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Finding the new ‘Normal’

Arathi Menon was divorced at 35, and wrote about the experience in a humorous book which dispels the ‘taboo’ from divorce.
by Ritika Bhandari Parekh

Mumbai-based, Bangalore-bred Arathi Menon doesn’t strike one as lady who would write about her bad experiences. Everything about her spells ‘happy’, from the pixie haircut to the cute elephant earrings matching her red dress. Her debut novel Leaving Home With Half A Fridge’ has received uniformly positive reviews and it was launched recently at a Kemps Corner bookstore with much ceremony.

Arathi Menon Armed with a post-graduate degree in Journalism, 38-year old Arathi started as a copywriter in advertising. Her last job was in corporate communications at The Times of India. The only child of her parents, Arathi found her way into writing through short stories and poetry. But during the trying times of her divorce, she realised that there was little literature on the sensitive subject. “I did not find any books that could help me through it. I had to figure out a lot of things on my own. I simply wanted someone to say that divorce is not all that melodramatic as our society and television makes it to be,” she says softly. “Sometimes bitterness happens in real life and though all of us feel sad, how is one to deal with it in a normal way?”

“So after I reached my ‘happy place’, I decided that I wanted the society to know that divorce is kind-of the new Normal,” she declares.

Writing the book

Two years after her divorce, she started off with a column for LiveMint.com. Readers’ feedback helped her realise that she should write a book on her divorce. She saw that if ever another person needed to talk or read about this ‘social taboo’, Leaving Home With Half A Fridge would be of tremendous help.

“I made sure that the content was not duplicated so the book got more structured. It starts off when I was contemplating getting a divorce and moves on to when I find a lawyer, then a place of my own. It talks about the many emotions a divorce puts you through like dating again after marriage, with all its complications,” she explains. “And then the point where I am happy, whether alone or with someone.”

She laughingly says, “People don’t realise the pain a divorced person goes through and one should spare them a moral judgement on the topic.” Her writing Arathi Menon book Coverhandles the sensitive topic with a feather’s caress and that is what readers are currently hooked on to. “I didn’t want to write any nasty things about my ex, because he is a nice person and though things didn’t work between us, he was not the villain,” she emphasises. “It was always about if you ever get stuck in such a situation, how you can move from the point of divorce to the point of happiness.”

Being a not-psycho 

Talking about the quirky title, she says, “If you go to any house, there is one fridge, one television, one washing machine, one microwave. So when you are leaving it, you cannot take half of these things, can you? While a divorce is emotional, it is also chokingly practical. You look at bed sheets and you wonder how many to leave behind and how many to take…So I just kept everything behind!” But she acknowledges that she wrote the book in a healthy frame of mind. “I had fought my demons and two years later, I decided that the book is for someone who might be going through the same nonsense.”

The author admits to being quite honest in the book. “I have spoken about how I stalked my ex or did mean things to his stuff, because I just wanted to say that it is normal to do something like this. No, I am not a psycho but I was not happy back then.”

In the process of writing the memoir, Arathi started writing a set number of words every day. “It is not a time thing, as initially I thought of writing from 10 am to 1 pm. But that didn’t happen, as I keep dreaming and the time would go. So now I write regularly.”

She posts a fantasy story on her blog Nothing Beastly About It, every Wednesday. Arathi reveals, “As publishing takes a lot of time, instead of waiting for this book to come out – I just started writing my second book. So I am done with that and I am working on my third book now. As most of my topics are dark, I wanted a ‘happy’ space which is where my blog comes in the picture.”

What inspires her? She says, “If you want to be an artist, there is nothing like inspiration. It is simply hard work. You get up every day and you sit at your table and you do your work. I think anybody who says ‘I wait for inspiration’ is lazy. It doesn’t work for me!”

She believes working in advertising has made her more professional, while being artistic was intrinsic, and that being in Mumbai has given her a sense of freedom. “I loved Bombay the minute I set my foot here. The city allows you to be anything you want.” She credits her editor Pranav Kumar Singh for handling the book with sensitivity and kindness. The author finds Akhil Sharma’s Family Life to be her recent favourite book and counts Flannery O’Connor and Alice Munro as her much-loved authors.

