Everyday Musings > Five Things

Dinnertime word quiz: My dad loved/loves words. Big words like 'quintessence' and small words like 'ennui'. Words I would never come across in a school text book. He would thumb the dictionary, rest his fingers on a page and say 'learn these ten by end of day' and tap my nose and my younger brother's bewildered head and smile away to work. We'd nod, glance at the page, mark it for later, and rush off to school, come back, play, come back, shower, dress and then panic. oh shit! it's dinnertime. Dad's word quiz. Dad had a rule. He'd want us to know the meaning of all ten words, but he'd also want us to use the words in our conversations all dinner, so we had to actually understand those words. Last minute prep training began there. And it's continued ever since. So if today, I know the meaning of 'Traipsed' or 'Obsequious', it's thanks to my dictionary dad.

Larkin: Rajiv first introduced me to him. First name Phillip. He looks like a banker. But sounds like no poet I've ever read before. Maybe it was the way Rajiv recited his words, with abandon. For the first time, I felt like I understood poetry. The first poem was "broadcast" - written for Maeve who sat at a concert hall while Larkin sat by the radio imagining her sitting in a concert hall. It was beautiful. "A snivelling of the violins: I think of your face among all those faces...Leaving me desperate to pick out, Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding." I spent days at the British Library devouring his words, writing them down on little slips of paper I was recycling. "Where can we live but Days. Ah, solving that question brings the priest and the doctor in their long coats running over the fields." and "A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet" from Churchgoing. Even today, when I meet someone who knows Larkin, our faces glow in the knowledge of a genuis. But the others are disadvantaged. None I've ever met has heard Larkin read out like I have.

Paper fetish: I am crazy about stationary. CRAZY. At one time, my cupboard, little boxes under the bed, under the bedding, every bit was filled with paper of all kinds. I used to leave cards and notes for everything. Missed you. Thank You. How are you. Hello. Goodbye. Long time, no see. Sorrrrry. There was a store called Chimanlals that I used to run to for letter writing and wrapping paper. And come back with a smile as big as the shopping bag. I would shiver every time I had to use them to write to my many pen friends (ahem, it was a huge rage then). Because you see it had to be written perfectly. I'd practice on my notebooks, then copy it. And wrapping paper, I collect them by the dozen. And use them to wrap the ugliest handed down gifts so that they looked like Tiffany jewels. Grin. I still get gifted stationary (now bags) from those who know me well. The nicest books and cards lie unwritten on. A fear that was forcibly ousted by a wicked friend who got a cartload of moleskines, and refused to give them to me, till I used up one entirely. Now I write on books more freely. Scribble, scrawl etc. But there's still a secret stash that I'm itching to write well on. Sigh. Oh, and I haven't even begun on the sharpeners and erases and coins and stamps and comic strips. I'm a beaver.

Ice Cream at India Gate: We were in Delhi from when I turned four till I was in my fifth standard, living in Old Rajinder Nagar. Dad had an ambassador, and sometimes, when the weather was nice, or the day had been too warm, after dinner, my brother and I would beg to be taken to India Gate for ice cream. Dad would drive us there. We'd be chattering, singing, and saluting severe looking police guards as we passed through the large gates of some place I don't remember. Once at India Gate, mom and dad would find a cool patch of grass and sit down. The ice cream seller would come walking to us, and we'd buy Chocobars, every time. Crisp Iceberg like coating of chocolate with goey cream inside. And we'd buy a balloon each, which the balloon seller would twist into shapes; sometimes dogs, sometimes monkeys, sometimes a cheesy heart. We'd skip and play and fight with our balloons and once the last bits of ice cream were licked off our fingers hastily, we were hustled into the car, to ride back home, as my brother and I stared at the disappearing India Gate from the backseat.

Samir Mondal: Long before 'Taare Zameen Par' made him a household name, I discovered Samir Mondal on my umpteen escapes from college to the Jehangir art gallery. His first painting I saw was Prince and the Pauper that was part of a group show. I was mesmerised, and went back every day to look at his work. I saw him at Prithvi once, standing beside his art that was on show. I greedily picked the pamphlets that had pics of his other watercolours, each more evocative than the other. Samir walked up and I gulped. He said 'I'm a big fan'. I blinked and blushed till I heard Govind Nihalani, who was standing by my side, telling Samir, 'thank you, so am I'.