The farmers in the state of Maharashtra (India) have been hit with drought many times and a lot many farmers committed suicide out of depression and lack of means to repay loans and debts. I know a city person like me can not fully understand their plight nor can be of much help to them, not because I do not want to but because I am fighting my own little wars of day-to-day living… however I do hope and pray, that they sail over their miseries. May God smile upon them with good fortune!!
I know I am very late for this post….the whole week is almost over! To be honest I had lost interest in weekly photo challenges because I observed that I was not writing any thing else and whole week went off waiting for a new photo challenge and the comments from fellow bloggers. Though it was fun…in fact some good bloggers boosted my spirits by nominating many awards and that was soooooooo satisfying ! But I was not getting new visitors…..that was making me seriously doubt my writing ability. And so I stopped participating. However, a few months back a mail from eof737 asking about my well-being and the concern made me feel perked up (thank you so much “eof737”) . I realized that by not writing I was not only loosing out on some probably new visitors but also the ones who were reading my blog!! Now I am again trying to reach out to bloggers old and new with this weekly photo challenge.
Lunchtime is one such event at our home when the three of us are seldom together….my daughter does not come back from school till around 2:30 p.m, my husband has no fixed time of returning home from work. All of us eat at our own convenient times. Today was one of the rare times when all of us sat down at dining table and had lunch together. Even our dog “Buddy” stretched down near the table content that all were at home and safe!
The lunch menu was simple regular home-made food : dal (lentil gravy), paneer-simla mirch(capsicum and cottage cheese), bathua raita (plain home-made curd or yoghurt with white-goosefoot/pigweed leaves), chapati/roti (indian wheat bread) and basmati rice. Though there was nothing out of the ordinary in the menu but it became special because we all were at home!
I am fairly good cook and quite proud that I can cook not only Indian food but can manage a few of the Chinese, Italian, Mexican and Thai recipes too! I like watching all food channels ( and I am myself surprised because a decade back I loathed kitchen and all chopping and cutting and forever upset my mom!). But taking advantage of the photo challenge today I am posting not only the photos but also the recipe..
1. Capsicum and Cottage cheese:
Ingredients:
1 large onion( finely chopped)
2 large ripe tomatoes (finely chopped)
2 medium capsicum (cut into big chunks)
150 gm cottage cheese (bite sized squares)
1 tsp garam masala (1/4 tsp cloves, 1/8 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp black pepper ground to a powder)
Heat 2tbsp oil in a wok. Cook onion till transparent. Add tomatoes, 1/2 tsp turmeric and ground red pepper powder and one slit green chilly. When the oil starts separating add capsicum. Once the capsicum softens add cottage cheese, salt and garam masala. Garnish with fresh coriander and serve!
2. Dal :
Ingredients:
1 tbsp of each split black gram (urad chika), kidney beans (rajma), split and skinned bengal gram ( chana dal), pink lentil (masoor) soaked overnight and cooked till soft
3 tbsp paste of 2onions,2 tomatoes, 3cloves of garlic, a small piece of ginger
1tsp garam masala
Heat oil and fry the paste till oil separates. Add the cooked lentils salt, garam masala and 1 cup water( or more) Bring to boil. The dal should not be very watery nor like a paste…. more like a thick soup. Heat a little butter and add 1 tsp of cumin seeds till they splutter. Garnish with this butter and cumin and chopped fresh coriander.
3. Bathua Raita:
Ingredients:
2 cup curd/plain yoghurt
2 tbsp blanched and pureed pig weed leaves
rock-salt, powdered sugar, salt, black pepper powder roasted cumin powder (to taste)
Mix all and chill. Serve with rice or naan or any Indian bread.
4. Chapati/Roti:
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1tsp oil
water
Knead the flour to make soft pliable dough with water and apply oil. Make small rounds and with the help of a rolling-pin make a 6 inch flat thin disc . Roast on hot plate. Serve hot with clarified butter.
Today’s lunch was quite satisfying and I look forward to more such lunches with the family…
Living Root Bridge(Shillong,India)
I have been lately not very active on either of my blogs; no addition to the “Chronicles of our love story” or to “Astonishing India” , no Weekly Photo challenges, no comments on the blogs of other blogger friends……absolutely nothing. But I have a valid excuse! I am almost on the last leg of my Creative Writing course and hence I was busy writing the assignment due for submission in May 2012.
I have under this course tried writing Haiku for the first time. I would like all the blogger friends to please give their opinions and advises on these :
#1.
Bare bough longing some color
Stinging words bleed the heart dry, lifeless
Has the autumn already arrived?
#2.
The deathly pale cracked earth
Rinsed, quenched, alive and bobbing paper boats
Elixir from the heaven above
#3.
Fire, wine and white snow
The melted wax and broken bangles shard
Memory of the night before
Ootucmund(Udagmandalam) boasts of a largest and oldest botanical garden. There are trees which are around hundred and more years, some very large span ferns, beautiful cacti. In this green house of the garden the flower pots are so arranged so that all varieties of flowers can be seen as a huge pyramid :
The lilies have been arranged in a wire mesh ball such that the roots and the bulbs grow inside the wire ball but flowers bloom outside giving it a look of yellow ball of lilies hanging in mid-air….
Defense Academy trains all the basics to aspirants of all three branches. After graduating from defense academy the cadets go for two-year training of the specific branches, that is army, navy and air force. Post those two years the young men get commissioned as officers and posted to various parts of the country.
Architecture is a five-year course and students graduate with a degree of B. Arch. In 1993, I took admission in the college at Nagpur, Maharashtra. It was an all girls college.
