photopost and a recommendation

sometimes the sky even in delhi is Blue.

these are from my terrace that I'm going upto a lil bit more this winter. Peepul keeps taking root along the water pipes. 

Today was esp beautiful, cold breeze blue sky and strong sun, just like I like December to be. 

birds were playing with the wind, floating weightless.

Oh and yeah, do watch My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. and then look up Craig Foster's other works.

a strange encounter

i had gone to le marche in vasant vihar (a supermarket where the clientele is often the embassy crowd of expats and their friends) the other day. just wanted to pick up 2-3 things while i waited for my fried chicken at the korean place nearby. many of these supermarkets these years have more aisle-help than one needs, and they make themselves obvious, "Ma'am do you need any help" or some such. there was this young girl who asked me that and because I couldn't find where the garbage bags were I did ask her. now I know the sizes of the bins at home in inches, or actually the sizes of the bags i usually buy. but this place had all garbage bags sized up in cms. i couldnt remember the conversion from cms to inches. and i wasn't carrying my phone cos i often leave it at home now to save up on sanitizing it after public exposure. so i asked the young girl if she could please tell me how many cms were an inch. i think i said it in hindi cos i do know a lot of the help around are not fluent in english. she asked me in turn what the size of my bin was. i do get annoyed when ppl answer a request or a question with another one, so i was already beginning to lose my patience but i told her that i knew the size in inches but not in cms so could she please translate for me as i wasn't carrying my phone on me. she said she didnt know. i asked her if she had her phone as i wasn't carrying mine; she took one out of her pocket; i told her she could look it up on her phone. she opened her calculator app and said she couldnt see how. i suggested gently that she should open up a browser and search on google. i had to somehow say it more than once explaining that a lil bit. the trusted google blank page came alight, and she didn't know what to do after that. i was trying not to show my surprise/shock on my face, and i just tried to lead her to clicking on the search bar and asked her to type "inch to cms". she even missed the lil virtual keypad that appeared and didn't seem to know what to do with it. because of covid and keeping my hands off her phone i simply tried to point out to the keypad and asked her to click on i-n-ch . she got the i, but no more beyond. even after 3-4 attempts. i realised not only did she not know that she carried a trove of information in her pocket and did not know how to access it, she was also unaware of the english alphabet. what surprised me then that she wasn't using the phone in hindi. i kept my mouth shut though and simply gave up at that point. i just picked up a medium sized pack of bags and told her it was fine, and thanked her. i came home and told hubby, told my mom and sis the day after, and have been thinking about it since. all those statistics that count and estimate the spread of smartphones and internet access in developing countries and use them to imply how these devices empower people's lives, etc. etc. and this was not an old person who had missed the internet revolution and could never seem to catch up with it. this was a girl of probably 18-20 years of age, belonging to a generation of people who use smart devices like physical appendages to their bodies. yes, i understand she probably didn't know english, she probably didn't have much education, that it was probably a new phone too that she had just been able to afford. but it was right in her pocket, it was a not-cheap smartphone, right in her pocket, and she worked in a store where she would probably see and hear and learn a lot about how things and people commmunicate. i was stunned. i still am despite the fact that i sort of know that india is a country where paradoxes are abundant and where dichotomies often do overlap. i was stunned at what i saw and understood to be the relationship between the young girl and her phone, probably that of dialing numbers and calling and receiving calls in turn, and maybe adding/subtracting amounts of money on the calculator. i was stunned at me being stunned. i mean this is my country and what do i know about it. what do i know about its people, my people? i could have been that girl, if i was born in different circumstances; could i really? there was a time when i remember marveling at someone's typing speed in college (Masters years!) when all i could do was use my two pointer fingers to click on one letter after another much much more slowly (now i do use multiple fingers to type much faster or i wouldn't be writing all this down). maybe that strange encounter will help her question what her phone is capable of, maybe she will sit down with it after dinner that day or with some friend and ask/explore how she can interact with it. maybe next time i won't be so surprised, and maybe i will actually try to teach her something. and maybe i've actually learned something from it already.

