God Save My Children!

Nisha, my driving instructor (long story that I will talk about another time) talks non-stop while we are out on the road. That's her way of keeping me distracted from anxiety.To keep the conversation going, considering we are not exactly bosom buddies, Nisha grabs at any topic she can. That is how we started talking religion. We were stuck in the traffic outside a Church when she asked me if I visit temples frequently - her area of interest being how I would manage the parking in such crowded places. I told her that was one location we need not worry about since I never went to temples. 'So church, then?', she asked, since we had already talked about the fact that my husband and I are in an inter-faith marriage. "No," I replied, "we don't go there either." 'So what about the children?', she prodded. 'Don't they need to be acquainted with their religion?'. "Considering they don't belong to any religion, I think they are going to be fine," I said. And waited for the inevitable barrage of questions that followed. And they did: How is that even possible? What do you put in the column on forms where they ask for religion? What do you tell them when they are scared and you need to reassure them that someone up there is looking out for them? Aren't you afraid they will grow up lawless and irresponsible when they grow up without fear of the after-life? And the grand finale to all these conversations: What happens when they are of marriageable age? See, Nisha was just trying to fill in another hour of the time I paid her to sit beside me in the car while I negotiate the madness that is Kochi traffic until the day I can stop reaching for my Uber app instead of the car keys. She is not really concerned about what prospects await my children when they grow up (though she was curious about that since she has, apparently not encountered other people who uphold this particular line of thought). So to her and all the people who have, in the past been genuinely concerned about the issue, I direct this piece.

My husband was born and raised a staunch Catholic. I grew up in a Nair household, used to rising early and going to the temple for 'nirmalyam' in the days leading up to exams. Both of us have mothers who find solace in leaving everything up to the Powers Above. We love them and respect every one of their deeply ingrained and solidly hewn beliefs. To us, there is nothing antithetical about this and the fact that somewhere in the process of growing up, our own definitions of faith changed. We stopped believing that it took Sunday mass and Monday fasts for our lives to be rooted in love, loyalty and the values passed on from our parents to us. And this was not a journey my husband and I undertook together either. His thought process, stemming from his creative spirit and his wonder about everything about the Universe took his spirituality in one direction while my stolidly rational thinking and sceptical worldviews took mine in another. There is one point on which we agree - that it does not take institutionalized religion to lead our lives in harmony with the rest of the Universe. That and the fact that religion and spirituality are, at the very core of it, extremely personal in nature and open to entirely subjective interpretations. It was therefore only natural for us to decide that our life together was going to be, in essence, faith-neutral. We don't identify as Christian and Hindu anymore. Religion does not play any significant role in our thought process. We keep it as non-interfering and non-consequential in our day-to-day lives. It was as a logical extension to that thinking that we decided that our children would be brought up without any religious label. 

And to answer the question that we have been asked time and again - NO, it does not affect ANY official documentation if you leave the column asking for religion (if such a column is present in the form) blank. The Government of India is really not that interested in getting you to declare your faith. Both our children attend reputed educational institutions and our leaving the 'religion' column blank in the application form did not become a factor in their admission process. They also possess birth certificates, Aadhar cards and passports, none of which required them to state their religion. They are proud citizens of India and despite their parents' faithlessness, have the papers to prove it.

As far as the 'someone to turn to' theory goes, we would like to instill in them a faith in humanity above a faith in that which they cannot see and comprehend. If chanting the various names of Arjuna was supposed to help me get over irrational fears as a child, the Fairy Godmothers and Ninja Hattoris who populate their world help my children achieve the same. But of course, there are the days when my elder one comes home full of doubts - Amma, how come I am not Christian like my cousins? How come I don't fast for Navarathri? Naturally, she is quite happy to be free of the ritual of Sunday School and temple visits. But she gets confused when her wise little classmates tell her it is 'not possible' that she does not belong to any religion and that her parents have probably got it wrong. She wonders about the God who created the Universe and whether He would like her if she does not pray to Him. She wonders about why He created bats to hang upside down when everything else seems fine being upright. Between my husband and me and our divergent views on the world and beyond and our families who have whole other belief systems to navigate, the child has a lot to learn and a lot to consider before she eventually arrives at her own conclusions on faith and belief. But in the meantime, we continue to put up a 'kani' on Vishu and a tree for Christmas. Mia and Aisha enjoy the ritual of 'pesaha' with their paternal grandparents and Shivarathri with their maternal grandmother. They understand these as cultural and family traditions. They also read the stories behind these observances from their Amar Chitra Kathas and hear about their significance from family members. We would not deny them those experiences that will shape their childhood memories. We just don't stress on the fact that these are to be associated with a religious identity. 

