Performer
A shameless attempt at garnering sympathy in an earlier piece elicited only a good hard kick in the butt. Apparently, the little vignette of a Kathakali master terrorising a pint sized girl into peeing her pants (as a result of language malfunction and extremely agile eyebrows) was the highlight of said piece. Close friends were still gurgling and chuckling at the end of the day at the mere thought of my damp behind. Bah. But it gave me an idea for this piece and I have decided, in time honoured tradition of all the great and almost famous, to come clean and confess all. I don’t vant to be left alone, mein darlink.
I was always destined to be the closet star. Not for me the outré flamboyance, the irreverent wit or the dazzling talent to flash across a world stage. It was always a hair brush, never a mic, a private audience in front of my mirror, never a public arena in front of screaming adoring fans. My inner performer has clashed lifelong with the outer saner, stable, happiest-out-of-the-limelight self. To all friends still sniggering, let me tell you that it leads to great soul searching and conflict before the outer boots the inner out. Sanity one crazies zero.
Some blame for this must be laid at the altar of early family influence. This is the inevitable result when the universe takes one singularly untalented little girI and surrounds her with super creative, super ambitious and/or super crazy family. (You know who you are). I grew up on starry eyed stories of a mom who did amazing things, a woman forging a path way ahead of her time, the quintessential professional who easily made time to be beautiful, intelligent and sporty (a table tennis and carrom champ). I was brought up by an aunt whose impressive artistic and creative urges were focussed on getting me up on stage in the best fancy dress costumes our little university town had ever seen. By the time I was three, I had been a super shiny Radha to a purple body painted Krishna, the Queen of Sheba as fondly imagined by artistic aunt (a heirloom red saree with a beautiful border was ruthlessly sacrificed to fashion my flowing Arabic robes) and my own sainted great grandmother, complete with pince-nez, trailing kasti (a sacred thread worn around the waist amongst the worthies of my community) and powdered hair. These three being the costumes I can write about in polite company, I leave the rest to your horrified imagination. A later Cupid, silver body paint, head to toenails (these were the seventies and no, we hadn’t yet heard of lead poisoning and no one would have cared anyway), with tiny red chaddis, a flimsy home made bow and quiver of arrows, comes to mind for your freak show entertainment. I will never forgive the creative geniuses behind that ultimate embarassing moment of my life: my own dear late mother and late brother. No matter that I threw huge tantrums and once even refused to go on stage, the judges, completely bowled over by the stunning costumes, my general cuteness and the fact that most of them were friends and colleagues of my mom, consistently awarded me first place in absentia. The conflict between those warring selves I mentioned earlier started at a young and impressionable age. Such are the debatable rewards of stardom done right and I learnt this early in life.
I also had a brother who was the manifestation of all things cool. He didn’t believe in closets. Flamboyance was his middle name and he really was a rock star in the backwaters we grew up in. The Seventies Ernakulam version of screaming groupies, star struck hangers on, tantrums and tears – I’d seen them all in my own garage which doubled up as studio/hotel room/stadium venue. Freddie Mercury didn’t have a thing on my brother in those heady days. I watched and I learnt.
I may even have let that inner self unleash my own Barbra or Freddie upon the world when that unfortunate episode at kathakali class struck a blow to all outward starry aspirations. I was five years old, alternating between great confidence in myself and utter paralysing shyness. My mom, blessed with a girl after two somewhat underwhelming boys (though to be fair, one of them did his damnedest to fulfil all her creative dreams) was determinedly and doggedly dragging me down the path to academic and social success, partly in defiance of her own aspirations falling short of fulfillment, partly because she was ambitious and even ruthless, in the nicest way possible. The family was fairly united in those early years on one thing: it was best to leave Mum alone to rule her little world – no opposition, no rebellion. This ensured lasting peace and happiness in our universe. There’s a piece in there for another day.
And so, she pounced on cultural improvement as the first step to my future social success. A kathakali class was offered in school to the girls. Note: This story is set in an old fashioned and conservative time and place. The venue was a dank and musty shed. The head teacher was a gruff old man (he might have been any age between thirty and sixty, in reality), sprouting white hairs from ears and nose, with enormous eyebrows that had a complete social life of their own. He did not speak any language I understood and vice versa. Our Guru-shishya relationship was doomed from the start and I could have told my mom that, except that she took a cursory look around, decided that her daughter would make an excellent exponent of this ancient dance form and…left.
I made it through three classes of sheer terror, the catatonic kind that accompanies incomprehension. Slowly, it dawned on me that all I had to do was to imitate the movements of people around me. I still remember a couple of hand mudras and the positioning of the feet in basic position as demonstrated by rather nice young ladies. My confidence crept back and I thought, hey, I could do this. I could learn kathakali and pick up basic malayalam too, one stone, two birds.
But cometh the hour, cometh the man. And Karma is a bitch…Class Number Four: The old teacher deigned to show us young uns the art of the eyebrow waggle. He stood, arms akimbo, and let loose with first one, then the other and finally both eyebrows doing complicated calisthenics independent of each other. He bent down to show each of us the sheer artistry at close quarters. As he eyeballed me, my bladder gave up the unequal struggle. As those eyebrows dealt out shock and awe in equal measure, all decorum and good manners were forgotten and it simply let go. A chastised mother crept away from that hall of ancient Indian culture, a wet daughter clutched in her arms.
