My new venture

I am running short of instances to jot down here on this blog. Having turned into a full time house wife recently, I have hardly anything that I can write down here.... People ask me what I do the entire day....don't I get bored. Well, its the way each one of us manage ourselves. For me, while I was working, I used to find it hard to get sometime to rest. And now that I have the time to rest, in plenty....I am always in a search to do something....watching TV was not my favorite thing ever in the past but internet was...I used internet to help me get rid of the boredom. I am indebted to it, to have helped me learn crocheting, learn photography, learn cooking fancy things other than the usual rice/chapati and curry. Now, most of these help me keep myself busy- crocheting to help set up the interiors of my little world (my home) and the photo shoots that happen everytime I try my hand on cooking something different/special.

All through out, my husband had been nagging me to start a food blog where I could have my experiments shared and also the photographs clicked, could be put up. But I always had the thought, there are plenty of food blogs other than a hand full of them that I refer to, then why do I need to start one and not that I am a great cook. Thats when, my mom said one day, that my cousin who is almost the age of getting married is worried, and trying to learn cooking. Having seen her worried, my mother said to her, "Look at Anupa, she knew nothing but now she instructs me how to make certain dishes. If  she can do it, you can definitely do it". I decided, lets start one. It would help me keep myself engaged and at the same time, would encourage people who know me, to realize that cooking is not rocket science. Oops sorry, let me first introduce me to you , in line with my attachment to kitchen and cooking. It was revealed, that the hereditary genes of the culinary skills, never passed on to me, as my most hated place at home turned out to be the kitchen. If I might have helped my mom atleast a bit in her cooking, my mother would say, "look, it tastes good. You have the cooking skills in you. Just that you need to learn a bit." No way, was I going to fall for it :). Then how did this major change happen? Well, my necessity to have something different every day and also the new job description(playing host to relatives and friends) that was added to my resume of life, post marriage, made me get my hands try new stuff. 

We used to photograph everything that was made at home. And now when I look at them , I see a change(ofcourse positive :) ) that has taken place gradually, in the shape and texture of these dishes. And ofcourse its always good to share the learnings, that might have taken me multiple attempts to realize, what was going wrong to make it perfect. And hence, with the best critic(my husband) that I can have, we started off the new venture - http://palaharam.blogspot.com/  :). 

Baggage mystery

If you might have read my previous posts, you would realize that I do add instances to my book of experiences while I travel. Recently I got to realize that me and my baggages, have a difficult time travelling together.

I was supposed to join my husband in a different country . Now having seen me do life threatening stuff in the past while travelling alone; my grandma was scared to let me go off. I had a hard time explaining/promising it to her that I won't do stuff like jumping of the flight , this time. My parents were pretty confident though or may be pretending confident. Anyways, I travelled and this time it all went fine. I saw my husband waiting for me at the destination. Was so happy to see him after quite some time that I went on and on with my stories. After a while we realized that we were the only ones waiting at the baggage claim area. I had received one of my baggage. Where was my second baggage? My husband looked at me. "I did transfer both my baggages at the port of entry", I said. We head to the enquiry to check on the same just to figure out that for some reason my baggage was routed to another corner of the country and would reach me only the next day. Apologies flowed and they handed over a comfort kit to me. "When I saw you, I was thinking, how come you landed without any issues. May be for a change... :)", said my husband. I said, "You should be grateful to me. Look at the positive side... you don't have to carry the suitcase, they would get it home + the comfort kit  :)."

Recently while I was again travelling, I head to the counter to do a through check in for my baggages. The staff at the counter asked me having seen the destination address,"Mam, where is this place, US/Canada ?" That indeed was a scary question for me atleast, cause of my previous experience. Last time my baggages had stayed within the country. I couldn't think of it going around the world this time. I made her double check and confirm that it was to go to the desired location. I did have a couple of issues with the baggages at one of the stops, like the baggage got too late to get there for me to identify it and then proceed with a new baggage tag or me getting the baggage tag only when the flight was about to leave etc. but the good part is, it did manage to reach with me, this time...:)

