Thanks to my gorgeous chilies that you read all about in the previous post, I was faced with the daunting task of doing them justice. I have never pickled chilies before but isn’t 2020 the year of all things first, whether you want them or not is a different conversation, of course. So, after prowling the web, I settled on the recipe from Hebbar’s Kitchen. I’m thankful for the clear instructions and pictures. I pickled while listening to Neil Gaiman’s lectures on writing available through MasterClass. The latter isn’t a free service but I love it for the production quality, variety of classes and teachers, and the workbooks. Really, what a magical time we live in! All these amazing teachers (thank you Hebbar, thank you Neil), and resources a mere click away. The internet entered my life when I was 17, so I very well remember when finding information, especially peculiar/specific information, such as what’s the name of that book about the museums in Iceland, wasn’t the easiest thing to do on the planet. I remember with gratitude the handful of librarians during my childhood, and later, in India, who loved books and people who loved books. But I also remember the rude ones, the lazy ones who made it seem that asking them for books or information was the same as asking them to part with their personal collection, or worse, money. For someone like me, forever curious and hungry to learn, this access to knowledge is a gift. Of course, it means ignoring the godawful parts of the internet, and sometimes (often) that is impossible. For now, though, I’ll return to thinking about my chilies, and all the things they are teaching me.
Bounty
What do 310 chilies look like together? I had to count. The harvest this morning was far more generous than anything I’ve received thus far. So, who has some good, and by that I mean easy, pickling recipes to share? I’ve frozen chilies, I’ve dried them, I’ve pickled them straight up in white vinegar, now I need something else.
And to think all this bounty simply because, after a routine trip to a local Asian store last year, I took one of the chilies, removed its seeds and put them in soil. My first attempt at growing my own food, if you’ll allow me to call them so, never having had the tiniest of green thumb in the past. For some kind reason on their part, the plants took off, and they have been doing well. Touch wood! Every morning, I see their uncomplicated generosity and think yet again, how little we deserve this planet.
One of my favorite photos of my favorite city.
An A to Z List
I wanted to update my blog but couldn’t think of a specific topic. So I responded to every letter of the alphabet with the first thought that came to my head.
1. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves: the first story I learned to read in English. It was the day after my sixth birthday. It was the Ladybird edition, and I felt very proud, accomplished, and independent in the moment. It kills me that there are 773 million illiterate adults in the world today, most of whom are women.
2. Baba: what I call my dad. Easily, one of the best, most reliable, and trustworthy sounds in my life.
3. Chhaya: my maternal grandmother’s name. It means “shadow” or “reflection” in Sanskrit. In Hindu mythology, Chhaya and Sanjana are the two consorts of Surya, the Sun God.
4. Dilli: Delhi. Home.
5. Equinox: such a cool word though I don’t think I quite know how it’s different from “solstice.” Yes, you may tell me. I will forget. That’s okay. No one needs to know everything. I bet you don’t know the name of Amrita Singh’s character in Suryavanshi. It’s Suryalekha. Fine, I didn’t know it either and had to Google it.
6. Falak: a word for “sky” in Urdu. When used in writing or speech, I believe it’s to imply immensity or enormity. Urdu isn’t a language I know but it would be neat to learn.
7. Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne: a beloved story, and subsequently, movie for children in Bangla, although its multiple layers make it like Shrek, in that it has enough complexity to make it riveting for adults. However, unlike Shrek, GGBB has no feisty Fiona. In this adventure story of a musician and a singer, women are completely absent. Is it still a good story for children if it excludes 50% of them?
8. Huckleberry Finn: what a cool kid! My first literary crush. He is “lawless,” independent, and doesn’t go to school. When you are a kid yourself, why wouldn’t such a badass be your role model?
9. Ikrimikri: the first word of a children’s rhyme in Bangla. The word itself doesn’t mean anything as far as I know. It’s been adopted into my Bengali-Sikh household though, as the go-to term for itchy fabrics and textiles.
10. Juniper Tree: a Brothers Grimm fairy tale replete with evil stepmother, children “as white as snow,” stew seasoned by tears, a song that starts with the words, my mother, she killed me, my father, he ate me….What more does a story need?
11. Kanishka: one of ancient India’s greatest emperors. A staunch upholder of religious syncretism. Funny that nearly 2,000 years since he was around, we need his beliefs more than ever before.
