of kebabs and koftas

i am no cook... yes, i do cook, but that is only now, in the past 9 months, the longest stint in my cooking calendar.
but when i made the lamb kebab today, after R's contant reminder that i had promised to make some for her, and served them hot-from-the-
oven to her, she smiled a smile that she has never...
and that is what pushes me to cook these days -- the look on her face which shines with an unexplained happiness tinged with a dash of pride.
and guess whom she befriended to share this little message with me... my Ma, who is (or is it was??) the best cook i have met and known...
R told her, on being served consecutive meals made by her grandmom this summer, that she wished her mom too would cook the same dishes -- malpoa, lau, shukto... peppered with her own kebab, kofta and pudding...
and honestly, i have made all the three on R's wishlist...
children have their own way of getting things done, and i do believe, R told Ma, not to get the things she wants, but trusts the impact of something that Ma will tell me to do...
some things go beyond explanation... and the bond that R shares with both her grandmoms is unique... with one, it is still like a child, with pranks, jokes and laughter; with the other, she acts like a full-blown adult, keeping her reserve and limit. and both these, she plays with equal ease, poise and a lot of confidence.
i relished watching both of these role-plays last vacation home... it was R's first visit as a teenager, and i was sceptical that she might show her ugly self there... the mother in me would be hurt then... but blood ties brought out the best in her and she behaved herself to the T, and needed no prompting whatsoever... it was as if, she never lived without our folks.

living with two MEs

a strange feeling, sometimes a little weird, sometimes funny because of the complete opposites that get thrown up, at times outright boring because of the sheer repititiveness, other times a simply enjoyable pastime, and i am sure, this is no unique sitiuation, that i am not alone in this, that there are countless other loners who go through this and it is because they enjoy this dialogue, the two MEs grow, they are nourished, fed, bathed, clothed and let to live, only in the mind...

i call them my Big Me and my Small Me... the two guys who live inside me, relentlessly talking, talking in long soliloquies, or mono-sentences, as the mood is...

let's me recount one dialogue that has been happening for quite sometime now...



Big Me (BM): why blog?

Small Me (SM): why not? it feels good to let go of words and feelings that lie inside.

BM: words yes, feelings no. can i be open with feelings here?

SM: oh, you and open with feelings???? not possible, buddy... that is the because of your Spastic Colon, am i correct?

BM: behave yourself and i am not your buddy, understand... why talk irrelevant things? i was just raising a question and you have come out with an unrelated problem...

SM: i thought it was related... you are constipated in mind and body (the latter has resulted in the colon disorder)...ok, ok sorry, be less touchy...

BM: why blog?

SM: you are back to where you started... but as i said, i am all for telling what i feel, and care not for what others think about me...

BM: that is the reason why you and me are different, though we live in the same mind. that is the reason why your mental age does not increase and mine has never decreased, though we keep talking to each other.

SM: keep to the basics... mental age is a factor of the mind... i do not have one... but jokes aside, why aren't you writing? why are you not giving vent to what is inside you?

BM: call it a writer's block, a thinker's block, but there is some sort of a block and so many questions...

SM: like?

BM: i asked you one: why blog? rather how should one blog, since you have already answered my earlier question?

SM: what do you mean?

BM: how honest can one be? how honest should one be?

SM: for me, both are same... what i can do, i should do; what i can say, i should say...

BM: that is the reason why you are S and i am B... for me there is a yawning gap between should and can...i cannot do all that i should be doing; i should not do all that i can do...

SM: for once, keep your rhetorics aside and go write. just get off all the blocks and communicate with yourself loud. it's fine, it does not really matter that others might read your blog and read into your mind... all who come here to write, write with a view to getting a free mind... that is the idea.

BM: for starters, i will publish this dialogue... Yipee!!!