Chiffonesque

At Nature's Basket and such places, I suffer from this mild lapse of memory where I forget that I don't cook. Can't. Won't. But everything looks so tide, appealing, and inviting - the ripe plums, the little vials of sea-salt, hefty avocados, cartons of raw sugar, boxes of interesting pasta - that I think I'd love to cook and of course, I can whip up something nice. Last night, I had a friend over. She just happened to be on this side of town and I was done with work. It would be nice to catch up. But just that morning, I'd asked the cook to not make anything. It's end of the month so there isn't a whole lot I can buy from a restaurant either. I'm not one of those proud and particular hostesses who needs to lay out a laden table but I really did want to put out something nice for my friend. There was paratha, some soya sabzi, and daal. Then I remembered. From the moment when I'd mistaken myself for someone who likes to cook, I'd purchas...

www.pexels.com 1. Beauty rinses off a lot of pain. 2. I hadn't 'visited' my balcony in ages. So last night, a friend came over and we had lots of coffee and cocoa there. We even shivered a little. It has been ages since I shivered out in the open.  3. Mom had last sent me packets of dried cranberries. Last night, I whipped up some raita with it. So a handful of dried cranberries in some whipped curd, some organic jaggery sugar, and chilli flakes. It was really very tasty. We had that with a kind of upma that's made with shredded left-over rotis, a pulao made of millet ( or bhagar as it's called here) and large cups of coffee and hot cocoa. I'd had Red Bull before that. I love it. 4. A lot of books on www.tuebl.ca are not available anymore. So...shucks! But some still are. I downloaded Girl Interrupted. And Corfu trilogy by Gerard Durell - what I'm really delighted about. 5. I'd palmed off some ganjis to a friend's dog. One of ...

I am cleaning my cupboard and I am exhausted. I pulled out all my clothes from every single cupboard (there are three) and just the sheer volume of what I have scared me a little. Anyway, I think I should really prod on. The room will be messy for a couple of days but I hope it will be worth it.  

I love www.tuebl.ca because you can download free books from here. Contemporary novels too like Paula Hawkins’ ‘Girl on the Train’ and J.K.Rowling’s ‘Casual Vacancy’. Here’s a list of books I want to download as soon as I fix up the connection on my tab (many of these are all available on the site): Source: www.pexels.com 1      1.       Funny Girl by Nick Hornby 2.        Unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera 3.        Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway 4.        Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami 5.        The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami 6.        Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami 7.        Audition by Ryu Murakami 8.        The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami 9.        C...

Aarushi is a book by Avirook Sen. It's on the Aarushi murder case. No sooner is it out than a journalist questions, "Why write about one Aarushi? Why not the 100 kids that Nithari killed? Could it be because Aarushi was middle-class and those 100 were poor?" One gets irritated about such stuff. Easy to dismiss off anything that involves the middle or upper-middle these days - the Aarushi book or the Vogue video or whatever. But somewhere else, a film-maker had made the point that a movie about poor people or lower middle-class people does not do well in Bollywood. (If they are poor, they have to be gangsters. The exception was, apparently, Peepli Live.) So one does wonder - why NOT the 100 kids that Nithari killed? Could it be that the middle-class will only read non-fiction about injustice if it involves 'one of us'?

I had an accident the other day. Incident still makes me boil so I won't get into too many details. Just a cab hit and dented my car from the side pretty badly because it had to shove in between my car and the wall. At a signal. Anyway, now just living in Pune is making me really weary. Earlier that day, I'd hit my head, my slipper had snapped, broke two nails, had a bit of a run-in with a colleague, and the wonderful ladies that I have cleaning and cooking for me just trigger that deep, dark place inside me. So, I'm guessing there were signs that it would be a tough day. Sure enough, it was. Anyway, I feel that I've had enough of this no-drinking nonsense. So this Saturday, I thought I should just do what it takes to make me feel better. A friend and I decided to go out. We decided to dress up and go out. This in and of itself is SUCH a new concept for me now that putting on my faux leather leggings and charcoal top made me high. But I got a chance t...

Maus by Art Spiegelman This is a graphic novel and a fable of the Holocaust. The Jews are mice, the cats are Germans, and the Polish are pigs. It is also a memoir of sorts because it’s told from Art Spiegelman’s point of view (who is Jew – so, he’s a mouse). It is a record of his father’s memories of the Holocaust, and a portrait of how even the broad strokes of history shape the smallest details of our lives – how we might have breakfast or how our father may bolt the door. The book begins with a young Art crying about being teased by his friends. His father then tells him that he knows nothing about hardship. Then begins the story of Holocaust and his father's survival through it. Although the descriptions of the Holocaust are in themselves troubling and poignant, it is the stubborn humanness that I found unnerving. Like the common decency one jailor may show a worker simply by not pelting him with stones on a snowy day. Or why someone who gets beaten and prodded and...

