Hollow Candy

Number of days since i installed our Halloween candy display: Two.

Number of Twix bars that have escaped my attentions: None.

That’s all.


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Encounters with Writers: The “Writer”

This would be the right time to tell of how my crush on Martin Amis had naturally begun to dissipate a couple of years from onset. And of how the actual death knell was sounded by hearing him speak at the Oxford Union--cantankerous (instead of revolutionary) troll-sized (instead of larger than life), and with a ridiculous head of Trumped up ™ hair.

Instead, i’m going to record my fleeting encounter with the person i merely knew as “the Writer.”

It’s the mid nineties, and i’m traveling with my parents deep in Tamil Nadu, south of Trichy. We stop to refuel at a village, largish--home to a few thousands--called Aravakurichi.

Aravakurichi had been in the news all that week. Discontented with their elected officials, and unhappy with the politicians who were up for election to the state assembly, nearly 200 (182?) of Aravakurichi’s citizens had decided to put themselves on the ballot. The logic being that faced with a deeply fractured and divided vote, the two rival political parties would have to put up candidates the citizens could take more seriously.

It wasn’t surprising that i met one of the candidates before long--she was yelling at someone that Jayalalitha, then Chief Minister wannabe, was a whore (pathu rooba vukku mundanai virikiraval--woman who undoes her sari for ten rupees). Catching my fascinated gaze, she then yelled at me--in a friendlier manner--to tell me that she was definitely going to win the election.

I don’t remember if I voiced the “how?” But she proceeded to introduce me to her brother with striking economy of gesture, i.e., by pointing at him--and telling me that he was a WRITER who would write for her and the reason why she was going to win.

[I'm afraid i come off as an ingenue with a let-them-eat-cake level of insensitivity in the following exchange. And i have nothing to offer in my defense except for the fact that i had just begun teaching myself Tamil.*]

This was exciting--
He’s a writer? What has he written? Do i know him? (Born-to-be-a-writer-groupie voice)
He writes in Tamil. (Giving me a look like I’d suddenly gone daft)
Oh, he’s a Tamil writer? Is it novels? (Racking my brain for names of Trichy-based writers)
He writes slogans for the party. (How daft are you?)
So he’s a party-writer? Speeches, slogans, pamphlets? (This is still interesting)
No. (Explaining in an earth-is-round voice) He writes slogans on the walls.

Her brother painted political graffiti on walls.

It made me feel quite small at the time--the realization that mere literacy was so prized; now, it actually feels inspiring that i've met at least one writer who knew exactly how he was going to wield his writing to challenge power.


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* And perhaps failed to differentiate between "ezhuthalar" (writer) and "ezhuthurar" (writes).

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Lamest Rushdie Reference *Ever*

Dave Zinczenko’s recipe for SalmOn Rushdie on p.148 of his book, The Abs Diet.

As prepared by Big A, however, it’s delightful--despite the generous robustness of the portion--and i, therefore, give you the recipe in its entirety:

Salmon Rushdie (number of Powerfoods: 5)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon flaxseed
1 clove garlic
4 6-ounce salmon fillets

Green vegetable of choice
1 cup cooked rice


1. In a baking dish, combine the oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, flaxseed, and garlic. Add the fish, coat well, cover, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

2. Preheat your oven to 450 F. Line a baking sheet with foil, and coat it with cooking spray. Remove the fish from the marinade, and place the fish skin side down on the baking sheet.

3. Bake for 9-12 minutes. Serve with a green vegetable and rice.


Makes 4 servings.

Calories per serving: 411; Protein: 40g; Carbs: 15 g; Fat: 20 g; Saturated fat: 3 g; Sodium: 231 mg; Fiber: 1 g.

[P.S. Zinczenko has a lot of funny font things and italics going on in the recipe, but I thought I’d spare you that.]

[P.P.S. Sort of relieved on Rushdie's behalf that this recipe wasn't Padma Lakshmi's brainchild.]


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Cultural Camp

India continues to baffle--it’s perhaps the only country in the world to offer passport applicants the choice of three sex options (M/ F/ E), yet section 377 of the IPC treats consensual homosexuality on par with pedophilia and bestiality.

