To Maa, with Love

To Maa, with Love

The best feeling in Life is when you feel that you have full control over your life and that nothing can go against your wishes or desires. The weather seems good, the smile you get makes you feel bright, plain food turns delicious and no work is pain. You merrily dance across and go twirling. And suddenly there is this one day when you realize that you cannot even control a small argument let alone your life. Your decisions taken so far seems grossly wrong and you desperately search for a rewind button just to undo one faulty decision. Alas! Life moves only unidirectional, one way – forward. 

But the delayed realization brings more despair, grief and headache. You resort to aspirins or junk or smoke or a little wine even! The resultant is often more despair & aggravating helplessness. Then you rise one day with steel in mind & heart and proceed to take on this cruel world where you feel no one is bothered about your miserable condition. The first few steps are filled with surety but then it strikes again, this time with larger impact. You are now not so sure about your move and once again you are drawn to the helplessness of indecisiveness. You turn your head to the other side, you look at the deserted road and your face is hit by the ruthless dry acrid hot air which is dusty and grainy. And by now you have lost all that surety both in your mind and legs. The legs want to turn and run back to lonely despaired but yet that safe lodging. And you have already started to visualize that brown wooden door, yellow walls, thick & brick colored cotton curtains and that buzzing motor of the water cooler. Here you are, back again! You search for the bunch of keys which has a fancy red key ring with few small bells attached and the whiff of hot mustard oil in kadahi awaiting maybe some freshly cut vegetables being prepared for supper hits your nostrils and without thinking your mouth opens to say “ma  please give me some tea’.

The situation has changed and thus your circumstances too drastically seem to change. Ma has come for the summer vacation. Her visit was scheduled and you had planned some good day outs with her. Suddenly that wrong gone move made your days acrimonious. Life turned sour and nothing felt well. Planned things started fading and thus Ma’s arrival was washed off your memory. You start wondering how this human called ma handles so much without ever making you realize how much she has been through may be more than what you are going through today. May be that is the reason why she is such pillar for you, a pillar of trust, support, strength and goodness. She is the center of your universe, just like the sun is for the 9 discovered planets!

While you sip that freshly boiled ginger and tulsi tea, abruptly your nostrils trigger the mind’s sensory point and you gradually remember that summer morning from a long gone by year. You were this lost, exhausted, tensed and you had a shaky feet. It was the first time your heart was broken. The world calls it affair but only you knew that you were in love and that it was true and meant to last forever. But, that summer vacation was indeed suffocating and nothing of the vacation sorts. You wished that you could just dig your head and shut out the world because you were cheated. You were taken for granted, treated as a stepping stone and all this while you were blind, stupid enough for not thinking  logically and always putting your feelings over rationality.

It was past, happened in some year which was long gone by. But yet there too it was Ma. She gave you strength, support and above all helped you regain that shaken confidence. Her tea, same ginger & tulsi therapy did wonders that morning when you two sat in those comfortable cane single sofas kept near verandah. That simple touch of hers and her assuring eyes were enough to make you feel that it happens and it is okay. But you should not loose heart or hope and move forward. She in her soft voice assured you that it was okay to make mistakes, okay to fall in love and fail and that it was also okay to be stupid for some time and that it can happen again. She made the weight lift off your heart. Ma said you may repeat it till you make the right choice darling! The world is not so cruel, it is the way we look at it. There is summer and there is spring too. The time has to be right and you have to wait for the spring. But no matter what, hope & trust are the two rails which will support you and give you rest on your way.

So, this afternoon I put the tea cup down after the last gulp go to the kitchen and silently hug her from behind to say that you are sorry for forgetting to pick her up from station, for again mistaking the summer as spring and for many more things but you have those two magic rails as well. She turns and smiles back with a tighter hug!

With love,

to Ma…

To Maa, With Love

To Maa, with Love

The best feeling in Life is when you feel that you have full control over your life and that nothing can go against your wishes or desires. The weather seems good, the smile you get makes you feel bright, plain food turns delicious and no work is pain. You merrily dance across and go twirling. And suddenly there is this one day when you realize that you cannot even control a small argument let alone your life. Your decisions taken so far seems grossly wrong and you desperately search for a rewind button just to undo one faulty decision. Alas! Life moves only unidirectional, one way – forward. 

