Don't worry about my socks and shoes

I don't dress the way I do to prove a point. I do it because that's the only way I know

I wear socks to office. I alternate between two pairs of shoes. One is an oversized pair of canvas shoes which I had bought because I fell in love with them, and because they were priced at Rs 300, unlike the Rs 3,000 sneakers that my colleagues wear with labels bearing Nike, Adidas and Reebok. The other is a once-blue, now-grey pair of floaters. I have to admit that it is a Nike original, but then, that is because I got it as a gift from my uncle four years ago.
Perhaps sometimes, my socks, and even shoes, reek of a stale odour. When I sniff the air and detect that unmistakable smell floating around, I take care to air out the pair and change the socks. But that is who I am; that is how I am most comfortable. It may even be one of the many reasons I am in the profession I am in. My workplace does not dictate a dress code and I am glad I did not end up behind one of the corporate doors.
Sometimes I need to visit swanky places to meet people for work-related purposes and I don't feel awkward to walk in wearing a lumpy sweatshirt and one of the faithful pairs of shoes (just that I make sure there are no unpleasant smells). I don't do all this to make a statement or stand out from the rest or show the world that I don't give a fig for general notions of fashion. I do this because this is who I am. If I could love heels and nail polished toes and finger-nails, I would go for it. It's just that I don't love them.
Remember Andy Sachs from Devil Wears Prada, the Andy Sachs prior to the predictable transformation? Well, I may have the temerity to proclaim myself the Andy Sachs of the purview of my world. I cannot tell the difference between the belts and I don't care that I can't, if you know know what I mean. Some people, actually most people, get me wrong. They think I am scoffing at their preoccupation with style and beauty. They feel that I am so haughty that I think I am above and beyond fashion and deliberately under-dress to show the world that there is no reason for me to become part of the mainstream society.
I plead not guilty. In fact, sometimes, I am even in awe of the girls who manage to handle all those colours in those boxes and tubes, the trinkets that glimmer and shine, clothes that sometimes flow and sometimes cling. But still people refuse to understand. In office, I hear the girls titter behind my back about my appearance. They become vituperative and make ask themselves, 'What does she think of herself?'
One day, I thought I will wear Kolhapuri chappals to office. I thought this would at least end the hours of tension that the girls go through on my account. They looked at my 'un-pedicured' feet and laughed. They stared at my semi-dirty toenails and cringed. In the end they said, "What does she think she is doing, trying to be like us?" So, it is back to canvas and worn-out floaters, my friends.

Book review: Madonna of Mumbai Cats

Short takes on everyday life

Sadiqua Peerbhoy's short story collection, Madonna of the Mumbai Cats, has Mumbai as its protagonist

The simple becomes poignant and feelings and thoughts hidden in deep recesses of the human mind surface, page after page, in Sadiqua Peerbhoy's recently published short story collection, Madonna of the Mumbai Cats. Bangalore-based advertising professional, Sadiqua revisits the Mumbai, or Bombay, of her childhood and adolescent days through the twelve stories in the collection and in each, the Maximum City comes alive as a protagonist.
But it is easy to step beyond the city and feel the universal scope of the stories and their characters, who are trying to negotiate life through situations and dilemmas. Within the few pages of every short story, Sadiqua has penned vivid character sketches -- all ordinary people but made interesting with Sadiqua's sensitivity.
Whether it is the teen through whose eyes we see the world in the story that has given the book its title or the young woman scheming to win love in 'Writing to the Dead' or the man who has lost his mother and discovers her anew in her death, the people in her stories are entwined in moments that any one of us could be caught in. But the beauty of Sadiqua's treatment of these normal subjects is that she makes them rise beyond the prosaic, diving into the psychological depths that ordinary people plunge into in their everyday lives.
Sadiqua's lucid, controlled prose, pregnant with emotions, and her first-person narrative style in most of the stories, give the stories a more evocative character. In the story 'Beginnings and Ends', she uses a double narrative technique, in which we hear the the voices of two characters in the first person alternately. One is that of an elderly woman, the other is of an 'idiot boy' and flipping between the two very different personas gives the story an added flavour.
Sadiqua's professional background requires her to be concise and this practice of restraint has made her comfortable with the medium of short story and she has done justice to the genre. There are some editorial fallacies that the publishers, Har-Anand, should have paid more attention to.

