Thursday, September 30, 2010
Little Girls Made of Sugar and Spice
Yesterday I was treated to a pleasant surprise…so pleasant that the sweet taste of it is still lingering in my mouth! Little Zoe-anne all of 9, with the able assistance of her sister Gia Isabella, waiting in the wings to step into her 9th year next week .......worked their magic in the kitchen and came up with a whopper!
And this, when modern gals need a road map to locate the kitchen in their own house and cannot tell the difference between jam and jelly....
When kids have begun to believe that an inch of war paint on their faces can enhance the beauty much more than the warm glow of innocence and sincerity.....
When tiny tots are growing up with one and just one aspiration- to be the Miss Universes or Miss Worlds like the Sens and the Rais who have missed their way to Mother Theresa's ashram......
When little girls long to be seen and appreciated on the small or silver screen, hanging from the ceiling in dance shows or prancing around as child brides in some old melodrama tearjerkers.......
The whopper that came out of the warm oven in the kitchen was the best chocolate cake I ever seen or eaten in my life…..I have yet to taste a tastier and softer cake with the syrupy chocolate icing oozing out of the layers.....because the magical cake that came out of the kitchen yesterday was sweetened with Zoe's tender love and softened with Gia's zest for life!
As any fond Nan would tell you, I prefer to overlook the contribution of the mother and the maid... however small it was because I AM proud to be their grandmother….!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
The Fighting Forces....
This has been retrieved from the past, for your reading pleasure……
The News channels on television those days had been repeatedly telecasting the arrival of the fighting forces, aptly called ‘Sena’, the symbol of a country’s security, but now used and abused by the dregs of society to fight their own causes! There were Senas of all kinds, for different causes, launched by various people. But the ulterior motive was the same- to go to war on people with contradictory views and beliefs or as a show of might by the minnows. As he idly sat pretending to watch the News Hour his father was glued to, Johnny’s mind was a beehive of activity, a cauldron of churning ideas and plans of future action.
Images of men beating up girls flashed on the TV set accompanied by the repeated use of the word, ‘Sene’. He was disgusted by the beating of women but all the same he hit upon a brilliant new thought, why not launch your own ‘Sene’ to fight the evil such as beating up of girls in society?
Johnny being all of eight years, had a group of his friends to fall back on at such portentous times. They were a band of brothers with nine year old Kevin in the Commander’s position. Often they had been caught playing mischief like stealing raw mangoes from Aunty Maud’s garden or smashing the window panes of Uncle Willie’s bungalow with their cricket ball. Of course, they raked the litter of leaves in the garden in return for a basketful of ripe juicy mangoes aunt Maude reserved for ‘the Pereira brood’.. As for poor Uncle Willie, he had seen a Tendlya in the making in the pint-sized, curly-mopped batsman and his glass- breaking Sixer and rewarded the group with a fistful of loose coins for candy, in return for walking Kaiser, his Doberman.
Now that a germ of an idea had taken root in Johnny’s mind, he would call a meeting of his group and discuss it with them in what the adults referred to as , ‘a Demo- grate’ way. Forming their own army would appeal to all of them and imagine the fun they could have during the summer holidays- marching up and down the shady lane, just the way Crasto sir in school taught them!
So the friends cancelled one field trip to the Bandra Fort and assembled one day at the back of the Bothello house under the shady Coral tree to sort out the ‘minor details’ of launching an army. First on the agenda was the cause or the purpose for which it would fight. Mike the mischievous glibly suggested that they better have a plausible excuse for missing class and going on the ‘ram-page’. “What is rampage?” Billu the Barbie wanted to know. Dressed up in a pink frilly dress with her brown curls in two ‘pony tails’, at the age of five she spent more time playing with her dolls than watching the latest developments on the television. “Do not interrupt, Billu you are a girl and girls cannot fight. They get beaten up easily. You are demoted to the lowest rank in the army for speaking out of turn.” shouted Commander Kevin above the noise his army was making! Being a year older to most of them, failed to procure for him the respect and obedience the foot soldiers normally accord to their boss. Oh never mind, at least they were loyal to him!
So the discussion heated up till at last Shane, Sammy’s older brother, still preparing for his exams came to investigate the raucous noise behind the house. More to put an end to the discussion than to dictate the manifesto, he suggested that they form the army ‘to protect the culture’. “What is culture?” Billu whispered as soon as the visitor’s back was turned. Her hushed tone had the desired effect of a noisy gong. Everyone went still, concentrating on finding the answer to Billu’s question. So what was culture? Was it a cousin of vulture, or some masala for curry?
