The plot thickens

Inspired by true events...

...well, events that have been true at various times...

A subconscious awareness of the clock approaching the daybreak hour rouses me from my forty winks at dawn.  The warm baby sleeping beside me shifts her position ever so slightly.  Dressed in a flannel sleeper, Mira burrows deeper into herself contently.  She seems to have sensed movement but has clearly chosen her dreamworld over the real w.  I slowly stand up.  My joints get ready for the day by cracking and popping. The sounds are gentle but my heart stops for a second thinking they woke baby up.  After adequate affirmation of Mira's state of sleep, I tiptoe out the room, but not without a good deal of floor creaking and door groaning.  A deal that seems good enough, at the moment anyway, to disturb baby.  I hold my breath for a bit to check.  Once my ears detect her purr like snores, I exhale relievedly.  As I exit the room and shut the door, I think I hear a whimper from inside the room, but I choose to ignore it.  For now.

Within minutes, I’m ready for my morning riyaz.  I tune my tambura while simultaneously thinking through the day's agenda.  I remember it is my turn to make breakfast today, which happens about once a week, with Pavana taking care of breakfast on the rest of the days.  This means that the kids will get to eat pancakes today.  The recipe for pancakes blitzes through my head.  I adjust the jodi strings as I wonder why I don't have qualms eating eggs despite being vegetarian.  Well no, I am not vegetarian, am I?  I am eggetarian.  I start thinking how hard it must be for vegans to come up with breakfast options.  What if Medha wants to go vegan when she grows up?  Well, I suppose that would be okay.

Unrelated thoughts coalesce in my head and I start making absurd analogies.  I start comparing the oomph of the perfect jivari adjustment on the Pa string to the flavor imparted by kasuri methi to a North Indian curry when added at the end of the cooking process.  May be I should make paneer for dinner today?  Or may be I should use the fine tuner on the lower Sa.  But then, why does the jivari become dull if I tune the string after adjusting the thread?  Is it because kasuri methi loses flavor if the curry is heated too much after you add it?

Clearly I am still sleepy.

I close my eyes, strum my tambura, and begin focusing on aligning my Sa.  As always, the resonance of the tambura and all its rich overtones make me feel like I am floating on a soft cloud and my voice feels safe and protected as it is gently cradled in the soft cushions of perfectly tuned strings.  The tender acoustics wake me up gently and clear my mind.  I start focusing on my breathing.  Almost as if on cue, faint rays of the morning sun work their way into the room through the window.  I enter a deep meditative state.  

Twenty-five blissful minutes fly by.

Suddenly I am reminded of that whimper I had chosen to ignore earlier.  Did Mira wake up?  No no, she's still asleep.  If she had woken up, she would have cried.  But then, sometimes she doesn't cry; she just sits up and says "Amma... Akka... Appa...".  What if she's doing that?  I momentarily stop strumming my tambura and strain to listen.  I don't hear Mira’s voice.  Instead I hear the toilet flush.  Someone else has woken up.  I semi-panic.  What if the sound of the flush wakes Mira up?  I hope whoever woke up didn't use the master bedroom flush, because that one makes a racket through the wall of the baby bedroom.  By the way, who is it that woke up?  Is it Pavana?  Oh no, I can't remember if I cleaned the counter next to the kitchen sink last night.  What if it has a stain!  I hope Pavana doesn't notice it.  No no, there is no stain, I remember cleaning it.  Darn it, I wanted to finish the pancake process and throw the egg shells before Pavana woke up; she isn’t eggetarian like the rest of us!  I hope Pavana is still sleeping.  Anyway, focus, focus!  Finish your riyaz first!

Ten minutes later, I am in the kitchen, whisking pancake batter.  Pavana and Mira are still asleep.  Medha is sleepily walking around the living room.  I ask her to go upstairs and brush.  She ignores my command and continues to alternate between hugging me and lazily pushing random toys around in the living room.  I don't have the heart to scold her.  I take out the mini-pancake nonstick pan and start heating it on the stove.  Simultaneously I start making chai in a saucepan.  I suddenly remember I forgot to add butter to the pancake batter.  I microwave a small block of butter to semi-melt it and add it to the batter.  

