memories Archives - Page 3 of 4

06/08/201515/04/2017

Happy birthday to The Book Club

It’s
been some time since I posted news from The Book Club. This week it needs to be written about since we turned ONE! Isn’t that wonderful? I had forgotten about it till facebook memories sent me a reminder. I do love the idea of revisiting memories.

This last weekend the meeting was pretty special what with birthday celebrations as well as Friendship Day on Sunday.

After much sifting through stories on friendship from Harry Potter to Kabuliwala to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn I settled on a relatively obscure one about a young Irani girl who finds friendship in London even while retaining her uniqueness. With pre-teens staring us in the face that’s an important aspect of friendship – this idea of loving and retaining your difference even while being best friends.

The Friendship drawing

The funnest part was the ‘friendship drawing activity’. (I modified the idea from a book of the ‘My Weird School’ series. Review coming up soon on my other blog, do watch out). Each of the kids were asked to think up something they’d like to draw – it could be anything. They came up with a flower, a bird, a train, a boat, a scene from the Irani girls life, a robot, a scenery etc.

I then paired them up making sure the bete noires were put together. You should have heard the protests!! ‘Aunty I can go with ANYONE but her!’ (Oh they can be rude and blunt) ‘Aunty may we PLEASE exchange our partners’. But I stuck to the plan telling them none of them was so intolerable/intolerant that they couldn’t be with each other for 15-20 minutes. And then I asked them to put together their two ideas and make up one drawing. It was amazing how quickly they settled down and got to work with absolute concentration. Even H and N who are always at loggerheads and who I’d paired together worked like a team.

We ended up with a bird-shaped boat, a robotic flower, a girl playing with a toy train while hiding under the bed during a bombing (That was from the story of the day) and bombs destroying a pretty scenery.

These kids are seriously brilliant.

If you work with kids anywhere this is an exercise I completely recommend. Not just does it teach children to work with people they don’t much like, it also prompts them to align their thoughts and ideas with completely divergent ones and work towards a common goal,towards a common win. Those are skills they’ll need to hone in life.

I was pretty pleased with myself. The problem is I made it out to be a contest and now I have to pick the best drawing and I’m stumped.

27/02/201509/09/2017

Grandmas are special

A few days back I was telling the twins about my grandmoms. That brought on a wave of nostalgia. We had two of them, amma my dad’s mother and chachi his aunt, who was just chachi to the whole world. They were inseparable yet squabbled all the time. My dad teasingly christened them Gulabo-Sitabo.

We had the best of both worlds – a strict mom who disciplined us all the time and the two doting grandmoms who more than balanced her out. Though it’s over a decade since they left us, somedays seemingly inconsequential occurrences bring their memories flooding back.

When I’m pushing the kids to have their milk I think of amma who was hopelessly fond of it. Whether she was ill or tired or not hungry at all – offer her a bowl of milk and she wouldn’t say no. It stood her in good stead when well into her 80s, she had a fall and even the doctor couldn’t believe that she had come away without broken bones.

She was a snorer – a loud and consistent one. She would be snoring loud and clear, yet if one of us asked ‘Amma are you asleep?’ she’d wake up with a start, “Of course not,” she would say indignantly. That turned into such a family joke.

She spoke chaste Awadhi (that’s a Hindi dialect), one of the sweetest tongues to me. And whatever she said was peppered with the richest collection of age old proverbs and sayings. She had the perfect one for every situation.

While amma was the religious one doing puja twice a day, Chachi was a young girl trapped in an old woman’s body. The high point of her routine was TV time. She had a fixed corner which she’d take right from the time transmission started. Those were the pre cable days yet she’d watch everything the television dished out – from programmes on agriculture and industry to the single weekly Bollywood film. She loved Bollywood.

She was the one who mended our clothes when the seams came off. She was the one who trawled markets looking for the perfect colour of yarn then figure out the ‘latest designs’ and knit sweaters for us even while pretending to complain about ‘these new fashions’. She would much rather chat up our friends than women her own age.

She’d haggle shamelessly with the man who came around to buy off old newspapers. Whatever she made by fleecing off the poor man came to us. Back when pocketmoney was unheard of, those few rupees were quite a treasure. She had the best stories to tell. A bit of mythology and a bit of legend with enough twists and turns and drama to satisfy the most demanding listener.

