A Food story…continues

A few months ago…

You cannot spend the days of your life indulged in absolutely nothing. Human minds are wonderfully designed in such ways that they somehow find means to revitalize their dormant self’s with interesting and challenging ideas. This could relieve you from monotonous diets, meaningless hobbies, depleting gray cell and diminishing self-esteem. I for instance shake myself up with food cravings. Since I have a lot of time and patience I go with it real slow. I cannot afford to make a mistake here unlike my past unaccountable spinster life. So, I spend a lot of time researching on recipes, watching cooking videos, reading blogs and finding the right ingredients …real slow. So far I have been experimenting with recipes within India and I can proudly state that inspite of being an amateur most of the dishes turned out pretty good. Still, I gradually started feeling my enthusiasm about it swaying until a few weeks ago. I was going through a food blog and here I came across some interesting Arabic dishes. Woooooooh! After almost a year there on the web page I find a popular recipe for Shawarma. I knew I had to try it out, there was no second thoughts. I went through the ingredients and the cooking procedures …okay the recipe seemed simple, a few ingredients were typical Arabic spices obviously hard to come by in America and besides there were limitations of home style cooking, not having a rotisserie for instant.

A few weeks ago…

I was walking through the aisles of spices and sauces in a shop and there! I could have missed it but lucky me …the one ingredient that was standing between me and my Shawarma recipe. I grabbed the bottle, made sure it wasn’t my fantasy, didn’t bother to check the price; you normally don’t for noble causes and bought the rascal home. I had a stock of a few spices I bought from my various shopping- spree. Well, none of them were used in the recipe I picked for my task, but during my research I found them listed in a few other Shawarma recipes. So, here, I decided to bend the stick a little- alter my chosen recipe, use two of the spices I have instead of the one I don’t have.

Yesterday…

I finalized the one recipe I am trying out and watched its video… The recipe seemed easy enough so I planned my menu thus - to make pita bread (Kuboos equivalent), a shredded chicken filling and a mix of vegetables to go along with it into the wrap and also a side dish of hummus or tahini sauce, which one I haven’t decided yet. Wow! I am so excited but I am not as confident as to rate it high. Just give it my best and hope it turns out decent. I want it to be a surprise to hubby when he comes home after work mainly because he too shared my love for Shawarma.

Today…   

10 am

Today looks bright enough and beautiful with light showers. I...cut, cleaned, marinated and refrigerated the chicken with all the spices and condiments…roasted and ground the ingredients for the sauce. Pita bread!! Oh I totally forgot.

55 minutes past noon.

My chicken shreds are marinating in a variety of spices and flavor. The recipe says marinate for two hours I’m gonna keep it for a while longer than that.

1:15 pm

Okaay! Imagine Arabs cooking Sambar. It’s gonna be really tough for them. The lady in the video made it sound so easy. Well it’s not …her food processor ground the sauce ingredients into a fine watery paste in less than one minute. My Indian mixer grinder is taking more than 15 minutes and all my patience to even break the contents into tiny bits let alone grind it into a fine paste. It’s taking hell lot of time. There is no time even to consider making hummus… just how they say too many cooks spoil the broth… I fear too many first time recipes might spoil the meal so I think I will cut down Hummus and stick to the sauce alone. So it will be chicken, veg mix, tahini sauce and pita bread. OOPS! I forgot the vegetables …those green leafy …abundant in all the stores…left for the last minute…forgotten!! So it’s gonna be pita bread, chicken shreds and tahini sauce.

5 pm

I am done.

Pita bread - Flour …fermented…kneaded…rolled….baked. Marinated chicken strips - grilled and sauce – white, watery slightly bitter but tasty done.

