Category: Ink Pot

Memories, Gratitude, and a Prayer!

This year, 31st Dec, most of the world will be doing what I have been doing every year for a decade and more – Just staying home! After my son was born, we never went out and I personally was never inclined to play tambola, dance to a DJ, and eat cold snacks, in our housing society’s open air arrangements.

We usually had travel plans for the first week of the new January and it compensated for not going gaga over New Year Eve’s celebrations. We will be sorely missing the travelling part.

I do have fond memories of celebrations in some of the best night clubs with friends, and in cold winter nights in cottages in the hills from my singleton days. Lessons learnt in this strange year is when you have the time and opportunity, do what you want to do, specially celebrate occassions. Memories are important; create them as you go.

As a young parent, I would be sad that we could never celebrate like so many of our friends who could manage babysitting or childcare arrangements to party or travel. I felt I was missing out on something but with time I compromised. Somewhere down the line, so many things, including the transition from an old year to a new one stopped mattering.

Most people around the world will feel this – the piling of days and the transition into a new day – without the fireworks and the joyful comfort of close ones. Many will be grieving. All will be fearful. Yet, in the corner lingers hope that the next year may be gentle on humankind.

The eve of 2021 may have a bigger and better celebration if we are victorious in our battle against the novel Corona virus. Next year, the son will be older, and I may be able to venture out and celebrate the way I like -with a plan, good company, a nice and warm ambience, scrumptious food, and definitely dressing up! Until then, it’s me and the cosy blanket and not a care that the clock strikes 12!

Oh wait! I do care with the realization and the gratitude that my family and I made it safely through a difficult year in the pandemic. And a prayer, may next year be kind to the world and let it heal!

A Blog Usurped – and Reclaimed

A decade back I started blogging and every two years I would pay to renew the hosting domain of my blog. Before 2013, it did not require much thought; the renewal was urgent. At the start of the year of 2013, I had my doubts, as I was not using my blog space, at all. The husband encouraged the renewal and I got it done. The next year, the web domain was relinquished.

Why? Was I thinking less, reading less, writing less? No, I was quite prolific with my thoughts and opinions, and reading quite a few new authors. I was also writing more frequently, if not too many words. Then, where were the words? Why were they not on my blog? Because some one stole my words and made them its own.

Continue reading “A Blog Usurped – and Reclaimed”

The Story of Control: My Musings on Netflix Series – The Crown

Like most people who were eagerly waiting for Season 4 of the Netflix series – The Crown, I devoured the season as soon as it arrived. This is not a review but a thought process that evolved as I watched the series. Many say that this season took many artistic liberties and was more sensitive to the cause of Princess Diana. I cannot comment on the accuracy of the storyline because ultimately this is the story of a family, a personal story, and there are so many things that we can only speculate in the absence of confirmed official statements.

From my perspective, The Crown series does not tell the story of Royalty or Power as much it reflects on the consequences of exerting too much Control. This is the story of every person carrying the burden of traditions and rules that have long lost their value, of young dominated by the family, unable to break free but choosing to lead dual lives. They learn to clandestinely pursue desires while maintaining a facade, getting lost in due course, depressed, confused but worst still ruining all who fell prey to their sneakiness and immaturity in not standing up for themselves.

For all their grandeur, the Royal Family has displayed the same flaws, failings, and follies that play out in households that do not evolve with the times, that believe children are to be controlled, burdened with hopes and aspirations. And as children scuttle to find their voice, make their stand, evolve an opinion, and attempt to get the family decision-makers see their point-of-view, they find ways to circumvent the system, to do what they want without the grand permission of the family head.

What is interesting is that when the superior forces in the family, see the children slipping away, they choose to embrace ignorance, surreptitiously enabling them to take their own course. It’s easier to look away than to accept flawed parenting, disastrous decisions, and unhealthy influences. If the weaker party in the game of pawns, adopts manipulative tactics and clandestine actions, who would blame them!

Is it hubris or true ignorance that makes parents turn a blind eye to how control parenting can damage the personality of an offspring? My viewpoint is that parents know where and how they failed but refuse to accept and remedy it. We see this theme in the screen adaptation of the story of the British monarchy. If there is any lesson to be learnt in The Crown, it may be history, may be politics, but it is definitely parenting and what not to do to mess up the life of people.

Red

Colors give me great joy. The allure of a painting, bliss of a garden, warmth of yarn, softness of fabric, and amongst all of these the absolute cosmic dance of colors. I end up shopping for things just because the colors attract me. I want to own them, these colors, embrace their vigor, imbibe their depths, and savor their texture. I want to be one with colors.

I find colors alluring in food, too, the best derived from natural ingredients. The gold of turmeric, the dust of cocoa, the verdant leaves, the mauve – tender in a turnip, mature in an onion, the royal purple of a brinjal, the rust of cinnamon, pristine coconut, orange hues – the list is infinite. Nature offers us a platter enhanced by a burst of colors. While most colors dissolve and merge into each other, releasing nutrients and flavor, I feel the one color the grows richer and more vibrant when cooked, is the luscious red of beetroot. I think cocoa comes second in this list of colors that become richer when cooked.

I love cooking with beetroot, not because I like the vegetable but because it teases me with colors more intense than passion. Cooking beetroot gives me pleasure. It makes me swoon. It makes me experiment.

Beetroot Puris
Beetroot Puris

While savory dishes of beetroot come out great, it’s true colors, deep and sensuous are revealed in sweet dishes. This Saturday, I made too heavenly dishes with beetroot, for the sweet tooth. Sharing the joy of Red!

Beetroot coconut ladoos
Beetroot Coconut Ladoos
Beetroot halwa
Rich Beetroot Halwa

What you sow…

Like many urban dwellers across India, living in gated communities, with small balconies as their only windows to a locked down world, even I took to container gardening this summer. I experimented with sowing various seeds and mostly faced disappointment. When young shoots would die or not appear at all, I would eventually use the container or flower pot to plant another round of seeds.

Tomato flowers

When the time is ripe, plants find their roots and the stems sparkle with joy. My tomato plant is finally flowering. But I found it to be strange, even funny, because I had sown Daisy seeds in this pot. I was eagerly waiting for bright white blooms but here I have tiny bell-shaped flowers. Still beautiful, still loved, wondering now if flowers will turn to fruits!

So, sometimes, you may not end up reaping what you think you have sown, because there is buried past karma, too, lingering in the depths! Such, is the life lesson from a little bloom in my container garden.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson