Mundane Musings

We are all set to usher in the New year and I wanted to take a moment to reflect at the one we are leaving behind today. This year has been very kind to me and has even been very memorable. Principally because I turned forty this year. And since my birthday falls in September, I was 39 for a good part of 2018 - a 39 which felt more like 40. Unlike many people I know, I have embraced the 40s as the maturity that I would associate with it seemed to have crept in during the late 30s itself. So this year has been very nice that way - I have been kind on myself and I have been mature about what life has thrown at me in the past year (which is not much I must say. Touchwood). If I had a word to describe my outlook towards life this year it would be - Acceptance. Another reason why this year has been so special is that we have adopted a very healthy lifestyle, thanks to S and have been reaping the rewards of it. We have both started Intermittent Fasting this year and are alread...

There have been quite a few restaurants I had visited these few months that have so thoroughly satisfied my food cravings. "Quite a few" is pretty big for me as against the ordinary number which stands pretty much at one or zero a month. First on my list of visit-again restaurants is Fromage. Not just for their great mango mojito and beef lasagna, but also to re-order a few other items which were a blur on my taste buds leaving just a tantalizing promise of flavours I could have enjoyed if not for the boisterous company. A visit to Fromage materialized when the darling husband read about it on a friend's FB post and shared it with me. I don't need much incentive to check out a restaurant...especially one serving Continental food. So up I jumped and planned a Sunday lunch with two other friends before S could get cold feet. Off we went from Kilpauk, all the way to MRC Nagar, a good 15 kms away to try a restaurant that had 'cheese' in its name. I h...

I have started zipping over Chennai city in the metro train again. It felt so comfortable and amiable like a forgotten acquaintance, that I immediately got into the groove of things. It was especially useful during the brief spell of rains we faced last week. I almost pray that it remains this way for years to come, which could happen considering the manageable crowd that commutes by it everyday. The other day, as I clattered down the long flight of steps that led to the Shenoy Nagar station, I saw a man ahead of me who had just an umbrella in his hand and looked like he was out for a stroll. Why did that observation interest me, you ask? Well for one, no one really goes out for a stroll at 3 in the afternoon, I think. Secondly, I was going out in the afternoon too and I had a huge tote bag and a water bottle nestled in my hands. The lack of any such baggage on his person stumped me a bit. Why would he pay anywhere between 35 to 45 rupees for a stroll? That was expensive. The lovely...

On Saturday we were invited for a cake mixing ceremony in ITC Grand Chola. Since it was my first, I immediately jumped in. Those who read this blog regularly would know that I get kind of high on life in the latter half of the year with a punchy culmination for New Year's. Colourful dry fruits and nuts waiting to be added A cake mixing ceremony kickstarts the cake making preparations for Christmas in many restaurants. A Christmas cake or plum cake is baked or steamed before Christmas and is packed beautifully or wrapped with love and distributed to friends and relatives just like platters of sweets and savouries are distributed for Eid or for Diwali. Dear friend Cee, hosts a lovely Christmas party every year and after Ana kutti turned two she made it a point to invite us to baking the cakes too. I was happy to help her out with baking batches of the dark, fragrant cake and licking ladles clean after all the work was completed. To date, Ana kutti makes it a point to ask me ...

I'm quite bugged by the new Swiggy ad that has swept over our TV in the past few weeks. Swiggy is a food ordering and delivery app, for the unthinkable few who haven't got a clue about it. While the previous Swiggy  ads have concentrated on no minimum order value (which is a superb idea actually) the recent ones have touched the pulse of an emerging economy with its happy to spend population. Earlier if they had looked to target the smart young generation with dispensable cash at the ready and retired people who wanted to hide their sweet cravings from well meaning Hitler-ish spouses, now they have decided to enter the haloed space of the thrifty Indian home-maker. It is no rocket science that in India, the home maker is a WOMAN. With so many opportunities to milk issues of feminism and/or women's liberation - issues that won't be recognized by an average Indian male or female even if it came up to them and smacked them right across their faces, it is no wonder tha...

Just finished the last of the Inheritance series. What had started as a good page turner came to a befitting if not slightly boring end with this last book. I have found the Inheritance series to be unusual from the very beginning simply because this was the story of Gods enslaved by mortals inhabiting our world at an unknown period of earth's life. The very magnitude of this idea and the research that has gone in to present the story is commendable. The first book was the most interesting as it presented the state of affairs - of Gods having been chained as slaves by mortals (the Arameri) by the blessings of bright Itempas (one of the three). That book was mind blowing and as it tackled with a hereto never before attempted story line, I took to it with gusto. Even though this book was a Young Adult book and even when I had found the writing to be floundering at times. In this book, The Kingdom of Gods, Sieh, the son of the Three (one of the oldest and powerful Godlings) i...

Heyyy folks! I'm fresh out of my big birthday weekend. And I'm officially forty now. Forty and rocking - that's how I feel in my head. Heck! I don't even feel older than my twenties in my heart. Forty and looking hopeful - is what I expect of this coming decade. I feel this decade will be a make or break one for me. There are so many hopes and aspirations struggling to find a foot hold in my head, but how far on a limb I may go to grab them will be the thing to see. Don't kill me just yet, but I have been feeling forty for over a year now (yep, I know people run a mile before they'll accept this number)...in a good way that is. If time is relative then growing old wouldn't conform to calendar months now would it? So it was too for me. At 39 I felt very forty. So now when I did turn forty how did it feel? Well for one, it was just another day and my friends, the ones who obligingly turned forty earlier than me, were kind and absolutely sweet and ma...

