tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25173131791983330582024-03-08T09:07:18.939-08:00FirefliesOther Lands and Other Peopleanandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.comBlogger291125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-32677419207803005952023-04-20T09:23:00.002-07:002023-04-20T09:23:52.162-07:00Our Monarchy
I am a Republican. There. I have said it. So, no one should be surprised that I have no patience for the pantomime showcasing the monarchy. Especially, Charles, the Third and Queen Camilla. Where is the halo?
I had a sneaky respect for Queen Elizabeth, the second. She was only a few years older than me, and I had watched her as she grew from a young teen-princess into a dignified monarch. When I was fifteen years old, I came by a glossy photobook about the two royal princesses. I spent hours looking at the pretty girls, Elizabeth and Margaret. I remember horses and dogs figured hugely on the pages. And George the VIth had been the King to whom we paid homage every morning in school assembly.
Until the police bundled my father off to jail in 1943 because he was a freedom-fighter and wanted the British to just get up and leave India. He was quite vocal about that. After that I refused to stand up when ‘God Save the King’ was sung in school. The nuns punished me in various inventive ways, and I insisted that George, the sixth, was no King of mine. And now – Charles. I rest my case.
In India, we have a democratic constitution, with a pseudo royal family, the Nehrus. Jesus wept! In a country with an enormous population, surely, there must be many who would better fit the role of leader of the Congress Party. In what respect is Rahul Gandhi a suitable Prime Minister? How has he earned the accolade?
Our country, the U K, is in a bad place at the moment, with many families finding it difficult to make ends meet. How is celebrating the advent of an inherited monarchy a priority?
Question – Do we need a ridiculous coronation right now? Or more social housing, more teachers, more doctors--- Money channelled into the NHS because it is crumbling now? Or even a quiet, unobtrusive way of ditching the Tory Government? I live in hope.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-88296954977485414412023-02-24T08:10:00.002-08:002023-02-24T08:10:46.407-08:00The Galle Face Beach
There was a routine in my husband’s home. Every evening, after coming home from work, Balan (my just-unwrapped husband) would take his parents to the Galle Face beach and park the car alongside all the other cars lined up, descanting families greedy for the evening air. He would then guide his father to the edge of the beach and the old man would walk the length of the beach and return to the car. Balan would accompany him on his slow walk while my mother-in-law stayed in the car. He is a good man, I would say to myself, about this stranger whom I had married.
Balan insisted that I accompanied the threesome in the evenings; I would sit in the back of the car with the mother and look at the crowds on the beach. Far away and across from us, the limousines drew up in the grand portico of the Galle Face hotel. Behind us the traffic speeded towards the Fort, the shopping enclave of the rich in the city.
I begged out of the daily Galle Face parade after a few days, much to the consternation of my husband; I started searching for reading matter. An addiction was waiting to be fed. In desperation at finding nothing, I went up to the disused storeroom at the top of our home. There was a Dutch almirah there with a glass front; I opened it, and the silverfish ran about frantically, as old books with yellowed pages tumbled out. All on religion, but I had reached a point of no return. I had to find reading material.
I grabbed a copy of the translation of Bhagawath Geetha in English, blew away the dust on it and took it down. Next day, my sister-in-law came by to tempt me to a dance. She saw the book I was reading and had a good laugh. ‘On your honeymoon and you are reading Geetha,’ she chortled.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that honey and moon would not be enough for me. I was addicted to the printed word. And I did go for that dance where I fell in love with the joyous rhythms of the Singhalese Byela.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-71402140743211538472023-01-24T09:56:00.002-08:002023-01-24T09:56:33.158-08:00<b>A Difficult Transplanting</b>
Recently, my mind strays back to Sri Lanka. I haven’t been there since 1972; it was called Ceylon then.
I remember the enormous house, which my in-laws rented in Adams Avenue, Colombo. My ageing mother-in-law and rapidly disintegrating father-in-law rattled around downstairs, while my new husband and I occupied three humungous bedrooms and all mod cons upstairs. Once Balan, my husband, had rushed off to work, around 8 a m, I had nothing to do other than contemplate the view from the many windows.
From my bedroom I could see into a beautiful garden next door, so I did that daily. I would go downstairs for breakfast when all others had finished. At home, in Thalassery, it had always been Dosa or Idli with coconut sammandhi (relish). Bread, butter and strawberry jam didn’t cut it. I often made up with many cups of tea. Did wonders for my waistline – until the waistline came into its own with my first pregnancy.
I learned elementary kitchen Singhalese to communicate with the young Tamil maid, Pakyam, who reigned over a vast kitchen, where nothing much was cooked except my father-in-law’s insipid mushes. Pakyam had supreme contempt for me and didn’t like me around in the kitchen.
My kind sister-in-law, Kamala, would come round in her chauffeur driven Cadillac, once or twice a week, to take me ‘shopping.’ Shopping as a leisure activity was new to me. My father nurtured an extended family on an uncertain lawyer’s income; if there was any spare cash, it went to sustaining waifs and strays in his village. Kamala’s chauffeur with his peaked cap reduced me to silence.
