Summer of '89 - Part 2

Another beautiful city - Trivandrum is another place that I can't forget. My memories here were mostly linked with emotions more than anything else -the wonderful times I spent at my paternal grandparent's place.I loved the train ride to Trivandrum.It was an overnight train that we needed to take to reach there and I used to enjoy every moment of it.The vacation mood would set in as we 'helped' my mom pack clothes for the trip(should really ask her it if was more of help or not!!!!).Big suitcases would be taken out of the attic and we excitedly contributed to the packing as we tried to take everything to show my grandparents.I remember diligently packing each and every report card and exam paper to show off my marks to my grandparents (much to the annoyance of my brother).He would take all his fancy toys which mostly consisted of hybrid varieties as my brother was very ambitious and tried developing new 'machines' by using parts from his existing toy collection.I remember his 'lassi-maker' - to make which he destroyed 2 remote control cars and my mothers hair dryer!!!!!My mother would pack food for the train trip, putting them into individual packets wrapped with banana leaf.Food definitely tasted better in the train and I would devour soft idly's smothered with molaga-podi (an item which I never used to even touch back home!!!).Then there was the fight for places in the train - the coveted window seat.After much argument and after a bunch of scoldings we would settle down and be lost looking out , as the train sped through, the change in foliage very evidently noticeable as we entered Kerala.The scenery would immediately change from being dull and drab to a vibrant green.We would wait impatiently for the station to arrive and would crane our necks to see my uncle waiting for us at the station.A porter would be summoned and all the luggage hoisted upon his head and we would head back home.

I very clearly remember my grandma's reaction when she saw us alight from the car.There would be excited hugs and she would cry (she was a very emotional person, but always argued that they were tears of happiness!!!!).Our house was 'Sharadha' in Kanaka Nagar.My father and uncle grew up in that place and practically knew every person in the neighbourhood.I remember the cool red-oxide floors and the huge diwan we had in the hall.To the left of the entrance was my uncle's room - it had the kind of 'trespassers will be prosecuted look' to it and it was the place where my uncle used to crash after his late night parties!!! Then there was the big backyard.It was here that the water would be heated for bathing and where jackfriut chips would be fried in large quantities and where savoury snacks and sweets would be made whenever we were there.

Facing the backyard was 'kunyammai' aunty's house and adjacent to it was 'lakshmi' mami's house.It was across this brick wall that many exchanges took place.If it was a newly prepared dish, it was passed over to both the neighbours across the wall.If my grandmom wanted a tomato for cooking,it was just a shout across the wall.....

A typical day started off with the traditional 'oil-bath'.Me and my brother were covered in oil and left to play out in the morning sun.We would do exercises showing off our body while constantly irritating the maid whom I lovingly called 'nun-nun' (Please don't even ask me why I called her that way!!!!).Then we would be bathed with a sweet smelling powder made with gram-flour (I always thought that this made us smell us new born babies- but never mind!!!).After that it was time for prayers.My grandmom would make us sit in the puja room and 'test' us on our memory.She would start off one sloka and see if we could pick it up and complete it.These sessions were usually interjected with stories from Ramayana and Mahabharatha.The session would end with the aarthi and I would ring the bell while my brother frenzily would hit a plate with a spoon making the maximum noise possible.The cacophony would soon die and my grandmom used to feed us breakfast.It was always rice with dal and lots of ghee accompanied with vegetable.

After being stuffed, I would head to my much dreaded Hindi tuition.It was with 'Pankajam' mami.I used to hate those classes and I never really knew why I had to go there.She would make me write the same stuff over and over again and I did not learn much except for writing books and books of hindi alphabets.

The evenings were the most fun when we would go to the zoo or the museum.We stayed very close to the museum and it was the safest way to keep us out of trouble.We would be marched off to the museum and made to walk like crazy.I guess this was partly to tire us out so that we would sleep after returning back.There were this huge trees that had small red shaped seeds called 'manjadi'.It was a fascination for me to spot them on the ground and pick them up.I used to come back home with both my fists filled with these red seeds and save them in a big jar in the showcase.My collection grew day after day and when my grandparents shifted their house, they discovered this stash of a huge collection of these seeds(I still have the remnants of this collection- though the seeds have become old and wrinkled).

