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तुझको बेहतर बनानेकी कोशीशमें
तुझे वक्तही नही दे पा रहे हम

माफ करना ऐ जिंदगी
तुझे जी नही पा रहे हम...

(Forwarded)

Old Lady Resident books
Baker And Cook: A Domestic Manual For India - Mrs. R. Temple-Wright
Anglo-Indian Cuisine
Everyday Menus For Indian Housekeeper

Culinary Jottings For Madras
The Complete Indian Housekeeper And Cook -  Flora Annie Steel (Author), Grace Gardiner (Author)  

(Source)

देहरादून मध्ये करायची खादाडी

देहरादून के पकोडे
कतलम्मा आणि पिंडी चने
आटेके लड्डू, बन टिक्की - चेतन पुरीवाला
चाटवाली गली
किशन नगर मधल्या एमोर्गेज नावाच्या संध्याकाळी लागणारया गाडीवरचे मोमोज
क्लीमिंग टाऊन मधलं नॉर्जीन नावाचं हॉटेल - स्पिनेच चीझ मोमोज, चिली बटर मश्रुम, नॉर्जीन लेमन चिकन
एनएचओ च्या ऑफिसशेजारच्या दुकानात मिळणारं न्युडल्स विथ सूप
राजपूर रोडवरचं आंगन हॉटेल - पनीर टिक्का,
बुफे - कॉफी आणि बर्गर
हनुमान चौक
सनराईज बेकर्स - पिस्ता बिस्किट्स
बालमिठाई
देहरादून स्टेशनजवळचं दुन-दरबार - चिकन स्ट्यू, चिकन कालीमिर्च विथ रुमाली रोटी, तंदुरी

('गढवाली आतिथ्य' ह्या लोकसत्ता व्हिवा १७ मार्च २०१७ मधल्या लेखातून)

The Shining and Finders Keepers

I don't pick up any Stephen King novel lightly. That's because while I am reading it and upto a forthnight after finishing it, each and every thing that goes bump in the night ends up scaring me to death. And yet, Mr. King managed to disappoint me twice in a week.

First, the movie - The Shining. To be fair, this movie was telecast late at night (if you can call 11pm that anymore!) and somewhere some dude/lady, in his/her infinite wisdom and for reasons best known to him/her, and perhaps to God, had decided to edit it. I confess that I was torn between being astonished and angry both. There is so much of violence and horror in real life these days that the same in the make-belief world of the cinemas simply pales in comparison. But who is to argue? The unfortunate result of this thoughtless editing was that parts of the movie simply didn't make any sense. It seemed as if the scenes were simply joined to each other in a haphazard manner.

Let's forget the editing for a minute. The movie started with a great plot. A man is asked to be a caretaker for a sprawling hotel that is closing down for the winter. He will have only his wife and little kid for sympathy. Except for a patchy contact with the local police, there won't be anyone within miles. Plus the last person to act in this capacity had ended up going berserk, killing his wife and twin daughters before committing suicide. Naturally the place has a 'reputation'. I almost salivated at the thought of getting scared out of my wits. But then the plot seemed to fizzle out before my very eyes. First, I couldn't figure out what the Shining meant - is it the kid's ability to be able to talk while keeping his mouth closed? Is that what summons the old chef back to the hotel in time to save him and his mother? How does his father die? What's the meaning of his ending up in the old photo at the end of the movie? And why on earth is the hotel full of ghosts of customers from a bygone era?

By the time the credits started rolling, I wondered if I had been better off going to bed early instead. :-(

And as if this disappointment wasn't enough, I had to pick up his 'Finders Keepers' at the library. It's not a horror novel. I won't go into the details of the plot. Suffice it to say that the idea of a fan killing a writer for messing up with the life of his favorite character and to get at the treasure trove of his never-to-be-published work, that too not for money, but to read it, sounded pretty far-fetched. Whichever way I saw it, I was unable to understand Morris. Sure, I was anxious to see that no harm comes to Peter, Tina and their parents, I also knew that they would emerge unscathed - or as 007 would say, shaken but not stirred.

I am not sure I will reach out for Mr. Mercedes anytime soon.

Princess - by Jean Sasson

What does freedom mean to you? Is it the liberty to do, say and think what you want? Or is it simply a wish to look at the world without covering your face? or to drive a car? Or not to marry a man more than twice your age?

It isn't that I was unaware of the plight of women in some of the Muslim countries before I read this book. Nonetheless, it opened my eyes - and very wide at that. That is also not to say that the condition of women is very great in my own country. There are places, communities and families where their lives are maybe ruled by more restrictions and rules than in any decent-sized prison. But I am sure that in the 60s-90s, when most of the events in this book take place, the condition of Indian women, at least Hindu/Christian ones, wasn't as bad as it was for women in Saudi Arabia. And though I know little about the Saudi Arabia of today I suspect that we Indian women are far better off, on average, than our Saudi counterparts.

Back to the book. This is the story of princess Sultana - this is not her real name, of course. She is from the royal family of Saudi Arabia but quite different from the other submissive royal women who are content to live a life in a gilded cage. So she is upset that she isn't allowed to go to the mosque to pray while her only brother accompanies her father there. She is upset because her father considers his daughters inferior compared to his precious son. She is empathetic enough to take an interest in her servants' lives and feel their pain. She is bold enough to teach a lesson to both - her pompous ass of a brother and her errant husband. And she is confident enough to seduce her would-be husband right in front of his mom. Attagirl Sultana!

But it's not her story alone. It's also the story of her mother who spends her whole life as per the wishes of her husband and yet takes a firm stand when it comes to the well-being of one of her daughters. It's also the story of her mother-in-law who ends up caring for the life of a woman who she hates from the bottom of her heart. Of Sultana's Filipino servant Marcie and her unfortunate friend. Of Sultana's sister Sara's miserable first marriage. Of her sister Baher's circumcision. Of a young Saudi girl who Sultana chances upon during her stay in hospital. Of her friend Sameera. Of the unfortunate Saudi girl Amal. Of the Saudi women who dare to defy the rules and drive on the Saudi streets during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

The pages made me stop at times, sometimes in astonishment, many times in sheer exasperation but mostly in pain. I remembered the Saudi family that was staying in a cottage next to ours in a Munnar resort a couple of years back. There was a middle-aged couple and a girl of about 12-13 - both ladies covered from head to toe. Naturally I had assumed the girl must be their daughter. But this book made me wonder - was that girl the man's second, younger wife? Of course, no man is stupid enough to take more than one wife on a vacation at the same time. But who knows? I still remember that the ladies were veiled when they came down for breakfast and it had taken every ounce of restraint to stop myself from craning my neck to see how they managed to eat their food through all that cloth.

Even after I turned the last page I knew that I will forever be haunted by two questions - one, what happened to Sameera and Amal's daughter and two, why did Sultana choose to return to her husband when she had managed to escape successfully.