sic-making

the most entertaining section of any newspaper is the career supplement. especially where they tell you how to do well in interviews, how to get along with your coworkers, and how to make the best of an unappreciative boss. interviews are my favouritest, though. earlier the fascination was due to comic relief, or so i thought. but perhaps this has roots in actual need for self-improvement in re my track record with interviews i.e. hilarious.

it doesn't matter what the darker motives are, this is all very good advice. for example, in today's issue, the author informs us on essential social skills in the workplace. listening is one of those skills and although we've heard a lot on the subject, i don't think it's possible to hear enough. so here's how to be a good listener:

it is important to hone one's non-verbal abilities and make encouraging noises, repeating a word or phrase of what is being said, maintaining close eye-contact and referring to what your interlocutor has said. nodding understandingly and appropriate gestures are appreciated too.

close quotes. first of all, who says interlocutor?

secondly, how come nobody ever says, to be a good listener, try listening? it's ridiculous advice, of course, but it's never occured to me that not looking ridiculous was a big concern with career gurus.

nodding understandingly won't make you a better listener, it will just make you a very annoying person. to be a listener, watch intonation. this is confusing because people never intonate what you expect them to intonate, they emphasise different things, accent perplexing syllables. but soon you will stop being confused about these little things and become confused about larger, more important things. you know you have become the best listener you can possibly be when you are one hundred percent bewildered by something your colleague just said. understanding is a whole other kettle of bloated fish. and judging by the current state of everything, we're not there yet.

pour your sugar on me

i'm not a fussy eater because i couldn't afford to be; we've had some very lunatic people cooking for us. first, my grandmother who was the sweetest accessory after the fact an accident-prone eight-year-old could have, but she used to make something truly vile with overripe bananas. first she'd mash them up and really, do you need to hear more.

then we had shoba who was an amazing cook but she believed in feeding me till i could eat no more. and that is no mean feat. i would come back from school, she'd sit me down and make rotis/dosas, transfering them hot-hot to my plate. endlessly, as in with no end. and i ate because as someone threw into a conversation yesterday, food is love. yeah, baby.

then there was radhamma, who was a jesus freak. when my mom was out of town she would sleep on a mat in our room and wail a prayer of gratitude at the sky for about an hour before she fell asleep. i was scared of her, but she was a great cook and friends still remember her kheema samosas.
then shoba came back and continued to stuff my face. and then she left and we had a succession of mental people who weren't in this for the food.

i don't even remember them because they came and went so quickly. but we ate things that went a long way in shaping my current philosophical disposition; the atrocities included sweet fried balls of idli-pindi (as entrees), dals of various hues, consistencies and potencies that nagamani liked to serve in a pressurecooker, and everything that could be boiled, plus a good many things that did not want to be boiled. ketchup was my only friend.

and, of course, there's my mother, who really is very good, especially with the naadan mutton fry. but she's a fussy cook, so she doesn't do it often.

i cook too and i like what i make. but this does not mean it is good, i will not have you thinking that.

ok, now that i have had my yap, the list of food things that rock my world.
1. that thimble-sized dollop of nutty trufflely creme in which the hazelnut gooes, at the centre of a ferrero rocher. this is the optimum way to snort the stuff: nibble off the outer nut-choc layer. take the wafer cups apart and collect creme in one cup. pick hazelnut and eat. leave the cup, with the creme, in a patch of sunlight for about 5 minutes. scoop out with tongue. heaven is the clogging up of all senses woth chocolate
note: if you eat rochers in one crunch, instead of taking it apart in layers like a normal person, you are sick and unfit to vote.
2. pepperoni pizza with garlic sauce. making pepperoni with chicken, beef, lamb or anything that doesn't oink is also disgusting.
3. cupcakes. all kinds of cupcakes. some people call them muffins. i have nothing against these people.
4. dal rice because there is no better cure for homesickness of the soul. whether your home is an igloo or a walking distance away.
5. fish fry with hot rice. butterfish is good, black pomfret is best, and sardines you can crunch down whole are perfect.
6. qubani ka meeta with cream. i love mumtaz khan's tart, luscious, whole-qubani version, but i also like the synthetic liquified gloop they serve at weddings. they all have the right to live and be eaten. just like you and me.
7. shikampur kebab. also by mumtaz khan, mistress of hyderabad's spices. the only minced meat kebabs i like because they don't dilute the meatiness, while providing a moist flavourful experience every time. jai hind.
8. guavas. this has been my favourite thing to eat while reading since always. a guava doesn't interrupt you with annoying pips or peels that must be peeled. a banana may be a better bookmark but a guava never got accused of unsolicited phallicness.
9. biryani. i hate wasting a whole place on the list for this because really is there any need to state the fact? and nish (who remembered) is right, you do get the bestest kinds at weddings. but i once had a transcendental biryani experience at a restaurant i won't name now because that stroke of brilliance turned out to be a fluke. but oh my god, there were such visions.
10. cup noodles, tangy chicken. there is a wonderful democracy, a factory-processed love about instant noodles. it's like being gently chuffed on the chin by a large peice of machinery.

