Freedom fighter dies at 106

Ganga Ba Patel, a freedomfighter and staunch Gandhian till the last day of her 106 years, died at 6.30 am on Sunday.

Ganga Ba was close to my mother's family. "I have never seen her in anything but white khadi clothes. Nor do I remember seeing her wearing any ornaments, not even a bindi. And she was always a skinny woman, never have I ever seen her put on weight. She walked a lot, always walked to our house, even till recently. She ate extremely simple food, without any spices. At her house, we were always served buttermilk, milk, rotlo* and such stuff. Whenever we went to her house, she was always busy doing physical work, be it milking cows, cleaning up the yard. Afterwards, when age made this difficult, she was always alert and supervising the household chores", says Miki Desai, my maternal uncle.

Gangaba's husband and my grandfather were close friends. When her husband was jailed, Ganga Ba's interaction with the Desai family grew and she soon became an integral part of the extended family. She also grew very close to grandfather's mother, Hari Ba.

"She was the 'grand old lady' who could tell anybody anything. She called my father by his name, Chandu. She could tell any man what she wanted to, be it my father, my uncle, us when we grew up. She could call us and ask us to shut up, or do this instead of that. She spoke a lot about women, how important it is for them to be strong and independent," says Miki, his recollection of the strong woman taking him back to his ancestral home and people in Nadiad.

Baba and my uncle had gone to meet Ganga Ba at her residence around March 2010. Ganga Ba had stopped walking her usual long distances, but was as alert as ever. "She had a very mischievous smile and was in perfect control over the household," remembers my father about the last meeting. Before this, they had met Ganga Ba about five years ago at the funeral of a grandmother from the extended family. At 100, Ganga Ba had walked about half a mile to attend the ceremony, talked with everyone concerned in an astute, attentive way.

I do not have any memory of meeting her. But would love to believe I have met her. As a child playing somewhere with dozens of cousins in the sprawling backyard, running about without a care, only to be caught in the spindly hands of an old lady.

"Eyy chhokri. Koni baby chhe?"** Ganga Ba may have asked, her commanding eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Nayana ni". I would have said and run away...

Yes, I would like to believe I have met Ganga Ba.

-Gauri Gharpure

* Rotlo- Thick roasted bread made from pearl millet
** "Eyy girl, whose daughter are you?"
"Nayana's".

Year-end Post 8- Ame Amdavadi

Aapnu Amdavad!!



The city I love, the city that loves me back.

Year-end post 7: A tag...

Let me take you through 2010 as it were for me.

For each month of the year, I am going to select and link a post that set the tone for that month. May be throw in some extra words... I shall treat this as a tag, and everyone who does take this up, has to tag this post in return and drop in a comment saying they have documented their "Year in posts"...

January 2010

And another day begins

Bitter though the night was, that was the beginning of a new dawn. At that point in time, I didn't know. As I look back, I am thankful.

February

By saying Hello, I promised myself a few things. Tough as it was, I made sure it worked.

March

Discovering Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Trust good books and old friends to say some magic words.

April

My Sorrow is Not for Sale

This was the only post in the month of April. I survived...

May

No posts this month. As I look back, it was one of the busiest times in my life.

June

Seesaw

In June, it seems, I came back to blogging in a sense. There were two food posts and I introduced my new pet Yahoo to you. But 'Seesaw' is what the month, on the whole, was like. Love this haiku...

July

Divaso judaai na

I heard this ageless gazal by Gani Dahiwala with a new consciousness. Rather than making me sad, Md. Rafi's voice gave me strength. I identified with clarity my 'swajan' and I was already with them! Also in July, I bonded with my brother and we talked talked talked like crazy. A month of memories.

August

Another no-post month. I was on a mission, never have I focussed on something so earnestly, with such a dogged will. No time for blog, no time for friends... Err, no, I met a dear old friend for the first time in August. :)

September

Another year older, many years wiser.

Some of you had said kind things to buck me up. Your wishes and your prayers worked. In September, I met my old self again.

