Between the lines!

I got the Oman driving license in November which was already announced from the rooftops, I can almost hear it still echoing from the mountains. My trainer bid me goodbye, his role handed down to the guy who had been trying to speak louder than me since 2008– my husband ;-) 

I must admit I miss my trainer.

Trainers in car driving are the ones whose jobs, by any means is no less hazardous than that of a suicide bomber. They have to focus, be patient, behave, teach and stay alive at the same time, not necessarily in that order. To achieve the staying alive part, one may forego at least one of the expected skill set – patience. My trainer’s voice and the subsequent reverberations can actually cause an accelerator to push on its own. However every time I had to be blamed. How mean is that?

Car training sessions are also the times one is expected to cry internally. The guy terrorized me to such an extent, that even tears were scared and shut themselves in. I held on to the steering wheel like one would hold on to a piece of slab just before falling off a 17 floor building. The suspense thriller may make one sit at the edge of the seat, but if I did that, there would have been more reverberations which could have resulted in opening a dam of tears.

My trainer taught me during the office lunch break, which was coincidentally his lunch break too. I’d have my lunch only after the session, which meant that I’d be dying from starvation during the session. However, my trainer prefers on-the-go lunches and juice. Which is chicken shewerma wraps with mayonnaise and salad. Drooling was not allowed. This means I had to stop two types of fluids from erupting 1.Tears 2.Saliva. I should also be alert and set my eyes on the road and play the traffic signs book and roundabout rules in the background. There are no prizes for guessing who gets paid at the end of this session.   

Image Courtesy: Here

However when the vacancy of a trainer was occupied by the husband, I did not expect that things could turn around for worse. This time I dint have to worry about stopping tears. It has been my strongest weapon since 1932. Now I have to keep my eyes on the road, focus, reach the destination alive AND talk back. I mean how is this expected from me? A little chat with my friends revealed the shocking fact that all husbands go crazy when women drive. I fail to understand this overreaction, because we do not get paranoid if they don’t move even a single muscle when yelled at or even if something is thrown at them when there is cricket on the TV. The situation is in control because I stopped listening a long time ago. I can feel the drama inside the car but can’t take it serious enough. This is a guy who cannot notice a change in hairdo or a dashing new dress but can pass a comment about the strand of eyebrow hair on the carpet.

The real challenge while driving in Oman is the basement parking in our building. Parking here is like taking a driving test every single day of my life, because 1. Basement is really dark and creepy 2. The lines between which we are expected to park = total width of the car.3. After lines there are pillars to ensure that we pay for our mistakes. Guess what, the husband makes me reverse park there. This is exactly like going to the labor room and telling the doctor that this procedure is not painful enough, I want to do it in a way I can actually feel it. The silver lining is that there is a reverse sensor, which has kept me sane since the whole ordeal started. I cannot even begin to think of the times people drove without reverse sensors. How is one supposed to see what is behind the car, when managing whatever is in front of the car itself is so hard?

It has been three months, the pillars are fine, and the car has survived some scratches. The building maintenance guys maintain that it is not ‘dark’ it is called ‘ambience’.  The scratches stand testimony to the days I reverse parked in this snake and ladder maze.

And in life, you cannot escape the lines. You will end up reading or parking between them.

Hypocrisy has a new identity.

Image Courtesy : Here

During my teen years, I was such a die-hard fan of Aamir Khan that I had posters of him on my bedroom walls. It was a magical time before bad boys became cool, so yeah we liked chocolate boys then, the ones with pink lips and lesser facial hair than a new born baby. Aamir kept doing his goofy acts Mills & Boon romance and slapstick comedy and all the girls were happy. Slowly but steadily, a strange wind of social reform blew over him and there was no turning back. Aamir Khan got enlightened under the game changing tree of Bollywood when he realized that his role in this world is to impose his opinion on a nation he thought had no persona of its own.

I don’t distinctly remember when I stopped being a fan because his focus was diverted and with each passing day he looked more and more like some sort of a Bharat Ratna wannabe.

Meanwhile, in a parallel but steady track, SRK was scoring with his signature pose and coy smiles and like millions of girls in India, I shifted loyalties too. Well, what did you expect I did not sign some kind of YRF contract with Aamir Khan fan club. Aamir Khan's opinions and his movies with morals kept instilling in our nation, a feeling that he is an intellectual. Everyone else who made movies for entertainment looked like complete morons.

When he wore only a transistor in the poster of PK, he was getting into the skin of his character, but he is entitled to his royal opinion about Sunny Leone who usually wears more clothes than him. He did a whole movie about idol worship and thinks he can change an entire nation, its ancestors and a religion that was born a million years ago.

I did not like PK for two reasons. One, it was preachy. Two, I don’t care about what Aamir Khan thinks about my religion; so why like a movie that propagates Aamir Khan’s opinions and enhanced lips?

Basically everyone is entitled to their opinions. Aamir Khan voiced his utterly hypocritical view on AIB roast as well. Next thing you know he will make a movie about humor that is not his type. I watched the three videos of AIB at least three times each. I shared it to everyone I knew who’d appreciate a good laugh. But my opinion on MY blog after watching each of the videos three times is nothing like Aamir Khan, the self-proclaimed voice of young middle aged India judging it without even watching it once. If Monica Geller’s parents can coin the term ‘pull a Monica’ we have every right to call ridiculous hypocrisy ‘pull an Aamir Khan’.

The house maid who does not turn up regardless of giving a speech earlier about how she never misses work, the friend who betrays after building up a lot of trust, that girl who scores record breaking marks despite promising that she dint even open her book, the girlfriend who cheats after threatening her boyfriend of dire consequences if he cheats on her – are all different shapes of Aamir Khan.

