Week Of The Visitor

Ruth sitting next to Asha a bit of whose arm you see in the pic

This evening we're off to have dinner with Veronika who is visiting from Frankfurt. It's been the week of the visitor. Jyotsna was here from Pune a few days back, to get a couple of visas done and a day after she left Ruth returned from Goa, on her way back to Germany. Ruth, with her rainbow coloured dresses and shock of gold hair flowing down her back. She was to have flown out of Bombay on the 9th of March but decided to prolong her stay in Goa by two weeks, giving me the job of getting her ticket extended.

Air India might have been okay to fly with but getting changes of any sort made is a royal pain. Poor J. who was anyway headed for town the other day agreed to take Ruth's ticket along, to get the new date endorsed. When she reached the AI office she was told that she would have to wait 2 hours in the queue. There were about 50 people already there before her. Why should it take so long for AI to service their customers? Who knows? Like all good government employees maybe they break frequently for tea or intercept their work with long telephone exchanges or friendly chats with their colleagues like the sales people at Cottage Industries do when you're hanging around the counter waiting for them to finish writing out your bill. Anyway good old J. achieved the impossible and returned home triumphantly with the new date endorsed on Ruth's ticket.

Otherwise life's pretty much the same. Am slowly getting back to climbing stairs and now and then I toy with the idea of going for a haircut but still haven't got down to it. I look more and more like Sai Baba. Maybe the day someone actually mistakes me for him I'll call up my hairdresser and go over. Or maybe I'll just play along and pretend to be him. It will be a new and interesting occupation.

Domestic Peace Keeping Attempts

Much time in the last few weeks has gone into figuring out how to keep the peace at home. It is not easy to live with others, especially if the "others" are people like S and P the two maids whom I inherited along with my grandmother's flat when she died a year and a half back. S, fortyish, is the younger of the two and happens to be P's niece. S sulks at the drop of a hat but when you make fierce noises at her she does her work reasonably efficiently (mainly fix my breakfast and evening tea and a few other equally simple chores) . P sulks but does not work even at the point of a gun. In fact before you can hold up your gun she fires her own back at you. So in the past couple of days a lot of verbal fire has been exchanged resulting in P threatening to leave after being with my grandmother for thirty three years - which I have now told her she is welcome to do.

The problem is in trying desperately to keep everyone happy including myself and it doesn't seem to be working. I am looking for some kind of equality between us all but the idea has backfired, with P having elevated herself to the position of "chief of all equals." In the past few months she has taken to sleeping in the recreation room which has the TV and my computer and every time she wants to rest, tries to boot out whoever happens to be watching TV because she wants to sleep in peace. My suggestion that she find some other place to sleep (she has her own room next to the kitchen, for example) was met with huge indignation and I was told not to shout and insult her (which I would hardly think of doing!) So now she scowls at me every time our paths cross and I am wondering how long I will be able to stand it. What if she doesn't leave!

An inside look at "Crorepati"

Sheila M. dropped in for tea last week along with her friends Ashok and Moyna with whom she was staying, in Bandra. A whole lot of people in the film industry are bound to know Sheila who has been visiting India for over thirty years now. She first came here through my aunt Chitra, with whom she attended the East West University in Hawaii in the early seventies.

Sheila is one of those Americans who knows the Indian film industry inside out and is able to make erudite comments on every movie from Mother India starring Nargis and Sunil Dutt to the antics of modern heroes like Shahrouk or Saif Ali Khan. Don't ask me how she manages it without knowing any Hindi but she can follow every little detail in an Indian film without the slightest problem.

Well during this particular trip to India she got it into her head to try and wangle a pass for the shooting of "Kaon banega Crorepati" - the quiz show which Shahrouk has taken over from His Holiness Amitabh and is currently filling up with his coy dimpled smiles. So apparently Khalid M organised one for her. We got to know from Sheila that the whole shooting is anything but a simple direct affair. The one hour show (with commercial breaks) lasts over three hours during which time nobody is allowed to leave the hall. I dont know what would happen if you needed urgently to pee, maybe you could find a way to crawl to the exit, without anyone seeing you and breaking up the shoot. And they also do shots over again I found out, if the first shot isn't right. So the guy who won 50 lakhs was supposed to do a second take and to try not to act like he knew he'd just won that huge amount which means, he was obliged to produce the same gasp of wild surprise at seeing how far he'd come.

I don't normally watch Croreopati but I decided to, on this occasion. I kept looking out for Sheila in the audience but didn't catch the smallest glimpse of her - or even anybody looking like her. But I had the satisfaction of watching the lucky participant act surprised when he won his fifty lakh rupees at the end. Maybe Yash Chopra or Rakesh Roshan will now offer him a role in the next blockbuster they come up with.

The Air Kiss

I woke up this morning to the sight of Liz Hurley and Shilpa Shetty exchanging an air kiss at a party. I normally sleepwalk to the dining table a little before eight in the mornings, spread out the morning papers before me and between the first and the twelfth sip of coffee (depending on how I've slept the night before) my brain snaps open to register the first few photographs or headlines of the day. Sometimes it is an old man feeding pigeons by the seashore, sometimes it's a dog indulging in a leisurely scratch on a park bench. This morning it happened to be the air kiss. Both Liz and Shilpa stood a few centimetres from each other, eyes shut and lips puckered as if each expected the other to bridge the short distance between them in order for mouth to meet cheek. Whether the kiss actually materialised, I am unable to say. Not that it matters.

I have to confess, I was actually thinking of writing a sarcastic piece on the party hosted last night by Mrs. P. Godrej for the most celebrated newly wed couple in recent times but a titbit that caught my eye shortly after the air kiss, made me change my mind. It had to do with Chateau Latour wine. I thought to myself, "I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!" because I can't think of anyone else who would appreciate a bottle of Chateau Latour (or any other good wine for that matter) more than me. Besides, whenever there is fine wine flowing at a party there are also fine canapés to go with it, ranging from Caviar to Pate de fois gras, which I also love.

Well, it so happens that I wasn't invited to this exclusive party and I think I know why. Apart from the fact that our paths in life have somehow not managed to cross till now, Mrs. G's and mine, it was because the reception for the royal newly weds was a "black tie" affair and Mrs. P. Godrej's secret service men had informed her that I don't own a black tie. I don't own a blue or a yellow one either for that matter. Nor do I have a pair of black trousers at the moment (I've outgrown the last pair I bought), but what the hell. I have a red spotted bandana which I fling around my neck for formal occasions (which could help me pass of as Rajnikant's female side kick) and a pair of dark blue jeans which by candlelight could be taken for black by tired eyes.

