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!!!

40 years back...

when i was roughly 2...
Umm, this emotion is universal, i guess...
i don't know whether the man here held another child or not; i guess he had...
but the care is so palpable... something that will never ever happen, and something i will miss perpetually...

and now the real answers... and how i now reside in Pluto

honestly, i was crest fallen with the earlier post... i hit a depression, cried and cried to friends (something that is really really difficult) and decided to speak to her... she said the earlier answers were JOKES and could i take them seriously??? i said, "Ok. then send me the correct, serious answers by mail. but no buttering." she instantly said, "i do not butter people, and in this i am like you and Pa."

and here are the real answers...

What is something I always say to you?
To be independent
** how well she has read me**

What makes me happy?
When im happy…so r u

What makes me sad?
When im sad…..so r u

** can i gloat a little over these two??**

How do I make you laugh?
Actually….im the funny one

Like?
Ummm….im not very funny….but I laugh at my own jokes…and some of yours too.

What do you think I was like as a child?
Honour student!!! Proud one at that

** Ma, r u hearing this??**

How old am I?
Ur a baby!!!!!! =)

How tall am I?
A bit shorter than me

**this is true**

What is my favourite thing to do?
Read….sleep….talk to me

What do I do when you’re not around?
Think of me??? Hahahahah….i don’t know….read?

If I become famous, what will it be for?
Writing a book…..you better get started

**i am hitting the rooftop, better tell the world that i do not fit here any more :))**

What am I really good at?
At giving pep talks

Really?
yes

What am I not really good at?
Your pretty much good at everything….mabye maths??

**my new address is Crater No. 10, Jupiter :)))))**

What is my job?
Journalist…mother…wife…daughter

** she is mistaken on the order... it is Journalist, Mother, Daughter, then Wife, but i will let that be, for her and her Pa's sake**

What is my favourite food?
Dal and rice

** she knows i am a proletariat with simple living, high thinking**

What makes you proud of me?
that you’re…..ummmm….independent

**folks, i am on Hillock No 581, Pluto**

What makes me proud of you?
Duh…that im ATRAYEE MUKHERJEE….that should make you proud enough!!

**it DOES, for sure**

What do you and I do together?
I explain to you about hannah montanna

How are we the same?
Looks wise

How are you and I different?
We have very different opinions…tastes

How do you know that I love you?
Because I just know

**Muaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah**

What is one thing you wish you could change about me?
Make you thinner

**we have the same wishlist :)) which will not materialise**

Now tell me what you feel about this... me and my fragile maternal ego will feel better...

read it, nonetheless

one book, after a long time, that i had to make an effort to get going. but i did not give up and it took exactly six weeks to be done with it. since i made the effort, i thought, i will write about it too.
this 194-page book is one continuous read, no breaks, no chapters, no segregation... the biggest drawback for a reader like me who reads a couple of chapters of a book on a day... and without this break, it was a little drudgery to go on.

but first a little background. if you have seen the link, it's clear why, though, being considered a foremost writer of the 2oth century, Woolf is a difficult read. One, the time is quite far back -- 84 years to be precise, published as it was in 1925. that however is little reason for its being difficult since the thought process is very contemporary. it is the use of language itself which is most important reason behind it being quite a toll on the reader.


i will quote a sample:

"For the great revolution of Mr. Willet's summer time had taken Peter Walsh's last visit to England. the prolonged evening was new to him. It was inspiring, rather. For as the young people went by with their despatch-boxes, awfully glad to be free, proud too, dunbly, of stepping this famous pavement, joy of a kind, cheap, tinselly, if you like, but all the same rapture, flushed their faces. They dressed well too; pink stockings; pretty shoes. They would now have two hours at the pictures. It sharpened, it refined them, the yellow-blue evening light; and on the leaves in the square shone lurid, livid -- they looked as if dipped in sea water -- the foliage of a submered city. He was astonished by the beauty; it was encouraging too, for where the returned Anglo-Indian sat by rights (he knew crowds of them) in the Oriental Club biliously summing up the ruin of the world, here was he, as young as ever; envying young people their summer time and the rest of it, and more than suspecting from the words of a girl, from a housemaid's laughter -- intangible things you couldn't lay your hands on -- that shift in the whole pyramidal accumulation which in his youth had seemed immovable..."




all the above, within quotes, is one half of a para, spanning one and a half pages. that is on the negative since today, we are more comfortable with this, the 140-character magic.


on the positive, look at the myraid streams of thought that Woolf captures, all of it in one mind -- Peter Walsh, Mrs Dalloway's ex-boyfriend, who has come for the party that she throws at her London mansion. And the 194-page novella just talks about this one day, the day of the party, from morning till night, with about 2% printed space given to dialogues.

if you are patient, read it. if you want to unravel layers of thought in a mind at any point in time, read it. if London fascinates you, read it.

the difficult teen? or the overweening Mom?

The tag is from here and only for her sake have i gone ahead and published this. BTW, i sent the questions by mail and she replied...



What is something I always say to you?
“if u get gud marks mi bank balance wont increase”


What makes me happy?
Ummmmm….gud marks??


What makes me sad?
Bad marks??


How do I make you laugh?
Ur not funny at all


Like?
Whts dat supposed to mean?


What do you think I was like as a child?
Bukworm??


How old am I?
43…in other words really old!!


How tall am I?
Shorter dan me


What is my favourite thing to do?
Sleep??


What do I do when you’re not around?
Sleep??


If I become famous, what will it be for?
Being hitler’s incarnation….


What am I really good at?
Bossing people


Really?
Yup!!


What am I not really good at?
Ummm….evrything xcept bossing people


What is my job?
Irritating people…nd bossing them


What is my favourite food?
Mango?


What makes you proud of me?
Nuthin!!


What makes me proud of you?
Gud marks?


What do you and I do together?
U irritate me…I shout at u!!


How are we the same?
Onli luks wise


How are you and I different?
Evry other way


How do you know that I love you?
I don read minds!!


What is one thing you wish you could change about me?
Ummm…nuthin!!!



... now you know why i was sure a e-mail would work and a face-to-face would not?

12 years back

R at 1 yr 7 mths...
the father looks younger too!