Ask and be told....

Karthi is officially into summer hols from today. Oh yes, the kids' exams were over by mid-March and they have been completely immersed in activities of their own choice for the past two weeks. But it is not really summer vacation without the whole gang of neighboring kids finishing their exams and joining up, is it? 

Meanwhile their sly Momma has been using them to help finish reorganizing our home. We just had not realized till we called in the painters last December that Karthi was harboring a lot of junk. This time we were only getting our downstairs portion painted. So we had to shift everything except the heavy furniture upstairs where we set up "camp". In the process, cupboards after cupboards brought out so many things we had stashed away without thought. Our peripatetic way of life went on hiatus 5 years ago, and we never had to face all the accumulation of our belongings all at once like this. By the time we had to move things back, I was paralyzed by the thought!!! I would have taken a picture of the chaos that was the upstairs hall which was stacked on all sides with various things with only a narrow path left in the middle to walk through... only I was sure it would give me nightmares to look at it later, so I desisted :D

I have this strong belief that we get guidance to solve our problems before or as we are facing them. For me this usually comes in the form of - what else? - books! Last June, I got to read this fabulous book by Marie Kondo

I am and always have been very interested in organizing books and Marie's KonMari method has really helped me. DH and I decided that we will move down ONLY that which we use and love downstairs and would bag up the recyclable items for our dealer as we moved through the things we needed. That way, the recyclables didn't even come into our newly emptied space. 

I took this opportunity to dump a lot of stuff I was holding on to in the name of sentiment - which included old clothes, books that I never enjoyed any more, etc. As the kids and I went through the items, I appointed Kunjunni to ask me if I really was going to keep certain dubious items. He performed the role very well and prised out more useless items out of my grasping clutches and dumped them in the recycling sack. I only hope I will not take to raiding the sack which is currently awaiting the recycling guy now. Wasn't it really forward-thinking of me to appoint a supervisor over me? Knowing oneself is the greatest achievement one can attain you know! 

I applied the KonMari principle to getting the kids' clothes organized too. Every year our kids get clothes as gifts. While Kunjunni will happily wear anything that fits, Ani is very choosy and will not deign to wear something that he has taken a dislike to at first sight. Their clothes were arranged in stacks to which the laundered ones were added on top after each wash and they pulled off the ones on top the next time they got dressed. Which meant that on most weekends they would be wearing the same outfit! 

So we pulled out all their clothes and first I asked them to choose the ones that they loved and fit them. I stopped myself from persuading Ani to keep things that still fit, but that he didn't like. But I did snatch an old t-shirt from Kunjunni that had tattered ends and huge holes in the armpits! Gee, I think he is more like me than I thought I was!!! Then I helped them learn the KonMari method of folding their outfits to make them stand properly in the drawers. So now they get to wear what they love and can see all their choices properly! 

Now all that are left upstairs to be organized are our framed pictures and files and folders of every year from 2007. I am absolutely reluctant to drill holes in our pristine walls (just like guys with new cars are wary of each scratch!) and I think most of the files and folders need careful revisiting and decluttering. 

Speaking of help arriving in the form of books: I have to tell you about three books that came my way after I lost my mother. I chose them all for different reasons, but unknown to me, all dealt with mother-daughter relationships and helped me clarify my feelings and grieve properly. 

The first book is written by Brooke Shields:

This book of course jumped out at me because of the subtitle. Although my Mom was nothing like hers, I could relate to the death scene and acknowledge me feelings of being a witness to my my mother's passing.

I love reading the stories of crafters about how they evolved through their craft. So my next pick was Rachael Herron's book:

As I read through her stories, I found most of them related to her mother and I started remembering the days when Ma used to stitch dresses for me on her old Singer, the very one on which I cut my teeth, even before learning hand-sewing... 

This was feeling a little weird. Whatever I read ended up being about mothers! So next I chose one purely for the title without looking at the blurb. The title said "Glitter and Glue"... but the cover should have tipped me off???

Turns out Kelly Corrigan's father was the glitter and her mother was the glue. And if her relationship with her own mother wasn't enough, there was material about a family in which she au-paired where a mother had died of cancer and left a family bereft....