As I skim through her book before buying it, I chance upon the last chapter titled ’12 steps to a divorcee’s tango’ – and I realise that Arathi is not just the survivor who told her tale, but the one who danced and happily sang the sad, but true note.

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Hum log

Talking translations

Writer and translator Mira Desai talks about venturing into translating regional writing quite by accident, and her important new work.
by Mamta D | @silverlightgal on Twitter

In May 2015, Harper Perennial  brought out a new book Hon’ble Minister Jagubhai originally written in Gujarati by Pravinsinh Chavda and translated into English by Mira Desai. While many Gujarati readers have read the varied works of Pravinsinh Chavda, this is the first time that English-speaking readers will read his novel. This has been made possible because of the diligent efforts of Mira Desai. Translation, especially of a regional Indian language, is a long and cumbersome process.

Mira has not just successfully translated but has also had her translations featured in national and international publications such as 91st Meridian, Indian Literature, Pratilipi, Muse India, Calque and The Brooklyn Rail. Besides working on translations, she has also written fiction and has contributed to a number of journals. She resides in Mumbai.

Here, we talk to Mira about translation, her new book, and more.

How does the translation process work? How do you usually begin?

After I’ve selected the text – which is a process in itself—I begin with a paper and pen draft.  There is something liberating about writing on paper, it lets you explore alternatives and mark sections in a way that a cursor on a screen cannot. The next stage is the typed version, where I edit and move words around as I type. I then send the prints to the author or poet for their comments. I’ve found poets quite liberal in the freedom they grant you. Story authors tend to be particular and it is not uncommon for them to change words around, or even change line by line! So this is a test of patience at times.

For how long have you been doing translations?

I don’t have a formal Arts education—my degrees are in pharmacy and marketing. I began translating quite by accident. In 2003, a fracture forced me to rest for a month. Those were the days of boring dial-up Internet. So on a whim I began translating. Dipak Doshi, the editor of the literary magazine Navneet Samarpan, was generous with the author’s address—and that’s how it started.

I believed, quite erroneously, that if I had a collection of short stories I would be able to interest a good publisher. 12 stories and many standard rejection slips later, I gave up. For a year or so I fumed, not knowing what to do. Then a chance search on Google led me to Indian Literature, the journal of Sahitya Academy—they were prompt to accept. I decided I would address magazines, not book publishers. Calque was the first online journal to accept these stories, and Brandon Holmquest, the editor, was patient with his suggestions. Pratilipi, MuseIndia followed, and in due course the crème – 91st Meridian, Words without Borders, Massachusetts Review and others.

So far I’ve translated short stories, a book of verse and now, this novel.

What made you choose Pravinsinh Chavda’s novel, Hon’ble Minister Jagubhai?

I’ve worked extensively on his short stories—I like his concise style. Yet he is comfortable using fantasy to take a leap into the unknown—all his stories have this off-the-page element. After working on his stories, translating his novel was the logical next step.

What’s the most difficult and the most exhilirating aspect of working on a translation?

The most exciting part is getting close to the original and having experts say it reads like it is written in English. The most difficult part is capturing the nuances of culture and manner- things that would be assumed as ‘known’ by someone reading the work in the original language. At times, editors want introductory essays, and that gets daunting if one hasn’t written any essays after high school!

Your bio says you have also written your own works, besides translations. Are they in English or Gujarati?

My own writing, all in English, grows out of weekly practice exercises at the Internet Writing Workshop—IWW. My stories and creative non fiction essays have been published in print and online. I keep my journal in Gujarati, though.

Mira’s book Hon’ble Minister Jagubhai is available on Amazon in print.

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Hum log

How the mobile phone ring tone was born

Ralph Simon, creator of the mobile phone ring tone, talks about how he discovered the idea of a tune for every call.
by Subhasis Chatterjee

Ralph Simon joined the party at 9 pm on a winter evening in Kolkata and started tapping his feet to a live tune of ‘Dhum Pichak Dhum’, the hot number by Palash Sen’s band, Euphoria. Then he smiled and whispered in my ears, “Not a bad ring tone!’