Kamala would go to many shops in a day, getting material for sari blouses, garments for her niece, and odds and ends for the ‘sewing woman’ who came once a week to sew for Kamala. Clearly, this was an industry sustained by the posh Colombo -7 crowd, who kept the wheels of Kotlewala’s government turning, and subsequently, that of Bandaranaike. The Times of Ceylon would occasionally describe the fineries of the rich ones at some soiree’.
After a few weeks. I signed out of the shopping events and devoted myself to sitting on a chair on the veranda and day-dreaming. As usual with the pregnancy related practices at home in India, I would go home in the seventh month.
I counted the months out. Was I cut out for marriage? I wondered. I still wonder.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-91095812089119364152023-01-20T05:34:00.000-08:002023-01-20T05:34:13.092-08:00<b>
<b>Where The Rain Was Born</b> --- <b>an exercise in nostalgia</b></b>
Thalassery -- A verdant, little, coastal town, tucked away in the South-Western corner of India along the shores of the Arabian Sea. If you walk a long, long way north, hugging the coast you will finally reach Mumbai (formerly Bombay.) If, instead, you walk in the opposite direction, you will end up in the Arabian Sea, quite quickly, somewhere near Sri Lanka.
I always thought that Kerala, our state, was where the rain was born. When I travelled from Chennai to Thalassery, by the old Madras Mail, (so called because it delivered our mail -- why else! -- all the way from the east coast, at just after mid-day, every day) I would see how the terrain changed from barren brown to rich green as we came out of the tunnel, through the Western Ghats. I’d press my eager head into the horizontal bars of the train window, and breathe deep of that familiar smell of wet vegetation and home; with it I would also take in the particles of soot and ash that came out of the front of the steam engine, making my eyes itch and my hair gritty.
Well before the fears of global warming and consequent flooding, the monsoons arrived with predictable regularity each year, at the end of June, and swept away a few houses nestling precariously on the top of river-bunds. There was no welfare state as such, so the community, neighbours, had to step in. After several days of unrelenting downpour, the waters would rise and spread.
My father’s sister would have spent the whole month of Karkadagam, ( the Malayalam month that falls between the middle of July and the middle of August) known for disease, death and devastation,) chanting prayers to ward off the disasters. Generally Small-pox, Chicken-pox, Typhoid and Plague, arrived in the rainy season. The old women in the house, whose duty it was to guard against all evils that could be fended off with prayer and incantation read out of the holy book, Bhagava, at dusk and dawn, in front of the nilavilakku, the scared lamp.
But, of course, Chicken pox spread through the house and went. It lingered with one person or another and all of us waited for it to strike. That extended household had three children: myself and my father’s brother’s children, Mani and Appu, Mani eighteen months older and Appu four years older. My father’s niece, Nani, father’s sister whom I called Ammamma and father’s mother, Achamma, also lived there. So Chicken pox had quite a haul.
Achamma (father’s mother} always organised her second line of defence when disease got close – as in next door. She kept coconut shells filled with a cow-dung solution along both sides of our walkway to the front gate. This was supposed to ward off Mariamma, the evil goddess of Small pox. Maybe the same Goddess did duty for Chicken pox too. I had a mental image of this vile witch, grotesque and pock-marked. She haunted my dreams. She was always hanging about our front gate, working her way up to the house.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-78160280057684451462023-01-11T09:43:00.001-08:002023-01-11T10:16:46.398-08:00Animals
Animals
I cannot imagine a home without animals. In our house, who owns who is always debatable. When our fluff, Booboo, perches on Kitta’s knee when he is marking a hundred university scripts; when Pepper, my cat, complains as I move my legs in bed (My legs are solely for her to sleep on at night.); when the mutt, Lily, nudges my daughter’s legs aside on the sofa so that she can curl up in her lap, the answer is crystal clear.
I often wonder how it is that some families love animals and some don’t. Genetic, or exposure to pets early in life?
Next to our house in Thalassery there was a Chayakkada. Men going to work at building sites or factories stopped there, on their way, to get a hot cup of chai; my aunt said they probably never bought tea leaves or milk for their households, the morning drink generally being yesterday’s conjee. The chayakkada was a tiny roadside veranda and a small room with two rickety benches in it. It was run by a man called Kumaran, and when he washed his tea-pan out, he swung the dregs on to the road.
He had some saving graces. Every six months he would have another litter of kittens to give away, all fluffy-tailed and long-furred. They went quickly; in passing, our household got one or two. Achan disapproved of cats saying they caused asthma, but he was on a losing wicket. When he was near, we hid the kittens under the gatherings of our pavadas (long skirts) or later, my sari. Sometimes the kitten gave the game away by purring on my stomach.
My first cat was named Sundari. She was all white and had a beautiful face. The next one was Beauty, which meant the same thing. They had pretty faces and plentiful fur. They disappeared often down the road, scavenging at houses where fish was being scaled and finned, but returned to puke on our doorstep. Eventually, they would disappear into cat paradise – I would call their names without a miaow in reply.
The last one was Mimi; when I got married and left, my father, who maintained he disliked cats, arranged for the fisherman to feed her daily.
In my husband’s home, no animals were allowed. My husband’s parents did not like them either. So, it was not until I became single again that I got another animal. Leone and Makeni, the two dogs were named, after my favourite places – Makeni is in the north of Sierra Leone. I had to give them to friends to keep when I left Uganda for good. It broke my heart and I vowed never to get another animal.
