What's your Proustian madeleine?

Reading an article of Raghu Karnad this morning, I came across the phrase, Proustian madeleine. The phrase led me into the magic hole of nostalgia where I started walking the sweet lane of my growing up years. What were the sweets that I enjoyed while I was living through a time when I didn't realise how precious those years would be in the coming years. 

There was peanut candy where peanuts were soaked in liquid jaggery and hardened to give a fine texture. These candies can be found even today sometimes the taste unaltered. It was eaten mindlessly during different times of the day. It was so commonplace that one attached no value of significance to it. It was called kadalaimittai. It is not much of a nostalgia because one feels this emotion when one misses something. But the simple sweet is much available. Perhaps nostalgia is for the lost days of yore.

Another sweet is the then mittai. I don't have many memories of the sweet except for occasional treats now and then. It isn't nostalgia material for me. But I remember the taste of the sweet and I don't see it anymore. It used to melt in the mouth oozing honey; it was a stark difference to the texture of kadalaimittai which was hard and chewy. 

Another sweet we used to enjoy was the palkhoa or the milk sweet. My grandfather used to treat us with the palkhoa and sev which is known as omapodi. The combination is a deadly one. We were looking forward to eating that combo whenever my grandfather used to return from his daily outings. Now neither my grandfather nor the omapodi is relished by me - the grandfather is no more and the omapodi disappeared after his death. But once a while my sister and I talk about those days. In spite of the omapodi still available in the market, it isn't the same!

I guess I wasn't much of 'sweet' person to remember the delicacies of my growing up years. But nostalgia makes everything sepia tinted and mellow which led me into a sweet trail of Proustian madeline!

What's your Proustian madeline?

When nostalgia gets a tad boring

I often wonder how long can one get nostalgic over and over the same bit that happened some time ago in our lives. Won't the nostalgia stop? Will one nostalgia replace another? Will we stop getting nostalgic after we have exhausted the emotion so much like the cassette that finally wears out due to overuse.

This is a fairly recent happening and I find it pretty amusing. I think about a beautiful memory and find that I keep returning to it every single day and by the time I've thought about it for some time now that I feel tired to think of it anymore. Succeeding that 'boring nostalgia' phase is an aversion to that memory. It is then I realise that overdoing nostalgia also gets boring. But isn't nostalgia something sweet and beautiful. Maybe when it strikes once a while to refresh the bygone years and moments but feelings of longing that strike very often lose their appeal over time. Well, the etymology of nostalgia is from the word, 'nostos' meaning homecoming. Now, I guess that during the time the word was coined, it was meant for someone who was away from home and was longing for home - the physical home and the emotional security that is often associated with the home. But now the word has evolved and comes to mean memory and longing for something that was once part of our lives, not necessarily the home itself. That's what I love about words - they evolve, wrapping in the mood and the times and mould according to the context. They change but still retain their spirit.

Coming back to nostalgia, I wonder how long will something remain so precious and lovely that each time we are filled with yearning, we feel nostalgia. I guess even nostalgia changes, rather it evolves to something else before going through a few steps: Initially the memory is beautiful and comes to our mind when we yearn for the past. Then we start clinging so much to that specific memory that nostalgia becomes the norm each day. Finally we are done looking at that memory from a trillion angles that we have explored every fine fabric of that particular memory. Then we break forth and no longer relish that memory. The nostalgia of that memory gets boring and we don't feel like returning to that for quite some time. Perhaps after a long time, the cycle will begin again.

Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps.

Dear reader what do you have to say on this?

Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Internet

Relishing kalla katta ice-gola dripping with tangy memories

Today for the second time in February I had kalla katta ice-gola. I don't know how to translate the name 'kalla katta ice-gola' but roughly ice-gola refers to crushed ice and kalla katta is the flavour into which the crushed ice is dipped. The word 'kalla' in Hindi is the colour black and 'katta' refers to the sour taste. Now, to the post.

