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Random ramblings about leftover rotis

By Tulika | 30/06/2019 | Comments 14 comments

The other day about half an hour after dinner H said, ‘I am hungry. Can I have a roti?’ The only emotion I felt at that question was annoyance.

It had been barely five minutes since I’d wiped down and cleared up the kitchen and the last thing I wanted to do was to pull out the entire roti-making paraphernalia and roll out one for him.

It’s another matter that I also dislike the idea of him eating anything half an hour after a meal only because he was in too much of a hurry to get back to whatever he was doing while having lunch.

Of course I can make a few spare ones but the thing is I hate/dread left over chapatis. I have no idea what to do with them. Oh I do have an idea, many ideas, actually, but most of them require either too much effort or some form of deep frying – both of which I am averse to.

Re-heating doesn’t make them palatable and the maid doesn’t want any. Cows and stray dogs are not so common around here, even if I could gather the courage to seek them out to feed them. And I do hate throwing food in the bin. So I’m pretty stuck, unless I resign myself to eating stale chapatis.

How did the past generations manage..

…I sometimes wonder – my grandmom and my mom. The number of people who would be around for lunch or dinner was often fluid. People would flow in and out all the time. Very often whoever visited at lunch/dinner time was asked to join in. And Boy! did they have appetites!

What’s worse, one could never ever, repeat, never ever, ask people how many chapatis they would eat. It would have set tongues wagging and become the worse kind of family folklore in the entire extended community as the epitome of bad manners. I can clearly imagine the whispers, ‘So and so asked so and so how many rotis will you eat.’ Yup, it would been quite the scandal. The person who had been thus humiliated would probably severe all relations with the family of that insolent woman.

In any case counting wouldn’t have really been required back then because rotis were supposed to be made and served hot and fluffy, as and when various members sat down to eat.

A story goes..

..that when my maternal grandfather (my mom’s uncle) would sit to eat and my mom, not really famous for her patience, would ask him how many more chapatis she should make for him, he would shake his head and reply with a rather vague and completely non-committal, ‘I’m eating.’

She had little patience with this tiresome tradition but was fortunate in that the trickle of random guests had all but died down by the time her generation took over. It was only occasionally that she had to chip in. I have to add here that this is her own uncle we’re talking about or else she wouldn’t have dared to voice that question. Also, my mom has been quite the revolutionary. She broke many traditions, which worked really well for us, easing the way ahead.

That brings me back to my quandary

As the children are growing, specially H, their appetites vary from day to day. Sudden growth spurts make them sometimes more sometimes less hungry from one day to the next. And so either I’m stuck with stale rotis or I don’t have enough.

After thought: I’m seriously considering adopting a stray.

Home

By Tulika | 18/03/2019 | Comments 32 comments

Last November I went home on a short trip for my college reunion. It was the first time I was there without the children and it felt strange, too quiet. One morning I took my cup of tea to the swing on our terrace.

It was a cool morning and the sun felt good on my face. The tea was hot, with a hint of ginger, a little sweeter than necessary, just the way I liked it. Multihued bougainvillea bloomed cheerily in large planters at the far end of the terrace. The freshly watered plants gave off a delicious petrichor.

This wasn’t the house I grew up in. My parents shifted from our University home to this, their own bungalow, about a decade ago, when they both retired. And yet how easily I called it home. The children of course had known no other. This was their nani’s house. Each summer when we went to visit, they marked the room on the terrace as their territory, forbidding anyone to go there in their absence. Such was the sense of belonging. But me? I moved out long ago. I don’t have many memories in this house, there’s no history.

How has this house, where I spend just a few days each year, come to mean ‘home’?

Perhaps it is because of the sounds of the city that seep in uninvited – the North Indian lilt in the call of the vegetable vendor on the road outside or the maids exchanging gossip and greetings in a familiar language before they rushed off to their chores.

