To Think I Actually Wanted To Grow Up…

Changing Status of Women

This was a short piece I had to write in class (in about 10 minutes, so be patient please). The topic given was “The changing status of women” I’ve drawn inspiration from the stories of my grandmother’s childhood in a small village in Kerala, as she was one of the few women of her generation who was allowed an education, because of which she values it a lot more than my own generation. I hope this will show everyone how lucky they are to be educated. ________________________________________

Part One: As usual, I woke up unnaturally early, a couple of hours before the sun rose. Tiptoeing around my sleeping relatives, I quickly grabbed some clothes before running towards the pond nearby for a quick bath. Finishing the bath in record time (exactly 8 minutes) I got dressed and rushed back home, quickly finishing the rest of my chores before hurrying back out to begin the 8 kilometre trek to school. All before the rest of the family woke up.

I smiled sadly to myself, wondering, for the umpteenth time, if all this would be necessary if my relatives were not so against the idea of an educated woman. Why do I need to go to school feeling like a criminal? Just because I want to be educated?

Part Two: I watch in wonder, as my granddaughter throws yet another tantrum while my poor daughter tries to coax her out of bed to get ready in time for school. She’s complaining this much…. because of school? Does she not realise how lucky she is? Her parents actually support her education! Her grandparents like hearing about her school and her friends there! She never has to hear snide remarks about how she’s neglecting her duty as a woman by moving out of the kitchen! Does she really not understand how privileged she is?

Having been classmates in school with his son, I've seen him a couple of times at school. He never had any of the airs that you would normally associate with celebrities, and was really shy and quiet. He was incredibly talented and a great role model. May he Rest in Peace

In The Memory Of Irrfan Khan

On April 29th, 2020, the well-known actor Irrfan Khan passed away due to a colon inflammation. This was unexpected even when he disclosed his condition on Twitter in 2018. This is a sad occasion for everyone, so I thought instead of mourning his death, we should celebrate his contribution to the industry.

Long Story Short

Born in Rajasthan to a Muslim family, Irrfan Khan was from a generally low class family. Although he was talented in cricket, he had to opt out for acting instead because he didn’t have that much funds. He did his MA in Jaipur and joined the National School of Drama in 1984. After graduation, he was given minor roles in TV shows with little to no acknowledgement. Soon enough, he was given a slew of feature length films that gave him critical success and recognition, such as Rog, Maqbool, and Haasil. In 2008, he appeared in Slumdog Millionaire as the cop interrogating Jamal ruthlessly and he gained international recognition from there. After some more movies, he recieved a National Film Award for best actor for his role in Paan Singh Tomar. During this time, he recieved the fourth-highest civilian award, Padma Shri Award. He got a taste of commercial success with movies like The Lunchbox, Piku, and Hindi Medium, which eared him Filmfare Award for Best Actor. His career seemed to be going stable with movies like Karwaan and Angrezi Medium, but little did we know that the latter will be his last film appearance.

Notable Performances

Miyan Maqbool in Maqbool

Ranvijay Singh in Haasil

Ashoke Ganguly in The Namesake

The Police Inspector in Slumdog Millionaire

Paan Singh Tomar in Paan Singh Tomar 

“Pi” Molitor Patel (adult) in Life of Pi

Saajan Fernandes in The Lunchbox 

Rana Chaudhary in Piku 

Raj Batra in Hindi Medium

Champak Bansal in Angrezi Medium

Legacy

In his 35 years of acting, Irrfan has grown a cult following with very devoted fans. Coming from a low class family, his inspiring story to stardom is the best example of hard work and perseverance. He was a role model for an entire generation of film lovers and showed how far true dedication can get you. Truly a humble talent Bollywood didn’t deserve, his death has left a gaping hole in the industry. May he rest in peace and may his memory and legacy live on forever.

Why I Am a Confident Person

So this is a short piece that I had to write in class, on Why I Am a Confident Person. These are my thoughts. And it was written in less than fifteen minutes, so it’s not perfect. Don’t judge. Please.

‘What do you think is the main quality a person should possess?’ This is a question that I’m getting sick of, to be honest. Or, to put it more accurately, I’m getting sick of the answers I hear to that question. Everyone spews the same, recycled mumbo-jumbo: Love, Kindness, Honesty, etc. However, in my opinion (I’m going to act like you actually care about my opinion) the most important quality anyone should possess is a sense of humour.