Ralph SimonRalph, now 65, is known as the ‘father of the mobile phone ring tone’. The man himself is witty, intelligent and very humble. I met him as part of a recent tech enclave, where, fortunately, none of his speeches were interrupted by a ringing phone! To make his speeches interesting, the Englishman frequently used Bengali words. Naturally, the crowd was totally under his spell.

Discovering the ring tone

Ralph’s first professional association with music began in the 1970s, when he co-founded the Zomba Group of music companies (now a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment) with Clive Calder. “In the mid-90s, I became Executive Vice President of Blue Note Records and Capitol Records. After this, I started EMI Music’s global New Media division in Hollywood,” he remembers. He unveiled his first ring tone company Yourmobile (later renamed Moviso) simultaneously in Europe, America, Africa and Australia in 1997.

In 1998, Ralph had predicted that mobile phones would become the most indispensable social and voice networking and music companions for consumers. But it was a year before that he made an interesting discovery of his own.

“I was attending an important meeting at Nokia meeting and I was waiting for a car to take me to the venue. Just then, a Finnish youth passed by and there was an interesting melody coming from his phone. It wasn’t a standard Nokia tune. When I asked him what it was, he said that his phone’s alarm was very shrill, so he was trying to make the sound less shrill,” the CEO of London-based Mobilium Global says.

“That was during the late 90s,” he added. “Finland was then the world leader in mobile phone technology and I had been invited to make a presentation on digital audio postcards, an IT invention that allowed an attachment containing music, scrolling text and the jerky video of those days to be tagged together to an email. Back in those days, it was a big thing.”

But for the Englishman, that chance conversation with the Finnish youth gave him the best idea he’d ever had. “It was a turning point in mobile entertainment. Since we already had our technology, why couldn’t we take it further by having music ring when one’s phone rang? We could even enable our favourite songs as our ringtones,” he said. Ralph took the first available flight back to the US the very next day and started working on the idea.

Copyrights and legal tangles

But copyright issues were a problem. Music companies, for whom the sale of ringtone rights is a lucrative source of revenue today, would not give in.

The same week, Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning of Napster (a peer-to-peer file sharing service used mostly for sharing audio files) were on the cover of Time. “Music companies suspected that they were pirates and weren’t interested in giving us licenses either. Only Michael Jackson’s company, which owned rights to Bryan Adams, Norah Jones and the Beatles, agreed,” Ralph remembers.

The first two tunes he used on getting a license were the Pink Panther theme and the Bond theme from Dr No. While Mobilium Global had to wade through lawsuits and financial settlements to get the music rights, the flip side of the struggle was that its traffic grew from 15,000 to 200,000 a day within a week.

Before shifting to Silicon Valley, Ralph ran a music company that had signed metal band Iron Maiden just when they were starting out. Then there was Will Smith. “He may be a famous actor today but when we gave him a break he was a hip-hop rapper called The Fresh Prince. It was that identity which earned him his first acting assignment on the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

Mobile Entertainment magazine named Ralph as one of the world’s Top 50 executives in mobile entertainment in 2005, 2006, and 2008. In 2007, he received its special award for Outstanding Contribution to the Global Mobile Entertainment Industry. Ralph is also the founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Mobile Entertainment Forum- Americas and he still has his ear to the ground to try and catch the tune of the next digital revolution. “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open…I have got to see what’s coming next!” he exclaims.

(Pictures courtesy Ralph Simon)

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Hum log

A sweet little cheese story

You’ve eaten ghar ka makhan, but have you tasted handmade cheese yet? Enter Mausam Jotwani and her awesome cheesy tales.
by Ritika Bhandari Parekh

Imagine an alternate universe where Willy Wonka was not a chocolatier, but a cheese maker in the concrete jungle of Mumbai. With no space for a factory, he decided to convert his refridgerator into a temperature and humidity-controlled cave to get through his cheesy ways. Now also imagine Mr Wonka to be a 28-year old woman, and you have Mausam Jotwani, an urban cheese maker with the brand ‘Eleftheria Cheese.’

