Ten books from my 2021 list

My 2021 reading list stands at book number 112. I almost missed adding the Audible books I listen to during my morning perambulations around Karthi. I sometimes wonder if I walk for the exercise or to listen to the books! Due to the heavy rains of the past month, I have not been able to complete my current Audible book and I look forward to doing it next week. 

So here are my favorites from this year, not in order of excellence:

1. Layla by Colleen Hoover: The first book I read from this author was November 9,  which intrigued me because it's the date of my sister's birthday. She has the immense gift of drawing the reader right into the midst of the raw emotions of the protagonists. It is so admirable a talent. I liked Layla because Hoover has attempted a paranormal thriller romance. And it is thrilling till the very end. 
2. A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman: Backman charmed me with the long-winding title of another book: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry. Ove is a curmudgeonly gent who is determined to efface himself after his wife's death. He is so crotchety and obsessive that we are tempted to hate him at the beginning of the story. And then the layers are revealed slowly... Beautiful book. 
3. The Lord Wimsey Series by Dorothy L. Sayers: Do you know that this series is available for peanuts on Kindle? I had read most of these books from the public library, not in order, and skipped a few. But on Kindle, they are available in their complete glory. The difference between Sayers' works and her more popular contemporary Christie's works is that Christie's works are a little more of the cookie cutter variety, while Sayers' books are more literary in nature. And starting in the fifth book is the thread of romance between Wimsey and Vane. I wish they were in print today because I would have loved to buy the last three of the series: The Nine Tailors, Gaudy Night and the Busman's Honeymoon. They are worth going back to from time to time for their prose and the picture of England of those times. 
4. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein: Ezmo the dog has one ambition, to be as human-like as possible. In fact, he would like to take birth as a human being just to be able to shake his friend Denny's hand. Funny, sad, clever, suspenseful... All that you would want in a book. 
5. A Short History of the Girl Next Door by Jared Reck: A YA romance, heart-wrenching. Opening is so simple and trivial, one has no idea how it will punch later.
   
6. The Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa: Another novel in which an animal is a narrator, only in this it is a cat. The cat and his partner travel across Japan, rediscovering a few old friends. 
7. Perfume by Patrick Suskind: The sheer revulsion evoked by the protagonist of this fantasy novel is remarkable. After reading it, I became proud of my anosmia as I would have been immune to the nefarious schemes laid by Grenouille!
8. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See: Till I read this book, I hadn't known that there were aboriginal tribes of Chinese. Through the life time of a girl from the Akha tribe, the novel covers a wide range of subjects: effects of the One Child policy, attempts to assimilate indigenous people into mainstream culture, child adoption scams, and the overarching story of tea. It was slow-going at the beginning, but I am glad that I persisted.
   
9. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett: Now here is an author who paints such wonderful word pictures that reading one of her stories is like stepping into a colorful, many-layered masterpiece. The characters stay around a long time after the book is closed. The house is the main character in this story: it repels some, it attracts some, some cannot get out of its magnetic field, some need to get rid of it and some need to acquire it. The dysfunctional extended family that revolves around the house somehow need it to complete themselves.
10. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman: If you miss the old-fashioned murder mysteries a la Christie, this is the book for you! A group of feisty seniors in an up-scale retirement home meet on Thursdays to discuss old crimes. But soon enough, they have to deal with murder on their door steps. Red herrings abound and ingenious solutions enlighten. Looking forward to reading the next in the series in the new year.
    

These are the books I liked the best this year, so far. Other titles that I liked very much: 

1. Zen in the Art of Writing: Ray Bradbury
2. The Two Lives of Lydia Bird: Josie Silver
3. The Flatshare: Beth O' Leary
4. The Winter Garden: Kristin Hannah
5. Love Lettering: Kate Clayborn
6. Recipe for a Perfect Wife: Karma Brown
7. The Housekeeper and the Professor: Yoko Ogawa
8. Garden Spells: Sarah Addison Allen
9. A Little Paris Bistro: Nina George
10. Needlemouse: Jane O' Connor
    

Ok, I shall stop here for fear of duplicating my 2021 reading list. I can guarantee you that if you pick any one of these, you are in for an engrossing read. Happy reading!

Blooms in 2021...

Phew! I have made it back to my blog before I completed one whole year of absence. Well, just about... Because as you can see, my last post was written on the 2nd of October, 2020. After that, I didn't feel like sharing anything on the blog. Instead, I dug deep into my cozy space and got entrenched in an effort to shut out the crazy world as much as possible. 

We have had our portion of goodbyes, the most painful being the demise of a brother-figure, a standup guy who was just 42. As I write this, my sister-in-law and her family are in their second week of Covid infection, resting at home in isolation. Fortunately, all of them are doing ok after the initial fever and symptoms.

Meanwhile, some things have been blooming here at Karthi...

like this morning glory vine that I have managed to keep alive in my balcony garden which you might remember... I bought this vine back in March from a nursery on the way back from Kottayam.

Then there is this beauty... 

... who came with us from Vandiperiyar when we went there in December for the only pleasure trip we've undertaken in the Covid era. She put out her first, single bloom just in time for DH's birthday in August. This time, there is another branch with promise of more to come...

 

This year, I have been able to take better care of my garden, pruning it back into shape, trimming, mulching and fertilizing on a regular basis. My cousin gave me a mulberry cutting three years ago. Look what I found last weekend!

