A morning at the RTO

I'm just back from the Andheri (W) RTO, where I gave a driving test to get a permanent license to ride my scooter, and since it was an ordeal, I'm just writing this down in case it helps somebody.

Of course, I cannot resist taking a few potshots at the way it is run...

In all fairness, most officials I dealt with were polite and reasonable. But the place is a mystery, because it took me quite a while to learn where to go, and often people at the counters were blank about where one had to go next. The biggest signboards lead to the Ladies Toilet.

Sheep and chicken abound; whether they were giving driving tests too is uncertain.

So I spent a considerable amount of time figuring out where I had to go. I already had an LMV License, so I started with filling Form 8 and submitting it with photos at counter A-7 (back of A block). I paid Rs. 300 and collected my receipt from the next window.

From A-7, I went to Mr. Nerkar in the D block office, who verified my vehicle registration papers and added details from them to the form.

After that, I went to the G Block, which is the shed next to the test area. There, my documents were verified and I was then asked to take the test. The test officer again looked at my documents and told me to bring my scooter to the test area.

Clearly, if you can find your way around the RTO, you are sane enough to drive a vehicle. I drove my scooter into the test area, and went up to the inspector, and he gave me his seal of approval.

Having passed my driving test, my headache was washed away by relief. It was too good to be true. I then had to go to A-5 (front entrance A block) and submit this sheaf of forms. That alas, is yet to happen, because the person concerned was on leave. The bald man staffing the window was the first rude person I met in the RTO, who refused to even tell me when the office would open tomorrow. Of course, if they had signboards somewhere, I wouldn't have asked him in the first place.

I live less than a mile away, and the temperature difference was startling. Please cover up, wear sunglasses to avoid the dust clogging your eyes, which happened to me. There's so much smoke, and no concrete tracks, so the smoke and dust literally hang in the air like some manifestation of Voldemort. That thing called smog.

Fingers crossed, and hope the goddess of A-5 is in her seat tomorrow.

Video - Interview with Kumkum Lal

The video interview with Kumkum Lal, complete with transcripts, is up. To watch and read simultaneously, go to - https://pad.ma/CGE/player

Else, you can also watch it here...

Interview with Kumkum Lal - Part Two

Kumkum: So Guru Harekrushna Behera who is commonly known as Harebabu. He was one of Guruji's favourite students because he was so sincere. He had come from Balasore to learn from him. He was very meticulous; he used to write down everything that he learned. And whenever we used to forget anything, we would go to him because we had it all written down.

But, lately, when I went to him, he said that there was a time when there was some rain and flood in his house and everything got spoiled. He used to come home three times a week - the room that had removable beds, that's where he used to play the tabla in the house. And Odissi - I loved it, because it was so graceful - in those days, the mudras were also not fixed. Like when we do this thing (a stance in mayura). In those days, we would just do it like this (katakamukha to alapadma).

All this was done in the early 60s or mid 60s when Guruji started polishing the style. In that time, we used to do mangalacharan and do batu in the same item. We would do mangalacharan - the bhumi pranam, and then we went to touch all the instruments - on the stage during the performance, and then we did batu, which was much shorter, much simpler, more charming. Just now, it is a proper exercise to do it, very tough. But at that time it was not like that.

And, as you know, the system of teaching, the methodology of teaching, was different from what it is today. The steppings are ten in chowka and ten in tribhanga. Earlier, we had six groups of steppings, four in each, so twenty-four steps. But they were mixed-up. Some of the steps now look very antiquated, or in many ways, new. Because nobody does those steppings now. But I think that they are very useful and it is also like a lexicon of steppings, because you always refer to - do the second step of the fourth group, and so on. So it is also like a reference point.

Whereas today's steppings are very good for exercise and for learning. These steppings also, I may tell you, were created by Guruji because when he started teaching outside Orissa and he could not teach for a longish period of time; he had to teach then in a short time. And they were already dancers. Then through these steppings, they could get into the mould of Odissi. And then, straightaway, an item was taught to them.

