A good life

This post is a part of #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus“.

I always wanted to live a large life,. Have it all. Work, play, family, friends, holidays, fame and fortune, everything.

At 50 when I take stock, I feel I did fairly ok.

I left home in a small city at 17, much against my mother's wishes, to study in Bombay. By then I had learnt cooking, knitting, embroidery, painting and candle making. I was groomed to be the wife of an IAS officer or an NRI. But I wanted to study. I used to tell my dad that "I want to be a big executive in a big company."

I rejected all the matches that were sent my way and managed to finish an MBA. Along the way I fell in love and married a Christian boy. Inter - religion marriage!! It had all the drama that can be expected.

I worked for a few years in a couple of companies and then went on to start my own business. I worked like a dog and  did make a success of it. Had two girls in the course of all the other frenzy. In fact, for both my deliveries, I was rushed from the office to the hospital.

I had this fetish that because I am a working mum, my kids should not suffer. So I plunged headlong in their life. I was the class mum for one  girl's class, the field trip in-charge of the other girl's class. I volunteered for bake sale and craft fairs.

I also wanted to be the "corporate wife" to my husband and went for parties and trips and dinner dressed to the nines and made all the right noises.

In the middle of life, my father was diagnosed with cancer and for a year I did nurse and hospital duty till he, sadly, gave up the fight. Then I held my mother's hand.

I was a business woman and a mum and a wife and a daughter and a daughter-in-law and a friend and a party girl.

At 50 I shut my business. Now I teach 4 days a week at an NGO. I teach Maths and Science to Std IX and Std X kids. It is tuition class that is run to help kids with studies after school and I love every minute of it. I have picked up my brushes again and the walls of many a friends boast of my artwork. I joined computer classes and learnt Photoshop, Corel draw and Dreamweaver.

I now want to start a quiz and trivia website. 

I self taught myself equities trading and now have a most profitable portfolio.

All in all, I did do it ALL. 

My do-it-all friend

This post is a part of #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus'.

Shikha had just uploaded pictures of her Diwali party. It was special because she lives in Chicago and every year she throws a mother-of-all Diwali parties for her friends, colleagues and neighbours. The pictures showed the most exquisite rangoli, house decorated with diyas and flowers and a table laden with Indian food including dahi wadas, pooris, slow cooked mutton raan  and besan ladoos and kheer.

I immediately whatsapped her,” Lovley pics. What effort!! Did you cook all this yourself?”

She replied, “Who else. Arre I can do this at least once a year.”

“So did you take time off work?”

 “No.” She replied. “I just did it every day for the last 15 days once I got back in the evening.”

Shikha is one of my oldest and best friends. She is a go-getter career woman and has been awarded the best performer in her company in Chicago over three years. She is out of the house at 6 am and back only by 7 pm. She works hard and she works smart.

Her husband, unfortunately, lost his job in corporate reshuffle a few years back. So she is now the single bread winner of the family. But she takes the politics, the stress and the gruesome work pressure and just roles with it.

AND she is awesome homemaker. She cooks like a dream,. Weekends are devoted to the family, fridge is stocked with food for the coming week, laundry is done and friends are entertained.

She plans all family holidays, she remembers birthdays and she is one of those aunts that kids feel comfortable having a heart to heart.. She does not do things by half.

I always look at her and think, “Wow!! She is this complete Durga kind of woman with gazillion hands and each hand is busy doing something.” She does not have to choose between being the director of her company and being a wife and a mom. She is all. In spades

INDIA CALLING

I have decided to add one more season to the many seasons of Mumbai. I am naming it the NRI season. It comes twice a year.

My husband and I have kept in touch with our college “gang” over the year,  even though it is at least 25 years since we graduated. Modern tools of communication have also contributed to this happy situation. Over the years our friends have taken wings and gone to far-off shores like UK, USA, Canada and Singapore to seek their fortunes. What with the world being a global village, our small community of friends is now trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic.

More often than not these friends visit India once a year. The time could vary – either June-July, when the kids abroad generally have holidays or during the “holiday” being the Christmas to New Year week and a few days beyond.

When my NRI friends land into Mumbai en route to Indore or Jaipur or Bangalore, we open our home and hearth to them for a few days. Dealing with NRI friends requires special skills.

Earlier I would try and show-off my culinary skills and make a nice pasta in pesto sauce or a great lasagna but now I have realized the error of my ways. A good Tandoori Chicken and Mutton Kheema ordered from the neighbourhood Irani joint along with Gulab Jamun and Rasmallai or Natural’s Seetaphal ice-cream takes these people straight to gourmet heaven. Dosa, idli, bhel and pani puri (made from Bisleri water) and samosa are had with yummy relish, nostalgically accompanied by King Fisher beer or Old Monk rum or Jaljeera. Fruits have to be mangoes followed by cheekoo or guava or lichees. (I didn’t know you don’t get chikoo or guava in most other countries.)

