Yes, I am a bully!

My older daughter and I have been fighting a lot lately. The squabbles spill over to the younger one as well. So often enough you have the three women of the house flouncing in three different directions, heads in the air, not on talking terms with each other! No wonder my poor husband, who is painfully out-numbered, runs away each evening to his Chambers.

That said, I must admit it’s not only raging teenage hormones. Often, it is me. Goading them to study, change out of the school uniform (after all they came home from school four hours ago!!), finish the damn milk, clear the study table, clean up the mess they made in the kitchen (I tell you ever since Maggi has come back to the shelves, you won’t believe the amount that has been cooked and consumed by the girls!!!) etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

You see, one child is sitting for her ICSE next February. That’s about 2 months away. Let’s face it. The child in question does not have a brilliant track record. She loathes Science and Maths. But as we all are aware, ICSE has Maths and Science and you need to pass the subjects to clear the ICSE. And only then can you move on to subjects that are more appealing. I’ve said this softly. I’ve said it loudly. I’ve said it lovingly. And I’ve said it angrily. Somehow the penny does not seem to drop. She gazes at me unflinchingly and asserts that she is studying.

You know, I’d love to believe her. And I do believe she thinks she is studying. But do the kids know HOW to study? Are they retaining anything? Do they write things down, do they make notes, do they jot down the important points? More importantly, do they teach these things in school? I don’t know. All I know is that I wander into their room where the girls are purportedly studying and find them both sitting with their legs on the chair, books open in front of them. (I must be a terrible mom: I haven’t even managed to teach them how to sit on a chair! My daughters assure me that even in school everyone sits like that, as if it is some consolation!) Anyway, the table is a mess with books, papers, story books, files and an assortment of pens (obviously without their caps) lying about. Often a glass or mug or bowl of some half-eaten snack is balanced precariously on all that. As they say, if you looked you could find an elephant in there!  How can one study in that kind of an environment? I could ignore all that if I thought they were actually studying. One is cleaning her fingernails with the studiousness of a Buddhist monk. The other has one eye on her new phone (she got her first phone on her 15^th birthday about a fortnight ago) and the other on some card she is making for some friend at school!!! I growl. I confiscate the phone. I take the other one too, for good measure. The girls sit up, yes, yes, they are studying they assure me.

This routine with minor variations is pretty common. Amid all that, often, they are fighting. In our household sibling rivalry has been perfected to a fine art. And the rules are simple. If I can hear them, they are in trouble. I do not care who started it or what she said or did. If I have to get up and go to the room, they are in trouble. So nowadays when they fight it’s like one boom and then silence. There are sounds of frantic whispering and a thud. Sometimes a shriek and “I’m telling!” Then silence. I call out from the next room, “what’s happening?” “Nothing,” comes the prompt reply, in chorus! Often these outbursts end with one child moving to the dining table to study while the other sulks or vice versa... I try not to involve myself. As they say, don’t trouble trouble till trouble troubles you!

Anyway getting back to where I was. Studying. I generally do not panic but as the ICSE looms ahead I find myself worrying. What is good enough? One mother is busy collecting question papers. Another calls to ask what text book is taught in the other school. I run about collecting notes. It looks like only the mothers worry. The little darlings are busy dancing to the fiddler in their own heads to music only they can hear.

And whenever I see my daughter I swear it’s like she has ICSE written in bold neon letters on her forehead. All I seem to say is “go study,” “have you studied?” “are you studying?” or words to that effect. She growls back at me, that’s all she has been doing apparently! She storms off, she doesn’t want to talk to me or so she says! The younger one suffers along with her sister. How can you have one child studying and the other loafing about and watching TV? She has been told to sit at the desk and do something useful. Write an essay or whatever! She sulks. She wants her phone back. I give it, but refuse to turn on the wi-fi. She doesn’t say it but I can see she doesn’t want to talk to me either!  

