Jan 26, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on

Meditations on Food
©By Vijaya Sundaram
January 26th, 2014

I want to talk about food today.

Food is to live for, isn’t it? 

Consider its texture.  It’s crunchy, it’s crackly, it’s squishy, it’s pulpy, it’s juicy, it’s munchy, it’s crisp, it’s burnt, it’s caramelized, it’s boiled, it’s sauteed, it’s roasted and fried. It’s baked, it’s broiled, it’s raw, it’s oiled.  And it’s barbecued, an elegant, but barbaric practice.  (I mean, would you like to be seared and singed, burnt and bruised over hot coals?  I hear you say, “No, but I like my food that way!  Now, move aside, while I gnaw hungrily at this former-animal-turned-grilled-thing!”)

Consider its shapes.  It’s square, or rectangular, and round or oval, or triangular or purse-shaped.  It’s shapeless, disk-shaped, sometimes encased in glowing red (pomegranates), or translucent white (lemons), sometimes lumpy and pendulous (jackfruit) sometimes star-shaped (star-fruit).  It’s chunky, it’s stringy, it’s beady, it’s linked, it’s cylindrical and semi-spherical and it takes the shape you wish it to be.

Consider the egg.  It’s yellow in the middle and white around, which I hate, but then I think of the sun, and it makes sense.  I may not want to eat it, but I respect it for what it could be — a possible chicken, descendant of a dinosaur. I become a hypocrite when I eat it in its disguised form in cakes or pancakes, or muffins or cupcakes, or pudding or flan.  It’s okay when it’s in quiche (I cannot stand it sometimes) or in latkes (yum!)

Consider fruit.  Made to hold the future of the race of whatever tree from which it bends, pendant and pregnant, the casing for the seed, the womb within which the seed or seeds will send forth future seeds, and they, their seeds, the fruit we covet lies just beyond our reach, taunting, tempting, trembling lest we sink our teeth into its juicy flesh.  (Gosh!  I feel positively brutal when I eat the poor, hapless fruits I love.  Of course, I do so lovingly, giving thanks for each exquisitely satisfying, sensual bite.)  Consider the deep orange of the Alphonso mango, its lovely paisley shape, its juice the apotheosis of richness, herald of early summer, its pulpy ambrosia running down between one’s fingers, as one closes ones eyes, and licks each finger in an ecstasy of greed and pleasure.  Consider the pomegranate, its ruby-rich, glowing red jewels surrounded by protective, beautiful, red, inedible skin.  Seed after pearly seed dies between our teeth, while the transparent blood of the fruit stains our hands and tongue.  Consider the jackfruit, so lumpy and ugly on the outside, so velvety and pendulous and multi-fruited on the inside.  Dip one of those (de-pitted, of course) in golden honey from Kerala, raise it to your mouth, bite into it, let the nectar flow down your throat, and close your eyes.  You are one with the gods.  Consider the purple bleeding jamun of Pune and other cities in Maharashtra.  Another ungainly-looking fruit at first glance, but then, pop one, de-pitted or not, into your mouth, and sigh in bliss as purple tartness flows down your throat.  (Take care to spit out the seed, of course!).  Consider the fig, whose sweetness and million-seeded flesh makes me think that it was the original fruit of temptation in the fanciful Garden of Eden.  It is a fruit that speaks of forbidden things.  Then, there is the koyyapazham, known as the guava, the seetaphal, or custard apple, and the pearly, water-filled palm fruit known in Tamil as nongu, otherwise known by Maharashtrians as tadgole, so translucent, so rich and yielding to the tongue, whispering of sensual pleasures.  And of course, there’s the watermelon, and gleaming purple, red and green grapes, the many faces of the apple and the orange, plus the kiwi, the plum, the apricot, the peach … all gifts from the gods, but not really for us — just for the tree’s own self-generation and for the earth.  Unfortunately for the tree and the earth, but fortunately for us, we got there first.

Consider the vegetable.  So many kinds, so dewy, tender, rich, succulent, fresh, squashy, snippy, crisp with water and flavor, so leafy, so root-flavored, so tear-inducing, so satisfying to cut into and release their various fragrances!  Arrayed before my mind’s eye are ripe tomatoes and emerald-green ones, russet, white, yellow and red potatoes, crunchy bright green beans, peas whose green skin is so easily removed, the bitter karela, the curmudgeonly but divine eggplant, whose exterior tempts, but whose interior demands more work, the humble cabbage whose smell once released and allowed to escape, makes any vegetable better, especially with grated coconuts, green peas, talchukottal and shredded carrots, rich green spinach and cucumbers laden with water and tight, bright skin encasing it.  Broccoli (which George H.W. Bush petulantly disdained, revealing even more of his lack of good sense), cauliflower, kale, lettuce, carrots, beets, radishes, onions (so many types of onions — pearl, baby onions, red onions, brown onions, green onions, shallots, scallions, leeks, each of whose flavors creates an entirely different dish when one is substituted for another)! Oh, and so many, many varieties of peppers, and green and red chillies!

