A Mother's Song

This is a poem dedicated to all mothers of this world and their children on the occasion of Mother's Day.

Welcome my little one into this world

Hold onto my finger with your tiny hand curled

Hold onto it with all your might

Oh you little fairy, you're such a blessed sight

You are the very incarnation divine

You are the continuation of a line

Of daughters of our Mother Eve

You are the Mother Goddess's gift, I firmly believe

Those rosy cheeks, those inquisitive eyes

The wrinkled forehead shows you are wise

What are you looking for in my face

Can you read in it what my heart says?

You are the queen of your own fate

You will make with your destiny your own date

Go child, achieve whatever you will

Fly over every mountain, climb every hill

Do you want to be a doc, an engineer

An astronaut, painter or pilot dear

Would you like to make a career

For yourself or be content as a home maker

The choice is entirely yours my little star

I know, no matter what, you'll make a mark

On the sands of time you'll write your name

May success be yours, may you get a lot of fame

Be happy, be brave, my dearest one

My little sugary honey bun

You are my treasure, you are my joy

Who says you are less than any boy

Come, let me plant on your cheeks a kiss

This is my promise to my little miss

Darling should you have any fear

Know that your mom is ever near

I'll stand by you through thick and thin

No matter whether you lose or win

Losses and victory will come and go

Walk with your head held high even when you feel low

But for now my little bird rest

In your mother's arms, this is your nest

Sleep my child, you need to grow strong

You'll grow your wings and fly off 'ere long

A Mother's Plight

Today is mother's day.  There are many unfortunate mothers in India, whose daughters are deprived of the right to live even before they are born and who themselves are deprived of the right and joy to hold their little bundles of joy in their arms if they are daughters.  Unfortunately this practice of female foeticide  is very common even amongst highly educated families in big cities.

This poem is dedicated to these unfortunate women.

A loud plaintive scream rent the air

The pain was much more than she could bear

The life that within her had barely begun

Was not one that could be called "my son"

A daughter was growing inside her

A replica of herself as it were

This little angel she wished in her arms to hold

On this idea hubby and in-laws were not sold

Leave me alone, let my child be born

From begging and pleading she was utterly worn

Her job though was only children to bear

For her rights and opinions no one did care

A hasty appointment with the doctor was made

And so it was that on the table she was laid

In a room where little babies were born

Her little angel from her womb was torn

But who did for her screams ever care

Her pain was her own, alone to bear

She could rant, rave, scream or yell

Her life was one unending hell

She was obliged to give the family an heir

To fight for her rights, though, she did not dare

Did she even know her rights

If she did, why was she in this plight

Why is it that a son who worships his own mother

About the mother of his children does not bother

Why is his mother who is a woman

To her daughter in law so inhuman

This is a lady who was also once born

A girl child who was not of her right to live shorn

Where would this man be if she had been killed instead

Has this thought even entered their heads

The statistics are enough to scare

Girls as a population are growing ever rare

Wake up you ignoramuses, you better beware

Your race will be wiped out if you don't care

Women wake up, fight for your rights

Tolerating injustice, taking it light

Is just as wrong as being unjust

Protect your daughters is something you MUST.

Pirindai (bone setter) thokku (chutney)

I had mentioned a plant known as bone setter or "pirindai" in Tamil in a previous blog.  Here I shall be giving recipes for its use.

Pirindai can be used in many different ways e.g. it can be ground with the batter for adai (a South Indian dish made of fermented batter of rice, tur dal and whole black udad dal which is then made just like dosas).

It can be ground with spinach when making keerai molagutal or keerai mashyal (spinach mash).  It can also be used when making pappads, chutney or thokku.

I shall share my recipe for thokku here, which I made with a mish mash (quite literally :-)) of pirindai, corriander, pudina (mint), karavapillai (curry leaves) and kalpuravalli leaves (ajwain leaves).

Ingredients:

Pirindai (I used about 100 gms of it)

Corriander - 2 large bunches

Pudina (Mint) - 1 small bunch

Kalpuravalli (ajwain / bishop's weed leaves) - 6 to 8

Red chillies - 6-8 (add to taste)

Tamarind - a ball the size of a medium sized lemon

Ginger - 1 inch

Methi (fenugreek) seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

Asafoetide (hing) 1/2 teaspoon

Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon

Salt - to taste

Oil - 2 tablespoons  

Procedure: 

Wash the pirindai well and break it into bits at each node.  Wash the corriander, the pudina, curry leaves and ajwain leaves well, remove the thick stalks while keeping the tender ones intact.  Roast the methi seeds and red chillies in 1 teaspoon of oil till they are browned.  Let this cool.  Then grind with asafoetida and salt in your dry grinder to a coarse consistency.

