Of Homemade Music Videos and Home-cooked Food

It's vacation time right now, and where I usually would be sitting at my computer, trying to get a view of the monitor through my daughter's flailing arms, and trying to coax my thoughts to surface above the din of Debbie's voice and her noisy toys, I sit here right now in utter peace and quiet, with no one switching off the computer mid-post, no buzzing voice in my ears, and no baby fingers trying to get at the keyboard... Just me, my thoughts, and you readers.... and I HATE IT! No. Sorry. I didn't mean you, my readers! I love you guys! I meant sitting at home alone, without Debbie, just me and this empty house...sigh...

Debbie's gone to her grandma's (my mom) for a week...wait, actually it is now been more than a week. She is having the time of my life (I mean Debbie, not my mom! God only knows how my mom is handling it there, because along with Debbie are 6 other boisterous cousins filling the house, and toppling down God knows how many flower pots! Enjoy mommy...hhehe!). So anyway, Debbie gets to play with all those kids ranging between the age of 6 to 16. And they are not even her cousins...their mine!! That's what happens when your grandmother is  your grandfather's second wife, and is just around 6 years older than your mother...and she (your grandmother) had 8 kids! I think they took the whole "the more the merrier" thing too seriously! Whew!

Anywho, Debbie is playing with kids ranging from 6 to 16 years old, who are all her aunts and uncles!! And she has not missed me yet... :( That doesn't mean I can't miss her... I do, I do... I miss her sooo much...

I miss this little girl...

and her lovely smile...

and her crazy-awesome singing...

Boohooo! I want my babyyyy!

*sniff* *wiping eyes, blowing nose*...

And in a funny tangent way, I want my mommy.... and her food...
Actually I've been feeling that for quite a while, so I wrote something for her...

Mom, this is for you... (pssst, can you please consider this as your advanced birthday present? Kidding. Totally getting you a real present on your birthday... :D)

----------------------------
Street food...

"... Is unhygienic, uncovered, and unappetizing",
Said mother, piling a mountain of rice
Onto my plate already sagging
Under the weight of healthily boring home-cooked food.
Grumbling, sniffing, dipping fingers in gingerly
I question...
"Why can't I have a snack instead?"

Crisp samosas are the best.
Waiting near the familiar heat of food
Sizzling in hot oil,
Eying the one that you will choose
If you had a choice,
Peering into the cart
At sauces and spices,
I make a mental note -
'Remember to ask for
The sweet and sour sauce.'

Jaws clench at the tangy thought
Of salted gooseberries
That bring back memories of
Dead-broke college days,
When a rupee earned you a bag of those sour gems
That set the saliva flowing 10 years later!

Corn on the cob
Luscious, spicy and crunchy
Satisfy the sharp hunger that comes
From trudging up the lanes
Of little towns on hill stations
In search of the perfect bargain
On a thick woolen sweater.

Ice cream in a park -
Dripping water and icicles that take the place
Of real cream and flavor,
Cold chunks breaking off
Onto tongues,
Causing brain-freeze
And the rush of guilty pleasures
That mother would scorn at.

Vadais are good too.
Crisp exterior giving way
To warm dough and stray chilli bits,
The accompaniments as beckoning and cozy
As the kitchen at home...

The kitchen. Where mother
Would always have food on the table,
A soothing word
A listening ear
A tearing eye
A smiling face
For me, the wayward child,
Who ate too much street food...

The Men in Blue Bring It Home!

YAAAAAAAY! India won the Cricket World Cup after more than 20 years. I am truly happy! It was a wonderful moment, when every Indian on the planet felt one with their Indian counterparts, regardless of the religion, state, caste or social status they belonged to!