Truth is, sometimes I tell them to go study and regret it immediately. I think it isn’t fair. I wish I could let them do what they want. I wish I could tell them that ultimately these exams will not matter. In the long run what they do with their lives will not depend solely on their school results or Board Exams. I wish I could tell them that despite that I will keep goading them because I want them to have lives of “choice” and not “chance”. I wish I could tell them that happiness has nothing to do with the grades they get or the subjects they study. Ah no, I can never tell them that. I must be the evil mother, the relentless bullying harridan in their lives. For I know I may not be there to hold their hands forever. And I only wish to ensure that they have the strongest wings so that they can be straight and true when it is their turn to fly.

Do you know where your children are?

Sometimes I look back on my childhood and think we were a privileged lot. Of course, we did not know it then. We had no TV and the lone telephone rarely, if ever, worked. Computers were myths and radios were about the only exposure to a live world outside.

I'll tell you what we did have: we had the outdoors. We had a cycle and a huge garden and a pond and all the freedom to explore every inch. We had earthworms, we had fireflies, we had ladybirds and butterflies. We skinned our knees and wiped away the blood without a thought of running to tell our mother for fear of tincture iodine that burnt like hell and when we fell we never cried out. I remember being chased around the fields by my aged grandfather who wanted to put tincture iodine on a cut, I remember sneaking into the neighboring houses from under the fence and always being welcomed with orange squash, I remember lazy somersaults in the pond, our bodies tanned and black in the summer sun and I remember turning a deaf ear when being called to go indoors because the sun was too hot. We explored the streams near the house, swung from the branches of the Litchi trees and ate raw tamarind and mangoes drying in the sun with our grubby fingers and imagined nobody knew about it. We had the terrace, we had kites, we had the skies and we were our own masters. We had endless hours of making tea out of mud and water and making a mess. We played with our imaginations, and we bent them to our will. Dinner times always had the whole family gather at the table (no exceptions) and we'd  all sit and share our day. There was warmth and there was conversation. Often, there was Laughter... in our lives there was always room for Laughter and I am glad, that even now, he has lingered in my life. Sometimes, after dinner, we’d play chess or scrabble or just read a book. Often, we would go for long walks in the night and my father would point out the stars and I’d gaze at him in admiration and now I desperately try to remember all that he said but I was too self involved to pay attention to back then.

The TV was actually the first intruder in our home. Dinners were accompanied by the news and conversations verged on the (often) boring matters of State. We were, by and large not allowed to switch on the TV at any other time so I grew up unable to appreciate the finer aesthetics of TV serials and shows although I hankered for them after hearing all about it in school, but that is another story.

Foreign holidays were unheard of. We never came home and told our mothers "so and so is going to Spain, again" or, "can we go to Paris, three of our friends are going!" For our holidays we had my maternal grandparents' house in Kanke, we had the garden house in Maniktala and we had Madhupur, famous for its ghosts where we let our imaginations roam wild.... For serious diversion we had the beaches at Puri. Don't get me wrong... we did go on other holidays, we travelled to Lucknow, Agra, Darjeeling, even Kovalam and Kanyakumari but those were later, those came when we were older. The places I describe here are when we were younger and when, come winter, all the cousins would gather round from near and far and just fill the houses with love and happiness and lots of memories.

Now I look at my girls and wonder. Living in a joint family, they do have cousins at hand. They also  have TV which apparently tells them all they need to know, they have social media so they can communicate with their cousins and never have to climb on top of the tank just to share a secret that cannot be heard by others. They have computers that can download information in seconds so they never know the joy of hunting through an encyclopedia. They have cell phones to tell me just where they are and when they reached…hell, we ourselves never knew where our adventures would take us and when we were out, well, we were out. They have SnapChat and Instagrams and weird games, if I ask them to go out and play I may as well be punishing them! They have amusement parks; for us, the annual rickety Ferris wheel at the Park Circus mela at puja time was enough. And candy floss. And if you teamed it up with pop-corn our lives were full! Now pop-corn comes in microwavable packets in an assortment of flavours and any toddler that can reach the microwave will be able to make you some! My girls know all about international immigration and customs but they have never dabbled in the sand at the local stream where the clear water reflects every blade of grass. My girls promptly take off their shoes while undergoing Security check in foreign airports but have never walked barefoot in the soft dew-laden grass at dawn.