So this report of a petition to decriminalize homosexuality in India is highly welcome. The petition appears to be cleverly couched in terms of a public health issue--on the DL homosexuality is largely seen as responsible for India’s AIDS crisis. And then it sneaks in a crucial cultural argument:

Activists point out that the [anti homosexuality] legislation was introduced by the British colonial authorities and does not reflect ancient Hindu cultural values. The Hindu epics reveal a tolerant approach to homosexuality, and the stone carvings on the temples of Khajuraho show men having sex with men.

I wonder if the full text of the petition is available online and if there’s an active signature campaign.

UPDATE: If the link in the IHT article doesn't work for you (didn't for me) you can find the text of the letter along with Amartya Sen's endorsement here.

POST-WEDDING POEM

(for R and Y)

He sat at the table and cheerfully pulled out a handful of hair,
She sat aglow and riffed words more than I’d ever seen her do.
I expected to dream about affliction that night
Instead I was unexpectedly made so happy

That I dreamt of revelry, giggly fish, and candy-colored lights.

Now I think about those two
And how well they make it seem
As though everything’s on plan
Except for the unexpected wedding

And the confused, we‘re-leaving-right-now trips to the hospital.

They do such a terrific job
Such a wonderful, slap-up, first-class job
That I’m simultaneously
Really, really happy for them

And surprised and embarrassed when I identify envy.



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Dream a Little Dream of Pandolins

I spent most of my school life in an all-girls Catholic school. With the result that highly-anticipated and highly-chaperoned “socials” to the boys’ school or even casual trips with my parents or a driver to the parking lot of the boys’ school to pick up a cousin were occasions for heightened giggling, an extreme heartrate, manifest shyness.

High-school boys don’t do a thing for me anymore. And I’m too cool to giggle and too zen to hyperventilate.
But I’m still shy.
Of high-school boys.
I’m sure of myself with everyone else, including the college freshmen that were in high school right before they landed in one of the 101 courses that I teach. But stripped of my authority, my position at the head of the class, I’m afraid that they won’t recognize my non high-school status and that they’ll say or do something inappropriate. Like the time I briefly talked to a student in the library and the high-school posse he was showing around started to tease him, until he proclaimed with exasperated bashfulness, “She’s my teacher, ya morons.” Another reason to love teaching--for the immunity from innuendo.

It all came back when I had to make a short trip to the local high school yesterday.

And it returned last night in this dream I had:

I’m standing in the twilight on a windy mountain peak with a young person who introduces himself to me as “Gestuktwolf.”

Then he fixes me with an evaluative eye and asks me if I didn’t think that was a good name for a “pandolin,” which in my dream, I immediately recognize as vampire argot for 'rogue vampire'. He continues to look at me speculatively, trying to gauge my reaction to his admission of vampirism, and I’m trying to disguise my mounting terror, because of course, as everyone knows from horror movies, once you’ve revealed your fear, you’re done. : )

Then Gestuktwolf tosses his head the way world-weary teenagers do and says, a little remorsefully--heck, I don’t know why I play it like that.

Standing next to us is an elderly priestly/bounty hunter-type man who is thoroughly amused by the whole exchange--my fear, Gestuckt‘s posturing…he looks at me and breaks out a smile and a crazy electrical storm breaks out around the three of us.

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The Paper Mills of Inde

This week, NYT ran an article about outsourced student papers.

Not much new--it talks about the exorbitant rate ($50 for a ten-page paper), the bad writing, the lack of punctuality and accountability... all that stuff.

But this particular snippet made me sit up the way the good-posture divas are always yankering at me to:

…written in language so stilted and often ungrammatical (“Hamlet is obviously hurt by Ophelia’s lack of affection to his vows of love”) that it suggests the author may not be a native speaker of English, and even makes you suspect that some of these made-to-order term papers are written by the very same people who pick up the phone when you call to complain about your credit card bill.

Sweet! My homies! At the heart of every possible outsourcing opportunity concocted.

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