The Flower State & Grain

AS several of my readers know, we spent the past few days in a place where, we are told, it is against the law to bring your worries. We didn’t. We succumbed to the island. We’d been to Kau’ai the Garden Island of the Haiwaiian chain. This vacation was different by all standards. For one, we rented a condominium, and ate delicacies cooked by moi on several beaches. Bows and accepts thanks gracefully for variety of picnic food provided.

Since we were going to the Garden Island, the husband thought it prudent to buy a flower sounding rice. We were going to the Plumeria flower state after all. Jasmine rice. Basmati doesn’t sound like Hibiscus or Jasmine. But Jasmine – sounds exactly like Jasmine doesn’t it?!  

It is at this point that I feel obliged to explain the difference between Basmati and Jasmine. When one is looking for long grains that separate from each other easily, Basmati raises its long slender hand. If one is looking for cuddly affection between the grains, you go for Jasmine. Jasmine being Jasmine, it stuck together like glue, and puliodare/pulao were ruled out. I peered into the boiling pot and saw something white and gooey emerge from the effervescence. After some time, a sticky mush emerged. Luckily I had taken some curry powder with me.

On day one, it was some vague mixture of curry powder, rice, tomato and onions.

Day two was a very interesting variation (vague mixture of curry powder, rice, tomato, onions and bell peppers).

Day three was a different league (vague mixture of curry powder, rice, tomato, onions, bell peppers, carrot and peas)

And so the rice scaled loftier reaches of creativity, till one day we found ourselves ditching the carefully prepared food packets for a restaurant. The food in the restaurant sent us scurrying back for a vague m of c.p, t and o the next day. The curry gods were appeased and the sun was shining on the beaches again.

This was our first time to Hawaii, and I must say it felt great to shed our jackets and socks for lighter clothes. While there, we discovered a number of folks who accompanied migratory birds to Hawaii from the snowy reaches of the Northern United States, and actually made Hawaii their home for three to four months at a time.

A totally different mindset I confess, not to mention how curious I was to find out how they made a living. The same kind of feeling I have when I gasp at large mansions and wonder how they clean it! My curiosity was all the more since there were young folks with small children who did the same thing.  Hawaii is by no means cheap, and I found myself gasping dramatically at some places (like that wife in the Sati Leelavati movie when she hears the ticket cost for the whole family to Bangalore for a week-end.) What do these people do for money?

I wish to set the record straight here, that I have been known to display decency, and kept my questions about their livelihood to myself. I must admit though, that this question is still eating my brain.  Well, maybe Pinocchio’s nose longer grows longer when he lies, but mine seems to be growing with the constant activity in the brain from this quarter. I found myself guessing the options with the husband for such people, while pushing the over-priced, under-cooked pasta on my plate, and came up with nothing that looked feasible.

The moment I figure out, have no mistake folks, I am packing those bags. I almost had my toe and fingertips bitten off by frost-bite today because I forgot the socks and the heavy winter shoes with the glove and the earmuffs! That won’t do. It just won’t. Jasmine rice or no, I am going to Hawaii again!

Aloha! Hou are uou?

Aloha! Haaiiiaa! Hoau are uoou?

I am back from the vowel islands. I imagine the vowels one day complained bitterly about the tough task of holding the consonants together.  Only five of them had to do the unsavory task of holding 21 consonants together. I wouldn’t be too happy about that if I were a vowel myself. So, the vowels decided to vacation for a bit in Hawaii. They realized they really don’t need consonants and just took one or two per word to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Poipu, Kileauea, Waimea, Mauluhia settled down happily ever after.

Seriously, after the first few times of this alphabet soup, I found myself tongue-tied (not in the sense it is usually used, but like this.)

Then, the trick revealed itself, and after that, Kauai was one sweet song with the coconuts. All you have to do is pronounce every vowel in the word. So, K-a-u-a-i phonetically sounds like Kawai. Maui sounds like Mow-ee. See?

Anytime you get up on the islands, you get the satisfaction of getting up at the crack of dawn. Getting up at the crack of dawn fills one up with a sense of purpose like nothing else does. For one, Hawaii is two hours ahead of us, and for another, one gets up to the crowing of the rooster. The roosters there are a confused lot. Somewhere along their evolution on the island, they  forgot their purpose. I tried to study their activities and noticed that they spend their time loitering around and crowing everytime they look at the sun. As a result, no matter what time you get up, the rooster crows and you feel like the whole day stretches in front of you. I like those roosters.

When I am up late, and charging about like a raging rhinoceros in the morning, it would be nice if we hear the rooster crowing, and play that back to those sticklers for time.
Exactly, what are you moaning about? I got here at the crack of dawn!

You can tick people off squarely with the rooster logic. Also, you can set your clock by the roosters like this.

I will be there at the 50th rooster crow on my farm.