Now I’m not talking about cracking the occasional *ahem* non-veg joke, for lack of a better term. The sense of humour I’m referring to is the ability to laugh. The ability to laugh at yourself, and the ability to laugh at your situation. These two are the keys to having self-esteem and confidence. At the same time, you’re aware of your own failings, so it keeps you from getting swollen-headed. But because you can laugh at those failings, you don’t enter that never-ending downward spiral of Doom called ‘Why Me?’

Let me give you my own example. My life is a short joke! If I had one rupee for every time someone said, “Hey, what’s the weather like down there? I wouldn’t be travelling by BEST bus. However, if I became moody and started sulking every time someone made fun of me, I would be spending every waking moment offended and upset. And I’d also have no friends, because honestly, who likes a crybaby?

So there you go. The reason I’m a confident person is because I already know what’s wrong with me and I laugh at it. So when someone else tries to bring me down by pointing out my faults, I just laugh at it, as I always do. Also, another perk of this method of self-esteem-boosting is that, whenever someone tries to bring you down, and you laugh at them, their faces at that moment can be added to the list of things you will look back on and laugh at for the rest of your life. Aah, the memories!

Types of People in Buses and Bus stops

1. If you’re a girl, you’ll almost certainly encounter a woman who insists on talking to you, for forty minutes, about the rising price of vegetables. This woman can be found at bus stops, and if you happen to be there at the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) time, you might even find her with her pack, all complaining about the bane of their existence: onion sellers.

2. For the guys: if you are at a bus stop, and you don’t look like a wild teenager, you’ll probably get sucked into an argument concerning politics. Before you know it, you’re listening, with growing despair, to an inane conversation about BJP vs Congress, finally culminating with the decision that, of the two of them, Aam Admi Party is the best. Go figure.

3. Most of the time, especially in the evening when people are returning from work, you’ll always find yourself a spectator to an epic showdown between The Kanjoos Lazy Conductor and The Frustrated Auntie. It will start off on a small scale, and gradually build up to a competition on who has the most lung power. It always starts because Frustrated Auntie will give a 10 rupee note for an 8 rupee ticket, and Kanjoos-Lazy doesn’t want to go through the trouble of giving the two rupees back. From there it will escalate to an all-out brawl, with the remaining passengers either cheering for their preferred side, or joining in because “those idiots blocked my way and now I missed my stop.”

4. Without fail, you always encounter a bunch of teenagers who start having a serious conversation in hushed tones about someone else’s personal problems. These problems usually involve either a girl whose boyfriend dumped her and how “she totally deserved it because her boyfriend should be my boyfriend” or it will be about a distant relative and the gossip concerning him/her or it will be about “ohmygodohmygodVarunDhawanissohot!” So before you leave the bus, you’re completely caught up on the latest Bollywood gossip and you know all about the drinking problems of someone’s jiju.

Pearls of Wisdom

I was in Bangalore for a vacation when I met my newest cousin for the first time. He didn't impress me much, just a little prune-like tot who flailed his arms around and gurgled randomly. Since he was less than a month old, there was little I could do except peep in while he slept and then beat a hasty retreat when I inevitably woke him up and caused him to warm up his deceptively deadly lungs, thus effectively kicking the rest of the family out of their sweet dreams.

Schoolwork kept me from going back to Bangalore for the next couple of years, and the memory of Cousin Ajay faded into a corner of my mind for the most part. Hence, the next time I went there, I was greeted by the shy and energetic toddler that the prune had grown into.

Ajay, I quickly discovered, was pretty smart for a two year old. He had limitless curiosity and an incredible ability to memorise everything he heard and reproduce it when it was most irrelevant. Most conversations with him went like this: (Warning: High levels of cringe detected)

Fawning Auntie: So how old are you my poochy-coo? 

Ajay: Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. 

...

A few weeks after our arrival, my uncle and aunt announced that they'd planned a trip to Coorg. So we somehow packed in three adults, two senior citizens, one preteen, one teen and a toddler into a four person car and began the long journey to Coorg. The only thing we knew was that we had to keep to a particular road, and then follow it until we reached a place called Manchanabele. Coorg was supposed to be a little further from there. 

The trip was uneventful for the most part. Simply consisting of old people talk and Grandpa complaining every few minutes about the lack of clean bathrooms in the country. Ajay clearly agreed with him, since he decided that it would be a better idea to relieve himself on my aunt instead of brave those nasty bathrooms or squat in the grass like a peasant.

