The Top Tip

 Sometimes people say things which are completely out of context and yet later you realise how useful they were. 

I was at a few art sessions last summer. It was a 'Beading for Charity' initiative in which an Australian lady, Jeanette, taught us how to make bead jewellery. We made ornaments using her beads and our own sense of colour combinations and gave them to her to sell for charitable causes. Simple.

Most of the time, during the sessions, we talked about the different types of ethnic jewellery worn all over the world. Jeanette gave us details about the different types of beads in her collection - the pretty glass beads, the rustic wooden, the subtle corals,  the elegant shells, the glittery metallic, the precious, the semi-precious, and the ordinary. She had a fine collection that showed how much she had travelled all over the world. 

After Jeanette taught us the technique of putting together a project she had selected for the day, for instance, a bracelet, we got down to work. We lay out our beads in a sequence to have a pre-view of what the bracelet would look like. 

Finally after making our choices, we strung the beads onto the cord and the discussions would move from jewellery to other topics. 

On one such session, a lady I hardly knew said, 
"Do you know that if you keep open bottles filled with water in your car, it keeps the car cooler in the summer?"
We all looked up. 
"Really? Have you tried?"
"Yes" she said. 

I went home, dug out three empty jam bottles from our 'To be recycled' collection, filled water in them, and stuck them into the water bottle pockets in the car doors. I didn't notice much difference in the car temperature that day. 

A few days later we went on our annual summer holiday for more than a month. We inhaled deeply the wet monsoon air of our native place. It was a refreshing break indeed.

When we came back, summer was still going strong in Muscat. The garden was dry, the car was dusty. A carpet of dried pink bougainvillea flowers lay around the house. The cats, who had become skillful hunters, came one by one to say a meaowy hello. 

After dusting the car, I decided to rush to the grocery to buy fresh milk and other groceries. A most pleasant moisture-laden scent greeted me as I turned the car key. The water in the jam bottles had completely evaporated. The inside of the car felt like a wet monsoony cocoon. 

Now I keep open jam bottles filled with water in the car all the time. What a top tip given by a stranger!

An Unwanted Visitor

 
"Is it the appearance or the danger that scares you?" asked Elisya when she came to know about my only phobia.
I had never thought about it from this point of view.
"Appearance" I answered after a moment's consideration. 
The slithery, slimy, shape that coiled into lethal swirls or silently sneaked up on unsuspecting victims, simply terrified me. 

Elisya is ten and loves snakes who are found abundantly in her native Brunei. She sent us pictures about her pet snakes to rid me of my phobia. They did not help much.

I had lived in civilized areas with little or no interaction with reptiles of this variety. I lived happily. 

Till one afternoon this summer. 
This summer was one of the hottest in Oman because it did not rain and not a single storm visited as it usually does at this time in the year. 

That afternoon was a particularly sizzling one. 
I wore my sunglasses, grabbed the car key,  and opened the front door to go for school pick-up. I found Smudge, our cat, sitting on the doorstep, as usual. 
On the doormat, lay a rope. 
I didn't remember dropping a rope on the doormat and nobody else had been there. On looking closely, I found that the rope had a raised hood!

A snake on my doormat!!!! 
Eiyeyiiieyiie! 
I screamed silently, too scared to make a sound.
Smudge and the snake appeared to have some sort of discussion about who was going to get the lizard which was crawling on the wall. 
Terrified, I closed the front door. I also secured it with three latches and locked it. As if the snake was a qualified burglar who could break in with wicked methods. 

Very quietly I let myself out through the back door and slipped into the car. I dared not glance at the front door step as I reversed. I drove as fast as possible to be away from that scene. After I reached the school, breathlessly, I called the snake-catcher. Such vital phone numbers are always saved in my phone. 

When I reached home after half an hour, I found the snake-catcher in his bright red uniform like a shining armour, standing in the garden. 
An obnoxious odour filled my nostrils when I opened the car door. He had fumigated pesticide around the house and the garden. 

"Thank you very much!" I told the snake-catcher, "Did you catch the snake?"
"No, madam" he answered with disappointment. "The snake had gone before I came here."

"Oh well, that's good" I said to myself, "I do not have to live with the guilt of having a snake killed". I had heard horrid stories of  dead snakes who come to haunt people in their dreams.

Although, I put on a brave front when I related this story to friends and family, I was very very scared inside. I did not tend to the garden for months. It grew and overgrew. I was afraid to step onto the doormat so I put it away and got a new one. It was a big challenge for me to step out of the house. I scolded Smudge for not fighting with the snake. That's what cats are expected to do, aren't they?

Then, one day, it all changed. I pictured the scenario from the snake's point of view.
The snake came, said hi, and went away. 
It did not bite me or harm me in anyway. 
It was living in its natural habitat and going about its daily business of looking for food. Being a hot day, it wandered into a shaded porch where the cool air-conditioned air leaked out of the front door. A cat sat there, guarding the house like a dog. So it slithered quietly away. 

I tutored myself to think about how 'gentlemanly' the snake had behaved. 
Then I feared no more. 
I put on my gloves and threw myself completely into cleaning the garden  and making it presentable again. 


     

Our Earthly Father

He was not rich or famous. 
He had an amazing simplicity, a strong faith, and a ready smile. 
He also had a beautiful handwriting, an eye for detail, and an accuracy with numbers. 
He was respected by his children, adored by his friends, and loved by his wife. 
This was a man who had a great influence on my life. 