Next year, in Zambia, (1993) I got Inji (Malayalam for ginger)– a majestic ginger tabby. By now, I could afford to take my cat with me, so Inji went with me to Malawi. Meanwhile my daughter, who was also in Malawi, had acquired another kitten – Ammu. A boy was holding some kittens up at a roundabout; predictably, she fell for it. Ammu drove Inji mad cavorting all around her and got frequently swatted. She came with us to England. Inji died of a kidney disease in Malawi, and Ammu became road-kill in Croydon.
In Croydon we got Tyson and Louis, (we never learn) forever fist-fighting as kittens. My little granddaughter called them Tyson and Nui-nui. Two road-kills again. I vowed I would never get a kitten after that, but my daughter came back one day with Booboo and Pepper, two tiny kittens that hid under a cupboard in the kitchen, until they were really hungry, and came out to eat. They are still with us, now five years old. Pepper sleeps on my bed and Booboo pesters my son.
There was also Keeri, whom I got in Kochi, and I brought home to England with me. She was adorable, intelligent and followed me around. She slept on my right shoulder generally, and would scurry up to bed with me. She also got run over in 2015. Now, my daughter won’t let me get another kitten. ‘They all die,’ she says.
We have Lily instead, a long-suffering, loving dog that does not recognise that she is not human. She is also thoroughly spoilt. We are right suckers for animals.
I’d love another Bengal-kitten like Keeri.
[ Pepper died of old age last month, at thirteen years.]
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-69569186721712088432022-12-24T13:51:00.002-08:002022-12-24T13:51:32.090-08:00Christmas in Thalassery
Thalassery, or Tellicherry, as the British named it in their time, is a small town on the south-west coast of India. My hometown. On quiet nights you couad hear the dash and murmur of the Arabian see, which was only a five-minute walk away. It is an unpretentious, friendly place, which claims to have started the game of Cricket in India. There are many schools and a college, so people tend to get educated. Most men still wear a mundu (a cloth for the lower half of the body), and my father, a lawyer, wore a pair of trousers and a black jacket only when he went to the Courts.
There was one Christian family on our road and the two daughters of the family, Mabel and Ida, were my friends. Until Mabel got married, we spent a great deal of time together, walked to college, played badminton and throwball together. Met up most days to gossip. And, Christmas dinner was always at Mabel’s house. Chicken Biriyani rather than Turkey and sweet rice payasam instead of cake. No one put up Christmas trees; generally, no one gave or received gifts. Mabel’s family would attend midnight mass at the local church. And that was it for another year.
Christmas has become an expensive end to the year in England. Tree and baubles, fancy food and a cake, gifts all round…My daughter hauled her box of decorations down from the loft and spent a morning creating colour and glitter. On Christmas day, we shall dine lavishly at the house of a Christian friend. There will be gifts given and received though we say ‘no gifts’ every year. The drive to our friend’s house will take forty-five minutes, and the day will be joyous and noisy.
I wonder, does anyone go to church for midnight mass anymore?
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-2936497497777191532022-10-20T06:12:00.002-07:002022-10-20T06:12:43.988-07:00There is Something Rotten in the State of ...There is Something Rotten in the State of…
--- and the stink is pervasive – on the obsequious media that will turn on Truss when they are sure she is history, (quite soon now from the noises coming from our toe-licking BBC,) and on the Conservative MPs who are like rodents caught in the headlights. Now, a wordy member of my household says, they want to shuffle the deckchairs about and put Ben Wallace and some such layabout at the head of this country. Anyone will do so long as the Tories can stay in power for another year-and-a-half. Jesus Wept!
The Mother of Parliaments was thrust into my receptive twelve-year-old Indian head, by the Sacred Heart nuns in my Convent school in Thalasseri, in the mid - forties. A model not only of functioning democracy, but also of elegant government and political rectitude. In 1981, when my father visited, I took him to see the Houses of Parliament, the Palace and the door of Number 10 from a respectful distance on the sidewalk. When he returned to India, he did a brief talk on All India Radio, Kozhikode, about his trip. Full of eulogies for the wonderful buildings, the tidy (!!!) streets, the punctual trains…
Late last night all hell broke in the revered Westminster Hall. Tory M Ps were being manhandled into the lobby if they were not quick enough to go in to vote against a labour motion. All decorum had disappeared through the august portals. The Kerala Marxists could not have put up a better example of rowdy behaviour. So much for decorum and elegance
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1.32p.m - The P M walked out of number 10 and to her podium as I was writing and announced her resignation. Now the horse-trading will begin. The Tories do not have the talent or rectitude in them right now to find acceptable replacements. So, we will end up with another set of nether orifices. No escape. I watch with some discomfort – who next?
However, much better than the soaps on T V.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-20316398060530781782022-10-18T07:12:00.003-07:002022-10-18T07:12:49.746-07:00Our Winter of DestructionOur Winter of Destruction
I look at our PM, Liz Truss, and I think, how did this come about? What were the Tories thinking? They are self-destructing, I tell myself. I am happy to think that, but meanwhile, we have 18 months of this government. Liz Truss, bouncing on her high heels, travelling in search of a brain transplant. Before that, we had bungling Boris, empty as a finished beer-can. Now crunched up and binned, thank God. About him, the less said/ thought, the better.
