Blessings
Photo courtesy: Balakrishnan K | www.utopianhere.com “There are blessings every day. Find them. Create them. Treasure them.”
Recent Posts
Dancing With the Fireflies
Positiveness is faith, love is my religion and a firefly is what I want to be! Resembling the subtle blinking luminous lights, peeping in the ravenous darkness of the eerie night, I want to sing silent love songs just like the male fireflies, flash and …
Happiness Is… Biriyani :)
The best way to enjoy life is to eat loads of delicious home cooked food. And for me, happiness comes with the smell of biriyani cooked in pure desi ghee, leveraged with big chunks of mutton pieces hanging around and loads of love in the form …
Birds Of Happiness…
Time flies even before you realize it. You are in this moment, you blink and it is already past, you are in present and thinking of future already.It has been three marvelous years of my wedding life. My husband’s earnest efforts to keep the relationship …
Mango Mania…
Where I grew up, there was a massive, enormously fertile mango garden right in front of our house. Every summer the trees would get laden with lots and lots of mangoes and children would start hovering over to steal and fill their stomach with its sour-sweet flavor escaping their lunch. The branches hung low and welcomed everyone gracefully to come and get a taste of what it had to offer… it welcomed everyone in its cool shade and gave them memories to cherish a lifetime! I remember spending the hottest summer afternoon lingering around the garden with my sisters and brother. We wholeheartedly gave them the adoration they deserved.
My mother would collect loads of mangoes in the morning while sending us off during the morning school. It was a routine to get up early (around 4:00 am) and get ready as soon as possible so that we could help mom collect them. We would count it as big achievements holding the morning picks in our small palms. Simple joys of life! I remember, mom sitting in the afternoon, escaping her afternoon nap, cutting mangoes in cubes and then making them into pickles. There were huge glass jars, which she pampered like infants and we were always prohibited from touching them. But, how much ever she tried, we would always open the jar lids and gobble the pickle as soon as it was kept in the sun…
Every afternoon, mango-mint chutney was a must. The sweet mango pickle she used to make was my all time favorite. The aam-panna which was made by cooking raw mango in firewood in the evening, was a drink we always looked forward to in the summers. No guest would be allowed to leave before drinking the refreshing sherbat.
And when the mangoes ripen, there would be someone or else who would come from the village with sacks full of mangoes and those would be stored neatly over newly placed hay on the floor. It was the mango season and all we did was eat, drink, play and cherish THE MANGO! Ah… good old childhood days!!
Back to the present. I can’t run around in the mango grooves anymore as there are none around my house. That’s why me and my husband are content eating this aam ki phirni for today 🙂 🙂
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and the rain and not to forget the magnificent AAM. Kyunki aam ka season baar-baar nahi aata 😉 😉 🙂
Savouring Delicacies :)
I called my mom today and it started with the same opening questions. “How are you? What had you been doing? What did you cook today?” Mom’s replies are automatic regarding food. It always starts with – “Nothing much…” even when she would have prepared enough …
Spreading Random Happiness…
One fine Friday, I was successful in spreading some random happiness. A simple quiz game and happiness as gift. Making people around you happy doesn’t just boost them but if you ever made a person smile when they have least expected it, or had been so …
Forgotten Love ♥
Life suddenly becomes so blissful, bright and happy when you get to see your forgotten love infront of you again! Specially, when it is something you have craved for long enough, something for which you have thought in countless nights, something which you thought would never be able to savour your eyes and heart again and then… there it is… infront of you… right infront of you, calling you with lots and lots of love, asking you to come and embrace it and recall the good old days… to immerse yourself once again in the sweet love of “MAHUA”!!
Photo courtesy: Gulmohar Doodles
Mahua, or Madhuca longifolia, is considered sacred among the tribal people in Jharkhand because of the tree’s medicinal values. Mahua is also the source of sustenance for many in this part of the country. It grows in abundance in the state and bears flowers from the month of January till mid April. The flowers are rich in sugar, vitamins, and calcium and the tribal people mix the flowers in their daily food preparations.
Mahua sabji is one of my favourite since I was a kid. I remember my grandmother spending hours cleaning it while sitting on a charpoy outside in the verandah. It was a savoury we use to look forward to during the spring season… Luckily, on my trip to home this time, my dad could manage to get some of these beautiful flowers… just for me 😀 … Oh! I can’t explain the burst of happiness which rushed inside me!! I have craved for this for too long. Staying here in Bangalore, I miss lots of things which are so difficult to find. I miss the forest, the greenery, the fresh wind, the chirping birds and the different forest delicacies. When my mom made these sweet mahua with loads of love I could just think of diving in the velvety taste of this masterpiece. And there I was a content soul, happy to be the daughter of the forest once again!!
Hope to meet you again my love soon… Have a wonderful and blessed week ahead lovers!
A Trip To Home…
Yes, it finally happened! I went to the place I belong to, the place I love for its simplicity, carefree life and the endless unconditional love. Where you shower in blessings, get poured with buckets and buckets of benevolent love, eat whatever, whenever, however and …