Serendipity, Saunter and Faux paz

 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...