THE BUZZ WORD IS “INSTANT”

We live today in a fast paced world, caught in a whirl of frentic activity, living as we do in a jungle of modern gizmos supposedly making life easier for you, but which carry their own overload, linked with high expectations. In the slow paced world I grew up in, there was space for leisure and allowances to make you savour nothingness, which  alone was meditative. “What is this world if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”

Take our dear Parmasiva Iyer. He was our family priest, and would wear the softest of mull dhothis, with a small defining border, but no flash of zari or ornamentation. On his forehead he generously smeared ash, and when he was in a hurry the lines which were supposed to be drawn merged into a rectangle. In the centre of this thick white streak sat a large pottu of kumkum. He had a clean bald pate despite which  he sported his defining juttu with elan. He wore an angavastram which he opened out to stave off the early morning coolness of Bangalore. Everything about him was so clean and sacred.

Two days before the devesham dates of my departed ancestors,  Iyer would stride in, greet us all with his broad smile, and announce the “date” for the puja. Though this had gone on and on for many years, he would whip out a small pad which he carried in his bag and write down the list of all the items required for the puja, even though my mother knew the list by heart! She would promptly translate it into an English list in her impeccable handwriting.

Iyer as we always referered to him, would turn up at the appointed time and we the young ones would sit around fascinated at the slokas he recited with such accuracy.  When it came to prathiyath nainamma hain, we knew the puja was coming to a close, and what we loved was his placing the black dot on our foreheads and pressing in yellow rice over it.  He dipped the mango leaf into the water and sprinkled it liberally on us and he walked through the house uttering some more slokas as he sprinkled more water. I felt safe and protected at this ritual.

My father would insist on Iyer drinking some coffee, and though it was not a done thing, Iyer would gulp it down as he was more a friend than a visiting priest. He would spend time with my father and they joked and laughed together.  When he died, his brother took his place, but it just wasn’t the same.  Iyer was there when a baby was born and when the girls came of age, as purification had to be done. Horoscopes were examined by him and he was master of ceremonies in the pandal at our weddings.

 Just as the family doctor disappeared into oblivion so has the family priest. He is replaced today in continuum of the zoom of modernity by priests of somewhat aggressive and commercial personalities.  Though I do believe that these holy men should move with the times and not be submerged with static incomes, the old finesse has disappeared. The last gen of priests were tipped generously because of their goodness and graciousness.

The first time I saw the priests riding two wheelers at high speed with their hair flying in the breeze, undeterred by speed breakers, it took me some time to accept the fact that the pages had turned and the holy sect too bore the stamp of change.

Today the punyam comes in a package. When I wished to do a Navagraha Puja and wondered how to handle it single handedly with no younger women in the home bustling around seeing to the nitty gritty of the rituals, a young friend assured me that it could be done “like a breeze.” The price quoted came in a package. The priest had an email ID and he could send you the list of what he would bring on that day including the number of junior priests who would have to be paid. The  price of the package was quoted and you could respond online or call up the man’s mobile. All you had to do was to  earmark the place reserved for the homam, as long as it faced south east any place with room to move around was fine. The pujari brought in all the stuff except the bricks and the vessel to hold the fire, you didn’t have to worry about little cups or vessels or any paraphernalia.

Oh yes, the mobile…Bad enough when your maids, cell phone pressed to the left ear, head tilted to one angle stirred the curry or burnt the vegetables. Much worse when a pujari in between the slokas answers his mobile which seems to ring with unerring accuracy at the crucial time. I have made it very clear to my visiting priests. “PLEASE SHUT OFF YOUR MOBILES”

The danam to be doled out was specified, and the more the number of priests the costlier it was, but the number of priests gave rise to more slokas and you definitely gained in terms of blessings and the proper vibrations for your home! The quote relieved you of running to the nearest Nalli shop to buy the waistis and upper cloth and hoping that they approved of your choice even though you know they must have hundreds of the same stuff, different textures different borders!