I bought my first pair of running shoes (nike air) in 2006, after a few days of running in my converse sneakers because I didn't want to splurge on expensive shoes if I wasn't going to like running. in about 2013-14 running started to hurt. my left knee would click every now and then and going down stairs was especially difficult. i ran funny somedays then, swinging my feet out to the sides, cos it seemed to help, slightly. round about then I also fell one morning on my run; scraped my knee (I forget which one) and my left hand between the fingers and the wrist on the non-palm side. I still have butterfly shaped mark from that bruise on my hand that now looks like a birthmark. I remember I also tore my leggings that day on the fall. I stopped running as often, especially after my knee aches and then after someone suggested my shoes might need a change I think I stopped running altogether. there was new found yoga then. sometime after I moved to Fort Worth in 2015 and found myself by the river (Trinity) I wanted to run out in the mornings again. I remember some running discomfort again. and then I bought some cheapish Asics on sale, online, not sure changing shoes was the answer. the pair turned out to be so snug I couldn't fit socks in it and I think they were beyond returning giving having been bought on sale or some such. I started running in them without socks and felt like my free-er toes simulated barefeet running. my knee felt fine again just like that. although without socks my shoes got a lot more stinky and dirty on the insole. I had them till a month ago. this monsoon I started running outdoors again. then maybe in October I twisted something just above my right ankle. felt like I had hurt my achilles tendon. rest for a week, but it was sore even after hurting when I ran. then it kinda went away. and then one day I just fell headlong. probably got my shoe on a stone protruding from the park path (there are many all over). probably distracted by the cricket croud laughing (at me? there are often comments directed at me in a park where I am the only running girl). and I suddenly found myself hurtling toward the sand colored earth ahead of my with my hands outstretched to embrace it or push it away. I scraped my left knee and my left elbow. a few old uncles asked me if i was ok and told me about some woman who had just the day before suddenly fainted in the park. i said i was fine, i brushed the dust off, the elbow just looked like some dry blades of grass and the rough earth had scratched it, and my knee clothed in my grey leggings felt strong. so i started running again, finished the lap and a half that was still due. my knee was singe-ing by now and by the time i got into my car I saw that the leggings were staining with some blood although not enough to emerge through the fabric on the outside. got home washed it, was a bloody patch for about 3-4 days and i couldnt bear fabric on it so i wore shorts although it was getting coldish. new skin has covered it now. i always find the melanin spots so symmetrically arranged in any patch of new skin (golden ratio?) pretty cool. also the bruise colors. i didn't run for a few days again. next time i ventured out i was very careful looking at the ground and watching my steps. then in my final lap i felt this guy's eyes on me, sideways, right next to me. I looked reflexively. and then I fell again. he turned back to see me on the ground, didn't offer to help thankfully. i cursed myself. but thought i wasn't hurt this time. and then I saw the palm of my right hand; blood oozing out. probably my car key had scratched me; I usually have it in that palm while I run. the key itself had flown off to the side. I grabbed it, wiped it on my legginged leg, this time didn't try to finish my lap and drove home if only to wash the earth off the bleeding palm. for a day or two I obsessed over a bit of skin around the piercing that looked muddy and I couldn't seem to reach within it to get the brown out. inspired by all the reading about microbes and diseases I thought a bit about tetanus bacteria spores. but it healed beautifully, no bruises or scars, just a slightly darker spot left in the pink palm. by the way i once read (or heard) that we don't quite know why our bodies leave scars. its not like a scar is necessary in the skin's process of closing up, sealing in, and healing the wound. its probably a reminder to our past accidents, mishaps, foolishnesses, pain, etc. etc. dunno if that makes sense but to me it seemed cool then, like our body communicating to our minds, across time and place. anyway, two falls in two runs in a row. i initially attributed it to change of running speed cos i had then started running with a mask as October is PM2.5 month. maybe running slower upset my balance somehow. maybe. but then, anyway, i also blamed my shoes. each time its time to change shoes something like this happens, multiple lil incidents and injuries. so i bought the third pair of running shoes in my life. online again. asics again. but not pronated ones this time (i am slightly flat footed). ive been running like a charm since then. and these are half a size larger than the last ones, so socks fit in too. don't seem to ruin the barefooted feeling too much, I still splay my toes (within my socks) before they hit the ground each time. running is quite a natural muscle memory art. the other day two guys commented (talking to each other) that I had started coming to the park very late these days. i wanted to tell them: its hard getting out of my blanket as it gets colder. a couple days some men commented on my shorts being too small, and my tshirt being too big almost covering my shorts. this where even in hot summer other women walk in skin tight leggings. and today some middle aged uncles (maybe younger) weren't quite as appreciative in the right way when they commented on how active to them I looked. I've heard other women complain that delhi isn't a city for early morning runs alone for a girl. i've run alone at 6-ish mornings since 2007 on and off. somehow these men never bother me enough. 2 years ago I used to go out with my pepper spray, now I don't even bother with that given the pandemic has got the park so busy with ppl channeling their energy into new healthy habits.

pandemic instrospection

a cousin had some insomnia, lack of appetite, and anxiety issues. one day when I was talking to him he was trying to explain how he and his best friend feel like the world post covid19 is despondent. it leaves just work and home and family, stripping away diversions and crowds.

his friend is quite outgoing and extrovertish, but my cousin is not. I was trying to understand, gently pointing out that crowds and socializing can be tiring such that the pandemic can offer a valid excuse and thus some relief (?).

I later thought about it a lot. work and family and home. what else is there really? yes, once in a while exploring untrodden paths and swimming in unknown tides. and staring at trees, the horizon, mountains and lichens, into the distance and the sun, dreaming out onto old town roofs, talking to strangers yes and exchanging stories and smiles and foods and wines, and sweating happily in all that exploration in many different ways. but only temporarily. till one feels drawn back by the need to work or that to get home. to a one person family or more, or even to an alone home so one can work. 

is work what is exchanged for a means to a living? or is it one's effort to contribute in some way what only one can. I feel like that's where the answer lies. between work and home and family being enough or not. similarly, whether home and family are truly an extension of one's self or are intrusions, uninvited and inescapable.

I've been reading a lot of book samples these days, not knowing what I want and choosing more carefully, spending a lil more wisely. there are good samples that I will still not ending up buying, where the 50-odd pages are somewhat enough even if they soothed me, informed me, helped me calm down before dozing off. but then there are samples where I so badly want to highlight words, phrases, sentences, thoughts. even if I know I'll rarely come back to read them. these books I must buy. last night the sample mostly consisted of an introduction, something of a literary review of the book by another author/critic. samples don't allow highlighting; so I had to buy the book. and now I'll have to look for this second author, this critic, and his books too. if his intro to another's text was so highlightable I hope his writing is too. btw below, a few highlighted bits from Philipp Meyer's introduction to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.

"When you are judging a literary masterpiece, you are judging first the substance and ideas behind the work. Are they true, are they worth saying, does the book articulate them organically (without talking over the characters) and in a way no one has done before? You are judging the artist's ability to capture a world and the people in it and the ability to work in a mode so distinct it can only be hers or his. You would not confuse a Van Gogh with a Rembrandt - in fact you would be able to identify both at a glance. At the highest level, prose should be no different."

"the Judge is constantly recording things in his notebooks, sketches and observations, in attempt to replace or supplant the real item (which he physically destroys when possible). This is not so different from what the artist hopes to do. Few of us know anything about fifteenth-century Danish kings, but most of us know the story of Hamlet. Such as it is with Chamberlain and Cormac McCarthy. Art has eclipsed the Real."

"a man moves about the barren plain "striking fire that God has placed" in the earth. He is digging holes for fenceposts, creating the demarcation between civilization and the wild; or, depending on your point of view, between a new civilization and an old one. Other men follow him blindly. They see only the holes he has dug. They don't see the man. They don't see his fire."

in other stories, watching Mira Nair's A Suitable Boy is bringing back not just the book and it's visual scenes and heartfelt characters, but is also bringing back the time and that past me when I was reading that book about 10 years ago. I read it partly in India and partly in my first home alone (technically with a flatmate but not really a companion) in Texas. I remember being immersed in it, moved by it, remember even that I read the stampede scene a lil after a similar one had occured in India in reality. And now it's all coming back, not just the emotions that the story and the characters whip within my soul, but my frame of mind then when I read it, my innocence and my optimism, my lack of disenchantment and disillusionment. one thing that strikes me now (and it did not then) is how there's a common theme in the stories of many characters in the book: that of Faiz's "humse pehli si mohabbat mere mehboob na maang ...". another is how the horror of partition that till now always felt so in the past now feels so much more like an ever present threat.

anyway, from India to Texas and back, between books and stories, I'll be smiling some more nights in my bed as I highlight words that resonate deep within somewhere. the act of highlighting though has changed, I don't need a pencil or a fluorescent one, now my finger suffices.