When the elusive answer refused to come for a long time, Brian, the brains of the group came up with a most satisfying answer, “I know what culture is. While watching News on the TV the other day I heard Gramps saying that talking about culture means hippo is crazy.
This bombshell took some time to register. Now that the hippo had plodded into the plot under the guise of ‘Demo-grate’, utter confusion prevailed in the minds of the military strategists. It was pure luck that Shane once again came to investigate the increase in the cacophony, he was just unable to concentrate on his studies. It is not that the hippo is crazy it is Hypocrisy which means you can tell others what to say and do but you do not have to say and do the same thing, like saying, do not practice what you preach”. He explained further, “you can beat others for wearing Jeans, but you yourself can wear them. And please, do you guys have to tell the whole of Bandra of your plan?” Billu’s screechy voice from the lower ranks was too loud for comfort- “What is preach?” The whole regiment turned to glare at her audacity in speaking out of turn. The secret was that they had to hide the fact that most of them did not know what ‘preach’ was!
So they decided to forge into a group of warriors in the name of some saint or the other….the news channels had been kind enough to announce the names of various Sena groups in the name of all the possible gods and kings of the land. So the first task was to find a name for the army of class 111, before they recruited more soldiers. Various suggestions were forthcoming.
Why not name the army for St. Francis, suggested Francis Jr. whose father being in the police force made him an appropriate candidate for the Sena. “Which St. Francis? There were many you know, one was St. Francis Xavier and the other was St. Francis Assisi. There was one more named St. Francis de Sales…” This was Xavier’s territory; he topped the class in Sunday school and could count the Saints’ names on his fingertips. But it was news to most of them, but they decided to choose any one St. Francis as their patron for their Sena. De Sales was dismissed for the simple reason that it was their school principal’s surname and it would not be fair to drag Fr. De Sales into their regiment. Assisi was also rejected because the way the boys pronounced it, it sounded more as ‘as easy’ than Assisi. And was he not the one who spoke to animals and fed the birds out of his hands? How could such a gentle man of peace lead an army, what did he know of fighting?
The last I heard the army was stuck at the first hurdle and not proceeded to the battleground at all, which made Sammy’s mother heave a sigh of relief. That the children may get into trouble had been worrying her since her elder son had reported of the goings-on behind the house. No wonder she was seen on her knees in the chapel, her eyes closed in prayer for her small boys seeking to know what the culture of the land was!
The News channels on television those days had been repeatedly telecasting the arrival of the fighting forces, aptly called ‘Sena’, the symbol of a country’s security, but now used and abused by the dregs of society to fight their own causes! There were Senas of all kinds, for different causes, launched by various people. But the ulterior motive was the same- to go to war on people with contradictory views and beliefs or as a show of might by the minnows. As he idly sat pretending to watch the News Hour his father was glued to, Johnny’s mind was a beehive of activity, a cauldron of churning ideas and plans of future action.
Images of men beating up girls flashed on the TV set accompanied by the repeated use of the word, ‘Sene’. He was disgusted by the beating of women but all the same he hit upon a brilliant new thought, why not launch your own ‘Sene’ to fight the evil such as beating up of girls in society?
Johnny being all of eight years, had a group of his friends to fall back on at such portentous times. They were a band of brothers with nine year old Kevin in the Commander’s position. Often they had been caught playing mischief like stealing raw mangoes from Aunty Maud’s garden or smashing the window panes of Uncle Willie’s bungalow with their cricket ball. Of course, they raked the litter of leaves in the garden in return for a basketful of ripe juicy mangoes aunt Maude reserved for ‘the Pereira brood’.. As for poor Uncle Willie, he had seen a Tendlya in the making in the pint-sized, curly-mopped batsman and his glass- breaking Sixer and rewarded the group with a fistful of loose coins for candy, in return for walking Kaiser, his Doberman.
Now that a germ of an idea had taken root in Johnny’s mind, he would call a meeting of his group and discuss it with them in what the adults referred to as , ‘a Demo- grate’ way. Forming their own army would appeal to all of them and imagine the fun they could have during the summer holidays- marching up and down the shady lane, just the way Crasto sir in school taught them!
