Chappati

When I put the first piece of that hot chappati in my mouth for lunch I just closed my eyes and let my tastebuds revive the memories of what it was 8 months back eating chappati and bhaji. Since a kid I was more inclined towards eating more of chappatis than rice and had got into a habit or more so a mind set that a meal is not complete without inclusion of chappati. But all was pretty much shattered when mom was transferred to Goa and I had to make do with rice or even bread at times. Then a year later I was transferred to USA by our educational system and since the time I got here had actually forgotten the taste of the wheat flour mix.
But, every dark cloud has a silver lining and Prahlad's parents came in as the Silver lining. Today on my way back home from work I was contemplating if to eat maggi or a frozen paratha for lunch, I just remembered that his mom was going to cook some amazing lunch and the moment I sat in the living room there she came with a plate with a nice vegetable and HOT chappatis. The aroma itself was mind blowing and when I started to eat just couldn't stop myself from eating more. Finally called it a day at 7 chappatis eventhough my tastebuds weren't quite satisfied but the stomach called it a limit.
At the end of the day I was still in an elated state just because of those outstanding Chappatis.
A special thanx to Prahlad's mom!

High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Supersquash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us? ~Annita Manning

Garawa

(View from the Lake Michigan just before sunset)

गारवा,
वार्‍यावर भिरिभर पारवा, नवा नवा
प्रिये नभात ही चांदवा नवा नवा

गवतात गाणे झूलते कधीचे
हिरवे किनारे हिरव्या नदीचे
पाण्यावर सरसर काजवा नवा नवा
प्रिये मनात ही ताजवा नवा नवा

आकाश सारे माळून तारे
आता रुपेरी झालेत वारे
अंगभर थर थर थर नाचवा नवा नवा
प्रिये तुझा जसा गोडवा नवा नवा

The song just flowed through my mind while standing in a drizzle on the banks of Lake Michigan today evening. It is just difficult to put the emotions and thoughts in words presently but a thought that constantly made a mark in my mind was, "Life is Beautiful"; all we need to do is just open our eyes..

Winds of Change..

It was first week of march and sun was finally gaining some power and spreading his Heat Empire in the aftermath of a terrible winter. This is the time frame which none of us ever experienced in India, the season called Spring.
2 pictures on the top are of the same tree (which I look at all the time from my window) just 2 weeks apart; after Spring started and you yourself can mark the difference how happy the tree is to grow in the umbrella of good weather.
Close friends play a major role when you are just not "up to the mark". Today a very close friend of mine just played the key role in my life. She said," You are in Chicago enjoy the summer instead of worrying about some petty issues".
This is blog is especially for "You", just to prove I havent lost interest in Life and things around me..

All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.
-- Samuel Butler

Common Factors

"Tune kise choose kiya?", asked Himanshu one of our self proclaimed best cricket captain. The other guy didn't know many of the players around so asked a guy, "Arre tu pace bowling dalta hai kya?" That guy very promptly and enthusiatically replied yeah. He picked him. The match started on a lovely summer evening and I was sitting on the sidelines with no work to do. So while picking grass and watching some girl jog by, a random thought came to my mind about all the common factors shared by we Indians as kids.
The thing that spurt up first was most of the boys since childhood love cricket and all of them to begin with are fast bowlers with no exception. Later on, when they realize that they aren't quite able to generate speed or even gain the distance of 22 yards they turn to spin. Each of them is an aggressive batsman who proclaims to play outstanding off the front foot. Again later on, when they realize that they either are no good as batsmen or not such big hitters of the ball they start to play slow or give up the batting part totally and turn to bowling. Oh, I missed one point; to start with nobody without an exception likes to bowl. Each of them just wants to bat. This remains a common fact in the whole of India from North to South and East to West. If some boy doesn't like cricket or cant perform well in any of the 3 areas of cricket then he is a "sissy"..so there is immense peer pressure upon every kid to perform good in some field of cricket played in every building or society.
With this thought still lingering, suddenly I went into academics and somehow went into the grammar area. By default when asked to write an essay about your favorite pet every kid in the class writes about a dog they may or may not have. As a matter of coincidence all the 40 kids in the class will name the dog as "Moti". I still wonder who was the first person to think of Moti as the name of a pet Dog. In reality I haven't met a single person whose pet dog was named Moti but yeah in an essay in English, Hindi or Marathi the name of the pet will be surely Moti.
Then my mind ran through more essay topics and I started to smile when I thought of a particular type of a essay i.e. Autobiography. Invariably when students start to write this type of essay the have a sad end to the story with most of them writing "and now I lie dead in a corner". The funny part is, if you are already dead then how on earth do you go on to write an autobiography.
It was quite late in the evening and I was hungry, so my mind swayed in the direction of food. Again there is amazing gift of "Vada Pav" which is loved by the richest and also by the poorest and everyone would have tasted it once in life. After a nice tiring game of cricket or soccer you would find a group of kids discussing the match they just finished with much vigor as shown by our politicians regarding reservation quota and heading towards a Vada Pav stall to grab a brunch on that hot filling Vada Pav..( I miss that a lot here).
"Abye Sushant batting ko ja.." was a statement someone shouted out and like a happy kid I jumped with joy and ran with a bat to the pitch and just lost the thought about all those common factors we always shared as kids. Though, now as mere memories each of thought without fail brings a smile on face and shows how lovely it was being a kid..