Consider taste.  Syrup-sweet, honeyed, sugar-crisp, lemon-sour, tamarind-lip-curling-sour, lime-tongue-tingling sour, spring-fresh minty-ness, basil-so-holy, parsley-sprigged, coriander-maddening, spicy with curcumin, spicy with capsaicin, spicy with pepper, spicy with mixed, ground masala, mouth-freshening cardamom, throat-soothing cloves, fragrant cinnamon, face-twisting bitter-gourd, nose-wrinkling asafoetida… all of these call to us, and offer themselves up to our ravenous appetite for a departure from daily-ness.

Consider all the different cuisines of the world.  All the different grains, the heavenly baked breads that give up their essence when cracked open by rough, loving hands, the simmering, spiced stews, the creamy, or sour, or tart, or cumin-seed-imbued sauces, the flaky and crisp dishes served up in so many guises.  I do, and it pleases me.  I cannot say I am brave enough to try them all, but I like reading about them.  That’s what turns me on, more than the food itself might.  Charles Lamb, when he wrote about roast pig and crackling, made me desire that hitherto repellent-sounding food.  Even Enid Blyton, when she describes tomatoes and tongue, sausage and pudding, makes me hungry.  When a mystery writer like Sue Grafton indulges in a sensual description of whatever her private detective, Kinsey Millhone, desires in terms of food, it makes me want to snarf up that quarter-pounder (disgusting though it really is to my eyes, nose and mind) and bite into fries crisped in deep fat — fortunately for me, I’m a vegetarian, so I won’t ever taste the quarter-pounder, and I steer clear of French fries in real life!  Not quite in the same vein, but still vicariously, I read Ruth Reichl’s description of sushi (which I’ll never eat), described in such loving, ecstatic, sensuality that it makes me almost moan, I close my eyes and swoon with pleasure, imagining it all.  When she describes some exquisite French or Italian dish, I am almost jealous, because I know I shall never, ever bring myself to taste it, because it’s almost invariably non-vegetarian food that she rhapsodizes over!  (Damn it!) 

Still, all those descriptions make me feel part of the culture of tasting it.

Words can do that.

Who cares for the real thing, when words can make it all better?  Words, enticing waiters all, carrying trays beautifully balanced with fragrant dishes, take a message to my hungry mind, as I wait, poised at a table set for one, with a tender rose in a small glass vase in front of me, and a single, rose-shaped candle in a crystal bowl of water, bringing to my mind’s palate an experience which cannot be matched by the real thing, while Persian or Turkish classical music plays in the background, and censers waft perfume into the air, and silken curtains billow in a world that can be so much more real (and much less messy) than this one!

On the other hand, I do like to eat.  So, all you vegetables and fruits, all you delicacies and dishes that are made for the likes of me, tremble, for I shall come for you all!  And all you textures and tastes, you colors and aromas, you finger-friendly, tongue-delighting treats awaiting me in my future, I draw ever closer to you, for I love you all! 

_____________________________ The End __________________________________

Tags: aromas of food, cuisines, delicacies, essay on food, Food, senses, sensory pleasure in food, textures of food, words as reality

Jan 19, 2014 Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Music

… And I had no idea that I was going to write a song.  These words below flowed  easily, as I put some chords together, and the melody came with the words.

You may not know this, Gentle Reader, but the last time I wrote a song was in the late 1990s.

Perhaps this will stay, perhaps it might not, but I liked it today.  I plan to record a rudimentary version of it tonight on my MacBookPro’sPhotoBooth, so as to keep a record of it.  Whether I will post the recording or not, only time will tell.  Meanwhile, here it is, raw.  And no, nothing at all prompted this.  It’s just a story.

_________________________________________________________

School-Girl with Smart-Phone
(OR: Perhaps it Doesn’t Really Matter)
©By Vijaya Sundaram
January 19th, 2014

The crystal face she peers into clouds right up.
Not a glimpse of clear sky,
Not a glimpse of hope.

She looks within, no messages pop right up.
No one to miss her,
No way to cope.

Should I stay or should I go?
Should I do my best to know?
Would it be the way for me,
To spread my wings, and to be truly free?

They don’t see her standing here alone so long.
They don’t see all her scars.
They cannot see her.

In the halls, as she walks by invisible,
People seem to stand so far,
They do not stir.

Should I stay or should I go?
Should I do my best to know?
Would it be the way for me,
To cut my wings, and then be so truly free?

