History for her

A couple of days ago I logged into spanfish.in and uploaded the 160+ pictures that I had taken of my daughter over the last 2000 odd days since she was born. I spent around 2 hours agonising over what I wanted to do with the pics, which were not really high resolution and hence not printable as photographs for an album.

I finally decided to order a photobook, paid Rs 750 inclusive of taxes and handling and waited quite excited. Yesterday I recieved the photobook. I had managed to arrange the photos in a manner where they started with her earlier ones and ended with the ones which are the latest. The low res ones are now postage stamp sized. These pics include one of the crow that (atleast Tamara believes ) comes home and crows for her everyday.

I gave it to Tamara last evening and since then she has been looking at the photos and making me tell her stories about each one of them. Stories about how the photo was taken, where, why, with whom, what was she doing? did she really do this? do that? its been an endless stream of events, which I imagine she re-lives in her little head.

I probably will now collect every photograph of the family and get them printed and keep them as family heirlooms for the next generation. They need to know the history of their family and there has to be a family story teller who narrates these stories.

I suppose this is how it was before this incredible invention that captures light and a moment in infinite flowing time was discovered. I think now that the frescoes of Ajanta, Elephanta, Aborginal prints of Australia are all pictures that were created to allow some father somewhere to tell stories to his next generation.

Unfortunately - I have very few pics of my growing up years. It was expensive then to get them printed, and cameras were so few that it was considered a luxury. One of these days I have to go to the family home in Pune (yes I am a Malayali who does not have an ancestral home in Kerala, but a family home in Pune) and go through my Dad's papers. I am sure there will be a treasure trove of history in there. The last time I went through these papers, I found a huge stack of old pictures of Dad's days as a labour union leader in Pune. The ones with George Fernandes, Madhu Dandavate and Datta Samant are the ones I treasure. I have to sit my mom down and get her version of this history written down. I started writing a fictionalised version of my parents life in Parayil House - somehow it has remained an incomplete work, maybe its not time yet.

Coming back to my daughter and her photobook, for her, the last 5 years are mysterious, she remembers little things from her brief life and reaffirms them by referring to the photos. I think it is the best gift one can give a child - a treasure of stories that go beyond Enid Blyton and Chota Bheem.

learning to drive a truck

My dad and maternal uncle tried their best to teach me cycling. Look straight ahead they said, keep handle straight and hold it like you hold a pencil they hollered. They gave up! my death grip on the handle bar caused me to lose balance and in those 3 months mom had to endure me and my numerous scratched, scraped, knees. Then one day, I managed to prop the cycle next to a rock and clamber on to the seat and then pedalled furiously, i was flying. Sure the first time I fly straight into a ditch and the next time into a handcart, I did survive and learn to ride a cycle, a beautiful BSA SLR. Yes the very same one that Kapil Dev borrowed from a kid my age to reach the stadium in the comic strip ad that appeared in Indrajal Comics. (to date i never learnt the monkey kick style of cycle riding or the push and hop on the seat style, my bad!)

I graduated to a scooter and then to a kawasaki bajaj 100 cc bike. It was always a breeze. Then we bought a second hand Maruti 800, and one had to unlearn the cycle / motobike art of riding and learn to sense and measure the 4 corners of the car. Until I had to drive a truck once. To date I do not have the guts to drive something bigger than a hatchback, I have tried and suffered all kind of cars. I think I have the mortal fear of killing someone. With a small car, its easier, you are the master, the lone rider, ranger, etc etc. The bigger the vehicle gets, the larger gets the risk which extends beyond me.

Whats the purpose of writing all of the above? Answer: working for a corporate is like driving that truck which I tried long ago.

You are not alone, your decisions are not your own, the accidents are not caused by you alone. So when you drive a truck you have to aware of the 4 extended corners of the vehicle, that you cannot really see. You have to use the gut, but get approvals for that gut feel, of whether you can turn, or cut lanes. (when on Haryana roads, this rule does not apply :p )

And you have to let go. Use that light hand that dad spoke of, that light hand that makes fluffy cakes.

Ten months and learning.

A book and winged victory

Been reading 'The Good Muslim' by Tahmima Anam, a Bangladeshi writer who is now a global citizen. The writing reminds me of reading a screenplay. I am at page no 75 as of this morning and I went through the fragrance of a pineapple field, a river and its fertile delta and a mango tree. And the common idiom that India shares with her neighbours.

Imagine the stories that are never told because they are not written in English. Of the books that are never going to get read because they were written in a language that is not common. Thank lord for writers in English who bring the local grit, mud, sand to the books they write in English, while keeping the taste of the country intact. This also brings me to that great subcontinent question: why are we divided if we share so much of history and habits.

And now at the fag end of a day filled with agitation, I stumble on this link : The Louvre Less Travelled. I have done this walk, seeked out the oddities in the Louvre while the masses went and gawked at the popular legends. It was done over two days, the first spent in understanding where we were and what we did and the second in seeking out these gems. If you ask specifically at the information centre, they will give you a list of these treasures.

It is a pleasure to be doing something other than thankless work.

Measuring Childhood per square feet

There are hoarding all over Mumbai and one assumes print campaigns in Times on India that asks "what is the carpet area of childhood?". The images are fantastic, neo modern painting with children playing, reading and having fun. While the other builders spoke of the gyms, airconditioned lobbies and spectacular highrises, Rustomjee Builders speaks of childhood, targetting the soft underbelly of parents who have children who are young and need that space to run around. Interesting!

Now what was the carpet area of my childhood? The first few years were spent in a village called Wagholi, around 25 kms outside Pune city in a hospital campus where my mom was deputed as part of her rural training program. The campus was sprawling, with stone buildings that had wooden slatted windows. My playmates were the children of the hospital staff and dad on weekly basis took me to the panchayat office ( am not sure what he was doing there) to watch Doordarshan Mumbai's news bulletin. The news reader was Pradip - i forget his surname, reading the current news at 7 30 from a inland letter. There used to be a huge tract of land just behind the hospital and that was our play ground. A group of 10-12 children and two dogs used to chase dragon flies, play cricket and turn into a dark shade of brick brown in the hot summer sun.

Then it was the Dr Ambedkar Colony at Deccan College in the cantonment areas of Pune. A semi private bungalow with a garden that had a huge jamun tree in its midst and two dozen odd guava and mango trees. I built my first tree house here, my first outdoor tent and had a zoo according to my mother. A koel, a mynah, a rabbit, a dog and a cat were my pets. After school one could vanish up the branches of the guava trees and read as many comics as one wanted.  Star Trek started on Doordarshan around the time and most of us would spend all our evenings pretending to search for aliens. It was a childhood of climbing trees, falling down, eating jamuns till the mouth turned purple and sour, making mango chutney and getting all the boys and girls together to cook a meal over open fire in the evening.

Dad was asked to move closer to his place of work, when TELCO Pimpri had labour problems from 1982 onwards. That was when we shifted to a "flat", 1200 sq ft of nothingness, stacked one on top of another, all 4 floors of them and all 350 buildings. We had moved upwards into a 'complex' with shops, markets and access to transport, school in the complex etc etc. But no playground!

My daughter who is 5 now thinks that the little amount of space we have around our building in Andheri West, when not covered by cars of the residents is her playground. There are trees but she does not want to climb them. She has been told by her friends that their moms have told them that if they climb trees, they would fall down and break their bones. Cannot argue with that.

So then, how do you measure the carpet area of childhood. Most likely answer is Rs 16500 per square feet at the Rustomjee property in Malad, or Rs 22000 per square feet at the JVPD one. Not a childhood 90% of parents can give their children. Not at that cost.