Doesn't she really care?

“The water situation in my village is terrible”, began my maid, before launching into details of how her village was literally drying up, and of how they were being forced to sell their lifestock.

I was only half listening, but that didn’t stop her. When she exited the kitchen, after washing the dishes, she left the tap leaking.

“Why didn’t you close the tap properly”, I asked, shutting it off.

“It doesn’t close properly”, she replied promptly.

Doesn’t she realize that water saved in the city means more water for the people in her village. Or doesn’t she really care?

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A Drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.

Discovering cooking

I am a strictly utilitarian cook- I enter the kitchen only when I absolutely have to. Not for me hours spent pouring over recipe books; experimenting with flavours; playing with textures. I’d eat the same boring stuff at home, and indulge when we went out.

Till I discovered an on-line community of enthusiastic cooks. Suddenly, good food became accessible. Boring vegetables could be cooked in new ways. Cereals I never knew existed turned out to be as delicious as they were healthy. My spice rack expanded, I bought new implements.

Suddenly, cooking has become almost as much fun as eating!

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Bajra/ pearl millet was a name I'd only encountered in geography texts, 

till I found this recipe that seemed easy enough even for me to attempt. 

Verdict- yummy!!!!

The greatest gift

“But I can’t do it”, my son told me.

“Of course you can.” I didn’t particularly want him to jump off branch, but even less did I want him to walk away from a challenge he set for himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

He closed his eyes, pushed himself off, and landed perfectly on his feet.

“How did you know I could do it?”, he asked me much later.

“Because my parents taught me that if you believe you can do something, you can do it”, I told him.

The greatest gift a parent can give a child is self-belief.

I had savoured the beauty

“DOOONNNN’TTttttt….”, the word was still in my mouth, when it happened. My son’s hand swung out, knocking the stem off my plumeria plant. A moment earlier, I had been gazing proudly at 17 buds poised to spread their perfume and beauty outside my bedroom window. Now all there was to see was the stump of a stem, bleeding milky white discharge.

These would have been my first flowers in four years. I would have seen their perfection first thing in the morning on waking up. I wept.

And then I stopped weeping. In my mind, I had savoured the beauty.
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Flashback 2011- March

These flowers bloomed on the same plant, but not as easily visible as the other ones would have been. Would I have even seen them had the other lot not been tragically lost? This photograph taken in March forms a part of my Pictoral Flashback of 2011.

If I had the year over....

If I had the year over, would I have done things differently? Would I have put my foot down earlier and more firmly? Suffered fools a lot less? Would I have spent less time with that person who proved a false friend, and been more sympathetic to the one who genuinely needed me? 

Would I have abstained from ordering that takeaway that gave all of us an upset stomach?

With the benefit of hindsight, one can always do things better. But I wouldn’t really want to change too much; I am happy with the way things turned out this year. 

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Flashback 2011- January

On a cold winter morning in one of the most inaccessible parts of rural India, I watched the sun go down behind a temple. As the colours faded into black and white, for a moment, I could see my entire life in stunning clarity. This photograph taken in January forms a part of my Pictoral Flashback of 2011.

The next "Next Year"

It will be December tomorrow. The last month of the year. Soon it will be "Next Year". But wasn’t it "Next Year", just a couple of months back? How did the next "Next Year" creep up so soon?

A lot has happened during this "Next Year"; definitely eleven month worth of stuff. And yet, it seems like the new "Next Year" has come too soon.

It is like looking at a perfect reflection- you can invert the scene and not know the difference. Till a leaf hits the water, and starts off a ripple. 

Soon, it will be "Next Year".

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A drabble is a story told in exactly 100 words.