Break's up

How to cope with post-holiday blues

 

Chances are that you are reading this at the fag end of your summer vacation. That long-awaited trip to the beach or the mountains is nearly over. Or perhaps you are on the last leg of your European break. Or maybe you have just arrived at the penultimate stop on your tour of South-East Asia.

 

But no matter what your summer plans were, there is one thing all of you will experience when you come back home: the post-holiday blues. You know what I mean, of course. That conviction that the best bits of life are over, and that it’s going to be tedium all along from now. The feeling that all excitement has been leached out of your existence, and that life is going to revert to being a mundane daily slog.

 

No matter where we holiday or how, we always come back with the belief that while holidays are lived in technicolour, real life is just boring old black and white, with even more boring shades of grey thrown in between. So, who can blame us for feeling just a teeny bit out of sorts as we unpack our luggage and prepare to deal with mind-numbing quantities of dirty laundry?

 

Well, I am here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way. There are many tricks you can employ to make sure that you don’t experience that all-too-familiar post-holiday slump this year. Here are some, in no particular order of importance.

 

·       Don’t make the rookie mistake of coming back the night before you have to rejoin work (and your kids have to get back to school or college). Instead, schedule things so that you have a clear two days at home before normal work resumes. You need this buffer to decompress from the stress of unpacking and getting the house back into order. And you need that time to transition from holiday mode to your workday persona.

 

·       Schedule little treats for yourself and your family for when you come back home after a trip. Yes, the everyday boredom of household chores and work responsibilities will resume with a certain inevitability. But that does not mean that you can’t take an hour or even ten minutes to do something that makes you happy. This could be something as simple as ordering ice-cream for a special treat after dinner or keeping a new book on standby that you can enjoy reading on your first night back in your own bed, so that you have something to look forward to.

 

·       Recreate the best bits of your vacation in the comfort of your own home. Loved the pasta you had in that quaint little restaurant in Liguria? Try and recreate it in your kitchen over the weekend to get a taste of your holiday yet again. Enjoyed the quality time you shared with your children as you went on a road trip through America? Revive those memories by playing the same silly games or blasting the same rock songs in the car as you drive them to school. Missing the connection that you had with your significant other while on a break? Designate one day of the week as date night and try and rekindle that same magic. 

 

The holiday may be over; but there is no reason why you can’t take a break.

 

The media is the message

And a new TV series brings it home with style

 

I don’t know if you will have seen the new Netflix show, Scoop, by the time you read this (and just in case you haven’t I will post no spoilers – though the story it is based on made the headlines decades ago). Having binged on it over the last few days I must confess that rarely have I seen a TV show in which India’s print media is portrayed in a more realistic and balanced manner.

 

So much so that it made me nostalgic for the days when I worked in the newsrooms of yore, where everyone would muck in on getting the magazine or newspaper together, tussle over which stories should be pitched to the editor, what would work best on the front page, edit page or the back of the book, and bicker about everything from new age cinema to who would get to cover the next election rally.

 

It is possible that I am needlessly romanticizing that period of my life but in my recollection it is marked by a sense of common purpose, a camaraderie shot through with competition and a feeling – perhaps misguided – that we were serving some higher purpose as we put together stories on such varied topics as the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the Harshad Mehta scandal or the IC 814 hijacking.

 

It is that atmosphere that director Hansal Mehta has recreated so beautifully in Scoop. The newsrooms in this series have a certain authenticity to them. There is banter (both good-natured and not), there is staff rivalry along with a sense of collegial noblesse oblige. But every character comes in shades of grey. And the vast spectrum that comprises the Indian media scene is depicted in a nuanced way, all the way from the shouty TV news channels to tabloid newspapers to respected and respectable broadsheets.

 

But for me, the revelation in Scoop was the portrayal of Jagruti Pathak (Karishma Tanna), a character based on real-life reporter, Jigna Vora (the series is based on her book Behind Bars in Byculla). Finally, we have a female journalist who is depicted as a fully-formed human being, a single mother with a young son, and a loving extended family that helps her look after him. Mehta doesn’t feel the need to make Jagruti seem ‘liberated’ by making her spout Hindi gaalis in every second sentence – the default setting of most series on streaming services these days. 

