The bee-ginning of a love story

There were myriad emotions running through her as she decided to take a long walk down the valley. Anger dominated them all, leaving her drained and resentful. On an impulse, she entered the Bee-yard, hoping that the beekeeper would let her channel this destructive streak.
He knew she was coming before he spotted her. A primal instinct drove his eyes towards her. She seemed agitated, but all he could notice was her blinding aura.He must have looked stupid in his standstill position with bees swarming all around him.

She approached him, and stared. He saw her lips forming four musical words.
“You have beautiful eyes!”
He felt the clouds parting, washing him in sun rays. He smiled as he answered,
“I know. After all, beauty lies in the eyes of the bee-holder.”

She took up a stick and started beating the hives, all the while looking into his mesmerising eyes.

From Mom's Kitchen to mine

I have seldom heard my mother raise her voice, but she can be very scary. One stare and you will search for the nearest hole to hide into. The Stare was particularly powerful when it came to Her Kitchen. Her Kitchen was Her Fortress. Anything from drinking water to washing a cup of coffee in Her Fortress was met with disapproval. The last thing you can think of doing there was cooking. She was the queen of her jungle.
To her credit, she managed her kingdom very well. Everyone who has tasted her cooking would say so, be it Bisibelle bath or lauki kofta or pasta. Whenever we would go to a restaurant, she would order "our" favourite food and eat it. She will crinkle her eyebrows and immediately list out the possible ingredients that could have gone into it. The next day, she would try it out, and was almost always successful in replicating it. I think she took a personal offence when we ate outside.
At the age of 20, I realised that I may be married anytime, and I don’t know squat about cooking, let alone manage a home. I had no idea how pressure cookers worked, and what dals were. But I wanted to try very badly.
Amazingly an opportunity presented itself. My mother decided to leave the house to run some errands. Fortunately for me, she had left a kadai full of oil on stove, which had been used to make Bonda the previous day. So I decided to use it to make a simple bajji (or Bhajiya). After all, how difficult could it be? I prepared a besan mix with haldi, chilli powder and salt, and cut thin slices of potato and started heating the oil.
The oil started boiling – literally boiling with big bubbles. It started spraying everywhere, scaring me shitless. But, knowing that I won’t get a second chance, I bravely put a couple of pieces in. They disintegrated right before my eyes and the potato (sob!) sank.
After trying and failing a few more times, I cleaned the kitchen as best as I could and exited the crime scene. Few hours later, after inspecting, mom asked,

“What were you trying in the kitchen?”
“Nothing”
“Don’t lie. The stove is dirty and the kadai has besan at the bottom. What did you do?”
“I tried making Bajji, but I don’t know what happened..” I started sputtering at this stage as the image came back to my mind.
“Where did you take the oil from?”
“What?”
“Which oil did you use?”
“I don’t know, it was already in the kadai.”
“No it wasn’t. I remember filling it up with water to loosen the dried bits.”
“I just heated the kadai as it was.”
I didn’t realise why my mom was laughing so hard until much later.

For a ridiculous start like that, it’s a miracle I can cook a decent meal. Maybe it’s the genes. So, now that I know what the difference is between oil and water, I started a food blog. Here is the link:
http://vegetarianvagabond.wordpress.com

The Death Wish

Franklee was on a run. Known as the most nimble deer in the jungle, he still feared the ferocious lioness. Having escaped her once already, he was sure he was not going to be lucky this time.

Just then he reached a turbulent river. For a split second, it reminded him of the story of the three brothers, who had a similar predicament:

One of them created a bridge through his wand, and they started crossing it. Then, death appeared. He was angry that he had lost his victims, but appeared to congratulate them, and granted them each a wish. The Eldest one asked for an unconquerable wand and the middle one asked for a resurrection stone, while the youngest brother asked for a cloak of invisibility to escape death. Needless to say, the elder two brothers finally died because of these wishes, while the youngest one led a happy trouble-free life.

Scarcely had Franklee done recalling the story, that Death appeared before him.

"You have me in front and the lioness behind you. Death seems to be certain. However, I will grant you a wish, like I did for the brothers. What do you want?"

Franklee, in his haste, replied, " Please sir, can you build a dam so that I can cross this godforsaken river?"

Death retorted, "Franklee my deer, I don't give a dam.".

As Franklee watched him chuckle at his own cleverness, the lioness had pounced up on him.

Stumbling in the canine world

I share a very shaky bond with dogs and that’s putting it mildly. It started when I was 7 and was on my way to the singing class. I heard a couple of dogs barking behind me. So, I tried to walk slowly before breaking into a run in a side lane. That turned out to be a mistake, as the lane was a hibernating space for three more dogs. They woke up. They growled. I ran. I looked back, and all the five dogs were looking amused, rooted to their original spots.

Nineteen years later, I am stronger and I don’t run. But I can’t pat them either. I tried it with one, and his hackles rose. I can bring it out in them I suppose.
But I can’t resist their eyes. I mean, all dogs look sad! So, I do the little things, like bad-mouthing or blogging about people who are mean to dogs, and giving them food (from a distance of course) when they look really starved. Smiling at them never seems to work, so I have given it up for now.

Which brings me to the subject of the post. One morning, while rushing from the andheri station to the auto stand, I saw a beautiful cream-colored dog. He didn’t look like a stray, but he seemed to be dying. He was lying in the middle of this crowd, and could barely keep his eyes open. I kept staring at him. He didn't stare back. I sat down. He didn’t move. I asked him, my voice shaking, “Enna da achu?” (What happened?). There was no reaction. I went to my usual vada-pav place, got an extra pav, and immediately went back. By then, a small crowd had gathered around us. I was on the verge of tears when I offered him the pav and he didn’t take it up. So I nudged it closer and touched his nose.

He woke up with a start.
Apparently, he was sleeping. He didn’t like waking up, and he definitely wasn’t hungry. I tried to walk away as quickly as possible (only the 7-year old me would run).

Why I hate Fair & Lovely ads

My neutral-feminism feelings have nothing to do with it. When a close family friend asked, “How did you land such a fair and handsome husband when you are dark?” for example, I did not think of blaming the ads for moulding his thinking. Again, when I got all the jobs I have interviewed for, I did not think of showing a finger to them either.
No, my extreme feelings are due to the state of my wedding album. Like all Indian girls, I was garishly dressed for the reception, and was very uncomfortable in all the bling and make-up. I was therefore surprised to see that the photos looked even worse, and bore no resemblance to my brownish-pink colour. On asking the photographer, it turned out that he had added a yellow filter to “make me look fairer and minimise the color difference between me and my husband”.

His one well-meaning (?) act ensured that I haven’t looked at the album more than once, and I look at the floor while crossing the framed-photos-covered hall.

So, yes I do hate these ads immensely - not for wanting to make darker-prettier girls inferior, but for the quality of thoughts they send out to common households and enthusiastic photographers.