Gangaram where are you!!

Just finished my afternoon tea and decided that I will go to Tejal's place as she wasnt feeling well today, hence opened my closet to pick some jeans and t-shirt which I could put on and move out to her place. Frankly, it took me about 10 mins to decide which one of those was somewhat clean and had not been worn more than once. This is one problem of coming to USA and staying alone (you will hardly ever find clean clothes in your closet). I then dragged the whole huge lot of clothes to the laundry in basement and set them up for a wash. I guess the clothes would have blessed me for doing so; guess is the wrong word here, I am sure they blessed me for getting them clean.
While waiting for the cycle to get done and sipping on another cup of tea I could recollect my mom or dad waking me up and saying,"Gangaram aala aahe, uth ani kapde tak!!"(Gangaram has come, get up and put your clothes for wash). I used to invaribly curse Gangaram (in mind) for coming to do the housework so early (8am). I still recollect a couple of times when parents were out of town I could hear him ring the door bell but was so lazy to come out of the comforter that I would just let it go. But Mr. Ganagaram, who was with us for more than 10 years knew me very well and used to be persistant on ringing the bell till I opened the door and let him in. I sometimes adore his commitment towards the work, I mean common who on earth would be so damn eager to get into the house and start working. More than dozen times he could have just left the place saying I never opened the door. But, thats some commitment I must agree.
But today here I am washing my own plate, doing my own laundry and yeah not to forget vaccuming the floor and sometimes mopping it too makes me say, "Gangaram Where Are You..!!"

H2O

"Arre ajun don haath.." (Just 2 more strokes).." I could hear my dad shouting it out to me while he was standing in waist high water. Eventhough it was waist high for him I couldn't even touch my feet down in those shallow waters of the Andheri Sports complex. Along with me Tejal and Rushikesh were suffering the same discomfort of swimming in 4 feet deep water and still unable to ground their feet. All this came to my mind yesterday while I was lapping up in a warm pool in Chicago about 18 years later.
It was baba and what he later accepted as a foolhardy move to teach the 3 of us swimming. Rushikesh was elder to us and a brave guy too. I guess swimming comes to him pretty naturally and so he was never scared of baba telling him to swim half a lap. Tejal and myself were both in 1st standard and myself a real coward when learning to swim so dad had to really push me to limits to make me swim even 1/4th of a lap and get the knack of it. I guess finally he successed in doing so and all the 3 of us learnt swimming in a couple of months. He then went on to teach us diving. He wasn't such a great diver anyways because he claims to have learnt swimming in a 25 paisa well. So he used to enter the well than dive into it. But yeah he did show us the right technique which rushi and myself later on developed.
Recollecting those days on my 3rd lap in pool yesterday got a broad smile on my face. At the end of the lap I was literally gasping for air but still couldn't stop smiling at the amount of fun we 3 and baba had jumping from 1st floor into the blue chlorine pool and competing about who swims underwater longest and then going out and eating those hot "chapta chana"..
Those were truly the Best days of my Life..