Italy

Loved it.

It’s weird when a country meets all the cliches you’ve heard about it. There is all this ancient stuff lying about, people are fiesty and effusive and drink coffee in shots at all hours and there’s no such thing as bad food.

Unexpectedly, I loved Rome best. I loved being around ancient ruins and yet being in the midst of a bustling city where people are extremely stylish. I loved the 800 year old building we lived in, the oldies sitting around the sun-dappled courtyard, the cafe where you could get a perfectly made capucino and biscotti and while away the day. I loved the grand fountains and the cobbled alleyways where the best pizza places are to be found.

Favourite monument in Rome: Church of San Clemente, which contains layers of faith one on top of the other. There’s a 12th century church built over a 4th century church over an old Roman house which houses a room for worshipping the Persian god Mithra. Walking down into the excavations was spooky but I think what I liked best was the quiet and the lack of tourists. Many of the other more famous churches like St Peter’s and the Pantheon (which is pretty hard to think of as a church anyway) lose a lot of their atmosphere because of the throngs they attract. Ironic, I know, because I was one of those throngs but I do like to sit in churches and pray as well.

Favourite meal: Dinner down the road from our B&B in Cipro where I discovered the sensuality of food, starting with an appetiser of fried zucchini flowers and ending with tiramisu.

Most disappointing experience: The Sistine Chapel. Thought it was all rather lurid. Then again, maybe it was being packed into the gloomy place like sardines. Hard to imagine it as chapel.

Serendipity strikes experience: Mysteriously missing the tour guide for the Colosseum and having to run around in the rain trying to catch up with V who had decided to skip the tour and gone on ahead. Well, guess I was fated to not spend three hours of my birthday away from V but I did find the Forum really confusing after.

Best surprise: That all the water in the fountains is pure, the Roman acqueduct still doing its thing.

Surprisingly, I tired of Florence after a day or so. We were staying right next to the Duomo so the area was packed with tourists. V was tiring of the monument stalking and I had to drag him to some stuff, give up on others and go to some alone, which turned out to be the best plan.

Best dome of the holiday: Brunelleschi’s frescoed dome. The church itself is so impressive that I ended up being completely stunned when I landed up under the dome and looked up to see the detailed painting on it.

Loved also: the Uffizi and San Marco, this church and monastery which has frescoes in the monk’s cells by Fra Angelico. Something about the simplicity, and yet surrealism, of these paintings touched me. Weirdly, I’ve discovered I like those old gold-embelished Byzantine religious paintings rather than the Titian and Tinteretto stuff. Among the older stuff, I like sculpture. Totally enjoyed the outdoor sculpture space in Florence.

Another surprise was Venice which I was fully-prepared to be let down by. Instead, I loved it. I loved the crumbling buildings and the cutey canals and the little bridges and impressive palazzo facades appearing right next to more humble abodes and the water washing up on the steps and even the gondolas (though I didn’t go in one).

Best art-related museum of the whole holiday: Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. The collection is an extremely personal selection of artists who were living around the time that Peggy was and this intimacy pervades the arrangement of the rooms as well, because some of these works used to hang in her living room, bedroom etc in addition to the fact that she nurtured some of these artists herself and supported them when they were starving etc. And in the case of Max Ernst married him, though what an ungrateful wretch he turned out to be. Gorgeous work came out of his infidelity to Peggy though! The collection is housed in a palazzo on the Grand Canal but the ancient building is in stark contrast to its whitewashed interior and forward-looking art.

Also loved: the Doge’s Palace. Weird how they had the prison right next to the palace. Also weird how one simple door in one of the rooms meant you were going from hero to zero.

Eeriest quarter: the Jewish ghetto, the earliest ghetto in history. At some point apparently, the Venetians decided (way before Hitler) that the Jews should be sequestered in this quarter of the city and only leave with special permision wearing badges. Sound familiar? The area got so crowded that it has some of the highest buildings in Venice (only five storeys or so though). Now, however, it seems a perfectly regular locality (apparently very few Jews still live there but we still saw a group of them coming out from a synagogue and the square had an armed security guard) with kids playing ball in the piazza.

