Dad

This seems to be a season of talking about family :-)

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I and my dad constantly bicker. Over everything. Over the laptop, over the last peanut in the packet, over the ‘mess’ in my room, over his lack of ‘cool’ clothes, over his 35 km/h driving, over the best place on the couch. Everything.

Dad clogs up the laptop with guzillion web browsers talking about the latest political scandal rocking the old country in three languages (English, Hindi, Telugu).

Dad belongs to the generation that considers work as the essence of life. Well, ethics too. And also, honour. And integrity. And..well, nevermind, let me get on.

Dad can be as quiet as a cat when he wishes to sneak up to you and catch your greedy hand in the ice-cream tub. He reserves all his clumsiness, breaking unbreakable plates, banging into furniture for the wee hours of the morning. Even his morning Yoga exercises cause weird noises that awaken the stray cats in our building.

Dad gives 200% to anything that he decides to do. Seva, yoga, friendship, piety, learning, anything.

He has a remarkable ability to fall asleep whenever and wherever he wills – during a dinner party, in the cinema, on the couch while reading India Today, when … well you get the idea. He also has a remarkable ability to wake up at the slightest sounds. Like, a leaf falling outside the window, a wailing baby on the 30^th floor two streets from ours, etc. Due to such reasons as these, it is perfectly impossible for me to conduct midnight raids on Mom’s kitchen.

Dad is the most disciplined man 1 degree north of the Equator. A time for everything, everything on time.

My dad can be vain. Eight years ago, the green grocer who set up shop beneath our flats became really pal-ly with my mom & dad. One fine day, all three of us were taking a stroll and decided to kill a second bird by getting some greens as well. Seeing me for the first time (as I never help with vegetable shopping) the lady green grocer enquired whether I was my dad’s sister. This was about eight years ago. We still frequently are regaled with this incident.

Dad lived a hard life. He made some very hard choices in life.

Dad belongs to the minority sex at home. With two daughters and a wife, you would think that he doesn’t get his two cents worth in. But you’ll be surprised. If there exists a feud between Mom and him, I and akka jump to his defense, if the feud’s between me and him, Mom rises to the occasion, if the feud’s between my sis and him ..wait a minute, them two are thick as thieves (their last feud was when she was ten). So, being a minority is mighty advantageous.

Dad never lies. I have never, ever, ever heard him lie. Period.

Dad drives me up the wall every time I wear a twenty year old dress (that fits) and he is seized with this gentlemanly urge to compliment me (usually if he wants me to be his steno and prettify his official documents) and says, “Nice new dress”. He also makes me bang my head against the wall when I ask him for feedback about my hair-do:
Me : “Dad is this hair-do (a) Awesome (b) Really Awesome (c) Stupendously Awesome”
Dad : “(d) Nice”.

And, we have been doing this ever since I was in first grade. Neither of us ever learns.

Dad never hit me, ever. Even if I spilled milk, broke the family china, did additions and subtractions the wrong way, lost jewelry, hit akka, destroyed his money plant.

Dad helps people. Three years ago when I went to his village, I was visiting people who lived in a small house beside his childhood home. The people welcomed me into their home, made me sit on the only chair in the house, cut a chicken, stuffed me with food and while leaving, the old grandmother of the house clutched me and wept like a baby, blessing my dad and calling him her family God.
Will I measure up to this person?

Elizabeth and Bette

It’s common knowledge that I am a huge fan of Bette Davis. So after an all too long time, I watched another Bette Davis movie – The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1938) in garish Technicolor. Bette of course delivered a stunning performance. There might be some places where she went a tad bit overboard but that was the way they acted back in those days (late 30s). She went as far as to shave her head to create the bald look of the aging queen. Her face was painted white for the entire movie.

In all this hideousness, there was something heartbreaking about her portrayal of the Queen. There is this famous scene where she goes on a mirror shattering rampage in the palace. In about 4 seconds in this scene, she examines herself in the looking glass - at her most insecure, most vulnerable, most yearning and most without-a-mask moment. My heart went crack when I saw her just for these 4 seconds. For a minute when you see Bette acting out this breathtaking turmoil on screen, u do not cry for Bette, or for Queen Elizabeth, or for yourself. But for the cruelty of life, fate and time.