But the delayed realization brings more despair, grief and headache. You resort to aspirins or junk or smoke or a little wine even! The resultant is often more despair & aggravating helplessness. Then you rise one day with steel in mind & heart and proceed to take on this cruel world where you feel no one is bothered about your miserable condition. The first few steps are filled with surety but then it strikes again, this time with larger impact. You are now not so sure about your move and once again you are drawn to the helplessness of indecisiveness. You turn your head to the other side, you look at the deserted road and your face is hit by the ruthless dry acrid hot air which is dusty and grainy. And by now you have lost all that surety both in your mind and legs. The legs want to turn and run back to lonely despaired but yet that safe lodging. And you have already started to visualize that brown wooden door, yellow walls, thick & brick colored cotton curtains and that buzzing motor of the water cooler. Here you are, back again! You search for the bunch of keys which has a fancy red key ring with few small bells attached and the whiff of hot mustard oil in kadahi awaiting maybe some freshly cut vegetables being prepared for supper hits your nostrils and without thinking your mouth opens to say “ma  please give me some tea’.

The situation has changed and thus your circumstances too drastically seem to change. Ma has come for the summer vacation. Her visit was scheduled and you had planned some good day outs with her. Suddenly that wrong gone move made your days acrimonious. Life turned sour and nothing felt well. Planned things started fading and thus Ma’s arrival was washed off your memory. You start wondering how this human called ma handles so much without ever making you realize how much she has been through may be more than what you are going through today. May be that is the reason why she is such pillar for you, a pillar of trust, support, strength and goodness. She is the center of your universe, just like the sun is for the 9 discovered planets!

While you sip that freshly boiled ginger and tulsi tea, abruptly your nostrils trigger the mind’s sensory point and you gradually remember that summer morning from a long gone by year. You were this lost, exhausted, tensed and you had a shaky feet. It was the first time your heart was broken. The world calls it affair but only you knew that you were in love and that it was true and meant to last forever. But, that summer vacation was indeed suffocating and nothing of the vacation sorts. You wished that you could just dig your head and shut out the world because you were cheated. You were taken for granted, treated as a stepping stone and all this while you were blind, stupid enough for not thinking  logically and always putting your feelings over rationality.

It was past, happened in some year which was long gone by. But yet there too it was Ma. She gave you strength, support and above all helped you regain that shaken confidence. Her tea, same ginger & tulsi therapy did wonders that morning when you two sat in those comfortable cane single sofas kept near verandah. That simple touch of hers and her assuring eyes were enough to make you feel that it happens and it is okay. But you should not loose heart or hope and move forward. She in her soft voice assured you that it was okay to make mistakes, okay to fall in love and fail and that it was also okay to be stupid for some time and that it can happen again. She made the weight lift off your heart. Ma said you may repeat it till you make the right choice darling! The world is not so cruel, it is the way we look at it. There is summer and there is spring too. The time has to be right and you have to wait for the spring. But no matter what, hope & trust are the two rails which will support you and give you rest on your way.

So, this afternoon I put the tea cup down after the last gulp go to the kitchen and silently hug her from behind to say that you are sorry for forgetting to pick her up from station, for again mistaking the summer as spring and for many more things but you have those two magic rails as well. She turns and smiles back with a tighter hug!

