The Dinner Party Bore

 You are bound to meet one; here's how to deal with him (or her)

 

The festive season is in full swing now, and you know what that means, don’t you? Yes, there will be an endless slew of dinner parties that you will have to attend from here until the New Year dawns. And that means donning your finery and heading out for banal conversation and indifferent food night after night, until you are ready to scream blue murder. 

 

If you are anything like me, you will inevitably end up being stuck with the biggest bore in the gathering, exchanging bland platitudes while your eyes glaze over and you slowly lose the will to live. But don’t worry, help is at hand. I have spent the last few years perfecting my technique to end boring conversations and head on to someone more interesting at the party. And today I am going to share some of my tips with you so that you too can terminate your conversations with the resident bore without causing undue offence.

 

·       The most obvious way to move on is actually the most effective. While nodding and smiling at your interlocutor suddenly break away to look in the distance with a huge grin on your face. Wave madly as if you have caught sight of an old friend you haven’t seen in ages. Then, before the bore in question has had time to turn around and look, excuse yourself with a hurried, “I can’t believe he/she is here; must say hello!” and dash across the room.

·       Keep a drink in hand at all times. And when you feel that you are in danger of being trapped by a crashing bore, gulp it down quickly, look down at your glass with some surprise and say, “Oops, I seem to be running on empty. Let me get something to drink. Back in a tick.” We all know you are never coming back, but it’s only polite to act as if that is a real possibility.

·       Catch hold of a passing friend or acquaintance and offer to introduce them to the bore you are talking to. After you’ve made your introductions and they are making stilted conversation with one another, quickly make yourself scarce. Don’t do this too often, though, if you want to retain the friends you have. (Conversely, if you see a good friend stuck with a party bore, do go over and rescue them. I find that saying, in a firm tone of voice, “Can I borrow A for a moment? There’s someone I want him/her to meet” does the trick quite nicely.)

·       Make a pact with a friend who is also at the party and promise to call each other if either of you is stuck with a bore. Once the call comes through, look down at your phone, look concerned – even a bit worried – and say, “Sorry, but I have to take this.” Then move away to take the call – and make good your escape.

·       And if all of this seems like too much effort, then simply be upfront. After a few minutes of conversation, simply hold out your hand and say, “It’s been great catching up with you, but I must circulate now.” In this – as in all of life – sometimes the direct approach is the best one.

 

Got a ticket to ride

 But spare me all the tosh about the 'romance' of air travel

 

I am always astounded by people of my generation who talk about the ‘romance of air travel’. Mostly, because I can’t understand what they are on about. I could understand if those a couple of decades older than me waxed eloquent about the ‘good old days’ when people dressed up to travel by plane, when being an ‘air-hostess’ was a glamorous profession that attracted the best and the brightest, and when passengers were feted as they flew instead of being penned together like battery hens. 

 

But ever since I began flying I have to confess that I found nothing remotely glamorous about travelling in a steel tube, sitting uncomfortably close to strangers, and being fed re-heated food in Styrofoam containers, washed down with lukewarm Cola. Yes, it is indisputably exciting to arrive in a new destination, but as for the process of getting there, the less said the better.

 

Now that I think about it, I do have some stuff to say about flying in the 21^st century. And it’s mostly about how I cope with flights, what I wear to travel, and what I pack in my onflight bag, and a few tricks to preserve my sanity. Here are some of those tips in the hope they come in handy when you next take a flight.

 

·       Don’t eat the inflight meal if you can help it. It’s sometimes made a couple of days before and inexpertly warmed up in the on-board oven before service – which is why it is mostly tasteless muck. Much better to just grab a snack at the airport or pack a sandwich or a stuffed paratha to eat on the plane. If that seems like too much bother, even a small pack of bhujiya or chips can tide you over until you grab a hot meal on the ground.

·       Always pack one change of clothes and some clean underwear in your carryon bag. That way, if the airline fails to load your check-in luggage – which happens all too often – you will have something to wear the following day and won’t need to rush to the shops as soon as you arrive.

·       There are some people who never travel without a neck pillow. But I find that takes too much space in my carry-on. I would rather use that to pack a shawl or a light sweater for when the plane gets over-airconditioned – as is inevitably the case. Yes, some airlines will give you a blanket if you ask, but there is no guarantee that you will get one on every flight. So, if you don’t want to shiver for a few hours, carry one warm garment with you.