Kidzzz

The other day I was at a store, to send few mails through the postal service. They have deli stall , left open for people to parcel up there snacks, salads etc. , just next to the couter. There was a lady in queue with three children. As her turn came by, she got busy inquiring and parceling the stuff that she wanted to send across. What more could help the kids go free. They started moving around making noise, that our eyes fell on them. Now two of the elder ones, approach the deli. One of them picks up a bacon with bare hands and brings it towards the other one , asking him to taste it. The other one waits till the bacon touches his lips to reveal his obedience and says, "That would be like stealing". The other one, on hearing this, puts back the bacon into the same dish and walks away. Ya, it was wrong to have picked up the bacon with bare hands, but still... he did refuse to eat it cause he felt that might be wrong. Was fun watching till they gave us a stare as if its none of our business to be watching them do anything and everything there..

Has it happened with you that a kid might have embarrassed you infront of others. That reminds me of my brother while he was a kid. He was, and is very fond of sweets. While he was some 3 year old, our parish priest gave us a visit. My mom realized that she had gulab jamuns that she could serve for him. Here comes my brother, to the kitchen, demanding for gulab jamuns. Now my mother said, " We just have 2 left. I will serve it for father and if he does not have it, its all gonna be for you." He silently agreed and went to the living room and sat just opposite to the parish priest. Now he had an eye over the gulab jamun and its count as well :). Father took a gulab jamun and ate it. But my brother still had the hope that the second one may be left for him to grab. He saw father's hand heading towards the second one and there it was in his mouth munching in another sec and he spoke "Athum thinno". There was silence for a minute- my parents starred at my brother as if asking him what had he spoken out to the parish priest. the priest confused as of what just happened and what should he do with the gulab jamun which was already in his mouth. lol...

We were obedient kids...every summer vacation when we would be getting ready to travel down to kerala, we would be given a class of dos and don'ts while in train.." you should not put your hand out of the window...you should not........you should not ask to buy you all that stuff that comes across etc. etc... Now it was fun to travel almost 3.5 days in a train..mainly because you have all the family friends travelling together...Now all the kids might not have been given such a class before they start their journey..so I see my best childhood friend buy a bird...the one's which move their feathers when u press their tail and make chirping sound as well....and there it was all that sound that disturbed me.....Now I try hard not to look that side and control my urge to get one of those...meanwhile my father was like "do u need some juice"...instead of a reply to that I said "If you want , you can get me one of those birds".....my father burst out laughing and my mother joined him ...I was starring at them as if what is there to laugh at it...and they were like "if you want ..ehhh".. and ya what happened next...my father bought me one of those ...and how happy I was..I have no words to describe...:) I still see kids rolling down on the floor, crying to convince their parents to get them what they desire at the stores..and this incident just comes flashing through...and there I go webbing all the childhood thoughts and pouring it out to my husband...and he listens to all of them adding a couple of such cute incidents from his part :)

Pre and post marriage

The other day I was watching the recording of our marriage ceremony for the nth time when my husband asked me something and I agreed to it...

So he says, "why do you have to agreed to everything. You can say a no as well."

I said , "Just wait and see. I am hesitant to say no , because the theory might go wrong."

He says,"What theory?"

I said," I am just waiting for an year to pass. because the theory says the first year of marriage is seen to be an year of silence for the wife. The second year is when the wife speaks and husband agrees." Followed my laughter and his worried look of what the future holds for him:). Just kidding.

Today, the one year just completes... I was just thinking of how life changes. Every stage does see a change; birth to kindergarden, school days to college days; college days to work life etc...But the major change happens in the married life, esp. when it is an arranged marriage... All through out your life you are being asked not to talk to a stranger and all of a sudden you are asked to start living with one. My husband is one of the strangers whom I had met during the whole marathon of bride viewing. Ya it definitely was a marathon...after the entire weeks work, the weekend is just spent travelling to the home town, just to have another boy come to see you...One such friday I sat on a bus having relaxed, thinking, woww..woow... there is no one coming to see me this time but next morning the bus I was travelling got late and I started getting calls from home enquiring about where have I reached...Finally when I reached home, my mom was like... go get fresh and ready, there is a boy coming to see you..It was 3 pm the next day of me having started the travel ...was hungry , tired and what not....the boy came and I literally yawned,in front of them..Nope I was not being rude but I couldn't help it.....More over the relatives are always there to brain wash you saying this is good proposal , why don't you say yes...and my thought would be....why can't they say an yes in cases where I have already agreed to... It sometime is really difficult to identify if the guy is the donor of the rib(as per the Adam and Eve story) that was used to build you up. And finally a stage came when I identified mine. This blog is dedicated to my married life.

