Tagore's Birthday and Flowers of Neem with a dash of #Hindi Poetry

When on Thursday morn, I sat outside

under our neem tree 

with a beautiful book 

and a cup of chai, 

I didn't know it was Tagore's birthday. 

The fragrant blooms of neem were busy 

dropping off its branches and carpeting 

the mat, the book and me. 

A few even plopped into my tea! 

There was something beautiful about that moment. 

I started scribbling a few lines and before I knew it, 

I was typing out an Insta post of poetry. 

The friend whose book it is, called a couple of hours later to say

it was Buddha Purnima that day.

And she added that the 7th of May

is also Rabindra Nath Tagore's birthday. 

O! how co-incidental, I thought.

I had to share that which I wrote, I thought.

A few lines-

I'll call them poetry

Just because:)

They're in Hindi

Yes, that which I wrote.

The title is not.

It's called Flowers of Neem

A translation I feel

will not bring out the flavour

of feelings that only Hindi can reveal

you see there are things:

subtle and sublime;

long lost yet found

ethereal yet ground

almost like water vapour

which one can only savour

in ones own mother tongue

or perhaps--

I am just a rubbish translator!

So, for the readers of English who visit,

I have shared a bit

of Moon inspired lines

plus

some ideas to dine

with an easy recipe of rasam.

You'll find it all after this poem

recited in a voice that is mine:)

A recital: Neem ke Phool

नीम की फुलझढ़ियों
की बेफ़िक्री देखिए
कभी Tagore से उभरती हैं
तो कभी चाय की चुस्कियाँ में डूब जाती हैं

नज़ारा कुछ ऐसा है आज चटाई का
कि बिखर बिखर के वो नादान
सेज सजाऐ जाती हैं
और इंतज़ार की एक मीठी सी
धुन गुनगुनाऐ जाती हैं

पर कोई इन डालियों से पूछे
सबर का सिला
एक मुद्त का इंतज़ार
और फिर बहार
वो भी बस पल भर की
मालूम नहीं मुझे कि वो
किस तरह
अपने सभी फूल नयौछावर कर
धूप के आँगन में खिलखिलाऐ जाती हैं

शायद मुझसे ज़्यादा सयानी हैं
नीम की डालियाँ
वो जानती हैं
अपने फूलों की फ़ितरत
बिखरने के लिए ही तो खिलते हैं वो

--आरती 

The Moon was not yet high

not yet full in the sky.

She was taking time to dress

in her evanescence. 

If lines scribbled in notebooks

could rise and rustle up dishes,

I'd sit waiting for Moon forever

and build delicious dinner castle wishes

in my head and tell the husband to imagine it all with me

but sadly none of that

was going to happen on my mat

under the neem tree.

So, onward to the kitchen I proceeded with my powers

to turn into scrumptious my basket of recently dried neem flowers.

A quick google search was all it took

and a rummage in many a nook

to find all the essentials to cook

dinner of rasam with rice:

jaggery, tamarind and ghee,

plus curry leaves on sprigs that had been picked already

from the tree that grows past my kitchen door

next to the forest of Canna Lily.

Curry Tree and Canna Lily

The fragrance of flowers of neem,

when they turn golden in molten ghee

over a slow flame 

is no less magical than a Moon that is full and supreme.

Rasam dark of tamarind and jaggery,

 boiled and bubbled rather properly.

 I tempered it with hing, chillies and mustard.

"Dinner's ready!" I hollered

'Twas a feast to tingle all taste buds:

sour, sweet, hot, bitter and salty.

I'm told this rasam has many a medicinal quality.

The husband and I:

we went for a walk after 

with our masks on and taking all precautions that matter.

Moon was full and strong

and shone brightly all along

the streets, the houses, the cats and the giant dustbins

 of Doha.

And when our walk was done,

we got back:

washed hands;

 sanitised door knob, inches touched and every other centimetre

while Moon,

shining through the paper blind 

of our bedroom window,

whispered,

"Aloha"

***********

As promised, here's the link to an easy recipe:

 Neem Flower Rasam

What follows is a photo gallery 

of the flower 

of the hour

with four simple steps to follow if you have a neem tree flowering in your vicinity.