·       I simply cannot comprehend this new trend of people ‘raw-dogging’ on flights – that is, getting on without a book to read, a movie to watch, or even some music to listen to. As any seasoned traveller knows, the only way to survive a flight is to keep yourself entertained for its duration. So, pick a gripping book, download a new series on Netflix, or make a playlist that will keep you humming, until you reach your destination. That really is the best way to preserve your sanity on board.

 

Breakfast of champions

It has to be Indian all the way...

 

One of the things I enjoy most about travelling abroad is the opportunity to try new cuisines, enjoy exotic flavours, and immerse myself in an unfamiliar food culture. There is something magical about eating sushi sitting at a small counter in a Kyoto restaurant, slurping up a gelato in a tiny Italian town, gorging on bangers and mash in a British pub, or even having my sinuses opened up by a fiery Thai curry in a Bangkok food court. 

 

I say all this to establish that I am not one of those unadventurous eaters who arrives in a foreign city only to search for the nearest Indian restaurant so that I have some dal makhani and butter chicken for dinner. I am happy to eat the local cuisine, wherever I may find myself, for both lunch and dinner. It’s only first thing in the morning, when I head down to the hotel breakfast buffet, that I miss the food of India. 

 

Don’t get me wrong. There is much to enjoy about a great breakfast spread in a good hotel. And for a couple of days I do just that, filling my plate with local pastries and cakes, and then getting my protein fix with a couple of fried eggs accompanied by bacon and hash browns. But by the third day, ennui sets in. And that’s when I begin to long for the infinite variety of Indian breakfasts.

 

Even as I eat my almond croissant, my taste buds are craving for a pillowy soft idli which I could dunk into a spicy green chutney or gunpowder. The scrambled eggs on the buffet are no substitute for the fiery railway-style masala omelette that we get back home. And while I like a good sourdough as much as the next person, it really can’t stand up to a aloo paratha, eaten with a dab of achar and lashings of dahi. It’s only at the breakfast buffet do I begin to understand why some Indians travel with home-made theplas and achar to give their tastebuds a respite from the bland fare that most Western hotels serve up for the first meal of the day.

 

And it is only the West that is guilty as charged, given that it seems unable to think beyond pastries, eggs, sausages and cold cuts for breakfast, with some cut fruit thrown in for the healthy eaters. If you are travelling East, though, breakfast will generally include a variety of dimsum and congees, all of them served with spicy sauces and condiments to kickstart your palate for the day. 

 

But there is no denying that it is Indian hotels that do us proud when it comes to breakfast. You can order anything from a puri-bhaji to poha, upma or luchi served with channa dal or aloo dum. Most good hotels will have a live station, where you can order a dosa to your specifications. And I have fond memories of a stay at the Grand Chola in Chennai, where they actually have a sambhar buffet, featuring varieties from every part of the south.

 

Which may explain why I find myself increasingly choosing to stay in Indian hotel chains (if possible) when I am abroad. That way, even if I am in London or Marrakesh, I can start the day with a taste of India.

 

When the shiuli flowers...

It's time to celebrate the Goddess once again

 

A few months ago, I paid a visit to my favourite nursery in Delhi to pick up some plants for my balcony. Walking through the rows of spring blooms, I came across a plant that looked very familiar indeed. “Yeh shiuli hai, na?” I asked the gardener who was assisting me. “Nahin madam,” he said, shaking his head. “Isko parijaat kehte hain.” I was unconvinced by this explanation. So, I took a picture and uploaded it into an app that helps identify plants. And what do you know? Both of us were right. This plant is called parijaat in north India; but in east India (where I grew up) it is called shiuli. 

 

As a child growing up in Calcutta, I was always told that the shiuli plant was very auspicious because its flowering – which happens only once a year – heralds the beginning of the Pujo season. Every October, without fail, the white and orange blooms of the shiuli tree burst forth, reminding us that the Goddess Durga is on her way and will soon be among us. These teeny-tiny flowers fall from the shiuli tree every night, carpeting the floor and exuding a heavenly fragrance that I have always associated with Pujo festivities.

 

So, even though the parijaat/shiuli available in the nursery were just small potted plants, I decided to take a couple home with me. In a couple of years, I thought to myself, they would grow strong and high and maybe, in time, they would start to flower and remind me of those heady pre-Pujo evenings I remembered from my days in Cal. So, I transplanted them into roomy pots and resigned myself to a long wait.

