It is the tropical sun that has made the skin browner. I am still not as brown as the local Tamilians. Not my line. That's what I was told. "You are Hindi, I know!" Ilisha says proudly, as if winning a point on a quiz show. Ilisha's grandmother says they are half Japanese but Ilisha would like to believe that grandma said that only in some sort of drunken stupor, and that they are actually Chinese. Whatever. In my vocabulary everbody was a flat-stomached, gleamy-skinned, sexy, sexy chink until I came here. I mean such cute a word should not, must not be designated to have racist connotations. I lose one term from my anorexic vocabulary. This is what immigration tends to do. Carve and throw out some part of you that was so you until they designate it as 'infected.' Sterile, developed nations. Now I will stop touching food with my fingers and forget how to wash my ass with water. I will also feel embarrased to wear saris on usual work days and reject a red, round bindi for a more sinuous, black one, if I put one at all.
I will come out all clean after fours years and lose everything but the skin colour and then back home, people will complain about how picky I have become after staying in Singapore. Well, whatever will be picked, will not be my choice. I must open my mouth now. Do not be deluded by the more-browned skin color when you see me. The remoulding is in process. And it's started with my current reality of being unable to use, what I always thought was a harmless word.
I have much education to take and much more to give, if I intend to keep the chads of my identity on. A student must possess humility. (When I was a kid, I used to think of 'humility' as a synonym for 'humiliation' and was shocked to see this written on a war memorial: 'We bow our heads to our fallen soldiers in humility.' Shocking. I even took a Kodak picture. Though I didn't look into the dictionary for months. I wonder how many other pairs of words have made such incestuous associations in my mind.) Talking of humility, it is with humility that I have been telling people that I am not a Tamilian, that Tamil is not the national language of India, that not all people eat 'Halal.'
And even before the question of confused regional identity is sorted out (you can be a 'gujarati' but you cannot be 'hindi?') I have to deal with the new prominence showered on my surname.
"PATEL!" screams the amplifier at the immigration counter.
I look around.
Someone Indian on the list, I think.
"PATEL!" repeats.
I am still waiting for someone to stand up.
"PATEL RASH...!" in exasperation.
Aiyo. Now this is not US where a hundred grinning heads would have popped up if 'Patel' was called. (BTW, when I went to the US, the guy at the immigration asked me the usual Patel question on their list:"Do you have a relative in the US?" "No," says I. And then he asks, "Why?"
How dumb. Did he think we Patels had only one foreign country to open our shops in?
"Because they are in Canada," says I, looking insulted. Satisfied, serious nod at the other end. All's well then. Stamped. Go. )
So yes, coming back to Singapore, the lady at the counter must have wondered how many retarded Indians she had to deal with for the current day. But overall the ladies have been helpful, thanks to Shahrukh Khan and the apparently snooty behaviour of Kareena and Aishwarya.
"She is Hindustani, not Tamilian," Singaporean aunty at the health check centre mumbles to her colleague.
"Yes, I am from the western part of India, Gujarat," I initiate to clarify. Ah! say the raised eyebrows. But then I have to talk about my marriage too.
"But I am married to a Kannadiga. They speak Kannada. You know when I married I couldn't understand one word of husband's language..."
Much mirth and mother-in-law jokes. After which, Bollywood sneaks in the conversation and the two workers are in such good mood that they want me to answer questions like:
"But Bollywood actresses very snooty I hear. Kareena and Aishwarya. Why snooty la? Money la? Money money?"
Well, what can I say? In a city where 40% lives in the slums, maybe money makes people snooty and snotty. I didn't know that Bollywood was such a connector on ground reality. Bollywood and 'curry puff.' What's that, I ask. They look at each other in the same manner, as two British teens would have looked at each other, if some Indian would have asked them, "What's Chicken Tikka?"
Coming to food brings out more myths out of the bag.
"I know why so many people are vegetarians," grins Tan. "Because the royal family of India doesn't eat meat." In a mental reflex reaction, what surfaces in my mind is the solemn portrait of Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel. Nobody more than he would have wished that we had one, single vegetarian royal family. Alas!
I now know, why creative juices flow out of dislocated minds.
But the circle must complete itself.
On the weekend visit to little India, I feel a relief to be on a street full of green vegetables and sweaty workers. Here traffic rules are relaxed. Here there is a din that is Indian.
Tamil film songs blare on full volume from the speakers. Distinctly Indian.
Tamil-land may be not home in India, but here it is. It is.
At the South-Indian food joint, the local Singaporean-Chinese manning the counter, asks in a very Singaporean accent:
"Saapada?"
