Thanksgiving

It's over, my period of penury is now over. I had been living the last fortnight with a self-imposed tightened belt. When I say self-imposed by the way, I am not implying a stunt of some sort, but merely referring to the combination of too little financial planning and too much misplaced pride that left me with Rs. 240/- for fifteen days. This requires considerable ingenuity, but if I have been able to do it at all, it was because of those that love me rather than because of any thought on my part. There were many things I could not do, but I was not hungry. I might have eyed the cooking oil anxiously dreading the time it ran out, but the putting of meals on the table was not just possible, but pleasurable.

And this is where my loved ones come in. Not that they gave me emergency packages, but I benefited from the continuous loving concern and giving that I am blessed with. I have not really had to buy too much food in this period. My mum had, over the last year, sent me enough dried fish and masalas to feed an army. My Mian had stockpiled the house with enough flours and yeast to start a bakery. Maybe more important, they had taught me enough of their cooking skills for me to use this food. I had not just the raw materials, but also the culturally diverse techniques to allow me to wonder if I wanted pesarattu or buckwheat noodles for dinner.

I hate to admit that I had bickered as they loaded up the kitchen, "we can buy more anytime! It's clutter!". No, sometimes we can't buy more. It's food.

I have also been thinking. This was a cash flow hiccup, nothing more. These rupees were only meant to top up food stocks. I have all the necessities- a properly set up household, a job that punctually pays me a salary. I even had an adequate and liquid emergency fund in the shape of a $50 note. Not only would any of my friends and family have helped me, but the two who knew the state of affairs were actively insisting that I allow them to do so. If I did not accept, it was because I was never in distress, just uncomfortable. Even this mild level of discomfort occupied my thoughts to a large degree.

And that is why the Arjun Sengupta report made me ashamed of my complaining. 836 million Indians live with 20 Rs a day for ALL their needs- food, shelter, clothing, medicine, life. 20 Rs a day. Always. Not for a fortnight till the next cheque comes in. Always. For far too many people all over the world, the state of affairs I was in is wasteful affluence.

I am ashamed that I have not given thought beyond the occasional 'tut-tut' to this; I have never done anything to alleviate their real distress. I will now keep my eyes open to help someone out in a real way- not the occasional five-rupee charity, but something more reliable.

How can I end my tale of the last fortnight without sharing the way the multi-verse stepped in too? One day, pretty early on, I gloomily held the last coffee bean on my palm and resigned myself to a fortnight without the soul-satisfying and pleasurable mornings that are my one 'habit'. That same evening M stopped by with a request. She was going away soon and her family were all tea drinkers. Would I mind taking a pound of coffee?

Teaching English

The little girl who visits me on alternate evenings. She is now becoming more comfortable coming home, and opening up wonderfully. She has begun going to a children's activity center and the question "what did you do today?" opens up a flood that I need to stop with a stern call to studies. She paints excellently, has an astounding grasp of mathematics and a keen interest in the world around her. She is also exceedingly generous and often brings me little gifts like this flower she made.

The problem is, I feel like a fraud when I coach her. I have bitten off far more than I can chew, and it is sheer bloody-mindedness and the reluctance to withdraw what little help I am without offering a better alternative that is making me continue.

I am supposed to be helping her with Maths and English. The Maths she only needs the slightest help with, and the English she needs far more than I can give her. It is not her intelligence that is at fault. It is the education system. Its emphasis on focusing on the exams means that children like her get by with concealing the real state of their knowledge till they are suddenly thrown into the world.

She reads her English text well including words like 'attended', and 'jealous', and 'regularly'. She translates each paragraph correctly into Hindi. All this made me think that she is competent in English. No, she isn't. She has simply memorized the textbook.

Trying to converse with her in English made me realize that she actually has an extremely poor vocabulary. She did not know the meaning of 'you' or 'me'. This has me stumped, because I cannot conquer the large gap between what she knows and what she has learnt by heart. Getting her to translate a simple new sentence,"what is the time?" is impossible, because she tries to translate each word. We end up tied into knots because not only do Hindi and English have their subjects and predicates at different ends, but they also split verbs in a maddening manner.

