Run Nona Run

When Nona has a bee in her bonnet, there’s no talking her out of it. I have yet to recover from the whole month of sleepless nights when she backpacked crisscrossing India with her cousin. And now, she is determined to do something else which will bring back that knot in my stomach.

When she was younger, when she wanted something, she’d put her mind to it and do it. Take for instance when she wanted that scooter, which cost something like £100.00. She offered her services at the Malaysia Hall canteen (in Bryanston Square), to wash dishes and mop the floor and serve customers. Once she got the money, off she went to get that scooter.

The same happened when she wanted a guitar. Back she went to the canteen and the mop and the dirty dishes in the sink. And she got her guitar.

Now she takes herself in the mornings to run around the park and parts of London to train for the Paris Marathon on 5^th April. During one of these runs, she was lucky enough to find a painting, scattered by street artist Adam Neat. Anyway, now that the weather is somewhat colder, the treadmill in the front room is where she prepares for the marathon. I do the Wii steps to keep her company.

But why, one might ask? Well, I think the heartbreaking pictures and fate of the children of Gaza got to her. She was glued to the TV watching the developments and then she went to the demonstrations in London. Then, she decided she must do something. She is going to run for the children of Gaza. And how can I stop her? I cant. I will just sit in the front room and hope she makes the 26 mile run safely.

And if you want to give Nona a prod on her run and at the same time help the Children of Gaza – please visit Nona’s site HERE.

Nona's other adventures:

Travails of a Cyber Backpacker

Travails of a Cyber Backpacker

More pictures here: Nona in Rajasthan

The 1233 for Luton left from the spanking new St Pancras International where I took the Eurostar to Paris a few weeks ago. It is a sort of extension right at the end of the building and I had to dodge people with bags and trolleys as I was going against the flow to catch my train. I wasn’t fussy about where I sat as it wasn’t going to be a long journey and I reckoned that the half an hour journey would take me through a few more chapters of Preeta Samarasan’s “Evening Is the Whole Day”. I really wanted to know the goings on in the big house in Kingfisher Lane after Chellam’s unceremonious departure.

The seats on the First Capital Connect were quite comfortable, and minutes after it pulled out of the platform, we buried our heads in our reading materials. The young teenager opposite me was devouring the pictures in Heat magazine while the gentleman on my right concentrated on The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

It took awhile for me to realise that I was staring for a good five minutes on page 44 with not a word sinking in. My mind was making its own journey and so I looked out of the window to see how the suburbs of London was being treated in the last few days of summer. Hedges were already neatly trimmed and shrubs cut in preparation for autumn, but there were a few optimists with their BBQ sets still outside their conservatories, hoping for one more sunny day to return.

According to the BBC weather forecast, we were in for a long wet and windy spell and true enough rain began pelting on the windows and I was thankful when we disappeared under a tunnel.

As we emerged from the tunnel, I blinked a few times. Right before me were clusters of huts with zinc roofs dotting fields that looked barren and dry with nothing to offer skinny cows and even skinnier goats roaming aimlessly in search of food and water. Pot bellied children clung on to their mothers’ faded sarees, as they walked gracefully balancing pots of water precariously on their heads. A few turned to wave at us without spilling a drop of water.

I turned to look at my travelling companions to see whether they were witnessing what I was witnessing. The girl with the Heat magazine was no longer there but in her seat was a fat woman trying to calm her baby by suffocating him with her ample breast. The gentleman with The Reluctant Fundamentalist too had disappeared and next to me was a skinny old man in his dhoti snoring loudly and plainly oblivious to both screaming child and ample breast. In fact the whole carriage was a scene of pandemonium. There were fans whirring from the ceiling of the carriage and there were people, sitting on the floor, being trampled on by a couple of cross dressers in their bright coloured sarees, making their way to the next coach. They ignored hurls of insults and lewd jokes, pulling their tongues out from chilli bright lips, which served to excite their teasers even more.

Looking out of the window again, slums with dilapidated houses in various stages of neglect and repair whizzed past and billboards displaying the latest that Bollywood can offer had the handsome Shahrukh Khan staring unsmiling at me. And as if on cue, a melodious and haunting sound of the sittar pierced the midday air, followed by the beat of the tabla, prompting the passengers on the floor, the cross dressers with their tongue sticking out, and the fat lady with baby at her breast to jump on their feet and break into one of the most syncronised Bollywood dance I ever saw.

Even the snore of skinny man next to me sounded melodious and he suddenly opened his eyes and broke into a Mohamad Rafii number.