Heat one tablespoon of oil and add the pirindai, corriander, pudina and ajwain along with the tamarind.  Roast till the leaves wilt.  Cool this.

Add this mixture to the coarsely ground paste along with the ginger and grind in the blender.  It should not be too finely ground. 

Now heat the remaining oil, add mustard seeds, allow them to pop and then add the ground paste to it.  Saute it for 5-6 minutes on a dry flame and allow it turn a dark green.

This can be preserved in a bottle in a refrigerator for quite long.  You can even keep some amount for immediate use in the refrigerator and store the rest in the freezer section till required.  This can then be thawed and used later.

This can be eaten with chappatis, dosas, to mix with rice or as a chutney for sandwiches.

Here Yesterday, Gone Today, Forgotten Tomorrow

From a forward.  Photographer unknown.

Isn't this a heart-warming picture?  It makes us wonder and marvel at Nature and other creatures who protect their young ones just "like us".  Or do they?  "Like us" I mean.  Hold on, I think I would like to drop out those two words - it would embarass and shame all the creatures in the animal kingdom to be compared with "us", some of whom selectively destroy their young ones - not based on  some physical defects, but only on the fact that they are females.  Yes same the very same females of the species who procreate and bring forth new members of the species and protect and nourish the young ones.

Last month Baby Falak, a 2 month old baby girl died after being battered by some inhuman adult.

It shocked the conscience of the nation.  If that was shocking, then what does one of a "FATHER" who battered his 3 month old to death?  Yes that is the tragic story of Baby Afreen born to a 19 year old mother.

This young mother was married off at the age of 17 to a divorcee whose parents promised her parents that they would take her on a Haj 1 week after the wedding.  The impoverished parents who could not afford to ever go on a Haj very happily agreed, thinking at least this daughter (of 3 daughters) would get to go and be ensured of her place in heaven.  The son-in-law it turned out was a drug addict and would harass their daughter.  Once the daughter was born, he asked her to get Rs. 1 lakh as compensation because the child was a female.  And then started the sordid tale of battering the baby girl.  When he tried to smother the baby about a week ago, she was brought to the hospital by the mother and was  in a coma till yesterday, when to her good fortune she went to a better place - away from the monsters of this world.  Had she survived, the chances that she might be challenged for the rest of her life might have been high.  Better she was spared that agony.  God decided she deserved better.

What do we say of a society where a daughter's life is decided based on criteria such as her chances of going on a pilgrimage?  What do we say of parents who get their daughter married off before the legal marriageable age, without checking out the credentials of the man whom they are entrusting with their daughter's happiness?  And sad to say I cannot write them off as the exceptions or as deviants from the normal.  They are probably the norm in our country, even if their reasons for getting minor daughters married may be different. 

What do we say of a mother who does not report the husband who batters her baby?  What do we say of parents who do not bring their married daughter back home despite knowing that she is being tortured every day?

What do we say of a society which claims to worship female deities and sees a mother as a Goddess, but chooses to destroy young female infants?

What do we say of parents who destroy female foetuses before they are born?  Or are they better than parents who give birth to them and then batter them?????

Should I consider myself as particularly privileged for having been allowed to live, learn and flourish?  For having had a particularly good set of parents who were extremely enlightened for their times?  Should I be grateful to God for this or should I be grateful to my society to have allowed me to be what I am today?  Or should I be grateful to have been born in better times, before a so-called "ancient civilization" fell inexorably sick and started moving at breakneck speed in reverse gear into the dark ages?

This is the society which has produced Indira Gandhi, Kiran Majumdar, Kiran Bedi, Indira Noorani whom we tout as our claim to our "liberal, forward looking society".  But then these are women we can count on our finger tips, while the Baby Falaks and Baby Afreens are part of an innumerable statistic - here yesterday, gone today, forgotten tomorrow.