Anyway “instant” has its advantages, and living as we do facing the empty nest syndrome we have to accept changes as part of our blessings. Why, even kozhakattais and adhirasams are packaged in sweetmeat  shops, along with seedais and gulab jamun powders, and my dear husband cannot for the life of him understand why I do things from scratch including pounding (read electrical grinding) of the rice flour at home. We have a friendly argument before every festival, but he hasn’t convinced me of taking short cuts, not just yet!

image from: http://www.mywedding.com/ramwedsaarthi/images/Bhramin.jpg

Give us this day our daily bread

Do you know that the origins of this favourite food is about 7,500 years old?  Our Stone Age ancestors used to crush barley and wheat  on stone and make solid cakes. Ancient Egyptian tombs contained loaves of bread and rolls. Greeks and Romans accepted bread as a staple food. Bread and wheat were especially important in Rome and considered  more important than meat. Leavened and unleavened bread  is mentioned in the Bible. The cylindrical clay oven was developed by the Egyptians to improve bread making techniques. Other civilisations such as the Incas, American Indians and Asian, Indian and African cultures were also experimenting with bread making.

A Bakers' Guild was formed in Rome round about the year 168 BC. The bakers in Rome at this period enjoyed special privileges. The members of the Guild were forbidden to mix with 'comedians and gladiators' and from attending performances at the amphitheater, so that they might not be contaminated by the vices of the ordinary people! 
The Guild of Master Bakers is still alive today.

Bread is the legacy of the British to us Indians. As children we lived in Bangalore, and  our favourite bread store was Albert Bakery. Every  afternoon, when we returned from school, we would find a loaf of freshly baked bread sitting on the dining table. The baker made a five petalled flower on the crust which was crisp and brown. We would pluck it off and savour the taste..

In Chennai, my ma-in-law was expert at producing bread snacks, a skill I absorbed from her.  Bread was then not easily available, and one had to buy bread from Spencers, Mc Rennet or Adyar Bakery. Spencers closed down its unit in the eighties, but they do have a long history of bread making, going way back to 1911 in Madras.

Modern Bakery came much later, and at the time could not compete with the other breads in terms of texture and taste. A bakery which made , incredibly soft white bread was Verghese & Sons Bakery with its main supply store in CP Ramaswamy Iyer Road. Being fond of bread as a family, the Bakery would supply us a loaf of bread every day or more if we needed it.. One find day our bread man stopped his deliveries. We waited for months but there was no signs of him. A visit to their  head office confirmed our fears. The place was sold and the legendary Verghese and Sons Bakery had closed down.

Many women of my generation begin to bake bread at home at least the more enterprising of us.. We could change the flavour, spice it with herbs or spike it with pepper, or add nutrients like bran, soya flour etc.. In the sixties yeast was not easily available. We could get tinned yeast in granule form which didn’t work well most times. What was best was bakers yeast from the bakeries, which could not be kept for long. Though the loaves might be denser than the ones from the bakeries, the quality of home baked breads were assured, and  the joy of seeing your own bread taking shape was something.  .

Bread is available today in so many avatars. You get seven grain bread, whole wheat bread, bread with rye etc in supermarkets like Niligiris, and you can have a nutritious bread of your choice in places like Amethyst, Hot Bread chain stores or French Loaf. The clubs bake excellent bread, we pick up brown bread from the Gymkhana Club regularly. The Madras Club offers excellent bread for sandwiches, which is their speciality.

Today I have acquired a bread machine which I bought in the US.  It is a boon and you can experiment with all kinds of bread. I add kothimili or methi leaves for flavour or make it a sweet bread  with molasses and egg. You just place the ingredients in the order specified in the book, and close the lid and switch on. The machine kneads the flour, rests the dough and then bakes the bread, but it takes anywhere between 2 ½ hours to 4 hours.