 

 

Sometimes, I feel that the garden I am trying to grow is the one I am recreating from my mother's family home in my childhood. I have succeeded in getting the coral jasmine to bloom. The mulberry is another childhood favorite. My old friend the mulberry tree is still thriving at Kottayam although when I go there, I forget to visit. You could call my mulberry a granddaughter of that tree, because my cousin took a cutting to her home and grew it there, and I got mine from hers. Now if I could only get the plant that we knew as Nakshatra Mulla (star jasmine), a bushy variety of jasmine that truly looked like stars scattered over a velvety dark green bush. Two of those flanked the entrance to the front yard at my mother's home. Our childhood pictures were mostly taken at the side of either of them. 

Apart from gardening, copy editing, and a little bit of creative writing, here is what I have been up to...

This project has just completed two years in the making and is no where near finished. Gaaah!!!

More on that later. Meanwhile, if any of you love books, take a look at the tabs above where I have listed the books I have been reading since 2017! 

Hope to see you all again next week! Stay safe!

Best among my reads in 2020!

Wow! I just can't believe we've completed six months of 2020—the year I was so looking forward to... But as I had written in the first post, this year certainly has been momentous!!! We have all been subjected to an unprecedented event that has had all of us—even the home-loving introverts like me—scrambling to adapt and adjust. The new norms are bearable, but still take a lot of getting used to—like suddenly having to be a partially homeschooling mother to big children.

The one thing that has not changed in these cataclysmic times is reading. I still thrive on books. On physical books, on Kindle, whatever! Even in the seeming calm of not having to go out of the house, sometimes my mind finds it tough to switch off at night. That is when I creep out of bed and curl up with a book, reading into the wee hours of the night. 

If you look at my reading list for this year, you can see that it's a hodgepodge of all kinds of books. I have been reluctant to tell everyone about the books I read for fear of judgement. Especially because I have certain friends who read nothing but the most literary and mind-boggling books. I have become wary of asking them for book suggestions because the result is often akin to being hit on the head with one of those huge volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. This year I have decided to make my reading list public, shedding all inhibitions! 

Here are the ones I liked the best among the books I've perused this year:

1. Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino: I am savoring my way through this author's detective fiction. Its pace is slow and soft, with plenty of brain and little action - a lyrical poem of a murder story. Last year I read The Devotion of Suspect X. Usually I gobble up any series that I am enamored of. But this, I am determined to take in slowly.

2. Martha's Vineyard - Isle of Dreams by Susan Branch: This multifaceted artist whose handwritten books are so adorable, completed her autobiographical trilogy with this one. It had long been on my wish list and I finally  succumbed to buying it this year. Chronologically, this is the second book of the lot. This and a Fine Romance are vying for the first place in my heart! Each of her books is a treasure for always. First you read it for the story, then for the lovely handwriting, then the quotes, then the artwork... it simply gives and gives!

3. A Job You Mostly Won't Know How to Do by Pete Fromm: A bittersweet story of a widower bringing up a newborn, trying to keep things together with help that is both wanted and unwanted, fighting depression, and trying to stay solvent at the same time. The tragedy is tempered with humor. The wild Montana landscape is as much a part of the protagonist's life as are the people in it. Looking forward to more Pete Fromm.

4. Open by Andre Agassi : I was a firm Agassi and Steffi Graf fan in my teens. This book should be read by all the youngsters who want to take up sports at a professional level. Of course, one doesn't need a scary father like Agassi Sr., but the dedication, the patience, the tolerance for pain and mind games... Granted, some of Agassi's criticism about famous sport personalities feels a tad bitchy, but hey, everyone is entitled to be the hero of his own life! Really worth reading. Perhaps one should  read Brooke Shield's There was a Little Girl too along with this.

5. Seven Secrets of the Goddess by Devdutt Pattanaik: Pattanaik is fast becoming an authority on Hinduism—the ever-evolving religion that expands indefinitely to envelope many beliefs, philosophies, deities and methods of worship. In this book, he examines the evolution of the worship of the feminine principle in Hinduism, the Goddess in her myriad forms and expressions. A true eye-opener. 

6. Shunya by Shri M: A novel about a holy man written in simple language, propounding great ideas. So easy to read that one might miss the gems that are embedded in it. 

7. A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C A Fletcher: May be not the most reassuring thing to read in this pandemic era, but I was intrigued by the title. The world's human population dwindles due to a mysterious malady that spread a few generations ago. The world inhabited by Griz is sparsely populated and strangers are not always welcome or trustworthy. Then Griz has to leave his tiny, safe island to find his dog. The post-apocalyptic world is exquisitely detailed. Thrilling and lyrical. A beautiful twist at the end. What more can one want?

8. No Regrets by Kaveree Bamzai: The book's subtitle says it all: The Guilt-Free Woman's Guide to a Good Life. The book speaks to educated and employed women in somewhat affluent circumstances. The author provides advice for women who are tugged apart to bits by job and family responsibilities. The points she makes are valid and the presentation is so attractive that I liked the book very much even though I am a confirmed, voluntary stay-at-home-mother. 

9. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles: This is the book I like the best among those I have read this year. Usually I avoid Russian or Russia-themed books. It must be a reaction from having tried to read the classic Russian novels in my early teens and being put off by all the complex nomenclature of the characters. It seemed to me that they kept changing their names from paragraph to paragraph just to muddle me and I often had to go back to the beginning. I have never finished the Brothers Karamazov even though I tried valiantly several times. But I am happy that I overcame the aversion to read this one. I got the Kindle edition, but I have put the physical book on my wish list. Because I want to go back to the Metropol again and again, dip into the little attic room, run along the service stairs, have dinner in the restaurant, served by Count Alexander Rostov himself... A wonderful story of inventiveness, adaptability, courage and sheer joie de vivre.

10. The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson: The title is long enough for a book! I came to know of this when Dr. Shashi Tharoor recommended it in an interview. Although we first get to meet Allan Karlsson when he does the thing described in the title on his hundredth birthday, his subsequent adventures are interspersed with episodes of the extremely colorful life of the man and the circumstances that have led him to bunk his birthday celebrations by climbing out of the window. The story reminded me of Forrest Gump. I look forward to reading the sequel.