I was in the third year of my course when that young man was commissioned as a Pilot Officer, posted in Assam. The college hostel where I was putting up had the p.a system to announce visitors or incoming phone. Architecture college was hosting a national fest in 1996 February and I was a part of it. Late in evening when all students returned to the hostel, my name was announced for an incoming call from Asaam. I received the call.
In six years that had passed when that boy left for defense academy and I for college, we had not exchanged even a single word. I never expected him to remember me let alone call me up after such a long time. But it was him…..
He: Hello, Shoma , I am Shashank. Remember me?
I: Um, ummm….I, yes I do.
He: Ah, Thank God for that! Can you give me your postal address?
I: Um….how did you find this phone number?
He: I will write to you about it….is it okay? Are you willing to give me your postal address?
I: Umm… Okay.
Destiny played its cards and brought us in the same city, letting the time play its role…
Years rolled by and we entered our teens all the while getting into arguments and teasing each other, with falling in love not on agenda at all… But hormones had become active and without us knowing there were changes taking place!
Besides the occasional get-together meets, the annual ten days long ” Ganesh festival” was the maximum in a year that we regularly came across each other surrounded by all other families.
At teenage smallest attention by the boys causes the fluttering of butterflies in the stomach and other girlfriends start teasing too. I was just thirteen and receiving quite a lot of attention from this fifteen year old good-looking guy. I had started enjoying the attention and even looked forward to it. However the initial phase of infatuation lasted for exactly two years. One of the reason being the hyperactive radar of my mom which worked overtime and so she nipped the infatuation in the budding stage. The other reason was that the cute little boy in two years had grown into a seventeen year old handsome young man and had to leave the town to join the Defense Academy.
Another two years passed with him in the academy and I preparing for admission to an architecture college. We did not meet and had lost all contact….
It was Destiny’s turn again to start taking control of our lives again…
Life throws many challenges and we are constantly striving to pass through those tough times unscathed, unblemished, untarnished….. trying to win always! And with whatever knowledge that we gain by those experiences we try to make everything easy for our children…. guiding them away from difficulties.
But what do I do if my daughter has decided to pass through most weird pathways that come across when we are holidaying???
She saw this dried up tree root, hollow in the center propped up near another tree. She went through the hole many times just to prove that her clothes won’t get dirty if she crawls through it!!
Through the roots of a dried up tree...
Again at Ooty, she came across this gap in the fence and she squeezed through it …..her ways of adventure I guess!!
I was reading a post about “arranged marriages” by Arindam Mohapatra and the associated comments when I got this idea to chronicle the story of my “love” marriage.
Destined to meet
“There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”
― John Lennon
Destiny finds some way to bring the two souls together and makes them fall in love…
It was in 1984 that my parents got posted to Ghaziabad District Hospital. I was all of nine years old then and unawares of the difference between a big city and a town. The only thing mattered was finding friends in the school and around our home. We had moved in to a rented bungalow which was however surrounded by a lot many empty housing plots. Making friends seemed difficult.
We had hardly settled in the new house and new school when a horrifying experience changed everything. My parents, both doctors had joined the new hospital and were not available till late afternoon at home. My grandmother joined us for few days to help.
Three men had stalked us since the day we moved in. It was pouring heavily when they struck armed with knives and guns. They ransacked the house, threatened my seven-year old sister with knife and hurt my grandmother with the butt of the gun. I slipped out of the door to get help, but the robbers noticed and left in hurry taking whatever they could lay their hands on..
This one incident suddenly changed everything. We shifted to better and more populated locality and a better school. The new rented house had the landlord staying on the ground floor. The land lord belonged to the same community as us and he introduced us to other community members. And suddenly we had a lot of acquaintances in a new city.
This Maharashtrian community celebrated the festivals together and we soon became active members pitching in the celebrations and associated preparations. It was through these festivities that we came across this family…..two grown up sisters and one lanky little boy who happened to be in the same school as I.
Being in the same age group we used to play, fight and argue with each other not knowing that we will end up marrying one day!
Had it not been our destiny to meet, my parents wouldn’t have shifted to new city, robbers wouldn’t have attacked us and we wouldn’t have met with other people of our community and I would have never met this cute guy!!
We were meant to be in that city because up there somewhere GOD had designed the events so that we could get a chance to meet. We were destined to….
An unusual thought came to me……. what if I stopped participating in the weekly 
photo challenges? Will the recent friends that I have made in this world of blogging still visit my blog? Will the traffic that I have enjoyed since last few months continue to grow? Will whatever I write make it eligible ever for the “freshly pressed post”? Do people really enjoy reading what I write?
This train of thought sent its feelers into my other relationships too… My relation with fellow bloggers may take a downward slide off and on, but what about the people whom I have known all this time? Will my younger sister ever again need some advice and help from me? Will my husband always stand by me? Will my parents agree with my decisions? Will my daughter understand my concerns? Will my friends forgive my occasional annoyance? WILL I EVER KNOW WHETHER THEY REALLY NEED ME? IS MY PRESENCE OF ANY VALUE? DO MY OPINIONS COUNT?
Will I be able to make a mark in my lifetime or will I be a faceless entity on mother earth like these :
It is unusual to sit like this with our eyes not knowing where the path leads and such people lose their identity…. lost on others, their absence not affecting people around them… No!! what would that life be? I do not want it like that.
Amid all this depressing state of mind, a sudden query from my daughter :
“Mamma, why does God create difficulties for us? Doesn’t HE love us?”
And my reply brought some sense back to my disturbed mind. I told her that God always loves us but just keeps testing us about how we handle ourselves in different situations, whether we are prepared for much more difficult problems. Its our responsibility to emerge successfully from trying times all the while keeping faith in HIM that he will not let us falter. HE will find some way to make our existence useful. We will flourish and enjoy attention from our dear ones just like this unusual palm tree:
Shoma Abhyankar 