Revolutionary Road

I finished reading the book about two days ago, and I watched the movie too. I found the book far superior, if only because it's much richer in its themes and doesn't just have one single narrative understanding of what's going on.

There were two things I liked most about the book - the confession at the very end that this contract between both parties had been a whole pack of lies (The movie doesn't give that impression in as definite a fashion) - that it was a whole thing that snowballed from being nice to a boy at a party into a marriage, three children, 'i love you' and 'you're the most valuable thing, a man.'

The other thing I liked was the link to insanity. That the female lead's closest ally in the whole book was a man in an insane asylum. He had called her "female" and the male lead "male" for deciding to start a whole new life away from the "hopeless emptiness". the fact that these two had confronted it - and found camaraderie in a madman for doing so - and wanted to get away from it, made them both exceptional and like everyone else that thinks that they're stuck in a rut, can't get out, until they think they can if they just run after this crazy exit. Theirs was France.

My France is Creative Writing at the New York University (or some other uni).

What's your France?

Pajamas: Pink t-shirt, and grey bottoms, and a grey cardigan to keep us warm

The Way Back Home

The way back home was three months long. What were the three months in India like? people ask. And I find myself at a lack for a summary that I could provide. They were long, confused, mixed months filled with family and a few friends that I can still find in India (MD and Hansa and Niraj and now Dharini). Then there was my cousin's wedding, which was large and spread out over 4 days, despite its attempts to be otherwise. So, overall, my time was good, in the way that life is good when you look back on it, but can be painful and tedious while you go and grow through it.

Despite friends' complaints that I wasn't my usual gchat self, I was actually regularly tied to email. And the internet was my tether to the Promised Land of Cairo. And while in Goa, I could not help but think of Gouna, and Mumbai was laden with comparisons to Cairo - mainly about how easily I could move from one place to another in Misr.

So it's good to be back. Back to my room, my bed, my laptop (which was also in Cairo), and mostly back to my self. The chill here in Cairo (comparative again to the 30-odd degrees celsius in Mumbai) is pleasant. It makes me take pleasure in the warmth of Indian tea, and even in the cold breath I take in - which tricks me into thinks it's fresh and unpolluted by Cairo traffic. Soon I will complain... As one guy said about Palestine, you can only call a place your own when you complain about it... I'm looking forward to it.

The Road From Jhumritalaiyya to Pani Puri

Jhumritalaiyya is a Place

And not merely fiction. It is in Jharkhand (previously part of Bihar), next to Ranchi.

This I know because the pani puri walla whom I regularly visit is not a Mumbaiyya by birth. He is the first of his family, Ajay said, to come out and see the city quite a distance away.

He arranges his audience clockwise around him, and then serves puris to them, picking each one up with a flourish, filling it with moong/boondis, then tamarind water, and then pani puri water. One plate of pani puri costs Rs. 20 and is good for 6 puris.

At first bite, you crunch into the puri, then the water’s taste fills up your mouth, and the softness of boondis, and coriander finally hit in last, freshening the breath.

After serving the 6 puris, he offers you an extra helping of the water (paani) and an extra puri with boondi-moong, and masala. I get a customized serving of a little bit of tamarind in my final puri. Like me, he knows the tastes of many regular customers. I hear a man behind me introduce a new customer to Ajay, ‘This is actually my brother.’

Ajay regularly arrives at about 11 to the Lokhandwala Chat Center and takes a break around 2, then he starts again about 3 or 4 and goes on to 11 p.m.

I have asked him a bit about himself, and tried his servings, but I wonder how many faces he has seen, and stories he’s sampled sitting just on this one little corner in Lokhandwala.

in pajamas: green top, yellow bottom with flowers
till:2 p.m. roughly :)

Fruit tales in Mumbai

I went grocery shopping the day befores with my mother. We came along tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini, water chestnuts; we passed by pineapples and apples, and I remember we stopped at papayas. They are a rich, sweet fruit.

The price negotiation factor is a real test of character. Bargaining shows the inner you. The seller in this case, without stating the real price put two papayas in the bag, confident that he would get the price. Meanwhile, Mom and I felt that since was so certain that Rs. 60 and then Rs. 55 was the price, that we should actually pay him Rs. 45. When he took his Rs. 50, he raised it to the god Hanuman before pocketing it.

Because of our (unfair) haggling, he refused to deal with us further. I felt awful about the callous manner in which he was speaking to Mom, so I intervened and said, “You talk like this with your customer, and then you put your money to a god,” trying to point to his hypocrisy. That infuriated him and he raised his voice and refused to talk to me.

Meanwhile, Mom had already agreed to a bargain price of Rs. 60 for oranges, which was unbeatable in other places, but because of what I said, he was unwilling to trade.

After about 15 more minutes of shopping, I still could not shake off the feeling that I’d done something wrong, so I went up to him to apologize.

I could not immediately spot him among fruitsellers, even though I was on the lookout for the Hanuman picture near his stall. I found him sitting down with two other neighbour fruitsellers; probably they had discussed his woes.