Somedays this life is just too much work to live. I am a misfit, I still don't know my work or place here. 

plumber was supposed to come this morning, said around 9:30/10. my pot cistern has been overflowing, so I've been controlling it through the open/close switch/lever on the inlet pipe rather than call a plumber, cos it's too much work esp now. but this week one day i forgot to close it after peeing when I was sleepy and water ran for about 40 mins before I heard it. so I decided to get it done.

dreamt of pots and crap and the latter spilling and overflowing and me carrying it and what not. woke up 4 times during the night for various reasons of controlling temperature and one of us going to the loo. then at about 6 he goes again. this time it's a bit much and cos the sun has started to creep out and I can see its bright outside of my eye mask I find it harder to slumber off again. think I'll get up to throw in the laundry before the plumbers visit blocks that bathroom. and then I want to pick up my bed stuff and get a few hours on the sofa. but my bed stuff includes my phone and somehow the bad dreams tell me I shud look at what's waiting on my phone for me. of course, rejection email from yet another journal. I doanage to give it one full reading, debate whether I shud wake him up but he isn't responding anyway. sofa then, try some sleep. dunno why wake up v happy and contented, although remember the email. kinda feeling like not giving a f about it. 

laundry is calling out. dryer, some on the rack, morning stuff. breakfast and complaining to k. bell rings, plumber is early. but of course. 

cut short and fast fwd. finally have a working flush. it's just 10 in the morning and I'm exhausted of the effort it takes to live this life. k is upbeat goes out to get our fav pizza. I've said to myself before, every rejection has got to be celebrated or else it gets to you. might as well. 

I'm looking at job postings. Facebook is looking for someone to help with it's forthcoming payments app, waiting to show up on ur whatsapp as well. aarghh. I'm also still too idealistic. 

oh well let's see how this day goes. I'm becoming superstitious too. and more defiant. slowly feels like I've disconnected from this world. it began with the work without a job, then covid and associated isolation, now I'm not even talking to mom in law for something she said. had an argument with sis cos of her messed up love life, now staying out of that too. what's left then? k and pizza and my unsellable equations, and running. missing the swimming too big time. 

pandemic 2020: streaming tv worth watching

Borgen (Netflix)

Masaba Masaba (Netflix)

Stateless (Netflix)

Handmaid's Tale (Amazon) 

Rasbhari (Amazon)

yes Indian Netflix/Amazon shows are growing up after all. the year before (or maybe two years ago) Little things and Made in Heaven were pushing boundaries.

unconnected

a few months before the virus was known (or maybe before it travelled outside of China) a cousin of mine visited us. I also called my sis to come over that Friday evening. we played some card game late into the night, slept on sofas to accommodate the numbers in our one bed tiny apartment. and next morning we suddenly decided to go have breakfast at one of our favorite cafes. barely a 12 min drive in the mornings, this place is a 2-minute walk from my Mausi's. so said cousin called them also on our way there, although k me and sis were looking forward to spending some time without older ppl. anyway so we were all sitting around two tables pushed together digging into our sourdough toasts, eggs, avocados, mushrooms etc. when the conversation turns to our impact on the environment. someone mentioned plastic, someone mentioned incrreased packaging cos Amazon had spoiled us waiting for shopping to come home, and someone mentioned saving on gas/petrol if you shopped online, and so on...

I suddenly blurted "human numbers have exploded on this planet. people really should stop having kids." I hadn't expected it but this was too radical for my uncle and aunt (they are grandparents to a sweet lil girl now) and even for my cousin. K of course teased me by asking me if I was also proposing reducing these numbers in other ways. I made it clear I was only talking about reducing the increase rather than that of current numbers. 

People don't think of themselves as animals, as part of tiny blocks in this natural ecosystem of the earth. on another occasion I remember same aunt asking out aloud, rhetorically, what if any was the purpose of mosquitoes in ecologies. I've been reading David Quammen's Spillover, and I was thinking y'day how mosquitoes keep human (and ape) numbers in check by spreading various types of malaria. It's our superciliousness that we think we are at the top of (or disconnected from) the natural food chain and world ecology. the very fact of our exploding numbers makes us easier prey as it becomes easier for microscopic and near invisible half-dead pathogens to colonize our species. everything is food for something else, and sometimes is fodder simply to reproduce.

I've started going out for runs again. the first day I realised how my quads were atrophying without distance running. running on my mat only uses the lower leg, so much so that I had stopped feeling my quads alive at all. for two days after that first run in the park last week, they were sore from being woken up from their long slumber. same park where I used to run in 2007. now I drive to get to it but it's still not far. moreover, it's mosquito free, which is a miracle this year what with healthcare having other worries and having ignored spraying against the insects. 

we are urbanized wildlife, and so are Anopheles, and SARS CoV2. 

two things I have realised in the last few months and been very surprised with. first, people have very shallow memories, especially when it comes to conversations, words said and heard and their conveyed meaning. they forget so much so easily. when for me it's all still so visible and audible and real. for example some ppl who interviewed me on skype had no recollection 4 months later of how bad the connection had been, how we kept losing each other and then ended up having a no video, them typing their questions (cos I couldn't hear them) and me talking my answers aloud kind of an interview. and I can think of so many examples of so many ppl forgetting so many things in such short durations of time. I have been blessed/cursed with remembering other ppl's words.

and while I keep obsessing over and over again about what I said or how I said it.

second, ppl don't have half as keen a sense of outrage as I do. they are just told they can't do or get something, and they listen nod and move on to (settle for) what else is possible. and they probably soon forget. whereas I get all outraged and keep asking why, keep trying to show them they are wrong for blocking my way, keep falling against their walls and keep picking myself up. but why not? how dare they? f them, I'm going to get not just that but something better. 