I would have joined in the fun if not for the announcement that the train was approaching Luton and a reminder for us to take all our belongings. Like a dream rudely interrupted, coach C of the First Capital Connect returned to its normal albeit boring calmness as it pulled into Luton station.

I stepped onto the platform into wet and soggy Luton, annoyed that my dream of India was interrupted. I put it down to the puasa as well as the many sms’es and reports that I received from Nona about her train journeys since arriving in Mumbai. After a subtitleless Bollywood movie in Mumbai, she and her cousin took a train to Ahmadabad, before going to Udaipur where, hot on her heels was a very enthusiastic young man with chat up lines, that will make you roll on the floor laughing.

Example of chat up lines :

Did it hurt you when you fell from heaven?

Which country is suffering now that you are not there?

(And I thought the best dialogues come from India!!)

Anyway, Nona and my niece and friend are having a wonderful time in India. Right now they are in the picturesque mountain resort of Manali, after a 15 hour car ride from Delhi. A punctured tyre, stops for mutter paneer to break their fast, they arrived in pitch dark Manali at about midnight.

“Its like Geneva, mama,” she gushed on the phone to me from the balcony of her hostel when morning unveiled Manali’s beauty with the snowcapped Himalayas in the background.

That is indeed a stark contrast to the experience camping in the heat of the Thar Desert of Jaisalmer, where they started their first day of Ramadan. If I could expel the nagging feeling, I think waking up for sahur, in the early morning before the sun rose in the Thar Desert, being served with boiled eggs by two male guides, has a romantic touch befitting any Bollywood movie.

Well, her journey had taken me on my own journey of India via google and blogs published on travels in India. I made the same train rides from Mumbai to Ahmadabab to Udaipur, where among the ruins of a palace she was surrounded by locals who touched and stared at her. Sleeping in the trains during the nights seemed to be the norm, a cheap way of travelling without having to stay in hostels. From Jaipur they left for Jaisalmer in the soaring heat that I could almost feel from cold and wet London. I prayed for their safe journey to Agra where they feasted their eyes on the Taj Mahal before moving yet again to Delhi.

I caught up with them in time at a travel agent where they booked a car and a driver that had taken them to Manali, then to Shimla and back to Delhi.

The next few days will see them making the tracks to Sikkim in the west and then a two day train ride to Bangalore. After that, I think, I should be able to rest (my fingers) after crisscrossing the Indian continent, thanks to Google.

Other train journeys:
Manchester Musings
Tales From The Tracks
On the 1302 from Kings Cross with Tunku Halim
Training My Thoughts
As I Was Munching Muruku
A Malay Experience in Roman Exeter
Train of Thoughts
A Story Untold

A Parents' Guide to Backpacking

.........Or how to survive duration of child away backpacking with ventolin

When your child announces that he/she is going backpacking, take a deep breath and a puff or two of ventolin . When your breathing is more regular and your hands stop trembling, google “backpacking” and that will take you to several sites, as this is indeed a very popular mode of seeing the world amongst youngsters, especially those who refuse to tag along with their parents and want to avoid the well trodden path of visiting relatives and museums and familiar places that Tourism Malaysia has on offer.

Most sites will have keywords, such as “unlimited level of flexibility with travel itinerary”, “cheap accommodations” and “cheaper means of travelling”. That alone should be enough to tell you that you DO NOT call up friends and relatives in places where your offspring plans to be. If you had unwittingly called friends, or friends of friends and relatives or relatives of friends or friends of relatives, then apologise profusely to child in question and say that you only wanted her/him to call them once he/she is there to convey your salam. Then, take more puffs of the ventolin.

And when child in question announces that he/she is backpacking in Thailand, attach inhaler permanently to your nostrils and at the same time, trembling hands permitting, go through 25 ways to calm your nerves here.

Several other tried and tested tactics are also recommended. (Success rate not guaranteed)

Bribery: Go to Bangkok BUT only on transit and offer to pay for the rest of the holiday in Malaysia.

Blackmail: You go to Thailand and I promise you I will NOT sleep and eat, until you come back. (add "breathe " if you are really desperate.)

Eleventh Hour Emotional Blackmail at departure lounge: Compose your face suitably as you hug him/her at the departure lounge. Quivering lips accompanied by endless flow of tears and loud blowing of the nose is recommended.

If all of the above fail – doa. Lots of doa.

PERSONAL NOTE: Called up travel agent friend and scolded her for issuing the ticket and not lying and say that tickets not available or too expensive.

Preparation: Ask not just once or twice about travel arrangements, travel companions, parents and background of travel companions. Get phone numbers of travel companions, and that of their parents and grandparents.