Can widowed women wear gajra? I spoke my mind and you liked it.

October

This month was exactly sliced up into halves for me. The second half was fun mainly because the first half was super fun..

Happy Dussera

November

Let's sing a new song

November embraced me with hope. Everything seemed to be falling in place, everyone seemed to be my side, my friends, my teachers, my family.. Gauri was happy and decided she would be so in the time to come.

December

I guess this post itself sets the tone for the last month. I have looked back and am looking ahead. I shall be.

***

I tag Dharma, Sangeeta, Dhiren, Swaram, Mahendra, Atul, IHM, G, Doremi, Poonam... And anyone who feels like taking this up.

Please tag me back and drop a comment when you do this.

Year-end post 6

Sunshine does cheer you up. Even for a person like me, who has grown up braving the scorching, angry Amdavadi sun, sitting out right in the sunbeams on a sun-heated floor still ranks highest as one of the simple pleasures of life. As this morning unfolds, I ask myself several questions. How will sun shine on me in 2011? That's the gist of all the innumerable questions that occupy me now.

There's the question of truth, how we analyse our truths and how far we are ready to go to defend them. Having always gone the extra mile to be with what I have believed in, 2011 should definitely be fun on the truth (and all such things) front.

Next comes the question of trust. Should you continue to nurture the innate trust in human goodness that you were born with or should you let the brutality of the real world shake your faith? Will I be able to trust that stranger who smiles at me for no particular reason as he crosses the road? Will I smile back? Will 2011 make me conscious, cautious and thrifty with my smiles? Moving on in the same dimension, comes the question of finding trust in the people around you. Mind you, out of the many acquaintances you may have, only some are friends and out of those friends, only a select few are around forever. Is it worthwhile trusting outside this circle of people? But then again, life puts certain conditions under which trusting is the only option. In 2011, will my equation with trust change?

And the question that frightens me the most.

Will I change in 2011?

...

Year-end post 5: Sharmila Irom

I read a powerful, passionate piece on Manipur's Sharmila Irom. She is fasting for ten years now to demand the repeal of the AFSPA- Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

You will find details of the misuse of the special act in this Tehelka article, but let me tell you something I remember.

On the desk, we selected stories from North-east editions of TOI published a day before for our early edition. I distinctly remember the stories following the killing of Sanjit Singh and a pregnant woman. The follow-ups, the spate of protests, police rebuttal and anger, violence went on for months. My job made it necessary for me to read through all these stories, select and present it to readers in the districts of West Bengal. Ironically, we did not have enough space in our main edition to include even these culled, subbed versions of North-east mayhem. These stories, the continuous stream of violence and unrest in a part of my country unsettled me extremely. Some editions were so moving and so screaming for attention, it seemed as if our early and late editions too should have more space dedicated to this very real, sad and on-going conflict in the country. But no, the paper has a set pattern for various reasons.

Sharmila Irom, to me, is the epitome of feminine gentleness, strength and gumption. I have been hearing about her ever since I was in high school. She's the same frail woman, defying age and medical science with her grit. Ten years, the article says, has finished her. On a physical level, that is. It is something in her steeled psyche, something in her beliefs and goals, something about her consciousness that's keeping her alive. Sharmila, I want you to see the end of your battle and I pray. May 2011 bring you what you want.

Sharmila's protest is dignified with its silent, subtle plea for attention. We read about her, get moved and forget about her for a year or two when again her frail face catches out attention in a daily. It is then that we realise that we have moved on, but this woman is where she was. Alone and hopeful.

What Sharmila wants is not a qualified, select request. If her decade of going without food and water were to shame the state into concrete action, it would send a poignant message to both parties, the armed forces and the rebels, to give peace a chance.

Sharmila on Wikipedia

Photos of Sharmila

Year-end post 4

Shoes maketh a woman...

Wordless Wednesday. Well, almost.

