nostalgia Archives - Page 3 of 6

13/08/201813/08/2018

Man maketh the clothes #MondayMusings

A few weeks back I attended the investiture ceremony at my niece’s school. There she was, right in the front, in her spotless white salwar-kurta, her hair in a neat little bun, a smart cap on her head. My heart filled with incredible pride as I watched her march by and accept the head girl sash.

Her salwar-kurta reminded me of my school days. Till we were in class ten we had uniforms – a sky blue blouse with the school initials in a beautiful cursive on the pocket, neatly tucked into a matching sky blue skirt. I still think of it with happy nostalgia perhaps because school was my absolute happy place. Also, that sky blue was so very different from the white, grey and navy of all other schools. We were ‘different’ and that somehow translated as ‘better’ in our young minds. We were a cut above the rest and that uniform was an inherent part of the feeling.

In class eleven, the school did away with uniforms since we were now technically in Junior College and we were free to wear whatever we wanted. That was our first taste of freedom – freedom to wear our own personalities, our first tentative steps in the world of ‘fashionable’ wear.

And yet, so in love we were with that uniform, that a bunch of us continued to wear it at least few days every week. It seems strange now. Why would one choose a uniform, that of a junior class, when one could pick simply anything from the wardrobe? But we did just that.

By the time my sister got to junior college the no-uniform rule was gone and the girls were given a cream and blue salwar-kurta ensemble. How everyone resented that! First there was the whole idea of a uniform and then this – no smart skirts, but this shabby shapeless thing.

Even my classmates and I, who were by now in Colleges and Universities across the country, hated the thought of girls from our alma-mater wearing that ‘behenji’ dress. It somehow diluted our cool-quotient, or so we believed.

How very wrong we were, thought I with the wisdom that comes with age. I looked on as my niece accepted the flag from last year’s office bearers and delivered the Thank You speech. She did so with amazing flair. The way she marched, the way she spoke, the way she carried herself, I barely noticed her clothes, nobody did. All we saw was an accomplished young girl, solemn and earnest, eager to shine in the new role she was being entrusted with.

She completely rocked that salwar-kurta!

In that moment I realised how stupid we were and I was so so proud of the level-headedness of this new generation that wears the LBD with just as much panache as the salwar-suit.

Clothes are after all, just an enhancement of our inner selves, nothing more. Mark Twain was way off the mark when he said Clothes maketh the man; definitely not true for young women, not any more.

Linking up with #MondayMusings at Everydaygyan

07/07/201808/07/2018

Three is one too many

They must have been about two and a half and it was H and N’s very first fancy dress show at school. They were then in the Jungle Book phase (we watched that film twice a day for almost one whole year) so N was Mowgli and H was Sher Khan. We practiced for days. N singing the song by Gulzar from the television series and H practicing Sher Khan’s roar. N, ever the talker, knew the song to a tee and H could really growl – about the only thing he had mastered when it came to talking. They were good. Of course I might be biased being related to them and all.

Anyway, the day dawned and soon enough there they were up on stage. And they just froze! Both of them. They came off stage and sobbed their little hearts out. N kept saying, ‘I couldn’t do anything,’ as if she couldn’t believe it. And her disappointment in herself was so heart-breaking I could have cried too. H, wasn’t really perturbed, but he cried in sympathy, I suppose.

I don’t remember much of the programme after that. They refused to let me go, refused to be comforted, refused to walk even, crying to be carried. And carry them I did. I remember standing by the side of the road, a huge bag with the fancy dress paraphernalia across my shoulders, one child in each arm, trying to hail an auto.

Of course it was one small fancy dress show and it didn’t really matter but for the twins their perfect world had just collapsed around them. As I looked from one sad face to the other bawling one I was just glad I could hold and hug both of them.

For me, three would definitely have been a crowd.

Three babies crying, three toddlers crawling about, three kindergarteners running around, three children asking for help with homework and then THREE TEEN MOODSWINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR. Lord my God!

If one and one are eleven, three and three would certainly be thirty-three. So thank you very much but I’m happy with my twins.

And if you’re a parent to triplets (or more), I totally bow to thee.

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Picture credit: Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

I’m taking part in the Bar-A-Thon – the fortnight long Blogging Challenge. It’s Day 3 and I’m keeping it really short for the prompt ‘Three’s a crowd’. Pretty predictable I think.

08/02/2018

The tree with a swing #ThursdayTreeLove

This is N’s favourite tree. The reason is pretty obvious, isn’t it? That tyre swing. She loves it and each time we go on a morning walk it is a given that I’ll let her have a go at it for as long as she wants. Do scroll down for a better picture of the tree. I love how its branches spread out in an all-encompassing manner.

It was I who first spotted it and exclaimed happily because we hardly get to see swings like these now. She couldn’t figure out how one would ‘get inside’. But once I explained, she completely adored it.

How I would have loved to have a go at it too. However I had this terrible mental image of getting stuck in that tyre with my newly acquired girth and having to roam around forever with it around my waist and the idea disappeared almost as soon as it had come. I decided it was safer to simply stand by and watch.

This swing reminds me of one of my favourite books The Boy in Striped Pajamas. Remember how a bored Bruno builds himself a swing out of a tyre? Have you read it? It’s a heartbreaking story.

When we were children our uncle, who was an engineer in the Irrigation Department, used to be posted in small towns and cities. The upside was that the Government bungalows he was allotted, came with a huge space around them. The one I remember best of all had this large Jackfruit orchard that was crowded with tall dense trees bent low with an abundance of fruit. A huge swing would be put up on one of those trees. It wasn’t anything glamorous – just a large very sturdy plank of wood held up with sturdier ropes. Four to six of us would climb up – the younger ones would sit down clinging to the ropes while the older adventurous ones would stand behind them and we’d swing really really high. The target would be to touch the leaves of the tree up above. Uff The thrill of it! The smaller steel versions at school didn’t even come close.