With love,

to Ma…

The art of fooding

It has been very long that i really settled down to write anything. After much thought and introspection, it suddenly sprang in my mind that writing on food will be the most apt thing for now. Food has always been one of my prime loves of life, and very strangely I have to forcibly keep my distance from most of the eatables for some time now!! Well, when & if i explain the reason for this distance,people will say it is well justified, but for a food lover like me, any reason would appear heartbreaking :() !
Yesterday, while flipping through various channels, i stopped to watch a food show on a national English news channel. Then there were food shows on other entertainment channels and channels specifically dedicated to food & cooking. Trust me, when you have to abstain from a particular thing which you are attached to, it attracts you all the very more. So, i kept on dedicating my time of a leisure Sunday to these channels and was intently watching at the various recipes being cooked and discussed. And after a time, it felt that as if the aromas were flowing out of my TV screen!
There was a discussion on north eastern cuisines - the thukpa,dim sum,hot steaming soup,garlic chickens & prawns, noodles served wrapped in banana leaf which kept hot & steaming because of some internal charcoal being put into the wrapping. The anchor was venturing from eatery to restaurants to roadside joints enjoying the cold weather and treating her taste buds. In the long slurpp to take in a considerably long strand of freshly made noodle in prawn soup, she got engrossed and i had to change the channel. Next stop was a food channel where recent food trends and newly opened thoughtful food joints with their menus were showcased. Oh God! why do i bump into these things always - was my thought. And with quick dismissal of the negative thought I started concentrating. Here, a proud cook was showing their newest entry : a cheese ball which was filled with mozzarella cheese inside and wrapped in mashed potato & other herbs and then deep fried in simmering white oil. Lovely! i could only gather this much. Ah! on the brighter side, i also learned that any cheese filled ball / patty / cutlet should never be fried in very hot oil, the temperature should be just a bit high otherwise the cheese melts and spills out. 
From here, i ventured for some news channels. But will you believe my luck! huh, another english news channel was on air with its weekend foodie show. Here, trust me, the anchor was looking so completely smitten by the prospect of eating what was being cooked in the show that it almost satisfied my taste buds. It feels good to see that there are others who can feel the same passion and portray it so well. I instantly envied the show and definitely the anchor. He was on some trip to Italy and was there in a famous joint discussing the italian recipes and a cook was preparing some pasta and chicken stuff. Here, i learned that be it any country the basics of cooking remain almost the same, the oil could oilve / white / mustard / ghee / butter but nevertheless is a basic ingredient. So are plain onions, green chillies, tomatoes, gingers & garlics. And cooking is always about the art of treating the taste buds in the best possible and innovative ways...

my god and your god!!!!!
my last post was on Providence. it is not that i am a very spiritual kind but yes off and on depending on the situation and challenges i resort to the concept of almighty! people who are reading this post, some of them may feel i am such an opportunist that even did not restrain myself from taking advantage of GOD :)
well, GOD.....i have tried to visualize the concept called GOD. though i have not read any books of religion or attended the discourses of spiritual gurus (pardon me, but none of them who are available to public domain appeal to me) or being to any ashram but in my understanding of religion and GOD so far, i adore Kabir's concept of GOD - moko kahan dhoondhe bande mai to tere paas mein , na main mandir na mai masjid na kabe kailas mein....in std VI or VII i guess, i read these lines in the hindi text book.(CBSE had a chapter on dohas for these classes) and since then this concept appealed to me more than any other. not that i follow the nirgun line of thoughts, and for that matter i had a  series  of idols at my Delhi house as well  including my favorite Ganesha, the fiery  Kali , the  motherly Durga, Laxmi ji ofcourse and Lord Shiva.  and of late i  want to have a big idol of Krishna as well (since i joined PSU, i have one good thing that is having quite a lot of my personal time, which i spend listening to music. and that includes bhajans too, so to add to the ambience i want to have Krishna ji too, i hope he does not mind the context because the reverence wont reduce if i had him for this purpose!!)
so my point is why to have such a hullabaloo on the matters related to religion. though we are raised to identify ourselves with a particular religion, and our identities are inseparable with the religion we follow. but we are also taught  about having a mind which  can accommodate views of other religion and heart which can accept others' religious beliefs. GOD or almighty is a concept and depending on the families we are being born into we start following a religion. just think if i was born to a sikh parentage i would be going to a gurudwara, in case of a muslim would have read Quaran and said 'amen' and celebrated X mas if i was born to a christian family but my nature of resorting off and on to the concept of GOD would be same. so my point is- be of any religion or sect, what matters is the belief on a supreme....and that should be all.
imagine if a child is not raised to identify him/herself with any religion, what religion will the child follow? probably the simple concept of brotherhood and humanity,love and care shall be his guiding lights. and isnt that the base of any and all religious books or books which are on religion. every and each of those books emphasize on doing your duty - as a human, as a fellow, as a partner, as a father/mother/husband/children or any other relation. how many of us firstly realize our true duties? the greatest confusions are born when we fail to understand our duties and start poking into what others should or should not do. if each one of us does our part then werent many issues have a better solution and peaceful resolve.....think over :)

Providence and the stangeness of it!