 

Well, guess what? Just a few months down the line, as October began to rear its head, these small little bushes that I had been watering faithfully began to throw up little buds on their branches. And in a week or so, my plants were redolent with the shiuli blossoms, exuding their trademark perfume and putting me in the right Pujo spirit. Sure, the flowers were tinier than I remembered from the tree in Calcutta, and they wilted far sooner, but for a little baby plant, my shiuli was doing very well in its role as a harbinger of the Goddess.  

 

But while this gladdened my heart, injecting it with a dose of rose-tinted nostalgia for the Durga Pujos past that I had celebrated in the city of my birth, it also left me a little bit sad. And that’s because this year, Pujo will not have the same resonance in Calcutta. By all accounts, everyone is still shattered by the R.G. Kar rape case, and the Pujo spirit has been diluted with both anger and sadness.

 

And while I know that it will be hard to enjoy the festivities quite as we did in the years gone by, the flowering of the shiuli reminded me that the Goddess will keep her appointment with us this Pujo as well. Now, it is up to us to give her the kind of welcome she deserves and to pray that her avenging spirit does right by the young doctor who has, so far, been failed by the system.

 

Glad to be grey?

Well, it certainly works for some women -- but I think I will live to dye another day 

Glad to be grey? Well, some women of a certain age certainly are. Veteran actress, Zeenat Aman, made her Instagram debut recently, rocking her grey shoulder-length bob, and immediately went viral. Gen Z could not get enough of her pewter hair (and her pithy aphorisms drawn from many decades of toiling away in Bollywood). 

This came as something of a surprise to Aman herself, who wrote on one of her Insta posts: “I didn't intend for my grey hair to be a statement, but a statement it has become. In fact, yesterday I read a tweet by someone who said they know at least three people who have been inspired to stop colouring their hair since I made my Instagram debut! I thought this was a wonderful compliment. If embracing my natural hair is encouraging others to do the same, then I'm all the happier for it.”

Aman is not the only yesteryear actress to embrace her natural grey hair. The ever-graceful Sharmila Tagore has also stopped dyeing her hair, rocking a salt and pepper head that looks both elegant and appropriate for her age. Dimple Kapadia also went grey during the lockdown, saying that it was “so empowering” to stop hiding her natural hair colour.

And this is far from being an Indian trend. In the West, such actresses as Jane Fonda, Andie MacDowell, Helen Mirren, Jamie Lee Curtis, and countless others have cancelled their three-weekly colour appointments and decided to proudly let their natural grey show. Needless to say, all these ladies — both in India and abroad — look truly magnificent. 

Looking at their pictures, I began to wonder if all this palaver involving monthly colour appointments was actually worth the bother? While I am not as old as any of the women listed (though, with a bit of luck, I will get there eventually) maybe it was time to bite the bullet and let my natural hair colour — whatever it may be; I genuinely no longer have a clue — emerge in the fullness of time. After all, many of my friends had stopped colouring their hair a decade ago, having decided to embrace their greys, and they looked pretty good. 

But being of a cautious bent of mind, I decided to do a dress rehearsal of sorts first. So, I duly downloaded an app that allows you to upload your pictures and change your hair colour to see how you look. Well, I did just that, turning my hair grey in one of my selfies — and got a bit of a shock. I didn’t look either elegant or magnificent like the ladies who had inspired me. I just looked ten years older and — dare I say it? — as if I hadn’t slept in a week. 

Clearly that certain something that allows some women to carry off grey hair and look amazing in the process is completely missing in my DNA. I need a pop of colour — be it burgundy, chocolate brown, auburn; whatever my mood dictates that month — on the top of my head to make my look work. 

So, I guess those colour appointments will continue to be a part of my life. The grey will simply have to stay hidden. And I will live to dye another day. 

Childless cat ladies

Do they deserve the bad rap they get?

Thanks to the American presidential election and vice-presidential hopeful, J.D. Vance, the term ‘childless cat lady’ had become a part of the political lexicon. It has been used to attack presidential candidate and the current Vice-President of the United States, Kamala Devi Harris, for not having biological children. This ‘failing’ – as the Republicans would have it – means that Harris has no real stake in the future; that she has no one in her life to ‘keep her humble’; and no understanding of the lives of everyday Americans who are raising families of their own.