Most unpleasant person encountered in Italy: Rude taxi driver who I made the mistake of asking directions and who just stared at me blankly although he clearly knew. Hmph! But he was pretty much the only one.

Strangest experience: Sitting in this decrepit part in what is apparently the India-cum-Chinatown of Rome and watching unemployed Indian/Chinese men while away the hours.

Best shopping place: Rome. Though, because I expected Florence to be better, didn’t buy anything there. Unfortunately, Florence turned out to have shop after shop of the same kind of leather stuff. Not that I’m averse to leather, quite the contrary actually. But Rome had proper mid-range shops with interesting original designs while Florence had a lot fo the same thing. However, I finally got down to it and bought four bags and a pair of boots.

Irony of the trip1: All V’s purchases on the trip were food and cooking related stuff. Weirdly shopkeepers kept addressing all comments to me and I would nod wisely to humour them and then wander off. Net result – spending as much on cheese and salami as on bags and boots. With a coffee maker thrown in.

Irony of the trip2: Bought said boots in Bata! Hahahaha. Ironic not because I think Bata is an Indian company but because father-in-law owns a Bata store. However, his doesn’t sell boots so I guess its ok.

Craving I didn’t realise I had: Spicy food. Unleashed by kebab panini, so I didn’t feel like I was totally cheating on Italian food. Weird how little I missed other cuisines… thought I would have dim sum cravings but I didn’t. Encouraging to know.

Best thing I realised about Italians: They’re dog friendly. And proper dogs at that – large woofy mongrelly dogs. They bring them into cafes and on the train. Love it.

Regret of the holiday: Not staying in Venice itself but in neighbouring Mestre and then discovering there was a bus strike after waiting fruitlessly for a bus to take us to Venice for an hour. Also choice of hotel which, despite nice room, had stressed out staff and generally absolutely nothing about it to do. I like being off the beaten track but this was a little too much so.

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500 days of Summer

So, yeah, I was very excited when this film came to cinemas here. Maybe I expected too much. Certainly, it was entertaining. But it came across as a mainstream movie that had packaged itself as an art film, and this struck me as a little sly. I even began to think that it might have been a very good mainstream romantic chick flick without all the Juno-esque sketches between scenes (there must be a name for that cinematic technique but I don’t know it) and the temporal back-and-forthness. Actually, the back-and-forthness was ok, if a little too pat.

Anyway, I’m going to stop ripping into the film because that’s not what this is about.

At some point in the film, I began to have a series of epiphanies that made me cry. This (the crying) is not greatly significant because I generally cry during films. Most films, unless they’re out and out comedies, have a point where something sad happens and that’s my cue to start sniffing. I only object if the film makes me cry even after it’s over. Which actually this did, kind of. However, that’s related to the epiphanies.

It started at a perfectly hilarious, if not particularly groundbreaking, moment when Summer is telling Tom and his kooky friend why she doesn’t believe in love and long-term relationships and the friend goes: “Shit, she’s a dude.”

Because, it’s true, her attitude is often to be found in men and rarely in women (though it’s becoming increasingly fashionable among women too these days). The kind where one only wants a casual relationship, where commitment is seen is stifling, where long-term is viewed as passe and farcical. Actually most guys stop at the commitment being stifling thing, the long-term as farce is a nice little philosophical touch that, I suppose, is meant to lift what is essentially fuckwittage (a la Shazzer’s rant in Bridget Jones’s Diary) into something more interesting, angst maybe. But more on than later.

Then there was this moment where, I forget which, Tom is looking at her, his face full of love, and she’s just all blah and cold. Maybe the point in the record store. And it reminded me of what a friend had been going through recently with a guy she was seeing. Where she was one of the rare people who put herself out there and let her emotions show only to be shrugged off by someone wanting to play it cool.

In short, Summer was making me angry. It was completely obvious that this guy was totally into her. But she insisted on persisting with her persona. Which essentially was the girl with the wall, the girl too cynical to believe in love, the girl who wants to revel in the moment because isn’t that cool.

