Weekday Empty-Nesters, Weekend Indentured Servants

It is demoralizing to realize that after years of being a diaper-changer, short-order cook, laundromat, car-pooler and all out factotum, you have graduated to being a motel, a Maytag, a bank and a drive-through fast-food joint.


I mention the word ‘graduated’, but it is not necessarily a sign of progress.


While they were in college, the kids would breeze in for the weekend with empty stomachs, empty wallets and full hampers, and then out the revolving door with refills and a clean load. They slept through until lunchtime, borrowed the car, hit a few bars, and with whatever left-over time they had, walked around with the cell phone glued to their ears. I guess we shouldn’t complain. They did, in all fairness, spend the remaining five minutes giving us updates (and requests), even if they were punctuated several times with the ‘ching’ of a received text message.


During this time, my best dreams were when I would snatch the cell phone from them in the throes of a tantrum and throw it in the pool. My worst nightmares were when I had to run to TMobile to pay for new ones.


My son had much the same ‘treating the house as a hotel’ routine as my daughter, except he would hit the gym to perfect his six-pack, and then come home to watch basketball in front of the TV, with another kind of six-pack.


Someone once asked my friend’s son, who was studying at UCLA, how he did his laundry. His answer was “I take the 405 South”.

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Gratitude for Gujjus… and their Theplas

The train screeched to a stop at the border and a few minutes later, there was a sharp rap at the compartment door. The Italian on the lower bunk struggled to open it. The guard entered: blond, young, grim, unsmiling – a phantasm of Rolf from the Sound of Music.

“Ihre Pass bitte!”

Blurry-eyed and befuddled from just having fallen asleep, I groped for my Indian passport and opened it to the Swiss visa page - a visa I had to procure just to get me across from Italy to Germany.

Border-man looked at me in exasperation. “Das hier ist nicht die Schweiz, Fräulein! Wo ist Ihr Visum für Österreich, bitte?”

Austrian Visa? Honey, I’m the one whose sleep-deprived brain is addled by jetlag.

As it turns out, Border-man was a bit aggravated (to put it mildly) and promptly tossed me out, kicking and screaming. Well, not exactly, but definitely pouting and pissed as hell. For one thing it was almost midnight. For another, the Brennero Pass at the Austrian- Italian border is at an elevation of 4500 ft. I was hardly clad for this weather, being dressed in a cotton kurta and kohlapuri chappals. In my defense, it was the hippie era, for another I was a desi.

Right Humility

“Meditation...makes the art of doing absolutely nothing seem quite respectable.”

OMG!! Please, no! Not now. Not here. My eyes start to water. The tickle inches up my nasal cavity. I try to control my nose with telekinesis, without success. Ok, so that’s a bunch of hogwash, I tell myself. Concentrate… and maybe the sneeze will just retreat into the diaphragm or wherever it comes from. Chest? Throat?

Turning Right vs Turning Left

My brother-in-law often gripes about how his children are so spoiled that upon entering an aircraft, they always turn left. Gee whiz, I think to myself, every parent should have that complaint. (My children turn to the kitchen for food or to my wallet for money). As for himself, he has dispensed totally with that small predicament and just walks straight into his private plane, the ‘turning left’ bit being a little too ignoble for his fancy.

He belongs to the PJ set – or the Private Jet set of people. I still have no clue what he does for a living. I think it has something to do with oil (but of course!). An inquisitive friend once asked me as to his profession, and the best I could come up with, was that he lays oil pipe lines. The look of commiseration had me puzzled for a minute, till it dawned on me that he was envisioning my brother-in-law in a helmet, pick-axe in hand, under a blistering hot sun, in the excessive heat of some Middle East country. He got the sun and the Middle East part right at least…and if he did wear a helmet, it would be custom-made by Prada.

We, on the other hand, of the proletariat class, turn right in the airplane and stay contorted in our little pillbox-sized seats, until we land and they extricate us from our seat-belt shackled misery.

A Karmic Request

Karma n. The total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny.

I like the idea of Karma. I want to believe in Karma. The concept is awesome. You clean up your act in this life – in other words, you do good and be good – and the next life, you come back in a superior form. Now, I do not mean to offend anyone, but doesn’t this sound better than hanging out in the clouds, albeit with God? But with karma, you get to play the whole world/life thing again, but next time (hopefully) with a Porsche and on the arm of George Clooney - may he come back to earth again in the same form. (Why mess with perfection?) On the other hand, I think, asking to come back on GC’s arm (and preferably his bed) can set my juju karma back a notch. Shouldn’t I really instead ask for World Peace? (or give me peace by deporting ‘big, fat, idiot’ Limbaugh back to hell?)