My aunt somehow ignored the fragrant stain on her thigh for the rest of the journey and I too managed with minimal gagging. Soon, my aunt spotted the elusive signpost saying "Manchanabele 1 Kilometre" and read it aloud for my uncle to hear. Ajay, hearing a new sentence, quietly repeated "Manchanabele 1 Kilometre?" "Yes Ajay." "Okay. Manchanabele 1 Kilometre."

That weekend passed in a blur. We visited a waterfall, spent one day on a safari, and I vaguely remember tiptoeing around on the lookout for leeches with all the paranoia of a highly strung war veteran. All too soon however, we bid adieu to Coorg and made our way back to Bangalore.

It was on our first night back in Bangalore that I realised I had made a critical error. In the week or so that Ajay and I had known each other, I had been so busy panicking about not being able to handle toddlers, that I had completely forgotten to introduce myself to him. The poor boy had been playing with me all week without even knowing my name. 

It was when we were playing Bus and Train (wherein Ajay is the driver of a magical vehicle that changes into a bus or train randomly, while my other cousin and I were passengers) that he decided to rectify this issue. So with all the innocence of a two year old, he asked me, "What is your name?"

Glad to get a not-awkward opening to introduce myself, I replied. "Kirtana."

He clearly had difficulty pronouncing it. So he repeated the question once more. And once more I replied, carefully enunciating each syllable: "Kir-ta-na."

Now he seemed to have understood, since he was nodding proudly. Having got what he wanted, he turned around to start another game, but not before uttering this pearl of wisdom:

"Kirtana. Okay. Manchanabele 1 Kilometre."

Chocolate, ice cream and kulfi are probably the only reasons God hasn't destroyed all of us yet.

i searched on hathras and dalits, and there’s not much posts here now. i made posts about it, and even they are not there now. is this tumblr’s standard operating procedure for all social movements and rape cases?

also people have already started to forget this case. let me remind you people are blaming the girl’s family as we speak for doing this to extort money from the accused. already violence against dalits is breaking out again. the upper caste monsters are threatening media, people and other political parties from entering hathras otherwise they will be killed.

don’t let this issue die. it represents everything wrong with my rotten country. please it’s a request.

and tumblr - tumblr up.

Random daily happenings

So my brother decided to show off his artistic talents today. He made a caricature and proudly displayed it to my mother and I, asking us to guess who it was. I told him confidently that it was his classmate Jash. My mother, equally confident, said that it must be Shirdi Sai Baba.

The hapless chap turned out to be Ronaldinho.

…

My thoughts during an exam

1.      I’ll write “mathematics” instead of “math” so that the answer looks longer

2.      Two hours left

3.      Which subject is this?!

4.      Ooh, who got busted for cheating this time?

5.      Why are people leaving already? Did they skip questions or am I just stupid?

6.      OH GODS has my watch stopped?!?

7.      No. Ok… breathe…

8.      NO DON’T WASTE TIME BREATHING YOU OAF

9.      One and a half hours left

10.   Why does this idiot behind me keep poking me in the back?!

11.   My fingers are cramping

12.   Great, my four-mark answers are longer than the twelve-mark ones

13.   Of course, now I need to go to the bathroom

14.   And I’m writing down song lyrics instead of the answers again

15.   Forty-five minutes left

16.   Shit, forty-five minutes left!

17.   This question must be wrong.

18.   This answer is horrible. Ok, I’ll add in a couple of ‘henceforths’ and see if that’ll do the trick.

19.   Why are they asking for extra paper? I knew it, my answers are too short! Great.

20.   The only way I’ll pass this exam is divine intervention

21.   I’m so sleepy…

22.   Having exams in this weather should be illegal

23.   What a lovely poky seat this is

24.   My ink got over. Great. I’ll use my other pen. So much time will be wasted now because of this.

25.   My other pen has no ink

26.   Pencil it is

27.   Nib broke. AARGH!!!

28.   She purposely gave me the worst pen she had. I bet it didn’t even cost 5 bucks

29.   5 bucks sweets are so rare nowadays… I wish they were still there.

30.   FOCUS!!!

31.   YES! My answer booklet is over!!! Now I can be all swag and ask for one more

32.   Because they just have to waste my time and give me a supplement with the staple in the middle of the page

33.   AARGH stupid staple won’t come out

34.   How the hell did HE remove it so easily? And now I look like a wuss

35.   “We don’t need noo…education…tu du du, tudu tudu…”

36.   Just 30 minutes and this will all be over!

37.   Maybe I should copy

38.   It’s justified man! Look at what a lousy paper she’s set! How the hell am I supposed to remember all of this!

39.   My partner is looking into my paper. No hope there then.

40.   Behind me!

41.   No she’s an idiot.

42.   And it’s but obvious that the only person in the class with an afro is sitting in front of me

43.   AAIYEE!! I wasted 10 minutes debating this!

44.   Lightning fast writing!

45.   I don’t know the spelling of beginning. Umm…

46.   Um…

47.   ….