She took the cap off bankers’ bonuses (and because of that, the bottom off workers’ wages). She gave the green light to greedy fracking, never mind the creaking, tumbling local landscapes. What next? Jeremy -unt is back at the helm, more or less, and he is cruel as well as cunning. Put your crown jewels away and get ready for a harsh winter.
The Tories are muttering and murmuring, but no one takes Liz on. What is her power-base? I wonder, what keeps her at No 10. ‘Who will rid us of this…?’ I think, as Liz minces in and minces out.
We are in dire need of a government that cares about the people in this country who have to choose between heating and eating. We need a general election, now, not a year later.
The advent of -unt does nothing to allay my fears of a subsistence winter. This man is the austerity chancellor.
Any ideas, Keir??
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-72709167197458586112022-10-13T09:39:00.002-07:002022-10-13T09:39:28.281-07:00Self Destruction?
I have to be wary of wishful thinking. I listen to the sound bites coming out of Kamikazi and Busy- Lizzy and wonder what they are hoping to achieve with their loyalty to the notorious mini budget. Self-destructing, I say with glee.
The Tory grandees murmur in some remote background, but do not come out of their rabbit holes. Lizzy just goes home and dyes her dress another colour overnight. As she bounces in to public view she looks radiantly smug.
Even the Tories must have come across the word mortgage in connection with their loyal lumpen masses who vote them into power. Another 500 pounds or thereabouts on their monthly payment is a minor irritation. Rees- Mogg will instruct them to work harder, in between switching their heating off and inventing meals that are mainly bread and vegetable soup. Maybe more children will become eligible for school meals. Rashford, where are you?
Schools will supply old uniforms to more children. Mothers will have nervous breakdowns and become thinner with denying themselves enough food. Fathers will look for second jobs and get progressively angrier. Are we a third world country now?
Labour can sit back and enjoy the side-show. Tories are doing it all on their own.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-32004888858825843542022-10-13T09:38:00.002-07:002022-10-13T09:38:50.597-07:00Self Destruction?
I have to be wary of wishful thinking. I listen to the sound bites coming out of Kamikazi and Busy- Lizzy and wonder what they are hoping to achieve with their loyalty to the notorious mini budget. Self-destructing, I say with glee.
The Tory grandees murmur in some remote background, but do not come out of their rabbit holes. Lizzy just goes home and dyes her dress another colour overnight. As she bounces in to public view she looks radiantly smug.
Even the Tories must have come across the word mortgage in connection with their loyal lumpen masses who vote them into power. Another 500 pounds or thereabouts on their monthly payment is a minor irritation. Rees- Mogg will instruct them to work harder, in between switching their heating off and inventing meals that are mainly bread and vegetable soup. Maybe more children will become eligible for school meals. Rashford, where are you?
Schools will supply old uniforms to more children. Mothers will have nervous breakdowns and become thinner with denying themselves enough food. Fathers will look for second jobs and get progressively angrier. Are we a third world country now?
Labour can sit back and enjoy the side-show. Tories are doing it all on their own.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-79792011922877992762022-09-30T07:12:00.000-07:002022-09-30T07:12:54.372-07:00<b>Chaos<b></b></b>
There's the mini budget about which the less said, thought about, the better. Give the billionaires a break, for heaven’s sake.
Trussliz is just behaving according to her class-imprint. She has no empathy or intelligence to understand what the average person in the street has to negotiate because of her wanton decisions. The mortgage payments go up – so what?
And Kwatank is whipping through like the hurricane, Ian. His gaze is dead; as far as he is concerned, the hullabaloo about his MINI is just the usual clatter. Like all else, it will pass. The hoi-polloi will have something else to grumble about next week. Except mortgage payments come by every month…
The poor man’s balancing act is one I am familiar with. I once lived on a monthly take-home of 92 pounds. I remember how I used to check the electric metre obsessively. The line on it went round on and on relentlessly.
The amazing part is that there have been no calls within the Tories to get rid of either Truss or Kwarteng. They are self-destructing fast. The old guard, Hague, Hunt et al are just watching. With glee, like me?
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-79975849943368680672022-09-22T13:31:00.000-07:002022-09-22T13:31:54.553-07:00I Despair!I DESPAIR!
Our P M. Liz Truss. How did this come about? What are the Tories thinking about? They are self-destructing, I tell myself. I am happy to think that, but meanwhile, we have two years of this government. Liz Truss, bouncing on her high heels, travelling in search of a brain transplant. Before that, we had bungling Boris, empty as a finished beer-can. Now crunched up and binned, thank God. About him, the less said/ thought, the better.
Our Liz is at the U N this week and I am cringing to imagine her dealing with all those experienced apparatchiks. They’ll have her for porridge if she is not careful; And, not-so-Cleverly holding her hand is not going to cut it.
Seventeen days and she has taken the cap off bankers’ bonuses (and because of that, the bottom off workers’ wages). She has given the green light to greedy fracking, never mind the creaking, tumbling local landscapes. What next?
Today, I don’t recognise our normal political landscape. The Tories
smell defeat in 2024 and they are armed with a wrecking ball. Ed Milliband was at his best at Westminster this week, but I doubt the Tories care.