Perhaps it is the flowers that bloom in profusion no matter where my parents live. From our first home in the old city where together they sifted mud and gravel, adding just the right amount of sand to coax out the largest roses, to the carpet grass in our second home that they lovingly tended, spending long hours with gardeners discussing which seasonals should go where, to these gorgeous Bougainvillea here on the terrace, we’ve always had flowers.

Perhaps it is the odd pieces of furniture that have survived the moves, like this swing that I sit on, each creak familiar, each squeak telling a story, every languid move bringing with it a memory of long hours lounging on it mugging up for a Geology exam or solving Math equations.

Or perhaps it is simply the sense of space that ‘home’ has always had, the sense that I try to bring to my flat, hoping to make it a home for my children. I have always loved my home, no matter where I’ve been but it isn’t the same. I can never quite re-create ‘home’, perhaps because the feeling is only in my head.

Or perhaps it is the comforting presence of my parents as they sit talking, bickering vigorously about everything from why he shouldn’t travel so much to why she shouldn’t stay so long on Facebook.

Perhaps it is all of that.

Perhaps home is not a physical place after all but a feeling, a feeling that I belong.

Grateful for a familiar face #GratitudeCircle

By Tulika | 07/08/2018 | Comments 6 comments

This morning I set off on my walk a trifle reluctantly. The weather was perfect – cloudy and breezy, windy even, but not cold, with an occasional sprinkle of rain and yet I felt weirdly listless. My innate practical Capricornian side struggled with that feeling telling me I had no reason to feel that way or to miss my walk for it.

Yet the reluctance was right there more real than ever, holding my feet down, urging me to take the elevator back home. There has been the odd day when I’ve done just that – I’ve come down for my walk and then gone right back.

Do you know that feeling? When you feel vaguely discontent for no apparent reason? Perhaps it is stress or overwhelm, worry or mood swing or anxiety, but it pulls at me somedays making me want to do nothing at all.

I adjusted my music player in the lobby willing myself to begin that walk when I spotted a familiar face – a neighbour who was also walking. She waved at me and smiled.

Most days I walk alone – one, because I find it hard to match paces and two, because I if I’m walking briskly I do not have the breath to talk. Also, if I can talk it implies I’m not walking fast enough.

However, in the middle of my tussle today, that familiar face was like the very life-line I needed and I fell into pace with her. She walks comfortably slowly and we chatted along. She was done way before me but by that time I had found my rhythm and was happily warmed up, well on my way to finish the walk.

At the end of it I had done one full hour. I was sweaty, happily tired and had successfully banished my listlessness.

All it took was a familiar face to get me going. Next time round I’ll remember to slow down and smile too. One wave, one smile may uplift someone’s day like it did mine today.

********

I’m so glad of Vidya’s Gratitude Circle that pushes me to get back to the blog each month.

Izzat is a strange thing

By Tulika | 26/01/2018 | Comments 12 comments

I usually do not watch news on the television. I’m quite happy to wait for my morning newspaper or whatever I find online. News channels are so heavily polarised they leave me confused and utterly frustrated. I already have the twins who do a fine job of that, so no TV for me thank you.

But my parents were here and the evening news is their daily fix. So we sat around the telly and we watched. We watched a mob on a vandalising spree. It burnt down vehicles (about 200 odd), looted mobile phone shops and smashed glass facades of multiplexes protesting against a film. I sat there wondering why people would destroy multiplexes which had already agreed to not screen said film.

Do you hear me now when I say news is puzzling?

Meanwhile elsewhere in the country, protestors ran amuck brandishing swords, burning tyres, stopping trains, setting fires to buses and blocking roads.

One man tried to immolate himself in Varanasi.

Someone announced a reward of 1 crore to the person who could chop off the lead actress’ ears and nose.

Some others decided to pelt stones on a school bus full of children, the youngest of whom was merely four.

All for izzat, honour.

I flipped channels to land on another visual of Rajput women, heads covered, izzat fully in place, saying nothing mattered more to them, not food nor drink, but their honour.