 

The scenes that resonate the most are set in prison, where Jagruti spends eight months as an undertrial, coming up against a system that tries its best to break her, both in body and in spirit. But it’s not just the prison system that is the problem here; the legal system and the police system are just as much to blame. Chargesheets are filed on the basis of no real evidence, court dates keep getting pushed back, legal expenses pile up. In other words, just like in real life, the process is the punishment.

 

I did say in the beginning that I would post no spoilers. But it seems relevant here to point out that while Jagruti’s legal problems are resolved in the series, in real life Jigna Vora could not (or perhaps did not want to) make it back in journalism. Today, she is an astrologer, a tarot card reader and a healer. Which, I guess, is a happy ending of its own kind. 

 

School's out

But are any of the kids really on holiday?

Last week I met a friend with school-going children for coffee. Seeing her look more frazzled than usual, I asked what was worrying her. It’s the school holidays, she confessed. And she was going mad coordinating the different activities that her son and daughter were signed up for. “I can either do my job,” she complained. “Or spend my day ferrying them from one place to another. I can’t do both!”

She is far from unusual in this. Most of the young kids I know spend their summer holidays going from tennis lessons to ballet classes, fitting in the odd tuition for physics or maths in between (“It’s their board year, you know”). And their parents end up going slowly mad trying to keep their children on time for their various ‘summer activities’.

You can call this insane scheduling a lot of things. But what you can’t do is call this a holiday of any kind. 

I can’t help but think back to my own summer holidays with a healthy measure of nostalgia. Now I may have my special rose-tinted, hindsight-enabled glasses on so you must forgive me if I wax eloquent too long. But my memories are full of halcyon afternoons spent lazing in the sunshine doing nothing more strenuous than reading a book. The evenings were for dropping in on friends or inviting them for some snacks and a few silly games that we made up to keep ourselves entertained. The nights were reserved for family time, when we sat on the verandah after dinner and chatted, my grandparents and parents regaling us with anecdotes of their childhood years spent in faraway land now called Pakistan, which we could never visit. 

But my favourite summer vacations were the times I spent in my aunt’s tea estate in Assam. It was here that I was allowed to run completely wild, blissfully free of any supervision as the adults spent their afternoons enjoying a well-earned siesta. As the entire household snoozed, gentle snores emerging from the bedrooms, I would head out to explore. 

Walking through the gardens, I would imagine myself to be a princess who had been imprisoned by a madman in a magic kingdom, thinking up new and inventive ways to free myself from his clutches. Striding further up on a hill, I would pretend I was an explorer who was conquering mountains that had never been climbed before. Exhausted from my exertions I would sneak back into the house, heading straight for the kitchen, where I would fix myself a tall, cold drink which I would sip while swaying gently on a swing installed on a nearby tree, dreaming of all the adventures I would have the next day.

Something tells me that the kids of today will never have this vast expanse of time to explore their surroundings on their own, the space to let their imaginations take flight without being trammelled by a hundred different demands on their days. 

So while I am loath to extrapolate from my own life experiences, I will make an exception in this instance. And the next time summer rolls around I will ask the parents around me to just let their children be. Don’t sign them up for summer camp. Don’t make them learn a new skill. Just grant them the time to be on their own. Give them the gift of leisure. Allow them to create their own fun. 

Let them have a real summer holiday. 

Read Alert

Summer holidays are the best time to get stuck into a good book

It’s time for our annual tradition. You head out for your summer break. And I share my reading list with you in the hope that you may enjoy some of the titles I loved. So here goes with this year’s summer reading list. Dive right in! 

• Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus: This is one of the best book I have read in the past decade. When chemist Elizabeth Zott has to resign from the all-male team at a research institute she is offered a job as the host of a cooking show. Against her own instincts she signs on and her revolutionary, science-based approach to cooking soon makes Supper At Six a national sensation, with housewives following her lead to change things around — ‘one molecule at a time’.

