Golden Pears

Its been so long since I have written anything here in this space. Its not that I dint have ideas. Sometimes I have a written an entire post, but its all either in my dream or when I am lying down on the bed, and in no mood to open my laptop to post.

And that's why my one or 2 readers I donot have any post for so many months.

Going forward, I am going to try to publish atleast 1 post a week.

By the way, we get this fruit called Golden Pears, near our house. I am obsessed with it right now. They are so juicy. I love succulent fruits. I bring one fruit to office and its already sliced into 8 pieces. And I keep munching on them every hour or so. That way my craving to eat something is satisfied and I am not thinking of junk food. Lets see how long this is going to continue. And guess what, this made me open up my blog and publish a post. So Golden Pears, this post is dedicated to you :)

A Void

So the challenge is over.. I scraped thru.. but the best part was my mind was always thinking what do I write with this alphabet. I would think of many words buy then couldn't write anything beyond 2 sentences, so I would reject it.

At times I would have dreamt of a word and written a post about it too. In the morning when I would wake up, I couldnt remember the word, forget the entire post.

And sometimes at the middle of work something would strike and I would note down those points, lest I forget.

The last few days were very hectic, work wise and blogging wise... next time may be I will plan better.

Who am I kidding.. but I am already waiting for the next challenge 

Z for Zoo

Zoo is a short form of zoological garden, I think. There are reservation forests, Tiger reserves, lion reserves, elephant reserves where we try to keep these animals in their natural habitat. We don't interfere in their hunting or the way they lead their life. Well, most of the times.

But the zoo is a different game altogether. It's a place where the animals are given shelter, they are fed on a timetable, the same quantity everyday. I am not sure if it's the same taste everyday too. The animals don't have to hunt. They are all kept mostly separate, unless they are veggies ie the herbivores.

For the people who visit the reserves, they follow protocol, no talking,  screaming , feeding animals in short it's made sure we don't disturb them in their home. And after all this there might be a 1% chance to get a glance at the animal.

Now, in the zoo, we do everything. Talk among ourselves,  scream at the animals or at each other. Sometimes trying to feed them nuts or even popcorn. And whatever you do to offend them, they are still obligated to show their face,  well they definetly cant run away.

Zoo is therefore a museum of animals, which in reality is possibly a Jail.

Y for Yellow

Yellow yellow dirty fellow, this is a very common phrase heard. Agreed yellow is a little risky colour, but it's not always dirty. There are various shades of yellow which are subtle and easy on the eyes. It's considered a summery colour. It's Infact supposed to be colour of the sun.

Sunshine is associated with yellow. Everytime we would draw the usual drawing of 2 hills and half sun peeping out of those hills. The sun would be coloured yellow.

Sunflower, one of the very beautiful flowers is yellow in colour. And it's such a unique flower that it always faces the sun.

For my niece's birthday, we did a sunshine theme party and all of them were required to come in yellow. That's when many of us realized we did not have anything in yellow. I had only yellow shoes, and wondered why i did not have any yellow clothing.

It's a very tricky colour and choosing the right shade of yellow elevates your look. Right now in our place, the sun is painting the town yellow 

X for X-ray

I hadn't seen a lot of X-rays as a kid. But I knew that they were of the size of an A-4 sheet. They were black in colour and the bones would appear white. Also you can't make out anything if it's not held against the light. I also knew that a big machine was used for this.

The first time my X-ray was taken, the machine was not a big one. And when I saw the result, my x-ray, I was shocked. It was the smallest I had ever seen. It was the size of a passport size photograph.

I couldn't believe it. But what I saw there made me believe it. It was my broken tooth afterall. A small sheet which was inserted. A camera like thing was used and my X-ray was done.

So it was the same thick, yet transparent  black sheet with white images but of a miniature size. I wondered how even a common thing like X-ray had me worried, not because of what was in there, but only because of the size. 

W for Watch

Watch - it's an instrument which tells us time. It's a complicated machine in a small covering. It's just like time in many ways.

I am crazy about watches. I got my first watch when I was in 5th standard. It was a HMT watch. At that time, probably one of the best in India was HMT watch. It was a winding watch and everyday I would check if the time was set properly and would make sure it ran correctly.

As I grew I got more watches, some fashionable, some with dials of different shapes,  some with metal straps, some with leather straps, some of them with interchangeable straps. In US i bought quite a few watches, some with matching bracelets, some straps with studs.

Then for our second anniversary G got me a Titan Raga watch, which till date looks so elegant. Everytime I wear it I get so many compliments.

As of now, the number of watches I own is in 2 digits. And I still have my old HMT watch with me.

