Remembrance

You flash into my head
like a bolt of lightning.
Illuminate corners
long dark and dormant

You bring memories
of days warm and sunny;
memories of ease and comfort;
of walls broken down.

When you delved deep,
it always seemed natural.
Like water that flows
downhill.

Radiant, innocent, joyous, beautiful.
You are all that this world
is meant to be

You brought that into our lives,
filled rooms with your tinkling laughter;
thoughts
with your soft voice.

Your voice
still fills the spaces in my head.
And I talk to you
in my night's dreams

Images: A Series of Vases Inspired by Memories and Loss by Hadar Glick

Herbed Cheese tartlets

I like experimenting with food and pottering around the kitchen... when in good mood, when in bad mood... basically at all times except when I am feeling lazy (and I have been feeling that way a lot lately)! However, I don't normally document my cooking with photographs and end up feeling bad at the end of it. More so when the dish turns out as it's supposed to and I am all elated and happy and can't wait to tell everyone how yummy they were. You see the show off in me can't really show off without any photos!!!

Making the Herbed Cheese Tartlets.

Individual Pictures are Here

So yesterday when I decided to try this Herbed cheese tart recipe, I also promised myself that I would click the entire process. I found the recipe while browsing on pinterest in the midst of some very boring documentation I was working on. Reading the recipe that I found here I thought it looked amazingly simple even if I'd have to make the herbed cheese (since hunting for Boursin cheese wasn't going to give me much success in a dinky little Mumbai suburb. Besides, even if I did find it I wouldn't want to spend the atrocious amount that it would cost me). And I had most of the ingredients at home!!!

I bounced home enthusiastically in the evening, buying a few of the things I needed on the way and set to making myself some, what would hopefully be, very tasty dinner! I decided to make little tartlets instead of one huge tart for two reasons: one, I was cooking for one person and since I am hardly likely to finish a whole tart by myself, I thought it would be better to make little tartlets. Two, my tart dish is too big for the little oven I have here (Sadness! Do I buy a smaller tart dish or a bigger oven???).

I'd love to put up a recipe here but I am pretty bad at that because I don't usually measure ingredients out - I work more by feel and taste. I suggest anyone who wants to try this heads to the original recipe. It's well written and it's easy. I'll just list the little adaptations I made:

1. I used capsicums and mushrooms in addition to the tomatoes since I was making tartlets and wanted more flavours.
2. I marinated the veggies in a mix of Olive oil, spring onions (the green leafy part only), diced garlic, sea salt, pepper and oregano. That allowed the veggies to soak in some flavouring and tasted pretty good!
3. I also drizzled a little bit of the marinate mixture over the tartlets before the final stage of baking to keep the veggies and cheese from getting too dry. 

To make the boursin equivalent here's what I did:

1. 3 cubes of herbed cheese + 6 cubes of plain cheese (use a creamy, soft one. Any cheese spread will do. I used Laughing cow... it's texture is closest to cream cheese!)
2. Whizz that with some butter (about 50 gms)
3. Pop in some chopped garlic and parsley, pepper, salt (don't add salt if using salted butter like me) and spring onion greens (optional).
4. Whizz some more.
5. Take out in bowl and keep in fridge till you need it (it's tasty so you'll have to keep yourself from eating it all up as you work)!

To make the tartlets:

1. Bake the empty tart shells (be sure to poke with fork before baking to let the air out. Else you'll have puffy tart shell) at 190 C for 10-15 min. Keep checking so as to not let it brown too much (there will be another round of baking no?)
2. Spread cheese mix
3. Top with veggie of your choice
4. Bake again for 10-15 mins at 190 C till the veggies are just cooked.

There you go! Pretty simple no? 

I hope this start helps me do this on a more regular basis - cook, click, eat and post - in that order ;)

The good, the gentle and the brave

Hemingway wrote that the world “breaks everyone,” and those “it does not break it kills.” “It kills the very good and very gentle and the very brave impartially,” he wrote. “If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” 

ᔥ  NYT - Hemingway's alternate endings to Farewell to Arms | International

You were all three.

Imagination

I imagined us at 30... plotting milestones, celebrating those of the decade past, pondering mistakes, vowing to be sillier.

I imagined us at 40... exchanging recipes, dragging a few brats around, watching them grow, borrowing books and reading lists from each other for them.

I imagined us at 50... with more time on our hands, more curious than ever, seeing the world, discovering it with all the years behind us.

