Naan fiction

The story of my life
What is a blog without a space for some gossip, joys and frustrations of one’s life? It is not that tit-bits from my life are of interest to you or that it matters. Writing in a blog is like singing in a bathroom – it is a place for self-expression. It is written for the sake of writing, with no expectation that anyone will read it. Like bathroom singing, at best it amuses those who happen to hear it and at worst it annoys. I recognise that you, my reader, have reached this place in your journey to somewhere else and while you are here, I hope to amuse more than annoy.

P.s. You must be wondering why this is called “naan fiction”. Naan in Tamil means Me or I; welcome to the story of my life.

To truly understand my experience at D.School, you must consider three things: love, terror, and the hillarious outcomes of Indians trying to communicate across linguistic divides. Let’s start at the beginning. I had dreamt of D.School from the far-off Tamil Nadu for a two-and-half years before the life-changing phone call on July 27, 1997. Not knowing Hindi, I asked my father to call the office and confirm my admission. “I am calling from South India…”, my father started and Shukla ji responded with, “Oh, Mr. Vivek, congradulations”. To keep my seat, I had to pay the tuition by July 29, […]

Love, Language, and Terror at the Delhi School of Economics

Just learned that one of the first to welcome me to the US is now gone. Pepsi, the adorable lab, with all her energy and love was a constant companion during my first five years in this country. There is so much to remember about Pepsi. Our long walks. Her “let’s play” look, and how she mistook me for my cousin– or should I say, her ‘dad’ – once. I will remember for a long time how I had to open the bedroom door when it was time to sleep and race to bed before Pepsi could occupy the whole […]

To a ‘Pepsi’ I loved

As an active listener, I often nod my head as I listen to people.  Turns out that I do it a little more vigorously than most other people – and this has become a trademark.  During a visit to a very remote village in Rajasthan, all the children of the village followed me for a whole day.  They would ask me questions and when I nodded in agreement every one of them nodded with squeals of laughter. My nodding also has its South Indian touch to it, and so I nod slightly differently when I answer in the affirmative or […]

You’ve got my nod

Hot News I’ve been wondering how I would announce the gender of our child once we found out. My initial thought? If it’s a girl, I’d deck out my website in pink with balloons floating around. For a boy? I drew a blank. That thought barely lasted a few seconds before I cringed at myself for boxing our child-to-be into stereotypical colors. Honestly, I’ve loved pink for ages. I still remember a primary school shopping trip when I confidently asked the saleswoman for pink undergarments. She responded with, “Are you Muslim?” To this day, I’m unsure what led her to […]

It’s a…

Joy, fear, pride, panic, love, relief—and a whole thesaurus of other emotions—could have described how I felt when Dr. K delivered the news. But if I’m honest, my dominant reaction was a shrug and a casual, “Eh, okay.” I mean, it wasn’t like Apple had announced a new iPad, right? No pre-order excitement or tech specs to obsess over for months. What we were dealing with here was just a tiny organism—twenty cells, tops—dividing itself like bacteria and freeloading in its temporary shelter. Not exactly front-page news, if you ask me. In my mind, the process was simple: people did […]

The start of a long journey

I am sorry to disappoint you in case you came here for some gossip on our friends, Bill & Melinda.  This article is about two bizarre structures, one in Delhi and one in Los Angeles.  The front gate of the Delhi School of Economics is massive and ornate, and it is supported by pillars that hold the massive gate on either side. It is said that the two pillars are called truth and knowledge.  What is special about these gates is that they have never been opened, and people have been forced to use the rear entrance to access the […]

Two bizarre gates

The woman sitting next to me was travelling on air for the first time. She grew up in a small town and there was not much discussion about air travel among her friends. I did my share to make her feel comfortable. We did a round on how to buckle the seat belt, how to turn on the light, how to turn off the air vents and whether she should hold her three month old tight through the flight. After we reached the altitude she asked, “Chal rahi hai kya” (is it going?). I heard it as “Jal rahi hai […]

Hawa mein bath: Stories from the Indian airspace

Will it be a church wedding, Hindu wedding or both, asked a friend. Neither. Oh?!…Will you tie a Thali? No. Will you exchange rings? No. Oh!? …Will there be ceremonial music at least? No. Then what do you mean by getting married? That was my friend’s reaction when I told him that I will get married in Madras in July. He got me thinking about the meaning of ‘getting married’, to be distinguished from less interesting topic – the meaning of marriage. I guess all of us will agree that ‘getting married’ deals with a transformation in the state of […]

The meaning of ‘getting married’

Pandit Ji’s tea stall was the first to open in Delhi University and he was greeted by six of us waiting for him impatiently. I think that my five canine companions were brothers and sisters; I do not know their ancestry, but I get a clear idea from the choice of expletives that were used when they had sex in front of his shop. But for such brief encounters, there was a symbiotic relationship between them and the shop. The university with its adjoining forest cover invited joggers, walkers, laughers and feeders every morning. A brisk middle-aged man stopped by […]

Dogs of Delhi University

I returned home with my body pulling me in two directions. It felt like there was a layer of glue in my throat pulling the layers of my throat together; I had never felt that parched. My bladder on the other hand felt like the Mettur dam after a heavy monsoon shower: ready to burst any minute unless the floodgates are opened. Do I go left to the kitchen to quench my thirst, or do I first go right to the restroom? I paused for a moment to consider the dilemma and decided to check my e-mail instead. Checking e-mail […]

Needs, priorities, habits

There is never a moment of dullness when the opposites meet “I hid the camera, is there anything else that I should hide?” The preparation for Vipul’s visit started with this. Vipul and Dr. K and polar opposites in two ways. Vipul’s cardinal philosophy is: if I see a button, I press it. Inevitably, he has a history of ipods, laptops and other devices crashing with his interventions. The highlight of this trip being the crash of the ticketing machine at the railway station; he could simply not resist playing with while he waited to be picked up. Dr. K […]

The twain shall meet

Love needs surveillance, and nothing escapes the eyes of Dr. K. She has the uncanny ability of retracing my day with telltale details. Within minutes of returning from work she normally recounts whether I ate, napped, read, did the laundry, etc. Normally her account is accurate. So, when she came home and declared that I did not go swimming as I had promised, I was surprised. “But I did go swimming”, I told her. She looked puzzled and asked me what towel I used and I pointed out the brown towels that we regularly use in the bathroom. “You don’t […]

A nightmare abut towels

Shiva looked comfortable. He was resting his back on a pile of bags and threw his legs on another pile in front of him, his foot going as high as his head on the other direction. With his head resting on his clasped palms behind him, and the face sporting an elaborate smile, he looked like he was resting on a hammock, and not a jeep full of people and things. Our jeep was loaded with stuff, after all, it was carrying the baggage of nine people who had travelled for a seven day trip to Rajasthan. Two hours down […]

Travelling with Shiva

Publish and perish
I discovered that the papers that I had written with a lot of hard work were cited only once in the last four years. A note on the academic peril of working hard in writing what will probably be never read by any one. To publish is to perish. Read on.

Publish and perish