Heart upon my sleeve

Game of Thrones (GoT) is a lot like Modi. It has a huge following, it is popular world-wide, and it’s Bhakts just can’t stand the fact that someone may not like it.   I agree there must be something to it, that it garners world-wide popularity. You don’t become a world-wide craze just like that! But why is it so hard to accept that it’s just not for everybody! The man in the house has been a huge GoT fan for the last 4 years. 4 years back he watched the first season online. Then binged watched on the next 3 so he could catch up with the current season at the time. I could see the admiration in his eyes – like he has seen the Taj Mahal– “ Vah what a masterpiece has been created!” He kept coaxing me to follow it too so he would have someone to discuss, analyze and predict with, at the end of every episode. I was, during that time, doing my 4 th rerun of FRIENDS. I passed. Slowly everyone that I was friends with, had become a GoT fan. I sat quietly at dinners with the f...

I met a South African lady recently for work. The original plan was to meet in a coffee shop. A really bad sand storm meant the plan had to be changed, so I suggested “Why don’t you just come over to my place and we can discuss work over some hot masala chai.” “Perfect!”, she replied. After the work was out of our way, while we discussed life and food, she asked me if I, like every other Indian woman, had a ‘Spice box’ in my kitchen. “Oh yeah,” I said.  As I showed the contents of each box, she looked at me amazed.   “So, you use all of these every day?”, she asked curiously. “Most of them, yes.” “That’s a lot of spices!” “Oh, wait till you see the other Masalas that are neatly stowed in the fridge door,” I said, opening the fridge. (Thank God I had cleaned it recently 😉 ) “See, these are not used every day. But for example when I make Dosa and Sambhar..” “Dosa – those crispy pancakes with spicy lentil soup, right?” I smiled. “Yeah that spicy ...

In November last year I planted my chilly plant. In a few days it flowered, and for many more days after that nothing happened. I waited and waited some more, but it bore no fruit. I worried why? For some reason the flowers were not pollinating. I read online that chilly plants are self-pollinating, so I blew gently on them so as to displace the pollens. Two days and still nothing.   Then one site suggested I use a small coloring brush to gently move the pollen closer to the stigma.   Again, didn’t work. ☹ Then finally one evening, there was a big thunderstorm (I know, very filmy - “Toofan aya” type, right?) And lo, ‘Anther aur stigma ka milan hua!’ My chilly plant finally bore fruit. To my surprise it wasn’t the green chilly I expected. The baby chilly was plump and yellow and grew facing heaven – but it was unique and it was mine. To think of it, gardening is so much like parenting – Patience is the key! Every plant grows at it’s own pace. Some are just late b...