All these books helped me into coming to terms with my loss. Which is why I believe in guardian angels and divine guidance....

In Memoriam...

My mother lost her battle with cancer barely 8 days into the new year. We are still struggling to come to terms with the aftermath. My writer mind has been struggling to find the perfect words to remember my mother... but I have finally given up. I don't think any child can write a befitting memoir of a parent, especially a mother who performs an extremely complex role in a daughter's life. I would have to write a book to encompass it all...

So here are a few vignettes of my mother, gleaned from an old album and a few of her last pictures. She held my hand as she brought me into this life. I was privileged to hold her hand as she went out of hers. For this and all the myriad blessings that was embodied in my mother, I bow in profound gratitude to the Almighty. 

Ma on her wedding day.

A demure newlywed...

With her younger sister, my beloved aunt. The bond between the sisters was one of the strongest in her life...

With her firstborn...yes, me.

On my wedding day...

With all her children and grandchildren...

On the occasion of her surprise 40th wedding anniversary party, with her sister and sister-in-law... three bosom companions... My aunts who are also my surrogate mothers are the sole reason that I don't feel completely bereft of a mother now...

The last family celebration she attended... Vishu with us in 2015. 

One of her last pictures. Her smile still in place...

A horde of memories come stampeding in and no words can do them full justice. So let me stop here for the time being. 

Thamarasseri Churam - yethu!

All our Kochi friends always have this complaint about our capital city - Thiruvananthapuram doesn't have many signature restaurants... and then they go on to enumerate their hometown's signature restaurants like Kayees, Dhe Puttu etc., leaving us all with enough water in the mouth among us to float an armada if need be. Of course you can get decent meals at many restaurants and there is a veritable smorgasbord (pun intended!) of all-you-can-eat buffets all over the city, but very few places where eating is actually fun and you can remember a few dishes as your favorites.

Well, I for one think that this scenario is changing, slowly but surely - perhaps due to the influx of North Malayalis in great numbers who all must be complaining about the same. No doubt stodgy Thiruvananthapuram people are also reveling in this welcome change.

In the months of April and May this year, our regular FM stations were airing the ads of a very curiously named restaurant serving Malabari dishes. "Thamarassery Churam". This, as any Malayalam movie buff knows, is the phrase immortalized by the road-roller mechanic played by Pappu in Vellanakalude Naadu. Would that pique the interest of the denizens of Karthi? You bet!!

So we drove there one day in time for lunch, with my vegetarian DH who doesn't take well to biriyani either griping all the way about whether he would get a decent veggie meal. (You should know that this is the guy who went to visit several cities in the US - ONLY after checking and marking the nearest Indian restaurants in the area. As a family, we are very gastronomically handicapped!) Whether the food would be good or not, we were sure of some entertainment as soon as we saw this sign above the restaurant door...

And then came the menu...

I won't include the whole menu here, why endanger your keyboard with floods? And while we were waiting for our orders to arrive, we had this to look at...

No, not the couple... the wall behind them! We had a lot of fun guessing and arguing about the movies the quotes came from. And of course, DH got every one of them right as usual - and I really hoped the fun we were having would put him in a good mood when the food arrived! I will not put the whole wall pic here because you would like to try your hand at guessing them if you ever go there.

Soon our food arrived and the dark color itself was enticing to say the least...

At Karthi, we like our food really hot and spicy... so when we see pale curries, half the fun goes away. Ani who complains a lot when I make a spicy veggie dish was asking for more lamb curry even as he was gasping from its fiery taste. And - this happens very rarely - DH gave his seal of approval for the vegetarian meal! Yaay, that's all ticks in our book!

And if we got bored with the quote selection on the wall, there were cryptic puzzles elsewhere, like this...

And when it was time to pay...

As I understand, the spiciness factor can be varied according to taste. The service was prompt and courteous and the restaurant was spick n' span. All in all, we had fun. We've already marked down what dishes we would like to try the next time. And the kids go, "When are we going back to Thamarasseri Churam?" Such demand for a non-fast food place? We are happy!

For those who would like to try this restaurant for themselves, click on  the directions.