For a while, I said goodbye to the school curriculum and focused on language games. The BBC games were a little out-of-context, but she had good fun with the graphics and would actually listen and try to understand the instructions. And making words with scrabble tiles was fun too, though that game usually ended with us building a house instead.This starting from scratch would probably yield results given time

But now exams are around the corner. I know that her parents expect that she'll do better because of the time she spends here, and the only way to do that is by dropping this and 'doing her lessons' which is learning the questions and answers by rote..knowing that if the question is worded even a little differently, she does not have the language skills to know what is being asked of her.

I have no idea what to do..should I sit down with her father and explain matters to him? Tell him that it is important she develop basic language skills now, before the gap between her curriculum and her skills is unbridgable? And even if I do, will I still be able to teach her, knowing that she has an utter phobia towards the language? I want her to know that English has an applicability outside the classroom, that there is pleasure in the written word. I show her my books- the few with pictures in them- and plan on buying some appropriate for her soon, but will that be enough? Is it any surprise that I feel like a fraud?

Harvest

Remember these guys?

 Well, they have been drinking in sunshine and water in the month I was away, just so they could welcome me in their full splendour:

 and tonight, they fed me.

Buckwheat noodles with pesto.

Back home. Sort of

I am back, in our bone-white bedroom with the pink furnishings. For the rest of the week at least, I will be busy enough cleaning the house and setting it to rights. But no matter, I've had a bath and I've brewed coffee, and all is right with the world.

Not quite. I miss my mum and sis. And my phone mysteriously died even as I plugged it in and rejoiced at the dial tone. So I wont be chatting online with Mian today- which is really, really sad. And I have not brought back half enough gifties for all the people I will meet..

Overriding everything though, is my missing of mum and sis. My niece shouldn't bridle, because I miss her too, but what I am referring to here is a specific missing of the family of my childhood. Partly, it's the weather. The summer-monsoon period is where all my happy childhood memories are. My sis would be home for the study prep- when we would study all day and mum would take us off to a picnic in the evening. In the holidays we would run pretty wild. It was a small town in a safer time, and I would be out either in the garden or in the woods all day long. Later, when summer turned to monsoon, the new year truly began with school and all the associated excitement.

Monsoons along the coast create plenty of stories. We had a super-tall television aerial to 'catch' the broadcast all the way from Panaji. It was like a mast, and in every storm it fancied it had sails. The wind would catch it and rotate it so that it was no longer aligned correctly. If a favourite program was going to be aired, my sis and I would go up to the attic to rotate it again. This meant the untying of it, which meant the removal of the plastic around it, which meant that we would be standing in the rain grappling with a huge, huge, metal pole that was fighting for liberty while my mum would watch the TV and give us directions from below. And always, always, some part of the house or the other would be damp..it was a 100 year old earth and wood structure, what do you expect? We loved it.

Monsoons were warmth, too. I would walk or cycle back from school and invariably get soaked. But coming home in a storm was lovely, because I knew exactly what I was coming home to. I would lug my cycle up to the verandah, walk up the dark wood staircase, and enter the kitchen. Amma would be standing there at the gas heating a wad of cloth on a tava. This she would proceed to apply to my head and -after an unceremonious stripping- to my back and chest. I squealed my way through the entire process, but it was a good thing to come home to.

And another good thing was Amma's ovachi amti. A wonderfully warming and tasty curry made of some seeds I can't remember. It's so warming that over-indulgence leads to skin breakouts, but that didn't prevent my sis and me from clamouring for it every cloudy day. I am shocked at myself for not knowing the recipe, but I will ask her today, and I will learn to make it.

But will it matter? Even if I learn the curry, even if I manage to make our home smell like the monsoon of my childhood, it still wont be the same. I want the whole package. I want my sis and I sitting at the table and waiting for mum to come with the curry. I want the three of us to sit and eat it together with mounds of red rice while it thunders outside and we worry about how our plants are faring and whether the jackfruit tree will lose a branch yet again. I want that even if for a little while. And now I've made myself cry.

