Understanding parenting "Reality Bites" Style

Dear Snowflakes,

One of the most amazing things for me to experience is Chuk-Chuk's increasing vocabulary. She is not-quite-three but every time she uses a new word correctly, I find myself just a little bit stunned. Where did she learn that? I ask myself. Each time.

Today's addition: almost.

I know. I know. What a dorky thing to say. What's there to be stunned over when every not-quite-three girl out there is literally programmed to spout new words at this age?

Nothing. Except that parenthood is all about dorkiness. Every parent since the beginning of human history has had the same experiences. But each parent is programmed to experience them as something unique and stunning.

I guess a good analogy to my life before and after kids is the 90s cult-classic Reality Bites. (Because, you love movies).

Before having kids, I was Ethan Hawke. I would never allow anything to surprise me, shock me, thrill me or hurt me. And post-kids, I've turned into that puppy dog Ben Stiller. For was there ever a more eager line spoken on the silver screen than Stiller's: "Have I crossed some lines on the sands of coolness with you?"

But then again, to understand this transformation, we must revisit that uber-cool question that the magazine editor throws at Ryder: How do you define irony?

The answer: "When the actual meaning is the exact opposite from the literal meaning."

I guess, when it comes to experiencing life with irony then it would mean finding something miserable in the joyful and something joyful in the miserable. Which is why it is so hard to be ironic and a parent. Parenting is hard enough (no, there is nothing joyful about its miseries) without you refusing to experience its little joys wholeheartedly.

I guess as for "irony", I will  leave it for the day Chuk-Chuk throws the word at me.

Love
Mumbaikar in Melbourne
PS: So in the pursuit of uncoolness, here's one for you Chuk-Chuk and AJ (minus the French kissing of course). You both make me so proud.

Snowfall & Disney promises

It is not quite December and it is snowing outside.

I grew up with wistful visions of lovely snowfalls. Very few parts of India see snow. And since my economical parents wanted to save money on woollies, they made sure we never visited them in winter. But snowfalls still sneaked into our lives, thanks to Hollywood and all the Christmas releases. No wonder I thought that snowfalls always come packaged with romance, comedy and Christmas lights.

All that changed circa, February 2008, Amsterdam. And I learnt the hard lesson that snowfalls usually come with slush, annoyance, traffic jams, misery and, if you are really unlucky – a broken hipbone. In England, it usually comes with broken public transport as well, just to add to the fun. Needless to say, I am cured me of snowfall sickness forever.

England, for some odd reason, seems to be in denial about its proximity to the North Pole. In other Northern European countries that I lived in, people seemed more at peace with their winters. All houses compulsorily came with double-glazed windows, and as soon as the trees would start shedding their leaves, people would start bulking-up. Fashion was given a short shrift as they all bundled-up in their excellent, expensive winter coats, gloves, thermals and hats. By the time, the snow arrived – nobody even noticed it.

London’s Picadilly Circus knows only one season: that which requires girls in mini-skirts and sheer tights. Winter coats are designed more for fashion than for heavy snowfalls, and places like M&S don’t even stock real woollen cardigans. What you find are sweater lookalikes made out of synthetic mixes. Everything is cheap and most of it is useless. And all the three houses we have lived-in in London have had no double glazing. Public transport breaks down every winter and gas prices soar. And the worst part is: everyone appears shocked by the cold – every year!

But I have made my peace with winter. So if you see a tent waddling its way around London, do stop to say hi!

PS: My favourite winter memory relates to the song Hey There Delilah. Mostly because the Turkish-German cafe in Hamburg that I spent most of my 2008 winter in was always playing this song. So I always somehow associate winter with Hamburg, descending darkness outside, a cappucino cup warming my fingers and Hey There Delilah playing in the background. Here's to winters and Hey There Delihah.

Stopping by the hood on a snowy evening on PhotoPeach

No, I still think Louis Vuitton is pulling a fast one on us

Louis Vuitton in Paris

 It seemed like a good idea to view the exhibition on Louis Vuitton’s history at Museé Carnavalet in Paris. Andrew had recommended it. Besides, given my previously-expressed cynicism about the brand, I felt I owed it one chance to try and understand the secret of its unceasing popularity. Then again, we were in Marais, one of the most fashionable neighbourhoods I’ve ever visited, and it seemed somehow appropriate.