There it is! I have limited myself to these ten even though there are many more that I more than just liked in the list. Hope I have whetted your appetite to try one of these!

From my Bookshelf - The Cliffhangers by Sabin Iqbal

This year, I am resurrecting a long-dormant section of this blog. What is a bookworm to do but review books? 

There are quite a few reasons why I bought this book from MBIFL. First of all, I had seen the author as he had been one of the organizers of the writers' workshop that I had mentioned earlier. Also, the novel is set in a place that is close to us - Varkala, one of the most popular tourist spots in the district. I wanted to see how the writer had treated a modern story set in Kerala and I am always interested in seeing how the untranslatable parts of our language and culture have been handled.

Imagine my surprise when Sabin Iqbal turned out to be the father of one of my son's friends! So this time, I had no trouble asking him to sign my book and chat with him a little about his writing habits...

 

And he kindly posed when my son requested a picture...

Oh, by the way, Mr. Iqbal was also the festival director at MBIFL2020!

Due to my backlog of reading material and a certain writing challenge that is underway, I didn't get to the Cliffhangers till two days ago. And once I did, there was no putting it down. 

The novel deals with four young adults: Moosa, Thaha, Jahangir and Usman who live near the Cliff in Varkala. Their friendship was forged in common pain and humiliation in childhood and they still cannot let go of it even at the ripe old age of nineteen and must keep on secretly pestering the perpetrator in retaliation. By this time, the four friends have earned the name of the Cliffhangers. They keep each other company in the all the adventures of youth - love, weed, fights, sports and general mayhem. 

What sets them apart is that they have made a conscious choice to keep away from the polarizing politics and religion of their region. The foursome are not model characters, but they have unique ways of dealing with those friends who they deem to have got the initial signs of the disease called fundamentalism. And very effective it is too - when I read the novel, I dearly wished I could deal with a few friends and relatives the same way. 

Mr. Iqbal's writing is simple and powerful (I know, I know, Premam and Vimal sir have ruined those adjectives for all time to come!), there was nothing that sent me running to my dictionary. But there were some lyrical passages about the beauty of the seaside town that had me wishing I could go to Varkala this very moment and be there to see it for myself. Those lyrical passages are the relief spots in the otherwise hopeless outlook on the polarizing trends that are happening in our state, country and the world over. 

Of the characters, the most memorable for me are Moosa's Mother, the quiet and erudite Vivekanandan, Jonathan Boyce, SI Devan and the foursome themselves. The most memorable scenes are those of the cricket match, the curing of the fundamentalist disease as mentioned earlier, the killing of the white rooster and several others which, if I were to mention them all, would have me writing down the whole story here.  

Mr. Iqbal's novel reminded me of Golding's Lord of the Flies at times although there are few similarities. There is always that sense of impending doom hanging over the protagonists and the little world that they inhabit.

Another thing that piqued my interest is the foursome's repeated attempts to learn English. They failed miserably in their school years, can understand enough English to make out different accents, but don't have the confidence to speak. Mr. Iqbal returns to this obsession of the boys throughout the book. The uniquely Malayali love-hate relationship with English is something about which I could write a whole another post!

My recommendation for what it is worth: everyone should read this book. I would have recommended that it be a college text book for its linguistic and artistic merits as well as its core message, only that textbook committees might vote against it for the racy parts. My fifteen-year old read it, liked it and he was not fazed, but he forbade his 11-year old brother from reading it. 😀

Afterword: As I sat back after reading the novel, I thought about what it is that really holds the country called India together. Going by the nature of the volatile elements in the novel, this country should have been burned, razed to the ground or hacked into pieces by now. Why hasn't it happened then?

The answer is this. There is a silent majority in this country. These people keep their heads down and go about their daily business without trying to separate man from man on the basis of color, class, creed or politics. They understand that all people have the same basic necessities and if everyone cooperates, life can be peaceful and enjoyable. Some of them hold fast to the ideal that all people are equal. Some of them are wise enough to understand that the forces of Isfet and Ma'at (chaos and order in Egyptian mythology) are always at war and one or the other must have the upper hand at times. They bide their time till action becomes the need of the hour. And there are some who have the touch of the Divine and spread acts of compassion and care across all man-made divisions.

There will always be hotheads who are prompted by Ares (forgive me, my kids have transmitted their Rick Riordan addiction) to create unrest and war in the name of whatever they can cook up at that moment. As for me, my prayer is the same as this great son of India's:

Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
where knowledge is free.
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection.
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it's way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.
Where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever widening thought and action.
In to that heaven of freedom, my father,
LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE!”  

-Rabindranath Tagore

Brimming with literary energy

As promised, I am back with pictures and impressions of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters also known as MBIFL. For those who are not in the know, this year the capital city hosted the third edition of the festival. Kanakakkunnu Palace veritably turned into a palace of letters...

This time I was determined to visit the festival at least three out of four days, so I booked a "Delegate" pass online. I was so happy that I did because I was greeted with a pretty tote bag upcycled from an old bedsheet...

It reminded me of my own efforts way back in 2014. I was very glad to learn of the green protocol that was strictly enforced at the venue, which meant that even plastic water bottles were confiscated at the entrance. I was glad that I had carried my steel water bottle. The venue had plenty of kiosks where water, cooled sambhaaram and naruneendi juice were available. 

Unlike my random forays to the festival avenue in the past two years, I was determined to get information on all things festival this time around, so I followed MBIFL on Instagram. Five days before the festival started, I got an update saying that Mathrubhumi was conducting a workshop in English writing called "The Sentence". That is how I came to attend the workshop as I mentioned in my last post.

