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Tales from Damascus-1

It has only been a few hours since we reached Damascus and we are already a little in love with the City.  Friday is the local day off and the most of the stores in the souks are closed. Even with their shutters closed, we get some sense of the character of the city in the narrow lanes, dotted with tiny pretty churches and minarets. There is discarded confetti and little bits of papers on the streets and weather is just right for a spring afternoon.

 I am one of those vacation Nazis who makes copious notes about the places we need to see and the food we need to eat and the exact amount of time we are allowed to just stand and stare (mountains) or sit and rest (beaches) or soak in a bit of local flavor (old cities). As per my plan, we are supposed to begin our sight seeing at the National Museum to get a sense of the history and layout of the city.

My notes tell me that the Museum is open till 3:30 in the afternoon on Fridays. What these notes do not tell me -in typical Damascene fashion- is that while the museum is open till 3:30 , the ticket window  closes from 12:00-1:00 for lunch (officially- and from 11:30 -1:00, unofficially). We circle the compound dejectedly, waiting for the gatekeeper to come back and staring at a pair of historians busy copying down heiroglyphics from an ancient sculpture in the gardens when a huge tourist bus arrives. This is one of those all-encompassing Middle East tours full of retired Europeans that we will get used to by our last day here. Today, we watch in glee as they-with their previously paid for tickets-walk right into the gate, and decide to sneak in with them, even though anyone with half an eye would notice just how much we stand out.

Inside the museum, numerous galleries attempt to trace the prehistoric, Roman, Byzantine, Islamic heritage of the city with exhibits inexpertly labelled in a mix of French, Arabic and English (some in all the languages, some in a few, some none at all and rather alarmingly, there is an occasional label next to an empty case). We stare in horror at the guards who promise to look away if you want to photograph the ancient frescos that surely cannot stand too many years of flash bulbs and in delight at tiny bits and baubles that build up to the exciting story of Damascus. In a tiny corner of one of the rooms we chance upon a tiny tablet that purports to be the oldest written alphabet in human civilization. That right there is the genesis of everything we have ever read and written, my conceit in writing this blog and your ability to read, all began from that first written alphabet. I don't think any other artifact could match up to this one.

Except perhaps the one in the next room. A long line of the retirees is waiting there, moving to some sort of an inner sanctum even as they mill around its entrance. We move closer inquisitively and then turn away, embarassed. It is the restroom. It has been a long day on road for the tour bus.

Food and Memory

I cook really simple meals at home - hot dals and sambhars with an occasional vegetable curry.  A food expert (or psychiatrist) may refer to these dishes as 'rustic', 'hearty'  or 'comfort food', but the truth is that these are, quite simply, the easiest to make once you have a kitchen geared towards making Indian food. A few basic techniques aside, all that is required to cook my kind of food is a nice mid-sized pressure cooker and wok and the same set of six spices. Every family customizes theses handed down recipes to their unique tastes ( I might use more garlic and  curry leaves than most), but the flavor associations remain those of  a thousand meals eaten with loved ones over Doordarshan news , followed by mangos in summers and an elaichi pod in every season. I may use olive oil instead of the sunflower or peanut oil preferred back home, but the recipes and proportions unfold themselves in my head almost by clockwork over years of shared experiences, and I can get most of them right in my sleep.

To add another degree of challenge to the usual workday meals (and because we love Top Chef), Harsha and I have decided  to cook one meal every weekend absolutely divorced from our collective backgrounds. We love food - and it shows whenever we let go . When we eat out  we are always seeking new flavors and unexpected combinations that we wouldn't think of otherwise. Trying to replicate some of those same flavors at home, we hope, will a.) inspire us into buying spices and ingredients we wouldn't otherwise use and therefore expand our food vocabulary (and kitchen cupboards) and b.) give us something to look forward to once summer is here and we are officially stuck at home on weekends with nothing else to do.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we want to experiment with creating french sauces from scratch and cooking meats that we are not used to and maybe even baking our own bread. On the first weekend though, we began with something simple that we have often planned to cook but just never had all the ingredients in one place for - a cold gazpacho soup and a classic Coq Au Vin

