PERSUADING BABA

The dialogue went on like this, “We are still going. You know Baba,I told you Baba we are going to the pool.” This was IB asking his father to take them to the pool. He was talking while gliding down on the stairs’ railing. At lunch time IB asked both his parents. Both said, “No.” They had their own reasons. Baba was tired from cutting his roses and tending the vegetable patch and Mama had earlier given Brunch to her friend and family. So, she was equally tired.

IB kept up pressure on his Baba. At lunch both his parents kept saying no. He climbed up to his father’s lap to put added pressure. Earlier he had recited, “Eenie, meenie, miney, mo to decide who should take IB and the other two to the pool. The ‘mo’ ended on Baba and IB’s mother was ecstatic on getting scot- free.

IB kept reminding his father, “I picked you Baba by saying Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. All the while, Baba protesting, “I am tired IB…….O.” IB’s father likes to add an O to his children’s names. IB kept running down the stairs to Baba’s side at intervals, trying to wear him down with his child’s logic, amid Baba’s protestations that he was tired.

Baba didn’t budge from his stance and finally IB gave up.

This was between my son and grand son.

IB showing me his goggles and air apparatus.

I’M NOT SHORT

I was the shortest among my siblings, five feet one inch to be exact. I was never bothered about it till after my marriage. To tell you the truth I wasn’t aware of my shortcoming. I was made to realize this FACT by my very ‘Zealous’ sister in law time and again and others like her. I am sure it was very rude on their part but in those days I started feeling that somehow I was a big culprit. Now why didn’t I had a height of five eight or something like that? Now what to do? I was miserable on the inside over my this very Serious Flaw.😢

I was being immature you can say, but you can excuse me, my eighteenth birthday was still a month away. I took to wearing heels. I use to totter around on them, much to the amusement of my husband. My feet would be killing me but I would have a fake smile plastered on my face. Pregnancy rescued me from those heels. Thank God for that.

I grew up and stopped caring about rude comments. In my mind I was perfect the way I was. God had made me and you don’t criticize God’s Creation. 😊

Photos courtesy of World Wide Web.

THE 19th WIFE

Nowadays I am reading The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. The narrative is full of jolts. Jolts to your senses, “Did people like that existed in this country?” And still exist? You ask yourself. Ann Eliza Young separates from her husband Brigham Young, (who considers himself a prophet) and he is leader of the Mormon Church. She embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States.

Side by side is the story of a young man from present day Utah. His mother is on death row for killing her husband which in reality she didn’t. This story brings out what is hidden from the public eye. Imagine a man having fifty two wives or more and hundred and fifty or more children. He can rape his own daughter and gets married to his own niece and so on. And all this is done in the name of God. You get a horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach while reading it.

I can’t imagine sharing one’s husband with another woman. To me living my life like that would be worse than death, or better to be dead than alive. In the days gone by whenever the topic turned to death and I asked my husband if I am no longer alive what will he do? Promptly with a twinkle in his green eyes, he would reply that he will get another wife, giving reasons that he will need someone to cook and clean and look after him. as if he was a baby. He would never say that he would miss me and would never marry again, what I wanted to hear. I used to threaten him by saying if he did get married I would haunt him. As if that would have deterred him!

INNOCENCE

Children are so innocent. They are like Angels. Sorrowfully the world we live in, deprives our children of innocence way too soon. Personally I feel deep regret and sadness over it. Movies, TV, magazines and games all have contributed towards it.

Yesterday I was sitting reading a book when my youngest grandson rushed in. A comforter trailed behind him. He threw himself to the ground and covered himself with the comforter. I was intrigued as to what he did. I asked him, “What are you doing on the floor Sweetheart?”

I was amused when I found out. He was hiding from his elder brother. His reasoning was that “S” will think that the comforter was left on the carpet.😇

A FAVORITE DISH

One of my favorite dish is Pulao. It’s an Urdu name for a rice dish. My memories go back to my childhood days. Back to Baba, (my father) when he was alive. It was a tradition in our home that on Sundays we had Pulao for lunch. It was a must and never to be missed routine. It had raisins, almonds, apricots,mutton,chickpeas and rice. We used to stuff ourselves with it.

