Dearborn Days

Apartment moving- Cooking food- organizing stuff- beginning of a new life- waves of change taking me in an unknown direction- scared/nervous/excited and still lazy and disoriented- sums up my life.

First day of the month :-)

Today is June first, beginning of a new month. Time to turn the resolution wheel for the umpteenth time. So I woke up today at 7:00 am which was my target. I made My bed, took bath, prayed, prepared tea for every one and I am now back in my room and it is almost 9:00 am, the time I usually used to get up in the last few months :-)

Hope the energy and motivation lasts forever:-)

Lesson learned - Always follow the recipe

Although I am not a cooking aficionado,  I love virtually gratifying my palate by browsing through the culinary blogs and looking at the captivating pictures of all those gastronomic delights. Also, my favorite TV show during college was MasterChef Australia in Star world, where amateur cooks create marvelous mouth watering dishes that fill me with a strong drive to get into the kitchen and start cooking at the very moment. It was at the peak of the motivation to be an expert in culinary crafts that I created a blog named 'Platter Express' two years ago  to compile all my cooking experiences. As the great chef in the movie 'Ratatoullie' says "Anyone can cook!" then why not me? But, unfortunately I have not taken another step  forward in the direction to fulfill my dream. So, the blog still remains in a state of  hibernation without even a single post to its credit.

As Mummy/Papa left for India two weeks back, the ownership of the kitchen was temporarily transferred to me and it has been my mini-experiment lab for the last few days. The most valuable lesson I learned is never improvise and stream in my naive ideas into the recipe and spoil the dish. I must wait until I learn the basic lessons of cooking,the fine art of  balancing salt,spice and the rest of the ingredients  before I try out my own twists to the recipe. I followed this principle to the very end when I cooked the Kadala curry yesterday. The dish turned out to be  quite okay until towards the end when I got this splendid idea to make the dish even more outstanding. I took the left over Coconut Chutney from the fridge and poured it into the curry. I was strongly convinced  that this would elevate the status of the dish from a mediocre one to something smashing and superior, a Thai-South Indian hybrid, I told myself. Alas,that was the brutal end to a palatable,innocent curry. It tasted really bad, I tried saving it by adding more coriander and chilly powder which unfortunately didn't bring any remarkable change. I  was really hungry as I was planning to have my breakfast after preparing the curry and hence I somehow managed to gulp  it down along with the puttu. The pangs of hunger masked the horrible taste. Today morning the dish landed in the trash because not only did it taste bad, but it also seemed to be spoiled, maybe because of the left over secret ingredient that was added to it in the end.

Lesson reinforced -Always stick to the recipe :-)

A wish list to begin with...

I remember the seven year old me standing in front of the framed photo of  Jesus kept  in the hallway of our home and asking in the politest way possible "Eeshoye,enikku oru apple tharaamo?" (Jesus,Can you please give me an apple?). I was putting to test the novel and most exciting fact I learned at Sunday School that day. Miss.Clara, our Catechism teacher told us that whatever we ask Jesus would be granted to us, under one condition that we do it with utmost belief and sincerity. Now, belief is a tricky thing, she continued to explain, with a story. Once upon a time there was a very old lady who lived alone in her cottage. There was a huge mango tree in front of her house and every morning she would wake up to find her courtyard blanketed by a thick layer of deep-yellow fallen mango leaves. The old lady would  pick up her broom and would begin cleaning the mess, muttering to herself on how unfortunate she was to begin everyday of her life with such a laborious and unpleasant chore. So one fine day she was enlightened, she remembered how Jesus has said in the Bible that even a mountain could be moved from its place if requested faithfully. If a mountain can change positions why can't a mango tree do the same, she thought to herself. So she began praying earnestly to God that the mango tree be moved to the backyard so that she could start her day doing something more enjoyable,maybe sip her morning coffee reading the newspaper sitting on the long arm chair in the verandah. Each day morning she would get out of her bed with great hope, expecting to see the tree having miraculously moved to the backyard. But unfortunately nothing strange or unusual happened. At the end of three days, the old lady lost her hope and became really agitated. She told God "Anyway, I knew that nothing magical was going to happen. But I just wanted to try in case it works!". The moral of the story is when we ask stuff from God it shouldn't be with the attitude the old lady showed, but with full confidence that however improbable it is it would be granted,Miss. Clara concluded.