For the Coq Au Vin, we used Nigel Slater's recipe, almost to the word, with one significant variation- we used store bought chicken stock (I hate carcasses and giblets and can't see myself handling those). The pot dish may I add, turned out absolutely wonderful, and made the two hours it takes to prep and cook seem all worthwhile.  We  found ourselves cleaning our plate up with pieces of white bread just as the recipe suggested (and then licking our finger in a way the recipe didn't mention) . On the one hand, task well done. On the other hand, how can anyone go wrong with a recipe which asks for pancetta, choice poultry cuts, half a bottle of red wine, and tiny shallots and mushroom  fried in butter? Even if we had tossed all of the ingredients in a blender for a couple of minutes, a perfectly serviceable dish would be ready.  Of course, one only realizes how disgustingly heavy coq au vin is after it has been in the fridge for a day and  you see a congealed layer of assorted animal and dairy and vegetable fats collect on the top of the pan. (Feeling absolutely guilty about our gluttony the night before, we discarded the leftovers immediately).

The gazpacho however, tasted even better on the next day. Like a lot of non Spanish-speaking people , I first heard of this glorious cold soup when watching Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. (The one in the movie was spiked with 30 sleeping pills, an ingredient we ignored- although I did consider the merits of spiking it with just a touch of vodka!). I saw the movie during my first month in New York in an afternoon show at the Lincoln Center with an old Russian immigrant. I was new to the city and still really uncomfortable with talking to strangers there. It takes a while to get over your subcontinental reticence and realize exactly how much small talk an average American can make with a passing acquanitance on the 30 second elevator ride.  But the hysteria and the humour of the movie bought us together and after sharing looks and smiles throughout ts length, we got into a conversation once the movie was over. Such is Almodovar's power that a middle aged Russian woman and a over-excited Indian can enthuse about him at length even with nothing else in common. I remember coming back home that day and looking up the recipe on the internet. But we didn't have a blender in those days, and it was too cold  outside for cold soup.  Later, when we did have a blender and the weather was warmer, I somehow never returned to that old recipe. 

This is one soup that is so wonderfully light and refreshing and flavorful that we hope to add to my repertoire , make it many more times and possibly hand down to my children some day. At the very first spoon, one knew why Almodovar used  the unique combination of flavors and textures in a gazpacho as a metaphor for life.  

The one change we made from the recipes available on the internet, to accomodate our slightly burnt taste buds, was to add a little more tabasco than advised. This gave an occasional spoonful an almost biting heat. The next sip however, would erase all painful memories with its minty chill.  A metaphor for life in these times, perhaps?

Mother Tongue

There is something wonderful and easy about reverting to your own tongue in a strange land (and us north Indians are so used to doing this with scant regard for other languages) that it is a little disconcerting when you step outside of India for the first time.

You are perfectly alright till you walk into the airport news shop and get yourself a newspaper and map. You accidentally say 'One newspaper aur one Mars bar please' and the Bangladeshi newsagent smiles at you in unbridled glee. If he is a young tyke even flirts just a little bit and says 'For you bas ek dollar'. Later, you get into an airport cab and are reassured by the  really bad, really squeeky 70's  bollywood tape -(Humein aur jeene ki chaahat na hoti)  that Punjabi drivers across the world specialize in. It is only when you step into your building for the first time, feel your first gush of sub-zero temperature and are harrumphed at by  your first matronly concierge, that your alienness hits you . From that moment on, every time you are lost in a crowd, you strain you ears for one 'saala' or one 'amma yaar!' to be transported back home.

Of course things are not quite as bad in Dubai. With people from the subcontinent making up such a large chunk of the population, you don't need to look far to notice a familiar face. In fact a German visitor we met recently was really impressed by our ability to separate the Indians from the Pakistanis from the Bangladeshis, even if they were speaking in English (No, we don't all sound like Apu Nahasapeemapetilon). But everywhere you go, people are so tied up in  trying to fit in and establishing their 'expat' credentials that you are much more likely to hear a punjabi-tinted 'G'day mayte' or a third-generational Tamilian 'Give us a moment. will ya' than a 'aur ji kya hal chal hai?'

