Julie and Julia

Saw the movie on pay per view. I was envious of Julie, for coming up with a gimmicky blog and the following. Something must be amiss about my blog. Is it the name? The content?

I am discouraged, so don't post any more.

IS there a point in blogging if no one is interested? I might as well write a journal. I've found that writing a journal perpetually gets me depressed.

Things to cheer about. 19 inches of un melted, white snow on the ground. Two blue birds and one red bird on the feeder. I was worried about my resident cotton tail rabbit9 or are they deer?) residing under the deck, but he was there, leaving his dropping under the bird feeder.

I bought a new coat yesterday. Just to put on while getting the newspaper and going to the bird feeder.

Going back to julie and Julia, I learned my cooking from Julia child. I had just arrived in USA and couldn't even boil a pot of rice. I bought an old tv for $45 and watched Julia child religiously. I couldn't do much of her cooking stuff, being a strict vegetarian and somethings turned me off. I learnt to love cooking, and now I can say that I've reached a level when I can call myself an accomplished chef. I'm already a master gardener and a prize winning fiction writer. So there!!!

Burying a good friend

Actually, he will be buried tomorrow but i wont be there. I can't face this ritual. I've already said good bye even before the hospice volunteer told us how to say good bye. it came from the heart. I told him as he lay in a coma how much he meant to me as a friend, how he was always there for me and how happy we were all as young friends, partying, drinking, singing and dancing.

He was very good looking, with intensely blue eyes and Scandinavian blond hair, a fantastic sense of humor and and a good story teller.

Whether I am there or not, how can one say goodbye to a dear, dear friend? He'll always be there, around us, a part of infinite and of endless universe.

Be at peace.

autumn winds

the winds are gusting at 40 miles per hour. I sat at the waiting room at the hospital and saw the dance of trees, shrubs and the grass. Every limb, twig and blade moved in a different way, dancing to its own rhythm. When the wind came, the grass moved as if someone is running a hand through it. it shivered, as if in ecstasy. The young trees moved their limbs to their inner music, branches were in a dance of their own. The little flowers, remnants of a vital summer, seem to shudder and then pick up the dance, waving their heads this way and that.

It was fun to watch. I imagines the waves getting high, the droplets in the fountain jumping up and the rivers churning up the foam. Most of the time everything is so quiet and as if in repose, but today it was the dance of the wild.

All the while the cars rushed on Junction Road and the day progressed on hi sown pace.

volunteers in my garden

There are so many  new flowers in my yard this summer. I don't know where they've come from. I don't even know some of their names. But they are welcome and I hope they'll stay.

I counted all the flowers that have bloomed or blooming now. Columbine( volunteer and done blooming) white impatiens, red begonias, three kinds of morning glory, unidentified flower bush, balsam, cosmos, cleomes, day lilies, daisies, ajuga( interloper) purple cone flowers,marigold, coleus, astilbe, hostas, several kinds of petunias, glads, datura, coral bells, sedom( turning reddish)rudebeckia (guest from somewhere), jasmine, spider plant with white flowers,bush clematis, ( blooming like crazy) bleeding hearts( done blooming) hydrangea, hibuscus( in full glory now) Asiatic, tiger and stargazer lilies( all done blooming) Belaperone ( gorgeous and beloved of the humming birds) more impatiens, salvia, coleus,phlox, unknown cup shaped yellow flower, coreopsis, sun flowers, iris( done blooming)very aggressive purple flowers, digitalis, thisles and hollyhocks 

The bushes, lilac, mock orange, viburnum and honeysuckle and barberry.

Plumeria and Brugmansia don't seem to be in the mood for blooming this year. They are sulking because I trimmed them. May be it wasn't a good idea. 

Dreaming of past and future

A strange thing happens when I sleep upstairs. My dreams are more personal and often reassuring. Two days ago I dreamed of my guru who came and stood very close to me. I could see the weave of his coarse cotton long shirt. He put his hand in his tin pot and took something out and before he could give it to me, I woke up. The whole things was so vivid and I felt enthralled. He is dead but I remember his path, from his little garden to the small dilapidated mosque where he spent his time. That was what he was on, he stopped , saw me standing there to have a glimpse, stopped and gave me something. A blessing, a boon , a reassurance. An encouragement that I was on the right course.

Yesterday I dreamed of my two older brothers, both dead now. They were walking down the corridor towards me. The eldest asked me, Is the food ready and I said Yes and showed him the way to the dining room. As they walked by me, the younger brother patted me gently on my head, as if saying Good Work!

Many thoughts come to me, some far out, some bizarre. All these people that I dream of have been dead for some time. Yes, they appear now, specially when I am having specially trying time and am full of uncertainty about my future. Is it  my unconscious throwing up what I want so desperately, affection and reassurance that things will work out and this bad phase will not last. Or is there really a connect between the departed souls and the living and they do try to contact and convey a message.

These are questions to which I have no answers. In the meantime I hold on to the feeling of joy these dreams have created. 

cooking for fastidious people

grass today

The grass today is very green. And no wonder after the severe thunderstorms of last evening. Lights out, lightning strikes, trees broken,destruction everywhere.

But out there, in Bombay it is hot so is Delhi. I think of my apartment, empty, closed up. Waiting, for me to return, for rains to come. Planes landing at the airport every minute. I can see the logo from my large window while still lying in my bed. The bed is now empty. The room is locked. In my cupboard my clothes are also waiting. By the time I will return they will be out of style, moldy, useless. Yet I will keep them. Declutter! the mantra these days. But one can not throw out the six yards of material that makes a sari. It is just not fabric, it is much,much more. it is being a woman.

ruminations about life

My preoccupations: the emphasis on decluttering is everywhere. When I try to do that, it turns into something else. For example, sorting out papers, I came upon Illustrated Weekly of India, 1959. I read it from cover to cover. It had a photo of Lady Mountbatten with her dog, looking very elegant. Jokes that didn't amuse me and on the last pages, pictures of newly weds. Where are they now I wondered. There was also an indignant review of some Colonel Kesri Singh's account of killing tigers and other wild animals. Apparently he knew his tigers well and talked about their personalities, brave, timid, circumspect but they all fell to his bullets. I didn't know that the tigers had personalities. and Why not? The magazine also had a picture of widely beaming Spanish ambassador with the tiger he had killed with the help of Maharaja of Rewa. I wonder if it was a white tiger. Looked like that. At least to me.

I decided to keep the old magazine, maybe that is why I saved it in the first place. It made me angry and sad.  Once I met a Pakistani army officer who invited me to Sunderban so that I could witness tiger hunting. I turned down his invitation. I believe in truth and nonviolence and love all th wild animals dearly. Ask the racoon who feasts on tandoori chicken from my garbage can. But please don't tell my neighbors. They would hunt and eat tha pair of my mourning doves living in my hedge of Japanese yews.

a crisp day. Bright sunshine. Birds on feeder.

Spring is coming.

Do I care? yes, I do.