Cooking is a lot like love!

Dinner time and kids cry out, “No more the same ‘boring’ food.”
So out comes the Master Chef cap to try out new recipes. Part taste buds, part TV channel ‘Food Food’ and part healthy innovation gives rise to Chole Burger and Lip-smacking Cheese Macaroni.

Cooking is a lot like love. Deciding what to make, choosing ingredients is like falling in love. Regular pakoda or healthier chole burger vis-à-vis dinner date or movie night.
Well, for the chole burger, it’s very simple. Soak some (chickpea) chole over-night. Take these chole, one small onion, salt and chilli powder and grind in a mixie. Then shape the batter as medium sized patties, dip in cornflour paste and deep fry.

Now this is the exciting, ‘being in love’ part as the anticipation is just brimming. The mouth watering wait like the dreamy smile evoked by the lovely memories and the skip of the heart as the clock ticks towards the next date.

As the cutlets cool off on a tissue, I call to my daughter to assemble the burger. My daughter is only eager to do her bit in the kitchen J. Add the cheese slice for extra love and you can choose healthy green chutney for the tomato ketchup. Much like the dark brown eye liner instead of the killer pitch black one. Don’t forget the dash of lip gloss for a simmering date!

Daughter settles happily with a burger she assembled. I cut the tomatoes smaller as they are easier to bite.
Then comes the third part of the love relationship. The cleaning up, phew! This is where the beauty fades off and stains are hard to remove. Habits are seen clearer than the mole of the soft silky cheek. The complaints simmering like the hot oil in the pan and batter sticking everywhere like the incomplete words after a bad fight! Well, a cleaning up it does take and a good scrubbing too!
So you clean the kitchen, family helps with the table. Healthy meal for the kids, sweaty brows and a tiring smile.
A love affair like nothing else!

Another mouth-watering love affair!


With cheese, broccoli, pasta, olive oil, red peppers, salt, pepper, atta (for good health), butter, milk and lot of cheese again. A simple white sauce with atta frying on warm butter dissolving into milk and cheese. Sauté broccoli and the peppers add the boiled macaroni and veggies before you let more cheese melt in.
The plain macroni with cheese with for my cheese loving son!   
 

A letter to myself, 10 years hence

Dear Anu,

How are you? I mean really how are you doing, holding up with life’s many surprises and uncertainties.  Are you still making plans and researching about them? Trekking? Dressing up? Dancing ? Playing Scrabble?  I really pray you are! Are you popping tablets now and checking your blood pressure? I’m dealing with the first signs of low pressure and haven’t checked my cholesterol but I’m well and kicking and kicking like a horse! Pray you are regular on your pap smear test.

Have you made your will? Remember you wanted our daughter to inherit. 

I never planned too far in life but let me remind you, it’s been a good ride. I think I’ve come a long way from where I was ten years back. Hard to visualize how you are placed but can’t imagine the years leading upto it; be any less of a roller coaster ride!!!

Have you got your big stone house , a garden, natural cooling, arty exhibition, 2-month holiday in Himachal, hiking Machu Picchu, solar cooker, curly hair and a big dog (not exactly in that order).  Remember the under –water experience? The camping , cycling thrill,  Do get more in your kitty. Sure the world has geared up to your age.

I got those Godfather earrings made last year and the fringe this year. I think I look like Priyanka Chopra. I stop a minute to guess what your wardrobe may be looking like now. Have you abandoned colours and the boho-chik look with age? Guess you think of matching it with your greys, no escaping them now!

How is the anti-plastic war going? Aren’t you glad you started composting early? Give anything for my children to take it up with passion and devotion. Our arty-craft collection is still packed in bags saving it from our son; lest he destroys them systematically. First unscrew the accessories then bang the object on to the TV or the washing machine and then mandatorily execute the head. 

Are Ranbir and Katrina still together? With children I suppose. Right now they are boring us with their widely known secret of being together. Kangana is ruling with scripts as good as her acting. Shah Rukh still running on the box office and Salman’s out! But our darling Aamir Khan, just rules.  

Saina Naiwal is world champion and the e-commerce is taking the entrepreneurial world by storm.

Maggi is hit with high lead content. Wonder when the top soft drinks get some serious checking. 

Globalization coming home with internet and a much alert, aware populace and the advent of smart cities. What’s the new thing in money, do credit cards still exist? Don’t forget to note your card number safely in your diary, I mean the ‘write- with- pen- on- paper- dairy’.  

Now, we come to the heart beat of our lives. Children  (yes smile but right now, they are driving me crazy)

Does our daughter ask all those questions still? At 6 and a half, she is already the responsible older sister and very creative. Our son is the hyper one but knows how to get away with mischief with his puppy eyes and warm hugs. Have the years affected them? Do they back-answer and slam the door? I have  the “Mummy will do what she wants”, policy right now. Can you still get away with that? Would like to know how long that worked!

