Month: March 2009

“All she must contribute is her existence. She needs achieve nothing, for she is the reward of achievement” – Germaine Greer.

“She embodies mystery through her fruitfulness. She is associated with Nature and with the Earth.”

In many philosophical systems, she is the Mother Nature too.
She was fruitful. She gave me our son Ranjan.

On three separate occasions, when we were privileged to live in homes with gardens, she created and maintained beautiful gardens, before we moved into our own home with a small garden. What she planted and so lovingly tended to, now stands testimony to her representing Nature and Earth.

I wish that I could reproduce here all the stories about her gentleness, hospitality and maternity, that we have received from so many people from all over the world. Suffice it to say, that many of them totally surprised us. She never talked about them to us.

Her body has left us. She will never leave us.

She would not like me to mope. I do not intend to.

I am not responding individually to all the messages that my blog friends have left here on my previous post. Please accept this post as my gratitude to all of you as well as a tribute to a remarkable person who gave me so much.

I have the sad responsibility of informing my readers of the unexpected passing away of my wife Urmeela on March 13, 2009.

The end was sudden, painless and I was with her when she passed away.

A measure of her universal appeal was at her cremation, Hindus, Catholics, Protestant Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims and Atheists were present to bid her fond farewell.

None of us have the slightest doubt that her soul will rest in eternal peace.

I came across this wonderful blog about India that I want all my readers to read. I am particularly keen that bikehikebabe reads it and I dedicate this post to her.

I also take this opportunity to thank Ben Groundwater for this truly inspiring post. Typically for an Australian, he has been brutally honest and I doff my topi to him.

I have recently come across two jokes which simply scream to be shared with my friends.

The first one is excellent advise in the form of humour.
“If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every word you say, talk in your sleep.”

The second one is for all of us confronting aging. This was sent to me a friend of mine who read my earlier post “How Long Do You Wish To Live?” and my recent posts on food.

Patient: Doctor, how can I live to be a hundred?
Doctor: Well, I suggest that you give up drinking, eating rich food and going out with women.
Patient: And then, I will live to be a hundred?
Doctor: No, but it will seem like it.

Now, what does this joke have to do with Irish Pubs? Apart from the advise from the doctor about drinking, and my two brief but very enjoyable visits to Ireland many years ago, about which I am often nostalgic,two of my good blogger friends, Paddy and Grannymar are Irish and recently, there has been some posts and comments from both of them on the subject.
As, it seems to happen to me regularly, I have been musing about these weighty matters and this morning, I came across an interesting article about the Irish Pubs which kind of explains many things to me and hopefully will, to Paddy and Grannymar.

I know that to some extent, the UK too has undergone a lot of change in its pub culture, primarily due to the same reason that is mentioned in the article, strict rules about drinking and driving. I wonder if this is true in the USA too?

Can some of my American barflies elaborate? Has MADD had any effect on the culture?

My readers know that ever since Carly’s post on her adventures with food in her college appeared on Conrad’s blog, I seem to keep getting my attention drawn to various articles, and other written matter concerning food.

The first one came from Padmini as a sequel to my “Large Portions Of Food – Impeccable Logic” and was by and large addressed to lady readers, though, as a practicing house-husband, I flatter myself that I too am qualified. I reproduce it here, as it has not been published anywhere else yet.

The Story of the Bulge

Where does it all start—this little tyre, the extra flab, the thickening hips, the needle on the weighing machine gradually climbing?

It starts with us, dear friends, that we are women. Nothing new, you may say. Yet, it is interesting to review and then take heed.

It starts first with our core sense of being frugal. We were brought up not to waste. In fact in many houses the cardinal rule was ‘waste not, want not’. So when the food that we cooked was extra, the leftovers, the last piece on the plate—all were inevitably put into the housewife’s mouth.

I know women who even swallowed the infant’s formula that the baby refused to drink, that last inch of milk, the last spoon of cereal or mashed fruit or kichdi.

If there was no one interested in that wonderful sweet, savoury or deep fried bajji—never mind that by the time you ate it, it was cold—it added to your calories.

A woman wants to place the tastiest dish in front of her family—that doesn’t happen in general without tasting it a few times. This, apart from the share that is hers, adds calories gradually, inexorably to the day’s total intake that never comes into the reckoning of the daily quota.

Where does all this “Oh God! The stuff is going waste. I will eat it” go”?

Right to the bottom, darling, to your hips, thighs, waist, arms and all over!

So change your attitude. You are not the garbage bin of the family.

Retrain your thinking to live by the new cardinal rule is ‘waste not, eat not; just give away the lot”.

Then you can have the upper hand in the battle of the bulge and earn some brownie points for your generosity and philanthropy!

I was then exposed to this wonderful article, “13 things you never knew about your weight” in the Reader’s Digest.

I thought that I had had enough messages being sent from the universe to get my act together, when I came across another teaser in the Economist, by Michael Pollan.

I am sure that Michael Pollan will get a lot of good advise from many of my readers. May I request that when any of you do write to him, do please let me know one way or the other so that I too can keep a watch?

It certainly looks as though the Universe wants me to obsess about food for some more time! Not that I ever stop, but at least now some diversionary tactics appear from nowhere.

Is that happening to you too?