Not one person could find fault with that. I wonder why I am not consulted on important matters such as these. Anyway, one does not dwell on these things.

One instead tries to remain mentally on the shores of the best beaches of the World, soaking in the sun and building sand castles.

Image courtesy: The Husband.

Joy cometh in the Morning

Faced with a sunny week-end and finding ourselves alone(rare event) on Sunday, the husband and I undertook a run together. We ran a distance – I shall withhold critical information such as distance, route information etc. For one, I don’t want to shrivel up in shame when an ultra marathoner visits, but I do want to feel good about moving those muscles again.

The husband and I did an urban run i.e. we made sure we ran where loads of cars with quarreling couples in them could see us. Strategy is important. If we are doing something,  we might as well get the World to sit up and take note what?

We played a little game of what people would be talking about when they saw us. By the end of the run, we could broadly classify folks into 3 categories:
1) Either couples goaded one another, saying – “Look at those people, that’s why I am asking you to run with me.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying it is because of me that you aren’t running?”
“Of course it is because of you that I am not running”
“Let me get this straight – so your pot belly is my problem?”

These couples probably spent the rest of the journey scowling at each other, not knowing about the half dozen pooris we tucked into last week-end or the vadas we polished off the week before.

OR
2) The couples looked on with a smirk on their faces as they called us losers running in the sun like this when aloo gobi and parathas await them at home or in the park. To those folks, I have nothing at all to say. The Doctors will do the talking. (now, that was mean huh?)

OR
3) The couples were happy to see us run, and waved at us with genuine joy.

The sun peeped, the muscles moved and Joy cometh in the morning.

Sculpture Lessons anyone?

I don’t mean to boast, but seeing that I have many multi-million dollar talents about me, it is a hard choice to let the world sail by, thinking I am a normal person who just enjoys the way I am.

We had a class in School titled S.U.P.W meaning Socially Useful Productive Work. The term evidently evolved over the ages seeing that the youth in schools were wasting time wandering around campus, chatting and planning practical jokes. Not at all giving any sense of comfort to the Teachers who were looking upon us as the torch bearers of the next generation and all that.

The students were social beings alright – why we couldn’t keep shut for five minutes even when in line! But there was a line drawn when it came to being useful. So, the educationists had to come up with making us socially useful. The problem was useful as we were, our efforts almost always weren’t productive. (Some harsh critics used the word unproductive.) That is how the authorities  decided that we have to buck up and do socially useful productive work.

I dabbled with various activities in my career, and the parental abode still bears the painful onslaught my creativity unleashed on it. You would find checkered beige coloured tables adorned with a blue tablecloth embroidered with pink, orange and red flowers. I have already remarked on the sweaters that the brother had to combat. Had my parents’ love for me been any less, these fine works of art would have jostled for space in the attic where all the inorganic trash reside in the home. But they did not – they “decorated” the house.

My diverse career in the Arts, among other things, included Sculpture. I made a statue. If we had digital cameras then, I would atleast have a picture of this eyesore. We used film prudently those days, and photographs were reserved for special occasions, and tried to cram in as many members in the vicinity as possible. Rare photographs have only 5 people in them. The long and short of it is, there are no photographs of this beauty. A pity.

My father came and saw it, and hemmed and hawed when I asked for it to be brought home. It was modeled after a lady reading. My mother even posed for me one day when I came home depressed. My statue was looking nothing like what I intended. She sat on the floor with her legs stretched out. I realise now that nobody reads like that. Do you sit with your legs outstretched, sitting at right angles with no back for support and read with your feet sticking up at right angles? No. But that is what my statue did.

I call it a cruel cut of fate, one that set me back by at least 104.3 million dollars had this masterpiece made it to the great annals of art. This goes to prove that the right place at the right time makes a world of a difference. Please read this link to see the news item about this particular statue by Monsieur Giaccometti fetching 104.3 million dollars.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704259304575043591716903152.html

Image below.

I am no connoisseur, but this eyesore would have given stiff competition to mine. If this was worth $104300000, I don’t know what mine would have fetched.

Anyway, life goes on despite these scars, and I look on the positive side as always. Anyone needing Sculpture lessons can contact me, since Monsieur Giacometti is no more.

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

Did you hear about the new Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara video? I headed on over to watch it – all a-twitter I must tell you. This song like “Hamara Bajaj” was a defining one for an entire generation.  Doordarshan played it over and over again, and I never once tired of it. My lips were ready to smile, and even had the angle set on them, I just had to spring it on when it started.  I was actually humming the song before starting the video.

Then it started.  Groan! I can’t say it was entirely bad, but I have a distinct preference for the old one. It has all the Bollywood/Collywood/Jollywood heavy weights, light dressers and banian-bicep shows that you can think of, and the tune s—s! The transitions felt jumpy even to me. I had to come scurrying back to find the old one – midway through the new one, for there was another aspect, the thing just went on and on, like people had nothing better to do. Well, maybe we don’t, but we’d like to retain the illusion we do.