I imagined us at 60... brimming with ideas, things we could still do, just for the love of doing

I imagined us at 70... sitting comfortably, talking over endless cups of tea, of the things we were still falling in love with, the ideas we were discovering, of the world changing around us.

But suddenly, there are only two left in the three that should have been us. You are gone and I realise how much your presence meant.

In my head, I'll carry you as the voice that always speaks when it matters most. As the voice that always read between the lines. As the voice that listened, completely, before it spoke. As the voice that always had a smile and a ray of sunshine in it.

Past present future

Down a long winding road I met you when I was not expecting to meet anyone. I even tried to shake you off. You persisted. And here you are.

I search the nights for your hand now... to walk with the waves crashing in the backdrop, a little ice chilling our throats in the balmy summer.

It's been a long time since I looked closely at you. I no longer need to look to see. We know every line, every frown, every smile. Each wrinkle is a memory along that long winding road.

The Paradox called Love

... love involves (tragically, incorrigibly, but also beautifully) a desire for something that continuously transforms. Love is painful because we want the object of love to change and stay the same, love is a desire and a fiction that animates our greatest pleasures and our most profound sufferings. Love hold us to this life, keeps us faithful to it. Yet nothing can save us from our ultimate reentry into oblivion - the point at which no amount of consciousness or desire can preserve identity or the energies that we once called our own.

-- By David LaRocca in the afterword to Schematics: A Love Story.

I found this quote at Brain pickings

Abhi Nahin Aana - Year end nostalgia 1

2011 draws to a close. And cliched as it may sound, year ends always bring on reflection of hits, misses and might have beens. So I am starting a series of posts of things that made 2011 for me, in absolutely random order!

The first thing I want to post, is a song that I am hearing as I write this post. It was a song released in 2006. I discovered it in 2011 and as I hear it, it resonates with much of what this year has been about.

PS: My blog is beginning to look like a review blog - something it was never intended to be. Time to get back to things more personal.

Repression

I'd written something in my diary a while ago and when I revisited that today, I decided it's something I'd like to post here. At the time I wrote it, I was debating between two courses of action - Hamlet's dilemma: To do or not do; To say or keep quiet.


As I was debating my choices my thoughts turned towards a word that has been used and abused and misused in personal and societal contexts - Repression. And on a very personal level this is the conclusion I came to: 
Repression is not what society does to you. It is first and foremost what you do to yourself - because of fears, insecurities, past hurts and other what nots. It's the pessimism that leads to procrastination and sudden out bursts. Staccato, halting steps instead of fluid motion. The only way out perhaps, is to love your self. Love yourself irrespective of anything and for everything. To be completely, irrepressibly in love with life - a task that life makes difficult but hopefully, not impossible.


Image: Corbis

Love and anger

Read something recently that struck a chord:
It is an intelligent woman indeed who can distinguish between anger and love. 

It is possible to be angry with someone and still love them. To not condone their mistakes and still be there.

PS: I am being prolific today... it is just one of those days.

Chocolate vs. Men

Chocolates ... I know very few women who don't like them. And for good reason are there so few who do not like chocolates. Chocolates score over men in almost everything given that they produce the same hormonal effect. Here's a shortlist:

1. They do not have issues - commitment issues, independence issues, alcohol issues and many others.
2. Easy decision tree. They just want to be eaten.
3. The only "space" they need is in your mouth and stomach!
4. They smell nicer and definitely not of sweat.
5. They don't argue about growing beards and mustaches that poke.
6. They taste infinitely better
7. They are low maintenance.

There you go. A reason for each day of the week to like chocolates.

This post is dedicated to women like Curry who absolutely love chocolate :D

Nose fight

Read this lovely post called Heartbeats yesterday. It reminded me of this nose fight that I once had. Lovely, cute, innocent, full of desire and anticipation and oh so mundane! It'll stay one of the cutest memories that I have for a long time to come.

I

To say "I love you" you have to first know how to say the I.

The above has always been one of my favourite quotes. In fact, I even had it scribbled on the wall in my hostel room in MICA. Yesterday, I found the same concept explained really beautifully in an article that someone gave me to read.