Here’s where the plot begins to thicken.

Unfortunately the batter is cold, so the butter begins to solidify in the batter and form stringy clumps.  Until now, I didn't know this was even a possibility.  Meanwhile the nonstick pan begins to overheat and smoke.  I hurriedly move it out of the stove top and frantically try to smoothen the batter.  Out the corner of my eye, I see the milk in the saucepan begin to boil and rise.  Shoot, I didn’t even add tea powder to the milk, and the milk has already boiled!  I abandon the batter and move the saucepan out.  

Suddenly I hear Mira cry.

I now ditch everything and run upstairs.  As if determined to aggravate me, Medha follows me stating the obvious, "Appa, Mira woke up!".  I know, Medha, I know.  Why do you think I am running?

I retrieve Mira, brush her, and change her out of her sleeper into day clothes.  She calms down and commences her usual daytime babble.  Meanwhile, Pavana has woken up too; I hear the sound of running water in the other bathroom.  Normally she would be up before me, but she is late today.  It seems like she had a sleepless night, which means she is going to be in a sullen mood until she has her chai.  I saunter down the stairs with Mira tucked under my elbow.  “Mummumm.. oota?”, she asks, tilting her head and looking into my face as I enter the kitchen.

I secure Mira in her high chair and attire her with blue bib.  Upon adding tea powder to the milk and beginning to reheat it, and also returning the nonstick pan to the stove, I turn my attention back to the batter.  Meanwhile, a sleepy Pavana has arrived on scene with Medha following her and petitioning for the day’s virtual play dates with her friends.  Pavana doesn't look amused.  Her mind is half occupied with guilt for not having woken up earlier, and half occupied with annoyance at the mess on the kitchen counters I created in the last 15 min.  I hardly make headway with my defense when she interrupts me with a: “Has Medha brushed?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“We just came downstairs.”

“She needs to start eating.  I need to get her ready for school.”

I turn to Medha and say, “I told you to brush.  Go NOW.”

Medha gives me one of her dramatic fake sulks and glides away toward the stairs.  I pour the first batch of pancake batter onto the nonstick pan.  They start sizzling.  Meanwhile Mira has started screaming because a. she is hungry, and b. she has seen Pavana and wants her to lift her out of the seat.

“One day I wake up late, and things are falling apart.”

I sense upsurging tempers.

“Wait... nothing is falling apart, pancakes will be ready in a minute.”

“It’s late now.  You can’t just let her sit in the high chair and cry.”

“She started crying literally 15 seconds ago.”

“What difference does it make how many hours ago she started crying literally?  I still have to carry her now. How will I get Medha ready?”

“Not hours.  Also, then don’t carry her na.  Let her sit there.”

All of sudden, a sense of horror comes over me.  I detect a burning smell.  It’s the pancakes!

“Something is burning...”, begins Pavana.

“I know!”, I snap.  I turn back to the stove and lift the nonstick pan with the pancakes and start looking for a plate to drop the over-broiled cakes in.  There is not a single plate in sight.  At the same time, the chai in the saucepan begins to boil over.  I realize I am not prepared for this.  I start panicking.  However, Pavana is oblivious to the chaos.  I hear her asking,

“Did you change her diaper?”

Shoot!  I forgot the diaper!

“No!”, I respond with a yelp, with burnt pancakes in one hand and an overflowing saucepan in another, the yelp being a result of the hot saucepan handle that I had unsuspectingly wrapped a fist around.  Suddenly I hear a wail from upstairs.

“Appaaaaaaa.........!!”, screams Medha.

“What?!!”, I scream back.

“Can you come??”

“No I can’t!!!  What is it??”

“Appaaaaaaa.......!! Can you come??”

“NO I CAN’T, Medha!!  Come downstairs first!!!”

“Appaaaaaa.......!!”

Pavana rolls her eyes.  Mira continues to cry.  I sigh and place the burnt pancakes and overflowing saucepan on the cold part of the stove.  Walking over to the foyer I call out.

“Medha!  What is the matter....??”

A teary eyed Medha appears on the landing. 

