Tag: India

May 2

~ coronet22 ~ 2 Comments

We were in Jaipur, not many weeks before lockdown. As we sat, eating dinner in a marquee the size of Terminal Five, all sparkling in our various International versions of evening dress, an elegant, serious-looking Indian women glided towards us from across the lawn. Positioning herself beside”The Writer’s” gilt chair, she bent down, gracefully, to his ear and whispered, “I hope you don’t mind if I say something personal?”.

“The Writer” gazing up into her intense face, close enough to his for him to feel the warmth of her skin, clearly didn’t mind what she said, as long as she didn’t move from his side. She bent closer still, her voluptuous lips nearly touching his face, and breathed into his ear, “You know, if God were a lion, he’d look like you”. Then she straightened, fixed him with an intense stare and vanished into the night in a rustle of silken sari.

I mention this today because, “The Writer’s” hair is the topic of discussion at breakfast. (Surprisingly, most of the men I speak to and few of the women, seem concerned about the lack of hairdressers).

Me: “Would you like me to cut it?”

“The Writer”, rearing back in his chair, “What? Are you mad?”

Me: “Well, I could have a go or are you going to let it grow down to your shoulders?”

(I wonder, fleetingly, whether it’s only that he doesn’t trust my technique or is his virility at stake here. Has he developed a Samson complex during Lockdown?)

” She said I looked like God AND like a lion”.

“Who did?”

He gives me a half-piteous, half furious look that says, “If you loved me, you couldn’t possibly have forgotten”

So powerful is the look, I immediately remember. I remember the tent, the smell of a thousand Biryanis, Jalfrezis and Vindaloos on the already fragrant air, the men lounging with embroidered pashminas flung across their shoulders – and, of course, the woman.

“I think the longer it gets, the more leonine I look and, besides, I like looking feral”

“Disinfecting the shopping doesn’t seem very feral,” I remark.

He looks at me with scorn and shakes his head. His hair falls about his shoulders – almost.

It’s not as though I look upon the return of his hairdresser with any pleasure. He’s a beautiful young man who comes to the house and talks incessantly about cricket: World cricket, Test Cricket, One day cricket, Limited Overs, Twenty20, his own team, his batting averages, bowling averages, catches taken. Thinking about the ending of Lockdown and his return, I decide my husband does, indeed, look God-like and give up. I know when I’m beaten.

Besides, how can I compete with the prophet in the silken sari?

March 30

~ coronet22 ~ 1 Comment

I start today as I do every day, by opening my eyes and, still half-asleep, stumble to my computer to try and bag an on line food delivery slot. My heart actually thumps against my chest as I discover there are fruit and vegetables and cheese and milk. It settles again as I realise I’m being offered these delicacies at the beginning of May. I spend two hours a day trying to order food. Kind (young) neighbours have offered to help but I’m reluctant to call on them till we’re desperate.

Last essential chore last night was to clean our white kitchen floor. Whoever is mad enough to have a white kitchen floor? Years ago I bought a small robot mop to do the job I hate. Sadly, it doesn’t have human form and looks more like a square, white crab as it shuffles backwards and sideways, spitting out a feeble jet of water in front of it, completely inadequate to the task. But why would I want to anthropomorphise it anyway?

The kitchen table and chairs baffle it and , as I get ready for bed, I hear it banging into the steel chair legs over and over until I rescue it, turning its back on the chairs and starting it off in another direction, as you would a child or a dog running towards a lake. Unfortunately, this tactic leaves the space under the kitchen table unspeakable and I will have to mop it anyway in the morning. I finish my bedtime routine, longer and longer with the advancing years, then, before getting into bed, feel oddly compelled to sneak back into the kitchen to check on the robot. There it is, still sidling along. As I leave, I turn on the kitchen light. Suppose it’s afraid of the dark?

“The writer” seems to be doing more exercise than he did BC (Before Covid) when he had every glorious London park at his disposal. Now, he tramps up and down the terrace every day clocking up his 10,000 steps and seeming to enjoy the monotony.

That’s him on lap 33 of the terrace, reflected on the wall opposite:

Yesterday, he spotted a traffic warden down below in the street. No cars, not one – just a traffic warden.

With perfect ironic timing, a Shalwar Kameez I bought on a recent trip to India to wear at a very grand party, turned up in the post today. I could hardly bear to go through my long cardboard disinfection routine, so excited was I to see it.

Yes, yes, I know all about cultural appropriation and I tell you that if I could culturally appropriate the grace and beauty of the women I saw wearing such garments, I would do so in a heartbeat.

Of course, I had tried my best to ascertain that the conditions under which it was being made were as good as possible, but there’s no way I could be certain and I was hit, as I opened the package, by the fact that this exquisitely delicate garment must have left the country just before the chaotic and devastating lockdown that has caused so much misery to so many.

The party was cancelled long ago and the dress will remain unworn, so maybe that’s my punishment for not resisting it, but it’s so beautiful, I can’t bear to put it away and it hangs in my study , an unlikely and inappropriate reminder of the distraught, packed crowds of migrant workers jostling and fighting to get back to their villages.