This book came recommended on Senior Reading Raccoons, a group I follow on FB. I finished it yesterday and I am still wrapped in the warmth of the book, pretty much like how the main character, Rinko had felt by the aromas of her cooking. From the moment I had come across a mention of Rinko giving madeleines to her landlord to reduce the rent of her love nest, I was sold. When have I last read a book which wasn't a cookbook that featured a madeleine? Never.   And then on the 17th page I came across this passage - At first, the words my grandmother used to describe differing amounts of seasoning such as tekitou and anbai were like another language to me. But I gradually came to understand what they meant. They were soft terms with rounded edges that painted a vague picture of the appropriate amount of flavour, and only those words could describe the resultant state of perfection .  I have often felt this way too when I have wanted to express flavours in our...

After two weeks of melting our hearts with their sweet mannerisms and angrezi accent, my niece and nephew have left for Dubai to stay with their mother's set of parents. The two weeks they had stayed here have flown by like a breath of fresh air and the saying that time flies when you are happy could never have been truer. This visit of the brother and his family was more special as this had been their first that Anakutti would remember. She interacted actively with her cousins from London instead of watching them with curious eyes and garbled words as she had done two years ago. I was excited by their visit for the sake of the kids...my kid specifically, who craves company of people her age. So these two weeks have gone in managing pick ups and drops between mum's place and ours and organizing lunches and dinners for the family as a whole. I don't think I have eaten out as much as this in a long while. I wanted to expose the children to a bit of Indian food during th...

A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner My rating: 3 of 5 stars I finished The Queen's Thief series with this final book which traces Sophos' story. Like the previous book The King of Attolia where the story is said from the general Costis' point of view, this book too hardly has Eugenides as the principal character. I had liked the first two books purely because it was written with Eugenides as the focal point. This fourth book was not my favourite among the four. Still it made for a breezy read with the usual political intrigue and suspense and innuendos which fall in place as the plot moves on. This last book is about Eugenides' friend Sophos' rise to the throne of Sounis. There is not much action or adventure in this book, but there is a lot of good dialogues and suspense. I have been reading a lot of YA books even though I am so much older, and not the intended reader anyway. However, I think N.K.Jeminsin's books were much better than this serie...

I recently had a chance to visit Sowcarpet....that mythical, elusive center of trade where a simple understanding of streets and lanes can separate the newbies from the veterans. Since I have never once proclaimed my understanding of anything the opposite of lateral like navigating tiny lanes and crammed shops selling any which thing under the sun and you would know which category I fall into. So it was with delicious glee that I agreed to go along with a neighbour whose children and Ana kutti are of the same age, are friends and go to the same school. One Wednesday afternoon she proposed that we go to Sowcarpet to help choose a pair of good bicycles for her twins whose birthday was coming up at the end of last month. I jumped up to the suggestion and on a dusty, hot afternoon, we left our kids sleeping in their respective homes and took an auto (because a taxi is way impractical) to Sowcarpet. It was just as I remembered from one earlier visit - un-navigable by a four wheeler or ev...

For a person who dons her football fan-girl jersey once in four years, I got more than what I had bargained for last Sunday as the FIFA World Cup matches came to an end in an engaging finals. Not only did none of the teams my limited knowledge of the game would allow me to support made it to the quarters, but also the team which I had not once watched during the playoffs or otherwise played against France in the Finals . This FIFA was full of contradictions and surprise upsets and I think I may be excused in backing the wrong horses throughout the competition. So unanticipated Chastened I, however, rectified my ignorance by watching replay of the Croatia vs Japan match and in doing so got an added lesson on why the game was catching up with youngsters in India too. It was electrifying, to say the least. A relatable ad campaign Never has an ad campaign been more apt for me than the - #MeriDoosriCountry one has been. What a brainer! There was nothing to lose for the India...

My absence from my blog has been like a thorn under the skin...a constant niggling reminder to lavish some attention and alleviate the pain of watching it languishing in neglect. The months have fast flown by and unlike my preoccupation with the mundane and the exotic, at least this time I can say that I have been busy working. I am making up for the lethargic first quarter of this year by taking on training assignments and giving my brain some much needed exercise. Ah doesn't that sound so good to my own ears? I am out there doing something that involves working my brain off and my communication skills, getting measured by feedback of happy participants and getting paid by the hour. Quite unlike the happy, messing around with a 3 year old and keeping up with her antics, yes, but a needed diversion :). The off side of being busy was that I didn't get the time to dwell much on what I wanted to do on Ana kutti's birthday. My contribution was limited to planning an intimate...

Stealthily at first and then brazenly, His warm presence unavoidable as palpable as the translucent beads of moisture that dot my cupid's bow. Many moments are unwelcome Like when hot sticky sweat Coaxed out of my flaccid body trickles down at a fervent pace Over mounds of flesh that is a testament of fatty repasts of cooler times. Every action and reaction is an effort tinged with a lethargy that is synonymous to his genial counterpart. Oh how I miss winter. Summer is here and my body feels it first The sweat and the grime and the heat are a fixture Brows furrow, eyes crinkle, parched is No wore a word in the dictionary Clothes come off, with nary a sensual suggestion, Any hints at intimacy vehemently shrugged off One's own body seeming a burden to bear It doesn't get more grounded or real than this. Blinking at the harsh eye crinkling rays I look down at the verdant tapestry of my tiny garden Nodding and swaying to the summer breeze Lea...