Backpack and contents: Go through contents of clothes and essentials to make sure the child does not carry anything you or customs on both sides of the immigration table don’t want he/she to carry.

PERSONAL NOTE: Got at least five padlocks for each pocket available on backpack. Not satisfied with padlocks, get backpack to be cling-wrapped twenty times over at the airport. With backpack looking more like nangka bungkus, child relented for backpack to be checked in, rather than carried on back.

MANTRA PRE DEPARTURE: Don’t talk to any strangers. (But seeing that everyone will inevitably be strangers…) don’t talk to suspicious looking strangers. (Googled images of suspicious looking strangers…couldn’t find any). Don’t accept anything from anyone, keep drinks close to you. Go in groups, do not wander off by yourself.

SMS every move you make.

PERSONAL TRACKER: In the absence of trackers such as GPS, have page permanently displaying TIME NOW IN BANGKOK as screen saver. Google every place mentioned by child, such as “backpackers hostel”, koh samui, th khao san, ferry to Koh samui. Click on images of the above and then more puffs of ventolin.

Place handphone, cheap international call cards nearby. Template added in handphone messages: Where are you? Where exactly are you?

On receiving reply via sms, call.

On hearing loud music and atmosphere of fun and laughter, take more puffs of the ventolin.

Driving tension

Every bit of my muscle screams with pain. Every bone in my body is aching. I feel as if I had had three days and nights of stirring dodol over a hot stove. Truth of the matter is, I was nowhere near dodol, never mind stirring it. And truth of the matter is, I had been doing the raya rounds, being driven by my daughter who had just passed her driving test.

Thus the tension from the toes to the roots of my hair, which I believe must have turned grey all at once. Even in my sleep I keep applying the brakes. My knuckles go white as I grip the seat every time she approaches the traffic lights, but the last few days, I must admit that I was more relaxed and was able to drink coffee and at the same time give her directions. One positive outcome is that, my knowledge of left and right has improved. I cannot afford to get my left and right wrong. And I am also surprised at my ability to be patient.

As someone who failed not once but three times, I am really proud that she had actually passed after just one test. But what good is a license without a car? As a blogger friend was leaving for home, I decided to buy the car for her and that was when the worry and the tension started. It reminded me of the time Mak bought me my first mini bike. She’d sit on the swing daily waiting for my return from school. When Nona bought her first bike, her father followed her in the car till she got safely to school.

The new driver in the family is ever so willing to run errands; go to the shops, fetch us from the station and go anywhere to get herself familiar with the roads and the traffic.

I was working late one evening and after iftar, she offered to take me to my studio. That was fine because I was there to show her the way. But when I finished at 11pm, she and her sister were still circling Camden Town trying to get to me. It took them one hour.

The next day, she volunteered to fetch me again from the studio and this time guided by the over anxious father and over enthusiastic siblings in the car. The journey home, needless to say, took us all around north London, on a detour to west London.

It is very expensive to have a car in London. There’s the congestion fee to be paid - £8 – as soon as you enter a congestion fee area. Failure to pay that, the fine will double and multiply. Then there’s the petrol which the new driver still doesn’t pay for as she is still a student. Oh, did I mention the steep insurance for a young driver? All in all, what I have paid for over the past month since we got the car, is more than the cost of the car.

And yes, we had the most expensive raya this year when she lost the car keys just as we were about to leave for prayers. So, we left her at home to look for it. After prayers I left immediately to help her locate the keys but to no avail. We had to call the locksmith, who duly came and changed the lock, gave us another set of keys and I had to tearfully part with £170!!

Nowadays, I sit around waiting for the familiar sound of her car engine in the drive way. And most nights I wonder whether I did right by buying her the car. She had always been the most determined one. She washed dishes and cleared tables at the Malaysia Hall canteen to get her first scooter bike. She used her uni loan to pay for her driving lessons. And now that I had bought her the car, I sit and wait and pray for her safety.

ps

The eager new driver just drove us to have nachos and ice cream and cheesecake when we all felt our tummy rumbling at 11 pm. I could really get used to this.

To my dearest Nona

Just when did you get to be nineteen? Have you been doing things behind my back again? You know, mothers are a funny lot. I am, anyway. They can't wait for their children to grow up, and when they do, they want them to stop growing, freezeframe them at whatever age or phase of life that suits them. Like a bonsai plant.

When you were born, I was deliriously happy to have another girl so that I could dress you up in those cute frilly frocks. But like your sister, you were born, bald. So, no pretty ribbons, no colourful hairbands. And it seems that skirts and gowns and frilly things are not something you’d have in your wardrobe of tattered, faded jeans and cropped tops.