Shatarupa Chaudhuri
shatarupa@expressbuzz.com

Mrs Goody Two Shoes XXVIII

Living a nightmare

For the four days she was with me, she held me on a leash and took advantage of my kindness

So there we were, Queeny and me, the most incompatible of companions. The husband had slunk into the shadows, overpowered by the presence of a dog who was the monarch of all it surveyed. It was four days of trauma for me and four days of malicious fun for Queeny as her mistress, Mrs Mehrotra, partied away in Goa.
Queeny's eyes had been so sorrowful as she bid Mrs Mehrotra goodbye that even I had almost bought the act. The moment Mrs Mehrotra's car zipped out of our front gate, she tilted her head towards me and I saw it again, that evil glint she had given me when she had first heard she would be our house guest for a while.
I pulled at her leash. She did not budge. I tugged one more time. She growled under her breath. Cautiously, I bent a little and patted her head. She snarled and snapped at my fingers. I felt like giving her one tight slap, except that our guard was watching and he is a big tell-tale. His voice oozing with sarcasm, he told me, "Madam, it is clear that you have never handled such a good breed of dog. It's okay, I understand. Usually, middle class people don't have such dogs. Anyway, she does not like walking all the time. Carry her upstairs."
I felt like I would blow my lid. Gritting my teeth, I lifted that pesky little creature.
I remembered how I had crooned "they are so cute, I wish I could just cuddle them" while watching the spa-going, diamond-wearing little pups in Beverly Hills Chihuahua. I had stared wonder-eyed as these dogs went through their schedules and appointments, parties and preening sessions. Their rosters of a week's fun and activities were way longer than my year-long plans. Yes, the movie had been fun to watch. Living in it wasn't quite the same though I thought as I cradled her in my arms. I held her like a baby, with all gentleness, in mortal fear of the invisible Mrs Mehrotra -- she had warned me sweetly, "Make sure you take proper care of her."
As these words buzzed through my head, I felt a trickle down my elbow. That dog had peed on me! Just a few drops, which infuriated me even more since I knew she had done it deliberately. I kicked my front door open and was about to throw her down when those words returned to haunt me again. I placed her on a cushion I had kept for her on the floor of the living room and ran to the bathroom to have a shower.
I came back. She was gone. I was so frightened. I cursed myself. How could I have left the door open? I ran downstairs and seeing me panic, the guard sensed something was wrong. "What happened madam? Queeny is okay, no?"
"Yes yes. Why should she be not okay?" He was so annoying. I ran around for a while and confused about what to do, ran back upstairs. There she was, covered in mud and filth. Covered in mud and filth and on my prized cream-laced bed. I stifled a cry. She had had her adventures in the garden and grabbed the choicest spot in my home. I went to the kitchen. She had overturned my milk carton and rummaged through the dustbin.
The nightmare that begun went on. I would take her to the spa and she would escape from my grip to roll in the mud. I would feed her, she would go and steal from the next door neighbours. I do not know how I survived through the days. But I still tried to be nice. But that ungrateful dog tricked me on the last day again. I bathed her and dressed her nicely as we waited for Mrs Mehrotra's return. I took my eyes off for one moment and she overturned the dustbin, rubbed herself in the waste and presented herself with a meek, docile, lost expression in front of her mistress. Mrs Mehrotra nearly fainted. So did I.

