Baking and life lessons

It started out well enough. I found some muesli in a forsaken corner of the kitchen, and I decided to make some granola bars out of them. Made the perfect base to bind it all together – melted butter with sugar and honey thrown in, with just a hint of vanilla. Ah, the smell that filled the home; reminded me of quaint little bakeries in my hometown. Then I set out to bake the mixture with the muesli, dates, raisin and pumpkin seed mixture. Nothing happened. Decided to keep it in the oven for some more time. Still nothing. But it tasted all right. I should have let it be. But no, it had to be fixed. How about making cookies out of it? Brilliant. Folded in some flour, oil and tucked the thing into the oven. It was one gross mess. Burnt, chewy, gooey, and sweet as fuck. I was still determined to salvage it, and gave the second batch of the stuff another spin in the oven with some more random ingredients thrown in. Epic fail. I failed to see that with every attempt, I was making things worse. It also reaffirmed what I understood of baking: proportion is everything. You try to fool around with the ingredients and the proportions, you’re going to get shit results.

I think I do that with life, in general too. Instead of being content with what I have, and making my peace with situations, I constantly try to fix things. And it backfires. Thankfully, I’ve learned from past mistakes, and I’m not as obsessive about it anymore. I’m older and wiser (maybe not) now, and there are far many more moments of clarity than ever before. Also, I’m less stressed. Which is a big plus.

I have some news. I’m moving to Hyderabad by mid-March, and off to Turkey on a holiday next week. And I’ve quit my job, so will be taking up projects, working part-time and focussing on my cooking too. Besides, I plan to take my semi-adopted dog, Kutty, along, and the idea is to drive down from Delhi to Hyderabad; requires some sound planning, but it should be fun. Lots to look forward to, and here’s hoping Hyderabad is a better city.

 

Learning to live

It’s been a tough summer. I lost my father-in-law to a freak cardiac arrest in his sleep, and it’s shaken me more than ever, and I can’t even imagine how terrible it must be for M and his family. He called it ‘life-changing’, among other things; he spoke of how it has changed his perspective on life, on death and everything he thought he valued. Yet, M and his family handled the sudden loss with such grace and dignity. I can’t help but wish I were as strong, mature and practical.

But I’m learning. And trying. For most of us, our biggest fear is losing people we love. But then, none of us is immortal; no one is going to get out of this alive. Yet we seem shocked when it’s time for someone to go. I think, as a society, we are not equipped to deal with death, and I really wish it were easier for us to cope with grief. M tells me we need to have more candid conversations on death – try and be more practical about it; think bank accounts, liabilities, loans, passwords, because honestly, the amount of paperwork one needs to do after someone’s demise is mind numbing. And since more often than not, losing someone catches us off-guard, we are flummoxed when it comes to getting to the financial and legal nitty-gritties. The authorities don’t make things any easier, and are notorious for making you run around. So having some idea about where things stand sort of smoothens the process; that doesn’t mean you’ll be any less shattered.

Do we need to think about death more often? Think about what we’ll do if someone close to us is no more? Be less dependent on them? To some extent, I’d think so. But is it possible to stay calm and unaffected when you’re even thinking about it? Wouldn’t it shatter you, when you must instead be enjoying everyone’s company when they’re still around? I’ve been asking myself some hard questions, and unfortunately, I don’t have clear answers, but preparing yourself to accept the eventuality that at some point, shit’s gonna hit the roof, is a good start.

On that solemn note, I take your leave. I promise to write more often.

I got sunshine in a bag

Photo by M

There’s nothing a davara-tumbler of strong filter coffee can’t fix.

Woke up earlier than usual this morning at 6.30am. Without an alarm. I can’t believe it myself.

Quickly got down to making breakfast; we usually just have toast and some cornflakes or oats, but since I had plenty of time I decided to make south Indian breakfast – rava idli with a coconut-mint-coriander chutney. (Will post the recipe soon with pictures) And it felt so damn good.

I’m not a morning person at all, and I absolutely despise cooking a full-fledged breakfast first thing in the morning. I wonder how our moms (or dads) do it every single day, but for me, I take time to settle into the kitchen. And that’s usually around 10 am or later. Today, though, was an exception. Must make it a habit to be up early every day.

I’m feeling pretty charged up. Must be that extra round of coffee I had this morning.

What made you happy today?

When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top

Resilience has been my forte. I always thought of it as one of my strengths, given that I rise after every fall, pick up all the broken pieces and start afresh, every single time. Except that now I’m drained out. Exhausted. I have been doing this for way too long, and now I want life to be easy.

I’m a bit worried about my erratic mood swings – nope, I’m not PMS-ing, and I’m not pregnant. I used to be very good at hiding my emotions, but these days, I just give in, and let them overwhelm me. I seem to have lost my grip over my feelings – love, hate, stress, happiness, sadness, anxiety, panic, regret, spite, envy, confidence, confusion, optimism –  they all seem to collide at once, resulting in a giant muddled mess of nameless emotions that are difficult to read and make sense of. How did I let this happen to me? Is it depression, anxiety or am I just having a crappy day? I can’t tell anymore.

There’s no word for ‘depression’ or ‘anxiety’ in my mother tongue, Tamil. You could use the word ‘Manachorvu’ (lethargy) but it doesn’t do justice; ‘So-gam’ is sadness, and we know that depression and feeling sad are two different things. Which is why, where I come from, people do not understand depression, it’s not in our vocabulary. Depression is always considered a Western illness, something that affects rich white people; it’s an alien concept, much like Scandinavian cuisine in my hometown in coastal Tamil Nadu. Nobody would know what it is, but when they eat the food, they’ll tell you it’s just a fancy, overpriced version of the local fish curry. It’s a weird allegory, but I’m being lazy and hoping you get the drift.