 I can't imagine why I asked specifically for an apple that day, maybe I decided to use the apple as a starter and later follow it up with my grand demands. But when I asked for it, I would say I had full faith, I expected an apple to pop up from the bare, scarlet, heart of Jesus right into my hands. But then faith is not a quantitatively measurable entity, so I can never tell whether I had enough of it. Anyway, I am now mature enough to understand that apples won't pop out of portraits like from a wending machine.

Is it because we don't have enough faith that our desires sometimes go unfulfilled? I definitely don't think so, although I don't have a logical answer to the question.

I had thought about updating my blog earlier this month on my birthday (when I turned 26, still getting adapted to the transition from 'Chechy' to 'Aunty') with a wish list and a side menu of resolutions needed to fulfill them. But as the genes of procrastination are impregnated in my genome in its extreme malignant form, it didn't happen until today. I get an occasional urge to write down my wish list coupled with revolutionary resolutions. It gives me a transient, false sense of happiness, as if all my dreams have been fulfilled, a virtual journey to the point of  complete accomplishment. The motivation evoked by the resolutions also wanes off in a few days when I am back to my usual lazy self. But for me it is a way to boost up my low spirits, to bring some order and a sense of direction to my disorganized life.

1) To learn swimming by June 2014 before my residency begins.

2) To be half way through the process of learning a foreign language by June 2014 (Spanish being the chosen one right now).

3) To update my blog weekly.

4) To pick up the habit of reading books.

5) To be regular, systematic and organized.

6) To build up a happy family.

7) To be the pediatrician I dream to be.

8) To travel

9) To utilize time productively

Hope the energy drive lasts longer this time :-)

Cerebral disconnection and its Consequences.

There are these times when you sit back and ponder over the bygone days of life and then certain incidents cross your mind which make you wonder,Am I stupid?No matter how hard you think you cannot come up with a rational explanation for your imbecility.Finally, you hypothesize that it was an accidental interference in some critical neuronal circuit and drift your mind to better thoughts.As exams and vivas are instances where cerebral exertion of a certain magnitude is expected,neuronal misfires tend to be more common in these occasions.The most recent episode which I can solely attribute to this phenomenon is my Final Year Gynaec viva when the madam,pointing to a hysterectomy specimen asked me to name some indications for the surgery and I promptly answered 'infertility'. Hysterectomy for infertility?I was as appalled as she was at my answer.Fortunately,the bell rang as my savior(that is the best thing about attending vivas,you need to spend only four minutes with the examiner) when she was about to a elaborate on her idea regarding my thoretical knowledge.

At times,a similar mishap occurs when reading the question paper.You tend to miss certain key words like the 'NOT' in' Which of the following is not....' or the 'EXCEPT' at the end of 'All the following are ...except'.Sometimes the accident may be more serious,your vision may me so blurred that you miss an entire question or worse,you may forget to turn the question paper and miss an entire section on the other side.Another unusual phenomenon that can occur is that you are grappled by a temperory visual hallucination,new letters are inserted into a word and the question attains a whole different meaning.For instance,in my last medicine exam,I read the question 'W.H.O ladder' as 'W.H.O Bladder'.The question puzzled me for quite some time,there was spinal bladder,UMN bladder,LMN bladder but WHO Bladder??

Similar calamities can occur if you overexert your grey cells under circumstances where it is not desirable.It was my Surgery posting and our professor was engaged in the favorite entertainment of men in his circle-asking us questions and jeering at our ignorance.He asked us to the name the classification for tachycardia in thyrotoxicosis.As we stared at him vacantly,he decided to churn the answer out of us by giving a 'clue'."What will you do if I start scolding you now?'.The question was directed to me,the answer he wanted was simple-'cry' and the name of the classification was 'Kriles'.He would have promptlyly got the answer if I was a kindergarten student.But my train of thought went as

1.If sir starts scolding me now,when I'have done nothing nothing wrong,I'll be offended and hurt and I will say to myself 'Enthoru kashttammanithu'

2.But,that is in Malayalam,someone who speaks English would say 'Damn it!'

