Chance musings…

Words, I now realize, can be capricious and perfidious. They can be hollow and meaningless at some times and at others, they can encompass the entirety of our existence - the known and the unknown. I have used them on various occasions to various ends - intentionally, unintentionally, on request, as a challenge, to help myself, to help others, for mirth and to chastise. 

Chance musings led me to some random excerpts I had written over the years and since this blog was meant to be a collage in text, I decided to post them here, for another chance encounter… 

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This was the Nature Future's segment where they had asked for a short paragraph (200 words, I think) on how our future might look like. I didn't end up sending it so don't know how it would have fared among the other entries. 

"My dear Maya, 

It is that time in my life that parents dread because they have to finally let go of their children. It is time for me to pass on from here, to whatever lies beyond. 

When I was in your place decades ago, I cherished my parents' memory through their books, their photographs, and through this house. The physical world held for me the essence of my parents in the form of their belongings. But now that the State owns my physical world and will take everything of mine from you upon my passing - I thought I should leave something behind for you. Something for you to hold onto and to revisit at a later time. In this portable memcore you will find my thoughts, memories and reflections over the years. I hope my mistakes, miscalculations, oversights and dilemmas will serve a purpose and help you navigate through this ever changing world.

Lots of love,

Mom"

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Hope is a dangerous ally. 

Something I have always felt and yet never managed to convey so succinctly… The right words just happened to fall in place while on a text chat. Strange are some days.

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There is a fine line separating chivalry and chauvinism. 

Another of those glimpses from a random conversation that tend to grow on you… 

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A dear friend asked me to try and write something for a public awareness campaign about giving the right of way to ambulances. It seems fairly obvious to many but somehow, in reality, ambulances are still stranded in rush hour traffic in India. And people still lose their lives, stranded in a traffic jam. It is a great initiative and while I can never be sure of how much of a difference these campaigns can make, I certainly would want someone to try. And I was glad to be given an opportunity to be a part of it. 

  

"This time last year I was training for a marathon. I was a healthy, 35 year old successful executive who was running 20 kilometers at lunch and then heading back to work. Today, I sit here waiting for someone to push me out of your way. I need assistance to exist. 

A lot can happen in a year, you'd think. 

I can tell you, a lot can happen in a few minutes. 

It started as fatigue that I attributed to the training but it was a stroke of terrible luck - a life-altering event. Within a couple of hours of that cloudy , foggy afternoon, I knew this was not just fatigue. There was more happening here as words failed me and I felt like I was drowning into a deep, cavernous silence. What I realized later was that my brain was drowning in its own life-blood. A tiny blood vessel somewhere had ripped at the seams and was leaking blood. It was a stroke. 

A stroke of misfortune that will stay with me throughout my life. 

It need not have been so bad because the doctors later told me that I could have recovered full function if I had been attended to within the first four hours of that leak. 

And… DON'T you think I waited too long because when I called for help, I was still only two hours into that disastrous leak. The ambulances arrived on time too - in half an hour. I could hear the eerily shrill sirens roaring down the streets as they picked me up and transported me. But what I did not know then was that I had not chosen a good day to have a stroke. 

The streets were crowded with scurrying diwali shoppers driving to and from places, in a hurry to make merry.  No one cared for our ambulance blaring its sirens because everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere - a theater, a mall, a school, a market or even just home. They all had promises to keep, deadlines to meet, festivities to begin. And stuck behind them all, was the white ambulance - blaring its siren and its red lights - that carried me in a daze. We stayed there immobile, stranded. Waiting for tiny spaces to open up in rush hour traffic. 

Even as the ambulance was stuck unable to move; my blood was flowing freely into my own brain. Choking parts of it and drowning my life with it. 

If only they had given us some room to get through to the hospital. Those shoppers would have been a few minutes late or even an hour late. They would have missed a meeting or been late for a dinner. But I, I missed my whole life in those few hours. As the blood leaked, it overwhelmed areas of my brain, and drowned parts of me never to be found again. If only they had given way to the ambulance. If only they had cleared the roads. 

If only I had reached in the first four hours, the doctors say as they shrug helplessly. You could have made a full recovery but, now, you are too late…. 

I am too late. 

And today, I sit here in a wheelchair, waiting for someone to help me clean the spittle off my face. I look at you people and I wonder constantly, how many of you were on the road that day. How many of you could have saved my life… by not doing anything heroic or dramatic. By just getting out of the way. How many? I sit and wonder… 

Never did I think, this would be my fate, perhaps at 80 but certainly not at 35. I hope you never have to experience this, but tomorrow, when you are stuck in traffic, cursing the blaring sirens behind you and refusing to budge - stop for a second and think of me.  Think of the person inside that white ambulance and the few minutes that you could give him. They could just as well make all the difference in the world." 

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Everyone comes with their share of troubles in the form of idiosyncratic quirks and annoyances, some people just seem worth the trouble. 

Hoping for a fair and logical world builds up expectations which only set you up for failure and disappointment. 

Do all you can so that you don’t have any regrets and then prepare yourself to accept the outcome - good or bad. The universe is not a fair place that works according to what we want or deserve… 

In one of those moods… 

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Rediscovering a gastronome…

One thing that I have often complained about but now accepted is my severe inability to remember stuff… A glaring manifestation of that happened just now as I was browsing through my computer's search records looking for a file. Happenstance however, I ended up finding something else I had written. I am fairly certain this was in the last four years but for what end, I really cannot even imagine. 

