Dairy Overdose

I've just polished off a whole litre of chocolate milk, two huge cubes of cheese and a chocolate sponge pudding. And this wasn't even dinner. Awful British vegetarian food has turned me into a dairy guzzling glutton of the type that only the Swiss would approve heartily of. I'm turning either non-vegetarian or vegan from tomorrow.

My Experiments with Teaching

After more than ten lectures of the Specific Relief Act under my belt, I think a few observations are in order:

1. Irrespective of the fact that you have been assigned a specific class in a specific room at a specific time, it is always advisable to check with the college office, before your first lecture, that the members of the class in question are not filling up forms or counting notes before the cashier or scurrrying around getting their marksheets attested or indeed, performing any of the activities that figure prominently on the office's list of 'Ten Easiest Ways to Make a GLC Student Swear (Or Cry Or Resort to Deviousness, depending on your temperament). The idea being that you'd rather not spend your first day fingering the lock of your classroom in a bemused manner or running up and down the college looking for your students. Note: This observation is wholly GLC-centric.

2. In so far as it is within your power to influence the timetable, lobby hard to avoid an afternoon slot. Especially steer clear of lectures that begin at 1:30 p.m. It's hard to compete with longing, lunchtime thoughts for the attention of your students.

3. While zeroing in on your favourite teaching position ie sitting, standing, pacing, leaning, take the following factors into consideration:

(a) Don't shift around too much if you're sitting on a leather seat. Friction between your clothes and the seat is apt to produce sounds embarrassingly reminiscent of abdominal problems.

(b) The standing position does not go well with a raised platform and high heels. Students should leave your lecture with aching heads, not stiff necks.

(c) The leaning position does not go well with a blackboard and black trousers/churidars.

(d) If you like pacing, be very aware of the length of the platform. I am not going to elaborate.

4. Your students are not reading a Charles Dickens novel. You might be able to unravel all the principal and subordinate clauses of your compound and complex sentences, but the students like lots of full stops.

5. If you've forgotten what you're going to say next, indulge in some light banter with your class. Throw a few questions at them. There is nothing more pathetic than pretending to cough everytime you need to take a surreptitious peek at your notes..

6. If one of the backbenchers is yawning, look lively or begin winding up. (Of course, you could always try throwing chalk) If one of the frontbenchers is dozing, STOP.

7. If you're willing to stoop really low, offer chocolate as an incentive for attendance. Actually, I can't recommend that with any authority yet- I've only tried it today. Results shall be published on the next post.

