Monthly Archives: February 2014

Really not sure… Why?

So… I walk back into the store. By this time, I have realised that my car battery is gone, kaput, dead, and needs to be replaced. Triple A does have a battery replacement service, but the recorded message about the limited services…
 
With doubled energy, I dial their number. Sorry, the battery replacement service is temporarily unavailable; call back in the evening for the service. And yes, a service truck will come by in two hours and jump start my car. Two hours? Two hours.
 
Outside it is bright and sunny. For a fleeting second, I think of walking home, a distance of 20 minutes. That indeed was a very short-lived thought. What if I lose a toe or two to frost bite? Very possible in the bone chilling, mind numbing cold. And another toe or two in the walk back to the car… definitely not worth it.
 
Have you ever considered how it it would be to spend two hours in the grocery store? After you have just finished your grocery shopping? Neither had I. But, let’s look on the bright side… now I know that every brand of canned fruit – Del Monte, Dole, the store brand… they all contain the same ingredients and preservatives and colourants, in the same proportions. The next time you need some peach slices for a recipe, just grab the best priced can. Not so with pie fillings though… And thanks to the two hours spent wandering through the aisles of that grocery store, I can now confidently pen a scholarly thesis on ‘Price point variations in papier mache food consumption equipment relative to spatial dimensions and considered with brand identities’. In layman’s terms, how the price of paper plates vary according to size and brand… 🙂
 
With frequent staring at the watch, I force time to move on. Triple A calls to inform that the service truck is outside in the parking lot. I walk out and spot the truck right away. It is the same truck and the same man who helped jump start my car in the morning. Was it only this morning?
 
Again, it is a matter of two minutes to get the car started. This time it is straight back home, no driving around to get the battery charged. It is past 2 pm. I haven’t eaten a thing the whole day. All I can do is grab a sandwich – ham and cheese with lots of lettuce, in case you wanted to know – and plonk myself on the couch.
 
My shopping is not yet done, and won’t be, till the car is fixed. Promptly at 5 pm, I’m on the phone with Triple A. Yes, a service truck will be around to replace the defective battery. By 6.30 pm.
 
It is already dark outside at 5 pm. The temperature has started its night time plunge into the depths of negative numbers. By 6 pm, I’m dressed in layers and waiting for the call. Promptly at 6.30, the truck arrives. This time it is a small one and has no problem getting into the garage.
 
The man parks his truck, gets a bunch of tools and a jump cable and walks over to my car. Opens the hood, looks at things, touches a few things. Goes back to his truck, brings more stuff over. Turns, unscrews this and that under the hood. This goes on for 15 minutes. Cold wind is blowing into the garage through the open sides. I move around to keep the shivering to a minimum. After 25 minutes of tinkering, the man declares that Volkswagen cars have special battery installed batteries that can only be detached in a workshop. He offers to tow my car to an auto repair workshop. In a display of supreme self-restraint I mutter politely, No, thank you.
 
While seeing him out and rushing back to my warm home, all I can think amidst the fuming is, at what point in the 25 minutes of tinkering did he realise that my Beetle is a Volkswagen make?
 
My car service shop is just two blocks away. Next day, despite it being a Sunday, it is open at 9 am. And I’m there narrating my saga of woes to Luke, the owner. And true to his life saver persona, he asks two of his assistants to go get my car. In two hours, I get the call to tell me it’s all done. I get there, my beautiful Beetle is waiting for me, all nice and freshly washed. And the engine purrs into life with a single turn of the key.
 
They say all is well that ends well… and I know that things happen, apartments get flooded, car batteries go bad, but why oh why at this particular point in time?
 

~Ria

17 Feb 2014

Still wondering… Why, why?

So where were we? Yeah, the flood that threatened my door step did not materialise. So far, so good.

