Writer's Block- Then and Now

If wishes were horses, I would be on vacation

Vacations, in my mind, the single most important deterrent to not growing up. Summer vacations are the most magical time of all in a child's life. They are the best part of school in my head. Whether you stay at home and roast in the sun cycling at top speed with your best friends, visit cooler climes in India or outside, take a long trip to your grandparents, they are definitely the time of the school year you look forward to the most. Unless, of course, your birthday comes during the summer holidays and you are disappointed with not celebrating it in school.

My vacations at my grandparents' house is the stuff of my most vivid memories probably because it was the most consistent one I took. It was inevitable that we landed up there for at least a month. I never really cared about cool vacations like going to someplace exotic. As long as I got out of my house, I was a happy child. The packing was always a bone of contention between my Mom and me. I would pile on all the games and books and toys I possibly could into my bags, leaving out essentials like my clothes and holiday homework or fight for a dedicated bag to carry all my hobby stuff. My mom who had to carry our bags onward and carry an even larger load ( filled with care packages) on the return journey rightly applied her veto power to ensure that I did nothing of the sort. Though, once my board game proved to be a propitious past time for the entire family. We were all addicted to Brainvita that summer.

Those were the days of limited cable television. Satellite dishes that towered over prosperous looking buildings alone. Junction boxes at the end of the street served the entire area. The couple who lived at the end of our street would shut off the power in their house when they went for their evening walks disrupting service to the populace in the vicinity. This was not the time of 24*7 programming. Rather one had to wait until 12 pm for the telecasts to begin. I ended up watching some old video tapes that had BBC series and Sesame Street and Mickey cartoons recorded on them. The high point of these videos was Mickey's Fantasia. The absolute low point was a scary vampire baby show. I definitely watched that show too early in my life.

In the hot afternoons when everyone was sleeping, I would build elaborate towns and cities of mud, stones and leaves. I laid out paths and roads and even a tiny swimming pool. I then even tried to divert a stream of ant traffic in this direction, but they were having none of it. Guava trees and custard apple trees were ones on which I attempted my tree climbing skills or I clung to the trunk of the coconut tree and counted how long I could hold on. I loved watering plants with my grandfather in the evenings and plucking curry leaves right off the tree for my grandmother.

The trips we planned are a whole story onto themselves. From a hydro electric power plant to a palace filled with artefacts to waterfalls, we covered the gamut of locations that lay in a four to six hour radius around us. We planned elaborate picnic lunches and breakfasts and packed the trunk with all sorts of travel paraphernalia before setting off. I still remember eating idlies with spicy chutney with the windmills on the side of the road whipping the wind through my hair and keeping an eye out for monkeys when eating by the waterfalls. I was initially terrified of wateefalls and their thudding waters especially the Coutralam falls. I later came to enjoy them so much more  so much so that I refused to get out of an artificial waterfall that we had all to ourselves. It was almost like a head massage that puts you to sleep gently.I made a game of spotting the lion tailed macaque and making up stories about the palaces we saw. 

It wasn't just all fun though. My holiday homework was always taken seriously. My grandad made me read Tamil stories aloud for practice, if not for him I would still be sounding Tamil out letter by letter. One of the more torturous assignments I had was writing out a diet chart of everything I ate that day.

These memories belong to a simpler time, not for the entire world like the cliche goes but just for me. When life was less complicated and the only question in my head when I woke up was what's for breakfast. I miss these vacations and vacations of all sorts. I wish I could have a second helping of them.

Weekenders

This weekend started with a trip to the movies with Yennai Arindhal. Ajith and Trisha look very good and Arun Vijay is brilliant, that's about the best thing I can say about the movie. Also the fact that the sight of some watercolors in the movie, inspired me to learn a new technique of painting yesterday. I figure that Gautam Menon has a serious case of writer's block. While I am with him on the idea of making trilogies and cop movies, I cannot presume to understand why he chooses to tell the same story in the same fashion over and over again. I can only say I am glad that I watched it at a discounted ticket price.