Okkay! Personally speaking they turned out to be not that great but not bad either. I have my doubts on whether it will be a pleasant surprise for hubby as I anticipated. Pita bread turned out rough and slightly crispy at sides. I did everything as per the recipe; I mean every ingredient and all. But it turned out to be hard and crispy at places instead of soft and moist as any bread is supposed to be. The chicken for which I had such great hopes turned out the same. I mean I waited for the key ingredient for months. They were supposed to come out moist and soft instead they look more related to candy sticks. Now when I think of it, I feel like I should have strictly followed the recipe and should have shallow fried it in olive oil (I went around the recipe and grilled it to save manpower). DAMN. I believe it’s because I left the two in the oven for too long. Too much heat takes away the moisture or so I read somewhere…Anyways.

Well, all hopes are not lost. I would serve this to hubby without ever telling him it’s meant to be a Shawarma. So he would never compare and judge with the original. Instead he would just have it as one of my latest experimental dish. Yea, that sounds like a plan.

6:00 pm

Hubby came home famished, God bless! He said the sauce was good ...said it repeatedly two, three times. He commented that the Pita bread and chicken were stiff (tell me about it). But he loved the sauce…I had one and 3 quarters Shawarma (discarded the crispy parts). He had four, luxuriously loaded with the stiff chicken and the life savior sauce.

Around 9 pm

After a hard day’s work, I went for a walk to relax myself. I came home a little earlier than hubby who was back after his usual volleyball match. Normally, he would come home yelling for dinner right from the doorway, but today nothing. It was like any other normal day in our life, except, we had an extra early mammoth Dinnneeerrrrrrrrrrrr!!

“Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.” Joss Whedon

A Food Story… a really long one at that!

As usual after another long gap, I found myself a topic motivating enough to type in.

Almost a year ago….

During the last days I spent in the Techno park city I and my friend Nicky made it a plan to try out the food varieties in and around the Techno park city. Basically it was to save ourselves from the daily hassles and puzzles of planning and executing the kitchen arts. Both our husbands were away for work, so there were not anyone else to share either the meals or the chores. Even though we were to join them in a couple of months’ time, the loneliness or laziness of having to cook for oneself, eat alone and to clean up after is what intrigued us to indulge in such a routine.

Okiie! Now it’s not like we had every single meal together. The meal schedules went roughly like this…we had breakfasts on our own, from our personal hot spots on the way to work, we shared lunch mostly catered by the homemade food caterers (one of these lunch packets were feasts enough for both of us). Occasionally, we frequented the food courts and restaurants in and around the park for dinner. For the record, there were so many options. But we mainly targeted the ones in Tejeswini and Bhavani (buildings). Even though the dent it caused on our budget was slightly higher than that was otherwise we considered it compensated against our stress, expense of time and the phantom limb effect caused by the temporary absence of our nuptial partners. It felt good having meals prepared and served by someone else for a change.

There were those days when we had our own dinner plans mostly because of clashes in time and convenience.  On such days I frequented the small restaurant chains in the Kazakootam city where they sold every typical non veg eating Keralites’ favorite food. It’s a blind man’s guess Shawarma and the Shawai- they call it. Before I continue the tale, let me give you a brief account on the gravity of this statement.

As far as I know, both of them, Shawai and Shawarma, hail from the great Arab nations. And because of the boundless relationship between Kerala and the Gulf countries they made their grand entrance in to Gods own country and indisputably into every Malayalee hearts. They established their presence not only in the big cities but also in the small towns. Every evening the small chain of restaurants along the road side of Kazakootam city sold them like hot pancakes.

The aroma of slow cooking meat on rotisseries crowned with a lemon’s half, wafting through the air was intoxicating. The shop boy would scrape the meat from the outer layers of the rotating rotisserie. He would then mince and mix the grilled meat with chopped vegetables like cabbage, lettuce and onions. Then he would grab a Kuboos, (Kerala Kuboos is of a softer texture and taste than that of the original Arabic Kuboos or pita bread) pat them with a gentle amount of tahini sauce, fill it with the minced and mixed vegetable and grilled meat or chicken, roll it around and wrap it up…there your delicious Shawarma is ready to go.

The case of Shawai is a similar story in terms of torture for the chicken and delight for the onlookers. Full naked chickens coated with rich aromatic marinade are horizontally poised on rods which keep rotating inside a high temperature grill. This one is the actual temptress.  

