Archives for posts with tag: Family

MY FATHER’S SECRET STASH

October 17, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

Uncovering An Intimate Inheritance

I am in Bombay about a year after my Dad passed. Other than waiting for close friends and the family living within an hour or two’s distance, within the Indian tradition, the deceased is immediately cremated by the family members. So it wasn’t expected nor was it possible for me to be there for the cremation. There are some rituals that are performed within the first thirteen days of a person’s death, something akin to the wake, followed by a family feast to celebrate the person’s life. But the true tribute to honor my father’s memory was going to be Saptah. Saptah literally means a week, but it’s always understood as a weeklong reading of Shri Bhagwat by a scholar who most of the time is also an animated performer and the interpreter of the stories contained therein – the book by which the followers of Vaishnava faith are guided.

The reading happens all day long with appropriate breaks amidst a revolving crowd of attendees in an open house format. My brother Suresh and his wife Aruna are hosting the event and have set up a beautiful mandap in their backyard. It’s one of the most attended Saptahs, also because Shastriji, is not only a serious scholar and the interpreter of the holy book, but also because his crystal clear booming voice makes all those stories come alive in your imagination. He is a very close family friend and for him our Saptah is more than the ones he is hired to do. My father had always been one of this biggest fans and sponsors.

For our family, this is also a week long bonding, eating together, arguing and just be merry together, preceded and followed by big fanfares. It begins with our large family and friends taking the family Bhagwat from my parent’s house to Suresh’s. Something most every Vaishnava family would have passed down from generation to generation. For the day-to-day reading, there are modern volumes designed and produced in the fashion of a large encyclopedia, but the original version would be a stack of loose leaves in a horizontal landscape format – either in limited edition version or even handwritten in beautiful cursives. These volumes are normally wrapped in red silk and hold a special spot within the home. And they are brought out only for special occasions. So iconic and revered are they that you just don’t throw them in a bag or a suitcase to usher them from one place to another.

My family happens to have two such volumes of Shri Bhagwat, which are being reverentially carried atop the alternating heads of two of the women walking in a procession. The entire family is out on the street, dressed in their wedding best. Men in crisp white Kurtas or in their stylist western threads, women all dolled-up in their best silk saris, looking like wide eyed Kathakali dancers, studded from the head to toe in their precious jewelry. We are dancing to the tunes of the latest Bollywood hits being tooted by a group of old fashioned uniformed band leading us. Laughing and screaming, back slapping, the onlookers cheering us, we take an hour or more to cover the short distance of four to five blocks between the two houses.

In the backdrop of the Saptah and during my weeklong stay at home, one afternoon my three brothers ambush me and hurriedly shove me into my parent’s bedroom suite and lock the door behind us. They sit me down on the bed and the two younger brothers, Dinesh and Rajesh climb up the chairs and lift the heavy trunk off the top of the cupboard and gently slide it out. They delicately cradle the bottom of the heavy trunk, and lower it with a deft motion and gently place it on to the bed.

‘Baa wants us brothers to go through what’s in here and divvy up the contents among the four of us brothers. Since you were coming home, we thought we would wait to go through the stuff when all four of us are together.’ Suresh tells me.

So we open the trunk. It contains all sorts of men’s things, such as several bottles of expensive men’s colognes, some of which I had brought for him over the years. I smirk when I see his white billfold made of parachute material, from which I remember filching a few rupees now and then. My bothers wonder why I have that cat that swallowed the canary look on my face. Nothing! I say and they let it slide. Then there are old fountain pens, one of them I distinctly remember – the gold capped Schaffer. My father was what they called a shokhin manas – he liked good things of life. He had a large collection of wrist watches, one of them I had always wanted to have. The one with the large blue dial that contained slots not only for the days and the dates but also the one that showed the cycle of the moon, of course housed inside a pure gold case. Suresh has his eyes on that one too. Younger brothers want a couple of not so exclusive Playboy watches. And then there is a set of gold studs including a pair of cufflinks. enamel inlaid with beautiful modernistic burgundy, white and black pattern. An Elgin USA fob watch, also in pure gold casing and attached to a long gold chain, dangling from which is a charm – a gold coin dated 1917, bearing the engraved face of the king George V – and another watch, a Longines, also in the gold case with matching gold watch band. The old man really loved his gold.

