May day, May day!

If phones were people, they would have been locked up in an asylum by now.  Why?  Because all of them were losing their collective minds last week, trying to broadcast everyone's plans to survive the winter storm that was coming our way, whipping the town into a frenzy in the process.  WhatsApp and text groups were blowing up with nail-biting information and cries for help.

"They are predicting 22 inches of snow this weekend and I cannot find bananas anywhere. If any of you see it in a store, let me know. Please help!"  And to this desperate plea came the reply "Me neither and I have checked all grocery stores within a 10 mile radius. We will just have to ride out this storm without bananas. Let's all hang in there."  Huh? When did bananas get on the emergency supplies checklist?  If you can't stay regular for a day without a banana, why don't you consider switching to a different fiber for a week?  Am I wrong? Was this Mayday call really necessary?  

This was an incoming text to me 3 days ago when I was in one of my music classes.  "Mrs. S, I am at Costco stocking up and I have about 800 people standing in front of me in the line.  The sad news is I was able to fill only 2 and a half carts.(??)  Folks have picked the store clean and I still have things I need to buy to outlast this storm.  I might be slightly (!) delayed in picking up my daughter from your class as I want to stop by 2 more stores to look for the missing items.  Please keep her in your class until I can come get her."  Of course!  I not only kept her safe inside but ended up feeding her a meal, giving her storybooks to read and a warm place to take a nap until the said parent came back.  I don't always brim with the milk of human kindness like this but these are extraordinary times. 

"Meena, do we need milk?" asked my husband the day before yesterday.  He must have felt left out of this 'It is time to stock up for Armageddon' game and decided to join the fun, albeit a bit late.  What for?  Did we not switch to black coffee a few years back and stopped drinking milk altogether?  'Just in case' he said with a sheepish smile.  That made sense.  Just in case, our friends decide to drop in for a cup of chai in the midst of a snowstorm, we would definitely need that milk.  It is so like him to think ahead and plan for contingencies like this.  31 years ago, I did make a good call to marry him.  I can't help being proud.  If only I didn't have bursitis in my shoulders, I would happily pat myself in the back for that. 

Children walking into my music classroom the last couple of days have been sporting big toothy smiles.  It is so unnatural that I ended up asking them about it.  "Meena aunty, the forecast is calling for 15 inches of snow and ice for us.  We won't have school for a week." beamed the children.  I was confused.  Wasn't it 22 inches till yesterday?  Apparently, it dwindled down to 15 inches overnight.  Anyway, forget about a week of school closing.  Our school district is famous for shutting down until further notice for a breezy dusting of powdery snow.  Anything past 10 inches, we are not likely to educate our children for the next several weeks.  I love watching the smiling faces of the children.  For their sake, I hoped the forecast was right. 

I read about the story of a Texas couple hitting the Indian grocery store to add to their stockpile for their upcoming 1 inch snowstorm and felt inspired enough to head to our Indian grocery store to do my part in contributing to the local economy.  I wanted to be sensible about it this time though and not go overboard.  After all, how much can the two of us eat?  If I pick the store clean, what will others eat?  I thank my parents for giving me the good sense to think of other people in situations like this.  I didn't want to be that person that leaves nothing behind for others so I made sure to leave some yogurt boxes, frozen vegetables, curry leaves and chapathis behind.  That should be enough, right?  No one will go hungry because of me and what a relief!.  Yes, I emptied the samosa aisle but I will not apologize for it.  

I woke up this morning wondering how to find my white dog if she gets lost in the 2 feet of snow that was forecasted to fall overnight, when she goes to relieve herself this morning.  I was still gnawing on my lips coming down the stairs fretting about this when the scene outside the window caught my eyes.  I stood there looking out the living room window and felt the biggest laugh rising up in me.  After living through the nail-biting drama of preparing for the worst snowstorm ever, there was barely an inch of snow on our deck this morning.  Fate was definitely holding its jiggling tummy somewhere and laughing at all of us.  

Looking at our fully stocked refrigerator and freezer, I couldn't help but smile.  What is life without a bit of drama? 😀

Guide to hosting a Wedding!

My daughter got married a few months ago allowing me the distinct honor of joining the elite club of mothers-in-law.  Having watched many Indian TV soap operas that always cast a mother-in-law as a villainous being, I was naturally hesitant about stepping into that role but guess what?  TV is a far cry from reality because I feel no more like a villain than usual.  Six months ago, I had 2 children that I loved and now I have 3. 

Hosting my daughter's wedding was truly an education.  As this is the time for my annual self-evaluation to see if I still remember how to write, I came here today hoping to do that and also give a few helpful pointers to my friends who have just entered this fascinating arena of hosting an Indian wedding.

Dos and Don'ts of Wedding Planning:

1. Know that a spreadsheet is going to quickly become your new best friend. To those who ask why, how else are you planning to juggle the gazillion lists that will become the focal point of your life very soon?  The following is only a small sample of the lists that you will be making soon:

• Guest lists for the different wedding events
• Catering options
• Return gift options
• Party rental supplies
• Make up artists
• Deejay artists
• Guest accommodation
• Pre-wedding catering 

You don't really plan on winging it from memory, do you? I strongly recommend against that if your memory is anything like mine which is practically non-existent. I regularly walk away from cars without shutting down the engine, walk out the front door with a comb tucked in my hair and in my at-home slippers, return home from grocery trips without buying the groceries that I needed, frequently enter my classroom with a water bottle that holds no water and often record a 5 to 10 minute lesson for my students forgetting to hit the record button.  

I am afraid that the day is not far when I would need a bracelet with my name and address on it but since I was lucky enough to remember that I couldn't trust my memory with the wedding tasks, I made best friends with Microsoft Excel and got to work. By the time my daughter's wedding day came, I had a dozen workbooks forging ahead at full speed with a master list to keep track of every one of them.  This is the way.

2. Hold off on buying your wedding clothes until closer to the wedding.  This is super important. I wish someone had told me about this earlier.  I got carried away and bought my reception gown eight months ahead of time, long before finalizing the caterer.  Bad idea, especially if your dress was designed for a toothpick, by a dressmaker who thought it was a cardinal sin to let out a seam.  And don't forget that the pre-wedding week of rich and luscious Indian food mainly contain white rice, sugar and butter leading to extraordinary bloating conditions making buttoning your saree blouses an impressive task.  

You don't expect the mother of the bride to just randomly pick a caterer without tasting their food, do you?  I remember my wise mom once telling me that food was the thing that people would remember the most about a wedding and that we should take care with that.  I took her advice to heart, solemnly visiting multiple restaurants every weekend for 2 months tasting everything the caterers whipped up, sometimes at the expense of a seam ripping in my salwar suit.  I was only too happy to make this small sacrifice.  It was, after all, my burden to carry.  Two weeks before the wedding, when I was frantically running behind a seamstress begging her to somehow squeeze me into my dress, I admit to fleetingly questioning my mom's wisdom.  

3. Remember that functionality beats glamour when it comes to picking wedding shoes.  As the host of the wedding, you would need to put some miles on your shoes on your child's wedding day so choose wisely.  I didn't hence was left with bruising marks where the buckle of my fancy new shoes cut into my skin.  Yes, it was pretty but sadly no one saw its beauty because I discarded it within minutes of wearing and hobbled out in my comfy sandals instead.  

