The month of November has been a wonderful trip to another world. It all started one blustery autumn evening when I decided to brashly sign up for the NaNoWriMo(National Novel Writing Month) adventure with encouragement from the husband and some friends (Krishna Srinivasan in particular). What has happened since is amazing. I had a target count to achieve for daily words written. Give me something like this, and you will find me walking around with the flame lit till done.
In the first week, I must admit things were harder than I thought. I found I had practically finished all I had to say by Chapter 3 (I exaggerate as usual, but you get the drift.) That would not do, would it? So, I expanded the story line, and brought in little snippets from the past and built back-story. In short, I had the time of my life. Inspiration is a funny thing, for it graced me when I showed up everyday, and struggled and it graced at me at the most unlikely of times (Read 2 a.m., and that would keep me awake planning the next day’s writing till 4 am. and of course, do a poor job of it the next day.)
The funny thing is that I have achieved the target of 50,000 words in 25 days, but I have not finished the story arch yet. I think I need at least another 10,000 words for the first draft to finish. Nothing panned out the way I visualized – the story yanked me from under my navel and pulled me along like a tug boat headed somewhere uncharted and all I could do was hang on and write the best I could. Even the novel heading started out as something else, but I think I have a better title now.
I have visualized the end, but as I write, I will know whether it is a suitable end or not. I have always been fairly regular at writing, but the necessity of doing a minimum word count everyday was another marathon altogether. Like running a marathon, this is a journey just worth finishing, for no one can take the joy of the journey from me.
PS: Just to give it perspective, a typical blog post is about 300-400 words, and I had to write approximately 2000 words everyday.
“Maybe we should go out and have dinner tonight.” says the husband clearly intending to help. In any other family, a simple statement like that will either be met with a simple acceptance or a refusal. I am sure no more would have been said about it. Of course, in our family, a statement like that wrenches the spanner into the corner of the brain where the horrors of restaurant eating reside and ply it open.
“Do you remember what happened at that Italian restaurant?” I ask. “I mean do you still want to go and press our company on restaurants. I say we take the broad minded view of ‘Live and let live.’ ”
The husband looks at me like I have a point and agrees. What happened was this: We found an occasion to dine out, and took polls to see what kind of cuisine was most voted for. It did not help that the toddler in the house thought it was a game and stuck both his arms up for everything. A vote was taken, numbers counted, tallied and thrown out the window. We settled for Italian which had one vote (the daughter’s). So, off we went looking for an Italian restaurant. Just before we entered, I checked their hair and told them to behave. It was one of those places that I’ve heard people gush about. What I had not expected, was for us to enter one of those snooty, high eyebrow places with a touch of hospitality, not overdone and a spot of hauteur, quite overdone.
I wanted to scramble and flee, but summoned the warrior spirit and pressed on. The maitre-de came up with a gleaming suit, coattails and all, looked us up and down and asked us how he may help us. I have never understood this. Would I be standing there in the luxurious lobby of a restaurant wanting to be helped with goading a herd of sheep into a waiting truck? No. I want to be seated for a meal. Thank you.
There was some brow lifting and all this while, the toddler is sitting quietly in his chair and not saying a word. The daughter is playing with him, and the two of them present a picture of a serene advertisement to entice more humans to procreate. The maitre-de, in the meanwhile, decides that he does not really need to spoil the atmosphere of a good dining experience for his patrons and comes out wearing a thin look (He may have been trying the apologetic expression, but thin is what I thought at the time). The toddler smiled at him and said, “Tar?” and showed him a toy car.
No reaction.
“I am extremely sorry Sir and Ma’am. But there is a half an hour wait for tables at the moment. Would you like to be kept waiting?”
The choice of words really! What a clever man he was too. Not wanting to take the good behavior picture, but not wanting to let us in and find out either. Could be a diplomat that man.
We said we don’t like to be kept waiting and turned our back on the man in a dignified silence. “Come children!” I said and they came. We stepped out the door and then expressed all of our relief and anxiety at once. What if they had seated us? Maybe this is for the best. Let’s go for a family friendly place. Nothing fancy.
We proceeded to a familiar restaurant. The cashier there smiled at us and welcomed us. He has seen us there often and still manages to smile when he sees us. That is the kind of place I like. The fine dining can wait for a decade. I breathed freely in there, sat down and looked at the husband and asked “Where is the boy who behaved so well?”
Dining under the radar
The husband points under the table and there he is: playing with his toy car. Things may have been quiet for possibly 3 minutes or maybe 4 after the food arrived. We never make it to a full 5 minutes. There was mayhem. The toddler had put his hands into the spicy curry, and I sent the water cascading over the table while pulling the napkin underneath to wipe off the toddler’s hands before he rubbed his eyes with it. He did not like that, One would think his life’s dream was to dip his hands in spicy curry and rubbing his eyes with it, and I, the evil mother, stepped in and squashed his dreams. He screwed up his face and turned a valve that let loose a torrent of very loud tears.
