Navarasam - no its not a recipe

Having learnt Bharathanatiyum for 7 years, here is an opportunity to use it…one of the first things you learn is the Navarasam. It is fantastic to watch a pro able to bring the 9 different expressions in the face. I never practised in front of a mirror, but I thought I was quite good at it ( huh ..you can never find out whether I am saying the truth or not…I was the best in the class..lol)

Anyway since I have named my blog me, myself and my world, here are the interesting navarasa incidents in my life..i have left Love to be the last one..to make it more interesting..lol

Shantha(Serenity) – Who else can bring all the serenity in my life..none other than the little one who is capable of bringing exact opposite emotions in me in a short span of time. So one of the peak performance days, mostly during a weekend when hubi is away from home. She insists on sitting in the kitchen slab, watching me cut veges, then pull a big chair to stand next to me to watch me grind in the mixie screaming on top of her voice asking me to move away because I was blocking her view, again back to slab watching me struggle, in the mean time open close microwave a few times, pull things from the pantry, throw a handful of rice on the floor, pick up any spice box in reach and empty them in carpet ( making sure only powders are picked and they are spilled on carpet, so it is impossible to clean), spill some apple juice in carpet, then pick up washed cloths from the laundry basket to throw them everywhere, wet her entire dress in the process of washing hands…and many more in a matter of 2 hours and then there is silence…I remember her saying she was sleepy…and I check on her to find her wrapped up in her little quilt, AC on ( she turns it on herself) and sleeping peacefully sucking her thumb. Unbelievable that after all the hungamas, she can just lie down and fall asleep by herself so quickly. The serenity..is this ..this moment of me watching her sleep…and the next 60 minutes or so :)

Adbhuta(Wonder) – My mil is a doctor in her late 50s. I haven’t stopped wondering at her in the past decade I’ve known her. How she does what she does is amazing. She quit her job twice to support my fil and the kids. Fil being busy pretty much through out his career, mil took care of the kids, school, home, career. She mentioned how she was fighting the working mother’s guilt and made sure the kids never felt the difference. She never did overtime at work, she never worked in the weekends and she never missed a single achievement of the kids, be it sports day or competitions. She quit her job for the 3rd time when my sil needed her and the past 5 years has been her busiest managing a toddler and fil and running the show all by herself. Be it organising the driver/cook/watchman or managing paper work for insurance or calling us every alternate day. What’s best she hasn’t taken any time to do what she wants to do, never made it to functions important to her and never complained. If I was half as committed and selfless as her at her age, I would consider myself an awesome amazing woman ( hehe like I don’t think that way now..)

Hasya(Humour) – I am toilet training my little girl. This means I need to be alert at all times constantly reminding her or watching her expressions for a hint. Anyway so here we are sitting in the table painting, she stood up suddenly and it took me 3 long seconds to realise why. Before I could open my mouth to say “ do you want go to…” it was too late…so she stood there doing what she had to do and hubi who was obviously sitting in the couch watching tv and relaxing turns to her says “ un manasula yenna Reema Senu nenapa’ ( translated to do u think you are reema sen in the movie aayirathil oruvan) its amazing how he could remember just that scene from the 3 hour long movie and compared the 2 situations..but it was hilarious, bubby dint understand why we were laughing, but decided to go back to her seat, giving me additional task to wash the chair along with the cloths.

Veera(Courage) – After our 4 weeks visit to India, me and bubs came back to Melbourne while hubi had to extend his trip for further 2 weeks. 2 days went by fine, third day I walk inside home after finishing work, picking bubby from day care, i the saw this lizard – what we call pambrani or pambaranai in tamil, it is slimy like a snake, but smaller like a big lizard. Mr. P had probably just entered the house and when I opened the door decided to hide under baby’s toy box. I was so scared, I asked baby to stay away, tried to keep cool, if bubby sees me panic she would start crying. So I took this broom and moved all boxes and try to chase it out. It went and hid under every single shoe I had near the door…and that’s a LOT. Once I moved all shoes away, I am trying to show him the way out. He would simply run from one end of door to other and not make an effort to climb out of the door. I am hitting him with all the little courage left in me, now the tail got disconnected and was jumping up and down. I wasn’t sure if I should hit the lizard or the tail. Like anyone as bold as me, I hit the tail harder and it fell into 3 pieces and Mr.P hid under the couch. Thank god for my neighbours, I ran to their house, drenched in sweat, asked the man of the house to help me. He offered to keep bub there and came with a bigger broom. He couldn’t hit it, but managed to send it out of the front yard door. I was relieved yet so scared, spent the next 2 hours with Mr & Mrs KV came back late in the night, went straight to the bedroom, sealing the bedroom door. Needless to say I dreamt of nothing but lizards …hundreds of them in the house.

Bhibasta(Disgust) – Men, ok not all some of them absolutely disgust me. I was in this ice cream shop in Adyar with hubi, then boy friend ( year 2000), so here we were sitting with all giggles and love in the air. I saw this couple walk in, mid thirties in the middle of an argument. Sat down ordered food while continuing their argument. Then this man just got up and slapped the woman. The woman must have been so humiliated, but she just sat there. He continued talking. Then when the waiter served them their food, he yelled at the waiter and asked him to take it back, I wasn’t sure what was the problem. The lady tried to console him, then they just sat there like nothing happened..still talking.

