#46

“I hate endings. The truth is I hate beginnings, too. I like middles, the steady sameness, comfortable forever.” Korsak

Like almost every other day, somebody in my book group had put up a question, “what’s everyone reading today?” Somebody said Tess Gerristen. I was curious, googled her, and found her books. In a week’s time I was reading one of her thrillers with Detective Jane Rizzoli and the Medical Examiner Maura Isles. As I warmed up to them google told me there is a tv series by their name. I started watching them an episode a day after a day’s work, and steadily, the actors became part of my life. To the point whereI was shocked to learn that the actor playing Detective Barry Frost was no more one day.. one needs to live with a character in a book or/and a film to go through the cycle of grief and loss.

This line from the last episode of the series, is one of my favourites. Season 6 & 7 were so so, but I enjoy watching them once in a while.

I like beginnings, and endings, and most often even though middles are comfortable, I kind of am bored soon. What about you ..

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#45

As long as I remember I’ve had thick curly hair, but there are these photographs from my kindergarten and playschool days which has me in pin straight hair, showing off a mushroom and bob haircuts! As I grew older, started to give stage performances, my dance teachers nudged my mother to grow my hair longer. I was in class 4 then, my hair was growing longer, my mother was the caretaker of my hair– washing, combing, braiding, tying– everything related to it. I used to go sit in front of her and she used to comb it out for me, and braid it on two sides… The two braids kind of became my style as there wasn’t any other way to keep my hair tamed. As I went to college in a different city, a different water source, less focussed care and no mother around, I started to lose the thick bush on my head, but even today nobody will say I don’t have thick hair..

The point I’m getting to is, I was trying to braid my hair into two tonight, and I was sure I had both my crunchies/hair rubber bands by my side. But then I couldn’t find one when I needed it to tie one of the sides ..I looked everywhere, on the bed, the floor, under the pillow, over it, on the table.. it couldn’t be found until I looked at the wrist of my hand I was holding a braided strand 😉

#44

A couple of my friends have this condition called flat foot/feet or fallen arches, where the entire sole of their feet touches the ground/floor while they are standing. That is, they don’t have that arch in between, like most of us do, or the arch isn’t pronounced.

This in turn causes a lot of pain in the feet, heels, soles, calves, hips and back, many times it leads of the swelling of the foot while standing/sitting for long. We all have that one friend in our group whose feet swells up after a long car/bus/flight journey.

It is a condition that goes undetected in children and adults alike until it is brought to the patient’s attention as a result of constant pain, swelling or wear & tear of the footwear!

Most of these people feel comfortable walking in heels rather than flats as it helps them to even out the pressure of the body.

There isn’t any known cure for this condition, however, a corrective measure is to use customised insoles to reduce the discomfort! If anybody has an experience, please share. It will be useful to know in case

Check your feet!

Trivia: a podiatrist is a doctor who specialises in foot problems!

#43

Ferdinand is a 2017 animation film about a big bull who loves to smell flowers & has a big heart, that the descriptor. It starts off well in a farm, a calf growing up among other calfs bred to compete with matadors in the Spanish bullfighting ring. But this little guy doesn’t want to be a fighting bull like his father or the fathers of his friends or his friends at this stable. He wants to grow and smell flowers, roll around mountains and hills, spread love … etc etc. The humour of the film also comes from this disconnected image of a fully grown up bull rolling down a hill of flowers like he used to when he was a calf..

Ferdinand runs away from the stable/farm after he witnessed his father’s death. He is found by a flower farmer, daughter and their dog in a ditch/well who rear him like their own. Amidst them he grows up to be a gentle bull running after butterflies, and being the best friend to the farmer’s daughter until one day .. as fate would have it, he ends up at the farm he ran away from, to be taken back to the bull fighting ring.

A so-so story, it is cute at some level, but it does not sustain. Then there are these oft repeated stereotypes. It almost seemed like a bull replaced the dragon in how to train your dragon story Unlike the dragon, the bull has no popular bull qualities. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Coco.

In compariaon, Coco, which as you know won the Oscar for the best animation this year, is a story of Mexican boy who loves to sing, but is born into a family that hates the sound of it! This is because his great great grandfather, the musician, left his wife and daughter to pursue to his music to never return. The story is seeped in familial and kinship traditions, of remembering and honouring the dead, steeped in Mexican myths with Christian undertones .. on one such day, similar to the all souls day in the Mexican calendar, Miguel finds himself accidently in the world of the dead. He needs to get a blessing from an ancestor who loves music to return to the land of the living if he has to pursue music again, so the goes in search of his great great grand father ..