I tried to avoid the stalls but somehow my senses and my feet drag me to them. It’s just like Frodo Baggins at the hands of the Ring. I try to fight my temptation down with reasons but their ruckus in my head just gives away to the thud of the knife slicing down the maliciously beautiful shiny and juicy pieces of the Shawai. I pay no heed to the cries of the pimples on my face and totally ignore the reprimands of my belly fat. Beyond that, I forget the sole purpose of my daily 1 hour long walk. As in a trance I order my Shawarma or Shawai. Take them home and have them all to myself in grave silence. I ingest them in guilt, guilt of having to pay double the price of a normal chicken for a half Shawai, guilt of having to make frequent withdrawals form my ATM accounts and the guilt of accumulating all the extra fat. I prayed to God to relieve me from this temptation and deliver me from this evil. I suppose my prayers were so strong that he did not just deliver me alone from the evil but almost all the people of Kerala.

The news broke out like an epidemic. The grills and rotisseries disappeared. The stalls that sold them shut down for indefinite period. Off course the fear of one’s life holds a higher leverage over any temptations. A student died of food poisoning from Shawarma and a celebrity family was hospitalized for the same. Widespread raids and inspections were conducted by the food safety authority and horror stories were brought to light. The sight of unhygienic and unethical practices of the hoteliers curdled the blood in every vein. The news flashes displayed the raids, shut downs and license cuts of even the popular hotels and restaurants, left the hotel food loving Malayalees absolutely numb.

People started cooking food for themselves, they didn’t mind the hassles and puzzles of cooking or eating alone or cleaning up after each meal. In fact, they enjoyed the weekly visits to the market, walking through the aisles of fresh vegetables, hearing each vendor call out to you to buy from them. People never doubted the vendors on the prices they charged, there were no price tags or billing machines to validate, you just had to take the vendors word for that. People even bargained just for the fun of it. It was an exhilarating experience which was a soothing balm, over the hurt feeling of the trauma inflicted by the Shawarma -Shawai tragedy. People even discussed the victorious tales of their bargain purchases during their office chit-chats over coffee breaks with their friends who as well adopted a similar change of life style. People started understanding the values of freshly cooked nutritious food especially the economic and physiological advantage of it over the pathogen culture enriched food they were served at the hotels. In their hearts they thanked God, and heaved a sighs of relief that they weren’t the innocent victims of the deadly Shawarma and Shawai.

On the days ahead of us the air didn’t seems that intoxicated or tempting to me. I, for instance never bought a Shawarma or Shawai from the stalls again. (To be contd…!)

"When you gradually add in nutrient-dense, fiber-rich foods, you simply stop feeling cravings. You run out of space in your belly for the old junk. Instead of craving, you feel full, fulfilled, and content."
Kathy Freston

Frosts and Seasonings

April 8, 2013

 

(Since it’s the first time one encounters these many variations of climate and weather conditions, one is compelled to express the array of emotions and expressions one experiences in the event.)

 

I was just going through the previous page and enjoying the depth of my ignorance when I wrote it. Well on my support it was the start of winter and the show had only just begun. Later on, when the winter caught up on its full swing the snow wasn’t that admirable after all. There were days when I stayed indoors, for days without even a tiny peek outside. Literally; and that was because I hated what I saw outside. There was not a single leaf on the trees just the trunk and the branches. They looked like skeletons, alive but still and indifferent to the coldness of nature plausibly. Some of the days showed up with spotlights of sunrays without much warmth and then there were also those grey days with light showers, all with a common denominator of strong and chill winds.

 

March 20^th was supposed to be the start of spring. But we had to wait for almost another month to finally call it. There was a heavy snow forecast towards the end of March on the Palm Sunday. The Sunday church service was moved to Saturday evening. Almost everything that ran on the road and moved on the sidewalks stayed clear off the usual paths. Mr. Jones even lost one of his strong sturdy branches in the course. It snowed continually for 2 days ,the scenes reminding us of the shot from Narnia. The whites looked just like frostings on a wedding cake, beautiful and un-tampered. It took another couple of days for all the melt offs. It was as if winter reserved its best shows for its last days.

