Backyard Bird Watching

We are by no means amateur Birders in our family and can profess to having little to no-skill in that area. I can't even localize human sound that usually begins with "mommy" in a small enclosed space, so forget about identifying bird sounds and tracking them in a nature hike. But what we lack in skill we make up with enthusiasm and an aspiration to be in harmony with nature.

As Gandhi (nope i am in no way comparing us with him, but bear with me as i might have a point) remarked in his "My experiments with truth" that his opinions might change later, and he was merely recording his experiments in the form of narratives, I too am simply recording some of my experiments in trying to live with nature which I might abandon (i mean the specific experiment, not the goal) anytime. So don't expect a Walden from me, just some random ramblings.

I spent about $30 and bought a bird feeder, a wren nest and some song bird seeds with the intent of attracting birds to our backyard. "What prompted this", you ask. Well we've always been early-morning hikers and despite myself not being endowed with good auditory equipment, the combination of my daughter's auditory and my visual equipment has led us to spot many birds on hikes. Also my 7 year old has been pestering me forever to have a house pet (for which i am not ready), and by some weird coincidence the only magazines I could find in my gym were from Audubon society or the gardening ones which seem to be persuading me to set up a bird haven in my backyard, and so here I am.

Thanks to my resident muscle man, I was able to set up the poles in the backyard, secure them to the trees and last week had everything ready for the birds. Now all we had to do was to wait and watch. What I didn't anticipate is the extreme-enthusiasm (i know, i should have, knowing that's the only kind of enthusiasm she has for these kinds of things) with which my daughter started observing the backyard, so much so she didn't have to be told to wear her glasses! She is desperate to have a wren's nest at our home and thinks she can do it by simply willing it.

At the end of day 1, she decided to get some extra help when she realized her will alone won't do it. So she turned to "praying to mother earth". She had purchased a book called Native American Book of Prayers when she visited Yellowstone last summer and had spent considerable time with it on the potty (not the holiest of places, but certainly a very meditative one for her), so anytime she needed a little help from nature she has been turning to that book and saying a few prayers from there!

I am now happy to report we now have frequent visitors in our backyard, a couple of them checked out the nest, but we are not in escrow yet, just open-house visitors. "It is so hard to tell girl sparrows from boy sparrows"  was her observation yesterday after she spent 10 minutes trying to egg one of the birds to find a mate - her way of setting them up by simply cheering from the background; when for "no apparent reason" they suddenly fought with each other ("They both had to be boys of course" was her conclusion). So yes, we are waiting and she hopes March will bring luck to the wren nest.

For now, we are happy to have "sparrows" and I call them that as I am currently clueless about the birds, some have a red breast, one was yellow, and there is constant chatter of birds throughout the day. Looks like I do need a North American Bird Book, and here is an app that I will gladly pay money for, but once again the resident computer vision expert reminds me object recognition is extremely hard.... ok, ok... so get cracking :)

Anyways, the raised bed is re-established, we've planted a few bulbs this time, the hummingbird feeder is back on, and the bird seed feeder is being used round the clock and the wren nest is waiting. So yes, we are ready for spring and after the cold spell this season I don't mind reciting a few prayers from the Native American Book myself so we can have a splendid spring and a nice summer!

OBOC - Srilanka

Apologies for not sticking to the alphabetic order. Have been meaning to read a couple of authors but if i had to wait for their countries to pop up in order it would have taken me at least another year or two! Also the BBC World Book Club was reading "The Reef" by Romesh Gunesekera an author i've been meaning to read, so, here I am with my choice for Srilanka.

Growing up in Tamil Nadu, Ceylon (as Srilanka was called in those days) was not far away both geographically and otherwise. The geographical proximity meant that at one time almost every household in Chennai boasted these giant "booster antenna" in the hope of catching Rupavahini (the famed Srilankan television channel) airwaves. Besides the friendly airwaves we also received waves of refugees as the civil war escalated and Tamil Nadu became almost a second stage for the conflict.  Srilanka held a fair chunk of the '80s news headlines in my state and every political party has gained some mileage by exploiting "the cause". Personally I've also known some really amazing survivors from Srilanka who came as refugees to India and now call it home, and others whose families are spread all over the world that organizing a family gathering is almost like organizing a UN Security Council meeting!