I embrace the idea of Karma with open arms: this concept of revivification of the body in another (hopefully higher) form with the same soul. Which genius thought this one up? Give her the Nobel Prize! (Yes, I am a feminist!)

Some of my friends call me the Queen of Rationalization and others say I have a PhD in Justification. Apart from returning in a higher form, I am trying to figure out what is the reasoning behind the idea of living a moral and virtuous life.

No Sleep for the Jet-Lagged

A note of explanation: this piece was written in Kalol, a town outside Ahmedabad ... at the crack of dawn.


It’s five o’clock. As in 5 am. As in the ungodly hour of 5 am. I sat up with a start. Someone was outside my window, torturing an animal. The awful caterwauling was accompanied by some severe, rabid beating of the drums. Was it part of some Indian ritualistic tradition? It took a few minutes for me to surface from the jetlagged torpor I had fallen into well past midnight.

As reality swam into focus, I realized it was a chorus of devotees singing praises to their Almighty. Just how many atonal groupies were out there in the procession? And why had they chosen this ungodly (pun intended) hour of the day to profess their faith? Don’t get me wrong…everyone is welcome to pray and extol the divine qualities of their chosen deity…but do they have to do it at the top of their voices right past my window and at the crack of dawn? Do I sing Om Mani Padme Hum outside their doors – although admittedly, the way I sing, I could not find a purer form of torture.

Upon making some inquiries, I discovered that this happens every single day. Every week. Every year. And what is really inconceivable is that no one has killed them (as yet). But of course, it is not surprising, this being God-fearing India. Were this to transpire in the United States, do not doubt that we have enough NRA-card carrying members to put a bullet, or several, to end their early morning ritual once and for all. Personally, I was ready to put my fear of karmic retribution on hold, and prepared to make them cease and desist this cacophonous din, never mind if it involved mass murder ending in a stint making license plates.

My cousin was appalled when I relayed this to him. “What are you saying, boss?” he shrieked. “This is our Hindu religion and they are singing about God, yaar!” I didn’t have the heart to bust his bubble by telling him that Chocolate is my religion, but at 5 am I would turn down even a good bar of Lindt. You better believe that between the hours of ten pm and eight am, the only god I believe in in Morpheus.

Jeopardizing My Life

My friends and family say that I have a pathological obsession with the show ‘Jeopardy’. Some people can be really mean! This opinion is based on the fact that I have the Jeopardy ring-tone on my cell phone and because I am a card-carrying member of the Jeopardy Junkies Club (and I stood in line to get Ken Jenning's autograph).
I have been to Sony Picture Studios in Los Angeles to watch the taping five times. I would go more often, but they have a sign outside the door with my mug-shot, saying “DO NOT admit this woman!” in large letters. Underneath, it says “Known to act really juvenile, by jumping up and down maniacally, and crying hysterically when it was time to go home.”
So, I have Alex Trebek’s picture up on my bathroom mirror. I just would like to interview him for crying out loud. I have George Clooney for my other, seriously romantic fantasies.
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Introduction

So, it seems you can teach this old dog new tricks. Learning to blog for the first time, so bear with me, please.
I guess the name needs an explanation. The word 'khitchdee' has two meanings. The first, of course, is the Indian dish made with rice and lentils - cooked together with salt and turmeric until mushy (don't knock it till you try it!). Millions of people - or should I say a billion - can't be wrong, plus it has been around since the 15th century (info courtesy wikipedia).
It also means a kind of hodge-podge and that is what my blog is about: a mishmash of tales of my travels, life in the States as a wife and a mother, plus a few random thoughts (stress on the random bit). I am using the blog as a platform to rant about things I do not like (mushrooms and massages - I know! I know! what's wrong with me?) ...and rave about the things I do (chocolate and chocolate).
Apart from the fact that I absolutely love this comfort food, I sometimes feel like a khitchdee myself. Being Indian and American, an Italophile who loves Germany and the French language, a Jeopardy addict who has to do her daily crossword and jigsaw puzzle, and go on a walk, and who loves to read and talk (again stress on the talk) makes me a potpourri-ish kind of 'madcap', to use a good old Bombay expression (and no, I will not call it Mumbai).
So, let's see how this goes...