I am convinced that the Western world has no barbers, dentists, tailors or shoe shops. The first thing on the agenda is a haircut, colouring, mani-pedi followed by dental fillings and root canals. Saree blouses are given for stitching and pure leather shoes are bought from good old Bata.

And of course shopping!! Thank God for the malls those have sprung up all over. Take them to In Orbit or Phoenix Mill compound and most of the shopping gets taken care of. Then one trip to Bhuleshwar or Santa Cruz market and we have finished the list of items like bindis, bangles, pakad, kadai, tawa and Sumeet Mixer with the heavy-duty chutney grinder. Some of them also want to go to Oberoi Shopping Center and others to Dharavi to get cheap leather jackets. I always hear at least five stories about how these Non-Returning-Indians were just going to buy that awesome skirt or cool shirt or a sharp leather jacket when they saw the tag and it said “Made in India.” So they retracted their hand and waited to go to Dharavi to buy the sharp leather jacket!!

I have not even touched on the entertainment activities that we indulge in. The latest pub/disco or eating joints have to be visited. So the evenings are spent at Salt Water Grill or Hawaiian Shack or Trishna or Rajdhani Thali. Thank God that my NRI friends remember that the dollar goes much further than the rupee and insist on paying all the bills.

I have variously heard, “India is so cheap”, or “India has become so expensive.” I have given up trying to figure this one out because all I see is north-ward bound prices.

Apart from personal shoppers and entertainers, we have now taken on the roll of financial advisors as well. “Hey man!! I want to buy property in India. Help me yaar. “I want to buy some shares. Do you know some good portfolio managers?”

Late night discussions on Modi and Kejriwal, Congress and corruption and then boozy, meandering and nostalgic conversations about college and old friends.  And while these jet-lagged NRI friends sleep in the next morning,  husband, kids and I rub our bleary eyes, tip-toe around and catch the school bus or doze off in the back of the car, head in hand, nursing a hangover.

We love our friends and look forward to their arrival every year. We have now become adept at finding solutions to problem like sleeping place, having kids prepare for tests in the chaos at home and juggling month-end meetings with late night boozing.

In my late twenties and early thirties, when these NRI friends used to visit us, I used to be a bit envious of the power of the Dollar, the stories of the cars and malls and supermarkets and highways and technological advances.

But, today, a comfortable 50, I am very happy that I didn’t leave India to make my fortunes. I have made my fortune in India. The corporate India is now paying world-class salaries. So I earn well, even in dollar terms. Thanks to the stock market and the boom in real estate prices, my share portfolio and my house on Pali Hill have multiplied many folds. And I have a Protima to cook, a Mala to wash and clean and a Ramesh to drive me around on the pot-holed roads and carry my bags. I order my groceries, my wine, my medicines and my movies on the phone. I can have teekha Bhel and Pani Puri or delicious Sushi and Sake as my fancy takes me.

And I don’t have to wait a full year and more to visit my mother who lives in Indore.

Middle-aged Van Goghs

Okay now I am almost there.. nearing 50, almost touching it. I am officially going to that age,  the age that even as a 40 year old, I thought was old. 

With a lot of free time on my hands, what with having finished with birthing and raising kids, who are now adults and on their way to finding their pearls and a husband who is  firmly in the grips of the  corporate rungs, I was casting my net around for ways to occupy myself gainfully. I mean, how many movies can you watch, lunches you can munch, clothes you can buy and on line games you can play. At one time or the other, you want to do something to "discover yourself" and "realise your potential".

As a kid growing up I had dabbled in art and painting so I set forth and found an art class close to home. I started imagining large canvases with intricately painted pictures in vibrant colours hung all over my house and gifting to friends and all going "Ahhhh".

I spoke to the lady (whom I researched and found was the genuine thing, meaning, had an Art diploma and was a professional painter) and armed with all the paraphernalia that she had asked for, I landed up at her class.

Now I had expected a class full of these young, artistic types, painting away at their easels with aprons on and palette in hand. What I found was a room with two easels and four tables, each with an "auntie" behind it. What I mean by Auntie is a middle-aged, graying lady with crow's feet and cellulite.

I found the class full of me, women like me..time on their hands and out to discover themselves. I was not a novelty, I was the rule. It seems that most women with busy husbands and busier kids join such "hobby" classes at a certain age. They start learning crochet, needle work, bridge, painting or whatever they dreamed of doing, had they a little time to call their own. They join book clubs, join community service, learn a language, attempt a sport, twang at a guitar, sweat at a gym or write a cook book. They may not do it well, but they do it.

It gives an immense sense of gratification to have filled in some hours of the day with an activity that doesn't seem superfluous or supercilious. It lends a sense of self-worth and well being.