Pray they are laughing as much as they do now. Pray the hugs continue. Do you understand all their jokes? Their music and their need to disagree? Patience , they’ll grow out of it. Right now I’m force feeding them, Kumar Gandharv, Kishori Amonkar, ABBA, R.E.M, Bryan Adams and John Denver 

They sing “Jungle, jungle baat chali hai” with joy. And no I don’t force ambition on them.

Have you had ‘the talk’ with your daughter and your son (for that matter)? Daughter listens, just be calm but firm. Son the naughty type but I make him thank God for his sister in his prayers. Is he chivalrous? As of today, I don’t know if he should open the door for a woman or just be. But one thing I’ll always tell them, no ideology for family. ‘Drop your work/party and pick family’s bag, broken door, flat tyre, strained ankle or belated birthday’.  Would give my right arm to hear you say, I did a good job! 

Age it seems makes you bitter. Are you meditating out of it (cause that was the plan). Is hubby tired of travelling or is he still booking away? But yes, the plan was to travel and dance, so dance away! No second thoughts at fifty!!!

Is it lonely at home sometimes or the walks and the talks take away all the time? Do you sleep, crib, knit and scrabble more now? Just don’t get bitter. And if you have to get a walking stick, just get the most fancy and stylish one.

Yours always,

Anu

Dhoom Machale….!

A reluctant home coming to the city I grew up in. Few odd jobs; lots of interior designing and we were set! New school, new schedule, new people. Yes, a new set of people I knew I would love to know and interact with.
So the boy gang (husband and friends) hung out quite a lot and the women  ….well, we kept doing our stuff at my own homes. Finally, a day dawned and I formed a neat little WhatsApp group to interact with the women batch of the gang.

And we set sailing; well, a few of us really got surfing. And soon we met for a Scrabble game and potluck. Simple food, great spirits and a stunning wardrobe. The girl gang was making it’s presence felt.
Now it is a Dhoom machale group! No more ‘let’s see’ and ‘bai ka time hai’ excuses. We are simply eager to meet. And it’s always a spirited, enthu and a fashionable meet. Palazzos, skirts, LBDs, high heels, tattoos and high spirits.

In this mad world of competition, jealousy, one-upmanship, ego and straining relationships; you sometimes come across fellow humans, who share the same zeal for life. Given the zeal is shared by a group of women; spices the gathering further. Where else would  you play Scrabble, share recipes, home-made wine, spend precious brain cells deciding on what  dress each one has, watch educative movies, get tattoos, join Zumba classes, help children bond and dance crazy at an all-girls party!


Together we gel like salt and water but each unique like a surprise cheese bite in a tikki!

One teacher and cook, one professor, one boutique manager, one writer and one enjoying the new joys of motherhood. So what does get us together? Dance, Food, Movies, Games  nah!!! Plain women bonding to come together. I read just this morning that there are workshops to help people refocus, reconnect and hold your breath… ‘to find happiness’! Our ancestors would turn in their graves, roll in them actually; laugh out loud before they nod their heads in dismay. Happiness seems very simple when you make the time, hold a smile for a fellow human being, mean what you say and laugh silly!!!

Here’s a silent prayer saying, “Touch Wood” to our friendships and just an observation; “Who says women don’t get along?”

Dhoom machale!

Trekking, nature and much more!

Early morning waking in a bus, among a group of nature enthusiasts. Fun, singing and a short break later; I took my first step into the jungles of Brahmagiri. “It starts here,” I told myself; a promise that this is one among the many trips into nature.

And it was an important first one. The best of the trekking group, middle of the jungle with special permission, waterfall, scenery, campfire, zip lining, tents and photography.

Thinking back, life couldn't be better and life couldn't be more hopeful. I managed squeezing in my love for trekking and jungle between my kids, writing, job, husband and the haunting purpose of life. Yes, I squeezed in three days of serene jungle, pure air and water and camaraderie at the campfire. But I squeezed out a lot.  Fulfilling one wish, which was tucked away in some corner of my heart; I opened up a world of possibilities.  Yes, it was possible to break away and get three days for myself.

“But you have two children!”, was the steady query from anyone with whom I shared my jungle diaries not to mention my zooooooooooooin zip lining adventure. And I simply smiled, “Yes, I do. Two adorable children and my husband takes care of them when I go trekking.”

So what does this jungle experience give you? A lot of jungle (if you go during the right time of the year), lots of greenery, cool shadows, shrubs -twines-trees, colourful flowers, berries you've never seen before, different insects, pristine waters, beautiful good earth and different shades of the sun. If lucky, you’ll get a spider wrapping a fly in its web, snake skin left behind, some foot prints, which only the guide can recognize. But it leaves you with much more. The amazing jungle photographs, may be the materialistic souvenirs in your hands but the entire outdoor experience calms you as you experience nature is its best raw form. Moreover, life just seems simpler. Living in the wilderness, without the paraphernalia that we otherwise think we can’t live without. And not the cottage/tent kind of a luxurious outdoor holiday but a real basic one-with- mother nature kind.

