American Saga – September 2015

This is a sequel to my August musings. I am writing this from the other side of the Tropic of Cancer--at degrees 43 North and 74 West (New York City--approximately) to be precise. My friends and relatives encouraged me to write sequels to the maiden effort of August. I am presenting again the monthly (If possible) 'Man Ki Batein' (manassil thonniyathum vayil thonniyathum aya assumbandhangal).                                                                              

I am still fascinated by the flora around. Our knowledge about the Flora around have improved from knowing the 'Fern Plants' (Phylum  Pteridophyta ) to identifying few more trees around (result of an Arbo culturist's visit to the premises--same like the Rama Moopan of Kodungallur, the wood cutter nick named Hercules because of his rippling muscles and long loose curly hairs ). Now I can identify a Maple tree, a Crab Apple tree, Japanese Maple tree, one Cryptomeria, one Kwansan Cherry and an Ash tree in our front and rear lawns. As per Ms. Sherry Mendelson, our neighbour the Japanese beauty, planted by the first owners of the house--a Thai Family ,cost them $ 15000. Sherry also requested us to be loving and caring towards this Japanese beauty, one of its kind among a multitude around. On application of my multiplication factor of 65 to this figure I was shell shocked. Since Sherry is a neighbour who has no axe to grind and the fact that generally her race do not lie I believed her. But on looking up the net I found that a small plant could have cost them $ 150 only. Then I realized that Sherry may be the American version of our " Nadan Nunachi Parru". However the revelation about the cost dampened a bit my enthusiastic intent to plant a fruit bearing tree in the lawns on my birthday in October.

Coming back to the fauna around, on close observation we knew that some of the birds frequenting our yard vaguely resembled some of the species in our 'Gods own Country'. Something similar to Jose and Hosey-(Dravidian and Caucasian, but Homosapiens surely) But the birds here may be chirping in English/ Navajo--the Native American tongue.

The things were moving smoothly, till calamity struck one day. On a cleaning day the nameless cleaning lady threw my 'Rajasevak' bottle into the trash. After seeing me panic, Kamala told me to use the bottle containing 'ClearSplash',a cranberry,raspberry flavoured sparkling water beverage. Two such bottles were bought by me thinking they are mineral water bottles. Knowing my insistence for not wasting anything which is paid for, smilingly she suggested me to use the Clear Splash as it is for my morning constitutional. The prospect of having a flavoured ,slightly fragrant, sticky and sweet derriere(Tashreef in Urdu) is a total waste and did not appeal to me. Hence though it pained me, I emptied the contents of the bottle to fill water. Nowadays on cleaning days I keep the bottle out of site of the cleaners (Those Hispanic damsels).

Here as mentioned earlier food is a gourmet delight. At least once a week, we either go to an  eating joint or order from takeaways. The takeaway joints are the Calcutta Wraps at Ardsley or the Mexican joint-Chitpotle. From Calcutta Wraps we can get among the host of other Indian fare the chat, dahiballa, Sandesh, gulabjam, rolls etc. Their piece de resistance, we were told, is the Bengali Macher Jhol, which we are yet to taste. Saugata my son-in-law, though a blue blooded Mahashay or Moshai, he normally prefers things moving on four legs.

From the Mexican Chitpotle, I keep company to Nalini, by ordering vegetarian fare than the non veg Tachos, Burritos or Burrito Bowls. Both me and Nalini settle for Veg Salads with slight changes in the ingredients. Basically it consists of leaves, weeds, grass and some brown rice with sour cream/salsa and pinto beans (our Goan Pinto,Albert Pinto ko gussa Kyom aya genre) It generally looks like cattle feed. Once we start this salad no talking for a considerable period of time. We keep on chewing, chewing and chewing. Nalini chews and throws a smile. This I recommend as an effective panacea to keep a talkative partner (you know what I mean ) silent for a considerable amount of time. I think I should recommend it to my friend S.K. Nair in Chennai who is facing such problems. I normally take more time to eat because of the absence of teeth where required and the denture in the lower front jaw.

The story of the denture is pathetic (Dukh Bhari in Hindi). I lost my first tooth in Indian Military Academy(IMA) during training in year 1969. Here during the Novices Boxing round my opponent, an earlier Avatar (Matsya,Koorma,Varahashcha,Narasimhashcha etc genre) of our own Mary Kom knocked out one tooth from my lower Jaw- that too a frontal one. To get this tooth replaced I needed an injury report from my Alpha  Battalion Adjutant Captain R.S.Bajwa. On approaching this commando course dagger recipient(a real tough nut) he yelled at me “you F..n  shammer” which was followed by a torrent of expletives and a final expletive to get lost. The Kodungallur Bharani songs are more civil and refined in comparison to the expletives of the commando dagger. There ended my pursuit for an injury report. I got this tooth finally fixed during my mid-term break by an outside Dentist. It was a so called permanent fix .I lost that permanently fixed tooth somewhere inside my gut along with some tandoori chicken in a Darjeeling restaurant while having lunch after a few shots of Brandy with hot water. Till such time it was fixed again, during Dental Inspections in Army, I used to point to the Dentist ( 31 up there in the mouth and 1 somewhere down under). Subsequently I lost a few more in time and reached the present condition.