12. Laura Lyons: a key character in the best Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.
13. Ma: self-explanatory. How I wish I was eating her mutton curry for dinner tonight.
14. Nabanipa: the name of my Pishi, or paternal aunt. She is my buddy, my pal, my partner in eating ice cream, the BEST person when it comes to reading stories out loud. She is funny and generous. Being in her world means being surrounded by love, affection, great shopping, and good food.
15. Obstinate: one time in a weeklong-writing workshop, the instructor told us to choose a word that best represents us. This was mine.
16. Pomegranate: I love the word. I love how the fruit resembles tiny, gleaming rubies; that it makes you work hard to taste it; and that it’s been a staple in so many ancient myths and folk tales.
17. Quetzalcoatl: one of the words I learned after coming to the Western Hemisphere. I still don’t pronounce it right, but I love how it looks and sounds, and I know it’s the name of a Meso-American deity.
18. Rajasthan: good food, terrific silver jewelry, history everywhere your gaze lands, plus the site of memorable vacations for my family and I, given that this is our neighboring state. In the golden city of Jaisalmer, I remember we stayed at one of the original homes inside the ramparts of the 12th century fort. Also, I am not calling Jaisalmer “golden” out of sentimentality. It’s called so for the yellow sand and sandstone used extensively in the city’s architecture.
19. Serendipity: I love how this sounds, but it took me forever to remember its meaning.
20. Thai food: if someone forces me to give up Indian food and choose something else that I would happily eat for every meal.
21. Umbrella Man: One of Roald Dahl’s many, many amazing stories for children. His short stories for adults remain among my favorites. They are so creepy and delicious.
22. Vlad’s Castle: Granted, history and fiction aren’t the same, but I couldn’t have imagined the intro video would have such soothing music.
23. Willow: I think every Enid Blyton book had a willow tree somewhere.
24. Xi: one of the most useful words to know for Scrabble purposes.
25. Yellow: oddly showing up in a lot of my home décor these days.
26. Zed: Not zee. No, if I haven’t changed my pronunciation in 14 years, I will not be doing so now.
Three Gazes of Attention
Learning English was one of the most confusing times of my life. Here's an essay on that weirdness, with apologies to my Ma, for my unending questions & stubbornness. "Shortly after my fifth birthday, Ma began teaching me English. It made zero sense. Least of all, the words “he” and “she,” because in Bengali, my mother tongue, nothing and no one has any gender, and if you say “he” and “she” quickly and together, the resulting word “he-she,” means to piss, something Ma had taught me just a few days ago to not shout out loud, especially when we were in public, but to come to her side and whisper. And yet, here she was flouting her own rules, telling me these words were not only okay to say but that without them I would never learn to speak English. What did that even mean? Why did I need to speak in English? What was even English?"
Thank you, Pangyrus, and editor extraordinaire Artress Bethany White, for giving this essay a home! Also, I LOVE the accompanying picture! The yellow background, the white mug, and the coffee—they have my heart.
Beloved Enemy, Snakes on a Plane, and Other Weaknesses
I know it’s rude to gloat and I shouldn’t, but I really was born the same year as Jaani Dushman, or Beloved Enemy, a Hindi sex-horror film. Soon after its release, it became one of the highest grossing films of India. If you haven’t watched it recently (or ever), here’s how it begins. First shot: a pair of headlights beaming down a long road. It’s a taxi, with a young, newly-married couple on the backseat. The husband can barely keep his hands off his wife. She giggles and swats away his greedy hands, cast as she is in the authentic mold of Hindi film heroines. She doesn’t want the driver to see them through the rear view mirror, although it is nighttime, and they are (predictably) on an empty road.
The husband light up three cigarettes.
The wife widens her eyes, “Three at once?” she asks.
“It’s for the smoke, so it will conceal us.”
She titters, and flashes him a naughty-come-hither smile.
But the taxi—following the blueprint of horror movies in every language everywhere—breaks down. Thunder, lightning, and rain crack open the sky. The driver tells them they should seek shelter. He points to a nearby mansion that somehow exists here, right in the middle of nowhere, and he says he will get the car fixed and return.