"Aama," says I.
July 19, 2008
July 18, 2008
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
"I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use--silence, exile, and cunning."
"I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too."
"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not."
"His thinking was a dusk of doubt and self-mistrust lit up at moments by the lightnings of intuition, but lightnings of so clear a splendor that in those moments the world perished about his feet as if it had been fireconsumed...."
~ James Joyce
"I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too."
"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not."
"His thinking was a dusk of doubt and self-mistrust lit up at moments by the lightnings of intuition, but lightnings of so clear a splendor that in those moments the world perished about his feet as if it had been fireconsumed...."
~ James Joyce
"How?" asked the son.
He answered:
A decade in Tibet,
eating grass and snow.
Wild horses for company
and dust storms over rivers.
Strayed in search of freedom
but discovered only
the bounds of self.
Fear pumped the heart,
hunger taught these
fingers how to dig.
What would I become
if not a zen master?
This wisdom was not
a choice, son.
Life handed it to me
in daily wages,
rations of tenuous survival.
A decade in Tibet,
eating grass and snow.
Wild horses for company
and dust storms over rivers.
Strayed in search of freedom
but discovered only
the bounds of self.
Fear pumped the heart,
hunger taught these
fingers how to dig.
What would I become
if not a zen master?
This wisdom was not
a choice, son.
Life handed it to me
in daily wages,
rations of tenuous survival.
Financial Paralysis
That's not my personal financial condition but an indication of the deteriorating US economy.
'Welcome to the frozen economy' begins Business Week, followed by ' Not Since The Depression Have Financial Difficulties So Immobilized Spending And Credit.'
A friend of mine is thinking of buying a house, so I thought I'd write down a bit on my past financial plans and how they have fared so far.
There is no denying that at a larger level the world economy itself is in a state of massive juggle.
In India, you may not (or may) lose your job, but prices continue to rise, stock market is still to see recovery, and spending is already cautious.
Here's a one-year return percentage of my mutual funds portfolio. Note the screaming red negatives in front of each MF. If you have invested in MFs, valueresearchonline is a good place to keep track of your portfolio online. I had invested in some of these MFs last year when I was still not sure whether we would be back to uni or still earning after a year.
My mistake was this - knowing that I 'might' need the money a year later, this was a high-stakes decision. Too much risk.
Money should be put in MFs if you can 'afford' to keep the money for at least 3-5 years time-frame.
This is the thumb rule. The one you should never disobey even if the pundits forecast double-digit economic growth for the immediate, next year.
Here's a
two-year return percentage on the same portfolio.
This means if I had invested about two years ago, I would be pretty much on the safe side right now.
To balance risks, the best way is to invest a little each month, through the SIP route. So, I am continuing to buy in this low market to cross out the cost of having bought in high market a year ago.
I need this money about two years from now. So again, this is high-risk decision. But I am betting on market recovery as it is already on a low currently.
Yes, I intend to share the result of this experiment.
As far as investing in property is concerned, be sure you are ready for such a financial 'settling down'. You won't be able to back-pack across South America for a year with a home loan in tow.
When we bought the house, we promised ourselves that we would sell it when needed but we failed to read the small script in the agreement with the developer, which clearly stated that buyers cannot sell the property before registration. We are still waiting for the registration!
If you are planning to buy a house and doing your initial math, do this first: Add 15-20% to the cost quoted by the developer. This will cover your stamp duty, furnishings, etc. Even if you do not furnish your house, any other change like increase in rates or change in stamp duty might topple all your estimates. After we bought the house, several things cropped up. We had to shell out money for the cooking gas pipeline and BSNL broadband setup . Also the increase in rates saw our EMI go up by more than 20%. That's a huge number!
Add that 15% initially and you will spare yourself some nasty surprises later.
Some rules that I find meaningful:
1. Assumption is the mother of all fck-ups so question all your assumptions while you plan.
2. Read the fine print. Everywhere.
3. If you have money right now and you do not know what to do with it, keep it in the bank. That's OK. Do not run to invest in areas (stocks, MFs, property) that you do not currently understand.
4. If you want to use your money better, educate yourself. It's a matter of googling up after all.
5. Take small risks - say, buy MF worth a 1000 Rs. It doesn't always have to start big.
6. Bad things don't happen only to your neighbour. They can happen to you too. There is no way to be fully prepared but keep some fund aside for emergencies, the kind that you can convert to cash immediately when needed.
7. And this is hush-hush personal stuff :) - give to your family when you have enough. If you have shared your good times with them, there's a better chance they will share the bad times too.
