Swimming Gala

 

The buntings go up at the PDO Club swimming pool at 4.15 p.m. for five days.

Then the little children who are not so confident in the water swim with one of their parents.

It is an event that is essentially Dutch. The volunteers wear orange and the event is called Zwem4Daagse – Swim 4 Days.

At 5 pm, the older children line up at the ‘Start’ lane. To and fro they swim in the lanes which measure 25 metres from end to end. One round is completed when they swim 25x10 metres. They can do as many rounds as they want.

As the music played and the cheerleading mothers danced, the children kept on swimming. Some of them did one or two rounds whereas others did as many as ten or twelve! It is, however, not a competition with your peers. If there are any records to break, they are your own.

In the first year of participation in this event, the child gets a bronze medal, in the second year it is a silver medal, and in the third year it is a gold medal. The only condition is that the child has to do at least one round for four out of five days.

It is amazing to see how some children just go on and on swimming for more than ten rounds without a break. Some say it is because of the spirit of the event and some say it is because of the determination of the child.

All the children who swim get hot chocolate and a Speculaas cookie in the end. It is a special treat loved by all.

Dank ye wel – Thank you, Holland Committee.

Goed zo, kinderen! – Well done, children!

When the Queen came to Muscat

“None of my friends are going. So I don’t want to go” declared Anna.

“Now, now, don’t be unreasonable. You are the only girl chosen from the school.” We tried to make her understand.

“I would rather go to school and play with my friends” said Anna.

“You know, my dear, you can play with your friends any day but the Queen doesn’t come to Muscat every day” I tried my best to convince her.

“But I don’t know who she is” said Anna.

“If you go, you will get to see her and know who she is” we told her.

“But why did the Girlguiding people choose only me from my school? It is not fair” Anna pouted.

“They had a lucky draw. And you were the lucky girl chosen to go” we explained.

“Really? Am I so lucky?” She felt good about that.

“Yes, dear. It is not nice to refuse when Luck has been so good to you” we told her.

“Hmm...okay, I will go. But please don’t make me wear those tight black shoes. Can I go in my crocs?” Anna asked.

“Sorry, dear. You have to dress nicely when you go to see the Queen” we said.

“Why?”

“That’s the rule, that’s why.” Yes, rules are rules.

***

On the day the Queen came to Muscat, Anna dressed formally in her Rainbows uniform and wore her black shoes.

In the afternoon, Anna came home with two flags in her little Indian hands – one British and the other Omani.

“The Queen is such a kind old lady. She smiled and waved at all of us. And she wore a pretty dress, gloves, a hat and really nice shoes. I was glad I wore my best shoes too.”

A picture of the Queen talking to the Girl guides appeared in the newspaper the next day.

Anna saw herself in the picture standing in front of the Queen.

She said, “I think this meeting was really important. I am happy I went although she didn't look any different from the picture in the newspaper.” 

(Queen Elizabeth II visited Oman on 27th November 2010. She is the patron of Girlguiding which is a leading charity for girls and young women. For more information you may visit their website:
http://www.girlguiding.org.uk/about_us.aspx )

In the Middle of the Night

Dear Child,

Where do you go in the middle of the night?

When you wake up, you smell so nice.

Of deep forests, flowers, and fairies.

Let it be

  
When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

And when the brokenhearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be

For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be

Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Yeah, there will be an answer let it be

Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

Let it be, let it be
Let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be

I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Yeah, let it be, let it be
Let it be, yeah, let it be
There will be an answer, let it be

Let it be, let it be
Let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let it be

Songwriters
Lennon, John / Mccartney, Paul James
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjobHdLqqSc


(This is one of my favourite Beatles song. Today is the Remedy Parish feast. Happy feast to all Vasaikars!)

Secrets

Secrets – told and untold

Some funny and some bold

Lie between partners.

It is the choice that matters:

To remember agonies of the heart

Or to smile about a memorable fart.

 

(In the picture above are Nimr and Katie - two wadi cats who have adopted us. Sometimes they 'fight like cats' and sometimes they cuddle up like peas in a pod.) 

Generations

Dear Daughter,

Do you know that in a Zen wedding oath

They say that all our past generations live within us?

And so do our future ones and so forth?

One day I will teach you to buy onions

In three different sizes – large, medium and small

So you can use the right size for curry, salad, and dal.

Just like my mother taught me before

And her mother taught her long ago.

The Turn of the Tassel

There was a shopkeeper in Iraq named Ali.

Ali was a good and honest man. When he was happy, he made everyone around him happy too. However, when he was in a bad mood, he was like a dragon blowing fire. He shouted and sweared, broke chairs and dishes, and gave the scare to all who came in his way.

Ali had a new wife called Amira. They both loved each other.  When Amira noticed how Ali's bad temper affected herself and those around him, she decided to discuss it with him.