Fast forward to me after marriage. I didn’t know cooking. I took time to learn how to cook. Fortunately I learned from magazines, friends and by watching other people. Woman’s Weekly and Woman and Home from UK were my guides in baking. My other must have mag was from US, Good Housekeeping. I simply loved it for ages. Still do.

I will always feel indebted to some of my friends who gave me their recipes. Now back to my Pulao dish. The basics I learned by watching my mother in law, whenever my husband left me at her home. This happened at regular intervals. He would be posted to a new place or in winters he would be called to ‘Army School Of Mountaineering and Snow Warfare’ to conduct Courses in Skiing, Mountaineering and Snow Warfare. I would be without a home and so would be back to m in law.

She was really great at cooking. So this is a family recipe with additions and alterations by myself. I like it made with mutton but it can be made with chicken. The ingredients are as following:—–
Basmati or any long grain rice 2 cups, soaked 1/2 an hour before cooking
Mutton 3/4 kg 🐐 or 1 whole chicken cut into pieces🐓
Chick Peas 1 cup, cooked
Almonds3/4 cup, blanched and skin removed
Raisins, washed and fried for a little while, till they fluff up
Garam masala made up with black pepper, zeera (cumin seeds), a few sticks of cinnamon, 4 large cardamoms, all finely ground
Cloves. 6
2 large onions, sliced
A piece of ginger and 8 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Salt to taste
Oil 3/4 cup.
2 Tomatoes, chopped

This recipe is enough for four people.

Cook meat till it’s tender. Fry onions in oil till golden brown. Add meat, ginger and garlic. Add tomatoes. Add 1 tsp salt and 1 1/2 tsp garam masala to the mixture.Fry for a few minutes. Remove the fried meat with a slotted spoon. Put 4 cups of water or left over broth from meat. Let it come to a boil. Now add chick peas and rice and 6 cloves, plus salt to taste and another 1 1/2 tea spoon of garam masala. When the whole thing comes to a boil, lower the heat. Cover. When water is partially absorbed, add meat, raisins and almonds. Cover and simmer on low heat till rice is cooked and water absorbed.😋

A WORLD OF MY OWN

I am staying with my son. It’s so different from staying on my own. At my own home I remained busy. Looking after the house, getting groceries, cooking, gardening, going for my Quran classes, visiting friends and relatives or having them in return, the days whizzed by. Here, mostly I sit in my room overlooking the back lawn and stare out of the window. 😕 Occasionally a bird stirs and fly through and that’s it.

My days brighten up when my sister calls, so I get someone to talk to. She introduced me to VC Andrews recently. I got my third book of VC and have started reading it. I am so glad that I have got books to read otherwise I would have died of boredom.

Books are fun. They are companions. They take you to their world, making you forget the world you are in. I am weak at heart and that’s why I choose light fiction in books. At times even these books have scary parts which gives me terrible pangs. What I do is—— skip that part, or jump right to the end to see that, ‘All’s Well.’ I see in my mind’s eye at moments like these, my granddaughter M2 shaking her head at me, “No Nano, you can’t do this.”

INDECISION

A few days back I visited TJMax. I liked a purse. The color brown was exquisite. 👌 My d in law,who was with me there, advised against my buying it. She said that it was too expensive and I could find something like that elsewhere. I brought one at Macy’s, but now I am suffering heart pangs (I am clutching my heart) over the one I didn’t buy. I wish I had that one.🙍

Sometimes I intensively dislike my indecisiveness. What should I do? This has always been the bane of my life. Why am I like that? I do ask myself. I see people around me including my daughter make up their mind in seconds and then they stick to their decision. I agonize and think. I should do this thing or not? Should I buy this thing or not?