So gear up for a nasty eighteen months. Hopefully the bankers will handover their bonuses to the struggling poor and pay for school uniforms.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-64734827586641374432022-09-09T10:07:00.002-07:002022-09-09T10:14:16.626-07:00
The Queen and I
As early as age thirteen, I had a thing about the two princesses, Elizabeth, and Margaret. Somebody gave me a coffee table book about the princesses, and I spent hours looking at them. In black and white of course, this was 1950.
At College, I read Russell and Joad and Laski and all persons in between, and became staunchly left-wing. And there I have stayed, Left, but peaceable Left, not Kerala communist blood-letting Left. In the fifties there was a lot of murder and mayhem in North Malabar.
When, eventually, I ended up in the U K in the seventies, I knew I was anti-monarchy. I had
lived through the unedifying reign of George VIth, when many Indians, including my father, had
ended up in prison for demanding independence for India. But perversely, I admired and loved
Queen Elizabeth, the second. She was only nine years older than me. Her poise, elegance, devotion
to duty and wisdom enchanted me. What a woman!
Living in Britain has only reinforced my view. The grace with which she has managed the many conundrums in her life – Charles and Diana’s chaotic marriage, the anti-monarchy upsurges now and then, Andrew’s unsavoury shenanigans, to name a few. But there she is, consistently dignified, fair and gracious.
This country is impoverished without her; we are, at the moment, lost without her.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-19257202770517929362022-08-02T09:59:00.001-07:002022-08-02T09:59:11.757-07:00Our Aspiring LeadersI am looking at the two candidates who aspire to be our Prime Minister on the fifth of September, and I think – Is this all the Tory Party has to offer the Country? Two wannabes with nothing to distinguish them from the lumpen masses inside the Party, and the mindless acolytes outside.
I am from Kerala, where even the barely literate household staff read the newspapers every day, the-beedi rollers have one employed at full wage just to read the paper to them while they roll the tobacco into the poor man’s smokes, and the far Left is more often in power than not.
No Country deserves the entitled apparatchik, or the frozen person. The only bright spot is that the two leaders will both make most people so mad that they will vote for Labour in 2024.
Meanwhile, how do we suffer this empty, pompous lot? What we need, of course, is a people’s uprising. This is not going to happen. Our version of this is called a polite No-Confidence vote. Look at the time and effort it took to shed Johnson.
The two contenders talk non-stop about tax; I get the impression that this is what exercises their tiny little brains. NHS? Truss wants to sack nurses, I hear. BP raising the prices for the common man on fuel while accumulating vast profits? Sunak is all in favour.
No way out for any of us.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-20824808848195282862022-07-20T12:14:00.001-07:002022-09-17T13:37:04.160-07:00When did we become Third World?
I am listening to the tales of hardship on Channel 4. A mother who has no money to feed her daughter until the next Universal Credit check arrives. A father who has nothing left after paying the utility bills. What happened to this rich Western Country? Are we third world now?
In 1974, I fled from a bad marriage to the United Kingdom. I lived in lodgings on Lower Richmond Road. I was paid 59 p an hour and the rent was nine pounds a week. I had a gas metre in the room and had to feed it to stay warm.
I remember the careful shuffling of expenses until, a few months later, I got a job teaching Maths in a Secondary School in Wickford. The Department of Education would not pay for the ten years previous teaching experience, or my Maths degree, until six months later. I had to get verification from the University of Madras direct to the DES. Teachers were not paid very much in the seventies anyway until the Houghton award, and we got a huge pay-rise.
Meanwhile, I did dinner duty to get the free meal that went with it. I had no Winter garments, coming as I did from Africa, so I layered. I lived in a high-rise Council flat and took a bus from Basildon to work.
I watched the electricity meter frequently and bathed in small amounts of hot water when the meter seemed to be going round too fast. I was glad the children were not with me.
The Houghton awards trebled my salary and the accumulated back pay made me feel rich. So, I put down a deposit of eight hundred pounds on a house that was selling for 9350 pounds.
I have memories of not buying the Whippy that I was greedy for, getting my first overcoat for nine pounds after six months of saving… The mothers and fathers who struggle to feed their children are in a very bad place now. For this, the Tory government is responsible.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-68394468711968276832022-07-18T05:24:00.000-07:002022-07-18T05:24:07.993-07:00THE FAB FIVE
Did you see the soap opera yesterday?
The edifying sight of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak tearing into each other, the raking up of mistakes made by the Tories in Government over the last decade, the excavation of ancient biographies – who went to school. Where?
Labour’s job is being done for them. When McDonnel makes an ugly swipe at Starmer, I want to send a message to him to shut up. Go and do this in Committee, I think, not on the media outlets. I am on his side; I am left of left. Brought up in Kerala, what do you expect? I want a redistribution of wealth tomorrow, my wealth included…
The LEADERS’ DEBATE yesterday was a catfight. How did these guys not know at least after the first debate that they were doing a Labour party political broadcast? How stupid are they? Mind you, I have always believed that anyone who joins the Tory Party is, by definition, stupid. But a lot of morons vote for them, and they are a reality like plant pests.
Interestingly, the discussion of policy was minimal – it was all about who is the best top dog. No one will call a general election; they know they will be wiped out.
