Jadavgarh - Royal Tent

Even though financial sense ditches me most of the time - I have in actuality grown up with finance.Through out my life - much to my agitation, debit-credit,audit-investment, savings-expenses had played havoc.

Hence when it was a toss up between spending on a weekend trip and giving my dear hubby his birthday gift - I applied rules of 'Merger'. Voila - my unsuspecting husband got a weekend trip to Jadavgadh (a heritage resort in Pune) as his birthday gift. To add to the 'Feel good factor', a Royal Tent was booked for his 'Royal Highness' to enjoy an over night stay. And our motley group of three went ahead to enjoy a break from the city's mad rush.

Jadavgadh is like a green oasis amidst a tiny nondescript village. The walls and the heritage wing sweeps you to the past when Maratha rulers headed the small kingdom. The wooden doors, the huge hinges, the low ceiling-ed dungeons and the stone stairs connect you to the ancient ways of the world.

 The ushering of guests were accompanied with playing of humongous pipes and beats of drum (we call it nakada). A dainty girl(she is from Darjeeling, which is like a second home to every self respecting Bengali) wearing a Nauwari did Aarti with flowers and diya. Vermillion tika was smeared on our forehead....we really felt like Royal guests on a Royal tour(Please bear in mind,  Bengali's are genetically imaginative - dreaming is our favorite pass time and hence it was very easy for us to day dream,  given the ambiance of the place and and the warmth of the people.

The moment the young lady mentioned she's from Darj, I was hell bent to build the Bengal connection. She obliged and added that she has relatives in Durgapur, which filled me with glee.

 There was also this aged gentleman in black suit. It seemed he has spent quite some time in the fort with the management group. He was a local but spoke flawless English in an enchanting accent which reminded one of the Raj era. He courteously directed us to the restaurant, the in-house Ganesha temple and the Royal tent whenever we we lost our way in the maze of by-roads, which was quite often.

The yummilicious food was digested in a jiffy as the picturesque walk from the dining hall to the tent took care of our gorging. The fort also has its own museum, which stores different kinds of kitchen ware, utensils, cute wooden carts pulled by wooden horses for toddler royals,  and different artifacts used by the royal ladies. Believe me some of the silver combs can make you dream of Disney fairy tales. They are uniquely pretty and bring out the romantic in you. Most of this artifacts were huge in size by their modern standard counterparts. My man quipped, that the general height, width and breadth of the people of those era must have been twice our times. And he concluded ceremoniously that's because they belong to another era (Yuga in Hindu philosophy).

The Tent was royal for sure. Antique king-sized

 bed and other furniture exuded old world charm. The white canopy remind you of the hunting days.But most of all what appealed to my thirsty soul was the green all around me. The fruit trees, the bird nests, the foliage and the calm lake tugged my heart string and calmed me down. 

I've spent my childhood in small villages and quiet suburbs. My father in Government services ensured we travel from one place to another - most of them rustic and cradled amidst nature. This went on till the call of the city was too hard to resist. The family fell for the rush of the city with its lights and sounds. However amidst the city zing, I still feel like a fish out of a pond, a little girl lost in the crowd. The city robs me off my soul food.My son however, born amidst the city circus - hunted for televisions, I-pads and Wifi connection in Jadavgadh and failed miserably. Slowly I could draw him to the magic of the swing,  hung from a huge banyan tree and enamored him with the pleasures of star gazing, lying on a hammock. He unfurled his imaginations and looked at eerie shadows of trees on a full moon night. More than the food (which was a phenomenon by itself) the night walk enchanted him and more than some rap songs, the bird's chirping made him laugh.

With a full heart - I headed back to the city the next day. I did manage to pass on my roots to my young man. Jadavgadh heralded a new bond between my childhood and his. Oh!! besides all this - My King did love his gift of a Kingdom - albeit for a day.

Yumm to Yuck and back!!!

Last few days has been extremely exhausting and stressful. My little man was not well. He was down with high fever and a bad cough. For me, it was a deadly combination of sleepless nights of giving him cold sponge bath, rushing to the doctor and managing work in office. To top it all, he had the most important exam of his life - FIRST TERM EXAMINATION OF HIS GRADE.

The issue however was not the fever, the medicines, the sleepless nights, exams or managing work. It was 'FOOD'. To give you all a background, I come from an illustrious family of excellent cooks. My dad can give the top chefs a run for their money. My mom is fusion food personified. My brother can rustle up the best of biryanis (by the way it is the sacred food for Bengalis). Adding to my agony, I was married to a man who had a legacy of brilliant chefs. My late grand-mom-in law, mom-in-law and aunt-in-laws serves the most gorgeous, tongue tantalizing dishes to savour. Hence my son, since his birth has been exposed to culinary extravaganza. He is way too sure about what he wants and knows his mind a tad too much when it comes to his food preferences.

