Hooked on brotherly love...

The prospect of going to university far away from home was particularly hard for me, as my brother Abhishek is only five (13 years younger than me). I looked forward to seeing him in my semester break, as I barely communicated with him from Mumbai, because he never likes talking over the phone. When I reached home, I discovered that not only had the artwork on the walls flourished in my absence, but there was a new fish tank in the living room. "That goldfish", said my mum, pointing to the bigger of the two, "is Jennifer and the smaller one is Abhishek." "Are you telling me that you named a fish after me?" I asked. "No, Abhi named them." I was so pleased with him that I was actually excited about babysitting him while my parents went out on a Saturday. After he had his tea at noon, he decided it was time for him to have a bath. As I was drying his hair, he ordered me to "wash fish". "I've never learnt to cook anything Abhi, so if you want fish for lunch, you better wait for mum." He remained adamant and sensing a tantrum on the way, I defrosted a pizza and served him, which subdued him for a while. When my mum got back, she explained that it was a ritual for Abhi to wash the fish and the tank after his shower. I was reading a book, listening to his excited shrieks in the background as he and my mum set about washing the fish. Suddenly, he came charging at me with a mug. I looked inside and yelled. There was a fish thrashing about gasping for air. "Put it back in the water Abhi, it can't breathe outside." He was full of glee at seeing my expression but he put it back when my mum came to see what all the noise was about. My initial euphoria over my brother naming his fish after me soon evaporated when I saw what the poor fish was being made to go through. Abhi soon became quite adept at surprising me with that mug when I least expected. I resorted to locking myself in my room to avoid any confrontation. Things took an unpleasant turn when I discovered he had been experimenting with my eye make-up and had tried to make his car swim along with the fish. I went to the kitchen to speak to my mum about his fish-washing antics. "He's having fun" was her reply. "That's not fun, it's torture", I said. My dad joined in. "When you were a child, your granny bought these multi-coloured chicks for you to play with and you strangled all of them. You can't accuse your brother of torture." "I didn't 'strangle' them." "You found them cute and tried to hug them but you ended up knocking the breath out of them." "That's different", I said. "I was only a baby then, but Abhi knows exactly what he's doing. He annoys the fish so he can have a good laugh seeing me squealing and running for cover." My dad had the final word. "He'll grow out of it and you shouldn't be harsh on him. He really misses you and playing around with that fish is Abhi's way of telling himself that you are still around." No argument could answer that. ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here. Copyright 2009 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group 'Hooked on brotherly love...', Gulf Daily News, December 5, 2009, Jennifer Gnana

The 'perfect storm' that never was...

It had all the markings of a perfect storm, a cool name, just the right intensity and hype - as well as a holiday to welcome its coming.

When the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) - yes, they still call it that, announced that all schools and colleges would close early on November 11 and would remain shut the following day because of Cyclone Phyan (which means 'cherry fallen off the tree top' in Burmese), I was excited!

I had never witnessed a cyclone before and this was to be the first one to hit the city in 67 years.

There have been sporadic downpours since the beginning of this month, which was surprising because the monsoons usually deluge the city only in the summer.

All this was apparently caused by a tropical depression in the Arabian Sea that morphed into Phyan.

We waited with bated breath as Phyan was set to cross Goa and hit Mumbai on November 12.

I had stocked up on food provisions and was looking forward to a cosy day in my room, when I realised towards the evening that the winds had died.

I was just telling myself that it was just a lull, the storm was just waiting to regain strength, when it stopped raining altogether.

The news came in late that night that the storm had missed its date with Mumbai, though its passage over the Arabian Sea had left more than 70 fishermen missing.

That Mumbai escaped can be no bad thing, but to us it meant something else - no day off!

I woke up the following day to see grey clear skies outside.

Looking around, I found all my roommates still in bed, wearing the same sulky expressions at being "let down".

"I'm getting up in five minutes," one of them declared.

I got back to the room 15 minutes later to find her still in bed.

"Lady, I think I heard you right, didn't you say you'll be up in five minutes?" I asked. "That cyclone duped us," she replied groggily.

"Yeah, too bad. I don't feel like going out at all."

"It just ruined a day of peace and quiet."

"Funny you should say that. With all the weird phenomena that keeps occurring here, I wonder if that's the real reason why people call Mumbai a happening city."

At that precise moment, a chorus of voices from the nearby school could be heard:

"Showers of blessings,

Showers of blessings we need.

Mercy drops round us are falling,

But for the showers we plead"

How ironic!

¥ Jennifer is a former Bahrain resident, now studying in Mumbai

Copyright 2009 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group

'The 'perfect storm' that never was', Gulf Daily News, November 21, 2009, Jennifer Gnana

Along came a spider…

Moving to Mumbai from Bahrain for university brought some surprises that I had not bargained for.

I soon found myself battling not just the forces of nature, unexpected rain and shine, but also weird species I hadn’t encountered before, like crows that finished off our cheese balls, eagles and spiders.

My day usually begins with me waking to the cacophony of crows cawing their hearts out.

My room-mates often wake to hear me half-awake, pleading with the crows to “please, please go away”.

To my warden’s horror and my delight, we found a pigeon had laid an egg in one of our buckets in the first week of my joining the hostel. She told me to throw it in the bin, but not having the heart to do that, I named it Clare and buried it in the garden.

My three months in the city have led me to discover that just about everything in Mumbai is unpredictable.

Just when the scorching summer had set in and hopes of scanty monsoon showers faded, it started bucketing down out of the blue. Unfortunately that day the window next to my bed had been left open and when I went back in the afternoon, my bed was soaked, with a puddle of water underneath.

Tired after having answered an economics paper, I just spread newspapers on the floor, switched on the fans and went to have a bath. When I got back, I was told my warden wanted a word with me. I went down to her office to find her ballistic “Jennifer, you’re going to be a mother some day. When your kids throw up on the walls, are you going to spread newspapers?

“When something of this sort happens back home, you wouldn’t spread newspapers, would you? Honestly, have you never swabbed?”

I couldn’t tell her we had carpets back home and I hadn’t swabbed a tile in my life.

She made me mop up the water and swab my side of the floor till she was satisfied, then I was given another bed to sleep for the night.

The next day I was told to dry my mattress in the sun and be on the alert to remove it, should there be another downpour.

Room No 1 has a reputation for being the messiest in the hostel, I was told the very day I joined.

True to form, it has remained so.

Our warden ordered a spring cleaning in our room just days before we left for our Diwali break.

I was dusting the window grilles standing on top of the table when I saw it, the creature, I loath, fear and hate – a spider, lurking in a corner. There was an almighty scream followed by a dreadful metallic crunch.

I had jumped in fright onto my room-mate’s bed and it collapsed.

When the realisation hit me that I had broken a bed I ran straight down to my warden’s office, expecting a roasting.

But she laughed and came up to see where the spider that had given me such a fright.

“It’s so small, I can’t even see it. You should learn to co-exist peacefully with the spider,” she quipped.

“We make bad neighbours,” I replied.

Copyright 2009 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group

'Along Came a Spider', Gulf Daily News, October 30, 2009, Jennifer Gnana