Their lives are fraught with dangers, real and imagined: physical punishment or criticism can traumatize them, or so I have been told. In our time we all recall a few well placed slaps that did us no harm, and criticism made us cringe but also made us want to be better. Yesterday I attended a Twitter Chat on cyber safety for kids. How much is too much? How far should we let them go? We have new worries to worry us: too much time on the net, social websites, strangers approaching them online, meeting up with strange people who they have met only online, peer pressure to participate in groups online, the trauma of not having enough 'likes' on a facebook post, the list goes on and on. It's not that the fears have changed all that much, it's just taken on a new name: The Internet. Over exposure to the media shares the blame. Every teenager wants to be as cool as the kids in those serials they watch. Every other child has a boyfriend! Our parents dealt with their fears their way; they warned us about the wolves out there and let us be. There was little else they could do, short of keeping us housebound. Those real fears of  letting the kids out alone, bus rides, accidents, not knowing where the children were going and pedophiles are rampant even today. In fact, I would say it is more of a threat now, "too much traffic, have you heard of the bus accidents? The auto drivers are too rash, so many rape cases!" We dare not allow them out on the streets on their own. So we do the next best thing we can, we give them the internet that opens up worlds for them. We allow them to chat online and leave them be. It's only facebook or twitter or whatever and you hope the friends are all people they know. But can you be sure? Do you know who your child is talking to? Do you know who their friends are? Most of all, yes, I know she is sitting at her desk in front of the computer, but do you know where your child is?  

No, I don’t blame anyone, and as they say, the old order changeth….the new has many wonders too. It’s just that once in a while I wonder where we are headed. A part of me feels sad that my daughters cannot hear the music of the stars and are instead lulled by the song of the air-conditioner. I guess I just feel nostalgic and wish those idyllic days were once more in my fist and I had my entire life to re live them and share them with my kids!

C’est la vie!

Durga Pujas... when Kolkata goes bonkers..

The Durga Pujas are over. The Goddess's short sojourn with her family to her home is over. She has returned to her husband's home in Mount Kailash. As always, her visit, right from the day she arrived, to the day of her departure amid much pomp and fervour is over. On street corners pandals are being dismantled, skeletons peep here and there, some will take longer to remove than others.

I have friends on my TL asking if it's worth it. All the traffic, all the crowds, the pandals that block the road,  the noise, the food stalls, the garbage... is it worth it?

Before I answer that question, let me tell you something. I always, but always make it a point to be away from the city when Durga Puja fever hits Calcutta. You see, I hate crowds. And noise. I particularly detest that shuffle-shuffle of feet interspersed by a cruel hoot of the hooters as they merrily visit the pandals every night full of inexplicable enthusiasm late into the night. I do not understand the cranky sleepy kids being dragged along, or the winding lines in the puja areas. Or the way a child's eye light up as he counts his 18th lion! Or the joy of eating phuchkas laced with the occasional light insect or the lines in front of the ice-cream vans. One relative once asked me, pointing to the crowds in front of the indigenous "Chinese" chowmein outlets that spring up everywhere, "Durga-puja or Chow-Puja, I can't figure it out!" I smile at the thought. I was watching the goddess being taken away from the puja up our street last night. As I watched, safely ensconced in my third floor balcony, I saw a little drummer boy, fast asleep, his body wrapped around his instrument. I wondered then, what is he thinking? Is he dreaming of the money he will rush home to his mother with? Where is his village, how many sisters and brothers wait for his meager income? And how long will it last? That man sitting on his haunches next to the big dhaak with his face in his arms.....does he dream of his family? Or will he spend his earning on cheap country liquor and fade into obscurity, just for this night? My thoughts are interrupted, someone calls out and the resting drummers sprightly rise and begin playing those drums. Dad-da-da-da--dad-da-da...... the base seems to kick start your heart; the smell of incense permeates the air...., a few crackers go off and amid much festivity and noise, the Goddess returns home. Until next year. I sigh. For five days and five nights, sometimes longer this has been going on every day, I'm glad I was away. I retreat.  