4. I strongly recommend that you make no new friends until after the wedding.  Putting all your existing friends on the guest list is hard enough.  A wedding invitation guest list is a tricky business in the US.  It is a balancing act worthy of an Olympic gymnast.  I never knew before about the rule that the bride and the groom should personally know all the guests who would come to the wedding.  I remember my Dad introducing many of his work friends to us at my wedding and I remember nodding at them with a smile without ever questioning why I had never met any of them before.  That was just the way.  

5. Help is all around you and you just need to ask for it.  If you are lucky like us, you will have a whole town willingly coming forward to help you with the wedding work.  I didn't realize how lucky we were until we were met by a tsunami-like huge wave of help from both a large and loving family and a town full of good friends.  I was especially moved by offers of help from those who didn't make it to our guest list.  It didn't seem to matter to them. They just wanted to help.  Such extraordinary acts of kindness should be met with an appropriate expression of gratitude but I was too dumbfounded by their kindness to express my appreciation well.  My pitiful attempts to say thank you fell flat and tiny even to my ears.  I won't ever take our good fortune in relationships for granted and hope to pay it forward somehow, in this lifetime. 

6. Remember to have fun and be okay if things don't exactly go as you had planned.  It is after all, your child's wedding.  Keep your smile so they can look at you and keep theirs.  

PS: Overcoming my mental block to writing gets harder each year.  I am super grateful that I managed to string some words together to make a blog post today, meeting my annual quota of posts. Wish you all a very happy holiday season and a wonderful New Year 2026!  

Walking with Meena!

I say this as someone who was born and raised in this colorful city for the first 2 decades of my life.  Walking in the streets of Chennai is no joke.  It has never been for the frail-hearted but it is more true today than ever before.   Taking a stroll on a suburban Chennai street alongside a procession of motorcycles, cars, auto-rickshaws, buses and school vans is a challenge that requires supreme navigation skills.  After landing in Chennai for my recent trip, I learned to my dismay that I no longer have that skill.  

If you expect the vehicles to stop and let you cross a street just because you are at a pedestrian crossing, expect to watch the day turn to dusk and still be there.  You might as well have Gandalf thumping his staff on the street bellowing 'Thou shall not pass' (for reference, watch the movie The Lord of the Rings).  So then, how does one cross a busy road in Chennai?  Making eye contact with the drivers to stare them down and then bulling your way through the onslaught of traffic is the only winning technique, as far as I know.  I admit that having been away from India for too long now, I no longer possess this ability to casually cross the street deftly navigating the rushing traffic from both sides.  I used to be very good at it but these days, I am reduced to clutching my baby sister's hands and blindly following her lead to get to the other side. Shameful? Yes indeed but I do get a kick out of reaching the other side with my limbs intact.  I am quirky that way.

Not only are Chennai's streets crowded, they are also incredibly boisterous..  That is because most drivers in this city communicate through their honking.  Even in parking-lot like traffic conditions where cars are stacked for miles ahead, you will be treated to a symphony of honking sounds from all directions.  These honks are invariably followed by some of the choicest, if not creative language, hurled by angry drivers at the cars ahead.  Where do they expect the vehicle in front of them to go when the entire city block is stuck in traffic?  Once I figure it out, you will be the first to know. 

In addition to the vehicles, I found myself  sharing the streets with a handful of cows that liked to lazily munch on the previous day's produce discarded by the vegetable vendors at street corners and a horde of street dogs that are always out and about, ready to defend their territory against intruding visitors.  If you are going to be startled every time a cow's tail brushes you or a dog bares its teeth at you or a truck speeds past you barely avoiding running over your feet, then you are not adequately prepared for your stay in this beautiful city.

If you are visiting the city after a long break like me, you are also unaware that the city's streets have fallen victim to the construction project of the Metro Rail and closely resemble a plate of  'Kothu paraatta' wherever you turn.  Patches of ground have been dug up and left on a proud display for the public everywhere.  A store that is less than 5 minutes by walk according to Google Maps takes an hour to go by car, as most streets have now been declared one-way and one has to creatively pretzel their way to their destination. 

Has this put a stop to the furious pace of life in this city?  Don't be silly.  Signs splashed across the city that claim 'Inconvenient today for a better tomorrow' have more than done their part in helping people move on with their lives without complaining.  After all, they have been sufficiently warned that it will be inconvenient.  These past 2 weeks, I have watched, in awe, all the people hopping and skirting around the many holes in the streets to go about their daily work with ease and stoic resignation.  No amount of inconvenience seem to deter the Chennaites' love of life.  "Bring it on" seemed to be the motto of folks here. Adaptability honed to perfection, I would say. 

Coming back to walking with Meena, after years of vegetating on the couch, I finally decided to sign up for a 10K walking program that started just before I left for my India trip.  The walk is only in April but apparently, one must train intensely to make this 10K walk.  I chuckled loudly when I first heard this.  Of course, I know how to walk, silly.  It is true that I don't do it often but that doesn't mean that I need training for it, right?  Wrong, said all the folks who are seasoned runners and walkers in the RHWB network.  I am now part of this amazing group and even have a dedicated coach who gives me weekly walking schedules, monitors my exercise data and keeps me going.  It is really great except that I had to start off my program with a schedule to brisk walk 7 to 8 miles on Chennai roads each week.  Oh boy!  

I will have you know that losing heart is not something folks out here do.  I may be a US Citizen today but Chennai is wired into me so I put my brain, the only thing that works reasonably well most of the time in my whole body, to work and quickly eliminated the streets of Chennai from the potential list of places to walk.  After all, how brisk can I walk if I had to constantly skirt around construction areas, cows, dogs and cars?  My sister's family suggested an alternative and thanks to them, I found a park within 2 blocks of my sister's place that had a nice walking trail and zoomed in on that as my walking space.  

I set out each morning at dawn, with a slight breeze flirting with my unruly hair, to this pretty park where toddlers came to play on the swing, seniors came to catch up with their friends sitting on the benches, college kids came to weight train together, parents brought their little ones to skate in the newly built skating ring and where I went to train for my very first 10K walk.  Most days, I could hear the faint whistle of pressure cookers from the apartments nearby where mothers had already started to cook breakfast and pack lunch boxes for the children.  

I chose not to take my phone along to listen to music during my walks in India. That's because I wanted to use the opportunity to observe life pulsing all around me and absorb the sounds and smells of my beloved hometown to bring back with me after my trip.  I even made friends with 2 small puppies that managed to slip through the gates of the park every day to romp around on the grassy area.  That park was a melting pot of all the things that I love about Chennai and I am incredibly grateful to have started my training right there.  

A huge shoutout to the head coach Bala of the RHWB network for giving me an opportunity to get off my favorite couch and go for a walk every week.  Also, thankful to my personal coach Nay for being super positive and encouraging all of us to do our best.  It was just an added bonus to sign up for this 10K with 2 of my best friends.  Would you like to walk too?  Find RHWB on FB and Instagram to get updates on their next season's schedule.  

Take it from someone who has blindly resisted every attempt to get fit for many years.  Life outside the couch is pretty great too.  Go ahead and give it a shot. 

Goodbye Amma & Appa!

 

Dun, dun, dun.... That was the sound of someone banging on the heavy metal gate in the front.  I looked up at the daily calendar and the clock on the wall to confirm that it was Tuesday 8 AM.  I was almost ready to leave for school.  I rushed to the Kitchen calling out "Amma, he is here."  Amma was busy seasoning the sambar on one stove and stir-frying green beans curry on the other.  "It is almost ready.  Ask him to come inside into the shade Meena.  I will be there soon."  

