Mom's cooking Prasad Offering

Last night I was at a Navratri festival chanting. The host has a full time job, but she still took the time to make everything from scratch. It was a small menu (5-6 items) that included Parathas and rice. Each one of us felt like we were eating best tasting food. I even overheard ladies talk about it, wondering what made it delicious? I was listening to their conversation but I was sitting too far away to participate. I also didn't know the ladies very well; I stayed quiet and came home. But I didn't stop thinking about the conversation...

What makes food taste different at different times, places and occasions?

I can only write with my own experiences. I follow Ayurveda; I live and practice it. Food tastes delicious when one is hungry. Anything one eats tastes like Mana from heaven. In my mother tongue they say,"भुख मीठ्ठी की लापसी" -  it means "It is not the dessert that is sweet, but hunger that makes it sweet." During our Vedanta classes our Swamijis always tell us that if you eat one thing too many times you will lose interest in it. Of course the first Gulab Jamun is the best tasting Gulab Jamun. 10th one will give you a gag-reflex. Everyone is aware of this phenomenon.

But the most important reason food tastes different when it is cooked with love, devotion and care in a clean hygienic place. Though I have had sheera at 100s of places it tastes the best at Gurudwara. Devotees make it with utmost love and devotion and the result is divine taste of an ordinary desert "Sheera".  I still remember the first time my Mother in law made a meal for me. I still search for that amazing out of the world taste. This time I was eating the food with utmost acceptance, without judgment and with love. I was head over heels in love with her son! She had made simple sambhar, rice, and two green veggies.  I can't seems to duplicate the taste of some dishes my Mom made for me whenever I went back home. She was recreating what I used to love eating when I was a little girl. It used to be the same taste even after a few decades.

It is important that the person who cooks, puts her/his love and kindness in the food. Whenever a person cooks with a happy mood and with giving attitude food will turn out to be amazing. When we are mad and upset or grieving we should not be cooking. For two reasons, we will definitely transfer all our anger, hate and grief into the food and secondly we should be allowed some time  to heal and recover. As a Mom, I cook for my kids and think of them with love and affection. My goal is to see a smile on their face, a joyful expression. My older one loves spicy food, she is creative and open minded in tastes. I love to make stuff for her from different cuisines. I love using spices and heat in the food. On the other hand my younger one can't take heat at all. I can't imagine putting food in her mouth that is at all spicy. Moms can relate to me as I write that I can feel the pain in her mouth.

Ayurveda says the cook must be clean, healthy, knowledgeable and happy ( do not ask me to quote). And what I have said above supports all of it. We need to be clean when we enter the kitchen, we should be healthy enough to clean the kitchen and make food without our germs in it. We must know what spices, what recipes to follow to make food, and I definitely do not cook when I am not happy.

In Rajasthan we have a tradition of sending food for the family for three days after a death in the family. The family doesn't cook for three days.The food that people send is very very basic.  It is devoid of spices and oil.  This ritual helps the family to take time to grieve and the food served has love and care in it, which helps the family heal.

What ever  we touch  in the kitchen absorbs our energy, holds our emotions. When we serve that food to our family they feel it. Most of the time we serve love, care and joy to our family. Many temples Ashrams and Gurudwaras serve simple basic food but it tastes better than the food served in a Star restaurant. It is not the food but the devotion and love we are eating, it is undoubting devotion we are eating.