“Appa, I dropped my toothbrush into the sink drain!”

Light and Culture

Culture shock usually manifests in stages and as an aggregated effect of several isolated events over a period of time.  Just as thermal shock is caused by starkly contrasting temperatures, events that contribute to culture shock are ones that lay bare contrasting circumstances pertaining to economic, intellectual, or social disparities.  Interestingly, the contrast in such circumstances need not be particularly stark to create an impact.  Take my case, for instance.  Despite having grown up in a major city in India and having enjoyed a fairly privileged first 22 years of my life, replete with a good deal of what one might call 'western' affectations, there come to mind numerous such events that have revealed many a contrasting 'where it's at' in the course of my NE Ohioan inhabitancy, starting with the day I landed on US soil and hitched a ride with a PhD student in his automatic transmission car (never had I seen a gear stick that moved in a single line) and rode the great American interstate highways (never had I seen a freeway with so many ramps and exits, or experienced such a smooth ride at 70 mph).

It is necessary to note that not every contrasting circumstance is indicative of the superiority or inferiority of any one of the two lifestyles in question.  Besides, superiority is subjective and is only a matter of perception.  A great example that illustrates this is the subject of home lighting.  My upbringing in urban India of the 80s/90s effectively conditioned my mind to postulate that the then ubiquitous fluorescent tubelight, the domestic lighting de choix of the average urban Indian household, was the superiormost home lighting choice, and that lamps that shone shades any yellower than the regal white tubelight belonged to a lower birth in the lamp hierarchy and were better suited for jobs more menial like illuminating the streets or something.  Imagine the culture shock when I saw the supposedly forward thinking Americans give the cool shoulder to the cool tubelight in favor of the warmer and more primitive alternative - the incandescent bulb.  It had to do, they said, with the welcoming warm glow of the 2700K soft white incandescent bulb as opposed to the 4000K bright white fluorescent lights that reminded them of a hospital or an industrial setting.

Here's why I think India got used to white lighting while the US stayed illuminated in yellow incandescence.  Without getting into the details of why India got ahead of the US in the race to phasing out incandescent light bulbs in favor of more efficient lighting alternatives, or delving into a discussion about the absurdity of deregulation of domestic energy policies, let me just say India had started adopting energy efficient lighting alternatives even before I was born, and at the time, the only fluorescent lighting available was the obnoxiously white kind my generation grew up with.  By the time the US was ready to upgrade it’s lighting to CFLs, technology had advanced enough to provide to the masses the option of a 2700K warm white CFL to warm their hearts just like the incandescent bulb.

You might be wondering why I am blubbering wildly on this subject.  This thought tsunami started with a simple sequence of events earlier this week.  It was 7pm one evening when Pavana asked me to turn on our living room lights, a modest arrangement of three 2700K 60W equivalent LED bulbs, which I proceeded to turn on one by one.  After the third bulb was turned on, Pavana remarked, “Why is it still so dull?”

“May be because it’s too yellow?  Should we try white LEDs?”, I replied.

“No.  Whites look weird.  Not welcoming.”

“Then should we put brighter bulbs?”

“That would be too yellow then.”

“Okay, then we should change them to white, right?”

“No.  Whites aren't welcoming.”

“Then let's try putting brighter bulbs.”

“No.  That would be too yellow.”

A slight throbbing developed in the back of my head.  I aborted the futile talk and turned to the Amazon app on my phone.  A cursory search drew a dizzying volume of search results.  I then aborted the search as well.