Some other time, Mrs. G. I'll start shopping for appropriate party apparel right away. Meanwhile, apart from the Caviar and imported cheese and the Chateau Latour what I missed was the police crackdown on the premises following complaints from residents that the blare from the loudspeakers had exceeded the 10 O'clock deadline. Several guests interviewed by the local press claimed that they had no idea they were disturbing the entire neighbourhood with their shindig. Frankly I wouldn't have known either, even if I'd been to the party.

By half past ten, having polished off as much of the wine and canapés as I could have held in me not so little tummy, I'd have made my way home and with some luck would have been curled up in bed by then letting myself be seduced into the world of alternative dreams by a CD which, though far from new, happens to be my current favourite: "The Serpent's Egg" by Dead Can Dance.

A Peaceful Day

Holi passed off mercifully quietly. As I do every year I had got out my scruffiest clothes but I needn't have bothered. I could have dressed like a queen for all the attention I attracted, adverse or otherwise. Except for Sudha who stayed over from the Saturday evening session there were no other guests. It was quiet in the building as well and the little bit of noise and fun I could catch a glimpse of, was all in the shanties adjoining our building. About the only real disturbance was in the late afternoon when a couple of loudspeakers started to blare out Hindi film music dominated by the usual squeaky tones of the top female singers.

I'm not complaining. This is one festival I can't say I am particularly fond of, which as a child I thought was positively grotesque. Suppose it's all a matter of upbringing?

The Budget and Other Snacks

I woke up this morning feeling a shade depressed and wondering why. I don’t often feel that way but yes, some mornings it’s as if the gray smog outside my window in Bombay fills up not only my lungs and eyes but seeps into my mind as well.

When I reached the breakfast table I found the budget report splashed across the front page of the morning papers. Then I knew it. The reason I felt depressed was the budget. I couldn’t understand it. Over the next few days some would say it was good, some would say it was bad and I would sit here scratching my head.

Scanning the papers I discovered that the budget was not the only thing I didn’t understand. There was stuff about Baghdad and Egypt and the CIA in Europe. I realized that in general I didn’t understand politics and economics and never had. It is depressing to find out that there is apparently something that makes the world of human beings go round and you can’t understand it. It robs you of your self importance.

There was a time in my early twenties though when I pretended to understand all these things, and managed to con not only myself but a number of other people into believing I did, through having mastered what had earlier seemed like totally incomprehensible themes. I started devouring newspaper editorials and books on political theory and began to bone up on international affairs and modern Indian politics and before long found myself using a lot of very important sounding words and phrases which I would give anything to remember now so as to reproduce them here and make you believe me. People began to look at me with new respect and the more admiration I got the more determined I became to plow through even more chunky tomes and articles to back up my impressive “grasp” of politics.

But then you see, the reason I got started on the road to politics was not because politics or economics interested me per se but because a handful of individuals I’d got to know at the time and whom I was trying desperately to befriend, were themselves deep into Marx and Mao or things like the Balfour Declaration (wow, I’m patting myself on the back for remembering that one!) and all kinds of really intellectually meaty stuff which provided us with so many hours of rich conversation over beer and kebabs in the evening.

So what went wrong? Did the beer lose its appeal? Was I waylaid by other interests? No. I think what happened was this. I realized one day in the midst of one of my really wise sounding statements on the future of Chinese agricultural reforms or something similar, that I was walking on thin ice. Although we seemed to be making a lot of sense to each other, I hadn’t a clue as to what I was saying. I had just become very (really very!) good at putting words and concepts and some basic information together on topics which my friends wanted to discuss, without knowing what I meant. I panicked to think that at any moment I might be found out. I felt a little like Frank Abagnale Jr . (Catch Me If You Can) attempting to pass himself off as the various people he really wasn’t.

Then I thought to myself, if I don’t know what I’m talking about, do the others? I couldn’t be that sure. I felt my entire world of ideas collapse about me. And to this day I am not convinced that people who spout clever sounding theories which remain inaccessible to the common man, really know what they are saying. I ask myself whether they are not being clever out of a deep rooted need to command the world’s attention the way I found myself doing years ago, rather than from a genuine concern for mankind. Because let’s face it, with such a large pool of intellectual talent at the world’s disposal and so many knowledgeable individuals in positions of power wherever you look, you would expect a lot more to happen in the way of peace, and economic justice than what you see happening.

So at the end of the day I am left with the feeling that real change comes from a source other than politics or the kind of economics that we are familiar with today. It comes from how we feel about each other, and - maybe it sounds naïve to say this - but it has to do with how much we really care about each other and the world we live in. It doesn’t have to do with theories, it doesn’t have to do with weighty explanations about how the system works. The trouble with that is, it means you and me having to look at ourselves and at the changes possible for us to make as individuals, instead of constantly discussing the lives and pronouncements of other people threadbare.

I guess that’s why we prefer to bury our heads in the sands of abstractions which are meaningful only to an exclusive club of intellectuals and not to the ordinary people who make up the world. Oh well. Now you’re going to tell me that I shouldn’t be so judgmental and that all those debates and arguments and sermons do have their place in life. I know, I know. I agree with you totally, they do. Sigh. They go really well with beer and kebabs in the evenings.

The Politics of Eggs

Anything can become a subject of debate in politics. Music, books, clothes, Valentine’s day, even eggs. Especially eggs. Remember Gulliver’s Travels, where old Gulliver lands up in a crazy situation between two nations at war with each other over how to eat an egg? Well, Jonathan Swift seemed to not only know what he was talking about but like Nostradamus he seems to have had the gift of foretelling the future, in a land far from his own.

They’re fighting over eggs in Karnataka. The JD government had the idea of serving eggs to school children as part of a nourishment programme, on two accounts. Because eggs are generally a good source of protein and also because there is a huge surplus of eggs in the state.

The BJP has said that instead of serving eggs to school children, the government ought to include milk or fruit in the supplementary programme because these foods were more nourishing. The JD replied that milk and fruit were too expensive to be distributed free of charge to schools. The outcome? No milk, no fruit and no eggs for the children.