I was really glad to see this video – the one that has tucked away good memories in my mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gstRrEmTcBc&feature=related

This one delivered – even after all these years.  The seamless transitions, when the beat and language changes, are amazing.  So many people from different walks of life, different landscapes and languages.  It gave me goosebumps to feel the fabric of India as we knew it through that song again. Looking at the noticeably younger faces of Revathi, Hemamalini, Big-B, Mithun Chakra, Kamal, Lata Mangeshkar, some Cricket player (I forgot his name) etc, felt like looking through an old kaleidoscope.

I can forgive Doordarshan all those hours of “mourning” when someone died and  countless “Vayalum Vaazhvums” now that I saw this video again.

Update: I originally thought the unedited version got released by mistake, given that each one had their own ego trips and screen time where they could pick their abaswaram, and pet movie songs.

Also, no different walks of life concept at all – no Sports, no Science, no advances in IT. Nothing! This is like AB’s drawing room view of India and Five star hotel beaches. In a country full of throbbing hearts, every heart beat alone in the video – by the rocks, by the beaches. Unattached, desolate and painfully slowly.

Why didn’t the Chinese think of it?

Chopsticks have always intrigued me. They look disconcertingly similar to knitting needles. Now you knit up in your mind the old wizened lady lovingly using both her hands, sitting in a rocking chair by the fire and knitting a warm sweater. I hate to dish it to the old lady like this, but you only can use only one hand, use both needles and knit the same beautiful sweater OL. Go on old lady. Try. Try like the dickens. How does that sound?

That is exactly what eating with chopsticks seems to me. You are given two condiments, you have two hands. Simple? Not simple. The technique is simple, any child brought up on Chinese food in a Chinese setting will tell you how easy it is to use chopsticks. All you have to do is grasp the sticks like this.

Then, move finger number two by using finger number one as the lever/rudder. (When you are trying to keep the sticks afloat in a bowl of watery soup, you are allowed to use the word rudder). Let’s get back to technique now that the use of rudder has been explained.

During the entire process, finger number three is jammed between the sticks, and is expected to move in the same angle maintaining a level of parallelism with finger number two. Never mind that finger number 3 is screaming for respite by now. That demand cannot be met. Ignore finger number 3. It can start acting up midway through the process, and you will be stuck with a finger-chiropractor, soothing function back to it. Don’t worry, it is a part of life. I realise there is no such profession as a finger-chiropractor, so if you would kindly tell me the name of one such specialist, I will gladly update the post.

The trick is to be firm with finger number 3. Show it fingers number 4 & 5 as a method of consolation. Fingers 4 and 5 are in a worse state. They can’t move remember?

Also remember that while one is fiddling with these sticks in the soup, the soup is turning cold. Not to mention the odd contours on the face as lines of worry and concentration contort it into a horrible frown. One would think, that not being able to function with chopsticks will have sent the author home hungry and dejected, with a new sense of purpose – learning to use the sticks before the next soup stop.

Not so…not so! Mere technicalities like chopsticks don’t deter me. I creased out the lines of concentration, ironed out the frown and put on a smile. I then attacked the soup like this.

People were looking at me with awe. Pretty soon, I could see folks cast me the envious look. Their eyes screamed the obvious “Why didn’t the Chinese think of it?”

I refused to wipe the smug smile of my stupid face, and went on eating like this, till a waiter who was charging about the vicinity like a racing bull, stopped in his tracks. You know how these cars screech when they sudden brake? Something like that.

“Next time – fork okay? I give fork okay?” he said.

I shrugged – I’d already mastered chopsticks now, who cares for forks?

Rain, rivers and glaciers

California found itself in the eye of a storm. The storm has been pounding the daylight out of the state with no restraint. When I say daylight out of the state, I mean it. A quick walk at noon requires flashlights, raincoats and squashy boots.

Umbrellas that hitherto held their spokes up high now cower under the wrath of the skies.

A helpful illustration to drive home the point

This is the second umbrella of mine to suffer this fate. Umbrella sales have been brisk. Stores did not have time to run new price tags raising the price, and resorted to sticking ridiculous prices using scrap paper and licking the back of it for glue.

The rain water has become fast rivers and paper boats meet terrible fates. One tends to stop and muse about fast flowing rivers and slow flowing rivers and hardly flowing rivers. So, what does the world give to innocent ponderings such as this. The kind that could someday change the premise of the World? This.

The world has been mistakenly led to believe that all the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035.