"What can I do? I was born with such a bad temper. I cannot help it" explained Ali.

Amira said, "Do you know that I was born with a temper worse than yours? Whenever my brother teased me I bit him so hard that his arm bled. When my little sister took my things, I pulled her hair and ripped off all her clothes."

"Really?" said Ali.

"Dear Husband, imagine what would happen if we both are in our bad moods together" said Amira "I am sure it will be a most dreadful scene."

"Hmm....what shall we do?" asked Ali.

"I have an idea" said Amira "Let us use signs to indicate to each other when we are in one of our bad moods. So when one of us sees the sign, we would control our bad temper till the other has let go."

"That's a great idea" agreed Ali. "I will turn the tassel that dangles from my hat to my forehead if I am upset."

"Alright, and I will wear my white apron when I am angry" said Amira.

That settled, they went back to their daily routines.

One day, a customer at the shop annoyed Ali by bargaining too hard. When it was time to go home, Ali's mood was like the black cloud of thunder. He turned the tassel on his hat to his forehead and marched home.

Amira spotted him from the window on the upper floor and immediately ran to the kitchen. She wore her white apron and took hold of the rolling pin. Then she opened the door and waited for him.

When Ali saw Amira's white apron from a distance, he turned the tassel on his hat to the back. He entered the house and forced himself to smile at her.

It so happened that whenever Ali returned from the shop with the tassel of his hat dangling on his forehead, he would find Amira waiting for him in her white apron armed with something from the kitchen.

Then, one day, Amira asked him,

"Dear Husband, it has been a long time since I have seen your frightful temper. Have you not been in a bad mood for all these months?"

"Oh no, my dear" replied Ali "Whenever I come home with the tassel on my forehead, I find you in your white apron. I decide to calm down till you have cooled down. In doing so, I sometimes forget that I was upset at all."

"Thank you for being so considerate" replied Amira "It seems like it is easy for you to change your mood with the simple turn of the tassel on your hat."

Ali realised that this was true and he never lost his temper again.
Amira, too, never wore her white apron again.
Ali and Amira lived happily ever after.

(This story is based on an Iraqi folktale that I had heard long ago. It is stories such as these that give us lessons in Emotional Intelligence.)

In a Restaurant

Some European cities are best explored on foot.

After walking around Amsterdam all day at the height of summer, we found that there were more tourists in the city than locals.We saw a nice little restaurant near the railway station and decided to have an early dinner. There were no other guests in the restaurant.

When we saw the menu card with traditional Dutch dishes, we had a hard time deciding between the hutspot and the stamppot. Thankfully, there was a brief description in English along with each item on the menu.

Then, having placed our orders with the server, we turned to our photo harvest of the day and discussed our favourite moments.

After our orders had arrived, we saw two businessmen  from the Far East walk in. They settled on the table next to ours. One of them had a friendly face which showed that he had struggled hard to get where he was. The other man was younger and his face was cold and expressionless.

They closely studied the menu but didn't know what to order when the server came to take their order. They had  a discussion with each other in their native language which sounded more like a debate.

Then, the man with the friendly face got up and came to our table. He smiled at us and then looked at the food on the table. He bent down, had a closer look at my husband's plate, and smelled the food on it. My husband and I looked at each other.
The man asked us, "Good?"
"Very good" said my husband with a thumbs-up sign.


The man bowed gracefully and went back to his table. He pointed to our table and told the waiting server - "That!"

At the Clinic

At the clinic we sat opposite the chemist's window waiting for our turn to collect medicine.

We nursed our illnesses and sympathized with others.     
 
It was the time when the SARS virus was dreaded.

An Omani gentleman came in blue worker's overalls.

He cheerfully wished everybody "As salaam aleykum" - a greeting of peace.

Many of us either nodded or responded.

Then he turned to the chemist and handed over a bag.

"What is inside?" asked the chemist.

"Medicines. My son doesn't need them anymore.  He died" said the Omani gentleman.

An Enchanted Blog

“I have been following your blog” says Deepa from Baroda. “I find these thoughts and ideas have a resonance in my life as well. It’s uncanny.”

“It’s a blog that belongs to all of us. In our humanness, we are all similar” I reply.

It is now one month since I started writing a blog. 

Most readers emailed/texted from all over the world and encouraged me to write. I am extremely grateful to you all. 

“Just another foodie blog?” asked a scholarly friend when I mentioned the title ‘Lemon and fresh mint’.

“Not really” I said to him “It is about ordinary people like you and me who do ordinary things. I wanted to capture these ordinary moments.”

A few years ago some students had wanted me to start blogging.

 “Madam, we miss those good old college days” they said. “If you write, it would feel like we are together in the classroom again.” One of them even presented me with a book about writing!