sometimes I play an important part as audience. as someone who will feel the story, feel it's horror and disgust and feel each thread of its messy moral dilemmas tug and shred my heart. someone who will get into the character, feel his pain his desperation - that which makes him adopt a story in which he is not his daughter's father, so that she is no longer haunted by his life and his stories. I can also see her demons come alive just as they do for her, while in the moment separating myself and watching as if an out of body experience; that little shield saves me from going where there's no coming back from, that she wouldn't have. I can feel that loss of grasp too, even though she is just a story. I also feel responsible and complicit, on both sides, on all sides, because I am her and him and them who traumatize them. and I am me too, the one on the outside of it all, protected and unscathed and probably therefore somehow the reason. 

we all play a part, each complicated and with unforeseen impact. the important thing is not to let their stories fade. so watch Stateless on Netflix and let yourself in.

life is coming apart at the seams these days. I can't believe the things I'm having to do. I flit between hopelessness and anger at the world. In fact, if not for the anger, it would be hard to wake up every day and continue on from where I left the night before. 

Apparently I am too old for entry level AP positions in govt funded universities. In the US, I had gotten used to people telling me that discrimination based on age (or anything else) was illegal. Here, they close the door for you at 35. Plus, a school got back to me saying I wasn't eligible because I didn't have first class in my Masters degree; regardless of my PhD. They asked me if I had a second masters in which I could show first class. The irony is that an American PhD contains a masters in it but most of us don't bother to get a degree for that lesser milestone cos we have bigger things on our minds. So guess what, now I have enrolled as a masters student again, at my alma mater, to use my past coursework to get a new degree. So I am doing another masters now, five years after finishing my PhD.

Going through setting up and activating my student account, communicating with admin and academic advisors, is driving me nuts. Plus because the degree will only now come at the end of fall 2020 semester, I am requesting an official letter certifying that I finished the course requirements in the past and stating my GPA that can be translated by Indian authorities into a class/division. And guess what, after repeatedly asking the academic advisor to include my GPA in this said letter, I received it without it. I already have a masters degree, so a letter stating that I completed requirements for another is useless to me without also certifying a first class equivalent.

Arrgh. 

On top of that since June the interviews have started again after 3-4 months of coronavirus shocks. But nothing has so far translated into an offer. People just keep talking with me, and talking again and again. 

Oh yeah also mother in law keeps going on about the "beauty of Hinduism" and ranting against minority religions. Forget how I deal with it, more important is how hubby loses his shit on the phone with her and then roams around with chronic sullenness. If it goes on, I will have to ask her to stop calling. I have anyway stopped talking to her, maybe once in a fortnight I show her my face on his videocall or sound out a hello. I've stopped bothering any more than that. There's too much shit in this world anyway, to allow polite nodding in response to more.

we are watching The Handmaid's Tale on top of that. Quite a mirror for our world these days, maybe not literally in every sense, but you can always recall or find some event/context in this world we live in that matches the horror in the show. 

I keep wondering, how do people bring kids into this world? 

Oh yeah I forgot a more interesting detail to the whole first class masters eligibility requirement. A couple years ago someone had forwarded a news piece about automatic future eligibility for PhDs from well ranked universities from abroad. So when above school said the requirement was from MHRD, I dug up the facts. Found a UGC requirement for 55percent (not even first class) in masters that had been scrapped in 2018 to allow automatic eligibility for PhDs from universities ranked globally in top 500 according to some rankings. Dug up the rankings, forwarded all of it together to the communicating person. No acknowledgement, no reply. So I don't know if they threw my application in the waste bin or not.

How can one go through this life without anger??

Update: so I now know that I was wrong, UGC rules apply to universities, not to institutes of national importance like IITs and IIMs, that are the bulk of where my CV has gone. Apparently, AICTE regulates those and most rules are based on engineering and physical science timelines; most of those ppl probably don't work before going for a PhD. Anyway. 35 is the age cap both for entry level school teachers and assistant professors in this country even though eligibilty between those two differs by a 5-6 yrs PhD!!

some people write so badly. reading their writing gives me this ugh feeling, and it has nothing to do with the subject of their writing. it's about how difficult it is for those words they forced in those sentences to be together. there's this one guy whose writing in general is pretty good, and then when he thinks he is writing poems, oh my god, the rhymes are so forced it's almost like the words have been forced to copulate together under some threat. there's this other gal who writes as if it's an excuse to use big words in her sentences, and as if she still hasn't learned how to form them smoothly. and these are two people who think they write well. so therefore they post their prose and poetry on facebook, the platform where good writing gets discovered, where amateurs practice and depend on their audience's impartial criticism <sarcasm>. in response, people rave about their writing; god knows who these people are. I've thought many times of leaving an honest comment, "your rhyme is very forced. your prose on the other hand is beautifully written." Or, to the gal, "please don't write, just to use words that don't belong together." but of course I can't do that. 

recipe, for 7 years later

about 7 years ago I ate dinner some evening, alone in some lil eatery behind a produce market in Jerusalem. today when I stared into our fridge vegetable tray, wondering what to cook, and saw these beautiful round eggplants, bought about a week ago but still taut and fresh (eggplants in India are v fresh that way, the tiny ones and the long ones often get worms v quick but the big round ones somehow defy them), I suddenly had this strong sense of recreating that dish. so here goes, what I did with the memory of my tastebuds and the ingredients available in my kitchen and fridge. 

first things first: the dish uses some ground red meat in its original form, but I took out a couple chicken kebabs from our freezer in lieu of that. Let aside to thaw.

Slice eggplants to resemble the pieces of an orange, not too thick, about an inch of skin at its widest on each slice. On a flat pan, cook these in olive oil (eggplants and extra virgin go very well), with some salt and pepper. Each slice on both sides of the bare flesh. I did two eggplants. You can cover the pan on low heat for more even cooking.

