Follow your passion

When I look at some of the people around me, I am amazed. The banker who’s taking her passion for food to a new level by starting a gourmet food catering business. The full-time mommy (and runner) who’s just qualified as a sports nutritionist. The engineer who is a full-time fitness instructor. The software engineer who makes and sells jewellery.

A bunch of women who apparently have nothing in common except the fact that they all chose to move away from conventional career paths and explore unchartered trails. You don’t have to wait till you retire before following your passion.

Is this Independence?

Sixty-five years ago, the tricolour flag was unfurled for the first time in Independent India. The nation will be truly free”, Mahatma Gandhi said, “only when its women are free.” 

There were women doctors in the army, and a woman represented the nation in the United Nations- one hoped women would take their position as equal partners in the newly independent India.

Decades later, that dream is still a dream. Men outnumber women ten for nine. Women have no say in shaping their lives. Society dictates how women should dress; women are raped if they don’t comply.

Is this Independence?

My child just doesn't read

“My child just doesn’t read”, I hear parents complain. “I buy so many books, but she’s just not interested.”

I used to feel almost guilty about my son’s voracious appetite for books, till I realised he hadn’t been miraculously ‘blessed’ with the love for reading- he had merely inherited it from his mother.

“Which was the last book you read?”, I’ve now started asking. If they can remember that far back, it is usually the name of a potboiler or a self-help book they give me.

How can you teach kids to love books if you don’t love them yourself?

All I couldn't do....

All the things I couldn’t do, I wanted my son to do. Tone-deaf myself, I signed him up for keyboard lessons; only to find that the teacher could not cope with his left-handedness. Basketball lessons were dropped because he just didn’t like them. He refused dance lessons even before they started.

Don’t live your life through your son, I told myself. And let him do whatever he wanted to do. He reads, writes, takes photographs, and day-dreams.

When I let him be himself, he turns out to be a replica of me. Should I be happy? Yes, I am. Very!

It needs to change

“What would you like to change about woman’s boxing?”, an Indian boxer was asked.

“Nothing”, she replied. “It is society that I would like to change.” Her comment was as spot on as her punches.

An organization puts up posters threatening to throw acid on the face of women who dare wear jeans, and the police doesn’t take any action against them. A woman is raped in board daylight on a busy street- a cameraman shoots it live and broadcasts it on TV, but does nothing to prevent the crime.

Any society that treats women so, does need to change.

Which Animal are You?

“But I thought you would choose a cheetah”, my son exclaimed.

Ignoring the fact that he was probably trying to tell me I spend too much time running, I said, “But I’m not as fast as a cheetah. I run like an elephant- I’m slow, but I always get where I want to go.”

That’s not the only reason I think I’m an elephant. I’m intelligent, and helpful. I don’t mind company, but like being on my own too. I can figure things out fast, and rarely forget, unless I want to.

Yes, I am an elephant, through and through.

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And which animal are you?

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!!!!