The doctor with all his firmness told me to prepare light, less oily, less spicy dishes for my unwell child and thence began my struggle. I am sure any one in my family could have married the doc's prescription with child hypnotizing tasty cuisines. But for the life of me, fate played truant and I had to bear the burden of the cross.

o out came pumpkin-onion soup. It was easy to prepare with pumpkin puree, fried shallots, oregano, salt and pepper (all those endless hours of watching TLC). I swear on God it tasted good, but all I get in return of my efforts - a puckered up nose. Mr. Junior commented with all seriousness that the onions  are not adding to the taste and its only reminding him of the fact that I am force feeding him yucky vegetables.

To salvage my pride I prepared grilled assorted vegetables with eggs. I read somewhere that children should be having different colours in their plate and hence used bell peppers, mushrooms and baby corns. The colourful plate garnered frown. I was promptly informed that red and yellow are not some one's favourite colour. I should have avoided them at all cost and instead used blue as that is the colour my son favours.

Utterly demoralized and cursing myself for not honing my culinary skills, I tried a Bengali staple - dal, rice and fried potato fritters (Dal, bhat, aloo, bhaja). No Bengali mom worth her pinch of salt can go wrong with these. This combo has been comfort food for genres. Piping hot food was served to his highness. The 'High and Mighty' graciously glanced down at his plate and said he would rather fast as he can't possibly be expected to live without his daily dose of fish.

I really needed some screaming at the world at large, but kept my cool. All my motherly instinct left my heart in a jiffy. Strangling the little imp was foremost in my mind. I coldly declared he can fast if that's what he wants. Immediately a naughty smile tweaked the lips, the mischievous glint came back to his eyes and with all sugary sweetness, he sat down to finish his meal. The battle was won...

Yumm to Yuck and back!!!

Happy Smile

I apologise profusely ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, pocket was pretty empty for the last few months. Life fell out of tattered pockets of mine. Hence the pages where as blank as my mind.

Without much ado-let me mend my ways and start once again to give you a glimpse of merry madness.

I've realised, generally first half of my year goes into dark oblivion of the work frenzy. This is a phase where you work like some devil possessed soul (not by choice though, Ahem! Compulsion is the name of the game ). The entire financial industry across the globe have their worker elves burning midnight lamps and scrouching in front of neon illuminated screens to spew numbers at lightning speed. The survival of the world depends on them and hence the relentless efforts. If you call this life, which with due respect makes me cringe a bit... then my pocket had been too full of it. So full filling it had been,  that I could barely bring it to see the light of the day.

Now lets talk about the sunny dreamy part of the year. This is the hallowed second half. Summers across the globe and Indian monsoon brings in a dose of romance. It makes for a good space to let your imaginations bloom and your dull eyes do catch a rainbow here and there.

On a day like this... on my early morning drive to office, snapshots of beauty, fun and eclectic caught my eyes.

I saw a small ubiquitous store near Mumbai University gate. The shop had a board which boldly read... MULTI PURPOSE UTILITY STORE AND XEROX. What do I see... blue, green and brown 'Lungi' (Lungi is like a wrap worn on the lower half of the body in Asian and South-east Asian countries) hanging in neat rows. Surely it was no Xerox, but Lungi serving multi purpose utility did capture my heart. My lips twitched at colourful thoughts.

As my car zoomed by the fresh Mumbai morning... I caught  a flash of white, yellow, red and green on the express way near the airport amidst the concrete jungle. On careful examination it turned out to be sparkling white spider lilies kissing the red and yellow of Canna lilies snuggling on a bed of greens. My lips smiled involuntarily.

Then as my journey progressed-I saw a girl riding a bike, head covered in a scarf which peeped out of her helmet... leg covered in tattoos that winked out of her harem pants, having the most timid looking boy with golden dreadlocks as a pillion rider. A wayward truck tried to over take and met with the choicest abuses hurled from the pretty young lass. The accompanying  man on the other hand urged the biker not to get into a street fight. The right to chose and the right to be... in the early morning street made my heart swell.

Lastly the eclectic part of my story. A lifeless office building with a glass facade showed off neat rows of cubicles from its devouring belly. The advantage of driving through elevated express ways is that you can take a sneak peak at unsuspecting buildings. Surprise! Surprise! Amidst the dull looking cubicles stood a lovely guiter flaunting itself accompanied by few others of its own species.

Mirth filled my soul as my mind twirled the endless possibilities for a happy smile curving up ahead in life's road... specially when you are least expecting it.... on way to office.