So, within a restricted period of one or two months, he could train a dancer, and it would be very intensive. Because it would be every day. And at that time, he realised he couldn't teach all the twenty-four steps. So he created this. Initially it used to be only till 6. I remember; I think it was about the time he started going to Bombay, which was when I moved there, from 1980, when these chowka-tribhangi steppings came up. And uptil then, when he was teaching us - all of us were already dancers and he didn't need to teach steppings when he would come to Delhi for his workshops.

Anyway, this is about stepping. As far as I am concerned, Guru Harekrushna Behera taught me very regularly and very meticulously everything that Guruji had learnt. And then in the summers he would come back to Orissa and pick up whatever Guruji had done during the rest of the year and then come back and teach me. And then around 1963-64, Guruji changed the batu, the mangalacharan and the moksha. In fact, for one or two years, it was in a state of flux. And I found some things which I had learnt in mangalacharan had gone to the moksha and what was in the moksha had come here - till it completely settled down to what it was - today.

The other thing that Guruji did at that time was that he became true to the bols, and he tried to make the tala interpretation more perfect. And the extreme example of that is batu, where every syllable is brought out by the foot. You can't do kada-taka, you have to do ka-da-ta-ka. So that was something he did with the batu - it's an exercise over there. This happened in the early 60s. He was in a very creative mood and he redid whatever he had - older items which he himself had created - he polished it and made them like this.

I have learnt the old batu as well; some of it I still remember. I know how simple it used to be. I have performed that batu and then subsequently this new batu come. And the repertoire was also built up - the mangalacharan and batu became separate, the touching of the instruments vanished.

Ranjana: Were there pallavis already being composed?

Kumkum: There were two pallavis - Kalyan and Vasant. These were the only two pallavis that were being done in those days, in the early days. Then, in the early 60s, it was a creative period of his - he created Shankarabharanam with Kumkum (Mohanty), Saveri - maybe with Sonal, I am not sure, and Mohana. These three were the mixed group of pallavis created by him. And also the Vasant Pallavi underwent some change. 

Ranjana: Did all the initial pallavis have a sloka to go with them?

Kumkum: No, the most initial ones - Kalyan and Vasant had them. And we always performed them with the sloka.

Ranjana: And what was the logic of the sloka - it was a sloka about the raga?

Kumkum: Yes, absolutely. You know that in music, they have visualised every raga. And the visualisation of the raga has nothing to do with any god and goddess. And it is just the visualisation of the ambience that the raga creates. It was like that. The Kalyan raga has got a more energetic spirit, so there was a warrior involved in that. And Vasant raga is a more free-spirited raga, so it has this very 'mast' person with peacock feathers in his hair. Actually, people think it is Krishna but it is not Krishna.

But at some stage, Guruji decided to do away with that. So then people started performing Kalyan and Vasant without the sloka. And subsequent pallavis never had any sloka. But they had - you see, Guruji and Bhubaneswar Mishra became a team around that time. And a lot of Gita Govinda songs...Guruji's intellectual guide was Kalicharan Pattnaik. So for every song, he would get his meanings very clear from him, and the music was done by Bhubaneswar Mishra, who was such a nice man and so kind and he was so generous with his giving. We owe so much to him but I think the world never gave him back anything. He was just...

Ranjana: Can you say more about how they composed...as a team?

Kumkum:Well, at that time I was a very young person. Later on, I can jump then, because...

Ranjana: No, don't jump, you can come to it later.

Kumkum: When I was learning from Harekrushna Behera, he had opened a little school called Nritya Niketan in this marketplace called Bhagat Singh Market, which is near Gol Market in Delhi. And so in the first floor flat, of one Mr. Khosla - Mr. Khosla's daughter used to learn and his granddaughter used to learn, and he was a widower, so he just gave his flat and in his drawing room was the so-called school and when Guruji started coming he would be given one bedroom. We used to go there...Guruji started coming, Harekrushna Behera first got Surendranath Jena to help him.