Married life had seen a change in me as well as the behavior of other people towards me.

Unmarried : While facebooking the likes go in for trekking, movies,music etc.

Married : Most number of likes goes to the cookery pages.

Unmarried: Kitchen used to be the place, very rarely visited at my home.
Married: Apparently, the interest in cooking came up automatically because that would result me in ending up with a subject matter for photography :)

Unmarried: Movies mostly seen are light or romantic or animation.

Married: No choice but to watch action movies with your eyes closed most the times and having left marks on your husbands arm, having grabbed it tight.

Unmarried : Every uncle or aunt approach you with a question - so when can I get to have a Kalyana sadhya? And the solution to this could be to get a sadhya packed up from a hotel and give it to them :P

Married: The blessings given are not "Jug jug jiyo" any more but "Puto phalo" and on similar lines.

Unmarried : We think about what can be done over the weekends. To go for movies/shopping/visit a mall?

Married: No need to think at all.. It is definitely gonna keep you busy with a set of movies to watch along with guests, cooking, cleaning, pending office work..

Unmarried: I need to take care of myself.

Married: I have now a family to be taken care of.

Activities and priorities change or say multiply...In the middle of all these changes there is a need of a change manager who could help deal with such situation. If you are being given a husband who kind of has an inbuilt nature of a change manager, you feel blessed and now when the one year completes..I feel blessed to have a got a change manager in the form of my husband :) may be because he still has an eye over the rib that he donated to me during my creation :P

Realization

I just logged in and realized that its been some time that I wrote a blog. All this time I had been blogging about my own foolish acts. But this time its kind of different.

When our plans fall apart and does not seem to show us a way forward we keep worrying about what is gonna be the next step. Tension is something that I would say has never left me alone. Now when the resistance level of the tension goes high, I can't hold on to it. It usually comes out as an anger filled sentence, followed by tears and then weeping. Anyways, now it was a day(day before diwali) when I couldn't think about what was going to happen in a weeks time. [yeah its kind of natural that I bother about a weeks time into future...at times I think about an year ahead as well :)] ... I was walking down from my office.... Had gotten dark...But still certain pictures hit my eyes...

There is a waste disposal by the side of a road. I see an old, lean and tired man, shabbily dressed or may be hardly dressed...sitting by its side.. was wondering what was he up to...by then I see a relative of mine on the road and we stood there talking...I still wonder, had I not stopped there to talk to him, I might not have written the blog. The old man sat there and picked up some rice(I guess so) and was having it...I was so disturbed to see the man having food from the waste bin, the area which we usually used to plug our nose and walk past by , because it used to stink very badly. ...It had been my practice that I waste food..not too much but how does that matter.... my mom used to make me eat food, while I was kid by saying "If you waste food, the devil is gonna pull your leg and take away" and the day I used to waste food I used to dream of the devil (the one that used to come in the Onida ad). I just moved on.

Since it was the day before diwali, the lane that I took back home was filled with crazy children bursting crackers... I somehow managed to cross it and while I was waiting to cross the road my eyes caught up at a welding station. I saw a little child at work, enjoying the sparks from the welding machine , while a minute back I saw all the kids on that lane bursting crackers. I was like...is the child labour is still on...While I was of his age , my parents used to make me cautious of even lighting up a candle and this kid was there working with a welding machine..The kids face threw up an amazing maturity which is not usually seen in a kid of that age. He might be there to earn bread for his family.

Its not only that day but it was just another day that helped me realize that how blessed I was. I was back home and did not crib about that days work being hectic, to my husband and also ate the food completely without wasting. At times, we get to be reminded about how lucky we are , having looked into the lives of others...