 

Today is a very clear and sunny day, probably the first one since I am here. The sunrays are all over and not just in spotlights. I have left all my windows open as wide as I can to welcome the fresh air and the aroma of nature that’s blossoming around and also to let out all the dampness and cooking odors from the inside. I was wondering of all such things people are gifted with in a life time that goes unnoticed and without appreciation. The pleasures of a warm and pleasant climate will certainly make top on my list of things taken for granted.

 

And no wonder why Mr. Jones looked so gloomy and withered all through these past months. His branches reaching up to my bedroom window gives a wonderful view of his tiny green leaflets growing all over his dried up branches. His tenants are back. A birdie with a nice cozy nest is brooding over her precious ones. I am guessing its a Thrush family. In a couple of days I am hoping to find the nature back in sounds and colors again.

 

The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month. (Henry Van Dyke)

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April 11, 2013

 

Oh! Yesterday was one scary night. We had a thunder storm forecast with a full package. Tornadoes, hail, strong winds you name it.While I was taking my morning break I had this feeling that I should try and pen down the pictures of last night’s t-storm. Thankfully, the horrors of last night didn’t come our way which is probably why I feel more motivated to write this peice. These are times when we feel sure that someone above is watching over us.

There was a warning siren before it all started. It stayed on for a couple of minutes making sure everyone with an eardrum around a particular radius takes notice. Honestly, for the first time in life I felt fear for the rain. I stood by the window watching it for some time just when a vivid flash of lightning followed by its better half struck. I was so spooked that I took a hurdle and landed on the other side of my bed. And that was a complete reflex action; because under normal circumstances I am totally incapable of making any such wild physical movements. Hubby and I found our take-and-run belongings and debated for a while whether or not to go down to the shelter. He was more worried about our most valuable possession parked outside under the bare sky with threats about a hail on the way. We were concerned because a year back around this time there was a surprise hail which smashed away all the cars in the parking lot.

 

Since we couldn’t come to a decision we tried peering through our glass windows to try and make out what our neighbors were doing only to find them doing the same. Finally, we switched on the weather channel to see what the weather guy had to tell. After 10-15 minutes we were relieved to hear that the weather was calming down to just thunder, lightning and storm. It seemed, the tornado stopped at around 8 miles from here and decided to stay and wreck the place down. The hail did the same on the way. Luckily for us either of them didn't feel like paying us a visit.

 

We stayed in our rooms feeling happy and relieved that we had each other’s company to cut through the storm. We stood by the windows watching the storm. Mr. Jones was swaying so wild. That’s when I remembered Mr. Jones’ new tenants. I could make out the nest in the dim lightning and the lady sitting there all wet and swooped inside the space of her tiny nest. I knew the poor thing did not stand a chance in such unkind weather. I hoped and prayed Mr. Jones kept her safe somehow. I stood by the window watching her because that’s all I could do. I couldn’t reach out for her through the window or even go outside to get her if she falls let alone climb up the tree before she does. As the time went by I found that the lady lasted longer than I assumed she would. I knew then that I didn’t have to worry about them at all in the first place.

I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was check on how Mr. Jones and his tenant were doing. Mr. Jones looked weary and tired of the last night’s ordeal but his limbs were all intact. The lady and her nest were safe, drenched and cold; all hunched down but alive and safe.

 

But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. (Genesis 8:9)

Wait for the Snow

It’s raining snow right outside my window; this is kind of an iconic moment in my life. It might snow every day hence forth but today Thursday the 20^th of December, 2012 almost 11.15 is the first snow fall of my life.
 

