Category: Humour

How COVID-19 Shaped My Blogging Routine

Syzygy

The blog is a familiar topic with the nourish-n-cherish household.

“How many posts have you written this month, amma?”

“This is going on the blog isn’t it?!”

“You should write about this in the blog, amma!”

The subjects who appear most often are by turns eager, resigned and accept their lot with good humour and grace. 

When I published my 1000th blog post, I was encouraged to write a special blog to celebrate the syzygy (aligning of the stars) that enabled me to continue writing.

1000 posts : A Special Post to Celebrate Syzygy

Now there is a different milestone – a smaller one, a different one. But something.

Atomic Habits

Half a decade ago, when Covid-19 hit the shores of America, something phenomenal happened. Travel stopped, non-essential services providers could not sustain, and I found myself faced with time that had been hitherto dedicated to shuttling to train stations, and standing up in crowded compartments being squashed with my fellow commuters, now available for something else. So, I landed up doing the things I liked most – hanging out with the family, walking, biking (we actually bought bikes just before the shutdown), reading (the library was a savior to so many families during this time) and of course, writing. My writing increased from a 4-5 posts a month to a 7-9 posts a month.

Well, it is half a decade since this happened. 5 years in which I kept the pace of the increased frequency. Even when the world around us opened up, economies fluctuated, inflation rose, elections came, and post-election yelps are still being heard, I kept the pace.

Covid and how it changed the world around us

Atomic Habits

“You don’t have to build the habits everyone tells you to build. Choose the habit that best suits you, not the one that is most popular.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits

Doing something as a labor of love regardless of what it leads to seems to be my strength and my weakness. This month marks 7-9 posts a month for the past 5 years. 

13 miles while 13 years old!

The Weight Charts

The last time I took the son for his annual health checkup, the doctor seemed to give me a look as if to say, “Have you tried giving him more high calorie foods?” The children have always been on the lower end of the weight charts – sometimes barely clinging on, other times falling off the charts altogether, especially when they have a growth spurt with their height. So, this is a familiar enough scene. I braced myself, and told the doctor about how he seems to be eating well enough, seems to enjoy his food, and eats more than me etc. He wasn’t impressed and asked the son to eat more and be back in two months time. 

This was about a year ago. Also coinciding with a time the old mother was here a-visiting. A grandmother being a g.m., and all that – she was plying her grandchildren with ‘good food’ and this wasn’t having the effect it needed to have. Nevertheless, a watered down version of the doctor’s regimen were relayed to her, and she fed him more ‘good food’ to get him on the weight scale. 

Diets & Grandmothers

Around the same time, the husband had decided to go on a strict diet – a no-carb diet, which in a household filled with South Indian grandparents and grandchildren who love their food, can be a carbolicious nightmare. The mother would periodically cast doubts on what sort of husband I was raising if I wasn’t cooking him what he wanted.”We raise children, not husbands!” was poorly received. 

Yours Truly was on a low-carb version, having realized the futility of cooking and nutrition in this household, and merely settling for the occasional serving of quinoa instead of white rice when possible. 

So there we are: I hope I’ve painted a nice cozy domestic scene for you. The mother, able to chastise me and wonder how my husband was eating, how my son was eating, how my parents were eating, how my nephews were eating. The daughter and I, the low maintenance ones, reveling in the glorious sort of peace that comes with being forgotten. 

13 miles while 13 years old!

Anyway, it was a few months later, that the son said he wanted to run a half-marathon when he was still 13 years old. “13 miles at 13 years – that’s cool, right?”

I nodded, taking in his reedy body. He could build stamina, weight would still be a problem, but it already was. So, we said yes and started training together. The son and I,  running our ways through the emerging springtime. It was a beautiful time to train. The cherry blossoms, the crisp rain-washed earth, the beautiful skies and green hills around us all proved to be a wonderful backdrop to our runs. It was tough going given the demands on our time, and a full school schedule in session. But we managed it.

Yesterday, we finished the Oakland Half Marathon together. 

