A Jane Austen Education

 I like to draw relaxation from the joy in little things. The ability to stop and look at a flower or amble along with friends and family discussing the little matters of life that make up the notes of music as we hum along in our lives.

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The ability to feel like it is okay to not be driven by this high sense of purpose, but living a useful life all the same.

There is no power on Earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life. - Booker. T. Washington
There is no power on Earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life. – Booker. T. Washington

When people talk about good stories, they are usually pumped up about plot, drama and suspense. I am all for plot, drama, suspense, mystery, hot-cold love and so on. But our lives don’t always turn out that way, nor should it. That is why I recharge myself with writings of Miss Read, Jane Austen and P.G.Wodehouse. When I read these authors, I can assure myself that it is perfectly okay to lead lives that will not get a dramatist to reach for his recording device, but one that is joyful enough in its pursuits and activities to make it an interesting one.

Every time, I unwind with a Jane Austen movie, the nourish-n-cherish family rolls its eyes and flees the television area. Now that I think about it, it seems to be the only way for me to get some air time with the television. Hmmm (Evil laugh with gleam in eyes). But I hope one day to be able to get them to enjoy the movies with me.

I am reading ‘A Jane Austen Education’ by William Deresiewicz, that is essentially all the life lessons that her writings have for us to imbibe. Such a delightful book! There are some things that are clearly just the author’s perspective of applying her writing to his life. Not to mention that this book was written by a man, so it is only natural that his and my perspectives vary. 

The books starts with my favorite book of hers: Emma.

Little nuggets of writing like this spot the whole book and make me want to open it up at random and read again.

Jane Austen was about a year old when another English Author wrote a statement that could serve as a motto for all her books. “Life is a comedy for those who think”, said Horace Walpole,  “and a tragedy for those who feel.”. Everyone thinks and feels, but Jane Austen’s question was, which one you are going to put first? Comedies are stories with happy endings. I could grow up and find happiness, Austen was letting me know, but only if I was willing to give up something very important. Not my feelings, but my belief in my feelings, the conviction that they were always right.

Another one:

Being happy and feeling good about yourself are not the same thing.

A dictum that Mansfield Park reveals, that is as good today or even more apt today than any other day in the past.

Perpetual amusement leads only to the perpetual threat of boredom.

 I can tell you that it was truly a shocking revelation to me, that a recent study said we reach for our phone 221 times a day. (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/25/we-are-hopelessly-hooked/)

Imagine that. More than 200 moments in time when we could be observing (anything at all really) spent checking a digital device. Are we not just as guilty as the Crawfords in Mansfield Park for needing that kind of continuous stimulation? It is no wonder that Digital Addiction is a real thing  requiring treatment.

http://www.gq.com/story/video-game-rehab?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

It reminds me of this article:

“Anyone with any degree of mental toughness,” artist Georgia O’Keeffe wrote in contemplating life and the art of setting priorities, “ought to be able to exist without the things they like most for a few months at least.

A sobering thought indeed.

The Dream Conveyor Belt

The understanding of time, the night sky and dreams are common themes of hilarity with the toddler son. His proud sister breaks into giggles every time he spouts a dubious theory to his great annoyance. He is a serious fellow and likes to think that his theories have merit. It was even harder for us when all he said after a bout of serious thinking was the word, “CAR” and shoved a toy Lightning McQueen car in your face. Though Lightning McQueen still reigns in the fellow’s world, we get a lot more of narrative content to aid our understanding these days – thank heavens for that.

One evening, he bounded into the kitchen full of energy from his afternoon nap: “Hi Amma. You know I had a dream. A bad dream. It was so scary: I cried and everything.”

“Oh! What was it?” I asked him injecting a note of concern while sipping blissfully at my tea. He looked fine to me. In fact, he looked radiant and energetic, not at all like a child scarred by nightmares in other words.

“You already know. You was in my dream remember?”