Nominated for an amazing 10 Best Actress Oscars, she won two. Remember Bette Davis in “All About Eve”? A mind blowing performance as the acid tongued, sharp witted, catty, spiteful and insecure prima donna. Remember the movie’s famed line, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night”. I don’t think any actress in decades could have done what she did to that line. I don’t think any actress could have managed playing some of the bitchiest and ugliest roles in Hollywood and yet bring such subtle vulnerability and touching strength. This very quality earned her a place on the pedestal.

Here’s a sampling of what she sounds like in real life:

“Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you're not a star."

"Old age is no place for sissies."

"There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen."

"Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism."

"I would advise any woman against having an affair with a married man believing he will ever leave his wife, no matter how often he says his wife does not understand him. Love is not as necessary to a man's happiness as it is to a woman's. If her marriage is satisfactory, a woman will seldom stray. A man can be totally contented and still be out howling at the moon."

"To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy."

"I will never be below the title."
(She never was. The billing was always: Bette Davis in “XYZ”. No matter if the director was Wyler, Lubitsch, Preminger and other greats.)

"I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oftentimes disagreeable... I suppose I'm larger than life."

"You know what I'm going to have on my gravestone? 'She did it the hard way.'"
(She kept her word. Her epitaph was that. I saw it.)

I was once asked why I liked Bette. I mumbled something inane about loving her movies. Nethi, Nethi (It’s not just that. It is much more).

It is my admiration for all people, especially women, who fight to the last breath, who handle stupidity with searing, brutal sarcasm and yet never forget greeting the spot-boy in the studio, who do not wear their hearts on their sleeves and yet posses a generous soul that is capable of tremendous kindness and giving. If I can summarise the women she played on screen and her real life persona as vouched by her associates – that is what she is to me.

They don’t make actresses, no, women like that anymore.

Little Comforts

Today will be one of those Long Nights. I feel it in my bones.
At times at these, my comforts are the thoughts of -

Bells that jostle, ships that sound horns,
sea spray by the cliffs,
creaking of wooden bridges across brooks,
the groan of the aging grandfather clock,
the whisper of willows,
the spatter of summer showers,
lightning without thunder in the faraway night skies,
green leprechauns and the warmth of my mother’s bosom.

With these comforts, one can rise above cracked hearts and broken promises

What Shall I Do With This Sadness?

Why does an overwhelming sadness envelop us, for some of the most trivial reasons? Just two hours ago, I had reasons to be very jubilant. Now, here I am, forlorn in my darkness.
What ails our souls? Are they meant to be this fickle?

I am singing the song, Que Sera Sera, Whatever Will Be Will Be, over and over again, it doesnt help. I have danced (more like mad hopping) to plenty of music - it doesnt help today. I read my journal from 1999 - it doesnt help.

What will become of this sadness? I cant prick it like a balloon, neither can I bottle it and toss it into the Pacific. I cannot snuff it away like a candle, neither can I suck it out like venom. I cannot bury it like a secret, neither can I pass it forward like a recycled gift.

I shall let it be. Let it be just for tonight. It is going to be one of my Long Nights.

Nazi Loot - Where Did It All Go?

The Nazis financed their war effort through looted gold – either from occupied nations or individual victims of concentration camps. Remember the infamous Melmer account in the Reichsbank?

SS Officer Bruno Melmer, transferred gold from victims of concentration camps to an SS account in Reichsbank. The notorious Melmer shipment list consisted of 29 columns of gruesome types of loot - "Gold and Silver Coins," "Purses," "Knives, Forks, Jewels," "Gold and Diamond Rings," "Watches," "Dental Gold," "Broken Gold," etc. Remember those tales of prisoners being forced to rip dental gold and jewelry from piles of bodies of their fellow prisoners?

All this gold was smelted into gold bars and then transferred from SS accounts in the Reichsbank to Swiss National Bank (SNB). The SNB must have at one point known the illegitimate nature of the gold– maybe not the gruesome origins. The figures are utterly astounding ($3.5 billion in 1998’s estimates..and a conservative estimate at that). The 1998 Bergier Report confirmed all this and much more.

