavin Flavored Milk"
I tasted you, back in '82
Drank from you, enticed by you.
Longing for you everytime I passed through.
Ooh-a-ooh.
You were nice to hold, and sweet on my lip,
Then the dark, handsome chocolate arrived on a ship
And reduced you to an insignificant little blip!

Oh, and here's a little limerick!

There was once a drink called Aavin Elakka
It was sweet, healthy and a party maker.
Then came along chocolate
And sealed the fate
Of the wonderful drink Aavin Elakka.

A sharp turn in the matter of bus rides!

So, I revise my opinion of a bus ride – I’ll do a 180.
I love buses, especially when I manage to snag a seat. After I “saw” an editor at a newspaper for a job, I took a ride back home, and the bus, for all its inefficiencies, was really a microcosm of the city.
Now, bear in mind that I’m able to say all this simply because I got a seat to sit on. I made another trip that made my blood boil, and my leg, incidentally, because my foot was right on the vent near the gear box.
But I digress. I reached the bus stop, after visiting the parents of a friend of mine. They regaled me with stories from my college days (most of which I had forgotten either because I was drunk, or I had a bad memory, or they were making things up), and I was merrily on my way back home. I had been forewarned though: It was 4:50 p.m., and peak traffic was, literally around the corner.
I got on a fairly empty bus, a Deluxe bus no less, and the politics of gender immediately came into play. Many women were seated one to a seat, and because of the unwritten rule that men cannot solicit the empty seats next to women on a bus, there were several men standing. I always, always, make an effort and sit next to a woman in that case, so that two men may be allowed to sit.
I did that, and moved closer to a woman occupying a seat, and lo! The woman placed her handbag next to her, and gestured to the back of the bus. "Friend," was all she said, and I had to forget that seat! When I turned back to look at the seat I had given up, that had gone too! So much for chivalry!
Thank God I got a seat next to the door, really squeezed in, but that was the only empty seat, and we had reached the dreaded LIC Bus Stop – where half of Chennai apparently boarded buses. Now LIC is to Chennai what Sears Tower is to Chicago – our pride and joy, our architectural wonder, standing all of 14 floors tall.
In any case, there entered a crowd that, if melted, could not fit the bus even in liquid form. A couple of stops down the line, another huge crowd entered, and the fate of the bus ride was sealed – it was to be a rough one indeed. A young girl (apparently returning home from office), stood next to me, and I felt almost guilty sitting, the way she was hanging on for dear life.
An older vendor woman was seated on the seat behind me, and her humungous basket was lying around somewhere near her. The woman next to her was irritated at having to sit next to this vendor, which would have left this other leaner woman with nearly no space on the seat indeed. When the time came to alight, the lean woman had a tough time negotiating the basket, and grumbled in English all the way to the door. It had no effect on the vendor woman, clearly, and I smiled at the leaner woman, as I recognized that everybody’s fuse was getting shorter, as the bus made its journey across the city, slowly.
Every couple of minutes, the conductor shouted, “Ulla po ma (Go inside), edam irukku (There is place),” when, in reality(true story), a two-rupee coin that was dropped did not make it to the floor.
In the meantime, another woman got the seat left vacant by the exit of the leaner woman, and she then started telling the standees (actual term), “Idikkadhey ma. Thalli nillu (Don’t keep pushing against me, stand away).”
The girl standing near me exclaimed, “Oh, so now that you have a place to sit, you are ordering us standees around? Weren’t you just standing here, being pushed around?”
Yeah, I guess once a person gets a “seat,” her whole perception undergoes a paradigm shift.
After that came another colorful character on board, the 60-year-old woman who could not but think she was a victim of sexual harassment. In a jam-packed bus, paati suddenly started shouting at some guy, “Don’t keep touching. Stand away.”
The guy might have mumbled something, but paati did not let it rest. The rest of the bus might have been snickering, and there is no telling that she was over-reacting, but it was impossible to tell whether the guy was up to mischief or not.
After a while, he must have said something that suggested that paati was, after all, not all that touch-worthy, and she resumed her salvo with greater gusto, “All you guys need is a sari. Wrap a sari around a stick and you will misbehave,” she went on.
Meanwhile, tickets were being passed around, cell phones were ringing and calls were being answered, somehow.
Near the end of its journey, the bus began to thin out. It was still really crowded, but you could move your elbow, and could at least rotate on an axis.
I got off a stop further away from home, and decided to walk it. As the bus left, I couldn’t help thinking this one hour was better than any soap I’d ever get to watch on television!
Of course, it helped that I got a seat.