And finally we get to the question of 'who will marry them?' This one is my favorite. So I guess the picture goes like this. Mia (being the elder one) completes her education and starts half-heartedly on one of those 'filling in the time' jobs while Sanjay and I send the word out to our family and friends that we are ready to 'start looking for a suitable boy' for her. Our dear and near ones spring to action and zero in on eligible 'boys' preferably engineers or MBAs working abroad. Horoscopes and photographs (one full length, one close up) are exchanged. The boy and his parents come over to 'see' the girl. Being the liberal, westernised parents that we are, we - both sets of parents - sit around and have tea while our children - our daughter and their son - are 'allowed' to step out to the nearest coffee shop for all of an hour in which they decide whether they are compatible for a lifetime together. They return after the designated hour having discovered their soulmates in each other. We, the parents, exchange stale jokes, unnatural laughs and a promise to 'take things forward'. My daughter's life is thus 'secured.' Now our deciding to bring up the girls minus a religious identity throws a major spanner in the works of this perfect little setting. Normally, the first step in this scenario is to spread the word among 'our' people - people who share our caste surnames or church denominations. In our case, who exactly would be 'our kind?' Even if we reach out to other 'mixed families' wouldn't they want the 'girl' to be officially denoted one kind or the other so they can decide on what ceremonies they can have for the grandchildren - baptism or noolukettu? Buffet with pork and tapioca or sadya with three kinds of payasam? This was the biggest mystery that caught Nisha's (and many others with whom we have had to have this conversation) imagination when I told her my children don't belong to any faith. Who will marry them? Who will give them 'respectability', 'security', an aspirational surname and hopefully, a Green Card?

My answer to that would be - if my girls hang around for my husband and me to 'fix them up' with 'suitable boys' once they reach the 'marriageable age' I would consider that our greatest failure as parents (no offence to anyone who got married that way - I am talking about a scenario at least twenty years into the future) I hope we would have instilled in them the lessons that (1) marriage is not the be all and end all of your aspirations (2) marriage is not something that you 'need' to get into at a particular age or stage in life (3) marriage is not something you enter into to live up to anyone's expectations (4) nothing is taken away from your achievements or your happiness if you choose not to be married. My husband and I got married to each other because the idea of spending our lives together gave us the greatest happiness we have ever experienced. Not because our family backgrounds matched. Not because our horoscopes matched. Not because our photographs matched. Not because our educational qualifications or place of work matched. And definitely not because 'we had reached the marriageable age.' That is what we hope for our daughters too. That they will get married because they have found someone worthy of spending their precious time and lives with. Their religion, or lack thereof should not matter. Who their parents are should not matter. All that matters should be that they are loved and valued above all else. That their aspirations are able to freely take wing in the life they choose to build for themselves. Then we will consider our job as parents well done. And that is when I hope the question 'what happens to children who have the religion column blank in their official documents' will be truly answered.

Back when Sanjay and I were about to get married, there was an opinion raised from both our families that ideally one of us should adopt the other's faith because it affects the unity of a family for the spouses to not share their beliefs and prayers. I understand that concern. Because we are so used to families grounded in religion that it is difficult to think of another model.  Therefore, if you must ask a question to an inter-faith couple, I think a relevant one would be this - does it affect our cohesiveness as a family? Maybe it would have if my husband insisted we thank the Lord before every meal and I started spouting sandhyanamam every evening in our household. We don't. Our children are not even aware of there being any dichotomy in their parents' identities or of anything being lacking in their lives because we chose the life we did. That is why my daughter thought nothing of making up a story about Santa Claus bringing a Christmas tree to a bored little Ganesha. That, my friends, is our answer.

