Faith in Humanity - Restored

    Sometimes, a single incident can change your outlook for the better. Today was one such. With all the Covid-19 negativity weighing around us, it was amazing to see how a genuine good deed could bring so much cheer. My husband and I were struggling to put the six patio chairs that we bought at Target into our SUV. Ten-Fifteen minutes and dozens of 'not so bright' ideas later, the chairs were still on the curb.

    We were debating whether my husband should make multiple trips with me waiting in the parking lot with the other chairs, when a random lady stopped her vehicle and offered to carry our chairs home for us. We politely refused and said we thought it would fit  albeit with some work on our side, but she replied with a smile that she’ll stand by in case we need help, which we eventually did. 

    She opened her vehicle's trunk , helped load our chairs and agreed to follow us home. As we drove in front of her and waited at the signal , the skeptic in us raised its head  and we chuckled to ourselves that it would be funny if she just drove off with our chairs since we all we knew was her first name. But there was no need for any worry as she followed us home and dropped the chairs off at our driveway.

    We thanked her profusely for her kindness to which she replied that all she wanted us to do was to pay it forward. Her smile and her helping nature dropped a ton of positivity into our lives and restored our faith in humanity! It only takes one good deed to make someone’s day , to lighten the mood, to make some one happy. So be kind! Help a stranger! Pay it forward! It will definitely make you happier and also make the world a teeny weeny bit better for it.

P.S : This incident happened in August 2020, but was languishing in my drafts as I somehow missed to publish it. Better late than never!

Fiction and Non- Fiction - Musings on Mother's day!

My son and I were watching Phineas and Ferb (a cartoon on Netflix where two genius kids do highly improbable and complicated things ) together.Suddenly he looked at me and said, "You know none of this can be real , right Amma?".

They had been learning fiction and non -fiction in school and I tried to bring in those concepts as I replied. "Of course this is fiction, it is an imaginary story. I'm sure kids like them would not be able to build such complicated things so easily. So is the other TV show with bionic humans",  referring to a sci-fi comedy that we all watched called Lab Rats which had  three bionic children as its main protagonists. To which he indignantly replied , "Bionic humans are not fiction, I'm quite sure science is very close to humans having bionic chips and implants, may be they have already done it somewhere."  Before I could get another word in, he got back to the topic

"I mean , I can totally get that they are super smart and able to create roller coasters , what I can't understand is , how would they ever get the money to build those things", he mused. Personally I had not thought of that as an impediment and to foster debate , suggested that may be Phineas and Ferb's parents were very rich and they gave them a lot of pocket money. At this he started laughing loudly and said "Amma,you don't get it , no parents would give kids so much pocket money. It has to be fiction."

I chuckled to myself.We live in an age where super smart children and bionic super humans are close to reality. But thankfully parents are still parents and children receiving huge amounts in pocket money is still fiction.

Many times , we tend to forget that our children live in a world far more advanced than we can comprehend and seeing it through their curious eyes is a gift to cherish.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

P.S : It does look like bionic humans are coming for real.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/13/elon-musk-humans-merge-machines-cyborg-artificial-intelligence-robots.html

The Lizard Incident - An anecdote on Friendship day

 "I don't know if you remember the card. But I haven't forgotten. I have it with me. All the best with your life."
These lines in my autograph book still trigger a memory of an incident that occurred when I was in class IX, referred to by our gang for years to come as the "Palli (Lizard)  incident." .That this incident was the first in a series of similar mid-adventures , is a topic for a different blog post , may be on another friendship day.  It was an afternoon full of boring lessons. There were six of us and a rubber lizard. Combining the rubber reptile with a surprise element , we had been trying to scare our classmates with varying degree of success. Then one of us had a brilliant idea. To try it on our Maths teacher who was a very friendly soul and liked all of us a lot. We decided on the last period of the day. As soon as she came in , we went to her desk with some questions regarding examination portions and as she was patiently explaining, out jumped the lizard , making her jump out of her skin.
The act went according to plan , but needless to say , we were at the receiving end of scoldings for better part of the next fifteen minutes. In some stupid fool's paradise, we had expected her to take it as a joke (!).

"I never expected such behavior from you, girls of all people."  She said with sadness in her voice and walked out.