The exhibition traced the luggage-maker’s history since 1835 when 14-year-old Louis Vuitton undertook a two-year trek from his hometown Jura to Paris to become an apprentice for a luggage store on 4 rue des Capucine. It took him only another 18 years to set up his own eponymous store in the capital. But interestingly – and here’s where my respect for the company grew – the first 100 years of the luggage company were as much based on innovation as branding exercises.

Think about it: 1850s to 1950s is when the means, modes and quality of travel changed dramatically. From horse-drawn carts we sswiftly moved to ocean liners, trains, automobiles and airplanes. Naturally, a change in transport necessitated a change in our luggage designs – and Louis Vuitton constantly innovated to keep up with modern lifestyles.

Luggage and writing desk rolled into one

It started with changing the shape of our trunks from domed-tops to flat tops, which could be easily stacked on top of each other. Then they changed the material used for trunks from leather to coated canvas – less prestigious but sturdier. The House also started cleverly compartmentalising spaces inside to optimise usage. They created slim cabin trunks that could be slipped under the bunks of ocean liners and trains. They created drop leaf cases (where the front end would also drop along with the top) for picnic cases, once automobiles became fashionable. These picnic cases came complete with set-to-size cutlery inside. Among their more outlandishly innovative designs were suitcases with pop-up beds and built-in writing desks for longer exploratory journeys.

The designs were exciting because functionality and not just aesthetics lay at the heart of their creation.Interestingly, after the 1950s, such functionality-based innovation petered out and aesthetics, branding and marketing exercises took over. (It is also the time when the company moves out of family control after three generations of Louis Vuittons at the helm.) It is telling that barely two percent of the exhibits included designs made between the 1950s and now. These exhibits include the luggage custom-made for Damien Hirst, Karl Lagerfeld, Zaha Hadid and film maker Wes Andersen for his film, The Darjeeling Ltd. So their wow-factor had more to do with brand association than with design innovation.

My problem with Louis Vuitton is that even when it comes to aesthetics, the brand is stuck to one look, coming up with gazillion permutations and combinations within that narrow framework. It was Gaston Louis Vuitton – second in the chain – who came up with the brand’s distinctive lazenge motif in 1888, inspired by Japanese design which was all the rage in Paris at that time. But today, the distinctiveness and prominence of the motif has made the brand an extremely easy prey to forgers – for we live in a world of easy duplication. And yet, LVMH Group seems loathe to innovate their design which is a cash cow for them. It is a far call from the days when Louis Vuitton decided to replace leather on his truck cover with coated canvas – a decidedly less prestigious but lighter and sturdier material. He took a call based on functionality, and the canvas in elegant grey went on to become the company's signature design.

Sid says, travel hasn’t changed much since the 1950s. It is still aeroplanes that we travel in so what could they possibly innovate over? Well, the speed, frequency and quality of our travel has changed dramatically. We travel more, for shorter distances and with far lesser luggage. Surely, that requires a new attitude towards luggage making. For example, if Louis Vuitton once came up with a case with an in-built writing desk, then why not one with an in-built laptop board, a device that has attached itself to our beings?

It is because the brand is no longer about innovation in luggage making. It is just another corporation looking for the easiest and safest way to cash-in on the hard-earned reputation of its founding fathers.

Baffled by brands: Or is Louis Vuitton pulling a fast one of us?

Grand signature design: Mud brown with LV squiggles?

When the lady at her little shop in Portobello Market pointed at the Elspeth Gibson London label on the nice tweed skirt, she expected my eyes to light-up. Never having heard of Ms Gibson from London, I only stared back in incomprehension. Unfortunately, I don’t think the fact endeared me to her and I suspect she bumped the price up of by another £5 just to punish me.


But here's the thing: why should I have heard of Ms Elspeth Gibson from London? She only makes skirts – nice skirts, I agree, but skirts nonetheless. She doesn’t set the tax rates, and she doesn’t decide how my taxes will be spent. And yet, it is socially unacceptable for me to admit that, no, I had never heard of her before today.

Perhaps, it is my legacy of growing up in a socialist India that I don’t know, understand or care for brands.