Disclaimer: This review is not sponsored by the restaurant and is based on just one lunch with a limited number of dishes... so please don't hold me responsible for something you don't like there! :D

Movie Review: Ennu Ninte Moitheen

'Tis the year for romantic movies... Premam is still making itself felt in good ways and bad. Malar/ Sai Pallavi has lost her freshness after being over-exposed on the media. Malayali campuses (both school and college) have had a surfeit of black shirts and white mundus. And when a jeepful of Premam-uniformed people struck down a student and killed her, at least some people blamed the movie for lionizing the bad student who boozes and swaggers away his formative years. Coming from a culture that exhorts its students to follow the crow, the crane and the dog in the matters of deep study, concentration and sleep respectively as well as to be moderate in food and stay away from the comforts of the home, this reaction was not surprising.

Anyway, all has given way to Moitheen and Kanchanamaala. Although all love is beautiful, Ennu Ninte Moitheen has to be the antithesis of Premam. By now all Malayalis must be familiar with the real story that happened in Mukkom, a tiny, river-bound village in Kozhikode and the still-living  heroine of the tragic story, Kanchanamaala. I certainly wish that I had seen the original documentary Jalam Kondu Murivettaval (click on name to view the movie) before watching the mainstream version.

Why do I think so? Because after watching the movie version, in which a lot of the actual story has been edited out, the real beauty and tragedy do not come through... Either a movie is riveting or it is not. May be it is a subjective experience, may be I had not been in the right frame of mind to really absorb it. But all through the movie my mind was going, "Wow! great cinematography" "Did the actors catch colds after being drenched almost all through the movie?" "Was it never summer in Mukkom?" "Great song, ordinary picturisation" "Uh oh, not again, Prithvi forgot his colored contact lenses in this scene too..." Only, only at the end, when Kanchana (Parvathy's best role - she is above all reproach) stands on the threshold of Moitheen's home, preparing to live as his unwed widow did I feel any emotional response to the movie. 

So I feel, that if you want to really get the flavor of the movie that all the cast and crew fell in love with and worked so hard for, do watch  Jalam Kondu Murivettaval before going to watch Ennu Ninte Moitheen. Only then can you find the real heart of the movie and feel the strength of a love that bore 25 years of separation, twenty-five years of house arrest and being treated worse than a  mangy dog (Kanchana's own words in a television interview) and the ruining of two bright lives come through. I strongly feel that the movie should not have ended where it did, but should have continued to the present age - only by knowing and showing that Kanchana keeps that flame of love alight even to this day can people appreciate the strength of their love and sacrifice. A moviegoer who is ignorant of the real story  might scoff: "Hah, another variation of Romeo and Juliet - only this time Romeo died aged 44 and Juliet didn't do away with herself." Yes, Mukkom Bhasi does mention the rest of the story at the end, but it was not enough...

Revelation: Tovino. This actor gets noticed in spurned lover's roles, but he is a treat to watch. Hope he gets better roles as he goes along. Karamana Sudheer really stole the show in drag! Sai and Lena are wonderful as Moitheen's parents.I love what Prithvi has done in the movie, but I really wish Nivin had had the title role. If you watch the documentary, you can see for yourself that he bears an uncanny resemblance to B.P. Moitheen - ah well! 

Another thing that I loved about the movie was how flawlessly it took us back into Kerala of the 1960s - the jewelry designs, the costumes, the way everyone unscrewed the top off an ink pen when they had anything to write (which I still enjoy doing), the funny-shaped bus... Ok, I was not around at that time, but I can imagine can't I? 

Songs: Love, love, love the songs. DH has banned any rendition of "Kannondu chollanu" at Karthi till further notice because he is sick and tired of all his family members warbling the same all the time at home. "Ente qithabile penne" seems set to be the second "Malare..." Bet it is going to be all the rage in campus autograph books this year.

Verdict: Do go and watch a wonderfully made movie, but bear in mind that the real thing is much more magnificent and mind-blowing than its celluloid copy...

Limbo...

You don't have to leave this world to be in limbo...which is where I've been for the past few months. Life goes on, yes seasons change, festivals come and go.. But when there is something tugging at the heart all the time, everything loses color and the joys are all the more transient and ephemeral...

