Usual Evening

I took the key out of my pocket and inserted it in the key hole, rotated it anticlockwise twice before finally turning it slightly on the same side. The door opened making a clicking sound. I pushed the door ajar and got in. It was dark inside, sun had set sometime back and there was just enough light coming thru the large glass door opening to the swimming pool to facilitate viewing of the outline of things kept in the room. Everything in the room was black. My hands reached the switch board on the wall close to the door and 2 bulbs came alive. The living room was flooded with light and the things resumed their original color. Everything was as I had left it in the morning, 12 hours back. Some magazines and CD’s were lying on the sofa, a sleeveless sports wear, guide to Greece and a Greece map on top of it, pen that did not work and some used calling cards were lying on one of the single sofa. The locked Laptop was lying on one of the smaller tables sized to perfection, a Nikon camera connected to it thru the USB port.

I took my jacket off and tossed it on the closest sofa, took my shoes and socks off and placed them in the shoe rack. I picked up my jacket and started walking towards my bed room, on the way switching more lights in the alley to force some light in the bedroom. As I entered the room, I switched on more lights for easy viewing in that dimly lit room. I opened one panel of the cupboard and took a hanger out for my jacket.

I came out of the room after changing replacing all the clothes neatly to where they belonged.

I grabbed the remote from the sofa and turned the TV on, selected channel 7 and threw the remote on the sofa again. CNN is the only channel on my TV that features things in a language I understand. I went towards the kitchen still looking at the TV screen thinking what to make for dinner. The kitchen sink was filled with utensils made dirty while cooking and eating the evening before. Some utensils that were used even earlier were still lying coz they were not needed the day before. One larger glass contained light brown water, darker at the base. I had consumed coffee in that yesterday, the glass reminded me of my most recent room mate who was a coffee aficionado and invariably drank coffee in the same glass. Sink contained a cooker, a bowl, 2 plates, 2 glasses, some spoons, a bigger serving spoon, frying pan and a small knife placed shabbily in the sink. The utensils were accompanied with remains of food that kept sticking to them. I always made sure that they were not big to block the drain. It reminded me of the dinner I had the day before.

I decided to make CHILA, something resembling a normal roti but made from a viscous paste as in dosa. I cleaned only the required utensils, the coming day maid would clean the entire house anyway.

The house owner provides us with a maid service of 4 hours every week. The maid comes once every week on Thursday and cleans the entire house, places clean towels and hand towels for every bed, changes the bed sheet and bed cover and also cleans any utensils that are lying in the sink or are used.

After cleaning the frying pan, bowl, serving spoon and one plate I washed my hands and wiped it using a hand towel. It was time for some music, I unlocked my laptop and created a playlist to last for a couple of hours and came back to the kitchen.Then I took some wheat flour in the bowl enough to make four rotis, added 2 table spoon of curd, a small spoonful of jeera, red chilli powder and salt to taste. An Onion was cut into small pieces and was spread in the same bowl. I then took a glassful of warm water and added to the mixture, using a bigger spoon I mixed it to make a viscous paste like the dosa batter. I mixed the paste for sometime to make it uniform. I then mounted the frying pan on the gas stove and waited for it to become hot before spilling some ghee on it. The ghee melted soon and I spread it over the entire pan surface. I mixed the batter again before pouring it on the Pan. Subsequently I held the pan by the handle off the gas stove and dexterously moved my hand to spread the batter evenly on it. The Pan was replaced on the stove. The batter started to change its color from white to yellow cascading from the edge to the centre. It began to solidify starting from the edge gradually taking the same effect towards the centre. I made a way for the serving spoon to get under the Chila and then started loosening it from the pan surface. This needs some skill which I had developed over the past couple of months cooking dinner. The Chila came out intact and I flipped the surface so that it cooked evenly on both the sides. I flipped it a couple of times before placing it on the cleaned plate. I made 3 more Chilas, modus operandi still the same.I then settled on the Dining table and savored the self made food with pickle, Lays chips and curd. Neat.