'Single Wife' - I finished reading this book yesterday morning. Thanks to my recent reading habits, Scribd app chose to recommend this book to me. Grace is a creative, intelligent woman who is very satisfied with her lot in life. Things change when her husband walks out of the house one day. Initially she suspects that it is like one of his usual disappearances, when he returns after a few days of being incommunicado. Each time he goes missing, based on his reaction on returning, she keeps whittling down the people she informs about his being MIA. This time, she distances herself from the occurrence and refuses to talk about it to her friends and family, still pretending like he is around. She begins secretly investigating his life, discovering things that she did not expect and does not want to know. On the other hand, she misses all the information about her husband on the media and therefore remains puzzled by certain gifts and surprises that she receives. The novel is about her choices and how she decides to proceed with her life.

Did some baking experiments over the weekend. Baked 4 cookies a batch to get a feel for my oven as they call it. Ended up with some burnt, some crisp, some perfect and some soft. I made nan khathai biscuits this Saturday.  Nan Khathais are considered an Afghani/ Iranian invention- nan obviously meaning bread like the butter naans we eat. Khathai is debatable, some people believe it stands for Cathay- meaning China. The best thing about this cookie is its unique taste and texture. Unique taste- because of the cardamom, ghee and yoghurt and texture because it is crunchy out and melty inside.

To make these Indian Shortbreads as Jamie Oliver calls them you will need:
1/2 cup ghee or 1/2 cup soft butter- I used ghee
3/4 cup  powdered sugar
1.5 cups maida
1/4 cup gram flour
1/4 tsp cardamom powder & 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder or 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp of yoghurt
1-2 tsp of milk/water
chopped pista nuts (optional)

The method:
Cream together the sugar and ghee to a smooth paste.
Once it is mixed thoroughly and the sugar has dissolved, add maida, gram flour, cardamom powder and baking soda and knead together.
Add the yoghurt to bring together.
Add water/milk only if the dough appears too dry.
Refrigerate for a couple of hours to make rolling easy.
Roll medium sized balls of dough between your palms
Arrange at a decent distance from each other on an ungreased baking tray. Decent distance because we will press them down and they will expand when baked. Ungreased because we don't want it to burn from the bottom.
Press down criss cross patterns with a fork and slightly flatten the balls.
Top with some chopped pista nuts.
Bake in a pre heated oven at 190 degrees celsius for abt 10-15 minutes. They shouldn't brown on top. Just allow them to brown along the edges. I had to watch these like a hawk.
When you take them out of the oven, they will be soft. Leave them to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes before transferring them to the rack.
They will eventually cool and harden completely.

I spent the first part of Sunday lazing in Om Made Cafe eating their yummy brunch- I really liked their spaghetti and their roasted corn spread. Actually, all the tapenades and bruschettas were really tasty and refreshing as was my blueberry lemonade. They allow you to lounge there from 12 pm -4 pm. It's a good spread and a relaxing place to hang out. The latter part of the day was  used for my watercolor and charcoal experiments mentioned in the first paragraph. I finally figured how to use my watercolors instead of going over them with a heavy hand, I never knew that you had to do a coat of plain water before putting in the colors until yesterday.

Here are some of the results:

Odds and Ends

This is a brain clean up exercise, there are a lot of half page or one paragraph blog entries in my head that do not justify a whole post to themselves. It's also a blog clean up exercise, to get rid of some of the headers that will haunt me some day later because I would be unable to recollect what I wished to write about them. This happens to me very often especially with short stories, where I forget the story that I meant to write and write a whole new one altogether.

On my bookshelf this week, my obsession with food related books continues. This week has seen me reading three novels all of which have a strong vein of food and food related activities associated with them. The other recurring vein in all of them is that of loss. Probably, these two are so interwoven as we associate food with comfort, it is a source of consolation that people turn to in times of depression, sadness, separation and any other form of trauma. It is quite interesting also that there are specific traditions relating food to death, in cultures all over the world. From the way the cooking is done, to the dishes that can and cannot be served and feeding one's ancestors souls, food and death have a quirky association, albeit a tad melancholic.

The Kitchen Daughter starts off in a funeral. The heroine might or might not have Asperger's syndrome. She exhibits poor social skills and has a dysfunctional relationship with her sister. Her parents' sudden death in an accident and the subsequent disagreements with her sister about the disposal of their assets, sends her to the safe refuge of her kitchen. There she cooks her Nonna's favourite Ribolita ( Bread soup) which in the wake of its enticing flavoursome smell, conjures up Nonna as well. The rest of the book is about the new people she meets, how she associates with them as well as the shadowy remains of people she summons from their recipes. This book seriously debates the question of whether the label of syndrome associated with mental challenges limits a person and prevents them from achieving their potential or aids them in getting timely help. A well structured book that is enjoyable to read.

