The Bully Boys

Two bully boys, equally ignorant and fixated on themselves, facing off at each other on the school playground. Let's hope somewhere in the background there are a few wise men and women holding them back.
   One shows off his Mother-of-all Bombs, the other watches his army goose-step with all his metal on show.
   And where is the Headmaster in Turtle Bay doing meanwhile? Keeping Schtum. When did this person get so emasculated? The boys show off their muscle in Pyongyang and Afghanistan and the headmaster looks away. He has no answers.
   The press thinks it is a news bonanza for them. They lost touch with reality a long time ago.
   Let's hope our PM will stay away from this playground fight.

To Face or not to Face.

'That is the question.' I did not take any notice of Facebook until I went to India some ten years ago and my somewhat-younger-than-me aunt complained that she couldn't get news to me or of me unless I put myself out there on FACE. So, after considerable heart-searching, I did.

   And yes, Facebook is how I know what is happening to my Indian family. Births, deaths, marriages, jobs, get-togethers... Sometimes I have a sense of loss in that I am never part of any of this, that I don't even know the new generation - confident, up-beat, seeking enjoyment, having fun, in ways my generation would never have imagined. For instance, we did not go on holidays, we just went back home to family when we had time.

   But now, I am getting more than a little upset about the presumptuousness of Facebook, the intrusions, the constant heigh-ho about birthdays of friends and acquaintances. So I made some rules of my own: I never respond to birthday prompts, I don't distribute friend-lists or seek friends...

   I quickly erase the year-in-reviews and the unsolicited photos after they put up the photo of my son, who had died recently. It took me many days to get over that unexpected image. Leave me alone, I think.

   The adverts annoy me, there are so many. The suggested posts and suggested friends irritate me. But I get priceless information about close friends and family.  And there is the rub. I can't get rid of one without losing the other.

   Fake news Trump style too. And sometimes THEY take me straight to a porn site. It would be large on my list to not see any news about Trump or BREXIT for a week or two. One way would be to abjure ALL screens for that time. Now, there's a thought. My kind of Lent.

   So, for the moment, it's on with FACE for a while longer, but it's on probation. Watch this space, as they say.



   

    

The British Sense of Values

The British Sense of Values

We hear this periodically. Some unfortunate foreigner, or group of foreigners don't have this particular grace, according to some value-pundit.

   Starting from the assumption that all men are created equal (even in America, but may not be treated as such by police officers.) I logically also assume that all mean must mean all men, women and children, including the poor old losers like me. In which case, in all places and nooks of the world, populated by the rainbow hues of humanity, there must be value systems that the 'good' proclaim and practice, and other value systems that the 'wicked' adopt and also practise.

   It then follows that all over the world people understand what is good and bad, irrespective of whether they acknowledge it or not, and proceed to abide by it or not.

   Now - puleese, some value-elevated British person, define for me the 'British sense of values.' Do we mean the ones practised by Teresa May, Modi, Blair, The Salvation Army, The police and the foot-ball coaches...? Have the values changed from the time India was plundered, its young men (including my father) imprisoned, some hung for standing up to the British Raj? Has Christianity re-adjusted, re-wrote its best practices. No more burnings clearly. Are we going to get a new Tablet like that of Moses?

   In my long life I have had the good luck to travel to various disenfranchised parts of the world and I have found the same diversity of values preached and practised as I have found in England.

   Don't for a moment equate the ISIS with the average generous, friendly, kind muslims that I grew up with in Kerala. If women are raped in Delhi that particular abomination is world-wide too. The press is not particularly honest, the Governments are partisan and self-serving and the likes of NIgel Farage are worried about the British sense of values getting diluted. Ah well, there might be values that need to be thrown away altogether. Like talking about immigrants as though they are barely human. Shame on us!

OMG - The Colour!

The colour. Oh my God, the colour!  I had forgotten the colours of my homeland.

Coming out of the aircraft in Chennai, I felt zombie-like. The steel-grey-pretending -to-be-blue of the seating inside the cabin, the subdued black and beige of the stewards, all conspired, no doubt together with jet-lag, to make me feel as though I was swimming underwater.

   And then came Chennai. Magenta flashed from saris, duppattas, children's clothes and adverts. It was accompanied by brazen green of all kinds: grass green, cow-dung green, peacock green and all things in between. Mingling with these were many shades of blue and bold mustard and yellow. Not to mention the saffron of the holy men. No rainbow ever got close to this.

