A Happy Holi

My youngest child finishes college this summer.
He had planned to travel with friends over the long Holi/Good Friday weekend.
The travel plans didn't materialise, and so the SRE and I had the pleasure of his company, along with some of his friends, some of whom came, went, stayed......
We had a very low key Holi, when I made gujiya after years and years, as well as the traditional kanji. Since I couldn't find any black carrots, I used the red ones with a couple of beetroots for the colour.

We were all delighted to see these traditional items, but I realised that there are some things that you enjoy more in memory than in the present day!!!!
It's been a few days of feasting, conversations, late nights, midnight snacks and TV and movie watching at home. I realise how much I appreciate the wisdom and common sense of the young, and how much I will miss my son and the friends he has so kindly shared with us, as their lives and careers take them to different places. Here's wishing them all wonderful lives and great careers, and much love and laughter always!

A discovery!

 A friend had posted this on her Facebook page recently, and I was totally floored by this poem.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Spring/summer

Summer is here- we had to run the air conditioner for a while last night.
Morning walks are now a sweaty business.
And this is just the beginning.
I'd gone to pay the club bill, when I encountered these two beauties.

The bougainvilla was aflame with colour, while the subtle dull pink of the unknown flowering tree felt like a reminder of the beautiful spring weather that has suddenly vanished........

Ek tha bachpan................

                                        

                                          

Our sitting room has a large sideboard (which, along with some other furniture, came along with the flat) which happens to store many of our treasured books, most of our music, and all of our movies. The said movies have overloaded their shelf- the drop-down flap often refuses to close. In the interest of closing the flap I pulled out a few VCDs and DVDs and came across Ashirwad, the 1968 Ashok Kumar starrer. I first saw this film with my father on the television at the home of our dear family friends. (Daddy and I spent many a Sunday evening in their sitting room watching whatever film Doordarshan cared to telecast). It was an amazing film, with two memorable songs for children that I remember, both composed by the incomparable Harindranth Chattopadhya, Rail gadi chuk chuk chuk and Naao Chali.
             The song that has been playing in my head ever since, though, is Ek tha Bachpan: it brings back so many wonderful memories of my father, and seems to describe him perfectly. I see him laughing out loud reading Wodehouse, listening devotedly to K.L.Saigal, carrying me up to the terrace in summer while I pretended to be asleep, cherishing his Parker pen, relishing the sharpness of a green chilli (and breaking off half of the hottest one and insisting that I try it), bringing home exquisite sarees from his frequent travels, annoying my mother endlessly by saying "Yes Sir" to her diktat, fomenting my eyes with boric solution and putting eyedrops in them, waking me up in the middle of the night to give me medicines on schedule, tossing his head back and laughing out loud, him using the phrase gadhey ka baccha as a serious term of abuse, going to plays and concerts with him, going to buy vegetables with him on his bicycle especially for the joy of careening down the slope on the way home, arguing with him on what for me were matters of principle, him singing Radhey rani dey daro na , going with him and my sister for children's films at Sapru House, his ability to find joy and adventure in everything, waking up early to find him already up and studying for his homeopathy exam, him making tea for Mummy every morning.............
My list of cherished memories of my father is endless.


Ek tha bachpan, ek tha bachpan
Chhota sa nanha sa bachpan
Bachpan kay ek Babuji thay,
Achchey sachey Babuji thay
Donon ka sundar tha bandhan
Ek tha bachpan........

There was once a childhood,
a small, little childhood
This childhood had a Father,
A good and true father
A beautiful bond between them
There was once a childhood......

A very slow rate of change

The SRE and I are both rather laidback and lazy. We also tend to accept situations and work around them, rather than make enough of an effort to change them in ways that would improve our quality of life.
           Since we have spent most of our lives so far in either company or company leased property, we tend to accept the structure and fittings of our house as a given, unless forced to do otherwise.
A case in point are our electrical points and wiring. Our present apartment already had a split air conditioning unit in the drawing room, with a long, thick wire running from it, snaking over the French windows, down to the power switch, a good 30-35 feet or so. It was only after
a) getting an air conditioner installed in the kitchen as well as b) getting the house painted did we realize that at a relatively low cost we could get the wire hidden within a slim white plastic casing!

This seemed like a huge achievement! When the SRE decided that he had enough of our old dabba TV and bought a 42" flat screen TV that I irreverently insist on calling The Blackboard, the installing engineer told us to get a separate plug point for the TV, in the interests of its long term health. He must have been quite disgusted by the sight of four plugs hanging from a multi-point adapter, one each for the TV, the Tata Sky set, the DVD player and the music system. Since the sockets tend to work loose over time, getting all four machines to work was often frought with much tension.
Our building's electrician was summoned, and two plug points were installed! Such riches!!!!

However, all these riches remained on the far wall- the wall away from the French windows. There are no options for lamps or charging points on the other wall. (Even the dining room has one lone point behind the sideboard, apart from the fridge point). So when our children decided to give the SRE a massage cushion for his birthday this year, it seemed obvious that it would sit on the armchair near the corner table, where there is a plug point. The younger son, however, felt that the leather recliner was a far better chair to keep it on. And so, our trusty electrician Vimal was summoned, and
voila, the 'electric chair' :
                            

It seems like a huge triumph, the plug point on this wall. It gives us so many options! We might even put a lamp on this side of the room. Phones and laptops can be charged here. The possibilities are immense!!! We are quite convinced that now that we have made such significant improvements in our living space, the landlord is sure to want his house back very soon!!!!
               

Not happy

The SRE sprained his ankle while playing golf last Saturday.
And scored a birdie just after!
He's in pain, on bed rest.
Life is not 'normal.'

Remember good old Fido Dido?

Who used to say,

Normal is Boring

I want boring!!!!

Black and white

Egrets and crows
at the sprinkler
on the green:
Thirsty chessmen.