The workshop was led by Dr. Manu Remakanth who heads the Department of English at SN College, Chempazhanthy. He lent us two 'brushes' to help us with descriptive writing. Between his fascinating class and the group exercises, I didn't even notice the passage of time.

So here is my tribe with our 'chief' in the paper the next day...

This time around, I carried a notebook and a camera as well as a printed schedule of the program of the day for the festival. Organizing is everything! Simultaneous discussions/conversations/solos were conducted at hourly intervals at seven different stages spread throughout the venue. The last couple of years, I just dipped in at various stages trying to take in as much as I could. But this time I sat through whole sessions whenever possible, took copious notes and photographs so that I would not forget all those wonderful nuggets of information, names of fascinating books mentioned in passing or any other tidbit that a budding writer could use. 

The highlight of the festival for me was seeing Alexander McCall Smith and listening to him read an excerpt from one of his books. If you've been a reader of my blog from the beginning, you know that I'm a huge fan, especially of the Precious Ramotswe series. So entranced was I just being able to see and listen to him that I quite forgot my celebrity phobia and actually got up to ask him a question about my favorite series! I also told him that he and James Herriot are the authors I turn to when my mind's chatter becomes too much and I cannot concentrate on anything. And if that were not enough, I waited till he was off the dais and offered the great writer a handshake and thanked him for writing books! Major fan-girl moment!!!

It was all the more astonishing because just 45 minutes before this had happened, I had been to the book signing event of Dr. Shashi Tharoor and hadn't opened my mouth to say anything except "Good Morning" and "Thank you" and had spent the silent eternity it took for him to sign my book mentally kicking myself for being tongue-tied.

But meeting Mr. Smith took the bridle off my tongue. Later during the festival I was able to ask Anita Nair about the conception of Idris and questioned Devdutt Pattanaik about whether the Adhyatma Ramayana didn't read like a huge conspiracy for genocide.  I also quizzed a few other writers about whether they avoided potboilers in their reading while choosing only literary fiction and asked them to share their own favorite books on the craft of writing. 

All in all, it was a soul-enriching, uplifting and absolutely scrumptious three days for me. I gave the festival a miss on my birthday because there were several things on the home front to be done that day and I had to stay at home. Besides, I probably would have undergone spontaneous combustion from all that inspiration in unmitigated doses!!! Here are a few more pictures of MBIFL from my camera.

 

This is one time I wish I had at least five clones to take part in all the fascinating programs held at the various stages scattered around the venue. There are photos and videos galore on MBIFL's Facebook page and Instagram page (link given previously) if you want to checkout this boon to the book lovers of the city. Hope you will join me for the next edition!!!

Books Kon Mari-ed!!!

Today's post is a placeholder of sorts. This week has been hectic with the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters, the third edition of the literary festival held at the Kanakakkunnu Palace Grounds here in Thiruvananthapuram. It is, without doubt, the best thing in the year for me, because it is held during the first weekend of February and my birthday is on the first of February. This means that the festival has been like a special birthday celebration for me for the past three years!!!

In addition to the festival, this year I was lucky enough to attend an English writing workshop held at Mathrubhumi in the run up to MBIFL this week, where I met a few members of my tribe - people who are crazy about language and passionate about writing. The shot in the arm that single day has given me is immense. 

But this is all I can manage today. I will regale you with tales of #MBIFL2020 next week for sure. For the time being, do enjoy pictures of my newly Kon Mari-ed, Pinterested and Instagrammed bookshelves!!! 😁

Starting with white spines, sliding into VIBGYOR and then fading into browns and blacks...

Things will stay like this probably till the day I get fed up with trying to find a title and not succeeding. Like I did two days ago trying to find Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird  to add to my picture of books on writing and creativity..

It was not till the next day that I remembered that the spine of Bird by Bird was red and searched in that section! 

Once I get fed up, it will be back to dividing by English fiction, non fiction and Malayalam books, all sorted by author's surname in alphabetical order. 

But for the time being, don't they look pretty?

Of course, this collection does not include my kids' books, spiritual and scripture books, dictionaries and encyclopedias, coffee table books or my collection of craft books. 😂😂😂

2017 is over, so soon?

I love being a homemaker. One of the reasons is that it offers a wide variety of activities that appeal to me. No two days are alike on this job. One day I might be a cleaning diva, the next day I could be a nurse, on the third day I can wow my family with baked goodies... the list is endless. 

The only problem with this is, unlike a day job where the milestones are marked with pay raises, promotions, certificates and congratulatory parties, homemaking is a mostly thankless and featureless career. When I look back, it all seems like an endless corridor of cooking, cleaning and other mundane tasks that I have traversed with my apron firmly tied on.

So this year I've decided to sit down and list the things that I have learned and accomplished in the past 12 months. I don't want to remember years just for the memorable trips we took or tragedies in the family and friends circles.

Here is my list:

Gardening: Grew my first ivy gourds or kovakkai in pots and devised a pandal using plastic netting between our well and shed. The yield wasn't spectacular, but the vine is still alive and that is a huge accomplishment for me! 

I also improvised a trellis for purple long beans and had a bountiful crop. We planted more fruit trees this year. So in addition to the jackfruit, tamarind and coconut trees we had when we bought the plot, we now have cashew, sapodilla, guava, papaya, bell fruit, passion fruit and mulberry. My plan for the next year is to nourish these properly. The pineapple that I had got to grow from the top of a store-brought fruit has finally decided to put forth a fruit after two years of merely taking up space in our backyard. Talk about bonuses!