Providence has strange ways of working. Read this line in a book by Nayantara Sehgal. A shayari says “hawa khilaaf thi leqin,ye shama bhi kya khoob jali hai-khuda bhi hone ke qya qya sabot deta hai”.


Indeed it is. And I have many times experienced it too, and have always wondered why so. Simple ways, normal or rather plain routine is may be a bit boring for God or the almighty. So to add spice (read zing) to itself or our lives he/she (deciding the gender of supreme is of great responsibility and understanding) does it probably. What could Life have been with no ups and downs just a flat road without any speed breakers….it always amuses me to explore that possibility. There are shocks, jitters, tremors, set backs and there after follows stability, new avenues, opportunities, accomplishments and triumph. And then we realize it – the strange ways of the working of providence, the realization of the supreme. But my point is – is it necessary that to realize and respect the supreme, do we need the jitters first?

A very recent tremor encountered by me makes me mull over the idea more. It happens to me that I have been devoting more time in religious or spiritual activities these days. At times confronting them and at times practicing them. But either ways the time spent is on these types of things. The more I am thinking the clouds of confusion thickening. Is it not only normal that after a quake, return of normalcy is a natural course? Do we call it providence or the normal course of nature? Is it the involvement of supreme or only the natural course? Am I afraid to accept the normal that I need to resort and relate it to supreme? Or is it actually the supreme, which is unseen and is strange in its manifestation, that we spend our life time in understanding its ways!!

the new audiences for tv soaps, aila !

even five years down the lane of time, i could hardly find a male glued to the television during a daily half hour soap which basically revolved on topics of family drama with highly charged up emotional scenes. but today i can have the list full with them. some of the names are actually surprising because i can vouch that otherwise these 'guys' seem truely practical and pragmatic! well both the words practical and pragmatic have been used in perfect positive sense by me , here. there were times when the only available channel DD showed serials like humlog, nukkad, ramayan and etcetra, and the whole family gathered to watch them. but then came a time when daily soap concept started revolving around the saas bahu saga, where the quintessential sindoor and bindi became the trade mark and ornamentally designed pallus the hallmark. those were the times when not only the subjects of these soaps had a typical feminine audience but also pushed males to channels catering anything but not these.
the dramatic turns of such sopas which took a regular five day pause to unfold were too tiring and monotonous, the repetition of one punch line (read boring & melodramatic) at least thrice, the super pathetic background score in a sad scene, the sudden leaps and jumps of time and generation, the countless number of family members...uff all added to the unbear-ability of it. so if the male population just wanted a different channel or separate tv room or may be a different occupation at that time, no feminist even could raise a word on that!
but surprising it may be,suddenly i find more males booking themselves for the 8.30 to 11 pm slots for tv these days, picking and fixing their very own sopas and deftly switching between channels to catch the glimpse of rest of the lot!!! be it the new era of soaps which include various social and human topics with the flavour of bit of melodrama and touch of unrealism though. but still these topics have if not anything else showed that television serials are not only meant for bahus and saas but even bhaiyas,chachas and taujis too have thier slots and preferences ......cool for a change and india of 21st century (read pragatisheel)

here, ! too join

after seeing the enthusiasm of so many people around me about blogging i realized that the need to let self's feelings published is not such a bad idea nor something uncommon. so finally letting myself loosen a bit and attempt thy begining. as usual a bit unsure about the future course regarding this attempt but very excited about the start .... hope to have loads of learning and fun on the way :)