Officials from the Women and Child Department and several prominent figures from Kannada’s literary world suggested that the children be asked what they preferred and a subsequent survey revealed that 97 per cent of the school children voted for eggs. What is the BJP going to say to this? Hmmm. Let me guess. That the kids should want to eat fruit instead of eggs, just as they should want to sing devotional bhajans at four in the morning, and they should want to give up wearing modern clothes and turn the cultural clock back a few hundred years. Afraid I have a hard time following their logic.

The Gawking Indian

You know you’re back in India when you happen to blow your nose somewhere outdoors and a group of about twelve people gathers around you, open mouthed, to watch exactly how you go about it. You wonder where they find the time and energy to occupy themselves with the mundane details of an individual’s private life but don’t worry, they do, somehow. Unfailingly.

A couple of days back my brother, who is visiting from the U.S. suggested he help me shape up a bit and offered to hold my hand while I practised climbing the stairs again, which I haven’t done in quite a while. My brother is a health freak and becomes a nervous wreck if fewer than four separate dishes containing green leafy vegetables are served for dinner. So of course it’s understandable that he would have his only sister’s (only sibling’s in fact) interests at heart and want to do his best to help her recuperate from a godamn broken ankle.

So we take the elevator down to the ground floor and decide to tackle the stairs from the bottom up. Before I’ve gone up two steps I find I’m paralysed. I just can’t seem to move. The guy who operates the elevator is standing right next to my brother gawking at me, following every move of mine including probably the perspiration that breaks out on my forehead at the sight of him gaping open mouthed at my struggle to climb up.

Well, I managed to do two entire steps about three times before my nerves gave way and I dragged my brother back upstairs, saying I’d had enough. My sister-in-law says that next time I give it a bash she'll help out. She’ll tackle the liftman.

I’ll give her a box of Kleenex so she can stand next to me and pretend to blow her nose and hopefully the guy will take his eyes off me and gawk at her instead.

A closer look at terrorism:
Basicindia Reflections

What is going on?

There was this weird report in the newspapers a day or two back. The headlines said: "In Mumbai’s backyard, youth tied to pole and beaten to death." This young man was apparently found tied to an electric pole and allegedly beaten to death by residents of New Panvel. There is even a gory photograph of the incident to prove it. But the police have not registered the case as murder, they call it an “accidental death.” Why? Because, they say that the post portem does not clarify the cause of death. The police claim that they do not know why the man was tied to the pole and the best reason for not registering the case as murder is that there were no eye witnesses.

Even this is not true because one of the residents, 17 year old Pramod Patil, said he was woken up that morning by people shouting, and saw fifty to sixty people with sticks, beating up a person tied to an electric pole. Several others apparently also confirmed this version but don’t want to be named.

I don’t think I quite understand what’s going on. Or maybe I do but can hardly believe it! Maybe I'm just naive.

Who me? I'm harmless!

Ruth and I are winding down our guitar practice for the evening. It's the night before she's to leave for Goa and she reminisces about the time we first met, about five months ago in Germany, with a nostalgic sigh. It was at Thomas and Ariela's place, in the kitchen in fact, we were all sitting around the dining table, some of us drinking tea and the others downing apple juice mixed with soda. Ruth, along with others had come over for a workshop that weekend which Ariela and I were going to be conducting.

"I thought you were so harmless when I first saw you," she says. Pauses for a moment and then goes off into peals of laughter. I mean peals as in an uncontrollable fit of giggling .

I ask her blandly, "Well? Aren't I harmless?"

Again she has an uncontrollable fit and almost ends up coughing. Till the end I didn't manage to get a coherent reply from her. I have a feeling her reaction is related to my occasional abrupt moves to stop her in her tracks when she starts babbling by telling her I feel tired. Not that I see anything bad in doing that. I consider I'm doing people a favour by telling them that I've ceased to listen to them, I mean why should they unnecessarily waste their energy sharing views and info which the ears have decided to block out? To her credit she didn't let that get in the way of our having a good time together and has been a real brick, helping out with odds and ends and making endless suggestions as to how I can hasten the process of recovery as far as my ankle is concerned.

Anyway, Ruth is in Goa now, I just got about five SMS's from her to say she had reached safely. If you're reading this, Ruth, have a great time and dont forget the guitar strings and capodistra or whatever its called. Meanwhile I'm practising our new version of "Lady in black" and "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho" for when you return and we play for whichever hapless individuals happen to be around us when we decide to hold our concert.

Any tips on a good hair dresser?

Ruth and Asha (our cook, friend, philosopher and everbody's guide)

Since getting back home my hair has been getting a lot of attention. It looks nothing like what it did when I left India six months ago. Charmayne who visited recently, along with "the other Uma" and Suresh, said I didn't look at all like I did in the pics I had been posting. Obviously. Those were taken a while ago when I was still looking relatively sober and my hair stood respectfully around my head.

Since I haven't been able to have a haircut in the last several months and now that I've got back my own stylist says she is too busy to come home and give me a haircut, I will have to put up with this bird's nest for the next two weeks at least, or until I am well and truly back on my feet and able to hobble along to her outfit for my next proper haircut.

Me exercising like mad to keep my weight steady and get my muscles into shape

Until then, feel free to inspect the wild forest around my head. You might even come across a dingo or pygmy deer hiding in it.

What the hell is this all about?

The most disconcerting thing about returning to India, has not been the noise, the pollution or the dirt. Those are things I have got used to in the last 50 odd years of my life and although in the months which you've spent in a spanking clean European city you do tend to forget their existence, you also learn to gracefully accept it all when you're back.

No - the thing that fazed me when I returned from Germany a few days back was the newspapers. For four months I had not had much to do with news of any kind, neither on TV nor through newspapers (except for the bit when Sadaam was executed and we spent about three minutes discussing whether he might not become a martyr as mostly happens when eminent individuals are killed) . In all the time I saved on reading about mafia murders or emininent leaders rolling in the dust in protest against something or other, I learned to play the guitar, enaged in household chores and generally got to know myself and people around me better.