There are times for deep breaths and times for deep gulps of fortifying tea. I did both and then broke it to him gently that though I may have appeared in his dream, it did not mean that I knew his dream. He looked confused at that, and said, “But you hugged me and then we went for a hike, remember?”

“Maybe we did that in your dream, but I don’t know that because I can’t see your dream.”

“But yesterday you said you had a dream too.” Technically, I hadn’t said this the previous day, I had said it the previous week. But I explained to him, again that I may have had a dream and he could not know what it was even if there was a chance he starred in the dream.

“So what was the dream bone-head?” said his sister giggling to split, and thoroughly intrigued with this whole business of streaming dreams like television channels that one could tune into on demand.

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“Oh! I am hungry. Ask Amma – she knows.” said the maddening fellow and set to his evening snack with relish.

I wonder what Sigmund Freud would make of that theory, and whether our dreams could overlap in an alternate universe even if they were a week apart. Maybe in that world, there is no concept of time and so we all see different parts of the dream theatrically produced and fragmented by the stars of the night. Like stepping on and off a dream conveyor belt. Who knows? I think I’d like to retain the mystery of the dream. Even if they are confusing at times.

Love on Mars?

I am reading a book that is futuristic in outlook. Trees on Mars By Hal Niedzviecki. Sitting on our commuter train, I look around to see that there is only one other person in the whole packed compartment reading a book. The book itself is a somewhat distressing outlook on our obsession with the future and futuristic trends. How Artificial Intelligence will and is taking on more and more of how the Internet World functions. How the waves of the future are affecting the educational system. How it could affect our entertainment choices, art and the study of humanities. We all know that is happening and is inevitable and all the rest of it, but I put the bleak thing away to ponder on some things that cannot be done away with.

As I stepped out of the train station that evening, I saw a vendor hawking red roses with a lopsided grin on his face. As though mocking and daring folks to stop and buy his roses. I have seen these vendors every year, during the week leading up to Valentines Day. On Valentine’s Day, you see a bunch of folks you would never have chalked down as the romantic type when observing them on the train, doling the cash out for a few roses for their beloved. The AI systems could take a while figuring out which ones have that streak of romanticism in them, I thought victoriously, but of course I might be wrong.

With Valentines Day approaching, the son’s preschool environs are a-quiver with excitement. Pink and red hearts plaster the walls. The daughter drew a card with a large heart and a bunch of surrounding hearts for our Anniversary. The son asked if he can take the card the daughter made for our anniversary to his school to put it up on the notice-board. “No!” I squealed. Before any egos could be bruised, I assured the children that the card was beautiful but it was meant for Appa and Amma alone. I am not sure I am quite ready for that to be bandied about on a school notice board. Not to mention the questions surrounding marriages, weddings or society’s inevitable curiosity around arranged marriages.

I am also reading The Wild Swan a book by Michael Cunningham, a clever take on fairy tales with a dose of the worldly adult interpretations. Each tale is short with a slightly different view to the tale. But, I cannot deny that I like the children’s versions better. The children’s versions are common tales but manage to spin magic about them.

Pretty much how the children manage to spin magic around Valentines Day.

I miss the years of Elementary school valentine’s day preparations with the daughter. She would arduously draw hearts and flowers on every card for every child and teacher in the class. I knew those cards were to join the recycle pile in their own homes by the end of the day just as the pile she came home with did, but it was a wonderful concept and kept her happily occupied for a few hours.

Love on Mars

I really like how the younger children get to see love in its more wholesome form. They love their parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers, friends, siblings, caregivers and pets. It all gets a bit wearying when they want to make cards for them all, but I prefer that to the more narrow interpretation leading to conjugal harmony( or not) one day.

As long as we know how to retain this curious ability to love and be loved, the future can march on to the beat of generated bytes and streaming bits.

Happy Valentine’s Day !