Inter Alia

For someone who wants to be an environmental lawyer, I display a lamentable lack of enthusiasm for biodiversity, especially of the arachnid variety. An otherwise perfect holiday at Kabini was marred by a relentless pursuit by the spiders. They seem to have sensed my paranoia of them, and popped up everywhere. Whether to perversely torment me, or to reassure me of their innate innocuousness, I cannot say. The first one appeared on the window sill when I was alone in the cottage at the Dubare elephant camp and the rest of the family was about to go on a safari. I ran out of the cottage screaming, much to the amusement of the guides, who must have thought that the decibel levels and the urgency of my yelling warranted a snake, at the very least. The next one, a huge brute, with abnormally long legs, appeared in the bathroom. Much, much harder to dash promptly out of there. I had to beat a strategic retreat, moving stealthily, so that any sudden movement wouldn't alert the spider to my presence. I refused to re-enter until the attendants exterminated it with some kind of spray and my sister swore that she had witnessed the disposal of the corpse. The unkindest cut of all was on the hammocks at the Kabini River Lodge. They were deliciously comfortable, and the spot was idyllic. The Kabini river was ten steps away, there was the most wonderful breeze whistling through the trees, I could spot cormorants in the distance and I was curled up with a good book. Everything that I could ask for in a holiday. Ten minutes into the book and I spot a bright red, poisonous looking specimen making its way across. The peace was shattered instantaneously. I waved my arms desperately, overbalanced and toppled out of the hammock. However, such was the draw of the place (see picture) that even the spiders couldn't keep me away. I convinced my parents to stand guard over me while I was reading, but they soon tired of their sentry duties. For the rest of the trip, the lapping of the waves would lull me into a false sense of security for a while, and then suddenly, I would imagine something scuttling up my leg and leap up nervously to conduct a frantic check. Most unrelaxing.
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Another summer has come and gone (well, not quite, there's still no sign of the rains) and the gulmohur that I planted seven years ago stubbornly refuses to flower. It is the ugliest tree in the building. I blush for it- it's branches are so immodestly bare. It is put to shame by the brilliant blooms of its neighbours. The few leaves that it puts out are dry, limp and brown. At a time when the rest of the city is at its arboreal best, my tree mocks me with its abject lack of colour. Since I planted it on my seventeenth birthday, it has become a ritual for me to have my photograph taken with me standing next to the tree. I've grown slimmer and fatter, become fairer and darker, have alternately had longer and shorter hair, but the tree gives no indication of the passage of the years. It is an unyielding trunk of barrenness.
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Given that I registered vociferous protests against my aunt's upcoming trip to Mexico, it is ironic that I should be the one to have contracted swine flu. I've been reading the health bulletins and the travel advisories religiously, and I'm convinced that I have all the symptoms. Sore throat, runny nose, body ache- all most uncomfortably present. Plus, I've travelled to and from Bombay and Bangalore twice in the space of two weeks, laying my unsuspecting body open to attack by the vast army of germs that travellers carry with them everywhere. I did not voice my suspicions to my doctor-aunt for fear of being re-labelled a hypochondriac (I flatter myself that I haven't been one for several years now), but this time around, I think that the evidence points to an unhappy confirmation of my diagnosis. Time and a swab test shall reveal if this birthday is to be my last one.

Elegy

I’m fairly certain that my celebration of the ‘finally final’ end of exams yesterday was unique. I had unformed but grand ideas of what the culmination of five years of legal education should be like. I wanted to do something that would acknowledge the momentousness of the occasion properly. But ultimately, I simply stayed at home and cried. I’ve been the victim of similar afflictions before- I had a mild attack of the blues after the ICSE exams, which graduated into something bordering moderate depression after the HSC. So yesterday’s reaction was no surprise- I was only disappointed that I couldn’t delay the onset of the sadness long enough to allow me to celebrate in a more conventional way. The weeping could have waited a bit.

I’ve tried very hard to analyse why I feel the way I do at the end of exams. It is not, as some people would allege, an expression of extreme nerdiness. I’m as happy as everyone else not to have more studying to do (at least for a bit, anyway). I welcome being able to sleep finally (though this simply means that I get 7 hours instead of 3. The only thing I resent GLC for is having robbed me of my previously inviolable 9 hour night). I’m thankful (hopefully) to be rid of the idiosyncrasies of the Mumbai University. And it’s good to be able to feel my arm again. It generally goes numb after three hours of furious scribbling.

I suppose I’m going to miss all the little rituals and idiotic superstitions that characterize my examination phase. Like my dad syringing ink into my fountain pens or my grandmother unfailingly making my favourite, lucky sweets before each exam. I’ve been wearing the same earrings and writing on the same board and bathing and eating in the same, very specific order for the last thirteen years. It’s going to be a wrench not having any of these comfort routines for my future exams. Not to mention the license I get during exam time to be as messy and unhelpful around the house as I like.

These exams don’t represent the end of my student life, but they certainly mark the end of what have undoubtedly been its best five years. Also, they were almost definitely my last tryst with the Indian education system. Thinking of it that way overwhelms me somewhat. And this might sound dramatic, but at a time when we sometimes think of generation gaps in terms of 3-4 years, these exams signalled the end of an era. A good measure of how much I value something or somebody is how much I cry over them. I hope yesterday’s weep did justice to five glorious, glorious years.