The husband tore out of the room carrying the toddler and stood outside in the cold for a good 3 minutes before bringing him back again. We gobbled the dinner as fast as we could and came back, shaken a bit by the smile the cashier gave us. Maybe he needs time before we pay him another visit.
The next day, the fates decide to show this news item to me. Apparently, there are restaurants that offer well-behaved-children discounts.
The parents left last week leaving me to raid the kitchen pantry to assess inventory levels, come up with reorder lists etc. No more of asking for grocery lists and shopping for them on the way back from wherever I went.
So, I snuck in there wearing my ‘Back to Work’ expression, lighted a few scented candles to keep me company and throw me light and joy and all that. It was so close to Diwali after all. I must tell you, the brain felt a bit dim like wanting to curl up with a good book and coffee. However, work is first and I persevered.
I remember the mother running a factory in there a week before she left. Give her a festival like Diwali and throw in a few grandkids and that is all she needs. She was set to run away with the menu and make twelve different types of snacks. I had to put up a valiant fight and stop her at (one moment, I am counting) eight. Good Lord! She made EIGHT different snacks in 5 days and I ate them all. No wonder I feel like I have a tractor in my stomach. I told her not to knock herself out. Sigh. I really am not as efficient as I think am I?
The Exotic Flavors
Anyway, back to inventory management, I noticed several different kind of flours and powders that I don’t even know the use for. Apparently, they are what gave flair and flavor to whatever I so gratefully ate in the past few months, For instance, I now have about 4 pounds of rice flour in the kitchen (I rattled my brain and found that I might use about 100 gms of rice flour in all the recipes I knew)
What am I supposed to do? Give a person a problem like this and it could have them flummoxed for days on end. Not me. I have always been known to be a problem solver. So, I deftly picked up the rice flour, and all the other packets that looked alien to me and threw it into the freezer. It can be dealt with when the matriarchs visit next, or if I find the expiry date has been reached before then.
If, in the meanwhile, anyone has recipes for using rice flour in a risk-free, short and easy manner, please shoot them recipes to me.
I coast along and then I suddenly realize that my cooking has reached an all time low. This usually coincides with either the parents or the parents-in-law leaving our home and going back to India. Some friends I know tell me they are quite possessive about the kitchen. Not me. When the mothers come and start looking comfortable in the kitchen, that is when I gracefully bow out and let the matriarchs reign. I am not mean: I simply let them do what makes them happy viz, deplore how poorly children eat, and tell me how I must learn how to mix food the same way that our Great Aunt on the Mother’s side used to. I smile, dodge, and mostly hover around the edges, doing the side-cleaning, verandah maintenance and the like.
Obviously, it is with trepidation that I don my chef’s hat again. This time, I decided to undertake foreign cuisines in the first week. I tell the husband that it is because we have been gorging on Indian cuisine long enough, but the truth is that my shortcomings in the Indian cuisine department will be more forcefully brought to light given the recency of the mother’s cooking.
I rummaged through the cupboards and dug out Chinese Manchurian Noodles. That sounded nice. So, I started to make it. I rattled the pots and needled the frozen and sang to the vegetables to cut to my tune. The problem was that the cooking was done before I started the second line of my vegetable song. The Chinese Manchurian Noodles turned out to be a different name on an Instant-Noodles-type-of-packet. The whole thing was over in two minutes flat. I had planned a 5 minute sequence, and I did not notice the noodles was done and let the thing go on a bit.
Overcooking instant noodles brings about a unique texture : it still looks like noodles, but feels like glue and looks like ripped out shards of faded cardboard paper.
I took a sorry look at the mess I had made with 2-minute noodles and decided that what was needed to be done to bring up the bar once again was to make sesame-green-bean. It might have tasted all right if the beans had been edible. It turns out I had a stringy set that would have made great guitar strings, but poor sesame-green-beans. Also, around the time I put the sesame seeds in the oil, I went off to answer the phone and came back to find the sesame seeds an elephant-gray in color. Never one to give up, I threw the beans in and sautéed till they could be sautéed no more.
String the guitar with my beans
The family usually has a quip ready the day after the grand-parents of the house leave, but this time I left them tongue-tied with my noodles. Anything that they wanted to say as an after-thought was dealt with firmly by the string beans.
Like the daughter said, “You can’t even joke about this Amma, it is that bad.”
PS: Tomorrow is Italian Cuisine (one can’t go wrong with a simple pasta and soup can one?)
I am amazed at the things people will throw their time and effort into. Look at this person. He is obviously smart: he sold tickets on his site, he had two agencies and he created a whole ecosystem to support his airline. He even had advertising on the radio promoting his airline. He only forgot one small thing: The actual airplanes.