Anybody gifting me a watch?  

V for Voice

Every person has a unique voice. Not everybody can be melodious, and not everybody sounds like a broken radio.

I was very interested in joining music class. And I did join the carnatic music class when I was in 4-5 std. I used to love those classes. Since we were only a few of us it was individual lessons that we would get.

This meant when our teacher taught the kids some advanced lessons,  I would be more interested, and would listen to them singing with eagerness and also in my mind imagine me singing those songs.

After few months, after the initial sa re ga ma and swara and different talas, we reached my first song - lambodara kakumikara and after couple of weeks reached the 2nd song kereya neeranu kerege chali. 

By this time, I was made the class monitor and after much screaming in the class my voice broke. Just like that, my melodious voice became broken radio.

After that date, everyone who knows me asks me to sing only to tease me. Ofcourse in Antakshari, they need me, since I know lot of songs, but I am definetly not the solo singer type. That is reserved only for G. After he married me, so he is tied to my voice as well forever.

U for Umbrella

U have seen varieties of umbrellas in my life. Most prominent are the black ones. And nowadays there are so many pretty ones with designs. There are rainbow coloured umbrellas which look so pretty that I actually bought one in one of the tragic signals. How many times have I used it? Probably a couple of times. The reason being it's huge. It doesn't fit in my bag and only I am stepping out of the house for a walk to a store, do I use it.  And if it's raining, unless it's an emergency I wouldn't step out. I would rather sit by the window watching the drops splash around letting few drops on my face. Anyway I digress.

So I have a brown umbrella with small white dots on it. It's foldable, easily fir in my bag. Before that I had another small one which was blue and had pretty flowers on it. Well I exchanged the brown one with my mom coz I loved that more than the blue one.

At home we also have that big black umbrella which was used in the olden times by uncles as a walking stick too. That umbrella reminds me of our olden times so much. 

During school times instead of umbrellas we had to take raincoats. I used  to hate them. They would stick to you but made sure you stayed dry. This was the time I had seen the umbrella which could just be fit to your head. This was usually worn by kids. A colourful rainbow umbrella which had a band attached, thus could be fit to your forehead.

Those were hands free umbrellas. I really loved them, but never owned them. Even today I have seen people selling them. But it's only for kids. I don't mind buying one if somebody is selling it for adults. 

Hands free umbrellas for adults. Anyone? 

T for Tension

Exams are on next day and I am busy watching TV or I have slept on my books - reason Tension.

I have lot of work to finish, I keep pushing it for the last minute, at that time I either go to sleep or watch TV - reason Tension.

I am very restless, I am very sad, I am frustrated, I don't know what to do.
What do I do then?  Guessed it right... I either watch TV or sleep.

Generally people don't get sleep if they are tensed. I deliberately sleep, my mind possibly thinks the situation can be avoided by sleeping, while all that time I am aware that I am just procrastinating and nothing else. I watch TV not because I find the program interesting but only because I want my mind to wander off and not think about the existing problem.

I try to find other ways to deal with tension, one now is ofcourse reading blogs sometimes light read books. But whatever I do unless I go and deal with the problem they will never go away. Tension can be avoided and pushed but it will not vanish.

S for Saaru

I am not talking about the pronunciation of the word Sir in different ways. Saaru is the kannada word for Rasam. But unlike rasam we do add vegetables and daal. At times, it is made without veggies and daal too. But there are 3 main ingredients which make this taste amazing. Uppu, huli and khara. Uppu is salt. Huli is the tang, which comes in either from tamarind or sometimes from tomatoes. Khara is the spiciness or the hotness or the chilliness. Apart from this anything which is added is a bonus on the saaru.

This is a part of staple diet in most of the households. There might be variations, but the base is probably the same everywhere. The way its prepared now is, the tamarind is soaked in water for some time, and once the daal is boiled and cooked, the salt and chilli powder is added, and the juice from the tamarind pulp is extracted and that’s poured in the daal mixture. After it comes to a boil, it tempered with mustard seeds, asafetida, curry leaves.

As kids we had a different version of this, and we prepared a solid version of this, tamarind pulpy pop. So one day after school, we decided to make it. One of us had got tamarind, chilli powder and salt from home. With a stone we ground the tamarind pulp, salt and chilli powder, adding water little by little. And after a long wait and few minutes, we had the tamarind pop ready. Its like the tamarind peppermint we get in the stores. The one we ate, that day was not packaged better, looked ok, but taste was priceless.

R for Respect

Respect, a very commonly used word, but possibly a very rarely understood word.