I went outside to greet the old Thatha who was our guest every Tuesday for as long as I could remember and invited him to come and sit.  He hobbled in slowly and lowered himself onto the bench in the shade.  Poverty sat on him like a worn-out comfortable shirt and I remember him always wearing it with a contended smile.  'Tuesday beggar Thatha' as I referred to him, was a steady and comforting part of my childhood.  Thatha always appeared at our door at 8 am sharp every Tuesday and my mom always served him a hearty hot meal on a banana leaf with a big glass of cool buttermilk and a banana on the side.  Governments could fall and rise on a whim but Thatha's Tuesday visit and my mother's hospitality continued for years like clockwork and left a lasting impression on me.

This week, my mother drew her last breath.  I stood by her bed with my sisters, held her hand and bid her goodbye singing her favorite hymns.  As I watched her being carried out of the house for the final rites,  I thought of her kindness towards the Tuesday Thatha and the very many people like him whose lives were made better by her.  

My mother had the unique gift to connect with people around her.  She genuinely cared about everyone's lives and wished them well.  During our many walks to the local temple during my school days, people would stop her often on the street to share their problems and seek her counsel.  They could tell her anything because they knew that she would keep their secrets.  I have always been amazed by her talent at nodding.  Her head never tired of the long hours of bobbing up and down listening to others' woes.  It seemed to bring such comfort to people.

Daughter not getting married?  In-law troubles? Rash in areas that shall not be named?  Asking my mom to pray for them seemed to be the one-stop solution for many folks.  There was an unanimous consensus in the neighborhood that the optimal way to reach God's ears was through my mother's lips.  Folks were ahead of their times as outsourcing was actively practiced by our neighbors long before the word ever got popular.  

No one entered our home and left with an empty stomach.  It was just not done.  On a normal day without visitors, my mother cooked 3 times a day for 10 people.  That was just family, mind you.  We were a bunch of picky eaters and I was the worst of all.  I got hungry really fast and threw the most colorful of all fits if I was not fed right that minute.  I don't know how my mom did not disown me for being such a thoughtless brat.  I would have done it in a heartbeat.  She always had my favorite food hot and ready anytime I came home, be it 5 pm after college or 10 pm after work.  It might be a while before I could swallow tomato rice or vathal kuzhambu sadham without breaking into tears.  

Outside of family, we had a constant stream of visitors at home while growing up.  I remember her finally wrapping up things in the Kitchen around 3 pm one day to go rest before the evening chores started when visitors dropped in unannounced.  Did she sigh and scowl like I probably would have?  No.  She greeted them with a big genuine smile and went back promptly to the Kitchen to whip up the next batch of food to feed them.  Her famed hospitality continued even when she was sick and frail in bed at the end.  When family members dropped in to check on her health, she called us closer with a weak headshake and reminded us to feed them before they left.  

Talking about being in bed, 10 days before her passing, she was on oxygen support and had trouble speaking clearly.  My sisters and I decided to take advantage of having a captive audience and practiced all the songs we were meaning to knowing very well that amma couldn't run away even if she wanted to.  After one such singing session, she slowly opened her eyes and muttered something.  As it was hard to hear her over the oxygen mask, I went closer to her and tried to listen.  Still I couldn't make out what she was saying.  'Amma, what is it?  Do you want us to sing you another song?'  To which, amma slowly enunciated "Meena, put coconut oil on your hair and braid it.  It is not like you have long hair.  Take care to keep what you have."  It took considerable effort for her to say it but that is my mother for you.  Always caring like that. 

Losing Amma 2 months after losing Appa, life feels strangely illogical.  The 2 souls that loved my sisters and I without hesitation or reservation are no more.  Navigating the rest of our journey without their physical presence seems like an impossible task but we have no choice but to try.  We were loved and cherished every moment of our lives and I am so very grateful to both of them. 

Hope you are together again on the other side with the rest of your family having a blast up in the Heavens.  Love you both so much.  We will see you in our dreams. Goodbye Amma and Appa!

Are you ready to unmask?

As we are on the brink of ringing in year 3 of the pandemic, I am proud to say that I am fully vaccinated and boosted against Covid-19.  But on the day of my booster shot last month, I did wake up feeling anxious about getting back to a post-pandemic normal life.  After a few days of pondering over my strange reaction, here are some reasons why I think the idea of unmasking is not making me jump with joy.

1. First, as a rule of thumb, I don’t jump or twirl.  I literally can’t.  I don’t have the balance for it.  Plus, I am on an injury-free streak this year and have no wish to jeopardize that.
2. I will have you know that my husband has invested heavily in masks and sacrificed a lot for the safety of our family.  In March 2020, you may remember that all the world went crazy and hoarded up masks.  It was so hard to get our hands on any, but did I lose heart and wring my hands? No sir, not me.  I immediately went online and ordered a shiny, new sewing machine and before it was even delivered, I got ready by cutting my husband’s many excellent cotton dhotis into small pieces. When the sewing machine arrived at our door the next day, it struck me that I had overlooked a small detail.  I didn't know how to sew.  Not a single button worth my spit.  Still, all was not lost.  I stored the machine inside a closet, placed an order for masks with a manufacturer in China for only a small fortune and used up all the cut pieces of dhotis around the house as rag cloths.  I figured the money I saved buying rag clothes would offset the cost of the masks from China.  I love how these things work out in the end.  Anyway, I am fairly positive that my husband has forgiven me for making koththu parotta of his dhotis.  Every time I see the sewing machine in the closet now, I remember his sacrifice and consider wearing a mask a tribute to his generosity.
3. After many months of meeting friends and family only on Zoom, I don’t know how I feel about seeing everyone back in full human form with bodies, arms and legs instead of just neck and up.  I worry about not recognizing them.  With good reason, I must say.  A lot of my new young students have only seen me on Zoom.  One such little boy knocked on my door with his father a couple of months ago wanting to get my blessings for Vijayadasami.  He looked dazed and disturbed the entire 5 minutes he was here.  He wouldn’t believe that I was the same aunty that he saw each week on Zoom.  I had sprouted legs and all, you see.  I had to finally glare at him with squinted eyes like I would in classes before he would give me a nod of acknowledgement. 
4. Do you know how much money I have saved from not going to beauty salons these past 2 years?  I can probably invest in a small condo in Alaska in another 6 months if only I keep up with this lifestyle.  Why bother buffing and polishing when no one was going to see me?  Yes, I scare myself a bit at times seeing my own reflection but hey, I throw a towel on the mirror and take care of that problem. 
5. I am afraid my rusty social skills need super heavy polishing before I can be pronounced fit to enter society again.  In pre-covid era, I have a vague memory of curving my lips upwards while meeting people.  I think it was called smiling.  The only expression that my face can remember to make any more seems to be a scowl.  Know of a place where I can sign up to relearn basic social skills? 

Looks like Covid is here to stay for the foreseeable future and we may have to learn to live with it.  The year ahead may yet be paved with anxiety and uncertainty but today, let’s give thanks to the power above for keeping us safe from Covid these past two years and march ahead together in goodwill looking forward to a better and just world.  May we all come out of this pandemic and live long, happy, and healthy lives.  Happy New Year 2022 everyone.

My own, my precious!

