Don't take it personally

I was brought up with the habit of sharing. In school there were the textbooks, the bench we sat on, the pencils and erasers, teasing the teachers. At home I had to share the last piece of chicken.

As kids we rarely received gifts. On the ethnic new year's day the oldest member of the family presented shiny coins. One Indian rupee. In the present day, it converted to 1/40th of the Canadian dollar. Once in two years a long lost uncle came flying down from a foreign land bearing gifts. There were always more children than gifts.

Peep. Mum's the word!

The highlight of Chitra's New York trip was lunch. Hunger pangs dug in when her car entered Holland Tunnel on the way to a rain-soaked Big Apple. Though it was Saturday afternoon, guide and cousin Shalini found a parking spot on Thomson St. She flipped out her iPhone and scanned for the nearest Thai restaurant.

Chitra led the four women around the block. A keen observer at the corner of Spring and Broadway streets may have seen puffs of white smoke with every one of Chitra's steps. If she jogged past Chitra and looked back she would see the smoke alternating between nostrils. If that person knew Chitra well, she would have decoded the signals: extreme hunger.

Making India proud

1 April 2011. Today everyone was an Indian. The stylish couple who wanted nothing to do with India or Indians waved the Indian flag high. The university intern who reeked of beer running up and down Gerrard Street waving the flag with one hand and directing traffic with the other remained Indian. The two young girls shouting, dancing, shrieking, and waving flags had recently migrated to Toronto; they were proud Indians too.

Dancing on the streets

Celestial Dances III - Patriotism grows on people. Every time India played Pakistan, more than any other nation, national spirit oozed from every other pore than sweat. As the DJ on an FM station in Toronto said, "the excitement when the Leafs play; when India plays, multiply that by a hundred times". I added, a billion times.

Chasing Tornadoes

Celestial Dances II - Chasing tornadoes figured at the top of Arun’s bucket list. Ever since the movie Twister, which he saw on many-sized screens, Arun was working his way to visiting tornado alley in the USA.

Arun’s still a long way from chasing tornadoes. If there was money to be saved [storm chasing packages for seven nights cost US$2,600], Chitra would even drive Arun to the plains of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

In the spring of 2011 the IMAX Theatre at Ontario Science Centre offered a solution, a near-to-real experience of tornadoes called Tornado Alley.

Kathakali

Celestial Dances I - For Arun, the weekend started with Kathakali, followed by nature's dance in tornado alley, and dancing on the streets in Little India celebrating India's cricket win. All in one weekend.

Kathakali. Arun's first memory of this story-play from Kerala was when he was five years old. It was raining heavily that night, and the day, night and day before. It was also the night Arun's grandfather killed a snake. It dared enter the kitchen through the back door. The snake lost traction to the smooth mosaic floor and was trapped.

The venue for kathakali was a short walk from Arun's grandparents’ house in Trichur. Soon after the grandfather clock struck nine muthassan, or grandfather, held Arun's hand and stepped into the thunder and rain under a giant umbrella. Grandma, or ammamma, followed with a torch under her folding umbrella. They walked past the iron gates, which used to house a beehive that stung Arun's brother, on to the metal road. At the wooden lamppost with a faint bulb, they turned left. This was the only streetlight on the way to the temple; one had to stand directly beneath to see any light. Ammamma waved her torch in front. Lightning illuminated the rest. Arun looked for snakes crawling out from every bush and stonewall. They reached the temple after what seemed to him an eternity.

Life is like a box of chocolates

Certain people and incidents give you a fresh outlook on life. You meet them every day. You come across such situations once in a while; simple events that are life changing or at least that make you think.

I was in India recently. One morning at my father’s house I was woken up by someone talking in broken English. The voice was saying, “I go Canada. You coming?” Curious, I opened the door and looked out. Sharif, my father’s man servant was standing in the middle of the living room and talking loudly. “I no care what I do there. But I go Canada.” Sharif was practicing his English on Flora, my father’s French bull dog.