Of gifts

If things had gone according to plan, I would have now been sitting moping in an airport fingering the chocolate Mian had given me last night. Instead, I am sitting at home watching the bees hovering over the lavender.

The flight out of SEA was delayed, which would have meant me missing my connection and spending a lonesome night in Newark. And so the airlines rebooked me for the next day.

They say it was because of weather, but it was the multiverse acting on my behalf, of course. Just last night Mian and I were lamenting. There was the grief of saying goodbye, of it never being enough time together. For me, there was the usual regret of not having made the most of what time we had. In addition, there were things we needed to do that we hadn't. We still had thank you cards to write, coffee and sweets to buy, bookstores to visit.

Back in Dun, our plants, our landlady, and my office all wait for me. They will wait one more day.

Today, we make the most of this gift we've been given. In two hours, instead of fighting for elbow space on a plane, I will stretch out in the sun and have a picnic lunch with my Mian. Later, as we did three years ago, we will take the bus home with our hands clasped together.


Thanks to Joe Mabel for the wikiphoto

Two parks

I have been gadding about the last fortnight. The places I visited and the things I did could not be more different and yet, they were very similar.

In reverse chronological order, there was this:

The second beach, Olympic National Park

And there was this:

Disneyland

Different, as you can see. And as for the beach, I have many stories to tell, and photographs to share. When it comes to Disney, I need to confess that I went there bristling with cynicism. I am crusty that way, and far too environment-impact-conscious to simply allow myself to relax and take it all in. They air-condition open areas, I griped. The entire tree is plastic, I yelped. There's plastic sheeting under the lawn, I groused.

Thankfully though, the people I went there with loaned me their points of view. One of them was unabashedly enthralled by the whole experience in a way that Walt would have loved. Like a one-woman Disney survival pack, she told us about the various rides, helped us navigate, showed us parts we would have missed, and by simply being with us, helped me look beyond the glitter and  see the magic.

And above all, a small pack of little cousins reminded me that irrespective of the authenticity of an island, the simple pleasure of looking at water with someone you love remains the same.

A pool conversation

Two cousins, both nine years old, playing in the pool two hours after having met for the first time ever.

"I didn't know I had you. Did you know you had me?"

A bit on cooking

Last week, I realized all over again what a lovely set of friends Mian and I have. Friends that willingly give of their time, creativity, efforts. Friends that gladly do whatever it takes to make sure that our celebrations are truly memorable. I didnt need reminders of how wonderful they are, but since I've been here, I've been open-mouthed in wonder that these people love me. But this post is not about them.

One of the ways they showed their generosity and their love for us- and their knowledge of just what would be enjoyed by us- is by gifting my Mian and me a weekend at the Inn at Langley, with a dinner reservation. The weekend was perfect- the complete stop from running around that we needed. The highlight, however, was definitely Chef Costello's six-course dinner.

The menu was playful, inventive, and firmly rooted in local produce. Chef Costello plays a lot with newer techniques and tools- creating a bacon 'snow' and porcini foam for example. These make for playful eating, as in the case of the dessert. Meant to be shared by two, it consisted of balloons of various sorbets floating on a sea of mousse. The colours and shapes were evocative of a playground, and were fun.

What blew me away however, was not so much the use of these new-fangled tools, as the realization of what truly excellent cooking means. While we enjoyed the tricks, the true magic of the dinner was how every ingredient was made to be the best it could be. My favourite part was an artichoke and bacon soup. Other than the bacon 'snow', it was plain old good cooking. Perfectly balanced ingredients, deft seasoning, and scrupulous straining- nothing that one cannot replicate. Mian's favourite was the fish. Again, a very simple dish consisting of perfectly roasted halibut, and delightfully surprising sides (a garlic scape! cucumber and yogurt icecream!). And this was true of every course. Minimal fussing, great technique, much attention.