Slice some onions, squash and peel some garlic, and slice a tomato or two. Brown the garlic and onions in olive oil on a wok (while the eggplants are cooking on the other burner). By now the meat should have thawed. Chop it up if it's not ground. Throw it in once the onions are brown. Cook a lil, and then throw in the tomatoes. Stir in some salt and pepper, if meat doesn't already have some spice in it. Can add other masala too in that case (I didn't need to, but I'd suggest powdered cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, etc.). Cover on low heat. Throw in a tablespoon or two of coconut milk and stir and cover. When meat is kinda done, and the tomatoes soft, add some tomato puree as well. Stir, cook a bit, add water, bring to boil, and simmer and cover. 

The original had some pinenuts, but I used frozen corn from the freezer instead for similarity of shape, color, crunch, and sweetness. Throw it in and let simmer covered. 

When u feel like the meat gravy is kinda done, taste for salt. Dip the cooked eggplant slices in. Push them in to submerge in the gravy and simmer just a lil bit more. Turn off the gas/heat. You can add chopped cilantro/coriander or some other herb. Can eat with naan/bread/rice/paratha or even some plain noodles if u want. The flesh of eggplants should literally melt in your mouth. Lick your plate clean after.

hace trece anos

I used to run almost every morning in this park, almost thirteen years ago. That makes me feel ancient. It's also unusual for me to return to the same spots in my life. Strangely I've come to live in delhi thrice already. and vasant kunj just coincidentally features in some central way each time, the first time only as weekends and guardian address away from hostel, and now as second (out of four) home(s) in this city.

All these trees were mostly shrubs then. The park would get very sunny and I therefore came very early before the sun. Even the paths made by human feet that kill the grass and expose the sandy brown earth below were barely there. The park felt smaller then, probably because its boundaries were lost to untrimmed bushes, probably because my memory deceives me. Also ppl didn't visit parks that much then.

It's one of those close getaways from the rudeness and roughness of this city now. Both in how it calms my senses and in how ppl behave within its definitions as if they aren't fighting for everything the way they do in this city. On any good weather day you can see a combination of fitness freaks and families with kids, just doing their thing. Families from all heirarchies of this society. Sometimes a sole woman in a saree will suddenly sprint a length of the track before panting and walking again. And unlike another park closer to my home, here the dogs have never bothered me, even when I used to run, although running for some reason excites the strays closer to my apartment and they come bounding after and on top of you sometimes, their claws pressing through your clothes unbeknownst to them. It can be scary even if you know they are just playing.

I'll be spending some more time here. (There is at least one hiding dog in each of the above 3 pics, and two in the last one. They were also 6ft distancing while doing so in a row.)

if you've seen people mourning over a break up you will probably understand this. often the predominant emotion is that of rejection, sometimes it is that of having failed especially when they had known for a while that something was wrong and they were giving it their best, trying to fix it but couldn't. anger yes of course, but usually lower down, beneath disappointment, rejection, failure, a sense of loss, of not knowing how to start to live afresh; unless it was a case of unfaithfulness and abrupt breaking up. what i have been surprised with is how many people just broken up are afraid and insecure, their predominant worry being left alone, single, for the rest of their lives. in fact, once a friend of mine who was then married also voiced these concerns wondering aloud about other people who broke up but talking about how she was so scared of being left alone. the older the person concerned, somehow the sadder and scarier this sense of abandonment.

i've been getting that lately about my professional self. its three years now I have been without a job. and this birthday i noticed a lot many white hairs down the sides of my head, those that get exposed when i tie my hair up. ive crossed that age when i saw my parents start to get wide around their waists, my aunts start to color their hair. and i am starting to get the feeling that a professional marriage (aka tenure) might not be possible for me in this life. in fact, that's not even the scariest bit. i'm starting to feel complacent in this city, in this situation, with the people of my own country all around me, with family members close and far flung peppered through the geographical space (even though i still avoid many of them). i am beginning to feel that i'm getting too old to start afresh, again and again. i look around this flat, the kitchen with its windows lacking curtain rods on which we have pasted craft squares of various colors to block out the sun (we do this every year for some months), our yellow sofa that has collected a myriad of shapes of grey spots on its body in our years here, even our kitchen dish rack neatly placed on our green absorbent mat collecting our washed stuff: two plates (carefully picked by me from fabindia someday after i had broken another plate at home), spoons hanging upside down from a lil spoon stand that had come free with the dish rack, a bowl or two, a small glass he likes to drink in that remains the only one left from a pack of six we began with (5 others shattered by us, one by one), the hand vacuum sitting quietly in one corner of the living room waiting to be used to suck up miniscule glass pieces or the dust of drilling after a handyman finished his job and left the place in a mess. our plants, or rather my plants that remind of our first year here when i'd keep going to the nursery getting lil pots of flowers, i got some bigger ones for his office too, they died one by one. how many times can i pick myself up again and start afresh, throwing away the familiar crockery and buying new ones, looking at an empty place and imagining it as home. this has in fact been the longest he and i have lived together at a stretch. but this marriage needs two others - a professional marriage for each one of us to a place that is both encouraging and supportive of the work that each of us thinks we want to do. i'm getting too old and the longer i stay unaffiliated the bigger a problem it might be for me to find a match.

houseplants sketch #3

potted plants in the balcony below my window. the camouflaged crotons I've tried to raise myself but that died on me.

there are many names for God. but I like to think of it as probability. there are also many words for that - call it luck, chance, odds. God is probability. also people have a hard time understanding probability. It can work in your favor despite the low prior sometimes, and sometimes it could go against you despite its prior assurance of being on your side. sometimes the former coincides with your prayers, giving you the perception of them having been answered; in the latter case you feel abandoned and cheated or worse punished. 

been almost a year I've been jobhunting. I started my first application sometime in end of July 2019, but really I started out much earlier because around now last year I sent my job market paper to my erstwhile advisor and asked him if he would still write a letter of recommendation for me. he took about a month to read it and write back etc. etc. And then I needed two more ppl like him. In a way I'd been ashamed to ask my professors from 4 yrs ago (last year) to write letters for me, still, for an entry level academic job. but they are all I had, cos I wasn't going to ask my last boss for a letter, not after all that had happened at that place. 

and here I am, still jobless, now wondering if I will have letter writers for another season of the market. 

funny world academia, you could spend a lifetime hopping from one entry level job to another, and if you're lucky you will not land one that will further cripple you from moving to better jobs by sucking all your time. there are some jobs I interviewed for 5 years ago where they wanted me to give up research and simply teach. is that why I did a PhD???! do those ppl forget what it takes, what it involves, both in terms of time effort perseverance, and loans of money, in my case possibly forgiven by now but not forgotten by me (and years of your best alternative salaries being given up). aaahhh. sunk cost! move on. 

but I can't. my savings lasted for about two years and a lil more, and now I'm living on borrowed money from k. I still can't believe these are the choices I made in my life. but I still can't make a U-turn. I am not even asking for a recouping of the financial costs, just compensation for research that I have continued to do, and want to do till I tire of it. huh. who am I fooling, the fables of Harvard grads and young academics with godfathers can fir bhi sell, who's going to buy mine, unless I sell it off with author rights; maybe the buyer will succeed at publishing my work better than I ever seem to.