The other eating joints we visit are the Uno Chicago Grill in Yonkers,( where I  normally settle for Fish & Chips ) and 'The cheese cake factory' of The Ridge Hill Mall. In this Cheese Cake Factory, I had a funny experience. Having settled for a Chicken Lettuce wrap with Asian fillings from the small Plates section, I was taken aback when the food arrived. As per the menu the dish consisted of butter lettuce leaves filled with Grilled Chicken and an Asian filling of carrots, bean sprouts, cucumber, cilantro and rice noodles with spicy (!?) cashew sauce. The food was served on a metallic ware of sinusoidall shape having four peaks and three troughs and three wraps served in each trough on tissue papers. I was on the horns of dilemma without knowing where to start and how to start with a sense of deja vu. A similar situation I faced in Meerut in year 1967 where I had gone for Service Selection Board interview. After dinner in an outside restaurant when the waiter brought the finger bowl with a lime piece and hot water (It was winter time-January) I did not know what to do. I will not disclose what I did with that and the reaction of the waiter when he came to clear the bowl lest my daughters and my eldest granddaughter will disown me. The small plate was really small with the ingredients mentioned in the menu appearing in all troughs but not even one gram each in each lettuce leaf. The grilled chicken was like a shrivelled impurity in only two leaves and the rice noodle was three strands one each in the leaves. The main existentialistic issue I faced was how to eat it. Nalini as usual was smiling after seeing the enormous quantity (!) of food and offered me something from her plate. Actually I was not in a mood to accept any generosities. At last making sure by glancing around that nobody is watching including my own flesh and blood sitting opposite and next to me I, using my hands and whatever I could get consumed them in record time including the tissue paper in one of the wraps. This was like the Army lady wife who ate the cardboard base of a salad decoration Nalini made at a Officers Mess function in Nabha, Punjab.

We still are doing the chores explained earlier. But nowadays I can do them in a jiffy ( Bhayiye hath ka Khel in Hindi and Edathu kayyinde Kali in Malayalam). After that it is TV, Movie and weeklies. The 'people' periodical is full of stories on T V and Movie Actors-Sensational scoops,titilating scandals,marriages and divorces after 21 days of marriage and so on. The stories about the Duggar family of T V reality show, about Jennifer Anniston , on the Friend ship of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, interview details of Anne Hathaway and Robert de Nero, etc are interesting. Another interesting story was of the Kardashians, the fashion line family. Their story of my children, your children and our children is like our own Shoba De's story. But the interesting part in the Kardashian .story is that Bruce Jenner who was married to Kris (earlier Kris Kardashians) is claimed to have two daughters Kylie and Kendal with Kris. Bruce Jenner was married to Kris for 23 years. Now he is Caitlyn Jenner,-a transgender. According to him he felt like a woman for over 65 years. I can see the smile on some faces!! It is a weird world (Anantham,Anjatham,Avarnanieum,e Bhuloka Golam Tiriyunna Margam-Courtesy Nalapat Narayana Menon).

U.S is really a wonderful place with absolute freedom to wear anything you want. I could have stayed here for the intended five months with two or three shorts and a few tees and a woollen sweater or a jacket for October. Here majority of the male and female species including children move around in shorts. The shorts of men and boys are knee length long where as that of the ladies/girls shorts go up and up and the shorts stop going up when they feel shy. In our ' Gods own Country' if the men move around like this people will mistake them for old time municipal/panchayat workers to do menial jobs. But their knee length shorts were khaki in colour.

Here having tempted to do some creative work, I started growing a French beard. Nalini took my photo to send it to her whatsapp friends. It was mainly to show the tee shirt she gave to me as a 'Pirannal' gift on my star birthday after taking money from me. Her friends wanted to see this unique gift for which she did not have to pay. May be to emulate this practice. On seeing this photo, my nine year old eldest granddaughter, hit her forehead in disgust and remarked that “Muthachan should have stayed in India only. Now he does not look like a Nana (maternal grandfather), he looks more like a father now”. What a compliment! On this happy note I bid farewell for now. Will try to reach you all next month.

Appu

27th September 2015