Ritu Lalit's Blog, page 7

My Pink Cycle

I have been, or should I say, had been feeling unwell.  Health issues tend to impact me mentally and emotionally.  They make me feel every year I have lived.  Think creaky joints, think sluggish limbs, think cranky mood and the general feeling of I-hate-this-world-and-I-don’t-know-why-I-even-try .  Yup, I dragged this aged body around moaning and grumbling.  The boys dug trenches and jumped into them, waiting for the mood to improve.  It did not.  By the time I got home from work, my legs hurt and the soles of my feet burnt.  Cooking, normally a pleasant activity, felt like a huge burden.  Just standing in the kitchen was painful.

Visions of wheelchairs and stretchers loomed large in the mind.

Yep, I am a drama queen.

Not once did the thought occur that I should, perhaps, fix an appointment with a doctor.

Two days back, the younger son took charge.  No, he did not take me to a doctor.  This is our family, as whacky as we can get.  Normal and sensible thoughts do not occur to us.  Instead he made me bunk office and rest.  When he figured my mood was as human as it could get he said, “I want to start cycling Ma, so shall we go look at some cycles?”

I needed to do some Diwali shopping so I agreed, provided he accompany me to get Diwali stuff.

The cycle shop was quite an eye-opener.  Back when I was a girl and I cycled, we had pretty basic equipment.  The parent hauled us to a shop where tyres hung by hooks on the roof.  Bodies of cycles, black with a splash of silver paint were stacked to one side.  We selected a body, the wheels were fixed on it.  We got the bell and carrier fixed.  and maybe hung a basket.  The parent haggled all the while and we whined for a front basket, a bicycle pump and fancy shiny thingumijigs to fix on the wheels.  In the pretty sedentary world we live in, I thought I’d see more of that shit.

I was so wrong.

The cycle shop was three stories high and stuffed with cycles in as many colours as we can get.  Green, yellow, blue, red, pink.  More about the pink later …

The second born selected 3 cycles while I picked up the jaw that had fallen to the floor in surprise as I stared at the sheer variety.  I should not have bothered because it hit the floor again when the shop owner told us the prices.  Dear reader, I come from an era of bicycles costing Rs.300/- and if your parent was feeling generous, he/she would buy you a Rs.500/- one which came with splashy red carrier and a bicycle pump!  I stared at one that came in dark purple with thick tyres which cost (gasp) Rs.38,000/-

I think I need to go out more often.  Sometimes my brain and worldly gyan is stuck in circa 1968 or thereabouts.

I wandered about the shop and was completely unprepared for what was to hit me next.

The shop keeper said, “Madam your son is calling you upstairs.” Till then I had not realised he had another floor full of bikes.  I climbed up and he led me up yet another staircase.  On the second and third floor, the place turned distinctly floral.  Bikes in pink, powder pink, blush rose pink, hot pink, mauve, the lightest purple and one tiny number which actually had a pink body with yellow daisies on it.

I burst into uncontrollable giggles as I whispered to the son, “I have never seen an entire floor of cycles issuing such an open invitation to rape!  What’s with this gender specific coloured equipment really?”

I shall pause here.  I know that the internet is full of people ready to take offense.  Please do.  Knock yourself out objecting, telling me how politically incorrect I am.  I will not defend myself or stop you.

Done?

Shall we move on?

The son gave me an evil grin and said, “I called you up here to get a cycle for you.”

“No way,” I said backing away. “I am old and fat, in case you had not noticed.”

The shopkeeper smiled and said, “Madam you can do it.  Anyone who can climb three flights of stairs can cycle.”

“My 55th birthday is done and gone,” I told him.

He looked surprised (bless him) thought a bit and said, “Phir bhi, you can do it.  I know you can.”

Son said, “At least get on it.”

I sheepishly did.  That bike was to small for me.  My bones too stiff.  I am old and fat.  He did not let me back out.  We tried one and then another.  All the time both son and shop owner kept up a steady stream of flattery.  We walked downstairs with me telling son sternly that I tried the bike at his insistence but won’t cycle.  Pish!  At my age????

He ignored me and requested for two cycles that felt comfortable to be brought down.

“I am not carrying enough money,”I protested.

He went to an ATM and brought money.

“It even has a pink basket!” I wailed.  I had to make a stand for gender neutrality.  It was ignored.