Bread is versatile in its various forms…you use it to mop up curries or stews, toasted it forms ideal  accompaniment to soups, and it forms a base for delicious toppings Bread can be dried and used for crumbs, and left over bread can be used for puddings. For the tiffin box, I used to make bread bombs, bread dipped into water and squeezed, flattened, and stuffing placed in them and deep fried. I would toast the bread and make imaginative toppings for tea time. Or grind a green masala, blend it into beaten egg with some milk, dip the bread slices and fry with a little oil. Add a blob of tomato ketchup over each slice and serve hot!

We have bread once a week for breakfast and serve scrambled eggs on toast, a spicy Spanish omelette or just sunny side up! What a versatile food, and a great substitute when you don’t feel like having rice or chapattis.

Happy bread day!

 

 

 

THE FLIP SIDE OF THE COIN

 

 

I have stopped saying,  “Wish you a long and happy life” for anyone’s birthday.  Happy yes, but long?  Instead it is better to wish  good health and peace of mind for the coming years. The life span in India was around 65, when people  died peacefully at home with the family around them. Today thanks to technological advancements and the wonder of surgery, life is prolonged and it is quite common to hear of people living well into their nineties and touch the score of “100 not out”!

When children nurture their parents, with loving care, they remain in fairly good health. Even if  they fall seriously ill, they get bailed out and resume their normal lives.  What one should examine is the quality of life led by senior citizens.  If they are lingering, besieged with ill health, dogged by mobility problems, lonely and without family around them the long life they have been blessed with is certainly not rewarding. The “children” who are caregivers, are themselves elderly with their own health problems,  and find it difficult to physically care for their aged parents.

Unable to handle finances themselves, the aged parents hand them over to their children, keeping “a little something” for themselves.  Unfortunately a little something is not enough to keep going, and as a result, it is the children who finally have to shell out enormous amounts of money to pay hospital bills, and the guilt syndrome compounds the burden of old age.  What then is the answer?

Medical insurance is a necessity, taken when one is in good health. The premium increases as you grow older, but believe me it is worth it. A major surgery and a weeks stay at a good hospital, cost Manorama  a tidy sum of ₹ 2 ½ lakhs and since she was in her nineties she had no insurance cover. Rangarajan her cousin, in his eighties, had a successful orthopaedic surgery, but developed post operative complications, which forced him to stay over three weeks in hospital costing him ₹ 3 ½ lakhs. Home nursing, or even trained help, costs about ₹ 350-400 per day for one shift, and the attenders will not do anything more than look after the patient. Full time maids are a thing of the past.

Setting aside money to cover contingencies is not an extravagance. Just think of it as money spent and not available to you. This way the health deposit will earn compound interest and comes in handy in times of crisis.  Not all of us can afford to put away a large sum of money.  Here is when understanding children can contribute to the fund which in turn will help them deal with the situation. Better this than buying unwanted gizmos like i pads, smart phones and gadgets which are redundant as they don’t know how to use them. This again is a sensitive issue, and none of us really wish to go to our children with begging bowls! Old age is layered with ifs and buts, without any guarantees that everything will turn out fine, but at least one can plan and hope for the best. When we are flush with youth, energy and success, old age with its attendant problems seems too far away to be of concern, and when the wave hits you, it is too late to retract or start the planning.

Retirement homes are now possible without any of the stigmas that were previously attached to them. It just means change of residence, often to the outskirts of the city you live in, and sometimes to another area entirely. The challenge of  compromise and giving up the old style of living falls on the elderly. Imagine a life without wondering if your maid/cook/driver will turn up! Or having to worry about what to cook and how to get to the hospital or bank! One drawback is that you live with a community of old people without the young to walk in and out to rejuvenate  lives.

This led me to start a voluntary organisation called Udhavi. I formed a core group of dedicated volunteers, drawn from our circle of friends, and a couple of them are also Club members. We offer assisted living.  Our spotlight is on  the elderly who live on their own without their children, most of them living abroad. Udhavi offers visits to people, conversing with them, offering to accompany them to the bank or shopping, maybe a movie, and teaching them small skills like computer lessons etc. We do not take up household work.