#42

There is this tree outside my window whose leaves have turned a pale pink over the last two weeks. The trouble is I cannot rest until I find it’s name, common or botanic. I’ve been keying in searches into our dear google, but google gives me the 9 tallest, and most common trees in India but none of them seem remotely similar to the one I see in front of me. I searched for trees with red/pink leaves, I got a list of results of trees with pink flowers!!! They all look absolutely brilliant, but they aren’t related to my neighbourhood tree.

The leaves look very similar to those of the Ashoka tree, they are long but the tree it self isnt lanky like the Ashoka, it is tall with a rounded canopy more like the gulmohar, but it covers most of its trunk. From this distance I can’t figure out whether it has compound leaves!

Any idea? It stands out with its light pinkish leaves among all the green canopies around it.

#41

One of the first things I do these days is make a bottle of tang/Glucon D/Rasna/Nestea with a few cubes of ice in it.

Then I move on to cut my water & musk melons, & guavas to make separate juices, pour them into my milkshake bottles and store them in the refrigerator. Then I move on to make a bottle of butter milk with curd, crushed ginger, curry leaves and green chillies. My refrigerator now has a lot of bottles, and I have one too many options to choose from when it comes to quench my thirst these summer days!

How do you welcome the summer heat?

#40

And just like that the 40th post rolls in. A Monday begins again, a Sunday ends, a week of a lot of fun ends, another week begins.

I went back to a few old films this weekend, watched them on Amazon Prime – the 3 films from the Lord of the Rings, I re-watched all 8 films from Harry Potter again through the week. These are films I’m never tired of. Not all of Harry Potter, I don’t like to rewatch the films # 5 & 6 as such, nor re-read those books, but this time I said, why not – let me go with the flow, the linearity and continuation in the way the films were made!

Obviously, the two sets of films brings about the oft talked about comparisons. It goes without saying, Rowling has read Tolkein, because there are key elements of LOTR prominently showcased in Harry Potter. She has adapted and sutured them into her tales beautifully.

Adapting an idea, like translation is also an art, a new work in fact, but re-vised to fit a different clime, age, country, people and culture into it.. that said (I’ve been using this phrase quite a lot these past few days), it needs to be acknowledged, not abt the grade, the borrowing in the films & books 😂! But that said, (a third time in the post today, phew!!!) there is a prize to pay and permissions to ask for copyrights! (I think somebody else can come and elaborate on that one)

Bottomline ( that’s better, I didn’t repeat it a 4th time today) always acknowledge another’s work if we have borrowed an idea ..

#39

I made my first proper bruschetta inspired from Julie & Julia. Until then I never realised that the open sandwiches I was making lazily with bread and whatever I found as toppings mixed together with a few herbs and oils can also be categorised as a bruschetta.. 😉

A few pictures from quick snack last month, I used a rye loaf, and mixed together whaterever I could find in my refrigerator! I used an app to cut the picture into 6 parts to make one of those jumbled pictures ….. 😉

Another person inspired from the film ..

#38

On Fridays, I don’t get the bus striaght after work but instead I go to the Tesco Metro around the corner from the office and buy a Margherita pizza, some Chianti and two big bottles of Glen’s vodka. When I get home, ineat the pizza and drink the wine. I have some vodka afterwards. I don’t need much in a Friday, just a few big swigs. I usually wake up on the sofa at 3 am, and I stumble off to bed … (5, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine)

Since I was with Eleanor even before I called it a night, I felt like eating a pizza for breakfast this morning. Do you feel like tasting the food the characters of a book have while reading it? If it is available, what’s the harm in giving them a try. This is not my first time, but I do, I have cravings 😋

Oh oh not a Margherita of course, I’m not into just the cheese and tomato as such in a pizza, I need some more spice and heat, a few pieces of shredded chicken I ordered a chicken BBQ with extra jalapeno delivered before the scheduled time. My breakfast was my cup of bru gold instant coffee, slices of pizza and a green pear. (What was your last meal like?)

It is nearly summer here in India. The day grows hotter as the sun passes over to its position overhead at noon. My daily intake of coffee has reduced significantly. There are days in this past week I didn’t drink even a single cup on a given day! Coffee, and jalapenos they are making me sweat today!

Dreading the hotter summer days ahead! Be kind, April & May, be kind.

PS: the hyperlinks on Eleanora will lead you to a few reviews I’ve read – good, bad, incomplete, half read, it is always a good practice to know a n all round review than mere glowing ones!

#37

The novel “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” arrived today via post. Coincidently, a novel about a woman by a woman for woman reached on the day the world celebrates as Woman’s day. If only the delivery guy was a woman, if only .. ☺️ that’s verbatim the note I wrote on the inside cover of this book.

I feel like I’m a fly on the wall looking at Eleanor’s life go past from office to home to office, her thoughts and her jokes ..

will let you know how it goes by as and when. Anybody here read/reading it? Also share what you all are reading?

Ps: The novel comes highly recommended, with glowing reviews, so far so good.