Aftertaste- One of the heroines I was able to relate to the most. She is a chef and has her own Italian restaurant and a newborn. Little does she know that one bout of anger and a fight with her husband's paramour will lead to her world collapsing around her ears. This is a story of losing everything and then attempting to build everything up from scratch. It's quite interesting how she goes about it and the realizations she has along the way.

Bread Alone- This was an average book according to me. I did not like Wynter at all. I found her a very indecisive wishy washy heroine. It was supposed to be a story about finding oneself. I felt that she was the same one dimensional character she was when the book began. All of the heroes were lackadaisical. No one person really sticks in your mind except maybe for Linda, the bread maker. She is so rude and angry, but at least she's something, so you remember her. Bread Alone felt like a poor man's chick flick. 

Interesting products I discovered thanks to the wonders of advertising:

Zip SIP brought to you by Aditya Birla My Universe. This is a GUI aided dummy's guide to investment. You answer a bunch of questions, assess your risk profile and then it offers you a portfolio of funds (ABG among others) to invest in.

Hotstar live- Star content hosted on the web, happy to see a netflix like site in India, limited content right now, but hopefully it will ultimately become an option for binge watching

Italian Hot Chocolate is my favorite hot chocolate in the whole world. The first time I had it was at a small railway cafe in Italy. It was on a cold evening while waiting for a train. Italian Hot Chocolate is pretty much melted chocolate. It literally coats your insides as you consume it and fills you with warmth and happiness.

Recipe goes as follows:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate 70% or higher

1 1/2 cups whole milk

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons corn starch

Vanilla Essence- 1 tsp 

Place a small quantity of milk along with chopped chocolate/ chocolate chips on really low heat in a heavy bottomed saucepan.

Allow to start melting, once the chocolate has melted completely, add milk, sugar and vanilla essence. Whisk corn starch into it.

Another experiment this week was butterscotch ice-cream. It was simpler than I thought reducing down condensed milk along with milk powder and sugar. The powdered butterscotch was then added after taking it off the heat and allowing it to cook in the residual heat. It's then frozen and blended until creamy and then frozen again before consumption.
The measure of ingredients:

- 2 1/2 cups or 500 ml of full fat milk.
- 1/2 cup condensed milk
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup milk powder
- 3 heaped tsp butterscotch (or 1/2 tsp butterscotch essence)
- Yellow food colour (optional) - See more at: http://www.loveisinmytummy.com/2013/03/butterscotch-ice-cream.html#sthash.bMbrNygp.dpuf

2.5 cups milk
0.5 cup condensed milk
0.25 cup sugar
0.25 cup milk powder
3 heaped Tbsp Butterscotch chips (powdered)

- 2 1/2 cups or 500 ml of full fat milk.
- 1/2 cup condensed milk
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup milk powder
- 3 heaped tsp butterscotch (or 1/2 tsp butterscotch essence)
- Yellow food colour (optional) - See more at: http://www.loveisinmytummy.com/2013/03/butterscotch-ice-cream.html#sthash.bMbrNygp.dpuf

Guilty as Charged

I tapped my fingers impatiently on my desk, earning a glare from the judge and the prosecutor. My client, Mr. Kantilal did not look any happier. I did not blame him, considering the fact that I looked like I would rather be somewhere else. I indeed would rather be where Ani needed me. Ani aka Aniruddh, friend, guide, co-conspirator and partner in crime. I have known Ani my whole life, we have been neighbours and friends ever since I was born, well practically since I was born.

My phone buzzed for the nth time, vibrating silently in my pocket. I knew it was him. Ani had called me about 50 times in the past hour. The especially crabby Judge Gupta had not deigned to grant us a recess. He wanted the day over with and was anxious to bring our case to a close. The prosecutor droned on with his closing argument. I hoped that the judge's bored expression meant it would end in a favorable decision for us. Harsh Uncle and Maya Aunty were like my second set of parents, I lived with them all day almost, going home only to sleep.