Fear is not Pink

The first time I called a man 'bastard' in public was at a bus stand. I am small in physical stature. That man seemed to me to be a giant. It could have been my perception. It could have been my fear projecting its gigantic shadow on him. But I vividly remember the enormous bulk of a man clad in a blue checked lungi and a dishevelled white shirt. He thrust his hands between my legs as he walked past. I was paralysed by fear and my mind went into damage control mode by telling me it was probably a misconception - maybe it had been a genuine accident. Then he walked by again. And did it again. This time, before I could even formulate my thoughts, I heard myself shouting 'BASTARD' and felt myself breaking into a run after his receding figure. That hulk of a man started running as well. I could not believe it - 46 kgs of my tiny frame racing after at least 90 kgs of bearded, putrid humanity. Around me the bus stand stood still as though in freeze frame. I know there was a mild afternoon breeze rustling the scattered bits of paper and leaves in the unclean bus stand. Buses were revving. Dozens of people waiting for their buses seemed to be either in a stupor or wearing blinkers to the sight of a chit of a college girl running after a heavy middle-aged man. My tormentor disappeared into one of the narrow alleys leading out of the bus stand. My better senses told me it would be foolhardy to follow him. My sense of self, wounded, my faith in humanity punctured, I boarded a bus for home. The minute I got there and saw my mother, I burst into tears.

Fear is not a quintessentially feminine quality. It is ugly and vicious; it mutilates your sense of physical and mental well-being, takes control of your emotions and pummels them all into one single entity - the feeling that your existence is threatened, either in its physical aspect or in its state of feeling at ease with the world around it. The feeling of fear experienced by an infant exposed to a sudden loud sound, by the inexperienced swimmer thrown into the deep end, by prey being stalked by a large, hungry wild animal - they vary only in degrees, their nature is all the same. The zenith of that fear is what Soumya experienced. And the girl in Delhi we christened 'Nirbhaya' - the one without fear - for she had scaled the ultimate fear and survived long enough to say 'I want them hanged' before she left all fear and all pain behind forever. Much as Soumya did. These two names have become immortalised in our collective consciousness as representing that fear that every woman experiences, every single day of her existence. The fear that she may not make it through the day with her identity, her physical integrity and her self-perceptions intact.

Is there a woman out there who does not have such a story to share? I am yet to meet one who does not! That time in the bus stand was not the first time I was subjected to what we have learnt to simplify as 'eve-teasing'. Nor was it the last. But it was the first time I had been propelled to react. The first time I realised the perpetrators of such acts were mere cowards who would run away if confronted. The first time I learnt that my fear could be overcome. I never allowed myself to forget that or those people in the freeze frame of that day who allowed a grown man to get away with harassing a barely-out-of-school girl. Fear of that man and fear of turning into those people was an invisible black badge I wore on my sleeve to remind myself not to be scared.

I was mother to a baby girl when I was confronted by fear of that magnitude again. I was travelling in a three-tier AC compartment on official duty by a night train to Kannur. I could never relax in trains - to me they seemed to blur the boundaries of personal space far more  any other mode of public transport. Also, I was to arrive at my destination at 4am - another reason for me to stay fitfully awake. On the upper berth opposite mine was a young girl - maybe late teens or early twenties and in the middle berth was her mother. As the train lurched at some point in the night I saw a person climb the steel ladder to the upper berth. I wanted to tell him the berth was occupied but did not want to risk waking anyone. The person climbed all the way into the berth and I found that strange - if he just wanted to check if it was available wouldn't it suffice to just stand at the edge? Suddenly the figure scampered back down the ladder and slunk into the side berth in the next section of seats and in the upper berth the young girl sat bolt upright. I could see her wide open eyes and the fear in them; I could see her panting from the rude, violent awakening from deep sleep; I could see disgust, anger, loathing, revulsion in that face. I looked at the side berth in the next section and my eyes directly met those of the perpetrator. He had sensed I had been awake and was staring coldly back at me. I turned my gaze back to the girl. I could not get her haunted eyes out of my mind. I realised I could not live with myself if I became one of those people in the bus stand all those years ago.