As we left the next day, singing and laughing all our way back, we took turns to say our bit to the gang. Well, what could I say, “It was great? “I’ll come back for more?” Or that “nothing is better that being so close to nature”? All this and to that I added, “I want my children to trek, to see nature as it is and care about it in the future.” What a thought, Touch Wood!

About me:

“I want ear rings,” cries my little one (now 4 years old) for the nth time as I ignore her demand and lead her from my bedroom.  She wants my small collection of beautiful earrings to play with – adorn herself and her dolls J

At that precise moment, I wonder, how will my children describe me – to themselves or to their friends?  Creative? Short tempered? Great cook? Writer? Painter?

How will they (daughter and son) put it in words. “My mother came from a small town, (Belgaum actually not small!) but she was determined to work in the big city. Nothing really put her down for long but she had her phases of melancholy. I liked her best when she was relaxed and laughed her head off at the silliest jokes.   Once she asked the bai if there was electricity in the other houses, the bai answered; “It was there at my house,” my mom still can’t stop laughing at that joke.

She had a way to dislike the bai, the watchman and the newspaper boy; who landed up at the wrong time but always had a soft spot for the needy especially children. 

What I loved best and still want to own / borrow is her collection of earrings. Fake, real, small, huge, artistic and rare. Not to forget the many glass and brass bangles.  She had the choicest handicrafts, eco-friendly stuff and paper artifacts. All kept away to be displayed when we would grow a bit older and wiser (!?) so as to not break any.

My mom made cooking seem as easy as eating and she ate non-veg with relish. She had a knack to woo anyone, who came her way and kept in touch with her dear ones like a satellite – far yet just within reach!

Today, I see her losing her temper but every weekend, there comes some friend with a little one and makes my day! She can rant away names of great movies to be watched and plays classical music every morning. ‘You must develop an ear for good things…’

Good things? She found great things and weird ideas. Composting is one – she found great joy in composting kitchen waste and showcased her manure with great pride. Another was hoarding all our things small and big – my birthday cake doll (now only the head remains),  baby clothes,  our (me and my brother) first sketches & broken toys. Tissues to be used later and tit-bits from the waste to make something creative.

But can’t miss all those adorable pictures that she took pains to click and all the funny nursery rhythms singing – dancing session …. “Ek tha Sakaram, Ek tha Tukaram….” (in Kokani actually).  

Will they really remember me like this or criticize me to be over-protective, demanding and a disciplinarian? Is this good enough to be a good mother ……..  

61 movies to be watch before you die

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1PKoyJufOeWeG9nblVRUnlHSFE/edit

I worry

I put my favourite pair of jeans for our usual drive around town on a Sunday. Just then I hear , “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” silence; “Waaaaaaaaaa”! I turn around my son is busy figuring out if he wants to play with his toy car or bang it into the wall!
I should go out, I tell myself and go into the hall. My daughter is half on the sofa and half on the floor crying and I don’t know why. I really can’t say if she herself knows the reason, why!

Just then my husband come in and looks at her. Both of us grumble, grumble about the crying then find out- she just wants to change her outfit – the fourth time.
“When will she grow up?”  I ask my husband,  and I picture her all grown up in High School and I am free to do my oil painting, go to all the art exhibitions, hold eco-friendly exhibitions and read all I can. When we are finally in the car and my daughter is playing with my son. My son grinning at her, I think back. Do I really want them to grow and take on the world? Do I want them to fight and complete – for admissions, paint a masterpiece then act polite (PR) to sell it – to make a living?
Competition?  Highs.  Rejections?  Heartbreak.  Independence?  Loneliness.
Or will I like to keep them cocooned? Away from the world. Call ‘safe’ friends (same sex?) at home to play? Keep a fixed deposit so they don’t’ have to work under pressure? So they can paint for art’s sake; write for themselves. Not be pressurized by reviews, critics or empty halls.

Am I really impractical?

Keep them away from relationships – find them the perfect match myself. Save them the heartbreak and keep them from the mysterious of human mind, heart and behaviour? Keep them also from the goosebumps of the first romance; tears after an applause and the anxiety before trying something new?

So do I really want them off my hands? Well, no. Face the world; see friends / neighbours on their worst days? No. But I still want them to go out and experience the world. Explore life’s secrets and mysteries and grow stronger and wiser.
Will I tell my children to excel? No. Instead will tell them – ‘Get a job to pay the bills while I am right behind you but enjoy art for art’s sake and let no comment deter you or elate you off your roots’.

I will teach them to be sensitive to others at the same time strong to withstand a storm. Will I tell them, “Make me Proud?” No. I will them “I am proud of you.”