Step 1: Harvest the flowers

Step 2: Wash the flowers

 Step 3: Dry the flowers: spread out on a kitchen towel and find a sunny spot. Keep covered with muslin cloth to avoid dust

Step 4: Store in an airtight tin or jar

Have a lovely, wholesome, sunshiny and fragrant weekend y'all.
Eat healthy and keep safe and smile and read poetry or dance or just hop like a sparrow 
Do whatever tickles your fancy.
But be kind to yourself; for you see--
 there's only one of you in this world: near and far
xx

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:)

Y is for Yoghurt bath #AtoZChallenge

When we were little, my mother used to bathe my sister and me with yoghurt. Ewwww! You say.

Precisely!

Courtesy: Google Images

The whole tamasha (fiasco) used to take place in the open. My grandfather's house, where we lived till I was eight, had a big rectangular cement water tank in the garden. It was tucked in a corner, almost next to the metal gate that we used to swing on and get told off for on a daily basis. Spiky fronds of ginger foliaged to the right of this grey water tank. A stubby pomegranate tree stood behind it. It flowered beautifully but its fruit was pitiful; the seeds never managed to plump up. I jumped off this tank once because a boy dared me to and landed on the balls of my feet so hard that I thought I saw stars (like in comic books) for a few seconds.

So, come Sunday morning, usually once a month, a medium sized steel bowl (katora) full of yoghurt (dahi in Hindi) would appear with a couple of drops of mustard oil in my mother's hand. The two of us would be ordered to march ourselves to the water tank (paani ki tunkee) clad only in our cotton kuchhees (underwear).

Even before my mother sat down on the low wooden stool (chowki) and even before she removed her dupatta (scarf) to settle down to get to her business, the pungent smell of mustard oil would hit my nostrils. I would've done anything to escape the ordeal.

Mummy would scoop out a dollop of curd with her fingers, place it on her palm, rub her palms together and she was ready to go. First stop: the arms, starting at the shoulders, she would rub the yoghurt into our arms, tut-tutting at the dry elbows. Discovering dry patches on our little bodies always renewed my mother's vigour to rub in the yoghurt with added pressure. Legs followed arms, then the toes and the spaces in between the toes that always tickled and the heels, then the back and then the tummy. AND THEN the bit I HATED the most: the face and the hair! Ewww! Ewww!  Her four gold bangles would jingle-jangle as the dreaded mustard oil smell came closer and closer to my nostrils: the cheeks, forehead and chin, the neck, behind the ears and then the hair.

We were washed down with warm water and patted dry. Rajma chawal (Kidney beans and rice) was our Sunday meal. By the time we got dressed, my grandfather would be getting ready to eat his lunch outdoors, under the big mulberry tree and we would hear him call out our names to hurry up and get our ghirais (morsels). You see, back then, humans at home started lunch after a chapati had been set aside for the cow (who'd wander up to the metal gate at precisely lunch time) and another for stray street dogs. That was my grandmother's routine. My grandfather ate his lunch after he had fed the first couple of  morsels to his two granddaughters, my sister and I and then my brother when he was born. He used to say that his food tasted better after we'd taken 'bhog' (offering). Those morsels are what I'm looking forward to when I meet him in my next life.

Once we moved out of my grandfather's house, bathing with yoghurt stopped. Maybe we were getting old or maybe my mother's depression was getting worse. I don't know.

For a long time, I kept yoghurt bathing a secret I was ashamed of. I didn't want anyone to find out that we had yoghurt baths on Sundays when we were kids; beats me why I thought like that. Because, your skin feels like silk after a yoghurt scrub. Try it, if you don't believe me. Word of caution: the hair smells yoghurty afterward, but it feels so velvety.

Many years later, I came across a short story in Hindi (I think it was grade 7 or 8) called Usne Kaha Tha by Chandradhar Sharma Guleri (1883- 1922).

It's considered to be the first short story in Hindi by some. It's certainly an amazingly written one. I read it when I was 12 or 13, but I remember the character, Lehna Singh and his question to the girl, 'Teri kudmayi ho gayee?' (Are you engaged?) as if I read it only last year.

In this story, Lehna Singh (the protagonist) is asked to fetch yoghurt from the bazaar for his uncle who wants to wash his hair. 

That day, I felt normal. 

'There's comfort in numbers', a friend recently wrote on facebook. I certainly felt it that day.

I don't bathe with yoghurt any more, maybe I should start. But, I do mix up a face pack with yoghurt that I apply at least once a week. This recipe is the result of many years of applying home-made face packs. This one works for me.