2024 seems a long way away.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-22526170205716431502022-07-11T09:54:00.000-07:002022-07-11T09:54:04.965-07:00The LEADERS
Larry, the No 10 cat, and eleven others are all hoping to be our P M. Couldn’t be more diverse. Men, women, Asian men, cat… All it needs is for Priti Toxic Patel to join the motley bunch of would-be-leaders. The Press don’t know what is really going on, how to separate the aspirants, where to show their power. Boris had been their man until they did a Mark Anthony on him. When you create a Frankenstein, you must expect it to turn on you.
All the contestants have talked about tax cuts and not much else. The thought of money reigns supreme. There is no mention about the cost-of-living crisis, the pressure on the NHS or Ruanda. One must assume that all of them favour sending immigrants to Rwanda and keeping quiet about the Brexit disaster. If you don’t mention it, it might go away. Is this pervasive racism in the Country, or the obligatory racism to succeed in the party? True blue as a ‘Cruella’ supporter calls Braverman.
And – Boris is hanging on as P M, the characteristic smirk absent. My worry is the appalling lack of talent, principles, or any real political intent beyond the acquisition of power. What’s Rishi Sunak got to offer anyone but himself? And he leads the pack, I understand. Liz Truss’s ignorance, Hunt’s opportunism…
Who will rid us of this scurrilous lot?
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-46562877020540156682022-07-11T09:47:00.000-07:002022-07-11T09:47:33.805-07:00The LEADERS
Larry, the No 10 cat, and eleven others are all hoping to be our P M. Couldn’t be more diverse. Men, women, Asian men, cat… All it needs is for Priti Toxic Patel to join the motley bunch of would-be-leaders. The Press don’t know what is really going on, how to separate the aspirants, where to show their power. Boris had been their man until they did a Mark Anthony on him. When you create a Frankenstein, you must expect it to turn on you.
All the contestants have talked about tax cuts and not much else. The thought of money reigns supreme. There is no mention about the cost-of-living crisis, the pressure on the NHS or Ruanda. One must assume that all of them favour sending immigrants to Rwanda and keeping quiet about the Brexit disaster. If you don’t mention it, it might go away. Is this pervasive racism in the Country, or the obligatory racism to succeed in the party? True blue as a ‘Cruella’ supporter calls Braverman.
And – Boris is hanging on as P M, the characteristic smirk absent. My worry is the appalling lack of talent, principles, or any real political intent beyond the acquisition of power. What’s Rishi Sunak got to offer anyone but himself? And he leads the pack, I understand. Liz Truss’s ignorance, Hunt’s opportunism…
Who will rid us of this scurrilous lot?
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-9135055162259026842022-07-07T03:20:00.001-07:002022-07-07T03:21:20.403-07:00The Westminster Shenanigans
I expect there are a great many people like me watching the soap-opera unfolding in Westminster today. We are still waiting for Johnson as he is getting his suit buttons restored, and his shirt ironed, before coming out to the podium, to resign. I just wish he had stayed till the next general election – he was the best argument Labour could have had for defeating the Tories.
However, I suppose the Country is more important than the party. I have a huge confusion in my head – no, no, no – not due to age. I had this cerebral image in my head, long-standing, as I was forcibly fed this lie in History lessons in my schooldays in India. I blame the Sacred Heart. A Mother of Parliament, where democracy prevailed in its purest form. Jesus Wept!
So, what do I think of a popinjay like Johnson? How did the Tories allow him to crawl into power? Why did they not get rid of him many months ago? There were so many occasions when he let the Country down – the Brexit debacle still being played out, Parytgate… Other unmentionable misdemeanours. They were all clinging to power while they looked away from the sleaze that was the Tory parliamentary party. They are all complicit and should be booted out.
WE NEED A GENERAL ELECTION – NOW
I say this with some pride – I am a die-hard Socialist. Left of left. I believe wealth needs to be redistributed and the foodbanks are a disgrace to the United Kingdom. I hope Labour, when it comes into power has the backbone to do this.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-44437715349736188902022-06-30T11:50:00.000-07:002022-06-30T11:50:27.832-07:00
The Galle Face Beach
There was a routine in my husband’s home. Every evening, after coming home from work, Balan (my just-unwrapped husband) would take his parents to the Galle Face beach and park the car alongside all the other cars lined up, descanting families greedy for the evening air. He would then guide his father to the edge of the beach and the old man would walk the length of the beach and return to the car. Balan would accompany him on his slow walk while my mother-in-law stayed in the car. He is a good man, I would say to myself, about this stranger whom I had married.
Balan insisted that I accompanied the threesome in the evenings; so I would sit in the back of the car with the mother and look at the crowds on the beach. Far away and across from us, the limousines drew up in the grand portico of the Galle Face hotel. Behind us the traffic speeded towards the Fort, the shopping enclave of the rich in the city.
I begged out of the daily Galle Face parade after a few days, much to the consternation of my husband I started searching for reading matter. An addiction was waiting to be fed. In desperation at finding nothing, I went up to the disused storeroom at the top of our home. There was a Dutch almirah there with a glass front; I opened it and the silverfish ran about frantically, as old books with yellowed pages tumbled out. All on religion, but I had reached a point of no return. I had to find reading material.