Getting back to the question. Yes, it's worth it. For those few days on the roadsides, in the pandals, gorging on bhel and biriyani, everyone's an equal. Everyone looks nice in their new outfits, there is a spirit of camaraderie and celebration.

True, traffic gets clogged. But on the bright side Kolkata Police does an exceptional job to ensure that the huge chunks of cars keep moving. It's hell getting anyplace to anyplace. The malls, the market places and shops are crowded, trying to negotiate your way into a shop  can be disastrous. Half the narrow lanes are blocked with pandals, if you do not know, you can get frustrated trying to back out of the area. Yes, there is cacophony on the road... the river does get polluted for a bit. A lot of people do not like to venture out during this time... or, like me, run away to escape the madness.

But do stop once and think of the larger picture. There are worse things happening in the world and all around us. If, for a few days there is some joy and that is shared...if, in those few days, a dhaki will finally be able to afford the school books his children need, or an artisan is finally able to afford that blanket for his sick mother in a village far away that you have never heard of...... can't we put up with the cacophony and minor inconveniences for a few day? After all, Durga puja is only for a few days every year. Our extravagances on the other hand...... 

...are perennial

. 

Back to the kitchen, ladies...Recipe by special request

Mangshor Jhol (A basic mutton curry)

Growing up, Sunday afternoon meals were, without exception, mangshor jhol time. All hell broke loose if that particular item was not on the table. There could be ilish(hilsa) or koi(climbing perch) or Kankra(crab) of dimer bora(fish egg balls) or any other delicacy but that mangshor jhol could not be missing! All week, we looked forward to it. And in my head I can still see that dining table laid out for a Sunday lunch and imagine the taste of that curry. My Mother was a very good cook. So those of you lauding my culinary skills know where I got it from. That, and my love of food. For I do earnestly believe that unless you love food and are willing to try out different things, you will never be able to make food work for you!

Enough chatter already. An old friend on twitter @monikamanchanda wants that "mangshor jhol" recipe. So here goes.

Disclaimer 1: There are as many ways to make mutton curry as there are Bengali households. In fact my father-in-law made one of the best mutton curries ever. As always, with everything Bengali there are no dearth of opinions. We all have something to say about everything. So you may soon find enough people to say "add a bit of ground poppy-seeds", another will say "what, no mustard paste?", yet another will ask for something else, the list continues. The following recipe is basically a combination of my mother's recipe with inputs and twists as added by my father-in-law.

Disclaimer 2: I am lousy with measurements and do it by eye. So all measurements except that of the mutton is approximate.

Without  further  ado:

MANGSHOR JHOL:

INGREDIENTS:

Mutton, cleaned and washed, medium to biggish sized pieces 1kg

Sunflower/any white oil: I tsp

Mustard oil 1tbsp

Onions 2, medium sized

Ginger 1inch, thick

Green chillies: 2 ( more if you want it spicy)

Garlic; 6/8 pods peeled

Haldi 1 tbsp

Pepper powder 2tsp

Jeera powder  2tsp

Chilly powder 1tsp

Sugar about 1 tbsp

Unsweetened curd 1/3 cup

tomato sauce 2tbsp

Potatoes 3 big size, peeled and cut into halves

Salt  to taste

METHOD:

1.       Make a smooth paste of the onions, garlic, ginger and green chillies.

2.     Take the mutton pieces in a bowl. Add mustard oil and the paste and rub it in. Add salt, sugar, chilly powder, pepper, jira, curd, haldi and tomato sauce and mix well.

3.     Keep aside for at least an hour. If leaving it marinated for longer consider keeping it covered in the fridge.

4.     Take a big pressure cooker. Add the white oil. You can add a bay leaf if desired but I usually do not bother so you will not find it on the ingredient list.

5.      Add the mutton along with all the marinade when the oil is hot. Stir.

6.      As you stir and keep stirring, the mutton will emit a lot of water and juices. Keep stirring. In Bengali this is called 'kosha'. Stir the mutton till all the gravy disappears. This can take some time, be patient.You can also do this part in a non-stick kadai if you want.

