Malnad Mela in Bangalore - Feb 5 and 6

Ok, I'm not a person big on product promotion, but when it comes to promoting something good from the land, for the people, I don't mind going all out. I'm a staunch believer of hand-made products, handloom and handicraft, local food produce...so I try not to miss these events

And while I'm on the subject please also go to Harshakala 2011, the annual handloom exhibition supported by the government, at Palace Grounds, Gayitri Vihar, till Feb 8, 10 am to 9 pm. You will find an excellent collection of saris, carpets, bedsheets, among other things.

Now, going back to what I started talking about, I got a mail from a colleague announcing the Malnad Mela -- it promotes earthy products from the western ghat region of Karnataka, called "Malnad".


I'm uploading here the poster they have forwarded, and pasting here the text of their e-mail. Please do visit if you are interested in forest products, seeds, food products, handmade home products etc.

THEIR MAIL :
 " The theme for this year is food gardens, seed saving, and recycling.

We will have the following displays/stalls from the malnad and from a variety of organizations in Bangalore and elsewhere:

1.   Vanastree’s range of seeds, garden produce & traditional malnad foods and snacks ( honey, kokam nectar, tambli,  
       podis, todadevu, pickles, preserves and more), non-foods and crafts (kokam butter balm, patchwork quilts and runners,  
       cashew resin wood paint, insect repellents, seed jewelery, vegetable hair dye, soap nut scrub,
       cotton shopping bags with an earth logo and others)
2.    Malnad snacks and drinks stall  (sweets, savouries, kokam juice, and kashaya to keep you going)
3.    Exhibition of photos and posters on the malnad gardeners, food gardens, and vegetable diversity
4.    A Hundred Hands with traditional and contemporary crafts
    5.    Namma Bhoomi with handloom clothes and village crafts
6.    Daily Dump with composters
7.    Daman Ganga with recycled tetrapack roofing sheets and paper products
8.    Biome Solutions with dry toilets and a display on ecological sanitation
9.    Bhoomi Network with publications
10.  Vanamitra with films and a display on wildlife, camps in the Western Ghats, and animal rescue initiatives - all this  
       complete with a tent set up for kids!
11.  Falcon Tools with garden implements
   12.   Eco-Save India with solar lighting  
   13.   BG Handmade Paper with recycled paper products

There will be a meeting and skill share space for experienced and aspiring organic gardeners and earth stewards to share notes, and we will help with discussions and queries to the extent possible. Lighting for the mela is with rechargeable LED lamps and solar lights. Our shamianas and sun shades are of recycled parachutes and cloth garden umbrellas. Golden Beads School has generously given us the use of their playground for the mela. We have been running the mela on our own steam, have not sought any sponsorship, and continue to aim to keep this a sustainable endeavor.
ONE SINCERE REQUEST - Please help spread the word and pass this email around to family, friends, and your networks. If you can  make print outs of the attached poster, please put it up  in your apartment complex, neighborhood store, school, college, office, etc. Its always hard to try and reach out to people in Bangalore sitting in Sirsi with sporadic access to email. Many thanks."UNQUOTE

Blow hot, blow cold

A MOMENT of strongly opposite emotions?!? A MOMENT??? You must be joking, seriously!
Everyday living and its everyday moments have come to be just that.

Which is why I'm tempted to write.

IndiBlogger and CloseUp have a Fire Freeze contest going, which I understand is to promote a new toothpaste that'l burn and cool your mouth in a moment. The IndiBlogger contest announcer says:
"What's Your Story? Have you ever had a magical moment when you felt two strongly opposite emotions? Love/Hate? Elation/Sadness? Anger/Sympathy? The desire to move forward yet run away at the same time?"

1. You wake up looking at the clock. You're late to work, the maid hasn't yet turned up at work. She finally arrives, an hour late, telling you she can't wash your clothes, only vessels. You love it that she DID come. You're so bloody thankful even. At least the vessels get done. But hell, who has undies for tomorrow? Hate her.

2. You're stuck in dreaded Bangalore traffic. Freeze. The traffic suddenly moves, everyone's stepping on the accelerator, there's plenty of exhaust in the air. Fire.