So when The Reef opened with an accidental encounter of a Sinhalese and a Tamil in London, my mind immediately raced with a lot of different possibilities for the novel. The story is narrated by Triton who starts out his life as a servant boy in the household of Ranjan Salgado and gradually grows up to be Mr.Salgado's sole aide. He leads a sheltered life in the household, as Mr.Salgado is an almost reclusive bachelor with just a very small circle of friends until Missy i.e Miss Nili enters his life. Now and then we get a glimpse of the larger events happening in Srilanka at that time but by far the characters are caught up in their own microcosm until the very end when Mr.Salgado and Triton leave the country to settle down in the UK.

Triton is an amazing cook and the book is full of references to food which as a vegan I didn't appreciate much but any other food lover would probably drool over. The colonial past of Srilankan society is also brought to focus and so are the class differences. (The scene that stood out for me was when Missy gives Triton a christmas present along with a 100 rupee note)

Mr.Salgado is a Marine Biologist of sorts.  As the beautiful ocean reef that he cared for starts seeing the damaging effect of pollution one cannot but draw parallels to the beautiful country of Srilanka and the effect of terrorism and civil war on it.

I liked the book for its prose, but was a bit disappointed that it dealt too much with just the domestic tale of the Salgado household. I didn't quite appreciate the interjections into the tale, incidents from Srilankan politics without any framework of reference for me. Like Triton, I too was clueless about some of the conversations and had to look up many events. I don't mind doing that, but it just didn't flow well in my mind. Also I felt misled by the opening scene where the Tamil and the Sinhalese accidentally met in London as that led me to believe that some Tamil-Sinhala relationship was going to crop up in the flashback, but there was nothing much of that.

Anyway, I've raised this small gripe of mine with Romesh Gunesekera himself through the BBC World Book Club and i am eager to find out if that question was raised and answered.

OBOC - Kiribati

Just when I was questioning if OBOC is actually helping me understand any nation any better, I realized that it is actually helping me discover nations that until now I didn't know existed in the first place! (Note: This from a person who prides on being above average in geography and knowledge of other cultures). But for OBOC I wouldn't have known Kiribati existed and would've also not known that it is to be pronounced as Kiribaas. Of course the "colonial upbringing" meant that Gilbert Islands seemed vaguely familiar, still I never imagined them to be a separate nation.

 I compromised and picked a non-native author from Kiribati as it was hard to find a beacon of literary treasure from Kiribati. I could've gone with Teresia Teaiwa but I desperately needed some light reading for the Holidays when I was going to be surrounded by 20+ people within a 2500sqft space. Not a time for serious contemplative reading. Maarten Troost's "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" was the final choice for Kiribati.

At the age of 26, tired of moving from one temp job to another, Troost grabs the opportunity to go to what he envisioned as a tropical paradise, Tarawa the capital of Kiribati where his stalwart bride Sylvia accepted a government position. His hopes and dreams of a paradise are completely shattered as he realizes that Tarawa is not a dreamy, exotic vacation spot, but just a hot cauldron with limited sanitation, hygenie, food, vegetation, and infrastructure of any kind.

Troost in a very wodehouse like manner captures his adventures in Kiribati over the two years he and Sylvia spend in the island, so much so that some of his (mis)adventures are plain laugh out loud funny. The island is also replete with colorful characters both human and non-human, especially of the canine variety. How he survives the two years by slowly unlearning his i-Matang ways and acquiring some i-Kiribati skills and in the process actually comes to admire some of the islanders way of living (without romanticizing it too much - after all it is hard to do when surrounded by filth and fish) forms the crux of the book.