Then, Harekrushna Behera brought Mayadhar Rout, who was very well-known for his abhinaya. His abhinaya was very good. And he had been to Kalakshetra - I mean, there were many people who had been to Kalakshetra. So the viniyogas and all have all come from there. He did some abhinayas, he taught us - I also learnt from him. We were learning from both the gurus. But then he also separated and he went off to Bharatiya Kala Kendra. And then, finally, Guruji came.

Guruji came - he used to stay for two to three months. We used to all go for class. We used to have one-to-one classes in those days. I mean, I have learnt yahi madhava and all that...there was one other girl with me; she was a professional dancer from Bharatiya Kala Kendra. And she found Guruji's teaching very slow, because he used to enjoy himself. He would explain everything very well. Something that was later on not done at all. Each word, each thing, each sanchari was...he used to take time.

One week passed, but we would still be on the first stanza. She left in the middle, because she said - this guru takes too long to teach. But I remember his words - how he taught Yahi madhava. Each of the comparisons that he gave.

He also did a ballet. Dance drama. He did Kanchi Vijay (Kanchi Abhijan). In that, the heroine was Sonal Mansingh. Sonal was also learning. At that time, Rani Karnaa was also coming there regularly. These people were proper students of Guruji's. And Yamini also came to learn a few items, so she would also come there. And then any other person; Kumkum (Mohanty) would come when she came to Delhi. So that little flat in Bhagat Singh market had all these luminaries coming to learn from Guruji.

Kanchi Vijay - the raja was Harekrushna Behera and Sonal was the Padmavati. And Rani Karnaa was the curd seller. I was doing Krishna's role or something like that. I was a kid at that time - not kid, but a younger dancer. So, in that Kanchi Vijay - for the dance drama, Guruji had composed Harir iha mugdha vadhunikare. It was part of that. The music had been composed by...just now, my memory is not working too well, but I can let you know.

Harir iha was composed as a puja dance. I remember we used to all enter with a thali and do the puja - ringing the temple bells and all that, and then harir iha directly to the idol. Then, Dasavatara was also part of it but Guruji composed vedanudharate, which is a sloka before the Dasavatara, in which all the avatars are listed. Beautiful music - Bhubaneswar Mishra's music. It was a lovely piece. I have unfortunately not performed it. It can easily be done as a mangalacharan.

And then there were many other songs which were there. So Guruji started coming and we were introduced to him. I had seen Guruji for the first time when he got the award - the SNA award. In those days, we were very enamoured of Indrani Rahman, so when I saw him - you know, he has a small face and he was playing the pakhawaj, and Balakrishna Dash was sitting imposingly, so I thought he must be Kelucharan Mohapatra. Guruji's face was pockmarked and his hair was receding. That was my first introduction to him. After that, he mesmerised all of us with his personality and his dance.

Interview with Odissi dancer Kumkum Lal - 1

This is the first part of the transcript of an interview I did with Kumkum Lal about her life and dance in Bhubaneswar, in December 2012. The video interview is up on Pad.ma, which I shall link to in subsequent posts. I am still transcribing it, but I'm so supremely excited about how it turned up that I had to put it up in text too.

___________________

Khajuraho Festival brochure, 1978

Ranjana: You could start with your early life, again (we were repeating the interview because we never completed it, the first time in Delhi). In Patna.

Kumkum: Patna is where my father was posted. My father was very interested in all the arts. My father would do plays, and he was very interested in indigenous art forms. And, naturally his daughter was put into the dance class which was available, which was Shri Hari Uppal's, who had studied with Uday Shankar and at Shantiniketan. So those days the only two classical forms which were prevalent and widespread - one was Manipuri, because Shantiniketan was promoting it; and the other was Kathakali, which Uday Shankar had also picked up and got a teacher there (Almora - Uday Shankar's dream school of Indian dances).

