Serendipity, Saunter and Faux paz

Cities in a suitcase: Chennai I have had a very interesting relationship with Chennai. Over nearly a decade and a half, I experienced the city in three different phases of life — staying there, working there, and returning for many short visits in between. If I had to carry Chennai with me in a suitcase, these are the five things I would pack. As a child, I had a friend in primary school (let’s call her B) whose mother was from Chennai, then Madras. Every summer, they would travel there to visit her grandparents. Those annual trips fascinated me. Long before I saw the city, I had already built stories around it in my head. My first opportunity to visit Chennai came in the early 2000s. We took a bus from Bangalore, and the first thing that struck me was how green everything was. The morning light felt unusually bright, almost yellow, but the trees along the route softened it beautifully. The quiet tamarind trees and shikakai trees and the majestic bougainvillea bursting in deep orange, ...

Image created using Canva AI One of my recent reads has been the ‘Restaurant of Lost Recipes’ by Haisashi Kashiwai recommended by CC. A very interesting food based book in which food detectives try to trace and recreate recipes lost for various reasons by those who come in search of the food detective agency. After a long time, I read a complete book in one go - it was un-putdownable. First of all, it has opened a universe of Japanese dishes that I am not familiar with and I have a long list of ‘to-be-tasted’ foods. Even the variety of something as familiar as tempura it mentions, is mind-boggling. So a food trail in Kyoto is now going to be a must-do.Also, I have discovered that what I have been fondly eating at Wagamama for a while is a ten-don. The phrase, Yoroshu o agari, instead of saying thank you when served a meal is also great to adopt into regular practice. Exotic and sounds a lot more deep. I like that Nagare (of the food detectives) points out that even in the simplest of f...

I saw all the cable chaos documented in the photos on my walk and am wondering what cables these are and if there are any safety concerns. And as I took these snaps and walked away I remembered this long ago conversation.  It was during a corporate training prograamme and for some reason we were discussing the challenges of clutter. In the course of the conversation, one of the trainees who had returned from a visit to the company's offices in Japan said he had a video on his pen drive about keeping the desks and work space, clutter free and asked if he could play it for all as it would add to our discussion. So we watched the short clip in fascination as we saw the cables were properly rolled and tucked away, each wire was wound and secured, there were no cables running around anywhere under the desk or from wall sockets to gadgets and everything was neatly secured. At the end of the workday, each bit had a designated place and a clear, wire-free area was available to the next use...

  Saturday night on the way back from town after meeting an old colleague, my rickshaw wallah is driving at break neck speed. It's raining, the wind feels great but it's dangerous as wet roads are slick and slippery. I ask him to slow down and say I'm in no hurry, he mumbles something and slows down fractionally as we are almost on the service road. But instead of slowing further he hits a pot hole and my arm swings and bruises slightly. Now I raise my voice and sternly ask him, why he isn't slowing down despite asking him to?  He: Internet khatam ho jayega.  Me: What?  He: (again) Internet khatam ho jayega Me: What's that? He: Bara bajne ko hai. App nahi chalega. Map nahi chalega. Hum ko pata nahi hum kahan hai. (It's close to midnight. The app will not work, the map will not work and I don't know where I am)  This sounds so bizzare, so Cindrella-ish! The rickshaw turning into a pumpkin and the rickshaw-wallah's shoes turning to ordinary flip-flops. May...

The forthcoming inauguration of the Interact club  co-sponsored by Rotary eclub One has triggered a spate of memories from my own tryst with the Interact club in the late 80s in suburban Mumbai. I am thinking of the new horizons that are going to open up for the participants of this club and how it is going to shape their lives in so many ways, small and big. I remember waiting for Saturday mid morning meetings of the club and the plans we would make for upcoming events - Teacher's Day, Drawing competitions, Carrom competitions, visiting the installation ceremony at the local Rotary club, meeting the new members of the local Rotaract club, annual picnic, visits to other schools and being part of service projects to keep the town clean, help the elderly with their chores and others. The amazing idea of service above self began to firmly take root.  A small group of us also visited the Annual Interact Jamboree in town where we met Interact club members from many different school...

 The recent announcement about the Reader's Digest UK coming to an end has been gut wrenching. Ever since I remember Reader's Digest was the one constant each month. Every new month, for some afternoons, I would eagerly await the arrival of the postman, as he would bring the month's Reader's Digest. And the day it arrived, for the next few hours I would be devouring as much as I could so I was up to speed with the contents for any discussion that might happen.  The  articles, the adventure stories, the book section, the interesting columns - All in a day's work, humour in uniform, quotable quotes - all collectively opened new worlds to be explored. Not to mention amassing Word Power through the vocabulary quiz. Having read the magazine, the next task would be re-read some things that were interesting- sometimes it was an article about exercise, sometimes about an acting legend, sometimes about a sports personality or an artist, sometimes the wonderful anecdotes and ...