My most humbling moment was the garlic scape. Onion buds are popular in Dehradun, and invariably cooked to a soggy mush. I had stirfried them, and stunk up the entire kitchen. Costello's scape was a gently curving bloom sitting proudly on the fish. I tasted it and found it sweet with bite. The secret probably was blanching followed by a quick toss in hot oil. The thing is, this is what an alium bloom can and should be- not the stinkin' mess I'd reduced it to.

The flavour combinations were a lot like Mian and me- looking at the plate, I couldn't understand how these could be paired together; after one bite I would realise that it was inevitable, these were always meant to be taken together. Halibut, cucumbers and yogurt. Strawberry and coconut. Watermelon (seared!) and feta. Try this at home.

Flavour combinations aside though, I now think that what makes a truly good cook is the willingness to take the trouble to be one. I dont know if I can ever master technique, but the next time I cook, I am going to be fully there- thinking, tasting, cooking.

being home

Last night, I was asked if I had been to all my favourite haunts in Seattle yet. No, I had to confess, not yet.
And today morning on my way to the market, I was wondering why. After all, one of the things I was looking forward to (besides plonking my head on Mian's shoulder) was revisiting all the places I loved in Seattle.
But I find myself unable to do that. Not physically, it is not like I dont have the time to, but mentally. I find myself strangely reluctant to pull on walking shoes and step out.

Part of it is the new neighbourhood, of course. I live some distance away from where I did earlier, and so my haunts are a bus ride away. As for sauntering around this neighbourhood, I am still in the position of the child learning to tie her shoelaces- 'the chicu goes  across the road at the big yellow tree, and under the bridge at the little pink house'. Part of it is the feeling guilty to saunter when I have things I am supposed to be doing. And I know that is not logical, I need to work through this fog. I will do that, soon.

In the meantime, as I answered truthfully,I am focusing on meeting all my favourite people. A couple of days ago, and again yesterday I met The King (no, not that one!). This man has given me goodbye-forever hugs twice already only to have me pop into his life like a mushroom again. Bless him,  he always reacts asif that is one of the nicest things that could happen to anyone. And in an hour, I meet M (no, not that one) for a day of wrapping wedding favours, gossip, and rendering me sane. Not bad, eh?

And as for the haunting, out at the market, I got me a map. Now I am an unstoppable force!

To err is human

If so, both Indian Rail and I proved our humanity this week. And that is a good thing, right?


At 5am on the 9th, I wobbly-ly (and if that isn't a word, it should be) ran onto the platform lugging a heavy suitcase and continued running past D7,6,5,4 to get to D3, seat 96. The instant I passed D4, I heaved my suitcase into the train, stowed my luggage, got into seat no 96, and fell asleep. When the TC- a young Shahid look-alike- came along, he told met that I was in the wrong coach, this being D2, "but you just keep sitting there, Madam". well ok. I did keep sitting there for all of 90 minutes when a chap came up and showed me his ticket.

Well, fine. That's ok. I did have a legit ticket, right? All I needed to do was find the right carriage. So balancing my suitcase on my knee, I set off in search of it. Not so easy. After wandering up and down a couple of carriages, I found the TC,  grabbed his sleeve and implored him to lead me to it. "Never mind that," he said, "you just go to the next carriage and sit in seat no.33."

When I went there, the seat was occupied by a little old lady who gave me the dragon eye. I blushed and walked by to stand near the loo-which had an overflowing basin. There were some policemen there and after chatting for a little while, they offered to look after my luggage while I looked for the TC.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to sit in 33?"
"yes," I yelped "but there is a little old lady in it!"
"there shouldn't be. Come with me."

Well, he went to the seat, and barely opened his mouth to speak when he got the dragon glare. which is why instead of speaking to her, he addressed the carriage at large," Is there anyone with Maaji here?"