I can go on and on and on ... there would be a part 3, part 4 and it will just go on....Colourful memories that are so many to fill an entire book.When I look back at these I am hit with 2 looming facts - Those were definitely the best days of my life and they would never come back, however hard I try converting the 'were' into a present or a future tense verb - it just doesn't fit.And the other fact is that I am growing older :)

Summer of '89 - Those were the best days of my life

The summers of the late 80ies remain evergreen in my mind.I was about 5 then and all summer vacations used to be spent at my grandparents.I was really lucky to have 2 lovely sets of grandparents.The paternal side of the family lived in Trivandrum and the maternal side in Cochin, both in the lovely state - Kerala.I always am biased to cochin, partly because I was born there.Vivid memories of the extremely good times that I have spent in our huge mansion 'GOKUL' come rushing to my mind.Gokul was a massive place.It was a typical 'grandparental' home, with a blue gate and a lawn leading to the driveway.My grandmom loved plants and the front of the house was invaded with plants of every type.I recollect the maroon pots with ferns hanging from S-shaped hooks in a row along the porch.We had a big jackfruit tree(It never gave any fruit until we were there, much to the annoyance of my grandmom.However she continued her pursuits of stimulating the tree to give fruits.She would talk to the tree and we even did a traditional puja.. can you believe it?????). There used to be a swing tied on to the tree during our visits there, and I still can feel the breeze on my face, as I tried to swing higher and higher.My grandpa had lived in Bahrain before settling down in Cochin and the house had a nice collection of bric-bracs from there.My favourite past time would be to take out each one from the shelves in the pretext of dusting the shelf and listening to grandpa as he used to cleverly come up with a story every time for each of the collectibles.My grandpa owned a small photocopying shop just around the corner to keep him occupied.I used to devotedly accompany him and we used to set off from the house every morning in his blue lml vespa.There were huge godowns used to store spices on either side of the road and I could get the whiffs of dried ginger, pepper, cardamom .What a divine concoction!!!!At the shop I assumed the position of the cashier, and spent my time toying with the huge black calculator.My grandpa was an extremely meticulous person and made me write all the transactions in a neatly labelled book(I wonder if the book is still there, for me to see my squiggles against his perfect cursive writing).
I always looked forward to the returning home part.It was then when we took a short cut across the market and I would be treated to various goodies - one day it was an ice-cream soda from the cornerstore owned by a jew (he lived in jew town close by), another day it was a katchori from the gujarati shop, sometimes it was a couple of bondas (those were the best bondas I have every had in my life,they used to serve it with some weird red chutney which tasted heavenly!!!), and of course 'ball ice creams' - these were plastic tennis ball shapes filled with vanilla ice cream.Most of the evenings, we went out.My grandmom was a wonderful cook and she made all kinds of yummy stuff to eat.If we were going to the beach, it was definitely masala peanuts which she made at home.Sometimes me, my brother and my grandpa took off in the moped to explore places on our own with the supply of snacks courtesy my grandmom.We got drenched in the beach, we watched the chinese fishing nets come up with loads of fish, we watched the sunset from the marine drive.... No vacation was complete without a visit to the jewish synagogue and the Mattancherry palace.Oh and of course, the traditional visit to Chotanikara temple. After visiting the temple we would sit around as my grandpa conjured up more exciting stories of the temple.And there were the boat rides...we endlessly used to travel in boats literally island hopping until I was sea-sick!!!! When I look back now, I can't quantum the amount of fun I had then.I am overwhelmed and my emotions get the better of me.I desperately search a loop in time to switch to those days again.I try to grasp and hold on those fleeting moments racing through my mind.My mind is flooded with bits and pieces of nostalgia....I can even picturise happy scenes from those years.Happy,carefree,fun filled summers..... Definitely the best days of my life.

PS: I will continue my experiences in my paternal garndparents house in my next post.