I grabbed a copy of the translation of Bhagawath Geetha in English, blew away the dust on it and took it down. Next day, my sister-in-law came by to tempt me to a dance. She saw the book I was reading and had a good laugh. ‘On your honeymoon and you are reading Geetha,’ she chortled.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that honey and moon would not be enough for me. I was addicted to the printed word. And I did go for that dance where fell in love with the joyous rhythms of the Singhalese Byela.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-744846456840358122022-06-22T07:48:00.000-07:002022-06-22T07:48:08.030-07:00Colombo, Here I Come!
In 1957, the country was called Ceylon. When I heard from my family that I was going to get married to this man from Ceylon, my first thought was, what do we know about him? His job, his degree, his salary, my family had investigated all that – as to the man himself, zilch. I had seen him once, when he came for the ‘seeing’. He was quiet, didn’t speak to me, and kept his head down.
For us middle-class girls, there was only one way of getting out of affectionate incarceration in the family home – marriage. I had graduated three years ago, was not allowed to work, did not meet men. Many of us escaped through ma<b></b>rriage. It was a lottery.
My mother-in-law was the familiar mistress of my new home in Colombo; my father-in-law was quite ga-ga at the age of eighty-three, and they lived in<i></i> this enormous half-empty, house in a posh part of Ceylon, near Colpetty. The bed-rooms were the size of throw-ball courts and the kitchen was ruled over by a young Tamil girl called Pakyam, who did not want me anywhere near her territory.
My kind sister-in-law, Kamala, lived a five-minute walk away, and made a concerted effort to take me around, generally introduce me to the Colombo-7 posh set, to which she belonged. I wore whatever came to hand from my small suitcase. I washed my knee-length hair every morning as Malayalee girls did, put Cuticura powder on my face, and a red pottu on my forehead. Eye make-up was the ‘Mayyi’ made for me by my maternal grandmother, mixing clean soot off a new mud-pot in gingelly oil.
On my first Saturday in Colombo, Kamala decided to take me to the Eighty club, where all the socialites met to compare clothes, jewellery and circulate gossip. When she came to pick me up, I was already dressed and waiting. White cotton sari and a green blouse. Kamala looked at me, up and down.
'Haven’t you got any silks?' she asked me. I opened my suitcase. She prodded and put everything back, except one of my three silk sarees. She didn’t look happy. I knew I had been found wanting. She came again the next Saturday (full marks for effort) and invited me to dinner at her best friend’s home.
Kamala’s husband was an imposing man, and I looked forward to a whole evening in his company. We generally enjoyed talking politics, Indian and Ceylonese. He had occupied slots in the higher echelons of Ceylon Government and had interesting stories to tell. And an infectious laugh. He was also tall and handsome, which was a bonus.
This time, Kamala insisted my blouse did not match my sari and fretted till she found one that got close.
The next time she invited me, I begged off. This was all beyond me.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-39589081469659225642022-06-19T10:43:00.001-07:002022-06-19T10:43:34.004-07:00My Conjoint FamilyMy Conjoint Family
I am an addicted news-worm. It annoys my daughter, (“The news hasn’t changed since the last half hour, has it?”) She is a sports addict. She shares the living room T V with me. So, I bought a T V for my bedroom. However, watching T V in the bedroom does not compare remotely to the pleasure of communal watching: squabbling over political opinions, taking tea breaks and realising how, we in this household, with all its shortcomings, flares- up of temper, avoidance of chores, not respecting private spaces… still prefer being together (most of the time) than in our separate ivory towers. This applies only to those past teen age. The one teen in our home has original methods of adult-avoidance.
In Thalassery, where I grew up, we had one radio with an uncertain reception. I listened to All India Radio, Kozhikode and Delhi, but my cousin, Mani, who shared radio time with me had little time for it. She wanted filmi music. When things got unsolvable, I fell back on my reading habit.
Books have got me through a great many tough times. I thank my Achan who quietly descanted an untidy smorgasbord of books on me without my noticing. He did not consider my age or abilities at any time; the books were his reading. I remember reading (if you can call struggling through pages of complicated new ideas, reading) Bertrand Russell’s CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS and MARRIAGE AND MORALS when I was fifteen years old. For dessert I had school girl stories by Angela Brazil, which I hid from Achan. Hockey Pam and Netball Nellie reigned. H G Wells’s tome, the HISTORY OF THE WORLD put all of it in perspective.
By the time Achan gave me FREEDOM AND ORGANISATION by Russel in two hefty parts three years later, I was a convert. I remember C E M Joad, in passing – he too was part of my enforced education, until I got used to abstractions and began to have my own opinions.
Today my daughter is in the West End at a musical, my son is submerged in Mathematics scripts to mark and my granddaughter is doing her usual distancing from all things adult. This involves many hours of sleeping and not responding to being called.
So, books – in the plural, both in soft backs and on Kindle. ANARCHY by William Darlymple, discussing as it does the inglorious British rule in India, is for me, very personal. It was the time when my father went to jail for his views, war raged in Europe and in S E Asia, and I was seven years old. There was rice rationing, sugar rationing, cloth rationing ---. Kerosene was difficult to find. We were piss-poor with our only wage-earner incarcerated at His Majesty’s pleasure
Exams were cancelled because there was a paper shortage, hip hip hurray. The house went vegetarian for survival
She died soon after. She was my surrogate mot, Velyamma grew spinach, Okra and Brinjals in our garden. Velyamma, sitting on a rickety bench on the veranda, counting her coins, which she kept in her pan box, was a regular sight.