The Last Laugh

I’ve been having a bad time driving wise. It doesn’t have anything to do with my technique (my driving skills have always been, and still are, flawless!!). I’m just finding it very difficult to control my temper. I’ve always been susceptible to horrible bouts of road rage, and I’m getting increasingly intolerant of excessive honking, meandering taxis, lane-switching, headlight-flashing and the almost bovine ambling of pedestrians. Driving is also the only time I use uncharacteristically foul language. It’s got so bad that I can’t even drive down the street outside my house without letting loose a couple of swear words. I get sadistic pleasure from scaring the hell out of pedestrians when I drive up close and fast to them and then watch them make a dash for it. I get cheap thrills out of overtaking particularly aggressive Sumos. And I took some incredibly stupid risks once when I was racing an infuriating Qualis from Sewree to Wadala. (I won!)

And I’ve literally been ‘driven’ to this kind of behaviour because of all the disparaging remarks and contemptuous looks and resigned shakes of the head that I would attract simply because I used to be a law-abiding lady driver. Discrimination on the roads against the fairer sex is deeply entrenched in the Indian psyche. It doesn’t matter if you’re perfectly well behaved - it only makes it worse. Caution and discipline are inevitably mistaken for incompetence. If you don’t rush the last few yards when the signal is amber, you’re subjected to a volley of honks and abuse. The same goes for when you stick to the speed limit or refuse to start the car even though there are still 10 seconds to go before the signal turns green. And yet, it really hurts the male egos to have a female driver overtaking them. There are a couple of examples right where I live. My sister and I (on the rare occasions that we leave home at 7 a.m.), have fought silent, yet furious battles on the bends of J.J. flyover with some dads in our building who drop their kids to school. The scores are more or less even.

But a few weeks ago, I notched up a minor victory at the Traffic Commissioner’s office. Of course, why I was there in the first place is a painful story. I was returning from a concert at the NCPA and dreaming about the cute French cellist, so I didn’t notice the signal turning red at Pizzeria. The inevitable cop was lying in wait at the corner. My licence was impounded and I was furious that I would have to make a pointless trip to the Fashion Street police station the next day. I kept putting it off until I happened to glance at the sheet of paper that was supposed to be a substitute for my licence and realized that there’s apparently a time limit within which you have to collect your original (duh). It was already too late to go back to Fashion Street; it would now have to be the Commissioner’s office at Worli. And I was running out of time- it was the second last day and the sheet of paper didn’t say what would happen to your licence if you missed the second deadline as well. I stormed off to Worli only to realise when I got there that it was Mahavir Jayanti and a bank holiday. I was so mad at myself that I crumpled up my substitute licence before good sense prevailed. (I generally need to tear and throw things around when I’m really angry). When I returned to the office the next day, I was appalled at the queues. Incidentally, I was also the only female person in the building, not even a token lady constable. (Which again, goes to show how impeccable lady drivers must be.) I’d come armed with a book, thinking that it would probably take me an hour, but after observing the steady stream of taxi wallahs flowing in,I was convinced that I’d have to return the next day.

I was pleasantly surprised. The constable to whom I presented my battered substitute licence very courteously directed me to a tiny room grandiosely named the Chief Court. There was complete and utter chaos inside and I was quaking at the thought of having to battle that crowd. The queue outside the Court was equally tortuous. I was about to take my place in the line, when the constable outside the Chief Court asked me to wait at the head of the queue. He took the substitute licence and the hundred rupee fine from me and bravely plunged into the madness inside the Court. He was out in five minutes with my original licence intact. As I walked off triumphantly, I glanced back at all the other men jostling and sweating it out in the line. I estimated that they had, at the very least, a good two hours to go.

For all the times that I’ve been subjected to the fury of their impatience on the road, I felt vindicated.

Third Degree Torture at the Mumbai Marathon

When I stubbornly insisted on running the half-marathon in January, I received dire warnings of the physical toll that such unaccustomed exercise would take on my body. (Walking is pretty overrated, especially if you live in Sewree and until recently, have had exclusive possession of your car). My family reeled off a litany of ailments: dehydration, cramps, hairline fractures, ligament tears....but no one told me anything about missing toenails. I shall explain...

