S is for Salt and Chillies #AtoZChallenge

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the fourth week of the #Blogging from A to Z  April Challenge 2021. My theme this year is based on the Japanese concept of Ichigo Ichie which means--"What we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And therefore, we must value each moment like a beautiful treasure."

I've put together a collage of such moments which can be seen as chance occurrences, coincidences, pre-destined or random (depending on who you ask) for this month's challenge. 

I hope you'll enjoy being here.

Thank you.

Arti.

"A good mood, helped along by pleasant company, 

is an essential ingredient for enjoying our food."

Quote borrowed from The Book of Ichigo Ichie       

*****

You've all met Julie on 'J' day. But, if you missed out, you can meet her today : Julie

We go back to October 2018 for today's post, back to Julie and Guruji's house in Maunda, the last village of Uttarakhand.

The night was cold. The sky was an ocean of stars twinkling in inky waters. Our group of seven was sitting around an electric heater in Guruji's sitting room on thin carpets layered with thick, warm woollen rugs, cocooned in our thermals and down jackets. 

Whenever anyone entered or left the room (mostly to bring tea or water) he/she was told to shut the door securely.

Julie came in holding a steel thali and a katori (plate and bowl).

"Eat this. You'll love it. Eat with the chutney--majja aayega." crisp like the cold October night, Julie issued her instructions, handed the thali and katori to Rajat and left the room.

Roughly chopped wedges of apple, some big, some small, crowded the thali. 

"These are from our baag (orchard)." Guruji announced proudly.

I'd spotted one or two pink and white blossoms on the apple trees circling their house when we had arrived. Late bloomers. We were told the apple harvest had suffered because of unseasonal rains that year. The apples, although delicious, had become marked and were therefore not good enough to be sold in the mandi (market).

"Take the chutney." reminded Pradhanji, who was also sitting with us. 

I took a slice of apple, dipped it in the bowl, picked a tiny blob of coarse green chutney and took my first bite. 

A crescendo of lip-smacking, ooing, aahing and omging and wondering what could've made this chutney so damn tasty rose around the heater. 

Then Julie came back with more apple slices and chutney.

"You liked it." she announced her question with the surety of someone who knows how good their wares are.

"What was in it?" Rajat, the hotelier, asked.

"Salt and chillies."

"Must be Himalayan salt, pink salt?" offered Siddharth, another trekker who owns a successful restaurant.

"Na..na...arre, it's that packet one from the shop." Julie dismissed his suggestion with a smile.

"Must be the sillbatta (pestle and mortar) then. This taste--has to come from hand grinding chillies." Vani added.

"Arre, na...na...I can't handle sillbatta. I'm too old. I made it in the mixie (mixer-grinder)." Julie thwarted every suggestion skilfully.

"Are you sure there's nothing other than salt and chillies in the chutney?" Rajat tried again.

"Of course not! Just those chillies growing outside and saada namak (simple salt)." Julie's eyes were shining with tears of mirth at our expense while we sat around the heater, enamoured by her everyday, ordinary chutney.

It had to be the chillies. It had to be the good, nutritious soil of Julie's garden. It had to be her love. It had to be the fact that she grows them herself. We sat there that night listing all the ingredients Julie took for granted and therefore forgot to mention to us when we asked her for her chutney recipe.

The next morning, we left for the trek. We met her on the way. She was walking back home after collecting fresh grass for Lali, her cow.

"As long as I can walk, I'll feed her fresh grass." Julie had told us once.

The one thing I was looking forward to the most (second only to a shower) when we reached Maunda after our arduous trek was apple wedged dipped in Julie's home made chutney.

Do you have a simple 2/3 ingredient recipe that you'd like to share?

Is there a spice, condiment, chutney you cannot do without?

You know I'd love to hear, if you'd like to share.

I wrote about serendipity in 2017. I didn't know about the concept of Ichigo Ichie then, but this post is a perfect fit : Silver Serendipity

This year, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z  powered by theblogchatter.com 

February is here

It's been a long break from blogging this time; more than two months. Two whole months of not penning down thoughts or sharing any photos here. Why? I really don't know. 

I've been in a confused state lately--unsure, muddled, questioning every thing, not finding my heart in anything I do. I do it all but there is a part of me that seems to be watching me doing it, like I'm not in the act of living my day to day, like I'm a spectator of my own life, like everything around me is an illusion and I'm supposed to be somewhere else, like my days are happening under water, submerged, unclear, unsure--I can see and hear it all like a scene from a film in a theater, but I'm not part of it, like there's a distance between my senses and what's going on around me, like there's wool filling the gap between life and me, like I'm sort of removed from it all.

Why?

I'm not sure.

All is well. The children are well and healthy. The husband and I are happy and healthy. 

Do you, dear reader, go through cycles of doubt and woolliness when there is no apparent reason for it?

A lot of astronomical phenomenons are keeping the skies busy this week. So perhaps, it's the celestial cycles that are responsible. Or perhaps, it's the useless pandering of a person who has too much time on their hands. 

"Your life has to be bigger than you." an old school friend who I was seeing after more than 25 years last week, said to me.