We, the audience, know his suggestion is not coming from a place of kindness or grace. For one, the role of the driver is being essayed by Mac Mohan, the skinny, rakish actor who appeared in every Hindi film of the 1970s and ‘80s. With his trademark black and white hair and beard, he always, always played one role and one role alone. He was always the villain’s right-hand man. In his five-minutes of screen time thus far, he has flashed a secret smile or two, and spoken in innuendos. We, the audience, don’t yet know what this film is about, but we know this much about the Hindi sex-horror world. No character has ever come out looking virtuous after exhibiting secret smiles and talking in innuendoes, especially if the character is being played by the notorious Mac Mohan.
Hesitantly, fearfully, the couple approaches the mansion. Of course, the doors swing open automatically. They reveal cobwebs and strange sounds. The very next minute, the resident ghost appears inside a picture frame. He is young, in his mid to late thirties, with thick hair, prominent eyes, and a sharp mustache. From his expensive Nehru coat and clutch of pearls, it’s clear he’s at home in this mansion.
The ghost tells the frightened couple his story. On his wedding night, just as he was about to consummate his marriage, his new wife brutally murdered him. She wanted all his money, and she wanted to be with her lover. The murdered man has been a restless, vengeful ghost since then. He kills every new bride that he comes across.
A struggle ensues, but the couple manages to escape. So, on and so forth. Clocking at over two and a half hours, Jaani Dushman boasts of a massive ensemble cast, several interconnected love stories, hammy acting, chase sequences, at least one jarring accent, and a terrible monster costume. The film released two months before my birth, and yet I believe I forged a transcendental connection with it from inside my mother’s womb. What else explains my penchant for bad films?
Or that the first movie I watched in a theater shortly after arriving in the US in 2006 was Snakes on a Plane. It was not an easy decision to spend $6 on the movie. I, a brand new grad student, had only recently arrived from India. I had no money to spend on frivolities but then how do you say no to something whose greatness begins with the title itself?
I have fond memories of that day and viewing that I enjoyed in the company of my new friend Parul. But what cracked my heart open was the lack of an intermission. What kind of a world had I come to? When was I supposed to use the toilet, or inhale the buttery smell of popcorn and walk away knowing I had no money? But most importantly, when and how was I supposed to judge the people sitting around me?
Ten Things I Have Learned During Pandemic Times
Life is too short to read famous/overrated books you don’t like. Stop when you feel you’ve tried, and then move on. There are far too many books and authors waiting in the margins.
Write everyday. Even if it’s only for 5 minutes, and it’s a list of five things you’ve done in the last 24 hours or the five things you want to eat. Documenting this strange time is important.
You can make your own tooth powder and face serum at home! (The exclamation mark because I know human beings have DIY-ed all sorts of things but it took the pandemic for me to even explore something like this.) Plus, putting these two items took barely a couple of minutes, and I could see what I was going to put into myself. Thank you, Internet, for being alive and beautiful with so many ideas and tutorials.
Drawing, coloring, repairing clothes with splits and tears, painting old furniture, and pickling (garlic, chilies, etc.) are all great time fillers. The pickling, in all sorts of vinegar-y concoctions, will up your kitchen game. Plus, the jars look pretty.
A Zoom date with a loved one is the best, most worthwhile gift you can give yourself, and whoever you live with. You in a good mood means folks around you in a good mood.
If your balcony becomes a popular hangout for the neighboring wrens and cardinals, consider setting up a bird feeder. You may also learn how to make rudimentary sketches of the birds to feel extra artistic and accomplished.
You were not born only to pay bills, reply to emails on time, and show up for work. This isn’t my quote, and searching online yielded mixed results. I just like to revisit this often, especially in this current, strange time.
Learn something new everyday. Be it through a book, TED talk, YouTube, a livestream by your neighborhood park, or your mother. Everything counts—recipes, Icelandic museums, things that terrify your students, especially if you’re teaching a course titled Reading & Writing Horror.
It’s okay to spend hours looking at listings on Airbnb, and sigh.
Do not make space for toxic people in your life. You deserve peace and sanity.
Your pain feeds my spirit: a meditation on marriage
My husband maintains an ever-expanding folder on his phone. It’s of all the “memorable” things I say in our day to day lives. He says these will all make for great titles for various comedic essays. When he reads them back days after their original pronouncement, just so I may be spurred into action and write up a storm, often neither he nor I can remember the context in which they were said. He says that’s what makes them better, even timeless. Like the one here, in the title of this post. Did I say this in the middle of a fight? I hope not. Or the last time I cooked fish, and he, the fish-hater, scrunched his nose? Or, what he suggested after I told him over coffee this morning, “I want to update my blog with a tiny post. What should I write?”