Mausam JotwaniAn HR professional at CapGemini, Mausam doesn’t remember the last time she had processed cheese sprinkled on her pizza because she makes her own cheese and sells it too. Her fresh, spreadable cheese also known as Fromage blanc is what finds its way to a crusty baguette. “It all started when I had gone to Germany as a teenager. I was studying the German language and that is the first time I had artisan cheese,” she says. Unlike the Amuls and the Brittanias, her palate was exposed to a gamut of handcrafted cheese which were fresh and interesting.

Her tryst with Germany continued through her work commitments. She continues, “Every time I would try different varieties of cheese and sourdough breads there. I was actually, quite amazed with the explosion of flavours. I never thought cheese could taste so good and that’s how I got very interested in it.”

The journey

She remembers how in 2011, when she was completing her masters in HR in the United Kingdom, cheese became a part of her daily diet. “Just like we have vegetables, I had it in my fridge all the time. Once I was back, I missed eating it. At that time, handmade cheese was not readily available. And because I had tasted the good stuff, I decided that if I can bake my own bread then why not make my own cheese?”

She read, googled, watched videos and graced her bookshelf with the Fundamentals of Cheese Science. The science and art behind creating cheese intrigued her and when her first batch flopped, she realised it was not that simple. She imported the ingredients and made another batch of fromage blanc. “I took it to my office and gave it to my colleague. And the next day, she had made a cheese cake out of it!” she exclaims. “I was like, is this my cheese? My colleague loved the consistency and texture and was willing to pay for the next batch.”

Amazed and stumped, Mausam loved the appreciation and the fact that somebody would pay for it excited her. Started as a hobby, soon the joy of creating and making cheese with her own hands from scratch prompted her to come up with Eleftheria.

Hobby to side-business

“Eleftheria actually, means ‘freedom’ in Greek. While brainstorming for the name, the thought process was to choose something that I would like even 10 years down the lane. The word ‘freedom’Cows Milk Fetta_Eleftheria Cheesepopped in my head as it gives me immense freedom to go out there, explore and experiment. It gives me freedom from the corporate world as well. And in the end, it is freedom from processed cheese,” she grins.

Mausam’s passion for cheese and learning new languages combines when she has to decide names for the different cheeses that she makes. “Recently I made this saffron-infused cheese and I call it Netania. You see the famous cheese names like Mozzarella, Brie, Gruyere and more can’t be used as they are protected. So unless I use the milk from the same breed of cows and buffaloes they use, I can’t term them so. This gives me the pleasure to invent and christen my cheese creations, which I love.”

Her struggles

A mini cheese appreciation club – that’s what she calls the feedback session from her friends. “Making cheese is not about just reading a recipe and reproducing it. It is about the raw material, mainly milk, that goes into it. One has to understand how milk reacts at different temperatures, which cultures go into it, how do these cultures behave, what role does temperature and acidity play and more such small details,” she explains.

With the weather in Mumbai acting up, she had to constantly reassess and modify the recipes. “Also good quality milk is of paramount importance, because your cheese is as good as your milk. How you actually separate the milk solids and what you do with these solids, gives each cheese its own character.” Hence, feta tastes different than a parmesan and cheddar. Today, she sources her milk from a farm in Igatpuri and maintains high quality standards.

Another battle on her home front was convincing her parents. “I was working seven days a week and they thought I had gone mental. So it was a task to make them realise that the cheese we were eating was not actual cheese, but a homogenised version with 51 per cent milk and rest all preservatives and emulsifiers. And the reason my cheese tasted different was due to the freshness.”

IMG_8798Luckily, they sensed her passion. So when she is out on exhibitions, her brother helps while her bhabhi is the official taster. Mausam also has a mentor who guides and fine tunes her recipes. “He is a pioneer in the cheese making industry. He started 20 to 25 years ago, when people didn’t know what mozzarella was. I have been fortunate enough as it has been a constant learning process, under his tutelage.”

