Green Immersion.

All year long the banyan tree saw its reflection in the little pond. The world beyond was wilderness--at least to us children. You could walk just a little further to reach the Ganesha temple. Usually we walked up a small hillock to reach the temple from inside the colony.
Every year at the appointed time, way past our bed-time, the cries of people and the accompanying drumbeats pulled us outside. The familiar world became new and mysterious in the darkness. 
Our Ganesha idol was carried carefully as we joined the growing crowd behind the huge Ganesha from the temple. We also took soaked beaten rice mixed with curd in a steel box.
Many people offered coconuts and bananas to the Elephant God. The priest chanted his farewell prayers and lifted the fragrant camphor brass lamps in circles to the glowing face of the colorful God.
The big Ganesha splashed  in first and others followed. We then sat on a cold stone bench and ate the beaten rice with curd. We children cried out,"Ganpat bapa Maourya, pudche varshe laukarya", because my father liked Marathi and we didn't know any grand sounding lines in Kannada. We walked home with friends and neighbors to houses strangely empty. In no time the living room chairs and tables would find their places and the memory of the magical space of flowers, rangoli and fragrance  would recede.
Yesterday we watched the traffic jams as devotees burst fire crackers, shouting out from the tractors and pick-up trucks with their decorated huge colored Ganeshas. There are pandals in almost every street corner where they serve the prasad in disposable cups and plates that will litter the roads for months to come. I'm worried like so many others that these painted Gods will contaminate and choke the lakes.
Our plain clay Ganesha was dunked in a bucket. Even as he dissolved instantly, bubbles rose to the surface, giving an impression of a live creature in the water. The muddy water will feed the plants later. There are many like us who resort to this hassle free celebration.
The joy and cheer he brought into our home was unchanged and undiminished by our choice of idol and manner of immersion, and will last for long. 
I wish there is a ban on colored POP idols next year. Maybe, actors and sports persons can start an awareness campaign on the television or billboards months before Ganesh Chathurthi (they are the only people who can convince the masses).
Its really time for green immersions.

Art from the heart.

An inch and a half square when halved, this little piece of paper dangles from a little green wool string .The paper just folds over the string and  two small knots keep the wool from being undone. Hanging delicately from a nail, this is a tiny ‘greeting card’ a child made for her   grandparents long ago. Catching the breeze from the window or the fan it flutters precariously.

The open cupboard has a few wooden shelves. To the edge of one shelf at eye level hangs this little card from a tiny nail, jostling with a small scissors on a neighboring nail. Every time the scissors or the pen stand behind is used, the card falls. Placing the folded piece over the string it is easily re-assembled and hung back on the nail.

A fond look passes over the faces of the two aging recipients of this card. The child who had made it is now a strapping teen. She loves the busy city and all its attractions -the shopping malls, dim sum eat outs, school friends, the internet and her enjoys being always on the move in a ‘happening’ city.

Coming from the hot summer of North India every summer, she marveled at the hessian rope swing tied diligently every year to the mango tree awaiting her family's visit. Padding the coarse rope with soft cushions and blankets she squabbled with her sister for turns on the swing which had a skewed trajectory owing to the upward slant of the extended branch. Delicious mangoes, watermelons and jackfruit were treats. Small cups filled with delicious homemade eats and days spread lazily ahead interspersed with visits to the park or walks in the safe quiet neighborhood. The rains were a huge pleasure as she watched the huge drops beat a noisy rhythm on the tall coconut trees or their mango tree. Sometimes a scramble ensured to save the cushions from getting wet in a sudden downpour.

Every day the walls of the small house and the garden resounded with the sweet voices of the sisters as they played, quarreled and sang songs. Their constant chatter and happy feet filled the house and hearts of their grandparents with joy. Their pretty clothes washed carefully would festoon the clotheslines on the terrace. But how quickly the days would pass!

Unfinished paintings, coloring books, comics, broken crayons and clothes that refused to fit in the bulging suitcases were left behind. These possessions spent the remaining months safely in a box and were joyfully reclaimed like old friends the next summer. Their absence was very much felt but a few phone calls from far away would slowly let them pick up their lives and the grandparents looked forward to the next visit.The little ones too joyfully awaited their next summer visit.

I’m not really for parents going gaga over their children, but the penciled drawing on this small card is really beautiful in a stark simple way.

There is a big sun on the upper left corner and two fat birds opposite it on the rightmost corner. Two stick figures almost holding hands are racing towards a vehicle in a barren terrain to reach what looks like a space ship. Maybe it was intended to be a car or an aeroplane but it looks like no vehicle on earth; all this on an inch and a half square of paper in shaky pencilled lines. The other half of the paper has the dedication -‘To Ajja and Ajji from Saraswathi’ inscribed in a small handwriting.

It cannot beat a store bought card or an electronic one that breaks out into a song or explosion of colour and movement. It hangs there year after year, a little grubby from handling but a sweet expression of affection.

"Miss, Dolly and Hulk"

We treat many of our 'firsts' specially. Here is the first of my writings to win a prize. It is a short story called,"Miss, Dolly and Hulk".

https://www.indiacurrents.com/articles/2015/07/29/August-2015-northern-california-edition

The magazine comes out in both print and e-versions. I have to find a way to get a hard copy in case the link stops working after a few years.

Writing is a lonely pursuit and not all writing goes on to win a prize. Yet, I am able to see now that the reward is in the process and its completion too.
I definitely want to take this pursuit further .
Dr. Kalam said, "Rest? Why do you need rest when you enjoy what you're doing?" in reply to an interviewer's query as to when Dr. Kalam rested from his numerous activities and what he did for relaxation.
I can see how true that is when I write.
I'm sure there are more gems recorded from this great man's life that will serve to inspire many Indians, young and old.

