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Flaunt your patriotism

It’s Republic Day today. I woke up to the sound of Mere Desh ki Dharti being played somewhere on a loudspeaker. H picked it up and started singing it with the lyrics all wrong. That always irks me – another one of my pet peeves – this thing about music being just beats and no lyrics.
Anyway, in correcting H I ended up explaining the age old song to the kids. And then since I couldn’t remember the whole thing I googled it. The song is definitely dated but the pride of belonging to a wonderful country shines clearly through.

National Holidays used to be big days when we were kids – they still are back home for my parents, who make it a point to go to their alma-maters for flag hoisting. National pride was a big deal. Independence would still have had a new sheen to it, for our parents at least. And we caught the patriotism bug from them.

Somehow along the way, what with work and life, they became ‘just another holiday’ to me – a day to plan a picnic, or sleep in, or tackle that list of unending chores. Is it just me or does it have something to do with changing times? All of it just became uncool. I didn’t stop feeling patriotic, I always did and will always do, but it definitely became uncool to flaunt it.
Then along came the kids and in trying to teach them about India I am relearning too – their enthusiasm is contagious. When they were younger they wanted tricolour balloons and charkhis and tricolour food and tricolour clothes – the whole deal. And I did it all with them.

They’re growing up. N still childlike, revels in all the festivities. H is already reluctant to wear Indian clothes because ‘they are uncomfortable’ yet I persist. Patriotism is much more than clothes, I know, but this one day let’s go all Indian when we sing the National Anthem on Republic Day, I tell him.  So then how can I not ditch my trustee jeans and pull out my orange/green/white salwar kurta too?I do so happily, and I go down for the flag hoisting. I sing the National Anthem aloud, I eat the laddoo with relish and I try to make the day as special as I possibly can. I flaunt my patriotism as much as my self-conscious self will allow. I find I’m getting better at it and I’m liking it too.

I’ll always be grateful to the kids for reawakening National Pride in me.Leaving you now with one of my favourite songs from the film Purab aur Paschim. Manoj Kumar is corny and Saira Banu is downright ludicrous in that blonde wig and with the swirling cigarette smoke, but the song is to die for. It makes me all warm and proud to be an Indian. Do hear out the lyrics.Click here for the song.

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Grandmas and green chickpeas

There is something about fresh seasonal produce that I find quite irresistible. Ruby red tomatoes, creamy cauliflowers, shiny purple brinjals, crunchy white radish and the greens – spinach, fenugreek, dil and coriander – all alluringly beautiful.

Hence vegetable shopping these days is an exercise in self control. The husband has his own theory of course. He insists it’s my all-encompassing shopping bug that does not even spare vegetables. 

Just LOOK at those colours. I clicked this one at Mahabaleswar but you do get the idea, right?

But really, they’re so fresh and healthy that they’re a complete delight to behold. I buy them and get them home and then don’t quite know what to do with them. A case in point being chana or green chickpeas that make an appearance in the winter. It was Rachna who reminded me of them.


During winter months our grandmoms would sit in the warm afternoon sun in the angan, talking till the sun went down. Yet, they were never really idle. Even as they chatted, their hands would be busy knitting, cleaning rice or daal, making sewains (the handmade ones) or of course shelling peas or chana.

We’d be drowsing by, a book in hand. The clink of chanas dropping into the steel bowl took on a hypnotic quality. Through half open eyes we’d watch the bowl filling up steadily, while the branches with empty pods still on them, piled up on the other side. We’d chip in sometimes, eating more than we shelled, only to be shooed away.
They would then be ground by hand on a stone sil-batta to get a bright green paste, which was then cooked with the most redolent of
spices – cinnamom and bay leaf, cloves and cardamoms black and green and many many others.
Finally it would turn into a thick shiny emerald green flavourful gravy. With a blob of home-made butter, it sat on a mound of equally aromatic basmati rice and made our winter lunches memorable. It was called the nimoma.
My grandmom would also make green boondi laddoos. She would grind chana, make tiny boondis (just like the ones made from gram flour) then add sugar syrup and bind them into delectable laddoos. 