The Empress of Palates Examines The Upma Conundrum

This post is heavy on Indian foods: Upma, Chapathi, Koottu. Here is an image that will help: (Just a snapshot from Google Images when you look up South Indian Tiffins – idli, dosa, pongal, upma, sambhar, chutney, koottu.)

I am glad to say that this post was featured in the Open Page in the Hindu dated 19th July 2016. http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/not-cool-enough-yet-the-upma-conundrum/article8866694.ece – illustrated in the article by cartoonist Keshav, whose work I have admired ever since I knew how to appreciate humor in the written form.

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“Folks are coming home for dinner tonight, what do you say we finish up all the leftovers in the fridge, so we can start afresh tonight? ” I said peering into the fridge. One box of chinese take-out (kung pao vegetables) was stacked atop a glass container with homemade vegetable biriyani. Beside it lay some south indian koottu and a few chappathis. One sweep to conquer Genghis Khan, Akbar and Raja Raja Cholan.

“Sure!” said the husband. I must tell you that of the many virtues I love about the husband, one is the fact that he is not a snooty gourmet. He is one of those lovable fellows who will have an omelet with dosa and soup, and gush on to say that it was a good meal. So much so that, I have gotten used to being quite the Empress of Palates around the house. If I think we could have masala vadas and I am in the mood to make them, I set to it with gusto.

“I told the guys we shall make it a South Indian dinner potluck.” said the h. as I peeked into the phone telling me about one friend’s contribution. I nodded. One friend said she would make a side dish that would go well with upma. So,  I said I will make ‘Upma’. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upma) It is that beautiful dish that is garnished with beans, carrot, peas all cut up into tiny pieces like stars, planets and comets speckling a clear night sky, and to complete the panorama of the flitting clouds added,”I’ll also make a mean groundnut chutney. ” Van Gogh’s Painting would beg if I made this beautiful one swirl.

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I had that smile that tints my face when I look up at the night sky, while the husband looked mortified. . “How could you? Why would you make upma when you can make so many other things? Upma is not the right dish for .. it just isn’t the right dish pairing for dinner alright?” said the man hovering his chappathi between the kung pao vegetable and the koottu, on his plate, as though deciding which was the worse choice to make.

“But you don’t mind eating upma. Even though you say you don’t particularly like it, you do justice to the dish don’t you?”

“Well yes. But upma is not a dinner worthy dish.”

The brain was fumbling with the light switch somewhere. “We had it for dinner last week with tomato chutney remember?”

“Yes! For us it is okay, but it isn’t exactly a dinner dish for Guests.” he said with a flourish. Like one who has just scored a particularly tricky point at the Local Debating Competition. The way he said ‘Guests’, one would think President Obama was stopping by with Elon Musk to discuss the Space Program over a plate of upma that evening.

“I thought you said that the only folks who visit our home are those you can open the kitchen to.” (This, he said in another discussion surrounding the use of a formal dining table in the home, but I am entitled to use the argument here: I checked with the daughter.)

“Yes but upma is easy to make. “

“Really? Last month do you remember me peeling some pasty stuff off the pan when you attempted to make it? You said that I made it look easy to make upma, but it actually is an art by itself.”

“Yes…I did. But that was to appease you.” I drew myself up. The husband raced on before I tacked on to the subject of appeasing and said, “NO. Not upma. Anything else.”

“I don’t understand this – what is wrong with upma?”

“I don’t know. It is considered a poor man’s dish.” said the husband, his arguments thinning. The cashews and ghee swam before my eyes and wondered which poor man would cook like that.

I gazed at the poor fish, and let it go. A few minutes later, the phone piped up with friends telling one another what they proposed to bring. One of them said she would bring Upma and then went on to add: My husband thinks I should not say Upma though, so I shall bring Vermicelli – Sooji Khichadi. A few minutes later, the phone buzzed again with her husband chiming into the conversation saying he had convinced his wife to switch their entry to Pongal instead of upma.