Himalayan Glaciers Vanish
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6991177.ece

Bopa Uncle and Kreeta Aunty were enjoying the morning sun-rise from their porch house in Darjeeling. Bopa uncle always wanted to impress Kreeta Aunty and randomly pulled studies from his imagination with numbers that appealed to him. He went a bit overboard with the sun glinting and blurted out a bit dramatically perhaps, “By 2035, you take my word, by 2035, all the glaciers in the Himalayas will be gone.”

Kreeta Aunty did what was expected of her and gasped. Little did Bopa Uncle know that his jaunty boast would make it to the Times. So, while the angry skies have been trashing umbrellas and swaying trees, the world finds out that the whole thing about glaciers in the Himalayas was a fib all along.

Sigh!

Happy Bird Feeding

Happy Pongal!

To all you bovine elements out there: Happy Cow Pongal!

To all you nature lovers who managed to celebrate Kanu: Happy Bird Feeding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pongal

Kanu Pongal is celebrated the day after Pongal and honours the animal kingdom. Women folk typically pray for the well-being of their brothers by feeding the crows.

How does this happen? Any ritual I try to explain comes out sounding ridiculous. I have the urge to learn now – why do we feed crows to make sure the brothers are fine? Maybe, it derived itself from “Kaka-puduchi-fying” – a term that roughly translates to ass-licking, though Kaka means crow.

I was trying to explain all of this to the usual suspect, my daughter who has never visited a village, and she chirps – “Oh, can I put food in the bird house I built?”

“No No No!” I stop her in alarm.

A little diversion for the bird house:

For those of you who don’t know, there is a jarring piece of art hanging in the name of a bird house in the garden. It is helpfuly labelled “Bird house”, lest you mistake it for a magic mansion.  To clarify the structure to the animals, it specifies in clear English that the bird house is for birds only. It does not say “No squirrels allowed”. I have never seen any squirrels there.  Come to think of it, I haven’t see any birds either. Putting all this together, we can reach a reasonable conclusion – squirrels know how to read, but the birds don’t.

Back to Kanu Pongal, my explanation of the Harvest festival came down to – “Keeping bird food on a leaf?” Please feel free to draw your own conclusions on my ability to teach.

A New definition in the New Year – not bad at all!

Singing Vs Almirah Assembly

There was a point in the past week when we found ourselves assembling and lifting a huge almirah. Beads of sweat creased the forehead and the lip curled in concentration as the husband and wife duo drilled through the wood and clasped and shoved the pieces of the puzzle together. The beauty of creating something is always exhilarating even if the real genius is the guy who designed it that way. Have I gushed about Ikea before? I must have. I love that store.

Anyway, I don’t want to waste words praising somebody else in a post that the designer is never going to read. So, I shall stick to the point and go back to huffing and puffing with the almirah. I heaved and ho-ed. The floor bore it well, the bones did not. By evening, we looked like scraps of wood that could be blown away with a mighty huff and a puff.

Give any two engineers a task of moving an object into a space, and they will discuss strategy. We did too. Over coffee. Finally, we were ready. Shoulders squared, jaws set heavily, we pulled and shoved and pushed. The range of noises went like this

|———————————————————————————-|

Grunt                           heavy breathing                 undecipherable loud noises

Just as I almost placed the darn 350 pound thing on my foot, I put the thing down clumsily and burst out laughing. That rankled the husband, since it upset his sense of balance. He somehow managed to save his toe in the nick of time and grunted like a mole under a mountain.

I am not an almirah-upsetter usually, but this time I was wondering about the age-old tradition in South Indian arranged marriages. There are a number of frivolous parameters used to gauge acceptance from the girl. After the social, economic and moral angles are suitably dispensed with, they come to the girl and ask her to – hold your breath – sing! Yes sing, of all the almirah-assembling tasks in the world, they ask a girl to sing, to see if she can handle the pressures of life?! It caused my father great tension in my youth, because even if I could sing, I was showing every inclination of pelting “Now, why don’t you sing a song?” people with stones.

If you ask me, they should have asked the fiance and fiancee to assemble an almirah and lift it and place it somewhere to see if they would be compatible. My spirit hovered over-ground and as I saw the sweaty saw dust covered couple trying to lift 300 pounds, this tradition tickled me in no small manner.

We laughed ourselves silly at the thought and suddenly the load seemed lighter to bear. The new almirah is ready and I have a new tradition for South Indian arranged marriages. How much better could it get?!

Jesus Christ or Toast?

Happy New Year folks. 

Those of you who would like to jog your creativity a little bit, please head on to this link.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/popup?id=2729440

There are a number of bizarre photographs where people see Michael Jacksons and overwhelmingly Jesus Christ.  I called upon your reserves of creativity to spot the Jesus Christ or the Michael Jackson in the pictures. Going by the news item, any bearded face with a sallow look, would qualify as Jesus Christ!

Me? I just see pancakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. What can I say? It is lunch time.