Friday, July 20, 2007

Making chutney in different ways …..

After a tiresome journey in train. I wanted to allow my body to rest….it had just recovered from an existence hurt ….but just couldn’t wait to grab the new India today’s women’s edition...The editor acclaims it as an exclusive urban working woman magazine …. yummy mummy of India…….

Giving lot of statistical data…women performing the ‘balancing act’ between their personal life and professional life... going out for 12-15 days business tour, golphing, leisure, broken relationships, adjusting family system in our country...sacrifices… high determination and lot more ..But life has taken such a new twirl that it makes me think … why?? my thoughts started taking different course …there was some time when I used to dream like any other career being …to be in a business magazine ….to be spotted in the list of fortune makers……but now these articles make less of sense …coz the search continues for a surreal moment …a moment when a farmer’s wife is able to save him from suicide …when a boy in the neighborhood is not made to say ‘I pour the water form bottle over the floor b’coz I felt alone……’ a more fortified splits of seconds for a mother when she leave her sick child in a strangers crush…a more powerful instance of time replacing competition with coexistence far away from this rat-race …the hopes for such an incredible moment increased as the fingers which had by now became mechanized hitting the keypads turned pages …something like in the movie in tv that came in pogo strong father, elastic mother, high speed son and invisible daughter…’the incredible’….

In between these untold rustles of mind...Came the call for lunch…hot homemade biriyani...What else could be more satisfying now than this meal from a mother of four …… stomach shaking with all the biriyani stuffed in it in the good old dusty green bus...as it turned around ashok pillar …the memories took me some 6 years back when I came here with social studies maam for science congress……it traveled again some 4 years back to smell the fresh and green air of IIT, the boys hostel with out curtains where we stayed …and the India today special edition on 50 yrs of independence in my bag from which mainly the speech for competition was prepared ….now latest edition with 60 years was in my kit. Coincidence …..When we conducted Vishnu sahsranamam …..Never thought ill be here again for 500th recital on 07/07/07 …when taj mahal was selected 7 wonders of world again …it all looked as play of numbers...Play of figures ….play of different way of life….different ways of making chutney……

Sometimes it was the most complicated process in our room –making chutney…the taste/interest varied from colour, amount of water, whether to add mustard or coriander leaves , curry leaves, amount of ginger, if to put small onions raw or fried before putting it in mixi….tamrind ? Or not….red chilies or green chilies ...time when ingredients need to put... that too played a role in the taste…. Smooth or raw paste of coconut ….after the whole discussion and getting consensus, hot ghee dosas where ready and none could wait to start eating it with the chutney …which was a chutney of lot of ideas and opinions…emmmmm…it tasted well emmmm…and our stomach was full at the end…every one adjusted to a point we could….after a limit opinions simply nullified and it became consideration.. …there were moments when we where in tears and we consoled each other ….sometime couldn’t support a person even if had an idea of the happening...Sometimes nothing was told and everything understood…sometimes everything told but nobody understood anything….but in midst of the never fulfilling rat race ...in the plastic world that IT had created for us...we kept making good chutney every time for breakfast…. i traveled back with that beautiful taste, smell and music ….

1 comment:

Deepu said...

Well written blog; I was wondering why I am not able to write like this. May be the absence of poetic mind? Or my silence is not echoing??? :)
The tittle is also very catchy.