Irrfan Khan

Day 4 :

After our breakfast, we checked out of Pine Borough, bid goodbye to Kodaikanal and started for Munnar, in the last leg of our vacation.

As soon as we were out of the Tamil Nadu border, the climate felt sunny and mild and I was happy we were not in cold, chilly climate.

N stopped at a random eatery for his breakfast, while Mr.Bee and I had a coffee and tea respectively. The stall had photo of Amma, Jayalalitha and somehow, that reminded me of Thalaivii movie of Kangana Ranaut! (Beats me! Why did they cast a pahadi North Indian to play a pukka South Amma! Incidentally, I also loathe the Chandramukhi 2 of Kangana. What a royal waste of time!)

Anyway, on our way to Munnar, just as we entered the Kerala border, we stopped for lunch, we were famished. We halted at Safair, which serves the worst food ever. We could hardly eat a mouthful of food. It must be heaven for non-veg customers, because, they were lining up like bees, but it is absolute bekaar and tasteless eatery for vegetarians. We could hardly finish eating the two dishes we ordered, lemon rice and curd rice!

N was surprised we returned in less than half an hour. We ate the fruits we bought, before exiting Kodaikanal.

I also saw a restaurant which was Bethel Suji restaurant and I remembered the famous dialogue of Phoebe, “Who names their child Bethel?” LOL. (I am FRIENDS fanatic!)

GBee began counting bikes, all those which he saw on the highway and his score reached 1757. ( He entertained himself this way, because KBee would sleep as soon as we were inside the car!)

Even though we knew there were not any good restaurants, we stopped at Safair because we wanted to take a scenic route to Munnar and NOT the shortest route. We took the Gap road. It is the best! ( Always go for the scenic route, not the shortest route!)

Gap road – Munnar, the most scenic road with tea plantations!

We stopped at many viewpoints, took photos and had fun. Munnar is basically heaven and just looking at it is not enough, you should also be mindfully present to enjoy it! Here, cell is just a distraction.

We saw all the tea and coffee estates, most of them belonging to TATA group, who have them for a lease of 999 years! Trespassing is prohibited, so, no photos from inside the beautiful tea estates.

At one viewpoint, since we hardly had a good lunch, we stopped for sweet corn, which is easily available along with Maggi, along the road at all the viewpoints. All the 4 of us were happily chomping our sweet corn cobs when Mr.Bee saw a group of monkeys running towards us. I swear they were at the top of the hills when we started eating. As we started eating, they came down hill, waiting to cross the road to snatch our precious corn.

Mr.Bee wanted to buy us some time, so he threw his cob towards them. They got distracted for a bit. I asked the kiddos to eat their corn, fast. I chomped as much as I could before throwing mine too, at the hunger- striken monkeys. (Situation called for a sacrifice!)

We then rushed towards the car. N banned us from eating in car and monkeys won’t let us eat in peace!

We also had to throw away the kids corn cobs, before going ahead. The kiddos found the throwing away of half eaten corn cobs towards the direction of monkeys, very entertaining! (They were like, mom let me throw, let me give it to monkey.)

We took in as much beauty as we can, staring at our surroundings and all. Kerala government is strict about the cleanliness, which means we get to see wire bins in unique shapes at almost all important locations, for collecting plastic waste like bottles.

Plastic disposal bin

After spending most of our afternoon checking out the streets of Munnar, we checked into the White House hotel.

The kids were highly impressed with the White House hotel. KBee was so sweet as to believe we were staying there forever. GBee was laid back and knew, we were only on a vacation.

After quick baths, changing into fresh nightwear, we reached the in – house restaurant, ordered our dinner.

We also made plans for the next day, after discussing with our hotel manager.

We went to the kids play area, played for sometime (kids had fun) and returned to our room.

The room service brought our dinner, which was simple as ever, fried rice, watermelon juice for all.

Since the weather was not cold like Kodaikanal (Oh, how I hated wearing socks in the hotel room in Kodaikanal), we had fan running at full speed and AC on, we slept like logs!

P.S:

1. Gap road in Munnar is the best. I remembered all the movies I had loved, thanks only to the beautiful tea plantations and estates which were in the backdrop, demanding my attention!

Remember Chennai Express and Life of Pi?