The one place I can revert to speaking in Hindi and making inappropriate remarks about the rest of the world is in the taxi-cabs. It is these Peshawri/Dhakai/Gujarati Dubai taxi wallahs that I have had a million enriching conversations with these past few days and they have taught me more about the city than any guidebook can. They have all been here for a long time and are willing to impart their wisdom and experiences at the slightest provocation. There is no better way to get a flavor of this place than to hear a story about the time one started as a gardner in one of the Sheikh's palaces or the occasion when he drove around a young John Abraham during the Film Festival or a description of his ritual fights with their landlord.

I am constantly amazed by the genuine empathy they feel for the construction workers here - and their conviction that however difficult their life is, it doesn't compare with that of those dangling on harnesses and hammering into 800m tall towers. There have been occasions, when after a particularly low day , I have stepped into a cab and complained to a willing ear about how difficult it is to find employment in these times. Always, there has been encouragement and advise and information on how I should contact this friend  at the airport or Mall who has jobs for the taking. 

Occasionally, when the driver realizes that I am new here, he takes the time to point at all the landmarks in this city, speaking with genuine pride of the Martian skyscrapers and ambitious land formations that he may not have visited himself. You just have to get one of them started about 'Old Dubai' to hear nostalgic paeans to an altogether more quaint, less bizarre, definitely more organic world.  They seem both impressed and bewildered by the rapid pace of change these last few years. From a land of equal opportunities for hardworking subcontinental immigrants, Dubai now stands at the precipice of something infinitely more exciting and more dangerous  and one cannot blame them the schadenfreude that they exhibit about the possible downturn. If there is no money in America and Europe, if all banks fail, who will come for holidays here? they question astutely. That may mean lesser passengers and lower fares in the future, but for the moment they just sound a bit pleased by the whole idea, wondering perhaps it would mean a return to the older kinder Dubai.

The one pitfall of course is that the moment I begin speaking in Hindi  it is like being back at home with a nosy grand aunt and her prejudices. I am unhesitatingly asked  some really personal questions (Two years married, why no children?) or subjected to increasingly uncomfortable remarks ( Why so small? Indians are tall. Only Filipinos are this small). Usually I just resort to giggling in reply, but the temptation to make up tall tales is occasionally too hard to resist.

As I get home some evenings,  with more information than I can possibly handle on the politics and ecology of the FATA provinces, the cab driver turns back and says, " I hope you didn't mind. I am who I am. Some people don't like me talking this much."

I usually smile back and wave off his concerns. The pleasure is all mine.

Bookends

Someone somewhere should study exactly how many people go to the gym after ages in the first week of the year, and how many dust the virtual cobwebs of their blogs and webpages to update them. Having dispensed of with the first, and thanks to that, probably indisposed for the rest of the week, it is only fair that I give due attention to the second before I sign up for guitar/piano lessons and start working on learning a new language.

A new year is a funny place to be in for a glass-half-empty-and-probably-running-down-thanks-to-the-hole-at-the-bottom kind of person that I am. Despite my best efforts and years of well honed cynicism I can't help feeling a bit warm inside and - dare I say it- optimistic about the year ahead. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and the world will not come to an end and Obama with his magic wand will set everything right and this will be the year when I finally keep all my new year resolutions!

