some sorrows never die

Touched down the Indian soil some three days back. We had to attend a cousins wedding at Chennai. The five hour drive was enough for all the Singapore stories to be shared with parents. When the discussions moved to general gossips and arguments of classical music vs English and how A R Rehman won an Oscar because of his muslim conversion….my mind drifted away – as usual. Suddenly there was an ambulance that overtook us somewhere on the highway. Our car was right behind the ambulance for some time, following it...

It felt like dejavu and I felt uncomfortable. It was bringing back memories that were buried deep inside… kind of opening a Pandora’s box. The sound of the ambulance siren ringing through my ears……..

Everyone has some things in life that they want to forget , some things they wish they had a chance to correct. I have two such things; thoughts about which brings me to tears every time I think about it. It’s not a new thing to admit that I am very emotionally attached to people who are part of my life. And I have some very strong bonding with my cousins , friends ,relatives and of course parents. Two of such very close relations were from my maternal side. One my mom’s eldest sisters husband, another my mom’s youngest sisters husband – my valliachan and chittappan respectively. Both were poles apart in their characters but common points – their love and affection for all and their names. Both were called Gopi in their respective families.

As a child I used to be scared of both; they were both huge, dark, wore glasses, little on the fatter side.

Whenever I think of Gopi valliachan , the picture that comes into my mind is he relaxing on a wooden easy chair at the family home - a “nalukettu “ - surrounded by books, an old radio playing some old Malayalam songs, lot of old photos hanging on the walls around him. The wooden table next to his chair would have a mud jug with water and occasionally he would call out – Omane….vellam eduthu tharu ( asking his wife to get him water). He was the head of my maternal side. He is the one who suggested names for me and Bhagya and our house in TVM. Summer vacations were partly spent collecting ripe juicy ripe mangoes from the estate behind the house, slicing them for him while listening to his stories- mostly his own life experiences. He would ask how we are doing in studies, make us press his legs to ease the pain. He was severely diabetic from the time I remember. So a lot of time was spent in hospitals during his post 60 lifespan. From his fat and tall authoritative figure he had crumbled into a thin skinny figure.

I remember I visited him after my wedding was fixed. The minute I met him he was like so u finally found your guy. “ Is he a tamilian? Good. At least your kids will be intelligent – pattaril pottanmar illa ennanu (means there are no fools among Brahmins) ” . I smiled. He continued - “ but remember to learn to make a good sambar to keep him happy – learn from your mother or valliamma “!! Both of us laughed.

Near to my wedding dates I learned that he was very sick, but was adamant to attend the wedding. In the whole mess of the wedding preparations and the elaborative ceremonies I was totally lost. I don’t even remember whom I met and whom I dint on the day of the wedding. There were just so many people. Shortly after the wedding we flew to Mauritius for our honeymoon and one of the four days there I dreamt about him. I woke and thought it was weird. Why would I dream about him anyways!! That too on my honeymoon.

Only after I reached back Bangalore after a good relaxation at Mauritius did I learn that my beloved valliachan had passed away the day I dreamt about him. I was shocked and couldn’t digest the news. My mom later informed me that he had made it to my wedding. But could not walk and climb up the mandap stairs. So he was there , outside the mandap, waiting in the car to bless me. Since the functions were elaborate and went through the day , after three four hours he had left. I don’t remember anyone telling me he was waiting outside. Maybe I missed hearing it in the state I was in. But to this day I haven’t been able to forgive myself. My poor valliachan travelled 3 hours in his deteriorating health, came to Tvm, waited outside for me to come out so he could see his new son in law – maybe share a few jokes about me….

If only I had one chance to go back and change it….if only I could just see him once more… but I can’t. I will take this regret to my grave…carry this burden on my shoulders for till I too join him one day.

Rewinding a few years back….I was in college.….

Gopi chittappan has only one son- Deepu chetan. So he is very fond of girls children in the family. He absolutely adored both me and Bhagya to the core. The fact that he was working from Tvm and used to stay at my place just brought all of us much more closer. I consider Deepu chetan as my own brother and chittappa as my own father. . I would sometimes listen to him, but not my own dad. Such was the emotional attachment.

Chittappan had a genetic disorder of copper content increasing in his blood regularly and had to be checked once in a while. It ran in his family. He had already lost 2 of his elder brothers to this disease. But from what I know of him, he was a fighter. A gentleman. Even with so many sorrows in life, he was one hell of a jovial person. I remember the first year of my college , after the fresher’s day , some useless senior from mechanical came and proposed to me. I was enacting all this in front of chittappa and daddy over the weekend. Daddy and chittappa were laughing their lungs out. So obviously it was depressing to see him getting admitted to hospital suddenly. He was building a house that time- his huge dream house. He wanted it to be really special and unique and chose each and everything required with passion. He had given me the responsibility of landscape designing. He had a brilliant plan in mind - there would be a small pool in a corner of the garden with a mock waterfall . This water would flow under the glass steps at the entrance of the house and so many things more. We had almost finalized on a draft plan when he was admitted to the hospital. The house warming ceremony was fixed in 2 weeks, so we were hoping he would get discharged soon.