 The huge jamun tree bordered our back yard and was on the boundary of the plot with the family that stayed behind our place. It's branches came up to the terrace and in summer were laden with fruit. We would wait impatiently for the green jamuns to turn purple so we could feast on them. Climbing the tree was a bit challenging as it grew a straight thick trunk till about 6 feet and then forked. So we would use the wooden ladder to climb up to the fork in the trunk and then climb our favourite branches. As the fruit ripened we sat on the branches and ate them. There are always the tell-tale signs of having plucked and eaten jamuns. Purple tongues and finger tips!  But that never deterred us and we knew how to collaborate to bend the branches to pluck the best ones.  Our jamun tree had plump juicy jamuns with their astringent taste that our house help Kunda* did not like much. She would bring us much smaller but sweeter jamuns from her part of the town wrapped in leaves. Th...

There is nothing like bonding over a walk in the botanical gardens in Singapore. Waking up early and pleased with the Universe for giving us an overcast sky but no rain, we started out at a brisk pace. A little into the walk my relatively unfit self and the sultry tropical weather together slowed us down but did nothing to curb our enthusiasm. Soon we were taking in the bird song and the fresh air from the garden as we trudged along. Trying to identify the plants and the bird calls, laughing when they turned out to be something else, it was a morning that was refreshing and rejuvenating. The bamboo and the ferns and the canna and the ficus all vying for attention in the morning light!  Swapping names softly in different languages we couldn't contain our excitement at finding the cannon ball tree.  We came across what looked like a pine cone from the distance but turned out to be something else. Still not sure what it is but not a pine cone surely! We walked to the POW steps an...

The hot summer months were meant for industriously drying different things in the sun and then storing them for use during the rest of the year. The annual sun drying home-factory started around mid-April and continued till the end of May.  (Image Source - Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/openclipart-vectors-30363/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2024294">OpenClipart-Vectors</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2024294">Pixabay</a>) Many different things were sun-dried. Large potatoes were peeled and grated and then dried in the sun. The dried potato gratings would be stored and used through the year to make a fried snack. The ' batatyacha kees"  as it was called in Marathi would be fried to make a quick, spicy  chivda that would taste really good. To make the chivda, sun...

It was the early 2000s and away on the East Coast Road in Chennai, by the bay, there wasn't a library nearby to borrow magazines. We missed our regular quota of Reader's Digest, Chandamama, Champak, Outlook, The Week and other reads. New to the area, I went around asking everyone if they knew of a library nearby, where did they get their books from? I discovered that there was a librarian who visited homes and delivered books. You could keep them for a fortnight and then on his next visit, he would collect those back and leave new ones for you. He charged a nominal sum that we could easily afford to pay and was a very tiny fraction of what it would cost to buy the magazines. The first time we met Mama ( maternal Uncle - it is the usual form of addressing gentlemen much older than you) we realised that he cycled around delivering books and magazines. The cycle was a trusted big, black hero cycle and he carried the books in colourful bags made of thick plastic, that would hand fr...

The dawn of the new year Gudi Padwa is the Maharashtrian new year’s day. In the early hours of the morning, the Gudi was set up and worshipped. Just after the regular puja was completed. The gathis (sugar wafers that are threaded together to form a garland) were bought the previous evening. This goes with the neem leaves as part of the gudi but there were extra ones to give to any children who would come and also for anyone who would like to eat them. Once the pooja was complete, the house resounded with Kumar Gandharva’s voice and the cassette we had would play through the morning. There was a lavish meal as usual – either shrikhand – puri or pooran poli along with aluchi paatal bhaji, bhaat, varan, bhaji, koshimbir, chutney, lonchi, papad for the family. In the afternoon there would often be music performances nearby and depending on what the plans for the evening were we would go to listen to some classical music. All the day through friends and family would drop by to seek Aji'...

  (Photo by Doina Gavrilov: https://www.pexels.com/photo/delicate-pink-rose-17637049/ ) Gulkanda As the temperatures soar, the warm, seasonal food that was served through the winter changed. Suddenly, butter milk and lemonade became the go to drinks to keep cool through the day. Curries were made with raw mango. But the most interesting was to eat a spoonful of gulkand in the mornings. At other times of the year, gulkand was an essential ingredient of meetha paan (betel leaf with sweet gulkand filling) but in summers you could eat it everyday to ward off heat related ailments. And it was home made! Our tiny rose garden was our pride. It had about 20 variety of roses including climbers in our small front yard! But the ones that Aji took pride in were tucked away towards the backyard, near the bananas. They were the ‘desi’ or local ones in white, pink and pearl. The pearly one known as motiya in Marathi was particularly pretty! It is a delicate creamy rose with just a hint of pink...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          ...