The other day, thinking that maybe it was time for me to get back to the "real world" I picked up the Indian Express lying on the dining table next to my coffee mug. The subject that has all of India on fire (or is it only Mumbai - or maybe only certain journalists who write about these things?) is apparently the forthcoming Liz Hurley-Arun Nayar wedding. Apparently everyone is busy trying to fiugre out how many people are invited, what form the event will take, where the guests will stay, what Liz will wear (a 4000 Pound brocade sari or something like that) what Arun will wear (a gold embroidered dhoti maybe with gold dust sprinkled on a moustache which I think he should really grow for the occasion).

Of course I read the report to the boring end so now I feel very much in touch with the world as the newspapers would like me to be. But am not sure if the world the newspapers bring me in touch with is the world I want to be occupied with. So I think I will go back to the just surfing the net and looking at the sea and playing the guitar together with my friend Ruth who flew down with me last week. It should keep me happy for now.

Back home

With so much excitement in the last few months and me being on edge as to when I would travel and with whom, I was sure that till the moment I actually landed in Bombay I would be sitting on the edge of my seat, biting my fingernails. It wasn't quite that bad. The day we left Prien for Munich I got the heebie jeebies because it started to snow furiously and I was terrified we wouldn't reach the airport on time and miss the flight. But we got there early in fact and it all worked out smoothly. Spent the last three days in Germany with Ayse and Suhail with whom I had a marvellous (actually hilarious) time and was dropped off at Frankfurt airport on the 30th morning by Ayse and Bernd who came to Cologne more or less for the evening, the last day that I was there.

There were a whole lot of Indians milling around the airport and when I told Ayse how weird and discomfiting it felt to see so many of my countrymen all at once after having seen none for the last four months, she had a good laugh. Ruth, who had already arrived from Munich, efficiently went about organising a wheelchair for me and when we finally sat in our seats on the plane I was able to heave a sigh of relief.

I wont say that I have actually become a fan of Air India (this was my very first AI flight) but it was not as bad as I had so often been told it would be. The aircraft and the seats generally seemed a bit tacky, but they were generous with the drinks. When I asked for red wine (big surprise aint it!) and the stewardess actually gave me two bottles of Beaujoulais, which kept me 'appy for quite a while.

Am now settling down again in Bombay, and slowly feeling at home again here. More in the next few days.

Last minute stuff

Sam inspecting the chair

The person who is going to most miss my wheelchair when I return it to the hospital tomorrow is Sammy. Is Sammy a person? Of course. A cat is most definitely a person, as much as you or me. It may not always behave the way you want it to, (do people for that matter?!) it wont come when you call it, wont suck up to you like a dog, wont give you the time of day if it isn't in the mood but it makes up for that with what you call "personality".

Sam comfortably settled

Sammy is lazy, he is like an Indian cow which never moves out of the way of a speeding car but expects the driver instead to swerve and risk knocking up his vehicle against a tree or a lamp post. Sammy just continues to sit in the way when I run around in my wheelchair, not bothering to make way for me and I am always afraid that I'll run over his tail.

Sam playing with the strap of my camera pouch

But he is a friendly cat, or at least that is what I thought till now, though I am beginning to wonder. He would spring up onto my lap every now and then and sit there purring and it felt so damn good. Since I've been walking around, using less of the wheelchair and sitting on an ordinary chair though, I've been noticing that Sammy doesn't come and sit on my lap any more. He makes a beeline for the wheelchair and sits on it, purring and then actually resents it when I try to edge him out.

I have been sitting and sorting out the mess in my room and am filled with wonder at the way it seems to follow me all the way from Bombay like a ... like a... maybe like some kind of slow growing monster that expands inch by inch in front of me wherever I happen to settle down. I can't figure out how I end up collecting so much stuff from chocolates (which I forget to eat and actually end up rotting in my suitcase at times) to boxes of wet tissues to just plain plastic bags. I've got dozens of them now and sorry to have to leave most of them behind. I think Ariela feels quite happy to see me surrounded by this pile of garbage because she is not the most tidy of people either and it makes her feel more "one with me."

Ruth, with whom I am flying to India, will arrive any time now to pick up some extra stuff which she will take as part of her luggage - my harmonica set, guitar, the old pair of shoes and let's see what else I can shamelessly pile on to her.

Farewell to Prien

View from my bedroom window

Snow has arrived here roughly four weeks after it had been wished for. Much to Lulu's disappointment it eluded us at Christmas, which had a perversely bright, warm and summery feel to it, but now it looks like we're going to have a white January, or at least what's left of it. What a surprise I got this morning when I looked out of the window opposite my bed and saw the rooftops of the neighbouring houses padded with a crisp white layer of snow. The main road running past the house was white, the pavements were white, the branches of the tree outside my window were (and still are at the moment) a Christmassy white. It all looks very nice from inside but I dont know if I'd enjoy messing about outdoors at the moment. The worst thing about snow is what they call "glatteis", in Germany, when snow has been around for a while and turns into a slippery and treacherous layer of ice on which people constantly skid and fall and break their bones - especially the elderly.

View from the living room

Well, this last week has had the typical overtones of leave taking with everyone sighing and wanting to know why I didn't consider making Prien my home. At least that's better than everyone sitting around with bated breath waiting to see the last of me. No doubt when I am actually back I shall be flooded with memories of my time here, playing with Felix, practising the guitar with Lulu, fending off Sammy the cat one of whose past times is to creep up behind me, poke his paws through a slit in my chair and scratch my butt. Our late night conversations over wine (with a cigarette or two thrown in, on occasion, though smoked out on the terrace - not inside the house), the table where I sit with this laptop, surfing the net, writing my blogs and mails, so many things.

Sammy sitting under my wheelchair,
waiting to spring

It's weird but time seems to have no significance whatever. The last four months seem so compressed I could swear I landed here yesterday with a broken ankle. At other times, the day I broke my ankle and phoned Ariela from Frankfurt and she insisted I come and stay with her, seems so far off, like it belongs to another lifetime. The care and attention I've received in this home, well I don't know what to say about it. So I wont try. Instead of asking myself what I have done to deserve all of it and feeling piously modest I decided a while back to just accept and enjoy it and it has worked fine.

Recently there has been a new addition to the household which has added a bit more spice to our lives - Linda, the young woman from Morocco, who helps keep house, looks after Felix, does the occasional shopping and a whole lot of miscellaneous chores. Though she was really shy in the beginning we've started having a lot of fun together and she gets on pretty well with the kids.