I like to buy things, nice things. But I want to buy them because they are well-made, and look good on me or my house. Not because cleverly-made advertisements - with not just a little help from feminist icon Carrie Bradshaw - tell me that they are fabulous, my life is worthless without them, and that just to own them will prove to others that I have fabulous taste, or at the very least, lots of money.

Unfortunately, most people are buying into brands precisely for those reasons. And I can't help but feel sad for such people.

Even if I bought into the whole advertising spiel, I still don’t get the obsession with Louis Vuitton, the luxury leather goods brand. Its grand signature design comprises mud brown backgrounds with LV squiggled all over it. From my perspective, that is ugly and somewhat loud. Sid says the idea behind having such an obvious signature design is instant recognition. No one should miss that you are carrying a Louis Vuitton accessory.

But what I can’t miss is that everyone is bloody carrying a Louis Vuitton. In cars, buses, shops, streets, I see men and women flashing their mud brown LVs: young women, old women, fat women, thin women, gay men, straight men, and white, brown and black men and women. So either the market is glutted with clever fakes or this exclusive club is bursting on its seams.

Agreed it is ugly, but at least there are no squiggles

If it is the former, it’s the brand’s fault fair and square. Instead of trying to sell itself on genuinely clever, hard to copy, detailing, Louis Vuitton tried to sell itself on the basis of its one loud, easily recognisable – and thus equally easy to reproduce – patent design.

And if it is the latter, than it has hard-sold itself so much that I am no longer setting myself apart by spending my money on Louis Vuitton.

Either way, from my perspective, this brand is pulling a fast one on us. 

But then again, what do I know. I am just a hick little child of socialist India.


***
Who says it better than Jennifer Saunders in Absolutely Fabulous - "Lacroix? Fabulous. Thank You!"

Minimalism - or why we just can't get it right

Two magazines found their way on my doorstep yesterday at the same time: the weekly woman’s lifestyle mag-rag Stylist & the season catalogue of the high-end contemporary furniture store, BoConcept.

The simultaneity of their arrival made me think of the big lifestyle dilemma of our modern world: minimalism vs perennial consumerism.

Now, if you look at the BoConcept catalogue, it is all surfaces – clean, uncluttered, never-ending surfaces (and insect pictures on the wall, for some odd reason). The uber-expensive furniture and fixtures are defined by their sparseness and their determination to not take attention away from the pure beauty of empty space.  Think: the frighteningly modernist house in Polanski’s latest, The Ghost Writer.

Ice-cold minimalism is the lifestyle to aspire to.

On the other hand, fashion magazines such as Stylist that we consume on a regular basis are filled with “stuff” being peddled to us. I don’t know what else to call all of this but stuff: citrus-orange watches; limited-edition velvet flowercap perfume bottles; wall-mounted wine racks; handcrafted cards; cellulite brushes; Lady Gaga designed heartbeat earphones designed “just for Dr Dre Beats”; Phillips Fidelio’s snazzy DS9000 iPod; peppermint and lemon insect-repellent candles; a book of 100 shots of Kate Moss; “little fella” late-night reading lamps; and, I kid you not, babushka-doll inspired USB sticks -- all of which Stylist believes would really enhance your life.

Would it make any material difference to anyone’s life, whether they did or did not own the babushka-doll USB stick or the Lady Gaga designed heartbeat earphones? None what so ever. Yet, we will all buy it because of the fuzzy, warm momentary joy that the act of buying gives us.

And then, we will try to fit all this colourful junk into our supposedly cool minimalist lives – and wonder, what went wrong.

Beyond Borders

Yesterday, Sid and I happily went scavenging through the Borders book shop outlet in Angel. The chain bookstore went into liquidation last week, and we were hoping to capitalise on its bad luck.

No, Borders doesn’t have my sympathies. None at all! Borders would like you to believe that Amazon.com did this to it. But I wonder if it was Amazon that was responsible for its poorly informed staff, boring recommendations, and topsy-turvy book management system.

A few months ago, Sid walked into a Borders bookshop with a specific book in mind. It wasn’t just a vague idea, he didn’t just have the subject in mind – it was a specific book by a specific author that he was after. He couldn’t find it in the supposed designated area, so walked up to the staff. The staff took him back to the designated area, and started looking around in confusion – obviously, it wasn’t there. So he looked up the computer systems, stocks hadn’t run out. The book was there in store, just that the shop assistant had no idea where it could be. Sid left in disgust and bought the book on Amazon.