In the meantime though, here, is a last look at the year that was and some of the new experiences I most enjoyed during its long cold 365 days. The idea behind this list is as much to provide suggestions to my two regular readers, as to put my own current tastes in a bit of a time capsule to avoid future deniability ( For the record, I never liked Duran Duran and George Michael was not my first crush)

The best new book I read this year: No contest at all there, 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao'. I am so glad that the author had only written a small book of short stories before this because it is the kind of book which makes you want to run to the library and read everything this person- who speaks to you, and writes like a wizard, and is probably the most gentle compassionate person in the world- has written before .  Every once in a while I read a book that I like so much that I want everyone I know to have read it so we could talk about it and play the Hollywood/Bollywood game (imagine who will play all the characters of the book in a movie adaptation) and argue its merits and quote from it in our own secret language. In fact, one day when I have a lot of money, I plan to start gifting each and every one of these books to all of my friends (and that includes all of you who are reading this, so start praying for me now!) just so I can eat their brains after that. Oscar Wao was that book for me this year. So beware if you have read it as well , because I will talk to you about the fuku and the Dominicans in New Jersey and tell you exactly how much I love Yunior till the end of time

The best old book I read this year: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi- because it is funny and has my favorite kind of heroine- a spunky teenage girl who doesn't know what she wants from  life. The politics and history make it really interesting too but what I adored most is how Marjane never blames her circumstances for the missteps she takes, instead embracing them as misplaced teenage rebellion.  The other book I really loved was Moon Palace by Paul Auster, because just like everything else he has written, this one too made me well up with its evocation of loneliness and depression. There is a part of the book, where the protaganist just wants to fall of the face of the earth, and resorts to living out of a cave in Central Park. I don't think anyone could read those chapters and not wonder how little it would take to move from a regular everyday existence to abject despair. 

One more book deserves a mention here, and that is Echomaker by Richard Powers. It is by no means a great book - infact it is plodding, dull and altogether boring in bits but it does have a powerful, affecting story at least in the first three fourths of it, and a protagonist who for some strange reason I really identified with. Her brother suffers from a condition called Capgas, which basically means that he recognizes her but in his state of advanced paranoia, is sure that she is NOT her but an exact replica of her planted by his enemies. Aamir Khan (maker of Ghajini), read this book to understand exactly how to convey the despair and uncertainity that goes with not knowing who or where you are exactly

The best new movie I saw this year- Wall-E. I get so upset when people say its a cute movie or it is just an animated movie like Madagascar , for instance (for God's sake!!) when it is quite simply one of the most affecting romances I have seen, ever. Every year Hollywood makes a 100 romantic comedies with fetching ditzy actresses ('lovable inspite of all their flaws') and rakish/hiding a lot of hurt/cads/new-age-men actors ('who just need the right woman to come out of their shells and blossom like a flower') and I have never cared as much about any of them as I did about Wall-E and 'Eve-uhh'. If they had not got together in the end, I swear I have cried and bawled and refused to leave the theater till they made a sequel.

My favorite hindi movie for the year was  Mithya. I saw it in a very small screen 20,000 feet up in the air cramped in an aeroplane seat and still loved it, I could even almost forgive it the blackhole vapid presence of Neha Dhupia-that is how good the movie was!  There are those movie goers who can dissect camera angles and shadows and background music for ages, but I am a book lover before a cinema fan and therefore want nothing more from my movies than a cracking good story. Mithya is just that- it is Javed Akhtar's Don rewritten by David Lynch and absolutely unpredictable and heartbreaking. I wish more people had gone to the theaters and seen it instead of waiting for it to appear on their Skywards entertainment package or late night basic cable!

The best old movie I saw this year- I didn't watch quite as many old movies this year as I did in my first year of Netflix membership but one that I really enjoyed and has stayed with me is 'Boogie Nights'. After watching There will be Blood last December and Magnolia just a few days before, I just had to watch this one to complete my Paul Thomas Anderson trilogy ( my irrational hatred of Adam Sandler does not allow me to give Punch Drunk Love a chance). It is bawdy, and hilarious, and depressing and scandalous, and quite simply one of the most entertaining movies I have seen . And it is almost perfectly cast, with Marky Mark (and teeny bopper rapper to respected actor- thats a transition I didn't see coming), Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing the slightly sad-slightly creepy guy he does so often and so well, a neurotic, lovable Julianne Moore, and my favorite character actor John C Reilly. If you haven't seen this movie yet, I urge you to do so now (but don't watch it with the kids at home, or your parents, for that matter!)