With the alarming reports of old people being murdered for financial gain, the elderly who need help are withdrawn, and they would rather suffer than let strangers into their home. Amazingly volunteers have poured in, but we have been judicious in selecting them. Regardless of status we  go in for police verification so that we safeguard the elderly and assure them that this is done. We have trained about 40 volunteers, each  ready to offer  help  and many of them seniors themselves.

Another important aspect is that we are preparing a data base of home nursing facilities visiting doctors etc. Udhavi is still in its infancy, but we plan to go ahead full steam, and are planning seminars and workshops, and making life meaningful for the old and the infirm, and none of them need to  feel a low sense of worth, but need to squeeze every drop of happiness that is legitimately theirs.

We might merely scratch the surface, but even if we light up 10 lives for the year, it gives us a great sense of fulfilment.

 

Sabita Radhakrishna

 

 

THE UBIQUITIOUS IDLI

 

 

 

As usual we were cribbing about the prolonged summer irrespective of meeting in an air conditioned room.  How we didn’t feel like eating, thanks to this unrelenting  heat. The topic predictably drifted to food and our unanimous choice was cold curd rice and the ubiquitious idli. My niece who indulged in the culinary conversation spoke loftily about the idlis in her in-laws’ home. “Throw an idli up in the air and it is so light that it will suspend in mid air before it submits to gravity with a gentle thud,” she said with tremendous conviction.  I kept dreaming that night of idlis orbiting in space for a long time before bowing to the inevitable, with aliens floating around biting off large chunks of this delectable dish.

We might not make gravity defying idlis in our home, but they are light and fluffy, and even a non idli person like me has grown to like home made idlis.  There are various combinations and people swear by them. The proportions are debatable, some use the 2:1 ratio, others 3: 1, so it is a question of personal choice.

Where would we be without the ubiquitious idli? Or for that matter, dosais or sambhar? Nowhere in the country do we have such a wide range of breakfast dishes, but the idli-dosai tops the list.  This staple food of the South is a universal favourite despite the stereotyped l jokes on the idli. I remember one beautiful South Indian actress was labelled “idli”  in a magazine edited in Delhi. 

Our counterparts from other parts of India have adopted idli-dosas as part of their culinary repertoire, much the same way as we have, their chaats, phulkas or rosogollas.  While I maintain that not many South Indians can match the prowess of our North Indian sisters in making light as air phulkas, chapattis or parathas, it is commendable that they have learnt the knack of making good idli-sambhar-dosai-chutney. But, for heavens sake why are dosais called dosas? 

It is interesting to go through the historicity of the idli. To quote K.T.Acharya, food historian, the  idli has actually been mentioned in Vaddaradhane, a writing in Kannada, in AD 920, as part of the eighteen items served by a lady to a brahmachari when he visits her home.  Thereafter, the poet Chavundaraya, in AD 1025 divulges the recipe for idli, as urad dal soaked in buttermilk, and ground to a fine paste, mixed with the clear whey water from curds, and spiced with cumin, coriander, pepper and asafoetida powder before shaping. Surprisingly, urad dal which is the main ingredient of the idli is not mentioned anywhere in the ancient literature. The Manasollasa of  1130 AD describes the iddarika as made of fine urad dal flour fashioned into small balls fried in ghee and spiced with pepper powder. The old writings do not describe the lengthy grinding or the fermentation so the idli as we know it now, has evolved probably in the last few centuries.

It is amazing how many variations have evolved from this simple tiffin dish, but I am not sure that I approve of  the hybridisation.  For instance we have not made a beeline to restaurants serving 30 different varieties of dosais, like paneer dosais, spinach dosais, mixed vegetable dosais and so on. One irresistible variety is the delicious keema dosais served in our Club!

A very popular item is the rava idli…which is shrugged off by some as nothing better than compressed uppumav! Anxious to research the origin of the Kancheepuram idli, I marched into the kitchen of Saravana Bhavan in Kancheepuram, and I was told by a couple of elderly cooks with impunity,  that this idli did not originate in Kancheepuram!  More varieties, include adukku idli, sandwich idli and so on…This is the day of fusion food, and if you feel like innovation and have the flair for it, why not?