'Welcome to the frozen economy' begins Business Week, followed by ' Not Since The Depression Have Financial Difficulties So Immobilized Spending And Credit.'
A friend of mine is thinking of buying a house, so I thought I'd write down a bit on my past financial plans and how they have fared so far.
There is no denying that at a larger level the world economy itself is in a state of massive juggle.
In India, you may not (or may) lose your job, but prices continue to rise, stock market is still to see recovery, and spending is already cautious.
Here's a one-year return percentage of my mutual funds portfolio. Note the screaming red negatives in front of each MF. If you have invested in MFs, valueresearchonline is a good place to keep track of your portfolio online. I had invested in some of these MFs last year when I was still not sure whether we would be back to uni or still earning after a year.
My mistake was this - knowing that I 'might' need the money a year later, this was a high-stakes decision. Too much risk.
Money should be put in MFs if you can 'afford' to keep the money for at least 3-5 years time-frame.
This is the thumb rule. The one you should never disobey even if the pundits forecast double-digit economic growth for the immediate, next year.
Here's a
two-year return percentage on the same portfolio.This means if I had invested about two years ago, I would be pretty much on the safe side right now.
To balance risks, the best way is to invest a little each month, through the SIP route. So, I am continuing to buy in this low market to cross out the cost of having bought in high market a year ago.
I need this money about two years from now. So again, this is high-risk decision. But I am betting on market recovery as it is already on a low currently.
Yes, I intend to share the result of this experiment.
As far as investing in property is concerned, be sure you are ready for such a financial 'settling down'. You won't be able to back-pack across South America for a year with a home loan in tow.
When we bought the house, we promised ourselves that we would sell it when needed but we failed to read the small script in the agreement with the developer, which clearly stated that buyers cannot sell the property before registration. We are still waiting for the registration!
If you are planning to buy a house and doing your initial math, do this first: Add 15-20% to the cost quoted by the developer. This will cover your stamp duty, furnishings, etc. Even if you do not furnish your house, any other change like increase in rates or change in stamp duty might topple all your estimates. After we bought the house, several things cropped up. We had to shell out money for the cooking gas pipeline and BSNL broadband setup . Also the increase in rates saw our EMI go up by more than 20%. That's a huge number!
Add that 15% initially and you will spare yourself some nasty surprises later.
Some rules that I find meaningful:
1. Assumption is the mother of all fck-ups so question all your assumptions while you plan.
2. Read the fine print. Everywhere.
3. If you have money right now and you do not know what to do with it, keep it in the bank. That's OK. Do not run to invest in areas (stocks, MFs, property) that you do not currently understand.
4. If you want to use your money better, educate yourself. It's a matter of googling up after all.
5. Take small risks - say, buy MF worth a 1000 Rs. It doesn't always have to start big.
6. Bad things don't happen only to your neighbour. They can happen to you too. There is no way to be fully prepared but keep some fund aside for emergencies, the kind that you can convert to cash immediately when needed.
7. And this is hush-hush personal stuff :) - give to your family when you have enough. If you have shared your good times with them, there's a better chance they will share the bad times too.
Someone else's project
Deez has been running Project Health on her blog for some time. I have remained tuned because there's been a lot of kitchen activity for me recently, mostly because it saves money. No, food is not cheap in Singapore - not for students with huge fees and debts.
S0 inspired by Deez' latest post on Project Health, I prepared the simplest and the most delicious and reusable dish every vegetarian should know!
Presenting here - The Vegetable Stock.
Vegetable stock is nothing but the water of boiled veggies, flavoured with whatever suits your creativity - garlic, chillies, pepper, dill, or ginger.
The stock can last for 3-4 days in the fridge or forever if you store it in the freezer.
Rachael Ray uses chicken stock as an intant, healthy flavorer in her 30-minute meals and I am guessing you could substitute it with vegetable stock in pasta, rice, or sabzi. In short, boil the veggies, keep the water, and pour it freely in any dish, or simply use it as a soup. Simple as it may sound, the flavor is absolutely rich and delicious.
Here's my recipe.
Ingredients
------------
1. Collect all your veggies to see what all you have got. Dice all to about half an inch. I added about 2/3rds of the quantity of veggies shown in the pic. You can keep the pieces bigger if you intend to strain the boiled veggies and keep only water for future use.
On second thought, I could have done without chillies and with more of garlic. If carbs are not high on your mind, you can add potatoes to give it a more fuller flavor.
2. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a kadhaai.
If you want a no-oil recipe, skip steps from step 2 to step 5. Directly add all ingredients with salt to a pot of water.