3. You love every subzee you make with the chapati to be full of fresh veggies and onions. You hate what your lunch costs you.

4. Hmm chemistry of opposites -- husband loves football, I love watching travel shows. Fight is on for control of the remote. Fire. Little son runs in and cries till he gets the TV onto Cbeebies or Animal Planet. Freeze.

5. Oh my god! Your two-year-old just spent a whole minute or two doing his first "art work". You are filled with pride and joy. You spend at least half an hour scrubbing the darned sketch-pen ink off your furniture,  and his hands. Frustration.

6. Husband makes tea for you at 8.30 a.m. and brings it to you because you have a headache and haven't got out of bed. You'd like to believe it's empathy and maybe...love. The next moment he switches on his laptop and asks you to read through his Power Point Presentation while he gets ready for office. FIRE.

Can't we all just go on?
Have your say here, tell YOUR story, and you might win a prize (maybe even I might):
http://www.facebook.com/closeupindia


P.S: Again linking to Aparna! We mommy bloggers, I think, can think of any topic in terms of motherhood only. Vote for her too, everybody. Aparna's contest entry

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and my memories of Sunday pooja

May his soul rest in peace. Pandit Bhimsen Joshi died this morning. And I couldn't get over the fact that the day of his death coincided with the Tyagaraja Aradhana. What musical bliss he will find in the other world...

Much is being said on TV channels today since morning (and much of it is sheer nonsense. I hate it when news anchors ask other senior musicians "What is your reaction to Panditji's death?" I mean can't they ask anything else for Christ's sake?!)

Anyway, I'm digressing.

My association with Panditji is a personal one with his music. Hi rendition of "Bhagyada Lakshmi Baaramma" is one of my favourite versions of the song ( i know about three). There was something about the way he almost flung the invitation at Goddess Lakshmi -- it was aggressive, it was plaintive in parts and beseeching. I loved the way he would dwell on the refrain "Vithalana Raani..."

After we got married, my husband, for almost four years has done his Sunday afternoon elaborate pooja to the tune of his Marathi abhangs. We both loved them. We had the privilege of living then in an independent outhouse with empty sites for neighbours. It was bliss. We would play Panditji's abhang CDs real loud. Husband would do pooja; I would sing along and clean house. "Ramache bhajan techi majhe dhyaan" was a favourite.

But this sudden fondness for Bhimsen Joshi came after we attended his concert at Bangalore at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium. It was probably in 2004 or 2005. It was one of those rare occasions that Panditji was singing in Bangalore. He was wheeled onto the stage and that kind of suddenly knocked into my senses that he's ageing. But once he started singing, that age was nowhere in sight...rather sound. He was in concert with the other maverick maestro we all grow up listening to in the South -- M. Balamuralikrishna. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences tucked away in my mind.

Then when I got pregnant with Sonny Boy, I would listen to Panditji's rendition of "Dasavani". I think that's what my cassette title was. Sonny used to kick furiously late evenings when I would walk in my parents' garden up and down, up and down, till I'd heard the entire tape, with one headphone sitting on my belly and one in my ear! I wanted Sonny to listen to Bhimsen Joshi in my womb -- I still can't figure out exactly why -- probably simply because I loved the music. "Karuniso Ranga", "Yaake mukanaadyo", "Sadaa yenna hrudayadalli", "Yaadava nee baa yadukula nandana" and so many more. Sung with the accompaniment of the harmonium (an instrument I like to hear with only certain kinds of songs) it always takes me to a different plane of consciousness.

Here's thanking a musician who helped me connect with our Indian music and a rich poetic heritage, with its multi-lingual traditions, with its love for an expression of "bhakti".

Sleep deprived. Mr. Wiggly Toes makes co-sleeping hell

I can't sleep.
Because Sonny Boy is busy sleeping.

I can explain that. I bet ALL mums who co-sleep can explain that.

Sonny has entered that phase where he not just rolls around in his sleep, but in addition to that he also rotates. He's growing tall, and even though it's just the two of us in bed (daddy got thrown out long ago!), there's no space.