2. India has huge potential, but maintaining the cleanliness is the problem. Let’s hope for the best!

Till the next post, bubye!

As my loyal readers know of our brief life in the US of A, Mr.Bee would go to his office at 11 a.m. and I would pack my canvas tote with my black vertical striped apron and my wallet, booking an Uber to go to the Monroe Road studio of Clayworks, where the potter’s wheel was all I could see, as far as my passion was concerned.

Some days, when I felt low, even the pots and cups I made would turn out bad and I would leave the studio early (artists would understand!) On such afternoons, I would make a snack for myself and sit in the Ashley’s chocolate brown couch in our living room, with a parrot green woollen throw blanket and watch movies.

By chance, I had come across The Namesake, by Mira Nair, starring Irrfan Khan and the talented Tabu and decided it was worth a watch. It was a revelation. I liked Irrfan Khan too (It was the first time I watched his movie). It was a memorable movie, but this post is about The Namesake, the Pulitzer prize winning novel.

This is the first time I watched a movie first and read the novel on which the movie is based on, later. I have been to the recent book exhibition, the yearly ritual of my maternal family. I got myself a copy of The Namesake and interestingly, the lone thing I remember is Irrfan Khan and Tabu, in the awkward photo from the movie. It’s been more than 9 years since I watched the movie and it tells a great deal about the actors’ and their performances. (I couldn’t find the photo online). No wonder the lead pair is known for their talent.

The Gangulis

The Names

It is about a Bengali couple Ashoke Ganguli and Ashima, in an arranged marriage, whose life as immigrants is at once relatable. It starts with the marriage of Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli and progresses at steady pace to the births of their children Gogol and Sonia. The focus shifts to Gogol and that’s where the novel gets it’s name.

Gogol goes from a phase where his name is just a nickname to, where he loves to be called Gogol , to a phase where he hates it so much , he changes it to Nikhil, gets to know the real reason behind his name and finally regretting the change of his name.

Gogol doesn’t like that all his parents’ friends are desi families. He doesn’t like Indian food and the time it takes to cook. He struggles, as they say, ABCD – American Born Confused/Conflicted Desi. He sees the contrast between his parents and the lives of his American girlfriend and her parents. Gogol hates being told what to do by his parents,(most Asian parents do that) but ironically, ends up always submitting to his girlfriends and his wife. He performs fairly well in studies but since he takes decisions based on his rebellion against his parents, he falls flat. Like choosing a college to stay away from his family and not because it is better! He gives up studying at MIT, it is exasperating!

Ashoke Ganguli, in his own way had adjusted to the life in America. Interestingly, Ashoke ‘s friends had predicted accurately, that Sonia is a true American, right after she was born. But Ashima never feels at home, neither in Calcutta where she lived before marriage nor America, where she stayed for more than three decades. Neither here nor there.

The Ganguli family dynamics changes with the sudden death of Ashoke. Sonia, the daughter who had stayed away for studies reaches out to her mother during her mourning and shows us subtle glimpses of her character. (She hardly get 2 pages worth of space in the whole book)

After two failed relationships and 1 death in the family, Gogol a.k.a Nikhil meets Moushimee Majumder. Both have emotional baggage of their own and that leads to a disaster in waiting, which is their marriage. I didn’t like her at all. Nor did I like Gogol. He was a good man but he had his weaknesses and drawbacks.

The book ends with the hint of Sonia’s upcoming marriage to Ben, Ashima’s plan of moving back to India and well, Gogol, still coming to terms about the journey of life!

Overall, the Namesake is a slow paced story and at the end I did feel sad for Gogol and Ashima (both the troubled souls). It is worth a read, if you are not an avid reader, I suggest you to watch the movie for first class acting,

P.S:

1. Coming to the author Jhumpa Lahiri, her writing is easy to read and understand but at places it gets overly descriptive and lengthy. I found myself skipping paragraphs! I need to read more of her works to comment better.

2. Although we know little about Sonia, I liked her!

3. I went on to watch Irrfan Khan in Piku, Talwar , Jurassic World and Life Of Pi.

4. I will be back with a Sookshmadarshini review soon. Ciao!

Tag: Irrfan Khan

Munnar, at last

The Namesake

Recent Posts