For Fathima

Although its just been a week or so since I’ve been away from my blog, it does seem like ages! Last Sunday my cousin sis Fathima got married. Her marriage was a much-awaited event in our lives, hers being the second wedding in my family, after mine. After a gap of exactly ten years! Ofcourse, there have been other weddings in the family, but in my maternal grandmother’s house, hers was the second. So, naturally, this was a most special occasion for us. Made more so special because we’ve all known the bridegroom from aaaaages! He’s not a cousin, like it was for me, (Mansoor being my father’s sister’s son), but rather, my mother’s cousin. Anyway you look at it, theirs seems to be a match made in heaven! (mashallah!)

Fathima is headed out to the US very soon, and we shall all miss her, especially me…she had become my confidant and unexpected friend in the past four years or so. I wrote a testimonial for her on Orkut that I just want to paste here. It says about everything that I want to say about her!

“Fats as she’s called these days was ‘munni’ to us at home for many years. I dont know how she became Fathim and then Fats….:-)

Known her forever, after all, she’s my kid sister before Sidra came on the scene. I used to resent her a lot when I was small, coz I thought that her mom(my aunt) favoured her more than her brother(my favourite cousin then). Anyways, there are phases when you dont know much about people so close to you and Fats and I went thru such a phase that lasted more than ten years! And one year, I traveled with her family to Chennai for a wedding which my family couldnt make up to, and that was when we got to know each other! What started then, hasnt stopped now and inshallah wont ever stop also.

Thanks to IM and sms we’ve grown a lot closer now, (although the kanjoos lady doesnt sms me much even though she has hundreds of free sms on her account..he he!!)Its been wonderful knowing her, she’s great fun to be with and I wish her all the happiness in the world! “

I wish Fathima and Nishat all the happiness in this world! Will miss you lots babes!

Lovely Lovely Rain!

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Taken from inside the car, near the Double Road flyover…Lovely rain!

Never Again!!!

I feel a little childish saying this, but I’m ‘never, never’ EVER going to a Barista cafe, especially the one next to William Penn in Koramangala. The other day, Shazu, me and Az dropped in there after a bout of shopping in William Penn.

We were looking for some coolers because it was so hot and iced tea would have done very well. Cold coffee also. The first thing I noticed when I entered was the gang of guys and girls around a table, ash trays, cigarettes and smoke all around them. Maybe it would be better inside we thought and went to place our order.

Having been a regular at Cafe Coffee Day, the sharp difference in prices surprised me. But since we were there, we couldnt walk out possibly because of a few rupees difference. I turned and saw more smoke billowing our way from other customers. Feeling out of sorts, we placed our order and then sat down. Az was asleep by then, and Shazu was holding him.

I ordered their Cold Cafe Latte or some such thing and Shazu ordered the Black Forest pastry. By the time the order arrived, we had to get up and move twice. The lady sitting behind us was sipping coffee contentedly, and she was joined by another woman. Back in college, the woman who joined later would surely be described with the word ‘paavam’. However, she lit up a cigarette and started blowing out ferociously, right towards Azhaan.

For a moment, I felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web. The smoke was everywhere, and the Barista staff were looking at us like we were specimens from another planet. Still, they pushed a table and a couple of chairs farthest from the smoke and indicated to us that we should sit down.

Ok, the reason I wont go there again:

1. I try not to judge people, but if they like to smoke and make Barista their smoking ‘adda’ then I’m definitely not going to be there, and become a passive smoker.
2. I HATE cigarette smoke. Thats saying it lightly. I wish I could shout it from the rooftops. While I may have never experienced the intoxicating(?) effects of smoking, I cant for the life of me figure out how anyone can enjoy it. Mansoor calls my nose, ‘The katar’naak’ naak”. Thats because I can smell cig smoke on him from a mile away, and he smokes only very rarely.
3. The service was not great. Whatever we asked for was either not available or was shot down by the lady behind the counter as being too bitter, or whatever.
4. The coffee itself. It felt like I was sipping coffee-flavored water. It was THAT watered down with ice. Hardly felt like drinking cold coffee to me. The cake, after being priced for Rs.49 a piece, was a huge chunk of dry chocolate cake and some insipid cream stuffed in it at regular intervals.
5. The very ambience itself. It looked so sleazily shady (probably because of that orange sheet on top, instead of a regular roof), improper lighting(i’d hate to be there after 7), and completely absent ventilation.

Well! I feel all huffed out now. But I wont go there ever again!!!

Saboor’s results

Today was Saboor’s results in school. All four of us, (thats Azhaan included) went to Saboors school, huffed up the two flights of steep stairs and reached the classroom where his results were being handed out.

It looked rather like a mere formality, as his teacher wasnt even there. Some other teacher was there who handed us Sabs assessment sheet(as is the new hi-fi name for ‘report card’) and I saw at the bottom, where it was written, ‘promoted to third standard’. Whew! What a relief. Well, I dont know why, but even when I was small myself I used to wonder whether I would pass or not, and be relieved whenever I saw that scrawl or calligraphy kind of handwriting(depending on the teacher and her mood), telling me that I had been promoted.

Saboor got ‘B’ in all his subjects. I was slightly disappointed, but I didnt harangue him for that, as I had decided that I wouldn’t force him to get ‘A’s and harrass him if he didnt get any. In fact, I didnt want to push Sab into academics and make him mug questions and answers. I wanted him to be happy about studying. Which goes to show how well I know boys and little boys who have cricket on their mind at that.

Last year Sab flunked Hindi. His awful teacher(who seemed to hate him and me for some reason) made Mansoor sign a note saying that Sab would do well in Hindi, and only then she promoted him. What a load of *&%^!

Sab is pretty good at Hindi now. I didnt force him into learning it, but he some how picked it up. Anyhow, I did coach him before his ‘appraisals’ (exams) and the remarks from the teacher regarding how much he has comprehended the different concepts looks satisfactory to me. Well, ordinarily I would have let him be, but Anjum’s sister’s daughter who is the EXACT age of Sab, having been born on the same day, and same year, got A+ in all her subjects. I kind of felt deflated after that.

On the way to Vellore

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This is the landscape of my childhood.As we zip through the chittoor road highway,a road we\’ve taken to after a long long time because the hosur road is closed,i remember many car rides with abbu,listening ghazals drowsily in the back of the car with junaid..Green fields spread out on both sides of the road..Roads curving precariously,boulder topped hills staring at us malevolently..Az too loved the scenery as the car sped by.

What are they called..They\’re not electric poles..Something so mundane cannot be used to describe these huge interconnected wiry structures that dot the fields.When i was small i thought of them like huge men..Robotic men wit arms outstretched..I remember sitting at the back,watching the blue skies from the square of my window.

The hosur road route is fast and takes us to vellore in under 4 hours.But its a route without a soul.We dont enter a single town on the way.They\’re all bypass routes which deliver us to the highway in minutes.The chittoor road route on the other hand is scenic,nd we passed by towns that had once populated the space of my childhood.Full,rounded names like mulbagal,pallikonda,we entered the small bylanes of these towns,past men holding baskets wit nungu,small shops set up in shacks selling goli soda.The entry into tamil nadu was very unobtrusive.

(Written in present tense because I wrote this on my mobile while we were travelling……:-) Oh, the joys of technology!)