I have always believed that true love, the kind that endures is very boring. There are moments of magic, and bliss but they come with struggles and arguments. However, more than that it really has to do with persevering through daily minutia, chores and other ordinary things that compose our lives.
Of course, in movies and stories love is like a bright burning fire, with lots of fireworks and flowers, which of course love can be, but not all of the time. If that is what one bases their idea love and marriage on, one is doomed to never find happiness.
I have a feeling lot of people in the present society have grown up with the an image of love projected by movies, and that is why even people such as Oprah are suckers for stories such as the one told in the book Angel at the Fence, which has now been proven to be a complete fabrication. It is very sad and bewildering to me that people so badly want to believe that such a love story existed in real life, when it clearly seems so far fetched.
In general, real life provides a good counterbalance to the lives in fiction. You see what you may view as perfection, in books and movies, and then you see lots of real lives around you, and you can form a good sense of reality. In there lies my concern for my children. In our increasingly isolated lives, where we only meet people for a few carefully planned hours, children do not get a glimpse of real life. As a child, I spent lots of time around various family members and learned lot about real life from them. We are so far away from all our family, however, that my children don't spend much time with them either. They basically have two points of view - the marriage of their parents and the storybook romances. As my girls grow and, God forbid, start to read romance novels, I am afraid that their perception of love and romance will get completely skewed without any dose of reality to temper the image. Thus I feel it is my responsibility to seek out books or movies with many different views of love. Therein lies my dilemma - the realistic ones are too adult-oriented with nudity and profanity, and the ones suitable for kids are too candy coated. Any suggestions?
Raising kids in a non-native environment while constantly worrying about striking the right balance.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Beetroot greens
Here is a recipe inspired by my recent trip to India, and my newly frugal mood on account of the economy. Growing up in India, no food was ever wasted. Every part of a vegetable that could be used was used and there was always a stray cow to eat what was unusable. I recently wanted to make a beetroot salad and hence bought some beets at the supermarket. These beets came with the complete top attached - a nice set of leaves and red stalks, and I couldn't get myself to throw them away and devised this recipe.
Being an old school Indian cook, I remind you don't have to measure out the ingredients exactly. Feel free to vary according to taste. Since this is meant to be scooped with a flat bread and not as a salad, I do cook the stalks to be fairly soft.
Leaves and Stalks from 6 beetroots, finely chopped
Half a red onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp olive or other cooking oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Juice of half a lime (about 1 tbsp)
2 tablespoon chopped cilantro (optional)
Place the oil in a shallow frying pan on med heat. Add the onions and saute them until they are soft and translucent. Add rest of the ingredients except for the lime juice. Stir to mix. Lower heat to med low, cover the pan tightly to let the stalks cook in their own steam. After about 5-7 minutes uncover the pot. By now the stalks should be soft and the leaves wilted. Raise the heat to med high and cook away all the liquid while stirring the vegetable around so that it does not catch or burn. Take off heat and mix in the lime juice. I like to sprinkle the cilantro just before serving to add a splash of green to the red stalks. If you add it too early it will turn red as well!
Being an old school Indian cook, I remind you don't have to measure out the ingredients exactly. Feel free to vary according to taste. Since this is meant to be scooped with a flat bread and not as a salad, I do cook the stalks to be fairly soft.
Leaves and Stalks from 6 beetroots, finely chopped
Half a red onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp olive or other cooking oil
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Juice of half a lime (about 1 tbsp)
2 tablespoon chopped cilantro (optional)
Place the oil in a shallow frying pan on med heat. Add the onions and saute them until they are soft and translucent. Add rest of the ingredients except for the lime juice. Stir to mix. Lower heat to med low, cover the pan tightly to let the stalks cook in their own steam. After about 5-7 minutes uncover the pot. By now the stalks should be soft and the leaves wilted. Raise the heat to med high and cook away all the liquid while stirring the vegetable around so that it does not catch or burn. Take off heat and mix in the lime juice. I like to sprinkle the cilantro just before serving to add a splash of green to the red stalks. If you add it too early it will turn red as well!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
A heartbreaking realization
I was in India for the past few weeks, and had a heartbreaking realization. I find that I can no longer trust the food, water and the air in India. It is shocking that a country rearing to attain a position among the world's most powerful nations cannot guarantee these basic necessities. There seems to be nothing in place to ensure that the food and water supply is not tainted with pollutants. Even if there is such a government agency, it cannot be trusted because of corruption.
Let us talk of water. All rivers are polluted by industrial waste, including heavy metals, as well as raw sewage. It is illegal to dump these things in the rivers but I doubt that is stopping anybody. Heavy metals can cause severe damage to human body, esp to babies and fetuses. In the US most pregnant women are advised to avoid fish because they can contain heavy concentrations of mercury. In West Bengal people love to eat fish from the Ganga river almost everyday. It is even believed that eating fish in pregnancy is really good because it boosts the brain of the unborn child. But what if your fish is laden with lead and mercury? If you remember the "pesticide tainted Coca Cola" scandal in India, the problem was not that somebody was adding pesticides to Coke but rather that the groundwater used to make Coke contained pesticides. If that is the case, can you even trust bottled water?
Talking of the food supply, and I am not talking of the hygiene standards of roadside food but of the raw materials themselves. Most of the vegetables that my parents buy are grown on the shores and dried up banks of the Ganga river - one of the most polluted rivers in India. In addition to that there are stories of the vendors injecting various chemicals into the vegetables to make their color or form more appealing. You can buy pasteurized milk, but do you even know what chemicals the cow was fed to increase the milk supply?
Food contamination is a problem in the US too - I am still a little vary of packaged Spinach. However, we know there are controls in place and those controls work. For most foods, you can trust the packaging as the ingredients are truthfully listed. You know which milk has added hormones and which does not. You have the information needed to make a choice as opposed to being blind-sided with no recourse.
I am truly heart broken at this thought.
Let us talk of water. All rivers are polluted by industrial waste, including heavy metals, as well as raw sewage. It is illegal to dump these things in the rivers but I doubt that is stopping anybody. Heavy metals can cause severe damage to human body, esp to babies and fetuses. In the US most pregnant women are advised to avoid fish because they can contain heavy concentrations of mercury. In West Bengal people love to eat fish from the Ganga river almost everyday. It is even believed that eating fish in pregnancy is really good because it boosts the brain of the unborn child. But what if your fish is laden with lead and mercury? If you remember the "pesticide tainted Coca Cola" scandal in India, the problem was not that somebody was adding pesticides to Coke but rather that the groundwater used to make Coke contained pesticides. If that is the case, can you even trust bottled water?
Talking of the food supply, and I am not talking of the hygiene standards of roadside food but of the raw materials themselves. Most of the vegetables that my parents buy are grown on the shores and dried up banks of the Ganga river - one of the most polluted rivers in India. In addition to that there are stories of the vendors injecting various chemicals into the vegetables to make their color or form more appealing. You can buy pasteurized milk, but do you even know what chemicals the cow was fed to increase the milk supply?
Food contamination is a problem in the US too - I am still a little vary of packaged Spinach. However, we know there are controls in place and those controls work. For most foods, you can trust the packaging as the ingredients are truthfully listed. You know which milk has added hormones and which does not. You have the information needed to make a choice as opposed to being blind-sided with no recourse.
I am truly heart broken at this thought.
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