Her dream

“With Eleftheria, I want to give an Indian touch to cheese. I wish to make a fresh, handcrafted cheese with locally sourced ingredients that is inspired by Mumbai and India.” So while paneer is Indian cheese, she would love if someone visiting Mumbai would make a point to try and take back Eleftheria cheese for being tasty.

With plans only for quality stuff and iconic cheese, Mausam hopes that cheese finds a way to be a staple part of the Indian diet. “It is not only a concentrated source of protein, but also elevates the mood just like good chocolate. It is a healthy choice for breakfast, too.”

She leaves us with this anecdote: “Cheese is milk’s sleep into immortality.”

To order your own handcrafted artisan cheese, follow Eleftheria Cheese on Facebook or visit their website www.eleftheriacheese.com

(Pictures courtesy Mausam Jotwani)

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His first best dance experience

Choreographer Longinus Fernandes talks about directing the dances for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which is earning rave reviews.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Longinus FernandesC​horeographer Longinus Fernandes is excited and happy – and with good reason, because his work in the just-released The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is being appreciated in all quarters. After working with the likes of Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and John Madden (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) and doing the choreography for a Chinese film My Amazing Trip To India, Longinus is really upbeat about his latest Hollywood outing.

In the sequel to John Madden’sThe Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Longinus has brought his unique style and fabulous moves for a special wedding sequence in the film. “What makes it so special is that I got to work with some of the best actors in the world, like Richard Gere, Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, Lillette Dubey, and Dev Patel and got them to dance to the beats of the Hindi film song ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom’,” Longinus grins.

He explains how he became a part of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. “Since I had done the choreography for Slumdog Millionaire, Eat Pray Love, Bollywood Hero and a couple of ad films for the India Take One Production house, I suppose they (the makers) were very comfortable with my working style. I personally feel blessed to be repeated for their projects again and again. I must mention Tabrez Noorani for being instrumental in shaping my career internationally. He actually makes it a point that I get on board for everything that demands choreography and this is what happened when the planning of this venture began. To my luck, I happened to be in Mumbai when they called me for a meeting and after that there was no turning back.”

The brief Longinus got from John Madden was a straightforward one. “All he said was, ‘This is a wedding sequence. There will be a few awkward jigs initially but ultimately I want it to look stunning.’ He said he was sure I would do my best to make it look special. I replied, ‘You got it,’” he says, adding that working with John Madden was simply fantastic.

​

Creating a dance sequence is always a job by itself, especially when the choreographer has to work with various artists and numerous back up dancers. The entire cast and were so busy with their respective schedules that Longinus and his associates had to wait three weeks before they could see everybody together. “I had stand-ins for everybody and staged the act to perfection and displayed it to John, who loved it so much that he decided to extend the sound track by a minute. He made it a point to be present for almost every rehearsal and ensured that every artist would be present as well.”

​Longinus says he loved catching up with Dev Patel, who he knows since their time together on Slumdog Millionaire. “He has improved tremendously. When I first met him, he was so shy and now Longinus Fernandes and Dev Patelhe is so outspoken. I was very happy to watch the effort he took to get all the moves right…he has a peculiar style, which will surely catch on sooner or later. Tina Desai just loves dancing and enjoys every bit of it. She is also blessed with a wonderful body that compliments her dance moves.” But the biggest surprise was Richard Gere, who was very punctual and diligent with rehearsals.

He suggested the song ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom’ which Madden immediately liked, but took some time to get approvals for. “Honestly, working with him (Madden) has been a wonderful experience. Despite a challenging shoot, especially in the cold weather, he made sure everyone was very well taken care of with heaters, bonfires and hot coffee. The shoot went off very well under him,” Longinus says, adding that the unit was “stunned with how exuberantly Judi Dench and Maggie Smith danced.”

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Hum log

Studying the humans of Bombay

The ‘Humans of Bombay’ Facebook page started a year ago, to roaring success – turns out, everyone loves to hear Mumbai’s stories.
by Ritika Bhandari Parekh

This is one of the more interesting pages on social media currently, presenting micro-stories of people in Mumbai. Styled on the lines of the famous ‘Humans of New York’ page, the ‘Humans of Bombay’ page currently has 1,80,868 likes and is gaining popularity with each passing day.

