The stinks

Every time I look at RRJ and every time  I look at my parents I am so tangibly aware of time that I can almost feel it, elbowing past in the most reckless manner as if there is no tomorrow. I wish I could hold on to the present, it is a good place and a good time and I love it this way, but no, it seems that is not allowed.

One of the noticeable changes from RRJ's younger days is the number of conversations that we have now which are centered about his hair. A couple of months ago:
Amma: When are you going to the barber?
RRJ: Not anytime soon.
Amma: Why do you want to grow your hair long? I thought Christiano Ronaldo doesn't have it long....
RRJ: And I thought you didn't want me to copy anyone.
Amma: That is true, very true, I have said that. So no need to copy but still it is hard to keep it clean, you know, you sweat so much and your shower lasts no longer than a sneeze...... I am sure it stinks.
RRJ: I just took a shower, it is very very clean.
Amma [lovingly leaned over]: Haha... let me smell....Ooooh [gasps for air]  Oh my god, it stinks......very much like wet socks.  What have you been doing? [The stink was so bad that it was impossible not to laugh]
RRJ [feeling as if he is missing out on something]: I also want to smell... please please.
[Amma, still laughing hysterically, rubbed his hand on his scalp and offered it for smelling.]
RRJ [shocked by the stink, started laughing himself]: I know this smell.... it is exactly like my friend SN's football boots.
Amma [not laughing anymore]: SN's boots? And how do you know?
RRJ: We had sort a competition...... who can smell SN's boots longer?
Amma [thinking 'WHAAAT!!']: Oh, hmmmm.... and how many competitors were there?
RRJ: We started three and then one pulled out so only two...
Amma [knowing the answer fully well]: And don't tell me you were the winner?!!!!!

 I am sure he will outgrow being silly and cute and perhaps I will outgrow finding it silly and cute. But till then I must dig my heels a little deeper...... and slow time down.

Little pleasures

Undone by the lack of sleep, the travel and the oppressive heat, RRJ hadn't been sounding his usual energetic self most of the day.  RRS leaving this morning for a longish trip hasn't helped either. "If only the IPL match could turn his way........"

RRJ: Amma, to qualify Mumbai needs to make the target whatever it may be in 14.3 overs. That is 87 balls.
Amma: Don't you think it is very unlikely they will be able to pull it off?
RRJ: I agree, but still I hope they do.

Amma  can't wait to see the look on his face when he reads the sports page about the absolutely unbelievable run chase (target 190) that Mumbai Indian have come up with to qualify for the next round!

Muffled roar

The elections are over and done with, much to my disappointment the results are as the exit polls had predicted. And the euphoria that the results have generated all around has only added to the disappointment. Is there something I am missing here? Is it in spite of involvement in mass murder we as a nation accept him as a leader or is it because of the sheer efficiency with which it was committed that we want him as a leader? Anyhow, the whole election thing kind of distracted me from feeling happy about being done with a very hectic semester. Met every deadline at the last minute.... and now, I am in the cozy comfort of my wonderful malyali side of family. I feel pampered and carefree and ready to head for Munnar equipped with a full strip of avomin.

The buds and the bugs

My garden is a collection of exactly nine pots that occupy the little space that we have outside the back door. We haven't let the fact that it gets sun only in the late afternoons and that it is vulnerable to monkey-menace come in our way to have a few plants growing in there. A few tid-bits, that may be of interest if you are growing plants in Chennai but you are too lazy to go to a nursery and most importantly you don't really plan to live off the garden produce:

Growing out of seeds- had very good luck with lime, green chillies and capsicum! Sowed the seeds straight out of store-bought fruit, into the soil and almost every seed germinated. Wasn't as lucky with sesame seeds which I think are more season specific. Looks like February-March works well for them as all of sudden I have saplings from seeds sowed several months ago!

