'Are we staring at our phones too much?

My husband, lets call him N is what you could call a ‘screen junkie’. It’s a deadly affliction that can damage a few grey cells, distort vision and even break up a marriage. He has this perpetual need to stare at some screen all the time; TV, a phone, a laptop, anything. A recent study concluded that the average youngster in India spends 10 hours of his day watching some screen. They were talking about N.

Its 8:oo AM .The phone buzzes signaling a flurry of incoming emails. With eyes half shut and crouched in the darkest corner of the sofa with a teacup precariously hanging down the crook of his hand, N sifts through the mails, mentally planning the day (that’s what he claims). While sitting on the pot, it’s Facebook scrolling time. In between he attends to a few Whatsapp pings. At office it’s another painful eight hours of drubbing away on the laptop, multitasking with several pages open. Back home at 6 pm, he flops on the recliner and starts playing FIFA on the Xbox, his eyes transfixed on the animated Arsenal men. And as he ‘distresses’ I sit beside him and talk to his right ear, recounting the day with a motley of news, gossip, and grievances.

 When we first moved into our apartment all the furniture were arranged against the wall, pointing at the TV, as if to say that the guests who come in should also watch the on going cricket match with minimal interruption. I suggested a conversation pit, to arrange the furniture in right angles so that we wouldn’t have to lean forward while talking or talk to each other’s side profiles. N finally gave in, but not without making some disparaging comments about womenfolk having to talk all the time instead of just chilling. Our conversations are now punctuated by sitcom laugh tracks and Arnab hollers through our dinners. Sometimes we call it a day by binge watching some television show on the laptop.  The iPad is another story. Everyone I know strongly condemns the use of it by children until they have one of their own. With parenthood the iPad transforms into this magical device that gives one some ‘me time while our child is busy learning to make cup cakes with Barbie.

Stuck at the traffic signal or waiting in a queue?  We fish out our smartphone and start reading an inane forward on a chat group or analyse our friend’s photo shopped display picture. What starts of checking one trailer on YouTube slowly cascades into a chain of random videos. Time flies by. The other day at the endoscopy Centre, while I was busy choking on the tube that was lunging into my stomach, the doctor was hell bent on giving me a tour of my insides on the TV monitor to my side.  A screen to the rescue once again. “Can you see your heart pulsating against your esophagus?” he said. My dying wish was not be a witness to own heart stop beating.

Until the smart phone happened I loved sitting in airports for hours, for the sheer people watching potential it offers- the whole gamut of human idiosyncrasies and relationships on display.  But these days I catch the young engrossed in swiping right and left on Tinder profiles much like a videogame while married souls like me kill time by checking what’s for dinner on the ’Fresh Menu’ app.

Whatever happened to good old reading and staring into empty space? Spa rituals and Suryanamaskars must make way for the more important digital detox. When I did suggest it to N the other day, he looked at me flummoxed as though I was accusing him of infidelity.

It’s unfortunate that for most of us work is on the laptop. For instance, this column isn’t going to write by itself. But have you caught up on this new Game of Thrones fan theory that is doing the rounds? Maybe I will it read now, while my brain gently warms up.

Originally published in the column 'Pop Pourri', The New Indian Express, Bangalore 29th Aug 2015

Death by love/ Reel love?

The cherubic heroine gets into the city bus without taking a second glance. The hero looks at her with surprise and remorse. The bus starts and catches speed. Our good-looking young man drops his bike in haste and makes a last minute dash for the bus. Love is all he needs he realizes. As he paces up the road panting he makes a handsome leap towards the door. He traps the heroine between his athletic arms and peers into her eyes. Catcalls, woots and shrieks reverberate the theatre. Dulquer Salman has just managed to make a thousand hearts pound with love. Mine just cringes and wants to duck for over.

This is a scene from a movie where a young and working couple, soon after a couple of coffees and a bunch of cutesy zingers decide to move in to a plush PG accommodation, replete with artistic walls and dotted with Fabindia furniture.  Predictably they tumble into love and holy matrimony thereafter. But were there scenes to show the deepening of the relationship? No. Perhaps the mundane and the triviality of everyday romance? Definitely not. The director doesn’t care to tell us what makes the couple tick, or what happens after the love butterflies in the stomach flutter away. But yes for all fluffy romance the end cure seems to be marriage he seems to say. This from a director who made the mature ‘Alaipayuthey’ is a cause for worry. “Five steps backwards!” I shout. But should I blame him? He will ask me, doesn’t art imitate life?