Just before my youngest brother Rajesh died a couple of years ago, I was joking with him that they had to be naïve to let me make it out like a bandit.

‘We just let you have those things, because we knew you would appreciate them the most. So you got away with bit of gold!’ And then he gave me his characteristic baby brother smile. Because I got the two gold watches as well as the set of buttons and cufflinks. And he was right, not only do I cherish those things but I actually wear them. And I can’t even begin to imagine what would it have been like me having dressed up in my tuxedo and not have had those priceless studs?

But that’s not why they have ambushed me and locked us up behind the closed door. Suresh pulls out a pile of envelopes from the bottom of the trunk and hands them to me.

‘Put this away in your suitcase and lock it up. Take it to America with you. Because if Baa ever sees it, or one of the sisters gets a whiff of it, all hell will break lose.’

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘See for yourself.’

They are long legal sized mesh lined manila envelopes, carefully cut down at one end to the size of the content inside. I pull out what feels like a bunch of photographs. I quickly flip through some of them. My brothers’ eyes focused on me. While Suresh maintains his solemn demeanor, Dinesh and Rajesh are sheepishly smirking at me with that knowing but astonished look written all over their faces, ‘do you believe it?’

I am not exactly surprised. A bit amazed maybe. So Dad had a good collection of these pornographic images, line drawings of Indian royalties involved in every possible Kama Sutra positions and a whole bunch of French postcards – containing the nudes of wholesome beauties. Rest contained the explicit images of felatio and cunnilingus done by and to each other by men and women – some in threesome and also featuring multiple partners. There are women making love to women and some being pursued by their furry friends even. And there are several envelopes titled BELLE ARTE PLASTIC – Made in Germany, 3D images of the naked women, complete with the red and green 3D cardboard framed viewing glasses.

‘Put them away right now in your suitcase and lock it up before anyone barges in.’

So I do. Stash them away inside the inner pockets of my suitcase. And then I forget all about them until I get home to Chicago a few weeks later and am unpacking my stuff. Might as well, because had I remembered them, I don’t know how comfortable I would have felt going through the customs in Chicago in the knowledge of their existence. I could just imagine the headline: Playboy executive detained by Chicago’s O’Hare customs for attempting to import hard core pornography!!

At some point I did go through them. The collection also contained original negatives and glass plates and also a small wallet sized leather bound photo album with rounded slit corners, inserted in which were a similar collection of photographs. Majority of those were stuck to each other and were not salvageable. The prints of the line drawings on thinner paper were all curled up and some had turned sepia with age. The French postcards, as it turns out were actually made in Germany. They were printed on better quality paper and were in better shape.

All of the envelopes came from the same law firm, so the printed return address on them indicated. The space for recipient was blank, which meant they were hand delivered, but a couple of them had post marks, indicating they were mailed from Bombay 1 to Bombay 2, addressed in care of the trustees of Bada Mandir (Big Vaishnava Temple) in whose compound we lived. This also may mean that they were originally meant for one of the priests of the temple, of whom my father was a staunch devotee and either they were given to him for the safeguard, or they together and others who hung out together were partners in the crime. They were mailed in the year 1951.

In retrospect, when I think back, it should have been apparent to me that as religious as my dad was, in things socio-sexual, he was fairly liberal. Perhaps because the Indian classics are full of explicit descriptions of sex and the female anatomy. And the fact that the carvings on some of the Indian temples would put any pornographers to shame, also indicates the liberal attitude of the ancient Indian culture. This of course would have perfectly fit his belief system. Or in other words, good old dad was a cool cat!