I valiantly panted through the 21 kms and hobbled around proudly for a couple of days after. Just when I'd decided that I'd been lucky to get by with nothing more serious than some aching muscles, I noticed that my toenails had taken on a very strange hue. Now I never wear nail polish, so I must admit that I was a bit surprised to see that three of my nails had turned a deep magenta. Now I know this is slightly disgusting, but the only plausible explanation for this gaudy behaviour was that blood had congealed under my toenails. Don't ask me how, I know they're supposed to be dead. I don't see how running for three and a quarter hours (yes, I did take that long to finish!)can possibly have caused my toes to bleed, but there you have it. Over the next few months, the nails have been at work dehinging themselves from my toes in varying degrees. Since it hasn't been painful in the least, I have been able to take an academic, if somewhat ghoulish interest in the process. Apart from the slight inconvenience that this condition causes when pulling on a churidar or closed shoes, it has been quite a lot of fun. It's amazing what you can get your sister to do by waving a dangling toenail in her face. Also, since it looks very painful, I attracted a fair amount of sympathy and generally felt pretty heroic. I also nearly died of laughter when a friend in my building, genuinely horrified at my condition, told me in all seriousness that my condition was fatal. She thought I was being very flippant.

I bade a fond goodbye to the last toenail today. My co-runner wanted me to preserve it as a memento, but as creepy as this post is, even I draw the line at that.

Baby Steps in Blogging

This is not a proper post- it's just a line to celebrate the fact that I've published so many posts now that they don't all appear on the same web page. I realised that just now when I scrolled down to the bottom and saw a link which says 'Older Posts'. Hurrah! ( Oh God, I don't think anyone outside an Enid Blyton book uses that word anymore. I've got to do something about this antiquated style of writing.)

The Facebook Bug

Since I can't think of anything intelligent or perceptive or funny to write about, I'm simply going to duplicate a recent Facebook activity, and hope that this blog has some readers who aren't yet on Facebook. The newest epidemic that's raging across Facebook is writing down '25 Random Things About Myself' and I'm its latest victim. Here's my exercise in verbal exhibitionism.


Contrary to my feigned disdain for Facebook and its endless applications, I have been secretly dying for someone to tag me so that I could get to write this note.
I’m far more attached to inanimate objects than people. I still cannot think of my lost Calvin Klein watch or my broken Waterman pen without bursting into tears (and no, that has nothing to do with the brands). As for the day I had to say good bye to our old Zen, I wept so bitterly on the street that I soon attracted a couple of concerned policemen. I’m currently in denial about our old bookcase being replaced.
I am pig-headed about not dancing in public. That’s because the only moves I know are the really ghati Govinda ones.
I intensely dislike many fruits without ever having tasted them. Papayas, custard apples, watermelons, cherries…it’s the sight of their seeds that I can’t stand.
There is a class of people that spends most of its holidays at its native place- I belong to that class…my native place being Switzerland. I’ve visited it six times.
I’ve seen Roger Federer and Wimbledon, but not Roger Federer at Wimbledon. The former was sighted at Zurich airport on 15/05/2006, the latter was visited on 21/08/2008. The two shall perhaps be seen in conjunction in 2010?
The sight of someone busking always makes me want to cry. I’m also always in agonies when there’s live music at a restaurant. I can’t bear to see performers getting anything less than undivided attention.
The two great prayers of my childhood were to grow tall and not get glasses. Behold… ask, and it shall be given you!
If you jot down the names that I’ve decided I want for my children, you’ll come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to be the new-age Gandhari if I want to use all of them.
I used to dream of a family with a husband, three children and a dog. I’m beginning to think I’ll settle for the dog.
The first great love of my life was Shane Bond, the New Zealand fast bowler-cum-police officer. I used to daydream about becoming a divorce lawyer so that I could oversee the break-down of his marriage.
Speaking of New Zealand, I used to have a pen-pal from there. Picton, to be precise.
Speaking of pen-pals, I don’t think anything quite beats the quiet warmth and intimacy of a letter. I try and make it a point to write at least once a year to friends and family abroad.
I think I am the best driver in the world. I cannot bear any criticism of my driving and abhor backseat drivers. My ability to switch from being a driver consumed by road rage to being a supremely unconcerned pedestrian speaks of an almost Jekyll and Hyde like schizophrenia.
Post my tenth birthday; I can’t remember a single one where I haven’t cried because I was turning older. Entering double digits was especially traumatic.
I will not date a man who cannot appreciate P.G. Wodehouse.
I hate coming second.
I am convinced that I shall be reincarnated as a doctor. I’ll never regret studying law, but I still have occasional pangs for medicine.
My dad still folds my blanket every morning. Yes, I’m spoilt silly.
I have locked myself out of the car four times at the Eros parking lot. The parking attendants are quietly amused and resigned. I’ve caught them rolling their eyes at each other every time I begin rummaging frantically in my bag for the keys.
I’ve delivered a lecture on Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Law to mass media students at St Xavier’s College. While I spoke, a group of students chatted away quietly, one boy fell fast asleep and two students heckled me when I opened up the floor for questions. I still had fun, though.
When I was a kid, I was petrified that my trachea and oesophagus were mixed up. Dinner table conversations were considerably enlivened by my cries of “Windpipe, windpipe” as I pointed frantically at my throat, convinced that I was choking to death.
Three generations of my family have studied at Government Law College. My grandparents (their romance flourished here), my mother and me.
Not having had the benefit(?) of hostel life, the first time I stayed absolutely alone(no friends, no family) was for a week in London in 2008. It was horribly lonely.
I want my ashes to be scattered at all the places I ever studied.