So these are the last two and a half days. On Saturday I'll be flying to Cologne to spend a day or two with Ayse and Suhail plans to join me for the weekend. And perhaps if I have time I'll blog again before I leave here. If not some time when I return to Bombay.

Storm!

There is something comforting about a storm raging outdoors while you're gathered cozily with friends, around the dining table swilling wine and exchanging confidences about all sorts of things. Yesterday all of Germany was swept by a hurricane, which being indoors as I am a lot of the time, I would not have ever known about if Thomas had not happened to mention it when he returned from Munich around lunch time.

In the four months that I've been in Prien I don't think I've watched the news on TV or read a newspaper either, more than about twice - and when I say reading the papers, what I actually mean is skimming the headlines on the front page at the breakfast table before going back to my coffee and toast and chatting with Linda the household help or with Felix explaining some complicated game he wants to play with me. Anyway Thomas and Lulu went shopping for emergency supplies before the "Orkan" was scheduled to rage its way through town. It was the first time I was hearing the word so when Thomas mentioned it I thought he was referring to a volcano and was flabbergasted because as I told him, I didn't think that Prien lay in a volcanic belt. "No," says Thomas, "I didn't say Vulkan, I said Orkan." Well before long I caught on.

Watching the news last night we finally got an impression of how powerful the gale was, (in some places over 200 kilometres per hour) as we saw people staggering and trying to keep their balance as they were buffetted by the strong winds, especially on the coast. And of course there were the usual scenes of trees having crashed down on the roads, and cars lying amidst the wreckage. In Germany train travel came to a complete halt which had thousands of travellers stuck at the station not knowing what to do. Prien being subject to the Föhn (the winds from the south) the effect of the hurricane was tempered, so that although we could hear the wind blowing through the window it was not nearly as dramatic in some other places.
Ose at work
Two items stood out on our list of things to worry about. One was that our friend Ose, who had promised to visit us and to cook Thai chicken for dinner might not be able to make it. (She did land up and the curry turned out damn good. Ose - pronounced "Ose-uh" - is actually a doctor who practises homeopathy, a great cook and also great on the guitar). The second was more like a regret, on Lulu's part that the Orkan had decided to pay us a visit late on Thursday evening instead of on Friday morning in which case her school would have declared a holiday.

The Time eating Monster

Elton John will be 60 in March. Ringo Starr is 67, Paul Newman 82, Petula Clark 75, Twiggy is 58, Carol King, 65. Just some of the figures whom Stardust refers to in one of her recent blog posts: "Everybody's getting so old...except me! LOL!". These are singers or entertainers whom I recall I too used to sort of hero worship in my teens. These guys were young when I first got to know of them and now they’re way older than I imagined was possible for anyone to be, when I was twelve or thirteen. It’s one of those things. You wake up one morning and say to yourself, “I’m 56” And then you go “Eeeek!” Because as far as you remember, just yesterday you were 21 and waiting for life to begin. What happened to the time in between?

It’s like there’s some invisible time eating black hole engulfing us which is rapidly devouring the seconds, minutes, days and years and all you do is, look at yourself in the bathroom mirror with a puzzled grin on your face not able to figure out how and when your hair turned grey or the wrinkles started to slowly creep over your face and neck.

The time eating monster has been at work these last few months as well. I figured it is five months since I left Bombay (August 18th to be exact) and four months since I landed in Prien with a broken ankle. The question is, how did it suddenly get to be January 16th? And what happened in between? Where did the days go? Friends would initially call up and make pitying sounds on the phone. "How do you manage to make the time pass?" Don’t ask me how, it just happens. You wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, work a bit on the computer, play a bit with the baby of the family (in this case four year old Felix), read, watch a bit of TV, eat, drink wine during or after dinner, spend the evening chatting and before you know it you’re rubbing your eyes and getting ready to fall into bed. Another day is over.

Well there’s not much else to say. I’m not going to start on a philosophical treatise right now. We’re reaching the end of the day and I think I’ll just pour myself a glass of red wine. It makes the time eating monster easier to bear.

First Steps!

The lake in Prien (the Chiem See) where Marlis and I went for an outing sometimes

This last week has been very eventful, with me shifting to an apartment round the corner from Ariela’s place, for a few days, together with Marlis who has come down from Berlin to help me get back on my feet. The “holiday apartment” which Marlis tracked down from the internet is perfect. Cosy, well furnished, clean and bright. And it is on the ground floor so that going out is not a big deal.

Marlis at the lake
A couple of days after we arrived the landlady, a friendly soul, probably in her late fifties, came over to collect the weeks rent as she was off on vacation the next day. She talked a blue streak while Marlis and I nodded politely every now and then, hardly able to get in a word edge wise, and it felt like she would never stop. She talked about having lived in Berlin for 30 years and then having moved to Frankfurt and how she came down to Bavaria and how the Berliners in Bavaria never really settle down and look down their nose at everything. Then she told us about one of her regular tenants, a man who has spent a lot of time in India, with Sai Baba and heals sick people in the area with meditation and “energy work”. Finally, almost reluctantly she took leave of us and Marlis and I were able to return to philosophising about life in general.

A slightly hazy pic of me taking my first steps with a pair of crutches

We’ve been at work of course ever since we arrived here which was last Thursday – me exercising, with Marlis helping me to find my feet and my balance again and I am discovering both the joy and pain (literally!) of being able to walk again. The first day was both the most frightening and probably the most rewarding. I was told that the point at which I felt most unstable and was filled with the most fear was the very point to which I needed to drive myself and where I had to learn to stay, in order to be able to take my first step. Anything short of that would mean that I was still hovering in the comfort zone which didn’t offer any promising returns.

I realised that in the weeks that I’ve been immobile I’ve actually lost my sense of balance (if ever I had it in the first place!) and that the straight position which Marlis made me stand in made me initially feel as if I was standing crooked and at an angle. Strange how even your body loses touch with reality if it hasn’t been working for a while.

By and by, with my heart in my mouth I learnt to take the first few faltering steps. When we moved in here the walker had not arrived so we had to make do with the wheel chair. I would hang on to the handles of the wheel chair and push it forward in order to be able to take a step. Today almost a week later, I am comfortable moving around on my own with the aid of the walker and learning to also cope with crutches – which is the next step. I don’t know how long it will take for me to get back to where I was before I fell, but at least at this moment it feels like it’s been an eventful week and apart from learning to walk again I am learning what it means to take risks and how important it is to be able to deal with fear and instability to be able to move ahead.