And she loved my sister – beyond the rest of us. Of course she’d never ever admit it even while blatantly favouring her. My sister was a complete potatorian, she loved potatoes to the exclusion of most other vegetables. Chachi would avoid mom’s eagle eye and dish up her favourite for her while the rest of us ploughed through the greens. If mum asked my sister to cook something, there was Chachi quietly and efficiently doing it for her and handing her the tray to go out and take the credit.

Of course it was completely another matter that our mum was a regular Hercule Poirot. She just knew everything. A royal battle would ensue but it didn’t stop her from doing it again.

How I miss them. With due apologies to my kids’ grandmoms, they just don’t make them like the old ones these days.

Come now, it’s your turn. What’s your favourite grandmom story?

Linking to ABC Wednesday for the letter G. Do drop by to see other G posts.

17/02/201415/04/2017

Among the clouds

Today we, at Marathon Bloggers, kick off a week of picture prompts

‘a story for every picture, a picture for every story’

Today’s prompt – ‘Fly’

Going literally with ‘flying’, here’s my entry.

That’s as close as I’ve ever come to flying. We were on a family vacation to Dapoli – 13 of us. We’d hired this huge bus so we could all travel together. I remember thinking what an unlucky number we were. However it turned out to be a fantastic holiday and remains a benchmark for all of us. Each time we plan a holiday it’s like, “As good as Dapoli” or “Dalpoli was more fun”.

I’m not sure what made me let myself get strapped to that contraption. I’m absolutely not an adventurous soul — the typically safe and conservative Capricorn. That day I agreed, I still wonder why. The trip into the clouds lasted barely minutes and everyone else came down complaining how ‘tame’ it was. My 7-year old nephew was gravely upset because he wasn’t allowed to go. Anyhow, I rose in my estimation that day and thought no end of myself for having dared to do it.

So there.. that’s the story for that picture. Aren’t those rippled clouds beautiful?

What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?

31/01/201415/04/2017

My earliest memory

I have been tagged by the wonderful Vidya with a ‘My earliest memory’ tag. Thank you Vidya for this trip down memory lane.

This promises to be a bit of a disjointed post quite like my earliest memories. There is no single stream of thought. Memories come as images, flashes, feelings and incidents. And so I’ll go with a list. Come along folks..

…here are my top five.

1. That old man..

My earliest memory is of singing “This old man” at the top of my voice in pre-school. I went to one of the nicest ones ever… The teachers were called aunties, the principal sang with us and we had red school bags, just a tiffin large, which we hung from our necks. As a bonus it had a mini zoo with rabbits and guinea pigs. It was a dream. By the way I’m still trying to figure out what that song means.

2. Bedtimes with my baby sister

They key word here is ‘baby’.
My dear sister was the sweetest baby ever. It was only later, when she refused to settle down to her ‘little sister’ status, that the fights really started. We would cuddle up on this huge bed and I’d feel all grown up and older sisterly!!

3. My silver screen debut…

..was such a flop.
My dad would set up his projector and we’d sit together to watch old photographs. A very very ‘Hum Saath Saath Hain‘ kind of thing. There was this one picture of me with a running nose and a dirty grimy face that I positively HATED. Each time it came on I’d walk out howling. Of course my sadistic family had a blast and my father would never ever skip that one. That baby picture, by the way, is a euphemistic one.

4. The smell of crysanthemums..

…at the flower show.
We were regulars there every winter. We’d bundle up in our woollens and spend long relaxed Sunday afternoons on the NBRI (National Botanical Research Institute) lawns. There were gladioli and roses and other flowers too.
However it’s the chrysanthemums that stay in my memory most prominently.
That luxurious green grass under my feet, that intoxicating smell of flowers and the music of the shehnai still remain with me.. yeah they played the shehnai .. no ‘gandi baats‘ back then.

