Garnish your life.

One searches for a word to describe parts of a whole, without which the  whole will never be the same. Even sans any individual identity of its own, the morsel makes such a lasting impact that it overshadows the identity of the larger serving. Puzzled ! don’t be,  knowing my style of writing you would have already guessed that I would be coming to something  crazy.  A large piece of cyber cake with a funny (as in stupid) taste to it.  So let me elaborate.

As I sat savouring a plate of lemon rice, the tangy taste of the lemon, the bright hue of the rice, the overbearing scent of the curry leaves, and of course the culinary skills of the better half. Yet, what I was left relishing at the end of the course was the joy of cracking one by one into the crisp fried Chana dal which went in as part of the garnish into the ’Lemon Rice’. 

Lost was the taste of the rice, and presto !  dawned the importance of the Tadka dal.  When the curd rice followed its place in the next course,  the point was punched in just that harder. The snowy flakes of rice cooked in cream and curd, did little to elevate as did the taste of the little specs of garnished mustard fired deep in pure ghee. One forgot the taste of the rice as the mustard played hide and seek with the exploring tongue, relishing each morsel, gently biting into each mustard, the soft crack of it exploding and leaving behind a sweet taste more lofty than provided by the curd rice. 

The story did not end there,  the Gajar ka halwa which followed would never have been complete without the cashews. The list is endless.. , the sweet taste of the raisin in a hot and spicy Samosa,  the one grain of pepper in the folds of a Mathri, the once strand of saffron adorning a ‘Rasmalai’, the one piece of pumpkin seed perched upon a juicy ‘Moti Chur Laddu’, the spicy South Indian Mixture prepared for Diwali, with the royal peanuts making it just that perky.

   

So what makes this morsel take over the taste of the entire dish. Certainly not the quantity, for in sheer counts these small pieces of matter are totaly out weighed by the larger dish. It is not even because these are exotic items,  the lowly mustard can hardly call itself exotic.

So then what is it that inspite of a lesser identity of their own, these morsels end up making such a quantum change in the experience that they bring forth to the package that they are part of !

Now lets apply this paradigm to our life, the material things that we strive for,  the larger goals for which we end up burning our energies for, years on end,  never measure up to the little experiences that make our life complete.  The sweet smell of rain, the haunting feel of walking though fog and mist, the first rays of sunshine warming the skin on a cold winter morning, the boxing fights with the kids, making your grandchild ride your back, the experience of helping a lesser abled cross the street, the joy of giving, sharing, playing a prank, stopping by to admire a flower stall, to tousle the hair of plump little kid playing in the park.

Little moments that make life larger, the canvas more vibrant, the hues more contrasting, and  tastes that colour your soul permanently, that which the latest generation of gizmo or a career that you chase can never claim to do.

So what are you waiting for ! Go capture the moment,. As they say ‘Carpe Diem’ -  seize the moment.         

Don’t forget, somewhere you would realise that I too find myself being  a small morsel in your life somewhere, no matter how silly a part.

Big Is Beautiful.

Heard of the Hindi adage “Akal Badi ya Bhains“ ?  Literally translated it means, ‘Is the brain bigger  than a Buffalo’.  A pretty straight forward question, depending on where the pointer rests in a sliding scale showing the respondent’s IQ.  Do you agree ?  I have seen buffaloes and they are large enough to outsize some of the pea brains that one comes across, but then even discounting the expanse of the grey matter, I would confirm that Buffaloes are larger than a Brain. But I see a smile on the people’s faces when I profess this view point.

I had the opportunity of meeting Rajni Kanth once in the airport lounge, and asked him the same question. Yenna Rascalla, he exclaimed in typical Bollywood style, “don’t you know nothing can be bigger than Rajnikant “ he roared, and I clapped, more because of being a Rajni fan, than for having been proven right.

Incidentally Laaluji was standing right behind  and he could not but vent out his frustration. “That eez Korect baba, he exclaimed continuing in his typical drawl,  “try telling that to the judge sahib, you peoples do not know that my bhainswa has eaten all the fodder, and nobhady bhelieve me when I tell them that Bhainswa is always bigger than bhrain (sic)”. That were two people on my side now.