By 1944, when the top honchos in the Third Reich began to realize that they were losing the war, a lot of this and other loot (art treasure, antiques, etc) began to go missing. After the War, finding the lost treasures of Europe was a Herculean task. Only a fraction of it was ever recovered - like the stash found in the salt mine Alt Aussee near Salzburg. There were other lost salt mines that were rumored to contain art looted from the occupied countries. (The salt trapped moisture and temperatures in the bowels of earth was low – perfect natural place to preserve art).

But where did the rest go? Here are some of the legendary theories/facts:

Bormann’s Treasure
Martin Bormann, a right hand man of Hitler, vast treasure crossed the Franco-Iberian border into Iberia in trucks. From there it was air flown to Argentina. The details of these periodic air shipments are still in FBI, Argentinian and UK govt archives. All the currency from the treasure was thought to be deposited into Eva Peron’s account who, theory has it, then transferred all the funds into unnamed Swiss bank accounts in Europe during her popular Rainbow Tour.

Lake Toplitz, Austrian Alps
Nazis used it as a marine warfare testing station. But in the closing months of the war, SS men and workers were sighted dumping huge metal cases into the lake. Rumors were ripe that these trunks were full of gold ingots and precious stones. Over the years, numerous diving expeditions recovered 18 waterproof metal cases in the 300 feet deep lake. Some cases were filled with documents of operations to devalue the British pound, others with a couple of million pounds in counterfeit money. Some had gold ingots, coins, diamonds from Kaltenbunner chalices… They have yet to find the rest of the cases believed to be still sitting the murky depths of the lake.

Lunersee
A first hand account of how the loot, amassed in the Dachau concentration camp, was shipped out in large ammunition boxes in the dark of the night and driven for four days finally to be buried in a spot close to the lake in the remote area of Lunersee was given by one of the four SS officers who was involved. He told this tale of buried treasure after War to physician Wilhelm Gross ( who was at that time treating the Dachau inmates).

And there are many many other Alpine lakes, castles, lost mines - to name a few, Merkers mine, Rommel’s Gold, Wewelsburg Castle, Zbiroh Castle– each hoarding its own vast, gruesome treasure.

Why " A Bend in the Lane" ?

Someone asked the Q why name the blog “A Bend in the Lane”. When I was sitting there signing up for the blog, I felt exactly like Anne of Green Gables did at the end of the novel – I didn’t know what the future held, I didn’t know if it would be stormy or quiet seas, thunder or clear skies…all I saw was a bend in the lane. So I stole the title of the last chapter of Anne of Green Gables.

The Many Cats That I Have Known

I am a dog person. I adore them.
I dislike cats.
But I am a cat magnet.
It’s a 24 year love triangle.

Cats stalk me, cats purr against my legs, cats do a “mary had a little lamb” with me. I used to be annoyed. Now I am resigned to it. I perceived these skulking creatures to be evil. Not so much anymore. I mean, you always like those who like you, but you do not always like those you like, right?

There is pitch black, well-mannered cat waiting for me at the end of the corridor every morning when I leave for work. Being polite, I “meow” at it. And it always “meows” back. Always.

This cat got me curious. I mean, just what makes cats attracted to certain people? I posed this question to a bunch of wise people over the course of months. Here is a sample of answers I received –

Friend 1: “You should be honoured. They approach people they trust”
Random Estonian old woman selling amber: “Perhaps the devil in the person….”
Friend 2: “I’ve read somewhere that cats are attracted to autistic and mentally challenged people ….”
Friend 3: “You are a cat yourself. Don’t like people running after you. But don’t want to be unloved either. So, they purr for you …”

Gaah! How can a furry purring animal be in the loop with so much psychoanalytical dope?
And then there was Sally. I met it when when the Hanszen gang went visiting Sara and James in the summer of 2003. They were looking after Sally for their landlady who went off to the Bahamas or the Antartica..you know one of those places, for some summer research.

It jumped right into my lap, parked its fat belly there for an hour and licked its paws in my lap.. It followed me EVERYWHERE. When I went to the restroom, it waited outside the door. I swear on everything I hold dear, I am not exaggerating. One of the guys took a photo of Sally curling up in the curve of my lap. I wish I had a softcopy of that photo. But come up home sometime to look at the pic. The many cats that i have known..