By the time Achan was released from jail two years later, Velyamma had stomach ulcers. Achan lost his mother and sister while he was in jail.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-40769173709886956412022-05-15T05:44:00.000-07:002022-05-15T05:44:39.697-07:00My Ancestral VillageMy Ancestral Village
We, my Achan and I, lived in Thalasseri, only four miles from the houses where
my father and my mother were born, themselves only ten minutes' walk away from each other. As I grew up, I visited these villages – Kodiyeri and Moozikkara, about once a year, when my mother’s family came on annual leave (my grandfather was a guard in the South India Railways, posted to Thamabaram in the outskirts of Madras, now called Chennai.)
There was no electricity in the villages, and I was scared of the dark in the compounds. I didn’t really know my mother’s siblings very well though they were roughly my age l; in any case they looked too smart for me – they had pretty school uniforms and were self-sufficient in a way I was not, at seven years of age. The fact that they spoke with a slight Tamil accent some of the time did not help. I would spend two days with them and go home to my lighted-up, Court Road, with buses lumbering past, and fishermen bringing fresh catch to our backdoor. Clearly, I missed the noise and bustle.
Later, much later, I would walk straight from college to my aunt’s house. At the edge of our town, you stepped suddenly into a vast green expanse of banana and tapioca plantations that went on – and on – and on. My aunt’s home had a huge compound with a pool in one corner. She had cows and calves and lived off the land. Lunch would often be red spinach and cucumber straight off her vegetable patch. Supper may be jack fruit mash. The food was alien but the moong dhal and rice were familiar. And her unhusked rice fresh off her fields was slightly pink in colour and delicious.
The evenings started early with the sound of children in the neighbourhood chanting evening prayers. The dark, when it came, on moonless nights was total and the silence deafening.
Before the town bus service started in Thalassery in the early fifties, we walked on the narrow bunds between the paddy fields to reach my aunt’s house. When the new shoots were planted, with the start of the rainy season, you saw miles of tender green stretches floating in pink water.
I wanted to grow up quickly and find the words to describe that village. I am still trying.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-24623284842149260762022-05-05T11:14:00.001-07:002022-05-05T11:14:27.841-07:00On the Subject of Birthdays
Over the past few years, I have insisted that my family do not give me birthday gifts, instead the money should be donated to their favourite charity. At 87 I should be clearing out the cupboards, not collecting more junk.
They can, if they prefer, pay for something I have bought for myself anyway.
(This is me being cunning,) So Kitta and Manju are paying for the John Snow book, THE STATE OF US, which I have pre-ordered, and THE CONCERT FOR GEORGE video, which brought so many of the big singers together. I keep listening to Billy Preston singing ‘My Sweet Lord.’ I have reached that harmless age!
I have to remember that birthdays were non-events in my childhood in Thalassery. Velyamma (aunt) would not give me my morning coffee until after my bath, and prayers at the household shrine, evidenced by a smear of sacred ash on my forehead. There were no new clothes, gifts, or fanfare. Achan did not notice; in any case the date of the birthday varied from year to year because it was my birth-star-sign that was significant, not the date. So, the day could fall on any date between mid-April and mid-May.
It was my husband, Balan, who started the gift-giving when our boys were three and five years old. Balan was brought up in Colombo, in an affluent home, which of course took gifts seriously. It was all a question of habit and expectation.
Life in Thalassery was pared down; my father had a large joint family to sustain. He was determined to make me understand that. Later, when he stopped practising (he was a lawyer) he handed the responsibility towards the clan to me. I had to pay for roof-rethatching, school fees etc for some relatives. Gradually, that generation died, or their children became prosperous; they no longer needed me.
As I became old, then older, my children indulged me, until I called time on that. I have a new rule in my house: on birthdays my children must obey all my ’commands.’ Fetch tea, indulge me to watch news several times a day, not complain when I play Indian music loudly in the sitting room…
This works!
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2517313179198333058.post-1367964304640664652022-04-22T02:36:00.003-07:002022-04-22T07:03:43.069-07:00The Boris Charade
The Boris Charade
Today I watched the ’tangled web of deceit’ within the Conservative Party ducking and weaving for dear life; in the end they threw Boris out with the bathwater. After all, they had their own political fortunes to safeguard. Constituents were getting a little restive.
The mighty Steve Baker, he of the powerful ERG, spoke at length in Parliament today. He squirmed and slithered and, in the end, decided Johnson was too toxic to stay near.
However, what escapes me is why the Tory M Ps could not bring themselves to shed the P M weeks ago, when it was clear that he had no respect for the truth, and he was a liability. Did he respect the M Ps who were propping him up? I doubt it. For Boris, it appears, the whole thing is a huge joke, and that offensive smirk never leaves his face.
Now we have the ethics committee investigating a serving P M. How far have we descended!
Meanwhile, Boris is in India, in good company, I must say. Modi and Johnson must agree on so many things, including Modi’s abhorrent treatment of the Muslims in India. I cringed watching the charade: Boris in turban and Indian garments, Boris paying his respects to the image of Gandhi. Boris being greeted with flowers on his arrival in India. Jesus Wept!
Modi has debased India to the point of no-return.
anandnair-fireflieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16221713030141648391noreply@blogger.com0