Year-end post 3

After Sundervan, I head to best buddy's. Christmas baking. For all the times I have drooled on food blogs, this is ironically the first I am trying to bake something. And today was mostly "assistantship" so to say. She had some strange lime cake in mind and we have managed to put together something that looks very very tempting in batter form. Everything ready and we discover the oven is out of order. BB's going to her neighbour's place to use their oven. Yours truly is using up the time to freeze the memory of her first baking.

I guess the party's already on...



Photo added on Jan 2, 2011

Year-end post 2

After more than a decade, I go to Sundervan. Friend's out shopping and I have to while away some time. Pani puri would just take five minutes. On a whim, I decide to go inside the park where my parents took me on innumerable evenings. There's something special about reliving childhood.

You grow old, but age in itself remains constant. The traits of being young and foolish are universal. As I see two-year olds running about without shoes, pinching each other to tears and swinging on swings as if to touch the sky, I know I left nothing behind, everything is the same. May be in the years to come I will live each moment that I lost to the past. May be, some day when I become a mother, I will become a child again. May be...

But for now, there's the heady lure of youth waiting for me. And as this year ends, I promise myself I will stay truthful to my youth.

Let the party begin...

Collage made and added on Jan 2, 2011

Countdown begins

Just 10 days to go for 2010 to end. And I notice this has been one of my lowest-post years on Life Rules. It's a different story that I wrote some posts exclusively for Internation Musings and then some on Short and Sweet, but hey! This blog is the fulcrum and it deserves special treatment.

Beginning today, I am going to try and post here, as many pieces as I can. Photos, drawings, twitter-like messages enforcing strict economy of words on myself, and so on. I thank you for journeying with me in 2010, you made a difference, you know, even if you, my anonymous reader, have no idea how...

Here goes the first such year-end post:



Drawn yesterday. When I can't express myself in words or voice, I take refuge in colours. I immensely loved this drawing. You tell me how you like it...

Also, tell me what are those hopes, colours and wishes with which you would like to usher in 2011.

Wordless Wednesday

Handmade products for sale

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Delivery anywhere within India is possible. Products can also be delivered elsewhere provided a wholesale order is placed. Shipping and service charges extra. For suggestions / inquiry / orders, mail to gauri(dot)gharpure(at)gmail(dot)com

Let's sing a new song

It's been a while since I laughed so much, I cried.
Since I dreamt of dreams
Of love, roses and pink skies.
It's been a while and it's time to sing some new songs.

Let's sing a new song...

-GG

None

I am too happy today and i won't tell you why. :P

Look who came calling?

A peahen lays eggs on our terrace or in the vicinity of our house each year. There's a lot of excitement when the eggs hatch and chicks jump down*. Thus begins the first adventure of their life: to jump across our boundary wall and into the fields. This time, we saw three chicks.

Two chicks were stuck in a plot behind us and could find no way to escape. The neighbours gingerly caught them in a bucket and we released them in the fields adjacent to our house. The third, perhaps the youngest and the weakest, stayed behind, hidden somewhere. After a while, Baba heard its persistent calls in our garden.

"Mama, where are you?"

The peahen came back for this chick. She was constantly flying up to the wall and was urging the baby to climb one of the plants and jump out.

"Mama's here... Yippeee"

She then guided the chick to the other side, where there are more plants. From here, her baby could jump out easily.

"I will be a good boy now, promise!"

After about 15 minutes or so, we stopped hearing the baby's chirps and the mother's beckoning "quack quack". The chick had jumped outside and started a new life with its two siblings.

* Unlike chicks of other birds that have to be fed and raised for a month or two before they are able to exist independently, peacock chicks are nidifugous and leave nest minutes after hatching.

Where you go

Something like happiness,
Where you go, how you evade me?

Here I am listless, dazed,
Hoping and waiting.
Something like happiness,
Where you go?

GG October 24 2010

Dudh Pauva recipe for Sharad Poonam

A lot of readers have come here searching for doodh pauva recipe. I had mentioned it quite some time back in this post about some two-minute snacks i indulge in.