One day evening there was a call from mom, her voice shaky and broken. She just managed to say – he passed away. I was numb. I dint know how to react. Bhagya had started weeping already. I was worried about Deepu chetan and kunjamma – they were my first thoughts. How are they going to handle. My heart felt heavy but I dint cry.

Dad n mom reached home in ten minutes to take us to hospital. Dad just walked into the bedroom and began sobbing uncontrollably. mom was consoling him. It was the second time I saw my dad in tears – the first time was when he lost his own father. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. Slowly emotions started to pour out. His body was being taken to Adoor to be cremated at his dream home – a day before the house warming!! What an irony! We were following the ambulance all the way in our car. The sound of the ambulance siren ringing……

“Dhanya – are u asleep?” – Rajiv was asking in the car and I time travelled back to present. We had almost reached the vellore… I smiled n replied saying I was ok.

I don’t think I have overcome the loss of chittappa. To this day , whenever I go to that house and see his photo hanging on the wall, I feel a lump inside my throat. My eyes fill up with tears. There is no pool and waterfall – just some weeds where it was all planned. I try to tell him that I miss him badly and wish he was around.

He just smiles back at me.

mysore pak(pav) tragedy

I love to cook. That’s cause I love food! :P

So on a lazy Sunday afternoon I decided I should try making some sweets for Diwali. Esp because for Rajiv it was a biggg thing to miss all the sweets of festivals! I remembered I had brought along a recipe book which I bought from Bangalore flower show exhibition. Usually I do my research of recipes on the net, hunt in some two three sites and make sure it’s the right procedure and then go ahead. This time I relied totally completely on the book. It surprised me that all the sweets were just a mixture of some dough, a lot of ghee, stirring and sugar or jiggery mix! It all looked so easy and simple! So I chose one of my favorite sweets – the Mysore Pav / Mysore pak. I bullied Rajiv into buying all the necessary stuff for making it.

So as he settles down on the couch to take rest after the shopping, I start off. I have still not figured out if Besan flour is same as Bengal gram floor. I felt it was confusing to have multiple names for the same thing! There are just so many grams! It looks same to me and my searches on internet gives me same impression. What Rajiv has brought is Besan flour and the recipe book says Bengal gram powder. So I decided to start anyways. It was written to mix some amount of sugar in some amount of water taking care of some ratio. I did that. Stir well till sugar mixture turns into thin continuous thread when poured. This target also was achieved after around 10 minutes. My hands are already starting to ache due to the constant stirring. It was time to add some amount of Besan into this mixture. I religiously studied the ratios, multiplied divided and poured it into the pan. Mixed almost 200gms of ghee into it. Its now turned into some thick yellow paste. The book says to stir till the paste till the ghee starts coming out from the mixture. I stir and stir and stir in simmer. The thick yellow pulp starts to melt. It looks like molten lava that erupts from the volcanoes now. I add a little more ghee, just to ensure the end result is soft and not hard like a stone. Tiny bubbles pop out and burst. I am looking at it wondering when all the ghee will come oozing out, but nothing seems to be happening. By this time the entire flat is filled with the strong smell of ghee.

Rajiv wakes up to this and asks me what I am up to. When Rajiv doesn’t approve something or like it or feels something is wrong, then he has this expression on his face- blank no reaction types. He will just keep saying “Ok Ok”. So when he stood there with that typical reaction of his, starring at the molten yellow pulp that I made, I am sure he thought (enna kodumai Saravanan ithu- meaning YYYY MEEE)!! J

By now I have been stirring this pulp for almost half and hour. So I decided its enough of cooking it. Mebbe I missed seeing the ghee oozing out. So I take it off from the flame and spread it out on a plate. It was written that when the this paste thickens slightly u have to cut it into slices. So I even kept a knife ready to cut it and went and sat down on the couch to rest for sometime. Ten minutes pass, fifteen minutes pass- but the molten lava refuses to solidify. It looks like thick besan halwa to me now. After five hours and no thickening, my intelligent hubby suggests that we put it in fridge so it cools and thickens fast. I agree instantly and put it into the refrigerator. After 2 hours its slightly thickened but not done. It still looks like halwa only.