Over the next couple days though, I did some reading.  I discovered that the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT), i.e. the measure of the warmth using 2700K, 4000K, 5000K etc., is far from being the be-all and end-all for measuring this.  Lighting pundits have apparently been using something called the general Color Rendering Index (CRI), a utility of the Commission internationale de l'éclairage (CIE), for over 50 years.  This CRI is something I have routinely seen printed on the packaging for lights, but always selectively ignored.  In simple terms, a light source's CRI indicates how closely it can render colors like the sun on a scale of 0-100.  The humble incandescent bulb clocks at the most ideal CRI of 100, which explains why it remains the most preferred choice of indoor illumination, while the traditional white tubelight clocks at a CRI of 85-89, which is what folks like me from India are conditioned to.  It is hard to draw a correlation between CCT and CRI, and it becomes a function of the wavelength, because while the low CCT incandescent bulb renders all colors equally well, higher CCT fluorescents render some colors better than others.  With the advent of solid-state lighting (LEDs) however, researchers have found deficiencies with CRI measurement.  The  Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) came up with an alternative to CRI via the technical memorandum IES TM-30-15, which introduces three metrics, namely the Fidelity Index that is similar to the CRI, the Gamut Index that indicates how intense the colors are (saturation level), and the Color vector Graphic that indicates which colors are saturated or desaturated.  Another alternate metric called the Color Quality Scale (CQS) was developed by NIST.  CQS is like a CRI-plus that considers parameters like chromatic discrimination and human preference in addition to color rendering.

To cut a long story short, I brought to bear all of this new found wisdom and ended up purchasing a set of soft white 3000K 65W equivalent LED recessed flood bulbs for our kitchen.  These bulbs have a humble CRI of 90, but our tubelight-conditioned brains think this is ideal.  We love that it sort of looks yellow but yet yields light almost as white as the tubelight.  All of a sudden now, our kitchen looks cheerful.  The counters look bright.  We don't cut our fingers anymore while chopping fruits.  However, note that we changed only our kitchen lights.  The living room lights alluded to above are still yellow and melancholy.  This lighting disparity unfortunately results in an unanticipated emotional gradient when one walks from the kitchen into the living area.

Child-rearing Predicament

"I found another nanny for $15 an hour", said Pavana.

I began doing the customary day-week-month math in my mind. I don't know about you, but when I do mental math, my facial expression acquires a glassy-eyed aspect, sort of like how one of those tongue-tied fellows at the back of the classroom look when interrogated by the math teacher as to how many chaps are needed to complete a task in x days if y chaps can complete the task in z days. You get the posish.

"Oy?", Pavana's voice violently hit me between the eyebrows.

"What about COVID?", I blurted out insincerely.

"What about COVID?", echoed Pavana, albeit with a more austere intonation.  She had clearly sensed my insincerity.

"Actually, I think I can watch Mira while working...", I altered my response.

This proposal was plainly the unbaked solution to the day-week-month math problem talking.

"She is available from 10 to 2, which is what we need", said Pavana, seemingly ignoring my proposal but making a mental note to use it against me later. To be fair, I had blurted out the same unconvincing proposal about a dozen times during the week leading up to this conversation. I recognized I needed a more solid justification. I shepherded my brain back to solving the day-week-month math problem.

"I prefer this", Pavana continued, "If Mira can sleep from 2 to 4 and then....". Her voice first turned into a faint echo, then trailed off into the distance.

Truth be told, during that entire week, I had plugged in all possible values for the variables in the above day-week-month math problem. No result had convinced me. Meanwhile, Pavana seemed to have devised a strategy and all to bring me to her side of the aisle. No opportunity was missed in the next few days.  For example, this conversation:

Me: I need to pee, can you see Mira for a couple minutes?
P: Wait, I thought you said you would watch her all day?

Me: (mind voice) When did I say 'all day'?

Or this conversation:

Me: I have class today at 5, can I leave Mira with you?

P: Wait, I thought you said you would watch her all day?

Me: (mind voice) ...........'all day'? 

Or this conversation:

Me: I need to take the trash out. I'll leave her on the high chair.  Just keep a watch, okay?

P: Wait, I thought you said you would watch her all day?

Me: (mind voice) ............. <heartbeat flatline sound>

Does marriage come with a Miranda warning?  Something along the lines of “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be embellished and used against you while in the state of matrimony”?  Especially for husbands?  No?  If not, it should.

Don't get me wrong. Pavana's share of watching Mira in general far exceeds mine, what with her being the mom, and Mira saying "Amma" all the time.  As Pavana says, watching her doesn't mean just letting her play in one corner and sitting in another scrolling down Facebook and Insta feeds.  The watcher, she says, must engage with her, play blocks with her, change her diapers, teach her words, expose her to the wonders of colors and shapes, converse with her regarding matters of the world, what have you.  I do not disagree.  In fact, if anything did eventually convince me to employ a nanny, it was this socio-educational aspect of child-rearing.