So the friends cancelled one field trip to the Bandra Fort and assembled one day at the back of the Bothello house under the shady Coral tree to sort out the ‘minor details’ of launching an army. First on the agenda was the cause or the purpose for which it would fight. Mike the mischievous glibly suggested that they better have a plausible excuse for missing class and going on the ‘ram-page’. “What is rampage?” Billu the Barbie wanted to know. Dressed up in a pink frilly dress with her brown curls in two ‘pony tails’, at the age of five she spent more time playing with her dolls than watching the latest developments on the television. “Do not interrupt, Billu you are a girl and girls cannot fight. They get beaten up easily. You are demoted to the lowest rank in the army for speaking out of turn.” shouted Commander Kevin above the noise his army was making! Being a year older to most of them, failed to procure for him the respect and obedience the foot soldiers normally accord to their boss. Oh never mind, at least they were loyal to him!
So the discussion heated up till at last Shane, Sammy’s older brother, still preparing for his exams came to investigate the raucous noise behind the house. More to put an end to the discussion than to dictate the manifesto, he suggested that they form the army ‘to protect the culture’. “What is culture?” Billu whispered as soon as the visitor’s back was turned. Her hushed tone had the desired effect of a noisy gong. Everyone went still, concentrating on finding the answer to Billu’s question. So what was culture? Was it a cousin of vulture, or some masala for curry?
When the elusive answer refused to come for a long time, Brian, the brains of the group came up with a most satisfying answer, “I know what culture is. While watching News on the TV the other day I heard Gramps saying that talking about culture means hippo is crazy.
This bombshell took some time to register. Now that the hippo had plodded into the plot under the guise of ‘Demo-grate’, utter confusion prevailed in the minds of the military strategists. It was pure luck that Shane once again came to investigate the increase in the cacophony, he was just unable to concentrate on his studies. It is not that the hippo is crazy it is Hypocrisy which means you can tell others what to say and do but you do not have to say and do the same thing, like saying, do not practice what you preach”. He explained further, “you can beat others for wearing Jeans, but you yourself can wear them. And please, do you guys have to tell the whole of Bandra of your plan?” Billu’s screechy voice from the lower ranks was too loud for comfort- “What is preach?” The whole regiment turned to glare at her audacity in speaking out of turn. The secret was that they had to hide the fact that most of them did not know what ‘preach’ was!
So they decided to forge into a group of warriors in the name of some saint or the other….the news channels had been kind enough to announce the names of various Sena groups in the name of all the possible gods and kings of the land. So the first task was to find a name for the army of class 111, before they recruited more soldiers. Various suggestions were forthcoming.
Why not name the army for St. Francis, suggested Francis Jr. whose father being in the police force made him an appropriate candidate for the Sena. “Which St. Francis? There were many you know, one was St. Francis Xavier and the other was St. Francis Assisi. There was one more named St. Francis de Sales…” This was Xavier’s territory; he topped the class in Sunday school and could count the Saints’ names on his fingertips. But it was news to most of them, but they decided to choose any one St. Francis as their patron for their Sena. De Sales was dismissed for the simple reason that it was their school principal’s surname and it would not be fair to drag Fr. De Sales into their regiment. Assisi was also rejected because the way the boys pronounced it, it sounded more as ‘as easy’ than Assisi. And was he not the one who spoke to animals and fed the birds out of his hands? How could such a gentle man of peace lead an army, what did he know of fighting?
The last I heard the army was stuck at the first hurdle and not proceeded to the battleground at all, which made Sammy’s mother heave a sigh of relief. That the children may get into trouble had been worrying her since her elder son had reported of the goings-on behind the house. No wonder she was seen on her knees in the chapel, her eyes closed in prayer for her small boys seeking to know what the culture of the land was!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Nailing the Nails!
Some one has once or maybe often said, "vanity, thy name is woman".
To be 'Fair and Lovely' must be every Indian woman's dream! In the other India we see in TV serials with women in zari pallus and gold heels in the kitchen, it is the colour of the face that matters and maybe the volume of metal weighing them down. The rest is covered up anyway with the nine six yards we call a saree.....
But the modern Indian lass is swiftly emerging out of the fair and lovely tube, to sculpt her body, mould her hands, shape her feet, fashion her nails and colour her hair.....neatly landing into the trap set by the manufacturers, she now rushes to the counter to purchase chemicals to enhance, trim, soften, lengthen expand and improve her assests.