Another year has begun

Feli, Thomas, Rupert and Brigitte (who came down for New Years from Switzerland)

Andrea,Brigitte and an unknown person
on the dance floor
One good thing about our New Years eve party was that, at least to begin with, everybody was doing their own thing and the usual forced jollity was to a large extent dispensed with. At the outset we seemed to be divided into three lots. The first lot (which included me) was playing charades with the kids, another two or three individuals were munching away in the kitchen and the third lot of people were watching a karate film on TV, in my bedroom which is actually the living room which I have taken over. A little past ten, we got together for dinner after which things got genuinely a bit more merry (no doubt the wine helped). We had some goo...oood danceable music which had everyone on the floor including Suhail who was twisting and turning away and simulaneously clutching his back which has been giving him problems for the last several months.

Petra

I think the best thing that evening was Petra trumpeting the New Year in at midnight, from the terrace of the house. The sound floating through the night air while all around firecrackers were strewing the sky with stars and petals of pink, green and yellow light, was awesome. The mound of dishes on the dining table got me feeling a bit down towards the end but with a whole lot of helping hands it was cleared away in no time and we wound up the evening with some live music - Thomas and Petra on the guitar and the rest of us contributing with vocals.
Thomas playing us a goodnight song
As it happens with all good things coming to an end, and Suhail and Shasha having to leave yesterday evening back for Paris, the wind blew in a bit of depression. Even the sky turned grey and the sun was replaced by rain and snow. But life goes on and things are getting back to normal again. Sigh. Oh well, it feels good, in a way, getting back to one's regular tempo again.

Happy 2007 folks!

Suhail and Shasha have arrived in Prien and are currently cooking up some delicious things in the kitchen while Feli is zooming around with his toy motor bikes, fighting fire breathing dragons, tending to injured knights and generally making a racket. Brigitte and Rupert from Switzerland should be here any moment.

For tomorrow we’ve planned just a small get together with friends over ghoulash soup, salad, chips and dip. The girls who are camping out at their grandmother’s across the road (learning to be “independent” will be back for the New Years Eve party.

Oh yes the big news is that the doc has now said that I’m ready to walk, the bones are all in place and behaving themselves. Marlis has ordered a walker for me from Ebay, which I expect will arrive here one of these days and I can start flexing my muscles again.

In case I don’t get back to this blog in the next day or two, happy New Year all of you and keep in touch.

Oh - for personal reflections on this past year click here

Some pics

Lilly playing photographer on Christmas eve



















Feli's meditation

The crib set up by the girls

Lilly and Lulu setting the table for Christmas dinner

Sammy the perpetual moaner

Lulu with her guitar

Christmas Entertainment - not to be read by overly devout Christians

Four year old Felix

Tomorrow is Christmas eve and preparations for the evening variety programme are already underway. Lulu is scripting a play for us in which she and her sister are to play the roles of the three kings who come to visit Jesus while Felix and I are to play Joseph and Maria (Mary). So this morning we rehearsed a bit together and came up with the following impromptu version.

Maria (me) still faffing around in her wheelchair, is padded with cushions to appear pregnant. Joseph wants to know, how do we show Jesus being born? So we mull over the question and he comes up with a soft toy which he pushes underneath the cushion which is fattening me up. When the time comes for Jesus to be born, I whip out the cushion and toss it away while Joseph delivers baby Jesus, who turns out to be ... a teddy bear.


We both gaze lovingly at Teddy Jesus and think about how to hide him from the evil eyes of King Herrod who is out to kill all baby boys since one of them has been slated to be his successor and to rob him of his glory. So finally Joseph shoves him in the oven and (according to his own script) accidentally "turns it on" so that ... lordy lordy, we end up with a baked Teddy Jesus.

Down the line when the time comes to name the child, Joseph and Maria (according to Lulu’s script) have a little argument about what to call him. Joseph wants him to be called Joseph while Maria toys with a number of names like Thomas, Phillip, George and so on before finally settling for Jesus.

Maria: We’ll call him Jesus.
Joseph: No we have to call him Joseph.
Maria: Jesus
Joseph: (stubborn - but trips over the word) We'll call him Jesuph
Maria: Jesooph?
Maria and Joseph start giggling and decide this is not a bad name for their baby teddy who has now recovered completely from his bad experience in the oven.

At some point Lulu, suspecting that Felix might not be able to deal with the complex role of Joseph contemplates taking it away from him and playing the role herself together with Lilly in the role of Maria. That would leave Felix and me to share the role of the three kings. Unfortunately the very idea had Felix in a rage, so we broke for lunch at this point and so far we have not come further.

My Spaceman's shoe

Thomas took this pic of me a few weeks back, to show to the officer at the immigration office who was going to extend my visa for Germany. It is much easier to get visa extensions around this part than say in Frankfurt, because there are not too many foreigners here. So when Ariela asked if they should bring me along apparently he was horrified at the thought of me being laboriously carted to his office and said "Oh no no no. That isn't necessary" and it would be enough for Ariela to turn up with my passport.

As for the fractured foot - well these days you don't have the old fashioned plaster any more to keep broken bones in place. They give you a removable splint which is every bit as strong as the plaster and gives as much support. Everybody said it looked like a spaceman's shoe. I am getting so used to wearing it, I can't imagine walking with a normal shoe any more!

The Robber Hotzenplatz

Spent the afternoon in the winter garden watching snow falling onto the rectangular skylight. We were listening to an audio CD of children’s stories, about the robber Hotzenplotz who overpowers his victims with a pepper spraying revolver and whose main aim is to rob an old grandmother of her coffee machine. Felix loves this story and we have played it to death with him and me dividing the roles. Sometimes I am the grandmother and he is Hotzenplotz, sometimes he is the policeman Dimpflemoos and I am Karshpal one of the two good guys who fights the robber Hotzenplotz or at other times I’m the dumber of the good guys, Seppel, who is Karshpal’s friend. Then we all change roles and the drama goes on endlessly.

It is cold here and the heating has conked. For a few hours the house retained its warmth but now it is getting slowly colder. Luckily Thomas is back from Munich and we are hoping he will fix the heating soon. Brrrrrr.