The best new music I heard this year- The soundtrack of Once, especially Marketa Irglova's 'If you want me' and a song which is technically not new but which I discovered this year and have heard so many times since then that I can sometimes hear it playing in my head in a nothing moment during the day. The haunting, lovely. beautiful composition is called Javeda Zindagi and it is embedded below for your listening pleasure.

Also, M.I.A's Paper Planes which thanks to Pineapple Express and Slumdog Millionaire is everyone's favorite song now (but I heard it first, I swear!)

The best new food tried this year- 2008 was the year that Harsha and I turned our gluttony towards a good cause (for our palettes, at least) by turning into 'gourmands'. We decided to say no to nothing (although meat referred to as 'baby something-or-the-other' still creeps me out a little bit with the mental imagery), watched a lot of Top Chef and Food Network, and ate at as many fancy Michelin places as our wallets could permit. And yet at the end of the year, after tons of plates of fancy fish with french sauces, and garlicky-butterey-olivey bread, the flavors that I remember the most are from a ceviche bar in a touristy part of Miami. I never though raw fish with simple condiments could taste so good. Just goes on to show what a little citrus and a little heat in just the right proportion can do to the simplest of foods!

My favorite new experience of last year- Hands down, Obamaerobics! Time will tell if Obama is a magician or just a very very shrewd politician with an excellent hold on the zeitgest, but as things stand right now- he made history and I was a very very very small part of it   and had fun and danced and got a great workout while being so!

That is it then, my last post about 2008 just to tie up the loose ends,even as I try and figure out exactly what I will write about over the next few days if I am to keep my resolution. So which one will see February- the gym or the blog? Maybe both- this is the Year of New Beginnings after all. At least in its wonderful warm first week it is.

Winters

Winters in Dubai are deceptive. They tease you with pockets of sunshine and cool sea breezes and early morning mists, almost as if to add to the agony of the summers ahead. This is the best weather I have ever been in (anywhere) and that just makes the oncoming summers even more difficult to handle. There are nights when the desert winds are so loud and so strong that I feel asea in my bed in the middle of an apartment block and there are mornings when the fog is so thick that you don't want to wake up at all. But every other day is gorgeous- with blue skies, yellow sunshine and green cactii- just like the art project of a pre-school Arab Van Gogh.

There are few things I like more than winter sunshine. As someone who doesn't easily give way to nostalgia, winter afternoons with great weather are inextricably linked in my head with some wonderful memories. With the picture of my mother and me smearing foul-smelling besan on our arms and legs, oiling our thin hair and sitting in my grandmother's courtyard in Moradabad. Or when I was even younger, then with the smell of peanuts roasted in sand, cracked open with your thumbs and eaten with ground green chillies and salt. Or with getting wrapped up in layers of clothes as an eight year old- with my father joking that a dhobi on the way to school would mistake me or my brother for a bundle of clothes that need a wash. Or of my mother and grandmother and grandaunt unraveling bits and pieces of old sweaters to create one more multi-colored Rishi Kapoor styled patten for us.

But the winter afternoons I miss most are those spent in Delhi on Sunday afternoons during my three years in college. We would all greedily eat one more piece of the aloo parantha than we really needed to and then make our way to the hostel lawns. Some would dry their hair after the weekend shampooing while those who read the Hindu themselves surreptuosly borrowed their neighbor's Delhi Times to see Yuvraj Singh in his leopard dress on a red sofa or to read who Akshay Kumar was rumored to be seeing those days. Tiny shrivelled oranges would be peeled and savored, favorite characters from books discussed and argued over (True confessions time: I always fancied myself as a bit of a Nick Carraway) and terrible puns made. One winter we almost read aloud the whole of Down and Out in Paris and London because the edition left in the library was too fragile to be reborrowed by another user. Another winter afternoon, we accidentally stole the sweater of an auto driver who took us to PVR. Towards the end of each season, with exams nearing, some of us would bring out photocopied notes and pretend to be absorbed in those even as we got pulled into a disdainful conversation about someone else sitting not a few feet away, competing with each other to produce the most cutting barbs. We made elaborate infexible plans for the future in the way that only the very young and the very foolish can and treated our limited experiences and ideas with an earnestness, that now seems laughably naive.