 

There are so many things wrong with this view of childless – or childfree, if that’s the word you prefer – that it is hard to know where to start. It is absurd to suggest that just because you haven’t birthed babies, you are willing to let the world go to hell in a handbasket. And those who suggest this don’t understand either the concept of empathy or that of extended and blended families. As for the idea that women need to be kept ‘humble’ so that (presumably) they don’t try to rise above their stations; well frankly, this is a risible goal in the 21^st century. 

 

As the party of Christian values, surely the Republicans know that the progenitor of their religion, Jesus Christ, had no biological children of his own – which is why he regarded the entire world as his progeny. And nor, for that matter, did the mother who birthed him (the Virgin Mary – the clue is in the name), and yet she is revered as a universal mother figure in the Christian canon. So, maybe – just maybe – it is not imperative to have a child who shares your DNA to care about the wider world.

 

I can’t help but be thankful that this sort of narrative hasn’t taken hold in Indian politics – well, not as yet, at least. Our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has no children and that fact has never been used to suggest that he is not concerned about the future of India. Instead, he is commended for this because it means that he is doing everything for the betterment of the country as a whole and not to improve the lot of his kids. Similarly, the Prime Minister In Waiting, Rahul Gandhi, doesn’t have children, and that isn’t seen as a failing either; rather people appear to be thankful that this fact could signal the end of dynastic politics in this country.

 

It helps, of course, that both Modi and Gandhi are men. And we do not have similar expectations of men as we do of women. Perhaps, if there was a childless woman asking to be Prime Minister of India, the same objections would be raised about her as well. Meanwhile in America, the Democrats and Harris’s own family are trying to defend her by saying that she does have children – step-children, who she has helped raise, and whose lives she is involved in.

 

But if you ask me, this is the wrong response. The right response would be to say that a woman doesn’t need children (biological, adopted, step, foster, whatever) to have her existence validated. Just being a woman – in herself, by herself, for herself – is enough.

 

Turning the page

What happens when an old favourite doesn't appeal any more?

When it comes to reading, I am very much a creature of habit. I have my favourite authors who I go back to time and again and whose new releases I look forward to with keen anticipation. 

So you can imagine my excitement when I read that one of my favourite writers was coming out with a new book. David Nicholls (of One Day fame) was releasing a new novel, You Are Here, which had been universally well-reviewed by the critics. I faithfully downloaded it as soon as it became available on Kindle and in a state of heightened anticipation sat down to read it. 

But only 15 minutes into that exercise I realised that a strange feeling was creeping over me. Could it possibly be boredom? Surely not! This was one of my favourite authors writing a book in one of my favourite genres (romance, for want of a better term). And yet I was finding it hard proceeding beyond the first few chapters. How was this possible? 

I persisted with the book for a couple of weeks, forcing myself to read a few chapters at a time before finally deciding that life was too short to hold myself ransom to a book that really didn’t speak to me at all. So, I turned to another old favourite of mine to repair matters. Daniel Silva had just come out with the latest Gabriel Allon thriller, A Death In Cornwall, and I thought this would do the trick nicely. 

So, I started the book, fingers crossed, hoping that this one would give me more joy. But no such luck. Even though all my favourite characters were in attendance and all the tropes that make an Allon thriller were present and accounted for, I found this book heavy going as well. 

It was when I found myself struggling with Daniel Silva, my perennial go-to when it comes to spy thrillers, that an alarm went off in my head. What exactly was the problem here? Was it the book (or books)? Or was it me? What accounted for the fact that I simply wasn’t enjoying reading the authors that I had always sworn by. 

Could it be that my attention span had been destroyed by too much social media? Had scrolling through Twitter rewired my brain in such a way that I no longer appreciated writing  that was longer than byte-sized? Had the Internet finally fried my head so badly that I could not immerse myself in reading, one of the great joys of my life. 

You may laugh, but I was so perturbed by this state of affairs that I decided I had to investigate deeper. And what better way to do that than to go back to the books that had introduced me to these writers and made me a life-long fan. So I duly dug out my well-thumbed copy of One Day and, much to my joy, managed to get through it in a couple of days, enjoying every second. Then, it was time to delve into Silva’s first book in the Allon Series, The Kill Artist, to check if the magic still worked — and yes, it did. 

So maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t me, after all. It was the books. And I can’t tell you what a relief that realisation was!