Let me stop the gushing to tell you that you would never have heard me rave about cricket ever before on my blog, and, I solemnly promise you that you will never again hear another word about cricket in the future! I am no cricket fan...when it's IPL time, I flee a mile away from the general vicinity of the television and my cricket-maniac husband. I still hold on to those ideals. As a matter of principle, I never watch cricket, because here I am slaving over a desk all day, and coming home and slaving over a stove, and some boy-man hitting a ball around gets paid a gazillion times more than me!! I take exception to that. And what do we get sitting in front of a television watching said boy-men romping around? NOTHING! Those are just my views, and you are free to disagree - in fact, please do disagree. That's what a free country is all about. Anyway, point is, I "dislike" cricket, to put it ever so lightly.

BUT, c'mon winning the WORLD CUP is a whole new deal altogether!! I actually invested a good 3-4 hours of my weekend on Saturday night, sitting and watching the latter half of the match. All because I truly began to admire the grit and determination of our boys out there on the field. I have developed a sense of deep respect for MS Dhoni, captain of the Indian cricket team. The way he carried himself throughout the game was simply awe-inspiring. Even after he hit the winning sixer, his obvious happiness was so understated and so balanced that you had to admire his maturity and his ability to keep his head, no matter how low the 'downs' or high the 'ups'! He let Sachin take center stage during the celebrations and he walked a good two-paces behind, just enjoying watching his team mates celebrate. The whole country is cheering for this man who has led the Indian cricket team to so many victories in such a short time. I think he is truly an inspiration to the youth of our nation!

And then there was the game itself. Though I wasn't exactly gnawing my way through my nails in anticipation, it was an exciting game, all said and done! The moment when Sachin got out was a real shock. Even the celebrities in the stadium lost their photogenic smiles when Sachin walked off the pitch. I think that was the one time I saw Rajnikanth actually look defeated!! :) I also felt really sorry for Gautam Gambhir, after he failed to hit a century. The look on his face when he walked back the stands, was nothing short of heart-breaking... :(

But the fact that Dhoni and Yuvraj were able to bring the team back to pace, and win the game for us was really thrilling! At the end of the game, when Dhoni hit that fabulous sixer, my husband had just one thing to say, "Now Sachin can retire in peace!" And I had to agree. It was so moving, how the entire team was playing for just one man! One man who had inspired them, made India the force to reckon with in cricket, and took so many risks for his team! What Virat Kohli said about Sachin was amazing! After he had walked around the whole ground carrying Sachin on his shoulders, he was asked why he had done that. His response: "Sachin has carried the burden of the country on his shoulders for 28 years. So, I don't mind carrying him on my shoulders!" Awwww! that is so adorable! :)

So, there it is - India won the CRICKET WORLD CUP! I think we will be riding this wave for a long, long, long time! And hey, I don't even feel furious that these guys are getting a crore each!But, it stops there. IPL is next week, and you won't hear a word about it from me..NO SIR!

The Boys in Blue lift the Cricket World Cup!!

Check out Sreesanth's expression! :D

The Indian skipper reaching out for his keep-sake stump from the winning match

The great Sachin deserved the parade on the shoulders of his teammates

Awww! Isn't this adorable?!

Love Walked In - Marisa de los Santos

There are many different reasons why we like a book. Sometimes, it's because the story is so gripping. Sometimes, it's because the author is our favorite and we just like his/her style, sometimes we love a book because one of the characters reminds us of someone we know (sometimes even ourselves), or we love a book because we wish we had that sort of romance/thrill/happy ending in our lives. But sometimes...sometimes... we love a book because it is pure poetry. As cliche as that sounds, I am saying it from the depth of my book-loving soul!

It is not so much as the story itself, or the plot that carries the beauty. Instead, the beauty lies in the place that it should - the words, the diction, the thoughts, the expression, and the heart of the writer. I experienced this poetry in Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. Pure poetry! I also remember feeling the same sense of upliftment, of being taken to a different plane when I read Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie". And now, I felt the same beauty flowering inside of me when I read Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos. 

The way the book starts - the very first line that the author decided to write on the very first empty page - is itself breathtaking: "My life - my real life - started when a man walked into it, a handsome stranger in a perfectly cut suit, and, yes, I know how that sounds."