In a few minutes, the train pulled into Kozhikode station. I hurriedly got off my berth and started walking to the next compartment in the hope of finding someone in authority - a security guard, a TTE, maybe even a policeman. I knew the man was following me at a slight distance and images of women flung off trains flashed through my mind. I could not risk getting off the train at any cost. I kept walking till finally, I came across a guard in uniform. In a voice much louder than necessary I told him, 'I need to lodge a complaint. A man in my compartment harassed a young girl in the berth next to mine.' A few of the passengers quickly gathered around as I had hoped they would. From the corner of my eye, I could see the man beat a hasty retreat. The guard and the other passengers escorted me back to my compartment where I walked up to the girl who was still sitting up, hugging her knees and said, 'I saw what happened. Would you like to lodge a complaint?' She stared at me uncomprehending. Her mother, who was in the middle berth only now got the gist of what had happened and she quickly took control of the situation. She almost pleadingly said, 'We don't want to lodge any complaint. We just want to get on with the journey.' She did not ask her daughter for her opinion. The guard and the other passengers dispersed with the assurance that they would keep an eye on the man for the rest of the journey. Till I got off the train at Kannur, I could sense cold, furious eyes on me. I was scared. But far more than the fear was the gratification that I had managed to shame a pervert enough to ensure he would think twice before indulging in such acts again.

There is fear that paralyses you. And then there is the fear that forces you to face it head on because there is nowhere to run. Each time you are faced with a fear that threatens your self-respect or integrity, perhaps the reminder that there is something greater at stake than fear itself will give us the wings to soar above it. For me, it was the face of my daughter, then two years old. And the hope that some day when she is on a night train, someone will be awake and will get over their own fears to offer her solidarity and a sense of security.

A Coffee Lover's Testimonial

7 beans. That is where the magic is said to have originated. I am imagining that it must have been a chilly morning, golden sunshine penetrating the gossamer veil of mist hanging over the lush green hills of Chikmagalur, that dawn when Baba Budan sowed the seven mysterious beans he had smuggled from the whimsically named port of Mocha. And there began the romance that permeated centuries with its enticing aroma and woke generations after generations to inner peace, harmony and wellness. 

Wake up and smell the tea, said no one ever! There is just something about that lingering aroma of a piping hot cup of coffee that rouses the mind, awakens the inner eye to the minutest red of the rising sun and makes you feel like everything is in its rightful place and all is well with the world. There is no right time for a coffee, really. As the popular t-shirt slogan goes 'any time is coffee o'clock.' Statistically, there are more people who drink tea than coffee on earth and yet, tea has nowhere near the emotive appeal, the sensuousness, the symbolism that coffee has. Perhaps it has something to do with the depth of flavour, the richness of taste, the willingness to reinvent itself that coffee has always displayed. That is why it rolls easier off the tongue to say 'shall we discuss this over a cup of coffee?' If all the stories ever related over a cup of coffee were put together, right there you would have the greatest story ever told by any man anywhere.

A person's initiation to coffee is no less of a milestone than first love! It's a rite of passage, almost - a stepping stone to adulthood. In my home, there was a legal age for drinking coffee. My mother was firmly of the opinion that anyone under the age of 18 should have nothing to do with caffeine. Malt or chocolate based milk drinks were fine; plain white milk was ideal. There is a short window, in her calendar, when the children of her house had their first sip of coffee before attaining the age of majority and this was the all-too-crucial Board examinations in the tenth standard. For up to two months leading up to the examinations and for the two weeks of writing it, my sister, brother and I were allowed the adult pleasure of having a thermos of coffee on our study tables. Depending on how long into the night we intended to slave it out, this could go from a single cup to three. Milk was deliberately avoided so we would not develop a taste for the sinful brew. And as soon as the exams concluded so did the childhood tryst with coffee. It was not to be savoured again until we had reached the age when we could lawfully, as per my mother, refuse to drink milk anymore. 