Feli’s favourite theme right now around which many games and dialogues are based is “Kaka.” Everything is kaka. I am kaka, he offers me kaka sandwiches to eat, when I asked him what pictures he wanted to see on the net the other day, he said kaka pictures. I actually found some – of a shit sandwich and a shit ice cream cone and he was so impressed that he wanted to see them again and again. A. says he must be going through the anal stage and that boys seem to have it worse than girls. I agree.

Preparing for Christmas

Christmas is still roughly three weeks away but the festivities have already begun. In the town centre an open air market has been set up where you can buy all kinds of goodies, chocolates, spiced wines, toys for children and so on. And typical Christmas candies are consumed here by the ton.

In most English speaking countries as far as I know, Santa Claus appears on Christmas Eve whereas in Germany, Santa (known as Nikolaus) comes ho-ho-ing on December 5th or 6th. Yesterday we had planned to have him visit Felix but the individuals who usually play Nikolaus, that is either Thomas or Ariela's mother, couldn't make it. Thomas is still working in his studio in Munich and A's mother lives too far to come at short notice. So A thought she would ask her friend Martin if he would play Nikolaus but Martin was busy reading "Dostoievsky" and said he couldn't.

Finally we decided Lulu should be "it." At first she was reluctant, thinking that Felix would probably recognise her straight away but A and I persuaded her to do it. After an early dinner last night she informed us, including Feli, that she was "going to visit her friend Hannah." A. went up too, to help her get into her costume and I was left downstairs to entertain Felix. In about half an hour A came down again and said Nikolaus was in the vicinity and would soon be with us. She switched off all the lights and lit many candles to welcome him.

Lulu made a great Santa. She had the usual red robes, a wig of white hair, flowing white beard and was well padded with cushions all over. She looked like a big ball and I really had a hard time controlling my laughter. We sang "Jingle Bells" for Santa after which he dug into his huge sack and gave Felix two presents and a scarlet stocking with some chocolates in it. Feli was most concerned about the fact that Santa had not brought any gifts for me but A said that it was okay, he could bless us instead, which he did, laying his hand on our heads like the pope. When Lulu "returned from Hannah's" about twenty minutes later Felix excitedly related all that had happened after which the kids were packed off to bed and A and I sat up chatting till midnight.

Another peaceful day!

The whole gang went to Munich yesterday - primarily to drop of A. at the airport. She was off to Frankfurt to meet a TV producer who has given her some juicy assignments. Thomas drove her there, the kids accompanied her and everybody returned around half past seven in the evening. I spent a quiet day here catching up on my mail.

We have a new cleaning woman - Linda - from Morocco - a very tranquil and efficient person who leaves the whole house spotless. She cooked for both of us - some Moroccan dish with fish and vegetables. In the absence of the right spices it seemed a bit bland to me but she said she would make couscous for us and get her own spices along.

Right now, watching a Laurel and Hardy film with Felix who accompanies every action and bit of dialogue with his own commentary and action.

Peaceful Weekend

It is nice to be with kids and also nice to be without them. Felix and Lulu were out the whole day yesterday (Felix is still away and will be back with his dad towards evening I guess) and boy, was my day peaceful. Brings back home the need to balance things out - action with rest, interaction with solitude. I was able to do my exercises and to shampoo my hair without any interruption and it felt like a luxury. This life is so different from the one I lead in Bombay and I must say I am grateful to have had the chance to experience something so radically new. Being with kids! Playing non stop for hours with a four-year old! Playing utterly nonsensical games which at some level almost serve as therapy. Been standing up, sitting down, standing, sitting, shifting weight from one leg to another all day every day in anticipation of when I will actually start to move.

Progress

Last week's visit to the doc confirmed that the bones are mending okay, so now I'm allowed to stand and put about 10 Kg weight on my leg. Hmmm. How much is ten Kg? Hard to tell. Ruth had taken me to Munich for the appointment and when we got back home and I saw Ariela I excitedly said to her "10 Kg!" Instead of reacting with delight she looked horrified. It later turned out that she thought the doctor had advised me to lose 10 Kg and she wondered how I would manage that.

Meanwhile it gets dark here so quickly it is incredible. At half past four you cant see a thing out of the window and indoors too you cant manage without lights. Luckily the days are not bad. When the sun shines it gets quite warm and is very pleasant.

Nothing earthshaking in the last few days. But we're slowly gearing up for Xmas. I am making progress with the guitar and Lulu and I practise together almost every day for our special Xmas show. We have made up our own version of "This land is your land" which is half in German and half in Hindi. (For those who know the tune it goes "Yeh rasta mera... yeh rasta tera... Prien lekay Mumbai... Deutschland lekay Indee-ah...etc). Everybody here thinks it's cool and we've named our band "DFI" - Deutsch-Indisch Freundschaft". (German-India Friendship band).

How does that grab you!

website: www.basicindia.net

Lessons from a Flower

"You can learn a lot from a flower - they're beautiful and then they die." I recently came across this quote and liked it. It communicates a truth that is simple, concise and hard to accept - for most human beings. How many of us - who swoon over flowers and natural beauty - accept the laws of nature? How many of us have the humility to recognise the fact that we are no more and no less than a flower, growing in a garden or a forest or by the roadside. That we are born, we live and we die. Mostly our fear of living prevents us from even blooming. That's life. The life of a human being. What a pity.

group website: www.basicindia.net

Fitness All Round

Marlis is back in Prien to help me with a physical fitness programme. So we have been hard at work and I feel I really earned my lunch today.

Transferring the idea of fitness to our mental capacities, I wonder if something similar doesn't happen to our minds. The same way that our muscles get slack when we dont use them, our minds too, after a certain point are not able to respond effectively and quickly. That means we keep doing the same things and making the same mistakes because we are not quick enough to keep up with what is going on.

The more we stagnate, the more rigid we are and the more we stick to known territory, the less our minds are able to “move”. I sometimes feel enlightenment has to do with regaining our mental flexibility back, which I think we were born with, so that we can move in any space we choose and not feel threatened. Even when our bodies (and with it our egos or personalities) go through the doors of death.

www.basicindia.net

Healing Visualisation

It is rather weird when you find yourself being treated by another therapist, who uses the same methods as you do. Yesterday evening this friend of ours called Kiko turned up for dinner (he is staying with us for a day or two because he is attending a course in Prien). We got talking about my leg and after the others had gone to bed, he asked if he could work on me. I said okay. He did a kind of visualisation exercise with me very similar to what I do with my clients, about feeling and trying to visualise what is within. He made me visualise my connection with my foot which was broken, to see which part of the body connected most strongly with the foot (it was my heart!) and to see the colour connecting my heart with my foot (a kind of silver band) and so on. At the start I remember a heavy feeling inside me but as we went along, the feeling subsided and towards the end I was left with quite a light feeling. This evening he will be back for some more exercises and I am curious.