I remember Tok sending a bagful of floral skirts with frills that she made for her granddaughters. Ah, that look on your face! You could at least wore it once for me to take a photogragh to send home. Oh well, I don’t know what to buy you anymore. Two days ago, I was walking up and down Oxford Street, venturing into stores, displaying what they term clothes, but nothing that would wrap you up sufficiently against the cold. It was easier when I could get all that you need from Mothercare.

When I was your age (here we go again, I hear you groan), flares were in fashion. Yes, I heard your brother’s remarks about how that would help break my fall should I jump off a tall building! Ha! Ha! Very funny. But at least, I was all covered up. Nice floral materials much in trend for those flower power days. And hey, those bandanas that you wear? Been there and done that lah, sayang!

I must admit you are very creative. Last week, my prayers accompanied you to that interview when you carried your huge portfolio of excellent stuff. You have always been creative – those self taught animations, radio and tv interviews that you bullied your younger brother into doing. You play the drums and guitar. And remember how you pulled quite a crowd in Hyde Park when you did about 100 kick-ups with the ball, without once dropping it.

But you surprised me. I have always thought you’d be a scientist – perhaps a microbiologist. I’d be so proud of you. What gave me this idea? Well, on my weekly rounds searching for missing mugs, I’d always find some under your bed. And I looked at the curious blend of fungi like things at different stages of fermentation in those mugs and I thought: Aaaah, my daughter, the microbiologist!

I wasn’t very much into science in my school days, the only excitement I remember being the arrival of the first male teacher - our science master who taught us the subject of reproduction. Can you imagine, a bunch of giggly Convent girls?

And that of course brings us to the subject of the other, er opposite sex.. err, I mean gender.

Of late I see some strange nicks popping up on your Hotmail account. Does this explain your sudden interest in make-up? I supposed its good that you are taking an interest in your looks ... at least there’s some colour in your face. When I see some models on the catwalk nowadays, I can’t help thinking you’d do well marching straight from the bed onto the catwalk. You’re tall, skinny and all bones and that hairstyle is so the in thing on catwalks…no brush, no comb!

At your age, I too experimented with my hair. No more ponytails and plaits. I used to have the fringe too that covered my eyes cos I was so shy. But yours is more like a curtain that makes our communication even more difficult. However, I never touched colour (at your age). I remember your experiment with that. It was at night and you went against my advise. Suddenly there was a scream from the bathroom. What I saw made me laugh and cry at the same time. I do apologise. It was a horrible colour!! Even daddy chuckled.

Now I see that you are into Bo Derek plaits. What can I say?

And another thing, purple lenses do not suit you.

In those days, of course, we wore goggles. And it went well with those Dusty Springfield or Lulu look. The bigger the better. The same goes for earrings. Big round ones. But my dear, we wore both….not just a single dangling earring. Tok would have fainted seeing you with one earring, and one on your nose. I am glad you saw some sense and grew out of that one.

Well, penning all these down makes me feel quite old. It was a mixture of pride and sadness too when I saw you wearing one of my kebayas last Raya. People commented that you look just like me when I was your age. I am proud to have my two girls wearing the kebayas. People in Malaysia think the kebaya is making a comeback. For me it never went away. I was the kebaya girl in campus. I kept all those kebayas so that my girls can wear them. Sad? well, its just me lamenting my lost waisline.

You are one adventurous lass. I know that I am a pain to be with especially on trips to funfairs. I remember you commenting that a funfair would be a bore fair if I am around. No slides, no watershutes, no ferries wheels. Yes, a ride in the whirling tea-cup can also give as much excitement and what's wrong with that? My heart dropped when I saw you hanging upside down on that Aladin's carpet. Do you do these things to annoy me?

I cried buckets when you were away in Spain and now I see that you are researching materials on studies in Japan. When you received an offer from Nottingham university, I sobbed into the pillow. I imagined you surviving on maggie mee. Yes, granted, at your age I too couldn't cook. The kitchen was a no go area cos Tok Wan would rather see us studying than help in the kitchen. But your diet of nasi goreng and mayonaise and strange combinations like that worries me.

And if you are away, who'd be around to scratch your back? And Daddy won't be there to bring your bowl of cornflakes and milk to your room.

By the way, I just got you a birthday card and I hope you find those pieces with the picture of the Queen useful.

With lots of love,
Mama, xxx

STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS!
NONA got the bestest birthday present of all - she got accepted by the Chelsea College of Arts! All that heavy portfolio and the taxi fare that I paid is worth it!One happy MAMA!!