Kalla katta is an integral part of my formative years. A man selling ice-golas would be stationed outside our colony and every time I came home from school, I would want to buy some ice-golas but was always refused by my mother. She felt that the water used for making the ice was not hygienic. Of course, all mothers feel that way and we children felt that hygiene or not, ice-golas were tasty and delicious. Every time we passed by the man selling those golas, our mouths would water and immediately we would crave for one or two coloured golas. By the time the man crushed the ice using a dilapidated machine and moulded the crushed ice, we would get impatient and while he fizzed out coloured syrup from tall bottles on to the ice, we would stretch out our hands, one hand with the money and the other for the ice gola! One ice-gola cost about 10 paise. Though it seems a paltry amount today, those days it was some money.

Ice-golas remained frozen in my memory and I never did think that I would be able to taste the same ice-gola all over again. I did. Our Institute conducts festivals during which many food stalls are put up and one such stall was BOMBAY ICE-GOLA. Initially I was wondering whether I should give it a try. Usually when a memory is intact and perfect, one doesn't want to distort it by revisiting the same and get disappointed. Right? Ah, I just wanted that ice-gola and the same flavour that I knew back then -- Kalla katta. The 10 paise ice gola was 30 rupees now! Any price to revisit memories, right. Apprehensively, I muttered, "Kalla katta" and immediately the man started his antics of preparing the ice-gola. The moment I tasted the gola, I became the Susan who was five years old and relished her ice-golas. I sucked memories and also split some nostalgia on my clothes in the process. I forced my husband also to buy one for himself. He did. He preferred to get an elite flavour - pista badam and strawberry flavoured ice-gola. Somehow his ice-gola did not appeal to me. It was too synthetic and modern unlike the raw and tangy kalla katta. Both of us sucked our golas all the way from the stall to our house.

Well, did I tell you my tongue and lips were a tinge of blackish pink after having finished the ice-gola? For some time I was twenty odd years younger, looking up the mirror now and then and happy that the colour was still there - natural lipstick, we used to say.

Memories are beautiful especially food ones. After all in memories calories and health don't matter, only memories matter.

What are your favourite food memories? Tell me . . .

Image 1: Internet
Image 2: Internet

29 December . . .

On 29th of December, 2008, I knew the existence of this song from Eagles, the American band who captured many a heart with their number "Hotel California." Today, the title of this song vibrates within me as I prepare myself to welcome another year - Peaceful Easy Feeling indeed!

Hope you like this song.

"Peaceful Easy Feeling"

I like the way your sparkling earrings lay,
Against your skin, it's so brown.
And I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight
With a billion stars all around.

'Cause I got a peaceful easy feeling,
And I know you won't let me down
'cause I'm already standing on the ground.

And I found out a long time ago
What a woman can do to your soul.
Oh, but she can't take you anyway,
You don't already know how to go.

And I got a peaceful easy feeling,
And I know you won't let me down
'cause I'm already standing on the ground.

I get this feeling I may know you as a lover and a friend.
But this voice keeps whispering in my other ear,
Tells me I may never see you again.

'cause I get a peaceful easy feeling
And I know you won't let me down
'cause I'm already standing...
I'm already standing...
Yes, I'm already standing on the ground
Oh, oh

Lyrics: Internet

When the house lizard signifies 'home'

The lizards in our house are very sexually active. I see many baby lizards while gazing at the walls to take a break when I am marking papers. The lizards have almost become a part of our home. I cannot figure out where they come from and where they go. All that I know is that  I always manage to spot one in each room. These lizards which without invitation share living space with us have almost become something of an extension of our lived reality. I realised this when I went to Belfast, Northern Ireland. I sensed that I missed something in my living space and after a great deal of thinking realised that I missed the click-click sound of the lizards. In Tamil Nadu, if we are speaking of something and the lizard makes its clicking sound, it is believed that the lizard has answered our question. So, whenever we talk about something and the lizard makes its sound, we exclaim, "See, see, even the lizard thinks so." Sadly, in Belfast there was no lizard to affirm our talks.