Growing out of the stems- a type of spinach (pui shaak in Bangla) which is a bit gluey and has fat stems was planted by our house-help in one of the pots, just a few pieces of the stems planted into the soil. It grew absolutely lush green in a few days and needed minimum care. Since then we use the seeds it produces in Jan-Feb to plant new set. Easy-peasy to grow and maintain and monkeys don't have a taste for gooey spinach. The other plant that grew out of planted stems is mint (pudina). It was much harder to get mint going but once a few of the stem took roots it has had no problem except one time when the black bugs decided to make home in the pot.

Growing out of roots- failed attempts were turmeric, which were eaten up by maggot-like thingies, and ginger, which were dug up and devoured by some visitors in the night. I had kind of given up on roots when I saw a couple of purple shoots sticking out of sweet potatoes in the kitchen. The whole sweet potato was under-grounded and boss these shoots really took off. Haven't seen anything growing this rapidly. Absolutely gorgeous leaves, both the shape and  the colour.

Strong smells- my mother had brought a sapling of a tulsi plant for my garden and somehow I felt it was a good repellant for unwanted visitors to the garden. Since then at any given time one pot is reserved for a tulsi plant.  Between mint and tulsi we thought we had most of evil-doers covered but of course......

Bugs and solutions- growing a few plants makes one understand the associated difficulties. A pot full of pudina was reduced to a few sprigs in a matter of a week when a family of black bugs decided to nest in the soil. I could only watch them helplessly, creeping in and out every time I watered the pot while the plants withered away. The solution was the solution of chilli powder in water! Not kidding, it just may have been a coincidence but the bugs disappeared and in a couple of months time the pot got back to being like old times. Then there were these waxy white sticky bugs which apparently go by the name mealy-bugs who got better of me and in a very fast and focused mannered killed the lime plant in a matter of weeks.

Show time....

Sesame plant, not too thrilled about sharing space with a big chilli plant

Fast growing, sweet potato plant

Budding chilli

Fruiting chilli

Budding capsicum

Me thinks it is fruiting capsicum...... do you?

Strawberry Cake

Was a bit disappointed that strawberries imparted absolutely no colour to the cake and was wondering if the amount of strawberry I used (3/4 cups of pureed fresh strawberries in a 2 and 3/4 cups of flour cake) was too less. But the cake tasted so darned good, and so flavourful! 

Gen X blood suckers

Damn these mosquitoes! They are everywhere, all the time. This year they seem to have become totally beyond 'all-out' type repellant's reach. The three pronged strategy has been to slather oneself with Odomos (thankfully still works), spend a significant part of the day inside the mosquito net and the last but most effective one is to electrocute them with these made-in-china bat. Satisfaction guaranteed.

A bit late in the day

But we finally got around to watching 'Fiddler on the roof'. An old musical released in 1973 but was an instant hit with the viewers of age ranging between 7 and 76.

You know.......

..... you are back to base when:

• The first step you take outside the airport is in a puddle.
• Hair goes back into its frizzy mode by the time you reach home.
• During family breakfast you have the privilege of viewing  an intimate scene between two monkeys right on the window sill. Aaaarrrgh!

Spot the tree

Sitting in our balcony it feels as if one is in a tree house in a jungle. The view includes a huge N tree, several Ashoka trees, one Coconut, a couple of Palm, one J (I think) and a little bit of the huge Banyan tree that is on the side of the building is also visible. N and J?

Ode to joy-I

Sometime during the discussions on bone mechanics with my student this idea, which seemed so perfect at that time, took its final shape that if bones can be easily cut using a wire saw then why can't I use it to take off a little material off the nut of my guitar. I had been pretty convinced that what lied between me and a fluent guitarist is not the ear for music, or agile fingers but the gap between the strings and the fretboard of my guitar. The wire saw was central to the solution.