Je suis bilingue

No, I'm pentalingual actually ( I like to flatter myself that I can speak Marathi ), but as far as blogging goes, I'm sticking to two languages. See here for my blogging attempt in French, which by the way, has proved to be far more well read than this one and has received several extravagant compliments. I wish the readers (more wishful thinking) of this blog would pick up some tips from my French readers' paeans of praise!!

Wishful Thinking?

Whenever a major sporting event (read : a Grand Slam tennis final) rolls around, the current form of the players concerned is not something I take into consideration when mentally deciding who is going to win. (Maybe that's because I'm incapable of distinguishing between who I think is going to win and who I want to win.) Instead, the clinching factors are what clothes I'm wearing on the big day, what position I occupy in front of the TV, whether the volume is switched on or not (note how all these factors are within my control and open to manipulation, thus making the legitimacy of my winner-picking process all the more dubious) and finally, a sort of supernatural symmetry. There is a method to the madness of sports statistics. For example, as Vijay Amritraj very pertinently observed, Serena Williams was always going to win today because she's been winning the Australian Open every alternate year (2003, 2005, 2007 and now 2009), not because she's been playing solidly. Similarly, something tells me that Roger is going to win tomorrow because he's out to equal a record, not break one. Look what happened to him when he tried to go one better on Bjorn Borg last year at Wimbledon. Whereas equalling Borg's five consecutive Wimbledons didn't pose too many problems in 2007. Therefore, compelling logic commands that he'll be able to match up to Pete tomorrow. As for breaking the 14 Slam barrier? I'm sure I'll be able to dig up a sports statistic at that time which conveniently matches the dictates of my heart!