And all of that honour was centred on the non-release of this one film. A film about a woman dead for countless decades. A film none of them had even watched. A film that the Censor Board as well as the Supreme Court, had watched, had gone over with a tooth comb over and over and over again and found alright.

So you see, this izzat is a strange thing. It gets tarnished rather easily – by a book, a story, a dialogue, a film, by a piece of art or fiction. And then it forces people to take to the streets to restore it.

At other times however, it proves to be unbelievably tenacious remaining clean and intact even when these same people make, watch and share suggestive videos or gyrate to provocative songs. It remains untouched when they line the streets and pass lewd comments. It isn’t sullied when they pull out women from cars and rape them or when they throw out their infants to die on the streets.

Strange thing, this izzat.

What’s even stranger and utterly disappointing is the reaction of the people in power, the administration.

Rather than resolving to make sure peace prevails, they choose to turn a blind eye. They looked the other way as a 2000 people strong crowd gathered and charged the multiplexes. They made sure police arrived just as the mob had done its bit and had dispersed. Bollywood style.

Four states went on to ban the film.

The Deputy CM of a state advised people to not watch the film in order ‘to maintain law and order’. Nope, it isn’t his job to ensure that. It is ours. And so we stayed away from the film, away from malls and multiplexes. And even though I’m not a mall person that irked, because this isn’t the country I was proud of, the country I taught my children to be proud of.

I’ve always chosen to be upbeat and optimistic. But this Republic Day I feel only lost and disheartened. Even as I dress up my daughter in the traditional sari for celebrations at school, I cannot find it in my heart to celebrate. How can I, when I see my freedom erode, bit by bit right before my eyes. And I wonder how many more liberties I will have to give up for ‘maintaining law and order’, for protecting the izzat of God knows who.

How far will you go for your 15 minutes of fame?

A loaf of bread and a lesson on ‘receiving’

By Tulika | 19/12/2017 | Comments 28 comments

The other day a friend of mine, who is taking baby steps in baking, got me a freshly baked loaf of bread. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am exceptionally fortunate when it comes to friends.

I’d have been fine with a slice or two, but she insisted I keep the entire loaf, ‘I baked it specially for the children,’ said she. I felt a little awkward but she insisted. After a bit of a back and forth and a promise that she’d charge me for it I accepted, with a heartfelt thank you. ‘I hope the children enjoy it,’ she added giving me a hug.

We are all a little awkward when it comes to receiving, aren’t we? I know I am. It’s like an obligation which, I feel, I have to repay. That’s the way I was brought up. The idea was ‘If you cannot repay a favour, don’t accept it.’

I grew up meticulously keeping hisaab, refusing favours and always remembering to give back if I did accept something. Receiving made me uncomfortable, a little smaller, perhaps.

We talk of giving all the time and I’m all for it, but isn’t receiving an equally important aspect? There has to be a balance of come kind, I presume. After all there can be no giving without receiving.

Five ways receiving enriches your life Click To Tweet

Here are five ways receiving enriches your life

You form an instant connection. Accept a favour and see how quickly you form a bond with the giver.
You give the other person the chance to feel good about themselves. Isn’t that just wonderful? That you’re bringing happiness to someone?
Oh and conversely, you feel good about yourself too. The fact that someone wants to give you something reinforces your sense of self. After all who would want to give something to someone they don’t quite like?
You learn humility because you’re accepting a favour.
And you learn gratitude.

As moms, parents, adults we are used to giving all the time. It would do us good to sit back and receive for a change. So all of you out there:

Receive help. Ask for it and accept it with gratitude.
Receive compliments. A simple thank you without putting yourself down does it.
Receive gifts, yeah why not?

Accept, without any thought of paying back, simply with an open heart full of gratitude and nothing else.

PS: In case you were wondering, the bread was absolutely scrumptious – soft, flavourful and ‘cinnamony’ with a mild sweetness and nuts and raisins that sprung a delicious surprise in each bite.

Perfect!

#MondayMusings at Everyday Gyan