Well, not together.  The son was, of course, far faster than Yours Truly, but as the daughter kindly put it, “Aww! Good job Amma. I am proud of you. You can’t help it if you’re old and gave birth to two children!”

His paternal grandmother is here now and is tutting about how little he eats. “Don’t you feed him?” she asked.

I said, “Clearly not as well as you can!” and ducked out of the kitchen looking pleased. I heard her fussing over him with a bowl of something. We had run a half marathon and, sore as we were, it was a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. 

“Paati – I can’t eat anymore. I am already full!” said the son, and I smiled to myself. 

All was well.

Musical March

March is one of the most beautiful months in the Bay Area. Poets have tried over the years to capture some of the rapture of the month. But even poets such as Emily Dickinson (Dear March—Come in), Or William Wordsworth ( Written in March) seem to do the month justice.

Maybe they lived in colder climes, and the month did not yet burst forth in glory the way it does in California. You see? This is the month of rainbows, clouds and sunsets, golden california poppies, fields of yellow flowers, green grass knolls, sunshine and rain, oranges, cherry blossoms…I could literally go on and on.

The time change happens in the first week of March, and suddenly, cold and bleak evenings seem to shed their winter cloaks and don resplendent spring robes billowing in the wildflower scented breeze. The squirrels are chippier, the birds chirpier, and the breezes gentler.

A run along the river/stream by our home is a joy to endure. There are many places in the trail where the heart bursts with joy. All around you are gentle green hills adorned with wildflowers, the rivers are flowing, the birds are nest-building, and all of nature seems to be in one harmonious, vibrant orchestra.

It is so fitting that the month hosts lesser known festivals for the two things that appeal to the nourish-n-cherish household: whimsical & geeky. St. Patrick’s Day in the Jungle & Pi Day 

St. Patrick’s Day in the Jungle

St. Patrick's Day In The Jungle
St. Patrick’s Day In The Jungle

The son & I listened to Irish music on the way to school this morning. The music had us humming along even though we were sleepy. I came home and opened one of the favorite books of mine, St. Patrick’s Day in the Jungle. My friend, Krishna Srinivasan , worked on the musical track for the book St. Patrick’s Day in the Jungle.  It has the same vibrant quality to it.

This is the sort of music that makes you peer out to see if a rainbow is there, and if the birds and animals are playing hide-n-seek too. Not to mention the sweet voice of the daughter, who has lost the childish intones in that beautiful book now.  So, please do give a listen to the books, and enjoy the music, narration, and pictures for this story – even if you are having a stern day full of important things to do.

Also, any recommendations for Irish music, March poetry, and the general splendidness of Spring is welcome.

A Lament for Short Stories

Give me short stories over real news or fake news any day

The clouds are wondering whether or not to drizzle. It is the perfect weather for musing and meandering thoughts.

I wonder how I meander to the thoughts on short stories – maybe a recent conversation. But I feel the short story is one of the most poignant losses of literary fiction. As children, magazines were filled with short stories and the thrill of finding a short piece contained in and of itself providing the nourishment of the soul was brilliant. What happened to short stories these days?

Give me short stories over real news or fake news any day. Please.

Stories in their natural length: stream, or rivulet, or tributary, or river

I’ve read stories stuffed into tweets – threatening to spill over, and bulging in all the wrong places.

And Then.

I’ve read stories watered down and stretched into novels. The original essence there, somewhere perhaps, but too watered down like homeopathic medicine.

What I’d like is a story – at its length. No fluff. No dilution. Just essence.

If a story is meant to dance and spurt joyously like a stream, let it. If it settles in, and flows like a river, let it. If it is a tributary and wants to join the main river, let it. If it is vast and encompasses depth adn breadth and expands into an ocean, let it.

Kindle Singles came up with the idea – I wonder what happened to it. They fizzled out.

There are anthologies – but they are few.

Reading the first half of The Overstory by Richard Powers made me yearn for short stories again. I think it is time to revisit Golf stories by P G Wodehouse or a little visit to Malgudi to reacquaint myself with all the characters. Tales from a Village School would be welcome too, wouldn’t it? Miss Clare Remembers is a wonderful book of short stories all woven around the fallen giant – the elegant, thin, straight-backed kind teacher, Dolly Clare.