“That is some truly superior sambar and aloo curry Amma” my daughter managed to say in the middle of frantically licking her spoon clean like she may run out of taste buds any minute now.  “You don’t know how much I have missed your food.  You deserve a culinary award Amma” chimed in her sister on her way to the kitchen for second helpings.  Remarks like these typically put a strut in my gait and a smile on my face but not today. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I recognize that it is not every day that children are happy to be locked down under the same roof, as parents.  When they greeted me with a smile this morning and started doing chores around the house with no threat or coercion, I wanted to pinch my husband’s arm to see if I was dreaming. (Why pinch my husband’s arm? Because therein lies the beauty of marriage.  When life presents tough challenges, you get to lean on or pinch your spouse’s arm to figure things out.)  So together we puzzled over the question ‘Why aren’t these kids screaming and scratching at the walls, cursing at the coronavirus for this indefinite lockdown?’ The obvious answer was college food.  One semester away at college enjoying its assorted offering of spice-less food and my kids have returned home as warriors brave enough to face a quarantine at home. 

Getting back to the sound of my flatware being licked clean at each meal, I’ll admit that I am worried and I’ll tell you why.  As the symphony of spoons scraping against bowls and plates continue with each passing day, I often find myself slipping quietly to do the only thing I could.  Throw open the doors of the kitchen pantry and gaze worriedly at the stockpile of provisions; one item in particular.

I want it known that I am not unprepared for this pandemic.  The day ‘social-distancing’ became the national word and lockdown became the local mantra, I marched to the Indian grocery store armed with a dozen extra-large cotton bags determined to stock up but apparently so did the entire desi population.  When you are trying to beat 20 people to get to the last packet of turmeric powder in the store, social distancing is not an option.  And yes, I do need the turmeric powder.  You don’t seriously expect me to serve black sambar and rasam to my family, do you?  That’s gross.

Believe it or not, I was agile and spry zigging and zagging through the store loading up my cart. I owe it to corona(virus) for showing me that even I could put a spring in my step.  Anyway, there I was, weaving in and out of the crowd, proudly joining my fellow humans in picking that store clean.  After ensuring that there was nothing edible left in an aisle, we kept moving on to the next.  It was eerily similar to the scene in a movie I had watched, where aliens would destroy earth settlements systematically, one town at a time.

I am grateful for whoever designed grocery store carts and put 4 wheels on them for balance.  Imagine if they had only 2 wheels like a bicycle!  What would happen to people like me with zero upper body strength?  How would we push a cart that is filled up in preparation of Armageddon? I guess it is true that God never gives more than what we can handle. 

After doing a quick check of the cart inventory (mustard seeds, check – have enough to season an ocean of coconut chutney, tamarind, check – have enough to serve puliyodharai prasadam at the local temple for the next 5 years and, most importantly, asafoetida, check – have enough LG bottles to undertake the Ambani family’s next wedding order of rasam), I finally turned in to the last aisle all set to load up my favorite 20 pound rice bags.  Wait a second.  What happened here?  Who took all the rice bags?  Oh, the horror!  At that moment, I knew exactly how Gollum felt when Sauron’s ring slipped out of his hand.  Oh, where art thou, my precious? 

I would have gladly traded my wedding jewelry for the 4 bags of rice in the cart ahead of me at the counter, but I couldn’t really fall at her feet and beg there, could I?  With social distancing and all, it wouldn’t be the responsible thing to do. 

So finally, with a heavy heart, not to mention, a heavy cart loaded with only 3 miniature 10 pound bags of rice, I walked back to my car praying that my family will somehow find the courage the face the day we run out of rice.  May we survive that nightmare and live to tell the tale another day.

Hang in there, folks!  This too, shall pass. 😊

Navarathri Diary 2018

We are halfway through yet another vibrant Navarathri season in our town. Armed with spreadsheets that catalogue our golu invites, which is further cross-referenced by whatsapp and text reminders, we Desi women have been marching out early each day this past week with a single-minded determination to conquer the invitation list at least this year.  Everyone knows that it is a losing game because 18 golu visits a day is just outside of insane city, but we do have fun trying. 

Amidst the many joys of the season, one ailment continues to plague the golu-hoppers of our town this year too – severe gas trouble. Obviously, our intestines are not meant to process peanut, garbanzo, vatana, moong and green pea lentils, all in the same evening but when offered with so much love at each golu, what can one do except eat and burp?  Sometimes you just have to take one for a friend.

It is not a big problem for me though. Just to avoid this kind of rude shock to my system, I try to stay bloated through the entire year but for the general population who are on a strict ‘air and water only’ diet, suddenly turning into a birthday balloon must be very scary.  Well, here is how I handled it recently. After the 4th plate of sundal one evening early this week, I found myself at a risk of exploding.  Hyperventilation induced by the stress of an impending wardrobe malfunction actually saved the day.  Who knew that taking shallow breaths would help to keep your blouse from popping its buttons!  

  

Thanks to my recent India trip, I am going around town this Navarathri season in bright-colored sarees and completely mismatched blouses. Apparently, contrast is all the rage these days. This new fashion is a god-send because none of the matching blouses fit me anymore.

Trying to go with the latest fashion hurt me in the accessories department though.  Heeding to the advice of many well-meaning friends, I took a beautiful, embroidered bag with me on the golu rounds 2 days ago instead of my regular plain black handbag. It looked great. Everyone said so but big mistake! That miniscule, cute bag could fit only 3 almonds, half of a phone and 1 clementine. Where am I supposed to keep my key bunch, sunglasses, wallet, tissues, emergency biscuit packet, trail mix snack packet, water bottle and travel size advil?  My black handbag might not be great to look at, I admit, but it can house the entire universe, if necessary.  Fashion, my foot!

I saw planning at its best when I saw a friend bringing 2 big sack-like cloth bags with her to cart back all the tambulam bags of the evening. Wow! If she ever wanted to rob the US Treasury of all its gold, these 2 bags should do the trick. Very smart indeed. Inspired by her, I put a couple of cardboard boxes in my van to hoard my collections. A bit unsophisticated yes but it served its purpose.

One thing that was new this season was that golu hostesses decided to liven up their golus  by offering interesting quizzes to the visitors.What is the new doll in our golu this year?Can you tell what this sweet is made of?As someone with a very diminished sense of smell and a non-existent memory, I am set up for failure in these kinds of exams.Only a few threatened to hold back their sundal for not giving correct answers.Most of the hostesses were kind enough to give me my consolation goody bag just for participation.

This Navarathri season has seen some of the most imaginative carpool arrangements ever arranged by anyone. 2 days ago, I overheard a conversation while waiting for my cup of payasam at a golu.Anu and Geetha were planning to pick up Latha, hit Kamala’s golu, then go pick up Sudha.Then all were to go hit 5 houses together after which Geetha had plans to swap to another van to continue her round of golus with another set of friends and then wanted Anu to pick her up at Bhavani’s house to go to the next 7 houses on their common list.NASA should take pointers from this group for the next space mission. Brilliant minds such as these are being overlooked everyday.

How is your Navarathri going so far? 

Mystery of the misplaced calcium!

‘Meena, don’t do anything rash today. I hope you remember that it is January now.’ That was my husband on his way out to work a couple of weeks ago.  He might have looked down his nose sternly at me delivering that warning, but I don’t doubt for a minute that he meant well.  The same message was subsequently repeated to me by my children at regular intervals.

Their warning is not without merit, I must admit.  January has proved to be a colorful month for me in recent years.  It is when I usually trip over non-existent hurdles, slip on perfectly dry land and walk into very wide, visible walls.  I may have become used to the January routine by now, but it seems like my family has not  I don’t mind the resulting broken bones or torn ligaments as much as I mind the disbelief and skepticism that I invariably face while trying to explain my incidents to others.

