Deep Ties

  My husband looked at me, excitement on his face. “Let’s buy a cast iron skillet. I believe dosas come out crisp and nice on them!” One of his hobbies is browsing the Internet for all the latest gadgets and things which make life easier for the two of us. Like the time he found a slim plastic cabinet which could neatly slide into the narrowest nook and yet have space enough to keep all the masalas that make an Indian kitchen what it should be. Of course, he also picked up masalas from myriad cultures – West Indian, Arabic, Mediterranean… so that they could be displayed there. My sister had already introduced us to authentic Christian meat and chicken masala from Kottayam made exclusively by one family. Going back, my husband tries to cut the clutter in the house by buying various guaranteed products to cut clutter. However, he has finally realized, after three decades, that he is living with someone who must have been a magpie in her last birth. In fact, her entire family,

                                                                                                                                                     declutterme.london Humour me, folks! I could sing, “Aaj main upar, aasmaaan neecche!”  Loosely translated, that means "Today I am on top of the world, with the sky beneath!" Maybe, the world will scoff at me when I divulge the reason.  I have finished sorting out my wardrobe, my linen cupboard and my kitchen drawers. I have decluttered… given away clothes that have miraculously grown smaller, chucked bedsheets that have blushed their colour away, and thrown away the condiments and masalas which have outlived their usefulness! I have ironed every item of clothing and every pillowcase I have! I am Marie Kondo today!                                                                               Rakuten I was introduced to Marie Kondo around ten years back, when every article she wrote was like the gospel truth. “Ready to spark joy

Rediff.com   Indian elections are like festivals – colourful, crowded, chaotic and noisy to the hilt! From the word ‘go’, it is like a party that starts early and ends only when the cows come home. Whitewash is lavishly used on every vacant wall, with or without permission, and lurid party symbols are thrown on by street artists who earn their livelihood by painting leaves, brooms, cycles and probably bullock carts. Within the riot of colours, one might discern faintly familiar faces of political candidates, hands folded, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. Every bit of wall works as propaganda and the common man is oft drawn into a maze akin to the mythological Chakravyuh , where he gets in and has no idea how to get out. We Indians have a high tolerance for noise. Elections are solid proof of this. The decibel levels go up with every day of campaigning, and the last two days are the noisiest, as party followers faithfully ply vehicles across towns and villages, usin

  “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” JRR Tolkien A cookbook that starts with these lines would definitely have food for thought, is what I felt when I started reading the recipes. The introduction given by Ginia Basu struck a chord within me. She started cooking at the age of ten, I began writing at the age of ten. Another similarity was that we both had special diaries that held within them our favourite recipes. What more reason did I need to go through this culinary trove? The book has been divided into two sections. Cookies, Cakes and Bread Savouries The recipes in the first section have been chosen with care. Gina Basu regales her readers with heart-warming anecdotes. Starting with the Three-Ingredient Cookie, and Healthy Whole Wheat Dark Chocolate Cookies, she goes on to talk about rarer ingredients like Patali Gur or Date Palm jaggery and Gondhoraj Lebhu which is a special kind of lime with an out-of-the wo

                                                                              Zazzle Jilljuck.com There I was, dressed to the nines, having chosen the outfit, the accessories and the jewellery with care, because I was at a wedding, pre-Covid-19. Those were the days when weddings consisted of a million people glittering like Christmas trees, holding brilliantly wrapped up gifts, or envelopes with a coin stuck on them which contained crisp notes within. My gift was also within an envelope carefully created from an old wedding card which was too pretty to throw away. My husband calls my blood type the ‘magpie’ type, which is another name for ‘B Positive’, I guess. Hoarding runs in our family, be it old letters, greeting cards from people whose names have been forgotten, tiny notes, photographs that have yellowed and look like nothing on earth and relics that could be sold for a fortune. The mania does not stop there. I have crockery from the time we got married which, after 36 years of