The food path to happiness!

Its been over two years since I was uprooted from Bangalore and replanted in Muscat. I hated everything about Muscat initially, because I believed that Bangalore was an incomparable place. But then there is a destiny factor which plays the protagonist in our lives and we are the supporting actors who adhere to it. So two years down the line, I still miss my friend s in Bangalore, but I cant complain about Muscat too.

Although it took us long to settle down and find an amicable group to connect with, we found a cool place to hangout couple of miles from our home, quite early on. It is Camilia Turkish Restaurant, where we get the best Turkish Shewerma and Grilled Chicken, ever. I am not saying it is the best in the world ONLY because I haven’t been to a lot of places outside India, and hence do not have the proof enough to say it.

Now Camilia is the best thing that happened to us I must say. Every week, we have dinner there atleast once. To top it, we also get fresh juices ! What else does one need in the scorching Gulf summers!

Camilia is also reasonably priced, has open air as well as roofed air conditioned space, and very friendly staff. Although it is a casual outlet and one wouldn’t choose it for a birthday or anniversary dinner, hubby and me are happiest at Camilia and would prefer it over any high profile restaurants around. My one year old also enjoys the hot French fries they serve with the chicken!

So what I am trying to say is, wherever destiny takes you, just find a good place to hang out and most importantly to EAT, and you will be happy.

Here is a picture of the salt and pepper mills at Camilia – can these get any more creative? How cute! 

High School Gags...

It was one of those glorious high school days when we, a gang of nine brats popularly known as The Notorious Nine, were walking from school to the bus station at noon, after a boring three-hour extra class during the weekend. We were all the typical uniform wearing, hyperactive students who left no stone unturned to enrage teachers ,parents and peers alike. 

Among us, my friends Sandy and Ancy (names changed to protect my head their privacy :D ) were healthier than the rest of us.

As we walked, Ancy went on to announce, that since she and Sandy weighed significantly more than the rest of us, the school will declare two days leave in the event of their unfortunate demise.

 This declaration however, did not go down well with the rest of us. I screamed, ‘WHAT?’ . However Ancy kept walking completely ignoring my tone of speech and expression. The others of the gang rolled eyes at her. However, she kept chewing her gum, pretending to be completely oblivious to the air of terror around her. Well no one actually cared about the demise part, but the worry was for the two days she deserved, unlike one day which is the usual trend. Sandy also kept walking, nodding her head as if to acknowledge the praise she was bestowed upon.

I couldn’t control myself, when I asked her…”Then what about me…and Nimmy..and the others ?” She patted off some dust from her skirt, casually ran her fingers through her hair and said, ‘One day maximum, if it is not on a weekend’. I felt highly insulted and humiliated than I would’ve felt if I actually died on a weekend. 

The shortest and most malnourished member of our gang, G, then looked up, and asked in a low voice, ‘ And me?’

Ancy looked at her pitifully, up and down, and famously replied after a few seconds,

“Hmm… Five minutes silence, at the most”. 

Inappropriate Monologues.

Ten days into the month and finally I got to sit down to write a few words of how beautiful the last week of my life had been. Firstly, my parents landed on the 5^th of June, and in the next two days I was completely blinded by homemade chocolate cake. I can very proudly say that except for one piece I donated generously to my maid and another which I hesitantly gave my hubby, the rest of the cake has safely landed in my otherwise flexible tummy. However I do not feel even a bit guilty, because like my sister says, I am also sure they serve these in heaven.

Second reason I am happy about is that I completed one year of parenting, or in other words, my son turned one. My parents almost cant see me yet, as they are drowned deep in the whims and smiles of my little one. We also hosted a party for close friends, during which we cut the cake, played games, danced and ate a sumptuous dinner.

So before the birthday party, on Aaron’s actual birthday, we went to church in the morning, said thanks to the Almighty for the countless blessings, and at noon, we’d invited two of my previous housemaids to join us for lunch. I did this from a good intention, because I was sincerely thankful to them. So post lunch one of them showed no signs of leaving. As soon as she came she started talking about her diabetes problem which we showed concern and listened curiously. But her symptoms and hospitalization story went on and on until we could no longer hear her. Mummy, who actually is a good listener tried to change the topic by talking to my son in between but she paid no heed to her attempts. I tried going to another room and calling my mother on the landline which was in the living room,(so that she gets up to answer the call and the conversation would be disconnected) but my brutally innocent Mummy failed to read my intentions and asked me to answer the call K

Finally around 45 minutes of exaggerated details from her fasting and post brandial sugar count -to her doctor -his experience and family- to his mother tongue and expertise-to her hospitalization charges and treatment- to her daughter starving in sorrow, to the sandals which was stolen at the hospital. She left no stone unturned and then changed the topic.

 To suicide. About a girl she knows who apparently looked like me, and her husband who (obviously) looked like my husband

 ( **when people lie, they say some details which goes too far and makes the most tragical stories funny**** )who had a shaky marriage and then my looakalike committed suicide leaving behind a two year old. Remember, she is talking to my mother. I watched Mummy’s face going pale and at this point, I stood up and left the room and started planning an evening walk so that we could get rid of this calamity in human form which had settled down in my living room. I talked to Papa who was in another room checking emails and told him that we could go and check out a new residential building which had come up in our area. I convinced my husband also into this, and got dressed all of which took about 20 minutes and went to the living room again to hear her still describing about how my lookalike was found breathless after hanging from the ceiling fan in such great detail as if she was an eye witness. If I asked her where the lookalike got the rope to hang from, she’d detail that also, with route maps.  