Not too cynical about love to go through all the motions of it though. The cuddling and the holding hands and the cutesy role play. And the leading on someone who did believe in love.

If Summer had been a boy, she would be your typical commitment-phobe, and I’d like to say, fuckwit. Because she’s a girl, there’s a bit more mystique.

But today, every second girl wants to declare herself a commitment-phobe. It’s so tiring watching disillusioned people flitting from one relationship to another and solemnly confessing that they think they’re commitment-phobic, when really, the explanation is a bit more prosaic. They haven’t met the right person yet. Or they have but the right person hadn’t met the right person (ie- they weren’t). Or they are scared that the person they’re with will dump them so they dump them first then add on the more glamorous title of commitment-phone. I’m sure there are genuine commitment-phobes out there but most people, especially women, are just waiting for the right person to stick (with them).

Because, inevitably, as in Summer’s case, someone comes along and then, hey, where did all the cyncism go? Oh, the wall comes down for the right person, does it? How convenient.

Maybe I’m so angry because I realised I was Summer too. I spent quite a while affecting just this pose, without realising how trite it is. I looked into a face full of love and met it only halfway, and then finally, walked away wistfully with a sad little smile and a shrug. (Though to be fair, I dropped the pose pretty quickly once I had got into the cuddly stuff and got bitchslapped for my trouble which is probably a good reason as any to keep up the wall).

But anyway now, a little belatedly, I’ve realised the walled-up supposedly mysterious persona is not only trite, it’s cruel. Like Summer, it’s not that I didn’t believe in love, I just didn’t believe in love with him. When you meet the right person, it’s instantaneous.

But till that time, spare the world the stoic act. Stop saying “it’s not you, I don’t believe in love”. If you don’t believe in love, don’t go near it. Or at least, if you can’t resist its warm flame, then be gentle. There are a few people out there who don’t have the walls, and instead of seeing them as the overwhelming ones that we need to shy away from, we should be treat them like rare art objects and handling with care but not condescension.

I’ve met only one person who had the courage to go through fully with the strictly casual engagement. No cuddling, no sweet nothings, just sex. That’s the kind of relationship where there’s a chance of noone getting hurt.

Anything else and you’re playing with fire. You’re lighting the match and skipping back from the flames. And when everything’s burning down, you turn your back, do a little moue and go “oops”. How charming, NOT!

Dear President Obama,

I do love you. You are hot. You wear a suit like no other President, but you’re cute in a hoodie too. I love that most of the time, even at the height of controversy, you say things that are are commonsensical. You’re not afraid to say sorry, a rare quality in a man. Maybe you even ask for directions, who knows?

However, despite the beer summit, I’m appalled that you were were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. Some say it’s for being the anti-Bush. Others say that it’s for trying to work out an end to the Middle East conflict. Either way, it’s too early. You’ve only been in office nine months. You have plenty of time to turn into a tyrant yet. Some say that’s what they’re trying to preempt. That also sounds like a weird reason to award a prize – to pressure someone into being good, like you would do by making the worst kid in the class monitor.

I can’t believe we even have to have this conversation. Especially when there are people like this to consider:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/and-the-other-nobel-peace-prize-nominees-were-1801350.html

These are people who have put their personal security on the line for the greater cause and who have been working tirelessly for change for years.

There are some who say that the prize isn’t important. But it is. Prizes always are, even when you’re in kindergarten. Having a prestigious prize to acknowledge the efforts of people in different fields, but especially in efforts towards peace, is a good thing. The tragedy of you getting this award is that it demeans the prize.

Of course, we’ll all just pretend you didn’t know about the nomination. But you’re the most powerful man in the world. And this is the most prestigious prize in the world. If you didn’t know about it, that’s quite a serious intelligence failure.

Anyway, I don’t believe you didn’t know. Not accepting the prize would be more embarassing and humiliating for the judges. So I wish you had just nipped the idea in the bud in the first place.

Meh!