Back in India, we get our usual, long summer, the most longed monsoons and a small stretch of winter which barely even noticed.  So thats what I love most about the west - the marvelous change of seasons people get to experience here; first it was the Fall, (in the order in which i got to experience it) where it was like walking live through the beautiful wallpapers that one admired only on a desktop. The floras were all these magnificent colors bright yellow, orange, maroon and pink; just awesome. We had occasional showers. Gradually it came to the light winds in the evenings which swept away the leaves off the trees leaving them naked with only the branches. I am not a huge fan of the cold numb climates, with everything looking smoggy and frozen. But I feel the winter this time was a little generous than what I heard was the situation last time. Except for two or three days and nights we had bearable cold climates with what I call bone-freezing-teeth-clattering winds. All through from the start of winter, we were all on a wait for the snowfall, may be because it’s kind of the first time real life deal. Even in fiction and movies it looks so marvelous. Now when I look at the snow swirling and pouring down from the sky I feel it too good to be true.

I stood outside the balcony, like some over excited kid watching shooting stars at night; I let out my hands for the flakes to drop on. It was crazy but still it was exhilarating. The snowflakes were like swarms of bees sometime whirling around sometime falling diagonally as how the winds cast them, but they were like showers of happiness and merriment from heaven. I got tiny flakes of snow caught up tangled in my hair and my arms. But they melted off as soon as they touched the surface.

I knew I hated winter for good reasons; I was so engaged in a fantasy coming true before my eyes that I hardly noticed I was standing outside the balcony without any warm clothes at a 4 degree and snow. We had thunderstorms yesterday. We had the broadcast as well. So it was just the wait for the snow that remained.
 

There are all kinds of things that inspire us. After so many days of spending my days as a home maker, which I am not that good at, I felt a little sprint in my spirit like a jolt or something of that sort. But then I guess it’s not just me, Mr. Jones; the handsome tree standing right outside my window lost all his color and vigor during the last couple of days of the winter. But now when I look at him I can see or rather feel a look of joy running through its drooped dried up leaves that remain on the otherwise leaf less branches. Even when the sun showed up on some of the days inviting little birdies and squirrels chirping and running around his branches and my balcony; Mr. Jones was unaffected. I on the other hand would watch the visitors from inside the closed frames of the French windows not wanting to bother them but feeling happy about their visits and chirps making themselves at home all around my balcony.

Ho! but now it’s like a tempest outside. The snow has slightly subsided and I am back inside leaving my footprints on the snow resting on my balcony. But I can still hear the wind outside howling and giving the delicate flakes a hard time driving them here and there in its strong currents. Mr. Jones is still in the merry mood, jostling his leaves and dripping the droplets of snow that settled and melted on his branches, he looks like an elephant on a swim. Despite of all the turbulence and the ruthless wind the snow continues. Watching this amazing phenomenon gives me a feeling of content and warmth. I might hate the cold and numbness of the winter, but I definitely don’t mind putting aside the grudges if it means I get to watch the tiny flakes of snow pouring down. Mr. Jones wouldn't mind it either.

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? (J. B. Priestley)

Julie, Julia & Me

I was watching a movie last day, Julie & Julia.  In fact, I have watched it many times before, but something about the movie just keeps me wanting to watch it again and again. This film has all the “recipes” in the right propositions to make my taste buds sing hallelujah - a quite drama with nothing out of the blue or quaking but still feels real and moving through the two strong women characters played by Meryl Streep and Amy Adams

The movie is about two women living in two different times and how the one thing they had in common brings them together. How inspite of the difference in era they lived or the difference in the lifestyles they followed, they could relate themselves to so many things through the only one thing they both found love in; cooking.

Apart from the fact that the threesome of us (Julie, Julia & Me) loves cooking, the grades we are likely to get for our dishes would straight away eliminate me from the competition. I could stand a good chance if I am competing against Nicky or Athi (My sole companion at work and my best friend ever). But, cooking isn’t the only thing that makes me play the movie again and again. I love watching Meryl Streep and the role played by Amy Adams in the movie is just me. Even before actually watching the movie for the first time, I had uttered several dialogues in my life which Amy's character does in the movie. Well not until the last day did I notice a few other resemblances with the character. …Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is a blogger too. Well, that’s not it, she too thinks she has ADD. She is also married, living with her husband and working in some consultancy. She too had nothing exciting in life to look forward to until she started her special blog.  