Here's a better, richer version for the doodh pauva you make for Sharad Poonam (or Kojagiri Purnima as we call it), an auspicious full-moon day in the Hindu calender. This recipe is not a two-minute thing though :) This is how my grandmother makes special masala milk for poonam. She spends a lot of time and effort to thicken the milk considerably due to evaporation. This involves a close vigil and constant stirring. I have never made this myself but sharing what I have seen her do, shortening the time to suit impatient souls like me.

Ingredients:

Pauva (flat rice flakes) - 1 cup (Washed well in potable water and kept aside soaked in little water minutes before serving. Washing a lot or soaking for a long period will make it mushy, and you don't want that)
Milk- 500 ml, preferably full fat
Kesar* strands- half a teaspoon
Elaichi*- 2-3, crushed to fine powder
Peeled soaked almonds- 6-7
Raisins (washed well and dried), Kaju*, Pista if available.
Sugar

First you must prepared flavoured (or masala) milk. For this, heat kesar in a thick steel spoon or cup for 10-15 seconds directly over the flame, do not burn and keep stirring with another spoon. The spoon / vadki* you have used to heat kesar will get hot, so handle with care. Crush the heated kesar well using another spoon. Add a spoonful of milk to this and set aside.

Boil milk in a heavy bottomed pan on low flame Add sugar (about two-three tablespoons should be enough, adjust according to taste) and stir constantly. Constantly. Bring to boil. Let it simmer and come to boil two more times, this should take about 10-15 minutes. Do not increase the flame, be patient and boil on low flame or you will burn the milk. I feel it's better to have hot, favoured milk than thick creamy evaporated milk that is badly burnt and so is useless.

About 2-3 minutes before switching off the burner, add chopped almonds, cashew, pista and raisins (whole) and elaichi powder. Also add some more milk to the soaked kesar you have kept aside and add this to the boiling milk. Make sure you up all the kesar extract in the cup.

With this, the flavoured milk part is done. We usually have just this.

Aaji soaks very little pauva separately for ceremony's sake sometime. Not everyone likes the taste of sweetened pauva, so I suggest you also do not add all the soaked pauva to flavoured milk at a time. Instead, you can add spoonfuls to milk as desired by guests. I like this milk (and pauva) chilled, many prefer it hot.

*Pauva / Poha / Cheere- Flat rice flakes used in many Indian snacks
Kesar- Saffron
Elaichi- Cardamom
Kaju- Cashew
Doodh- Milk
Vadki- A small (steel) bowl in Gujarati


Masala milk for doodh pauva that Aaji made on October 23, 2010

Happy Dussera...

After so many years, I am celebrating Dussera the Gujju way, with fafda and jalebi for breakfast. You have no idea how much I have missed these, and the delicious grated raw papaya chatni and fried green chillies that go with these deep-fried snacks..

Fafda, jalebi, cholafali ane papaya ni chatni

And then, my faithful two-wheeler got all the credit that's due to it on this day.


Am so used to zooming off on this, trying to drive a car seems cumbersome. After two paid driving lessons for a fortnight each, it's high time I start driving. But that would be unfair to my Activa...

***

So, how did you celebrate today? Happy Dussera!

Can widowed women wear gajra?

Lijit shows interesting statistics of searches that land people on my blog.



Can widowed women wear gajra? (Gajra = small floral garland worn in hair)

Several questions come to my mind when I come across similar seemingly trifle choices that are burdened with societal or religious stereotypes. I had written a post on the subtle social insistence of Nirmamish* food for widows in Bengal in some educated, forward families even today, in a post titled The Politics of Food. Now, when I read the keywords of this search, I asked myself:

1) Who is this reader?

2) Whom is he/she trying to find the answer for?
a) A relative b) Herself?

3) Why does the person seek an external justification / denial?

4) Who is qualified to answer the controversial 'Can' of the question?

a) Religion? b) Society? c) Family? d) an unknown blogger like me???