इन आँखों के पीछे 

इन आँखों के पीछे कई राज़ हैं गहरे

इन अल्फाज़ो के पास कई नए इरादे 

कुछ भी देख लेती हैं ये आँखे आजकल 

फर्क ही नहीं भान पाती बेसमझ ये आँखे 

तर्क करती हैं बेतहाशा हकीकत को मानती नहीं 

कुछ यहाँ कुछ  वहाँ बिखेर देती हैं राज़ ये कुछ मेरे 

इन आँखों में आज भी बस्ती हैं परछाई उनकी 

अलविदा जो कर गए हमे छोड़ गए बीच राह में 

हवा के हवाले हम कर आये थे जिन्हे उस दिन 

आग ने बेरहमी से मुहब्बत जो करनी थी जिनसे 

इन आँखों के पीछे कई राज़ हैं गहरे 

इन अल्फाज़ो के पास कई नए इरादे 

आज फिर महकी हैं चमेली समां बाँध कर दे गयी 

चाहे कितना बहलाया दिल को टूटे हुए टुकड़े से को 

मचल सा गया हैं और माने न माने किसी भी बात को 

आँखों से दोस्ती जो कर ली हैं  इस दिल ने इन दिनों 

ख्वाब और ख्याल की सीमाओं  को भूल कर बस 

लग गया हैं दिल आखों की बदमाश साजिश में 

दूर से चला आया था इक साया सा वो अजनबी 

हु ब हु चाल थी उनकी  बस महज़ आवाज ही ना दी थी 

आँखों ने कर दी थी बगावत दिल से दोस्ती जो के हैं 

बदन ही ना चल सका दिल तो कब का गायब हैं इन दिनों

Surprisingly hectic

I am in a background supporting my husband get his career in order. Hope some day I will be able to do more with my time and life. Till then, it is a mom struggling to let help her kids grow and succeed in life.
K2 is still in her tender years and many times she walks out of the bus crying. I am fortunate that DH makes enough to give me the luxury of being at home when she gets off the bus.
K1 is in high school and has her own world. She is struggling with her schoolmates, as it is a different group od people with her now. It is a hard life for her, I would not like to live her life or walk in her shoes. All I can do is help her as much as I can when she needs me. And love her as much as I can. It is a difficult situation she is unhappy at school and she is in her shell, she is holding back everything, I can feel her pain when she lashes out on us at home. She takes it at school and gives it all back to us. Well I am glad that I am aware of her pain. I will do anything in my power to help her get better at school and in her life.

I am excited about the summer as I will be able to take my girls to the Yoga Ashram. It is expensive and I am hoping this will be the gift they will have for rest of their life. I dream of my daughters teaching a good Yoga class as they have a great career and a happy life

Relations

I have a friend. A dear friend and lately she is in a very delicate situation in her life. She has been abused by her possessive husband. It started with her coming to US. Married to an IT guy with a dreams bundled in her zari sarees. She came here to find a beautiful clean country with apartments as good as the 5-star hotel she visited a few times in her life. A science graduate, both her parents Dr.
A vivacious and beautiful girl who had a great future ahead of her. Dad had thought only America can help her achieve her high goals. Days turned into weeks, weeks in months. Rooms that were a 5-star look alike, were now American prison. With no driving skills and no car life was gloomy and boring. Slowly she tried to see as much as positive light in her life. Soon she tried to get her degree in teaching. School helped her get out a bit and life became slightly better. Life was house work pleasing husband and penniless. Grocery was bought, necessity was provided. Soon pregnancy came along and delivery was a time when mom came over to help her. A Doctor, a ObGyn and her mom was a great idea. But the obsessive and possessive husband didn't like his wife having a good time with her mom. He created every stress full time he could. As soon as the baby came along mom-in-law had to be pushed away. Several techniques were used to make her leave on her own. Mom left her daughter with a new born as hope was moms absence will bring harmony. But this was blood on control freak, his win over his wife and mother-in-law made him bolder in his abusive lifestyle.
Her husband was the sweetest man in public but a monster at home. Life kept going on with suppression and several mental harassment techniques implemented by husband designed by husbands friends. It was time her brother got married and she wasn't allowed to go. For an Indian girl marriage of younger brother is a very important event. She wasn't allowed to go her life changed. She started seeing her husband's evil mind more clearly.
But Indian girls are trained from early on to adjust and try hard enough to make their marriage work. I think girls in India should be trained differently. I have two daughters, i am not going to ask them to keep trying harder at every cost to make marriage work. I am going to keep my doors open for my daughters. I will advise them to make it work but not to the point that they will decide not to let me know when they are suffering. It is all a dejavue. I have gone through a very abusive marriage, where i was blamed for everything. I was considered a bad woman for my confidence and my will to succeed. My strive to over come all hurdles were a considered a taboo.
I see the same in my friends life. She is a beautiful girl with great mind and a kind heart. She is constantly tortured by her husband. Now she has two kids and she is under a clever house arrest. As it is necessary to have a car to move around her husband makes sure that she doesn't have any access to the car. The keys to the car is always with him. She is in her house with two kids with no contact with outer world other than her rare time on Internet and a few calls from people who constant ask her to submit completely to the whims and fancy of her abusive husband. When woman suffers and people around her make it worse, i think everyone who contributes to the sufferings should be penalised, just to deter involvement of others in human suffering. It is going very tough for her. Her confidence is broken and her mind is over taken by years of control and abuse. She is unable to hae strength to walk away form abuse. Sometimes i think she is addicted to her abusive husband. I am sad at her condition. I am helpless as i can' do much to help her. I wish i can do more than what i am doing. After what i have gone through when i see any woman suffer in marriage, it becames my personal pain. Hard to ignore and walk away.
Wow what strange relationships!

Moving on...

