In Lieu of a Rose, a Chocolate Cupcake

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
 By any other name would smell as sweet.”

-       ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (II, ii, 1-2)

Let’s twist Shakespeare a bit to begin with…: ‘What’s in a gift? That which we choose for one occasion, could be replaced by another as sweet.’

With a wince, I admit its not as pithy as that quote of Avon’s bard, but a mere shred of hubris. I hope my take on those lines will not fall as Icarian waste into the sea, but at least flit about on waxen wings near terra firma. Having said that, let me point out that I aspired to create a gift from the heart that would soar towards caelum celesta. So a moist, dark, intense, heady chocolate cupcake it was, in lieu of a rose on Valentine’s Day. Not gifted to me, but baked by yours truly for her valentines at home.

It was a recipe I had discovered while googling for an eggless, dairy-free, and nut-free cake a while ago. As always, I wasn’t happy with the original and so sat about tweaking it, adding and removing some.

I present to you that chocolate dome with its chin upright, bursting earnestly out of its paper skirt, rising up on tip-toe to kiss an unsuspecting valentine on the lips. A swoon-worthy cocoa kiss.

Cocoa Smooches (makes 12 cupcakes or 1 8*8 cake)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (or 175 degrees C). Pop the paper cups into a lightly greased muffin pan, or grease, flour, and line a standard square cake pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup brown sugar (or white, if you've run out of brown), 1/3 cup cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda.

In another bowl, whisk together 1 egg, 1/4 cup vegetable oil (or butter/ margarine, if you like), 1/2 cup applesauce, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, whisking lightly, and moistening the whole with 1 cup cold water. Ladle the thick batter into the waiting paper cups or pan. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool and consume.

And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

While we slept last night, the snow drew its white blanket over our neighborhood. Very early this morning, I awoke to a brightness glowing through the blinds at an odd hour. I peeked out to look upon a winter wonderland! Absolute still, grand beauty. The soft wet snow rested upon branches like jewels and embellished the ground like a carpet of diamonds. Where the light came from, I do not know. It wasn't dawn yet, and still the sky was cloudy white, a bowl turned over. The snow flakes were picking up light from miles away and bouncing them off one another, like miniature disco balls in a soundless celebration. I went back to my soft, warm bed filled with visions of this beauty.

This morning, while my First Mate was clearing the driveway, the children and I spotted 3 deer watching him.

It seemed the right time to read Frost's 'Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening':

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.


My son and I have been reading about the American Presidents this week, and he was thrilled to know that Frost was called the President's Poet, for having read a poem during the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. I love Frost for his simple and effective language, and the matter-of-fact manner in which he depicts rural American life. The 4 time Pulitzer Prize winner's epitaph reads "I had a lover's quarrel with the world"...

When I was a child - like all school children in India - the last paragraph of this poem was dinned into my head..."...And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep". We had to recite these as a class, repeatedly. Often, this poem was a hot favorite for Recitation contests, closely followed by the next all-time favorite - Wordsworth's 'Daffodils'. India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is said to have written down the last paragraph of this poem on a slip of paper, found by his bedside upon his passing in 1964. Nehru is also said to have quoted these lines when speaking of an independent India. India has truly travelled miles from that dawn of independence on August 15 1947. 

Osho, the Indian spiritual teacher, interprets the lines thus: "The woods are lovely...' Everybody has to go alone; you cannot keep company. Because you have to go inwards you can only go alone. ‘The woods are lovely...' because the woods are of your inner being. If you go for an outer pilgrimage, you can have company; somebody can be with you: a beloved, a friend, a relative, a fellow traveler. But the woods are lovely because the woods are of your inner being – you have to go alone..."

A Sailing We Will Go...

It's Valentine's Day...a celebration of love all over the 'civilized', 'known' world. I say that because among the tribals and such, this would be...well...just another day....and they would love each other or should I say one another (depending on whether they are polygamists or polyandrists) regardless. Is there a start or stop to love? Perhaps they would laugh at the thought that one needs to decorate one's love with tinsel and showcase it in a restaurant replete with roses on this one day of the year.

Those of us who live in jungles need one another to survive. There is no time for sophisticated expensive romance, but more an expression of love in child rearing, household management, and other mundane practical concerns that life is colored by. This brick-solid love sinks right down to the bottom of a tub of glassy-eyed glamour. This love is that which is expressed in a matter-of-fact manner, point-blank, blunt, stated simply - as Margot quietly says in Wes Anderson's 'The Royal Tenenbaums', "I think...we're just going to have to leave it at that Richie"...Perhaps the obscenity we impart to our Valentine's Day bash's is really the threat of being stranded on an uncharted island of conventionalism and mediocrity, a black hole of no return.