The problem is that Borders tried to attract buyers with coffee, toys, CDs and beautiful pictures. So it got coffee drinkers, toy buyers, CD hunters and picture gazers – it didn’t get in book lovers.

Window Dressing

As December 25 comes closer, the London shops are choking with Christmas spirit. Here's an early nomination for the most over the top window decoration in London.

Fortnum & Mason (scaring us with OTT windows since 1707), Picadilly, W1J 9.

Jenny Goes Smoking

I thought I had discovered something when I found my little cigarette box Conrad in an independent book shop on Rivington Street yesterday: a miniature novel by Conrad packed inside a cute black cigarette box cover, complete with a cellophane covering on top and silver foil paper inside. It was the perfect gift for friends who love books but don’t read. We all have so many of them.

Of course, I was just being Ms Jenny-Come-Lately to London…. again.

Apparently, the publishing company Tankbooks had the brainwave in 2007 when the smoking ban kicked into the UK. The series of cigarette-style classics by Hemingway, Conrad, Tolstoy and others were launched under the name Tales To Take Your Breath Away in the summer of 2007. Its launch was duly noted by the Design Museum, sales zoomed during Christmas, a cigarette company promptly sued it for design infringement, a facebook page popped up to save the series, and soon all was well and everyone forgot about them. The staff at the Waterstone's in Angel couldn't even recall what they were. The books have become a footnote-to-history on the Internet with the Rivington Street shop being one of the last few to still stock them.

What I find odd though is how none of the rave reviews (like this one) commented on one important missing detail: how can you come close to being an imitation cigarette packet without that inseparable whiff of tobacco that envelops the pack and foil? That warm tobacco aroma defines a cigarette packet for me, ciggies or no ciggies inside. It clings to everything: the package, the foil, your fingers.

Inhale all you want, but these cigarette classics will leave you disappointed with their M&S scrubbed cleanness.

For £6.99, me thinks they could have taken the pains.

***
For Jennies-Come-Lately to London like me who might want to buy these ciggie-classics, you can order them through the Tankbook website. For a closer look at the goods, visit Art Words Bookshop, 65a. Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3QQ (tring tring: 020-7729 2000).

Mitchell M & Mumbai

Dear World Wide Web and its inhabitants,

Yesterday, Mitchell M's sunny, earnest travelling journal landed in my lap asking me to write about the place I come from. But am I traumatising the sweet 13-year-old Canadian with my descriptions of Mumbai?

"Dear 13-year-old Mitchell M,

I am 29-year-old Chetna M who's just had her big, loud Indian wedding in Mumbai (or Bombay), India. The guest list went upto 450 people, of which 150 were mere family. Too big? Not if you consider that nearly 1 billion Indians infest India, of which nearly 16 million live on the island of Mumbai.

To fit the 16 million of us, the city has two kinds of housings: the tall, somewhat dingy, concrete high rises for the rich and middle classes, and definitely dingy and crowded slums - made of plastic, cardboard, bits of bricks, sacks, asbestos and other stuff you probably throw away as waste - for the poor. Nearly half the city lives in these makeshift homes called slums. I, fortunately, live in a highrise (lest, you start feeling sorry for me.)

When we get sick of the other 15,999,999 of us milling around, we head for the beaches, sea fronts and promenades that stretch along the western edges of Mumbai. The city stands along the endless Arabian Sea, which attracted the first inhabitants of Mumbai, the fishermen, thousands of years ago. They still exist and you can see them heading out to the sea every morning in their little, colouful, wooden boats in hope of a good catch.

Other popular occupations include film acting, diamond trading, stock broking and taxi driving.

Our climate is marked by heat and humidity. It is sweaty, sweaty, sweaty by the day, and a little bit cooler and breezier by nights. Naturally, deoderant makers do brisk business in Mumbai.

Hope you will one day visit our crowded Mumbai and enjoy its sea, sweat, slums and other pleasures.

Your's truly
Chetna M"

****
Recession-babble 0verheard in St John's Wood, London: One mink-coated, face-lifted middle aged blonde laments to another - "My outlays are just so huge... ".