I'm finally understanding the mechanics of water colors. and learning how to add color and and some life to my sketches. probably overdid that here, like the one with color only in ficus the best.

in other news

a cousin's wife has got covid19 in Bombay. they have a 2-yr old kid, I'm worried how they will care for her. hope they don't all get it. she hasn't yet been tested, but doc on phone said it looks like it. I'm also worried that she's having some breathlessness and her O2 levels have not been checked yet. they've been advised to get a meter. cousin's mom has chronic anxiety issues, so we are refraining from calling and expressing our worries. 

I am reading about schizophrenia, and I can barely put the book down. and because I mostly read before sleeping, this means I'm not sleeping much these days.

so this morning I had to unwrap the pencils k had gifted to me last year. and I had to sketch. this ficus has lived with us a couple years now, time enough for me to know it's needs and for it to get used to our environment. 

summer

our first summer back here was like roasting in hell. it was intolerably hot, our tummies kept giving up on us and we ate rice, potatoes and bananas each time it happened. and lizards poured into our home, themselves looking for shelter from the burning outdoors, from cracks between windows and walls, from gaps under the doors, and most of all from the badly filled-up electric-wire cavity for our split-AC. upto 3-4-5 baby ones would crawl in from above the AC in a day. the mother had probably laid eggs in that cavity after getting in from the other side of the wall. 

we formulated a tiring routine of scaring, trailing, and trapping each lizard with mop-rods Colin spray, and an upturned plastic bowl (washed and saved up from some home delivered food I think) on the hapless creature. then we would slide a piece of thick packaging paper or card under it, and holding that system tight I would rush out while he held the door to throw the living thing back outdoors. once I think it was inert with all that spraying on it by the time I threw it, but mostly it scurried away. I am terrified of lizards, but I rather than he would inevitably do that last part; because for me the thought of it remaining at home was more scary.

that summer and probably most of that year, we then spent sealing our windows, door gaps, in fact his first idea was to tape around the split-AC and seal the gaps there; that last actually worked, we got our AC guys to do it, that cleared us of lizards 90 percent. 

the next summer was mostly just very hot. and I swam again for a month, both years, just for a month cos I couldn't afford to spend all my savings (while unemployed) on more swimming. I felt, both those years in the peaks of those summers, like I'd die of the heat if I didn't swim. soon as I'd stop swimming I'd get diarrhoea from the heat. also both summers we got away for a bit, the first one a lil too late around June end and last year earlier in the beginning of that month (he got away a second time last summer).

but last summer was an improvement over the year before, with lots of intermittent showers. and this year is even better maybe thanks to the virus and reduced pollution, who knows. each of the previous summers I have thought I couldn't take one more, but it keeps getting easier, is it me or the weather itself? it's already mid-May and my tummy is still strong, without the swimming this year. I can sleep early mornings on the polyester sofa to escape sounds from the bathroom. I'm not dying and I'm even using less AC. 

it feels like someone is trying to prove to me how hyperbolic I was being in what I could tolerate and how long I'd be around. I had come thinking, max one year or maybe two. no more. and I'm still around and it's getting easier. now more than ever this fortified home of ours feels invaluable, where no one is coming and we have no where else to go from. 

for most of my adult life I've slept alone in a bed. so whenever I live with hubby I have sleep issues, he sleeps earlier than me, usually as soon as his head touches his pillow, while I pillowless, have to read to travel to another world before I feel drowsy. and then he wakes up before me. I now sleep with cotton in my ears and an eye mask, but even then his movements both in his sleep and his wakings interrupt my very flimsy slumber. 

last night he woke up for a leak, and therefore so did I to make the best of a disturbance. he goes to the toilet within the bedroom and I to the one just outside. I was struck by the light streaming in our living room windows, the place looked like a stage flooded with white light. I peered out the window, I knew the moon had been waxing the last few days. and there it was, a grown full rounded ball of warmth. complete with the halo around it. I smiled at it. now it would begin to wane and so would my creativity with it. 

the moon is like an old friend I've taken for granted. this year though, with this pandemic upending everything in human life, the full moon feels even more magical. since I've hit my 30s, how often have I stared and smiled at it thus. but now I can imagine a day when there'd be no moon. I can imagine the end of everything as we know, just because so much has changed. 

In the last two days, in bits over meals, k and I watched Lunchbox; him for the first time, me revisiting. I'd been irritated and impatient with the movie the first time I saw it, annoyed at Bollywood for juicing romance out of every meaningful human interaction. But this time I realised how sensitive, how real, each dialogue, each written and spoken word, each look and pause, and everything unsaid, was in this movie. the scene in which her mother tells her that she's simply hungry now, just after her father has passed away, that after months of worrying about being left alive without him and of taking care of his wasting body, all she desires is some parathas because she's hungry; that broke me down. I wept thinking of all the women my mom's generation, in India at least (maybe elsewhere too), who lived like an appendage to their spouses, who couldn't imagine outliving them, living without them (for what?), who lived their lives without any ownership over them. since my Mausa's death, I've seen my Mausi slowly become her own person.