One man- standing there by the basin- owned up to being her son. They were traveling ticket-less, he said and apologised. He had seen the empty seat and told her to sit there, but now he would tell her to get up. "No, wait! Why could I not go to my own seat", I asked. Because it wasn't there. Turns out that while 106 passengers had been booked into D3, the coach only had 81 seats. As a legit ticket holder, I had priority over a ticketless traveler. But of course, I couldn't allow that, and volunteered to stand there.

I didnt really mind it, especially since the chaps who had seen the incident all found a place for me to stow away my bags out of the wet. But everyone else did. And they all told me how soon, some seats would be vacated and i could sit there. And sure enough, they often were, and i would sit down for a while, till the next people came on.

One of these times, when I was standing in the corridor and being jostled, a man gave me his seat. Thank you, but I am fine, I tried to say. I have been sitting long enough, he said and insisted I take his place. After that, every half hour, on the half hour, I would try and tell him that I've sat enough. He always refused to take his seat back. He stood there for two hours, just so that I would not be jostled by strangers.

So it was not a bad experience after all. It was reassuring to know that the Mighty Indian Rail was human after all. It was nice to interact with my fellow-passengers. It was extremely nice to meet truly kind people. This experience was all about humanity then, and it was good.

But humanity is not all good. When I was standing by the loo, something sticky was thrust into my palm. I looked down and saw  a grimy little  paw holding my hand. Its owner was a little boy who stared impassively at me and did not flinch as I raised an interrogative eyebrow at him. His mum then spoke to me," look after him, will you" and disappeared into the loo before I could reply. I was left holding the kid and trying not to think about the cause of the sticky palm. See, he wasn't eating sweets, and his nose was running. If this woman had thrust a parcel into my hand, I would have been justified in calling security. Now, I could do nothing, despite that this had immense potential to explode and was a biological hazard to boot. Sometimes there is too much human contact

My other home

in Seattle.

When I was packing to come here, I believed that I was escaping the heat of a Dehradun summer.

But what with the warmth of friends and my own sizzlin' Mian, I am not longer sure.

How not to starve while walking in Mussoorie

Well, one can go the traditional route and stop at one of the many enticing chai stalls on the way. Else there are momos and pastries and all manner of urban delights- this is a tourist town after all.
or it is possible to live off the land and sample all that the forest has to offer. The mussoorie hills are famous for their berries, and we found some on a ramble last week.
Here they are, and scrumptious they are too.

Hissar

Kala hissar, or the black Hissar.

Kingoda

mountains and seas

Some of my happiest days have been spent by the sea. And one of the things that always gave me much pleasure as a child was looking at the ripple marks on the sand. It is pretty, isn't it?

It is wonderful to stand in clear moving water and watch it sparkling in the sunlight. A foot below the surface is a clean, white, sandy bed. It is marked with row after row of wonderfully defined and marvelously regular wavy marks. Here and there, this bed is marked with an occasional irregularity. Instead of spoiling the symmetry of the marks, this occasional mark enhances it. Instead of despoiling the prisine beauty of the bed, it speaks of the life that exists there: these marks are the tracks of starfish, the front porches of shellfish.

Now that I have moved here, the sea is what I miss most. And so  I was absolutely thrilled when I came across just such a sandy sea bed. And absolutely thrilled as I looked at the bed and thought of all the stories it told. The gentle sea, with its moving, dancing wavelets. The pulse of tides. The marks of an animal as it moved across the bed in search of food, shelter, love. What matters it if all this happened millions of years ago?

Because what I was looking at was the floor of the Tethys Ocean. wow.

The fossil ripples are visible on the road from Mussoorie to Tehri, between 4-5 kilometers from the Woodstock School. Keep a sharp eye open, and you are bound to see them.

Idealists all

It is strange that while a large part of my time is spent at work, I have not really mentioned my office very often except to gripe. And yes, it is true that I do sometimes have issues with my workplace. But when I complain it is about the most banal of things- weekends, internet connections, and gossip. And that is wonderful, because it shows that in the things that matter I am supremely content.

People have called me naive, and people have called me a dreamer. The more irritating ones have smirked and said, ‘you don’t know how the world is. Wait for a few years and you will learn.’ It is only slightly less surprising than it is refreshing therefore, to suddenly find myself in the role of Cynical Worldly Woman.