What We-Men Want

What do you want? - 'A comfortable life' , 'LOTS of money' , 'A top of the class car' , 'A good job' and it goes on and on...These were some typical responses that I got when I asked the question WHAT DO YOU WANT? to a couple of people. Most of the times, the wants seemed to zero down to monetary terms.Everything most people associate to WANT is money.Well, is that ALL WE WANT? Where have the other things like 'eating ice cream on a freezing night', 'taking a walk in the rain','talking into the wee hours of the night' gone? Have people become stereotyped in their wants? I am not saying that these need to be on the top of the list but I expected the presence of at least a few of these.I don't blame them as this is mostly influenced by the way people perceive success today.There are numerous parameters that decide success - most of them synonymous with all the wants outlined earlier.I feel we are so cautious in getting the big picture right that we tend to overlook the smaller yet finer aspects of life.It amazes me when I think of the last time I met a totally satisfied person.Is it so difficult to attain synergy between satisfaction and success? I know that success is satisfying enough for many, but do they get satisfied doing what is required to attain success? Its a constant race that we all are running.But we fail to see that you need to re-energise yourself to run further.People see the ribbon at the end of the race track and set-off.But this race is a long one.There are people overtaking you every time you overtake someone, and the end seems to be father away the more you run towards it.Its then when you need to STOP and BREATHE.I believe that in order for you to be successful in this race you need to be relaxed as well.Stop on your race track, once a while to smell the roses on the side.Enjoy your deserved breaks in life.Do things that give you extreme contentment.Take delight in things that you do.Take your tea break now......

People and Pasta

If anything can really really comfort me, it has to be Pasta.The sublime pleasure of greedily digging into a hot bowl of spaghetti dripping with good ripe tomato sauce that nearly borders on being sweet, with just the hint of garlic coming through, flecked with green basil and parmesan shavings.Or just penne bathed in glorious creamy white sauce with succulent mushrooms.Or sheets of lasagna lathered with cream cheese and spinach and mushrooms with slabs of mozzarella. You take a loaded mouthful of this sumptuous stuff and you hit heaven!!!!
But looking at it at a closer perspecive, its just plain old Pasta made from semolina. And to think that pasta derives a lot of taste from its shape!!!! substitute a penne in arrabbiata with farfalle and I quite don't get the same taste.I can never imagine a bolognese with anything else other than spaghetti or tagliatelle.Pasta is all about shape.You have the same ingredient, you give it a different shape and presto!!!! it acquires a new taste!!!! funny ain't it?
This brings me to think of another thing 'Are people and pasta the same?'.I try to extend my argument, and I think it holds good.All people are the same stuff, just moulded into different shapes.The only factor that would disprove my hypothesis is that people tend to take on variations as they progress through life.They tend to add on frills and fancies to their initial mould.An extra bend there, a crease here.....Or they have moulds that are dented, thanks to the ups and downs in life's roller coaster ride, a couple of bumps, a tear here, a stitch there........I will blame it on Evolution of the self.However, you can always see through them all to discover their true shape.The only thing you need to possess is an observant eye to see if you can note their true self.Think of it as trying to separate all your pasta in your bowl from the sauce!!!!Let me try............hmmmmm well I know of a highly confused spaghetti-person, and a clean sheet lasagna-person.Oh! I do know of a twisted fusilli-person as well... See that?????

Moi premiere blog!!!!

hey all...

Phew!!! have finally done it!!! well, I atleast got to create a Blog :). I have been wanting to do it for quite some time now.. but then, there was always SOMETHING to do.. like cleaning (which i always always have to do), like cooking, like doing assignments, like going out, like chatting online with a bunch of similar jobless friends, like WHATEVER!!!! So here it is guys, BLAH BLAH BLAH - My own blogspot :) having said that, I am really not sure how it works, so PARDON MOI if there are any mistakes and I dont follow all rules of blogging (not that I think there are going to be any rules at all, although I remember signing some terms and conditions in the beginning, dont worry I am not goign to write about anything that is even vaguely porn ;) )

Thats it for now.

PS : for all those who are wondering what the seemingly french words are doing in my blog, just ignore it!!!! I am just showing off :)