Please ignore Baron who is photo-bombing here.

The son wanted me to take it out for a spin.  I dug my heels in.  I was not going to make a spectacle out of myself.  What if I fell?

“What if after it comes home, I am not able to ride it?” I wondered.

“You will.  Otherwise, OLX hai na,” he replied.

By this time the roomful of customers and shop boys were staring at us with grins on their faces.  I shut up and tried to look inconspicuous just like a person who was not buying a baby pink cycle with a pink basket.  I only opened my mouth once to insist on a gel seat cover in blue to counter the deluge of pink.

The evil son countered that by buying me a pink and white cycle helmet.

I beat a hasty retreat and sat in the car while he arranged for the two cycles to be delivered home.

It rained that day …  The next morning was really pleasant.  The sons came downstairs eager to see the tamasha.  Cycles were taken outside, both of them.  I stared at my pink number feeling intimidated.  The sons looked at me with huge grins.

“No way,”I said.  “And definitely not in my pink pajamas.”

“It is early and there is no one out,” said the sons.  “The pajamas are perfect.”

With them I never can win, can I?.

 

It was a shaky start, but in the past couple of days I have ventured further and further.  And guess what?  I have no health issues and my mood is much better.

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Holy Cow!

 

Bovine is the word most used to describe cows.  Ever wondered what bovine means?  The recent fracas over cows made me research the meaning of the word.

Free dictionary says

bo·vine

(bō′vīn′, -vēn′)

adj.

Of, relating to, or resembling a ruminant mammal of the bovid subfamily Bovinae, such as a cow, ox, or buffalo, especially one inthe genus Bos.
Sluggish, dull, and stolid.

n.

An animal of the subfamily Bovinae, especially one of the genus Bos.

 

 

The Hindi website hinkhoj.com says

BOVINE= मंदबुद्धि (pr. {manadabuddhi} )(Noun)

 

Now I have never considered cows to be sluggish, dull and stolid.  Not since I decided to take a short cut through a meadow at the age of five.  It disturbed a cow snacking on the grass.  She hooked her horn in my skirt and tossed me away.  That was my first and only ticket-less air travel and the scariest.  Dull and stolid?  No sirree!

Cows are stately and dignified and possess the most beautiful eyes.  Oh, those large eyes and lashes!  I haven’t yet seen a cine star with eyes as liquid and expressive as the bovine ones.  Have you seen the way a cow walks?  Her gait is akin to a matronly queen, deliberate, stately and completely unconcerned with the frantic pace at which lesser mortals rush around.  She is not bothered if you are getting late for work!  She is far far superior to the needs of lowly humans that need to clock into offices at 10 am.  She is royal.

The only other animal that displays such stately dignity and complete contempt of humans is the elephant.

I have healthy respect for the cow, more akin to fear.  That is what being tossed into the air with a flick of a head does to a person.  That is why I am more inclined to believe that cows have engineered the current “All Hail The Cow” sort of genuflection that our public discourse is undergoing.

Take for instance the rise of lactose intolerance in the world, India included.  Mind you, we humans are the only species that willingly drink food these mammals produce to feed their own.  Well, they have had enough and have struck back.   They mutated and made their milk indigestible to humans.  1/3 of the human population worldwide is lactose intolerant, and the number is steadily increasing.  This means that 1/3rd of the entire human race can’t break down cow milk into smaller and simpler substances and digest it.  Not satisfied by altering their own produce the cow also enlisted the buffalo, the wheat and the corn.  Celiac allergy is a sister to lactose intolerance.  In one fell swoop, the cow has snatched away its own milk, the bhains ka doodh and our roti.

I can almost imagine the cow laughing as she burps her calf, blinking those lovely eyes, nuzzling her babe and whispering,  “Now I have enough for you and more to spare, my sweet.”

Now the royal cow is growing ambitious.  And how!

With a blink of those lovely lashes, she (the cow) has claimed human lives ….

With a swish of her tail she has compelled Sahitya Acadamy Awardees to return their awards.

What next?

World Dominance???

 

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On being judgemental

Today while driving to office the 2nd born and I gave a ride to one retired neighbour.  He spends his retired life doing sewa (social service).  Now herein lies a catch.  The sewa is only for the caste/community he belongs to.

