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.

Big Bang!

It's strange what 72 hours can do to ones's life. When you are living the daily rigour, you barely differentiate between two days of your crazy schedule. The mundane monotony robs you off the emotional and intelligence grid. Your day entails going through the motions.

Once upon a not so long time ago, a normal routine day for me, turned into a life changing trigger. On a flaky, sanitised morning, I went to work like any other day. I was not keeping well and thought that the long overdue doc's appointment should take pride place at the top of my 'To do' list. I took off during lunch hour and went to see my family physician. He was a beningn man, with a comforting smile; typical of a doctor. Post my check up his affable smile froze. And 'Wham'! I got my health bulletin. The doc thought best that I be admitted immediately in 'Intensive care unit' of a hospital.

There seemed to be a lot of complications in my 5ft 7 inches frame. Most of the explanations, went way over my head. I was cocooned into believing, it was a minor blip in my well crafted life. Denial at its best form! I for sure thought that I was going to resume my frenetic life at the earliest. Sooner than a blink of course! Like an obedient girl, I went back to my office and took leave for a few days.

Who knew that I stood at the brink of a cliff? And that my list of surprises had just begun. I went through the grind of getting hospitalised. Specialist doctors visited me like cherished friends. Some were good looking enough to give our movie stars a run for money. Their presence for obvious reasons elevated my otherwise dull mood. When I look back, that stint did give me a required break....albeit forcibly and I was secretly pleased about it, initially though. And it lasted a short time. Amidst a slew of tests and an elaborate spread of medicines, came the second 'Whammy'! I was told my hours are numbered. No one, kind of tried putting a finger on the exact details (very unlike our financial world). But it ranged from 2 days to 20 years depending on the benevolence of a clutch of medicines.

And in one 'Big Bang' my life changed. Everything which was kotty in the labyrinth of life fell into one simple wavy line. It resembled the gentle waves of the ocean, the smooth fold of the mountains and the roll of the green meadows. From trying to analyse balance sheets, maneuvering deals and tip toeing around minefield of emotions I started to enjoy 'Being'. I guess one is happier when ticking of clock doesn't signify your running - instead tells you that time is running out.

Suddenly the dappled sunlight mattered more, the innocent giggle mattered more, the first rains, the hot cuppa in a foggy winter morning mattered way more than never ending rush. The lost love, the last kiss, the falling in love, the giving into joy, all held the miracle of the universe in its baby fist.

I realised what matters to us is not worth a penny but a basketful of time (very precious these days) and a heart set (mind being rational doesn't always make the cut) to enjoy life. I more often than not gave in to the urge of jumping into that dreaded, joy chasing cycle. It's addictive. Funny..... how the cycle never seems to move forward! You keep pedalling till you burn out of exhaustion. My life taught me to take that one small step to get down the cycle. I can now have a good laugh about life and fill my heart with memories worth a telling.

My life skips, hops, jumps and picks peonies along the road.

Living the 'Rush'

Coping with city life, a super fast one that is - is difficult. To top it, if one has a demanding job one loves and a growing kid who takes more heart space than the job - life sure becomes one hell of a roller-coaster ride. Somewhere in the rush of our daily grind we forget romancing life. So busy we are with the 'Chase', that we end up forgetting the purpose of this nerve wracking sprint.

Look at me! My day which usually starts at '6' am in the morning doesn't end before mid night, when the dancing 'Cinderella' changes to 'Sleeping Beauty' in a jiffy. It took me a while to understand the problem. In the process of trying to have the so called 'Good Life', I have conveniently forgotten to enjoy 'Life' itself.

There were 'n' numbers of issues which stopped me from following my heart and giving in to the joy of 'being'.

The most important being physical tenacity. After a back breaking day, no amount of energy drink or the most exciting of adventures could entice me to move my tired limbs.

A close second is the fact, that I am a die hard conformist.Unfortunately routine structure creates a comfort cocoon that is not easy to break. Though nobody bothers a wee bit, but I care an awful lot to stick to the stereotype of the 'Super moms', where having 'Me time' is also guided by societal glossy imposed notions. I strive damn-est hard to look good, to shine at my work place, to be the world's best cook (at least for the sake of my foodie son), to be  the perfect daughter-in law, the loving wife, the responsible daughter.....basically to be one hell of a super woman (don't think its less difficult for the men - they only have a different measuring scale for perfectness). Hence I abhor doing things which fail to confirm to the self imposed image building process.