One of our “scientific minded” friends frowned at my casual description on how idlis are done. He was unwilling to accept the recipe in toto despite sampling our idlis.  His scientific mind plotted a methodology….the amount of water the dals and rice were soaked in, the number of hours, and what stupefied me was the number of revolutions the grinder had to make to result in perfect idli batter.  The urad dal was ground with first a cup of water and then a sprinkling through the grinding process, and, with the right number of revolutions it rose like a leavened batter, and resembled whipped cream. Our friend was the butt of jokes, when he advised that all this should have been recorded in my recipe book in an organised manner.

When he invited us for high tea, he served us idlis, you could have knocked me down with a feather, to see idlis nestling together in a casserole dish, white as snow and the texture unbelievable..porous and soft. Today I wish I had taken him more seriously, and noted down all his findings… as he passed on last year.

When Murugan idlis opened shop we rushed to taste the wonderment of mallipu idlis his brand..  We never got to enter the restaurant as there was a mile long queue and our rumbling tummies reminded us that we could not stave off the hunger pangs any longer.

My mother will swear that the batter made by hand on a large stone mortar and pestle and steamed in the conventional brass vessel using square mull pieces for the idli batter to be poured in, was the best ever! The labour saving devices we have today are welcomed by all of us and I thank God that modern technology has made it possible for us to feast on our delicacies with minimum labour, even attempting  microwaved idlis when we are rushed for time!

 

Unsung Heroes

 

 

In the days gone by, roles were demarcated, men were the providers and women homemakers.  This article is a tribute to those women who ceaselessly kept the home fires burning without any expectations  whatsoever and without any thought of pursuing personal interests.

In our own home, my doctor father was the  breadwinner, and my mother was the backbone of their nursing home. She would supervise the diets for all the inpatients, many times cooking the food herself, as my father was  fastidious about the quality food his patients sampled. Utterly pampered, their whims were catered to, be it western diets, non vegetarian food, or a strictly vegetarian diet,  tea with snacks and so on. I would always be amazed at my mother taking it all in her stride quietly 24x7, where bed tea soon ran into breakfast, then mid morning “chota”, then lunch at precisely 12.30. After a cat nap she would be up to serve  tea for the patients, then early dinner. In between she catered to the demands of a young family which took her for granted. The staff and servants had to be fed, and I still recall the large balls of “kalli” (ragi balls) which were served to the servants along with piping hot curries, for sustenance and good health, not forgetting the mounds of rice which came later!

As if this were not enough,  our home being the mother home as I call it, there were house guests and various droppers in. I still have the huge vessel my mother used to make biriyani in for her daughters and their families for every get together. Being hardbound non vegetarians, my father insisted on various kinds of meats and curries. Mummy as everyone  calls her would be there to nurse us whenever we fell sick, care for our two grandfathers who lived with us, and duty bound, would take a walk most evenings to visit her sister and her family whenever time permitted.

This is just one example and in my mother’s time there were scores of other mothers who slaved in the home.  Our annual  visits to Madras even if it were in the  heights of summer were enjoyable to us! That one month was the time my mother got a break. I used to admire my aunt who managed a huge mansion with a livery of servants whom she personally trained. She was another heroine who ran the household on oiled wheels and being open house, food was in plenty and absolutely delicious. The graciousness and warmth of the hospitality had to be seen to be believed, and in many ways we carry this tradition with us.

If I had my life to live all over again, I would have stood up and lectured the whole family on taking on some of the burdens these heroic women bore. Did any of us praise the householder?  Did any of us offer to give her a break, taking her out for a  movie, shopping, or  a lunch out..? It was sacrilege to consider that,  as shopping, accompanying the young things to movies etc was part of the schedule.

It falls to the lot of the woman generally to take on multifaceted roles and many a time as caregiver. Nature has built into the woman a different kind of psyche, which covers tenderness, caring and commitment. However good a son might be, it is impossible for him to care for his aged parents the way the daughter can, sometimes attending on them hand and foot. The new gen woman juggles with home and career, and it is an immense strain for her to cope with the mental trauma of illness, time management and running the household. Unlike her older counterpart, today’s woman needs appreciation and help from her partner, to ease  the load off her multi-tasking.