I find conversation with this neighbour tedious at times.  On previous occasions that I have dropped him to his destination, he has spoken of things I can’t relate to.  Of how girls get married to the “good and noble” sons of a family and then take the sons away from the parents.  More power to the girl, I once quipped cheekily.  In all honesty, that is how I feel about it.  Relationships between aged parents and grown up children is like walking through a lush paddy field of love, heavily mined with combustible charges named “unreal expectations”, “individuality”, “the right to wear a beard”, “the kind of hours we keep”, “who gets to handle my pay check” etc etc.

Best to either sort these things out at the outset, something neither parents nor sons think is important when they set up joint family homes optimistically, and then it is too late.  All that is left is hurt feelings, ego, bitchy comments and ruined relationships.

The term “In-law” was coined by a person who had a weird sense of humour.  Out-law is more appropriate though mild.  “That bitch” is the term mostly used out of earshot I think.  This gentleman definitely implied it.

“Behenji, yeh ghar todne aati hain,” he said once.  “Good for her” I’d said.  “Couples need to live with each other, not with other couples.”  I did not find him waiting for me at the kerb for the next few weeks.

Today he began the conversation with complaining as to why communalism as ruined India.  I agreed.  He said Surya Namaskar is good exercise and should have been made compulsory in schools.  I agreed to an extent, just added that it being optional is better.  So far so good.  Then he spoke of how voting rights should be withheld from people of Islamic faith in our very neo Hindu India.   I tuned off.  Sweeping generalizations with a seasoning of venom always puts me off.

The son told him off in no uncertain terms.  Maybe the neighbour won’t hitch a ride with us for another period of time.

What gets me is the sweeping generalizations people of my age and above are prone to make.

All daughter in laws are bad
The girl my son is dating is bad for him, just because she threatens my power over him.
All members of a certain community are bad
People from a certain caste are better than others because I was born to that caste.
People with different sexual orientation are bad.
Everyone is bad except me and mine.

Why are we so scared of the world?  It is a beautiful place with so many people doing their own thing.  Why do we want them to fit into a mould of our liking?  It will make the world so boring.  Stop judging people, please.  Stop judging the world.  It makes one think that everyone is bad.  No one is bad or good, they just are.  They, like us, did not ask to be given a shitty life.  They’re just dealing with it the best they can, just like us.

And if people weren’t different, how would we get gems like this to make our Mondays better?

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Sheena Bora case and a Sense of Deja Vu

Random musings on the case of the year

Just random and like me, politically incorrect.  Well, they are my musings, so what else do you expect?

The entire nation is sitting scorching their eyeballs gawking at the Indrani saga unfolding on television at shrill decibels.  Hell, news reporters, where’s the fire.  Sheena Bora was murdered 3 years ago, for heaven’s sake.  She’s dead and gone.  Screaming now won’t make her a smidgen of difference.  It won’t even help gloss over the fact that the lady accused has clean hands now, and you can’t tie her up to the crime – not by a stretch.  It is déjà vu.  It is the Aarushi case revisited.

And the burning question which is hotly debated by various people I overhear on my morning walk.  Can a mother kill her own off springs?  Of course she can.  Some animals kill their young.  Some humans do that too.  Not too many, otherwise their genes would not survive, but they do.  As a mother I’ve experienced moments when I wanted to end the existence of my young.  In my defence, the desire occurred at 3 a.m. in the morning during a period when my marriage was taking its dying breath, a bout of measles had infected both the brats and I had an all important meeting to attend the next day.  I looked at those two tiny pairs of pock marked cheeks and bright wakeful eyes topping them with my own red-rimmed eyes and wished – nay prayed that by morning either they ceased to exist or I did.  Of course I did not act on the impulse; I am not that cold a person.  Besides I am lazy and a coward.  The instinct to kill does not surprise me.

Not that I am sure she did it.  The evidence linking her to murder is very flimsy, despite what the police and press wants us to believe.

What surprises and impresses me is

The lady got her adult kids to agree to act as her siblings.  Hell, I can’t get my adult kids to eat breakfast at an hour I find acceptable.
How did the lady manage to keep track of all those lies and keep them from being found out for so long? That requires intelligence and kickass manipulation.
Three husbands? Or were there four?  How did she manage all those relationships, ex and present.  I can’t manage 2 adult sons, one ex, a maid, a houseboy a gardener and my boss with any level of panache.

