While the lentils cooked, I started chopping the red Amaranth on my cutting board watching the two tiny squirrels play catch-me-if-you-can on the mango tree outside.

As I stood there silent, my mind began to wander and I started reminiscing about my childhood days…yet again.

When in school, I and my brother disliked leafy foods in any form. So much so that our school lunchboxes never saw any vegetables other than potatoes and Okra for as long as I remember.

“Who on Earth loves eating this laal chawli bhaji (red Amaranth) mom. It looks so yuck?” I would make faces in vain after seeing the slimy mass on my plate, hoping that she would stop making the same…someday.

A long angry look from mom and we would continue to shovel that slimy Chawli bhaji without uttering another word.

Thanks to some real-life social engagements, I went off-line for a couple of days and enjoyed the leisure time with family and friends. The self-exile did help in bringing some balance back into life .

Getting back to work again after a break can feel daunting.  I was trying to re-sync my internet-based social media engagements and checking the in-boxes for any messages.
I checked the online link on the site of a popular Indian newspaper ‘The Tribune’ which published my interview a couple of days back. I was reading that article and grinning from ear to ear, as if I had just won the lottery 🙂

And why wouldn’t I, the article about food bloggers in India starts with a few snippets from ‘my journey into the world of food blogging‘ and ends with a sentence from my about page! 

Following your dream is never easy, but these are the times when the efforts you put in, to realize your dreams feel worth.

“Food is a gift and should be treated reverentially – romanced and ritualized and seasoned with memory” ~ Chris Bohialian
For some time now I was thinking about the spicy Chole (chickpeas) with fluffy deep-fried Bhature (flat breads), mom used to make during weekends in Udaipur.
The star ingredient of the recipe is Charmagaz. Charmagaz is an assortment of four different seeds of Cucurbitaceous plants. Musk melon, water melon, pumpkin and cucumber seeds together are called Charmagaz. Char is a Hindi word fo four and Magaz means intelligence.

Apart from making a healthy, filling and delicious snack, Charmagaz is extensively used in Rajasthani cuisine. If Rajput families use a paste of these seeds for their exotic non-veg cuisine then the Marwaris make scrumptious desserts using the same.

 My house resembles a NASA workstation during morning hours on weekdays. We all get up quite early and continue doing our routine chores, just as any robot will do. Though there is hustle & bustle of activities going around all over the house, a pin drop silence is always maintained, lest we forget to execute any task.

I get up at 5.30 am, brush teeth, rush out to get milk, go for a small morning walk, cook and pack the lunch & breakfast for hubby, all by 6.30 am.

 There is no better way to start a day than with a hearty breakfast with your family!

I didn’t give much thought back then, but realized that this is a common topic of discussion among many parents I meet during school hours. “Our children spend years gathering useless information they’ll never use again” is the common complaint from many parents.
“You should always remember that school life does not end just with mugging up lessons and clearing exams. Your school life extends much beyond the backpack you carry, to some of the supportive friends you make for lifetime, creative lessons you learn from your teachers in studies and sports to the self esteem you gain in school.”

Living in two different cultures has more benefits than challenges, well, at least to me. I was born and brought up in Rajasthan and moved to Chennai after marriage. I did not anticipate the vast differences in food preference, rituals, languages and the climatic conditions between both the cities. But fortunately for me, except for the common language of communication (Tamil), my transition from one culture to other was seamless.

And yes, the barrier of language was broken long back. I can now converse in local languages (Tamil and Telugu) without getting conscious of my accents or worrying about grammatical mistakes 🙂

“Remember the tiny kiosk where we had kulhar (mud pots) tea near Jhulaghat, that small village we stopped by for breakfast alongside river Kali, and the green house we barged in for lunch….everything is washed away in flood.” She told in one breath.

My heart feels heavy every time I watch the happenings in Uttarakhand, India on television.  The early heavy rains, flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand or Uttaranchal last month have devastated this beautiful hill station of India.

I called ‘M’ my childhood friend from Uttarakhand the other day to inquire about her family. She could not stop cribbing about the mindless construction of illegal hotels and resorts by outsiders on river beds all around the valley leading to deforestation. “Hazards are inevitable, but such human activities convert hazards into catastrophe…and that’s what we are facing right now” I could feel the despair and vulnerability in her voice.

A trip to hometown is more than just yearly rituals to me. It’s the time to connect with family & friends, explore some new and some old places that remain unchanged. Vacation is ‘my time’ when I do things at my own pace, follow my passion, and get in some real life. It is the time when blog posts can wait and there is no pressure to sign in to check mails and social media interactions. I completely enjoy every moment of the laid back life and mom’s yummy food.

Networking takes a back seat and I live in the real world. The day begins with an early morning walk alongside lake Fateh Sagar, reading regional New paper ‘Rajasthan Patrika’ and gorging home cooked simple yet authentic Rajasthani breakfast.

‘Our house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy’. Yes, we decided to repaint the house after putting the long due project to back burner for years. The house is in total mess, but this exercise is a good lesson not to collect things which we may never use in life. There are sackful of such useless articles peeping errr..sleeping in the cupboards and overhead lofts, and I am on a disposing spree…finally.

On a positive note, painting your house is a good chance to do some spring cleaning as well. My old oven, box TV, stone age printer, bangle boxes, speakers, toasters, fluffy teddy bears, bagful of plastic kitchenware…looks like I have a real Pandora box…and believe me some of these have never seen the light of the day. Getting attached with these not so useful objects which were a part of my life some years back is inevitable, and I really feel sad to part with.

You can take a girl out of desserts, but you can’t take desserts out of a girl. Oh yes, I was born with a dessert spoon! According to my nanny my mom was feasting on hot Malpuas dipped in creamy Rabdi a few minutes before she went into labour pains, much to the chagrin of my stressed out doctor father.

Desserts were an important part of our everyday meal during growing  up years in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Our family was certainly not an exception in a state where a day starts and ends with a sweet, what with people queuing up in food shops before the day breaks, fishing out hot Jalebis floating in warm milk for breakfast.