A Little Bit of Perspective

It's funny how as soon as I decided that using public transport more often would be one of my top priority New Year resolutions, an oil PSU strike made petrol pumps run dry. I considered it to be a sign that the powers that be approved of my environmental zeal. However, the approval was a little too resounding for my liking- the powers that be also thought that it would be funny if I had to launch my resolution with a trip to one of the hotels near the international airport (had to drop off a parcel and for complicated and boring reasons, couldn't use a courier). Sewree-Royal Meridien-Sewree sans taxi, rickshaw or car is a three hour trip flat. I found it hard to feel grateful that my aching bones (direct fallout of rediscovering that my legs are actually meant for walking, not balancing pillows while I read and eat on the sofa), crushed ribs (why is it that when you and your backpack are tightly jammed against the train pole, the very generously endowed woman behind you has to get off at the station before yours?) and sunburnt, perspiring face (last year's famous 8 degrees Celsius Mumbai winter feels like it belonged to another Ice Age) were all contributing to the climate change cause. My foul temper was compounded by the appalling frequency of the Harbour Line trains (I hate waiting) and the interminable ticket queues (I especially hate waiting behind other people) and I was ready to weep by the time I was finally in the train on my way home.

Now, I generally never buy anything off the train, but for some reason, a pair of earrings that a 12-13 year old boy was peddling caught my fancy and I asked him how much they cost. He said they'd be 5 bucks and I pulled out a tenner (having exhausted all my change to meet the 'exacting' demands and not risk the rudeness of the ticket clerks). The boy said he didn't have change and for one, horrible moment, I thought I was going to launch into a tirade at him. Fortunately, my better self prevailed and I told him to keep the change. Instead of pocketing it happily, he went all over the compartment until he found someone willing to give him change and then immediately ran back with a five rupee coin. I told him he could keep it, but he was absolutely adamant and kept insisting. He finally pressed it into my hand and got off at the next station. All the time that I was trying to make him keep the money, there was a look of complete bewilderment on his face. He couldn't understand why someone should be trying to force him to keep money that he hadn't earned. And if he had enough pride not to beg, I ought to have had the sense (and sensibility too, come to think of it) to simply have bought another pair of earrings.

I can't wait for my next public transport expedition now- I need to learn more than just environmental lessons.

My relationship with airports is something of an emotional weathervane. And it has now swung around from intensely stormy farewells and sunshiny returns to a cool, almost frigid, ‘departure’ and ‘arrival.’ (Just using those words makes the whole process sound so horribly business-like.) I’m just unsure whether this particular climate change is for the better or worse. True, my family found my earlier behaviour inexplicable (especially since the airport only meant that I was off on a fantastic holiday with my fantastic grandparents) and often embarrassing. You could almost have set your watch by the time that I would commence sniffling on the approach road to Sahar. Dad would produce a pristine handkerchief and hand it over resignedly. The sniffling would graduate into a sedate sobbing and by the time the car drew up at the airport, it would be a full-blown howling, much to the discomfort of my undemonstrative father, who was always acutely aware of the curious stares that my heartbroken wailing was attracting. After many last hugs and waves, I would walk morosely in line to the check-in counter and by the time the boarding pass was issued, the last of the tears would have been wiped away and I would begin taking a cheerful interest in my surroundings and the upcoming trip, albeit with a splitting headache, courtesy of all the crying of the past hour.

But that’s all changed now. I don’t cry at all anymore. However, that doesn’t mean I particularly enjoy my farewells either. I think I preferred the earlier weepy ones. In fact, I think I almost used to revel in them. It was the crying that made the event momentous. It was a proper send-off. It gave me a sense of occasion. And the corresponding returns were equally volatile, but in a joyous, exuberant way. Now I actually find myself dragging my steps at a return, because it inevitably means that a wonderful holiday is over and routine beckons. I know it’s a bit heartless of me, but more than that, it’s perplexing that someone who used to behave practically as if she was going into exile should be so reluctant to come back.

I much prefer dropping and receiving others now. Seeing someone else off still manages to jerk the old tear glands into action a tiny bit. And the picking up brings all the excitement and warmth that my own returning never seems to be able to ignite. I’ve already made two trips to different airports in different cities over the last ten days (and will make one more in Feb) and I’m thankful that I’ve still managed to retain all my childlike enthusiasm. (Also, you can’t help laughing at the hilarity of the Bombay airport which has named the bit of ground around the arrivals gate the ‘Meeters and Greeters’ area!!)

In any case, this year should have one big farewell coming up and I’m fairly certain that it’ll satisfy all my lachrymal cravings.