We were upset that we had saddened our favorite teacher. We were scared that we'd be taken to the Principal or Vice Principal for disruptive behavior. We waited for her to come back and resume her lesson, but she did not return. None of us got much sleep that night with nightmarish images of getting expelled from school, on top of our thoughts. The next day, we decided to make a hand made card and place it on her desk. This was our way of telling her how sorry we were. With inputs from all , the card was designed , It had 6 :( in a row , each having some identifiable characteristic of one of the offenders and just one word inside it "SORRY". We placed it at her desk.

She never acknowledged that she got it , but we were were sure she had , because Math lessons from then on became the same as the ones in the "pre- Lizard Era". We were too scared to play any tricks in any class for the whole year and were so grateful that we worked extra hard in her classes to
become her best students.

Though I've had a lot of friends and fun in college and at various work places, when ever I think of friendship , my school life comes to mind first. ROFL and LOL were not invented back then , but anything and everything could make us laugh as if there was no tomorrow. Dedicating this post to my fellow conspirators in this incident, whom I haven't met or talked to for years now. When I look back , I can honestly say  " Those were the best days of my life. "

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda


Thank you BlogaAdda for choosing this as a WOW post. Made my day!.

The Puttu Experiment

At home , I was always a lazy girl and would spend all my time sleeping or reading and kitchen was place I came down only when mom would call me to come and get my food. All my mom's talks of other girls of my age knowing cooking and housework usually got transmitted straight over my head , hit the thick walls of the dining room , got lost in the deafening noise of the TV and died. Getting a job in a company that had a canteen and moving in with friends in Bangalore did precious little to improve my house-wifely skills. It didn't help , that I continued to stay with friends for almost a year after my wedding , before flying to America to start my family life.

To cut a long story short, my culinary skills included  just a little more than Maggi , tea and coffee.And I was stuck in a place where maids/cooks/Indian restaurants were not an option and my 2 helplines (Mom and mother in law) were half way across the globe.With frequent telephone calls to India and continuous reference to cookery blogs , we managed to survive. Then one day , my husband came with a packet of Double horse Puttu podi.

"Let us have some puttu this weekend ". He said.
I had never made puttu in my life and told him in so  many words that it was probably good to have some back up plan. But hubby dear was insistent. "It is really simple and easy. How many times have I seen

my mom make it.You just put a few drops of water in the puttu powder , put it in the kudam (vessel for steaming puttu) and steam it."



Saturday came and we woke up somewhere close to 11:00 AM and I followed his instructions one by one

1)Took one glass of putto powder.
2)Sprinkled water on it.
3)Added water in a pressure cooker and closed it with the puttu kudam as its weight.

(5 Min's of steam and the puttu should be ready. I thought happily).

After 5 Min's , I opened the vessel, and scraped a bit off the top to taste . It tasted just like heated rice powder.I decided to give it a benefit of the doubt and kept it back on stove on for 5 more minutes.

Result: super heater rice powder.

Puttu we hoped to make.
[Image is not mine. Copied from Google]

I woke up my husband who was still sleeping in anticipation of waking up to a sumptuous breakfast.

What my puttu looked like

[Image is not mine. Copied from Google]

What did you burn today?, he asked seeing my face. "Nothing , but the puttu isn't cooking,". He consented to wake up , but even with his expert supervision, the puttu stubbornly refused to cook and we just got rice flour with higher and higher temperatures.



It was too late in the night by Indian time and our cooking helplines were all unavailable and in bed.Finally hunger overtook our patience and we settled for the ever easy fall back option of bread /omelet.Later when I called home , every one had a hearty laugh at us .The reason  our puttu never got cooked was because neither I nor my husband knew that puttu powder needs to be mixed with water to reach a certain consistency before it can ever get cooked.

Lessons Learnt: The correct amount of water is one of the most important ingredients to good cooking.

 Anyway, after years of burnt vessels , hot , salty,salt less  edible , inedible and partially edible substances , now I am able to cook food that is usually palatable and occasionally tasty enough to get that random compliment.

 P.S : This post is intended to make lazy bums (like me) feel better. Rest assured.Knowing cooking beforehand doesn't really matter. You are bound to learn it in time, anyway and it will certainly give you a few moments like these to laugh out loud. :)