The lovely shall be choosers...

Elder sister told me one day that waiting at the doctor’s, Leela Naidu had said to her, I want to be as slim as you. Someone wanted to be slim like my sister? I picked my bike and rode off. Neither slimness of girls interested me nor some Leela whoever.

Then one day this woman in a red saree, her gray hair stylishly swirled back in a French roll looked out of the pages of some Femina or Illustrated Weekly, advertising kitchen appliance or food. Sisters whispered, ‘elegant-elegant’. I was transfixed by her beauty and air of quiet dignity.

Jerry Pinto who I admire for his writing and for his heart in the right place, its ‘Leela-shaped hole’ and all, the SRK of writing in so much that I haven’t seen another writer blow such effervescent ‘I love yous’ at his audience, collaborated with her on this. So ‘Leela - A Patchwork Life’ by Leela Naidu with Jerry Pinto was picked up with much gladness. 

The Foreword by JP was a letdown. Leela was among the world’s ten most beautiful women and he had the good fortune to know her intimately but the way he runs down other journalists when they have to write about her and ask him to share/whet/correct/fill-in disappoints. Our stray-loving, bucket-bath-bathing-to-save water journalist-teacher I expect to understand the job of journalists better. His tone is almost of a kid holding a doll close to himself  refusing to share it with other kids. But otherwise he chooses his nuggets to write about well and is at his evocative best. So I will not hold it against him. People evolve.

Leela takes over and draws us into her wonder-full life lived in Bombay, Geneva, Paris, London. Beginning with the sensational story of her grandmum hosting a naked Count – the Count Yousoupoff who was among those that killed Rasputin presumably; she tells us how her aunt Sarojini Naidu handing her a box of chocolates and a bunch of gladioli, sent her off to the outhouse to ‘see Mickey Mouse’. 

‘I knocked on the door and was called in...sitting on the bed was Mahatma Gandhi.

“You are not MICKEY Mouse!” I said.

“No?” Gandhiji asked.

“Your ears are big but they are not big enough.”

“Is that all?” he asked and turned around to put on the side light.

“And you don’t have a tail.”

He laughed at that and put on the light.

“So I am not Mickey Mouse.” Gandhiji said, “but who am I?”

“You are Gandhiji,” I said.

I put the flowers down and gave him the chocolates. He took them and began to eat them immediately, as happy as a schoolboy with a box of tuck.

“How do you know who I am?” he asked.

I don’t remember if I had explained....But I do remember his strong arms around me as he hugged me.’

Her tone is friendly, the descriptions candid. The men! Oh the men! Roberto Rossellini suggests a doctor for her; she’s ‘adopted’ by Jean Renoir and his wife, M Cartier gets her rani haar restrung when it breaks suddenly sending the beads rolling in the hotel lobby, Salvador Dali sketches her and takes her to a private showing  of his sketches... and none of this seemingly affects her! The ‘men’ come first and the ‘discovery’ of who they are later.

Overall it isn't quite where my other idol’s memoirs are – A Princess Remembers, Memoirs of the Maharani of Jaipur – with JP’s ‘collaboration’ and all. Written almost as if for academic reading – chapters as ‘facets’ of Leela Naidu –the translator, the Editor.. film maker. 

She does come across as very intelligent, witty and full of the milk of human kindness, never able to stop herself from standing against injustice, confronting the wrongdoers but there is no mention of Leela the wife, the mother... personal joys and heartbreaks. She’s most often a victim of cruel, self-centered people. The skips and jumps do not make it a fluid read. That got a little tiresome. If she had started as she ended, telling JP that the book, ‘would have nothing to do with my life. ...It’s only about the funny anecdotes and sad historic ones I came across.’ I would have been less disappointed. 

The Illicit Happiness of Other People

I have been harboring a half-suspicion about this for close to a decade - the ‘Chennai peoples’' inexplicable desire, pursuit and impetuous display of academic excellence. Now that Manu Joseph, who is ‘one of them’ has spewed it, I feel validated and relieved of my burden of impression.

The newspaper version of his Hindu interview, last week, has been purged of the ‘beeped’ words so one kind of loses the tone and emotion of the speaker. 

Strip away everything and it’s just boredom. And especially when you’re young and growing up in Madras: you can’t touch girls, you can’t go out with girls, it’s a s**t city; all the f****rs are doing entrance exams… Still, I did briefly lose my nerve when I was 20; I wrote some of those MBA entrance exams, went for the XLRI interview. I remember they asked me: what is the difference between “basilica” and “cathedral”? But fortunately, circumstances ensured I would come back to journalism.

Hahaha! Good sense prevailed.

My first neighbors in Bangalore were very nice, temple-going Chennai peoples. Two things wafted out of their home at all times. One, the delicious smell of sambar, and two, …I’ll come to that. 

Now, husband, mine, was at once baptised by the ‘Tamil’ sambar. He of few words but never short of praise for food had himself eating out of Mrs V’s hands - the end of her ladle that had become the extension of her hand. I was suitable ignored for confessing some knowledge of their cuisine, and was rude enough to learn to cook some too, while he at every meeting expressed spanking-new astonishment that ‘Pongal is a dish?’

Many mornings, Mrs V came with a dosa balanced on her dosa flipper and totally dismissing me as a claimant, asked smiling if ‘he’ was there. Now my ‘he’ was hers along with her own. He-Man was made to eat with both of us watching like his eating was our collectively responsibility and source of joy. Her face shone with sweat and excitement when He-Man extolled the finer points of her cooking, while I prayed that he would hurry, lest her face explode.

The second thing her home emanated was her talk with her 5-year old son. Not Tamil, not English, they spoke in numbers. Always. This was what we heard day and night, ‘Putta, 22 plus 31?’ The kid had to respond before the mother’s question mark was intoned. I have a suspicion they left their doors and windows open to let out their glee. 

Another young mother, Ms K, nose-in-the-air was telling us how no classical dance school in Bangalore was good enough for her two-year old. I stood hearing her lament till she left because ‘he’ will be home, na. Immediately, my Bangalore born and raised neighbor, stung and stung, remarked, ‘These Chennai people!’

More recently, on the train back from Chennai to Bangalore, I spotted a little girl, 3ish, with thick silver anklets looking about eagerly to make new friends. After a prolonged peek-a-boo with an older girl, she went up to her seat, her tongue hanging out with ‘shy’. 

The moment she ‘told’ her name, the mother’s ears perked up long distance and out came a sweet-sounding, cajoling but firm instruction, ‘Devika, tell the spalling of your name!’ !!

How early can one start! Non-Chennai peoples need reservation!