I still remember the conversation I had with the front desk person last January at an after-hours medical facility.

Lady at desk – For insurance purposes, could you tell me about how you injured your left leg today?

Self – Oh sure.  You see, my dogs were in the backyard fighting over a toy this evening.  Do you have children or dogs? Then, I bet you know how hard it is to get them to share anything. Short of reading them moral stories from the Indian folklore, I have tried my best to imbibe the virtue of sharing in my dogs but, as you can obviously see here, I have totally failed. 

Lady at desk – No, I don’t see at all.  What happened to your leg?

Self – Wait, I am getting there.  As I was watching through the window, the friendly banter suddenly picked up heat and guess what?  I had never seen such sharp teeth before.  That’s when I decided to step in and play the referee before things got out of hand. That was good timing even if I say so myself.

Lady at desk – Mrs. S, I feel like I should say ‘congratulations’ but WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR LEG?

Self – Well, I ran down the backyard deck stairs to pull my dogs apart. That’s what happened.

Lady at desk – Huh??  Did you hit your leg against something? Did you fall twisting your heel?

Self – Don’t be silly, of course not.  Do I look clumsy?  I just ran 10 steps.

I still remember her dazed look when I was taken in to see the doctor who later pronounced my ligament torn. 

While the MRI showed the soggy state of my ligament, the x-rays spoke of a whole new  story.  Apparently, instead of boosting the strength of my poor bones, all the calcium that I intake end up rushing to my heel forming little bone-like spikes there causing pain while I walk.  So that’s what has been happening to my calcium!

Many days, I had wondered about this so it was a relief to know the truth finally. I like a good puzzle as well as the next person but where is the satisfaction in an unsolved mystery?  I was, therefore, glad to put the mystery of the misplaced calcium to rest.  At least, I know now why my bones threaten to break on me at a moment’s notice.  

The year before last, it was my arm’s turn.  I had shoveled a small, 5 x 5 area of snow off my driveway only to find that I had torn the ligament along the elbow.  Those days, I was still a bit afraid of being stuck in an MRI machine.  I distinctly remember that room being eerie white, the inside of the machine being too small, and me being disproportionately big.  Not an ideal situation really but thanks to the January phenomenon, I have practiced enough to outgrow my distaste and fear of the machine now. 

This year, after catching my family watching my movements worriedly ever since New Year, I decided to be smart and take precautions.  After all, I don’t enjoy the inside of the MRI that much.  When Mr. Jenks called announcing school snow closings, I was already ready.  I had made extensive plans for hibernation based on the weather forecast and had injury-proofed myself.  I had stocked the fridge and the pantry enough to survive a five-year famine and had ensured that I wouldn’t have to step outside once snow started.  When at last, the pitiful 2 inches of snow hit Richmond, I stood by the window watching the world swirl pretty in white.  Every time I opened the fridge and was met with a parade of milk cartons, I patted my own back.  Bring it on, fate! Let’s see how you get me to slip this year. Hah! 

2 inches of snow and our county, naturally, closed schools for 5 days.  I never could get that math to add up but then I have never been much in mathematics.  While the snow turned to ice and the ice refused to melt on the surfaces outside, I sat inside warm and safe in my private haven congratulating myself on at last foiling fate.  

After 6 days of staying indoors, I was starting to turn moldy. I threw open the doors and stepped outside on the 7^th day. There was no snow, ice or dampness anywhere in sight.  It was as good a day as any.  Enjoying the warm sun on my face, I walked towards the car with a long list of errands to run.  Next thing I knew, my ankle had twisted from under me and voila, there was that familiar feeling of pain and the even more familiar sight of swelling. 

Was it ego or simple pigheadedness that let me drag my feet for 10 days without seeing a doctor?  I am not sure but I did will it to be a mild sprain.  Yes, there was swelling but I could walk on it so why would I concede victory to fate yet?  When you have plump feet like mine, it is very hard to distinguish general plumpness from injury swelling but at last, even I could clearly see that the swelling was not going down.  With a huge sigh, I finally called my wonderful doctor who promptly ordered x-rays and sent me on my way to the Orthopedic office.  

When I walked in to the room, the doctor said, ‘You look familiar’ and that prompted me to remind him that he had treated me last January too.  He even asked about my dogs.  That was sweet of him, I thought.  He took one look at the fractured bone in the x-rays and said ‘Okay Meena, time to get you in a boot. Let me get someone to bring you a boot.  You must wear it at all times except while going to bed.’  I hesitantly told him that I had the boot from last January but asked him if one could use the left boot for the right foot too.  I was so amazed when he said the boot was universal.  Go figure!  Who would have guessed they made universal boots like universal remotes!

When he next made an attempt to get me a pair of crutches, I shook  my head smiling and said, ‘I have them too doc.’  He was pleased, I could tell.  How many patients come in to see an Orthopedic doctor already owning a universal boot and a pair of crutches?  January is not completely without blessings, I thought as I came home to my wonderful, universal boot.   

An avalanche of apples!

Tut tut, click click, tut tut tut, click, click, click...

That was me typing furiously all this week looking up recipes involving apples.  After making a few pitchers of fresh apple juice, a pot of apple rasam and a bottle of spicy apple pickle, I ran out of ideas but sadly, not apples.  

Around this time every year, most Indian homes experience an avalanche of fruits.  It’s Navarathri season which roughly translates to fun, comradery and an unholy amount of fruits for most people. It is the season when Indian women systematically empty the local stores of all produce and buy fruits by the truckloads.  Interestingly, they will not eat a single fruit from that purchase. Say, a woman buys 100 apples.  She will distribute all of it to her friends who visit her golu giving the illusion of an empty fruit basket. 

Forgive me for this quick detour.  I have only recently started to appreciate how math is interwoven in our everyday lives so here is a brain-teaser for you. If I bought 100 fruits and distributed 2 fruits per person, how many friends visited my golu?  It is such a rush of power to know I can make my own word problems. 😊

Getting back to the fruit distribution conundrum, now that the woman had given away all her fruits, where do you think she was headed next?  To her friends’ homes, naturally.  It was her turn to receive fruits now so she would patiently haul her collection bag, visit every golu house in town and get her share.  Odd? Yes, but also totally fair.  

This is my story every Navarathri season too.  At the end of Saraswathi pooja last week, I was back to being in possession of over 100 fruits.  If you think, this is the sum of all my problems (oh wow Meena) you have never been a performing arts teacher on Vijayadasami day.  

I love Vijayadasami.  It is the one day when my students lose the strained, constipated smiles and seem genuinely happy to see me.  I get warm smiles and cozy hugs generously that day.  To me, it is the best gift ever but the parents of my students are not so easily impressed.  They are convinced that nothing short of multiple bags of apples, oranges, bananas, pears and clementine will convey their love effectively to me.  While I truly appreciate the sentiment, I do wish they will take pity on me and throttle back their love just a bit. 

When my doctor advised me to include fiber in my diet last year, I don’t think she meant this much. Any more fiber and I will have the shiniest colon this side of the States.  

Last night, I dreamed that I was being held hostage by a giant red apple who was holding a banana to my head. An orange was shoving a clementine down my throat.  I was so glad to wake up from the nightmare right at that moment.  It was scary stuff.  

