Leaving A Trail Behind ***** A Ferryboat in the river Brahmaputra

                                      *** Giving into my sweet tooth ***

*** I am not much into gardening, but I do feel happy every time spring hits our garden at home. Here is a picture of orchid blooms in our backyard ***

FOODOLOGY

Decided to blog about my first love - food !
A few of my all time favorites ....

 
Yeah its Delicious. You simply can't say no to this chicken pitta from Grill Republic. The mayo gives it the 'drool-at-first-sight' factor.

Bottom layer - soft cake. Middle layer - crushed almonds/cashew. Top layer - ice cream and chocolate sauce. Sinful!

Whatever the occasion, a bowl of butter popcorn is always a delicacy for me. 

*** The Brahmaputra - My Muse ***

**** A BIT NOSTALGIC ****

****A BUNCH OF GOLDEN TRUMPETS **** NEVER FAILS TO MAKE ME NOSTALGIC*** CLICKED THIS MORNING ***** 

**** FOUND MYSELF WALKING DOWN A ROAD CANOPIED BY SCARLET GULMOHAR **** GREY SKY ABOVE **** THE CITY NEVER CEASES TO OFFER NOSTALGIA ****

<Found this old write-up and decided to place it in the Ragbag* My jibber-jabber is obviously cliched, but the thoughts that inspired it were genuine and real>

 Growing up in a town pretty much devoid of rural milieu, my childhood was a bit different than my parents’. My parents practically had an idyllic childhood, filled with fun and frolic that any Assamese village can provide to kids growing up in the 60s, occasionally interrupted by my grandparents’ constant reminder that they must move out of their rural locale and make a mark of their own. Nevertheless, when they did make marks of their own, they also made sure not to let go of the village in them. It was pretty difficult, considering the efforts needed to shuttle between the two worlds of work-town and hometown. The efforts multiplied when they had a child – they could see that the child would grow up in an environment lacking the lush green paddy fields and playgrounds which were the delights of their youth. To simplify things, my ingenious father came up with some solutions. He moved to an old house my grandfather built in the centre of the town where my parents were working. He refused to renovate it, and insisted that it must retain its ‘oldness’ – to give me a flavor of the house he had left behind in the village. The house in the town was situated in the middle of an open ground, surrounded by wicker fences. There were trees of different sorts all around the house – guavas, mangoes, jackfruits and litchis plenty – and a flower garden which my father fashioned himself after shifting there. He made no attempt to keep the compound immaculately clean – bird droppings, dried leaves covered the ground while fresh grass grew in patches here and there. The house itself was quite old-fashioned, and in a neighborhood full of houses with white washed walls, our dwelling was an anomaly. Nevertheless, it clearly added a different flavor to my days of growing up. Right after I woke up in the morning and got fed, I was allowed to ‘explore’. Every day I would find something different and new – a snail’s colorful shell, a butterfly with a rare pattern on its wings, a caterpillar camouflaged in a leaf. Everyday held a new treasure, and the compound was my treasure trove. I would look around and create my own world of fantasy – turning the house and its surroundings, in my mind, into the enchanted lands I used to read about. The feeble house thus became the cave of a fairy; the thin sewage canal that ran through the backyard became the river; beyond the canal was the island of mystery. This island was actually a patch of ground shaped like a mound, harboring a collection of citrus fruit trees. It served as my sanctuary - sitting under the trees, while listening to the birds picking on the juicy fruits, I would drift off to a wonderland of my own. Clearly, my father’s motive to fashion an irregularity in the midst of a rather normative neighborhood served its purpose. The house and the surroundings went through a lot of changes after I grew up, owing to the pressures both my parents felt to keep pace with the society they were trying to blend in. The treasure trove, the mystery island, the cave – all disappeared within a span of a year when my parents decided to build a ‘proper’ house for their family. The ghost of the wonderland still lingers in the air of the compound – like a phantom presence it reminds me of my slightly different and quirky childhood amidst a town that defined normality.