Walked 50 kms yesterday - nearly 9 hours - through this crowd of colour and music, through the city - up a hill - across the plains, literally through 'almost rain and shine', looking up at the far distance beyond and wondering how the hell will we EVER climb that...went for the Palki yesterday and although the legs and back pain beyond belief, it was very, very memorable. I was told not to leave Pune without having that experience at least once. Passing on that advice to everyone in the city. There's a new found respect you have for all kinds of journeys - no matter how arduous or easy or impossible or easy, you do the all in the exact same way - one.step.at.a.time. (That rice, daal , and mawa kulfi at the end of the journey felt brilliant!)

www.pexels.com   The forest knows and the forest grows Deep inside a psyche somewhere Tender as a wound that is healing   Endymion's paw prints near the marsh The little mermaid's conundrums and those of the brothers - Karamazov and Grimm, yet, The forest knows and the forest grows   Rushdie's roars echo as caves crumble Vikram Seth's sun soaks the sky and makes it thus Tender as a wound that is healing   The birds of Tolstoy and the ivy of Dickens Gnarl through the rainbow earth, rooting all wisdom The forest knows and the forest grows   The constellation of Shadow Lines and Namesake Tesselate the nightly pond, bruising it and leaving it thus Tender as a wound that is healing   Wilderness, as lush as Angelou Dusk-music as mild as Wilde Thickets of poems and stories on high trees and burrows, and yet, in silence, The forest knows and the forest grows   (For an assignment, we had to write a ...

Watched Inside Out. It's a sweet film, I guess...but of course, even the ambiguous emotions can't be free of stereotyping - so 'Joy' is svelte and fair while Sadness is stout and blue and wears a chunky turtleneck. Even emotions must clock in their hours at  'headquarters' and they must use the grand one-finger swipe on glass beads that capture memory because everything mimicks a touchscreen in the head. Memories too are stratified. There are 'core' memories that must  be managed by whoever heads the 'Fake it till you make it' brigade. (There's no brigade, per se...just one person.) The other three emotions, especially Sadness, that actually approaches the truth gets bossed over. Eventually, it's the truth that gets you through. (Oh, and the final miserable straw that breaks sad Riley's back is getting a vegetarian pizza...with broccoli.) My absolute favorite part was the 'I Lava You' short musical animation before the film...

  From www.pexels.com   Does anyone else feel this way? That the body is too small to contain anything? That something inside s squirming and roaring to tear out of you? Sometimes I wake up with this very weird feeling of not knowing how to dress. I look at all the clothes piled on the bed and dishes piled in the sink and I wonder how to get on top of all this. There is a huge part of me that wants to forgive a certain person but I can't. I wake up with this unforgiveness like a knot in my stomach - something hard and uncomfortable in my gut. It has been like that now for a while. Around me, people say 'move on already'. I think I want to. I think I have wanted to for a long time. But so far, it has not been possible. So I wonder whether I really want to or whether I want to hold on to the past because it is When I started writing this post, I'd felt a little hopeless but somehow this feeling of being too big and wieldy for one's environment makes one feel a ...

I'm back from Bombay. It was a great trip and I've come back tired and with a cold. Anyway, I bought an iPad mini for my father (it was his birthday last month). Personally, I prefer Android tablets but I thought he'd like all those important lectures and research material that an Apple product gives you access to. Today, mom and I had lunch at Yauatcha at BKC. It's a posh Tea and Dimsum place (so...not a Chinese restaurant because that would make it pedestrian) at BKC. B-K-C. Bandra-Kurla Compex - next to Kalanagar! I was halfway through my pot of orchid tea when it struck me that when I grew up in Bandra, this place was a dumping ground. It was a space for the city's grime and a scratchy underbelly. And now, it's so swank! Now it was a place where I was having lunch at a Michelin starred restaurant! Anyway, nostalgia aside, I really liked my dimsums - I had one filled with Shitake-mushroom and another one stuffed with mock meat cooked in Peking style. You...

It happened one morning. I was almost asleep…or almost awake, depending on how you look at it. The sun was up but just barely. Little squares of orange light filtered in through the curtains. It was cold. I was under two layers of blanket and had, as a pre-emptory measure, turned off my alarm. I’d be going  late to work. Then the bell rang. It was the cook or the cleaning lady. Both are punctual on days I want to sleep in. So, here’s my hypothesis number 1: If you want house-help to come in on time in the mornings, have tough, sleepless nights before where you toss and turn and pace about the house. And then hit the bed around 5 a.m. They will arrive punctually (and very shrilly) at the appointed time. Anyway, the bell rang and I just rolled over, put my pillow over my head and thought, “I wish someone just opened that goddamn door.” Someone did. I heard the maid outside say, “Didi, tomorrow I’ll come with my daughter. Can she use your table to study?” I live alone so I f...