I am writing about Puran poli in the context of Holi because of the popular chant –  Holi re holi, purnachi poli ... Pooran poli is otherwise very important as well. As an offering to the Gods during other festivals and because my Aji made really amazing puranpolis according to everyone! As a kid, I didn’t like them at all. I'm not sure but it must have something to do with grinding all that pooran though I did like eating the puran and while one was grinding it, eating bits of it was totally prohibited. But thinking back and now having developed a liking for them I do prefer the soft ones, stuffed with a lot of pooran  like she made them. And then drizzled with ghee! The soft flavour of nutmeg playing hide and seek with the tastebuds as one took a morsel.  Amongst the festivals purannpoli was made at were Gudi Padva, Navratri – first day and ninth day and just a little bit of pooran on the eight day as well for the aarti. Then we had it for Holi and Gudi Padva and in bet...

Linguistic negotiations  I found the words from the chapter ‘Exile’ from  'In Other Words' by Jhumpa Lahiri, lingering in my thoughts. Even as I read it my mind was running ahead of me in a parallel universe that houses my own experiences. I feel total empathy  for her estrangement with her mother tongue, Bengali and her comment that her mother tongue feels like a foreign tongue. Having spent several years in non- Marathi speaking regions, I am reminded of the struggle to keep my mother tongue alive. Trying to keep it flowing for my daughter CC; she may not have yearned for it as she had the resilience and the innocent adaptability of the very young to adopt another language and make it her own with remarkable speed. But for me my mother tongue was the bridge between being a young, bumbling parent and my own happy childhood. Language of course formed a large part of it. So with enthusiasm I got her CDs of Marathi plays and story books and sang her songs from the language ...

Discovering Chicory and Fava Virtual travelling during the pandemic, I kept making lists of what to see and what to do and what to taste on the next real trip. Researching Puglia, looking at various top 10 suggestions, what caught my attention was  ‘chicory and fava.’ A puree of fava beans soaked overnight and chicory leaves. It sounded wholesome and comforting but I had never heard of chicory leaves being eaten before. Chicory! My association with chicory is it's presence in coffee and endless debates about whether coffee is better with it or without it. My grandmother, dressed in her voile saree, sipping from a steaming cup of coffee, standing under the arched doorway that separated the dining room from the kitchen and strongly advocating chicory in coffee in her warm, cultured Maharashtrian manner. Grandmother refused to have coffee that did not contain chicory as according to her it was the chicory that brought out the flavours  of coffee.  The way she said it chi- ko...

Forever roses In addition to beautiful memories some other things travelled back with us from Kashmir.  Among them were the famous papier-mâché pen holder in black with an intricate floral design, a massive carpet that came in a few months later, a kangri (the wicker basket enclosing an earthen pot with coals to keep warm) and a branch of a rose bush. The beautiful cane basket, kangri, soon had a money plant cascading down the side of one of the display shelves, right next to the inner living room door. The pretty leaves, pale green and white contrasted beautifully with the dark polished wood of the cabinet and caught everyone’s attention. But this story is about the rose. As soon as we were back it was planted in the garden right next to the large window with a window box of China roses. It was hoped and indeed talked about that the velya gulab (vine rose) would grow tall and strong and cover the sun-shade of the window and fall over to the other side. This would be reminiscent o...

To read and to re-read! I came across some posts about re-reading on social media and I think re-reading books is such a pleasurable activity. When one re-reads a book after some years, the slightly blunt edges of  some of the some of ths things one has read suddenly sharpens, like sitting up in a chair in which you were almost slumbering when your flight is announced. It also reminds you a little bit of the time you first read it which can be pleasant or unpleasant or just different from the now.  And then you are a different person from then when reading the same book again. Whether the change is remarkable or slight there is no denying the change in turn making the book a little bit different to the earlier read. Some books feel like you are reading them again, some feel like they are a lot different to what you remember. And one notices different things - words, ideas, characters, traits of characters, associations.  So all in all most interesting, re-reading.

 The evening lights                                                        (Image created with picsart using a simple text prompt )   Some of our favourite stories that we asked Aji to repeat over and over again were of little Aji and her exploits with her siblings. And one of the stories I remember vividly is the one I narrate here.   To give you some context, there was a lone streetlamp at the end of our lane, by our gate. That was supposed to be enough for the six houses in our lane and unfortunately left dark stretches that one had to navigate. Often, this light would stop working and the electricity department would take a week or so to repair it and then the cycle repeated itself.   Residents from our lane kept the lights in their verandah on at least till around 8 pm making it easier for everyo...