When you start a restaurant, do you first get the food ready or prepare the food based on how many people get there? Maybe that was the problem that stumped him with the airline business. Nevertheless, here is a person who has product management, brand management and marketing skills doing the wrong things. People I tell you.
I wonder what happened to the Paraguayans who came to the airport lock, stock and barrel. What a lot of bother for them.
PS: Sounds like a nice title for a short story. Any weird ideas occur to you around this theme, please let me know. I would love to read them.
I can rely on the daughter to ask me scorching questions like this, at the most unexpected of times. I hemmed and hawed, for truth be told, I have a paragraph answer to this question. I told her that I did like to feel a bit important and be busy doing the right things. Before we could go down the path of what classifies as the right things, I send the question back to her in the same tone she asked me: mildly curious to see what the answer will be. I mentally prepared for either a serious conversation or a perfectly goofball-ish one.
“What about you? Do you like to feel important?”
She laughs with a sound that reminds me of a train on a bridge. “Everyone likes to feel important and busy amma. Do you know how kids like to brag about how busy they are?”
“No..how do they do that?”
“Some kids brag about their homework. We honestly don’t have much, but everybody likes to say ‘Oh! we have 6 pages, we have 9 pages.’ Some of them even take empty sheets from the printer, so their stack looks bigger than the rest amma! Like it matters.”
Wow…I had no idea that training starts this early. She is, after all, still in Elementary School. From there to walking around with print-outs looking important in company hallways does not seem that big a step. I am now agog to know more. “What about you? Do you brag?” I ask her.
“Sometimes, but not much. I do a little bit of homework bragging. Everybody is a bragger in some way or the other, you know?”
Well, I knew some people are better at bragging than others, and also that tools such as Facebook are always there to give the reticent a little nudge. I hmm-ed meditatively.
She continued, “There are Homework braggers, Dress braggers, Thinnest braggers, Fattest braggers (mostly boys by the way), Can-break-pencils braggers, Im-the-Smartest braggers and I-am-the-fastest braggers (also, mostly boys). One boy in my class: he is a can-break-pencils bragger. He bragged that he can break pencils on his nose. So, we asked him to do it, and he said he needs to go to the bathroom. He goes there, breaks it, probably on his leg, and comes and says he broke it on his nose. But his nose wasn’t even broken! ”
Braggart Art
I am sure there are more bragging classifications as we mature. The Busy Bragger, Award Bragger, Most Liked Bragger and so on. What brag types can you think of? The Art of cooking up more bragging categories? I am sure this will be an interesting exercise.
The morning was pure adrenaline. We witnessed a high speed car chase. One of the cars navigated a steep bend at speeds best not attempted,and plunged into the deep, watery depths below. The rescue team that arrived with a great deal of noise onsite was not happy with the scenario. Luckily, the driver was fine: slightly wet and disturbed about the car, but otherwise perfectly fine.
The car was a blue car, probably a spy car, and the curve it was navigating before hitting the watery depths below felt like it was straight from a movie. Wait a minute. It was. There is a scene exactly like that in Cars 2, the Disney Pixar movie, where the spy car Finn plunges into the ocean. That is the scene the toddler was hoping to recreate this morning I am sure. He was driving the toy car at a great speed around the toilet seat, and the car lost its balance and plunged into the (thankfully clean) toilet. Before he could flush the toilet and create more fuss than was already reigning, the rescue team comprising of the grandparents with sticks and gloves arrived on scene, blaring their sirens er.. instructions.
Spy car chase
The car was picked out of the commode gingerly. It was then washed and cleaned in Dettol. The same treatment was accorded to the driver, who unfortunately had watched the car splash impressively into the toilet from a close angle, and had water splashed down his shirt. The car has since been dried and put to rest in a comfortable position.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I would like to get back to some normal tasks.
I suppose this always happens in the world of fashion. You look at skinny models in high heels tottering with the confidence of a skyscraper on skates, and you see the perfect lines, and flatbeds where ordinary people settle for curves. Then you stop to wonder what the competition is about. Sometimes, you pause enough to look down at your own feet and the sensible footwear below the matter-of-fact trousers with extra pockets for carrying the cellphone. Then you think, why isn’t there glamour in practicality?
Why aren’t the world’s most stunning personalities cased in things that the everyday man and woman wear while they go about their lives?
I often think that way in the world of cars too. I remember the first time I showed my mother a Ferrari on the streets of USA. “Where else in the World, other than California, would you find a Ferrari parked on the street between a BMW and a Mercedes Benz?” I asked her, clearly excited to be showing her the sights.
In her typical fashion, she looked critically at the car, and said, “Looks like an expensive car.”
“Of course ma! Do you know how much it costs?”