And further more catchy scenes of resemblances that I just couldn't let go was her meeting up with friends and the calls to her mom. Well, all my friends, thanks to the Lord above, have always loved me enough and more than I deserve, but what I could relate with Julie and me regarding meeting up with friends were both of us being the odd ones out in the group, the difference being in Julie's case, she was poor and as for me Orkut was the culprit.  The other likeness was, just like her relationship with her mother, I too had little patience with mine.

When I and my friends used to call up such get together (almost 10 years back) half of the time mummy wouldn’t feel it safe for me step out in the world alone when there are so many chain snatchers and rapists on loose. And at the other times, when my mom gathers up some confidence and let me go, our get together meetings usually get drowned in the talks about Orkut. What could be more thrilling than discussing a friend from KG who knocks on our Orkut doors and drops a “Hi” once in a while?  May be that’s the reason why I almost hate net working sites …well for the record, I do have accounts in a few, it’s just that I rarely pay them a visit. I, being PC- less those days, was a total illiterate in technology and had nothing much to do in these conversations. Well when the majority sticks with something it’s really hard to pull them apart and get their attention into something else, unless you have a very captivating communication skill to compensate. As to mine, I talked a little about this and that; mean while hoping and praying within that things don’t turn the Orkut way and inspite of my better attempts if they still do, I sat there gaping around silently sipping my milkshake and sometimes wondering when will I be genuinely a part of the awesome group and chat away about cool things like Orkut. Myself sitting in the great IT park of Kerala sometimes take time out to laugh at my old self that sat screwed up thinking that I was a loser coz I dint have a clue about the Net. At the same time, I can’t help feeling a little overjoyed about what happened to Orkut after Facebook took over the world. Hey, no offense to the Orkut fans eh.

Well let’s leave the haunting past behind and get into business. The point I was trying to make here is, the resemblances I felt with Julie that makes me watch Julie & Julia again and again. Well before Julie starts blogging she sets a deadline. The task was to blog her way cooking through the recipes of her icon Julia Child. (Julia Child wrote a cook book of French recipes for all the servant less Americans.) She had 524 recipes and 365 days. The reason why she sets the time line was because she never completed anything she starts. Just like me.

Well when I started blogging I thought this would be different, then again, I came to a halt that I completely ignored my figments for almost half a year. I wasn’t in any such earth quaking circumstances that could have absolutely  prevented me from penning down a post, like I wasn’t kidnapped or run over or dead…well most of the times I was busy managing work and home and at the other times I was just lazy.  But the positive point is the world is still surviving without my posts and nobody in particular misses it at any extent. That’s kind of a letdown and a relief at the same time. Why it is a letdown is self explanatory but why it’s a relief is because the other day I was reading a blog on someone who hates Chetan Bhagat, well I liked the blog it had good humor and language but he totally failed in taking care of the Chetan lovers who tortured, slaughtered and murdered him figuratively.

I would rather have no one comment on my blog, than have such a blog traffic just to bad-mouth you. But then as the saying goes; it is only the fruit-laden tree that receives the shower of stones from passersby

Bug

As a child my idea of a bug was some kind of dark, creepy crawly organism in the animal kingdom that shelters in the creeves of seats in cinema theatres or shabby sofa sets at home.  These beings I believe actually pioneered the guerrilla warfare or at least brought the thought to market. Bug bites don’t bring causalities but just alarm bells for the theatres to renovate and the houses to vacuum clean their sofas! By some luck I evaded the bug settlements all through my childhood, thanks to the infant instincts of bouncing around every where not settling down anywhere and watched all the movies I wanted on the TV lying on the floor!

As time went on and academics took its toll, the bugs followed me with more scary and gory details into our science studies. For the generations it’s been etched into fat diagrams and miles long essays among the Pests and infestations heads. Well, one cannot keep oneself from being surprised at knowing how much damage can come from such a silly and funny little thing… one bug, enough for all the chaos when all you need to do is trap it between your fingers and squish the juice out of it. I know that yuck feeling you might all have felt , Well all I can say is people are excused to do all such sorts of stuffs when it comes down to saving their butts !

