A Common History

History happened here. It wasn’t the kind of history that made the news, or the kind that was mentioned in history text books that children thirty years from now would have to memorize. It wasn’t even the kind of history that the village would talk about in the coming months or years. It was a simple history. A history of love and kindness. Of sacrifice. Of a mother and a son. Of long days under the scorching sun and short nights on cold and sandy floors. Of infinite paddy fields surrounding their mud thatched house. Of one jute sleeping mat, patterned green and red, spread on the floor. Of a mosquito net unfurled, protective, above the mat. Of clay floor stoves just inches away, surrounded by steel pans and mud pots. Of spice jars filled with every flavor imaginable. Of a tiny well shared by a hundred villagers. Of the two mile walk from their thatched house to the well, women barefoot and braving the heat. Of the little brass pot that was filled with their days' water supply, that they rationed ever so carefully. History happened here, and all it was, was the struggle of everyday life. The greatest history ever.

Writing prompts: Character sketches

Almost as if forced into a uniform, my grandfather would spend everyday in white attire - a cotton shirt and pant, with very stereotypical brown sandals that almost every South Indian man over forty could be seen wearing. The outfit was starched to stiffness and as crisp as a hundred rupee note. I don’t have a single memory of him wearing something out of this patterned white - a white that matched his hair, his smile, and the talcum powder that he always smelled of.

Disciplined through and through, he would sit at the dining table for breakfast at 10am each morning, on the exact same chair, that was interestingly, NOT the quintessential ‘head of the table’ chair. My grandmother would place a large silver plate on the table, along with a steel water glass. Once he took his seat, my grandfather would pour some water from his glass into his right hand and rather artistically sprinkle it around his plate. I always wondered why he did that and I never, ever had the courage to ask. I found out years later that it is a South Indian tradition that is supposed to prevent ants and other insects from intruding into your food. 

My grandfather was also disciplined about his vices. In his younger days, he was a smoker. While he wasn’t a heavy drinker, he would end each day with a glass of  'Mcdowell's No. 1'  whiskey and soda. He had a mini fridge hidden in his bedroom- my grandparents' attempt at hiding this habit from their eight grandchildren.

Now, he is frail, weakened. He no longer drinks or smokes because his health doesn’t permit him to. But some old habits die hard; I visited him last summer and watched as he sat on the exact same chair, did his water sprinkle, ate. He started talking to me about food - a topic that hits home. My family has a farming background, and as a kid my grandfather worked hard on his families' fields. He knew the ins and outs of farming and was incredibly passionate about it.

"We never had to worry about food being ‘organic’. Everything we ate was farmed by us, and it genuinely was free of chemicals. It was all fresh, and absolutely delicious. When I moved to the city, this was one of the biggest changes and challenges for me. I missed the days when I was actively involved in my families’ farm. We ate eggs right from chickens that we reared in our backyard. I helped decompose the manure that we used in all our fields."

He went on to tell me about how the price of milk and rice is a hundred times what it used to be, followed by other “in my time” grandfather phrases. He never spoke about himself or his feelings, and rarely spoke about his childhood. These few sentences were a treasure to me and while I was eager for more, the conversation quickly changed paths.

There are many things about my grandfather that are still intriguing to me. He absolutely adores my grandma but also never, ever calls her by her name. He is terrifying to his grandchildren to the point that we would all literally tiptoe around him- but with that fear comes great respect for this self-made man who left his tiny village for the big city and created a new life for his family. 

You are only as strong as your weakest link

The thing about people who are weak is that no matter how strong you are, their weakness is stronger. Their weakness is the strongest thing they have and it will trump anything - love and kindness and sincerity and conviction and strength, all. So much that everything you have fought for will seem insignificant, immaterial, a powerless speck of dust drifting in the vastness of the universe. 

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. 

Writing Prompts: Day 1 - They said it could be done

They said it could be done. However, the soldiers were unaware of the kind of planning and deliberation that went behind rebuilding the nest. Their queen had been through a lot these past few days, no doubt. After the humans had torn down their hill and the cranes had disappeared from their view, chaos had prevailed for hours. There was so little the soldiers could do to defend the colony against the human ‘attack’. Now that the forest was calm again, it was time to rebuild and start from scratch. With the increase in human activity over the last few years, minor disruptions to their nest were not uncommon. But this was the first time they had experienced such a major upheaval, a total tear-down of their home and the loss of so many lives. Things would never be the same again, and rebuilding their lives was not going to be a mean feat.

Hindi Prachar Sabha St.

My grandparents’ house was once majestic- this much I am sure of. However, age had worn down the walls, outside and inside. The mold growing along the outer walls and the creepers winding around the gate increased the antiquated feeling it brought about.

I distinctly remember walking along the cobbled Madras streets a myriad times and looking out for the big black gate that felt like home, despite how foreboding it really was. The gate itself was incredibly difficult to open- it took all the strength that my eight-year-old body could muster to make it move an inch. I remember my grandma resiliently opening it each summer when we came to visit, helping us unload our massive suitcases from the old white Ambassador car that would dutifully come and pick us up from the airport. My granddad would stand by the gate in his all-white attire (hair included) and smile down at us. We would pass the garden that my grandma lovingly tended to and the office space downstairs that I associated so strongly with my granddad and his amazing work ethics. I remember ringing the calling bell, a ten-second long tune that I intensely loved and fiercely hated at the same time.

Summers in this house were a grand event, to say the least. My closest cousins would all assemble here, and we would essentially have the time of our lives and drive our grandma crazy (both were very mutually inclusive events).

The house was every bit as massive as it seemed to be from the outside, and it was home to every kind of hiding place you could imagine. And by hiding place- not only do I mean hiding places for people, but also for food- cookies mainly. My grandma would carefully lock away and ration what I believe to be (to this day) the best cookies I’ve ever eaten in my life. Britannia Jim Jam, they were called. Cookies with white cream and yes, a hole with jam in the center. Unfortunately, they were always locked in ‘the cupboard', with the keys carefully tucked away in the folds of my grandma’s sari. Of course, that hardly stopped us. There was a time when we actually had the courage to sneak up on her at 2am when she was fast asleep. Using a combination of skillful finger work and impressively light feet, we tried to fish out the keys from underneath her blankets. As surprising as this may sound, our mission was a grand success and we were up all night eating cookies and writing ghost stories. The next day was spent with my grandma chasing us around with a broomstick and swearing at us in the choicest of Telugu curse words.

The terrace was my favorite part of the house, and also the most dangerous part. Well, the terrace itself was relatively safe. It was the roof above the terrace that wasn’t. It was where the water tank was carefully tucked away, and access was only possible by climbing a lethal ladder. This may be a good time to mention that we were an adventurous bunch, and our curiosity was extremely piqued ever since our grandma made climbing up that ladder seem completely out of bounds.

So one summer, when we were sure she was busy making goodies for us in the kitchen, we snuck up into this forbidden land. And we loved every bit of the excitement that came with it. Oh and the danger, for one fall and we were definitely doomed. We were quite literally walking on a sloped roof. The fun did not stop here. We climbed up and down every little hole and ledge that we found. Oh wait, the fun did stop here- when one of my cousins got stuck on the last ledge we would ever climb, and we had no idea how to get her back up. It was a moment of panic, and even our combined brainstorming saw no way out but to own up and call our aunt to save my cousin. It is all quite hilarious, thinking back, though in the moment it was a matter of life and death.

This marked the end of our terrace adventures, sadly, until many years later when we were all in the house together again. My grandma was in the kitchen, and we snuck up there to reminisce the good old times.