How to deal with the Aamir Khans in our lives, you ask? Let’s take a hint from Shah Rukh Khan. IGNORE and keep doing what you are doing. It is pretty much working for him; I think it should work for us too.    

The only plausible explanation.

The cool mornings and windy winter evenings continue to pamper us sun-burnt people of the Middle East. We make the most of this climate, which visits us only for a brief period and later gives way to THE SUN (and not summer as they call it in other parts of the world).

So on a cool sleep-worthy weekend, we went on a walk at the Muscat Festival grounds. I sacrificed my precious afternoon nap for this, so this festival better be worth it, I thought. Luckily for them, it was. It was also good to see families laughing away the stress and spending quality time with each other without those lines of stress on their foreheads… they may have applied anti-ageing cream, we’ll never know. And there were also people in Disney cartoon costumes walking about the park posing with the kids which was a blessing to all parents who had come just to let their hair down. The kids were also overwhelmed in knowing that they had come to the same place that Mickey Mouse chose to spend the weekend. My son accepted the bribe and even agreed to eat dinner.

There were donkey, horse and camel rides. Donkey rides were available for toddlers and young children. My son was terrified of the donkey, but agreed to take the ride if I joined him. He probably didn't notice the tired face of the malnourished donkey which could die the moment I even think about sitting on it. Camels looked too tall for a smooth (peaceful) ride and I refused to take it so we were even. No animals were harmed at the festival grounds.   

Of course there was a place where we could shop for authentic stuff that are usually not available at malls and branded stores. This time I skipped that area because experience has taught me that if I buy something, I’d have to pay for my sin by carrying the bag myself hours inside the festival grounds resulting in sore hands and thus bringing back the lines on the forehead. I missed my son’s stroller. I used to dump all my shopping bags in it. Sigh. Around forty five minutes later I started craving for a stroller myself.

Image Courtesy: Google Images.

One of the iconic crowd puller shows at the festival was the motordrome,  otherwise called the ‘Wall of Death’ wherein four motorists rode their bikes at high speed in a metal dome structure, defying gravity and senses of the onlookers.  My son got so excited that he wanted to ride his tricycle inside it. Sometimes the motorists rode so close to each other and sent waves of ecstasy through the crowd but it left me rather terrified. I told hubby ‘I may not be looking sometimes, okay?’ (I think he chose not to hear me). 

I covered my eyes with my hands. Watching through the gap between my fingers was reassuring. That was when one of the motorists started waving at the crowd with both hands. I watched him with sheer disbelief and exclaimed ‘Look at this guy…don’t you think this is too much? May be he lost the will to live or something’.

And hubby replied ‘Yeah, he is married’. 

With love, from Thiruvananthapuram.

One lazy day, as I browsed through channels on TV I came across this white guy on an international food channel, probably on his first visit to Kerala, saying that kappa(tapioca) and red fish curry is his ‘comfort food’. I almost laughed aloud. Comfort food it seems. That is MY comfort food my friend, yours is bread, I thought, with a typical bigheaded grin. And this grin is typical of Mallus, as we are known to take immense pride in our food. And our ego comes from the fact that even though the world eats bread for breakfast, we Mallus eat bread only when we are sick or dying.

You may think that on a map, Kerala looks like an strand of onion that fell out of your Biryani, but remember, this is God’s own ‘country’ and we have diverse slangs and cuisines across districts. I was brought up in the capital city, Thiruvananthapuram, and had a tough time communicating to an earlier housemaid from Calicut. There was nothing common in the Malayalam we spoke to each other; sometimes I had to use Google Images to make her understand vegetable names. Not to mention the number of situations Google decided to get naughty when I searched vegetable names on it:-/

I married a guy from Cochin and that turned out to be something like ‘2 States’. This household makes me question my proficiency in Malayalam. When Cochin people get angry or frustrated, they say ‘Manga Tholi’ and scratch their heads/bang their fists. ‘Manga Tholi’ translates to mango peel, and why they swear with a reference to the harmless and actually delicious mango we’ll never know. But for me, this is highly amusing. :D I still laugh when I see Cochin characters in movies tearing their hair apart and saying ‘Manga Tholi’. Another distinct feature of people in Cochin is that they look down on Thiruvananthapuram, our slang and food.  They also migrate to Thiruvananthapuram in large numbers for jobs, to attend good colleges, schools and for better living in general. Because Cochin has only malls, more malls, and a whole load of Manga Tholi ;-)  

Seafood, especially the red fish curry traditionally slow cooked in a mud vessel brings us all together, despite our differences, which is a feat accomplished earlier by the Janashatabdi Express. Even hard- core non-vegetarians (majority of the population) enjoy the purely vegetarian sadya on the banana leaf, complete with four payasams. A true blue Mallu will lick his fingers when he finishes the last payasam. And that is how it is done. We also intend to invite Oprah Winfrey for Onam to eat a full-fledged sadya with fork and spoon.

Image Courtesy: Here

Sadya in Thiruvananthapuram is different from other places as we have a special item called Boli with Aripayasam (Paal Payasam). My husband hadn’t heard of Boli till he married me. And he claims to have eaten Sadya! How ridiculous is that? Pity, I say. Firstly, living up to age 27 without knowing the awesomeness that is me, and secondly, not knowing Boli? Sigh.

Now Boli is a traditional sweet, served with payasam for Sadya.

Boli and Payasam: Image Courtesy
Here

This is a unique item mostly known and enjoyed only in Thiruvananthapuram. And that is my idea of comfort food, my friends. I eat it with my soul. I have attended innumerable Hindu weddings for it, without any idea about the bride or the groom. 

This Christmas, Mummy Boli and Payasam at home and needless to say, it was the best thing about Christmas. I invite all my friends reading this, to try this delicious dish, if you haven’t already. 

We forgive you for hating Thiruvananthapauram.