Honest to good

Yesterday night, I resolved to be just myself. To speak what I really really think. To be completely honest about myself. To tell Dad and Sis, the folks I relate to most, what I really feel and think.

I can no longer shut the voices in my head. It has been coming slowly... thanks to Stick, thanks to Dotty-Wotty and New Momma, thanks to Ayn Rand. But it is also going to make things very difficult for me.

The Beast sums it up for me:
There is a problem with being involved in a close relationship. It's not the fear or loss, of rejection, of being someone you're not. It's the fear of being yourself.

I am determined to overcome it and oh, am I going to be unpopular...

Cooking is probably the easiest part of marriage

Sitting on Maggie's kitchen's slab,
peeling corn kernels and grating garlic,
eating until the pots were scraped clean,
riding in the drizzle,
riding back in the night with the hands held free,
and a good night hug was a pick-me-up like none other.

My fingers still smell of garlic, but I am ready to conquer the world all over again. :)

~~
And the recipie for the meal that Maggie whipped up in less than an hour:

Corn-au-gratin, garlic bread, corn soup.
(serves three)

Take two corn stems, peel the kernels and put them in the pressure cooker for about seven to eight whistles.

White Sauce:
Melt a cube of butter on the kadai, then mix a spoon of maida with it and heat it a bit.
Add a big tumbler of milk and a little water.
Mix it well and add a table spoon of salt.

When it is solidifying a little, add three handfuls of corn.
Shortcut to thicken any gravy: Mix a katori of corn flour with water, and pour the mixture into the kadai.

Now sprinkle oregano and very little basil powder.
If the consistency is smooth, the sauce is done.
Now grate a cube of cheese all over it, cover the kadai, and remove it from the flame.

Corn Soup:
Run the remaining corn kernels in the mixer until watery.
Add a little water and run it again.

Strain the mixture with a large sieve.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Garlic Bread:
Grate a bulb of garlic.
Mix it with butter and spread on bread.
Push it into the oven and lo! aromatic garlic bread.

~~
As a little girl I thought that marriage was all about cooking. But now being around married friends, I realise that cooking is probably the easiest part of marriage. Maggie nods vigorously.

Is it getting windy or is my umbrella getting old...

I am particularly melancholic today morning. I woke up to the news of two deaths among extended relatives.

Dadu, Jeeju's maternal grandfather passed away after long suffering with azheimer's and stomach ulcers. During our visit to Calcutta for my sister's reception, we had all stayed with the old couple, in their charming house in Survey Park, with ponds and birds and many hawkers.

And we had spent afternoons looking at old photo albums and travel memoirs. Of a graceful age, of their travel around the world, of friends, children and grandchildren.

Dadu was a scientist who made dolls out of coconut shells. He loved to sit in his balcony overlooking the pond.

I never got to know the brilliant scientist who helped set up the planetarium in Calcutta but I admired the man who silently filled up bottles of water to help his wife, when the household was a frenzy of festivities of which he probably registered little.

With my sister a few weeks pregnant, there is the unspoken but warm hope that Dadu isn't really gone.