Because the chaps in the office are nothing if not dreamers to the core. It is refreshing while setting targets for the year to hear the most unexpected person pipe up and argue against financial indicators. It is refreshing while discussing a new project to see that the ethicality of the work and not its bottom line is the major deciding factor. And most of all, it is refreshing to hear ‘business’ meetings focus on how to change the world.

Of course it is not perfect. Sometimes there is a wide gap between the participatory ideal and the ‘because I say so’ reality. But the striving is there. Sometimes an eavesdropper lurking outside our rooms might think that a bunch of cats were squabbling in there. But not once in my presence has the squabbling been over who gets the most cream.

It is human, it is flawed, it firmly believes in the inherent goodness of humanity, it strives to make this world better one leaf at a time, and it continually agonizes over whether it is as just as it could be. Not a bad place to be, eh?

A stroll in Rajpur

A little over a year ago, I visited Rajpur for the first time. Within a couple of weeks, I was back, scrambling over rocks, getting sunburnt and vowing to bring the Mian along the instant he landed in Dun. Sadly, we never went. And yesterday, when I visited it again, I missed him so. Remember my telling you of the priest's house? The peepal tree I gushed over is now strangling it, causing its walls to bulge inward. It now painted an eyesore pink (oh my mian, my mian. will you never be rid of pink bedrooms?). I am afraid now that by the time he comes back, it will not be there. Well, the structure will be there; my little magical house will not. Why, why, did Mian and I not pack up sandwiches and go off there in the winter?

It is good then, to know that some things are still around. The lychee grove is still there. And yesterday it was prettier than ever before. The lychees are ripening, and all the trees look like Christmas with their shiny dark green canopy studded with ruby-like lychees. There were horses there, and the grove looked like it must have when the area was on the old trade route to the hills.

I also went to a part of Rajpur I had not written about earlier. If instead of going into the town, you continue towards Musoorie, you come across a temple called the "bavdi shiv mandir' or the 'Shiva temple of wells'. It is a request bus stop which makes it pretty accessible.

As the name suggests, it is famous for the many springs in its vicinity.We counted six springs that are still flowing. There are also some that have now dried, but could be induced to flow with a little restoration. Even more springs have been lost to construction of a road, and the 'modernization' of a house. Interestingly, this house was earlier a caravan-serai, and the springs had been included in it's planning. The serai had been built so that each room had a little spring bubbling into a basin. How utterly practical and romatic! Now of course, the springs have been walled up and piped water has been brought in.

The temple is a large, ever expanding, and becoming-more-urban-by-the-minute structure, but has some unexpected beauty to recommend it. The roof is painted an intense red, which actually works quite well.

Look at the spot where the bell hangs from, though and you notice that the snazzy red has been used to cover the beautiful murals that once covered the wall. Ah, progress.

If you like, you can continue up the new ( untarred) road that leads past the temple and reach Rajpur village instead of catching the bus back.

Fatigued and dehydrated

A few weeks ago, I had boasted about how I make pasta from scratch when I am 'too tired' to cook a proper meal. This week, I realised that this only applies to physical tiredness.I have been soul-tired for the last few days. And this has meant no posting, no keeping in touch with friends, no housekeeping, and store-bought patties for lunch.

Why the tiredness? I don't know. Or at least, I find it difficult to pick out a single reason. The Mangalore plane crash. Work. The heat. The lack of water. People watering down their concrete paths in spite of the lack of water. People refusing to consider demand management as an option. A colleague was complaining of being forced to use only one bucket of water for his bath! That is a luxury for most people!

But today, I was vindicated in a way. There are three households in the complex where I live. For the last two days, the others have been lugging up buckets of water because their taps are running dry. I turn on the tap with abandon..or atleast, as much abandon as I normally exercise when it comes to water. The nice man who is the Man Friday of the establishment told me that he would help me carry the buckets up, and was amazed when I thanked him, but refused and explained that I have water in my taps.