Trying my best to cover the sheer desperation and anger I said, ‘Arent you guys done with this topic yet..? Remember it is Aaron’s birthday? ’…with a fake smile, winking at Mummy in between sounding as sweet as possible. That’s when she snapped back..’Anita if you don’t want to listen , you just don’t listen…I am talking to your mother’. If she weren’t that old lady who once cooked food for me while I was pregnant, I would have thrown the furniture at her.

Some people just don’t know what to talk, when and where. Leave housemaids, we can forgive her thinking she is not educated.

 On one auspicious day of my sister in law’s wedding we left to the parlor early morning with the wedding saree and jewels. Giving away a bride is a sentimental ceremony, more than just a celebration. Our home was crowded with relatives who had come from near and far, and the atmosphere seemed to be heavy with anticipation and prayers . In thirty minutes and atleast fifteen phone calls, we reached the parlour where the beautician who looked a bit sophisticated waited. 

It took around two hours, to be done with the saree, hairdo and jewels, during which she subjected us to details of all the road accidents she had experienced so far, first hand or otherwise. She also described that the corpses she saw in the accident the week before dint have heads and also the pool of blood on the road, in millilitres. I wondered, if she spoke like this on a wedding day, what would she speak about at a funeral?

Can it get any more weird?

I am sure everyone had their shares of experiences with people who are educated or illiterate, who just cant decide what to say and when. People whose tongues are faster than their heads. I can but boldly say, that education has nothing to do with knowing what to talk. What do you say?

Bad, bad teacher!

This post is dedicated to the weirdest creepiest female I was a student of, around half a decade ago.

To begin with, she had this odd fashion sense. Her pencil thin frame was usually clad in saree- draped in sheer carelessness sans any effort to look neat. She was also supremely short for an average Indian adult, and this made her look comical- but mind you if you smile around her she will scare the daylight out of you using ultrasonic expletives. She complemented the bandage of a saree with pointed high heels which she obviously considered very funky to be wearing in a college where one has to walk in kilometers to go from one classroom to another. The annoying noise that her heels made could be heard from the nearest railway station.

When she entered the classroom, the sound of her heels automatically transformed the normal working of our brain to a state of numbness wherein we were reduced to vegetables which can read and write. As soon as she left we reverted to our normal state. Whenever she gave us a problem to solve, she walked amidst us creating an air of fear and sometimes casually banged her wrist on the desk- which caused a minor myocardial infarction to the student whose desk that was. 

Again, her vocabulary in English consisted mainly of the word ‘man’. ‘Come here, man’ ‘Get lost, man’ ‘What the hell is this man’ ‘Get out man’. And mind you, ‘man’ was not used for men alone. Once she told me, ‘ You Anita ! Get me a chalk, man’ K

The primary reason why she was weird was the explosive temper which could give any Shaji Kailas protagonist a run for his money. The subject she taught was associated with a lab – and hence this semester was a painful slow death for any student aspiring to attain a degree.  To get her signature on one chapter of the record book was mission impossible; imagine getting it for all 21 chapters and appearing for the lab exam where she will be there with her devilish grin and eagle eyes to get any prey she can lay her hands on. If at all you complete an experiment at the lab, document it and go to her for signature, she glances through the pages and if there is a micron of a correction she hurls the record book outside the staff room. The wailing students were supposed to pick them up and run to grab their anti depressants. The area outside her staff room was appropriately nicknamed ‘runway’ because the flying record books always crash landed there. The students actually formed a queue and stuck themselves to the wall so that there was enough space for the flying saucers.

Once she was joking to another teacher in the staff room and smiling..yes I caught her smiling! I continued to wait happily in line for my first experiment, when the boy standing ahead of me handed over his pen to her for signature, and to his fate the pen did not produce enough ink for her to carve her much anticipated signature and it went flying out of the window. The guy cried ‘My Pierre Cardin!’ out of an instant gut and he has not been allowed in her class or lab ever since. Well, when the pen went flying, so did I, straight to my hostel holding my record book tight to myself. That day I called home and cried to my parents blaming them for sending me to a place where there are villains for teachers. However I made it a point to never be a victim to her outrage and learnt my experiments in depth and wrote them accurately.

Another very appreciable quality which she possessed was her relentless ability to curse. Once a guy talked in her class and she cursed him, his parents and ancestors and even subjected him to further humiliation when she expressed her desire to see him around writing arrears for the next seven years. And on her last class before the exams all the other teachers wished us good luck...whereas she expressed her sincere wish that all of us fail her subject and wait at her desk again the next year.

Finally the day came when I went with shivering hands and feet to the University Lab exam. I got an experiment which I was not an expert on and started with a doubtful mind. The external was a man in his 40s and was a kind person. Madam Cruella De Ville sat next to him, looking at me as if to find some fault as she learnt from my expression and body language that I was doubtful. Unfortunately the tiny screen did not show any output when I heard the creaking of a chair being pulled back. I turned to look at her coming towards me. My fingers were literally shaking. She said, ‘Okay Anita, so see you again next year, same lab’ accompanied by devilish laugh. Other students looked at me pitifully, when tears started gushing out of my eyes. I dint say anything and continued to work on my experiment. However it did not give any positive signs, and I proceeded to my second experiment for which I got the desired result. But Madam Adamant was stern on her decision, and gave a smirk as I proceeded out of the lab. Needless to say I was torn apart.

However the graceful Almighty not only passed but also gave me good marks for her theory paper and lab. The 40 something normal external professor gave me marks for the experiment I did correctly and also reduced for the one I dint, but adding up record book marks and internal marks I got a decent score. I do not know how long she continued in that institution after I graduated seven years ago, but wherever she is, I remember her and feel pitiful for the students who get suicidal under her guidance.

Wherever you are, I dedicate this song to you, Ma’am, and I really mean it!