Ashima is Tabu. Tabu, is Ashima. Namesake is just shake up your brain and clean it up cutting clean brilliant .I always thought Panna of Hututu was Tabu, fragile edgy beautiful, but no, Ashima is Tabu. Awesome. My Cal, and why memories must be memories.The heartbreaking grandeur, the peeling-paint decay, the pratima of the deity lowered to the waters . Shots that get under your skin, the howling one, the morgue one how did she know, pulling out moisture from long dry eyes. That “that’s only for family” one. The last shot of Ashima tackling a pure alap with a confident abandon, on the open terrace, by the backdrop of the sky and howrah bridge. Somewhere it is about being forty-something and getting on with your life, the world and its first cousin, go take a hike. Now I must read the book. (The Namesake/ Mira Nair, based on the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri)


The swirling heat blankets the city first thing mornings, when you con yourself how nice sandalwood or khus or cologne or whatever soap scent smells and you need a bath about ten minutes after you’ve just had one, is a great time to begin reading Marquez. The sadness and the breadth where a lifetime is condensed in maybe five words, yes, no?, and why what must be, must be, ah lovely! “Seventy poisoned Englishmen”, and “I only came in to use the phone”; from those sleek seventy years of penguin series, not too much, not a little, which seems right in every way.


After a fortnight of polite “good morning, Manhattan, maxima minima windspeed”, N digs and how. Two minutes and he says he needs a tequila, not tea. He digs and questions and parries and pulls at scabs and peels picks. Deftly sidesteps tight punches powerful enough to leave a blue shiner. Late? Take a cab/walk, but, talk. Throws in Jung and patterns till he draws the furious gray steel of temper, the same one as sixteen years ago. “See a therapist”. And I still think he is the most terrific darling in the world.

Climbing up the steps to babulnath, ragged breath and names of long dead benefactors paved underneath. The generous green canopy against the pink sandstone and gold at siddhivinayak, touching the breeze like a benediction. The light flooding past the engraved screen at the sanctum. The reflection of the spires on glass casing on the mount opposite Mount Mary’s, where the eternal flame burns. IE is back at work post her chemo, a thanksgiving. V moves on to newer pastures, the world awaits, and her black granite desk stark and empty.