I enjoyed it despite the stereotypes and somewhat cliched humor.  Recently I spent a week in not-so-remote villages in India. Having grown up in India, I assumed i would be at complete ease in such an environment. I would be lying if I said that was the case. Having to choose between exercising a 10hour bladder control to venturing into a pitch dark squat station during the day, I chose the latter. The acrobatic skills that were required to accomplish such a seemingly simple task with a Nokia phone clutched in my mouth as flash light while I vigilantly scanned the room for lizards and roaches told me how much I take things for granted. Now take that experience and multiply it a 100 times, that was Troost's. No wonder it made a funny and compelling read!

OBOC -Kenya

It has been a quarter of unintended consequences, and one of those consequences is the almost snail pace at which i am progressing with OBOC. Got caught up with too many things that started off innocuously but led to a series of events that were completely unintended, that I couldn't find the time or the frame of mind to sit down and dig into a serious book.

I gave up Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif which I picked as the book for Jordan. It is a great book and I loved the story of the Arabian world coming into collision with America and the impact of oil on Bedouins, but after 400 pages I wanted some closure, and this just wouldn't end! And then it was "A grain of wheat" by Nguigi Wa Thiongo, but gave that one up after 30 pages. I guess too much anti-colonial literature does get to you after all.

Then it was "One Day I will Write About This Place" by Binyavanga Wainaina, a memoir of the author's life in Africa that would've worked much better as a series of essays than as a book. Still I enjoyed the book and like a Christmas miracle managed to finish it, which given my recent track record is pretty remarkable! Although the story begins in Kenya, the memoir takes us through the author's time spent across Africa, especially South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and Togo.

Binayavanga through the memoir takes us through his early childhood, the school years, his struggles as a student in South Africa and later as a budding writer. Interwoven into his personal story is the story of the changing political landscape of Africa, and the struggles of the people. Many of the changes in Africa have been played out in front of a world audience especially the end of Apartheid, the Rwandan Genocide, the numerous dictators and their brutal reigns, the struggles of Sudan, but this book shows what it means to actually live through and experience those changes.

Although am not a big fan of the youtubish art of self-expression through comments, I do sometimes read the comments on the "Have your say" section of the BBC News website as I like to hear what the people from the region affected by what is otherwise just a headline for the rest of us have to say. This memoir was certainly a window into Africa in that sense and so it was worth reading just to get that perspective. One more book that proved how little I know of too many things. OBOC while an interesting project, has led me to writers i had never heard of, but i have to concede it has not really furthered my understanding of any country beyond the surface.

OBOC - Japan

After a long hiatus I finally sat down to write the review for Norwegian Wood. Although I finished the book about 3 weeks back, this summer has been really busy that I have longed for a room of my own and some time of my own to actually sit down and put pen to paper so to speak.

Norwegian Wood is the book that propelled Japanese writer Haruki Murakami to overnight super stardom, and sure enough I can see why the book has its enduring appeal especially to the young. After all even the Ulysses appealed to a certain segment of the population purely for Molly Bloom’s soliloquy if you get my drift. The book spans a whole lot of issues from mental illness, suicide to the obsession of the young with sex and alcohol, all set in the '60s Japan with the student strikes as the backdrop.  Just like the Beatles song which has the ability to tug at your heartstrings, the novel which is inspired by the song does the same.

The hero Watanabe is torn between the love for two women who are in contrast with each other. One the terrific beauty but mentally disturbed and therefore almost unattainable Naoko, and the other the lively, outgoing and confident Midori. One finds Watanabe an unlikely hero in this novel. He is extraordinarily ordinary and is always caught between two extremes, whether people, places or situations. Lives in the dirtiest of men's dorms with the cleanest of roomates, is at ease in the all-night clubs of Shinjuku or in the desolate, idyllic mountains, is caught between the promiscuous yet charming Nagasawa and his kind and complex girlfriend Hatsumi.

When Naoko's boyfriend (and Watanabe's closest friend) Kizuki commits suicide on his 17th birthday for no apparent reason, their lives are permanently altered, so much so when Naoko and Watanabe bump into each other in Tokyo, Kizuki is ever-present but is hardly spoken about.  Their feelings for each other is never revealed until the night of Naoko's 20th birthday when both are extremely vulnerable. Naoko unable to handle her new relationship with Watanabe checks herself into a sanatorium in the mountains to deal with all her inner demons. Watanabe copes with his loss and patiently waits for Naoko who never returns as she ends up committing suicide.