Early this month, I sent several messages and emails, almost mechanically, stating:

My father-in-law, Joseph, passed away peacefully.

I had imagined that it would be a difficult task. I had imagined that I would break down immediately when I got the sad news. I had imagined several ways that I and the rest of the family would react. 

Nothing of the sort happened. 

Time had prepared us for the end when it came. A strange peace and calm descended on us all as we went about the rites and rituals. We believed that his warmth and good will would be with us wherever we went. 

Our Daddy had influenced me in his own subdued way without even realising it. 

I must have been in my teens when I met him for the first time. He did not judge me for visiting his son at odd times in the day during those youthful foolish years when the mind refuses to listen to reason. Instead, he always had a kind word and a smile for me. 

He let me stay for as long as I liked and even invited me to join in the family prayers. He taught me how to pray. He showed me how to believe without seeing.  

The week after my wedding, I was perplexed by the awful task of eating a crab that was served for dinner at the family table. Daddy came to my side, patiently took the shell apart, and expertly removed the tender flesh. It was the most delicious shellfish I had ever had. 

A year after marriage, I was intrigued by the art of cooking in mud pots. I purchased a few of them from the Friday Bazaar. My mother-in-law and others thought it was a completely silly idea to cook in those pots on the gas stove and tutored me on how to use them. On the other hand, Daddy silently wove intricate stands from dried banana leaves to hold the pots. It was a gesture that really touched me.  Those life-buoy shaped stands were a piece of art themselves. 

On one of the darkest days of my life, as I lay struggling for survival in the hospital, Daddy came and sat next to me without saying anything. Just being there. He brought me tender green coconut water. 

When S and I brought our baby home for the first time, he came to the door to receive her with child-like excitement. He called out to his wife, "Teresa, come, see, our little chicken has come home!"

A few years later, when we came home for holiday, after facing a merciless summer in the middle east, we stood under the pouring monsoon rain in our front garden. Daddy watched but did not send out a warning of catching a fever or a cold. He understood our need to get drenched completely. 

S remembers his father as a strict disciplinarian. I, on the other hand, remember him as a Dad who let me enjoy the freedom that a daughter deserves. 

May his soul rest in eternal peace! Amen.

An Attempt at Upcycled Art

This is a brand new apartment in Baroda. Everything from the curtains to cutlery is new. 

Since S was posted here a couple of months back, he has opened only the packages of bare necessities. Most packages of household utilities still remain unopened. There is a section of the house that we call ‘the gift shop’ because we get to open items depending on our need or greed. 

On the day I arrived I opened the packaged boxes of cooking vessels, bed linen, bath towels, the list goes on. 

With so much discarded packaging material lying in the house, A and I decided fill up the empty house with some upcycled art. In turn, we are filling our days of vacation planning some exciting projects.

Then last week, we went shopping and purchased some ethnic garments for which Baroda is famous. The labels on the clothes had a pretty pattern and we didn’t have the heart to throw them away. 

Last Saturday we dined at Vishalla which is a rural-themed restaurant in Ahmedabad. They packed our leftover parathas in two plates of dried leaves and tied them up with a red-dyed cotton thread.

The next day we arranged the patterns of the labels in a floral arrangement and lined the ‘petals’ with the red-dyed thread. 

Behold! The effect was like patchwork fabric! So much for so less! Have a look…

Men on Planes

Picture courtesy: Google images

I like talking to strange men on airplanes. 

Recently, on a plane from Muscat to Ahmedabad, Anna and I found that our seats were oddly ordered. She had a window, next to hers was a seat for a stranger, and mine was the aisle seat. 

Since we had boarded early, we just trusted the kindness of strangers and took the two adjacent seats near the window. 

“Madam, may I see your boarding passes please?” asked Akshay Kumar.

The steward in uniform did indeed resemble the Bollywood star! For a moment I wondered whether I was on one of those candid camera shows. But no, everything was matter-of-fact and nobody else paid him any extra attention, so he must be just a steward.

Behind Akshay Kumar was a tall gentleman in a green checked cotton shirt. He held a heavy handbag. 

I fumbled for our boarding passes in my handbag and said, “Our seats are D and F, but you see, this is my daughter and she has a slight fever, so can we sit next to each other please?”

Akshay looked at the tall gentleman who nodded courteously. 

I took care not to rest my hand on the armrest on his aisle seat. 

He put his bag away and sat down without much fuss. Most men do not wiggle around much in their seats like women do. My neighbor sat still, not doing anything else. 

I had brought some fruit slices to eat on the plane which provided food on demand and payment.  It was a night flight and we had already had our dinner. I offered him the fruit. 

He said, “No, thank you.”

Then he asked, “Do you stay in Muscat?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Last eight years. How about you?”

“Only one year.”

That set the tone for our conversation. 

It turned out that his company supplied uniforms to various institutions. He was a garment manufacturer and supplier. Since he had grown up in Gujarat where the plane was headed, he gave me plenty of information about how people live in that region, what to eat, where to eat, places to visit….

He reminded me of other men I had met in mid-air. The elderly cardiologist who gave advice on how to live life in general, the thick-bearded English teacher from Oman who had completed his Master’s degree in Pune, the German young boy who taught me how to eat cold bread…

Yes, I like talking to men on the plane.