The laddoos remained beyond me but the nimona I did try a few times. However, I never could get it right. It may have to do with
the fact that I don’t quite have a master’s touch when it comes to cooking. Or maybe I just don’t have the meticulous way with ingredients that turns them into works of delicious art.

Mostly, I suspect, it’s because, it is a mindboggling amount of work.
I cannot but marvel at how much dilegence and precision that generation put into cooking. That too without weights and measures and teaspoons and tablespoons. I’d watch in fascination as my grandmom would measure out the salt that went into our daily daal on the palm of her hand – and I’m talking rock salt crystals not the powdered salt we use today. She’d get it right each time, every time.
Here I am, not even able to make tea without precisely measuring out
the water cup by cup and woe-betide anyone who changes the spoon in my teabox. I never could get the ‘andaaz‘ thing right. 
So I stick with the simple and uncomplicated – like this salad. The recipe is here at Rachana’s blog. I added flax seeds for extra crunch. Try it, it comes out great, I might add.

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Sweet memories and some thoughts

Mel from Stirrup Queens has invited us today to share a memory of our favourite childhood candy and I realised I had more than one. Don’t worry, though, I promise not to get carried away.

To begin with there were these phantom cigarette candies. I shared this on Facebook sometime back and heard from many many friends saying how they missed them just like me. These had a texture quite like chalk and were sweet enough to put you off sweets for a long time, or so I thought when I recently sampled them again. I’d thought they were dead and gone till one day I got a call on the intercom from my 9 year old asking permission for a cigarette that his friends were offering. I completely freaked and asked him to come right home. And this is what he got. It brought back many many fun memories. When we were young, we would put them to our lips and pretend to blow out ‘smoke’ during the cold Lucknow winters. 

I also remember a ‘sweet man’ who was quite a favourite with all of us. He’d stand outside our school with a huge box, which he hung from his neck, stacked with all kinds of sweets. My favourites were these tiny pink rose flavoured sweets that I cannot remember the name of. They came in a peppermint flavour too but the rose were my favourite. I remember the fragrance more that the flavour. Regrettably, I have never found them again.

Those were certainly simpler times. Sweets back then were simply an occasional indulgence, nothing more. They didn’t need to boast of additional benefits. Have you noticed how these days they come ‘packed with energy boosters’ or ‘fortified with glucose’?

And so each time our child has a meltdown and we reach out for a sweet to pacify our sad or angry toddler we can tell ourselves, “Wow I avoided a tantrum and I gave him an energy boost!” A win-win situation, right? And it’s way easier than helping him work out strategies to cope with his anger/grief. Advertisers have certainly made the whole exercise guilt-free.

Okay I’m over analysing this whole thing but I do have a lot of issues with sweets and the way they are marketed. For instance, have you seen how Kinder Joy comes in a boy version and a girl version?? I mean, must sweets (and toys and books and everything else) also have a gender now?

Despite all the advertising hoo-haa I wonder if my kids will remember them with as much affection and nostalgia as I remember my phantom cigarettes.

Linking to Mel’s #Microblog Mondays .

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Eye tests are good for health

Last week I took H for an eye-test. The ophthalmologist’s clinic was packed and we had a good one hour wait. H had taken along a book. It was another one from the Captain Underpants series. (On that note – When exactly do kids outgrow potty humour? I must remember to do a post on that someday) Yet, I was  grateful. One, because at least it was a book and not the iPad and two, because I was spared endless rounds of word games and Atlas (H sits poring at the world map picking out places, mostly Chinese, ending in X so Atlas with him is no joke).

Mercifully, he read his book quietly, asked the receptionist how many people before his turn then sat counting. In, with the doctor, he sat through the eye test, read what he was asked to and generally behaved impeccably.

We’ve been going to the same ophthalmologist for quite a few years now and as we were leaving he commented, “H has matured a lot.” An innocuous enough remark considering that the kids are growing up. But I remembered the nightmare of the first few visits. 

H was a little over three years old when I noticed he had an affinity for watching television sideways. He was also bending too close over his textbooks (which is a habit I’m still struggling to get him out of). The eye-test was simply a precautionary measure. As it turned out he needed glasses.