Memories of Yercaud - 2003

Yercaud Lakeside

A pine branch bows to meet the lake

Rippling water 

Boating on Yercaud Lake

The clouds roll into the hills

Time to sit and stare

Coming closer

Closing in

Play of sun and shade

A sunlit valley in the centre

Monkey business

Human beings arrive to inhabit the hills

Yercaud Observatory

Humans worse than monkeys

Destructive nature of humans in full evidence - Mining in the hills

Chakka Pulincurry

Yippee, summer is here.  So what if it is too hot and vegetables are hard to get, not of great quality and expensive.  Summer brings its compensation.  Mango season is just round the corner.  Jackfruits are already here.  Time for raw jackfruits and all the delightful dishes that can be made of them.

My memories of my ancestral home in Kerala bring back images of an estate with rubber plantations, mangoes, coconuts (oh the bubbly coconut water!!!!! Slurp), jackfruits, tapioca, raw pepper climbers, grapefruit and nutmegs, and all the yum dishes made with these freshly grated coconuts.  Kerala cuisine is almost incomplete without the ubiquitous coconut.  

So friends, time for chakka pulincurry today.  Chakkai in Malayalam means jackfruit.  Puli is tamarind. 

Ingredients:

Tender raw jackfruit
Tamarind extract - from one medium sized ball
Red chilli - 1 to 2 (or add to taste)
Raw rice - 1 tablespoon
Freshly grated coconut - 1/2 a medium sized katori
Asafoetida (hing) - 1 small piece or a pinch of powdered hing
Turmeric - 1 small pinch
Mustard - 1 teaspoon
Oil - 1 teaspoon
Curry leaves - 5 to 6

Procedure:

The toughest part of making any dish with jackfruit is cleaning it (but the results are more than worth the effort - you can take that as a personal guarantee).  To clean a jackfruit, you would need a fairly large, sharp knife, a bit of oil (to oil the knife as well as your grease your palms - pun unintended) and the husk of a coconut and a container with water.  OK, if you have all these things at hand, you are ready to go.  

WARNING:  Be very careful when cutting a jackfruit.  It is not very difficult to cut your hand.

Cut the jackfruit into half.  Clean all the latex that comes out of the core with the husk of the coconut.  Clean the knife (keep doing this as you go) with oil and coconut husk.  Once it stops dripping cut it further into 4 pieces.  Cut these further into halves (so you now have 8 pieces).  Then remove the core of the jackfruit as well as the outer rind.  Use the fleshy part to cut into fairly large chunks (as seen in the picture above).  Place these pieces in the bowl of water as you go, so they do not turn black.

Once you are done with that, cook the pieces in the tamarind extract with salt and turmeric.  Dry roast the coconut, red chillies, asafoetida and raw rice and then grind in a mixer.  Add to the cooked jackfruit.  Allow the mustard seeds to splutter in heated oil. Use these mustard seeds and curry leaves to temper the pulincurry.  

This is best eaten mixed with boiled red rice.  Beans curry and raita goes very well with this combination. Of course, add pappad and I promise you a trip to heaven where you can spend a good hour in the company of angels playing their harps.

So folks, enjoy.  And remember me as you do. :-)

P.S.  If you are animal lovers, you would do well to feed the rind and the core to any stray cows you see around.  They will bless you generously.

Colours of Summer - My Balcony Garden - April 2012

Much as I hate the summer heat in India, I certainly love the colours and joy that the month of April brings with it. Needless to say the joy of seeing some of those colours in my own balcony garden within the constraints of an urban apartment brings a sense of special satisfaction which I would love to share with you.

These are some of the plants which are edible and / or have medicinal properties.

 Bone setter / Hadjod (Hindi) / Pirandai  (Tamil)

Curry leaves / Kadipatta / Karvapillai

Bishop'w weed (carom seeds) / Ajwain / Karpuravalli (Omam)

Tomatoes

Here are some of my plants in bloom.

Hibiscus / Jaswanda (Marathi) / Gudhal (Hindi) / Chembarthi (Tamil)

Jasmine / Mogra / Malli

Asparagus (Sprengeri)

Some of my favourite pictures in black and white

Under the canopy of a coconut tree

A play of light and shade - my balcony at home

An exquisite display as viewed from close quarters

Reflected glory - Brooklyn Botanical Garden - NY

Organically home grown bananas

Home grown mangoes

The king of all he surveys

A lake near Richmond (Indiana)

Pristine beauty - untouched by the muck around

Shivasamudram - panoramic view

Shivasamudram - Majestic sight

Sculpted trees in the Sculpture Park near Princeton

Healthy Home Made Fast Food

Fast food has got a very pretty press and stands for everything that is yum but unhealthy.  It need not necessarily be so.  One can make "fast food" meaning an all in one meal which saves one a lot of time and effort but is tasty all the same.