• The Windsor Knot by S.J. Bennett: This is the first of three whodunnits which feature — wait for it! — Queen Elizabeth II as the sleuth who investigates murder mysteries with the help of her close aide, Rozie. The conceit works brilliantly, with the author weaving in scenes from royal life lived on royal estates with the intricacies of an investigation run by an invisible royal hand. An absolute treat for those who love both the late Queen and suspense thrillers. 

• Whips by Cleo Watson: If you adored Jilly Cooper then you will absolutely love this whip-smart (pardon the pun!) debut from former political aide to Boris Johnson, Cleo Watson. (And if you haven’t read Jilly Cooper then drop whatever you’re doing and go out and buy a copy of Riders!) Set in the dog-eat-bitch world of Westminster, this is a bonkbuster in the best Cooper tradition, with politicians standing in for polo players. And though Watson insists that her characters are not based on real people (ha!) half the fun lies in deciphering the faces behind the caricatures. 

• Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner: This memoir by the indie rock singer, Japanese Breakfast, came out a couple of years ago but I only read it recently on the recommendation of Brunch editor, Rachel Lopez. Michelle Zauner writes movingly about the death of her mother and her fear that she will lose her Korean heritage in her mother’s absence. Her only recourse, she writes, is to cook the dishes her mother used to make for her. The only way to cope with her mother’s loss is to become her - at least in the kitchen. A universal story of love and loss that is, nonetheless, life-affirming, this will resonate with everyone who has ever grieved for a loved one. 

• The School For Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan: What happens when a young, frazzled mother has a bad day and ends up abandoning her infant daughter for a few hours? She is reported by her neighbours, loses custody of the child, and in a dystopian world, is sent off to a school set up for women who have to be retrained in the art of good motherhood. In the tradition of Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, this chilling story will leave you thinking hard about how we idealise motherhood and the unbearable pressure we bring to bear upon mothers, both good and bad. 

Making a splash

Posing in a swimsuit in your eighties is not all it’s cracked up to be

What does an 81 year old ‘lifestyle guru’, whose brand needs a little refurbishing, do to get a little publicity push? Well, if she is Martha Stewart, she goes on a strict diet and exercise regime before slipping into a swimsuit and posing for the cover of Sports Illustrated. Stewart featured in the swimwear issue of the magazine and was hailed as being the oldest woman to feature in the magazine. 

I know how we were supposed to react to these pictures. We were meant to marvel at the spectacle of an 81 year old who was fit enough and glamorous enough to score a cover pix — and in a swimsuit no less. How brave of dear Martha, we were meant to exclaim, to put herself out like that! How amazing that a woman in her eighties could look so good! What an utterly brilliant example she presented of not letting age define you!

But not one of these thoughts popped up in my mind as I scrolled through the many pictures of Stewart in a swimsuit. There she was, all trussed up tight, cleavage thrust forward, moisturised and bronzed to within an inch of her life, and — with a certain inevitability — discreetly airbrushed to look much better than she does in the flesh. And the only feeling I could summon up was one of deep disquiet. 

Is this really what women of a certain age should find inspirational? Is this what we have to look forward to as we march through the decades? Will our value forever lie in the way we look? Will our primary purpose always be to appeal to the male gaze and hope that it still finds us appealing? Are we doomed to be objects rather than subjects no matter how much we mature?

What an utterly revolting and completely depressing prospect to look forward to! And yet, that is being presented to us as something not just to admire but to aspire to. 

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment here. Close your eyes and picture a male celebrity of around Stewart’s vintage. Let’s think of Paul McCartney, for instance, who is a sprightly 80. Now imagine him stripped down to his undies and posing for a magazine cover. I bet you can’t. And that’s because that would never happen. There is no way that McCartney would put his body out there to be scrutinised in the way that Stewart has. And what’s more, nobody would dream of asking him to do anything like that. 

Sadly, this kind of objectification seems to be reserved for women. I would have thought that growing older would free us of these expectations. But Stewart has proved to us that no matter how old and grey and wrinkled we may become, it still behoves us to dye our hair, get some Botox and filler and squeeze ourselves into that swimsuit and give that camera all that we’ve got. 