When I took out to examine, our roomie walks in and he too stares at the plate of semi solidified yellow besan paste and then asks me “kya hein ye?”. He is a marathi, and I could have easily fooled him saying some south Indian dish and asked him to eat it :P . but I stayed honest. Rajiv requested him to be silent and not add to my disappointment. I tasted a small piece and it really tasted like halwa! I should have just left it so and remained quiet but intelligent brain of mine tossed another idea…

I felt I should give one last try to separate the ghee out – so I decided to put into the microwave. That was like a postmortem on an already semi baked – cooled besan-sugar pulp! Ten minutes in microwave I felt that the ghee is finally oozing out. I took it out and it looked almost done. But I felt I could smell some burning smell and could not figure out why. Now the pulp looked like how soya looks once it is cooked. A thick yellow spongy thing. As soon as I sliced the sponge into pieces , I knew y I was getting the burnt smell. Only the top was yellow in color, below it as all burnt. I sat down on the chair to digest what I was looking at and burst into laughing. Rajiv and our roomie came and stared again into the “dish”. There it was lying – a semi spongy half baked half roasted Mysore Pak.

The last comment by our roomie “ tumhein yeh books padhna nahin chahiye..ye recipe shows and recipe books dekhna hi nahin chahiye”. At the other corner , Rajiv was still trying to find if something edible was there in the “mysore pak”.

I called up my mother in law to narrate the incident and share a laugh! :P J

singapore tales....

I feel it was only yesterday that I was struggling to get this trip done and now time has flown by so fast that it is just two weeks more here. And this time unlike all my previous trips, I would be glad if I can come back here to spend more time J I am so much in love with this small island. It’s a better shaped and organized India. So Rajiv asks me the other day, do you love it more than Bangalore – I say Yes. He is surprised by the reply because this comes from a girl who has the royal KV blood flowing through every cell in the body. I think he asked me the wrong question. J Bangalore inspite of being my second home , in spite of being such a lovely place to live , I feel it lacks any kind of engagements or activities for a culturally inclined person like me! There are no beaches in Bangalore, there are no middle class entertainment stuff which I am used to and feel part of. If he had asked me do you love Singapore more than Chennai or TVM for that matter…the answer would definitely be NO. J J

So the last few weekends were great. On one of those weekends we went to Indonesia. My colleagues here suddenly planned it on Friday evening and booked the tickets. One Indian friend from there also joined us. Totally “funny” (read as irritating and absolutely nonsense person whom I stay away from normally) guy he is. I hate it when Indian guys who are not so cool try to pretend being cool and think high of themselves. He is one such character! Like Karna having the kavacha and kundala stuck to him this fellow has a Ipod and two earphones !!! To add to our itch, he gives a silly smile and grooves and sings “its gonnaa bee a gooddddd nighhhttt” in his croaky feminish voice looking at each of us. DISGUSTING AND ATROCIOUS! I was contemplating at one point if we all should just throw him into the sea! If in spite of such a torture being around for a whole day I had a nice time, then you should imagine how good it was that it compensated for the torture! J

Indonesia consists of 17500 islands and is on the pacific “ line of fire” region. Normally there is an earthquake every other week. Followed by it is the tsunami warning! We were a little skeptical since there was a major earthquake just one week before our trip. Google is god- so we searched on it for any warnings of tsunami or earthquake aftershocks in the region we went to. There were none. So being brave we decided to leave at 6 am on Saturday, catch a ferry to an island called Bintan which is part of the Rheu group of islands of Indonesia. It is famous for watersports and golfing. The 55 minute ferry ride was beautiful. I was on the lookout for dolphins, but dint find any at all. Indonesia is running on an all time inflation. One Singapore dollar is almost 7500 Indonesian rupiah. And I also learned that corruption out in the open is something not limited to India. Indonesia is one step ahead of us…. At the immigration counter at Bintan, we were “offered” a easy hassle less entry without standing in the queue by the officer if we paid a tip of 2 dollars (14000 IDR) per person.

I also learned, arguing and fixing a deal with taxi drivers are also not limited to India. After some thorough negotiation we got a interesting cab driver who knows amitabh bachan, shah rukh khan. He even turned on the radio for some Tamil songs!

We reached the bintan lagoon resort which was a beautiful and huge luxury resort by the sea. We registered as day users and headed for the beach. I am invited by a breathtaking view of light blue-ish, greenish beautiful waters stretching up to meet a slightly cloudy sky. We were a little disappointed that it was going to run and a little tensed too to think of a sea storm or something coming this way. Rajiv desperately wished for a tiny tsunami to come so we could stand in front of it to take some snaps and run away! K