My sister and brother were milk haters. They refused and pleaded and sometimes poured their milk down the drain. They would grab a coffee in the college canteen. Or when out with their friends and sometimes right there at home when my mom wasn't looking. But I was the child after her own heart. Not only did I not develop a liking for coffee, I actually was eager to get back to my cup of chocolate milk in the mornings. Every time I remembered the thermos of black coffee, I would remember the involuntary tremors that would set in in my body after the second cup, making it impossible to go to sleep and therefore stretched out my study time into the wee hours of the morning. Perhaps I have coffee to thank for that gold medal I won for being the school topper in those Board examinations.But I was happy enough to let it go.  At that age, I did not appreciate that that short-lived and casual fling with coffee was opening the doors to a lifelong affair of the heart and soul.

It would not be far off the mark to say I was shamed into accepting my first adult cup of coffee. I had just joined for my Master's degree in Law and it seemed like the universally accepted alternative to 'Hi' in Law School was 'Want to get a coffee?' In a matter of only a few days, I had said 'sorry, I don't drink coffee' about five dozen times and been looked at like I was an alien, been cold-shouldered like a social outcast and isolated like I carried the germs of a communicable disease. The icing on the cake was when the venerable Dr. Mitra ordered coffee for all during his common session on Constitutional Law and I meekly volunteered that I did not drink coffee. 'Coffee for 8 and tea for one, then,' he barked into the extension to the canteen. 'Sir, please, no, I don't drink tea either.' He gave me a strange look before speaking into the extension again: 'Coffee for 8 and a cup of milk for the baby.' The class burst into laughter. I just about stopped myself from bursting into tears. Never in my life again have I used the phrase 'I don't drink coffee' and how much richer my life emerged for that! Thank you and your affable insult, Dr. Mitra! 

From then on it was honeymoon for coffee and me. Coffee before and after every seminar, coffee with my guide for paper presentations and discussions. Coffee for morning and coffee for late nights. By the time I left Law School, I was a regular caffeine junkie! Over the years, I have toned down and settled for less caffeine but even now, one of the few things that remain immutable in my life includes my gigantic morning cup of coffee. My love for the frothy brown has also widened to include a love of coffee mugs in an assortment of shapes and colours. The one non-negotiable condition? It should contain nothing less than 300ml of the seductive liquid. 

From exotic Ethiopian Kahwe to Irish fIourish, there is no end to the variety you can experiment with coffee. In terms of pure coffee pleasure and caffeine satisfaction, nothing comes close to a full-bodied South Indian kaapi - the perfect blend of full-fat milk and sugar with the tantalizing richness of satiny, black coffee essence dripping through a bed of freshly roasted and ground coffee beans in a South Indian filter! I am no coffee snob. I am perfectly at ease with my instant coffee too, provided it is the 100% variety and not the mixed types. Just opening up that bottle can fill you with instant calm and positivity! Cappuccino takes second place to its Indian cousin but with some flavorings it can still redeem itself. I am not a fan of latte - it seems like a coffee that cannot make up its mind! Espresso is too heavy for the morning: it is more of a workplace and meetings thing. It's a colleague, not a friend. Someone you can spend hours talking work with but not someone you could open your heart to! And cold coffee! Cold coffee is like that old friend from kindergarten days. You are excited to find them, thrilled to talk to them but after a while run out of conversation with them. It will be a while before you think of calling them again! Would I pay good money to relish a sip of coffee that has at some point passed through the intestines of an elephant or a wild civet cat? Not really. I am good with my gleaming granules of practical instant coffee for my morning nirvana! And thanks, Vidya Varma, for reminding me of that sinful indulgence we popularised in the PG Women's Hostel - coffee with condensed milk! If you have the physical wherewithal to give it a shot (and what a shot it is!) indulge yourself with some creamy, sweet condensed milk coffee for pure, luxurious relaxation!

For an unexpected date with my husband, a chance meeting with friends, nothing comes close to a cup of coffee to set the mood and pace. It takes you through a day when you can't eat. It takes you through a day your appetite took over your senses. It takes you through the tedium of a day full of people, it fills in the vacant spaces of a lonely day at home. A cup of coffee is more than a cup of liquid golden perfection. It is happiness, memories, sunshine, nostalgia, craving, satiation. Gentle on that cup - it is life you hold within! 