Nonetheless, I thought I will post it here for another day when another memory lapse might lead me to yet another rediscovery. 

"As I sit here almost 8000 miles away from home, trying to pen down an article on request, there are many things that are flooding my mind. But since I have been asked to talk about food, I am going to try and restrict myself to it. I am not a connoisseur or a gastronome. I am a simple person who eats to live (and not the lives to eat kind) and who believes in cooking well to eat well. I have very few preferences in terms of food and as Phoebe once said, I can eat almost anything without a face (being brought up as a vegetarian does leave you a little disadvantaged in that one arena that faces become unappetising…). I have also almost always had a very high threshold for taste and smell perceptions and that just means that I need a lot of salt to taste the saltiness, a lot of spice to taste the spiciness, a lot of sugar to get the sweetness, I am sure you get the drift by now which is that, I basically needed a lot of anything to sense it, one way or another. I was a survivor in some sense. Quite unlike the gourmet friends of mine, I could eat almost any food and not complain – be it the mess food or the food at some other unmentionable places (unmentionable because I am still not rich enough to spend money on libel cases, you see!).

My introduction to food as an art and an experience happened after my introduction to IISc and a few people (unmentionable now, because of privacy issues than the fear of libel) who surrounded me and who kept talking about the texture of food, the smells, the looks, the subtle tastes and a whole lot of such stuff which was completely unpalatable (pun intended) to someone like me. More often than not, I was left amazed at the sensory acuity of my friends… (one of them could actually smell food and tell if the salt was right.. !!! (Wowo… and at this point you should imagine me staring at her with my not so very well-known “jaw-dropping look”)

But that was the beginning and from that shaky beginning I have now evolved to see the very many pleasures of food. I have started to explore diverse cuisines and to note the finer points of the entire culinary expedition. I find it fascinating to now eat a morsel of food and to try and discern the components that built it… I mean, the spices, the herbs, the vegetables that went in… The subtle flavour of oregano or pepper, salt or mustard, basil or cumin, garlic or ginger etc etc…. I find it fascinating that people can actually do that !! I have also started noticing the kind of food that I like more than a few others, I have started paying attention to the texture of food, the amount of oil, the possible variations etc (the fact that I didn’t have an on-going PhD to pay attention to did help enormously). I assure you that it would have seemed like a lot of indulgence and vanity to me too perhaps a few years ago but now I can see the art and the craft underneath. I have started to appreciate the view of the connoisseurs. Afterall no pursuit can be trivial and while books interest me, food could interest someone else. And more often than not having food could kill you while not having a book will only upset you a little.

I also realize now that my unbridled spirit in dealing with ingredients was kind of kept in check by the fear that I could have others consuming (and perhaps commenting) on the fruits of my labour. A physical distance from such daunting responsibility and a solitary existence in distant lands, has now  truly liberated me from the bonds of tradition and cuilinary shows. I now cook for myself knowing fully well that I will still love myself no matter how the food turns out and I experiment with gay abandon. I mix ingredients just because they appeal to me and I match recipes. The fact that I have to cook for myself has only opened up a new journey and I am loving it so far. Cooking can be therapeutic in some ways. Coming back from a crazy day at work with a disastrous experiments, pushy bosses and dumb colleagues, cooking can be a relaxing activity. One atleast gets a good meal at the end of the day and the joy of creating something new is an added bonus. It is an experience that I treasure and look forward to. I am exploring a whole new world and as McDonalds says it “I’m lovin it”. 

But then through all these years, there has been one thing that has been a constant in my life – my sweet tooth (I didn’t lose it when I lost my milk teeth and grew the permanent set !!). While, I was quite unaffected by most food and not really choosy about what I put in my mouth (well, there is a child in me still ;)); there was one thing which really got me dreaming and drooling. Desserts!!! Oooo wonderful desserts!! Through the more physiological endorphin and dopamine release the desserts – cakes, pastries, cheesecakes, mousse, muffins, chocolates… have made many a rotten day feel better. I have often craved for some simple sugar and chocolate combination when things have been going far from good and my friends have pampered me through. From a cheesecake at Amma’s to the ganashe tart at Freska’s to sometimes the Tiramisu at Miller’s, I have relished many a fine desserts. I have also realised that my weakness lies in the combination of a bitter-sweet taste of dark chocolate or coffee and sugar, like life as it is (well… I knew there was a philosopher in me all along). I love the chocolate melting in my mouth even as the nuts give me something to chew upon. I love the warmth of the molten chocolate as it seeps through the cold vanilla ice cream and I love the sweet mascarpone cheese even as the coffee soaked sponge cake crumbles in my mouth. If there were a heaven, I would say that I have seen glimpses of it and I am very happy with it too… J

But then, here lies the challenge for the future, through my culinary explorations, I have still not ventured into the land of desserts, simply because it sounds like a sacrilege to me!!! But one day I do hope to make a leap of faith and try my hand at some of these bits of heaven accessible to ordinary mortals like us… Till then I console myself saying that there should be something in man’s reach but just out of his grasp. After all it gives us something to look forward to. So as I prepare myself for my giant leap (sometime in the future) I continue to dabble with smells, textures, colours and tastes as I explore the world of culinary perfection though my own humble means. 

As a sincere advice, I would say “the devil lies in the details” and one must watch out for what one puts into their mouth… it is a rewarding experience…

Happy eating and happier cooking to you all!!