I also managed a couple of elephant yams and finally succeeded in getting a kanthari (bird's eye chilli) to grow from seed. DH and I planted around 26 banana and plantain rhizomes in May and got help in maintaining them. They are flourishing. And here I was thinking that I barely did anything in the garden due to health issues in the latter part of the year!

This year is notable for my discovery of a miraculous addition to my gardening - cocopeat! We have clayey soil that becomes quite hard in summer months. I was looking for a way to loosen it up and happened on this product at an agro store. I've used it for all the new plantings this year and it has worked wonders. Later, my hunch was confirmed by an agricultural expert's YouTube video recommendation for loosening and aerating clayey soil!

Craft: Learned and made three crochet amigurumi. Made my first macrame pieces.

I am also learning polymer claying. My first pieces are very rudimentary and I am still learning the various techniques.

And of course there was that needlework project that is now framed and hanging right at our entrance so that the maker can boast to her heart's content...

I managed to BuJo through the year and have decided that I don't need any other planner ever again. But the recommended BuJo journals are very prohibitively pricey (Leuchtturm 1917 - Rs.3000 for a notebook!!!) and the dotted notebook I got from Amazon shed pages so badly that I was left pasting back the pages more than I was writing in it. Other replacements had pages that ghosted and even bled.

So I bought a package of cream-colored A4 premium bond paper from my favorite stationery shop and learned kettle-stitch binding from YouTube. My first attempt at trimming the pages after binding turned out like a rat chewed up its edges. Ani now uses that as a sketch book. I bound two more and got them trimmed and covered by a professional binder. Then I added elastic closures and colorful endpapers on my own... 

Here they are: my new BuJo and Craft BuJo for 2018. Hope to learn how to do the covers by myself next year. The paper quality is the best! I can even paint in them if I want to. I thumb my nose at you, expensive stationery manufacturers!!!

Cooking and baking: Baked Tres leches, Red velvet, Devil's food and Caramel cakes. Learned how to make Swiss meringue buttercream icing - think I will never go back to plain ol' buttercream unless I need an eggless cake and icing. I tried my hand at icing flowers too! Here was my best effort of the year made for the "baby" in our family who complains if I don't write his name in icing on the top of the cake! (Yep, that's my DH)

In addition to baking I tried my hand at Unniyappam (turned out soft and yummy in spite of my skipping the step of letting the batter rest awhile after mixing), Kumbilappam during the jackfruit season and a savory, tangy Bhakarwadi that was a huge hit. I tried pickling tender mangoes, but got the proportions of masala all wrong so that instead of being soft and mushy, they turned out hard as bullets and too salty after the requisite 6 months in a closed jar. Ah, some you lose!

Home: Painted a whole room and learned quite a few valuable lessons in the process. Then I read this (highly recommended) book...

... learned to repair a leaky toilet by myself (cost 20 rupees) and emboldened by the feat, went on to replace the lights on the gate post by myself (no manual required). This is in addition to the valve-changing, picture-hanging etc that I usually do. 

I also managed to give our living room a makeover this month, but more on that in another post!

Books: I managed to stick to my resolution of listing all the books I read this year and writing a short precis of each. So far, the number is 131 - therefore I have managed to bring down the average number of books that I read from 15 to around 10 a month. Definite improvement, I would say! I will share my favorites of the year in another post.

Please don't think I am boasting about the number of books that I manage to read because anyone who knows me can tell you that reading is almost as essential to me as breathing. And please don't imagine that all my reading is either high literature or philosophical reading - those are certainly there, but I love reading potboilers, well-researched romances, memoirs, travelogs, good whodunits, thrillers and humor. I am looking forward to reducing this number even more because this year the power of the left lens of my specs went from -10.00 to -10.25 dioptre, not a good thing at my age!

Writing has not been very good this year: I managed a measly 12 blog posts not including this one. Didn't do any creative writing this year. And I didn't miss it much either...hmm, that is food for thought...

Towards the end of the year, I managed to help out a friend by copy-editing his wife's doctoral thesis. It led to my now getting two paying clients for my copy-editing and rewriting services!

All in all, it has been a good year for domestic activities at Karthi! I am so grateful for the new things I've learned this year. But my greatest thanks goes to DH who works hard and manages our finances so well that I have the leisure to be a homemaker. I cannot thank him enough for that.   

Do you look back at each year? Do the years appear distinct or do they telescope into each other and become a jumbled mess?  How do you chronicle the year's events? Do comment in the form below...

Wish you all a very merry Xmas and a Happy New Year! Signing off for 2017!

Ask and be told....

Karthi is officially into summer hols from today. Oh yes, the kids' exams were over by mid-March and they have been completely immersed in activities of their own choice for the past two weeks. But it is not really summer vacation without the whole gang of neighboring kids finishing their exams and joining up, is it? 

Meanwhile their sly Momma has been using them to help finish reorganizing our home. We just had not realized till we called in the painters last December that Karthi was harboring a lot of junk. This time we were only getting our downstairs portion painted. So we had to shift everything except the heavy furniture upstairs where we set up "camp". In the process, cupboards after cupboards brought out so many things we had stashed away without thought. Our peripatetic way of life went on hiatus 5 years ago, and we never had to face all the accumulation of our belongings all at once like this. By the time we had to move things back, I was paralyzed by the thought!!! I would have taken a picture of the chaos that was the upstairs hall which was stacked on all sides with various things with only a narrow path left in the middle to walk through... only I was sure it would give me nightmares to look at it later, so I desisted :D

I have this strong belief that we get guidance to solve our problems before or as we are facing them. For me this usually comes in the form of - what else? - books! Last June, I got to read this fabulous book by Marie Kondo

I am and always have been very interested in organizing books and Marie's KonMari method has really helped me. DH and I decided that we will move down ONLY that which we use and love downstairs and would bag up the recyclable items for our dealer as we moved through the things we needed. That way, the recyclables didn't even come into our newly emptied space. 