Where are your F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Woman?

Are you 40+? Married for over a decade? Have kids in their teens or on the verge of adulthood? When was the last time you talked to your best friend?

I don't mean work friends, neighbors, school-parent-group friends or anyone you have just met in the past couple of years. I mean the BFF or BFFs you grew up with, who held your hand during your first heartbreak, was the first to know when you got your dream interview call and helped you choose your hairstyle when you got married: someone who has at least once seen you bawling away like there is no tomorrow or cleaned up after you when you could not contain that drinking binge in college. That friend. Or friends. Let me tell you why I ask.

When Raina called to say she was organising a get together of our school mates, the first question that popped into my head was, "Raina was with me in school?" (Sorry, Raina!) She had been my Facebook friend for several years and somehow I had assumed we had gone to the same college. For those of you who find that strange, I belong to the generation that left school and college in the days before Facebook, even mobile phones! We were the land-phone-and-letters generation, meaning we easily lost contact and thereby precious memories! All it took was for someone to move house. Most of us later rediscovered one another, first on Orkut and then Facebook, but sadly, by then we were missing several crucial links in our memories and depended on 'mutual contacts' lists to figure out how we knew one another - it did not help that by then we had all gone through a huge transformation in our physical appearance as well as our personalities. But long story short, I attended the school get-together and reconnected not just with Raina but also several others - some long forgotten, some that I still can't recollect as having attended the same institution with and others, who you realize had been just a heartbeat away, sort of just-around-the-corner in the maze of your memories, hidden from view by a screen of daily reality that had misted up for just an instant. All it took was to wipe that screen and there you were! Schoolgirls in maroon skirts and yellow shirts, laughing together, walking to chapel together, hastily doing homework together, all lurking behind those rounded, starting-to-show-age-lines faces. All it took was that moment of recognition, that shrieked 'oh god! is that you?' moment for years of distance and frosty silence to melt away. And you are left wondering why you had not cared enough to pick up that landline or write that letter to find out where they had gone when you still could. Long before they turned up at the top of a search results page on Facebook. Or at a get together 25 years after leaving school!

My brother - an irrepressible extrovert if ever there was one - never lost touch with his friends. They had get-togethers right from a month after getting their all-important school graduation certificates. My introvert to the T husband was added to a Whatsapp group of his school friends long before mine even considered starting one. He can name every single person in his Class X photograph. I could name about 13 of the 30 faces in mine before Raina started bringing us all together. What is that? Do women care less about maintaining friendships - in fact, any relationship outside of the family sphere - than men? Come to think of it, can you quickly think of a female version of Jai and Veeru? An estrogen pumped saga of female friendship? Thelma and Louise maybe. Or even Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston, if you insist. But do they really make you go "yeh dosti hum nahin todenge"? I did not think so.

A friend - a male colleague actually - asked me this question once. Why is it so difficult for women to forge friendships? His take was that women judge each other a lot more harshly than men do. Guys hang out for a drink or two - even plan on a quick weekend trip - with a bunch of guys they may have known for anything from a few years to a few days. The women on the other hand take ages to get a feel of the vibe they share with the other person, gently probe, delicately tiptoe around each other's feelings till they develop the right kind of equation to go out for lunch. I did some pondering over that question: are women's friendships different from men's? Like everything else in a woman's Universe, is there a code of conduct that governs female friendships?

Let me give you a few glimpses from my own friendship journey.

Aruna was one of my first friends outside of school and college. Both of us stuck in a first job we did not enjoy; both of us wondering why we had taken up Law in the first place. In a few short weeks we had filled each other in on pretty much everything that had happened in our young lives to that point; laughed together and empathized with each other where words did not matter. On our first payday, we went out for coffee after work. It felt empowering, liberating. Till I got home and my enraged mother pounced on me. "So you get a job and start getting a salary and you think you can do whatever you want? Don't you dare try that sort of thing in this house again." Why? I was late by a whole hour past office time! Needless to say, I started getting awkward around Aruna after that. The time she asked if I could spend the night at her place because her husband was out of town and she was not familiar enough with the city to spend a night alone, she could not have fathomed the arguments I had at home before I obliged. When she and her husband finally got the visas they had been waiting for and moved to the US a few months later, I think it was my mother who was more relieved than her.