So I stopped trying to talk to my folks about it; they’d simply tell me that everyone goes through a roller coaster of emotions, everyone has regrets, we all go through tough times, we feel sad, upset, angry. It’s normal. There’s no one to blame, you toss it and move on, it’s all behind you now. Which is great advice. But it’s not what I want to hear. And therein lies the problem. Because I want people to tell me what I want to hear. I think somewhere down the line, we have twisted what is simple and natural into something overly complicated.

I don’t even know if I’m depressed or anxious, so I’m fully aware that sometimes, I’m probably reading too much into my emotions and moods. The deeper I dig, the more I find that there is no reason for me to be sad at all. However, this Eureka moment happens only after I bring the roof down, burn some bridges and let the storm clouds pass. So the damage has already been done by the time realisation dawns.

The point is, I cannot use depression as an excuse for inactivity, I cannot blame anxiety for losing my cool. For instance, I haven’t gone on my evening walks for more than a week now; it’s something I look forward to, yet I have chosen to sulk at home instead of heading out. You could argue that depression makes even doing things you love difficult, so it’s all right. But no, I call it laziness. It’s stupid to not go out for an evening walk because you are busy crying over your perfectly normal life, when you know fully well that a walk in the park makes you happy. How twisted is that? I am willingly putting myself into misery, stopping myself from feeling better, and then I convince myself that it’s because I am depressed. It strikes me as odd.

M tells me to engage myself and I go livid. I tell him, you think I’m not trying? do you know how difficult it is? And so forth. After he talks to me and leaves for the day, I put on some music, I write, I cook, talk to friends, and surprise! I feel better. M’s simple advice helps me get through the day. I’m drama queen when I’m with him and the poor thing puts up with all my crap. So I tell myself that I must be happy and more stable, for his sake at least. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I just keep on trying, falling, rising and making a new start every single day.

Minimalism is the way forward

I spoke to my friend today and she was telling me about the 30-day Minimalism pact which involves giving away stuff every day. You start with one thing on the first day and on the last day, you give away 30 items. She was telling me how good it made her feel – she’s on her seventh day of the challenge now.

It’s absolutely liberating to give away stuff you don’t need, and sometimes things you think someone else needs more than you do. Given how much I hate clutter, I keep clearing up my closet and my home every now and then. My wardrobe is reduced to half now, because I periodically give away clothes and shoes to my maid and the other women who work in the society I live in.

I realised I never re-read any of my books, so once I’m done with them, I pass it on to friends and family, so my bookshelf is really just the topmost shelf of my little cupboard. I stopped buying clothes and cosmetics; I don’t even wear make-up, nope, not even an eye-liner these days, because most of them make my eyes burn and water. I’m tempted to add I’m too pretty for make-up but we all know it’s a lie.

When I was a kid, one of my favourite things to do was to clean up my wardrobe and discard a whole bunch of clothes, clean up my bookshelf, toy shelf, sift through my audio cassette collection and photo albums, re-arrange furniture in the living room, clean the centre-table and arrange all the newspapers into a nice clean stack. Yeah, I was a peculiar kid. Also, I’m sure my folks kind of exploited this weakness and used me to get stuff cleaned. Happy days.

When I left Madras to get married, I arrived in Delhi with just one suitcase full of clothes. Also because when one is eloping, one cannot really pack everything one needs; how do you pack when you know you’ll be gone for a lifetime? I know of someone who even packed gold jewellery the night she planned to run away with her boyfriend, but thankfully, she did not have to, because their parents agreed to get them married after all. No such luck in my case.

In Jaipur, where we spent a few months, I would wear M’s t-shirts and baggy shorts at home because I did not have enough clothes. I bought most of my clothes that I now own at the season sale in July 2013. I remember queuing up outside Shopper’s Stop in Gaurav Towers, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur on the first day of the sale and spending half a day picking up clothes that were on sale.

And since then, the only time that I ever shop for clothes is whenever there is a big sale – February and July-August. And I ensure that if I’m buying 4 sets of clothes, I give away at least 4 from my wardrobe. It’s a practice I have stuck to and it has ensured that my wardrobe is free of clutter, and I have just what I need.

However, I can’t say the same about my kitchen. I have trimmed it down to what I think are the bare essentials, but I can’t stop buying new ingredients, more containers, appliances and quarter plates. Added to it are M’s collection of glasses that occupy at least 2 full shelves in the kitchen, and his old coffee mugs which he’s attached to like emotionally. Besides, my mom has been threatening to send me a compact grinder and I almost fought with her over it. She and my mum-in-law are also responsible for filling my kitchen with random utensils, most of which I don’t use.

And don’t even get me started on crockery sets – the most notorious Indian gifting scam if there ever was one. I’m determined not to gift it to anyone; it’s pointless, and it’s only because someone decided to discard it that it is now lying in a forsaken corner in my home, constantly reminding me how much I don’t need it. So, it’s up for grabs now.

I gape at the stylish kitchens in home decor magazines and wonder how people would dare to even work in a kitchen that is so pretty. Blue pottery plates, Moroccan tea sets, the most stunning Le Creuset bakeware; I mean, I have a beautiful Ikat quarter plate and a bamboo bowl that I refuse to use because it’s just too beautiful. It would break my heart if it chipped off or if there was a stain on it that would stay permanently. Shudder.

Why do we attach so much significance to material possessions? They may be functional, pretty to look at, but they are totally replaceable. We don’t ‘need’ them as much as we ‘want’ them, yet we can’t seem to let go of them. Which is why I think these minimalism pacts and suchlike really force us to be more mindful and conscious of the things we are taking for granted, without a thought.

This is another very practical 30-day Minimalism Challenge that is not just about de-cluttering your home, but also your mind, and hence, your entire life.