What is respect?
Whom do you give respect to?
Why should you respect someone?
How should one show their respect towards others?
And finally, when should you start respecting someone or stop respecting them?

Everytime we meet a person, these should be a few questions we might want to find answers for.

It is said we must respect our elders. Of course no denying it, but let's first decide if they deserve our respect or not. And this goes for everybody. At first, it's good to have some courtesy . After we have few conversations, let's think if we can answer all these. But in most cases, respect for a person jus emerges, just like love.

If we love a person, it goes without saying, we respect and trust the person. If we don't, then it's probably not love.

Sometimes it do happens you do respect a person and over time, there are certain circumstances, which make you realize, the said person was not really worth the respect you had for him/her.

This was all about people. But what about these phrases:
Respect other languages,  other cultures,  other religions other countries. Can we really respect them. Unless we know about them or have an experience with them, we can't really do that. We can acknowledge all these,but can we respect all of them equally. That's the food for thought.

Till the next post: keep acknowledging but think twice about giving any respect 

Q for Question

Questioning is an art? Depending on the question you get suitable answers. Your knowledge increases, the more you ask questions. It increases your thinking ability and makes you a rational and logical person. The 5 main questions which sum up an entire questionare are :
How?
What?
Why?
When?
Who?

Ofcourse these are just the templates. What you do with them? Why are you doing that? With whom are you doing ? How are you planning to do? By when would you do it?

These questions will answer most of your questions.

As a kid, I was a very curious person and ask lot of questions. Sometimes people would get fed up of me or say that I would not understand. But that did not stop me from asking questions.

Even now I ask a lot of questions. You should not be embarrassed that you are asking a stupid question. It might be stupid for someone else... but may be very important to you. And a lot of times it so happens that so called stupid question actually solves a problem.

Never underestimate a question and never look down upon the person questioning you. Atleast the person is attempting to listen and understand what you are saying. Respect that.

P for people person

“Are you a people person?” is a very common question.

When I ask this question to myself, I don’t have one answer. Sometime it is yes, sometimes it is a no.

 

Earlier, I think , I was more of a people person. I always wanted to be surrounded by people. Even though I liked my “me time”, I would love to be with others. As time flew, I met different kind of people. Some of them like minded, some of them, totally different from mine. This was still ok, as long as we were not hurting each other.

 

Slowly, I started enjoying only with few people. And, with the rest of them it was more of an obligatory conversation. I probably moved on from being a people person to not so people person. It’s not that I don’t like talking to people. I still love it. But its only with a selected few people. Only with those whom I feel I can enjoy with, or I want to share my moments with. It doesn’t mean, I don’t talk to people whom I am not very fond of. I am courteous to them, but it’s not that I wish to have them around me.

 

A lot of times, I have heard from people, that I have possibly changed. Well, what can I say, I have changed, and for the better. So, when I am with people whom I like and love I am a people person. Well for the rest of the world, choose your own people.

O for Orange

Well, no it’s not the fruit, it’s the color I am talking about here. Every time we ask somebody their favorite color, it’s usually, black/white/pink/blue/red/yellow/green. Very rarely do you get to hear Orange.

Well, I don’t know if it’s my favorite color either. It’s not that I want to see this color all the time. Or It’s not that my wardrobe is full of outfits of this color.

But the best place where I like this color is, when it adorns the sky twice a day.

Sunrise and Sunset, these 2 amazing phenomenon, without which our world cannot survive, witness the beautiful shades of orange.

Every morning and evening, its seems like somebody has taken the sky for a canvas and painted it with different shades of orange. You can just forget yourself and be one with nature during this time.

Well, if somebody asks is this phenomenon a favorite of mine, I would say, look at my blog title.. You will see a beautiful sunrise. And for now, my background – Fire, also indicates the same.

We were told as kids sun rises in the east and sets in the west, later we realized, sun is going anywhere, but it’s us on earth revolving around the sun. Well, whatever may be the theory, this phenomenon has the power to make people stop whatever activities they are doing and take a glance at it and smile atleast once….

As long as Sunrise and Sunset, splash the sky with the vibrant Orange, our world is alive.

N for Nest

Isn't it fascinating to see birds build their nest. They gather sticks and twigs from places, and form such an intricate and delicate home for themselves.

During school, I remember we had a lesson on different kind of nests. Not all birds build the same kind of nests. Not all of them build them with the same material as well.. Some use twigs, some use thread kind of materials.

My favourite among them was the nest of the tailor bird. It's so intricate and also looks so beautiful. One day I would want my nest to be as beautiful as I find the tailor bird's nest... 