What is the mystery that plagues Upma’s status in South Indian Society? The Empress of Palates demands an examination. An Upma Festival maybe?

To Infinity & Beyond!

Remember the sermon about Serendipity? Don’t go by it. Take it and toss it to Tinker Bell, the fairy, when she flies over you. Because none of that works at Disneyland. Strategy, planning, timing and speed are the keys to a successful visit.

On regular days, you may not see the husband and I dancing a jig together in the middle of the road to catchy music, but in Disneyland, we do. I buy the hot cocoa for the kids, while he dashes to Adventure Land for that Fast Pass. He gets in line for the food, and I tackle the task of getting us seats to eat in. One gets the space to watch the Parade or the fireworks, the other takes the children to the restroom. Hectic? Maybe. Pleasurable? Mostly. Tiring?  A little. Together? Not always. Magical? Of course!

You know how they tell you no two children are the same? Well we always knew the son and daughter have quite the dissimilarities. But never was it more apparent than at Disneyland. This is the first real visit to Dis . for the son where he did not blindly follow everything his sister does. Previously, each time, when we meandered into Tomorrow Land, we found ourselves washed out again towards Fantasy Land or Adventure Land within minutes.

This time, however, we spent more time in TomorrowLand than in any other land. Given the recent Star Wars movie release, the whole place was Star Wars themed. There were rides and museums catered to Star Wars fans. Jedi warriors marched up and down holding their parents hands on one hand and a light saber on the other. We found ourselves posing with Storm Trooper and Fire Trooper and Yet-Another-Helmet-Wearer. (They all looked the same to me and wore helmets. ) When I mentioned this aloud to the husband, he shushed me swiftly and hissed, “You are in Star War Geek territory. I mean, that could start off a serious fracas.” he said half-amused.

Boys! I tell you. The son has not even seen Star Wars, yet Tomorrow Land fascinated him enormously.

Which brings me to the question of why we are as a species so intent on knowing what the future holds for us. It is because the past is immutable and what we know doesn’t really interest us anymore?

I recently read a beautiful book, An Acceptable Time, by Madeline L’Engle in which a time portal opens up and the protagonist is able to step back in time by almost 3000 years. It was a fascinating read with time tesseracts and inter lapping time circles.

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It got me thinking that if we are here now from the future, what would we change? Global Warming, industrialization, population control, disease control or some other thing that is trivial enough now, but avalanches into something bigger?

Butterfly or Humming bird effect. (https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/20/how-we-got-to-know-steven-johnson-hummingbird-effect-time/)

In the meanwhile, we have no idea what the future holds and whether we are making the right choices. Time alone will tell. To Infinity & Beyond – let’s find out.

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How is the Hot Water?

Things started off normally enough on our recent trip to Bishop CA: I had strained my neck, slept badly, refused to let the husband drive and rest the shoulder, and was playing with snow on the frozen lake. Though I could easily have iced the area, I did not. The children were throwing snow up in the air, and so was I, yelping like an puppy being beaten every time, but enjoying the snow all the same.

The husband looked at me being an obstinate ass, and decided to take things in hand. “Maybe it is time we went and had something hot to eat.”, he said and smartly frisked all the red-nosed snow saddled simperers into a log cabin that boasted of hot soups and sandwiches.

Things that usually happen in a restaurant happened. We asked for water-no-ice, deftly spilled a glass and mopped the contents, apologized to the table, asked for more napkins and settled down to eat.

I find this a bit trying while dining at restaurants, but waiters and waitresses come up to you during the meal, usually when you have slobbered a bit of sauce on yourself, or stuffed your left cheek to goading point, and ask you how the food is. Now really! Can you not see we are busy tucking in? Must you ask how the food is?

Well… the truth be told, in this particular case, it was horrendous. The pasta was not cooked enough, the vegetables were soggy and the olives did not really go with the sliced jalapeños and certainly not on pasta. Also, it was a bit much using the same condiments on the nachos (s.jalapeños & olives) in the pasta, and passing it off as vegetables in the pasta.

