In My Hands Today…

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The Secret Wisdom of the Earth – Christopher Scotton 

22217702After seeing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, fourteen-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin’s grandfather. In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky.

Medgar is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin’s grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the “company” and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

Ode to a Saree

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8e68083407d603b3a20f519a36735bc8The very word ‘Saree or Sari’ evokes a sense of pure bliss for the six yards of fabric which exude grace and elegance. This traditional Indian garment for women is in every Indian woman’s wardrobe, even if she is not a saree wearer, but she will wear a saree for very special occasions.

I used to love wearing the saree and have loads of memories pre-marriage of wearing them. Back in college, we used to have ‘Saree Day’ and ‘Traditional Day’ each year, where girls would wear the saree on saree day and either a saree or their traditional dress on traditional day. When we had official functions in college, again the saree would come out and those days the whole college would look so colourful with everyone checking out theirs and their friends sarees and accessories.

Even when I started work, sarees played an important role. Every interview was always in a saree, as this was considered formal wear for women and again when we had important meetings, presentations or visitors we’d all wear sarees to work. Another time the saree was brought out was during festivals. During festivals, everyone came in their festive best and during festivals like Navratri, where each day has a specific colour associated with it, all the women in the office would wear the same colour!

320px-styles_of_sariAfter coming to Singapore, my saree wearing slowed down and after having BB & GG, almost came to a stop! But in the last year or so, I have rediscovered my love for the saree again, what with seeing images of women doing everything in this garment on social media. I’ve now decided to wear them more often, though the heat does everything to discourage me. I’ve also decided to buy more sarees from India’s rich heritage and want to own atleast one saree from every Indian state – from the Bandini of Rajasthan to the Patola of Gujarat to the Kantha of West Bengal to the Muga Silk of Assam to the Sambalpuri of Odisha to the Pochampalli of Telangana to the Paithani from Maharashtra to the Kanjivaram from Tamil Nadu to the Mangalgiri and Gadwal silks from Andhra Pradesh to the Maheshwari and Chanderi from Madhya Pradesh to the Banrasi Silk from Uttar Pradesh to Mysore Silks from Karnataka. The rich cultural heritage of the various Indian states ensure you can never run out of sarees to wear!

Now I am off to arrange my small stack of sarees and make notes on what I need to buy to add to it!

In My Hands Today…

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The Skull Mantra (Inspector Shan #1) – Eliot Pattison 

716534The corpse is missing its head and is dressed in American clothes. Found by a Tibetan prison work gang on a windy cliff, the grisly remains clearly belong to someone too important for Chinese authorities to bury and forget. So the case is handed to veteran police inspector Shan Tao Yun.

Methodical, clever Shan is the best man for the job, but he too is a prisoner, deported to Tibet for offending Beijing. Granted a temporary release, Shan is soon pulled into the Tibetan people’s desperate fight for its sacred mountain and the Chinese regime’s blood-soaked policies. Then, a Buddhist priest is arrested, a man Shan knows is innocent.

Now time is running out for Shan to find the real killer…in an astonishing, emotionally charged story that will change the way you think about Tibet– and freedom– forever.

Recipe: Mango Milkshake

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Summer, to me, is mango season! In Mumbai, right from around end April, you see, hear and smell the king of fruits – the Alphonso Mango. While I am not a big mango lover, everyone else in my family is and my childhood summer memories are filled with this fruit.

My paternal grandmother was a huge fan of the alphonso mango or hapus as it is called in Marathi (the state language of Mumbai, where I grew up). My paternal grandparents moved to Bangalore when I was quite young, initially to help out my uncle (my dad’s brother) who had moved there for work. Then, after he married, they stayed on, because they loved the gentler pace of life that Bangalore had then as well as the cooler climate. But my ammama (my grandma) missed some parts of Mumbai, a city she came as a young bride and had stayed for more than 30 years before moving to Bangalore.

So every summer, during our holidays, we’d make our annual trip to Bangalore. Along with clothes and other assorted items, we’d take a huge ass carton of the best alphonso mangoes we could get. We even had our own mango seller, who, every summer would bring us a nicely packed carton of mangoes, all chosen to ripen at exactly the right time, which would be just after we reach ed Bangalore. And once we reached our home there, my grandma would gorge on this delicacy.

Mangoes are heaty, and so the rule in my home was to drink a glass of milk after each mango session. Some mangoes used to be made into pulp to be drank with milk, especially if the mangoes were ripening and would go bad. Last week at the baby naming ceremony we were given a couple of mangoes and so I decided to make them into milkshakes for BB & GG for them to drink as their after school drink. The mangoes we got were not top quality ones (not alphonso), hence not as sweet and so I had to use sugar, but if you have sweet mangoes, please omit sugar completely. This is perfect for summer, especially if you refrigerate it before serving.

Mango Milkshake

Ingredients:

  • 2 mangoes, peeled and chopped
  • Sugar, as required
  • 5-6 pieces of cashewnuts
  • A pinch of saffron
  • 2.5 cups skim milk

Method:

  • In a small bowl, heat up a couple of tablespoons of milk till warm and add the cashewnuts and saffron to it and keep aside for 10 minutes.
  • In a blender or mixer, add the chopped mangoes, sugar (if using), milk and the cashewnut-saffron mixture and blend until it forms a smooth paste. Add the skim milk to help it form the paste.
  • Add the rest of the milk and chill in the fridge for a while before serving.
  • Enjoy delicious, chilled mango milkshake!

In My Hands Today…

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Sideways on a Scooter: Life and Love in India – Miranda Kennedy

9524132When twenty-something reporter Miranda Kennedy leaves her job in New York City and travels to India with no employment prospects, she longs to immerse herself in the turmoil and excitement of a rapidly developing country. What she quickly learns in Delhi about renting an apartment as a single woman—it’s next to impossible—and the proper way for women in India to ride scooters—perched sideways—are early signs that life here is less Westernized than she’d counted on.

Living in Delhi for more than five years, and finding a city pulsing with possibility and hope, Kennedy experiences friendships, love affairs, and losses that open a window onto the opaque world of Indian politics and culture—and alter her own attitudes about everything from food and clothes to marriage and family. Along the way, Kennedy is drawn into the lives of several Indian women, including her charismatic friend Geeta—a self-described “modern girl” who attempts to squeeze herself into the traditional role of wife and mother; Radha, a proud Brahmin widow who denies herself simple pleasures in order to live by high-caste Hindu principles; and Parvati, who defiantly chain-smokes and drinks whiskey, yet feels compelled to keep her boyfriend a secret from her family.

In her effort to understand the hopes and dreams that motivate her new friends, Kennedy peels back India’s globalized image as a land of call centers and fast-food chains and finds an ancient place where, in many ways, women’s lives have scarcely changed for centuries. Incisive, witty, and written with a keen eye for the lush vibrancy of the country that Kennedy comes to love, Sideways on a Scooter is both a remarkable memoir and a cultural revelation.