I am therefore content to spend Valentine's Day in any way that it unfurls before my S.O. and myself. If it will be a day of routine - so be it, if a visit to the doctor for a bad cold and cough is in the offing - so be it, if the doors to a restaurant dinner open up like a shark's jaws in the approaching sea - so be it as well. I will willingly be swallowed - and spat out, hopefully. I will sail our ship of marriage across the seas of love, guided by the star of good sense and faithfulness. My ship will chart the uncertain swells of contentment, and plumb the valleys of bitterness and fury to emerge with its pennant flying high. In that adventure lies the romance.

I hope my S.O., as First Mate, will stand by me, endure me, in this adrenalin driven enterprise. Can't help punning here that the S.O. is indeed my 'first mate' - I, having studied at a convent through school and college, and us, having had an arranged marriage. I know my First Mate sometimes looks upon the journey as a contingency...as I do too at times...but isn't that what life is all about? A shivering amateur thrown into a goosebump-inducing cold vat of life while the universe yells at us , "Swim!" And swim we do...most of us with our partners, sucessfully...some of us thrashing about, while our partners hold us up or yank us down...not unlike the 'managed floats' I'm reading about in my management program...a sort of speculation. Hopefully, we will all reach the threshold of old age intact in mind and body, and rock on azure gentle seas our last days together with each other and with our families, in warmth, our eyes lit by rosy skies and the resplendent setting sun.

Here is a song to celebrate the utter loyalty and faithfulness of love...I like it because I can relate to it completely, being a woman, and also because of the unshakeable determination and resolve it expresses...thank you, Sade:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR5_rTCi-Bo&ob=av2e

My son the Sweetheart

My older son waves this over-sized, fake, arrestingly green $100 bill in our faces after dinner.

"What is it?"

"It's a wish list for One Hundred Dollars!", is the excited answer, with an impish smile.

"You're rich!"

I open the dollar bill and read on its blank inside - Things I WILL buy for $100...A toy (my son has drawn a picture of an indoor remote-controlled helicopter under this pronouncement). This is followed with - Things I WILL NOT buy for $100...A cat. (???)

"Sweetie, cats needn't cost $100," I point out. "You can give a stray a home, or pick one at the Humane Society."

"But I DON'T want to buy a cat," he insists, with a nod to make his point.

"Why not?"

"BECAUSE...Daddy is allergic to them," comes the quiet answer.

What else does one do upon hearing such a reply but embrace this litte soul and draw him close?
This boy - whose big brown eyes fill up when watching ads for animal shelters and the broken animals who wait to be adopted and to be showered with affection...who cares for those weaker and younger than himself (such as his younger brother and toddler friends)...also cares for those older and physically stronger than himself.

The last pet we had - a much loved tomcat - got lost in September 2009. We haven't given up hope that he might come back, but my older son has recently begun asking to adopt a pet. Yet he doesn't want one that sheds hair (his Dad would start sneezing), is slimy (I would run more than a mile), and that needs to be taken on walks, etc (he knows both his parents are struggling to cope with the current routine). He is content to wait for a tortoise we have promised him. More than being his mother, I think I am his student, learning to be a better person from his example.

God bless you, darling.

Mi Amor

Here is something amazing from Pablo Neruda ('One Hundred Love Sonnets: Midday', XXXIX)...

"... I am like a scorched rock
that suddenly sings when you are near, because it drinks
the water you carry from the forest, in your voice."

Cutting Corners in my Uncle's Home...

My uncle is a successful man in many ways, and has been called a benevolent leader (with some of the leadership self-imposed, as some might argue). Recently, he was roundly criticized for over-expenditure, indebtedness, and for living beyond his means. Of course, you and I well know that such a sorry state of affairs is rarely due to one person alone. Not surprising, therefore, that some of his errant children were accused as having encouraged their siblings to indulge in thoughtless splurging even when the latter couldn’t afford it, and as having enlightened their family members about the benefits of (in many cases, excessive) retail therapy. It is sad that due to a few bad eggs and several trusting souls, the larger family has recently had to suffer the pain of tightening their belts during trying times. I say ‘larger family’ because those (wealthy) few who squirrelled away their secret stashes continue to levitate from consumer nirvana at Saks, Nordstrom, Nieman Marcus, and other such (no doubt) enervating destinations.

I’m sure you all must know by now which uncle I refer to…of course, none other than that magnanimous relative from across the seven seas - Uncle Sam – who is dearly embraced by multitudes from across the globe hoping to be adopted by him one fine day. I don’t know if my uncle will continue his philanthropic activities in the near future as his family is already protesting his generosity…but really, one can’t blame his good intentions as much as one should criticize his family’s tendencies to max out his credit cards.