Even if I start the night putting him to sleep at the farthest end of the bed, he snuggles close and says "Amma, huggie". So we hug and cuddle up to sleep. Then he slowly turns over, pushing himself against me and throwing his weight onto me. So I move towards the edge of the bed, so that he can sleep flat on his back. Sometimes I slowly push him back toward the other end of the bed. But by the time I've finished this tedious move, he just rolls back on to my pillow before i can return to it!! Bah ghastly!

Deeper into his sleep, he'll start sleep talking. And he can't talk without action. I'm so tired of having his fingers poking into my eye dreaming of elephants, trains, zebras and his grandfather (four words that always figure in his sleep!), and waking up with a shock with him  slapping my ear or cheek with the back of his hand as he keep wringing his hands in air.

Then deeper still into his sleep, he starts being the hands of a clock -- going round in circles real fast. Peeping through my heavy eyelids I sometimes see his toes under my nose and sometimes find his head tucked into the cusp of my tummy. And then he has to lift his legs in the air and slam them on me. Ouch that hurts, specially when you're sleeping.

Towards early morning, he starts nudging my waist with his toes! The gumption of the little brat...So I move away so his toes can't reach me. And this is where he gets mean. He wiggles down in the bed, stretches his toes, seeking some part of me to poke. Rascal.

I've been thinking i need to slowly phase him out to his own bed, placed next to ours in our room. And then go on to get him to sleep on his "own". I know know. Every one's told me it's gonna be hell. He won't. A cousin has bought her son a car-shaped lovely bed paying a bomb of a price. And the kid snuggled into their bed anyway after a few minutes of "sleeping alone". I don't have the luxury of space or money for a new specialised bed that may not even be used. (I still keep patting myself on the back for my decision to rent a baby cot in his early days and not buy one. He barely slept in it!).

In India co-sleeping is not a choice we make. It's just the way to go...natural way, the expected way. I remember my mom being so scandalised when I suggested we look for a bigger home so Sonny can have his own room to sleep in! I can't really figure out what to do.

Moms who've co-slept with their kids and have managed to move them out to their own bed -- when did you do it? At what age I mean? AND HOW??? Tips and tricks, suggestions welcome.

POST-SCRIPT: My dear mommy friend and fellow blogger from Bangalore, Aparna, has given a blow-by-blow account of how she transitioned her kid into sleeping alone. Practical lesson learnt! Here's the link: Aparna's blog "Life as a Mom"

Mourning for a life gone, fearing for a young one

It's disgusting and shameful how we take someone for granted, when they are alive. We realise this only when they die. My aunt who'd been staying with my parents died last week. Dear R, may your soul rest in peace. But I know it won't. Because you will be worrying about your young son you've left behind. For a child to deal with his parent's death, I think, is the most traumatic and challenging phase of life.

She was less of an aunt, more of a mum. She, along with grandma raised me when mom was busy earning the family's bread. She was the repository of all my childhood memories. She knew me through and through.
She wanted, even till about two months ago, wanted to start her own enterprise, and we had sat down to discuss the pros and cons of the idea.

Just days before she died she chided me, saying "You're not taking good care of your skin. How we used to pamper you and make sure your face was oiled and nourished when you were young!" It was, I think, one of the last conversations I had with her. She was the beautician who taught me how to massage my face, make banana-honey facepacks as I grew into adolescence. She embroidered beautiful saris and salwar kameez-es for me. She stitched me perfect white lace tops and pleated skirts when I was young. When I first sprouted boobs, it was her hand-me-down bra I got to wear till I could be bought one.

Now I can't sleep a peaceful sleep. Somewhere deep down is a guilt that I didn't do enough for her in return. That I didn't pay as much attention to her as I should have when she took ill. I took it for granted that she will undergo surgery and that she will soon be back in the business of life. It was never meant to be.

What I feel still worse about is her 13-year -old son. It's such a terrible, confusing age as it is. Add to that your mother's death and I think life for the child will be traumatic. Every night and morning when I kiss my own Sonny Boy, i feel miserable thinking my little cousin will never be able to feel his mother's hand on his head, or her embrace again...ever. He won't have his mom lovingly cooking his favourite food when he comes back from exams. He already looks lost, plodding through life at home, and pushing off to school amidst the chaos of weeping/mourning relatives.