5)Is there any specific mention in a religious text to deny a widow such trivial pleasures?

6) If any such mention has been interpreted from the texts, is that fair? Or still applicable in the present context?

6 a) Can't human rationality question certain antiquated religious/societal diktats?
7) What significance do flowers and a gajra carry in an Indian woman's life?

8) Do flowers convey any specific romantic or spiritual message that makes daily life more enjoyable?

Many of the above questions are subjective and will have a different (and justifiable) solution each depending on each individual's set of beliefs... My concern is what happens when we stop making distinctions between personal thoughts and societal parameters. When we are unable to pinpoint our real feelings about a certain issue in juxtaposition to the 'accepted' social or intellectual norm...

Let me try and understand the rigid regulations imposed on widows in an early social context. Imagine India in the 1800s.

Girls were married off before 10, became mothers as early as 13 or 14. The British, whatever their imperial oppressions may be, did try and modify some such counterproductive social structures. I was shocked to read that Lokmanya Tilak vehemently opposed the progressive 1891 Age of Consent Act arguing that the British had no business interfering with an accepted "Hindu" practice. Today, intercourse with a 10-year-old girl is considered an unspeakable, loathsome crime.

So dejected was Raja Ram Mohan Roy when his reformist articles in Sambad Koumudi were booed down by the powerful Brahmin lobby, that he gave up publishing his newspapers. Though he was monumental in getting the *Sati ban implemented in Bengal, the practice continued for many years to come.

Every society hides skeletons in its closet. Because of the grace of social and religious sanctions on many immoral and unfair past practices, we are uncomfortable discussing the injustices meted out to Hindu widows. In my understanding, food restrictions for widows were meant to restrain a widow from eating 'tamasic' food that might rekindle her worldly desires. Drab clothing and tonsured heads served to make her look as unappealing as possible. Seclusion ensured that she was not violated. All these measures to safeguard a vulnerable woman from the lust of society and predators even in the immediate family invariably failed. And so the *Sati system. There is logic in each of this restriction which is a consequence of the previous. But in general, all such restrictions boiled down to this : One less mouth to feed, one more woman to manipulate. A simple solution was widow remarriage and this reform took gargantuan efforts by a brave few to be socially relevant.

Jyotiba Phule and his wife were ostracized and abused when they tried to educate girls in the mid 1800s. And yet, the seed of reform Jyotiba and Savitri sowed was instrumental in slowly removing orthodoxy from Maharashtra's lower and middle-class, as opposed to the state of affairs in Bengal where intellectual stimulation, debates and reform largely remained a prerogative of the elite.

Discussed above was a larger picture of society and how it dealt with widows in the 1800s. Coming back to 2010 and the specific question of wearing a gajra. In those times, a widow thinking of wearing a gajra would have been beaten black and blue. My surprise is that you, my dear reader, are prodding the question almost 200 years later, in an age virtually suffocated by individual freedom. What is wrong with you??

Let me put it thus: Flowers, kumkum, colourful sarees, ornaments are all a woman's means of expression of happiness, vitality, joy and hope. Mirra Alfassa even believed that flowers are a means of delving into a divine, spiritual nature. When a woman is widowed, it is but natural that her grief causes her to reject these on her own for the immediate period of loss. But should her initial expression of sorrow continue to dominate her life ever after? Who has the right to decide what manner of grieving is suitable and accepted for a widow? Not me and you, not at least in this time and age.

Regulation and restrain is central to a civilized society that must function smoothly. But equally important is freedom of thought and deed. A woman is infinite times more vulnerable than a man and so she needs infinite times more understanding and support from the society. Within the ambit of the topic of this post (gajra or not) I think it's high time that we shake ourselves off from the hangover of irrelevant social and religious codes of conduct.

If you ask me, yes, a widowed woman can wear a gajra. For even if she is a widow, she doesn't stop being a woman. And like my father once said, to look beautiful is a woman's birthright...