My mother's cancer is back. She has been in poor health since the beginning of May. She had been so diligent about post surgical checkups and taking medication for the past two years that when she started having one health problem after another, we never connected it to cancer. But five months into the ordeal with one hospitalization after the other, we were at the end of our tether. Then we were advised to take these problems to the cancer hospital. The verdict came quickly. The dreaded disease is back and since it had already been in Stage IV when detected first, it's far worse this time.

Meanwhile within the space of a mere 6 days this last fortnight, Ma heard the wings of the angel of death pass by her twice. Once it was due to extreme hypoglycemia from which we managed to revive her. The next was an hour after a chest tube was inserted to drain the malignant pleural effusion that was cutting off her air supply. She went into convulsions and stopped breathing. Somehow the doctors brought her around and she had to spend three days on a ventilator thereafter. 

The cancer hospital has deemed Ma too weak for any further aggressive treatments. Hence we are about to start homeopathic treatment, hoping that the umpteen discomforts she is feeling will be soothed. 

Trying to keep a level head in this turmoil has been hard. I've observed denial, confusion, resigned acceptance, anger and pain in our family at different stages and intensities during this sorry saga which is by no means over. Our relatives, friends and neighbors continue to give us their valuable support. They are the silver lining in this story... they, and the fact that Ma is still indomitable and not given to despair. Even in all this, she continues to domineer over us when she can and always has a smile to share whenever she is normal. The disease, the hospitalizations and the near-death experiences may have played havoc with her mind and body, but she is still here. She needs our help and she needs our laughter.

So, it's time to come out of limbo!

Mind Over Matter

I developed a dust allergy when I was a teenager. If I entered a room that had been swept in the past half hour, I started sneezing. If I came within 2 feet of a cobweb, I started sneezing. If I forgot to wind a kerchief around my face while cleaning my room, I started sneezing, which soon turned into a wheezing and watering of eyes and a whistle every time I breathed out. I was quite fond of that whistling, actually. An allergic reaction always set off a cold that would soon develop into bronchitis and THAT meant chore-amnesty for at least 2 weeks!

Once, when a vacuum cleaner salesman arrived for the first time in our little rural pocket and asked whether there were any members of the family with dust allergy, I was furtively banished to the upper floor. My parents had no plans of buying an unnecessary contraption. It turned out to be an ineffective maneuver, after all. Because as soon as the guy demonstrated the blower function, my Dad started sneezing! Yet, after all these years I am the one blamed for having been the cause for the purchase of our first vacuum cleaner. Life is so unfair…

Back to my own condition.  It got so bad that every morning I announced the fact of my waking up with a series of “HAAA……CHEE”s that shook the house at 6 am.  Well, I was at home, and I didn’t need to muffle my sneezes in a square of cloth, and I wasn’t infectious anyway.  My parents worried about asthma. But I think my Dad took more exception to the breaking of his slumbers in this fashion. So he took me to a Homeo practitioner.

I sat in the dark room filled with rows and rows of tiny bottles and ancient books on the shelves covering three walls as the doctor patiently questioned me about my daily habits. He soon found the problem – I spent too much time indoors with my nose in a book. (Little did he know that it was to be a lifelong affliction of mine). I was ordered to sit outside somewhere for an hour in the evening every day and take deep breaths of fresh air. Nope, deep breaths during my half-hour commute to and from college didn’t count. As I left, I looked at the wizened and pale doctor in the dark and claustrophobic room and wondered whether he shouldn’t be taking a little bit of his own prescription.

So every day after tea, I walked down to the edge of our property that faced an expanse of paddy fields and sat there, filling my lungs with fresh, fresh air. Since I wasn’t allowed to read, I took my sketch book with me to draw. But I found that I hunched up over the book so much that I forgot to breathe, which pretty much defeated the purpose of the exercise. Soon I stopped taking anything with me and learned to sit, dream and just be in the moment. A good thing I hadn’t learned crochet at that point in life! The result of these peaceful hours was that my Dad could once more wake up to melodious sounds...