The frenzy that is Khan

It is a wonder how one man and his one film can occupy so much airtime

It was such a huge gimmick that it took a bomb blast and the gruesome end of innocent lives to take the attention away. Till Pune's German Bakery shattered almost to smithereens and the media got a fresh excitement, the news channels were having a fairly easy time. There was only one story that they had to really report on for nearly 36 hours (or was it more?). One movie, one controversy, one man, one name. I think by now, I know the statistics by heart -- how many screens in how many halls are showing 'My Name Is Khan', how many people have queued up for it, how many policemen are standing in exactly what positions to protect the King of India, the Khan of all Khans.
SRK, I am sure is thanking the Sena, secretly or away from the media glare. His friend Mr Karan Johar is thanking his stars. Both Mr Khan and Mr Johar are thanking their fans profusely. And I know that last bit because this piece of information kept flashing under the 'Breaking News' ticker of our esteemed channels. I understand the television media's predicament. The need to churn out content 24/7 puts pressures on any producer. So, if one man gives the viewers enough cud to chew on for a day and a half, they undoubtedly owe him a big chunk of their news space. SRK was making news on one side. But news channels were 'making' more, sensationalising, adding a little spice to the story their rivals reported a few seconds ago and dishing it out to the innocent public.
I was laughing when I sat and watched one regional news channel from Kolkata. The news reporter held a grave expression and was shouting in all urgency (have you ever wondered how they mostly shout and never talk?). Looking at the way he sweated and made an earnest effort to report the news from the 'on-field location', it seemed like he was comparing himself to a war reporter.
He asked his camera person to zoom in on the police deployed, the barricades and talked of the undercurrent of tension. The lane they were showing looked quiet enough for ten in the morning. For a moment I was taken in by the whole drama. A riot broke out there or what? "Here I am, standing in front of XYZ movie hall, where My Name is Khan is being screened..." I just had to switch off.
They were making SRK, a millionnaire or, I don't know, perhaps a billionnaire, the biggest martyr of all for one protest that one Shiv Sena made! A controversy bloated out of proportion has given this man millions worth of free publicity. Perhaps the tickets would not even have sold so much without that. And him a martyr? Give me a break!
There are few businessmen as shrewd as this man is. Fewer still who have such a keen sense on how to sell himself to all the bidders at such mighty high prices. Don't get me wrong, and SRK fans, don't get offended (if you slander me, I won't have a media backing) because I respect the man for that. I think we have a lot to learn from him. After all, who can even dream of having thousands bathing his or her photo with milk and risking their very lives to queue up for hours and buy tickets for his or her film?

AREA WATCH BANGALORE: NAGAVARAPALYA

JAM PACKED

Nagavarapalya is a chaotic mess gasping for breathing space

A pedestrian would, in all likelihood, feel humbled by the elegance of the row of genteel homes on either side of the road. The houses with classy wooden gates, trellises of roses and bougainvilleas, porches under which stand high-end cars and architectural panache seems to have eyes following you as you try to tread softly on the footpaths so as not to disturb those grand residences standing in aristrocratic silence.
Take the right just before Big Bazaar on Old Madras Road and you will have entered this pretty, picturesque, quiet world of Nagavarapalya. Follow the footpath for a while, and it will transform into uneven or broken stone slabs. Follow it further, and, by the time you reach the prime area of Nagavarapalya Main Road, it would have disappeared. Disappeared is perhaps not the appropriate word; taken over by hawkers and by the awnings of the permanent shops is more correct.
Also, unlike the first quarter where the emptiness on the road seems almost unnatural, here you will have to jostle with pedestrians and vehicles at the same time. The lanes and bylanes become even more crowded, claustrophobic nearly as they become narrower, most of them broken and ill-maintained, with shops, houses and institutions squeezed into the available space.
Teachers in the Government Kannada Higher Primary School, which has about 300 students said that although the school is running well, with no dearth of food, water and electricity for the kids, the lack of a playground confines the students in the concrete building. This school, that is near the Anjaneya Temple, is surrounded by buildings on three sides with almost no room in between.
But surprisingly, people still find space for construction here. Beautiful homes and residential complexes are being built amid houses that look almost like ghettoes. Some of the roads are in poor condition because of the multiple constructions going on around.
Raghunath, a resident who also owns a shop in the Krishnappa Building (the main market on Nagavarapalya Main Road), has other complains. He said, "Garbage gets piled up on the road next to the building. The vegetable and fish vendors just throw the rubbish here. The BBMP truck does not do a good job of cleaning. Moreover, it comes during peak traffic hours, around 9 or 10 am, and blocks traffic for an hour. Another problem is parking. People just come and park in front of our shops and leave their vehicles here for hours."
When approached, even Lt Col MG Thimmaya, the estate manager of the DRDO Township (which is right next to Nagavarapalya), agreed about the garbage and traffic woes. He said, "The vendors have occupied the footpaths and they sit right next to my compound wall. It is a security threat to DRDO." He added that the road becomes main road choked due to traffic since most of its width has been eaten up by shops and vendors.
But the picture is not all bleak here. Nagavarapalya may be bursting at its seamsa and look a bit messy, but if you adjust to these, it is a convenient place to stay. The innumerable shops (old style and not supermarkets) ensure that you get everything within five minutes of your reach, be it daily provisions, medical help, small eateries like Hotel Chirag, tailors or even things like 'sound and light' stores. Priya, a resident, said, "There is no problem of water or electricity. Big Bazaar and Old Madras Road are close by." At least, it is bustling with life if not with some much-needed order.