The above 3 points are facts, of course highly coloured by my personal opinions.  The fourth fact is that Sheena Bora is dead.  The fifth is that the biological father of Sheena Bora is missing.

The media circus keeps going on, giving the daily soaps stiff competition.  I can almost visualise the production teams of said soaps berating their writers, “Write something like that Indrani case, damn you.  We need TRP.”

Meanwhile, developments get leaked, evidence or lack of it gets manipulated and glossed over.

We get updates like Indrani ate a sandwich or the highly melodramatic one like this

(The caption says Caged Fairy) 

I think we need procedural manuals and norms for both the cops and the press.  And we can do with less melodrama.

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Tata Docomo and strong arm tactics

Dear Tata Docomo

 

New love is a wonderful thing, precious even.  I fell in love with your advertisement I saw once on television.  It is telling that I no longer watch the TV, not since I could not differentiate between news channels and Ekta Kapoor soaps.  Mercifully I also miss out on misleading advertisements causing me to fork out cash on products that may not work for me.  Like the dongle I bought from you ages ago.

I bought the dongle and tried using it for two days, 48 hours in all.  Apparently you do not have a tower near my residence and hence the dongle was of no use to me.  I complained.  A technician visited my home and confirmed that they did not have service in my area.  I returned the dongle – unused.  The matter should have resolved then.  Right?

Wrong!

I began getting calls from your collection agencies who were not interested in the fact that our relationship lasted just two unsatisfactory days.  They wanted money for a month’s usage.  That is all.

I balked.  But I did not get to use it, I protested.  The calls stopped.  I thought that the break up had been painful, but reason had prevailed.  We were just not right for each other.  We’d move on.

Years passed, life went on.  I did not know you were nursing resentment; it galled you that our relationship had not lasted.  Today I received an email from your legal cell.   Your mail was titled

FINAL NOTICE Overdue Invoice – URGENT ACTION REQUIRED

Wow!  I did not receive the first, second and third notices at all.  How did this become the final notice?  Still I read what it said.  I have a confession to make, I had forgotten all about you.  It’s been over two years you see and our relationship had been so fleeting …

I apologize.

It went on to formally address me

Huh!  Rs.544/- ? I thought and recollection flooded.  Oh yeah, the dongle, I said and read further …

Now that is a lie.  I am always available and you could have mailed me earlier to tell me that you were hurt about pending hisab kitab.  Oh, come on.  I pay my debts provided that they have actually been incurred.  In fact I even pay tons of exta as interest on debts incurred, housing loan, educational loan, etc etc are sitting pretty much untouched while I work my butt off paying just the interest.  Such is life.

But I did not get to use the internet you insist you provided!  I returned the damn dongle within 2 days!  I even notified you.

And then you went ahead and made this threat …

 

What stage?

The stages of relationship are either-it-works or no-it-does-not.

And threats … lets not be petty shall we?  Oh well, considering the customer care has hung up on me once more, may be we shall be petty.

As for the sum of money, sigh!  Truth be told, I am hurt.  I know that the princely sum of Rs.544 will not pinch my pocket.  I also know that as a lowly citizen of our wonderful country I pay taxes which may be used – for all I know – to pay some high and mighty minister’s phone bill.  I do not see it going into providing us uninterrupted electricity during the summer months or even road repair.  And I am also sure that Rs.544/- that you are trying to wrest from me by your strong arm tactics will go into petty cash and be defrayed in chai paani etc.  And like a serf I am expected to buckle under my yoke and fork the sum out.

But why?

I did not use the damn thing, I could not.  The service that you so enthusiastically advertise was not provided.

Should we play the game of lawyer vs lawyer?  Should I file a case against you for not providing the service that you promised.  Should we bully each other?

So I am sending you a link of this blog post.  Lets hope we come to an amicable settlement.  But I dunno, won’t hold my breath on the hope.  All I can say is this …

BUT I DO NOT WANT TO PAY FOR SERVICE I DID NOT GET.

Yours etc

A confused consumer

QUESTIONS I WISH TO GET AN ANSWER FOR

P.S.  Why the hell do these service providers have such a great advertising budget and sales team when they can’t give us the service they promise.

P.P.S. And why is their legal cell so darn unapproachable?

P.P.P.S. Where did the earlier notices go before they came up with this brilliant FINAL NOTICE?