I remembered what he wrote to me in response to my attempt at justifying my working for Playboy: So what’s the big deal? Haven’t you ever read Rasa Manjari? It also reminded me of some plain-covered Hindi pornographic books I had found under the mattress on his side of the bed and once also a copy of Nar Nari, the sex magazine of the days. And I remember clearly what my grandpa, my father’s father had blurted out with big explosion of exclamation when he saw for the first time my parents’ custom made elaborate bedroom furniture – containing of a sofa set, a three way folding mirror and the larger than king size bed, all beautifully hand crafted with the motif of louts petals. Looking at the bed, he growled to nobody in particular, what are they going to do there? Dance?

And to think that my mother didn’t know about those publications and the photos hidden away in the trunk? Aren’t we being a bit naïve, brothers? Certainly she wouldn’t have cherished my sisters and my brother’s wives seeing them. My mother was a clever woman, and must have imagined how my brothers would react to them and would want to protect her from the filth.

For even though, theirs was a conventionally arranged marriage, my father had to be the most romantic man of his days. I can totally imagine it having caused a minor scandal when instead of calling my mother by her given name, Prabha, he renamed her and started calling her Kanan, after Kanan Devi, the sultry Bengali actress and the singer. He must have admired and adored her enormously to name his own wife after her, and this in the days when actresses were looked down at and were seen as being only slightly above prostitutes. These were also the days when Indian spouses didn’t even address each other by names, but mere, hey, are you listening? please and such.

I could just imagine people whispering and rolling their eyes behind my parents’ backs. Especially the women, going: just imagine, he calls his wife after that slut Kanan in front of everybody. Baap re Baap. Doesn’t he have any shame? But he must have been strong of character and defiant to the boot, because we had never heard him calling my mother anything other than Kanan. I only had a slight notion of what she looked like. For the first time I just pulled up her photos and the bio off the IMDB. and I must confess, Kanan Devi was the beauty to be reckoned with. Big black kohl framed eyes, a sultry sensuous face and the long shiny dark tresses. Good taste Dad! And fortunately for my father, so was my Mom.

© Haresh Shah 2013

Illustration: Celia Rose Marks

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

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Next Friday, October 26, 2013

PERFECTLY UNBOUND

Does anyone remember why the Playmates are called centerfolds? When Playboy was saddle-stitched and not perfect bound as it is today?

Tags Bhagwat, Death Rituals, Family, French Postcards, India, Inheritence, Kanan Devi, My Parents, Pornograpphy, Shah Brothers, Shshtriji

Categories Family Stories, India

PLAYBOY ON THE COFFEE TABLE

March 14, 2013 //

Haresh Shah

How Do An Indian Grandma And Her American Grand Daughter View Playboy?

‘And I can no longer see Playboy calendar hanging in my home.’ I could see Gina was riled up about my last ditch attempt at saving our relationship by offering to sell my house and us together buying a condo. But it was too late to make any difference. We both knew it was over. And even though her outburst was no longer meaningful, any more than a rubber bullet, nothing that would kill me, but boy did it sting!! And the irony is: there were never any Playboy calendars hanging in my house. What she probably meant was all those monthly issues lying all around. Especially after I left the magazine. Because for months after my departure, my assistant Mary (Nastos) still kept sending me all the international editions, eighteen in all, every month. They were piling up and at some point could be found strewn all over my house.

Or most likely, the three nude studies by my artist friend Deven (Mehta) hanging in the guest washroom by the kitchen that had triggered her ire. In any case, not until after she said it did I ever give any thought to the placement of Playboy in my house. I had never seen any need to tuck them away some place out of sight. Gina’s disdainful words took me back to my Time & Life years, when we had a sort of an exchange program set up with messengers from various printing companies around Chicago area that printed a part or all of one of our publications and some also printed Playboy and Penthouse. We got them in exchange for our magazines.

When the new issues of Playboy and Penthouse arrived, we would page through them and comment on that month’s Playmates and the Pets. And then rest of the guys would slough their copies into their desk drawers, I would slip mine into my briefcase and take them home to look and read at leisure.