I know of one such determined lady. Impressed by the silky tresses(salute the wig-makers) in the shampoo ads on the TV she tried out every product, coating her beautiful, frizzy hair with shampoos, conditioners, even the electric comb with disasterous results. Learning her lesson after much pain and no gain, now she has reverted back to the naturals she used to pamper her hair with earlier. And it is responding to the gentle touch, swiftly gaining its fomer crowning glory!
Now about my penchant to have beautiful hands. Whenever i glanced at pictures of Monalisa or princess Diana my eyes would greedily take in only their soft hands and shapely nails. So i thought why not me?
Then my good friend the idiot box gave me the solution to my problem- THE NAIL SPA!
The first thing to do was to find out what exactly ' a spa' was....Many word-smiths rejected my plea till ultimately i discovered that a spa could be a place to wash, clean, scrub, warm, cool, treat, massage......long list of possibilties
So, turning a deaf ear to my body that needed all of these teartments and more at my age, i made an appointment to get my nails 'done up'.
On the D-day i decided to hide my true identity of a 'teacher-housewife' and dolled up like a 'society lady'- diamonds( fake), chiffons, scents...Well, the rest is History......the monumental judgement was declared with a curt finality.
I would have to care for my nails, not drench them in water so often- so all those experiments at creating fusion food were OUT.
I would have to use gloves to protect my nails- the love of my family won the day, i could not stay away from baking that odd apple crumble, cheese croisant and coconut cookies!
Regular application of creams and lotions was mandatory to growing healthy nail- the whopping bill left a huge dent in my pocket and I forgot which was day cream and ....hidden from public view, they are growing fungus behind the dressing table mirror!
So now I take pride in my short and clean nails that take delight in cooking, scrubbing, kneading, rolling, patting and clicking the wrong keys as i type this piece...! Halle...luiya!
To be 'Fair and Lovely' must be every Indian woman's dream! In the other India we see in TV serials with women in zari pallus and gold heels in the kitchen, it is the colour of the face that matters and maybe the volume of metal weighing them down. The rest is covered up anyway with the nine six yards we call a saree.....
But the modern Indian lass is swiftly emerging out of the fair and lovely tube, to sculpt her body, mould her hands, shape her feet, fashion her nails and colour her hair.....neatly landing into the trap set by the manufacturers, she now rushes to the counter to purchase chemicals to enhance, trim, soften, lengthen expand and improve her assests.
I know of one such determined lady. Impressed by the silky tresses(salute the wig-makers) in the shampoo ads on the TV she tried out every product, coating her beautiful, frizzy hair with shampoos, conditioners, even the electric comb with disasterous results. Learning her lesson after much pain and no gain, now she has reverted back to the naturals she used to pamper her hair with earlier. And it is responding to the gentle touch, swiftly gaining its fomer crowning glory!
Now about my penchant to have beautiful hands. Whenever i glanced at pictures of Monalisa or princess Diana my eyes would greedily take in only their soft hands and shapely nails. So i thought why not me?
Then my good friend the idiot box gave me the solution to my problem- THE NAIL SPA!
The first thing to do was to find out what exactly ' a spa' was....Many word-smiths rejected my plea till ultimately i discovered that a spa could be a place to wash, clean, scrub, warm, cool, treat, massage......long list of possibilties
So, turning a deaf ear to my body that needed all of these teartments and more at my age, i made an appointment to get my nails 'done up'.
On the D-day i decided to hide my true identity of a 'teacher-housewife' and dolled up like a 'society lady'- diamonds( fake), chiffons, scents...Well, the rest is History......the monumental judgement was declared with a curt finality.
I would have to care for my nails, not drench them in water so often- so all those experiments at creating fusion food were OUT.
I would have to use gloves to protect my nails- the love of my family won the day, i could not stay away from baking that odd apple crumble, cheese croisant and coconut cookies!
Regular application of creams and lotions was mandatory to growing healthy nail- the whopping bill left a huge dent in my pocket and I forgot which was day cream and ....hidden from public view, they are growing fungus behind the dressing table mirror!
So now I take pride in my short and clean nails that take delight in cooking, scrubbing, kneading, rolling, patting and clicking the wrong keys as i type this piece...! Halle...luiya!
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