Dandelions are blooming

Dandelions are blooming. Looks like spring is here.

It hasn't rained since beginning of January. These couple of months have been sunny and warm, with mild cold nights. Wonder when it is going to rain.

Getting older and wiser

I'm in my early 40s now and, I noticed a few changes on my face and, hair. Some mornings, my face is very puffy. There are definite lines here and there. Apparently, they are called wrinkles. Trying to recognise one's face in this old face is an act of courage, I must say. 

My hair has thinned out a lot and, I realised my eyelashes are not as thick and long like before. So much for tresses and, beautiful eyes. 

But grave jokes aside, I have generally enjoyed getting older. I've also embraced all the physical changes and, used it to my advantage. One can always point to one's white hair to make a point: "Do you think I have white hair for nothing?" "Do you not see my white hair? Do you take me for a fool"? "Is this the respect give me" and, then I point to my white hair. 

In another glorious moment, at one of the Literary Festivals in Pakistan, I was asked which session I was part of, which implied that by merely having silver hair, I was mistaken for a writer. 

But things do creak and crack a lot more, like an old contraption. One can pretend to be tired and old.  

One can't eat and eat without abandon but, there's no advantage to that.  

So anyway, what I really wanted to say is that it is easy to fall prey to the beauty industry and, buy expensive creams and shampoos and conditioners and face gels and night creams and day creams and anti ageing creams and face washes and rest of it. Especially if you spot a wrinkle or two. 

I don't have any particular advice but for taking care of hair and taking care against dry skin, I find oils to be cheap and, effective. Humans have been using oil to rub into their skin and hair for thousands of years. Why stop now? 

There are so many oils you can find at your pharmacy , produced by local companies which are so cheap and, so good: coconut, sesame, mustard, almond, castor, etc. I mix oils and, oil my hair twice a week at least. And, use oil to rub into my face and body. Nothing like to keep your body soft and moisturised. I use creams too. I don't know if they help or not. But I know oil is good and does really help. 

Everyone will age differently and we can't really stop the process. We can only aspire to be healthy and, exercise, good sleep, good conversation, a relatively balanced and guilt-free diet will give help us to feel good. 

We can never look like we did in our youth. We will look different. Anyone thinking otherwise is chasing stupidity, honestly. 

One has to embrace getting older and, accept it. Not run away from it. And, to stop wasting so much money on beauty industry products in the hopes of not looking older. 

For that is not very wise. 

Who wants to be older and stupid? Don't raise your hand. 

The humble and comforting daal chawal

 

I give myself very good advice but I very seldom follow it. I wrote about how important it is to regularly cook and avoid ordering in , avoid wasting money and, practice regular and rewarding home cooking. 

Now and then, I fall into lapses of take out/ordering in. 

To break the spell, I made a big pot of daal and plain rice (using beef stock from a week ago) and, damn, it was so delicious. 

Does one have to be a card-carrying feminist?

Does one have to be a card-carrying feminist? As much as feminism has entered our woke consciousness, entered our lexicon, mainstreamed and appropriated by corporations and NGOs, and apparently we are all polite feminists, there is a need to question ourselves what type of feminism do we aspire to and, how important is to be a card carrying one, for ourselves and the institutions/projects/images we represent and/or work for. So, one of the actors of the 'apparently feminist' Pakistani TV series Churails is going round saying she is not a feminist (thankfully the other main actor, the one who is in a horrible Urdu-English Nestle ad telling her kids in broken Urdu-English about how many tests cow milk goes through, has reaffirmed that of course she is a feminist even before she knew it) . This must be the irony of ironies because a whole brigade of feminist hearts has been shattered. I myself , a keen movie goer can tell how good something is from the trailer never bothered with it because honestly it looks stupid, was saved from this heartache but for sure, it is a shame that one of the main actors , who herself benefitted from shoving her rights to freedom and respect hardly a year ago when Pure Islamic Pakistan renounced her for sharing a simple kiss in front of Roman fountains with her husband and every card-carrying feminist jumped in her defence. This same privileged woman can't understand the basic principle that when you call for your own freedom, respect and dignity , you need to stand for others' too. The same thing happened with another shitty Pakistani film 'Cake' which everyone lauded as a brilliant take on family dynamics and angst of women but was literally the antics of a highly privileged feudal family and was painfully tone deaf. The actors openly proclaimed on TV they are not feminists because they don't like burning bras. Our mainstream actors are clearly intellectually and artistically barren. Their art and antics don't represent any real artistic endeavour. Good art itself will speak on everyone's behalf, will reveal truth about reality, will ask questions, without thumping its chest. But to round this off, does art have to proclaim its politics? No, good art will do itself. That is art. Do actors have to proclaim they are card - carrying feminists or socialists? No, but they should have enough sense to research something before talking about it because gullible youngsters hang on to their words and image. An actor should have enough sense of decency and self respect not to slam an ideology, a politics that stands for rights of women. If you don't subscribe to it, don't speak about it. Rest of us, yes, it is important to say what you stand for, proud and clear. Because there are very few on our side.