Give me short stories when my attention is wandering. Enough to keep me stimulated, and wanting more.

Recommendations Please

Are we losing another art-form altogether? What would Somerset Maugham say, what would Alice Munro say? I remember the thrill of liking an author’s story, and then finding a whole book written by them. How marvelous it would be to crack open any magazine and find short stories there?

If you do read short stories, which magazines do you get your source from? Apart from The New Yorker I mean.

P.S: I have written a collection of short stories of my own too – both singles & themed collections. Written to its natural length, and savored from time to time by Yours Truly, but otherwise waiting – wondering where they can be published. So, if you have any recommendations of publications for short stories, please let me know.

How Reading Changes Our Understanding of the World

Reading, Absorbing, Retaining

We were discussing books and one of my friends said wistfully, “I like what I am reading, but I don’t know how much of it I will be able to retain afterwards.”

The rest of us nodded. It is a problem and one that I have yearned to be better at too. How marvelous it would be to quote with ease from our various influences! The internet truly is a savior for folks like me who have a vague idea. I don’t think stunning speeches are made by saying things like: “Remember that saying by Shakespeare where he said something about wise men knowing they are fools, and fools being very sure of their awesomeness? Or something like that?”

Aah….here it is:

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool”.  – Shakespeare

So, it is with knowledge. The more one yearns to learn about the world around us, the universe, and the lives we lead within it, the more one realizes how little one actually knows. There is no surer path to humility than learning.

“Even if that is the case, I suppose we retain things that appeal to us subconsciously.” I said.

The conversation meandered after that  but I found myself thinking back to that statement. It was true enough.

The OverStory – Subtle Influences

I read The OverStory by Richard Powers a few years ago, and loved many aspects of the book – its lyrical language, the poetry of the trees, the rich interweaving of nature in its stories etc so much that I wanted to read it again with my book club. It is when I started it again that I realized the Hoel family tradition of photographing their old chestnut tree must have appealed to me. Why else would we have started taking photographs of this particularly gorgeous maple tree every fall? I did not even realize this till we started re-reading the book, and I visualized the hundreds of pictures taken generation after generation. The only surviving chestnut tree for hundreds of miles in every direction. 

There is a timeless charm to a tradition like that.

Reading is a critical part of Becoming

Reading is a critical part of Becoming. Things we read voluntarily, can influence how we think. The characters in stories that appeal to us? They appeal to us for a reason. The actions of flawed individuals? They appeal to us for a reason – maybe we learn to be more forgiving towards follies – our own and of others when we catch them.

There are many studies proving fiction readers were generally more empathetic.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-reading-literary-fiction-improves-empathy/

Read Across America Week

It is Read Across America Week in schools honoring Dr Seuss’s birthday, and I found myself loving the rich world of stories once more. We each have a world of stories within us – stories that shaped our beliefs, joyously transported us to different realms, acted as escape mechanisms at times, stress busters at others, and just a marvelous source of shoshin otherwise.

Languages all over the world have a phrase or word for the vastness of knowledge, and I suppose I am grateful for it all.

Anantha gyana, gewaltiger umfang, enorm kunnskap, Abhijñā

Happy Read Across America Week – may we all read more about hopeful, brave, courageous, witty, humourous, compassionate, kind, vibrant personalities, and become like them.

Witnessing Nature: A Baby Egret’s Journey to Independence

 

No swimming No diving No fishing

The sign that greets the visitor to the riverside can be daunting. 

If one wonders why they never heard the whooshing sounds of the gushing river waters as they made their way up to the riverside, it is because there usually isn’t any. The mighty river retains its classification by becoming a river for about three days a year when there is heavy rainfall. Like a courtly princess who only dresses in regalia at Christmas.