Karishma MehtaThe page was conceived by Karishma Mehta (22), a Mumbai resident. Today, she says that what started off as an experiment in capturing visual stories “slowly became a part of her routine” where she continues to soar higher with each passing stranger’s tale.

With her team of photographers and a few social media interns, Karishma traverses Mumbai – she calls it Bombay – be it the town area or the suburbs. She recommends Maldives to her fellow travelers and believes all kinds of people stay everywhere.

In a chat with The Metrognome, the creative young person talks about her inspirations, how writing will always be her long-term activity, and what drives her to work on the ‘Humans of Bombay’ (HOB) page. Here are a few excerpts from the interview:

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up in Bombay and went to school till the 10th grade at Bombay Scottish School, Mahim. For my 11th and 12th  grades, I studied at The International School Bangalore (TISB). Three years later, I graduated as an Economics Major from the University of Nottingham, England. Once I came back, we started positive thinking classes. I take positivity and affirmation classes under the venture called Knoq. I wished to evolve my interests into digital magazines with written stories, photo stories and video stories.

As a part of a photo stories, I started the ‘Humans of Bombay’ page.

Since you take positive thinking classes, how do you stay positive and upbeat in a stressful city like Mumbai? Do you have a stress buster?

It’s about being positive about anything that surrounds you, whether it is a difficult situation and making the most out of that circumstance. It’s about being open to new experiences, new things and new people because life just keeps surprising you. So you should just step out and allow that to happen. I don’t really have a stress buster, I don’t get stressed that easily. At the end of the day, I unwind by listening to good music, chilling and doing my own thing. I make sure I don’t get over stressed about anything at any point. If it is getting too much, I take a step back. I also work out at the gym, hang out with friends, read a book.

‘HOB’ must keep you on your toes. Any beauty regime you follow after the day’s work?

Absolutely none. I am very casual when I go out to shoot, I just wear my jeans or leggings. The idea is not to stick out because at the end of the day, I am a human of Bombay too. I need to be a bit dressed down to make the people feel connected to me.

How do you zero in on your subject for ‘HOB’?

I think over time you just pick the vibe of people and also at times, you have to take your chance. You know somebody that looks interesting, if they have a tattoo or a cool haircut – you just approach them because that is a striking feature. And more often, people are very willing to have their picture taken. A few obviously, say ‘no’, but in general people are very adaptive to share their story.

When you approach the subject, how do you break the ice?

We ask them general questions like what they do, or how old they are or where they have studied, or where they were born and brought up. This makes them a little comfortable and then you go into deeper conversations. Generally, we approach people who are sitting alone or are idle – because then they have the time to talk for 10 to 15 minutes. So you pick your subjects accordingly.

But how do you coax the strangers to reveal their most intimate experiences?

We keep building the conversation and we tell them the focus, which is the concept of ‘HOB’. The page strives to make people feel more connected. So today if you share your story, there will be people around you who are going through the same thing. So you build a community where you don’t feel alone at any point in time. You feel that there are others with you. And that’s the basic idea of ‘HOB’ – to make one person feel connected to the next person.

How do you deal with the flak you receive for some images or experiences on HOB page?

If there are extreme comments, we delete them. But if it’s a healthy argument, where even if one doesn’t exactly agree with what the person is saying but the argument is fine, then we let it pass.

When did you know that HOB was going to be the thing for you?

It became a routine, a part of life. So now when I don’t shoot, I feel a void. The concept really clicked and I love doing it, which is what pushes me and I like to shoot people I don’t know.

If not working for HOB or positive thinking classes, what would you have been doing?

I see myself writing. I will write all my life – whether it is for ‘HOB’ or something else. I will do something people-oriented and something to do with writing and bringing stories to people.

If HOB were to meet you (as a subject), what would you say?

I have no idea. I would be terrified. It would be like, ‘I don’t want to do this’. I don’t like being in front of the camera, I like being behind it.

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