Jun 13, 2016 Culture, Daily Life, The Daily Post
Time to Rebuild
©June 13th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
I’m very, very tired today.
The car door of our rented car (a honking SUV, which I hate, but which we needed because someone rammed into our car over a week ago, and gave me a fender-bender) got whipped out of my grasp by the wind, as I was opening it, and whacked my poor nose, which promptly started bleeding profusely. Fortunately, I got ice on it, and lay down, and in forty minutes or so, it stopped. It’s still a bit sore.
Then, later in the evening, I spent a couple of hours, lopping away at some weed trees, and random small vegetation that had become strong, and was unwanted, and was blocking light from reaching our backyard plants. It was like plowing through the undergrowth of a small jungle. My daughter helped by gathering all the huge branches and piles of leaves, and stacked them neatly along the side. All that work with a big lopper made my arms hurt, but I liked the sense of accomplishment that came with it.
Apart from that, I worked some good dirt and manure into a patch of earth in the side yard, and planted a bunch of morning glories that a friend of ours brought for us, and watered all the plants in the front yard.
We had a good day, as a family and apart – we played Bach chorales on our guitars, each of us taking turns playing the main melody, alto, tenor and bass lines, while playing all the parts together. It’s always lovely to make music with my family.
So, at this level, I’m happy in my own, tiny part of the universe.
And at another level, I’m heartbroken about this world in which we’re bringing up our daughter.
I’m heartbroken for all the mothers and fathers who lost their sons and daughters in Orlando yesterday: 49 people killed, because of a hateful bigot with access to assault weapons, who decided that those who love people of the same sex are an affront.
I’m heartbroken about a country where it’s easy to get assault weapons, just because of some misbegotten notion that the 2nd Amendment has to be protected at all costs, without regard for the context in which the Second Amendment was put in place.
I’m heartbroken because there’s so much bloodshed, so much misery, so much hate, so much violence, so much darkness in the hearts of so many people.
It’s time to rebuild.
Say No to hatred.
Say Yes to love.
Say No to violence.
Say yes to healing.
Say No to bigotry.
Say Yes to acceptance.
Say No to war.
Say Yes to peace.
Say No to destruction.
Say Yes to rebuilding.
Oh, and along the way, don’t forget to say hello to your neighbours, call your faraway parents, siblings, friends more often, and give generously of your time and more to those who seek you out.
And save this beautiful blue-green planet of ours –Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and fight against complacency or despair, when confronted with Climate Change.
Please.
And thank you.
__________________________________________________________
Tags: #DailyPrompt, #DayintheLife, #Rebuild, #TheDailyPost
Jun 6, 2016 Culture, Uncategorized
I know this has nothing at all to do with my blog, or poetry, but I just had to share this brilliant initiative of John Oliver, one of my favorite T.V. personalities (and even though I don’t have a T.V., I do like to watch his clips, as much as I enjoy Colbert and Jon Stewart, the latter now sadly retired from the scene).
Tags: #DebtForgiveness, #John Oliver
Dec 25, 2015 Culture, Daily Life
Photographs©Vijaya Sundaram, December 25th, 2015 (Some presents, walk in the woods in the late December afternoon, some brownies, and that cake!)
We spent yesterday with extended family at Amherst, eating our “traditional” Christmas Eve Chinese food at Amherst Chinese Restaurant.
Today, a quiet day with just us — we had lovely pancakes which my husband made for breakfast, then exchanged presents, followed it with a couscous-veggie lunch, after which we took a walk in the woods with Holly in the late afternoon.
Then, I took it upon myself to bake — it’s been a while since I did that.
First, just a brownie from mix, but I substituted butter with veg. oil, and then glazed it with chocolate sauce. Very nice, actually!
Then, to follow it up, I created something from scratch (I’d baked from scratch once before in the summer, on a whim without a recipe, and it was GOOD), — well, this one turned out “beautifully,” according to my daughter. I was worried, because it was so impromptu. I didn’t dare to hope for much.
Still, this is what I baked:
A lemon-poppyseed cake with crushed almonds, vanilla extract, glazed lemon peel and raisins (I’d saved some lemon rinds, from which my husband decided to make glazed lemon peels the other day), plus cardamom, saffron, almond, yoghurt and brown sugar. I also used butter AND sesame oil. Sounds weird?
Well, it turned out to be really, really light, tasty and rich. All three of us had seconds. Nice, no?
Perhaps, I should make it again. The question is: Will it come out the same way? I tend to do things on a whim. Not good, if you want to be a baker-type. Right?
Anyway …
I finally baked something on Christmas Day.
Must be turning into an American.
This was a nice Christmas, very low-key, quite relaxed. Thank goodness!
___________________________________________
Here’s my recipe for my Poppy-Seed-Candied-Lemon, Cardamom-Saffron-Yogurt Cake:
Ingredients:
Candied lemon peel with raisins (a harried clutchful)
Cardamom – 1/2 teaspoon
Saffron — a miserly pinch
3 cups flour, a white flurry of it
2+cups sugar, brown and earthy
Dash of white sugar — we like mixed marriages here!
