siesta – Ramana's Musings

My Top 10 Guilty Pleasures.

While I have accepted the topic as it was suggested by my fellow Friday blogger Shackman, I must straight away state that none of the pleasures that I enjoy can be called guilty, at least, not by me. I thoroughly enjoy each one and never suffer any guilty pangs post event. And, at my age, there are very few pleasures left to relish as while the spirit may be very willing, the flesh is weak and does not cooperate.

At the twilight of my years, what gives me the greatest pleasure is, don’t hold your breath, are, food and sound sleep. Mind you, at this stage, it should not be quantity but quality. The pleasure I obtain is not only desiring quality, but often in the quantity as well. The following list will give you some indication. It is rare that I will stop with one helping when it comes to eating my favourite food or be satisfied with an interrupted sleep.

The top most on my list will be Ice Cream of all kinds but, within which the top most choice will go to Kulfi. For a while, I had patronised a brand called Kwality Walls here till I found out that it was made out of vegetable oils and is called Frozen Dessert. Unfortunately, this is the only item within that specification that my grocer delivers and so I have to go to an Ice Cream Parlour just down the road to indulge whenever the mood takes me.

So, number 1. will be Kulfi and number 2. will be all other ice creams except the so called Frozen Desserts.

That brings me to item number 3.

Sweets of the Indian variety. Topmost on the list is Kalakand. There are different types from different parts of the country and, I love all of them.

Number 4 will be cakes and pastries of all types, easily the most desired being Black Forest.

Now comes the non sweet snacks.

In the order of choice, they will be:

Samosa, Kachori and Khandvi.

Number 8 will be cuisine. Top favourite being my native Tamil cuisine followed by Punjabi.

Number 9 pleasure will be what I get from solving crossword puzzles. If I don’t get my daily dose, I am miserable.

Last item on the list will be sleep and particularly my afternoon siesta. On the rare occasion that I don’t get it due to being away from home on some chore or the other, I feel out of sorts till the next day.

I have a feeling that the other Friday 2 on 1 blogger Shackman is likely to come up with music on top followed by other items, very likely including some food too. Do go over and have a look at his blog.

Timepass.

Wisewebwoman, who I call WWW, has this very entertaining post No No Days in her blog.

We exchanged comment and response as follows.

Me: Every day is a no no day for me WWW! You will inevitably find me at home in my lungi and vest and quite content. The world comes to me and I am unapologetic about that life style. I find it tedious to dress up and go out!

WWW: Ramana: I doubt if you do nothing as in don’t read or talk or exercise or cook or write…..

Me: You are quite right. That would be impossible. What I do do is what we call timepass here!

That exchange triggered off this post.

There was a time when I used to travel by train to and from Bombay by train. One of the endearing memories of those trips was how one vendor used to board the train at one of the stops to sell roasted and salted peanuts by muttering to attract the attention of dozing commuters – “Timepass, timepass, chana phalli, timepass.” The chana phalli was Hindi for roasted chickpeas and peanuts. I used to be bemused by his calling that consumption as timepass.

Timepass is so commonly used by us in our everyday conversations that I cannot imagine a day when I do not use it in some conversation or the other, mostly as a response to questions on the telephone as to what I was doing.

To come back to WWW’s post, I don’t have to cook except when our help plays truant and that too now a days, I prefer to either send for something or the other from one of the restaurants that are conveniently located in our neighbourhood and who deliver at home, or less often, simply go out to one of them to eat. Since I eat only one cooked meal a day, I do not have to reheat anything unless there is a lot of leftovers from some party that we had had the previous day.

Since that one bit goes off the list, I do not work up a sweat at all over the things I do for timepass. Reading newspapers, solving crossword puzzles, internetting, reading books, watching movies on DVD, answering phone calls and chatting with the odd visitor. And most importantly, the post lunch siesta is timepass of the best kind. Time passes so fast that I really get very tired by evening and sleep very well in the night.

The only exception to the no sweat lifestyle is my exercise routine of an hour every day, but on my no no days, that one hour is usually spent on some other more important activity.

I hope that I do not get any creases on my face and manage to look after myself till I pop off, but I don’t want to live to be 95! If anything, I am ready to go now without any regrets whatsoever.

Lasagna For Lunch.

The Jaguar Lady and Jay Ponti graced us with their presence last night and disappeared this morning. They are on their way back to the USA and we will miss them.

Jay decided that Ranjan and I should be exposed to his culinary skills and cooked a lasagna which was simply out of this world. Out of consideration for my sensibilities he had made it a vegetarian one but he slayed me with his more than generous use of cheese.

It took all of two hours of siesta to recover from that indulgence.

Thank you Jay. Come back soon.

What is my favourite time of the day?

As I had indicated in my Saturday’s post, this is the second post to answer the seven questions that Grannymar had asked in her meme.

My favourite time of the day is easily my post lunch siesta.

One of the things that I eagerly looked forward to during my working life was to retire so that I could have that lovely afternoon sleep. Every week end that I was able to get that in, was another resolve to retire as early as possible to enjoy that particular indulgence.

I wake up usually around 4.45 am and have a fairly busy morning with domestic chores, newspapers, crossword puzzles and other inevitable tasks that have to be undertaken in any household. By the time I have lunch, I am quite ready for that spot of bliss and nothing can come between that and me during those couple of hours.

Unfortunately, there are some afternoons when telephone calls, particularly from direct marketeers or callers at home like the courier person, interrupt the sleep and I find it difficult to get back to sleep. These occasions are however quite rare and I do get my uninterrupted sleep quite regularly.

What about you?