Saturday, October 25, 2008

Kadhi, Dhokla & The Rest Of It!


All around me I find that things are similar to each other, outcomes can be predictable. If you tune in, a lot is already explained and if you understand any one process, it can give you some hints to other processes.
Lets say for example you want to make the lip smacking tasty "Kadhi". You would need to know that besan and curd need to be mixed well. So in case you were to put all the besan together, it would give you lumps of besan that would spoil the consistency of the dish. Its supposed to be a smooth paste that is then cooked. To get that paste, A - you need patience to put besan in small quantities while stirring the curd. B - You need to put all the other ingredients (salt, chilly powder, etc) in right quantities coz otherwise, you might have the damn consistency but the kadhi could either be salty or too hot.

Now I look at relationships (any kind, friends, loved ones, parents, etc). Its much like cooking. You need to pay attention. In case you don't, you may end up spoiling a perfectly good thing by overdoing something (too much salt/ sugar eh!). A certain pace is good as long its matched from both ends (consistency!). You savour it much like when you take the whiff of that delicious aroma that rises from the cooking vessel and envelops your kitchen and the rest of the house. A good relationship that is nurtured well taste as good if not better as the kadhi !!!!!!!!!! hahahhaha.

I can't help thinking food.... Dhokla is another example ... it needs just as much care or else it won't be soft and light!!!! Eating a dense piece of dhokla is like living through a relationship which has little communication. One will give you a stomach ache and the other will give you a headache.

Enough about food. Lets take the flow of blood in our body. As long as a body part continues to receive blood, it stays alive, has a certain colour of life to it. When not, it dies and sometimes has to be removed. Love is like that too. It brings life where it reaches. Sunlight. Flowers need it. People need love.

Oxygen. Money. A sheer necessity.

Working capital does for a corporation what blood does for the body and love does for the relationship or national highways to for the benefit f trade.

(I am feeling good about writing all this).

I have always looked at homes with curiosity. Mine, other peoples. I feel that there is always a certain part of the home that makes it a home from a house. The most alive part of the house. Much like the heart of the human body (indispensable). You take it away and the home suddenly becomes a house .. a building with a past. In my parents house there is no doubt about it. I know which part of the house gets maximum attention. The kitchen. Lots of memories. The aromas that come out of there sometimes bring neighbours into the house with wide grins. It bring us out of our cocoon like rooms and everyone eventually sticks around the kitchen. That's just the way it is. In some homes, its the bedroom. In some more, its the living room. Even in an office, have you noticed how a certain workstation or cabin gathers more crowd than the others. And when that person quits, things are never the same again.

Life I think brings a flow. Its when things stand still that they die. People die, relationships die.

I want to make kadhi/ dhokla and thereby I mean have loving relationships in my life.

Cheers!




Tuesday, October 21, 2008

On Love and Logic

I have often spoiled things by asking too many questions. It just never occured to my poor brain that it should shut up. Not shut up on the outside (which I do) but shut up on the inside. One great spoil word is "Why". Most popularly used by yours truly. So much so that when someone expressed love ... yep..u got it.. I asked (to myself..thank god for small mercys) "why".

And then came the eureka moment. I discovered that feelings begin when the mind is shut out. Logic is incapable of comprehending the reasons of love.

I used to look at some friend of mine who "appeared" to be in love with a jerk (he was a jerk in my books only) and think to myself - why? what does she see in him? It never occured that jerk or not .... they suit eachother just fine.


Sunday, October 19, 2008

The cause of sadness

Right now heres what I am feeling - Sad!

I wish life were simpler. Feelings were not complicated. Guilt was not cultivated. Love was simpler.

And then I read this in the paper:-

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them. --- By Anthony de mello.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Random Acts

S left early morning and I overslept. Got up. Saw the time..***t! informed boss and rushed with the routine. Nice and fresh stood on the damn highway only to be ignored by damn autowalas for thirty minutes. A lost soul finally nodded in affirmative. The rest before him deserved eggs splattered on windshield. Losers! Man how I hate them. Anyway, was on the way lost in my own numbing thoughts when noticed the presence of a feeble old man standing at the intersection begging. In pouring rain the man had nothing covering his upper half. A sudden impulse and I yelled at the autowala to stop but he couldn't since the light had turned green and the horns had started blaring. Damn the impatience of everyone on roads. I had one apple. To break the fast in evening. Wanted to give it to that old man. Don't know why but was almost desperate, yelled to the old man and he tried to get closer but the auto was already pulling away. In a split second I took the decision to throw the packet with the apple inside at the old man. My last glimpse of him was his scared effort to retrieve the apple packet from the road while vehicles blared.
I had to close my eyes. Food is not supposed to be thrown. Food to others when given is never to be thrown. Its unforgivable. I don't know what went through me but it was unbearable. Maybe the thought I was not able to offer help in a fashion that I desired. Somehow this seemed bad. Flinging food at someone much older and much hungrier.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

From madness to madness

I fought with S. I am not talking to her. Turns out when I don't talk to her, I can't talk to myself either. Sad! Some fights are good. The blood rushes, you exercise your brain to cooperate with your tongue to get the right words out. And then there are serious fights. Ones that scare the hell out of you. You think, Oh shit! now what! Did she really think that, does she really mean it. Oh man, what will tomorrow be like.

Namaz during ramzan is must. All those years of watching dad pray five times a day. Watching him, give up all his fears and problems to the almighty to solve everyday. All these years, I never followed him. But now its different. Offering namaz reassures me that I am my fathers daughter. He never asked me to follow. And then there is that conversation with god at the end of every prayer. Where I talk, ask, reveal, realise. Where god says - Hmmmmmmmmm..... And I can hear that. It means someone is watching. Every small detail is watched. There is no hiding. You go to god with your conscience and say what you did. My dad is a lucky man, he knew all this for a long time. He never told me. Never forced. Perhaps he wanted me to find out on my own. A window to escape the madness.


Tuesday, September 9, 2008

screw it!

There is something terribly wrong. All screwy dreams of late. Waking up with terrible images. A few days back, saw a jet crash right on its bloody nose in a big field. Got up and described to S who promptly suggested a head examination. I wonder if they'd find anything at all .. :-)

Then another one in which am living in a dilapidated grey building that is crumbling in pouring rain! Weird, I even had guests over.....

Anyway anyway!

Was watching Sex and the city. Surprising how they cover a lot of what women think across the world. There was this scene where a mother announces that her son is a god and that she tells him that everyday. The red haired woman (one of the lead four) then says to SJP - "Thirty years from now what are the chances that some poor woman can make Charlie a happy man? I think I will go with zero" ... hahhahahaahha The world is same same ... everywhere......

Anyway anyway!

Sunday, September 7, 2008

My window and my god

I sat by a large window
The world at large
Sunlight and kids running
Worried mothers
Busy dads
The usual hum of silent progress

And the window grew
And engulfed me whole
Spit me out on the other end
And Its difficult to get back
Everything is unknown
Scary
All i use is instinct

Struggling to put across all that is going on
Not really succeeding
The melody is not fine
Its not music
Not yet

Which means that the link is not complete
the bridge between feelings and thoughts is not good enough

So often lost
I speak with god
And ask shamelessly
For that that seems outside the grip

God gives me a patient hearing
For I am the child that often returns