M for Mango

It's summer... There is one fruit which everybody waits for in this season and it's MANGO.

My love for Mango has been there forever. As kids, during summer vacations we go visit our paternal grandparents. There were few mango trees in our house and the summer vacation meant eating mangoes to our heart's content. A mango after breakfast, a mango after lunch, a mango after dinner...oh yeah and if you are bored and want to just munch on something then have a mango.

I am so fond of mangoes that, I scare every fibre out the seed and make it white. People even tease me that one day I will gulp the seed as well.

After everyone moved away from that place, we used to eat the mangoes which were bought outside. The mangoes which were artificially ripened or which looked artificially yellow...it was sad state eating those mangoes.

My parents now have 2 mango trees. And the precious time we had super fun eating all those mangoes. This year we have already got the unripe new ones and the pickles and chutneys are ready... Once the mangoes are ripe enough we will start gorging on them too...

Bring them on this season. The pic below is from my parent's garden.

L for Love

Love is a very generic and commonly used simple word. In spite of being so common and simple, it's such a powerful word.

Is this a feeling from the brain?
Is it an emotion from the heart?

It is something which can be defined in many ways and yet it remains undefined. This is not restricted to any particular gender, age, living/non living, tangible/intangible. You can love anything in this world. You can love life.  You can love nature. You can love materialistic stuff. You can love something or somebody near you. You can also love something or someone who is miles away from you.

It need not be a mutual feeling, if you love something or someone there is no binding that it has to be reciprocated. Love is always unconditional. If it's not, then it's not LOVE 

K for Kites

It's not a bird, it can look like one
It's not an aeroplane, it can look like one
It's not superman, it can fly like one. Well not really, but it would if there is good wind. What am I talking about? The kite.

My maternal uncle was very good in making and flying kites. We would take the newspapers, the Broom sticks a bowl of rice and bundles of thread, go to the terrace and make lot of kites. Then he would show me to how to fly the kite..

Once the kite would go to a certain height, he would tie to the metal string used to hang clothes for drying. We would fly 4-5 kites together.

I never learnt the art of flying kites, but it was always fun with my uncle. The precision with which he would bend the Broom sticks and how we would stick them to the paper, then let it dry and go on to make the next one.

I mat or may not fly a kite in the future. But the moments I had with my uncle learning and enjoying flying the kites are priceless. I will always cherish them

J for Juice

It's summer and the best way to hydrate yourself is to drink lot of water. But since water is supposed to be tasteless, it would really help to add some taste to it. Isn't it?

There are loads of fruits available, but in summer we might not want to eat them, even though they are juicy and succulent. What's the best way then to have these nutrients - make juice out of it.

Although juice is not the best way to eat fruits, it helps if you are no way going to eat them.

But the master of all juices is lemon juice... Isn't there a saying: when life gives you lemons make a lemonade. For the calorie concious, instead of sugar make salty lemonade, it's very tasty...

Take 2 lemons and salt and a litre of water. Keep sipping the lemon juice for an entire day or for a few hours. Dehydration this summer will be far far away.

Lemon juice a day keeps the summer heat away.

I for Ice

Its colourless, its odourless but definetly not shapeless.

As children, there were lot of restrictions consuming ice. It was a luxury to have a fridge, unlike today where it’s a necessity. And it’s mainly used for juices, sherbets especially in summer. Ofcourse there were times, when we would just pop an ice cube in our mouth and it used to be so cold, that you couldn’t spit it out, neither could you gulp it, and you would hope it melts soon, and the numbness is gone.

 Years ago, when I went to US for the first time, I saw people carrying ice from the machine to their desk, and eat it just like that. I used to feel it was weird. I tried that once, and what can I say, I was hooked. It served dual purpose. One, if I wanted to pop something in my mouth, so that I could get the feeling of eating, I could just put a small piece of ice in my mouth. Second, I wasn’t eating any junk food, and it was plain water, which I was err eating. This way my water intake could increase. Ofcourse there was no weight reduction due to this. And I won’t blame it either, there were other times, when I have had junk food.

The thing that I observed was, earlier when I would try to eat ice, my teeth would go numb, my gums would go numb, and at times, I would get headache. But, when I did this in US, I never had that problem. Was it because, the ice was cylindrical and had a hole. May be the quantity of ice per pop was lesser, and so my mouth wouldn’t get number. Whatever the reason was, I enjoyed the phase of eating ice.

Even now, when the mocktails come with ice cubes, I keep playing with the cubes in my mouth. But I don’t enoy it as much as I used to in US. Maybe if I see it in the same shape.. my mind might say – Ice Ice Baby.