After competing my dinner I placed all the used utensils in the sink and came and sat on the sofa.I flipped thru the channels for some time and finally gave up, I took out the pen drive from my bag and inserted it in one of the USB ports. I had to review some documents from offshore and rectify them. I got back to work and continued working till I was sleepy. The music volume was reduced to prevent losing that sleepy feeling. I copied all the updated documents back to the pen drive and left for my bed room. I realized I had not spoken a single word in the past 4 hours. I had no one to speak to once I was home, the same truth crossed my sleepy mind again, just that it did not turn me poignant anymore . Deewaron ke hi kaan hote hain (even walls have ears) but why bother about tht. I got up shutting down the laptop screen, came to the bedroom, threw my shirt on the adjoining bed, lied down and pulled that cover.

KO PANGAN PARAKALO

‘KOPANGAN PARAKALO’

‘Hi! This is Vivek from First Data. Can you take the order?’

‘Yessssh’

‘One 100, One 31 and One 35’

‘Cheeken???’

‘Yeah’

‘Isspicy??’

‘Yeah all Spicy’

‘4439???’

‘Yeah that’s correct’

‘Okay. Half hour’ jovially.

That’s a standard conversation I have at around 12:15 PM almost everyday of the work week.I order food for my Indian colleagues and myself from KO PANGAN restaurant. KO PANGAN serves Thai, Chinese and Indian food.

Language and food has given us a tough time at Athens. It took us a lot of experiments before we could settle for a few things that were eatable and consumable daily.World renowned SODEXHO runs the canteen at FDI, Hellas. Hellas is the greek name of Greece. We tried quite a lot of things before finally giving up eating at the canteen.We ate things that looked like a preparation of running nose extract seasoned with dressing that reminded me of shit that came out if you had an upset stomach.

“Though it looks like a bad shit, it’s gonna taste good yaar’ one of us chuckled.

I reckon that even if I would have tasted shit, I wouldn’t have agreed to that statement.
Greeks are really fond of pork and cow meat, in all forms, and hence all the eating joints have varied preparations containing those as the basic ingredient. I don’t eat cow meat as that is something prohibited in my religion. Just that I have not been able to get over it till date as my other colleagues and so I was left with lesser options. I had to relinquish eating something that I thrive on because of the threatening H591 BIRD FLU epidemic, which has distressed numerous parts of the globe, until some saintly soul divulged that if they are cooked above 70 degree centigrade, it’s harmless to our system.

The first few weeks were tough and it brought out the cook in me. We started cooking dinner which looked good and did not taste awful. Now we cook food that still looks good and tastes satisfactory. We experimented with cooking and can now successfully boast of having learnt to prepare various items, all eatable.
The first time we ordered the greek food; pork and pitha (kinda Indian Bread), we went gaga about the taste. We had to ask a greek colleague to order that as the those people do not understand english. I am glad the KO PANGAN guy does, well you dont have to be a degree holder in english to understand words as 'spicy' and 'chicken'. The following few days we ate that till we got sick of it. It contains cooked but bland pork pieces on sticks like Tikka kebabs and Pitha along with a sauce and fresh onions cut in small pieces. We had to eat that till it was warm coz the pork pieces became hard if left for some time and then the jaws suffered.

KO PANGAN happened one of those days when one greek colleague ordered food from there and we got to look at the MENU, fortunately it was printed in English also. We tried that and from then on we have depended on it for our lunch. Most of the items are preparation of rice and though I am not a rice lover, I am addicted to KO PANGAN food.

PARAKALO means hello in greek. Hence when I call up the guy at the store picks up the phone to utters the same words which seems recorded, ‘KO PANGAN PARAKALO’ and the same conversation continues.There are numbers against the items and instead of saying the name I prefer telling him the number to prevent any mishaps.The food is delivered in 30-45 mins time and I get a call on my extension 4439 from the security desk, the ring which involuntarily leads to the secretion of gastric juices. One of us go out to get the food, pay the delivery guy and profoundly thank him for the food.

Ef Kharisto KO PANGAN.

!! Ef Kharisto is THANK YOU in greek !!