We did ultimately employ a nanny.  We did so while acknowledging to ourselves that a nanny is definitely luxury, not a necessity.  We did so while reminding ourselves that we had scoffed at the very idea of a nanny not that long ago.  As is with any luxury product, our nanny offers us additional peace of mind, an emotional cushion, if you will, especially helping us go about our work day guilt-free and allowing us to be more productive at work.  We also have the added assurance that there is someone qualified who is spending time with Mira, taking to her, playing with her, teaching her things, reading to her, and essentially being an extension of us raising her and loving her.

Of Corona and Coiffeurs

Amid a global cataclysm induced by the coronavirus pandemic, the year 2020 comes to a close with a faint, almost hallucinatory, promise of a utopia where all 7.8 billion people on Earth will soon be made available an effective vaccine, which they will then willfully inoculate themselves with before proceeding to gallivant around incautiously like they used to in the pre-corona era.  While scientific community has been feverishly working toward transforming this chimera into reality, the privileged populace has been preoccupied with their own woes stemming from the new corona-lifestyle.  Although these woes are generally mere inconveniences that disrupt an otherwise agreeable existence, they are weighty enough to polarize the said populace into factions.  One such ludicrous woe is related to personal grooming, particularly, hair management.

While many hair-cutting establishments are open now, you might remember the early days of corona when closed hair salons caused panic among the dapper.  Several folks began wielding the scissor & comb and honing their home barbering skills citing the example of Mahatma Gandhi who taught himself how to cut his own hair during his days in England because an English barber refused to cut his hair, and several others chose to turn into long haired barbering skeptics and began imposing on others their newfound opinion on how nonessential activities like cutting hair interfere with life's spiritual pursuits.  

Interestingly, my own haircut schedule has mirrored NE Ohio weather patterns.  If I look back on any mild weather day since April 2020, I can picture myself sitting cross legged on the deck facing a mirror, with a meandering orange extension cord behind my back, trimming away merrily with my faithful WAHL trimmer, oblivious to the cries of "Don't sprinkle hair everywhere!", "Don't come inside without dusting yourself!", "Why don't you have the broom ready?", "Why is there hair on this side of the deck when you are sitting on that side?", "Why can't you clean as you go?", "There has to be a better solution!", etc. emanating from inside the house.  As a result, ever since winter temperatures have settled in, I have been bumming around the residence with an overgrown mane and bushy sideburns threatening to reach Elvis proportions soon.  With extremely limited outside social contact though, it is hard to find motivation to remedy this Neanderthal visage.  My only motivation at this time is Mira, who got a surreptitious haircut during a naptime covert operation orchestrated by Pavana earlier this week, and is now looking all spruce and tidy.

What's for breakfast?

"Tindi ge enta?"

This question seems to have taken over a large portion of our mental space lately.  There was a time when Pavana and I would wake up 15 min before we had to leave for work, break our fasts with a bowl of cornflakes each or grab a couple Kashi trail mix granola bars, and head out.  Even that was a significant lifestyle boost from my college days when I would have to apportion the $5 per diem my on-campus deli job provided for the entire day's meals, which I would do by either skipping breakfast altogether or relying on free coffee in my lab or occasionally raiding the bagel table at someone else's thesis defense or dissertation.

Today we are fortunate enough to have so many breakfast options at our disposal; umpa, vermicelli, idli, regular dosa, masala dosa, rava dosa, godi dosa, onion dosa, pancakes, tellavu, dhokla, sabudana khichdi, poha, patrode, cucumber sandwiches, za'atar sandwiches, potato sandwiches, thokku toast, what have you.  Not only have we learned the skills to make these items and expanded our appetites to accommodate them, but we are also fortune enough to afford the necessary rations their recipes call for.  And yet, the aforementioned question has become a constant in our household.  While the verbiage in the question is indicative of a genuine underlying concern for the family's nourishment, do I sense a lurking irreverence toward our privileged circumstances in the mild exasperation with which it is asked?