Then there was the time a friend from diaper days informed me that she could no longer visit me when she was down on vacation from her job in the Middle East because her mother-in-law felt it was inappropriate for a married woman to spend time with her friends. And the time a close male friend felt he should cut off ties with me because he was not sure my husband would approve of my spending time with a, well, male friend. This is a guy I have gone shoe-shopping with. Shoe-shopping. He need not have worried about my husband, really. My husband, for one, would not have been worried.

You see the pattern here? Rules on how long we can stay out and where and with whom. Rules on appropriate behavior before and after marriage. Rules on how far you may spend time with someone of the opposite sex before your morals are considered to be compromised. I am yet to see my husband or brother so burdened by rules! Seriously, it's so much easier to just go home after work and binge-watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S on television!

There is a certain common thread that runs through the story of how and why we lost touch with friends over the years. We have jobs. And husbands. And parents. And in-laws. And children. And health issues between all of them. And obligatory family duties and codes of conduct. Which is why we understand each other. We make excuses for each other. We know what drives the other. It is perfectly understandable to us that a married woman has to prioritize her relationships. It is in no way difficult to understand that a woman has so many roles to juggle and she can't also throw in friendships into the lot. Because friendship, for us, is a luxury. Something we learn to do without, if necessary. In the whole rush to be the perfect wives and mothers and careerists, friendship is the sacrifice that is easiest to make! Like pizza when you are on a diet. You know you love it. You know nothing satisfies you as much as that cheesy mouthful on a day that you are too tired to battle on. But where the choice is between a daily half-hour walk and giving up on your favorite food, it is so much easier to take the pizza off your list! It's always going to be there for when your resolve breaks down and you absolutely need to have it once more! And when you do get back at some point, it is going to be as full of cheese and sauce as ever!

I have two BFFs - the ones who have seen me go from giggly school girl to tight-lipped corporate official. The ones who have seen me cry like there is no tomorrow and laugh like nothing matters but today. We have had our dark ages - when entire years would go by without meeting and the only times we talked were to wish each other on our birthdays. Then life moved on. And the dust settled. Now we once more have a space where it is just the three of us - a virtual Whatsapp world of our own - where we send each other crabby thoughts and pictures of what the morning looks like in our own corners of the Universe.

To answer the question I posed in the beginning: Yesterday. I last spoke to Annu and Sheeba yesterday.

Moral of the story? There is a space in all our lives where we are not daughters, wives, mothers, bosses or subordinates. A space where we defy definition and amoeba-like, can take any shape we choose. That is the space we are pushed into shutting down in the throes of day-to-day family obligations. But someday when we get tired of all the role-playing and want to just be, we pick up the phone and call that person we are most comfortable with, in just being. In all probability, that is the person you call your BFF. 

The Small-Change Covenant

In my hometown of Kottayam, anytime I walk into that revered old institution - Ann's Bakery - they ask me about my sister with whom I used to visit as a child and inquire after my mother's health.

In Vijayanagar in Bangalore - the closest town (in those days) to National Law School where I did my Master's - there was a shopkeeper who would reach for a bottle of Johnson's baby powder the minute he saw me approach. This was after he once asked how I managed to look after a baby while also managing my studies and I politely told him the powder was for myself.

In Kowdiar in Trivandrum, every time I asked for a kilo of njalippoovan bananas, the friendly fruit and vegetable vendor would ask how long my father-in-law was visiting.

So many little things add up to making a city feel like home. Places that you start thinking of as your 'happy place', people who know your name, storekeepers who know your preferences, auto or taxi drivers who know where you live...but for me, one definitive factor in calling a place home is the act of entering into the small-change covenant with a local store. It is the moment when a shopkeeper has developed enough trust and familiarity with you to waive the small change you owe on a bill.