During this entire time Watanabe leans heavily on Midori but at the same time ignores her needs, until he spends a night with Reiko (Naoko's friend) from the sanatorium. Reiko advices him that it is time for him to seize happiness and live a full life on behalf of Naoko and all the others in his life. She also helps him realize that Midori is the most important person in his life. Will Midori accept him back? That is left unanswered.

I just simply couldn't put the book down. The characters were very well defined and etched skilfully. While many pages were extremely morbid and gloomy, like the extremes that the hero lives in, there were many other pages that were funny and even raunchy! After all it is the '60s and we are talking of 17 to 20 year olds here. Some of the language in the book was just plain poetry, and even as a simple love story this would have worked just on the strength of the language. But this is much more than a love triangle. It is a lot more complex and the emotional upheaval of adolescence dealing with love and loss and coming of age in such turbulent times is beautifully told.

As someone who went through a very peaceful and very easy adolescence I couldn't fathom how much the characters in the novel had to go through. There are no safe havens. There is no mention of a home or a family one can lean on, except for Midori. There are only institutions, Schools, Sanatoriums, Hospitals, Dorms, Universities. Even the dorms look like prison walls, and there is death everywhere.

This is certainly a love story, but most certainly not a fairy tale romance. I recommend the book to anyone who doesn't mind a fair amount of realism and a dose of pessimism as at one point Murakami says life is inherently unfair and "no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning"

My Dad Can Cook

Life in my household can be split into two distinct eras –BC (“Before child”) and well you know, the obvious, AD (After Daughter). While my daughter has been the motivation behind many of my posts, this Father’s Day weekend, I decided to focus on the often-neglected 3^rd member of my home – the husband, but again the trigger for the post comes from a card he received for Father’s Day from our little one. 

The qualities I saw in him during the BC years should have given me some clue as to what the AD years should look like, but I was still not prepared for what the AD years would bring. 7 years into AD it is so obvious now and the small note from my daughter triggered enough in me to take the time to write about what I felt.

The influence and impact of a Father on a Daughter can never be understated. I am a prime example of one positively influenced heavily by everything my dad did and did not do or say, that it has lasted well beyond my dad’s passing.  So every time I see my husband and daughter bonding, I get this warm glow inside me as I feel she is going to have what I used to have.  If my husband ever had any doubt of his abilities as a dad, she put it to rest this weekend with a simple phrase. “I love my dad because” was the prompt on her cliched card from school, she had completed the sentence with “he loves to play silly games with me and cooks me any food that I ask him to”. The message was accompanied by a picture of dad and daughter both dressed in pink with clouds above them raining hearts!

Over the years we’ve tried to raise her with the mantra that although boys and girls are different in some ways, there is no such thing as boys’ stuff and girls’ stuff – whether it is in books, games, toys or work. Every book, game we choose is well thought out and carefully considered, but I’ve still felt that it is just too darn difficult unless we decide to raise her in an androgynous bubble. Girls love princesses, they wear pink, they love to bake and do art – these are refrains from the environment that creep up on you all the time. The number of mother’s day cards with the statement my mom is the best cook in the whole world, I am sure far outnumbers the cards that state my mom is the best engineer in the world, and yes we have millenia of gender roles to thank for that.

Now do you see where I am going with her card for her dad? We were just plain thrilled that dad’s card had something about his willingness to cook for her anything she likes.   Despite ourselves we do have certain set roles w.r.t her and if you ask her what each does for her, I bet she will say something like this – Mom packs lunch and has dinner with her, Dad makes breakfast and drops in school; Mom plays Circuits and builds legos, Dad does Carrom and chess; Mom reads and Dad (in her own words) “doesn’t read at all”; Dad is an engineer, Mom works with a bunch of them; Mom picks out outfits despite hating shopping, but Dad makes me look good in them including doing my hair; Dad chooses the car, Mom argues with the car dealer; Mom plans, Dad executes… and the list goes on – but we’ve realized that we’ve fallen into these roles based on 2 important things 1) Nature and schedule of our work 2) Individual talents/skill set which strangely have nothing to do with our gender.

