Archives for February, 2009
What do New Yorkers say when they see a disembodied man walking down Fifth Avenue?
I had just bought Mina a ‘life size’ Koko, and FAO Schwartz did not have a bag big enough for me to carry it home in. I clutched Koko in my arms, my legs were visible, and waist upward, looming large over my head was the gorilla. I saw my reflection in Bergdorf’s window. Weird!
But, Manhattan is all forgiving. No one said anything. A ‘whatever floats your boat’ attitude prevails. The doorman greeted me with ‘Is that the new girlfriend, Mr. Krishnan’.
Mina was pleased and Yoda was perplexed. The relief in his face when he realized that this was just a toy and not another being, come to supplant him in our affections, was palpable.
We have attributed various human qualities to Yoda, and one of them is our belief that he needs stuffed toys to play with. We have over time got him an embarrassingly large number of toys, which lie heaped in baskets. He has the typical human reaction to anything new – great excitement for about 30 minutes, after which he is ready for the next new thing.
He does respond to toys that talk back. For the longest time he was fascinated by the Furby. He would jump up startled when it suddenly spoke up after a period of silence. He also had fun with the Tickle Me Elmo toy. ‘That tickles’ and ‘I feel sleepy’ were his favorite pieces of dialogue.
Squeaky toys are also good. He likes to generate a response, when he thumps them, or shakes them around. It must be very therapeutic to have something that you can ‘semi-brutalize’ without inflicting any pain or harm. I know that I am about to get into a heap of trouble with the Soft Toys Also Have Feelings brigade. But what is life unless at least one NGO is after your blood?
When Ayesha was six, we spent a few months in Australia, on a budget so tight, that going to McDonalds was a treat . Obviously the brand name toys were out of the question, even the Woolworth’s offerings were beyond our reach.
Ayesha got completely creative with cardboard cartons that Mina gave her. Every carton of milk, every tub of margarine, and every empty ‘bag in box’ of cheap Aussie wine became a toy. With crayons, colored paper, sticky tape and her imagination, she created her own wonderland.
Many tears were shed when we left Sydney to go back to Bombay, because Ayesha had to leave all her boxes behind. ‘Not even one’ she wailed. I think she still has not forgiven us, because they were the best toys she ever had.
Yoda gets that way too. The stray bit of string, the discarded golf ball, the piece of wrapping paper that gets torn off a present, the fallen dish cloth – he has more fun with them than with anything we ever get him.
Does this mean that he yearns for a simpler life? Does he feel trapped on a consumerist treadmill with us? Does he resent that the dawning of a new day is not set by the rising sun, but by the hour when stores open ? Would he rather go minimalist and austere, and prefer not to leave a ‘spending’ footprint all over the planet?
Who knows what goes on in that little head of his? One thing I do know. We may be the only ones who get turned on by his toys, but deny him his new bows, his leash and harness combinations, and his special treats, and his grooming dates, and watch him bare his fangs.
The un-examined life is not worth living. And, the un-shopped life is not worth examining
Feb 20, 2009 | | Book
Into the room women come and go, talking of Leo DiCaprio.
I have no idea what TS Eliot would have made of Page Six and People magazine, but I suspect that Old Possum might have written a ‘Book of Bold Faced Nabobs’ which Andrew Lloyd Weber would have converted into a 9 year wonder on Broadway.
Yoda is our entrée into the world of celebrities, who would not deign to give us the time of day under any other circumstances. He compels their attention, and draws them in, like an angler who confidently casts his lure knowing that the fish will bite.
Friday morning, just before Fashion Week in Milan. The Air France lounge in New York is infested with denizens of the design world. In one corner, Calvin Klein holds center stage and the room looks like the casting call for The Devil wore Prada. Just outside the golden ring, is the Anne Hathaway type, piteously bleating ‘Where’s Anna?’ She rushes off to check if the take off can be delayed till Anna arrives, and comes back crestfallen. ‘Where’s Anna’, the Greek chorus rises as the minutes tick by.
Anna glides in, impervious and with about twelve minutes to spare. Yoda trots up to meet her, inspects her well turned out heel, and a hush falls over the crowd. Will she be pleased? Or will she fire someone for not setting up the cordon sanitaire? She reaches down, the air gets sucked out of the room, she pats Yoda, and all is well with the universe again. Yoda trots right back to us, blissfully unaware that he has gone where mere mortals fear to tread.