The rest of the year, it trickles like a stream, while the major portion of the riverbed is lush with vegetation. It is the teeming home to plenty of wildlife – deer, blue herons, geese, coots, ducks, grebes, red tailed hawks, blackbirds, egrets, harriers, turkeys, turkey vultures, owls, wild cats, squirrels, rabbits, the occasional fox or coyote, possibly small snakes and fish in the simmering strip of waters. 

The trail by the riverside is, however, a charming place and one that always manages to lift your spirit. The stirrings of spring are in the air all around us, and we decided to go for a run / walk / bike / drive (No guesses for matching the family member with mode of transport ) to enjoy the river. Pale pink and white cherry blossoms on thick dark brown branches, clusters of chamomile in gardens, squirrels bustling up and down garden fences and hugging trees, geese squawking their way out in the world. It is a beautiful world and one that can ensure one forgets all the breaking news if only for the hour or so by the riverside.

An Egret’s Dash For Independence

A few minutes into the run, I watched fascinated as a baby egret chick stood by its mother in the marshy waters. Even in my first glimpse, my heart leaped, for the egret chick showed a fierce determination for independence. It edged away – throwing a look towards its mother, and the mother let her (or him) go. By this time, I had jogged on a bit, and the egret chick had clearly had enough of waddling away from its watchful parent and took to flying. The mother let it go, and then followed a few minutes later, setting herself down a little further upstream so she could keep an eye on the little one. It was a charming scene, and the egret and the watchful mother kept me entranced for several minutes. 

There is so much to learn from springtime with regards to parenting. Nest building is happening in earnest, and it is a common sight to watch a crow or a wren pick up some twigs to line their little nest. The geese will have their goslings soon, and those are the best to watch. The same loud, sometimes rude geese, somehow have the most obedient goslings. 

I was attracted once again by the egret chick and found myself looking for the mother. This one had certainly taken off a ways, and I watched a little nervously as a rambunctious dog broke into a run and came careening into the riverbed. I almost stopped and called for the egret mother and urged the chick to run. But I needn’t have worried. Long before I saw the dog, the chick had heard, and flippantly flew across the stream landing elegantly on the opposite side. The egret’s mother flew by too, and went back to fishing a little further away. 

I was impressed – she kept an eye on her chick, gave it the space to learn to navigate danger, and kept giving the little one the space and security to grow. 

All was well. Everyone was having their fun, their adventure and their springtime joys. I smiled and peered ahead to see the son way ahead of me.

Did You Know? Fun Facts About Mailboxes and Family Humor

The husband had a Did-You-Know look on his face as we pulled out of the driveway on the way to school. The son was peering at him agog – the kinds of information these fellows find interesting is worth a list one day, but I shall leave it for now.

Ever since YouTube shorts and streaming services made everything from byte-sized to bit-sized I’ve been somewhat helpless at the enthusiasm for these Did-You-Know fests. Typically brain fuzz takes over as all sorts of things are bundled together and dumped my way. This is what it sounds like to me, when presented with facts related to cookies, Poland, lizards, ferns, and the first world war in one shot:

🦎Did you know a lizard can eat three cookies at a time if it suns itself for 4 hours a day? 

🪴Did you know that Poland’s alternate timeline means it could have produced hundreds of pteridomaniacs? (before the intelligentsia comes after me with pitchforks, I think that means people who love ferns) 

Still, stoic as ever, I said, lowering the car window even as we pulled out. “Just tell us quickly – we’re already late!”

He pointed in triumph to the red lever by the postbox. It was raised like a flag in protest. Upside down. “This is how to position the lever when you want to show that you have mail for the mailman to pick up. So, even if we don’t receive any mail, the postman or postwoman knows to open the mailbox and take the letter for delivery.”

Here’s What It Means When a Red Flag Is Up on a Mailbox – Reader’s Digest

The son looked awed. “Oh I didn’t know that!” The husband swelled with pride at a piece of useful information. 

“Me and my friends never knew that when we were little. So, we used to put the lever up on all the mailboxes in our street!”.

The husband and I felt a startled bubble of laughter escape almost simultaneously. Seriously! Children do the darndest things! 