Half-hearted.

I saw a pair of shoes left outside for the garbage lady to clear away. They still have a few months or even years of life left in them.
Okay, the problem is this. The shoe laces have been removed by the miserly owner to be used at a later date with some other pair. How do you expect the person who picks up this pair to spend money on shoelace when they are foraging even food from garbage cans?
People with education can sometimes be as brainless as... brainless can be.
There are a few other highly 'intelligent' people who cut out hooks, zippers, drawstrings from their old clothes before giving the clothes to the needy. Where are the safety pins going to come from, to keep the clothes together, when the recipients are desperately trying to keep body and soul together everyday?
I don't want to nit pick, but these are the people who read and listen to Godly sermons and discourses with great devoutness. But are they really listening?
The shoelace, hooks, zippers and drawstrings cannot hold their aging lives together, prolong their life or be of any use in the next.
All I want to say to these smug beings is this: Look within and listen to your heart. You can fool the world with your sweet words and lies, but you will know how ungenerous you really are!

The win means so much more!

Today, the results of the India Currents Katha: Desi Fiction Contest 2015 are out. I'm thrilled to have won the second place for my short story, "Miss, Dolly, and Hulk". The award means much more than the $200 prize that accompanies a publishing of the story in their August issue.
             After a career  teaching Electronics in three different cities, I was seriously contemplating on a doctorate (on a topic in Medical Electronics I hold dear to my heart), when personal reasons compelled me to quit. And I became a stay-at-home mom.
Not a TV person or one inclined to shopping sprees or chat sessions, it was natural I turned to my old friends, books. The days spooled out endlessly, packed with cooking and housekeeping chores, and I grew possessive about my reading time. I had written from the age of eight and then tapered off at eighteen after I edited the NIE college magazine. I did read sporadically but diverted my energy into bringing up my daughters, studying for my M.Tech and teaching undergraduates. The desire to write just packed up and left.
In November 2013 when my first 'Middle' appeared in the Deccan Herald, it stoked the desire to pour myself in words once again. As I wrote, I continued to read voraciously and realized I had stumbled onto the right track again.
Nothing gives me greater joy than words--the one's I read, and those that I use to shape the lives of my characters.
A niggling self-doubt and despair has been laid to rest with today's win. I've endorsed the writer in me. I can look forward to writing with greater confidence.
But I will continue to jealously guard my writing space and time. So diversions beware!

Banana cake and the baking journey.

Three large ripe bananas hugged each other on my fruit tray; they were firm with small dark spots on the smooth yellow skin. I Googled a recipe for banana cake and came up with one that used oil and only two eggs. An hour later a brown beauty sat sighing softly on the kitchen counter; the house that had darkened in the afternoon, courtesy dark June clouds, suddenly brightened with the aroma of bananas wafting through the rooms. It tasted just as good.

I have a recipe book that I faithfully followed as a young wife; the curly writing of my mother’s hand guided me through recipes for her sponge cake and plum cake, sweet and salt biscuits. She also gifted me her folder of recipes from a baking class her sister went to in Lalbagh and a set of cyclostyled (do kids today even know that this word means?) sheets that she received when her Ladies Club conducted baking classes. She has marked corrections and alternate measures, changed baking timings and made tiny notes, thus ensuring I have recipes that will work.

I baked independently in Germany using the gas cooking range. Thanks to Karin and Barbara, we celebrated Ps first birthday with three German cakes! I still bake the marble cake and apple pie. I’ve never found fresh cherries like those from Barbara’s home, so I’ve never baked a cherry pie again. 

I attended a day’s course on baking at the Volk Hoch Schule and came back with a slice each of some ten exotic German cakes, that I’ve never tried again because they are so complicated. (The class was fun with the instructor inquiring from me if my religion allowed the tasting of cakes with lots of liquor! Black forest cake with its signature Kirch Wasser is unbeatable. I said I didn't mind, of course!)

My OTG is about 17 years old and looks sturdy and capable as ever. My recipe book has collected recipes from dear friends and I’ve gone on to bake many cakes. I still feel the warm glow when I peer into the deep oven and watch a cake rise. Dieting teenagers love cakes and low calories, and somehow before I befriended Google I wasn’t sure how to achieve that.

Today anonymous people share fantastic recipes and when I bit through the raisins and walnuts in the warm slice of banana cake, I sent a ‘thank you’ across the WWW. 

I’ve noted this recipe down in my thick bound notebook with my comments and corrections. Who knows, my children may want to bake someday following a recipe written in my curly hand writing.

This garden rocks! A farewell to its architect.

  Last year, on a hot April afternoon in Chandigarh we bowed our heads to enter a low door. We knew this was a unique creation of Nek Chand but were unprepared for his sheer genius and creativity.  Stretched before us was the splendid Rock Garden.
Creations from waste are tastefully placed in a forty-acre expanse of greenery. Nek Chand passed away yesterday and has left behind a symbol of conservation that shows how broken china, gunny bags ,tires, broken bangles and even human hair from barber shops can be used to create a vast space of recreation and joy to visitors across the world.
My article covering  the visit appeared in the 'Travel' section of the Sunday Herald on 22nd June 2014. You can read it here. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/415068/kingdom-gods.html

I've added a few pictures here from our visit.

Horses 

Broken china to a music band!

The hut where Nek Chand began his creation.

A fort in the Kingdom

Broken bangles to a bevy of beauties!