It is interesting to think that the lizard which minds its business and copulates energetically becomes a part of our existence. Vikram Seth also mentions this. In his travelogue, From Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet, Seth mentions how he misses the familiar lizard on the walls while he travels through Tibet and China. Somehow, the lizard signifies 'home' in a way.

Watching the lizard is another activity that we do while having mundane conversations. When the lizard is about to catch its prey, many times, a hapless fly or insect, it slowly follows the movements of the insect and at a moment when the insect is caught unawares, the lizard leaps and catches its prey. Observing its actions and antics, I find that even humans behave in a similar fashion except that the lizard can grow its tail again unlike man whose body parts except one or two, does not regenerate.

And, its not only the lizard which in a way creates familiarity, there are many trees, birds and insects which also make home for us.

So, do you also have anything like this which signifies home for you.

Image: Internet

If not for memories, what would I do

"Let's go to Palimar, I so feel like having an apple shake" -- Well, these lines have stood frozen in the crevices of our memory as we can utter them no longer. Opposite to our College, there were rows of shops which are hangouts for many students like us. A last minute photocopy before the exams would see us rushing to Akash Xerox. Akash was known for offering good photocopies at reasonable prices. I have photocopied countless number of an assortment of materials from him. Opposite to our College was the famous hangout Palimar which offered us lovely milkshakes and short eats. In Palimar, if we ordered one shake, we would be given two large mugs of milk shakes and we would be absolutely delighted. Many hot discussions, proposals of love, first meetings, last partings, after-exam treats, idling away when time was plenty and sometimes reading took place in that small juice bar. Then there was a small recharge shop which we ran to recharge our phones just before getting into the railway station.

But now alas! all this remains only in our memories.

Every time some building that we have frequented is demolished or closed down, a part of us also is crushed. Yesterday morning while my friend and I were walking towards our College, we found to our utter dismay that all these joints were razed down to the ground. Those buildings were an extension of our College for us as for every thing we crossed the road and let ourselves get lost in those shops.

The rubble and dust were like a part of our sensibilities being lost and forgotten. In a recent post of mine, I marvelled at the amazing quality of memory and art and today it is this memory which enables me to cherish those lovely days when those buildings were places with meaning and not just rubble and dust.

They say that the shops were demolished because a highway is to be built but then . . . highways to where??

The wonder of art and memory

Ever wondered that even the silliest, funniest and embarrassing incidents take on a lovely tint when recalled. Failed lives, disastrous mistakes and the like also lose their aggressiveness as time goes by and when we think back, they appear as an experience which has left us rich and sober. The same is with art. Even a trash can overflowing with garbage looks quite artistic when expressed through a painting or a sculpture. This attribute always tends to fill me with a sense of awe and amazement.

The same trash can which overflows with dirt can be a very displeasing sight to behold turns on as a lively expression when seen through the medium of art. Despite the fact that the overflown trash can will never be emptied in the painting, it enables us to gain a different perspective to the everyday aspects of life that never fail to disturb us.

Memories also are pretty similar to trash can in a painting. Now when I look back and think of certain images from my life, I don't feel remorse or pain. I marvel at the ability of the mind to use those same images as weapons of self-embellishment and courage. I always used to have discussions with friends about memories and nostalgia -- most of the times they are only 'good' ones. Its very rare we hear people say 'This sound gives me bad memories.'

Talking of memories, it is strange how different materials become memories of something else. Talking with Barbara, my buddy from Queen's University, Belfast has enabled me to view different objects as extensions of memory which invariably is linked to life and places.

Being a person who has a memory of almost everything, I can be called as someone who 'solidifies events and freezes them in the crevices of memory.' And also looking at different art pieces down the time enables me to look at memory and art as something that preserves the freshness of everyday life albeit in different mediums. Art and memory transforms!

Picture courtesy: Internet