I pulled out of the driveway still laughing and asked the fellow whether they just walked about lifting the red levers, and he gave me an offended scoff. “We weren’t that jobless!”

He must’ve seen my face for he said, “Okay we were – but no. We just used to do that as we ran around playing tag. Got to multi-task. That explains why the mailman was sometimes irritated with us huh?” he said, with a meditative glaze in his eyes.

“Yes – glad that was straightened out!”

Exploring Handwriting: Cursive vs. Digital Age

Cursive superpowers

The white board was littered with alphabets and numbers. We were discussing the different ways in which people wrote their numerals or alphabets. 

“How come nobody seems to like cursive writing as much anymore?” I said, and off we went writing our little cursive numerals and alphabets like artists swirling their best hieroglyphic characters.

“Is that an ‘I’? Truly? I have never seen an ‘I’ like that before!”

“Wow – that ‘J’ is wild! No wonder teachers moved away from cursive. “

“Well, there is a lost skill – imagine the superpowers teachers had deciphering everyone’s handwriting and essays.”

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia anyone?

That was true. It is a superpower. Writing fast was a superpower too, one that was made easier with cursive. How beautifully could we go on in one pen stroke for a word like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis? How many people suffered from hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia back then compared to now (fear of long words!)?

“I think in terms of the keyboard locations when I spell a word.” said a much younger colleague, and I drew in a breath – the places where generational differences get you is truly mind-boggling. But then I realized their generation spent more time typing things out in word documents, or in chat screens than any other generation preceding it, and it was only natural for their brain to associate the keyboard with the spellings..

One person said that when they added numbers, they imagined them as dominoes being added together. “Were you a gamer?” 

“Yes!” they said, looking a little sheepish.

The Cognitive Processes of our Brains

Truly, the brain is such a multi-layered immensely capable and adaptable organ. Neuroscience must truly be fascinating to study and research. How many visual thinkers were there among other species? What percentage were analytical? Many would possess kinetic intelligence. Once we stop only thinking of the narrow spectrum of human intelligence, the world becomes that many dimensions more fascinating. I peered into the bookshelf at a book that has been on my tsundoku shelf for ages: ‘How the Brain Thinks’ and resolved to read it soon.

The picture of the brain was on the front, and I smiled as I thought of a friend who told me that they don’t like eating cauliflowers because it looks too much like the human brain. What was that type of thinking called? Visual or Associative.

A Reflection of The Rise and Fall of Tech Trends

Rise and Fall of Trends

“Well – sorry! That was a waste of time!” I said, looking a little sheepish. I had meandered through the walk with half-formed thoughts. Then I realized I had probably done what my writing process looks like – out loud. I had a vague nebulous idea and it sounded brilliant in my head, and by the time the walk was done, only a loving listener could have endured. Without the benefit of editing and moving sentences for clarity, it sounded terrible. When a friend suggested that I dictate my thoughts out to a vocal tonal converter, I was skeptical. Maybe this would become the next big thing, or it may be one of those things that fade out like the CD player (all the rage while it lasted and then sunk without longing)  

“In technology, buzzwords think they are all about being cool, but it really is just plain confusing! “ I said. “Really, two years ago, you thought you were a damp squib if you didn’t know this-or-that, now it is Agentic-AI-this and Kool-Aiding-AI-that.” 

Technology, Companies Vs Longevity 

The husband and I were discussing the rise and fall of great companies, right after the rise and fall of technological trends. It all started with the husband referring to a term that was popular all of two years ago, and was waning in popularity now, and I had blabbered on.

Tell the husband something like this, and he would launch into one of his explanations. I zoned out. We were out on a walk, and all of nature seemed to share a secret that we had long forgotten. There was more to life than technological advances. With technology, everything seemed to just become faster, and faster. The deer did not seem to have any of these problems. The river bank was green with grass after all. The next generation of deer probably just wish for the same thing: Give us green grass pastures and some space in which to raise our young.

Why were human-beings so finicky?