‘We don’t want our old ladies to get all worked up about them!’ Big Larry (Howard) would say with a knowing smile on his face. Up until Jeff (Anderson) joined us a year or so later, I was the only single guy in the department. At the time I didn’t give it much of a thought, except that I was single and didn’t have to worry about hiding them from my wife and kids. I must have felt a bit strange though, considering that growing up in India, my image of America came from Hollywood movies. A country that was free and liberal. That for us meant mostly the social freedom such as falling in love and getting married instead of arranged unions, kissing in public, making out and having sex before marriage. And even though bikinis hadn’t made big inroads yet, we found the American women in the fashion magazines and in the movies wearing revealing single piece swimsuits titillating.

I had only known American political history of the unilateral declaration of the independence, the Boston Tea Party and the Constitution proclaiming life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I had no idea of the puritan heritage that was weaved into the every thread of the American fabric. I had not yet had a serious relationship with an American woman. One could say that Playboy changed it all for me, but actually most of my ideas and the character have been molded by Germany and Europe, probably facilitated by Playboy. The conclusion I had come to at the time and after Gina’s outburst, that the problem with having to hide magazines and calendars had to do with only one thing: the nudity. And that majority of the people who have strong negative opinion of Playboy, had never actually read the magazine.

Something I would have understood in my early days in the West, because in India or in my home, we wouldn’t even remove all of our clothes even to take a shower. We soaped and sprinkled ourselves by lifting layers of clothing. It was when living in Munich that I began to see the absurdity of it all. The Johannclanzestrasse complex where I lived, we had coed sauna. And no one sat around in it with towels wrapped around. It made sense. The whole purpose of taking sauna is to let your pores open up and sweat out the toxins. The only way to reap full benefit of subjecting yourself to the extreme heat is to let your clothes and inhibitions drop. And the Europeans certainly don’t have any qualms about that. One of my coolest images of the sauna is that of the three generations of women together walking into the steam filled room – seven or eight year old grand daughter, her young mother, perhaps in her early thirties and the grandma in her sixties. A perfect study in evolution.

And living in Munich in itself was liberating in that sense. Our offices were downtown, not far from Englischer Garten, right in the heart of the city. When the spring came and soon as the temps climbed upwards of around 25 degrees Celsius (about 77 Fahrenheit), it wouldn’t be too unusual to see young office workers on their lunch breaks to cross their arms and lift their tops over their heads and their hands reaching backwards to undo their bra straps, becoming a part of the landscape dotted with the female anatomy surrendered to the warm sunrays. Even the nudist beach on Isar river that ran through the city, wasn’t far from the center. You would walk through some shrubbery and suddenly be standing in the middle of hundreds of people clustered au naturell, drinking beer, barbecuing, lounging just like here in Chicago at the North Street Beach. So when I returned to America, I experienced a big cultural shock, more so than the one I must have felt several years earlier when I had just gotten off the boat.

I had come back with the definite opinion and the attitude about the nudity. Though I have never been married, my partner Carolyn and I lived together for thirteen years and are proud parents of now thirty four year old daughter Anjuli. In our household, the nudity itself never was an issue. Not that we ran around in the nude all the time, but we never necessarily reached for a cover during our normal day-to-day living.

The display of the magazine I worked for and loved, was never a problem in our home. But in some people it could conjure up all sorts of weird ideas, as should be apparent from the comment by my dear friend Karen (Abbott) posted about my announced blog entry of this week: “That’s nothing. I worked for Playboy and, of course, had PB mags all over my living room tables and stuff. Some of the cute male phone techs or workman thought I was a lesbian. So what do you have that matches that? Pretty funny!”

Not exactly, mainly because of our genders. Why would anyone think of me a gay man because they found in my house magazines with naked women? In fact, once they found out I worked for Playboy, it lead to some wishful conversations, nothing more. But once I found myself in an eerie situation. A refrigerator technician was in my house fixing the compressor. He must have noticed copies of Playboy in my living room. As he was diligently fixing my fridge, I stood not too far from him making small talk.