Somewhere down the line, I think my uncle’s family lost sight of some values and principles they’d lived by 50 years ago – of a good day’s work, of living within one’s means, saving for the future, of knowing that there is more to be gained from cooperation rather than opposition, and so on and so forth. Old-fashioned school stuff, some might scoff, but really, very central to any kind of proactive philosophy and change in strategy at any point of time, in any culture/ country/ situation. In the mad quest for profit and rapid growth, any commensurate rest for one’s body and soul has also been forgotten. And so it is that today, during the greatest recession since the Great Depression, millions of my uncle’s children are trying to cope with such challenges in day-to-day living that they’ve never really faced before, after having lived a cushy life in the last 50 years or so. Yet surprisingly, more of them have been reported as being ‘happy’ – perhaps the result of realizing, in the midst of leaner days, that the best things in life are free.

People continue to have children, and to learn from them that really, one can face hardships with adaptability, faith, laughter, and self-confidence. As Wordsworth said, the child is indeed the father of man, and one learns from children the benefits of seeing anything from a fresh, optimistic perspective. Of recovering quickly. That, in time, this too shall pass. In addition, the sheer natural beauty of the American landscape acts as a balm to calm our nerves from life’s frustrations and stresses. It has also been reported that there has been a surge in community service – by both the young and the retired, an increase in food drives, non-profits and thrift outfits such as Goodwill - proof of the observation that helping the needy is a great way to appreciate the value of one’s own (certainly more fortunate) situation. These little acts of kindness and selflessness themselves point to the hope that good sense and good character will ultimately prevail, and that a change is already underway in this Age of Aquarius.

Therefore, in celebration of this fulfilling turn towards mass introspection, self-evaluation, and re-assessment, here is a dish that rose like the phoenix from leftovers – not trying to discourage you from visiting my home here, but merely pointing out how the marrying of unwilling partners can still result in a cheerful, heartening magic, at a time when food wastage is not the order of the day. Enter: Pumpkin-Tandoori Mac N Cheese!

Having leftover roast pumpkin and spare twigs of tandoori chicken at hand, I decided to stretch both to maximum advantage to feed our family of four, twice. The one fulfilled the veggie part of the dish, and the other answered any protein cravings with its potent flavor. All that was needed was a convenient carbohydrate filler – and here my eye caught a 450gram bag of pasta (maccheroni elbows), that I promptly set upon.

While the pasta cooked, into a saucepan went 4 tablespoons of butter, leftover tandoori chicken fat with its runny red color, and ¼ cup of flour…briskly whisked over a low flame to form a roux base. Over that went 3 cups of milk (whatever you have at hand in your pantry – whole/ 2%/ almond/ soy) and 2 cups of pureed roast pumpkin chunks. More pureed pumpkin is fine as long as the roux doesn’t get too runny, and if there’s too little, well then just shove in a handful of peas or corn or some such creamy, fast cooking vegetable. I would even do some diced zucchini or mushrooms for bite and meatiness.

Having run out of nutmeg, I threw in a dash of all-spice, some salt to taste, and a few turns of freshly ground black pepper, whisking occasionally to prevent lumps and to arrive at a thick, smooth soup. I really didn’t have to add much more than that because the dripping from the tandoori chicken baking dish and the rosemary-tinted pumpkin contained enough kick to make up for any herb I might have had to scrounge for. I then dunked the cooked pasta into the sauce, added the last of the chicken (finely shredded), gave it a toss, and slid the whole into a baking dish, sprinkling over a handful or so of leftover shredded cheese. This was placed in a 350 degree F pre-heated oven, to cook and brown over for about 25 minutes.

The result was a full-bodied, creamy, nutty, filling comfort food that warmed one’s cockles on a cold winter evening, and was colored a visually appealing deep rich egg-yolk orange-yellow, as you can see for yourself:

Maa Tujhe Salaam (Hindi: "I salute you, Mother")!

Every 26th of January (a national holiday in India), my mother would wake us kids up and hurry us about getting ready. At 7am sharp, the white Ambi with the swivelling red light on top would swing out of the gate, carrying us - the kids bleary-eyed, and my mother and the driver all spruced-up and absolutely imposing - and head for Marina Beach to do what the entire nation was doing (or probably not doing at that early hour - although indifference to one's motherland would be hard to believe in the India of the 1980's). Thus we joined our fellow Indians to salute our country on this great day.