5. Parades and processions

Nope.. we never stumbled upon a Saif or a Sonali
but the baraats were fun, nevertheless

My early years were spent in old Lucknow. Celebrations in the crowded old city are a whole different thing – the music is louder, the clothes more colourful, the dancing more carefree and the bonhomie ever so contagious. I remember rushing to the door at the sound of music. First, there was the Bharat Milap, a huge procession to celebrate the coming together of Ram and Bharat. For some reason it would happen at an ungodly hour in the night. I remember being woken up by my grandmother and would sit there sleep flying out of my eyes at the sight of boys and girls dressed up as characters from the Ramayana. Colourfully painted Ram and Sita on a rath, Lakshman and Bharat followed by Hanuman swinging his gada with his troupe of monkeys and a bunch of bears thrown for good measure. Super fun!! The marriage season would see the baraats streaming by with the band singing the quintessentially off key ‘aaj mere yaar ki shaadi hai’, the women in all their finery, the groom on the horse, kids dancing like they were possessed and yes the shower of coins, which we were absolutely forbidden to pick up. What a waste, I always thought.

During moharrum there were the sombre tazias. Those men lashing themselves was a sight I cannot forget.

So yeah that’s my top five.

… and now I tag fellow blogger and dear friend.. the super organised Shilpa. Come on Shilpa, spill the beans from your past.

20/12/201303/02/2019

Welcoming Winter

Winter it is.. finally. However here in this quiet Western part of India, it hardly comes to stay. Even so, I find myself disliking it more and more. I never was a winter person and have gotten worse over the years. Age is catching up, perhaps.

I go around shutting doors and windows, yet it makes sure to find that one window I forget to shut and comes rushing right in. I find myself shouting at the kids to wear chappals and jackets. I find myself secretly wishing they wouldn’t go down to play. I am reluctant to go down for my evening walk. I have to admit though, that when I do go, I quite like the little nip in the air which is all we can boast of here.

The kids don’t seem to mind the cold at all, don’t seem to even notice it. ‘Was I ever like this?’ I wonder. Like I said I never was a winter person but there are some things about it that I truly loved. Here are a few..

The bonfires

There’s nothing like a North Indian winter to teach you the fantastic camaraderie between a bonfire, roasted peanuts and hot chilie garlic chutney. That sounds just so Chinese – Let me put it this way – Lehsun aur mirch ki chutney. That’s more like it! What a cosy threesome that is! We’d sit around shelling peanuts, eating and chatting for ages by the light of the bonfire. How we loved watching the fire flare up when we threw in a bunch of peanut shells, to be half heartedly reprimanded by our mum or dad.

Makkhan malai

Then there was Lucknow’s own answer to the videshi souffle – the fluffy, frothy, light as air makkhan malai that would melt in your mouth. It was such a Sunday ritual for us. We’d wait for the bhaiyya to come around on lazy mornings. He’d weigh it out and hand it to us in earthenware plates. We’d compare for ages who’d got more, not believing for a moment that 100 gms had to be the same on each plate. One of my more enterprising cousins would shamelessly ask the bhaiyya for an additional dollop and, to the chagrin of the rest of us, he was never disappointed.

The sunshine

And of course there’s the sunshine. Winter in Lucknow came with the warmest sunshine ever. We’d lay out a rug on the grass in our garden and settle down with a book for long hours of lazy reading. The asparagus creeper would be in full bloom and it gave out a sweet sickly scent that seemed to be a huge hit with the flies. They came in hordes and hung around the creeper all through the time it bloomed. Their buzzing had an oddly soporific effect. That and the warm sun would make sure the book fell aside within the hour and we were lulled into the most delicious sleep ever.

And there were other pleasures..

Snuggling into huge heavy cotton quilts with a hot water bottle when temperatures fell.

The thrill of waking up in the morning and wondering whether it was still night. How grown up I felt!

The delicious smell of fog.. quite like that of the first rain showers.

Coming from school and mum handing over freshly ironed still warm clothes to wear. Bliss!

Blowing ‘smoke’ from imaginary cigarettes. We would try for hours to form rings like we’d seen the villain doing in the 70s flicks. The rings never came but the ‘smoke’ was fun enough.

I do miss all of that. Maybe winter wouldn’t be such a bad idea if I stopped trying to shut it out. I’ll go now fish out my woollens, dress up to the T, and go to meet winter in all it’s glory.