But …..

(a) The poor thing smiled in a rather disarming manner, that I hadn’t the heart to lay the truth out for her.

(b) It was hot food in a cold place and I could well appreciate the logistics of running a restaurant in such a place.

(c) She wasn’t the chef. What could she possibly do? She’d probably tell the chef the food was sub-par, and the chef, if he or she were a temperamental one like Anatole, would behave like a dish pot and spout steam at her.

Simply no point. So, I turned a regal eye upon her (my neck remember?),  and said it was good, in my best hauteur. I hoped that would send a message enough. But it didn’t, so I asked for a cup of hot water instead. She recoiled. All waitresses do when I ask for hot water. They simply don’t know what to make of this simple request. She looked at me questioningly, but my neck helped me with my aura, I stiffened the upper lip with the neck, and smiled curtly not backing down.

She bobbed up with the hot water in due course, and asked us how the food was. I simply could not answer. I was fighting pasta battles of my own.

Maybe that was the problem. She was back with us again. Within minutes. It seemed like every time I managed to turn the upper torso, there she was at our elbows asking how the food was. I mean – really! I was trying to cook the pasta in my mouth with the hot water.

“The hot water is wonderful! Can I have another glass?” I said. Catty? Perhaps.

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Just as an experiment, I must say what I really think and see what happens. I can already see the husband squirm uncomfortably, and make secret plans to move to another table.

The Art of Serendipity

Do you remember how a word clicks in your brain? I hear a musical and satisfying clink of a cheery bell knowing that I will love the word as long as my brain serves me. We keep adding to our vocabulary sub-consciously. Some words come to us, leave us and then come back when you are least expecting it. Serendipity. (That was one such word. It had been tucked off in the recesses of the brain somewhere and I had not put it to use much over the years, then one day over a warm dinnertime conversation with friends, it snuck back in, unobtrusively, into the conversation and I heard the chink in the brain again.)

Serendipity is what provides the zest for life. Try as much as we do to schedule our lives, it is the serendipitous moments that we remember. For there is a thrill, a certain lack of regularity that led us there in the first place. This beautiful word can join forces with creativity and help us take leaps into our imagination or makes connections that were hitherto eluding us. Our own mini-adventure, if you will. If only we are willing to let go.
It is part of the reason why I don’t plan our vacations too much. We have a rough sketch of what we wish to do and let things happen. It is marvelous.

It is why I remember the time we ran around New York after missing the last scheduled bus out of town and tried to get on the last ferry with parents and the then-2 year old daughter. I can close my eyes and see the two-year old looking happy and contented as she looked at the receding shoreline – she had thoroughly enjoyed the last few minutes. She had a unique vantage point after all. To get her out of the way while we were figuring out alternatives, the husband had carried her on his shoulders. Then, we all scrambled, ran and tumbled into the boat just as the planks were raised from the shore.

There was something satisfying in catching that boat.

It is also why I relish this photograph. We had mistakenly taken a side road, only to find ourselves alone. The snow had been cleared a few days earlier, but the roads still has generous amounts. It was slow and slippery going. The sun was setting, and the silence of the snow held sway for several minutes. Even the boisterous children fell silent for a few minutes.

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The article below is a good read on how to cultivate the Art of Serendipity:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/how-to-cultivate-the-art-of-serendipity.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Read the Humming-Bird Effect or the Butterfly Effect too:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/20/how-we-got-to-know-steven-johnson-hummingbird-effect-time/

Spiritual Mysticism or Spiritual Naturalism?

As we walked into our standard Best Western’s breakfast room near the Inyo Canyons, there was a transformation. The walls were plastered with what looked like pictures of movie stars. Apparently, this was Hollywood’s favorite location for filming cowboy scenes, and the hotel wasn’t going to let that one slide any time soon.