Not all of us are friends any more, some by design and some by accident. I doubt if any of us is the person we thought we were  or would be in those days.  I don't pretend to be older or wiser than I was and those years were neither the best nor the worst years of my life. ( Is it wrong to always hope that the best is still ahead of you?) But every time the weather is just right for a small patch of sunlight in which you want to curl up like a cat, I remember those afternoons with a great deal of affection. They were, in their now, about as perfect as moments can be.

Even Bad Boys Go Grey

For sometime now I have been convinced that the moon in Dubai is fake. Whenever I have looked up at the sky in the nighttime (which is admittedly not very often), it has always been very round, very white and very picturesquely placed between the summits of the city skyline. I haven't seen a star in the skies here yet, and given the city's predilection for wanting everything perfect, I wouldn't be surprised if the 'moon' was nothing but a giant white strobe light held aloft in the air with sky-colored wires, switched on at a particular time to present a show every night.

It was under this 'moon' last night that I went to hear Queen perform with Paul Rodgers in what Brian May referred to as a 'giant car park' along with thousands of other grizzly, middle-aged fans. When we were younger and wanted to go out anywhere at all, my father would refuse on the grounds that he would be the oldest person at the venue. I find myself agreeing with him increasingly these days as malls and restaurants and concert halls (and Facebook) get crowded with giggly sixteen year old girls and their bright pink and purple cell phones. But go to hear a classic Arena rock concert on the same day as Fergie is playing in town, and the only person younger than you in the audience is the sullen teenager who has been dragged there by his parents to 'get some culture'. The parents themselves are overcompensating for a lost youth with a beer too many in ill-fitting T Shirts from ancient concerts that have been laundered to an indistinct pale grey now. Save for the one granddad we saw in an Eminem hoodie.

The concert was the last leg of a long tour that the remaining band members of Queen have been on along with Paul Rodgers (of Bad Company fame) and was almost as well synchronised in routine as a Broadway show by now. There were bright lights and loud music, some excellent guitar play by Brian May (they don't make them like that anymore) and some badass drum solos by Roger Taylor -who judging by his wasted appearance is clearly still partying hard. The songs may be old, but the music is clearly fresh and Paul Rodgers clearly seems to be enjoying singing the old favorites in his own distinct voice. Even nearly 20 years after his death though, the shadow of Freddie Mercury looms hard on the band, so much so that it is a giant spectral image of him on the screen that sings parts of Bohemian Rhapsody, his voice so iconic in those bits that no one dare attempt a cover. And when you contrast the images of those 'bad boys' from 20 years ago on the screen with the living, breathing, older and wiser performers on the stage (Paul Rodgers, probably looks better now without that unfortunate hairstyle) you almost look forward to growing old yourself, if you can carry on doing those things you like most, as these men clearly are.

I have been to a couple of other large concerts before, but I have to admit that this one was probably the finest ever, because everyone in the crowd knew all the songs. The advantage of a two decade old playbook is that we have had the chance to listen to these songs in our car stereos, on FM, in Wayne's World, in College Rock Band contests, so many times that nearly all the words are written in our head. And the advantage of being with aging rockers and their aging ex-flower children fans is, that there is no irony involved in banging your head hard, giving in to cliches and singing along like you are in a minivan. The only songs I didn't remember well were the slow ballads (that I clearly fast forwarded in my 'greatest hits tapes' as a kid) and that I am going to download and listen to for the next few days.

It is a perfect way to celebrate an evening -remembering the past and looking forward to a future in this strange strange country. And once the concert is over, if you look at it long enough on a late late night you realize that the moon is not quite as round as you thought first. That little dent on the right , tells you that it is two days since a full moon, and unless they have 14 different sized lamps up there (they could!), the sky at least is real.

That's something to hold on to.