She probably didn’t think twice when she wrote the card, but that speaks volumes by itself, and set me off to write this about him. I don’t want to make it sound that everything is rosy in our home and we just seamlessly adjust and fill gaps for each other. Just like any other household we have our good days and our bad ones, but I can certainly say we seriously try to make sure the good days far outnumber the bad ones.

This Father’s Day, while I reflected on my own dad and all the things he has done for me, I couldn’t help but acknowledge that my daughter is luckier than I in having for a dad a man, for whom being a man is not mainly about making the big bucks, tinkering with DIY, driving a fast(er) car,  and following sports, but more about being around for us and doing whatever it takes. I know he is not alone, so here's a shout out to all the dads who choose to cross the role barriers

OBOC - Israel

I was torn between Amos Oz and David Grossman when i had to pick the author for Israel. Both are well known internationally, both support the two state solution and seem to hold similar political views. I went with Grossman and his book "To the end of the land" as i got a sneak peek into the book from BBC World Book Club.

Grossman dedicated the book to his son Uri who was killed in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Although the book was begun much earlier and intended to be some kind of a magical shield that would protect his sons, Uri's death haunts the novel with a dose of reality.

Onto the plot itself. Two best friends Ilan and Avram fall in love with the same girl Ora. Ora picks Ilan although she loves them both. Ilan is rational, Avram is impulsive; Ilan is nerdy but Avram is brilliant. Ora has a son Adam through Ilan, and several years later has another son Ofer through Avram. Both Adam and Ofer are brought up as brothers by Ora and Ilan. If all this seems an "ordinary" tale of a love triangle, throw Israel into the mix and the story just gets seriously complicated. Avram and Ilan both serve in the Army during the 1973 war, and Avram is captured and tortured by Egyptians. At the end of the war Avram is a broken man who wants to have nothing to do with anything and stays away from Ilan, Ora and even Ofer. Ora and Ilan are plagued by guilt and that runs through their life and the novel.

When Ofer voluntarily re-enlists after his military duty ended, Ora is plagued by fear of "notifiers" and refuses to stay home awaiting news about her son. Instead she decides to runaway from home and hike the Gailee just as she had planned with Ofer, but this time picks  a reluctant Avram as her hiking partner. She decides that the best way to keep Ofer safe was to narrate his entire life story to Avram in detail as she hopes that the telling of his story will act as a magical shield. The entire novel is then told in a stream of consciousness narrative from Ora to Avram. Does the hike save Ofer, does it save Avram and what about the torn and tortured relationships among all the lead characters... you have to read the book to find out!

Through this narrative we get a glimpse of private lives in Israel set against the political climate. As Ora recounts Ofer's life from the moment he was born, his first steps, the love between the brothers, his first love and the subsequent loss we are caught in this world and just like Ora are fearing for Ofer's safety.We also understand what it means to love your country and your family and how does a mother choose between the two when she is forced to! Just like in aboriginal cultures when the boy undergoes initiation rites and is for the first time separated from his mother, in Israel the conscription appears to change the relationship between mothers and sons, when the sons leave as boys and return as men. Grossman manages to portray a picture of ordinary people trying to lead ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances.

One small gripe - Grossman could have expanded the role of Sami, the Arab cab driver who is an integral part of Ilan's family. The relationship between Sami and Ora is sketched so well, and we get a very small glimpse into lives of Arabs living inside Israel that it leaves us longing for more. I guess I have to pick up a Palestinian written book to get the other side.

A very good companion to the book is the BBC World Book Club interview with the author. Overall it was a great experience reading the book, although there were times when i got impatient with the stream of consciousness and was tempted to go to the last page to see if Ofer survives, but I am glad I stuck with it and savored it.