As the pages of time turned in the book of life, the bugs took more of a metaphorical form. The one you call your sibling at home, or the one who is a rank right above or below you in exams for just a .75 marks or so, the one who keeps humming around you to fall in love and so goes on and on the bug list. The effect eventually was a pain in the a**

I grew out of all of it to meet a life both adventurous and promising. Science and technology had wonders for the new generations. But the bugs never stopped haunting me. It lived through time and caught up with me in a much fascinating and intriguing manner; only this was a pretty interesting avatar than all the ones so far. The tiny devices the FBI and Scotland Yard hide around in the hotel suites and phones of suspects. In simpler words, it’s just an easier and stylish eaves dropping without taking the pain of actually being up there. Well the discovery of the new bug was pretty astonishing and I almost became a fan, watching the movie “My Mom’s New- Boyfriend”. It was kind of funny watching Meg Ryan (Mom) singing the itsy bitsy spider caught up on a web to Antonio Bandaras (suspect) and her son (FBI) “bug”ged their suite.

After taking over half a world with its sci-fi avatar, I thought that was it … now this is the extent to which any one can sink. As per Maslow the next ruddy step everyone assumed the bugs would go for was self actualization. On the contrary the bugs threw away every goddamn speculation about them into gutters and went on .Well it’s been almost a year since my foot stepped into the IT industry… where I was enjoying my bug free life in a full swing. It was then that I started hearing the nightmarish word again! Guess what is back in town!! A new bug and the worst so far!!! Only this was the one I actually had the most unexpected and personal encounter with.

After ages of futile attempts the bugs had the audacity to show up during one of my client demo. Yea, they can give themselves a pat for it coz it was the day they almost got me. Failing to have any sort of a technical background on the IT platform, I was least expecting to meet and recognize one that too during the presentation!!!! I literally sat looking into the face of terror when the client asked me why there were two values for the same head…for the first time in life I knew the answer perfectly and 100 % right but had absolutely no time to evolve a fake theory. The moment stood as the perfect irony of my life. I blurted out some nonsense and raced out of the screen consoling myself that I would treat myself with a “Chocó lava” if I don’t break down out of the shock.

The damage could have been as fatal as public humiliation, confidence level dropping down that well in the movie 300 and even termination or life ban to the so called profession on lower side, and on the upper side, a business loss of a couple of lacks and negative words of mouth worth a couple of crores. Not that I have encountered earth quaking and sky falling experiences in my life before, but this time the bugs had it. It was my pure and timely guts that saved my skin. Had it been in Hogwarts, I alone would have won the House Champion ship for Gryffindor this time. Well as a functional consultant I needn’t be bothered about fixing one. All I have to do is identify and hide before my audience does!!! 

“Frogs have it easy; they can eat what bugs them”….(Unknown Source)

A Monsoon Diary

Its monsoon in my home state! Or, that’s what we call it out of habit. The spirit of monsoon now, is nothing like the fortunate beings of Kerala once enjoyed. Monsoons these days have become simply lousy and unpredictable. Well, considering its predictability elsewhere, Keralites can still call themselves fortunate. I believe every single being, who had spent a few monsoons in this Gods Own Country, has a say or two of their monsoon tales. 

 

Driving back home after an unusual head cracking day of work and worries, with chores awaiting me back at home, a drop of rain falls splat on my wind shield, its stayed staring at me for a second and then slowly slid down and disappeared among the other splatters that followed. Soon, so many of them joined the slide making it hard for me to guess where they got lost in the down pour. Lost in the tracks of the drizzling rain drops, falling hard on my windshield, I remembered how, once on a rainy day, my precious collection of pearls “conserved” in an empty face cream tin broke open in a fight with my cousin, scattering the pearls all around. My poor cousin ended up having a gorgeous imprint of all my incisors and canines on her skin, with a complementary injection for TT. I assure you I have absolutely no memory of any royal treatments I received on that. The cars outside were lined up in the inevitable traffic jams of late evenings in the techno park city. Their honking and swishing, past the potholes splashing muddy waters at the wayfarers broke my reverie and along with that the bubble of guilt that shows up every time I think about the pearl war. I was just six then, an age when reason and emotion were not such good friends.