And these two forms were not 'tainted' by women dancers of 'disrepute'. So that was girls were taught. And that is what I was taught at the age of four, when I started dancing. Subsequently, we moved to Delhi, and in Delhi the classical style which was being taught at various places or which was very well-known was Bharatanatyam, so there were several teachers of Bharatanatyam, and Guru Ramaswamy Pillai, who was from the Vazhuvoor style, which is the more graceful style, not the Pandanallur style. He used to teach that and he was employed by Triveni Kala Sangam, which used to be on the fourth floor in one of the flats in Connaught Place at that time.

And of course, Guru Ramaswamy Pillai never knew any Hindi or English. So he would talk to me in Tamil. So that is how I started learning Bharatanatyam. Triveni moved to its present premises subsequently and I learnt uptil the Varnam over there.

But after seeing Indrani Rahman do Odissi, one fell in love with that style because it was so charming and the music was so sweet.

Ranjana: When did you see her dance?

Kumkum: This must have been around...maybe, '57-58? But there was no teacher in Delhi. Then, later on, I heard that there was a student of Guruji's who had come on a scholarship to learn Kathak from Birju Maharaj. That was Guru Harekrishna Behera.

So, he was contacted. Meanwhile, of course, I was in Modern School. So I was regularly doing creative dance, and learning from Shri Narendra Sharma, who was one of the outstanding disciples of Uday Shankar, having been trained in Almora. So, in Modern School we had that, and I was always dancing that. Anyway...

Ranjana: No, you should talk about that, about Modern School.

Kumkum: (laughs, then continues) Well, Modern School, it was a very interesting experience to learn dance from Narendra Sharma because we had eight houses, no, twelve houses; so every House had a little dance performance on the House Day. And so he used to create small dance pieces - maybe a rainy day - and then you were a cloud or the rain or something like that. Another thing was mirrors; so then there would be two dancers opposite each other and they would be...(demonstrates mirror image movement).

Every time, a new idea had to be done. It wasn't like Devi, or a puja dance, nothing like that. Very creative dancing, Sharmaji. And of course, during the annual day we would have dance dramas based on Tagore - Tasher Desh, Muktadhara. So I kept up my dancing with that, and Bharatanatyam...

Ranjana: And, going back to what you said about Indrani Rahman, could you describe the performance, if you remember some of it?

Kumkum: See, in those days, several dancers were doing more than one style in their performance. In fact, some people, Yamini (Krishnamurti) also; they would one-third Bharatanatyam, one-third Kuchipudi and one-third Odissi. This was the fashion those days. Indrani Rahman used to do Bharatanatyam and then she would do the Manduka-shabdam from Kuchipudi, and then she would do two or three Odissi items. I remember there was this Ganapati dance that she would do and then some very simple abhinaya.

But, you know, it was so sweet and it was so charmingly done that everybody used to love it and be completely charmed by it when she danced. And she, of course, was very revolutionary because she had shed the chunni. Because the Odissi dancer those days used to be dressed up in a very musty kind of way. She would be wearing a full-length velvet blouse, and then she would have a thick chunni coming down (down her breasts) and then some salma-sitare ka belt (along her waist), and then very heavily painted on the face.

So the expression wouldn't show. So she (Indrani) did away with all that. She simplified it. She did away with the chunni altogether, and she was tying the sari in a very simple way, without the natawari. And she started wearing silver jewellery.

Ranjana: Natawari is the...?

Kumkum: The cloth that covers the bottom. Because the bottom, from the back, might look very untidy and all. So, they cover it up with that. Earlier they used to tie a cloth. And now we have (tailored hip-pieces). She was fortunately very slim. She used to be Miss India, you know.

So, that, and she changed the jewellery to silver jewellery. Because the belt used to be silver. She of course, changed the belt and everything. She took some very artistic pieces. Which was absolutely a no-no. Because, earlier, the rule was that above the neck you always wore gold, and below the neck, you could silver, and on the feet, of course, you must wear silver. And she changed this whole thing. So for the purists of that time, it was quite shocking.