 

 

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Between covers, a true love

I know the title of this post is kind of kinky …

If you came in to read a steamy torrid kind of story, I do apologize.  I am not leading you on, I am writing about an enduring love that has lasted for years and years.  It has matured, grown deeper and consumed me.

I fell in love when I was four.  The object of my childish passion was a thin four page book depicting a house made of gingerbread, with bright coloured candy fence and an old lady looking out of a window smiling at a pair of children gazing at the house with greedy eyes.  I wanted the book, I needed the book.  I would expire if I did not get it.  I dug my heels into the pavement prepared to stage a dharna right where I stood if I did not get the object of my desire.  I remember my mother was feverishly hunting for a particular shade of peach for a dupatta and she did not understand.  Here she was running from shop to shop, looking at muslin.  Failing which, she bought muslin and hotfooted to a dyer to obtain “Mere wala peach.” The toy-cum-bookshop was en-route to the dyer.  I dug my heels and proceeded to whine.  She tried to distract me with a doll.  I shook my head.  She offered me ribbons and shiny buttons shaped like peonies that sat in battered tin sweet boxes at the dyers.  My shrieks became shriller.  She blinked.  How could a possessor of XX homo gametic chromosomes disdain glitter and bauble and want books?  She caved in and bought the darn book after making me promise to keep quiet the whole day.  The sibling made hay while the sun shone and pitched in with a demand for a gun.

That became family tradition.  Every shopping expedition started with supplies.  Both of us, the brother and I filled up our water bottles while Ma packed sandwiches.  We were then settled on the back seat of the beat up Ambassador and we set off.  The first stop would always be to a children’s shop where I bought a book and the brother bought a noisy toy.  I grew smarter as days went by and realized that big books meant big pictures and hardly any words.  My book lasted one hour and the sibling’s gun lasted days!  What one needed was thicker books with smaller prints and preferably no pictures.  Ma balked.  Papa stepped in when I was six and got me a library card.

Dear reader, have you seen paradise?  I did, the first day I walked into that particular public library.  Rows and rows of books, glorious chairs set near windows to curl into and read.  The smell of print on paper.  Large benches on which people sat noses buried in tomes while piles of books lay next to them, waiting to be savoured.  This was true love.  I was a goner.  I think I forgot to breathe for a few minutes.  Papa led me to a small corner and said firmly, “This is the kids section.  You will get books from here.”  I don’t think I heard properly, I’d spotted Noddy!

Years flew.  I graduated from Noddy and Faraway Tree to Five Find Outers and Billy Bunting.  From Enid Blyton I graduated to Wodehouse and Agatha Christie.  Older cousins shrugged, dismissed my book addiction with a shrug.  She’ll grow out of it, its just a quirk, an infatuation.  I never did.  They told me that inhaling paper causes asthma.  The oldest cousin once told me an absolutely horrendous tale of a murder done by slow poison.  Apparently the murderer had painted arsenic on the corners of pages so that the reader licked the arsenic off the paper, ingested it and died.  I retaliated by grinding a whole box of chalk and pouring the powder into his freshly ironed uniforms.

I became a social embarrassment.  Aunts and Ma would actually subject me to a search before we went out to visit people.  I’d become such an introvert that I did not like to talk to people.  I would sit in a corner and read a book I’d brought with me.  They rarely succeeded.  I always managed to smuggle one or two with me.  On occaisions when they succeeded, I’d stare at kids playing and wonder why they screamed and ran around like headless chicken!  I eavesdropped on the women and found the gossip boring unless it was spicy and salacious.  I’m a quick learner.  Once I discovered I had a taste for salacious gossip, I arranged my chair to be within eavesdropping distance of the ladies and kept a book by my side just in case the gossip was about the price of onions and tomatoes.

Ma began warning me of dire things, bad stuff that would happen if I did not stop burying myself in books.  You’ll go blind, she wailed.  You’ll be a chashmish, with thick  spectacles.  Who will marry you?

The cousins and sibling loved that!  This was days before family soaps were invented you see.  Humans love dramas, the more emotion in it the better.  Don’t scoff.  This is the fundamental stone on which the fortune of Balaji Telefilms is built.  Ekta Kapoor’s parents weren’t married when all this happened.  So we hunted for drama, even descending to the level of watching one of us getting a scolding from the parents.  Ah! So satisfying.

Schadenfraude its called.