After consuming apples in all possible forms for a few days, I did what any teacher worth her salt would do.  I threatened my students with extra homework unless they each took a bag of fruits home.  A little harsh may be but hey, it worked.  The mountain has now shriveled down to a manageable mound.  Hallelujah! 

Age is but a number!

It was a festive evening.  About 20 of us were gathered in a friend’s place to welcome the New Year together.  As is the norm, we surrounded ourselves with enormous amounts of food and beverages though I am not clear why since everyone but the Sankaran clan ate like a bird.  After the customary greeting at the host’s door involving air hugs and Colgate-worthy smiles, we all settled down for an evening of robust conversation.  It is an unwritten rule that once we cross the foyer, we go our separate ways – the macho men to the formal living room and the little women to the cozy family room.

There were new saree fashions on display in the room that evening which obviously required prompt admiration and in-depth analysis.  Boutique names were exchanged as well as new tailoring techniques in stitching blouses.  A few years ago, a ‘window’ in the back of the blouse was all the rage.  Bold women wore big, airy, wide-grilled window styles while the modest sported tiny windows at the top.  The ones with the tiny windows were never aerated enough but that is the price one pays for modesty, I suppose.  This year, it seemed ‘door in the back’ is the style to die for.  I am completely in awe of this new style.  It’s like magic.  In the front, you can see the blouse but go around, it disappears completely.  Exquisite fabrics basically held together by a couple of strands loosely tied with beautiful beads at the end.  One lusty sigh and it might all unravel like a badly kept secret. 

My experiences with tailors in India have not been good so far.  Every time I go on vacation, they seem to want more cloth than before and then give me a small handkerchief-like blouse in return.  It is like we speak in different languages.  Last visit, I stood before my new tailor and used my skill in playing charades to sign to her that I wanted a blouse that would cover all  the front and at least some of the back and the sides.  It was non-negotiable.  I put my foot down firmly and told her that I was NOT interested in doing any glamour scenes on the big screen and insisted that she used all the cloth that I bought.  From the look of the blouses she delivered, it seems my charades skill could use some work.   

As the evening stretched on, we realized that many of us were dog owners.  Nothing brings people close together than babies or dogs.  As most of us were out of the baby circuit, we bonded big time over our four-legged babies that night.  We went around the room and listened to each ‘mom’ proudly talk about her dog’s smart adventures.  Cute furry pictures were exchanged, tales of housetraining successes were shouted out.  We awwwed and ooohhhhed over each tale making every mom brim with pride.  

Alas, in all this drama, we neglected to notice one woman in the room feeling lost.  ‘I have a fish’ she blurted out suddenly.  Conversation stopped for a minute as all confused eyes turned to her.  She cleared her voice and said it again - ‘I have a fish’.  It took a minute for us to see that we were excluding her in the conversation and being the only woman there who owned a couple of dogs and a fish, I jumped in to set the score right.  She and her fish had the floor the next few minutes.  With slacked jaws, we listened to her concern that her fish might be constipated.  We tsk, tsked and offered to google for some solutions to her fish’s problem.  She basked in the attention and apologized for not having a picture of her fish to show us.  We wrapped up the ‘show and tell’ part of the evening with her promise that she will whatsapp the picture to us the very next day. 

Age is but a number.  4 or 40, we can still feel hurt when excluded.  We are happiest when we feel part of a whole and be included in a peer group.  There is so much love and friendship in our hearts that it is not hard to make room for one more, is it?

Unprovoked confessions!

For a January 1^st blog, this is not about my New Year resolution.  I am loyal to my one and only resolution ever - the elusive weight loss.  It is the one constant thing in my life that is overrun with changes.  So once again, I dusted my old resolution last week, went and enrolled in a nearby fitness center.  The front desk person recognized me from last Christmas and gave a warm smile making me feel at home. 

Okay, now moving on to something completely random.

I don’t know what is it about a kind face and a white piece of thread hovering over my eyebrows that makes my mouth flap non-stop in a verbal diarrhea.  The minute I lie on my beautician’s table, it is confession time at a catholic church.  At her simple ‘How are you Meena?’, the floodgates of my heart and soul open wide and dump on her truckloads of very personal and awkward information.  Poor woman!

Just last week, amid cans of wax and cotton strips, I found myself sharing my mother’s first cousin’s health problems with her.  When I told her in detail about the cousin’s recurring fungal toenail, there was such empathy and anguish in my beautician’s eyes.  If I didn’t know better, I would think that she knew my mom’s cousin personally. 

Next time I go to my physician’s office, I should remember to add her to the approved people on file to share my health information.  If you are wondering why, it is because short of letting her take my vitals, I update her thoroughly on my health status every visit.  I remember drawing an anatomy of a leg on a piece of paper one time to explain to her exactly where my leg pain was.  She didn’t mind that the drawing bore little resemblance to my real leg and looked more like a skinny sugarcane.  What was important was that she knew exactly where my pain was.

It is not just my health that I talk to her about.  We both have aging parents and that has strengthened our bond like gorilla glue.  From buying adult diapers to Bengay, we cover many colorful topics in that short window. 

I am not a secretive person by nature.  Holding on to secrets is practically impossible for me because my brain is not equipped to hold large amounts of data for long periods of time.  Having said that, I have surprised myself many times on my beautician’s table by talking about things that I didn’t know were stored in my brain.  For her every cheerful ‘so what’s new Meena?’, something very old will surface from my subconscious and fall right into her very patient ears.   

She must meet about 40 to 50 women in a day’s work.  Imagine the amount of useless information that gets dumped on her every day.  Wow!  If I were her, I will probably hand out ‘self-adhesive plasters’ for the mouth before admitting any clients in.  She is bigger than me, I must admit, though only in a figure of speech.

If you have never shaped your eyebrows, I want to assure you that it can be a very cathartic experience.  After a short session on her table, I walk out feeling cleansed in more ways than one.  Not sold yet?  Here is a better reason.  It is the most economical way to get a psych consultation and/or a counselling session.  J

If you have read through the above post, obviously, you are either a friend or family.  Who else will put up with my foolishness? I look forward to riding the next fun roller coaster year with all of you.  May you all have many opportunities to LOL and ROFTL in 2017.  Happy New Year everyone!

Here is wishing for another year filled with many things fun, ridiculous and foolish.  

Ready to vote?

Presidential election is next Tuesday in the US.  The date is tattooed in my heart and drilled in to my brain.  I may forget to buy milk at the grocery store this week but I won’t forget what is at stake come next Tuesday.  Thanks to my friends on social media educating me every day, I have never been more politically aware than I am today.   

Guess where I am going with this?  Probably not. 

I have been looking for a different career lately.  I change careers every decade in case you are wondering.  Not that I didn’t enjoy poring over numbers all day long or teaching music to lovely children but I do like to shock my brain awake every now and then with a challenge.  I looked at sports for a while but that was a dead end for me what with my body coming apart at the seams like a worn-out shirt.  With its high potential for drama and low need for a strong physique, national politics seems to be the winner this time.

After careful study of the two major presidential candidates of this election, I find that I have all the qualifications required to run for President.  What I lack, I am sure I will learn.  While both candidates fascinate me to no end, Republican candidate Mr. Trump is the delicious icing on my new career cake. 

A study of this man is such an education.  His rise from business to politics seems to be based primarily on controversies.  How delightful!  It gives me such hope.  Apparently, I don’t need leadership or intelligence or morality or even knowledge of global affairs.  That is such a relief because I suck sideways on history. 

Please do bear in mind while you read the following that I am an amateur in Politics still learning my ways.  Here is what I think a Republican party candidate needs to bring to the table to be nominated as President.