Book on reawakening after ages

“You know I cannot understand all these people who want to live forever and all that. I can barely keep up with the trends from yesteryear – why would you constantly feel like you have FOMO?” I said, invoking one of the terms of the college-going daughter (FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out).

I told him about a novelette I read recently, in which the hero and his family awoke after centuries and tried to figure out how they were to live. The whole time, I felt disconcerted. I feel disconcerted in rapidly growing cities – visiting after a few years of rapid growth can make you feel strange and lost, even if it was a street in which you roamed without needing maps previously. 

This need for billionaires to go into a cryogenic sleep, so they can revive when it is possible to live forever is a scary one. Would friendships be possible in your woken up world? Wouldn’t you miss your loved ones who accompanied you on your life’s journey?

I am fairly sure if I were to wake up today from just 25 years ago, I would be pretty lost. How to pay for things, how to listen to music, how to read? So many of these fundamental things have changed in the past two decades, imagine two centuries. 

With recent advances in technology, how many of the skills we pride ourselves on today would be obsolete? Art, writing, navigating: they are all up as potential candidates.

I tried explaining all of this to the husband and said, “Maybe there is a point to making the human brain gain clarity, but do you think we’d be any better?” I wondered how much longer I could go on walking – it was a beautiful night with breeze and stars after all.

The husband, wily man that he is, said with a smile, “Aah – another topic for another walk. Come in now!” and dragged me inside. Foiled in my ploy to take a longer walk. Again.

Knights of Rain

“Don’t you feel like a Knight of Rain?” I said. The words must have sounded somewhat garbled for the rains were lashing, the winds were whipping, and the trees were swaying somewhat alarmingly.

The husband shouted out a response lost to the elements. It sounded like ‘WHAT?!”

“I moved so I could use the wind’s direction to my advantage. “I said, don’t you feel like a Knight of the Rain?”

He lifted his umbrella momentarily to give me a withering look. A mistake. For the winds elegantly made an upside down lotus of the black umbrella he was holding, and he danced to right it again. I saw a neat few buckets of water making use of the interlude to rain its droplets all over him. 

I smiled. “Using our umbrellas as shields, we make our brave foray into the wild world frenzied up by the elements.”

I heard some grunting and tutting, but nothing more.

This year, the rains have been particularly sparse. Yesterday was only the second day of proper rainfall, and I’d yearned for it. Obviously not wanting to miss the fun, I dragged the husband along for a short stroll – in my defense it was not as bad when we started out. There were no warriors required then – merely prancers. Every little raindrop whispering its presence out to the world craving for its sound.

I’ve always loved the piece by YiruMa with the sound of the rain in the background.It feels like the magic was music was just waiting for that sound to make the transition from beautiful to sublime.

If They Could Do It, So Could We

🌲🌳🌴🎋 I peeked out from the umbrella at the branches of the pine trees and willow trees swaying and dancing in the rain, I felt the joy building up inside me – if they could do it, so could we! 

🦅🐿️🐦‍⬛🦢I heard the sound of the winds and the rains against our flimsy shields of cloth, and marveled at the wood ducks enjoying themselves in the waters. When the rains stopped, they took just shook themselves off, with a little dance, didn’t they? If they could do it, so could we!

🐳🐟🪼I felt the trickle of chill water droplets that managed to shimmy past my umbrella’s shield and my jacket’s hood to slide down my neck, and gurgled a bit. I peered out. Were we lost – where were we? If the lost fish could find their way to the streams, and the streams to the rivers, and the rivers to the mighty ocean, so could we!

Who needs raincoats when there are rain quotes?

When finally the pair of us stepped into the home, one euphoric, and the other helpless. “Wasn’t that the most marvelous walk in a long time?”  collided with “Only an idiot would step out in this weather.”. It was like watching hydrogen peroxide mix with yeast and water. The laughter shaking out of our systems with the rain droplets. 

“I need a change of clothes before heading out now.” he grumbled but I caught a smile, as he shook his head and said, “A walk in the rain!”

Who needs raincoats when one is busy looking for rain quotes?

“Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.”

– Roger Miller