There is no doubt as far as I'm concerned, about the role played by our minds in healing. It may not be possible immediately because first it seems necessary to clear up a lot of garbage in the mind which makes it difficult to concentrate or rather to pay attention to your body. But then you begin to simply sense how your attitude and general feeling affect your health. And it is not just our own personal health but the vibes in the environment too which are affected.

In the 1990's I believe an experiment was conducted in Washington in which over 100,000 people were invited to meditate over a period of time (I forget how long but I think it was about a month). The persons conducting the experiment wanted to prove that meditations like these could help bring down the crime rate. And in effect the police department helped in this effort. At the end when the checked out the statistics they discovered that the crime rate for the entire period of meditation had indeed dropped by 25 per cent.

What do you make of that?

group website: www.basicindia.net

Weekend

Brazilian woman

The weekend with Andrea and the kids was very nice even if a bit wild. Watched the movie "Bleep" a second time and enjoyed it. It's one of those which gives you something extra to think about each time you see it and also the opportunity to catch up on the bits you missed. It really helps you to see a few things, about why change doesn't happen even though we often say we want it. And as we have been learning in Samuel's workshops the makers of Bleep also recommend that to break a habit you have to learn to sit back and watch. In other words, learn to be still.

Well Andrea left us early on Monday morning and now Ariela's mother is with us. She is good fun and we spent the whole morning playing - Lulu, Felix and me. She is good at making up stories.

Meanwhile I spoke to Suhail and Shasha yesterday evening, we chatted for over an hour (one of the rare times when I have been so long on the phone - normally I HATE it). They felt that in many ways Brazil was pretty much like India but over a period of time they began to see the difference as well and the fact that the people there are a lot more free and there is none of the sexual repression one finds in India. In concrete terms that means that as a woman you can walk down the street without being stared at by every man in sight. Suhail said the women also move differently and even the ones who are fat, seem very proud of their bodies, and their entire being shows it. How lucky!

Group website:
www.basicindia.net

Seasons Cross

Autumn had barely begun to unfold here, what with the glorious sunshine and warm weather we had enjoyed till last week, in fact several of the trees have yet to shed their leaves and yet to my bewilderment it has started to snow! Daybefore yesterday when I emerged into the winter garden from my room I noticed that the mountain tops were white. The same evening it started to snow in Prien and by morning the rooftops were covered with icing sugar snow. The branches of the trees, look especially charming with a powdery white crust over the brown.

Indoors of course one doesn't feel the cold but temperatures outside have dropped from something like 25 or 27 degrees last week to minus 5. Today the sun was out so of course it was slightly warmer. From Ute, the woman who comes to help with the chores, I heard about the winter last year which began in November and went on till April, so there was no real spring. It's a strange mix of seasons. The weather seems quite confused about which of its faces to show the world at any given point.

Meanwhile it is bedlam at home. With Ariela and Thomas gone to London to drop Lilly off at boarding school, Lulu, Felix and I are looking after the fort with friend Andrea and her two kids to keep us company and boy! What a riot! The older girls, Lulu and Lisa are in the kitchen, tossing pancakes, their culinary skills interspersed with loud shrieks and fancy dance steps. The younger kids are being slowly coaxed towards the bedroom and I am taking a break from the high energy end of the house in my own little retreat down the corridor.

Group website:
www.basicindia.net

More about the Wheelchair Journey

Last week's visit to the doctor in Munich left me feeling optimistic. The bones are healing and even though the process is a bit slow it looks like it will turn out okay. So after we left the hospital Thomas and I had a nice lunch at an outdoor cafe, spaghetti and giant scampi and beer and caught up on each other's views on various subjects.

Meanwhile, I've been reading more of Andreas Pröve. The guy travelling through India in a wheelchair. In the second part of the book he arrives in Calcutta and decides to wheel himself to the source of the Ganges, which he was unable to reach on an earlier visit. Reading about how he competes with lorries and trucks as he travels in his motorized wheelchair makes one's hair stand on end. Often he ends up spattered with mud and covered with dust. He is familiar with dhaba food and loves samosas and dosas, which he seems to thrive on without a problem.

You get more than a glimpse of how handicapped people are treated in India. For example, Andreas writes about how he is not only constantly stared at by people wherever he goes, but often followed around by children. Mostly they are curious but on one occasion, somewhere near Kanpur, they started to tease him and to pinch him and throw stones at him, the way they would do at a monkey in a zoo. Luckily his motorized wheelchair allowed him to make a quick getaway and after this he always kept a thick club by his side to beat up kids who dared to provoke him physically.

As luck would have it, a young man called Nagender whom he had met on a previous visit, in Calcutta, agrees to accompany him so that although Andreas travels by road and in his wheelchair, and Nagender most often by train or bus, they decide where and when to catch up with each other. They also travel together part of the way by train, which Nagender insists on when they are moving through dacoit infested territory. A close bond develops between the two and I am now at the part where they are celebrating holi and being drowned in colours, and how at the end of the day his camera starts to spew red, blue and yellow powders which indicates that its end is near. Fortunately Andreas has two extra cameras so he can continue to take photographs, some of which are included in the book.

Group website: www.basicindia.net

Autumn

The leaves on the trees are slowly changing colours. Various shades of green are turning brown, yellow, red and flaming orange. Autumn! One of the most colourful seasons in Europe and in the western countries. The other day when Petra took me for a stroll to the lake we passed bushes fencing houses, which were a startling pinkish red - like huge balls of fire glowing in the afternoon sun.

The sun is taking a rest today, the sky is grey and it has been drizzling since morning. The kids are back from school and the house resounds with their voices. Soon we will have lunch and I will read a bit more from the book by Andrea Pröve which I have had to lay aside for a while. I will do my exercises, maybe watch a movie and get back to some work on the computer. A perfectly normal day.