I have been busy trying to copy Starry Starry Night. And loving every minute of it.

My daily fix or how I keep abreast with American news

I can't remember how I stumbled upon these two American talk shows but now I am absolutely hooked .. The first is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the second, Real Time with Bill Maher.

I download and watch these shows religiously, Jon Stewart being four times a week and Bill Maher, every Friday. Though Comedy Central now does show Jon Stewart in India but the episodes are old so I continue downloading the latest ones. I also like Steven Colbert, but don't watch it as regularly and compulsively. Both Stewart and Maher are liberals and pull no shots.

These shows  take a deep, incisive look at American diaspora and day to day political to-dos in a very funny and entertaining style with jokes, spoofs, interviews and one liners. Nothing is a scared cow or hands-off. The shows cut through all the drivel and hype and, in a way, expose the hypocrisy and duplicity of it all.

American politics is, of course, the main grist to the mill,  but World geo-politics, celebrities, terrorism, Obama, the Republican Party, films, books, media, Wall Street - everything is scrutinised and lampooned. And lampooned in such a way that viewer understands the point of all the double-speak , guile, insincerity and sometimes the absurdity and the hilarity of the world we live in. The topics discussed are not trivial but the treatment is so farcical, so droll  and so tongue-in-cheek that I just love watching these shows. The language can be unparliamentary, there is a lot of histrionics and over-the-top re-enactments but oh so enjoyable. These shows are not news or journalism but deal with news as satire.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is only about 20 minutes and the form is mainly a monologue, sometimes aided by his very competent and equally funny "correspondents" and this is followed by an interview. The interviewees are as diverse as authors, film stars, celebrities, visiting dignitaries, politicians, administrative officials,  et al.  His monologue is a mix of derisive humour, comical disbelief  and righteous outrage as he crisscrosses from one topic to the other with high energy and speed, drawing breath only to make fun of his own Jewish heritage or his height and lack of it. He is acerbic and satirical and so good that his show has won 16 Emmys Awards.

Bill Maher show, on the other hand, is an hour of intelligent fun with a monologue, an interview and then a round table discussion (which he monopolises, good humouredly), ending with the the most hilarious New Rules. Bill's main bees in his bonnet are Repbulicans, organised religion, right wingers and basically all small-minded people who live in their little worlds. He is also the biggest friend and fan that Obama could ever have.

Bill is more irreverent, sometimes foul-mouthed, sometimes crass and a self confessed weed smoker. But he reminds me of an uncle we all have - bachelor-bad-boy with a wicked sense of humour who does serious things with a great  appetite for life and no time for fools.

In a world that America is trying to police and be a guardian of, it is interesting to get a view of how ludicrous  things can be inside it. 

Masterchef YouTube

Dinner time at home has become an awaited treat time. Mmmm. What will mum whip up today?

All were getting quite fed up of being fed on predictable dal-bhajji-roti-chicken curry-mutton curry routine.

Tawa and 5 Spice were definite beneficiaries along with Dominos.

Till one day I said, " Enough is enough." I couldn't do "You eat what I cook" any longer so I decided to cook what they'll eat.

I started by Googling recipes. Then I discovered recipes on YouTube. My own personal cooking class! Renowned chefs showed me step-by-step how to conjure up these scrumptious dishes. I couldn't go wrong. I followed measurements and time precisely, transferred my laptop to my kitchen platform and paused and played and followed the recipe videos keenly as I merrily cooked away.

In the past fortnight I have delighted their jaded palates with chicken teriyaki , chicken satay and peanut sauce, garlic and rosemary roasted raan, Malaysian burnt chilli garlic noodles, Thai noodle soup and Buffalo chicken wings  to name a few. Closer home I have dished out, with great nonchalance, Hyderabadi mutton biryani, dal batti and undiyo. And mouth watering desserts, even if I say so myself. Churros with chocolate dip, lemon key pie, gooey brownies and banoffee pie. Gourmet heaven! I am dying to try my hand at some French and fusion food.

It's of course a blessing that I can get almost all the required ingredients within one km of my house.

I no longer worry that my daughters don't know how to cook. Nigella Lawson or Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay or The Naked Chef or Sanjeev Kapoor on YouTube will teach them better than I ever could.

All they will need is fast speed internet and an iPad installed in their kitchen.

Wannabe TechTonic

I think I am fighting a losing battle.

Blackberry was all alright. I understood it.

iPad was cool. I wanted it.

But Android enabled smart phones ! With millions of apps!!

Cloud computing!! Enhanced augmented reality!! Near field communication!!!

MIND BOGGLING!!!

I can feel myself stretching and struggling to  keep step with leapfrogging features-enriched, upgraded-version, new age gizmos.

I dread the day when I will just give up trying to match pace with all these "technological advances."

But what I dread more is the pitying look in my kids' eyes when they talk about some new thingamajig and I just look at them uncomprehendingly.