I remember that when I started, I was told very strictly to wear gold above the neck. But then everybody was influenced by Yamini Krishnamurti. And most people said - how can this be - gold and silver worn together? 

Ranjana: This was Harekrushna Behera who told you to wear gold?

Who told you to wear gold?

Kumkum: We were wearing gold; conventionally, everybody wore gold.

Ranjana: But you said that you were told...

Kumkum: Guruji (Kelucharan Mohapatra) was very particular. He was particular. Until he couldn't stem the tide of opinion and people wanted to wear silver...

You see all the old photographs of Sanjukta - you will find only gold jewellery. All the old photographs.

But at some point, I think in the mid-1960s or something. Sonal (Mansingh) also used to wear gold. But at some point in the late 1960s, it changed over to silver. Because the understanding was that only lower-caste people wore silver on top (above the waist). And the reasonable classes wore gold above but they could never wear gold on the feet. That, only royalty could do.

So these are the commonplace rules. Indrani Rahman had brought about this revolution and she simplified the fussy kind of Odissi that was there. And it was very nice to watch. And then I started learning from Harekrushna Behera, who used to live in the premises of Bharatiya Kala Kendra, where Kathak Kendra was based. 

Ranjana: You were talking about the gold jewellery.

Kumkum: So, in those days, when we started, we were wearing gold jewellery on top and silver below. And we would always wear chita (sandal paste). That was also compulsory. Initially, we always used to tie (drape) our dress.

Ranjana: What is the kind of dress you would wear?

Kumkum: Earlier, people would wear Banarasi sarees also. By the time I started learning, they were wearing sambalpuri sarees. And the chunni was not made out of the sari. It was usually made of Banarasi material or...I was also wearing a chunni. Because I was very slim at that time and I wanted, like Indrani Rahman...chunni mat pehno (not to wear a chunni), so I had this very thing chunni. So we used to wear this very thin nylon or net chunni.

Then what Harebabu did was - he said, the chunni will have to be worn, so he stuck the chunni on my blouse. So my midriff was not covered. In those days, I was so slim, it was okay. In my earliest photographs, I have got chunnis like that (v-shaped). Subsequently, I started wearing the same thing (the one-shouldered drape). And finally, it was made out of a sari, which is very comfortable if your midriff is not that slim.

To be continued...

What I learn from my scooter

A month on the scooter has taught me so much about the notion of patience.

Initially, I praised road etiquette to my mother, telling her how other vehicles stopped to let me pass and put up with me riding at 10 kmph. But that was probably because I was out on the roads at 6 am and everyone else on the road was too sleepy to bother.

Owning a scooter also teaches me about nature and the advantages of not parking under a tree. Yes, coconuts can fall and take your wing mirror down. But there are only so many coconuts on a tree. Birds are far more relentless. My scooter is a bird-poop magnet. From the stupendous quantities of crap I shake off every morning, it really seems like the birds spend all day doing that. Has anyone looked into converting bird poop into an energy source? There's definitely a lot of it and it smells. I'm sure it can be put to some use.

Patience is a delusional virtue that appears in your 6 am hallucination. Sometimes, if a vehicle behind me keeps sounding its horn for no good reason (and they usually don't have a good reason) - like when the traffic lights are just about to turn green and there's no movement, or worse still, when the traffic lights are still very red, I force them to follow me at 10 kmph for a stretch out of sheer spite. It takes them time to escape, because a hundred vehicles rushing across the road like people rushing towards the food at a Kerala wedding can really slow everyone down.

K, who taught me how to ride and who convincingly elicited delight when I recounted my exploits (today I went at 7 am; there were two cars on the road!/ I did 25 km; I'm so cool. / I went past Juhu circle!) told me that I would be in the throes of road rage for a while. I was very calm the first few times and felt that it must be all the vipassana I did some months ago. But that calm eludes me sometimes - for instance, when vehicles cut into my lane even when I could scrape their sides nastily if I felt so inclined (and injure myself, yeah). Or when I encounter persistent horn-lovers who could just sit on their horns and be done with it. 