Mix all the ingredients listed below. Apply on face. When it's dry to touch (20-30 minutes), wash with lukewarm water. Pat dry. Smile.
Warning! DO NOT get the door with the mask on--it looks pretty ewww when it's on the face.

Yoghurt: 1 or 2 teaspoons
Instant coffee granules: 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder: 1/4 teaspoon (if you have fresh turmeric, then grate it and a few drops of its juice should do)
Honey: 1/2 teaspoon
Lemon Juice: 2 drops.

Play around with the consistency and see what suits you best. 

Have a glowing Saturday :)

*********

If you are fond of reading short stories in Hindi, here's Usne Kaha tha in Hindi.

C is for "Culture is Coriander Chutney."

What is culture, if not the passing of recipes from one generation to the next? 

Culture, according to my trusted Oxford Dictionary, is: "the customs, ideas, and social behaviour of a particular people or group." 

Hmmm... let's see...

The hurried pace of life these days leaves little space for following customs and traditions. Indian weddings, for example, are all about precisely planned and staged performances, instead of the organic singing sessions that sprung up every evening for at least a week before the big day, when I was growing up. Armed with dholak and chammach (drum and spoon), aunties and uncles and elders and youngsters would gather and sing and dance and drink masala chai. The youth would crack unsuitable jokes and then get told off by grannies. The grannies would nudge each other when the room was empty of the young, except the very young, recall the naughty jokes and laugh, shaking in mirth, sometimes covering their denture laden mouths with chiffon duppattas. The very young will remember this and write about them in their blogs.

Ideas change all the time and they should.

This post will become a rant if I get started on social behaviour. So I won't. Suffice to say, I'm not a fan of the screen addiction afflicting the young and the old today. Communicating via 'like' buttons, shared photos and emojis makes today's social behaviour scarily similar to George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty Four'. I shudder.

The only constant, I believe, is food. No, the dictionary doesn't mention food. Recipes, passed down from great-grandmothers to grandmothers and so on, keep culture alive in the bellies, on the taste buds and therefore, in the hearts of children and future generations.

Okay, I agree that culture belongs to the people and by its very nature should be evolving and changing. Stagnation equals lost empires, not progress. But, some aspects of our heritage, wherever we come from, are worth holding on to. Food is the easiest and tastiest aspect of culture we can preserve for our children, not just cooking it but growing it and procuring it ethically, sensibly, like our ancestors did.

I don't know about you, but a lot of my favourite childhood memories link back to my mother's or my grandmother's kitchen. Food is the main ingredient of my nostalgia. What about you?

Today, I'm sharing my mother's coriander chutney recipe that I make often. My son loves it. He's never met her but he loves her food. 

Ingredients: 

A healthy looking bunch of fresh coriander (washed and roughly chopped)

An inch or two of fresh ginger

One/two or three whole green chillies

One medium red onion (cut in quarters)

2 heaped tablespoons of anardana- dried pomegranate seeds. The ones you find in Indian stores have seeds in them so I prefer the Iranian ones which are seedless.

Six or Eight walnut halves.

2 tablespoons of water.

Salt to taste

One lemon (optional)

Instructions: 

I chuck all the ingredients listed above into my Vitamix, except salt and lemon, blend and voila! the chutney is ready. You could do the same in a food processor or a mixer-grinder.

Ready to blitz... I use short, sharp bursts on variable speed because I like chunky chutney, so I don't grind it too fine. Choose the texture you like.

Undo the lid and just smell the hot, sharp and fresh aroma of this simple chutney. Scrape it out into a container/pot/jar.

Add salt to taste.

An observation: If you use Indian anardana, you may need lemon juice to make the chutney tangy. I usually don't need any lemon juice when I use the Iranian variety. 

Play around with the proportions to find what you like; a little less chilly, a little more ginger or for a tangier version, add more anardana.

At home, we eat this chutney with rice and daal or spread on toast or mixed with bhel puri or as a dip with sweet potato wedges or oven baked beets or like I'm doing right now--with garam garam pakore (hot fritters).

Serve it as you like.

Enjoy and let me know if you do try this recipe.

*********************

One of my favourite poems to read to my children (when they were little) and to read aloud in class when I was a primary school teacher and to read to myself when the mood strikes is Michael Rosen's: 

You'll enjoy the rest of this delicious poem too...I'm sure