   I looked at myself - navy blue top, slightly lighter blue trousers, blue cardigan, blue back-pack. For heaven's sake! When did I lose my colours and get drab and boring like this? I remember the days when I flaunted all the colours in front of me, but would I dare now? Another thing that has been bludgeoned out of me by the cold U K weather and the blues and beige's and blacks of working England.

   When I travelled to England in 1974, running away from an unsatisfactory marriage, I wore a forest green, full length crimplene skirt with a huge, animal and palm-tree design on it. With it went an orange satin blouse and a red coat. What utter confidence! And open sandals, despite the freezing February blast into which I landed 

   When I started working in Beauchamps School, I still wore the clothes I always wore in Zambia. Dark pink trouser suit, skirts in many shades of bright green... I must have looked like a migrating bird which had wandered into the staff room by mistake. I tried tights once. Trying to get my legs into the tights made my room-mate laugh. I gave up on that, thank God.

And then slowly the colours dripped away from me. Probably with my self-confidence. I adopted the blues and the beige's, and the stare that looks through and past people. I watched out for my vs and my wubble us, for which I took much teasing.

   I tried to be really English, adopting lipstick and rouge and matt-finish light pink powder, till Raghu, my son, looked at me and said,'Doesn't do anything for you, Mum.' And Kitta helpfully pointed out, 'It's Mum's English face.' I gave up. The make-up disappeared into the back of the dressing table drawer and the home-made black mayyi for the eyes came out. I stuck with that. But the clothes continued to be apologetic as befits a migrant.

   Today I decided that I shall go back to the bright shades of my youth. After all, at eighty-one no one's really looking at me. Next summer I shall take my brightest saris out and flaunt them past the dour shoppers and shop-keepers.

   Thankfully, I discarded the polite reticence of my adopted land very quickly. I now accost women, children, dogs and telegraph poles alike. I smile at people indiscriminately and for no reason. Sometimes I win and make a new friend. It takes time, but time I have at this point. So hello neighbour, passer-by, child, dog -Happy Christmas!

   

   

Money, Money, Moneeey...

Was definitely not funny, Chaos reigned with the de-monetisation, as they called it.

Last time I went to my bank in India my rather lovely bank manager gave me half my 'entitlement' (my money had become inaccessible overnight) for that week, and said, 'You don't really need more, do you?'  Made me think. 

 I was travelling all over India all of the next week and wondered whether I'd find myself in some god-forsaken village with no access to coffee-money. But she was right and I managed without. A quick exercise in budgeting. I bought one Paragon biriyani rather than two, which my greed required, and one packet of Halwa for gifts rather than two. I gave my maids old thousand-rupee notes, which they could legitimately change at the bank counter and felt a bit guilty. At the bank they may not get the same treatment I got - coffee with the manager and all services done by her very efficient assistants for me.

   In Chennai, though the new thousand and five-hundred notes had now arrived, people were still struggling. The taxi driver could not provide change and neither could the small way-side merchants from whom every-one usually bought their vegetables and fruit. They lost out.

   So did the fishermen in Kochi, who could not sell their catch to the local buyer.From day to day the goal-post was shifting and we had no idea what we could manage the next day. Back-packing tourists just gave up as they found they could not pay for way-side purchases. I waved my Barclaycard around a lot and lost hugely in the exchange. This could be done in the big stores only.

   The queues in the early weeks were long and exhausting; eventually people left a marker - chappals, plastic bag, newspaper... and sat near by. Rumours that a few millionaires had shifted huge mountains of money overseas weeks before the cash-drought made the average citizen very angry. And the farmers in remote villages did not even realise that their market-economy had gone bust, as they continued to trade in valueless paper money long after the demonetisation. 

   A wealthy friend of mine mentioned in passing that two BJP apparatchiks had asked him to launder money for them. He was amused.

   I am not a Modi supporter - God forbid. But I did think the fundamental idea was good though the execution was disorganised and untidy. It also hit the poor most.

   Then again - Indians are good at getting past rules. There is a whole underground network building up, finding ways to get past the new rules.

Why do I think only the poor got wiped out with this demonetisation trial? As usual?