As per my plans, I was to go and do some shopping – last minute gifts, chocolates, etc – Friday evening. But after a stressful Thursday evening, I did not feel like driving out in the early dark. After all, what is Saturday for? I could comfortably do the shopping in the day time. So that was decided. Maybe, just maybe… the fact that I was in the middle of an interesting book might have had something to do with that decision. 🙂

Saturday dawned nice and sunny, with an expected high of 10 degree fahrenheit, waaay below freezing. 10ish in the morning, I go down to the car park, start the car. Grrrrr…. and nothing. Turn the keys again. GGGrrrrrr…. the engine refuses to turn over. I realise that the continued freezing cold has done a job on the car battery.

What else to do than trudge back up to the apartment and call triple A! As the phone connects, the recorded message warns that services are limited due to adverse weather. Excellent! My car battery chose the perfect day to go on strike! Hoping that jump starting will not be among the services that are chopped, I wait patiently on the line. The lady who takes the call is very polite and informs me that a service truck will be over in two hours. In the relief that the service is available, I did not even think of protesting the two hours. Not that it would have done any good, with almost all traffic slowed down with snow and ice.

As promised, in around two hours, the service truck arrives. I go down and open the garage door. But alas, the truck is too big to get in through the door, though overall it is not a too big truck at all. We go to check the door on the other side of the garage. The man is of the opinion that it is larger than the first one though I cannot see any difference. Finally he squeezes his truck through. Then, the truck cannot reach my car from this side of the garage. I have to go and request one of my neighbours to move his car so that the truck can have a way to get to my car. Done. Mr. W is very gracious and moves his car readily.

It is a matter of two minutes to jump start the car. The man tells me to keep it running for 15 minutes before driving out. Fine. By this time, the cold is seeping onto my fingers even through the heavily insulated gloves. I’m only happy to sit in the car that is warming up by the second.

I let the car warm up for a good 20 minutes and start out, headed for the grocery store first as it is closer. And drive around for a while to give the car battery time to get charged. Reaching the parking lot of the grocery store, I switch off the car, switch it back on. No problem. Switch off and wait two minutes, switch back on. No problem. The car kicks up right away. A weight off my mind, I traipse along to the store.

20 minutes back, I’m back in the car, grocery bags in the trunk. . Grrrrr…. and nothing. Turn the keys again. GGGrrrrrr…. the engine refuses to turn over. Triple A, come and save me… again!

To be continued…

~Ria

14 Feb 2014

Why Oh Why?

It all started in the week before I was scheduled to start on my winter vacation. This was a planned vacation, tickets booked a while back. Still, you know how it is… you plan all the things you need to do before you go, and you have every intention of sticking to those plans… then somehow things happen differently and you are left scrambling at the last minute. What I cannot understand is how this is the case every year, every vacation. But I digress…

So it was the week before my travel. Came back from work Wednesday evening. Entering the apartment, I can already see the flashing lights reflected on the window panes.

Looking out the window (being on the second floor, I do have a good view of the street), I can see two cop cars parked among the small hillocks of snow on the sides of the street. Suddenly I realise… the snow hills on the near side are no longer there. Instead there is a muddy stream meandering towards the rainwater drain at the end of the street. Oh no! Water main break… No wonder, considering the below freezing temperatures we have been consistently having. And it was apparent that the problem was with the main pipe that supplied water to our building.

So the smart aleck that I am, I ran to the kitchen. Put a cooking pot under the tap and started filling it with water. Already the flow of water was slowing down. As I watched, the tap spluttered a few times and the water stopped. I was not worried. Enough drinking water in the house, and of course water will be back the next day.

Next day, went to work as usual. Around 4 pm, as I’m getting ready to leave for home, my phone rings. It is Mr J, our condo president. ‘Ria, where are you? Can you get home right away? The water was turned back on a while back, after the repairs, and there is flooding in your apartment.’

The kitchen tap… I had forgotten to close it last evening! All the way home, all I could think of was, all the things I will have to throw away because of water damage. The bottom rows of my book shelves were sure to go… Gosh, all the heavy classics are on the bottom shelves…

By the time I reached home – Manhattan traffic is so unmindful of your personal emergencies! – three of my friends were waiting to help me with damage control. We rushed up. No water coming out under the door. I gingerly opened the door… expecting to step into squelching water. Nothing. Looked into the bed rooms… no problem there. Moved on to the living room… the floor is dry as a bone. Then to the kitchen… yes, the floor has patches of water puddled here and there. But beyond that, no sign of flooding at all.