However, I was not ready for writing a blog then. I thought blogging was for all those people who had highly interesting lives. 

Then, one day, our grandmother turned hundred. Her life was simple and ordinary. But to be hundred was interesting. So I wrote my first blog post about her. 

There were too many ideas bubbling in my mind and this blog provided a platform to publish them.

There is something about this blog which makes me park my bottom in one place every day for a while and makes me write. I am like the silly bird who sings instead of picking grain.

Although this is a low-profile blog, it is surprising to know that people are reading it in Serbia and Brunei.

Do you think it has something to do with the black cats that laze on our doorstep every day?

(In the picture above is Blackberry - a wild cat who has adopted us. Like Winnie the Pooh, he has "very little brain" and a lot of positive energy.)

The “B Word”

The boy sits at his table sharpening a pencil.

“This is so boring” he says to no one in particular.

The girl next to him is writing. She looks up at him and says,

“Yes, I know. Writing is also boring.”

The teacher stops by.

“Hello, what are the two of you doing?”

“We are learning good handwriting” they both answer.

The teacher looks at the girl’s book.

“That’s so beautiful. If you think of them as patterns and not words, it’s such a great design.”

The girl and the boy look at the book. The girl is proud of her work.

“Yes, but it’s boring” says the boy.

“What is?” asks the teacher, kindly.

“This – sharpening the pencil and writing” says the boy.

“Why?” questions the teacher.

“Just so. It’s so boring” says the boy.

The girl gets back to her writing again.

She looks at the boy and says, “You are always bored. You know what? I think you are boring.”

“See?” says the teacher “When you are bored all the time, people think that YOU are boring. I stopped using that word many years ago and now everything I do is interesting.”

The pencil is sharpened and the boy gets back to his writing again.

 

A Quick and Simple Meal

There are weekends when you don’t want to cook.

You feel that there are other important things you must do.

You want to read.

You want to do gardening.

You want to sort out your wardrobe.

You want to tidy up all the shelves.

You want to write.

You just want to cuddle up and watch TV.

Anything but cook.

Around lunch time, you feel hungry.

Go out for lunch? No, you don’t want to dress up.

Home delivery? No, too junky.

Frozen meal? No, something fresh, please.

Fruits? No, something substantial.

You long for real home-cooked food.  Something that lifts up your spirits.

Finally you wander to the kitchen hoping for a food fairy to do some magic.

And then you become the food fairy and fix something nice and easy in not more than 15 minutes.

Here is one such food fairy-inspired meal that is quick and easy to make:

You will need:

1 cup rice

½ cup moong dal (yellow lentils)

½ tablespoon oil

½” cinnamon stick

2 cloves

2 cardamoms

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

1 bay leaf

6 peanuts (or any other favourite nuts or raisins)

1 onion, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

½ teaspoon turmeric powder or 1 pinch saffron

3 cups water

Salt to taste

Method:

1)     Rinse the rice and dal twice with water.

2)     Add 3 cups water to rice and dal and leave aside. (This may be done in advance if possible.)

3)     Heat oil and add cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, cumin, bay leaf and peanuts. Stir.

4)     Add onion. Stir.

5)     Add tomato. Stir.

6)     After 1 minute add the rice, dal and water.

7)     Add turmeric powder or saffron.

8)     Add salt. Stir.

9)     Bring to boil.

10)     Cover and cook on low heat for 10 minutes. (You may go back to whatever you were doing here.)

Serve hot with yogurt, cucumber slices, and papad or pickle.

Bon appétit!

Sisters

This is one of my favourite pictures.

It shows three women who grew up in different countries – China, Italy, and India. Their lives touched for a few years in a middle-eastern city. Life had sometimes bounced them up with big joys and sometimes plunged them into deep sorrows. They shared a common bond because they had survived it all. They realised that they were brought up differently and yet they were so similar. Just like their other sisters from all over the world.

At a special event, they joyously linked hands, walked the red carpet, and celebrated international sisterhood.

(Photo courtesy: Janice Sage)

Inner Peace, Outer Peace

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon,

Where there is doubt, faith,

Where there is despair, hope,

Where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I many not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved, as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive –

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

 

(This peace prayer by St. Francis of Assisi has inspired millions over the centuries.

I taught it to my child in the hope that it will set her free.

The feast of St. Francis of Assisi was celebrated earlier this month.)
 

 

The Bollywood Connection

 

“Surely this is not one of your jokes?” we asked Dad.

That morning as Dad got ready to go to work, he announced casually that Aamir Khan, the Bollywood star, was going to visit his school.

It was the year when the star’s first blockbuster, Qayamat se Qayamat tak, was a rage among youngsters.

“Daddy, will you get his autograph for me, please?”