Every empty canyon calls,
Every stretch of waterfall,
Every mountaintop so tall,
To each of these she starts to crawl.

Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.

A new sun will rise again
With me here or without.
Morning birds will fly again
With me here or without.

Trees will make their coat of green,
I will try to not be seen.

I will grow these roots and leaves,
And I will plant myself in earth.
I will find a face that’s undeceived,
And find it all to be of worth.

Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter.
She turns to her phone
She turn to her phone
Call me.

___________________________ The End ________________________

Tags: #Loneliness, #Original Poetry, Girl with SmartPhone, original song, school

Jun 24, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Teaching and Learning

Cross-posted on FB as well:

Just had my heart opened and cracked into many pieces, with my innards ripped out gently and inexorably by Tim O’Brien. [Finally got around to reading (and just finishing) “The Things They Carried.” Read it in spurts over the past couple of days, in between grading, cooking, grading, fending off an intruder, grading some more, dealing with people at work, grading some more, then saying, “The hell with grading- I want to read something GOOD, dammit!”].

Did I mention that I think Tim O’Brien is a god? War stories or not, this book is as tender, as beautiful, as merciless, as inexorable and as visceral as the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, of Vladimir Nabokov, of Jhumpa Lahiri and of Arundhati Roy.

Now, I have to go back to about fifty or so short stories written by young people. Many of these are not half-bad. They badly need a full-time grammar and punctuation coach though, some of them. Still, I always like stories by kids even the most pointless ones.

The academic school year is pretty much done by tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll believe it only when it’s over.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: grading, school, short stories by students, Tim O'Brien

Mar 29, 2013 Awake in Dream Time - Journal Entries about the almost real, the surreal and the unreal, Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Reading, Writing, Thinking

On Neil Gaiman and Fearlessness 

©By Vijaya Sundaram

March 29th, 2013

Ever since the day I first encountered The Sandman series, I have loved and admired that possessed writer-and-venturer into perilous territory — Neil Gaiman.

He takes his  books, his themes and characters far afield, into terrible, sometimes disgusting, sometimes amazing territory, but somehow, he tends to bring our favorite people safely home, and as in Coleridge’s poem, his characters and his readers often wake up, “sadder and wiser” on the “morrow morn.”

I love how he shares his work, his advice and his ideas so generously.  Like all true writers, he seems to sense that we draw from the same deep well of stories that have moved, nourished or startled our spirits since time began.

I recognized Neil as a fellow-dreamer when I first read The Sandman series.  I, too, had strange dreams.  I, too, imagined the Lord of Dreams, because I had steeped myself in Greek mythology since I was a young girl.  I wrote stories and songs about these well before I had read his work.  Then, I read him, and he blew my mind with his tender blend of love and terror.  His imagination is completely unfettered, and his intellect is a joy to behold.

And he always goes farther into scarier territory than many writers (and I don’t mean in the realms of  horror, per se, just imagination), farther than I have dared in any of my stories — and his books, The Sandman  series, American Gods, Neverwhere, Coraline and The Graveyard Book have pushed the edges of the story-telling universe.

And he inspires me to find my own way into those places — and again,  I don’t mean horror, just daring, the kind of daring that makes a person take one step back, and then take a flying leap into the abyss, with absolute certainty that he will land on his feet.

Thank you, Mr. Gaiman!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The End ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: Creativity, Fearlessness, Neil Gaiman, Writing

Mar 7, 2013 Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on, Reading, Writing, Thinking, Teaching and Learning

 OR: A Day in the Life of this Eighth Grade English Teacher

Today was a day of non-academic messiness.

We had finished John Steinbeck’s book The Pearl almost two weeks ago, but were working rather late on the projects, because the materials I’d ordered would take that long to arrive.  So, after their essay on the book, we moved on to our Holocaust unit, but revisited The Pearl in an oblique manner, in order to work on our “Personal Pearl” project.

In the book by Steinbeck (a terribly, terribly sad book, with almost no joy in it, except at the start), the protagonist, Kino, an indigenous pearl fisherman near the Sea of Cortez on the Pacific side of Mexico, finds a pearl, which they call “the Pearl of the World.”  The pearl seems, to Kino, to be a sort of crystal ball in which he can see his future — he’s very poor, and his idea of wealth consists of seeing himself, his wife, Juana, and their son Coyotito, all clad in beautiful new clothes.  He envisions himself getting properly married in a church, and getting their son baptised.  He sees his son getting an education, and reading from “a great book.”  He imagines a harpoon to replace the one he’d lost, and finally, he visualizes a rifle.  He shares his dreams with his neighbors, and this last one makes all of them hold their breath in amazement.  Ultimately, through some terrible events (which I cannot divulge), all that he finds himself with at the end of the book is the rifle.  All his other dreams vanish, and when he looks into the pearl, all he sees is the recent dead past, along with the scenes of suffering he’s had to undergo in his need to keep his pearl in order to sell it in the big city (as opposed to the greedy and underhanded pearl dealers in town, who had offered him a pittance for it).  Thus, the pearl becomes an extension of Kino’s past, present and future, an outward screen onto which all his dreams and hopes get projected.  It has always been and will always be only a pearl, but to Kino, it’s a symbol of all the misfortune and calamities he’s suffered.  The only recourse he has, at the end, is to part with it, and the way he does it, is as inevitable as the ending of a book of this nature can be.