I took this opportunity to dump a lot of stuff I was holding on to in the name of sentiment - which included old clothes, books that I never enjoyed any more, etc. As the kids and I went through the items, I appointed Kunjunni to ask me if I really was going to keep certain dubious items. He performed the role very well and prised out more useless items out of my grasping clutches and dumped them in the recycling sack. I only hope I will not take to raiding the sack which is currently awaiting the recycling guy now. Wasn't it really forward-thinking of me to appoint a supervisor over me? Knowing oneself is the greatest achievement one can attain you know! 

I applied the KonMari principle to getting the kids' clothes organized too. Every year our kids get clothes as gifts. While Kunjunni will happily wear anything that fits, Ani is very choosy and will not deign to wear something that he has taken a dislike to at first sight. Their clothes were arranged in stacks to which the laundered ones were added on top after each wash and they pulled off the ones on top the next time they got dressed. Which meant that on most weekends they would be wearing the same outfit! 

So we pulled out all their clothes and first I asked them to choose the ones that they loved and fit them. I stopped myself from persuading Ani to keep things that still fit, but that he didn't like. But I did snatch an old t-shirt from Kunjunni that had tattered ends and huge holes in the armpits! Gee, I think he is more like me than I thought I was!!! Then I helped them learn the KonMari method of folding their outfits to make them stand properly in the drawers. So now they get to wear what they love and can see all their choices properly! 

Now all that are left upstairs to be organized are our framed pictures and files and folders of every year from 2007. I am absolutely reluctant to drill holes in our pristine walls (just like guys with new cars are wary of each scratch!) and I think most of the files and folders need careful revisiting and decluttering. 

Speaking of help arriving in the form of books: I have to tell you about three books that came my way after I lost my mother. I chose them all for different reasons, but unknown to me, all dealt with mother-daughter relationships and helped me clarify my feelings and grieve properly. 

The first book is written by Brooke Shields:

This book of course jumped out at me because of the subtitle. Although my Mom was nothing like hers, I could relate to the death scene and acknowledge me feelings of being a witness to my my mother's passing.

I love reading the stories of crafters about how they evolved through their craft. So my next pick was Rachael Herron's book:

As I read through her stories, I found most of them related to her mother and I started remembering the days when Ma used to stitch dresses for me on her old Singer, the very one on which I cut my teeth, even before learning hand-sewing... 

This was feeling a little weird. Whatever I read ended up being about mothers! So next I chose one purely for the title without looking at the blurb. The title said "Glitter and Glue"... but the cover should have tipped me off???

Turns out Kelly Corrigan's father was the glitter and her mother was the glue. And if her relationship with her own mother wasn't enough, there was material about a family in which she au-paired where a mother had died of cancer and left a family bereft....

All these books helped me into coming to terms with my loss. Which is why I believe in guardian angels and divine guidance....

From my bookshelf - The Fault in Our Stars

It's been a while since a book moved me so much that I wanted to write about it. What with Kala Chaarutha happening, my reading is limited to what I can snatch at bedtime before I drop off to sleep. Even so, I managed to somehow finish John Green's The Fault in Our Stars in just a couple of sittings. 

I had had my doubts about reading this book despite some rave reviews I've been reading for some time. When the protagonists are both cancer patients, it wouldn't certainly be a happy story, I was sure. And after the mind-numbing shallowness of Stephanie Meyer's vampire series, I was not sure I wanted to try a "teenage" romance again. It was probably the small size of the book and the promise of absolutely no sequels that made me go for it :).

And was I surprised. Yes, the story is unutterably sad. Yes, it is tragic. Yes, it made me cry.  But they were cleansing tears - the good kind. I will not set out the plot here or the points that made me love the book because I hope you will go ahead and read it and feel as moved as I did. Let me just say that I was awed by the quiet bravery that human beings can achieve in the face of the greatest pain.

In many ways it reminded me of another of my all-time favorite love stories: Erich Segal's Love Story. Which of course, is another tragedy. It has the same type of snappy dialogue, the same brevity of expression and the same intensity of feelings, not to mention cancer playing spoilsport. 

All in all, a must-read for people who like love stories and don't mind if they don't have happy endings!

Eyes bigger than tummy...

For years, DH has had this habit. He peeks over my shoulder while I am cooking and I can anticipate his question well in advance, "Is that going to be enough?" Never mind if I was cooking for just the two of us in our younger days, or for a party of ten or daily meals for the four of us now - it has been  always the same question, "Is that going to be enough?" The ONE single time there hadn't been enough was when I had slightly underestimated the amount of rice required for an Onam meal in Minneapolis way back in 2006 and that was soon remedied by a second pressure cookerful which was ready by the time we needed it. Nevertheless, the question has continued down the years and never fails to elicit an eye-roll reaction from me and this comment:

"Your eyes are way bigger than your tummy!"

Well, things have a way of coming back at one. Last Wednesday, we went to the DC Books International Book Festival here (I got a personal invitation over the phone on account of my being a VIP member! :)). It also happened to be the day we took my MIL for a cardiac checkup for which we had to wait about half a day. So the book fair was a treat for us. That is, until we got to the venue, found it extremely crowded on account of the Gandhi Jayanti holiday and our younger son threw a tantrum after he was woken up from his nap in the car. Suffice to say, I just grabbed a few books from here and there, spent more time pushing through the crowds than browsing and came out with my purchases in record time.