I've been video chatting with mom and lil sis, together, every evening now. since that day when lil sis wasn't well and we all thought it was covid and because she lives alone we were debating how best to take care of her. today sis told us one of her seniors at work in Hyderabad had a sudden stroke and possible brain haemorrhage after a bout of working out, and is hospitalised since then, unconscious. we got talking about age, and health, life and death, covid and cancer, Irrfan Khan and this hospitalized guy, about responsibility of oncoming disease and of chance and luck. we are each a flimsy thread in a flimsy world, at the mercy of chance, but also with choices, and senses through which we feel all of this. The glowing moon, the starry gulmohar, strange birds now regular visitors. A kiss. all so flimsy but in that moment, so all encompassing, almost overwhelming. 

my blog is now a teenager!

I used to have so much poetry in me those years, 

those years when I wrote compulsively,

those years when I day dreamed, 

when I was not disillusioned, yet.

Then when I was yet to put in all,

yet to be tested.

When others' successes were not so judged by me,

when I didn't yet feel wronged by the world.

Age, wisdom, failures, lost opportunity

and a continuous struggle to stay afloat.

Life. don't know why they consider it a gift.

But without life there'd be no beauty to appreciate,

no poems and words to linger on

no Eureka moments, no serendipity of finding human connections

no fight against the tugs of attraction

no sweet pains, no warm caresses

and no memory

no exhilaration of waiting, even if in vain.

No problems to tackle, awake and in dreams,

no pleasurable pain, no joyful sweat.

no dancing or running or swimming,

no gasping for breath to keep it going.

stew

made some yummy chicken-vegetables stew y'day, inspired by Chef John's (of Food wishes fame) video the night before. He had used sausages and white (forgot name) beans, but in lockdown (actually those are hard to find in India even without lockdown), had to improvise with available ingredients. so in went chicken kebabs from Greenchick, with diced onions, squashed garlic pods, and a bay leaf or two, in olive oil. Followed with cubed beetroots and potatoes (with skin) and tomatoes. Oh yeah a squirting of fish sauce (my secret these days in many things), and an ounce of triple sec (in lieu of wine). Also some coconut milk. Salt pepper of course, and some chili flakes. Let cook, ingredients sharing their sauces and caramelising the bottom of the pot. Scrape every time u stir, esp when u add moisture of any kind. 

After almost everything was partly cooked, more coconut milk (not a lot) and lots of water. Simmer, simmer, simmer. Maybe salt too. 

Eat whenever the beetroot and potatoes are soft. With bread, but better with some crisp malabari parathas, dipped or soaked in it just before plopping in mouth. (We get frozen parathas from Green chick; at the beginning of lockdown were hard to find but now abundantly available). 

I usually don't do recipes, cos I hate being instructed. Actually more like I'm incapable of it. Here too this was more from memory of Chef John's video than from instructions. But whenever something comes out delicious, k asks me to document it's recipe cos I never exactly replicate the same dish (again incapable). Therefore this, as well as I could remember. 

The last time I made stew was when mom dad visited in Texas and k was also visiting. was winter, I made pork stew, with carrots, potatoes (I think) etc. Slow cooked for hours after part frying the pork chunks. Realised sausages or pre-made kebabs (also mince-balls) are much easier, barely any risk of the meat being under or over done. can listen to the heartbeat of the root vegs then and do them better justice. 

Lockdown has now lasted so long, we have forgotten what we are hiding from. Sheltering at home is becoming a habit now, as stepping out is becoming harder work day by day: wear ur mask, resist touching it even if ur nose is itching, walk to the closest store when it's hottest in the day so it's not as crowded; or drive the dirty car that hasn't been cleaned in days just to keep its tires from giving up, use the wipers and that secret stored liquid to barely clean the windshield so you can see and not kill someone, when you step out make sure you sanitize hands after every human touch, and limit that to echanging food/grocery and money, maybe explain to the cop who is stopping you why you are out, through your mask, annoyed at being stopped cos life outdoors is a pain anyway now, and more after a car with masked kids and adults overtakes you and then wants to swerve to cut you; all this when both cars are in the wrong lane anyway cos the right one is barricaded by the same cops. And then come home, wipe wash what you can of the food or grocery, sanitize ur purse, wash ur hands, ask hubby to take the eggs out of their case which you hold (cos it might be infected) while he puts them in the fridge. Wash ur hands again, they are now dehydrated and the skin is peeling off. Moisturise. 

And then maybe later when ur at peace, feel guilty about it cos u've just seen yet another statistic, read another article of the dying people, the sick people, and worse the hungry and the poor who have no jobs and no food and are walking with sacks of PDS ration night and day just to GO HOME, in trying to keep you out of infection's way.

And last night it thundered like it was the end of the world. And you kept sneezing and didn't sleep; and now the wind roars like it wants to destroy all (evil). But it's also gulmohar season, those flames of beauty at every other corner, one in front of ur home and one reflecting in the balcony window behind, bunches of sindoor amidst green, misplaced amongst their washing machine, mop cloths and sticks and myriad buckets and cans of paint (probably empty and recycled). Are you sleeping or awake, are you dead or alive? Will whatever this is, go on, or end?!

So much for this year's promise of bringing answers, it might just bring too many unwanted ones. He is reading Wuhan diaries of lockdown, a daily blog, and that reminded me of mine. Been wanting to get here for sometime now but was cooking too much cos he is at home and eats a lot, so we are both cooking quite a bit. Plus I was waiting for my period, imagine pms added to lockdown. Last night it suddenly struck me that I might be pregnant (every other period that's delayed gets me like this) and that given the lockdown I might have 'no choice' but to have the baby. No job, no income, the thought of a baby seems like complete surrender to nature at this point, sort of what I had predicted might be my only reason to some day become a mother. So I thought maybe that day had come. Was I ready? But it's not such a big question either, cos I've also been asking myself if I'm ready to die. If it came to it. To which my answer usually comes - how am I useful in this world anyway, struggling in my vanity to prove to the world that I can publish scientific works (btw one has been accepted now), that no one might even read. Shudnt this be a test of how useful everyone is, am I helping save lives now? Are you helping feed people now? Are you needed?