A stitch in time

I seem to be surrounded by friends getting ready to tie the knot. It’s nice because I like hearing about the planning. Unfortunately, since they’re all in India I don’t get to be part of most of the discussions but that’s the price you pay for living abroad sigh.

Anyway, the other day one of the friends smsed to ask me for the number of Designer T, the guy who did my wedding dress, and it brought back all these memories. Now, some of you may be familiar with him because I’ve ranted before. But since many of you seem to enjoy the Blue Bride posts, let’s do a little recap of why Designer T annoyed (and apparently still does) me to high heaven.

First some background: Designer T is a much-in-demand person in the area of Bombay I live in. Around December, it’s quite hard to get him to do anything for you so I had to be introduced by my cousin’s wife. Before agreeing to take me on, he checked with her if I was fat. I could be amused about this because I wasn’t.

Also, Designer T (I should just shorted to DT, no?) likes to be known as a “designer”. Indeed, he does do some impressive looking sketches though the designs aren’t anything particularly innovative. He also does make suggestions about what will suit you which I guess is good. Though not particularly hard if the client is thin, which is why designers seem to favour “designing” for thin people.

Now to be fair to him: I delayed taking any decision on where to get my dress stitched because I was fast becoming disillusioned with the idea of the wedding. I just didn’t want to think about it. Finally, my mom pointed out that in the event that I did get married, I couldn’t possibly do so naked and since the wedding was slated for December, it was going to be impossible to find anyone to do the dress later. So I acquiesced.

Luckily, some years ago I had watched Sweet Home Alabama and I decided then that would be my wedding dress. However, while most brides-to-be would be spending the months (or even years) before their weddings fantasizing about theme and colour scheme, I was entirely clueless.

So, Designer T was faced with the unique prospect of a bride who was disinterested in her own wedding. I don’t think he had seen anything like it before. Finally, he asked me: “What colour do you like?” “Blue,” I replied promptly. And quickly added: “But I can’t have blue because my sister had blue the year before and my cousin who’s getting married two days before me is having blue.”

So we were back to square one. Of course this could prove to be a wonderful opportunity for Designer T who would have a blank slate to actually “design”. He grabbed it with both hands and suggested “teal and lime green”. I agreed!

Why I dislike him intensely:

1) He is disorganized. Yes, most creative people are. However, it’s only excusable if you’re super super creative in the league of, say, Yves Saint Laurent. If you’re at the average level of creativity then you better get a move on and deliver on time. I had actually avoided another designer I knew because I had heard how disorganized he was, how everything was delivered last minute after much panic. Getting fittings with Designer T involved calling many many times and giving him deadlines that were before the actual date I needed something.

2) There was no evidence of the teal and lime green confection till close to the last month. Now, I know I was being liberal going with this combination but I still wanted to see a sketch or a sample of what he would produce. Turned out he planned to dye the fabric. It was beginning to sound scary and I demanded a sample. None was in evidence. I ended up changing the whole colour scheme to fuschia pink, buying two skirts from Anokhi and asking him to make the blouses. He was not thrilled at this vote of no-confidence.

3) Since there would be a big party the day after the wedding, I asked Designer T to do a dress for me. I choose a dusty pink shade called ashes of roses. About a week before I was due to leave for Bangalore I hadn’t heard an inkling about that dress. At the end, it was clear he had forgotten about it. I went out and bought a dress from And. Designer T whipped up a dress overnight which turned out to be boring in design and the wrong colour. I refused to take it.

4) He was supposed to stitch me a sari blouse. I explained what I wanted and he did a sketch. What he produced was like a sports bra. In the end, my sister-in-law took me a similar “designer” in Bangalore, who from the scraps of the sari blouse piece left over from Designer T’s debacle stitched an awesome, if rather skimpy, blouse.

5) My veil, which he was supposed to do, ended up being essentially a piece of too-short net tacked on to a tiara (donated by my cousin from her October wedding).