To qualify, one must:

1.   Say outrageously insulting things about women and minorities, preferably on alternative days.  This will help bring more supporters out from under the rock every day where they are hiding and help keep the Press focused on your one-of-a-kind mouth. 

I admit that insulting people is not my strong point but with time, I believe I can learn to do this.  With an awesome tutor like Mr. Trump out there, I don’t see how I can fail.  If I promise to practice every day, will you endorse me next time around Mr. Trump?

2.   Be an expert at slinging mud at their opponent because, come on, who will respect a President that doesn’t spew sewage at his or her opponent?  By far, this seems to be the one quality that is most cherished by the GOP candidate and his supporters. 

By the way, I am truly in awe of Mr. Trump’s usage of his twitter account to accomplish this.  Every day, without fail, he flings mud or worse at Mrs. Clinton using pithy sentences on twitter.   I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good at it as him but it will not be because I didn’t try.   In high school, I once literally threw a ball of mud on a nasty girl after monsoon rains.  I do have experience in this.

3.   Know how to talk the big talk.  Nothing that must make sense logically or financially only that it should sound big and important.  Like our Mr. Trump’s idea of building a big wall in our borders to keep the bad neighbors from walking in illegally.  Oh, wow!  That does sound very grand and big.  No wonder so many people love him and want him in the White House for 4 years leading us.  What a leader indeed! 

If I want to have any chance of running a successful campaign like our Mr. Trump, I must be smart and find something big like his wall idea to make ‘America great again’.  Otherwise, it will all be hopeless and come to nothing. 

The best strategy that I feel will help convince people to vote for me is to use the 'race' card generously.  When talk of racism comes and I hear heated debates of white versus black, I do feel left out.  Brown matters too, you know. 

If I promise to brainstorm and come with an equally endearing campaign like our Mr. Trump, hope I can get on the ticket next time around.   Is it so wrong to want to be on national TV and participate in the most-televised debates ever where I can call people names publicly and know that no one will sue me? 

Ready to vote?

Tsk, tsk! Poor grandpa!

Dreams are such interesting entities.  Many people that I have talked to believe that one’s dreams are basically repressed desires buried within our subconscious minds.  I am not sure I agree with that because if you go by that logic, I am in serious trouble. 

In a recent dream, I was crawling alongside a giant slug in the land of Mordor. Hmmm!  It annoys me to no end that I was so slow even in my dreams.  When you are trying to stay clear of the scorching Eye of Sauron and the morbid orcs that roam the land, crawling around with a buddy in leisure is not the brightest idea.  If I could shake my head disapprovingly at that slow-crawling Meena, trust me, I would.

All my dreams are not messed up.  There are some that are relatively normal.

In one dream, I was the prosecuting attorney arguing a murder case against a Colombian drug dealer. I can’t seem to remember any of the arguments but the sweat that broke out on the accused’s upper lip is etched in my mind.  I must have been a terror in that court.  

My mom was proud of me when I told her about this dream.  She said that she always knew that one of us in the family would become a lawyer as my grandfather was a lawyer and his brother was the justice of the Supreme Court.  I can’t help but feel bad for my grandfathers though.  They had to go to law school and pass the bar and everything unlike me. Poor grandpas!

I really must have lawyer in my blood.  Last week, I woke up from an intense courtroom drama that had my heart racing wildly.  I was the defense attorney this time grilling an eye witness on the stand.  I am glad that I took the time to watch Law and Order episodes in the 90s.  It sure came in handy in that dream.  I took the witness apart and tore through his lies just like Sam Waterston does in L&O.  I do hope that as I age, my dreams will mellow down to mere misdemeanor, traffic violation and family court cases because my heart may not survive the adrenaline kick of the criminal ones. 

I must have been Irish in a previous birth for how else can I explain the dreams where I cast a circle, spin charms and whip up thunderstorms atop a cliff?  I have a magic wand, pixie dust and the whole magic package in these dreams.  I confess I cheated in a couple of them.  I once used magic to get groceries home without going to the store and another time, I made the weighing scale lose 20 pounds when I was on it.  I know it is wrong, okay?  I know that using magic for personal gain is against the code of honor for all sorcerers.  Power and vanity are not mutually exclusive, I found out.  Magic can be very pretty too. One time I cast a spell that had a dying plant come alive with young blooms.  In a dream of course. Sadly, in real life, plants and I are at war.  They die when I walk within half a mile radius.  

The night when we watched the re-run of the Jaws movie, I found myself in shark-infested waters watching creepy shark fins closing in on me.  You would think that after watching Jaws, Jaws 2 and Jaws 3 movies, I would know better than to kick furiously in the water.  Everyone knows sharks are attracted to sound waves. Duh!  Dreams have sound effects too, by the way, because I heard the same music that instilled fear in the hearts of millions when Jaws was released. I woke up just before a freaky great white snapped off my feet.  That was good timing all around.

This is my favorite one so far.  I was walking into Kohl’s and get this - I went directly to the regular-priced merchandise.  Oh wow!  That was so cool but even when I was in the dream, I realized that something was not right because come on, everyone knows that all Desis go only to the clearance section first.  But wait.  That is not the best part.  Guess where I was?   I was browsing through clothes in the petite department.  Hah!  Talk about wild dreams! 

How colorful are your dreams?

Meditation for dummies!

Next to those who eat a bunch of leaves with an abundant topping of 8 nuts for a meal, I have a healthy respect for those that can meditate.  Meditation seems to be the new hot social topic these days.  Yoga, muscle-tearing exercises and zero-carb diets have stepped aside for this new champion.  When my friends were ready to swear on a stack of invisible Gitas to convince me of the power of meditation, I was convinced enough to give it a shot.

I confess that I was a bit smug going into this business.  After all, how hard could it be?  If dumping all thoughts from the mind and being in a zombie-like state is meditation, I felt pretty confident about it.   If you are acquainted with me, you would know that I walk around in exactly that state most days anyway.   So one day, I warned my family to not disturb me for a while, rolled my shoulders and closed my eyes.  Just so you know that I was not fooling around, I even switched off the TV.

Thus began my personal epic journey.  Well, more of a mini trip to the kitchen pantry, if you must know.  Who knew I had so many active gray cells in my brain?  My mind, apparently, was a giant monkey on steroids.  It jumped up and down, side to side, upside down and any other direction I have neglected to mention. 

Okay, so it was not going to be as easy as I thought which only meant that I had to try harder next time.

Posture could be the key to this, I figured, and tried to sit crisscross on the floor like I had seen sages do in the old movies.  Let’s just say that I had to ad lib the plan at the last minute and forego both the floor and the crisscross sitting.  One challenge at a time seemed wise.  Next, I dug into my treasure box, unearthed a couple of sandal incense sticks and lit them.  Ambience is half the battle, after all. There, I really felt ready this time.  Finally, sitting comfortably in my very red, very designer settee, I closed my eyes and tried again. 

I brought to my mind a white jasmine flower that I had seen in a pot in the back yard the previous day.  Did I tell you that I had decided to use a prop to focus my mind on?  A secret weapon to tame my monkey mind, so to speak.  I had a good feeling about this already.

I remembered the day a dear friend brought a cutting from her jasmine plant for me saying that it thrived in her garden and gave her many blooms.  I wanted it to live and thrive in my garden too so I gave it to my husband to plant and water.  If you would stop being judgmental for a second, I will tell you why.   He is the protector of plants in my house.  The one that who shields them from my very black thumb. 