Since I am rarely a finger-shaking, pistol-showing type (which is hard anyway, given that you are riding at 40 kmph), I must be content with the witty rejoinders I mumble to myself, and occasionally, the joy of seeing their faces after I give them the finger. 

Oh, and nothing can surpass the joy of giving someone the finger when I'm in a dance practice sari. First they laugh at my sari because they don't know what it is - hahahaha, she forgot the bottom half of her sari. Hahaha she is wearing a salwar under her sari. Hahaha what is she wearing?! Then they try to overtake and when they fail because I am sneakier, they get behind me and toot their horn madly. Sometimes they actually time the tooting to make it sound like - ge-t-ou-t-of-the-wa-ay! And then I show them my lithe dancer's finger.

They say that dance is the mother of all arts. Truly, sabki amma. Touché.

The perils of performance when you always have a cold

Like the dancer-from-birth who says things like 'I can't quite remember when I started dancing. Must have been before I walked.' to interviewers, I could have boasted similarly about my cold. Sadly, my sharp memory for trivia doesn't let me weave subtle fiction, and as a consequence, I know exactly when I started sniffling for life.

I was in the ninth grade and was just over the traumatic experience of getting dental braces. There was a sign in my orthodontist's clinic that said 'I <3 my dentist'. I would stare at it with great malevolence, willing it to metamorphose into 'I HATE my dentist.' In general, with steel wires and vaccines and injections in the gums, it was a bad time to be my doctor.

In the days before I succumbed to the joys of tissue paper, there was a steady assembly line of handkerchiefs that had to be washed and ironed to receive their daily dose of...well, snot. As far as my relations with people went, I was heartbroken when my desk partner and very good friend stopped talking to me because I blew my nose and finally went to sit at another desk. It was hard to comprehend that a cold could come in the way of a seemingly unbreakable friendship. I remember spending much time mulling over this abandonment, but then it was heartening because there were others who didn't think they had to stop talking to me because I had a cold.

And for a few years after this, all was well and I didn't think much of my cold. Having a constant cold doesn't mean I am blowing my nose all the time; it is sporadic like the cool breeze from the Malaya mountains; not as pleasant though. I was, however, constantly apologetic about my nose and its infinite sonic possibilities. Uncertain people were assuaged and comforted by my self-deprecating humour about the 'foghorn'.

When I danced, if I had a bad cold, this meant tucking a wisp of tissue paper into my costume. I have no idea how I actually would have handled blowing my nose on stage.

Krishna: Your beautiful face resembles the crescent moon; it is time for lurve.

Radha: Yes, what a lovely time for lovers and what a sad time for those who are all alone. Let us dance and frolic until next spring. But, wait a minute, I have to blow my nose.

So as you see, prevalent narrative trends in Indian classical dance are not very favourably disposed towards common cold.

Eventually, I met people who didn't seem bothered by my decibel-busting act. A friend I was having dinner with was puzzled when I kept running out of the room or turning away to blow my nose. When I actually started looking around me while blowing my nose, I discovered lots of people who didn't flinch. It was a wonderful thing to know, really.

So, now I blow away with impunity. But, being a conscientious audience member, I cannot bring myself to interrupt performances with unwelcome sounds. Here, classical dance is slightly more accommodating. I can gauge when the music is going to be loud and time my blowing with high-decibel music so that it goes unnoticed. And my sense of timing as far as remove tissue-duck-blow goes is often better than my sense of direction. 

My sense of direction is really good.

Having recently spent a week attending a contemporary dance festival with a runny nose, I argue that the contemporary trend of performing in silence puts some people's nasal passages through great torment. Especially if they are conscientious, like I am.