Not convinced yet ?  Ask your local butcher ! Am sure he would laugh at your suggestion that a Brain could be larger than a Buffalo.  When I checked, he mentioned a rate of Rs.500 for a goat’s brain, (I don’t know if its a fair value, being a strict vegan myself) and said that as far as a buffalo goes, I would have to deposit around Rs.5000/- to be able to order for a fully dead Buffalo. So definitely a buffalo is larger than a brain

But then for each person whom I could count on my side there were many who would never agree with me, and some of them would dedicatedly start trying to asses my IQ, in the process of proving me wrong.

So it happened that one of my more learned friend was asked the question to dwell upon, and he narrated me a story which goes like this.

Once upon a time, a mustard farmer was into hard times, his crops had been  failing regularly and he had no answers for the reason thereto. He tried doing many things to improve the crop which did little to help his fortunes.

Living right next door to him was his clever cousin who would make a fortune every season.  Tired of being looked down upon by his family for his poor record at farming, he decided to secretly watch what his cousin was upto.  

The first season the cousin planted small black Papaya Seeds,  and harvested huge yellow  papayas. The poor farmer noted down the difference in size between a mustard seed and the papaya seed and said oh so the size of the seed matters.

The next season, again the mustard crop failed, and the poor guy again spied upon his cousin, only to see him planting  Mango seeds and lo and behold soon had a flourishing Mangrove.

Dito!  the third season, this time the cousin planted coconuts. The size of the seed is growing by the year noted the poor farmer,  soon the coconut saplings started reaching for the sky, and the poor farmer continued to rue his luck at mustard farming.

 If the size of the seed is the only factor which matters, then I shall plant the biggest seed that any one can plant,  said the farmer. He started digging 2x2  trenches in his farm, and dug up the whole farm into trenches, as if preparing for a Nazi invasion. Are you crazy, cried his  wife desperately, why are you destroying the farm, she asked.  Shut up! Cant you see, I am going to plant the biggest seed that I can lay my hands on and become the richest farmer in town, he exclaimed.

So saying he set out to the local fair to hunt for the largest seed to plant. No sooner had he reached the fair, his eyes fell on the vendor selling huge pumpkins, green huge ones, larger than any that he had ever seen. ”Oh such large seeds, thank god for giving me directions” he exclaimed. He wasted no time in buying a load of pumpkins from the vendor and stealthily in the darkness of the night, managed to plant a pumpkin each  in the  trenches  that he had dug. Tired and exuberant in anticipation, the farmer decided to take couple of days off, to await a huge bounty that awaited him.

It so happened that next night, a group of hogs were out hunting in the fields,  they lost no time in digging up all trenches and made a meal of the sweet load of pumpkins that were buried underneath.  Finding the load of pumpkins too difficult to finish off in one night, they camped into the trenches they camped on in the trenches.

When the farmer came back after few days, what he saw devastated him. The entire field was in shambles. The trenches were a stink, and  covered in hog excreta.

There ended my friends story,  so you see, he said, size does not matter, brain does he exclaimed.

I smiled sheepishly, you do not  perhaps know the entire story, let me finish it for you I said,  staunchly defending the poor farmer as I continued.

Depressed with the turn of events, the farmer developed a fever, and was bed ridden for a month.  Incidentally it was the sowing season and it started to rain cats and dogs. As the rain drenched soil soaked up the rain water, the hog shit started adding fertility to it, the pumpkin seedlings which were in the hog excreta, took roots, and wonder of wonder, two hundred saplings sprouted in the slushy barren dug up farm. After two months of convalescing, the farmer diffidently  returned to his farm, what he saw was beyond description.  Meters till his eyes could carry he saw the most lush farm that he had ever maintained. Ripe pumpkins were laden on the ground, a fortune appearing as if out of nowhere, Gods finally answering  his call for help. So all’s well that ends well, the poor now rich farmer made a fortune selling his produce in the market and lived happily ever after, always making sure to plant the biggest seed that he could come across.

So you see big is always beautiful. Lot of us go by quality vs quality, what street smart colleagues achieve by cursory manipulation of resources, the lesser sure among us slog it out for longer times. Whereas the manipulator or the super intelligent walk away to the bank faster, the slogers take their own time,  like the proverbial slow and steady tortoise,  find their fortune they do, but with lots of patience and hard work. Bigger the input larger the returns they belive.