Caught up in the evening traffic of office –leavers in the city of Kazhakootam, I was distracted by a crowd of school kids making their way through the rain, holding umbrellas but still drenched in the rain. It is June, the time when our schools reopen. It always used to be the 2^nd of June till high-school and the 2^nd of May since high school. My memories flashed back to the days when, in threes and fours we would cram under one umbrella. In one tight hug we would walk through the momentary streams on the roads that came in as bonus with the rain.

Reaching home from work, amongst the plans and preparations for the rest of the day and the days after, I watched the heavy down pour outside, flooding the craters and potholes on our pathetic, traffic- ridden NH and the by-routes in Kazhakootam. Here people turn hydrophobic during monsoon and prefer not to wet their feet in the rain streams (but in vain). For this, we owe special thanks to the “expertise” of the natives and the authorities in maintaining the garbage and sewage disposals.

Back at home, in my village, when it rains, the cool breeze and captivating aroma of wet mud would mark the start of endless days of shower. The coconut pits get filled with muddy rain water. As kids, we would do the ring-a- ring-a roses around the pits of coconut saplings and in the final lapse of it, plunge in to the pool. Unlike the identically aligned, clear-cut plots of houses we see in the city, where nobody bothers anybody else and everyone minds their own businesses, my homes in the village stood on enormous plots, with large front and back yards, with cultivations of all types of crops and trees. We had lots of space for our monsoon adventures. We used to make paper boats, load it with flowers and gravels and sail it across the rain streams. After the rain, shaking the goose berry and the drumstick trees with its fern like leaves for gentle showers of drain drops and watching the most beautiful phenomenon of nature, in the forms of rain bows were the fascinations of my childhood monsoons. We roamed in the rain free of illnesses of any sorts and absolutely no restriction from our parents. As a teenager, I best enjoyed my monsoons, lazy and cozy indoors reading fiction. In the evenings, I kept myself engaged with something hot to peck at, a cup of coffee/ tea and a melody in the back ground. At nights, if the rain had not wrecked the power supply, a charming romantic or a blood curdling horror movie to watch. Exam eves and nights or a “restricted weekend”, (weekends we were not allowed to go home) at hostels, when it used to rain I and my roomies used to sit cuddled inside our blankets sharing sweet and sour gossips about everything above the graves and under the stars, share the nostalgic memories at home, especially the cuisines each of our moms were experts in, and how we all used to have so much fun with our folks even with the shouting matches and raging wars at home with our sibs. Awesome days of life!

It is sad that we don’t get to see or enjoy many of the things that brought mirth and merry to our souls once. The office wall never lets in even a whisper of the rain outside. It is always the refrigerated cubicle climate we have inside. It is strange, just to sit there and watch the rain with no adventures or the enchanting smell of mud. What we get to see around is that the umbrella companies are doing good business. After all, it’s not just the old archetypal black umbrellas alone in the run for the “rain shields”. They umbrella fantasies have out grown the tradition and purpose and have become more of a part of the accessory list. They now come out in different colors and patterns along with convenient sizes, two and three folds and even capsule sizes. The old, grand dad stuff is in trend too, these days. For those who can’t carry an umbrella around can wrap themselves up from head to toe in rain suits of, again, any color and convenient sizes. I guess all these are part of being in a matured, more serious professional world. Or may be its just my perceptions of having entered an entirely different stage of life and I hope that the children still do enjoy the rains. The regret is when being in this world make us miss another one out there so badly. Even though the nature of seasons towards us and ours towards the seasons have derailed a lot, I wish we catch up with all that is left and find some time for the seasons, especially the rains, so that we have ample share of these sweet and pleasing experiences for the generations to come. 

 

Do not, on a rainy day, ask your child what he feels like doing, because I assure you that what he feels like doing, you won't feel like watching. - Fran Lebowitz