The mother image changes with each generation. For us, mother was a constant presence, to kiss a bruised knee, or to apply the awful iodine, and blow away the pain. Her lap was there for us to lie on and hugs there in plenty at any time of the day.  Fathers were unseen authorities, to be obeyed, because they made the rules.

Today’s fathers are delightfully different, even Indian papas!  They bathe the baby, participate, change nappies, witness the birth of the child and are willing to share household duties, at least a large percentage of them, though side by side, one has to accept the hard boiled MCPs. Both parents make a concerted effort to spend quality time with the children.

One last word about a real hero, Manohar Devadoss who quietly attended to his quadriplegic wife, giving her a meaningful life despite her terrible handicap. With his delightful sense of humour, he pampered Mahema, pulled her leg, goaded her into attemping new skills though confined to the wheelchair. To attend cultural shows, he would carry her into the car, turn her around at night so she didn’t develop bed sores, and what he did for her was legion. All this when he was nearly blind, and it was a handicap which never deterred him from writing books, leaning on his wife’s vision,  and painting exsquisite pictures. With Mahema’s help he donated large sums to charity.  An exemplary couple, the Devadosses to me are role models who have heaped sunshine out of adversity. God give Manohar strength to carry on his life without his beloved life partner. This is one unsung hero I thought I would talk about, before I am accused of gender bias!

 

my book Kids Kitchen

When I got two of my books back from the publishers,  I decided to publish them online.  The one I have published in Kindle is Kids Kitchen, and was a work of love for my grandchildren.

I thought I had done with writing cookbooks, but they badgered me into it, saying I hadn't written anything for them. It seems so long ago!  I have one grandson and three granddaughters through my two children, and they tried out the recipes and gave me suggestions on what to include and what not to include. their ages ranged from 8-11.

What was thrilling for me, was my granddaughter Aditi who was nine at the time drawing 350 illustrations for the book, even picturising the instructions!  As luck would have it the publishers chose only 15, but it was a wonderful feeling for all of us. I still have a file of all her original drawings.

We had a fun time sampling the food cooked according to the recipes in the book, and my grandson Aditya who was outnumbered by his girl cousins took churlish delight in  sampling the food and offering his criticisms or praise.  Like his paternal grandfather, (my husband) he is a great connoisseur of food, and his suggestions were valuable.

When you publish online, you have to adhere to a certain format which is not so easy for someone my age and one who is not exactly a geek!  And moreover, you have to promote your book! And that is when the grands decided to put me back on Facebook.

Here is a sample recipe, and do try to read Kids Kitchen on Kindle, you can tell your children I've written a story for every chapter!

BISCUIT FACES

 24 Marie biscuits

¾ cup mashed paneer mixed with 2 tbsp of butter
20 black grapes or black currants or black olives
10 tomato slices
6 cheese slices
6 cucumber slices
½ bunch washed coriander leaves with stems

     Place the biscuits on a big plate

1. Mash the paneer smoothly and apply on each biscuit
2. Cut each grape into half and use for the eyes
3. Using a kitchen scissor cut curved strips from the tomato for the lips
4. Cut thin triangles for the nose from the cheese slices
5. cut thin curved strips for the eyebrows from the cucumber
6. Arrange the coriander leaves to look like hair at the top edge of the biscuit faces.
7. Place all these as you wish, and you can make different faces if you feel like it or use other ingredients

Note:  It is always safer to have extra ingredients so that you will have enough in case some of them are not cut properly. If you don’t like sweet biscuits, you can use any of the salty biscuits in the market. Home made paneer is easier to spread, if you buy the paneer from the shop, blend some butter so that it is smoother.