Since the tides were a little high, the water sports section was closed till 2. So we spent time playing in the water ,running around, playing beach volleyball, eating and blah blah… it was relaxing. There was a slight drizzle and it just enhanced the view of the beach. Once the clouds had vanished off and the sun came out scorching above us, we decided to have some “real fun”. We met two Indian ladies who came sightseeing too. Shivangi and Garima are students in Singapore and were on a weekend trip to Bintan. The bachelors in our group were obviously happy to include them into our gang. All of us decided to take the first ride which was –the Banana Boat. It is like a big yellow balloon boat which is shaped like a banana. It has a rope tied to a speed boat. So basically the banana boat would follow the speed boat into the sea speeding through the waves. Five of us got ready for the first batch. Sudheer, Rajiv , me and another couple – Nidhi and Pramod. Nidhi and Me were being encouraged and consoled by our respective hubbies that all will be fine, be brave, no tension, nothing will happen blah blah. Sudheer too joined them and said “yea girls..just take a long breath when you fall into sea and life jacket will bring you up in seconds”. Nidhi and I looked at each other jaws down and screamed….WHATTTT??? “we will fall into the sea????”. From that moment I froze. And so had Nidhi too I guess. My senses had stopped working, but there was no going back since we already paid. So while I was being strapped up with the life jacket I consoled myself -A lot of people must have already done so there is no risk involved. I prayed to god that there should not be any defects in the life jacket and it should bring me up! I cursed the person who created all these funny scary rides. I don’t understand the logic behind paying 40 dollars to get a feeling of drowning in the sea! I don’t know what all crazy thoughts came into my mind that time. But it was interrupted. I was asked to get on to the banana boat. I chose the safest place right behind Rajiv in the middle of the boat. I was clinging on to the string of my seat like a leech sticking on to the body refusing to go. I was worried that if I held on to it so strong, mebbe it will get cut. Sudheer being the first on the boat was asked to signal the speed boat driver with a thumbs up/down to increase or decrease the speed. The guys lined up for the second batch are waiting on shore watching us. Am sure they were thinking “ab inka kya hoga…watching them il decide if I should go or not”! But they were cheering “bye guys…hve fun””!!! Interrupt….silence….

Engines of speed boat start and whrooomm we go. Nidhi and I scream at the top of our voice.

Rajiv: vavu…are u ok? See its so much fun.

Me: Yes.

Pramod: ya…lets scream….

All of us: Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Nidhi: God …I love u

Me: Yaa…I agree…

Nidhi: lets sing

Both of us: some crappy old hindi tragedy song I think. We both don’t remember. What…

The boat turns….

Someone: heyyyyy…..

Me: what?

Blank blank blank…

Its all blue around me. Blank….blank….And im going down…bubbles around…blank..blank…y am I not going up?....blank…drank a few mouthful of Indian ocean….and I surface….pheww…Im alive…open my eyes and look around….where’s Rajiv? I find him in front of me.

Rajiv: vavu…u ok? Don’t get tensed. Its all fine. You just have to get back into the boat.

I can see that pramod is also comforting Nidhi. Both of us look white…scared till each nerve. Like kittens in water! Eyes popping out.

It was just a matter of seconds. One moment I was screaming out and realized the boat was tilting and the next I am in the deep blue ocean –literally drowning! Even though being born in the water bearer sun sign – Aquarius –I have no control over my body when I’m in water- more so when I lose balance. So there I am floating on my back one moment…trying to swim and then I get turned around ..now floating on my tummy…struggling to keep my head above water. Rajiv is asking me to stay floating on my back. But I seem to have to control on it at all. He hands me a rope to hold. Nidhi n I grab it with all our strength. Sudheer by now is back on the boat. Pramod and Rajiv also hop on. Nidhi and I too managed to hop on, still not out of the shock. I can feel my heart inside the ears, mouth ..whatever. So I tell the driver, not to topple the boat again. To just take us to safety. The boys want more. So the driver obliges to them and we get tossed into the sea once again. Same episode a second time.

After drinking almost two glasses of the salty Indian ocean water and donating my hair band to the sea ( it disappeared somewhere during the fall and struggle to hop back on the boat), I am back on shore wishing luck to the next batch. Infact I don’t think I said anything at all… I just came to the shore and just lied down. Half in the water, half on the sand. Slowly my senses come back to normalcy. My hands and knees are still a little shaky but I was alive, and that felt great. I succumbed to the fact that I am a person who likes my feet touching ground- literally. I am not comfortable either high up in the sky, nor down under the water. I am comfortable when my feet are stable n steady touching the ground!

There was a snorkeling round as well which we all went for, but I decided to stay on the boat. The banana ride was enough adventure for one day! Rest of the evening was merely playing on the lovely beach…drenched head to toe…having a nice bath and having some good pizza. Managed to have a quick look at the indonesian wooden crafts and instruments before we left. We reached back Singapore at night around 10pm ; all of us were exhausted totally, with a nice tan. I especially have a very sensitive skin, so for about a week after the Indonesian trip I looked like a roasted tandoori chicken!

To be continued ….

In the next edition you will get to know about the mysore pak tragedy!!!! J