I sat through an hour-long performance by Padmini Chettur, performed largely in silence, not daring to breathe too hard. Partly because it was engrossing, but partly because drawing a deep breath would have meant whiney sounds. The next day, three more dancers performed in near-silent conditions, and it was sheer torture. Even the clapping is not loud enough, because audiences are often unsure whether the performance is over. 

Of course, when you are being such a good girl, there are still people around you whose phones ring and who answer them and loudly say in stage whispers, "I am in a performance and I'll call you later. What...? No, I can't hear you. No, no. (whispers get louder) I said I'll call you later. No, I'm not coming. No, I'll call you later. Yeah. Yeah. Bye." 

Then they experimentally see how their phones look once they are silenced. 

And then the performance ends; I hurriedly clap twice, blow my nose to orgasmic satisfaction, and rejoin the clapping with a sense of great fulfilment. Once again, I have excelled at my very own, silent, meta-performance.

Peer sharing session

Dance Dialogues in Bombay proposes to hold a peer sharing session during its anniversary celebrations, scheduled for the end of November. The session is meant to be a supportive space where dancers are first 'sharing', then 'performing', for there is some comfort in being able to unravel a work in progress among peers. Many of us at Dance Dialogues are young classical and contemporary dancers, and we are familiar w

ith the uncertain experience of making 'taught' choreography our own, and creating new dance pieces. Often, there is nothing more we would like than to be able to discuss our processes with peers, receive objective opinions and find points of value in the way others work.

Dancers and choreographers making their own work or trying to find meaning in traditional choreography that they have learnt are welcome to apply to present a short work.

Write to me at dancedialogues@gmail.com with your bio and a concept note.

Of travel, books and possibilities of disrobement

Packing light was never one of my skills. I have reformed considerably from the days when I took 30 shirts to Bangalore for a month-long trip. That was in 2006.

Wherever I go, I am always equipped for intergalactic travel. I carry sweaters to Orissa in summer (and use them) and sleeveless kurtas to Delhi in January (brrr, and never use them). I have a book, or two or three. I have socks for the day and socks for the night. And in recent times, I have my yoga mat.

For the past two years or so, I have limited my luggage to a single bag or rucksack. I think this was partly because of the trauma of moving house several times in Delhi, and worse still, moving back to Bombay. Moving house makes one see the wisdom in living without appendages. On that memorable occasion, I had 13 bags. The taxi driver was aghast and it took some serious ganging up on him before he agreed to drive me to the station. That was also the only time I had to socialise in a train, because my 13 bags alarmed my co-passengers significantly, even though none of them actually had to sleep with my bucket by their head or anything.

On my last visit to Delhi, when S heard I had travelled with a single bag, her jaw hit the floor. Clearly her last memory of me is coming to my hostel room in JNU and seeing the aforementioned thirteen bags and watching me panic as I searched for a missing sock in a rolled-up chatai.

And this was after I couriered 40 kilos of books home. Sadly, where books are concerned, I see no recourse. I may, at some point, feel guilty about buying sarees, but I have no such qualms or scruples when it comes to books.

The closest I ever came to complete reform was in Kerala, where my bag was actually not full, and I wore everything I carried. I even carried a saree, but forgot a petticoat. So when I went to the Padmanabhaswamy temple, I wore my saree on slacks with a dangerously pliant elastic band and spent my time in the temple wondering what would ensue if my saree decided to come apart. Since I managed to make it out of the temple without Draupadi-type scenes, I awarded myself a certificate of distinction in saree-wearing. And then I was secure in the delusion that my saree was immune to accidental slippages till (horror of horrors) it fell apart for the first time in nine years of mummy-independent saree wearing in a masterclass with the Nrityagram dancers. Really, horror of horrors.

Delhi is almost like a second home now, and if I am short of sweaters or shawls, or even socks, I know I can procure them. But friends have not been very helpful in this regard, what with them sending me e-mails about how cold it is in Delhi and how I should come well-equipped. I wish I were a witch; then I would take my room and stuff it in a beaded bag like Hermione.

Fantasy apart, I shall prepare for intergalactic travel now.