food is love. and love is sweet poison. so it all works out in the end.

pop-porn

since we aren't allowed to show people copulating, we find other ways to get off. in telugu movies, beating women up is very popular. this sequence is most effective when she's in a saree, looking very pure and virginal. the guy yanks her about and starts off with some slapping. she falls about, her pallu slipping off. then he grabs her hair - of which she has plenty and it's plaited for maximum grabbing advantage - and whips her about the room, toppling things over. (this works great in the kitchen when there's the additional thrill of her catching fire) the orchestra really gets warmed up now: clattering utensils, woman screaming, four-year-old wailing in the doorway. then the tempo rises and he throws her on the floor, kicking vigorously. by now her saree's more or less given up the half-hearted struggle against immodesty and she's thrashing around in the grip of an orgiastic helplessness. in a while, she goes limp against the floor and he hauls one last kick at her behind before grunting in satisfaction and heading off, nearly ripping the door's hinges in his progress.

in malayalam movies and soaps, women cry. they cry in the most keening, breathless, continuous way imaginable. this sound fairly forms the background score of most of the serials my mom watches every evening. there once was a talk show that was also very big around here, and every week they'd find one woman to sit on the panel and cry. that seemed to be her only contribution to the debate. and it sounded like that mic was lodged up her nose, it caught every ragged breath and sigh. and you know it's porn because of how cynically manufactured the throes are. in movies the man stands around saying nasty things, most likely casting aspersions on her character or threatening to kill her lover. she'll hold her pallu to her face and get into her act. her mother soon joins in. her sister, their maid. large panting women, dripping wet and grunting with the effort of their pose.

a fuck is still just a fuck, but sex repressed is an ugly ugly thing.

puppydog tails

a dear friend's kid brother just dropped in to say hello after disappearing into the great american beyond for two years. i say kid brother, though he's 23 now and a strapping, confident youth with a receding hairline and a career choice i don't understand that involves the word neural. we were buddies as children and would routinely gang up on his sister who was easily sqeamed.

i've always enjoyed other people's little brothers and often wished i had one of my own. kid brothers have such an appreciation for the truly gross things of life, i've never found that with any other class of human beings. plus, they fight fair and understand the need to keep from grownups important matters. and i was always genuinely fascinated by little-boy obssessions that other people found boring, like their hotwheels collection, their homemade repertoire of synonyms for various mucus derivatives, their highly coloured descriptions of imaginary classroom fights. i understood where they were coming from, and why they had to run to get anywhere, and how completely they can be devasted by the giggles.

there's a curly-haired boy next door who regularly asks if he can pet my dog. unfortunately little boys are beneath mac's notice. vivek hates school, which i understand. (twenty years later and i still remember how school smelled, like packed fear) and every monday morning you can hear the protests in outer space. little boys know that the grey from school buildings can rub off on you and eventually turn you into one of those people that steps over puddles and measures sugar by the teaspoonful.

bookend blog

it's been a short long year, i remember january and its chill, november and its angst, but not june or its weather. this unrealness of memory is fuelled by the strange seasons. torpid then copious rains, a fierce summer that lingered under the skin for much longer, and a winter that just won't settle. like a finicky hostess with a tablecloth, stretching, smoothing, a tug here, some slack there, but it will still worry her all evening. that lopsided uneven length of cloth represents everything that's wrong with the party. if she could just fix that, all else would click back into place.