The surrounding Inyo canyons were looking like that I admit. The horizons widened, the rocks and foliage blended together in beautiful sandstone with broccoli-like vegetation everywhere. The canyons had miles and miles of rock. Flat plains stretching on before hitting the mountain ranges. Pink, red, orange and sandstone. It took us some time to appreciate its beauty. Life seemed sparse yet the possibility of life here seemed abundant. I tried imagining a time in Earth’s history when the place was teeming with life, maybe large dinosaurs spotted the plains with winged creatures careening overhead, and possibly a lush, green surrounding rather than the pink-ish desert looks that were in front of us now.

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I tried imagining the place a few hundred years from now – would it be a city, or a settlement of some kind? Would there be more visible forms of life and humanity? How about a few thousand years from now?

It is definitely heartening to step out of urban life for a brief spell. It is also when you are most capable of doing what you want. Do you want to sing a song? The rocks are your audience. Go for it. Do you want to jump in the middle of the road, the mountains are your witness. So, we spent the day in near by cowboy locations acting out like cowboys and cowgirls. Only these cowboys & girls wore woolen caps and gloves and heehawed like donkeys.

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The fact that we are miniscule in the scheme of things is never more stark than when gazing at nature’s grandeur. I tried looking for that feeling of oneness, and could come up with no better words than Spirituality and Nature. The internet spewed articles on religion and spirituality. But that was not what I felt there. There was no religion except when the cold got a bit much and I said, “Rama! It is so cold!”.

My grandmother would have approved.

Sometimes, Lord Ganesha kept us company. (We saw rocks shaped like dinosaurs and elephants.)

There was awe, humility, peace and the sense of security that our valiant car could provide transport and warmth.

That night after the heehawing in Inyo canyons, I had vague and hilarious dreams of my grandmother running after a donkey in a 9 yards saree. Who is to say that a mouse did not really pull a wooden trundle with Lord Ganesha seated on it across the canyons that night? Spiritual Mysticism? Maybe.

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Does the cold make you Deaf?

I was blissfully lost in wonders, natural and man-made for the past week. A trip to nature, (to nature or with nature?), is intensely refreshing. As the car made its way upwards into the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, I could see a large orb hanging from the sky casting a golden glow upon the stark outline of the rising mountains. I was wondering whether it was some sort of industrial light. But it turns out that large yellow orb hanging like an overturned lantern in the sky was the moon and the unusually bright, twinkling objects in the sky were the stars. Yet, the very same objects seem somehow diminished by urban lighting, when I gaze upon them at home.

I must say that I felt a keen kinship with nature there. Like Earth beckoned and embraced its children again. The car held up well against the steep inclines and the atmosphere inside was toasty and warm. We glanced at the dipping temperature gauge in the car every now and then, but continued to admire the night sky.

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It was when we reached Lone Pine, CA, and made for our hotel room that the cold hit us. It was teeth chattering. “Oh! I know I rue the relentless march of civilization and all that, but I quite welcome these advances”, I said through clenched teeth and fists as I switched on the room heater, and let the warm bursts of air swirl around the room.

The days were not much warmer. As we drove on the next day, there were vast expanses of nothing but mountains and desert plains. Stark and beautiful. There were times when the temperature gauge sat looking dismal at 14F.

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We wrapped ourselves in layers, only to find the cold finds a way to seep into the vulnerable spots somehow. We were playing on a frozen lake when we met the kind couple, who, I am afraid, thinks I am a demented owl.
“Where are you from?” they asked.
“We are from the Bay Area.” I said, to which they beamed back and said, “Oh! That’s nice. We are from there too. We have been coming up to these mountains for 41 years now.”
“I can imagine that.” I told them looking sincere, and I am sure they thought I was alright then. “This place is beautiful and I can imagine it becoming a place that we would want to visit now and again. Where are you from?” I asked them smiling in a way that hopefully belied the fact that my jaws could not move out of its smiling position once I got it there. The cold locked my jaws in.
“We are from Mountain Dew” said the lady.
“Oh where is that?”
This is when she looked like all logic had bottomed out of the conversation for she said, “Bay Area!” and looked at me as though surveying me for known defects.
“Oh! really? Okay, I don’t know the place. By the way, do you have a pair of scissors or a knife?”
“A knife?” I could see a slightly worried expression cross her face, but she was nice enough to go on, “Well…no. What for?” she said.