His words got me thinking even more haphazardly.  What does it mean to live life bigger than me?  

Is keeping a loving home where children grow up to be good human beings enough to qualify me as someone who's lived her life well? Should I have invented something unique, written a great novel, painted a masterpiece, managed a business or saved a life to call my life 'successful'?

Did my grandmother ever feel like I do? Did she ever question if she was doing enough? Did their generation feel lost every now and then?

"Only when you're lost, can you find the way." A wise saying I'd read a while ago pops into my head.

So is feeling lost a good thing?

Do people who feel lost find their way or do they end up getting even more lost?

I look at my husband who works hard to provide for his family every day. He is so clear with what he wants from life and how he's going to do it. I wish I was more like him. But I'm not. 

I'm not sure how long this phase of mine will last, maybe it's already coming to an end--I'm sitting down at my kitchen table and writing today.

I look through old photos I've yet to sort through and the one above catches my eye and makes me laugh. Sometimes, the cows of creativity just don't budge. They have other plans.

So, what does one do when such a phase impales you in its icy grip? One steps out. 

I decide to make friends with this woolliness and invite her to sip  tulsi and adrak wali chai with me.

Open kitchen door.

Step out.

Nip tips of holy basil.

Wash its tender leaves in sink.

Water in  pan is almost coming up to a boil.

Plonk leaves in.

Scrape ginger and grate it on a palm sized grater while the water starts bubbling.

(hands feel the heat of the stove)

Oh! forgot pepper...

scramble cupboard door open, pour out a few pepper corns into wooden mortar, crush the corns in a hurry as water is boiling angrily by now and threatening to become vapour if I don't get my act together.

In go the crushed pepper,

followed by tea leaves

add milk

add sugar.

Ah! 

Life is beautiful.

I take my cuppa with me to the front of the house where the morning sun lights up petunias and nasturtiums and the asparagus fern. House and garden sparrows chime their songs in the neem tree. Blooms of Frangipani bob their heads with the breeze. I sit and sip. And wonder if life is already bigger than me.

What more can I ask for?

February, my favorite month of the year, is here. So what if January ended with a flu. So what if this stubborn cough refuses to bid adieu. So what if my plans to write a book are still just plans. February is here and look what promises it brings:

Tomatoes will soon start to blush and before long, they'll drape scarlet dupattas to let us know they're ready to be picked.

We've already eaten aaloo-methi (methi from the garden) twice this fortnight. Fenugreek greens show off their white blooms. 

Calendula sprinkle sunshine wherever they bloom

Soil and sun fill these beauties with fire. I've used a couple to make coriander chutney (Coriander Chutney Recipe) which goes amazingly well with methi ki roti (fenugreek bread).

Baby figs flatter my gardening ego:)

Life is beautiful indeed.

And just like that, the woolliness of January dissipates.

I'm not looking for a bigger-than-me-life at the  moment. Life: normal, ordinary and mundane will do me fine.

No, this is not an excuse to be lazy. Or at least I don't think so. It's like tuning into my rhythm. I would like to write that book. And I will. There--I've said it. My first February confession. I'm owning up to my dreams and saying it out loud. I reckon it's the first step in the right direction. 

It's not easy to bring discipline into something that one does which is not satisfying the ego, or making money or being noticed. Walking, practising yoga, meditation, writing and gardening  all fall by the way side when woolliness sets in. The funny thing is that those are the very things. i.e. walking, writing, yoga, gardening  and meditation that help clear out the cob webs of self-doubt.

There's never just one way of looking at things. Right?

Your way of dealing with your doubts will be different from mine. But, I'll share what works for me anyway--when self-doubt raises its tentacles to trap me, I fight it back by simply saying 'well done' to myself for accomplishing day to day chores: a pat for each job done with love --lunches packed for husband and son, dishes washed, kitchen cleaned, laundry sorted, a few pictures clicked, a few chapters read, a cupboard shelf/drawer re-organised--basically any task. No task or act is too small or too insignificant to be noticed and appreciated. 

By the time noon bells chime, I've collected so many well dones for myself that I'm beaming again--ready to welcome my men back from school and office with a hot meal and a ready ear to listen to how their day went by.

This is important. This self-help is essential. 

A friend posted this recently--

"The deep roots never doubt spring will come,"

Marty Rubin.

I try to cobble together this post and promise myself that however loud the voice of resistance is, I will sit and write everyday--a few lines, a page, a poem or perhaps a story, but I will live my life fully by doing things that make me me. I will write and harvest the greens and plant more seeds, and go for long walks and listen to Sufi songs and while I'm doing all this, I'll pat my back and tell myself--"well done for living your ordinary well."

And wherever you are and whatever you're doing or planing to do, do take half an hour out of your busy day to sip a cup of tea/coffee/hot water and sit and stare. Doubts and certainties, pauses and starts are tides of life. They come and they go. 

Sonia (above) sells tea on top of this stunning canyon near Shillong (Meghalaya). It's called Laitlum. A couple of other photos in this post are from there too, clicked in October 2017.

Wishing you all a fabulous February:)