In the hidden creases of our minds...

In the Hidden Creases of our Minds…

Sometimes I feel like I'm sitting at a station and trains whiz past me without stopping. I can see the lights in the train windows, but not well enough to see who or what is inside. The next window has already claimed my attention. And then the next!

I have just updated the OS on my phone and there’s another update already! I overhear a PYT chatting on the phone, "So I finally cut my hair in the asymmetric fashion yesterday, and today I saw this swag hairstyle on Miranda Kerr that I wanna get!" Bathing soaps have gotten better, newly improved and are now endowed with even better fragrance. No time to blink, the next swanky model of car is already here. By the time I make up my mind to let my kid watch 'Transformers', he's already switched allegiance to ‘Arrow’!

The other day I was watching a TV programme about the 80s. There was a scene where they were using the chunky telephone; the ones that you had to stick your finger in the circle and dial. Then you have to wait for it to whirr back to position. It got me thinking. My generation has buried a multitude of things in the hidden creases of our minds simply because things got newer and better and then simply obsolete!

Remember the weighing machines at railway stations and movie theatres with colourful dials that spin away when you step on it? It used to be a tradition to check our weight on those machines every summer holiday. It would even tell your fortune in addition to your weight that you would meet your life partner or strike it rich with a lottery soon. 

Those days the flapping pages of calendars would remind us that days were passing by. Rolls of newly waxed and shiny paper would replace the old ones on that singe nail every January. It would have birthdays marked in bright colours. Gas cylinder bookings would be jotted down on the sides. Telephone numbers, milk money, exam schedules and shopping lists were scribbled on it. Calendars used to be a big part of our daily lives. Now calendars make the news only when Kingfisher is making them!

Can you remember the last time you held a fountain pen?! I was reminded recently when a friend gifted me one and said it’s a collectible not just because it’s not really used nowadays, but because it was a handmade one. I love the way a pen allows you the time to think and write. My personal opinion is that keyboards have a quality of unwarranted urgency to them. The damn cursor keeps blinking!

Telegrams! Those little scraps of paper used to scare the wits out of anybody as it was a popular medium to convey bad news. “Grandfather unwell. Take next train.” But that's being unfair to the memory of telegrams. They also brought news of job appointments and exam results. And now they are oh-so-redundant with the onslaught of emails, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and Snapchat. Today you can post, “Achoo! My dog sneezed” and get 200 likes and address references of the nearest vet within a few seconds.

There are many things I can ramble on about just because I'm in the mood for nostalgia. The wood framed slate and chalk that was an integral part of our first day at school. The shiny plastic sticker bindi; not the felt ones; those are still sticking on! The film negatives; holding them up against the light and looking at the ghostly reversed images was a favourite past time. Then there's the growing list of things that will soon become part of our good-ole-days. Greeting cards, handwritten letters, phonebooks, cameras and books. I dread the day e-books will pull the plug out on the printed ones! I mourn the missing footsteps at the post office. I long for that coloured envelope bearing teddy bear pictures and happiness.

But in the meantime, I'm still at the station, waiting for the trains to stop or at least slow down; armed with a mobile phone that has the setting changed to ‘automatic update’! Have to keep up...iron out the creases!

-Anuradha Venkatnarayan 

   

Who's teaching? Who's learning!

My kid turns around and asks me, "Amma, what's my job?" I'm quickly searching for appropriate answers because parenting has a lot of rules now. You cannot demand too much from children. But you should not hide too much from children either! While I'm grappling with the right thing to say, he cheekily says, "To make you and Appa happy, what else?!" He's won over me hands down. Lesson learnt: Don't complicate.

Another day my other darling catches me clutching my head, nursing a headache. She promptly brings me the roll on balm and rubs it in for me. I melt in her warmth. It gets me thinking about how I react when she tells me she is hurt. Her eyes would be welling up with tears, ready to drop; and a tiny sympathetic word would start the deluge. So I would brush it away saying it's just a scratch. I have to teach her to be strong. But maybe all she wants is to be hugged and allowed to cry. Lesson learnt: A little love goes a long way. 

When did I stop enjoying the little things they did? Is it because they have grown up a little bit more and I have to teach them so many things. Why am I in a rush to make them model human beings? Can I not afford to let them learn at their pace? Lesson learnt: It's not about who's teaching and who's learning; it's about the willingness to learn. 

Tolerance testing...123!

Of late I keep hearing this warning over and over in my head - tolerance testing...1,2,3; tolerance testing...1,2,3.

Vishwaroopam releases; two shows later somebody who hears the same warning in their head, takes it really seriously and storms the screening and forces us to stop it. The voice in his head said 'I am upset that they are making money by making movies that shows muslims as terrorists'. We are sorry we lacked the imagination to show terrorists of another religion in a story that's set in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Nirbhaya gets raped, mutilated, thrown off a bus and left for dead. The many warning voices in many heads go off. Some are saying she should have begged for mercy. Some are asking what she was doing out so late. Some are pointing out that in a Hindu nation, women will be safe. We are sorry we lacked the decency to stay indoors. We are penitent that we brought out the animals in those men. We are sorry we lifted our heads and walked out.

Pictures of Hindu gods on a model sashaying down the ramp suddenly get called off. A persistent warning rings in some minds about disrespect, about irreverence. We are sorry we took it for granted that it will be accepted in the right sense since Hindu gods have always been colourfully shown on calendars, framed in pictures and splashed on walls. We are sorry we were creative.

The warning voice is repeating this over and over in my head - tolerance testing...1,2,3; tolerance testing...1,2,3. When will I lose my tolerance over such blatant abuse of personal freedom.

Maybe I should not publish this blog?!

Tolerance testing...1,2,3...