For example, make a pongal with all imaginable vegetables in it.  Or think of bisibele bhath, oats upma, broken wheat or bansi rava upma with all veggies in it.  One dish and you are done.  If you get fed up of the same things, you can try quinoa as a substitute for rice or rava.  Check out http://satchitananda-fromlifespages.blogspot.in/2012/03/vegetable-quinoa.html made in the same way as a pulao.  You could well add some cashewnuts and/or groundnuts to the dish.

Today it is vegetable quinoa pongal (khichadi) instead of pulao.  High on protein and vitamins.

Vegetable Quinoa Pongal

Ingredients:

(To serve 5)

Quinoa - 1 cup

Moong dal - 1cups

Beans - 5

Carrots - 1/2 a large carrot

Peas - a handful

Sweet corn - a handful

Capsicum - 1 small

Cauliflower - 3-4 florets cut into smaller pieces

Onion - 1 (optional)

Jeera / cumin seeds - 1 tablespoon

Dried red chillies - 2

Pepper corns - 5-10 (depending on how spicy you like your pongal)

Hing (asafoetida) - 1/4 teaspoon

Oil - 2 tablespoons

Turmeric - A pinch

Salt - to taste

Procedure:

Heat the oil.  Add the cumin seeds (jeera), red chillies, pepper corns and asafoetida (hing) and allow the cumin seeds to turn brown.    If you want to add onions, add them and allow to turn brown.  Then add the vegetables and the quinoa and saute it for a minute.  Transfer this to a large vessel, add 3 cups of water to it.  Add the turmeric and salt.  Cook in the pressure cooker.  Your vegetable quinoa pongal is ready to serve.

Serve it with raita, roasted pappad and vadu mangai (whole mango pickle) and I promise you will be unreachable for a while.  You will be with the angels listening to them playing on their harps. 

P.S.  If you wish to add carbohydrates to your meal, you could make some curd rice along with this.

A well balanced meal - quick to make and tasty as well

Bring In A Change

Source:  Google

Womens' day has come and gone

Let us look at facts, of romantic notions shorne

We claim independence, we are liberated we say

But facts point out the other way

Take a look at the news every morn

At the injustice by womankind borne

Raped by strangers, by kith and kin

Starved by parents, thrown at birth into bins

Women are their own enemies as so often is said

Even more so from the time they are wed

Parents willing to pay anything of them to get rid

Willing in tens of thousands for a groom to bid

And woe betide if her own partner she should find

There are many who this state of affairs would mind

How dare she decide who should be her mate

Ask the “khaps”, her brothers who are all filled with hate

A “decent” “well brought-up”girl should wait

For her parents to find her the right mate

It is not in our “rich culture” to date

She must marry the person who is handed to her by “fate”

Her dreams are shattered from the word go

Mil, Sil being the cause of many a woe

“Bring more money from your parents” they say

If she can't she is slaughtered one day

Husband beats her mercilessly

And visits another woman shamelessly

The wife's job for her is cut out

Cook, clean, produce kids, her life is a rut

Shackled to date by chains of “culture” and “tradition”

Which ensures she gets no remission

From her miserable, wretched existence

Only death can be the ultimate deliverance

This is of the majority the condition

And if you think the solution is “education”

Think again, for in our country it is only a word

Which means passing exams, getting certificates, becoming a nerd

Our moral police are eternally alert

When it comes to “traditional values” and anyone in a skirt

Traditions do not apply to men

Culture is not something to be protected by them

And then our “respect” for women and Goddesses we assert

While day in and day out their interests we hurt

Nothing has changed since Joan at the stakes was burnt

Isn't it sad, to date nothing better has been learnt

In order a real change in society to effect

All negative values need to completely reject

We need to change the way we think

To throw out such practices that so utterly stink

A civilized society if we wish to be

Every individual needs to be free

From practices which their freedom of expression stifle

And with their dignity and basic human rights trifle

A society where a woman is free

To prosperity is the ultimate key

Where women are happy there the Gods dwell

Where they are not, there life is a hell

If a change we really want

Don't allow anything you to daunt

For change must inevitably start with “me”

Not with granny, uncle, she or he.