As I have not yet given an answer he gives me the next clue'It starts with C"

3.'Damn it' is a .....Curse!!

With Murphy's support the last part was said loud enough for him to hear!

The Consequence-A fine rendition on the degradation of moral values in the present generation,how 'they treated their teachers twenty years ago,also there was a nasty part on what he thought about me. I was already in his bad books for writing a leave letter for my unit mate the same day morning( unfortunate because someone else was about to write it,I was bored and insisted that I'll do it as I had not written one in a long time)

At the end,I did cry as he expected in the answer to his question:)

Lessons for Toddlers

1.Never hide anything under the bed,especially test paper books and answer papers.It is the most obvious site , anyone with a morsel of intelligence is sure to search there in the first place.I learned this lesson quite late, in my tenth standard ,when Amma discovered my Malayalam test paper note,from under the bed,a book that was signed and maintained exclusively by me.Mathew was quick to take in this lesson.He chose the Malayalam shabdatharaavali, a Gargantuan compilation of words,a book that was barely touched and rarely opened,to hide his Social answer paper.I accidently discovered it after one year when it was too late to be used as a tool to blackmail him.

2.Never keep your colour pencils/drawing books near your elder sister/brother.It seems to arouse in them an irreristible urge to hone their drawing skills.I was caught one day at school,my teacher having discovered the inimitable painting of a lady playing Bharathanaattyam in my drawing note along with the clumsy representations of mountains and coconut trees,the only stuff I could manage to draw!The same rule applies to your personal diaries as well.Keep it out of their reach or you may have to face appalling situations as the grammamr mistakes in it being corrected in red ink or worse,in desperate circumstances they would take the book to college to write lecture notes.

3.Never impetuously obey whatever your elder siblings say.Exercise your grey cells,give a modicum of thought to the grievous consequences that may occur.This lesson would be clear when I tell you how I rashly placed my tongue inside the freezer when my wise sister told me about the wonderful feeling you experience when you perform this act(which she told she has done several times and that she couldnt stop herself from doing it again).I narrowly escaped a fatal death that day,only because I withdrew my tongue instinctively.When later questioned by papa she told that she read in 'Young World' that this could be dangerous and just wanted to confirm it!

4.If you have a doubt,better approach your parents than your siblings.They seem to derive a sort of unrelenting pleasure in deceiving you by exploiting your fundamental gullible nature.Mathew was a chronic victim to my fabricated tales in his naive days when he was unaware of the implications of this lesson.Once,the eight year old Mathew consulted me to clear certain doubts he had regarding the origin of earwax,which he said he had in plenty.I explained to him gravely about the existence of a channel named the 'Eustachian canal' that connects the ear with the brain and how when excess clay accumulates inside ones head it flows down this path into the ear.As his eyes welled up with tears at the realization of the bitter truth that he was a moron,I consoled him saying that everybody can't be born intelligent.Also to make the explanation sound more genuine,I added that Papa and Amma were planning to shift him to another school as they have realized that he was intellectually incompetent to continue his studies in the present one.Yet another time,on our way back home from school,I decided to take him through a route he was not familiar with.Mathew was puzzled as he saw the unacquainted road and asked me where we were heading.Solemnly,I let him knew that Amma and Papa have decided to sell him as they had no money and that we were going to his new home,the family that has agreed to adopt him.Also,I have told him umpteen times on how an unforgivable swap occurred at the 'Baby Memorial Hospital'' where he was born and how the 'real Mathews' was living at some alien home.Deechechi looked exactly like Papa and I was said to be a replica of Amma while he did not resemble anyone which proved that he was not the 'real one'.Now,these seem like the cruelest things to tell an eight year old kid,but back then exploiting his pediatric unsuspecting character was the most pleasurable pastime I indulged in.