3. Add onion with freshly crushed pepper and garlic. Use garlic freely. It forms the base of the taste in the stock. Let it cook for two minutes.
4. Add the rest of the diced veggies. Add salt and grated ginger. This looks like a lot of veggies but the quantity will reduce after some cooking. Also, I wanted to cook enough to be able to store the stock for a few days.
5. Cook the veggies for a 15 minutes on high flame, tossing often.
6. In the meantime, ready the vessels for boiling. Add lots of water and salt. Add the veggies.
I wanted to try cooking two different ways - in a pressure cooker and in a simple pot. Pressure cooker makes the whole process faster. If you are using the pressure cooker, cook on medium flame for 30 minutes. If you cooking in a pot, cook for about an hour.
Here's the stocky soup with the veggies.
You can strain the veggies and store the water in the freezer for future use.
Add it to any dish to give a rich flavor!
S0 inspired by Deez' latest post on Project Health, I prepared the simplest and the most delicious and reusable dish every vegetarian should know!
Presenting here - The Vegetable Stock.
Vegetable stock is nothing but the water of boiled veggies, flavoured with whatever suits your creativity - garlic, chillies, pepper, dill, or ginger.
The stock can last for 3-4 days in the fridge or forever if you store it in the freezer.
Rachael Ray uses chicken stock as an intant, healthy flavorer in her 30-minute meals and I am guessing you could substitute it with vegetable stock in pasta, rice, or sabzi. In short, boil the veggies, keep the water, and pour it freely in any dish, or simply use it as a soup. Simple as it may sound, the flavor is absolutely rich and delicious.
Here's my recipe.
Ingredients
------------
- garlic - five big cloves, finely chopped
- ginger - one-inch piece, grated
- olive oil - two tbspns
- whole black pepper - crushed (with a pair of tongs :) )
- salt
- arbitrary quantities of all veggies in the fridge
1. Collect all your veggies to see what all you have got. Dice all to about half an inch. I added about 2/3rds of the quantity of veggies shown in the pic. You can keep the pieces bigger if you intend to strain the boiled veggies and keep only water for future use.
On second thought, I could have done without chillies and with more of garlic. If carbs are not high on your mind, you can add potatoes to give it a more fuller flavor.
2. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a kadhaai.
If you want a no-oil recipe, skip steps from step 2 to step 5. Directly add all ingredients with salt to a pot of water.
3. Add onion with freshly crushed pepper and garlic. Use garlic freely. It forms the base of the taste in the stock. Let it cook for two minutes.
4. Add the rest of the diced veggies. Add salt and grated ginger. This looks like a lot of veggies but the quantity will reduce after some cooking. Also, I wanted to cook enough to be able to store the stock for a few days.
5. Cook the veggies for a 15 minutes on high flame, tossing often.
6. In the meantime, ready the vessels for boiling. Add lots of water and salt. Add the veggies.I wanted to try cooking two different ways - in a pressure cooker and in a simple pot. Pressure cooker makes the whole process faster. If you are using the pressure cooker, cook on medium flame for 30 minutes. If you cooking in a pot, cook for about an hour.
Here's the stocky soup with the veggies.
You can strain the veggies and store the water in the freezer for future use.
Add it to any dish to give a rich flavor!
July 17, 2008
some Gujarati verse
Your memory means -
the gasping poem
lying in the scattered
crumpled sheets
on my verandah
early in the morning.
~ attempted translation of a Gujarati verse by Dee, from his poetry blog
I thought of translating another one of my favourites, but it turned out to be more pathetic than my first attempt. I have no knowledge of translation but I wanted to give a glimpse of his style.
Thanks to Dee for allowing me to put up the translation.
To read verse in a language that surrounded you, that you could call your own, that reminds you of childhood and water-laden paddy fields and village wells and grandparents, is an immediate sensation of home-coming, even in a distant land and time.
I wish I could read more languages. I wish we had more emphasis on native languages in school. Why did we read Shakespeare and Milton and Yeats and scrounged for metaphors and personifications and ironies in a world that was so cold and foreign? Why did we not read more of brown earth and scorching summers and thirsty trees and wild monsoons?
Yes, the cliches have come true. Distance and dislocation cajole the heart to search for new meanings in old associations. The mind focusses its binoculars on the past, not wanting to miss what the eyes disregarded in daily life.
the gasping poem
lying in the scattered
crumpled sheets
on my verandah
early in the morning.
~ attempted translation of a Gujarati verse by Dee, from his poetry blog
I thought of translating another one of my favourites, but it turned out to be more pathetic than my first attempt. I have no knowledge of translation but I wanted to give a glimpse of his style.