It’s far from pleasant in parts, but the rhythm of Steinbeck’s prose is akin to hearing poetry spoken aloud by a singer.  The cadence of his language, the choice of words, the sentence structures, the metaphors — these make my imagination swoon.

But because the book is so sad, and our essay on it is so serious in tone, I try to offset that by having students work on personal pearls of their own (which is accompanied by a lighter, more personal essay).  These, however, are pearls which they create, and which reflect some aspect of  themselves (unlike Kino, who found his pearl, and it became his soul).  These pearls symbolize the work they do.  I ask them to imagine that we humans are all busily creating pearls out of the travails or struggles of our lives, much like an oyster would create a pearl to deal with the irritation caused by sand in its bivalves.

Thus, today, my students were going to make a “personal pearl” with small spheres I’d bought for the purpose.  On this “pearl” they were supposed to glue colorful pieces of tissue paper, and add details about some of their past achievements, or things they were proud to have accomplished — as public as winning a trophy, learning to sky-dive, learning to do several back-flips, or land an A in Spanish or French, and also as private as conquering fears or bad habits, becoming better at staying focused, speaking up in public, or gaining new confidence in themselves.

So, you can imagine the scene:

~A total of one hundred and seven students working on this project, arriving in groups of twenty or twenty-two, every forty-seven minutes (I teach five class periods), full of energy, full of the potential for deep mischief, full of enthusiasm at doing something different in an English class (Really?  We get to glue things, and mess around?), and ready to tackle anything.

~Controlled chaos erupting in the back of the classroom, with PILES of beautiful tissue paper,  shiny mylar paper, plus big containers of the smelliest, nastiest, stickiest but really fast-drying, and easily washable glue that leaves glued-on surfaces shiny and smooth: The charmingly named Mod-Podge.

~Chatter and cooperation, some occasional foolishness, which was quickly quelled by someone’s coevals and group pressure to do a nice job.

~And LOTS of paper strewn about everywhere — on desks, falling in slow-motion to the floor, lying in rainbow heaps on computer counters, decorating an occasional crazy student, or an object that’s not meant to be decorated.

This was our day, and it was good.

I like chaos, actually.  I don’t mind it at all.  People, when they know they’re going to make a nice, happy mess, change in behavior around each other.  They feel and act freer, somehow.  There’s lots of kidding, plenty of good-natured teasing, lobbed back-and-forth sallies between teacher and students, and license for me to say things like, “What on earth is THAT?!  Surely, you’re not thinking of handing that in!  It’s terrible!  It’s so awful I’m going to faint.  Save me!”

I can be terribly sexist (against boys — sorry!).  “Look at the girls, boys!  Check out how nicely they’re doing it.  Learn from them.  How come boys have NO clue how to be neat?  Huh?”  At this point, some boy will then hold up his beautifully worked-on “pearl” and I’ll pretend to reel my words back in, and eat them.  Sorry!  Sometimes, we can be wrong, you know!

So, the day unfolded.  I collected late homework assignments, had parent conferences during our mid-day Team Meeting time (saw FOUR parents within forty-five minutes, and all of the meetings were positive ones — yay!).

I opened a window, and the wind blew in promptly making little eddies of colored paper swirl up in the air, before I wrestled them into submission, while flakes of snow whirled around outside in the little courtyard below.  I wiped down the tables three times today, and swept my floor with my nifty little broom three times as well.  Otherwise, the scene that would have met the custodian’s eyes this evening would have made him faint right away.  And if he didn’t revive, it would have been on my head.

And I wouldn’t like that.

Besides, no one would like to walk into my classroom tomorrow morning, and find a passed-out, or worse, deceased custodian on the floor.  That’s a no-no!  (I mean, how would we concentrate on our studies?)

Such are the kinds of things we teachers have to worry about in order to keep our jobs!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The End~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: #Learning, #Teaching, A Day in the Life of an English Teacher, John Steinbeck, mild attempts at humor, Personal Pearl, Silliness, Snark, The Pearl