Little Miss Samaritan

Natasha,wake up!"Papa's booming voice echoed inside my head.I slowly opened my sleepy eyes and saw him standing before me like a dictator.He was holding a sheet of paper and one look at it was enough for me to realize that my whole day was ruined.
"Solve them in fifteen minutes and show me"Papa commanded,handing me the paper.I glanced at the clock,it was already seven,which meant the two hours I had before leaving for school would be spent on a heated arguement with papa on the conflicting views we had about some of the basic mathematical operations.
I hated Maths at school.It was a subject that never made any sense to me.Even at those times when I could correctly manage to find the sum of five and four as nine,the answer failed to give me a quantum of pleasure because I hardly knew what I had done to those numbers on the left side.How could a change in sign between two numbers produce an entirely different answer?What is the difference between addition and multiplication?These were unexplainable questions that baffled me completely.This was especially a dilemma when solving those statement problems where one had to read the question and logically choose the operation to be performed.I answered them blindly following implicit cues like if the question has the words 'how many times'it would be probably multiplication.
"Another gloomy Monday morning"I sighed as I walked to my study table with the set of sums.I loathed Maths even more because in addition to the forty minutes of torture I'd to go through at school everyday,I had to attend daily practice sessions with papa at home which was even more annoying.
After straining my grey cells for half an hour I finished with the problems.Dearly hoping that all the sums would be correct I took my answer sheet to papa.Before starting the valuation he gave me a small lecture on the importance of finishing the assigned tasks on time.He scanned through the paper and found that I'd managed to get more than half the answers wrong (that is the most annoying thing about Maths,a change of single digit was enough to get the wrong answer)Being a man equipped with a patience which was yet to devlop from its early embryonic form,my pathetic performance was more than enough to stir his temper.I'd a short trip to hell in the next fifteen minutes,after which I returned to my table with a pair of swollen red eyes,scarlet red ears,bruised thighs and worse..another sheet of paper with a new set of problems in my hand.
I was totally exhausted after the fiery ordeal that my grey cells were in no mood for any level of intellectual stimulation .I pondered on how I could escape from the next cycle of the nightmare.I decided to sit with the paper for the next half an hour..may be by that time papa would realize that it was time for me to leave for school and would ask me to go and have my breakfast,with which I can sit for another half an hour and then there would be time left only to dress up and leave for school.But this inkling of hope was wiped away immediately by papa's voice from the next door,
"Don't think that you can budge from your seat without finishing those problems"
As all the roads to escape were closed,I decided to work out the problems(this time I'd no hope that I would get them right).After fifteen minutes I entered the lion's lair again.No miracles happened this time as well,my level of performance still touched the bottomline and Papa's reaction was also much the same.I cannot say what I disliked the most..his bark or his bite.He was still adamant to teach me the subject,so he prepared another set of questions and left me with a warning that if I failed to show an appreciable degree of improvement this time the outcome would be disastrous(ofcourse,it was just a warning intended to boost up my performance,but it didnot sound good).These were the moments when I was forced to think about running away from home.With a heavy heart,I returned to my place and started with the problems again.I couldn't even see the numbers clearly because tears were gushing out of my eyes.
It was then that the most unexpected thing happened.All this time Deechechi was sitting beside me engaged in her own studies.As I was deep inside the pool of trouble I'd failed to notice her.Suddenly,she took the question paper from me and started working out the problems.In less than five minutes she finished all the problems and handed the paper back.I was overwhelmed by surprise and happiness at this unanticipated act of philanthropy.As I was not the kind of girl who under such dire situations would cling on to moral values,I gladly accepted the paper with a broad smile.Afte rewriting the answers in my handwriting and waiting for another fifteen minutes,I went to papa with a newfound confidence I'd never experienced before.Now it was his turn to be surprised because even he didnot expect such an impeccable result.

"Randennam thannaal nee ethu kanakkun cheyyum,alle"?He said with a smile of victory.

I had not thought about the possibility of him reaching such dangerous conclusions as I was too much worried about the impending disaster.

I left the room unscathed.But the incident reaffirmed Papa's view that a stick can work wonders as a teaching assitant.
Deechechi doesn't remember helping me with the sums.She says she must have been completely out of her mind if she has done something of this sort.:)