Then began rounds of eye tests. He refused to sit on that chair, when he did he wouldn’t sit still, he would scrunch his eyes, or blink rapidly or simply keep them shut, despite our repeated entreaties. Worse, he’d break into the ABCD song when asked to read the alphabets on the monitor.

The first time round it was funny. Then on it was just frustrating.

The most unfortunate part was that the doc couldn’t give him a hundred percent accurate pair of glasses. As a result his eyesight deteriorated further. I changed doctors many times over until I finally found this one who could handle him well.

That is why the compliment was such a huge deal. And I came home feeling very optimistic as I thought that maybe things will fall into place as the kids grew up.

Earlier in the day the kids had been exceptionally rowdy. Tired and upset as I was, I wrote a distressed post wondering where I was going wrong. And now I’m glad I didn’t publish it. That eye-test sorted out my day. 

Seriously, doctors are useful people in more ways than one :-).

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The end-of-year post

I am glad 2015 is ending. It was a tough year. And I have a hypothesis why – a trifle hare-brained but a hypothesis nonetheless.

Let me first state that I’m not superstitious. That said, I did read somewhere that the number 8 is ruled by Saturn and that people who are a number 8 (who’s date of birth adds up to  8) are often faced with obstacles. Extending the same logic to the year (Don’t ask my why, don’t even bother to think if it makes sense) I figured since it was a no 8 (2+0+1+5) it had to be a tough one.

Go ahead laugh away but you had been warned.

The Husband was away (and unhappy) for most of the year and the kids and I got onto each other’s nerves. They faked unending illnesses and drove me crazy and if they’d be blogging they probably write how I’d driven them up the wall with my impatient ways and my continuous yelling. Sigh! Nope, none of us has been easy to live with.

Later in the year a very good friend, a kind of 3am buddy, moved away to a different country. Even though we weren’t together all the while we did make time for much needed coffee dates and I could talk to her about pretty much anything. That is rather rare because although I talk a lot (to almost anyone) I don’t share much of the real stuff easily.

Then our Zumba instructor quit and my exercise schedule crashed. Only if you are an exercise regular will you realise how dreadful that can be. It plays havoc with your fitness  and what’s worse, it makes you unhappy and crabby and totally unfit for any kind of company.

However as the year ends things are seeming to fall into place and I have a good feeling about 2016 – it’s a nice number 9 :-). I’m not a resolution person – one year is really too long a time to stick to even one of them. However I can hope and make a wish. And while I’m at it why make just one? So here’s what I wish for me in the new year.

With the Husband readying for a new assignment and the kids entrenched firmly in their tweens change is set to be the new constant of my life. I like routine and work best to a plan so change is my undoing. The plan for this year is to be ready with a constantly changing plan. That’s my first wish:

Welcome change.

Next on the list is trust. Trust in myself. When it comes to decisions that concern me or the kids I know best, and I need to remember that. Nobody is in my shoes, no one – not my neighbour, not my best friend not even my sister or my mom. And if I make mistakes, well they’re mine to own and I shall live with them. This, I need to remember: 

Trust ‘me’.

This year I met up with a friend who swears by The Secret. I tried reading the book but didn’t quite take to it. However I do believe in the power of positive thinking. Here’s the mantra she gave me, ‘Focus on what you want, don’t obsess about the ‘how’ or about the obstacles that will stall you – things have a way of falling in place. I like the sound of that. And so that’s the third wish:

Believe first, then make it happen.

I’m a master procastinator. Being on my own means there’s no one to push me to do things and so the status quo just goes on and on till it can no longer wait and then I have this avalanche of work to deal with and I end up feeling completely overwhelmed. That’s my next mantra:

Put off procrastination. 

Fitness is always on my mind however what I need is consistency. Here goes my next wish for myself: One form of exercise everyday baring Sundays – Walk/Zumba/Weights whatever but:

An hour of exercise. 

And lastly for obvious reasons I wish for me, 

Patience.

…lots and lots of it.

What is it that you wish for yourself in the new year? Hope you get it all and that 2016 is as perfect as it can get.

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