The Ikea Experience

The Ikea experience

(For Val)

Two things reminded me of you recently. So this bit of writing is for you, Val Johnson. In this world where all my friends are high-end earners (and that includes my children) the only thing I can give that is worthwhile is my writing.

So I went to Ikea a few weeks ago. I needed nothing from there – or anywhere else – at that moment, but Manju needed shelving for her daughter’s room, so I tagged along like ballast. In India they would have called me Vattipalam, the side of the mango, the bit that is left when the two big fleshy bits have been cut off, but you don’t want to waste that thin sliver on either side. That about describes me. Can’t throw it away, but could well do without.

When I go to Ikea, I have to give myself a capped budget. It was fifty pounds this time, but for unknowable reasons the bill in the end was £82 pounds. Thank God for plastic money. What did I buy? Odd shaped pyrex dishes to look at and admire, not much use to serve anything much. A wok for stir-fries, of which we have three already. A mug for morning tea- a lovely one, blue flowers on white, cheap porcelain, chips if you breathe on it. Cost a pound. Can't complain.

Through it, especially when I saw the twisted Happy Ferns, I thought of you. I hope you and your family are happy and well.

Afterwards I had tea and a ham sandwich at the cafeteria. I fetched this myself as Manju was somewhere in the basement tackling flat-packs. If she was there I would have sat back, hugging age and let her do it all. In fact I get away with her doing a lot of things for me, which I can do myself: that tea at nine in the evening, driving me here and there, making my bed…

You and I, we used to sit at a window-table in Ikea, watching the world streaming in and out. I smiled at a few strangers, hoping for some signs of friendliness, but in this instance, failed. I have my victories. The other day I struck up an unlikely conversation with two jobbing gardeners I didn’t know from Adam. Notch one for Anand.

I feel someone should hold master classes for English people who are tight-arsed, wary of strange old biddies, who smile for no reason.  Teach them that smile should be the default position? You and I together?

I Have a Thing about Food

I have a thing about food. Amazing how old, child-hood hangups hang (sorry!) around. I am not able to waste that last half-spoon of rice at the bottom of the pan, the cold pizza left over from my grand-daughter's evening meal, the beef curry in which all the beef has been eaten and only gravy  (and what a gravy!) is left. Today I shall spend an hour making banana cake to resuscitate two almost-dead, spotted, large, sick bananas. And then I shall worry when the cake is still there three days from now. The life-span of banana cake is inversely proportional to the heating in the kitchen. And my daughter switched the heating on this week when she saw me digging out my winter-socks from the storage box.

   I remember the refugees from the partition of India. How ever did they reach this far South in Kerala? They spoke Hindi and communicated with hand-signals. This, of course was the time of serial starvation in India. I don't think the present generation of whizz-kids, rich on corporate salaries have any idea of what misery that was.
   
   The ragged, broken families went from house to house, standing mutely in front of the middle-class verandas. I would put my current book down and try to talk to them. All they did was make the universal sign of hunger, fingers supplicating in front of the mouth, eyes beseeching, while the children held on to the mother's clothes. That deluge of starving people carried on through the early fifties and died down very gradually. Now, there are no beggars in Thalassery, though you can still see them in bigger towns. They are locals, not broken families of homeless refugees.

   My grandmother got into the habit of saving the starchy water drained from the cooked rice. This was normally used to starch clothes, but she commandeered it for the beggars. She would take a big handful of rice from the pot furtively and put it into the thick water. She also kept the empty coconut shells to use as bowls for them. Disposable bowls, which could then be burned for fuel.

   One day I came upon my cousin Nani, scraping the bottom of the rice-pot late at night when all the others had gone to bed. It was 1944 and rationing was at its dismal worst. I had been asleep, but when I found her missing in the room, I crawled off my mat and went looking for her. When I saw what she was doing I picked up a wooden spoon to scrape with her. 'No,' she said, 'the neighbours should not hear us. They will know we are short of rice in a lawyer's house.' This was the time when my father was in jail for irritating the British Government with speeches and with leading protest marches.

   Devi, our maid lived next door in a small mud hut. She got the leftovers, all thrown into a bowl and left overnight. Generally bits of Okra, tiny bits of rice and lentils scraped from our evening meals. She took it home to feed her daughter, who was my age.

   So, to this day, I don't take food for granted. I cook too much, so there is no dearth. And then force my family to eat it for another meal, and then another.