Pedestrian rage

The play ground is my play ground , now

Kavita is getting more and more confident at the playground. She has improved her skills, planning and execution. She has mastered the jungle gym, the slide, the monkey bars, and, also out runs the Tickle Monster, rarely getting caught. 

She also befriends kids at the playground. 

Good evening to you all! 

Hello mochi 

They are always digging, digging, digging up sidewalks, roads, footpaths and God knows

what they are digging for. These places are constantly dug up. 

Pedestrian rage 

More sidewalks dug up

Each time they have to lay a new private company cable or water pipe or fix something else

will they break the sidewalk, road , cement it and then break it again? 

Genius planning and administration. 

We are nearly at the Park 

Watch me , Ami, I'm going to go up and slide down in 10 seconds. See here. 

Monkey bars are easy peasy 

And, we walk back home

Stopped to admire some houses and flowers

Love this bit

Days are longer now and, it's still light when we are heading back 

My "30 minute friends"

I don't know what to make of the weather. Days are very warm and, the nights too are not particularly cold. 

It hasn't rained since beginning of January. 

Here are is our evening walk. The F-11 Park 's swings, slides , monkey bars, etc have been renovated. 

Kavita made some more playground friends. She calls them "my 30 minute friends." 

See fun video we made: At the Park

Here is a YouTube video of Kavita trying to climb up straight up Keep Trying

A few things I learned in the kitchen

Onions frying in the oil. 

The overture. It's the intro. It's the sound of gentle cymbals at the beginning of a beautiful jazz track. You know you are in the kitchen. And, then the tempo and volume will build up from a gentle ticking sizzle to more notes and pops and bubbles. 

I thought of music, orchestras and grandness when I was chopping up onions and making enough ginger/garlic paste for the next few rounds of cooking. However mundane the task might be, however humble your kitchen arena might be, why can't we imagine we are creating something privately grand? 

After many many years of attempting mastery at cookery in the kitchen, I have come up with some ground rules: 

1. First clean up your whole kitchen. Wash any dirty dishes in the sink. Tidy up. Clear some counter space for chopping veggies and what not. 
2. Make your kitchen a joy to work in. Let it be full of pictures, light, some souvenirs, flower vases, even a nice-smelling candle. 
3. Chopping up onions continues to induce stinging tears. Very annoyingly stinging tears. Soaking onions in water reduces the fumes. 
4. I learned a trick while watching Nadiya’s Time to Eat. Soaking garlic in hot water for a few minutes makes peeling the skin so much easier. It just comes off. 
5. Plan ahead and buy veg/meat on the day you are cooking instead of filling up the freezer and fridge. 
6. Plan ahead and, designate cooking for twice a week if you can't cook every day. 
7. Trying new recipes every week isn't as daunting as it sounds. Decide on one that you think you could easily tackle, note down the ingredients you need in your 'Ingredient/Recipe Notebook', and enjoy making a wholly new creation. 
8. Spice mixes are cheating. Don't cheat. Don't get a biryani masala mix or a mutton korma mix. If you are going to step into a kitchen to cook, enjoy the friggin' cooking. Get whole spices and grind, mix them as required by the recipe. Don't be no cheater. 
9. Cooking is relaxing. A few hours in the kitchen, performing non-cerebral tasks is relaxing and rewarding especially if you have a way to go about it. I clean the kitchen. I plan ahead. I get the ingredients ahead. I enjoy chopping up veggies and, then tossing them into the pot. I enjoy the process. Many of my go-to dishes are now made with such practice, they cook themselves.

Now for some sore points. 

Working in the kitchen can also be a real drag. As much as it is rewarding, relaxing, there are some moments, days, even periods of weeks where one doesn't even want to wash a dirty cup let alone chop onions and, stand over a pot to cook something. 

These periods are an imaginative, barren and dull time. One wastes an exorbitant amount of money on take outs, ordering in and, junk food. 

Resist the laziness. One can always find time to cook a simple meal. I know enough cookery and, some dishes that take as little as 20 minutes. I have many many go-to comfort foods - daal chawal, murgh pulao, pasta with meat sauce, chicken karahi, aloo keema, steak and potatoes, vegetable soup - that take me so very little time to make because I have years of practice. It is better to have food in the fridge than to fall into deeper laziness that has already settled in. Better to rise up from the sofa, from the chair, from the computer, from the middle of it, enter the kitchen for an hour or two, interrupt, nay, wipe away the slump and, make some food. 

Cooking for friends can also break a sense of laziness. Try a couple of new dishes , telephone your friends, ask them over, ask them to bring desert and salad, and, enjoy good times at home. Maybe you can ask them to wash the dishes afterwards.