I inhabit a world colonized by digital natives who spend way too much time perusing though social media. I live in the era where beauty is routinely instagrammed and life is filtered to perfection. We crave for instant pings and faster Internet. It’s a generation that places enormous importance on the visual aesthetic and will therefore lap up any movie as long as it looks visually stunning. Perfect locales, exuberant cinematography and great looking actors. We will pack the theatre to the rafters. Superficiality be damned.

Personally, I don’t remember when I took the monumental step from being an incurable romantic to one who cannot watch a romantic movie without wanting to sigh every half an hour or hold my head in agony. I furiously skip the ‘Romedy’ channel on TV. I deplore romance novels. Valentine’s Day brings out my worst. But this from a girl who cried while watching ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’, and worse ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.’  Not my proudest moment, but its been a learning curve. Hence there is hope. Through my long road to salvation, I have learnt that most women suffer from a delusion, a misconstrued idea of love thanks to these picture perfect rom coms. Women have high expectations out of love, just as men have about women, and their bodies.

But all one is needs is good old reality to ruin life. A good lashing from a heartbreak, a couple of failed relationships and evolution occurs.

Have I become the cynic, the one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing? Truth is painful, but it sets you free. You soon realize that no guy isn’t ever risking boarding a running bus for you. No one ever waits in the pouring rain just to hear you mouth ‘I love you’. Guys who write songs for you are seldom found and ones who remember very moment they spent with you do not exist.

Movies preach love. But they never tell you that love comes in all shapes and sizes. Some times distorted, and most of the time oblivious to the naked eye or guarded heart. Or that the best kind of love is finding a person who you can talk to for hours and be comfortable sharing silence. They never tell you that romance is not just a phantom kiss or a stolen glance. It’s feeling alone yet not lonely. Mostly, it’s becoming a nicer person.

Now that old age has set in and wisdom has bloomed, let us bring on the melancholy ones, the dark, somber movies that have layers to analyse and make one sob.

-Originally published in the column 'Pop Pourri', The New Indian Express, Bangalore August 27th 2015

Why so Serious ?

It was an idle Tuesday afternoon. A minor banter with a friend on Whatsapp snowballed into a furious row. I was almost teary eyed and had just composed a long essay presenting my side of the argument and posted it on the chat window. I glanced furtively as the two grey ticks turned teal. He was ‘typing.’  “LOL”. He went off line. My tears turned into new shade of rage. I pinged him incessantly determined to squeeze out a longer and more satisfying reply.   He did get back but he retorted, “It’s after all a Whatsapp fight, why are you taking it so seriously?”

Whatsapp conversations. Likes on Facebook. Zingers on Twitter. Are we supposed to take them to heart? Or do we dismiss them as casual gestures that are meant to be seen for that instance and forgotten the next?

The landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of USA saw an eruption of translucent rainbow profile pictures on Facebook through out India. While most saw it an expression of their solidarity with the judgment and as a positive step towards gender equality, a faction of the population dubbed it as yet another ‘cool’ fad that people blindly resorted to without understanding the real ramifications or realising that our country is grappling with bigger issues. When our India is far from such verdicts, why celebrate  ‘Americanism ‘and American popular culture they seemed to say.  It is true that much before USA, 29 countries other countries had already legalised same sex marriage!

 I am happy sitting on the fence. What’s the big deal? Yes people changed their profile pictures to say it’s a positive step for mankind. Yes it was for just a day. Yes I definitely think its mob mentality and most of them don’t have clue about what they are doing.  But should we squabble about it so much?  Most acts on social media are fleeting and transient. They last till the next post on ‘Game of Thrones’ becomes viral or our friend posts yet another model like selfie from yet another exotic location. Public memory is inversely proportional to Internet traffic.  We do now inhabit a world colonised by digital natives, where people believe in the adage “if its not on Facebook it doesn’t exist” and when beauty is routinely instagrammed and filtered to perfection, the biggest compliment I’ve got was when a friend remarked that I looked just like my Facebook profile picture!