Fast forward to a few months later. Jennifer Lopez ( before the J.Lo days) and Sean Coombs (before the P.Diddy phase) are in the row in front of us. Yoda sticks his furry face in the space between their seats, and wins new friends. He is played with, cooed over, and a few weeks later we hear that she has two new dogs. Did Yoda do it? Or is it a Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc logical fallacy, which I was warned about in college? It doesn’t matter.
Better Midler, Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon…. I am a shameless name dropper, but don’t blame me, blame the pooch. They have all come under his spell for about 30 seconds.
We wanted to get Yoda his own 15 minutes, and when you want something badly enough, someone finds a way to sell it to you. We saw an ad in Dog Fancy. If we sent in his picture, they would publish it in a doggy calendar, on the page for November 22 - Mina’s birthday. The only brief - the picture would have to capture the essence of the dog’s personality.
So, how do you style a doggy shoot? Yoda would obviously be groomed to within an inch of his life. But, what about the backdrop? What props could we add that would guarantee Yoda’s picture being ‘selected’? We draped him over his LV bag, which nestled against an LV steamer trunk. His brown and white coloring went very well with the luggage.
Then, we added the crowning touch. A Concorde label. The Air France label was not particularly attractive, but BA had a nice bright white tag with red lettering. Yes, that would be it. Even though Yoda had never flown on BA- they don’t allow dogs in the cabin- we decided that we would sneak this past the fact checkers at the calendar printing house.
Mina shot the picture, we sent it in with an order for 50 calendars. It worked. Yoda was immortalized. It was not quite the swimsuit issue, he was not featured along Gisele Bundchen, but we knew we had done our bit. The only challenge now was – how to find 49 other people to whom we could give the calendar?
Andy Warhol would have been proud
Feb 20, 2009 | | Book
There is an unspoken social contract in India. Parents are supposed to give their all for their children, and when the kids grow up, its their turn - they are now supposed to look after their parents. The scale and the quality of the ‘looking after’ has not been codified, but we parents have all learned to quote the famous Kennedy example of the clan buying Joe P a private plane for his birthday. Always set the bar high.
Once I reached ‘a certain age’ I decided that it was time to have my mid life crises. My first one came about ten years ago, when I decided to learn roller blading in Central Park. My lesson ended in disaster and humiliation, with the trainer’s words ‘ Sir, maybe you should try something else’ resonating in my ears. I found a more sympathetic coach, managed to stay on my feet, and the crisis passed. No pierced earrings, so all was well.
My post mid life crisis has all been about Ferrari, Formula One and Filial Duty. I have discovered exactly what Ayesha needs to give us to make the ‘golden’ years glow – a red Ferrari. Every email to her is not complete without a ‘ Dude where’s my Ferrari’ entreaty, and I manage to weave it into most of our conversations too. One day, her sense of responsibility will kick in, but so far we have had to be satisfied with a radio controlled Porsche from FAO Schwarz ($ 79.99, taxes extra, batteries included). I am not ashamed to say that I looked it up.
Yoda has his ‘thing’ too, and he has wanted it from the time he was a puppy. His own seat. No waiting for a mid-life crisis for him, or maybe dogs get them early in life. Whether it’s on a plane or in a car, he looks at us and we know the question ‘Dude, where’s my seat?’ Early in the game, he also worked out that he needed to address the question to me. He either figured that he would get no cheese from Mina, or that I would be sucker enough to fall for his gambit.
And, I do. My first lesson was on an Air France flight from New York to Paris. We had settled down, stowed all our bags away, and pulled out our reading matter. I had gone to change into my pajama suit, and when I returned, Yoda was comfortably sleeping in my seat. Mina had covered him with a little blanket, and he looked set for the duration. ‘Why don’t you see if there is another seat in the cabin?’ So, I went marching off, patrolling up and down the aisles.
No spare seat up front, just one window seat in the last row of Business next to the toilets and galleys. I came back and reported on this to Mina, who gave me the ‘ How can I wake up the poor tyke?’ look. So, off I went. I explained what I was doing to the flight attendant, who gave me the pitying look that said ‘Puppy-whipped’. I slunk into my seat by the window, tried to feel noble about the sacrifice that I was making for our pooch, and failed.
