Day 929

Loveliest stranger

“Hi.

Whether this will reach you I do not know, whether this will cause you pain I hope not as that is the opposite of my intention! I have hummed and harred over sending this message to you as I am not usually one for publicising my feelings or feeling like I am getting involved in other people’s business but I just wanted to send you a message.

I only learned yesterday of saagars death. A photo came up on my news feed with the quote ‘gone but never forgotten’. I read in to the articles I found on his profile and was instantly shocked and completely saddened by what I read.

First of all my thoughts go out to all of you and your family and friends, I can not begin to imagine how traumatic the last two years have been. I met saagar when I must of been about 16 years old, I was on a train coming back from Exeter and he got on somewhere between there and London. I was at a table with my revision books out, I had my French GCSE exam the next day. He sat opposite me and we instantly started talking. We did not stop talking for the entire 2 hours and we helped each other with French (he later admitted that he has chosen to sit by me because he saw my French books and had the same exam the next day!), he offered me his carrots and humous, we talked about the gym, drumming, his girlfriend at the time, who he’d been to stay with. I can honestly say that he was and still to this day is the loveliest stranger I had ever met. He was gorgeous, funny, talented and charming and we got on incredibly well in such a short space of time. We kept in contact via Facebook and unfortunately lost touch over the years and I never got to physically see him again, but I will never forget meeting him. I am so sorry for your loss and again am sorry if this message upsets you, I just want you to be proud of the amazing man that you brought up and I will forever cherish those few hours that i spent with him x”

(Message from EH on FB Messenger dated 6/8/2016. Discovered yesterday.)

Your message does not upset me E. I have always been proud of him and always will be. Thank you very much for taking the time to write to me.

Day 921

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Lady’s fingers

Naani’s food is the best in the world. Yes. Much better than Mamma’s. That is a fact and Mamma agrees without the slightest reservation. She is happy to continue being Naani’s student forever. Naani’s chicken curry is the bestest ever and she even manages to make vegetables taste yummy! – These lines would accurately reflect Saagar’s feelings.

Naani is my mother. I am spending some time with my folks back home and life is largely about food. Mangoes, ice-coffee, fried fish, momos and idlis form a fraction of a vast list that is adding further vastness to my waistline and other lines. Summer offers up only a few vegetables of which ‘bhindi’ or ‘okra’ is a big favourite in our family. The particularly yum preparation is the spicy, stuffed one. Uncooked it looks like the image above.

Here’s how , for 3-4 people:

300 grams of tender okra – cleaned, dried, topped, tailed and slit along the length.

For the stuffing:

Salt to taste
Turmeric powder – half tsp
Red chilly powder – half tsp
Coriander powder – 5 heaped tsp
Dried mango powder – 1 tsp
Garam masala – 1 tsp
Method:
Stuff the okra with the mixture of dried spices above.
Heat 1 tablespoon of mustard oil till lightly smoking. Splutter 1 tsp of cumin seeds in it, add the stuffed okra and cook until soft. Serve hot. Garnish with roasted sesame seeds before serving.

Saagar loved this dish. We often cooked it together. I prepared the okra and the spice mix and he put them together. We had it with yellow masoor daal and plain basmati rice.

Today, we made bhindi, sending him our love and blessings.
We missed him at the dinner table. A lot.

Day 912

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Everything was fun.

As soon as he could walk with support, leaving home in the buggy for a walk in the evening meant, him pushing the buggy, taking it for a walk. Looking into the mirror, playing hide and seek with himself was fun. Kicking a cotton sheet off him with his frantically moving arms and legs was fun. Wearing big sunglasses and shoes was fun. Playing with toys and words was fun. Crawling, walking, running was fun. Dabbling in different kinds of music was fun. The ‘bandana’ phase was fun. Playing and listening to any kind of percussion was fun.

Going round and round while sitting in one of my mother’s big cooking pots with a convex bottom was fun. On his second birthday, we found him in the balcony with a pot of yogurt, officiously feeding himself and our dog, Caesar, with alternate spoonfuls of the honeyed white stuff. As he grew older, pulling faces was fun. Smurfs and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was fun. The little toy in the occasional Happy Meal at McDonalds was fun. Z-Ball was fun.

Being back here in my parent’s house brings back heart-warming memories of his childhood. He was such good fun!

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Day 908

Posted by kidsaregifts20

This is like really hard to like think of like what to write. Some days like I suppose are like that. It’s like totally crazy. Sometimes I wish I was like doing a juice cleanse or doing like some other hippie stuff, like eating kale chips or listening to like Hare Krishna music on a vinyl.

I could like go to Starbucks to get like some inspiration but like I am so upset because like the supermarket ran out of avocados and like my nail lady didn’t have turquoise polish. The coffee at Starbucks is like fake and they like don’t pay tax. So, that’s like totally bad for the whales. I, like don’t want to be like a part of this whole corporate thing.

My therapist has been like super-useful in helping me like think about important things like this. I have decided to become like a pesce-pescetarian. I will only eat fish like that eat other fish. That’s like Buddhism or something. I think that’ll be like good for the planet.

Maybe I could like travel to like help poor people in Papua New Guinea. I don’t think like, they know much about coffee like or Mocha Frappuccino. I could maybe like be useful?

Day 852

Posted by kidsaregifts20

What completes breakfast is marmalade. What enriches it with tradition is marmalade. What makes breakfast wholesome is marmalade, a source of happy, healthy, tangy carbs.

The origins of this exquisite preserve are controversial but date back to the1500s. The name has its roots in the Portuguese language. It is made from sugar and water boiled with the juice and rind of citrus fruits. Sweet oranges, limes, lemons, mandarins, grapefruits, any other such fruits or combinations of them are used.

Apparently the younger generation of today is more inclined towards smoother spreading jams, chocolate spreads and peanut butter as opposed to the bitty orange spread.

What had me hooked was the homemade version, made with Seville oranges by Si’s mum. Dark, with an intensely rich flavor. As most modern mothers have no time to make marmalade at home, it is not surprising that their kids have no taste for it. They are missing out on a delicious piece of their heritage.

For variation, it can be flavoured with ginger and whiskey as seen in farmer’s markets and gift shops at distilleries. I like them all.

It’s official. Without doubt, I am now ‘old’.
Both, The Telegraph and BBC Radio 4 support this view.
I am not just old, but ‘elderly’.

Ref: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/23/marmalade-preserve-elderly-data-shows/