Deepika Padukone made a super stylised video with flowing hair and a stoic demeanour hoping she would be seen as the next bra burning feminist scion. Instead she was vociferously attacked on all media platforms. Every line was scrutinised, dissected and deplored.  People spent hours debating the video’s pseudo feminism and elitist portrayal. But I ask, are the arguments on social media worth our time? Yes we all emerge as hotheaded and opinionated bastions of righteousness. We refuse to take crap. But how many of us truly assimilate what we witness on social media and take it to the supposed next logical level; constructive behaviour perhaps? No, we like to play out a mini tamasha akin to ‘The Newshour’, where everyone agrees to disagree and nothing concrete ever emerges from the debate.  We sleep over it .We move on to something else that catches our fancy.

When neither of us walk the talk, why talk so much? As someone very wise pointed out, on Facebook of course, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and a social media over reaction.

- Originally published in the column 'Pop Pourri',  The New Indian Express, Bangalore- 26th Aug 2015

Lessons from a cartoon dog

It was my third unsuccessful attempt in the day to shut the clothes drawer. A woolen top was now wedged between two draws and was testing my patience. While I tugged at the cloth with one arm, the other tops were spilling out on the floor. “I am sick of this draw,” I announced. “ High time we stop buying clothes.”

My little niece who was up until then doodling with her crayons quietly, looked up bewildered, on why I was spewing poison at her clothes. With pretty strawberries and caricatures of ‘Hello Kitties’ and Mini Mouse the clothes were in fact cute.

“ Are you irritated Aunty?” she asked.  “ Look at this mess,” I yelled in affirmation.  “If you are irritated, just stop. Breathe. And then think,“ she commented rather nonchalantly.  I was stumped. Say hello to my four-year-old niece Dia. She went back to colouring the ladybird. “What does that mean, Dia?” I quizzed her secretly hoping that it was just something she heard it in passing and was not aware of the gravity of what she was saying. “It means you stop cleaning the drawer. You take a few deep breaths and then think about it. “ It couldn’t have been more succinct. The draw was now fully open with most of its contents tumbled down.  But I had more important things to attend to than a draw to deal with. My LKG going niece who still sits perched on her mother’s lap to drink milk form a sippy cup was giving me life lessons.

“That’s good advice, I will follow it,” I retorted. “But will you do the same the next time you get angry with Amma or Appa?” I asked. I was pushing the envelope. Dia’s tantrums were getting commonplace and she was aware of it herself. “Sure, “she said confidently. “Make a note of it on your cell phone and tell me the next time I get angry,” she quipped gesticulating at my indispensable smart phone.

Later that evening when I slowly cajoled her she revealed to me that she heard this on TV, from a show called ‘Blue’s clues ‘ on Nickelodeon where a big dog called blue with the help of his master Steve finds solutions for everyday problems. The other day she used the word ‘humongous’ to describe the pile of books lying astray on my table and the day before pointed at ‘Cummulo Nimbus’ clouds while peeping out of the car window. Pepe the pig had told her.

 It is true that the adorable Tom and Jerry has a lot of violent content and the infamous ‘Chotta Bheem’ perpetrates gender stereotypes. But sometimes children do seem to pick the ‘right’ portions from their seemingly superficial cartoon shows. Here was a vital piece of philosophy that Dia had not only picked up and absorbed but also learnt to apply at the opportune moment. I am sure I would have failed miserably had I been asked to use Zen to correct her shenanigans! The current fixation for many girls like Dia, in her cohort is Elsa, the snow queen from Disney’s biggest blockbuster ‘Frozen’. Frozen, apart from giving the hit song ‘Let it go’ has also given many young girls a perfect role model. Elsa is the stereotypical princess with a shimmering and enviable blue dress, long hair and pretty face but she is also fiercely independent, with a mind of her own. Instead of flitting around for the euphoria over first love and the perfect kiss from a prince charming, she finds that true love exists outside romance, that for her, it resides in her baby sister. Perhaps it’s sometimes good for health to look at media with a positive psychology spin.  Why go after yogic gurus when we can sit back in our lazy boys and learn how to stop. Think. And Breathe.