6) Finally, when the wedding dress was produced it was decent but not a perfect fit. Admittedly, I lost a tonne of weight unexpectedly and he had to take it in. Also, I’m a bit of a perfectionist about tailored clothes because my mom used to stitch my clothes and agonise. So while I can make do with not-so-there fit in readymade clothes if I’m having something tailored, I expect perfection. Also, since Designer T was obviously less than talented in the design department, one would expect that at least the tailoring would be impeccable. My wedding dress was essentially a corset top and a skirt. A corset top needs to fit perfectly and mine didn’t. I ended up buying double-sided tape and sticking the neck to my chest.

That said, I am yet to come across a tailor in Bombay who does Western clothes well. I compare it to Shenzhen where one can get a perfectly stitched suit (jacket and trousers) having only been measured once. You go there, they measure you, you choose the fabric, pay and they courier the suit to Hong Kong. V has done this several times and the fit is perfect without even a single trial. The overall price depends on the material you choose but the stitching charges are reasonable.

Around Hong Kong too there are little shops where you can get stuff altered. Recently, the canopy of the gazebo on our roof tore and V took it to the tailor downstairs to fix. The man did a job that went well beyond the call of duty and the price we paid. Not only did he fix the tear but he secured all the Velcro fastenings as well.

It makes me wonder why Indians lack this attention to detail. One tends to excuse it on the grounds that they are badly paid. But the guys in Mainland China are cheap too. And the small shops in HK are not expensive, considering what it costs to rent a shop and live here. Regardless, when they undertake to do something they do a quality job. If they can’t do it or they can’t do it for the price you want it done, they say no.

I do think that people providing these services in India (or anywhere) should be paid better. For example, I think maids in India should be paid more. The problem is that even if they are paid more, I doubt that it will improve the quality of the work.

What is lacking seems to be pride in one’s work and a certain meticulousness that needs to be ingrained during childhood. I include myself here. Even the most anal Indians I know do not compare to the average Chinese when it comes to attention to detail.

It seems to me that Indians are good at being creative (a lot of the time this is about finding loopholes and shortcuts to get work done more quickly which could be a great asset if channeled properly) and we have the gift of the gab. This might be what makes us good at call centres and customer service or sales jobs, where we can essentially add the maska polish.

And it does appear that the jobs higher up in the value chain are exactly those that involve adding the polish without doing the hard work. So that’s good for us then.

But you still need someone to do that work right? It’s not enough just to have someone give you a frou-frou presentation of a dress. You still need the dress.

Co-Blogyssyers

So that you know I’m not the only one plodding through Ulysses, ??! has a post up with some helpful hints to anyone thinking of taking up the book.

My experience has been a bit different in that I’ve quite enjoyed the book so far, including looking up the notes. (Maybe it’s a bit like Chinese medicine where everyone told me how horrible it is that when I finally took it, I glugged it down quite easily.) I felt like I was getting two for the price of one, in terms of all the little literary nuggets I unearthed from the notes.

Also, I’ve read two books in between: Twilight, of the dreamy Edward Cullen fame, by Stephanie Meyer and I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Highly recommend both. Finished each in about two days and then back to Bloom it was.

I’m currently on chapter 14 (5 more to go!) and I’m even getting to like Bloom. Mainly because he’s turning into the underdog. I felt really sorry for him when the other guys were mean to him in the pub. And on that note, it appears from the book that all Irish men did is drink. It’s just about evening and Bloom has been in and out of a pub twice (or thrice) already. He’s supposed to be working but I don’t see much work happening, unless having pointless philosophical discussions is work.

Ah well, I’m supposed to be working. Maybe I should just nip down to the pub too.

Happy Birthday China

You’ve come a long way. Not everybody likes you. But I’ve met you. I’ve seen the smiles of your people, gorged on your food and feasted my eyes of your rich cultural heritage. You have a lot to give and you’re not all bad, despite your past.

In the next 60 years, I hope more of your people can see the progress that Beijing, Shanghai and the Pearl River Delta have seen. And I hope you continue to be nice to HK. Try to be nice to India as well; you’re 10 years ahead anyway, you can afford to be gracious now.

Thank you.

PS: Despite all the criticism, your parade was awesome.
PPS: Wish you hadn’t included a float on Taiwan though.