Yes, I got my long-awaited Completed Works of Bashir! Those two tomes are enough to build serious muscles! :) But the aftertaste of an unsatisfactory book fair attendance lingered on... So, on the way back I decided that I would make a trip to the fair on a working day morning, all alone and have my fill of books. Until I started putting away my purchases in their appropriate shelves that night...

What was this?  Markus Zusak's The Book Thief? Did I finish this? Then I saw a dog-eared copy of The Story of My Experiments with Truth (how appropriate for the day!). I opened it to find that it had been purchased back when I was 14 years of age. When had I last read this? What did I remember of it? Just two or three episodes probably - the beef tea episode, the toilet-cleaning episode or did I remember them more from the movie Gandhi? Hmm...

Then I went over my favorite reading spots around the house and found five half-finished books and brought them back to my den. I threw open my bookshelf doors and took a detailed survey of the books there...

 

Three years ago when I was putting my book collection in those shelves, I had promised myself that I would keep only those books that I enjoyed reading several times over (I either donate or sell the others at used book stalls) and I would try to keep my collection within that bookshelf. What I forgot to do is to keep track of my reading. So I opened up a notebook and started writing down the titles of those books that I had not read, not finished or did not remember the contents of and then counted...

SIXTY NINE!!!!

Sixty nine books that are still strangers to me! Residing in my own bookshelf. Oh, how could I? Gaah! NOW look whose eyes are bigger than their tummy!!! 

So now I'm going on a book diet. No more new books till I finish the ones in my shelf and get rid of those unwanted. That also means no treating myself to a solitary second visit to the book fair this year :(.  Oh why, oh why did I have to count????

Come to think of it, it's been a while since DH has made that "Is that enough?" comment on food - not since his annual PSC test last year (no not Public Service Commission; Pressure, Sugar & Cholesterol, of course). And come to think of it, I think I'm missing it a teeny little bit. Yep, I am!

Two Books from My Bookshelf!

Hi everyone!

It's so easy to delve deep into blog-world to the extent that one forgets that one's own little blog is languishing from want of attention.  Yep, that's what happened to me. Susan Branch is one huge addiction nowadays. Rest easy, I've almost caught up with her archived pages and will soon be in real time!

Meanwhile I have not neglected my paperback friends either. One small thing that was preventing me from writing about them was the thought of photographing the covers and adding them to my posts. The procedure was enough to make me procrastinate - take digicamera, put in batteries, take pics, find connecting cable, connect, copy, paste etc. etc. Sheesh. So I took the easy route today. Took pics on my phone, transferred with bluetooth to my comp. Tada!!! So now don't go complaining the pics aren't very good or clear, I don't have an iPhone!

The first book was this: a thin volume that lasted me the length of a train journey from Thiruvananthapuram to Kottayam with lots of pauses between each essay to savor the flavors and think about a bit.

It has all the charm and wholesomeness of Sathyan's movies themselves. Each reminiscence is filled with truth, humor and candor.  I couldn't help but relate to several things that this people's director has to say - especially about the lost art of letter writing. Yes, we can communicate with a wider audience within a teeny tiny fraction of the time now. But no email or social website can reproduce the qualities of a handwritten letter. I tried reviving my letter-writing habit a while ago, but was stumped when I couldn't find anyone to send them to! Now I can only thank the stars that I have had the lovely experience of sending and receiving letters in the past. If anyone's interested in writing letters just for the sake of writing and receiving them, please let me know! We'll  indulge our craziness together and keep our postmen busy! 

If you can read Malayalam, do get yourself a copy of  Ormakalude Kudamaattam, savor it on a leisurely afternoon and share with your family and friends.

The second book was Monisha Rajesh's Around India in 80 Trains -  a travelogue or rather a trainologue.

On a not-so-subtle take on Verne's book, Monisha even names her Norwegian photographer companion Passepartout. His real name as well as the photographs he took are missing from the book. Or were the photographs meant for some other project? I don't know. The book has some wit and some touching moments. But what stands out throughout the book is the author's confusion about her own identity and nationality - she says that she roots for the English cricket team when it plays against India, but she also feels the need to defend India against foreigners who would look down upon the country as a whole. This confusion makes for some tiring reading, but I guess Monisha was only being true to herself. To add some drama and continuity to the book instead of making it simply a string of train journeys connected by stations, the author introduces an acrimonious theological debate with Passepartout and a blustering Railway employee Anusha.  Like any Westerner offended by pantheistic Hinduism, she storms out of Puri Jagannath Temple after her religious affliation was doubted and falls for Vipassana meditation. Her moments of "resentment release" reads like a chapter straight out of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love.  In short, Monisha is not sure she wants to be labeled an Indian but is very angry when someone refuses to see her as Indian. Funny! 

Personally I find writers like William Dalrymple much more in tune with the culture he is writing about, notwithstanding his enthusiastic comment splashed straight across the cover of Around India...

Good points: The lady has a wonderful power of observation and eye for detail that makes her word portraits truly marvelous, though they are mostly in a sarcastic and censorious vein. And her book is very informative and is never dull for a moment.

Certainly worth a read.

A finished crochet project and a favorite book series...

Ahh, it's good to be back, sitting at home and not rushing about getting ready for another hospital visit. Both the kiddos are still a bit under the weather, but are in manageable shape. What a rough beginning for the year this has been!

Well, all that time at the hospital did not go to waste as I managed to finish this...

It's a gift for my favorite aunt who celebrated her 60th birthday in Feb. We were to have given her a surprise party in Kottayam when all the plans went kaput due to my Dad's illness. Anyway, it's finished and ready for whenever I get a chance to meet her!

I also got time to read - and I enjoyed going back to one of my favorite series: Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. I currently own five out of the 12-book series. Let me show you what first attracted me to the books:

Yep, I was first attracted by the covers that are wonderful works of art. And once I tried the first book, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, I was hooked! 