Well, speaking for myself, I have taken a good look at that picture and said “Thanks but no thanks!” When I am in my eighties I hope to be gloriously grey and gnarly, and sitting comfortably poolside in a commodious caftan. And the only cleavage on display would be the one between my toes!

Food for thought

Who asks for a Greek salad at an Indian kebab restaurant?

 

What does one do when a celebrated chef – and friend – is visiting Delhi after a long gap? On popular demand, one ends up taking him to an equally celebrated restaurant, Bukhara, to taste the best that India has to offer. So, when Heston Blumenthal and his lovely new bride, Melanie, arrived in India – the last pit stop on their extended honeymoon – that’s where we headed.

 

I was the first to arrive and settled down to wait, aimlessly scrolling through my phone, when my attention was caught by the next table, where three foreigners were trying to order their meal with the waiter’s help. It was clear that they had zero knowledge of Indian food, but that was fine, I thought. The menu at Bukhara is quite simple and abbreviated so how hard could it be to decide on what to eat?

 

Very, it turned out. Baffled by the array of kebabs on offer, they turned in desperation to the waiter and asked for a salad. The poor man blanched at this request but recovering quickly explained that they would get some sliced cucumber, onions and tomatoes with their meal. Ah, said one of the men, could you sprinkle some feta cheese on it and make it a Greek salad?

 

At this point, I am embarrassed to confess, I broke into loud giggles. But the waiter was made of sterner stuff. We don’t have feta cheese in the kitchen, he explained kindly. But we do have yogurt. Will that do? The men looked unconvinced but conceded defeat with bad grace.

 

That’s when the rest of my party arrived and asked me why I was giggling fit to burst. When I explained, sotto voce, everyone was amused as well. Except for Heston, who was appalled. As a chef who takes pride in his food, he could well understand how insulting this was to the cuisine these men had come to sample at Bukhara.

 

Thinking back later, I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would make a hard-to-get reservation at an iconic restaurant, and then ignore all the dishes they take pride in, and ask for – honestly! – a Greek salad. Given that these men appeared to be staying at the hotel, wouldn’t it have been simpler and cheaper – not to mention, more respectful – to just eat at the coffee shop that offers all kinds of international cuisines. 

 

Why waste time and money coming to a legendary kebab place if all you want is ghaas phoos?

 

But I guess everyone's  attitude to food is different. For instance, I am always intrigued by my fellow countrymen who travel to Europe and England and insist on trawling the streets for Indian restaurants (where the food is invariably mediocre at best and inedible at worst) rather than enjoy the local cuisine. 

 

And it’s not just Indians, of course. So many Japanese and Chinese tourists are just as adamant on sticking to eating the food of their own country no matter where in the world they find themselves. Americans will look for a burger joint in Italy and the English will search for their nursery-type food after a couple of days on the road.

 

So, who knows? Maybe the men at my adjoining table were from Greece and hence the bizarre request for a Greek salad at an Indian restaurant. Or maybe it was just that Indian food was all Greek to them!

Long Live The King!

The British royals know how to put on a show – and keep us all entertained

 

Say this for the British royal family. They know how to keep us entertained. First there was the Platinum Jubilee that provided hours of live television programming. Sadly, in a matter of months, Queen Elizabeth II was dead, but her funeral was not just an emotive occasion but a prime example of the kind of pageantry that only the Brits can pull off. And now, a few short months later, we have the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. 

 

I don’t know about you, but I sat glued to the television screen for hours, watching the spectacle unfold. How could I possibly tear myself away from the sight of golden carriages pulled by six perfectly-matched greys, endless columns of soldiers from every arm of the military, marching in perfect tandem, jewel-encrusted crowns and orbs and scepters, the kind we read about in fairy tales, and a resplendent King and Queen, processing down Westminster Abbey to rousing cries of God Save The King. The scenes were like something out of a movie, though even Hollywood wouldn’t have had the budget to stage a show of this magnitude. 

 

At the end of that marathon of TV-watching, here are just some of the thoughts that popped into my head:

 

·       When Britain claims that it is a multicultural society, it is prepared to walk the talk. At the Coronation, we saw Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a practicing Hindu, read out a lesson from the Bible. There was a Sikh as part of the Christian choir. And while the liturgy of the ceremony was determinately Christian, at the end, when the King was leaving the Abbey, faith leaders from other communities (Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist) lined up to say their prayers for his success. 