When I peeked in yesterday, it had so many buds ready to bloom.  I wish I had learnt how to string a garland out of flowers.  It would be nice to wear a string on the hair one evening.  The last time I wore a string of jasmine on my hair was last year when I had gone to India.  Both my mother and mother-in-law would insist that I keep flowers in my hair whenever I visit home.  I am eternally grateful for having those two in my life.  They are such kind people.  I remember going to a wedding when I was there last year wearing more flowers than what my fragile head had called for.  It was funny how people kept asking if age had mellowed me into a shy person since I had my head down most of the time from the weight of the flowers.  Hah!  

Wow, wait a minute!  That’s not meditating!  I just took the fastest trip to India and back and still managed to make a few gigantic detours to LaLa land.  Okay, may be that prop was a bit too stimulating for the mind.  Time to zoom in on something dull that is bound to not kick start my mind into overdrive.  What could be duller than a bowl of oats, I thought and went in search of a new room, a new chair to begin my next mini epic journey.

If you are thinking that focusing on a bowl of bland oats would put any mind to sleep, you would be entirely wrong.  My monkey mind jumped up and down with excitement and decided to devise many recipes that would spice up the dull oats into a culinary pleasure.  Oats mixed in a coconut, vegetables and green chilies gravy; oats slow-cooked in almond milk and sweetened with a dollop of honey; oats mixed in a hot cup of pepper rasam and more.  I realize that I don’t have a full handle on meditation yet but I do know that one is not supposed to drool in the process. 

Do you possess the ability to rein in your mind so it is not bouncing all over the place, even if it is only for a few minutes a day?  If so, you are my new hero replacing an elderly uncle with no teeth that I once met who could still eat a plate of murukkus with gusto. 

I always whine to my husband (because he lets me) that I haven’t gotten ‘THE CALL’ yet.  May be, if I tame my mind enough to listen, I might hear Him call.

How do you  meditate?  

What's in your bread basket today?

We were watching a magic show on TV recently.  The magician looked fierce in his all-black attire and was a stark contrast to the scantily-clad assistants surrounding him. 

It reminded me of an Indian movie’s dream scene where the hero and the heroine close their eyes in their middle class homes separately and magically appear together in a snow-capped mountain breaking out an intense, calorie-burning dance and song number in the midst of heaps of snow.   He, in denim jeans, sweater and boots and she, in a wafer-thin saree and glass slippers.  I can’t help but feel pride that this world sees a woman as the stronger of the genders.  Strong enough to purr and shake her naked hips in the freezing snow.   

Anyway, coming back to the magic show, it was basically 4 assistants and 1 magician pulling weird things out of a box on that stage.  And to watch this, you have to pay? What a heap of cow-dung!  Next time you want to watch a magic show, just come over to my place and I’ll do it for free. 

I have a bread basket in my kitchen.  It has never been known to contain just bread any day.  It routinely houses missing homework assignments, insurance papers, car keys, sunglasses, coconut oil, candles for birthday cakes, highlighters, hair dryer, stamp sheets, staplers and Bluetooth headphones, among other items.

I don’t know how you go about searching for missing items in your home.  Our family, at one point, had this tried and tested plan full of theatrical effects.  It included a systematic search from room to room, starting from the bedroom all the way to the refrigerator in the kitchen.  If you had ever heard the muffled mutterings and the desperate wailings mixed in with the sounds of a room being tossed, you would have known that there was a search in progress at my home.  Those were the days when we totally believed that drama was the answer to life’s everyday pesky problems. 

Today, we just dive for the kitchen basket first because more often than not, we find what we are looking for in there.  I once pulled out a couple of laundered underwear items on a desperate Monday morning from this basket. 

Someone wise once said that we are surrounded by magic every day and have to only look to find it.  I may never pull out a bunny from my basket ever but I think that a pair of clean underwear on a school day beats a bunny hands down.

What have you pulled out of your basket recently?

Who died and made Samsung God?

I have half a mind to sue Samsung.  The nerve of that company!

Before I bought their S5 phone, I was riding my moral high horse with the confidence of one who had spent a lifetime doing it.  I had almost perfected the art of looking down my nose.   If you don’t believe me, just ask my daughters.  As the lucky recipients of my daily lectures, they can and WILL attest to it.

In the days before their S5 smartphone, the minute one of my daughters sat down to peruse her phone, I would set my work aside to go sit with her and begin my lecture gently.  I would start by pointing at the window saying how there is a beautiful world outside that is waiting for her attention.  Please note that at this juncture, I would sport a soft smile.  Then boom!  I would switch tactics and with a stern face, give a grim warning that blindness is inevitable if she continued to glue her eyes to the little screen.  This tactic throws children off their rhythm and is most effective.

Anyway, gone are those days of moral surety and sweet lecturing.  These days I am forced to walk everywhere with my phone all thanks to Samsung.  Who died and made them God, I want to know. By carrying a phone myself, I have been made to forfeit one of my birthrights as a mother which is to lecture my kids.  It is a hard blow indeed.  One from which I have not yet fully recovered.  I place the blame squarely (to the question 'why not circularly', I have no answers) on Samsung's head.

Samsung's S Health is a tracking app which keeps count of the number of footsteps that I take each day.  Could there be any worse invasion of privacy?  I strongly believe that a person’s footsteps are sacred and private to them.  One must have the freedom to walk and not have the world know all about it.  It is probably the only information Google didn’t have on me till recently.  

This app not only adds up my steps, it sets goals for me too.  The nerve of the company!  Want to guess how many I am supposed to take each day?  10,000 steps. 

Psssstttt!  Get a life! 

The grand total of my footsteps on the day that I discovered the app was a whopping 187.   If I hang my head anymore in shame, it is sure to snap off my neck so I won’t bother.

So now I do what any Desi worthy of the name would do in these situations.  I find loopholes and I cheat.  I have started drinking buckets of water so I could make many trips to the little ladies’ room with the phone in my pant pocket.  Each trip earns me a total of 18 steps.  It may not sound like much but take 10 trips, it sure adds up.  When I watched the counter climb up to 502 steps by 5 pm last Tuesday, I almost cried.  Who would have thought I would cross 500? 

Two days ago, when my kid passed by me with a load of washed laundry on her way to her room upstairs (climbing 17 steps in the process), I was sorely tempted to slip my phone in the laundry basket.  If not for the law-abiding aka desi chicken gene in me, I would have walked away with 40 bonus steps that day.  It may not have been technically mine but I don’t think we should get carried away with little details like that.  The important thing is to watch the counter climb. 

The other day, I was putting trash and recycling out at curb holding the phone between my teeth as there was no pocket in my pants.  I never knew I could be so shameless and determined at the same time.  Life teaches you all kinds of lessons.

Usually, I am not comfortable with the current social norm of greeting in gatherings.  Every time we go to a party, there is a fresh epidemic of hugging.  From best friends to general acquaintances, everyone wants a hug.  I do my best in such situations though.  I stand stiff like a tree in an embrace and do a ‘there, there’ kind of awkward pat on the backs of all those super-loving people.  After S5, I am beginning to see the advantages of this hugging business.  It gets me close enough to slip my phone in and out of active folks’ pockets and purses.  This way, I get to relax in a chair munching the bajjis and pakoras while the active friends help my counter climb.  If I can hug them, they can carry my phone.  Friendship is a two-way street, you know.

Is your counter climbing?