“Doesn’t matter what it costs! It looks like we can’t fit our groceries in the trunk. So, what is the point?”
Sigh: There is a reason, I find glamour in practicality. It is called ‘instilled values’ folks.
Anyway, applying practicality to cars, it looks like the show Top Gear finally sees sense in my argument. Those who have traveled in an ambassador car in India would be thrilled to note the humble car mentioned. For what else is a car by looks, a horse by power, a bus by capacity, an optimist in attitude and a dog in loyalty?
The Hindustan Ambassador is the King among Taxis. The only car where restaurant signs can be reused in a car: Seating Capacity: 30
The Car, that in most families, is known affectionately as the ‘Amby’.
I have a story about the time my grandmother came to my sister’s wedding in an ambassador car, but I will save it for another day. That is an entertaining read for sure.
P.S: I have since seen the video clip of the Amby winning that race and it seems to be because all the others crashed into something or into one another. Nevertheless, the Amby it is.
I have been known to do things that are, to put it as simply as possible, nuts. Take for instance what I did last evening. It was that tricky time between twilight and night. The sounds of the night had started and the sounds of twilight had retired, but night had not fully fallen, nor twilight completely faded. Among the community of the street lights, the ones looking forward to a night’s work were glowing, while others were flickering hesitantly.
I saw an elderly couple walking on the road when I was walking briskly towards them. When they were a few yards away from me, one of them started jogging mildly. What do you think I did in response? I wish I had a points system for the person who guesses best, but I don’t. So, at this point, please remember your answer and if you have the time, please let me know in the comments. Or better yet, maybe you can try the same and let me know the result.
Here is what you do when you see an elderly couple jog/walk towards you on the road. You pull yourself to a hard stop in the middle of the road, bury your hands in your palms and look down, smiling and waiting to see what happens. It is important that you think you are invisible. That is critical to the reception you will receive.
Hide-n-seek
I noticed the other person had started jogging too. This jogging couple looked mildly worried as they passed me, and they made a sweeping, swerving motion, giving me a wide berth to give stage to my many eccentricities. I looked up and burst out laughing causing them to jog faster than before. They looked like they’d seen the Mad Hatter of Modern Times, and my laugh was construed as Hysterical. It is not true I tell you. Simply not true. I am in complete possession of my marbles.
Let me explain, it is important to me that my readers do not write off my sanity this early. Regular readers know I have a toddler son. What they don’t know is that he likes playing hide-n-seek. Ask any mother, and she gushes at all the new skills her offspring is picking up. Even so, I did not have high hopes for him, given his sister’s hide-n-seek history. It is chronicled here for future reference, and a picture attached.
The son takes it a step further. He does not go through the trouble of finding a place to hide. He simply puts his head down, hides his head in his palm and smiles in the middle of the road. It is the seekers duty to look all around him and then feign surprise a minute later at finding him. Obviously, a strategy as sophisticated as this has its own jokes in the family.
Going back to what happened to that hapless couple that night: The problem was that I mistook them for my parents. I thought they were imitating me by trying to jog, and I thought I will one-up them by hiding like the little fellow. All a laughable mistake of course. But I did not see them laughing. They looked worried and hurried off.
Now, I hope their counselor finds this blog and counsels them wisely.
In the days of yore, kings and queens vied with each other to send their children to study in the Ashram nestled among Eucalyptus groves and blue hills. The rain filled clouds were said to induce the human condition to be inspired and to inspire alike. In that ashram lived a quiet, unassuming man the princes and princesses loved. Apparently, he could make a mere child soar like a kite, fly through a roaring fire toughening them to battle fire-breathing dragons later in life and stand upside down on a pyramid of people. It was rumored that when he threw a disc, it could slice through the air with a sound of a thundering Astra.
All year long, the disciples practised and when the kings and queens came to watch, they were amazed at what their young could achieve. The teacher was really making children jump through hoops of fire, stand upside down on a pyramid of people and running with them wearing immaculate white as they stood in formation for a gymnastics performance.
This man was none other than dear Mr Bharathan, our Physical Education teacher. He was a pleasant, contented man and most importantly, he was always there for and with us on the field. He was there urging you to run a little harder, bend over backwards just a little bit more than you thought possible during gymnastics, play badminton with you, or check out your bruised ankle.
He was an excellent companion on the blue-school-bus rides. He sat through the exuberance of winning a tournament smiling and listening to us singing songs of victory. He was also there for us through the quiet rides back home after being beaten badly by a rival team, with a nod signaling that all was not over yet: with strategy and more work, there was a possibility of a comeback.
He imbibed the ‘Never Give In’ spirit as only a true sportsman could. Thank You Sir for all you have done for generations of Lawrencians. We will miss you, as we practise what you taught us all those years ago in the Sports field, in our everyday lives. May your soul rest in peace.
Nourish-n-Cherish 