·       The crowning of Queen Camilla was the ultimate victory of true love. There was a time – when the then Prince Charles’ marriage to Diana was imploding – when Camilla was the most hated woman in Britain. The tragic death of Diana soon after she divorced Charles forced Camilla underground for years. But here she was, crowned alongside him by the same Church that would not even allow her and Charles to marry in a religious ceremony 18 years ago (they had to tie the knot in Windsor Town Hall). As triumphs go, this one was pretty much complete.

·       It was especially refreshing to see a blended family on the balcony of Buckingham House as Camilla’s grandchildren, who had served as her pages, walked on to the balcony to stand beside her and the King, who was flanked by his own grandchildren (his eldest, George, had served as his page). In an era in which divorces and second marriages are all too common, it was nice to see royalty –usually a bastion of conservatism – embrace the concept of blended families so whole-heartedly.

 

·       The breakout star of the Coronation was the Lord President of the Privy Council, Penny Mordaunt, who was tasked with carrying a heavy sword at right angles to her body, throughout the proceedings. That she managed to do so without breaking a sweat must be down to her training as a magician’s assistant (no, I kid you not). Though, if you ask me, they missed a trick by not sawing her apart and then – abracadabra! – putting her back together on live television. Now that would have been a spectacle to beat any Coronation!

 

Match not found

Sima Aunty’s failure rate on Indian Matchmaking remains as high as ever

I don’t know about you but I sometimes feel that Indian Matchmaking should be retitled Indian MatchNotMaking. Given the near-total failure rate of Sima Aunty (or Sima from Mumbai as she invariably - and cringemakingly - introduces herself) in actually arranging matches for her clients, that would be a more accurate descriptor. 

If you ask me, Sima Taparia is lucky that she is self-employed. If she had been working for a professional organisation her lack-of-success rate would have led to her being fired two seasons ago. 

It’s not just that Sima Aunty fails to deliver for most of her clients. It’s that it appears as if she is not actually listening to them when they tell her what they are looking for in a prospective spouse. It’s either that or she purposefully (almost spitefully) refuses to give them even the bare minimum of what they ask for — and I genuinely don’t know which one is worse. Instead she asks them (in increasingly imperious tones) to ‘adjust’ - to lower their expectations, to compromise on their wish lists no matter how modest, to settle because nobody can get ‘100 percent, only 60, 70 is possible’.

So when a divorcee called Priya says that hair is very important for her and that she likes a man bun, Sima Aunty produces a - wait for this - bald man for her delectation. Though it is hard to feel sorry for Priya because when the requisite man bun is conjured up for her she goes off him because he is a bit too quick to say that he likes her. 

Frankly, just as Sima Aunty doesn’t seem that keen on finding the ideal matches from her pile of bio-datas, her clients don’t seem to be that invested in finding their perfect match either. There is ER doctor Vikash who turns down one girl because she can’t speak Hindi; and then rejects the next one because while she does speak Hindi, she also has an Indian accent. In that moment it is easy to understand why this man on the cusp of 40 is still single. 

It is telling that in this season, the one match that looks like it might end in marriage is one that Sima Aunty has not arranged. Arti, who starts off by wanting to marry a Sindhi (like her late father wanted), confesses to a lack of attraction to the candidate Sima Aunty has unearthed and decides to venture on to a dating app to explore her options instead. And a few months later, there she is, getting engaged to a Pakistani Muslim guy (so much for marrying ‘within the community’!) who seems head over heels in love with her. And all Sima Aunty can do is grit her teeth and wish them well over Zoom. 

So, what am I missing here? Given that Sima Aunty hasn’t managed to get a single couple married over 3 seasons, why do singles keep signing up for this show? Are they so desperate that they are willing to try anything? Is this a triumph of hope over experience? Or are these savvy young people just clout chasing with appearances on a Netflix show?

The jury may be out on that one. But I know which way I would vote if I were on it.