Most efficiently the student got a wire saw issued on my name, and I headed home pretty determined that it was about time that the guitar was made more suitable for learning music. The sight of me with the guitar in one hand and a saw in the other perhaps perturbed RRS a little but it was easy to ignore the gentle murmur he let out about how I was about to destroy a perfectly working guitar. I took out the guitar from its case and laid it on the bed, and started to unwind the first wire to be able to access the groove in the nut. TONG. The wire recoiled, it had broken at the beaded end! The source of the gentle murmur registered the sound and nodded to my elaborate explanation about how I had tried to unwind thinking that it is a right handed screw and how actually it was anything but that because when you hold the guitar and tune you do it with left hand and all blah blah blah. Having the guitar already 10% injured even before I got down to sawing off stuff did dent my initial enthusiasm to some extent. And after sawing the nut a couple of times the name of that tea we used get in Kanpur 'Runglee Rungliot' flashed in my head which apparently means 'this far no further'. 

I packed the saw back into my bag-pack telling myself to be wiser about anything students do efficiently.  Really, just because your guide tells you to get a wire-saw, should you? When will they ever learn to think independently and have the confidence to question my judgement but there was no point what was done was done and immediately the net was accessed and a shop was narrowed down and we headed for getting the guitar fixed. To be contd.......

Akele hum akele tum

Tonight we raised a toast of mirinda (in my case spiked with a little rum) to our success in pulling of a week of RRS's visit to south america without compromising on any of the activities that make a regular week for the remaining two of us in Chennai. Above all we made it with a grand and frankly speaking unbelievable score of 7 for 2. 7 for the number of days and 2 for the number of 'fusses' as counted by RRJ so no chance of fudging that data. Only one trump card, an IPL team jersey, was used.

Just a month ago I was sipping Mai Tei in Hawaii and stating the obvious to myself "US is just too far, not just geographically but also the life one leads there has absolutely no connection with the life we lead in India. It is still not that small a world. And while it is great that it is the home of my siblings, but it is also sadly evident that what future holds for us is a virtual bond that we will share through photos, skype and emails about our respective lives which will make less and less sense to each other as time moves on. But that is life so embrace it and head home to people who are part of the everyday present." Up on landing, there was my present, waiting for me holding each others hand, the little face leaning side ward to get a view of me and on eye-contact breaking into a smile that just makes me the happiest person on the face of earth. And on reaching home the door being opened by my beaming parents who are also now a frequent part of my present. It is all for real.

Coming to the point, the score in my absence was 7-8. So you see, RRS arrives tomorrow morning little knowing the absolutely stunning upset pulled off by the underdog parent.

Driven by reminders

Most politely and using the tone that I think is just appropriate my phone is back in the business of reminding me of what has to be done and when and patiently wait for another ten minutes before letting out yet another gentle reminder of the task undone. So the year couldn't help but take an energetic start because getting things done does that to you. And at the moment the plan is to let this state of unstable equilibrium persist and not perturb it with thoughts like 'Life is not all about getting things done. What about look out of the window and stare at the bumble bee, buzzing its way into the hollow of a broken branch to take a short rest before taking a bumbling flight into nowhere' and all that crap.

Cricket front has been excruciating painful lately, just last night I was arguing with father that the series so far hasn't been half as bad as he is making it out to be and of course Clarke and Ponting chose to slap three centuries on my face today. To the big man: what is with this leaving the ball and yet connecting! Happened at least three times in the limited time I saw. And getting bowled! Is something weighing on the mind, I hope not a ton! The only good cricket news has been "Amma, we finally played cricket in school today." "Oh, they allowed?" "No, we just used the volleyball as the ball and our leg as the bat". There you go, we have resourceful cricketers in the making. If there are any worries then they are the discouragement  these budding cricketers meet from parents who have had enough of the imaginary matches that take place in the house. They are tired of hearing the ball bouncing of the walls, followed by a screeching appeal which if met by the imaginary finger going up is duly celebrated with fist pumping and all the offensive gesturing but when the appeals are turned down much glaring at the umpire takes place. Sometimes for close calls the UDRS is invoked and then the replay is played. Oh things can get pretty intense out here. Some times the said parents are not half as bad as they can be, they sit at the dining table, apparently busy with their tea etc. pass each other an approving glance at the extraordinary catch that was taken and enjoy the imaginary game immensely. Until the reminder sets off.........

Regime change

That was long overdue ......