All I could do was fold my hands in greeting.
He accepted my apology, “I said too much.”
He acquiesced. “No, it’s just that I sold you the papayas even at a loss, and still you wanted a bargain.”
After some kind-talk of me saying “Please don’t hold this at heart,” he let me go with “Babaji ka aashirwaad hai.” (May the lord bless you).

Sounds a lot like “Salam aleikum” (May peace be upon you.)

God I miss Cairo!

In pajamas: green top, yellow bottoms with flower print
Time: 2 p.m. (lovin the stinky afternoon pajama feeling)
Motto: I’m lovin’ it (borrowed from McDonalds)

Cafe Riche Conversations

As I passed by from the KLM office having bought a ticket to Germany, I stopped at Cafe Riche... Earlier I had stopped at the Dar el Kutub el Iraaqi and looked at their Arabic collection.

In Cafe Riche, as usual, sat Magdy - the co-owner of the restaurant; the other owner is his brother Mikhail. I came in to say Hello and mention that I'd be writing an article on Um Kulthum, and would pass by Sunday or Monday to see him. Instead, he sat me down for at least another 2 hours, where we talked about the people, and the times, that made Cairo what it is today.

He showed me a folder - which he remembers as the red folder - where he had saved announcements of shows being performed at the Cafe Riche. Among them is the opening of Um Kulthum's first show at the Cafe Riche.

He tells me it was Sheikh abu Alaa` who brought her here in 1923. And at the same time since her hiatus in 1921, Mounira el Muhallaiyya sang again in 1923, too, in Cafe Riche theatre.

That Rose el Yusuf and another woman (Laila Mourad?) were three women that first performed at Cafe Riche. I tell him the times seemed ot have passed, and that I want to write about Um Kulthum in her context, in her time.

He pulls out Abd el Rahman El Refai's "Thawra 1919" - Taarikh Masr el Qawmi 1914-1921.

He says how Cafe Riche again was a central part of that time, being one of the secret places for discussions.

Among other "muntaqqa sirri" (secret places) were the Old Groppi (didn't know there was one - apparently on what is now Abdel Khaled Tharwat street, and was then Sharia Manakh), Beit el Umma, on Dar Ibrahim Basha Said, cafe Salt on Fouad Street, Bar el Lewa (lewa means General) which is in Amarat el Lewa, Ahwa (cafes) Guindi, and Salam, both on Midan Opera, Dar Abd el Rahman Fahmy Bek in Kasr el Aini, Dar Amin Bek El Refai in Helmiyya, Dar Mustafa Sheikh Ayyati in Sukkarriyya (Mahfouz's "Sugar Street"), Dar Mahmoud Sulaiman Pasha in Falaki, and so on...

I tell Magdy I also want to write about Ahmed Fouad Negm. He tells me Cafe Riche is where he first met his first wife: Safeyya (Safinaz on the internet).

Negm even wrote a song on the Cafe Riche he said, that was sung in Algeria by Sheikh Imam. Magdy says he has the original paper on which Negm wrote the song.

Everywhere I look I find signs of the one that is missing, not realising instead that I should have felt fullness instead of lack

We talk about writers and the times past, and somehow, Enaam Kejaji and "The American Granddaughter" came up. Magdy corrected my pronunciation of her last name - told me more than I knew about her: that she had written an article "attacking" him (then he later rephrased to criticising), and that her husband owned a sheesha cafe in France which shut down because of the public ban on smoking, that he had given her a picture of Um Kulthum for the cafe, that she came when she was in Cairo to visit him, and that she had given him a signed copy of her book.

Apparently in the article attacking him, she'd said that "Here is a fat man, who sits in the cafe and does not change, while the world changes around him."

Magdy invited me to come sit in the cafe every now and then and talk to people. They were the minds, he said, the real source.

Adli Rizkallah, painter and illustrator, walked in. He said I should perhaps talk to people that were more into talking. Anyhow he gave me his card and said he would go on a 3-week isolation into his studio. Magdy informed me that Rizkallah was friends with Ahmed Fouad Negm, and that he was the one that had first brough Kejaji to the cafe.

A world passes through his cafe, doesn't it? :) And revolves around it... like conversations. :)

what am i doing?

I'm sitting across what appear to to be two korean girls practicing their arabic: a picture postcard of purpose and dedication to it.

Staring at gchat and skype - realising for the umpteenth time how uncomfortable I find it to be alone with my thoughts.

Still writing, despite it, so that I can.

I met Lawrence Rudic yesterday - who was in Antigone with Wi and I. We talked about how writing kept us centered and rooted. Kept me honest, kept him sane. Talked of Wi's advice to keep breathing, and how basic, important, and easy to forget it was. I remember that I slept last night because I reminded myself of it.

so my two humble projects for the moment are to breathe and write.

and i've added reading to the list. Currently on bookshelf:
1) Your First Novel (a guidebook on writing)
2) Incredibly Close and Extremely Loud by Jonathan Safran Foer (already love it/him)

and am debating which two to borrow from following three:
1) Teach Yourself: Creative Writing
2) Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss
3) Ian McEwan's The Innocent

I think I'm leaving McEwan for later.

haiku on mobile phone

We stared so much, it
was bound to happen.
We kissed.