7.     Once all the gravy disappears, add about two cups of water, mix it in nicely and cover and pressure cook for about 20 minutes on low heat. I wait for the pressure to blow the first time and then lower the flame and my timing of 20 minutes starts then. By now the kitchen should be smelling of something delicious cooking!

8.      After 20 minutes, turn off the flame and open the cover. For this you can hold the closed lid under a running water tap or whatever.  Add the big aloo/potato pieces. Stir it in. (A lot of people fry the aloo before putting it in the gravy but in my head that's just unnecessary additional oil so I do not fry them). If the gravy looks too dry, add about 1/2 cup water. The gravy must neither be too watery nor too thick.

9.     Close the pressure cooker lid and cook again for 5 minutes on low heat. As soon as 5 minutes are up, turn off the flame and let the cooker sit where it is.

10.   After about half an hour, open the pressure cooker. The meat and aloo should have settled down and you should be having a lovely red gravy. Check seasoning and pour into serving bowls, be certain to take all the gravy. Your mangshor jhol is ready!

11.   More often than not, this is had with steaming rice and a  side salad of cucumbers and onions. It also goes well with rotis or even a chunk of bread!

12.   I'd love to know if this recipe worked for you. Waiting for your feedback

13.   Oh yeah, enjoy! 

I wish I had sons!

When I was expecting, many people asked me what I wished for, a girl or a boy? Frankly I don't know how that matters, but it seems to be everyone's favourite topic as soon as they learn someone is pregnant! Anyway, thing is I always wanted at least one girl. I wouldn't mind one of each but I was certain I did NOT want only boys!

Why? Because daughters are sweet, daughters are gentle, daughters are kind... 'sugar and spice and all things nice' kind of stuff! I wanted a child I could share my life with. Or so I thought.

Now after almost 15 + years of sharing, I find I have changed my mind!

I wish I had sons...

You see, it all started with them trying out my heels as toddlers. That was kinda cute for a while. The problem began when their feet grew big enough to fit into my shoes. I have small feet and that started quite early. I would find various footwear disappearing from the shoe cupboard. Invariably when I was getting ready to go out the heels would be missing and we would have to launch a man-hunt to find it.. because you can bet they have no clue where they left it. I remember this holiday in Kashmir when one daughter took my sneakers for the whole trip because she had forgotten hers and I was left tottering in heels on the mountainsides! 

Then they started to fit into my clothes. At first it was the odd t'shirt. Then they were picking at my jeans. I find one pair has taken up permanent residence in the older daughter's closet. I sneak it out once in a while only to have it disappearing when it goes for a wash. They even eye my sarees... Thankfully I am not fashionable enough otherwise I would find all my clothes in their cupboards!

Of course there are shampoos, deos, body-washes and other toiletries.... I seriously think they stand under the shower and let it all flow..down the drain. You cannot imagine the amount of shampoo, conditioner and body-wash I have to purchase.  One uses so much body lotion, she is oozing the stuff. The other one runs around with her arms and legs looking dirt tracks for a stock car race! And I often find myself standing in the shower and discovering that the three shampoo bottles in the bathroom are all empty! 

Then there is the endless saga of the hair accessories. Every morning it's the same story. There is a mad rush to get ready for school. Both girls insist on keeping long hair. So every morning that hair has to be combed and plaited for school. To keep the stray flyaway hair at bay, hair-clips are used. One would expect that the hair-clips and such things would be kept at a designated place and accordingly used. Hell, no! Every morning without fail they will rummage through my dressing table drawer looking for hair-clips because they have misplaced the ones they used the day before! As a result I can never find the damn hair-clips or grip or whatevers when I am getting ready myself and have to run about looking for them! So if you see me with unkempt hair, you now know why...

Just imagine, a son wouldn't wear my heels, nor would he want my  sarees.. nor would he leave the new jar of Olay open so that the cream hardens and no one can use it again!

