INDIRA LAISRAM

Can you ever be friends with your ex? Affair-turned-ex had asked me once. He was the big, protective one who never left a chance to scorn the male friends I had. I liked that about him though. Because I would laugh at the way he would cringe with jealousy at the mention of names. Being jealous comes so naturally for the one you love, I thought. "Tell him you don't want to talk to him," he would cry hoarse when the phone did ring from an ex. The fact is, I was friends with an ex and he had problems with it. I didn't, for reasons simple. We had parted on mutual grounds and chose to remain friends. Maybe we were just affectionate for the period we were together. No torrid affair and no bitterness there! I quiz my friends. One says, you can never be friends with your ex because the attraction never dies. "If you've had a very passionate relationship, then I think it'll be very difficult," she adds. Maybe, because after a point you are bound to get that

With more than 10,000 beaches I know know why Australia is called the land down under. I am not a sea person. I barely know how to swim, I hate the creepy plants that grow in water, the spooky huge black rocks and I have immense water phobia. I even feel scared of the bath tub. So, when I see people snorkelling and scuba diving, I tend to think they have some guts. But my recent trip to Australia, my second in six years, have made me overcome some of that fear. There is something about watching the ebb and flow of waves... the sea mystifies me as it does others. As you stand before the sea, you cannot even fathom its horizons - endless, vast, overpowering - you feel so small. The sound of the waves is haunting and reverberates as you walk along. I enjoyed the long, lazy walks along some of Victoria's pristine beaches and experienced a catharis of sorts. I did something to that effect too. Threw away some belongings as a goodbye to a past... Like good riddance to bad rubbish. But as

I was looking at a friend's wedding pictures. A typical Manipuri wedding held in the shumang (courtyard). And all the rituals, people in uniform clothing colours, men in white kurtas and dhotis, older women in white, young ones in their ornate best. You also see the white chandan on everyone's noses, like the orthodox devotees in an Iskcon temple. Then follow the singers and pung (drum) performers, rythmic sounds, melodious tunes, happy thoughts, nostalgic feel... Looking at the pictures, I was transported back in time to marriages of my uncles and my brother's in my village. But we don't serve food in our marriages. At least that was the norm till many years back. Maybe things have changed a bit now, with consumerism touching rural economy too. All that we ate in the villages were khoidums or sweet balls made of muris or puffed rice with jaggery. And more and more paan, beetle nut and leaf with coconut served in well round-cut banana leaves. I always came back hom