The radio show!!

Today morning I saw a beautiful movie “The Prairie Home Coming”. The movie is about a live radio show that’s on the verge of closure, the story continues while the artists keep singing their lovely songs. Kaitlyn and I enjoyed the show and my mother seemed to be to while walking in and out of the room doing her chores. At a certain point I wished I had my own radio show too, but nothing prepared me for the radio show that was about to ensue at home!

I woke up awfully late, at 9, that’s unusually and uncharacteristically late for me.. reason?? I was up till 1 am racking my brains trying to crack the solution to a brain puzzle, at the last level of which I am presently.. and no I did not find the solution, and no I haven’t found it as yet… but yes I will.. and no you might not get to hear about it.

At a leisurely hour of 10 when I decided to bathe, mom and me sang the first song of the day, a loud unruly opera, reason? I left the geyser and put it off mid-way which apparently amounted to electricity wastage.

Lyrics of Mom’s part of the opera – you wasted electricity, your grand mother’s water on the stove will take a while, so you should let the geyser run and have a bath.

Lyrics of my version of the opera – I barely turned it on 5 minutes ago, so in order to save 5 minutes of electricity, I ought to have wasted gas.. (FYI.. my mom tends to keep the water boiling until she’s ready .. which would have been once I have finished my bath, which as I know is a waste of electricity, which as we know is that the temperature of water cannot rise beyond its boiling point)

The real version of the opera – Please refer “my version of the opera”

And once the opera was over .. Kaitlyn asks me “What happened aunty Divya?”

And there was instant change in the radio station from opera to sweet singing, I replied with a sudden flash of teeth “nothing hon.. its nothing..”

Anyway – once I breathed and counted from 1 to 10, and tried numerous other anger control techniques.. I suddenly had the brilliant idea to make palak chicken.. I happened to see it on a cookery show and thought of giving it a go.. and so I did.. I made up my mind in an instant..

After a quick view of two recepies online, I set up shop.. Mom and me sang another hit opera as to who is going to work where (mom was waging a war to knead chapatti dough on the kitchen platform, and I had to settle for the dining table).

Once that was over.. I set about working with kaitlyn my over enthusiastic assistant.. for those of you who don’t know her.. she is three and a half.. she did the toughest job.. cleaning garlic.. she tried to clean the onion.. but her eyes watered and that scared her away (hmm interesting realization for future reference..); but once I made her wash her face, and kept the onions by for later, she was back again.. with more gusto than necessary, worked skillfully away at the garlic remarking every time she cleaned one of the cloves “aunty divya WHITE garlic!! Is that WHITE enough?!!”, I chopped the “red juicy tomatoes” , some “spicy green chillies” and the ginger. I chopped the onions too and the garlic was done by then. As I put all the ingredients in the mixer jar, Kaitlyn had found several new reasons to play with the water faucet! It was either “my eyes are watering” or “my hands are dirty” or “I touched something that I wasn’t supposed to” ! And then mom suggested a brilliant idea , to turn of the water supply to the water faucet.

So seeing there was no chance to play with the water, she brought a tiny stool to reach up to the grinder machine “to see the garlic in the mixer”. At this point while I was speaking to her in my i-am-at-my-wits-end-trying-to-pretend-that-you’re-helping-and-not-doing-quite-the-opposite tone, I began singing another opera with my mom about of one of the numerous things I had done wrong; was it leaving the vegetable peels on the table or the stove lighter on the kitchen platform and not its proper place at the kitchen rack, I don’t know which one; I was responding to a query from my grandmother AND I was trying to get the ingredients in place!!! For a split second I thought I would lose my mind!! But I did not.. I just paused for a second, moved out of my body, hovered around there, apprised the situation and just came back down..

Once I was done handling the three generations.. (my grandmother, her daughter and my mother, and her grand daughter and my neice.. ) I went about the cooking.. I wont go into those details as this isn’t a cookery write up .. more like the-different-types-of-songs-we-dished-out-today write-up

As I put the different ingredients into the vessel to cook, and while I answered Kaitlyn’s one thousand and one queries, my mother was safely out of the kitchen.. and at last the chicken was on the stove! it needed time to cook, so I came to write this article, and while I recounted all the comic things that happened all morning, I realized the excitement had made me feel dizzy, so I raided the kitchen looking for something to bring my sugar level up.. I gobbled a banana, it vanished within seconds, I ravished a lone hide and seek Milano cookie and munched on a few black raisins.