I fear for his future, what he will think and do, what his father's attitude to him will be and most importantly, who will be there to hold his hand and walk him through life the way a mother does? His dad's going to drown himself in work, I just know it for sure. His paralysed grandmom will not be a source of much consolation. Which leaves ....us. The physical distance between our homes I know will ensure that after a time, when we get sucked into our daily grind, will not allow for much time to be spent together. I feel I owe it to my aunt to make sure her child does fine in life, but fear my uncle will see my interest in him as "interference", and so an insult to him.

I don't know...life suddenly feels so unlivable. So full of things that shouldn't have been and so full of promises it held out but we couldn't achieve...

Why is boredom so boring?

I'm in a state of ennui.

Aren't there those days? Do you ever have them? What do you do with them? What do you do with yourself?

Work is putting me off. I haven't got a thing done today. I don't want to get a thing done today. I just don't want to do this work, whetever this work is.

I don't want to move. I want to be everywhere.

I don't want to be anywhere but I want to go somewhere but here. Anywhere.

I'm randomly surfing the Net. I'm randomly keying in stuff.
I'm mindlessly staring at my computer screen, switching between windows.

I'm drinking water, blinking every now and then.

I feel like throwing up
I feel robotic.

I want to shop.
I'm tired. i want to sleep. I'm despressed. I want to throw up.

I'm feeeling mindless, soulless, stupiod. I want to cry.

I don't know what I want.

I have a breast inflammation. All over again. I can't deal with it anymore.

D is for December and Dreading Change, J is for January and Jolly Good

I hate change in life. It's one of those things I dread in life. And yet, every year, in December, it hits me. Big Time.

So I have a new nanny
So I have a new cook
So I have new furniture all over the place
So I have a new schedule
So I have a new job offer

All this while I was contemplating quitting. And going mad. And going mad all over again.

It's crazy how life suddenly changes, and how instrumental you are in changing it -- willingly or unwillingly. And as one year seamlessly merges into another routine year, you suddenly feel "hey!! this is a new beginning. It's January. A new start". While all it probably is, is a cycle.

Ok I'm crazy. I'm a pessimist.

And here on the threshold of the New Year are opportunities that might mean a sea change in my life, lifestyle, work, time spent with child, on home etc etc. AAAArrggg. I hate making decisions. Mostly because I have to be responsible for its consequences later in life. Every well-wisher around you will tell you "It's finally your call". In other words, "You're responsible for your decision...don't blame me..." But they will be there to take credit when things go right.

Sonny Boy has a new nanny. Whom he seems to LOVE. She's young and pretty. She doesn't ever scold him. She likes playing cricket with him. She patiently feeds him lunch (his most trying meal of the day).

She's also my new cook! Decided I'll do that so that in the morning I can supervise her cooking (read cleanliness while cooking) and at the same time have exclusive time with Sonny Boy -- wake him up with his usual cuddle-kiss routine he loves first thing in the morning, pee, brush and get some milk into him before playschool, potty him and dress him up and see him off. I like that routine and want it to be exclusively mine with him.

Nanny takes over once he comes back from playschool, till I reach home. It seems like an OK arrangement. My parents seem relieved. So all's well that ends well.

Just that new nanny girl is tooo slow with work, needs to be told what to do -- not the instinctive one who knows what and when to do things. She can't tell stories (the previous one told ten when Sonny asked for one!) She doesn't speak much. Anyway my dad's around to do the storytelling and talking so I better not complain much.

I'm busy now mulling the idea of a job change. But the constant fear lurking  in my mind is "What if this new nanny quits soon after I take up a new job?" "What if I hardly have time with Sonny?" "What if I can't take the pressure of a bigger and different role?"
I'm not able to figure out the new profile completely so there are many doubts -- mostly about myself.

Ok I'm too confused and have too much to put down here. So I'll just stop.

And wish all of you a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
I want to thanks all of you for standing by me during the last month, when I was a miserable miserable being.
Thanks a ton to Garima, Aparna in Noida and Aparna in Bangalore -- the three constant supporters. And all the others -- "anonymous" commentators included, for the responses, for and against my decisions. It helps when making further decisions!