48.   “Begin…ing”

49.   Now I forgot the sentence.

50.   Almost done… scribble! Scribble!

51.   3 minutes left! Scribblescribblescribble!

52.   Finished!!!

53.   The second half of my paper looks like a five year old wrote it

54.   Ok, I gave in the paper… Breathe in, breathe out…

55.   And of course, now is the perfect time to remember all the solutions to the questions I didn’t answer.

Kirtana P. Menon

Muthashan

For as long as I can remember I’ve had memories, and some of the clearest ones are of my trips to Bangalore and Chennai, where my relatives live. I recall the 24-hour train journeys to Bangalore, which I would spend jumping from top berth to top berth like a drunk monkey, and I also remember the excitement with which I would search the platform in Bangalore for the subject of this article: My Muthashan, my grandfather.

My grandfather is the embodiment of “eccentric scientist.” He is bald with a thin line of hair forming a semicircle around the back of his head and a shiny head that, according to him, is very useful when guiding aircraft. When he wakes up (at 4 in the morning), he brushes his teeth and goes down to the kitchen to have a glass of water. While reaching for the glass, his hand invariably knocks over every other utensil located within half a foot, which serves as an alarm clock for everyone else. Except my grandmother, who is used to this, and continues to sleep soundly in her room. The rest of us crack our eyes open, see that the sun hasn’t risen yet and flop back onto the bed.

Another one of my grandfather’s traits is his absentmindedness. While most of us may forget our handkerchief or maybe a water bottle, Muthashan is very capable of forgetting a person, as my Ammuma (my grandmother) will happily tell you. Let me give you an example.

My grandparents were coming home several years ago after some function, on my grandfather’s bike, when they hit a particularly large ditch. The bike jerked but didn’t fall, which is more than I can say for Ammuma. She flew off the bike and found herself sitting squarely in the middle of the road, her nice sari all rumpled and dusty. As several pedestrians tended to her, my grandfather (who had yet to notice that his wife had fallen off) continued down the road until he was out of sight. A few kilometres later, it began to occur to him that no one was replying to him, so he turned around and discovered her absence. Did it occur to him then to go back? No. He spotted a group of drunkards fighting by the roadside, and knowing my grandmother’s penchant for resolving conflict, he went there to investigate. When he didn’t find her there, he was deeply perplexed. After formulating several hypotheses, he concluded that he needed to go back the same way. Sure enough, a few kilometres down the road, he found my grandmother marching briskly towards him, swearing to herself that she would never again leave home without her own purse and money. She took one look at him and proceeded to roundly abuse him in Malayalam, when, hoping to cheer her up, he exclaimed, “But look! This bike runs so smoothly that even when 65 kilos fell off, I didn’t notice anything different!”

The words she used after that are inappropriate in public.

Ever since then, she has insisted that a four-wheeler will be the only mode of transport she uses, and no amount of lectures on fuel efficiency or the rising cost of petrol could convince her otherwise. Oh yes, and shortly after this incident, the bike was sold.

Ammuma and the rest of the family say that they wish this was the only anecdote about Muthashan, but then, he does like to live life with a flourish. So, logically, why shouldn’t there be even more stories in which he has unknowingly risked being disowned by his dear family?

Now, considering my grandfather’s idea that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is appropriate breaking-the-ice kind of conversation, it is easy to imagine that he does not concern himself with certain information. Not much, just irrelevant information like a person’s name, or how many kids he has. You know, things like that.

So it didn’t surprise me when I was told of how he walked up to a woman at the Indian Institute of Science (where he works) and said, “Ah, you are George’s wife, isn’t it?”

“No sir, I am Govindan Nair’s wife”

…

Thanks to a well-aimed pinch from my mother, he didn’t voice his thoughts of, “But I saw you the other day with George!”

He is now over 75 years old, and continues to blunder through life with confidence. If you are ever introduced to a man in Bangalore, and said man is wearing an expression that combines bewilderment with quiet desperation two seconds after being introduced to you, you have most certainly met M. Venugopalan, my Muthashan. But never fear! Even if he doesn’t know you, he will be delighted to take you through the technicalities of the Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft!

Kirtana P. Menon