The man sitting beside me waited till after take off and asked ‘ You’re Mr Krishnan, aren’t you?’. I confessed, and waited for the other shoe to drop. ‘ How come you’re not up there? Were they overbooked?’. He was one of the counter staff at Air France, and I told him the story. Softly, since I did not want the whole plane to know of my eviction. ‘ You’re a very kind man, you must love your dog very much’ was all he had to say, before he turned and went off to sleep.
The next morning, I went up to say hello. Both Mina and Yoda looked well rested. I got a few licks from the pooch, and then he jumped off the seat, curled up at Mina’s feet and went back to sleep. I sat down, had a good breakfast, and was careful not to ponder over the meaning of what happened. It is better to gloss over certain things.
Maybe, one day Yoda will get me a Ferrari for my troubles. He owes me big time.
Feb 20, 2009 | | Book
Ayesha was 11 years old, and really into skeletons and creepy crawlies. Her favorite plastic skeleton was Mr Pickenberg, a white gangly fellow we bought in Bombay, and he was her traveling companion on our first trip to the US. In Paris she acquired a green rubber snake, with had lots of curves and lots of bounce. I think it was actually called Le Snake.
Her hand luggage consisted of a bag with her precious Walkman, and the Pickenberg and Le snake nestled on top. At the airport, a tall handsome and well muscled gendarme with his automatic weapon slung over his shoulder checked her handbag. He put his hand in, and almost screamed as he jerked it out, clutching the snake, shaking it away from him, unable to let go.
The entire security line burst into laughter, the cop looked sheepish as hell, and he sternly wagged his finger at Ayesha and admonished her in French not to travel with a snake in the future. Thank God it was pre 9/11. These days, such an event could well earn us a stint in Gitmo.
We have a lot of fun going through security with Yoda. The guards usually don’t know what to make of him. In India, the first question they ask is ‘ Asli hai?’. Is he real? Then they want to see his boarding card. Nothing is official in India until it is stamped, at least twice and Yoda can only pass through if they can punch out an official piece of paper. No, the excess baggage voucher will not do. We have now trained the airline staff to give us a dummy boarding card. It takes so little to appease bureaucracy.
Yoda loves to play with the giant sniffer dogs who patrol the security and customs areas. He assumes that being fearless and cute are an unbeatable combination, and so far it has worked for him.. The dogs are usually about five times his size, and look like they could swat him aside with their tongue, but they have always been friendly. At Chicago airport, he fell in love with one of these beauties, and spent all his time making nice. The big dog responded in kind, and soon there was a love fest with much sniffing going on. The security guard was thrilled that his boy had found a pal. ‘Hey buddy, you’ve found yourself a new girlfriend’. We told him that Yoda was male, and suddenly his mood changed. ‘ My guy ain’t gay’ as he dragged his giant off to another corner of the airport.
Yoda got himself profiled big time at JFK. He waltzed through the metal detector, his harness set off the beeps, and he was pulled aside. Mina who normally has to be wanded because of her jewelry was waved on, but the security person picked up Yoda and placed him on a table. A team of two then ran a wand up and down his body, paying close attention to his paws and tail. They patted him down, looking for C-4 or Semtex, held him up by his front paws, and looked at his underbelly. They moved his bow to one side, and peered to see if an Uzi was nestling in his top knot. They took off his harness, and ran it through the X ray. Yoda preserved his sang froid, Mina withheld her rage, and I looked to see how many potential terrorists were walking through as Yoda was being given the treatment. At the end of it all, they placed Yoda gently down, patted him on the back and said ‘ Have a nice day’.
Zurich airport took the cake. One of the guards wanted us to put Yoda through the X Ray. Her simple explanation was ‘He will be exposed to more radiation at 36,000 feet than in the machine. Don’t worry, he will be fine’. We had to stand our ground, refuse to budge till the supervisor came by and waved us on. There is nothing more lethal than a little bit of eddication, with a strong mixture of pseudo science. Or maybe, she was just bored.
We have now learned to be very minimalist when going through security. No pens, no watches, no bling, no change, no wallets, and above all no heavy metal gear for Yoda. The simplest leash and harness, the pure fabric bow, and a fistful of papers to show that he has been micrchipped, rabies protected, spayed, groomed, and has no bad breath.
We’re all learning to travel light.
Feb 06, 2009 | | Book