Stressed ??

What more could happen to a person when he/she is under stress?? It is yet to be discovered by me…but yes something that happened with me is something normal (I believe and am made to believe) that one can go through when under pressure…

The night before the incident , I realize I have an early call to attend and I set my expectation with my better half that , noodles would be coming his way ,next morning , as breakfast. The meaning of the nod that he gave is yet to be revealed but yes he agreed to it.

Next day morning - I have the tea getting ready on a burner and the noodles on another. Recently married and getting better on the cooking was making me think proud of myself. In another minute, there happened something which all brought the rating down, just like a person would mess up with his/her appraisal at the last minute.

I gave him a headsup. “There seems to something wrong with the new noodles packet that we bought. It tastes sweet”,I said.

“Oh is it!” He replied.

We sat down to quickly grab the noodles and the tea.

“May be because the noodles taste sweet we might not be actually able to figure out the characteristic of the sugar put in the tea” ,I said.

He blankly nodded. It seemed hard for me to have the noodles and the same was with him too.
Trying to be sounding nice he asked “Did you …”, he said

“You mean to say I had put sugar in the noodles????”, I said, worried.

“No dear, I meant that might have just happened, just that you are very stressed out these days…”

I couldn’t believe it… I remember it for sure that I had not done that but yes the tastes of the noodles and of the tea , could not prove me right…..

“Alzheimer’s… ” he said.

“Ohhh I have that”, I said in the tone that the small boy says in the movie ‘Switched’.
And we laughed….....
But till date, I couldn’t ever accept the fact that I did it and every time I prepare noodles, I am extra alert….

This is just another incident that made me write another blog, after exactly 6 months……another foolishness that added on to the already existing list of mine :)

The Scary House

It couldn’t have been more disappointing, when u land up at a scary house to go through all the scary scenes and get scared and howl and hoot and come out screaming….All was expected and was so enthusiastic to go through such stuff. R, D and L and myself decided to have an experience of the scary house. The scared look on D’s face made us to ask her to stay back while we go and return. But she had made up her mind to come along with us. Now the turn comes for us. We get in, to realize that its too dark but at certain corners we have red lights and all those fake dead bodies hanging about. I usually turn up laughing at such scenes whether it may be in a scary house or while watching a horror movie, if it doesn’t look realistic. Same was repeated here. I was laughing at the fake set up and drop downs. I guess those people who hid behind walls to bring about the horror effects,heard my laughter and in an attempt to create fear in us , they made a hanging rope and pillow swing past our side. Their attempt wasn’t a failure. They got it right. It hit D, and she started screaming.

Now D changed her mind and was searching for the way back. We asked her to hold on and get done with it as we were already in. My Idea generator box said , why not make a train and place D in the middle and move forward. We followed the same approach but it really was a bad idea because the series was R-Myself-D-L. Now D being scared , she kept on pulling,pushing ,snaching and scratching and what not, which left me with couple of scratches here and there. Anyways , we moved forward.

Apart from all the dead bodies,sound effects,door bashing and what not. We crossed all of them. Now came the end to all of it. We could see light and hence finalized that okay we are gonna end with the entire effort. As we approached the exit,we had enough space to move and dim light as well and saw a bed with a dead body lying over it. The very thought of this scary journey getting over, D started getting all very relaxed and was commenting on the dead body , saying, “seems it is just a demo, but wonder why is it just lying there. Anyways we are near the exit” Blah blah…All of a sudden, we see the dead body arise and ran towards us. It was much small in size and we all ran to a corner…D just pushed me in front of that short dead body which had arose just few seconds back… But I guess it could recognize the fear factor in D and approached her and she stood there begging for life “Cheta..enne onnum cheyalle” and she was literally crying ….Hilarious it was…not just to hear begging for life to that guy in the costume of a dead body in Malayalam but also to see a clueless or rather say helpless expression on that that guys face .D ran outside screaming in front of people who were standing in queue to get in next . I guess those people got the encouragement to go in for it , on seeing rest 3 of us emerging out all red with laughter which lasted for quite sometime.