I pleaded and pleaded but Dad said that all people are human and we should not idolise them.

When Dad returned in the evening, happy with the day’s events, I pestered him with questions and more questions.

“Does he look the same as he does on screen?”

“Did you shake hands with him?”

“What did he say to you?”

“Did the children at school ask for his autograph?”

I was still upset that Dad had not brought the star’s autograph for me. I had wanted to show it off to my friends.

Dad came to wish me goodnight and explained gently, “He was my student and I am very proud of him. Now he is famous because he is an actor. Famous people are just normal people like you and me. It is their hard work and destiny which has made them who they are. I want you to always remember this.”

....

Since that year, Aamir Khan regularly visited his alma mater to meet his teachers.

After Dad retired, he was honourably invited to the school on these occasions.

“D’Cruz Sir, you must sing for us today” Aamir Khan requested last year.

Dad soulfully sang one of his old Hindi favourites – “Halke halke chalo sanvare...”

And Aamir Khan clapped.

(Our Dad, Edward D’Cruz, will turn eighty tomorrow. He enjoys life and sings all the time.)

Shuwa – a Traditional Omani Delicacy

 

 

It is not simply something that people in Oman cook to eat.

It is a reason for people in villages to come together and celebrate Eid al Adha by participating in making this traditional speciality. It commemorates the sacrifice of Abraham.

The method of preparing this meat dish called shuwa has several steps.

The preparations begin a few weeks before Eid. The spices for the sauce – coriander, cumin, cardamom seeds, red chillies, turmeric, and garlic – are ground together with the help of mortar and pestle.  Vinegar or tamarind paste is added to this mixture for tanginess. This sauce is then refrigerated till it is ready to be applied to the meat.

The marinated meat is covered with banana leaves and tied up with woven palm leaves.

The next step is to dig a pit in the ground. It is a metre deep and is lined with stones. It is fired with wood and coal.

When the wood and coal is red hot, the marinated meat or shuwa is lowered into the pit. The pit is then covered so that no smoke escapes and left alone for up to 24 hours.

The next day, people wait  with bated breath to taste the result.

It is a community affair and the villagers marvel at the tenderness of the shuwa as it has cooked slowly underground.

Oman takes its traditions very seriously and this is one truly Omani tradition.

 Eid Mubarak!

(If you would like to try this exotic dish, Kargeen Cafe in Muscat serves it year round. If you want to cook it at home, I found a good recipe at http://www.thasneen.com/cooking/shuwa-slow-cooked-lamb-served-over-aromatic-basmati-rice-omani-delicacy/)

A Quiet Kind of Loving

They sit very close to each other on the bench.

They don’t say much but listen anyway.

It starts raining heavily. They look out of the kitchen window together.

Their footwear and umbrellas lie unused in a corner.

They ask each other what day of the month it is.

They think about the first time they met. It's been almost half a century.

 

.....

His mother had met her mother when she had gone to visit her cousin’s new-born baby.  His mother proudly talked about her only son who was a teacher. Her mother talked about her daughter who was a teacher too.
The two matrons were thrilled with the prospect of a suitable match.

.....

She’s so fat – he had thought when he first saw her. Yet there was something appealing about her rotund plumpness.

She hardly looked at him but noticed that he had a wonderful voice. They had met at her aunt’s house. Other relatives looked on as they sat close to each other.

They didn’t say much.

So the marriage was arranged.

.....

He was not a king and she was not a queen.

They had four happy children.

When I married their son, they welcomed me like a daughter.

Today I light candles with a prayer on my lips for their good health and happiness.


(This post is an offering of love and respect to Teresa and Joseph Lemos.)

 

Fools ‘R’ Us

As a rule, man is a fool

When it’s hot, he wants it cool

When it’s cool, he wants it hot

Always wanting what is not

 

As the young actor walked up and down the hall rehearsing these lines from one of Dad’s plays, we learnt them too.

...

This is sharply observed in the international community that we live in. Most people of Caucasian origins relax in the sun on the beach all day hoping to be deliciously tanned. Whereas others who have rich skin tones shy away from the sunny hours.

...

Although living in the desert has its charms, we long to go on holidays in green tropical places and snowy mountains. Our friends from the cooler climes, however, are always willing to come here for a change.

...

Last year my husband was posted away from Muscat for work. Every now and then my girlfriends would gather around me and make sympathetic enquiries about how I was getting along on my own.

One Nigerian friend, who has to always cook big meals, however, said, “Hey, I wish my husband was posted elsewhere for a year!”

...

Hiranmayee and I have short wavy hair.

“What lovely hair you have!” we tell Chris, our friend from the Phillipines.

Chris ran her fingers through her long, straight locks and said,

“Thanks, I grow it myself.”

Now this is one lady truly satisfied with her looks.