Gifts of Summer

What does summer remind you of? There is of course the scorching heat, the constant thirst and the unstoppable sweat, but there are also a few things we relish in. For me, summer is bearable because of mangoes, watermelons and ice-apple. Imagine the sweet and tangy taste that remains in your mouth after you sink your teeth into a ripe, fleshy mango. When you eat a watermelon, it goes straight to your heated brain and cools it.  Do you remember the way we suck out the juices from translucent and soft ice-apple before eating it whole? These are the things that I love about summer.

I don't remember my first mango memory. My mother told me about it. I was a little less than two years old. She prepared a glass full of mango juice. I never tasted mango until then. She wanted me to taste a sip or two of the mango juice, so she gave the glass to me. I did have a sip or two, but when she wanted to take away the glass, I wouldn't leave it. I clenched it with my teeth when she tried to pull it out. I did not take out the glass from my mouth until I drank it clean. Well, that is the power of mango.

I do remember my first watermelon memory. It is one of my fondest memories. One of my uncles' from mom's side came to our home to visit us. It was a hot day. My mother was not at home. It was just me and my uncle. We sat at the table, cut the watermelon open. I ate one piece, my uncle ate another. This way, we ate the whole watermelon for brunch. I remember it to be a big watermelon, with a deep red color. My love for watermelon started that day. My uncle let me eat the whole watermelon. My mother would have stopped me after a few bites, she would say, 'Keep some watermelon for me and your father'. My uncle allowed me to be greedy and messy. My hands, my mouth and dress got dirty with the pulp and the juice from the watermelon. 

I loved eating the ice-apple but I hated it when I had to eat the curry of the ice-apples' skin. My mother and grandmother do not waste anything that tastes close to edible. After enjoying the ice-apple, I also had to go through the pain of eating the skin curry. 

I had thati kallu (made from juice of ice-apple) only once until now. When I was a teenager, I went to Nellore along with my cousins to spend some time with family friends. They had a fresh water prawn farm. The farm was lined with palm trees. When we were there, my aunt gave us thati kallu. I had one glass of it. As soon as I had it, I asked her, 'Am I going to become unconscious now?' My aunt laughed a lot. After we went home, she told to everybody else in the family and they laughed too. Next time, when I have thati kallu, I will not stop at one glass. I want to know how many glasses of thati kallu does it take, for me to become unconscious.

Mangoes, watermelons and ice-apples are the gifts of summer. Without them, the summer would be tough to survive. 

Image of ice-apple from google images

Abki Baar Modi Sarkar

India is the largest democracy in the world. The power of democracy was evident in the 2014 elections. The decision of more than 800 million voters was clear - To Oust Congress and vote for change, vote for BJP, vote for Narendra Modi. Narendra Modi will be know as the chaiwallah who became the Prime Minister of the country. Narendra Modi is a person who rose from a very humble position and faced many challenges to reach the top most position. Under the leadership of Narendra Modi, I hope Indians will see lower inflation, higher growth rate, greater job creation and increased safety for women.

Rajnikanth supported Modi and there has been an influx of messgaes publicizing the relationship between Modi & Rajnikanth post the election results. This is just one of them. This image was forwarded to me on whatsapp. I have no idea of the original source. 

Happy Mother's Day

I typed the e-mail. My mouse pointer was on the send button. Should I send it? Should I save it and send it the following day, when I am not so emotional? I just wanted to let out my feelings and did not care about how the other person would feel after reading the e-mail. I took her for granted. She would always be there for me until the day she has to leave this earth. Music was blaring out of my earphones. The music subsided my thoughts which were zooming from one end of my head to the other at supersonic speed. I clicked 'send'. I was no longer listening to the the track my iphone played. I stared at my gmail account and checked the sent mail. I should not have sent that e-mail to her. Now, it was too late. She would open her e-mail account and see the e-mail from her daughter. She would read it. She would feel anger, disappointment or remorse. I would never know what her feelings would be.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This short story is dedicated to all the mothers' who are patient enough with their offspring, who take them for granted. 

                                                         Me with my Grandmother & Mother

Management Lesson from the Kitchen

Many of you must be wondering why you didn't see a post on my blog, last week. Well, I was voluntarily enrolled in a ‘Management lesson from the kitchen’ course. I didn't have much time to do anything else. How does a mundane kitchen teach lessons in management? It all started like this.

A few relatives visited my home, last week.  It consisted of my mother-in-law’s sister, her husband, and their two kids aged 8 and 13 years and my brother-in-law. Until now, I have cooked for maximum of two to four people. Being the woman of the house, I had to take the responsibility of the breakfast, lunch and dinner for all the seven of us. I was surprised as to how much effort takes in making a decent meal for seven people, three times a day. All the more, my mother-in-law is a vegetarian, my brother-in-law an eggetarian, my cousins daltarian or pappucharutarian (eat only dal, sambar or pappucharu), my husband and my father-in-law are non-vegetarian. Whatever the menu, it had to cater to the eating habits of all these four sects of people; hence there should be minimum three dishes, which excludes rice/chapthi and yoghurt.  The day used to start with breakfast. By the time I was done with the breakfast, it was time to prepare lunch. By the time, I was done with the lunch it was already 3 PM. I was on my feet from 8 AM to 3 PM. The dinner preparations started from 7 PM. Thankfully, I have a cook, so my effort involved in directing her what to do. In spite of all this planning and hard work, my husband came to me and asked, ‘Aren’t you making dal?’. I did reprimand him and gave an expression which conveyed a very deep meaning. 

After this exercise for about three days, I was exhausted. I also had a new found appreciation for my mother and my mother-in-law. My mother is a Gynaecologist. In spite of her busy work life, she always kept on the table, the most well-balanced meal for the four of us (my father, grandmother and I) every day. She also had a special menu every Sunday, used to entertain guests sometimes and she always worked solo in the kitchen, with a little help from me and my grandmother. My mother-in-law is a homemaker and is from a big family. She entertains lot of relatives for festivals/family functions, which also involves considerable cooking.

The woman’s role in the kitchen is quite trivialized. It is not as inconsequential as it seems. The kitchen teaches important lessons in management.What are the management lessons I learned?

 1.Groundwork: Who will eat what? What will they eat heartily, what could they leave? Is anybody following a special ritual on that day? ( no eggs or meat on one weekday)

 2.Planning: How many people are there? What has to be cooked? How much has to be cooked so that it will be sufficient for everybody? What are the ingredients required? Are there any preparations to be made the day before? (For example, idli, dosa etc.)

 3.Delegation: Whom to delegate what responsibility? Who will go outside and get the required stuff? Who will cut the veggies? Who will make what dishes? Etc.

 4.Execution: There are only two stoves. Which dishes go first on the stoves? What should go next? How can the two stoves keep on running simultaneously for maximum savings in time?

 5.Appraisal: Needless to say this never goes as well as planned. The men come onto the dinner table, eat and leave with least appreciation. There goes a ton of effort unobserved and taken for granted. I did belong to this league until I started cooking. After that I started appreciating my mother, whenever possible.

I hope that the next time a woman in your family goes an extra mile to cook something delicious, appreciate her each and every time. This is one of the best forms of appreciation any woman can receive for all her hard work.