‘Do you read them magazines lying in your living room?’ I didn’t notice it quite then, but in retrospect I remember the tone of his voice changing from friendly to critical.

‘I sure do. I work for them.’

‘You do?’ Now I sensed a certain amount of disdain in his voice, sounding almost menacing. The kind that comes from someone all too self-righteous: I have found the way, and you ain’t. You are doomed to go to hell kind. Earlier in the conversation he had mentioned that he was “born again”. That explained.

“Well, good for you!!!” He said. But his sarcasm and self-righteousness didn’t escape me. I was never as relieved to see a workman leave my house than when he did.

The time when I had gone home to Bombay to visit my family soon after I had started working for Playboy and had “smuggled” in several copies of the magazine, my parent’s bedroom seemed to have turned into a curious little gathering containing of male family and friends. Everyone practically waiting their turns to be able to page through one of the issues. It would of course begin with me showing them my name listed in the masthead, which certainly was a pride factor for everyone. But how could my name by itself compete with those beautiful and bare breasted fräulines? Once the mob thinned out, my Dad sat down and gave one or two issues serious look and then exited leaving us four brothers alone. My brothers obviously asked me questions. We joked about some figures and the poses. Soon they each took a copy or two with them to show to their friends, leaving on the living room table only one issue. Which neither I, nor anyone else felt necessary to remove from there.

Must have been a couple of hours later, when everyone had dispersed or taking their afternoon naps, I found my mother sitting on the floor by the table and slowly turning the pages of that lone issue. She couldn’t read English, let alone German, so she was obviously checking out the women. At the time I was thirty-four, so my mother was barely fifty, still in good shape and quite good looking, despite her having had nine of us. When younger, she was actually a very pretty woman. As she scanned those near perfect female bodies, I couldn’t help but wonder whether she were comparing her younger self with any of them. Wasn’t beyond the scope for a wife of the Rasa Manjari reading husband. Hearing me come and sit down, she didn’t flinch or shut the magazine close or slough it away. She took her time before slapping it shut.

‘So this is what you do?’

‘Yup!’ And I could see her smile slightly. Not looking at me, but just staring at the empty space in front of her.

On my next trip, I had brought along some Playboy calendars, that went like freshly roasted hot corn-on-the-cobs. And since then, my brother Suresh would remind me several times not to forget to bring along some calendars, because he had the Saheb – the income tax officer hooked on them and brought them along with a bottle of Royal Salute. I am sure his auditing went ever so smoothly!!

Fast forward several years to Chicago. Anjuli must have been two or three years old. She was just getting to be able to stand up if she found something within the reach of her hands to hold onto and prop herself up on her feet. Once I walked into the living room and found her standing behind the cast iron bar and methodically unloading one liquor bottle at a time from the shelf putting it down to the floor. Then at another time she propped herself up by my expensive turn table placed on a low table and yanked at the tone arm, destroying the diamond stylus – mightily upsetting her daddy. The next time, I found her standing at the edge of the coffee table, one of her hands resting on the table, and another on an open page of Playboy. Hearing my footsteps, she must have thought it was her mother coming, I see her poking her fingers at an open page,

Mama, Boobooj… Mama, Boobooj. She was pointing at the ample pair of breasts on a close-up of one of the women.

Illustration: Jordan Rutherford

SISTER SITE

http://www.downdivision.com

Next Friday, March 22, 2013

LIVIN’ LA VIDA LOCA

When I look back and think of the whirlwind life I lived crossing from one country to another and hopping across oceans to different continents, it all seems a little surreal and things and the people I used to pack in within short few days. Here is the story of eleven days in the life of Haresh Shah. The days that were normal for me, but somehow they weren’t.

Tags Anjuli., Culture, Deven Mehta, Europe, Family, Germany, Gramdma, Haresh Shah, Karen Abbott, Munich, Nudity

Categories Uncategorized