A few years later, I did the Art of Living Course. I practiced the breathing exercises regularly for a year and got over the worst reactions of my allergies. My lungs didn’t whistle any more unless I had a severe chest infection. The frequency of colds lessened and even if I caught a cold, it rarely developed a secondary infection.

Nowadays cobwebs and dust on the floor hold no fear for me.  But I do cover my face while tackling heavy duty dusting.  One evening, I cleaned the bedroom fan. But I forgot to switch it on while going out of the room to let any dust left on the blades fly away. That night as we all settled down to sleep, I felt my chest seizing up in the old fashion and immediately remembered the dust on the fan.  Soon the seizing turned to breathless coughs and I had to sit up. I decided to take my coughing self to the living room to prevent disturbing my family.

I got up, picked a book from the window seat and turned to go. Then I stopped. I looked at my sleeping family and wondered how they could sleep without any problem; how their lungs ACCEPTED the dust in the air and let them sleep without harm. While one part of my brain told me that I was reading too much Louise Hay, I just sat down cross-legged on the bed and closed my eyes. 

This is what I told myself:

“Dust is always in the air, I breathe it in all the time.”

“Dust is a part of creation that holds no threat for me.”

“I ACCEPT dust as it is and welcome it.”

I suited my actions to my words and took deep breaths, visualizing the tiny, harmless dust motes finding peaceful homes in my alveoli.  Within five minutes, I was fast asleep.

Now, I wonder how I can bring myself to accept a rapacious cold virus in the same way! Rowrrr!!

Movie Review: Premam

If ever a movie could hold us spellbound to our seats right from the time the "writing on the wall" appears to the cry of a newborn long after the screen has darkened after the rolling credits, it is this, it is this, it is this...

This movie first caught my attention with the wonderful piece of Malayalam calligraphy that is its name. And when the screen equivalent landed on to the stigma of a hibiscus flower and sat there gently fluttering its wings, DH burst into spontaneous applause. Right from that moment, the movie had us entranced. 

The story in a nutshell: George Davidson (Nivin Pauly) is an ordinary young man with a couple of staunch friends who support him through his chequered love life.

Wait, is THAT the story - is that all? Yep it is! Nothing to tax your imagination or make you stretch the organ of believing, nothing that will make you exercise your deductive faculties....

Gosh, but what a rollicking ride it is! Right from the moment we watch the hero pen his first love letter in which misspellings and inappropriate similes abound,  there is not a boring moment in the whole movie. Is there anything new in the story? No. But the treatment is a whole different cup of tea. Add about 7 musical tracks that blend into the story so well that they make an organic whole, you have a winner all the way through.

I have to mention the performances of the three newcomers who make their mark on the movie - they play the characters of bubbly and cute Mary (Anupama Parameswaran),  heartbreakingly lovely Malar (Sai Pallavi) and mischievous but mature Celine (Madonna Sebastian). Although all three are good, I must say Malar really stole my heart with her chameleon-like changes and laughter-filled eyes. 

I could go on and on about this movie - from the lovely song-lyrics (all penned by Shabareesh Varma who also is a major character in the movie AND sings a couple of songs too - talk about multi-talented), the plethora of new acting talent who all made us remain in our seats just to know their names, the never-ending humor that makes the most soppy of love scenes hilarious, the screamingly funny and not-funny cameo of the director....

We reached home after the unusually long movie (at least for a Malayalam one) at 10:30 pm and stayed discussing the movie, going over all the points that we enjoyed and speculated about Nivin Pauly's career etc. till 2 am! If there is anything I could find fault with, it would be the frequent boozing and smoking scenes as well as some indistinct dialogue that made me yearn for subtitles once in a while. But that would be nitpicking...

I still haven't touched all the points that I liked - like that shot of a fire-ant who peeks over a moss-covered stone wall as eager for a glimpse of Mary as all her suitors... well the list will go on. 

So if you don't mind being entertained by a well-made movie that will have you rolling in your seats as well as tug at your heartstrings, you can do no better than to get a ticket for Premam (bit tough to get - online is the only sure bet). If nothing else, it will help you get over the condition over hedonistic adaptation - you know, getting so used to one's good fortune that one forgets to appreciate it... (Thanks to The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky)!

Final verdict: Rush!!!