Ani rubbed his forehead in frustration as he glanced at the clock. It was already 6. Where was Kiran when he needed her? He sank down on the wooden bench next to him. Even if she made it on time, there was nothing more either of them could do about it today. There were going to be some serious consequences indeed. Maya was sitting hunched over in a corner of the police station, trying to disappear into the drab olive coloured wall. She looked bewildered, embarassed and hurt all at the same time. He wondered if she even understood what was happening around her.The sun was going down and no relief seemed visible on the horizon. He closed his eyes and resigned himself to a long night. How had this come to pass? He still couldn't register half of what was going on.

It was over a year ago when he met her for the first time. Kirti had flown down to Delhi that weekend, their meeting arranged by some common family friends. Harsh and Maya had already been having conversations with Raghav, Kirti's father. Kirti and Ani had been happy to oblige them with a meeting. She had charmed him at first sight. Bubbly, energetic, funny and intelligent, she seemed the perfect girl to come home to. Secure in her own skin, she was one of the most confident and beautiful people he had ever met. Kirti had grown up without her mother for most of her life and was deeply attached to her father and brother. Ani was completely bowled over by her at that first meeting.

I remember Ani raving about Kirti when he came back that night. "What do you think then?" Maya Aunty asked him. "She's perfect," he said dreamily. Maya Aunty smiled to herself. She had succeeded in her mission, to find a bride her son was completely smitten with. That night as we watched the stars lying on the moonlit terrace, all he could talk about was Kirti. Ani was at her beck and call since then, I thought showed Kirti's maturity and understanding that she did not manipulate him to suit herself. 

What followed were months of angsty phone calls, tearful flights to Mumbai and a whirlwind romance- all on Ani's part. They planned the wedding together, Ani giving precedence to her finer taste. They shopped together and organised everything together. One evening when I bounced into their house, I found Maya Aunty sitting at the dimly lit dining table flipping through bridal magazines absently. "Aunty, is something wrong? Is there anything you want to discuss with Ani and Kirti about the wedding?" "Of course not, Kiran, I was just picking out my outfits from these. Anyway, Kirti's wedding should be her own special day, I was just wishing I could have planned mine. " No matter, Aunty. You can plan mine. I am sure Mom and Dad will be more than happy to have your expert advice. I am warning you though, it'll be a long time coming."

Maya stood by Harsh at the entrance to the wedding hall. They were welcoming guests at Ani's wedding and she still couldn't believe it. Her little pudding of a child all grown up and getting married. It didn't help with the disbelief that to her it hardly looked like a wedding. Kirti's minimalist, clean cut style with muted tones and hues was so very different from her own jolly view of variegated reds and pinks. This was definitely not a Big Fat over-the-top Indian Wedding. But as Harsh reminded her, all that mattered was the smile on Ani's face.

Maya worried over what happened next. Kirti chose to stay based out of Mumbai in her consulting job, waiting for a suitable opportunity to come up in Delhi. Ani still lived at home. She had thought he might want to move to Mumbai himself. However, his new job and Kirti wanting to try and find a job in Delhi herself had kept him at home. He visited Kirti on the weekends. She was quick to defend Kirti whenever the women in the neighborhood tried to needle her into gossiping. "The poor child, she travels through the week and I can understand that she would like to stay at home. They need some time by themselves. I don't blame her for that." Ani was a great comfort to his mom when Harsh was away on his long business trips.

Ani had been Aunty's pillar when they received the news that changed their world forever. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Harsh uncle had met with an accident on the way home from the airport. We were all shell shocked, that we would never see his smile, his ringing laugh welcoming you to his house. We all grieved, months flew by like a daze. Then one day, we woke up and moved on. Except that Maya Aunty couldn't. Ani often saw her wandering about through the house aimlessly. She served him meals at haphazard times. I found her sleeping whenever I came to visit and lost items in the house turned up at unexpected locations.

I volunteered to take her to the hospital. Ani was having a tough few weeks at work. In the end, I wished I hadn't. The prognosis wasn't something I wanted him to hear from me- early onset Alzheimers. Maya Aunty spent the day in bed, staring at the ceiling, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Sacrifices had to be made. Ani couldn't make them, so Kirti had to. 6 months into the marriage, Kirti found herself in Maya Aunty's house. I am not sure that it made her very happy.

Every evening these past few months when I returned from work, I would find her at my door, waiting for me. Now I found that a bit weird, Kirti didn't always like my company, probably because I was Ani's best friend. It wasn't jealousy or anything, just awkwardness from all our shared memories. That was the only time she could get away, aunty was usually sleeping at that time. I knew what Kirti missed, she had lived only with roommates her age or alone and living in Maya Aunty's house wasn't exactly the future she had envisioned.