2 eggs, beaten into submission
3/4 poppy seeds, toasted, but not in hell-fire
1 stick butter, melted and cooled (like the Arctic)
Equivalent sesame oil, for that nice, virtuous taste
Splash of vanilla extract (a reminder of our hedonistic leanings)
3 big tablespoons of yoghurt — to lighten things up, or the mood becomes sombre
Crushed 8-12 almonds. (Die, almonds, die!)
Mix all well.
350 degrees in oven till baked.
I’ll never be a good cookbook writer! Sigh.
Tags: #Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Gifts and Food, Happy Christmas!, Walk with Family and Dog
Dec 23, 2015 Culture, Daily Life, Uncategorized
Of Human Boatage* Photograph ©Vijaya Sundaram, Nov. 14th, 2015, View of the Yamuna River across from the Taj Mahal, Agra, India
With apologies to W. Somerset Maugham
Tags: #YamunaRiverTajMahal, Original Photograph by Vijaya Sundaram
Oct 15, 2015 Culture, Ramblings and Musings
As a young teenager, I used to wake up to all the songs on this album, and this one always moved me deeply, both for the beautiful pentatonic scale (1, flat 2, 4, 5, flat 7, 1 – or, Do, flat Re, Fa, Sol, Flat Ti, Octave Do –for those who want to know) of Revathi Ragam and MS Subbulakshmi’s heart-moving singing.
Tears sting my eyes now, as I listen to this, and it’s impossible to tell why — I mean I hardly know anything about this song, nor do I understand the words (it’s in Telugu, not my language). What this song does for me is to recreate an entire way of life, along with the song itself. It’s ringed about with devotion and quiet contemplation. It’s redolent with the scent of sandalwood or champa, or amber incense sticks which my parents would light in front of the gods in the mornings on festival days.
It reminds me of when I was a two-braided student, ugly, earnest and geeky, worrying about the shape of my toes and fingers, and practically everything else about myself. It was hot, hot as an inferno down South where we lived, and the air shimmered with salty heat. Sweat and humidity were part of simply being alive there. And we were SO alive, so full of vivid and vibrant energy! My father was alive back then, my parents were happy, my brother was an adorably charming, beautiful little toddler, and my sister was at IIT, singing like an angel, and studying and making new friends. And life was simpler, and I longed to grow up and face the world and make my own decisions, and … here I am now.
It reminds me of Tamil cultural events happening in my neighborhood, of the singing teacher next door, out of whose open windows would come the sounds of students earnestly learning Carnatic music, and being mostly in tune. I’d sometimes go to the terrace, to play at being a schoolteacher, and talk at the top of my pre-teen voice to unseen students, while I waved a branch from the drumstick tree that drooped over the other side of the terrace.
It reminds me of my mother’s exquisite singing voice, as she sang along, while making Madras coffee (the best filter cafe au lait in the world), and our breakfast. My mother’s voice contained in it (and still does, even if she doesn’t sing much any more) worlds of longing, of devotion, of pain, of contentment, of love and sacrifice.
On a more gustatory level, this song reminds me of upma, and dosai and idlis, and tengai chutney, sambhar, and rasam, and kootu, and porutcha kozhambu, of chakkarai pongal and venn pongal, and gotsu, murukku and ten kozhal, and patchadi, and … and temple bells, and marigolds, and of starry-white clusters of blooming jasmine and other swoon-inducing flowers in our garden.
It reminds me of Sunday mornings, when I’d lie in bed and read Tennyson, or D.H. Lawrence, or Jung … for FUN! Or, when I’d read the Oxford English Dictionary — for FUN! Or wrote poetry — for FUN! Or, played the guitar — for … well, you know. (Yes, I had no life, I’m sure!)
And it reminds me of how music always, always speaks to me.
An entire culture and way of life, and I don’t have it here, in these benighted States! And the sad thing is, I don’t even try and seek it.
Because, I say to myself, I’ve created my own culture — with our own music (Indian and Western), our home-grown fresh food, our own cadences, our own lovely day-to-day routines. Because, I say to myself, I dislike following rituals, dislike tradition which forces me to do more work than is necessary (and yet, we celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas in a vegetarian fashion). Because, Indian culture is hard to follow in a foreign land without getting together with a bunch of traditional people, and that has its own baggage.
And yet … I want my daughter to have it all, too.
All mothers want their daughters to have the sum total of their life’s experiences without the pain, or the sweat, or the tears, or the doubts, or the poverty, or the fear of what tomorrow might bring, or the heartbreaks and losses.
Ah well! Someday (soon, I hope), I shall resolve this matter.
_______________________________________________________
Tags: A way of life, culture, festivals, Indian culture, M.S. Subbulakshmi, music is life, North Indian Classical Music, Revathi Ragam, tradition