This month i lost another family member. And this gave me an opportunity to connect with my cousins little more. It is sad to see them go through pain that i have gone through 6 years ago.
May my Aunt's soul rest peace. I pray for my cousins to have strength and sail through this difficult times. After parents die most families fight, as anger is also a part of grieving after the death of parents or close family member. I hope and pray my cousins will not fight in fact is they have any grudges or problems they come closer and grieve together.
I miss my home and i miss going to my parents. When my parents were alive my mom will ask me about my plans to visit her. It was nice to go home. As is there was a huge magnet pulling me. When i went there first time from US i could not wait to get in the car, get in the plane and then waited impatiently to get to the city where i could catch a train to get home. It was a sad occasion my dad had passed away but even then it was nice to go home. I was up early waiting to see the empty desert pass by and a city pop up in the horizon. It was HOT and it was very dusty. It was summer season of heat and sand-storm. It was meeting a lot of relatives and a lot of crying and surprisingly, laugh.
I am extremely progressive in my family. But i am surprised to know that i am considered a conservative in my in-laws side. yes i oppose shunning Indian values, and i want to make sure my family adapts to the American life-styles but not at the cost of leaving Indian values. When i see my husband's brother not lighting a single lamp on Diwali, not calling and keeping in touch with us at all, when i see my 12 yr old daughter want to fit in to the extent that she quits on her favourite food and her mother tongue. It feels like i came to place where i am handing our my kids, family and life to strangers. I want my kids to grow up respecting loving both side of their family. I want my daughters to respect their in-laws and get involved with their family. Unlike some of the women who are married in my family.
But for now i am watching most of my values falling apart, my husbands family far away from my kids. My identity is lost, my life has changed. This is home to my kids. and more than me my husband loves it here. Though he misses his home town. He is primarily happy here. Three people out of four of us are at home. One has to find something to find here. So i will learn to move on. As i know the bitter reality; no one waits for me in the vast desert. No one wakes up early in the morning and wait for the train to halt at the train station. No one collects small little things that i love or fancy for. It is all in my head. If it is all in my head than I should make peace with it and move on. So here i am life i am moving on!

Regularity

I am never regular with anything other than my daily living. I eat, i sleep and my body works regularly. As i work form home and i teach at several locations i never get to be regular with anything. I don't have a set schedule to my life. I wake up use the bathroom and then it could be anything from emptying my dish-washer to sitting leisurely sipping on a cup of tea.
A lot is going on in my life and it is fast changing. Kids are growing and they are a lot of fun. Though my older one is changing with her American friends, i can see her growing with deep respect and values from her native country. She is shunning several habits that was her personality, but i know it is her transition.
With all the changing dynamics in her life i wonder how can i stay regular with anything? I am constantly deviating form my path. I look for a short time when i can be one with my laptop and sit to write something, anything. It is all such a fast paced dream. At times it is a nightmare that doesn't end. But is keeping my on toes and it catches me off guard often. I have lost everything that is regular in my life. And i miss it. Something needs to happen to make things a bit more regular, where i can sit back and know for sure what i am going to do next. I know my Yoga classes are everyday but in then sometimes i can't keep them regular too as the organizers change schedule on me. It use to annoy me initially but now i am a game to all that pops up with unexpected irregularity.
I had to go for a small business expo today but then two things changes and it all was different. Regularity from my day was thrown out.
I want to be writing regularly but i can't something comes up and I am thrown away from my seat. All I can do at this point is to keep trying and write whenever I can write...... ir/regularly.

Summer-II

I plan my week with the therapy sessions as the most important event of the day. I can't miss any of it. I have to exercise threetimes a day and I am trying hard to do exercise for my body three times a week. When kids are hanging around at home and want to watch T.V. and do nothing it is hard to drag them out for a walk. Anyway i am sure that will happen now as kids are back in school today, technically tomorrow! We went to downtown a few times and walked the usual mignificient mile. I think i must also find some other parts other than the usual path. i think i am done with the views and the stores they have. I need to move a bit away from the touristy joints.
Garden has started giving us great harvest. My Husbands favourite egg plants of two kinds. I am happy that this year we have at least a few more things growing than other years. Apples are the same spotted and not perfect. I think we should find a better part and take a bite. I hate the thought of chopping the tree off. But every year i am disappointed. I just hope i find a solution to make my apples spotless.
I am looking forward when i can have a proper schedule and start my day earlier and to to gym and have some workout. It's been three months and i am missing my excersices and Yoga. I have been trying to go for walks after we are done with dinner. It seems it is a long time. Cook, serve and then clean. It all seems like 6 hours. End of the day is tougher as i don't have any more strength. But i am looking forward to workouts to help me increase my stamina.
Kids are enrlled in different lessons and now my fall, winter and spring will be a lot of driving around. But i guess it is all worth it. Kids have attended a few summer parties and have been pesterting me to have one for them as well. Didn't i give a big b'day gift ot my older one by sending her to London? But i guess i have to do it for Little one!
All my classes are over, and now september will start my new classes. I am looking forward to start a few classes with teens. It is such a waste i know meditation and Pranayam and i am not imprting the knowledge. How can you fill a cup when it is turned upside down. But i am also sure i need to make more efforts to start classes.
It is kids first day of school and i am looking forward to start my own schedule. When you work form home and not have a set schedule your days are taken to be almost free. But let's see what this new academic year has in store for me!