“You’ll run out of books to read,” the older cousin said.  I was a teenager by now.  I subjected him to an eyeroll.  “You’ll go blind,” he added when he saw I wasn’t impressed.

This phenomenon is called the “Chavvani daalna” syndrome.  It is akin to executives in conference with a boss.  When one of the execs is being scolded, the other one in utmost humility whispers about a mistake the boss may have missed ranting about.  The situation gets aggravated and the second executive basks in satisfaction earning undying enmity from the first executive.  I’ve seen it being played and replayed ad nauseum in office.

Oh they were so wrong, the mater and the cousins.

I wear spectacles but only got them when I was in my late thirties.

Books have never stopped being written or published.

And, if God forbid, I grow blind, I can always listen to an audio book.

And no!  It’s not a quirk, an infatuation or addiction.

What I am fortunate to have is a deep enduring love for books.

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The evolution of a parent

As human beings we evolve.  We grow old.  We mature, grow up …

Or not.

 

It is entirely up to us.

As growing up goes, if one wants to, I heartily recommend having a tyke or two of ones own.  Diaper duties evolve into skinned knees, snotty noses, tears.  Kiddie clothes and lego bits grow into larger clothes and dolls/action hero figures.

Those evolve into home work, exams, demands.  Shrill, shrieks and tantrums evolve into emotional blackmail and shameless manipulation.  They come with still larger clothes, food preferences that drive a parent nuts, comic books and computer games.

While all that is happening, the parent (you and I) are learning first hand on how to judge human beings.  We learn how to deal with and understand our own species.  Suddenly these tykes realize that you are seeing too much and learning too much about them.  They react by becoming those supercilious resentful and secretive adolescents.

How these smiley cherubic naked bundles full of pee and shit turn into fiercely independent ornery grown men and women is an amazing process which is delightful.  How they turn us from grown up men and women into old people who puff and pant as you haul your body over four flight of stairs to visit their apartment is something that shakes me up.

When?  When did I turn from the woman who chased deadlines, tripped over skates and lego bits, cooked and supervised homework into this old biddy who can’t climb four flights of stairs? I felt my age when I visited the second born, now proud possessor of his own life, his own job and his own one BHK apartment in south Delhi.

I watched in silence as he got the carpenter and electrician to install his fridge, air conditioner and wall mount his television.  I watched as he harangued the landlord and used all his guile in persuading the electrician to drill just one more spot and yet another, so that the extension board could be concealed behind the laundry basket.  I watched in silent admiration, trying hard to shake the feeling of being redundant, of a parental role ( which once was assumed forcibly but now feels like a second skin ) is over.

And then he flung himself on the bed next to where I was sitting watching all the activity and said, “You baked the biscuits just for me?  And you got me bread pudding!!!  Love you Ma.”

The sun shone through the darkening clouds.

He is still my baby boy under all that beard and manly demeanour.  I am still the mother.

We may or may not have grown up, We’ve definitely not grown apart, we’ve just evolved.

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Motherhood is not for wimps Part 3

Phew its been a pretty intense week and a half.

The baby of the family (actually he is 24 so not a baby technically) got himself a job and then spent the next few days in unholy eagerness to shake the dust of home off his feet.  I must say that I spent the last ten days or so vacillating between the maternal urge to smother him in hugs and kisses and the entirely unreasonable desire to tie him hand and foot, stuff him in a cupboard and lock him in.  I did neither.

I sulked and bawled when no one was looking.

I prayed he would not get an apartment to shift into (Big fail.  He did.)

I hoped he’d lose his nerve and settle to spending some more time in the maternal home.  I even tried to plea bargain with any supernatural deity who may have been looking my way “Just two weeks, please.  Let him spend a few more days with me.  Okay four days?”

Well he’s gone.

He’s just shifted to Delhi.  It is just an hour away.  I can meet him at will.

We talk …

Actually we talk more now that he’s gone than we did when he stayed in my home.

May be I am just over reacting and being a Drama Mama.

But its not the same.

I am now the mother of grown up sons, adults.  A very joyous and important stage in my life is over.

I’m trying to come to terms with it.

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Samosa on a rainy day

Image sourced from Wikipedia

So it rains heavily. On my way back home, I stop and buy freshly made samosas and even haggle for more tamarind chutney.