The chastisement was short lived and it wasn’t much longer before fresh inspiration struck. If not a danseuse, then a beauty queen! The jump in logic is death defying and convoluted but suffice it to say that by then, my mom and brother were bored to tears in that little town. Having reluctantly sacrificed her career, and making the best of a bad move, she initially poured her formidable intellect and energy into her garden. And that’s where it all began.
The Annual Horticultural Show was the pinnacle of the social calendar. The prize for best roses was hotly contested between mom and a doyenne of society who just happened to have a little girl about my age. That year, it was apparently not enough for the organisers to provide our little community with an eventful weekend of feuds and death threats, masquerading as blue ribbon and Top of the Show. No, some dim witted organiser had the bright idea to end the Horticultural Show weekend with a bang. A beauty pageant for local children was announced as the final event of the Show.
The buzz on the coconut palms was that the little girl I mentioned earlier, she of the fair skin and toothy lisp, the plump and rosy cheeks, was a shoo-in for first prize. Had her mother not demurely and deliberately acknowledged this eventuality on the morning of the rose show, I would still have been safe and home free. But karma conspired in many little ways to mess with my happiness. Did I mention what a bitch she is? Not only did the rival win first prize for her roses, she then graciously invited the loser (mom’s gritted teeth could be heard all the way from Ernakulam to Allepey) to attend the evening’s entertainment and watch as the rival mother and daughter team swept the day’s prizes.
My mother and brother stomped home, raging. If he could have, my brother would have strutted that stage and snatched the prize away for most flamboyant participant with his sheer chutzpah. Alternatively, he volunteered his services in case Mom decided to kidnap the evening’s star. Fortunately, they simmered down and discarded these crazy ideas. Only to hatch an even crazier, almost diabolical plan. They were going to use their secret weapon. What, I innocently enquired, could they possibly mean? They did not deign to answer, and now that I think of it, refused to meet my eyes either. They rooted around in Mum’s cupboard, emerging triumphant with an old length of jersey fabric she had brought back from her sojourn in the US. It was slinky and shimmery and a little bit psychedelic, in homàge to the sixties. I first got an inkling of a Cinderella Fairy Godmother situation developing when I was told to stand still for dress measurements. I was then ordered off to wash and blow dry my waist-long poker straight hair. As I obediently stood under the shower, I could hear the clackety clack of the sewing machine. It seemed merely minutes later that a floor length shift of jersey hung ready for me to slip on. I was the secret weapon! Two more unlikely fairies had rarely been seen. Mother and son cackled and rubbed their hands together at the sight of Cinders. No mouse or pumpkin dared to come to my rescue. The witches of Foreshore Estate were on a warpath, carried away by thoughts of revenge for cut noses and such like. My rendezvous with stardom was imminent, a juggernaut inexorably crushing all who dared oppose the machinations of Mrs C & Son, Hell Hath No Fury (Inc.).
Much later that evening, I came home with my haul of cardboard crown, satin sash (bearing the legend Little Miss Cochin 1978), a wilting sceptre and the only prize worth the double perfidy of mother and brother – a huge, multi layered sponge cake from Cochin Bakery, each layer sandwiched with a different flavour of Kissan jam. I stoically ate my way through the damned thing and tuned out a vindicated and exultant family.
A great victory such as this is sometimes enough, even for ambitious witches. Basking in the glory, revelling in the limelight, my mom and sibling calmed down and left me alone after that. The long hair snagged the role of Alice in Wonderland in a school concert but that was the only other blip of stardom I had to publicly endure.
Moving to a big city meant even greater anonymity. There were other girls, with far more ambitious moms and with superior talents. They could sing, dance, turn cartwheels and still look angelic. I was happy to let them hog the spotlight. I held up one end of the school choir year after year, or did my duty as one of the Angelic Host in the Nativity Play – and I was content.
But that exposure to the fine arts and fame in my formative years turned me into a closet star. I was free to indulge in private daydreams of rocking out some stage, dressed in sequins and big hair. I imagined myself a great thespian, treading the boards, or even better, a musical star on Broadway. I could have been the first female JCS…
My ultimate fantasy which has steadfastly seen me through thirty years preening before my bedroom mirror? A Rainbow concert at Hammerstad or Wembley, Tokyo even, thousands of fans roaring their approval as I match Dio note for note on Stargazer. Blackmore beams fondly at my histrionics (and that should give the fantastical name of the game away immediately to all DP/Rainbow fans – Blackmore beaming???) while Cozy has to work hard to keep up with my vocal powerhouse performance.
These are good dreams to keep oneself entertained. There is absolutely no need to get carried away and make a fool of said self by translating these fond ravings into dubious reality. My aborted brushes with spotlight and stardom in early childhood made sure I learnt this lesson well.
And now, exhausted from this deep soul searching and baring of childhood trauma, I hope to hear the end of the sniggering and a new found respect in the eyes of my friends. And if, as I suspect, the sniggering only escalates, well then, Freddie and Elaine, Barbra and RJD are always waiting just behind the mirror for me to belt out my blues.
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