The reason? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

I do the first two zealously.

Reduce: Bathe in a half-bucket of water. It gets one just as clean as the three buckets a colleague was boasting of using. Shut the tap while brushing teeth, scouring dishes.

Reuse: Use laundry water (wash and first rinse) for flushing, mopping. Second rinse goes to the plants. Shanpoo under the tap, use the water for mopping. The water in which beans and dals have been soaked goes to the plants- they don't worry about flatulence!

As for the third, I have heard of peeing on plants, but I ain't going there!

Demand Management. A good mantra to live by.

evenings and magic

If you were to approach our house now, you would be guided to it by the snatches of music and glimpses of golden light that spill out into the darkness. Open the door and step into a luminous place filled with lit candles and the sweet sounds of Lester Young * on the saxophone.

I am sitting here at a table littered with the detritus of a happy evening. Ruby-stained glasses, bowls of oil and vinegar, and remnants of salad. A rug rolled up and pushed out of the way. One finally spent candle sits cold and dark ,while the row of floating wicks on the windowsill still dance merrily. These are joined by the cream-and-yolk curtains that gently billow and shift in the breeze.
It has been a good evening.

 A certain light on my computer blinks green and Mian is online talking to me. It is still a good evening.

* the album was given to me by my niece as i left for Dun so everytime I play it, I miss her..

11.30 pm, Paharganj

C is relieved and happy because she managed to check into a hotel despite having forgotten to carry any photo-id. Now is a good time to establish rapport with the desk, she thinks.
C: I see your tarriff has gone up. The last time I was here, it was less, wasn't it?
D: I remember when you were here last, Madam. The tarriff was the same. Maybe you dont remember because the -ahem!- gentleman you were with had paid.
C(realizing what she's saying 1 crucial second after she says it):That was no gentleman! That was my husband.

So..does farce imitate life, or is it the other way around?

By the way, the hotel is the wonderfully named 'Hotel Cottage Yes Please' and I do recommend it highly.

Bithoor and its buildings

When I was complaining about the lack of urban art in Dehradun, W told me," keep your eyes above street level'. and that was sound advice.
It is largely the ground floor facades that are papered/panelled/torn down. The upper storeys of old buildings are not considered for 'modernization' and retain a lot of their charm.
And that is also true of Bithoor, where it is notmodernization but grafitti that is defacing many lovely buildings.
but the upper stories still retain a dignified beauty.

and sometimes, it is not just the beauty of a building, but a hint of what it conceals that is so tantalizing.

Home decor essentials

The curtains and their rods are down, the rugs are rolled up, the maps and assorted thingamajigs are tucked away. This weekend our house gets painted a clean cream, and I say goodbye to brothel-pink and dhaba green.

Bone-white walls mean fun playing with colours for furnishings, of course. I have been going through things looking for ideas for my curtains. Now, some people have a knack of taking a couple of old sarees and making magic. Me, not so much. I am constitutionally unable to put together 'a look' whether on my person, or my table. And I am always okay with that. 'Eclectic', 'Artist in a garette', and 'Scavenger' have pretty much been my favourite decorating styles.

But now, I am decorating for two, so to speak. And I have been overdosing on other peoples magazine-ready houses.  The result is that I have been going through a mild phase of 'oh what's the use, its impossible, I cant do it, mum-maaa!'

But we know by now that the multiverse does not allow me to feel that way for long.I happen to be helping a little girl with her homework most evenings. And she is wide-eyed with joy at the pretty things she finds at our home.

'you have a painting!'
'yes, my friend made it and gave it to me.'
'ooooo'

'you have many frogs..'
'yes, I like them a lot. do you?'
'hanh! may  I play with them?'

She looks through the pretty books, builds with scrabble tiles, and plays with the thingies. And I see them all with a new pair of eyes and think, 'Not Martha, but who wants that? This is lovely.'

How does that song go? 'kisiko dekhna hain ghar, to pehele maang le nazar..'

Yeh ghar bahut haseen hain.