To give you the background: Precious Ramotswe, a native of Botswana starts the first detective agency in Gaborone. Mma Ramotswe is  "traditionally built" (oh, how I love that epithet!), extremely observant, kind and tactful - all factors that make her trustworthy and therefore sought after by her clients. She has a highly qualified secretary called Mma Makutsi (whose ambition is to become Chief Detective) and together they solve various minor and major mysteries and problems that come to them.

I'll tell you right away that this is not a detective series in the usual sense of the word. It's more the exploration of a lifestyle, a look into the lives of simple people and their little problems. The overall tone is light and pleasing with a lot of profound truths thrown in. We read a lot about Africa and its life, it's so difficult to tear our imagination away from those usual exotic descriptions and to think of the people there leading mundane lives just like ours. Once, I was talking to an Irish lady who had come to India for research and she told me that she had been totally surprised to see "normal" people leading "normal" lives in India. Till she came here, she had pictured India to be a land of the poor and suffering living in dismal conditions.  Of course that was before the IT boom period and I think the outlook has changed a lot now! 

Back to the series, Precious Ramotswe's  adventures are the perfect remedy for a tornado-paced life. Whenever you need a break from the breakneck speed of daily life, press the pause button, pick up any book of this series and revel in a story that is in no hurry to get anywhere. The author will charm you into understanding that Mma Ramotswe's circumstances are not so different from yours and that you need not run around like a headless chicken to sort out your life.

If you become sufficiently enamored of the writer, you can try out more of his book series (he's a very prolific writer!) like the Sunday Philosophy Club, The 2 1/2  Pillars of Wisdom or 44 Scotland Street. My personal favorite is The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency!

From my kitchen and from my Bookshelf

Here is a picture of our breakfast two days ago - fresh tapioca from our backyard. No chemical fertilizers or pesticides were used to produce these tubers. What the heck, we did little other than paying for planting the tapioca cuttings! 10 months later, we are reaping the benefits! 

Did you know that tapioca was first introduced to Kerala by a Travancore king? Sri Visakhom Tirunal Rama Varma (ruled 1880-1885) brought the tuber to Kerala in an effort to alleviate the famines caused by frequent paddy crop failure. Paddy must be one of the most fragile of crops - the least drought or unseasonable rain spells its doom as we all know. So tapioca was a big boon to people at that time.

Which brings me to one of the books I am reading right now - I got this historical titbit from "The Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple" written by Aswathi Tirunal Gowri Lakshmibai. I did not know that there was a such a book until some photographs from it began appearing in the newspapers in connection with recent events. The next time I went to the temple, I asked the staff about the book and got the astonishing answer that there was a counter in the temple itself exclusively for the Malayalam and English editions of the book! You can imagine I didn't lose much time in getting a copy. I bought the Malayalam edition, translated from the original English one by K. Sankaran Namboothiri and K. Jayakumar.

The book makes for some heavy reading, combining mythology, history, arcane religious symbolism and religious philosophy all together in one volume, in very ornate language resembling nineteenth century English novels. It starts with the origin of the temple and makes informed guesses regarding the founder and the founding according to which the temple could be anywhere from 5000 years old. Of course, the present grand form was the contribution of Sri Anizham Tirunal Marthanda Varma whose reign marked the entry of Travancore into the modern age. The author bases her work on several earlier scholarly works, but mainly on the biggest treasure (according to historians!) of the temple. These are the Mathilakam Rekhakal - the thousands of precious palm-leaf scrolls that form the "log book" of the temple since ancient times and have inadvertently become a history book of sorts in a country notorious for its mostly oral historical traditions. Remember studying in school that we have had to learn about the great Indian emperors of yore from the accounts of Chinese, Persian or European travelers? These same scrolls have served Dr. RP Raja (New Light on Swathi Tirunal) when the very existence of Swathi Tirunal was questioned in a writ filed in the High Court in Chennai. Since the temple was intimately connected with the royal family, temple history is also the history of the tiny kingdom. I would say that the temple has had some measure of peace in the post-Independence era as it seems to have been a hotbed of intrigue and power struggles before that.

History aside, the book is valuable in its description of the huge temple itself. I have been there several times and still the descriptions of  many of the rituals and minor deities are new to me. To any uninformed first-time visitor, the temple would be a total puzzle. I remember my first visit in 1996 while I was a student in Thiruvananthapuram. I couldn't make out the proper exit from the inner temple, so I ended up doing a counter-clockwise circumambulation, which is considered sacrilegious! Thankfully, since then I have learned to ask the very helpful temple staff for help when in doubt. The elaborate offerings, traditions and festivities of the temple are laid down clearly in the book and make for fascinating reading, although they must be a real headache to implement. I imagine only the British sovereign family and the Vatican must have more elaborate protocol.

 

The author takes on a lot in the book - she has to play impartial historian while being a passionate devotee of the deity and being absolutely devoted to her own family which has played the central role in the fortunes of both the state and the temple. I find it interesting that she has let the historian in her be frank about some of her ancestors - stating mildly that they were occasionally not as capable as they should have been in ruling the state or the temple affairs. Since the book is about the temple, the historical portions are as brief as can be made and she apologizes in several places for mentioning the rulers - the profuse apologies become tiresome after a bit! She could've just mentioned it in the Introduction and then left it out altogether. There are photographs of the temple's seevelippura, the kulasekhara mandapam and some of the murals - not available elsewhere since photography is not allowed in the temple.

All in all, it is an excellent study of the iconic temple, a concise textbook of Travancore history and in light of the controversies of the day, makes you believe that history indeed travels in circles! Take it up when you are in the mood for some serious reading only - don't say that I didn't warn you!!!