Confession

Long gone are the days when I ran to my mom with sad & almost crying face if my sisters or anyone else would deny giving me something I was asking for. The things that followed had just one purpose, to save the world around with all those strident and discordant sounds. At times all my wishes were fulfilled, at other times I turned into a devil and took people on an odyssey to hell. I exercised the right of freedom of expression from the age I wasn’t even aware of anything called as Law or constitution. In my early childhood I used to spend time with people I liked and doing things I loved. It was so easy to express discontent or pleasure right on the face of people who instigated them. Now that my mind is wandering in the past, it is reminding me of various events that exhibited my freedom. One of my neighbour’s relative used to visit them pretty frequently. I would have been of 31/2 years then and she was a year elder to me. I loved that female. I had a double seater TOBU tricycle and no one was allowed to sit on the rear seat but her. I used to take her for ride and happily pedaled incessantly for long time. It didn’t take me long to realize that I wanted to marry her and I proposed soon after that. I had spoken to my parents and my neighbour as well. The marriage broke because she left without meeting me one time. After declaring that I went to my mom and broke the news. As usual she comforted me with her weird logics and her loving warm hands. Her assurance that I would find a better girl was very convincing. My love for my mom was much greater than my love for anyone else. She never went against me even if I turned the world upside down; she would beat and reprimand but never discard me.

Expression of love or discontentment was easier then.

As a child I appreciated even strangers for doing things that impressed me. In the trains and buses, which we used to commute at times, I spoke to people candidly telling them about all the things that I had learnt. Most of the happy mortals responded with that smiling invitation, which was enough for me to explore, and involved themselves in the unusual conversation. The greatest gift we humans ever had was inquisitiveness. After my initial round of knowledge sharing I would come up with bizarre questions, the answers to most of which is still unknown to mankind. Quintessentially as any other child, the questions ceased to stop unless disrupted by an angry look from my parents or relatives. Their involvement increased when I ignored those well-known gestures of anger. They had to pull me back. It invariably followed with subtle apologies made to the co passengers. Some passengers were Angels; they went overboard and insisted my parents to let me continue with my activities. I never failed to exploit those opportunities and intensified my activities. Nonetheless, at the back of my mind I knew I am gonna be punished for that audacity.

Approaching anyone from humans to animals was easier then.

I had got myself almost bitten by a snake once. It stayed in a hole at the joint of walls of my backyard. We had a water tank at the same corner. I had seen it many times taking its head out of that hole. I could not find anything to force it to come out of that hole. I was too small to reach that hole, moreover the water tank was another obstruction. As soon as I went close, it retreated. One fine day I got hold of a long stick and I poked the hole with all the strength my small hands had. As soon as I pulled the stick out, the snake leaped opening its mouth wide open but failed to reach me and fell in the open water tank. As usual I rushed to my mom and broke the news. She was flabbergasted. She came out and saw the snake in the tank. In a few seconds, all my clothes were lying on the floor and my mom was frantically checking every inch of my naked body to ensure I was not bitten by the snake. The snake was killed later.

Taking risks was easier then.

One of my family friends were regular visitors on the weekends. They had kids not much elder to me and so we had good fun together. Their arrival brought the monster out in me. I would become uncontrollable in their equally matched company. Neither their parents nor my parents were able to do much. Parents are mature or at least they try to and hence they are striving all the time to act in a fashion that exudes maturity. Well I believe this is only for the actions that are perceptible to the outer world. The repercussion of kicking the monster alive is a sad story. Letting myself free was easier then.

When I was in Class III, my closest friend left for another place as his dad got transferred. I felt as if some part of me was taken away from me. I cried for hours together, tears rolling all thru my chubby cheeks. The tears had left its trace on my face. I buried my face in my mom’s lap and kept crying, I started gasping for breath before finally sleeping in her lap. I have not found a place which brings me more peace than my mom’s lap. Those days I cried not bothering about what others were thinking.

Letting tears out was easy then.

The expressions on my face then were the mirror of my heart. All the feelings and expressions were genuine. I lacked the knowledge of demonstrating a different feeling on my face. I am still bad at it.