Once Kaitlyn finished her bath, it was the ordeal to feed her! It’s the same thing everyday.. my mother was trying to feed her.. she refused.. she cried.. my mother screamed and stormed out.. so aunty divya came to the rescue.. “yummy palak chicken and rice” but she was adamant.. While my dad and me cajoled her into eating.. which by the way she was still refusing.. I began to sing a super sad song lyrics of which were something like this “Baby baby ohhh.. baby baby ohh..” o wait that’s a Justin Beiber song. Well anyway the song went on to describe very graphically what would happen if kaitlyn did not eat.. so it involved a lot of red teeth, green hair, stubby hands and feet and then shrinking into miniature size so that eventually she would fit in our show case. I don’t know if that did the trick? Next thing we knew she wouldn’t let go of the plate!! No matter how much we told her to not force herself to eat.. she ate! And ate! Laboriously, she ate every single grain of rice! All by herself I might add.

And while I sat there amazed, completely perplexed, wondering as to the turn around of events, she stood up and triumphantly sang a `sweet` song  clearing the mystery, It was a song called  “Sugar Candy!!!”

I just had a fight. with a lil innocent child. she just did something which was so painful. somethin that probably adults do all the time. and they are called traitors and bitches. yep! but she’s just a lil child. and yet she managed to draw the same result. jealousy. gosh can be so devastating. and captivating. it makes you do insane things. I wonder if parents feel like this. if they feel betrayed and unloved. it was easy as a kid to say they don’t own me. but to be on the other side and to have loved unconditionally and un have bared oneself so much that you’re completely vulnerable and and to be rejected . its painful. I know I have fears of being a parent. this is one of them of 'it' not being grateful enough. of them leaving you like you were a stranger . picking others over you, without a shred of thoughtfulness. its amazing how easily they can do that. and if you oppose you become the bad guy and you are a control freak and you seem like a villain whom they want to challenge and fight against. but for the sake of the love in your heart, that pitiful organ that seems to do the thinking instead of simply pumping blood like its designed to do, because of that heart, the stupid love in the heart, you let them go . you ‘set them free '; and whats worse is the joy they experience, the liberation they feel, makes you cringe even more . it burns that stupid heart to see they can be happy without you. that they’re actually happy and they’re oblivious about the pain you’re experiencing. they waltz past you without the least bother . kids . people. humans. never put your trust in them . never bare yourself so much they can take advantage of you! that they can use your love against you! like the sword thru your heart! that cuts that very organ . and then twist the sword , and bury it deeper. and deeper. till you fall and your breath like your love is sucked out of your body. NEVER. 

The Veteran - Frederick Forsyth

At the outset, Id first like to say, I love Frederick Foresyth, though The Veteran was probably only the third book that I have read of his, but the way in which he weaves a story, the suspense and of course his incredible style of writing. Having said that, I now say I love him even more after this book and watch out my collection of books is going to get fatter.

The Veteran is actually a collection of 5 novellas the first of which is of the same name. Considering I love writing short stories as much as reading them, I wanted to move on to the genre of novellas, and this couldn’t have been a more perfect choice.

After each of the first 3 stories, I went WOW! THAT WAS UNBELIEVABLE; the climax of each of those 3 stories was a sucker punch that blew the wind out of me. They were brilliant in its novelty, yet simplicity and of course the dexterity. The first one, ‘The Veteran’, about crime and a skewed sense of justice, the second, ‘The Art of the Matter’, about fraud in the art world and brilliant sense of revenge, and a third, ‘A Miracle’, of which I will not reveal the spoiler, but let me say it’s about history and war and a miracle in turbulent times that WILL give you goose-bumps!

The 4^th story, ‘The Citizen’ was brilliant in its story and of course the flow in narration, but did not impress me all too much, it is a winner in the author’s dexterity, which I will not deny.

And finally the 5^th and the largest one, “Whispering Wind”, is a wonderfully written story, I love the romanticism about the rustic man Ben Craig, the story itself is fine, not my best of the book, but exceptionally fine.

What is common among the stories is a crime, a crime of different kinds is perpetrated, but what it is guaranteed is justice, every story talks about karma, which tells us that in life you will not get away with crime and bad deeds, and if you think injustice is meted out to you, you will have your revenge, of that you can be sure.

I realized the brilliance of Frederick Forsyth’s writing when I tried NARRATING “The Miracle”, ON THE TELEPHONE to my husband in the DEAD of the night, who obviously had no choice but to listen; he said “ o yes that did give me goose-bumps! “ I knew then, this is the artwork of a Veteran – Mr. Frederick Forsyth.

Not a must read I would say, but definitely give it a go if you like action and thriller stories.

My rating – 8/10 .