And it will happen.

I had the same pitying look in my eyes when I was trying to explain a PDA to my 60 year old father.

My Father and Books

The habit of reading was a gift given to me by my father. 


He read continuously and voraciously. He was a professor in a University and reading his subject matter was de rigueur for him. As a child I often saw him sitting at our dining table, his head bent, pouring over thick, hard bound tomes with incomprehensible names like 'Dynamics of Labour Relations In India', "Applied Psychology in Human Resource Management'. His tools for these readings were a pencil, an eraser and a six-inch ruler. He underlined and wrote notes in both the margins. Sometimes, I noticed, that he underlined some lines bold and sometimes he marked full paragraphs. He also kept a sheaf of white paper next to him and by the end of the evening, this would be covered with his spidery handwriting.

But come night and after his dinner,  he would retire to bed with a racy, contemporary novel in hand. He would switch on his bedside lamp and lose himself in the latest pulp fiction. This time, his tool would be a dictionary kept always at reach. He seldom bought books. He borrowed from friends, from the library and also bought second-hand books from the raddiwala. Once I was married, he would come to Bombay to visit me. During these visits, a visit to Flora Fountain to the second hand book stalls on the pavement was mandatory.  He taught me, in fact, ingrained in me, the respect for books. He would first cover the book he was reading with an old newspaper. He would never ever dog-ear a page. He would not start reading till he put a bookmark in the book. If he ever saw a book left upside down and open at the spine, all hell would break lose. We could not lick our finger to turn to the next page. And if the book was a paperback, we could never try and force it open at the spine. The book had to be gently cajoled to reveal the print near the binding. God help us if we cracked the spine of some book.


He was an inveterate borrower of books but he always but always returned the book to the lender.On the other hand, he lent his books very grudgingly. More often than not, he made some excuse when someone spotted a novel in our house and asked to borrow it. In fact, he used to hide his books so that he would not have to lend them. And if he did lend his book, he was extremely particular about having it returned. He remembered and he was unabashed in asking for his book back.


His interests is books were wide and varied. He used to read a lot of regular, mindless fiction. He had the entire library of James Hadley Chase, Agatha Christie, Perry Mason and Nick Carter. He read Jeffery Archer and Sidney Sheldon. He devoured Harold Robbins. But he is the one who introduced me to Ayn Rand.  He read "How to make friends and influence people" and that became his bible for some time. Alvin Toffler's Future Shock was oft quoted in my house.  He read "Notes to Myself" and "Who Moved My Cheese". In later years he developed a keen interest in philosophy and theology. He read Samuel Becket and Francis Bacon and Nietzsche. After I was married, he gifted me 'Discovery of India', ''My Experiments with Truth' and 'An Autobiography of a Yogi'. He read self-help books, books on Yoga and  books on diets. He could discourse  lengthly on Indian Economy, Indian history, World history, World politics and theology. His favourite topics were World War II and Indian fight for freedom.


He one told me that as junk food is harmful for the body, mindless fiction, which I preferred, was stunting for the brain. He strongly advised me to nourish my mind and soul with "good books."


I am eternally grateful to my father for gifting me my love for books. Books have been my companion as long as I can remember and I hope I have passed this bibliophilism on to my daughters.

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead

 Bill Maher's tweeted, " Somali pirates, Gaddafi's son and now Osama. Do NOT fuck with Obama, he is a Gangsta."

Osama has finally been hunted down, executed and buried at sea.

Its 10 years since 9/11. 10 years is a whole generation in today's Intel 7 processor days. Its taken the US Army, MI5, Mossad, CIA and ISI 10 long years to hunt down a Bedouin terrorist and bring him to his knees, well, death. (Who will get the $1 million prize for his head?)

And apart from the satisfaction of having revenged the ignominious attack on the Twin Towers, apart from making OBL's death a symbol of the USA might and apart from trying to send out the message "Don't mess with us, we will hunt you down and kill you" what has the last 10 years achieved? Is USA any closer to dispelling the distrust and hatred the Islamic world has against it? There is a new Cold war now. Its the Islamic world against the Western world. Instead of pouring billions of dollars every day into a war in Afghanistan (who are they fighting for the last 10 years in that arid, mountainous, Godforsaken land ?) and a war in I-raq, the USA, being the moral policeman of the world, should try positive affirmation, try and solve the Israel- Palestine issue objectively (not influenced by the huge Jewish lobby), try and understand the Islamic culture. I feel that today an average Muslim person has become defensive and belligerent about his religion. We seem to be attacking his core belief an being. And he attacks back like an alley dog does when stones are pelted at it, by baring its teeth and growling and trying to bite.

Osama's death is symbolic, there is no dearth of Osamas in a world where followers of the largest religion in the world feel marginalised and misunderstood.