“Write about how I bang into things in my own home, ten thousand times, because I’m lost in a sudoku or crossword puzzle.”
A Chat with Mrs. Bisht
The first time I was Mrs. Bisht’s student was back in 1993, when I was in the 9th grade. The next and final time was the following year, in my 10th grade. In my first week in her class, it was shocking and humbling for me to realize that despite my strong grasp of English, I was not automatically her favorite. We all were. What a novel concept! She treated all of us with kindness and affection, and unlike most teachers, Mrs. Bisht, didn’t believe in using shame as a tool inside the classroom.
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Tina Munim in Souten
My Other Mother: Tina Munim
When I was four years old, I desperately wanted Tina Munim to be my mother. For those of you not as well-versed with the Hindi cinema world of the 1980s as I might wish for you, let me introduce you to Ms. Munim. In the movie I had just watched of her, Souten (loosely translated asThe Other Woman), she carried more glamour on the ends of her shiny, glossy hair than even divinely possible. She wore stylish clothes including a shimmery blue dress with an edgy slit along not one but BOTH of her thighs, high heels of all colors including a shiny silver pair, which in turn inspired my first “high” heel pair, and she not only danced in said shiny, silver shoes, she also sang, and managed to accuse her husband of disloyalty through this song right in the middle of a crowded party. You can check out the video where I fell in love with this ethereal creature here.
I am going to guess here that at age four, I understood no bit of the loyalty angle, or why that had to be expressed through a song and dance number. But, this I understood. My sari-wearing, waist-length-hair-in-a-braid mother would never wear a shimmery blue number with slits down both legs. She would also never chop off her hair to her shoulders, and she would not style her locks so perfectly that a single curl would sit like a triumphant sun right in the middle of her forehead. Though I didn’t have any evidence to support or contradict this, I was also very sure that Ma would also probably never drip with sparkling jewels while singing-dancing-clapping in circles around my father to shame him the way Ms. Munim had to her husband in the movie.
What then was the point of life?
After the movie, I shared my hope with my parents. I told them I was keen on switching mothers, and that Tina Munim would be perfect. If I am remembering this correctly, I think I received a lot of encouraging words, so much so that this was shared with anyone who came to our home in the next few days. However, no adult, I repeat, no adult, provided me with the kind of directions I needed to make this happen.
You will be amazed to note that my instincts about Ms. Munim were 100% right. In 1991, she married into one of India’s wealthiest families. Now imagine if she’d known to adopt, right after the release of Souten. So many lives would be so different then. So many more of us could be wearing shimmery blue dresses and accusing people via songs and dances in crowded parties.
The Creative Habit
I am currently reading Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life. I am reading it because I absolutely love devouring books on creativity (of all sorts) and craft (mostly, of writing). I use these books both in my teaching as well as my personal writing.
I have read about 1/3rd of the book so far and I am fascinated by the exercises I have come across thus far. Their aim is to encourage our understanding of who we are as artists. For example, do we have an expansive focal point, like the photographs Ansel Adams clicked wherein he was obsessed with large spaces and capturing their grandeur? Or do we like the minutiae, the little things, like the writer Raymond Chandler, who maintained long and detailed and obsessive lists of everything he observed and that factored into his writing. What is our gaze? And how might knowing that improve our creativity?
Five-ish Reasons I Enjoy My Own Company
Most days, most moments, the inside of my head is like a steady, non-turbulent ocean. I don’t get into other peoples’ lives so my own remains fairly drama-free. This is not to say I don’t get angry or throw fits. Yes, those happen. Every day, from 7-7:45 am. Then again from 11:-11:15 pm. Except on Sundays when I throw tantrums from the moment I wake up until I hit the bed at night.
I make good food, and even if I am by myself, I never skimp on the good stuff. Meaning, I will make a slow-cooked spicy, lamb curry just for myself. I have a deep regard for my taste buds, so it absolutely never crosses my mind to toss them something like cornflakes for dinner. Although I did do that several times in my youth. Now, I know better.
A lot of people are terribly self-involved, which makes them terrible conversationalists. Why do that to myself? I can stare at the sky or the trees in front of my balcony and come up with enough characters to entertain me for hours on end. As long as I can see people around me, and hear urban noises such as traffic, most of the time that’s more than enough.