I showed her a pair of brand new gloves that were quite useless because it was all packaged so thoroughly. Really, what do these factories in China expect us to do with their brilliant packaging? Do they expect people with numb fingers, broken jaws and barely functioning faculties, to find a saw to get through the packaging in the snow?
“Oh no…we don’t have really have any on us, but here is something you can use for the little one. It was my grandson’s and he has grown out of it.”

I thanked her profusely with that bizarre grin on my face, and headed back to the car, wondering why they looked so down when I did not know where Mountain Dew was. After all, everybody cannot know every place.

It was after the teeth had stopped rattling like windowpanes in a thunderstorm,  after the jaw loosened up with the heat, and unlocked my bizarre smile, and well after feeling seeped into my fingers and toes, that I realized the lady had probably meant “Mountain View, CA.”, not Mountain Dew.

Do you think the cold makes one deaf? Well, if I run into her here, and if she doesn’t run away from me, I suppose I shall explain.

Healthy Snacks? Yes! NO!

You may have heard this tone with particularly effervescent kindergarten teachers. “I am going to pick up the toys, who wants to help me? ” The voice is enthusiastic, slightly sing-song and most suggestive of acquiescence. At the end of this sentence, there is a scuttle among the noble children, all aiming to please. Miraculously, those who were moving to the red side of the margin see a chance to redeem themselves and everybody is happy to be helping with the toys. The classroom bursts into song: “Everybody clean up! All the children do your share!”

I confess it was something like this response I was expecting when I announced that I was leaving for the grocery store. “I am going to the grocery store! Who wants to come with me? I am going to pick up splendid snacks for our trip!”

There was no scuttling to please me, no daughter trying to get back into my good books after deploringly questioning me at the mall the previous day whether I had crossed items off my list, as I made to wander off to look at some pretty and shockingly expensive clothes in a forlorn store. None of the repentance one likes to see. The children looked (a) uninterested in going to the grocery store and (b) they practically held my hand and stopped me from buying any snacks for them.

I was going to make a quick stop at Traders Joe, that splendid store of organic fruits, vegetables, beautiful flowers, eggs from happy hens, milk from peaceful cows, yogurts using contented bacteria and p cows milk, fragrant soaps and hand-washes never tested on animals: this is the kind of shopping the husband likes. Most snacks the children like, can be traced back to this store, and yet there weren’t ready to come. I was confused and muddled.

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It must’ve shown on my face for the daughter, forthright as always, said, “The thing is: you will buy healthy snacks.” She emphasized ‘healthy’ in a rather distasteful tone of voice and continued, “Then, you’ll get mad at us when we stop somewhere to buy something we can eat. Of course, you won’t eat it too because though it is healthy, it is still a snack right? Then you’ll tell us all about starving children and how they would love to have healthy snacks and then we all feel guilty and can’t completely enjoy the stuff we buy with Appa on the way. So, just don’t buy snacks okay? We’ll go with Appa tomorrow to Traders Joe and buy something for ourselves.”

I was aghast and turned to the husband for support only to catch him casting admiring looks at her. “Wow! I wish I was that brave!” he tried not to say.

The husband can be relied upon to be convinced by the children. “But Appa…it is organic. See?” they say as they show him chips, cakes and ice-creams, and he melts, along with that chocolate mousse they are handing him. As soon as they get home, the children disappear upstairs, secure in their knowledge that their father blessed their choice, while I gasp at the contents.

Well, say what you will: I am going to take that packet of baby carrots for myself.