Earlier today while doing the dishes after dinner, together, I told him even if we die, or one of us does, wouldn't it be at least nice that we reached this level in our marriage, this level of understanding (to tolerate each other 24 hrs day after day without loathing each other, without fighting even) and that the quarantine lockdown led us here. Story for another blog post, of what remains in my memory of the first few days of continuous bickering and then a sudden cracking open of this golden harmony beneath it's surface.

for many years now, since I laid my hands on literature from the world beyond India and the older writings of its colonizer, I have complained that there is rarely an Indian writer worth recommending. those who were born here also needed to cover miles and settle abroad, swap their citizenship, to write as if they cared. probably Manu Joseph is the only one (I used to say) who remains here and is worth reading. of course my judgement is limited to Indian writing in English, I am incapable of reading other languages and haven't chanced upon many translations, although I have gifted Perumal Murugan to someone else, influenced by compelling reviews and the plan that I would borrow the gift back after the person was done reading.

it was also unusual that I would read any of K's cricket-writer recommendations, given I live in a world that could very well never have played the game. however, this guy wrote a book about Guyana and about the biharis who had been taken there so long ago as indentured labor and how they had assimilated and resisted assimilation to become the people they are today. and K kept repeating lil stories from the book. it was inevitable that I would pick it up as soon as he finished it.

the writing blows my mind. and the stories do too. also the openness of the narrator, who seems heavily based on the author himself, traveling to Guyana to live there for a year in order to escape his own country, India. even if the writing weren't so goddamn precious, his sentiments reflect my own in many ways, the escapism, and rejection of one's country, the need to find oneself as separated from it. but I would never have mingled the way the author did with the place and its people, I would never have given up my comforts to sleep in a hammock in mosquito-ridden jungles with almost-strangers who I would never have trusted. despite my liberal attitude, at heart I am easily disgusted and self-protective, often at the cost of others. but that's why The Sly Company Of People Who Care is written by Rahul Bhattacharya and not me. although I did look up almost every song mentioned in the book on youtube, and referred to wikipedia and google to understand local concepts, fruit, foods, slur words, towns and their geographical constraints; I am very much a living-room adventurer that way, especially when faced with grubby adventure prospects.

but the writing is precious (not just in this book, but also his journalistic pieces). like this for example:

"Her ambition was different from mine, not the flimsy ambition of journeys but of destinations. In five years I wasn't sure if I would be anywhere, but she probably would. She was formidable. She knew childbirth. If we were in battle I suspected I would lose.

She was prepared to tackle the world because the world to her was not absurd. To think the world absurd is a privilege. Those who do so consider themselves enlightened. In fact, it only means their struggles are shallow. Sooner or later the real world will rain down upon them. That, or we shall go slowly mad, or seek recourse in meditation, narcotics, writing."


!!!

as one ambitious of my journeys, as one wont to sometimes think the world absurd, as one also sometimes to acknowledge and self-criticize my privilege (that I am afraid I couldn't bear to live without), these words feel like those I would want to write but could never have written.

P.S. hope to spend more time on this old and familiar part of me, now that I am forcing myself the lesson that people do not need to see every cool image I witnessed and bothered to click; although I do still use facebook on a browser and still cannot stop sharing cool writings and movies and my ideologies, epiphanies, and unwanted advice on it.

I found this quote by Zora Neale Hurston in a beautifully written book (The Yellow House) that I am reading:
"There are years that ask questions, and years that answer."

the last two years for me have melted away, often confused with each other, in a sticky blur. I kept rephrasing to myself what I was doing, as I slowly got more insight into what I wanted to do and what it felt like I was able to do. this year felt, even before it started, like it would finally bring some answers.

the year that began the questioning, however, was 2017. a year in which a lot happened - now in hindsight - without the impact of all that was happening finding its way into realization. we traveled together, I traveled alone pushing limits, I lost my job and realized I couldn't have received happier news, he finally quit his job he complained nearly daily about and found another where he's been happier, and of course we moved - a BIG move.

looking back, 2018 and 2019 have been more about finding myself in ways beyond those that I hoped it ever would. I tried other things, while growing surer of what I was doing, I grew up (the only texts on my tshirts now are brand names, and my wardrobe owns fewer tshirts now; these are just visible examples), I learned how to swim, I got to spend time with a grandmother before she left us, I also got to spend time with my sister while she was in bed after a torn ACL and reconstruction surgery, and I got to spend some time with my mom. I have also realized that I don't care how people I don't enjoy spending time with me think about me, and in these years for the very first time I started to have the courage to ignore or keep out unwanted people. I am now daily trying to replicate that wisdom, and the list of people grows as I move down my 'don't enjoy spending time with'-index. as a result, probably 2-3 weeks ago now, I uninstalled instagram and whatsapp from my phone. yes, there are conveniences lost, the biggest being free international calls and messages. but the very fact of free communication makes whatsapp a nuisance because people write and send much more than they would if there were a price to it. they begin to confuse between their free use of it, and their free use of my time. I have also stopped calling or visiting my mom-in-law unless there's an occasion, there's only so much bullshit I can tolerate or pointlessly argue against.

hardly anyone in these last two years understood me. he did though, and even defended me against 'well-intentioned' friends. a lot of people assumed a lot of reasons, and gave me a lot of unwanted advice that was counterproductive. while others got married, had kids, and withdrew into their ever-tired lives. some others became over-zealous in their religion/politics/nationality and thus became unpleasant company.

but still, we learned that we can go for walks 10 minutes away from home and sight foxes and neelgais. that between my classical indian and his rock/metal taste for music, we can meet at beautifully sung spanish folk songs accompanied by guitars. that I can shield him from stray dogs and he can me from lizards. that we can dance together although we are both horrible dancers. that coming back home and living a constrained life has made us a lil more humble, although we will always be snobs (that's what binds us together). and that we have learned to divide home chores more effectively according to our specialities and least cost/aversion natural allocation. and that we can order warm croissants on food delivery apps and wait as we shower together and then sit down over beetroot and carrot steaks home-cooked in coconut milk, broccoli made greener by stir-frying in olive oil, and the yummy 'desi' palak (I know not what its called in English; btw there's a great variety of fresh edible green leaves in Indian vegetable markets, especially those that are held weekly in neighborhoods) with red onions, also in olive oil, with warm croissants, for a weekend lunch. every relationship, every job, every hobby, is a means to understand life and our purpose in it, a lil better.