Kirti sat slumped against the wall after they had left. She did not have the energy to cry. All she could remember was the look on Maya's face when she was escorted out of the house. 6 months ago, when she moved in, she did not ever anticipate that this could happen. When they first started living together, she and Ani had begun to discover things about each other that they did not like very much. She hated how he threw himself into his work, leaving her to pick up the pieces.  He hated her temper and how she held on to a grudge. Ani had known how much she resented putting her career on the backburner. Just on the cusp of a promotion and transfer to Delhi.

In the beginning, it wasn't very hard. Maya was still in possession of most of her faculties and could take care of herself. Kirti saw the glimpses of her beautiful charming mother-in-law peeking through the veils of the disorder and wished she had gotten to know her better. She worked out a routine and managed to find time to go over to Kiran's place and chat. She was glad to make a new friend in Delhi, no matter that she was her husband's bestie. Her dad managed to come over a couple of times, and though she met him outside the house for the sake of convenience she was glad to see them so often.

Then gradually, it got harder. Kirti often found Maya in tears, unable to remember how to perform a simple personal task. She pushed away her help and sat sobbing through the day in frustration. She made herself sick overeating . She woke up with no sense of her surroundings and often reacted with aggression at the people around her. This last month, Kirti had been exhausted, cleaning up after Maya, helping her with every tiny task. Sometimes, it felt like she had a newborn in the house. Lack of sleep fogged her brain and made her irritable and snappy, she could feel control and cognition eluding her grasp. She couldn't do this any longer.

Ani was wishing, he had listened to Kirti when she had tried to talk to him. Instead he had brushed her off thinking it would be another diatribe on her usual topic of quitting her job on his insistence. She had probably been trying to tell him that something was going to go wrong. He had been in the middle of a client meeting, when his secretary dashed in to inform him that there had been an accident at the house. He called Kirti only to hear a garbling at the other end. It took a neighbour and five minutes to discover that his mother had been arrested. He had driven like a mad man to the Marudnagar police station and then started calling Kiran desperately until he finally heard her reassuring voice at the other end.

Kirti called me when I was on the way to the police station. She wanted me to hear her side before I met Ani. She wanted me to help Ani understand. That afternoon, Kirti had gotten a call from Sanju, her brother. He was passing through Delhi on a school trip and wanted to see her. She was too tired and fuzz brained to imagine stepping out of the house. Sanju was looking forward to a home cooked meal after days away at NCC camp and she couldn't bear to disappoint him.

Then she said, it all happened so quickly. She was so tired from her sleepless nights that she had collapsed with a book on the bed. This instead of keeping her awake put her to sleep. Her nap was broken by a high pitched wailing followed by assorted screaming and whining. By the time, she cleared the sleep from her eyes and made her way to the living room, it was all done. She had fallen to the floor, hitting the wall on the way. Sanju stood at the door, a red slash across his white shirt. Some concerned neighbours stood clustered around him and just in front of her at the open door was Maya, a pair of scissors in her hand.

Ani was getting a headache wondering how he could have missed all the signs. Kirti's exhaustion and Maya's deterioration. Kirti hadn't heard the doorbell and Maya, who she imagined had also been sleeping, had answered the door, with a pair of scissors in her hand. None of them had had any idea of the delusions that were haunting her in those days. It had taken Sanju's accident and a trip to the police station to wake him up.

Being around Ani's family the next few weeks, the predominant emotion I could sense and feel was guilt. Ani was guilty for being so much at work that he had ignored his sick mother and neglected his tired wife. Kirti was guilty for not taking care of and losing a mother yet again. Her injured brother only added to the burden on her shoulders. I was guilty for not noticing anything from the perspective of the outsider. I was the only one who knew and understood or claimed to understand all of them and I never saw this coming. Maya Aunty was feeling guilty too, but she felt that way without even realizing what she had done.

That was how I found myself sitting across from Maya Aunty at Sunnyside Villas, an assisted living facility for the elderly. Kirti sat next to me with a basket of Maya Aunty's childhood favourites. I had her favourite Shakespeare play in her hand. Maya Aunty, turned to us and began , " Do you remember.. "