I love to eavesdrop on other peoples’ conversations, especially at restaurants and cafes. Well, actually pretty much everywhere. It’s impossible to eavesdrop when you are engaged in a conversation yourself. One favorite eavesdropping memory: two young women sitting inside a university library with open laptops in front of them and also easy access to three reference librarians and every possible dictionary and reference material they would ever need, and yet debating for nearly half hour over how BIBLIOGRAPHY and BIOGRAPHY mean the exact same thing.
But this post is also not entirely true. I don’t enjoy living completely by myself. That gets old quickly. At least one of my people should be in the house with me for occasional Scrabble duels, regular skirmishes and sword fights, chitchats, and passing judgement on others. They must also know how to do laundry, which is the household chore I hate the most. I have tremendous respect for everyone who is handling this quarantine and social isolation period by themselves. And also, just to be clear, I do not own a sword.
Three Books (in English) That I Have Read More Than Thrice
There are several books I have read more than thrice either because I am in love with the content or with the writing itself, or because I am teaching the book in multiple courses and sections. However, I am writing about only three today because…why not?
Julia Alvarez’s The Woman I Kept to Myself Once upon a time, I thought I didn’t read or like poems. Then I read the 75 short, autobiographical poems in this collection that intersect the author’s two cultures — Dominican Republic and the US — and I changed my mind forever.
Shashi Tharoor’s Bookless in Baghdad Meditative, funny, sharp…what’s not to like about Tharoor’s writing. This collection of essays may have been the first time I thought of the scope of the personal essay in terms of doing a deep-dive into one’s reading preferences.
Susan Glaspell’s Trifles This one-act play is so short, you can drink it while finishing your coffee. Plus, it’s in the public domain so you can read it for free. A farmer’s wife is accused of murder, and officers show up to investigate. So, so good.
Seven Things I Most Miss About Home
Our dining table: because it’s solid wood, it’s a six-seater, it’s where I can write for hours given there is just the right amount of background noise, and unlike a cafe, no one expects me to keep paying for food every two hours, and because food here appears with zero thought going into it on my part. Best of it all—it is delicious, and sometimes, there are entire meals with my favorites.
My mother’s bed: because it’s the spot for many a naps, and many, many gatherings over tea and conversation.
TV: every time I switch it on, there are seemingly 50,000 channels in Hindi. Happiness! For the first few days, I even love the bickering news anchors and experts. “Yes, keep at it! Shout each other down in Hindi! You are doing great!” — just some of the things I want to keep shouting at them.
Mangoes: As per this report of the National Horticultural Board, India grows about 1,500 kinds of mangoes. When I am there in the summer, I alone eat about 1,489 kinds by myself, and I do not share with anyone.
The kitchen: because it’s never not stocked with delicious snacks and cookies the size they should be, instead of five feet in diameter, and weighing 2 quintals of guilt and sugar.
Doorbell: because even though it’s loud, raucous, and startles me every single time, it often means my father has returned from running errands and 9 times out of 10, he has brought back one or more of my favorite things to eat.
New books: because I work on my list of books by Indian authors to read the whole year, and my brother buys me armloads, and that’s an unadulterated source of joy.
Five Moments from My Childhood that I Remember with Pointless/Embarrassing/Startling Clarity
It was late afternoon. I was four-years-old, and sitting with my grandparents in the balcony of our Calcutta flat. My grandmother winced. An ant, or more than one, had just bit her. I took off my slippers, determined to wallop every ant in the universe. Fortunately, my grandparents stopped me as soon as they figured out what was about to happen, and that’s how an entire species was saved from my wrath.
Same time period. I was fascinated with the handiwork that went into making cow-dung cakes (for fuel). In my free time, which at age four must have been plenty, and on every smooth surface I could find, I practiced. Surfaces included, walls of our home, my grandfather’s back.
I was terrified of men with beards and mustaches, probably because the men I saw all the time — my father and grandfather — were always clean-shaven.
I was obsessed with bananas. Rumor has it, I followed strangers if they were spotted eating bananas in the wild. For some reason, it stopped the year I turned ten. I have not had a banana since then.
My favorite dessert those days was aamshotto—sun-dried, sweetened mangoes, cut into squares. Years later, in America, I learned they are called “fruit roll-ups” or “fruit leather.” I am pleased to say that this less than impressive name has not changed my regard for them.