 

Delightful Indianisms

We have our own brand of delightful Indianisms, cute to an outsider, often thought of as quaint, but to some of us without a sense of humour, downright repugnant. Starting with salutary greetings, the popular American “Hi!” is universally excepted, and easier to respond to with an equally spirited “Hi!”. “Hello!” produced with warmth and the right inflection is nice, but tamer.

At the Gym, it is mandatory for all the employees to say,  “Good Morning Ma’am!” even if morning is long past, and irrespective of the fact that many of us workout late afternoons. I have tried (in vain) several times to convince them that it is appropriate to say “Good Afternoon!”.  The management being great optimists instruct the staff to hold on to the morning even if it is over. I wonder how the late evening gymmers are greeted.

When someone I am introduced to says,  “How do you do?” I am usually stumped. I believe the correct thing to say is “How do you do?” as a response, but I am not convinced…hard core Indo-Brits could provide the answer. On one occasion I actually heard someone answer the “how do you do?” with…”just as you do!” It is accompanied by a handshake, which is supposed to be “warm”, but most of the Indian handshakes I have encountered are limp, where only fingers slide into your palm, and,  apart from a gentle pressure, withdrawn as if the handshaker has been accosted with a scorpion bite. This mainly from shy, gentle men ( and I don’t mean gentlemen) who are afraid of these emancipated women who dare to grasp a man’s hand.

Good friend Ram pointed out another form of greeting, “How are you?” And in case you think that the person honestly wants to know how you are, you are sadly mistaken. The “greeter” turns away before you can draw a breath and questions another person on how he or she is.  The logical answer would have, in the old days, been “I’m fine thank you,” Today you should say “I’m good.” And God help you if you ask someone, “And how have you been?” Please be prepared for a torrent of complaints ranging from arthritis to irritable bowel syndrome and hospital stays, not forgetting lack of domestic help and NRI children.” And do be gracious over it, having asked the inevitable question and remember to make appropriate noises of sympathy at the right time, whenever there is a pause, instead of switching off.

What I really love today is the hug, so freely given, especially now that I am past the age of being hugged by people with sinister objectives. But the mother of all embraces was the one I was locked in when I visited my small vegetable shop. Entering I admired a nice looking lady with an aquiline nose, on which sat a beautiful diamond besari  which I  admired. Determined to take a closer look at the design under the pretext of buying vegetables,  I stepped on a fat shiny aubergine and skated into her arms which were trying to stem my fall. We were both locked in embrace moving from side to side as we teetered to gain our balance, or rather mine. The besari lady obviously thought that this nice friendly lady decided to give her a hug first thing in the morning and must have thought I was a true disciple of the hugging swamiji. The vegetable man grinned and loudly proclaimed that we must have been good friends who were meeting after a long time, for never had he seen a  hug lasting so long nor a woman who, red faced marched out without buying vegetables after the prolonged hug.

We must remember to “lift the telephone” and “off the fan” and no amount of sniggers will change the hard core Indglish speakers. So and so is “going to come” and mercifully not coming to go. Apart from leaving some English purists speech less, we, could also come across some rare happenings, or situations created by well meaning Indians. Some months ago I read in one of  our national dailies that a swan had been arrested in Vijayawada for not following the pecking order. A woman complained that a swan (khajana bathu) pecked at her daughter who was playing outside her house and alleged that the swan was chasing people and causing nuisance. The police arrested the offending creature and brought it to the station and booked a petty case, saying that an inquiry would  conducted into the incident. When the Forest Department authorities pulled them up,  and animal activists protested, Police released the bird which was tied up in the Police station without food or water.

And another caring bit of advice that kindly people give is “Take Care.” In the midst of swirling health problems in my family and associated critical situations, I receive hundreds of emails, phone calls besides cards and visits and at the end there are always these two comforting words…Take Care. Being Caregiver myself how do I take care? Wish someone else would do that for me. But I know that the advice is doled out by people who love and care for us. How have I been able to write this piece in midst of all this? Because writing affords me solace and I can handle any situation after I share my thoughts and more so if I bring a smile into someone’s life.

That is the way I heed everyone’s advice…”Take Care”