-  Originally published in the column 'Pop Pourri', The New Indian Express, Bangalore- 19th Aug 2015

100 Days of Maya

The Summer of 2015- now

Every summer I have a habit. It’s that time of the year, my birthday month when I sit by the swing and do some mental spring-cleaning, i.e. I take a mental stock of things. And given my obsession with making lists, I chalk up an exhaustive one. I make a list of the things I did in the last one year, segregate them from what I did new and the lessons I learnt. The good the bad and the ugly. And then after a good measure of over thinking and over analyzing I firm up my plans for the coming year. That year’s bucket list would comprise of anything, from personal character development goals to outlandish ones like visiting Greece. I then take a resolve to achieve them without cribbing away the rest of the 364 days about how I am getting old.

But not this April 2015. I am now a parent, an official custodian of a tiny little human who is counting on me to make her see that life is beautiful.

This summer has been about nothing else but getting ready to become a parent. I did not do anything. But yet feels like I did so much.

The Prelude

It was my turn. Lying in the stretcher with a nine and half month belly partially obstructing the face of my husband, I held his hand and whispered, “ I think it’s a girl”. 

“I think so too,” he smiled. Almost like a scene straight out of a movie, I was wheeled into the operation theatre just as he was escorted out.

After many months of gravity- defying- record vomiting sessions, (aptly named ‘hyperemesis gravidarum’) that pushed me into the depths of depression and occasional suicidal thoughts, I had reached the day that I was counting down for. The birth of my first child. The little baby who ate nothing but idly in utero during the three months of relentless vomiting. The baby who had made me smile, wiggling her tiny little fingers in the third month scan, just as I was losing hope.

 Pregnancy was never fun. They weren’t my days of glory. No pampering and no days of glowing. It was instead punctuated with “will I -wont I” anticipation of vomiting, excruciating gas trouble that poked at the ribs and adding cherry on the cake was a surgery to remove an ovarian torsion. She was a precious baby. A brave one who slept inside her mother’s tummy oblivious (or maybe she knew) of the surgeons slowly maneuvering a probe beside where she lay to remove a hemorrhaging ovary. She probably heard me whimper "Please don't die on me," just as I was losing consciousness.The nine months had been a life changing experience. The toughest that I had ever gone through, that no amount of pouring over pregnancy books, instant googling, or listening to worldly advice from every other person with or without uterus had prepared me for.

But it was getting over. They said I would forget everything when I see my baby’s face.

25^th Dec 2014, at 8:45 she was out. Our little ‘Christmas Miracle’. Bundled in a red fleece wrap, a squishy little pink face hidden under a white woolen cap, she was there. Our gift from Santa.

Maya. Magic. Illusion. My reality.

During the second half of my pregnancy, in those rare moments when I made a feeble attempt to enjoy it, we whiled away our time debating over the sex of the child. In fact it seemed like a national past time, with every other person who had   up until then doled out advice on vomiting, now had a theory backing their choice of gender. But for some strange reason, a reason foggy to me, I was convinced that I was carrying a boy. Perhaps it was a dream, of a green-eyed husband lookalike baby who gurgled in my sleep. The husband opined, “Raising a boy was easy work.” He would grow up on his own he said. With recent stories of child abuse and rape, to which largely girls were prey to, bringing up a girl will be a nightmare he believed. “I will have to invest in a gun,” he announced, rather dramatically. Maybe a tad sexist but definitely realistic.

 “But having a girl will build character. It will be a good learning experience for u,” I chided my husband who had grown up amidst boys and whose only experience living with a girl came after marriage.

But on the eve of the surgery, as I lay on the hospital bed staring at the fetal monitor that was blinking at 155 beats per minute, I caught my Doctor father hiding a smile, a wry smile that seemed to suggest that he knew the big secret.

 “ A 100 illustrated stories,” a fat cream book in faux leather that I had bought for my unborn child, in a rather crazy whim, flashed past my mind. “ To Maya “ I had scribbled in pencil, and stuffed it in my bookcase. It had been collecting dust for two years now. That was the moment of truth. Its Maya I said to myself.

