How not to tear your hair out (and other summer stories)

Summers in India meant hair lice. This came along with ripe and juicy mangoes, trails of dust along the cobbled streets, and the distinct smell of heat (a concept you can fathom only after spending seventeen days in a row in 110 degrees Fahrenheit). Nevertheless, hair lice had to be the highlight. 

Hair lice are tiny parasites that live in the hair. Though scientifically defined as 'harmless', th little bloodsuckers are enough to drive one crazy. They bite, cause extensive itching, multiply like rabbits, and lay eggs in the same hair that they live in. They are nearly impossible to get rid of – believe me, I’ve tried.

Every summer growing up, my cousins and I would meet for an annual reunion at our grandparents' house. This reunion, given its large scale, called for a lot of coordination before each family embarked from their respective city. Numerous phone calls were made across states with conversations revolving around arrival and departure times, transportation from the train station, and the routine question of 'does anyone have lice?' This last question was the most important, given how contagious hair lice are. Depending on the range of answers, the summer would be planned accordingly, decisions would be made, agreements signed and very occasionally, a brave soul or two would chop their hair off to avoid any sort of parasite drama.

Nevertheless, every summer at least one of us arrived with a breeding ground for a head. So when we were finally reunited, we would spend a significant part of our holiday scratching our heads together (not as a result of any sort of intellectual pursuit). Invariably, we would have our mothers and grandmother lubricate our locks with strong coconut oil to make it easier to de-infest our hair. This would be followed by the whipping out of The Lice Comb, a device with incredibly sharp and close-set teeth that I'm pretty sure was, at some point in history, used as an instrument of torture. The Lice Comb had many notable abilities, the best of which was ripping our hair out in the most painful manner possible, closely followed by actually pulling out the lice.

One of many remedies- and this was usually used as a last resort, given the chemical nature of it- was a liquid medical marvel that promised to kill all lice if you bathed your hair in it. We used a clear green solution that smelled of very strong floor cleaner. Actually, it may have been just that, packaged, marketed and sold otherwise.  At some point during our summer shenanigans, this 'floor cleaner' would be brought to our doorstep, and we would all have a fun morning together- the green liquid, our mothers, and us.  None of us were the least bit happy during this exercise of lathering our heads with this toxic chemical. We had to quite literally be tied to the bed post to cooperate. Though we knew it was for the greater good, we thought it was a waste of our precious time, which could otherwise be used to steal sugar cubes from the top most kitchen shelf, run around the center staircase making 'music' with steel vessels, climb up the dangerous water tank for a spectacular city view, and essentially drive my grandmother crazy. 

Looking back- and this is something none of us really noticed in the moment, given the 'dangerous' nature of events- those tiny insects played their part in the larger scheme of things. Without their help summer breaks would not have been half as entertaining. There was a certain amusing twist to three generations of female figures locked up in a room battling a common cause. Growing up, a number of things brought my family together in times of need- the good, the bad, and the ugly. But nothing as seemingly insignificant as these wingless, stumpy legged parasites.

Writing Prompts: Cooking

The aromatic smell of eight different Indian masalas seeped through the hallway, along with the sound of sizzling mustard seeds, churning cumin, and the rather loud air vent.

My mother is a spectacular cook, and I don't exaggerate when I say that people traveled from far and wide for a taste of her food. She pretty much whips up a miracle every time she sets foot in the kitchen. 

My earliest memory of her food was home made puffs stuffed with potato masala. I distinctly remember her taking it out of the oven in our little apartment in Atlanta. Even then, when I knew nothing about cooking, I was fascinated by how she had made thirty soft and flaky puffs with three layers that melted in your mouth and a tangy potato center, from - powder, basically. 

Growing up, the only 'cooking' I partook in was when my cousins and I got together over the summer. My mom would encourage all of us to bake cakes as a group activity (though now I realize this was to keep us occupied enough to not have to deal with our antics that were, more often than not, dangerous to a deadly degree).  I'm positive that I agreed to this baking exercise only so I could sneak a few licks of batter and of course, a large slice of cake at the end of it. 

As a teenager, I was an adamant and naive feminist (or that's what I called myself). I believed that feminism meant a lot of great things that make sense to me even now, but I also believed that it meant women shouldn't cook. I admit, this was a very simplistic view of things. I refused to set foot in the kitchen based on the belief that I was truly breaking gender barriers here. 

For years when people asked me about cooking, I joked and stated that my mom's amazing cooking genes just skipped me- when in honesty I had never even tried. Through university, I was surrounded by amazing cooks and found no necessity to attempt any possible/probable disaster in the kitchen, when home-food was a knock away. So at the end of my twenty-fourth birthday, boiling water was the only real culinary skill I had.

It wasn't until my brother soon blossomed into an amazing cook that I really sat down and rethought my life choices. When I visited him that summer, he whipped up some of my mom's signature dishes for me. I must admit that I was quite ashamed of myself. I had clearly let my adamant and childish views of the world get in the way of what could have been a great skill to have.  

I'm not sure if it was competitiveness, shame, being broke or just basic hunger that resulted in me finally deciding to grab a spatula. One thing I will say is, once I started there was no turning back. What started off as an evening ritual of dumping all the vegetables from my vague attempt at grocery shopping into a pot, led to some pretty elaborate spinach ravioli from scratch, healthy cauliflower crust pizza and complicated South Indian dishes packed with coconut, curry leaves and spices. 

My mom has a hand written cookbook. Though she no longer uses it (given her years of experience I believe every recipe sits safely in her brain), I know it still exists somewhere in her treasure trove. I always thought that I would never want or need it, and had come to terms with the fact that my brother deserved it more than I did. But with the recent turn of events, i think we are down for a battle for the cookbook. May the best child, I mean, cook, win.