After my two daughters were born, sometimes (presumably well-intentioned) people asked if I had wanted sons or regretted not having any. I sweetly informed them that I was thrilled with my two girls and it didn't matter to me.

Sometimes I wish I could turn back time and say I changed my mind.

The balancing act...

Marriages, unfortunately, do not come with manuals. And in every marriage there is some amount of disagreement. Every married couple fights every now and then and it is my firm belief that a good many of these fights are regarding finances.

After all, we all know about the shocking price rises. Every month our frowns grow deeper as we try to balance the budget. Speaking for myself, I over-shoot the household budget without fail, every month (usually by the tenth of the month, fifteenth, if I am lucky) and then have to rely on the ATM and debit cards to do the needful! The spouse, obviously, has no clue about the prices of groceries. If, by some miracle, he does accompany me to the super-market, he is oblivious to the price of lentils and busy inspecting the stationery. Otherwise he has smartly ensconced himself in the electronics department and is inspecting the latest gadgets until I call from the check-out counter.  So, he has no idea about the prices of the household stuff. Sometimes, at night if he hears me grumble about that onions are eighty Rupees a kg,  he grunts and sinks back into his game of Candy Crush turning a deaf ear to my woes!

And of course, like every normal married couple we argue about money. And where it goes. Sigh. I wish I could say I have been buying diamonds and sarees and bags and shoes. I wish. No, the precious things in my life are Nutella and Oreos, which, incidentally neither my husband nor I touch.

You see, in this house we have two teenage girls. Earlier in a post I had described them as vacuum cleaners and the titles still hold. They are truly magical. They may be found anywhere in the house but are most likely sprawled on the sofa in front of the TV or in front of a computer or similar gadget. (Shh.. don't tell anyone. In our house the wi-fi is NEVER off!) They leave the whole house, particularly the areas designated to them, a complete mess. Books everywhere, paper on the floor, dust where there shouldn't be any, sticky glue in the most unexpected places, used glasses and plates balanced precariously on their desks and crumbs on the sofa. In fact, if you follow the trail of dirt and food leftovers in the house, most certainly you will find them....

But they also clean. They clean out the food from the larder and the fridge. Nothing survives their powerful suctioning skills. No matter how far behind the veggies you hide the chocolates or the sweets or the cheese, they have a special homing button that allows them to clear it in a trice! So do not look for left-overs of that yummy Chinese we had two nights ago, or the pizza, or the cheesecake, or the ham, not even that home made keema curry.... one fell swoop and it's gone!

I know people who put their daughter on a diet, "after all she has to maintain her figure," one lady told me disapprovingly looking at the big box of cookies I had in my hand, "in our house we do not have coke or chocolates or chips..you would do well to do that."

Yet other friends of mine complain their daughters do not eat. Despite much coaxing, they want to become slim. Like Deepika Padukone. I bet!

 My daughters, on the other hand, have no aspirations to be slim. One is a stick figure anyway and the other could do with some weight-loss I suppose (though I'd rather she exercises to do it) but when it comes to food there is no question of a diet. They love their food. And how. 
When they ask, "can I have a biscuit", it means the entire large packet of Hide and Seek will be finished. When they ask if they can have a 'little chips' it means the party stock will be over. When they have cheese toasts you can bet the bread loaf will be over and the maid will come knocking on your door  for money to buy more bread!They even wake up in the middle of the night to have the biriyani in the fridge! 

Take this: The other day Amisha  (their exams were on then) had three cheese toasts and milk at 6 PM. By 7:30 she was apparently hungry so she had a bowl of Wai-Wai. At 8:30 she asked me, "I'm very hungry, can I have dinner? " I (not unreasonably, I think) told her that she should wait for another half an hour or so and eat with her sister. She stood up tall, took a deep breath and declared, "fine, I can starve then!" and flounced out of  the room like a scorned queen! I sat there gaping at floor unable to believe my ears, and slowly counted the months till she would, hopefully, leave for college. 

At least 47.

I think a balanced budget is a distant dream, no? 

Until then I'll just continue to have these spats with my husband about money!