There are, the piece said, 3 relationships that define each of us as human beings:

1. Our relationship with ourself
2. Our relationship with others
3. Our relationship with spirituality/god

The first, one's relationship with oneself, is the fountainhead of all else. It is what defines how we see and react to the world. What you give yourself is what you can give to the rest of the world. Love yourself and you will love the world for what it is, hate yourself and you will only find fault with the world, accept yourself the way your are, with all your flaws, and you will find the capacity to accept others without finding fault with them. Love yourself and you will find the courage to make the choices that make you happy. Selfishness, in the deepest, innermost core of every human being is important to creating common good. Only when you want the good for yourself will you be able to want good for others too.

And while Rand maybe offensive to many (the quote is from The Fountainhead), I think the piece is above is what she truly meant when she advocated self interest above altruism. True good for others can spring only from wanting the good for yourself. And as I have discovered in the last few weeks, you cannot love another unless you love yourself. You can only admire, listen, compete, compare. But you can say I love you only when you say the I.

In Love Again :)

Lush green, rolling hills, paddy fields and gurgling water. I came to Mumbai expecting weekends full of malls, lunches and some lazy days at home. Instead I've rediscovered the excitement of exploring virgin lands; of doing things that scare me and yet leave a sense of achievement at the end of it all; of breathing in sharp, pure and pristine air; of feeling like I am touching the clouds; of the sudden brightness in the midst of rolling mist.

Two fun filled weekends - one on a tough yet fulfilling trek to Harishchandragarh, the other waterfall rappelling - have brought joy, peace, and excitement. They've been an opportunity to be with myself, to be away from the same old stories and gossip, to find tranquility within, to discover what the body and mind can do when they have to, to break the monotony of buildings, trains, traffic, and everything else that comes with staying in a city.

I've fallen in love with the lush, serene landscapes, the soft gurgling of the water, and its capacity to hurt, heal and pamper. I've fallen in love with the idea that I can be by myself or with people. I've fallen in love with that moment when you realise that your life is only in your hands; in love with the moment when you know what you have to do without having known it a second before. I've fallen in love with the softness and harshness that nature can offer and in love with the human body and mind's ability to face it, flow with it, and become one with it. I've fallen in love with this surprise that I have discovered for myself.

A Li'le Poem For Us

10^th Feb , 2008. 2330 hrs.

Moonlit stripes – across a face and onto the wall

Gentle and serene nightfall in hinterland

The cold of winter and the warmth of love mingle.

A hand changes the face of the world for me

Makes me feel so beautiful

A beauty created of itself and for itself.

The warm stripes of the morning sun

My hand swishes open curtains in welcome

But there’s warmth beside me too, welcoming me to the morning.

Beauty unknown and unsought

Love unasked for and found

Selfless and selfish.

In the time that I was most content

I found what I had searched for in vain –

A lifetime to live and love – Together!

And so I think, in those first rays of the morning,

As we often lose an object finding it only when we need it not,

Such is love.

Like a flash of lightening,

The sun that peeks after the rain,

Like the wetness of the rain contained within.

"Love"

-- From The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

PS: I read this today for the nth time... It has always made sense. Tonight it makes more sense than ever before.

Love & Hate

Love. A year ago, I would have followed it up with peace, happiness, contentment, smiles and a few more adjectives of a similar kind. Now I also add to that list restlessness, a constant curiosity, insecurity, and occassional irritation.

Before I am accussed of pessimism, let me clarify. Love is never only about beaming at the ceiling. So much more accomapnies it. So much that I at least did not expect. It is a wonderful journey, it is something I would love to repeat (now that my first trip is finally over!). But it is not without its bumps and potholes.

Often, Love and Hate (oxymoronic as they sound) collide even today. I feign indifference often. I only fool the others. I can never fool myself into it. They are two sides of the same coin and the complete blank that is indifference I will never achieve (nor do I want to. I have cared too much to throw it all away.)

The journey is over and I am finally home. The memories like a photo album tucked away in a corner... a small, dark corner. Sometimes I switch on the light and I stare in hope for a richer, fuller album; something I can put in a frame on my desk. Sometimes I go so far as to fetch it out and turn the first few pages. Then I feel like the man in White Nights, living half a fantasy. So I shake my head and bring myself back to my world. Sometimes I feel like tearing it, but I cannot bring myself to do so. Someday, I might yet laugh when I see those photographs. For now, I lock the cupboard, pack my bags, and get ready for a new journey.

Note: This was written about a month ago. I chose not to put it up then. I do now, for while I am not indifferent, I am less restless and more at peace today.