“The weather just needs to be celebrated in style,” says the heart.  It adds, “Dieting be damned, I want a samosa.  In fact I want many samosas.  No, not the politically correct baked cheats, I want deep fried samosas.  Crispy fried piping hot outer crusts with potato and pea stuffing hearts, complete with mint chutney and tamarind chutney  on the side.”

Maybe it wasn’t the heart speaking but the taste buds.  I deal excellently with temptations, when they clamour I succumb.

Wikipedia says that A samosa /səˈmoʊsə/ or samoosa is a fried or baked pastry with savoury filling, such as spiced potatoes, onions, peas, lentils and also with minced meat (lamb, beef or chicken),[1]and sometimes pine nuts.

I buy six of them, piping hot.  They sit on the passenger seat.  I drive home watching the wet world through the swishing of the windshield wipers inhaling the aroma of crispy fried maida mingled with the sweet tangy fragrance of tamarind chutney.

Fortunately for the car seats, I do not dissolve in a puddle of drool before I reach home.

I grab the packet, thanking merciful heavens that they haven’t cooled down enroute.

I set tea to boil, bring out plate and chutney bowl.

Tea done, I send a cup upstairs for the First born along with 3 samosas.

I grab one and take a hefty bite before kicking myself for not buying ten.  I can eat these three and still want more!

Damn!

The first bite is heaven.  The potato pea stuffing is lightly spiced, just the way I like it.  I hate the over spiced samosas with dry fruits in the potato stuffing that Haldiram has made fashionable.

The first bite melts.  I want more!

I take another bite and a sip of tea while watching the heavens pour.

Wonderful.

I take a third bite and that is it.

Realization dawns on me and leaves me stunned.  I can’t eat.  I can’t finish a single samosa!  I feel betrayed.

But wait, that is not all.

For dinner I had planned comfort food of dal chawal aloo gobhi and coriander chutney.

Not a morsel passed my lips after facing defeat in the hands of that humble chai samosa.

Things they don’t tell you before you embark on a diet program.

Sob!

Edited to add :

The First born tells me not to use the word Diet.  The politically correct term is ‘Eating Healthy’

Yeah yeah, whateva!

 

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Monsoon, Damp dog smell and Ambi Pur Air Effects

My idea of a good home in the rains is quite olfactory.  What I need is the smell of onions caramelizing in a pan or a cake baking in the oven, coffee frangrance from the coffee machine, the crisp smell of detergent and freshly ironed linen wafting through the chinks in the cupboards and the petrichor mingled with the scent of mogra flowers swept into the room through the open window on moisture laden winds.  Heaven!

Sadly it does not always pan out like this.

Oh I try to create all these smells, but fail because of my pets.  In rains I step into the house and inhale deeply and get damp dog smell.  All dog lovers know the smell.  Of course it has a scientific explanation, something to do with an oil called Sebum from glands attached to their fur.  That oil mingled with body odour and water makes the home smell awful.

I love my dogs, but I can’t stand the B.O. they bring in with them in rains.  And I just don’t have the time and energy to use a blow dryer every time they go out and dance in puddles or dig into my vegetable garden.  We have three dogs, two huge GSDs and a dacshund.  Blow drying them is a chore.  Dousing them with talcum is not an option, they just lick it off.

Here are the dogs, Jeannie, Baron and Piper, captured during a rare moment they were at peace.

 

I have tried everything, from potpourris kept in rooms, incense sticks and oudh at various times in the day.  Nothing really cuts the smell of three dogs who went to do their business outside but rolled in puddles and chased squirrels before they returned.

Enter Ambi Pur Air Effects Blossoms and Breeze Aerosol Air Freshener.  I have used air fresheners prior to this and I have found them overpowering.  Most of them are strong and have a chemical base that triggers headaches or allergies – and in some cases both.  Even the dogs flee when I spray on any generic room freshener or they attack the poor thing, mangling it beyond any kind of usage.

The label on the Ambi Pur aerosol assured me that the product has unique odour fighting ingredients & an innovative environment friendly, non-flammable, water based nitrogen propellant system, which helps the fragrance last long. It dispenses the fragrance in a natural mist form and refreshes the environment by genuinely eliminating trapped odours.

Yesterday it rained and I had an opportunity to test the product.  The fragrance is amazing, subtle, floral and fresh.  It completely masked the damp dog smell and even the dogs loved it.  They allowed the spray can its own space on the floor instead of hunting and destroying it.

 

 

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