BLANK SLATE

The New Year is given to us as a blank slate – 366 days (it’s a leap year!) to ‘write’ on and imprint our actions and interactions. But, what of our thoughts, feelings and memories? Where do these go?

Since way back when, I have kept diaries.  Not just memories but scrapbooks of stuff that has caught my eye and, not surprisingly, most of my collection is ‘words’ – bits and pieces from books and articles that I have read.  The odd illustration finds a place too and clippings from here and there.  I treasure my collection; in moments when I need to ‘get away’ but can’t, I tuck myself into a chair and go back in time through the pages, lingering over the memories that they evoke and delighting once again in the connection felt at the first encounter. The vibrancy remains undiminished with the passage of time.

The electronic blog and Facebook provide tempting alternatives and I do succumb from time to time to the ease of the digital medium, but this year, thanks to a young lady who finds colour in words (and whose words add colour to the day!), I have the blank pages of a diary/album to accompany the unfolding year.  And I will take her happy advice to imprint the pages with memories, experiences, new encounters and the ‘mud of places’ that I will visit.  A concrete legacy for the future!

For now, the immediate present, I will savour the texture of the handmade paper, reveling in its pristine newness. I have one more reason to be eager for what is to come!

Dear Diary – IV

Remember when you were little and grandma was snoozing and you were determined to be a tease? Grandma would seem to be unfazed by your incursions into her comfort zone and then all of a sudden, her eyes would fly open and her false teeth would pop out at you.  Scary! And the next day you would try it again to see if she would do it again!!  (I agree that my childhood memories may not be universal, but I’m sure somebody, somewhere will have experienced this.)

This morning a young dog, still at the very playful age, was urging an old dog to be up and at it.  It was early morning, the sky still grey and the weather damp from overnight rain.  The old dog sported a very grey muzzle and ears.  He ignored the youngster and rearranged his limbs with a deep sigh.  The youngster would not give up. Finally, the old one raised himself rheumatically on all fours and bared his teeth with a menacing growl. The youngster fled yelping down the street.  The old one shook himself (I’m sure I heard a satisfied ‘harrumph’) and settled himself back into snooze mode.  Some tricks still work. And the young dog will be back tomorrow. 

The juxtaposition of memory and incident was a welcome start to the day.  More so since the morning papers always seem to offer bad news, on top of bad news.

Today, at least one news item proved interesting: The East Indian dictionary. A resource that will provide future generations with information about the mother tongue that many no longer use. 

My introduction to EI-speak was via a recipe.  The final touch required one to run a greased belan over the surface of a cooked sweet ‘dough’ after it had been poured into a mould, in order to render it smooth before cutting into triangles.  What on earth was a belan?  A classmate at Secretarial School, supplied the answer: ‘rolling pin’.  She was, as I discovered later, an EI.  

Over the years, I have encountered words and expressions which convey much better than the translation, exactly what the speaker means.  For example a ghoomat is a ghoomat ! What else would you call a gutted, dried gourd, topped off with a dried skin, drummed upon with the tips of the fingers to render a magnetic beat? It’s not a drum, it’s not a tabla, it’s not a bongo.  It’s a ghoomat.

EI speak is not easy to acquire; you need to be attuned from birth.  It is akin to Marathi but is a dialect in its own right, with vocabulary, grammar and idiom that the dictionary will hopefully capture. I never did quite pick it up since hubby spoke fluent English and Marathi when conversation was needed.  At other times, words were redundant.

But my AI ears are always tuned in to new sounds and I did manage to grab a few choice words and phrases here and there.

My favourite? Just has to be ‘pyethyu’ (rendered phonetically).  It is supposed to mean ‘young lad’ but more often connotes ‘lazy rascal’ and many a nephew has been hailed with ‘oye pyethyu’ in his time!  

Being EI is not just belonging to a community, it is a way of life which one encounters in the living: cuisine and kitchen implements, weddings and social encounters, dress, music, architecture and furnishing, customs and observances.  How long will all this be followed?

For example, almost gone is the lugna (lugda?) – the nine yard sari - replaced by ubiquitous denim (the universal jeans).  As a wife, I did sport the festive nine yards on occasion (surprisingly comfortable!) but as a widow I need to don one of another colour.  So, mine has become a relic which may perhaps be worn by generation next more as fancy dress than attire.

For now, the past is present in memory.  Happily so!

Father Trevor Zenon D'Souza

Occasionally, a little packet would be dropped into my letterbox. The covering would be slit, the whole tied with string and the postage affixed was just Re. 1! When such a packet arrived, all other mail would be put aside and I would happily browse the little booklet revealed by the unwrapping.

I was truly privileged to be on Fr. Trevor Zenon’s mailing list. He made it his retirement work to spread, through the printed word, the message of God’s love. He also circulated, through his little booklets, affirming thoughts and guidance for daily Christian living. Over the years, I have built up a collection of these pocket-size books which I return to whenever I need a ‘dose’. Thanks to my contact with Fr. T, I have always had something to turn to when I am in a slump - inspiring words can be the best pick me up in times of need!

We remained in (and out of) contact over a span of some 40 odd years, all because of CONTACT. That was the name of the newsletter that Fr. T published when he was based at Byculla. He sent out the first copies through an embryo mailing list, parish wise, and a friendly priest passed on the publication. At 15, I considered myself a fledgling ‘writer’ and I flooded Fr. T’s mailbox with my manuscripts – mostly poems and teenage ramblings. He published my work and sent me complimentary copies of the newsletter. I was thrilled - for the first time, my words were in print outside the Parish Bulletin. Fr. T was transferred, and went on to serve in other parishes. We lost touch as we went our separate ways. And then, out of the blue, I encountered him at the Clergy Home to which he had retired. We resumed our acquaintance and once more, I looked forward to the mail in the letterbox.