I have noticed this, if someone is with me and sort of urges me to make a quick decision, without fail I get double minded over it. What I will do is ——-Take My Own Time.

Give Me A Kiss

Last year in May, we went to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I needed surgery, and was in a pretty bad shape. My husband accompanied me. Although he was weak, and gravelly ill from cancer, he could not let me go alone. He was undergoing chemo, after his stomach had been removed earlier in February. Sadly he is no longer alive to watch over me. I had a Laparoscopic surgery at King Fahd Hospital by Dr.Al Sary. I had Pelvic Floor Repair done, (Sacral Colpopexy) and another procedure, where a sling was placed. Six years before, I had open surgery for the same problem in Rawalpindi.

I had my (much) needed rest at my daughter’s home. Both of us were sick, and couldn’t tolerate noise. The younger ones, TJ and M4 generated a lot of screaming and crying, more so from M4. It would get pretty intolerable at times. My left ear drum had ruptured, and I would cover my ear, when M4 would start screaming, in a fit of childish tantrum. One day in desperation, I shouted at her and told her to be quiet.

I never knew that she had Memory of an Elephant. This year, when I visited KSA again, M4 would not come near me. Whenever I tried to hug her or kiss her, she would run away. One night on a drive, she was seated next to me. She was prattling on to M2 in a sweet way, and in a rush of affection, I tried to hug and kiss her. She squirmed away from me. So, I asked her, “how can I get a hug from you? If I say sorry, will that do?” She thought for a while and said I could be “Forgiven” if I could say hundred times “Sorry.”

I started my punishment, “I am sorry.” I eventually finished it, turned to get a hug and a kiss, but she twisted away. I told her that she has gone back on her promise to forgive me. Pat came a reply that I should continue saying, “I am sorry” till we reach, where we were going.

I was not, “Forgiven.”

M4, Virginia.

WHAT IS YOUR AGE?

My husband used to tease me about my age. He was twelve years my senior. He would add ten years to my real age and start cracking jokes. I didn’t mind it one bit, when we were alone. In company, it was another matter. I would be fuming inwardly, while pasting a sunny smile on my face.😬.Grrrrrrrrr……..

The thing was, if there were ladies present, I could see it in their eyes, (a woman’s intuition) that I am about my husband’s age, or somehow hiding my true age and trying to appear younger. It used to put me in a very bad light. I would look daggers at him.The truly dense among his audience, would believe his absurd joke, making me feel highly irritated. 😠. At times like those, I would have gladly shipped him to outer space.🚀

You meet all sorts of people in life. Some are comfortable with how they look, their age, (they don’t lie about their age) and what ever. But there are others, who are phonies. They are twisted in their own minds, and they think others are the same as themselves.

Women try to hide their ages more than men. They forget that their faces give them away, unless they had plastic surgery, Botox injections, or any other similar procedure. Such women try to imprint upon your mind, oh their sweet delusions!, that they are years younger than you, rather than the other way round. It’s obvious, but not to them. They have the audacity to behave like you are their ‘Long Lost Granny,’ and should ‘Cuddle’ them up right to your chest. Argh……….😖. Oh Dear God!

Recipes

When I first started cooking, I didn’t know how to boil an egg, or make tea even. With the passage of time, I learnt the basics. It was difficult going in those days. There was no PC at your beck and call and no Internet. It’s easy now. With the touch of your fingertips it is touch and go. You have all the world’s recipes before you to choose from. The only drawback is that you may not have the ingredients available in your part of the world.

Once my granddaughter M3 sent me a recipe for cheesecake. Although she is young, she is marvelous at baking. She and M2 take care at home, regarding any thing to be baked. Since there are many occasions when the need arises, together they save a lot of expenditure for their mama.😋

I went searching for graham’s crackers and cream cheese. I didn’t find them. I wrote to M3. Back came the recipe to make cheesecake. 👍 M3. She does shares her recipes with me (I am honored), but at the same time she vows me to secrecy. So, my lips remain sealed. 😑