Her

When I looked at her for the first time, groggy, eyes, shutting involuntarily under the effect of anesthesia, she looked like a little monk to me. A Tibetan monk with slit like eyes and puffy cheeks. I wanted to say “Dalai Llama” to the next pesky relative who asked me whom she resembled. This little human had come out of me. It was hard to digest. Combating my feelings of disbelief, and worn out by a gripping pain, my head was reeling.  The world seemed to be moving in super motion, with a steady stream of visitors trooping in unannounced and nurses barging in one after another and violently squeezing my breast to induce breast-feeding. All this while a family was busy laying claims on Maya’s nose, eyebrows and what not. I was sitting there feeling alone; amidst all the pandemonium with waves of confusion that were hitting unaware. Why am I sad when this is supposed to be the happiest day of my life? I questioned myself.  I am thrilled. Definitely. But why am I not flooded with affection for this little screaming monk? Am I weird? I pondered, wiping away the gush of tears. It seemed like a faucet was opened.  Can I do this? I still need my mother when I am sick, how can I be a mother now?

During the early days of marriage, I found it very hard to call the husband the husband. I even referred to him as my friend while booking a table at a restaurant.  (He is a friend also isn’t he?)  Friend ok. Boyfriend perfect. Husband? It felt odd and old. I looked at Maya and the same feeling tugged at my mind. Do I have to call her my daughter?  It felt strange. Do I have really have a daughter?  Of my own? Did god really trust me with that?  It was perhaps too late to philosophize or conduct post mortem.

If pregnancy was life altering, post delivery seemed like after-life. I plodded around with almost no recollection of how I lived prior to the birth of little miss. Everything was a blur. Of course the unsolicited advice that I had grown accustomed to, now quadrupled, but fortunately there was hardly any time to get irritated. Days blurred into nights and nights seemed longer than before. It did not take hours, not days, but weeks for this conundrum of mixed emotions to settle down, as I sat dealing with the excitement and more importantly the chronic lack of sleep. Meanwhile our poor unsuspecting Maya fed, pooped and slept on loop.

Mother

It’s been 100 days now. The more I get to know Maya, the more I get to know myself. I have forgotten what sleep is, I don’t remember the last time I savoured a meal in silence and my body aches to go to the spa everyday. However I seem possessed by a strength that I never knew existed and despite all the laboring for love, there is so much to look forward to. Maya’s swollen and slit like eyes have fanned out wide. Dense wisps of black hair have mushroomed on her forehead and she now breaks into a toothless, silvery smile. The feeling is ineffable.  Every time I get accustomed to her antics, she grows up a wee bit more, adds a new skill to her kitty and breaks into a smile again. The adventure begins all over.

In the process, I have also discovered a newfound appreciation for mothers. Mine. Yours. Every mother. The cynical daughter, who dismissed Mother’s Day as commercial and hypocritical, now feels good about being mother and overwhelmed on having an entire day dedicated to her. It dawns on me that one of the nights when I sat rocking little Maya, I have magically transformed into my own mother. I hold Maya the way she does, I sing the same lullaby. I am her. If I could muster up even a measly 10 % of the mother she is to me Maya would be lucky.

Life since Christmas has been a series of firsts. The first time she rolled over. The first time she responded to her name. The first time she flung her arms towards me, and first time I felt like a person who can brave the world and take care of this little person.  Beyond the button nose that curls like mine or the eyes that slant like the husband lies a beautiful little person with her own tiny personality. Her whims. Her fancies. She is exploring the world quietly. With each passing day I get to see a little more of her personality unfurl in front of me. Will she be stoic like the husband or bear my sentimentality? It waits to be seen. But mostly I hope she is like herself. Unique.

Motherhood for me has not been a flooding of love, but like a gentle fragrance that slowly wafts into the room and immerses one it, silently, peacefully.

The Future

As I stand in the balcony holding Maya, helping her soak in all the myriad sounds, sights and smells of the world that she has fallen headlong into, that would soon dissolve her into its wonders and predicaments I realize one thing. No amount of information (including this post) can ever prepare one completely for being a parent. You can never be totally ready. For good and bad, life changes forever. And strangely it has just begun.

Muse

Every writer needs a muse. Here is mine. A mango wood writing table that begs to be written on.

My own little space.

To sit ,shrouded in a swarm of memories.

To ponder.

 To doodle.

 To gaze in a state of limerence.

To chase the fireflies.

 To quilt my own chaos.

To forget.

To be free.