Strangely, we never met in person.

It was with a heavy heart that I attended his funeral yesterday, but it is with gladness and gratitude that I will always remember his presence in my life.

Like Fr. T, I am a ‘scrapbooker’ – I shared his love of quotations, extracts, poems and philosophical asides and I collect these with avidity. Fr. T gifted his readers nuggets from his collection and I gift you, in remembrance, one from mine – a poem that, for me, is evocative of the Lord’s servant:

“He cast a stone,

And wavelets on a silent sea

Caressed the shores

Of lands where he would never be … he started something.

He hid a seed,

And blossoms in the wind that blow

Have set aflame

The countryside with radiant glow … he started something.

He dropped a thought,

And in youth’s eager mind

A candle reared

Through all the future years enshrined … he started something.

He lived a life

Which made appeal to you and me;

We loved to live

In what was his community … he started something!”

- (From: He Started Something by H. Halbisch)

EBBOM

While reading the paper, I came across an article which spoke about PLUs. Fortunately, the writer clarified that this meant ‘people like us’ and so the encounter with yet another acronym remained plain sailing. SMS has changed the way we communicate whether we like it or not. Acronyms have become part and parcel of our daily lexicon and even old dogs are learning new ways to bark!

Acronyms are nothing new. From our early math’s lessons we learnt that LCD meant lowest common denominator (though today’s generation will more easily relate to liquid crystal display or, perhaps, life changing direction?) and everyone was enthralled by UFOs while ASAP saw us snapping smartly to attention while receiving instructions. Incidentally, a neat turnaround of an acronym is the poem doing the rounds on the Internet: Always Say A Prayer!

Every newspaper and magazine article is peppered with contractions and while some of them obfuscate others resonate because they sound so apt. And as long as SMS is the preferred form of communication, we shall come across more wild and weird contractions every now and then. Cryptic codes are enjoying a field day!

And while I am at it, FYI, my favourite contraction of all time is EBBOM: Engage Brain Before Opening Mouth. Now, there’s sage advice.

Enjoy the day!

Hobson Jobson

It has such a lovely ring, doesn’t it? While browsing among the shelves in a friend’s library, I came across this tome which purported to be ‘a glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases and kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive’!

Being an Anglo-Indian, I was intrigued, recalling the merriment which my parents’ very AI pronunciation evoked when it came to speaking the local lingo. To illustrate: for ‘coming’ my mother would call out ‘arthur’ for ‘aata hai’. We also had a very individual and colourful lexicon, typical of the AI family. Most of the words and phrases have now been forgotten but a couple which can still rustle up a smile, when the occasion demands, are glue-pachari and muttai pink (since these words were spoken and not written, I have spelt them as phonetically as possible).

Glue-pachari, which was usually shortened to ‘gloop’, was used to indicate the kind of visitor who seemed to be attached to our chairs with Fevicol and refused to leave. As with all children, fascinated by an overheard new word, I would happily announce to my parent, ‘Ma, the gloop is here’ much to her embarrassment!

Muttai pink was the descriptive used for the virulent shade of pink found in some sweetmeats and nylon ribbons. If a colour was a shade too hurtful to the eye or showed lack of taste, the tag ‘muttai’ would be gleefully added to show one’s strong reaction.

A favourite name and person was Mr. Jerry Puranawala, the handle given to the ‘rag and bones’ man or bangarwala. With his rusty scales, doubtful weights and measures, and gunny sack he would visit our homes on the appointed day to collect old newspapers, utensils, rags and other miscellany thus helping us clean our homes and keep the piggybank rattling.

These words and phrases had a certain ring to them and added colour to the conversation; words which have now fallen into disuse, and are rarely but fondly recalled when reminiscing with a generation that is fast departing this world. Transient words which marked a time in history.

Words are what I have

Thanks to technology and the media, I was able to watch President Obama’s swearing-in in its entirety. One of the highlights of the occasion was the reading of Praise Song for the Day by its composer Elizabeth Alexander. For me, the words which stood out sharply were, “We encounter each other in words. Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider…”.

Communication is how we touch each other, especially over the distances that separate us. And we communicate using words. I love words – written, spoken, sung. And because I love them so, I have over the years accumulated those that hold a special appeal. My scrapbooks are a collection of quotations, poems, lyrics and extracts culled from all that I have read and encountered and are a source of solace, humour and inspiration. A precious resource worth more than silver and gold! I look forward to sharing the nuggets and gems in future posts.

And, while we are between weeks, here is a pertinent selection from my collection:

Week Daze – R.H. Grenville

Monday is a bread day

Rather than a cake day,

A back-to-work, want-to-shirk,

Slow-to-yawn-awake day.

Tuesday, Wed- and Thursdays

Are depends-on-what-occurs days.

But Friday is a fat day,

A gay day; is that day

When ready money jingles

And anticipation tingles

Towards Saturday and Sunday,

The wine-and-dine and fun days

The lazy lie-abed days,

Leading to the lead day,

The duty-must-be-done day.

I long to sleep through

Monday!

(And this was written long before the acronym TGIF made its appearance!!)

God bless your weekend and the Monday.