Mrs Goody Two Shoes XXVII

Mid-life masti

While the fat woman went off to Goa, hips swaying, I was left stranded with her 'baby'

Mrs Mehrotra was all packed. Two suitcases and a very 80s, cherry red vanity case (with her lipstick and nail paint to match it) stood in the lobby as her driver got the Accent out of the garage. The clacking heels and the sudden gush of perfume smell announced that her ladyship had finally come down from her flat after a two-hour make-up session in front of her dressing table. She was off to Goa with her kitty party club, those 'ooooh' and 'aaaaaah' ladies.
Two suitcases for a four-day trip, I rolled my eyes while talking to myself in my mind. The vanity case was right out of a cheesy movie with a cheesier airhostess as the heroine. "Oh darling, sho shweet of you to see me off," Mrs Mehrotra trilled. I quickly snapped out of my musings, looked up and displayed my teeth in a frozen grin, that is until I realised she was addressing Queeny. Did I not introduce you to Queeny? The Mehrotra woman will chop me to pieces and feed my bones to that bitch (every kind of pun intended) if she knew I forgot about her.
Queeny: the most ill-mannered, ill-tempered, spoilt, high-handed female dog ever. Queeny: the dog who pisses everywhere except her mistress' home. Queeny: the cunning shrew, who would steal from you and act all innocent in front of Mehrotra. Queeny: the one I, her temporary guardian, was holding on a leash right then while the 65-year-old went off to chill out on the sunny beaches.
The week before she had called me to see her shopping. I had thought, poor widow (Mr Mehrotra had passed away ten years back), she needs someone to share her little joys. I had expected saris and salwar-kameez sets, demure even if not classy (class was beyond Mrs Mehrotra.) But I gulped when I saw what I saw. Skinfit slacks in shiny colours, tube tops, flowery bikinis. The picture of her flabby tummy and not-so-appealing buttocks in the bikinis flashed through my mind. I tried to shoo the image away.
"Look at you, all skin and bones. Men will drool and fall when they see all this mutton (ahem, she meant her physical self) in these clothes. Just let me hit the beach baby!" She sounded so excited that I nodded along, praising each of the XXL items, bored to death by the end of it, but smiling in encouragement still.
As I slowly edged away, having spent nearly three hours with her, she said she had just one "tinsie-winsie" favour to ask from me. "Look after my Queeny while I am away. She is such a good little girl. SHe will miss her mommy..." I suddenly realised what she was actually asking of me. "What?" I stood there helplessly. "Come on, you can't do this much for your Mehrotra auntie? Anyway Queeny is a jewel." Jewel she is indeed, I thought, as I caught the evil glint in her yes. Was she smiling at my predicament? Was I hallucinating? I was petrified of that dog and I whimpered a "yes auntie, of course auntie", almost as if Queeny was holding me at gun point. For the terror of a time I had with her, you have to come back to this column next week.

Go wild

If looks don't bother you then you can go and have a hearty meal at Wild Spice

If you have a fetish for luxury with a taste for the genteel way of life, this place is not meant for you. But if you are not finicky about where exactly you are sitting down to eat, as long as the food tastes good, then you can walk into Wild Spice on Residency Road.
At first glance, the place looks downright shady. After peering for a while in the dark interiors you will notice the coir mat carpets have gathered dust of years, the paint is peeling off, the walls have become a bit greasy. The nonchalance of the waiters will greet you as they thump glasses of water on the table and thrust the plastic-coated menu cards into your hands.
But the chairs and tables are clean enough for you to settle down comfortably. There are three things that will work up your appetite -- smells wafting from the kitchen, the list of dishes on the menu, and, best of all, the pricing. Combinations like the really spicy Coorg pork curry with sinfully fattening ghee rice, or the akki roti-egg-Coorg pork curry plate come within a price slab of Rs 80 to Rs 100.
There are many varieties in fish, chicken and pork here and they are all quite mouth-watering. You can also have a meal with roti, a vegetable, two Coorgi sambhars, a meat dish of your choice and a sweet. Wash it all down with a ginger lemon soda or some other juice at a price point of about Rs 20. This place is more than just affordable where two people can be well-fed with Rs 200.