* Niramish: Food made without onion, garlic and non-vegetarian ingredients

* Old custom of a widow immolating herself (with consent or forcefully) on the pyre of her husband. As many as three Sati cases were reported in India after 1987, the latest as recent as in 2008.

Edited to add on October 10, 2010

Have you seen Water (2005)?

An attempt by Canadian filmmakerDeepa Mehta to portray the inhumane restrictions on Hindu widows in this film met with stiff resistance from Hindu political activists. Following violent protests, the filming was banned in India. The production was delayed for five years. Mehta persevered and shot in Sri Lanka instead of Varanasi. Lisa Ray, John Abraham and Srilankan child artiste Sarala Kariyawasam essayed the characters beautifully. The result was a poignant depiction of stark, painful reality that many wanted to ignore like an ostrich.

What I want to say is this: Our religion is too open, beautiful and vast. Acceptance of such bitter truths won't in any way reduce its glory..

A party for four

I had planned a homely little party for four.

For starters I made potato-cheese balls shown on a Marathi cookery show called 'Aamhi Saare Khavayye'. I also deep-fried baby corns in the same pepper-cornflour batter used for potato wada. Strawberry jam squeezed on Monaco biscuits topped with cheese gave a namkin* touch.

For the main course was Khoya mutter, with khoya made from milk-powder in microwave. Thank you Sangeeta for this quick, hygienic and delicious trick. On the side were butter corn and onion-mushrooms. Yellow and red capsicums, which I used for the first time, added a brilliant dash of colour to these items.

For the dessert, I made mango ice cream using this super-easy recipe given on Homecooked .



*Namkin = Sweet-sour-salty snacks
* Khoya= Granule-like remain after milk is boiled at length and finally evaporated. Used in a majority of Indian sweets
* Mutter= Green peas

Ganesh Chaturthi 2010 and delicious Olan

Today is Ganesh Chaturthi and I bow down to Ganapati with all humility and hope. My grandmother decorates the little family idols very aesthetically each day, but special occasions call for special tribute.



Ganesha is also called Vighnaharta or Vighneshwar, the one who removes obstacles. Vighna means obstacles in Sanskrit. He is prayed first before starting an important task, be it laying the foundation stone of a house, starting a business or anything ambitious that needs the grace of God.



God has not disappointed me thus far. In spite of the many obstacles, there's this faith that things will eventually be fine and they have. So, as we embark on a series of festivities and auspicious dates from today, I resolve to maintain my enthusiasm and faith in the time to come. Ganesha, continue to protect me, my family and my loved ones.



Ganapati is also the official foodie of all Gods, so the huge tummy. Therefore the name Lambodar... Talking about food, I made Olan today, following Maiji's recipe given in a beautifully written nostalgic post. The 82-year-old is a very active blogger and you must read her blog Memories and Musings - Life in Pondicherry. (You may want to read an article on other senior citizens who are active bloggers in this article. I wrote it almost a year back)

Olan is a popular dish made in Kerala with pumpkin, coconut milk, green chillies and curry leaves being the main ingredients. Add potatoes and green beans to enhance the flavour.



I made a few changes in Maiji's recipe though. I started with a tadka of jeera*, hing*, curry leaves and one slit green chilli in ghee*. Then I added potato, sauted it for 1-2 minutes and added about 2-3 cups of water. After five minutes, I added long beans and followed the recipe till the end. We usually grind green chillies in a mixer with salt and lemon juice and use this paste in all dishes.. In addition to the slit green chilli in the tadka, I used about 2-3 spoonfuls of this paste in the Olan I prepared, for the coconut milk, pumpkin and potatoes give the dish a slightly sweetish bend. Adjust according to taste.

I surfed several Olan recipes online and none mention the tadka, instead, all call for pouring 2-3 spoonfuls of coconut oil towards the end. But, even if the tadka version may not be authentic, I assure you it turns out every bit as delicious.



* Jeera= cumin, Hing = Asafoetida and Ghee = clarified butter.

** Do not use photos without permission.