We didn't know it then, and certainly didn't appreciate it then, but thanks to my mother, we were placed in VIP seats, with police security, in the chilly January morning, to view the Republic Day Parade. In the manner of almost all civil servants' children who followed their parents' regime at home, who were sent to the best schools and who were expected to 'perform' the right moves with almost military precision in different situations - social, academic, personal - we sat straightlaced in our rattan chairs, while the loudspeakers (that looked like 1950's relics, and indeed, so they may have been) screamed patriotic songs in our ears. The songs were all in Tamizh - which is the language of the South Indian state where I'm from - and would range from selections gleaned from the 1940's to the 1980's, from Bharathiyaar's torch songs about identity and pride in one's country, to some modern ones where the hero - some upright citizen such as a rare honest police officer or some long-suffering idealist teacher - would roam the verdant slopes of hill stations, extolling his matru-bhoomi (motherland) and his own passion for it. Of course, the hero's passion for the heroine (Indian films are rarely without them) would've been shot in another song (presented earlier perhaps), leaving our hero free to wring his hands alone, without worldly distractions.

So while the more patient among us children waited and endured a series of politicians shouting out their speeches (in the hope of retaining shaky votes) in what they thought was Sen-Thamizh (pure unadulterated Tamizh from the >1000 year old 'golden age' of Tamizh civilization), the naughty ones whined for breakfast, squirmed in their seats, and fashioned paper rockets from snatched programs sheets, aiming them at one another. When the state folk dancers came twirling about in their colorful sparkly clothes (karag-aattam) , or tiger costumes (puli-aattam), they'd settle down for a short spell of 20 minutes. Now, as a parent myself, I'd say that was praise-worthy. Of course, back then, children were expected to be seen and not heard, and so we were threatened with dire punishments if we made asses of ourselves - all the more so because other civil servants and their families were watching.

I, who once dreamed of joining the I.P.S. (Indian Police Service), looked forward to the marches of the military and police forces, and the displays of military arsenal. The police forces would march with their dogs - beautiful, healthy, resplendant, Alsatians (German Shepherds) - and they were a treat to watch. The dogs seemed to know this was an important occasion, and they accordingly strutted about, showing off their sleek shiny coats. They deserved to be pampered! I loved the mounted police guard with their smart, prancing horses, but most of all - the Drum and Bagpipe Regiment, wearing tartan (no idea which one's they might've been!), and leopard skins. Yes, Scottish tunes in 1980's post-colonial independent India, on an increasingly hot January day, that recalled the Highlands, shortbread, and the chilly mists of a faraway land...'A Hundred Pipers', 'Colonel Bogey' (my father's favorite), and 'Sons of the Brave'...but it was an Indian Gurkha tune the massed Army, Navy, and Air Force band would play while beating the retreat at Vijay Chowk in New Delhi...followed by William Monk's hymn 'Abide With Me', and the bugle call. I'm sure I don't speak for myself when I say this, but with these tunes my heart would soar, while the pride we felt as a nation swelled with the drums to a crescendo. Even today, while watching youtube videos of the Indian Army and the Indian Police Force during parades and marches, I am so overcome by emotion and a deep yearning for my country...that I must stop writing and compose myself. More often than not, I bawl and throw wads of used tissue around myself, thus ending a most uplifting moment in melodramatic denouement.

When the morning parade in Madras was done, we'd be whisked away to Fort St. George where a breakfast par exellence would be served by liveried waiters - pongal, idli-sambar-chutney, upma, masala dosai, kesari and I remember once, the then Chief Minister MGR's favorite, 'Basundhi' (a creamy, heavenly, condensed milk dessert, studded with crushed pistachio and almonds, delicately fragrant with a hint of saffron and cardamom). If one were a child, one would have one's cheeks pinched, have some aunties squeal "So cuuute!", and would then be thankfully forgotten amidst the knees of grownups making conversation, in their sandalwood and jasmine scented Kanjeevaram silk sarees, white veshtis (thin cotton sarongs of fine quality), and dark high-waisted pleated pants, till it was time to hurry home, with the warm breeze on one's face, watching a bustling cheerful sunny Madras through the wound down window. The day would be spent leisurely, with aunts, uncles, and cousins visiting, several games of cricket, and if one encountered really naughty kids, one occasionally heard a blasphemy of patriotism. The naughty ones would go - "Mere desh ki dharti (The soil of my homeland), Khul gayi teri dhoti (Your sarong just fell open)!", and the more recent - "Vande Mataram (A salute to my Motherland - in this case, India), Takla besharam (Shameless baldie)!" Just anything that rhymed and made the listener uncomfortable, really.

Posted below is a video of the massed bands beating the retreat during last year's Republic Day, in New Delhi. After so much reminiscence, when the time has come to honor my country at the end of this post, I sit bereft of words, silenced by awe. I bow my head low, close my eyes out of reverence, and salute with folded hands my India - "Maa, Tujhe Salaam. Jai Hind!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dlfb7vG8Yo

And here is that excellent hymn 'Abide With Me':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SvvbUppbL0&feature=related