The last of the reasons which propelled me to monotony is that I'm averse to thinking 'bout my little moments of enchantments. I inundate myself with lot of excuses to avoid sitting with myself. I convince myself about my hallowed existence and defer changing a single aspect of it.

Armour-ed by all these, I give in to my daily pace. You see, in trying to be perfect, I conveniently forget to be 'Me'.

To escape from the rut, I've thought hard and deep. Finally I manged to land up with my own precious bucket list. A list which did act as a vent to my pent of frustrations. Thus it goes....

• Indulge in street food/good food/different type of cuisine/new dishes once a month to give your tongue a break from dietary routine.

• Do any impromptu fun activity. Dance with your kids, walk in the rain, splash in the pool, stroll in the moonlight, shimmy with your hubby...anything works. Just make sure its not your routine gym sessions or set patterned work out.

• Watch a movie. Specially those that don't fit your pallet.

• Tell some one a story and do that often. I swear the joy of seeing a child going awestruck with your gossamer 'make-believe-world', is unparalleled.

• Buy some flowers for yourself once in a while.

• Don't dress up. Simply be yourself.

• Love deeply and truly, but don't have any expectations attached to the emotion. Love as if your heart is going to burst with joy.

• Sing aloud. However funny your voice might sound (my best efforts sounds like a sleepy crow singing soprano), don't resist the temptation. There is joy in sound of music. Listen to happy music. A lovely collection is worth a mine of gold.

• Once a month, go where your heart desires and be with yourself. Be alone in a place which connects to you. I believe places have soul connect. We either take to a place easily or consider ourselves out of place. Choose your place and let go - be it lively sea side, glorious hilly trail, calming meadows, buzzing flea market, throbbing disco, or the nook in your drawing room, where you can curl up with your cuppa.

• After doing all these, there would still be moments when you will be sad, lonely or angry. These emotions are also an inherent part of being alive. Don't try to fix them. Live with them till they die down naturally. Sulk if you are angry (try not to hurt others though) mope by yourself when you are sad and cry as if your heart will break when you are lonely.

None of us are born with an everlasting positive frame of mind. We can inculcate being positive till it becomes our second nature. Joy within, doesn't mean we are never low. It means we have the strength of spirit to hit rock bottom and bounce back. Every single pearly tear is accompanied by frothy bubbly laughter. Try out the fixes, it works. It works for me and I can be epitome of melancholia on a given day.

To end the note, I need to mention the secret vitamin pills for the city survivors. Gossip with your girlfriends/hang out with your boy gang, plan 'kiddy' things with children (I have a son and hence the suggestion), laugh with the love of your life and spend time with your self.

Finally if you really cant, don't push yourself. Drop the bar, settle for being not so perfect, chill and let it pass. Here's to all my city slick friends....enjoy the rush at an unhurried pace.

Catching the 'Sparkle'

Life is to be enjoyed in bits and pieces. In a nook here, round the corner there, life sparkles like sunlight on rippling water. It bursts forth like the first rains and smells of the golden autumn leaves. The 'ploppy-sloppy' snow melts into riot of flowers as a year chases another. That's how life is, ever changing with myriad hues.

Its all about Monday morning 'Blues' and 'Euphoric' Fridays, baby hugs when you come back late from work, morning cuddles that make the day, the laughter, the easy banter, silent tears, small joys and angry arguments. Life like multicolored lozenges pops out of our pockets, giving us its flavored memories.

Hence this blog is about travelogues, memories, recipes for heart-heart chats, kitchen plunders, catastrophic blunders, ever tilting scale of work-life balance, quick catch up with nature, monologues with self, small battles waged daily, wonder of a growing kid, herculean task of shouldering all possible responsibilities, wonders of the moment and etc etc etc.

This is my way of catching the stories, the memories, the people and bottling them up to capture the essence of life.

You take a whiff....smile a little....remember fondly and move on with your unique memoirs matching notes with mine. Here's to zest for life....Let's keep our pockets full.