Years have passed and things are dramatically different now. I have learnt to live without complaining, with things that I don’t like and even with the things I hate. Interestingly I done even make an effort to make it obvious. I seldom appreciate strangers for their actions that impress me. Letting people know that I like them or hate them seems such an ardous task. At all times I try to be politically correct and do things in ways that display maturity. The world around expects me to be that way and right after I entered my teen my parents insisted that I let go off those childish things and behave a bit responsible. The sense of responsibility came late as I was the youngest in the family but it came; there were people all the time to take care of my things. The passing years are taking away my passion for things, inquisitiveness, learning and risk taking ability. I have almost turned a deaf ear to my heart. The mind is now favored over other things. Long journeys end without any conversation with the co passengers and even if a conversation is started it seldom continues, reason always being the same, unmatchable frequency. I am ashamed to ask questions, the insuppressible feeling of sounding stupid made me hesitant in asking questions initially and gradually I stopped. I have stopped taking risks and do things in a methodical way. No more experiments, no more fun. Letting myself loose is so rare.I personally believe that we are never grown up enough not to approach our parents for any problem, but still I live with them or take care of them myself instead of speaking to my parents about it now.I strive to appear brave, not letting my tears out even when I am in acute pain or have to give in to emotional outbursts, though it hurts to keep them inside.

Growing up has come at a humungous price.

Now I want to look up to a child and become like him. I want to be as happy as I was when I was a child. I need to animate the child in me who is in a deep slumber.

Neighbour

Last Sunday it was bright and sunny. The extended Greek winter started fading that day and gave way to some sunshine and warmth in the weather.I was getting bored after having a self prepared sumptuous lunch. I watched TV for some time browsing thru the greek channels intermittently getting back to CNN, the only channel in a language that I understand.I asked my roommate who was lying on the single sofa beside the bigger one on which I was lying if he was interested in going out. It was a Sunday and he usually stayed home relaxing.After he denied, I assessed if I wanted to go alone without him. I looked out of our living room thru the large glass pane, the bright sunlight was alluring. I got into a jeans and a shirt, pulled a jacket over it, wore my shoes and waived before leaving for ….nowhere. I didn’t know where to go; I got out of the house just to enjoy the changed weather. It was really pleasant outside. I started walking towards the road that led to the main road that lead to Kiffisia, kiffisia is one of the main and large markets close to our place. The main road is a 15 min walk if you walk easily. On all weekdays, I walk with my room mate to one of the bus stop on that main road from where we take a bus to the office. There is in fact a bus stop which is really close to our house, barely a mins walk away. But only one bus 536 services that road and for the first few days we religiously waited for the bus till our patience gave way and we started walking to the bus stand from where we could take 2 buses to our office and numerous buses to kiffisia.As usual I reached the bus stop in 15 mins and started waiting for the bus. The bus came in another 10 mins and I boarded it. I looked around to find a seat but unfortunately there was none. I should have realized that by looking at the number of people who were standing. I went on one side and stood supporting myself on the side of the bus.At the next stop a guy boarded the bus, came towards me and stood beside me. His features proclaimed his oriental origin, specifically Indian, Pakistani or Bangladesi. Well I have never met any Indian in Greece except the one who work with me at FDI. He had an unkept hair covered with a lot of dandruff. I blessed him in my usual college style, not getting angry though. He asked me in Hindi if I was getting down at kiffisia. “I never take the bus, mera maalik mujhe hamesha apne saath car me le kar ke jaata hai per aaj uska bhai aaya hua hai Karachi se. Mujhe yahan aaye hue 3 mahine hi hue hain aur mujhe raaste itne ache se pata nahi”. I figured out that he must be a Pakistani, but obvious. The conversation went on and he enquired about my home country. I had neither thought about meeting a Pakistani anytime nor had I thought about the kind of behavior it would exude. We spoke normally as I would have with a compatriot. He gave me an insight of his country, asked me about my visa and other legal papers to stay in the country. He was working in Dubai and had come to Athens recently without a Visa, spent 2 months in jail after he was caught and was waiting to get some legal papers to stay in Athens. I was surprised at the ease with which he mentioned staying in a jail and then coming out. He spoke about attorneys and the government’s indifferent attitude towards law and order. He compared the situation with the one prevalent in his own country. After having traveled to various parts of the globe, I have realized that Mumbai is what people recognize India with. Talking about Mumbai is inevitable after India is mentioned. We spoke about Mumbai and the illustrious bollywood industry and then the conversation came down to Shahrukh Khan and Manisha koirala. He had seen them in Dubai once. He wanted to know how the other actors looked like in real life, though the question did not make much sense to me but I gave a brief explanation of the few stars I have seen.