Recently when we went to the garden, to N’s immense dismay, the tyre had been tied up out of reach. How crestfallen she was! All we can do is wait and hope someone brings it down soon.

Did you ever play on a home-made swing?

Linking up with Parul’s #ThursdayTreeLove

16/10/2017

Of Diwali Traditions Old and New

Traditionally Diwali has always spelt A.C.T.I.V.I.T.Y since I was a child. We would get swept along on this tidal wave as the adults sat around budgeting, making lists, shopping for clothes and estimating the number of visitors.

Most of all I remember the food

My grandmas and my mother would get together along with the house help and cook up a storm in the kitchen. By the time Diwali came around, we’d have huge boxes full of all kinds of sweets and savouries that would last through the month.

We’d hang around the kitchen…

..pestering them for ‘something to do’, beyond the picking and carrying and fetching. Most often we were handed over forks or knives and we would sit happily pricking the mathris readying them for frying. Or we’d get to work on the gujhiyas cutting them with the help of moulds, getting out perfectly formed semi circles. The adults worked far more deftly without the moulds.

My favourite memory…

is that of my grandmother sitting out in the courtyard frying gujhiyas in a large kadhai (a wok) on a coal fire. My sister and I would hang out of the huge windows of our room that opened out into the courtyard. It was me more than my sister. Food never was quite her thing like it was mine. My grandmom would hand over one to me, its delicately flavoured khoa hot and runny. And I would happily risk burning my tongue as I’d bite into it. Nothing ever tasted quite as good.

After I got married..

..I tried my hand at making gujhiyas and it turned out an epic fail. Each one of them burst out into the oil spilling all their contents and effectively putting me off festive cooking. I didn’t much mind. All I did was go looking for the shop that sold the best ones (by that I meant the ones closest to the kind my mom made). And that was how it was for many years.

However now, as the children are growing up, I am beginning to feel sorry for that lost tradition, among many others. I’m sorry they will never experience the bustle of a busy kitchen fragrant with festive smells, that they will never get to sample a hot gujhiya straight out of the kadhai. And I wonder if, in an attempt at simplifying the festival, I have taken away the essence of it.

In an attempt at simplifying Diwali have we taken away the essence of it? Share on X

Perhaps I have. Could I have done it any other way? I’m not sure. Not as far as the cooking goes that’s certain, that really isn’t my forte.

We have however, set up our own traditions – clearing our cupboards, redoing the house, painting diyas, making rangolis, having our own small puja followed by visiting friends and neighbours. That’s not too bad I assume. The children, of course, have no idea what they’re missing, as for me, I still miss the ma ke haath ki gujhiyas.

Linking up with the Write Tribe Problogger October 2017 Blogging Challenge #writebravely #writetribeproblogger

24/07/201719/04/2024

Food on my mind

I like food – most kinds, as long as it is vegetarian, since I gave up meat over a decade ago. So basically I am grateful for all kinds of food, home-made, store-bought, gourmet, roadside all of it. I am someone who can binge even on plain paranthas and pickle, roti and baingan bharta or dal and rice.

Choosing a favourite food is like choosing a favourite from among your children. Share on X

However, that won’t quite do since in this post here, I am trying to narrow down my preferences to three foods I am grateful for, just three. I’m giving you this background only so that you appreciate the effort as I try to pare down my list.

Here goes:

Food for the taste buds

My first pick is a treat purely for the taste buds. If you’re not from Lucknow you’d probably only have heard of paan ki gilauri. And that, dear friends, is gross injustice, to this decadent dessert special to my hometown – the malai gilauri or the malai paan.

What is it?

This delectable sweet has a thin layer of malai, folded like a paan (betel leaf) holding within it the most delicious filling, topped off with chandi ka vark. As the soft layer of malai begins to melt in your mouth you get the crunch of mishri and dry fruits along with a delicate flavour of kewra, rose-water and saffron. It is way more sophisticated than the regular khoa- sugar sweets, truly Nawabi, just like the city, a party of textures and flavours in the mouth. Each time I take a bite of it I am grateful for a little piece of my hometown that cannot be replicated.

Food for the soul

Here’s another one from my childhood. Meet tehri – my comfort food. It isn’t a pulao, it isn’t a biryani and it isn’t masala rice. It is just tehri.

What is it?

A rice dish flavoured with whole spices (cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves) cooked together with salt, turmeric and vegetables like onions, cauliflower and peas. One of my happiest childhood memories is of winter days when our high-ceiling house would get just too cold and we would pile our plates with tehri and step out to eat in the garden with the warm sun for company. The best thing ever about this one is its utter simplicity. Anyone, just about anyone, including me, can get it right and it cooks in a jiffy. I even taught the husband to make it and that is saying something. Since I became a mom the days I come home tired and hungry I am grateful for this simple flexible dish and it always comes to my rescue – my go-to meal when I want something delicious super fast!

Food for the (peace of) mind

Lastly, I pick this universal favourite, one that I’ve learnt to be eternally grateful for specially since the twins came along. Chocolate. If only you’d have seen the storms this one has averted – it has calmed screaming children, sorted fights, wiped tears, expressed love, cheered up the saddest souls and don’t you dare bring in that whole spiel about bribes and children. Sometimes one needs a bite of happiness to keep one’s sanity. Cakes, cookies, pastries, mousse, doughnuts or plain simple bars – chocolate has never failed me. So yes I am and shall always remain grateful to chocolate in all its myriad avatars.

Note: Re-reading my post I know why I have never been able to kick off the weight and am almost tempted to go back and change at least one of them to a soup or a salad but that would be dishonest of course, not to say grossly unfair to my true loves.

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