Krodha(Anger) – This happened recently. We landed in Chennai 1st week December after 24 hours looong transit in Singapore, where we spent all day roaming around in the HOT sun. When we walked towards immigration, the thermal indicator showed bubby’s temperature a bit high ( what do you expect from a 3 year old who had an eventful day and slept through the flight from Singapore-chennai). They refused to accept she had no fever and refused to check her temperature 10 minutes later ( when she was just fine). Anyway they insisted on us going to a test centre in ambulance and give her swab sample to test for Swine Flu. What happened after this just made me furious. They sent this Mr.Captain Prabhakaran with us to take us straight to the ambulance. There was another kid who was caught with high fever. So the other kid, his dad, bubby and us were to go together. First the ambulance drivers went on to have tea, then Mr.Captain first let the other kid go away and spend time with his family ( so much for him protecting the flu from reaching the city), then was the absolutely disgusting ambulance. i held baby tight not letting her touch anything. After an hours wait, we left for the centre. The swab was taken by a young guy who did not change his gloves after taking the sample from the other kid, the cotton was just kept in a bag, on a dusty window sill. I spent the next week praying my bubby shouldn’t have picked up any infection in this process, more importantly the other kid shudnt have had swine Flu. What is worse is during the long wait, my bro pulled the right strings and Captain received a call just when we were leaving and he said “ you should have told me you knew “so and so” I would have let you go “. Righttt so much for doing the right thing!!!!!

Bhayankaram(Fear) - It was during my semester exams in the 2nd year uni. I was sitting on my bed studying really hard the day before the exam (this is what happens when you go to movies during study holidays in the name of group study). Anyway so there is a loft in every bedroom at my parents house. There was this big TV box in the loft. I knew there lived a huge lizard somewhere around the box and I knew it was in the room when it runs on the box. I could hear it like a little patting on the box. But that night there was something happening..the lizard kept running up and down the box continuously. I dint dare to look up and see what it was upto and then I heard it..a tiny flutter and I had to look up now. This time I saw my fear 2 factor..a cockroach flying, trying to escape from the lizard. What happened in the next minute still brings goose bumps. The cockroach flew and decided to sit on my head and that second I froze, suddenly I was scared if the lizard would jump on my head to catch the cockroach. I screamed out soo loud, ran out of the room, went straight to our dinning room, climbed on top of the table and kept screaming. It was probably 2 am, mom and dad woke up and saw me standing on top of dinning table screaming. I refused to go back to my room for the next 24 hours until mom assured me to chased the lizard out of my room. I have never been so scared in my life.

Karuna(compassion) – Bubby’s day care is where you will see all the emotions. The days when bubby cries and not let me go melts my heart every single time. There are kids holding their toy, favourite pillow or parent’s legs (like my bub). The carer took bubs along with 2 other crying kids to the big window in the front and asked them to wave to their parents. I stood on the other side of the dark glass window waving, I could not hear a thing, but i could see was bubby crying out loud, trying to touch me through the window :(
I still spend time at the day care entertaining the newbees, trying to settle down !

Shringara(Love) – This was in 1999, story of any teenager who watched DDLJ. I was one of those who went on a college tour with exactly the same thought..find my Sharukh Khan :). I was again meticulously following the Karva Chauth ( fasting all day on a full moon day will bring your love life true..or something along those linesss) as depicted in the movie. The day we were scheduled to visit Taj Mahal was a full moon day. We reached there around 6 pm. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Taj Mahal under the full moon light. We just sat there watching it. Nothing happened until we returned to Delhi. It was past midnight, we…about 10 girls decided to walk in the streets of delhi ( we were sooo naïve, dint think it was any risky..now seems so scary). So we were singing and dancing when we bumped into 4 guys from our college, friends of hubi (offcourse!!!!). 5 minutes later I saw hubi standing there (one of his friends obviously ran up and told him). Hubi offered to walk me back to our motel ( which was like 5 minutes away), throughout asking me if he can take me on the date the next day…last day of the tour. I said no to him as we were scheduled to go around Delhi with the group and couldn’t ditch my friends (right!!!). Mind you..I dint know hubi much except spoken to him a couple of times before the tour. When I came back to my room, my friends convinced me I should go out with him, afterall he was the heart throb of the college. I tried calling him all night and the morning but no luck, the motel number was constantly engaged. I held the phone thinking, let me try one last time, if it doesn’t work I will go ahead with my plan. It dint go through and I turned back, unbelievable yet true hubi was standing in front of the motel to ask me if I had changed my mind!!! He literally swept me off my feet in the next 48 hours, the eventful date followed by the train journey from Delhi to Chennai. When daddy picked me from the Chennai station, I was like the Kajol walking away humming “ naa jaane mere dil ko kya hooo gaya. Abhi tho yahi tha abhi, kho gaya” – There , that’s my DDLJ :)