Thanks to Dee for allowing me to put up the translation.
To read verse in a language that surrounded you, that you could call your own, that reminds you of childhood and water-laden paddy fields and village wells and grandparents, is an immediate sensation of home-coming, even in a distant land and time.
I wish I could read more languages. I wish we had more emphasis on native languages in school. Why did we read Shakespeare and Milton and Yeats and scrounged for metaphors and personifications and ironies in a world that was so cold and foreign? Why did we not read more of brown earth and scorching summers and thirsty trees and wild monsoons?
Yes, the cliches have come true. Distance and dislocation cajole the heart to search for new meanings in old associations. The mind focusses its binoculars on the past, not wanting to miss what the eyes disregarded in daily life.
July 16, 2008
The Art Scene in Singapore
What is the indicator of the quality of creative stimulus in a society?
What makes for a conducive environment for a vibrant arts scene?
How much of it can be and should be influenced by the government?
This and more on this well-written post by leongyiting that tries to find some answers.
An excerpt:
Quote
Art in Singapore suffers as a result of the way the society is being moulded into. We grow up in a structured and sheltered environment. We are like sheltered poppies, cultivated venus flytraps and rotten apples. There are different kinds of people, nevertheless. We exist because the government allows it and they make policies to encourage it. I'm not saying that the government is bad or anything close to it. On the contrary, I support most of the government policies, just not all, but most. The government does protect us citizens and permanent residents alike, but it's rigidity in education kills our creative expression. The art/music scene, which is a human development indicator via the quality of life, will never advance out of its structure, system and anal retentiveness.
This was probably one of the reasons why the government had wanted to develop the arts in Singapore to begin with. To raise the HDI via the quality of life and to show off to the rest of the world that Singapore is capable of more than its hardcore memorisation from textbooks and farsighted leaders.
Life in Singapore is rather mundane, actually. There's not much of a culture, not much of a history. Everything that we are able to call our own are mostly ripped off from everywhere else and pieced together in a new combination. Check out the Merlion, for instance. And obviously, without all these, there is hardly any inspiration for anything. We all know that in essay writing examinations, the Chinese scholars have the best plot-lines because they have the best things happening to them in their lives.
I mean, what we have of the arts mostly are so.. Politically selective. It's like, they go through political screening for anti-political messages and stuff. And any of which having content that hits their radar are immediately obliterated.
Maybe we could do better in the arts if we learnt how to get out of the norm a bit. Maybe shouldn't structure our lifestyles. Structures should be left as some sort of scaffolding of foundation, not your lifestyle. Think out of the box, people. Do the peculiar, but with decency, I must say. Break the mould. Get my drift?
How much of your right brain is in the government's hands?
Unquote
What makes for a conducive environment for a vibrant arts scene?
How much of it can be and should be influenced by the government?
This and more on this well-written post by leongyiting that tries to find some answers.
An excerpt:
Quote
Art in Singapore suffers as a result of the way the society is being moulded into. We grow up in a structured and sheltered environment. We are like sheltered poppies, cultivated venus flytraps and rotten apples. There are different kinds of people, nevertheless. We exist because the government allows it and they make policies to encourage it. I'm not saying that the government is bad or anything close to it. On the contrary, I support most of the government policies, just not all, but most. The government does protect us citizens and permanent residents alike, but it's rigidity in education kills our creative expression. The art/music scene, which is a human development indicator via the quality of life, will never advance out of its structure, system and anal retentiveness.
This was probably one of the reasons why the government had wanted to develop the arts in Singapore to begin with. To raise the HDI via the quality of life and to show off to the rest of the world that Singapore is capable of more than its hardcore memorisation from textbooks and farsighted leaders.
Life in Singapore is rather mundane, actually. There's not much of a culture, not much of a history. Everything that we are able to call our own are mostly ripped off from everywhere else and pieced together in a new combination. Check out the Merlion, for instance. And obviously, without all these, there is hardly any inspiration for anything. We all know that in essay writing examinations, the Chinese scholars have the best plot-lines because they have the best things happening to them in their lives.
I mean, what we have of the arts mostly are so.. Politically selective. It's like, they go through political screening for anti-political messages and stuff. And any of which having content that hits their radar are immediately obliterated.
Maybe we could do better in the arts if we learnt how to get out of the norm a bit. Maybe shouldn't structure our lifestyles. Structures should be left as some sort of scaffolding of foundation, not your lifestyle. Think out of the box, people. Do the peculiar, but with decency, I must say. Break the mould. Get my drift?
How much of your right brain is in the government's hands?
Unquote
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