And YES, I know how this sounds! You're going to say, "Pfft! there she goes again! Raving about some soppy romance novel!" But my dear friend, that's where you are terrible mistaken. This is not a soppy romance. Yes it is a romance, but there is a beauty in there that appeals to every woman. The beauty of love and motherhood, and the pain of having a beloved child plucked out of your hands and handed over to someone else, the reassuring warmth of family, and the wonder of life itself.

The plot is actually quite simple. Cornelia Brown (a most unlikely pairing of first and last name, if there ever was one), the manager of Cafe Dora, a little warm coffee house in Philadelphia, has a good, strong college education but prefers to work in a restaurant. She is a die-hard romantic and believes that every girl's life should be like The Philadelphia Story, where she finds the right dashing, tall-dark-handsome, smooth and suave man for a soul mate! And she truly believes it will happen to her!! (Yes, double exclamation marks right there, because, seriously, who is she kidding?! That stuff doesn't happen in real life. In fact, it doesn't even happen in reel life nowadays - anybody watch Knocked Up??)

But find him she does, and his name is Martin. She is head over heels in love with this man who can do no wrong, who will listen calmly to her without saying a word, and who will take her on the most starlit romantic dates. Suddenly, one day, Cornelia's world is turned upside down when a little 11 year old girl walks into the coffee house with Martin, and he introduces her as Clare, his daughter....


The book consists of two stories told alternately, from the point of view of the central characters  - Clare and Cornelia. Finally, their lives dovetail, Clare finds the family she longs for, and Cornelia finds the love of her life. As usual, I am not going to give you anything more on the plot. It is actually quite simple, and comes to the most logical conclusions.


However, there is a huge advantage in the plot being so forehead-slapping simple. Instead of filling the book with twisted plots, the author uses her space to flesh out the characters, to create a clear picture of each scene, each interaction, each incident, and each reaction of each character. She does this so well that at we easily begin to think like the characters in any given situation in the plot! It's like listening to your best friend talk about her life - you listen with involvement, have an opinion about everything, advice your friend on the next move, and are dying to know what happened next.


Read this book to see how a modern novel should be written. Hope love walks in for you too....sigh! That is so soppy and cliche but what the heck...

The Ultimate Blog Party 2011 - Join the Fun!

This is my linky post that is going to be my ticket to the Ultimate Blog Party 2011, only THE MOST sought after online blog party for mom-bloggers like me, and probably you! :)  The party is hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom.com, a really great blog written by twin mommies (how cool is that?!) Janice and Susan. Check out this post to know more about the Ultimate Blog Party 2011, and how to enter. If you headed here from the party itself, allow me to introduce myself and my blog very briefly. I am Jane Hamilton, and I have been blogging for the past 3 years. In my blog here, "Ad Libitum", I talk about anything that interests me, including cooking, a great trip I had, a soppy romantic movie I saw, or my opinion on stuff. Nothing earth shattering, but I just like to put my two-pence out there! Also, I do what mommies love doing the most - talk about my child. My 4-yr-old girl, Debbie, is the joy of my life, and here I talk about her little skirmishes, her toys, her favorite food, and generally how she makes sure I never have to suffer from dull moments in my life. And of course, I talk about my beloved husband, the man of my dreams, my knight in shining armor, and the reason for my deep-seated hatred for watching any sport on TV!

I am neither a prolific writer, nor a regular one. I hold down a 9-6, and though it is no excuse for not posting often enough, my lazy self somehow lets it be. When I do write, I spill my heart out!

So, welcome to Ad Libitum, where, really, things are quite adlib. Hope you enjoy your stay.

If you are one of my readers, what are you doing reading this? You already know boring old me...HURRY and join me at the Ultimate Blog Party!! Go ahead and add your blog to the linky and meet more awesome bloggers like you! I'm going to do just that right now!