I have lived my 41 years in a total of 7 cities with short interludes in a couple of others. Every city you call home gives you a set of  memories, adds dimensions to your identity and in many little ways, stay within you long after you have moved from there. Your hometown, for instance is your first security blanket, the first picture that involuntarily springs to mind when you think of 'home.' And I am talking about typical small towns in India, the ones where people truly believe it takes a village to raise a child. Where you can be reasonably confident that even if you lose your meagre pocket money, some friendly Uncle or Aunty is going to ensure you get home safely. There are eyes watching you without your knowing it - which is why your first cigarette and first time bunking college to watch a movie with friends is duly reported to your parents. As you grow up you can't wait to move out of that place that has grown too small to contain your ambitions but for the rest of your life you feel a certain pull towards it - a wanting-to-return feeling that grows as your grow older. You may or may not act on it, but the pull is there as your little secret, a fantasy gem that you can take out, polish lovingly, hold and sigh and gently replace into the secret vaults of your consciousness without anyone ever seeing it.

If you had parents who had to move from city to city for their work, you learned early to adjust quickly to new environs. You were not bothered about packing, unpacking and finding your bearings - all you needed to be concerned about was finding the nearest bunch of kids to hang out with in the evenings and the nearest shop for when you were required to run errands. Then comes that first time you move out of home. It could be to a hostel for higher studies or a shared apartment or paying guest accommodation on your first job. For the first time in your life you learn to budget for food! Food! That commodity that magically appeared on the dining table at home at every meal time - yours to pick at, complain about, stuff yourself with and then tell your mom that was not what you had been craving when she asks if you have had enough. Suddenly no one is bothered about whether you ate. Ate enough. Ate something you liked (except again your mother when she calls at night to check on you). In retrospect, I strongly feel you can call yourself a 'grown up' only after you have had the experience of managing to feed yourself three solid meals a day, out of your own pocket, for at least three months, in a city you are not familiar with. A steady diet of soft drinks and potato chips does not count. I am talking about when you have moved past your first brush with gastritis and peptic ulcers and painfully realise that words like 'nutrition' and 'balanced meals' are not horror stories your mother, in collusion with your teachers, made up just to make you eat unpalatable food.

Your first adoptive city teaches you a hell of a lot about being responsibly independent, financially intelligent and emotionally guarded. It is also where you unexpectedly burst into tears over the coffee your mother used to make and the sibling you thought you could not stand. You make the friends who are probably going to be your substitute family for a life time. You learn to do without. You discover that there is only so much time you can sleep even if there is no one asking you to get up and study or go to work. You inwardly laugh at yourself the first time you opt for a packet of milk over a can of coke and grimly remind yourself to finish it before it goes bad. For one, you can't afford to waste that kind of money. And two, your body is going to be thankful. Dirty clothes don't clean themselves and it is easier to do your laundry in small batches than wait for your entire wardrobe to be emptied out. One step at a time, you walk towards a sorted adulthood.

When a promotion or marriage takes you to a new town, you enter a new chapter in your life. You already have the training. You just need to go through that process of making this new place feel like home. Little things add up. You have a favored supermarket and a favorite restaurant. You know all three short cuts as well as the long route to your house, place of work and your preferred mall. You still miss faces light up in recognition when they see you; you miss the welcoming smiles and conversations that stem from familiarity; you miss the feeling that you belong.And then one day the vegetable vendor, or the manager at the magazine store you frequent says: 'it's ok. You can adjust it next time.' Neither of you have the time or inclination to fish for change. Both of you know neither are going to keep track of that money. But you also know that because of that one gesture, you are going to prefer this shop over others the next time you need to buy something. You have reached the level of familiarity where buying from another shop seems like an act of betrayal, almost. For the price of small change, the shop keeper has bought your goodwill and your loyalty. But far more importantly for you, it is your signal that you have arrived. Home.

I have lived in Kochi for 7 years now. This is the city my children call home. Where the auto and taxi drivers know where I live. Where my regular boutique knows my size and the service center knows the make of my washing machine. Where the staff at the supermarket hand out free lollipops to my children while I wait at the check out counter. Where I have entered the small change covenant many times over. Which is why I now call Kochi, home.