 Big is indeed  beautiful, when in doubt always refer to Bollywood.

The awakening of Simba and other stories

It has been such an eventful  week  for the media.  Eventful enough to keep them running around in circles and make  ‘Jack of all trades’ like me feel complete enough to pen a ‘Middle’. Just that the ‘Middle’ has moved on in the scheme of the way newspapers are turned out.  We have now more pages residing  in the vast expanse of cyberspace than perched in the middle of the editorial page.  They say that the pen is mightier than a sword, its that much more lethal in the hands of know it all’s like me. But then its a free world  so I though why not key in my frustration.  So lets have a round-up of the key happenings of this week.

To begin with a little homage to the lives lost, Suchitra Sen,  whose Hindi hit,  ‘Tere bina zinda gi mei’ remains my all time favourite, I never tire of watching Áandhi’ for the nth  time.  Sunanda  the tragedy of Page 3 proportions, the 18 people who lost their lives in Mumbai while paying homage to their religious leader. May these souls rest in peace.

Coming to the high profile UN designate.  When one is confused whether one is in polity on the way to  page 3 or on page 3 because they are in polity, it makes for strange bed fellows. What happened to Shashi was maybe something similar.  To be fair to him he was one of the first to start the trend of ‘Tweeting’ in India. It looks like the Tweets finally ended up drowning all other sane voices in his life. God help him in these difficult times.

  Just a few kilometres away a similar voice made its mark. Finally the Baba spoke, no I do not refer to any god-man. The reference was more towards our own RG baba.  After years of breaking bread with dalits, the king-in-making has woken up and is trying to roar, and what a roar it was.  Reminds me of the lion kink,  oops !  I mean ‘The Lion King’.  Resembling little Simba, on a self realisation mode. A tentative cough followed by a full throated roar. Will it end  waking up the Scars(or should I say comb sellers) of the world is yet to be seen.

On comb sellers and lesser haired people, the little king, did not seem to realise that he himself seems to be fast loosing hair at quite a fast pace and I would not be surprised if he himself finds himself in the custody of one comb too many, before he realises,  that he has no use for one. But right now he has more to worry than about losing his hair, perhaps saving his shirt in the next elections should be a focus. He did paint quite a pretty picture of himself , up there on the podium. 

Not often do you see, a prime-ministerial candidate flaunting a pair of dimples. So what if his face seemed  more paler than a Icelander gone pale. Grimaces, don’t go well with the chocolate faced  and it was showing that he was trying hard to put on one. By the way our prince would be one of few candidates for the PM post to have been blessed with dimples,  the closest someone would have come to competing with the prince on this front  was the venerated PV Naramsimha Rao. Except that PV’s dimples were more like cheeks that  had sunk in to make way for his extended pout.

On dimples, there is no doubt that it would have been more entertaining to have the other king, the King Khan, flaunting his dimples,  up there on the stage instead of RG, and  there is no doubt that the original Khan could have  displayed a  far better IQ that our very own prince

Quite a week I must say,  our own Mani (Shankar Iyer ) put his foot once again where it always finds its place,  right up there in his mouth, when he took a dig at a tea vendor trying to becoming a PM. Whether this quote will keep him in a soup for some more time is yet to be seen. Unfortunately he is one person who seems to do very little introspection on his own behaviour and actions. He behaves neither like a Mani nor a Iyer.    

When these events were  making news, some blocks away there was a mob led by a over zealous minister trying to put an end to robust African women from earning their livelihood. The women did not realise that when wizards come riding their broom-stick,  a la Harry Potter, all hell breaks loose. More so when these guys seems to think that any thing which is commercial or corporate in nature must stink, similar to how electricity must be distributed free, and grocery stores are more convenient than Super Marts, and that Auto rickshaw Unions deserve more sympathy than the general public which remain at the mercy of these drivers.  Its another matter that with the speed with which these first timers are tying themselves in knots on policy matters, it may not be long before the public quite rightly wield  the broom once again to show them their rightful place.

Finally there was this little piece of medical research published in one of the latter pages of the newspaper,  a research proved as to how comedians and satirist are Psychos who are mentally deranged and about to go bonkers. Did not seem too far fetched a idea, given that many friends had already labelled me raving mad, after reading the stuff that I write around in face book and elsewhere.