What had happened was that the water had seeped under the dish washer and the floor cabinets in the kitchen and gotten to the outside corridor under the wall. And to prevent it getting to the apartment across the corridor, Mr J had the water turned off. What a relief it was, to see all the horror scenarios in my mind come to nought!

Wiping up the remaining water was a matter of minutes. And my friends insisted on celebrating my transition from panic to relief in a short hour by treating me to takeout pizza. 🙂

To be continued…

~Ria

12 Feb 2014

Performance by Ndere Troupe – A visual treat indeed!

Dance has always been a passion for me. However, my first encounter with dance did not go well. 🙂 When I was just three years, I was put in a dance class run by my school as an after class activity. To my surprise I still have a vague memory of that class packed with 25–30 children of different age groups, trying to copy what the instructor was doing. I got so disillusioned after the first class that I adamantly refused to go to the class any more. Then at the age of eight I had the opportunity to join a professionally run dance school (apparently my parents recognised the interest I I have in dance) and from then onwards dance has always been a part of my life. Never miss a chance to perform or watch various dance genres.
Dance has always been an important part of celebrations, ceremony and entertainment. It’s difficult to say when dance has become a part of human culture. The Egyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures from 3300 BCE and 9000 year old Bhimbekta rock shelters paintings in India indicate the prevalence of dance even in prehistoric times. Dance figurines were a permanent feature of ancient temple architecture.
Dances are usually performed as a mode of expression, as part of healing rituals or as an offering to God. Dance forms are also used as a tool to communicate with people about social evils, prohibiting the progress of the society. Ballet, bharatnatyam, hip hop, rumba belly dance, calypso, gigue, lap dance… there are sooo many varieties of dance we enjoy today.
The entertaining performance of traditional Ugandan dance and music by Ndere Troupe is what initiated these thoughts on various dance forms. I’d watched traditional Ugandan dances many a time. But getting to enjoy the playing of musical instruments, singing and dancing in a serene ambience in the amphitheatre at the Ndere Centre was an entirely unique experience. To quote from Ndere Troupe’s website, “In Africa written words didn’t exist, thus Africa’s cultural history, literature, knowledge and wisdom were recorded and passed on to succeeding generations through the medium of performing arts music, dance, storytelling and poetry.”

 

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The programme started with playing of various instruments and singing.

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Kiganda dance from Buganda was originally only to be performed by the people of Obutiko clan and only in the palace.

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Dance of Bunyoro tribe. Bunyoro tribe belongs to the Toro region in Western Uganda. This is a courtship dance. Men and women sit around a fire reciting poems. Then men start dancing in front of each girl and the luckiest one gets chosen.

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Banyankole are the people who belong to the Ankole tribe, one of the four traditional tribes of Uganda. They are from South Western Uganda. This region is also famous for the Ankole cows with their distinctive curved horns.

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Dancers of Alur tribe hail from north western Uganda. One of the main instruments they play is called an Adungu.

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These are the dancers of the Acholi tribe. They belong to the Luo Nilotic ethnic group from northern Uganda.

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The percussion ensemble from Burundi , another east African country, was quite amazing. They came in balancing the heavy log drums on their heads drumming and singing. These drums are made from the trunks of a tree which grows only in Burundi.

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Intore (the dance of heroes) is the most famous traditional dance form of Rwanda, another east African country.

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It was a visual treat indeed. This post will not be complete unless I mention the tasty Ugandan meal which we all enjoyed after the performance.

Min

10 Feb 2014

Sunset at Kappad Beach

Global awareness, global warming, global politics, global citizen, global governance… the word ‘global’ has become part of our daily conversations. It is hard to imagine a world where you cannot pick and choose goods and products from all over the globe. We are truly enjoying the fruits of globalisation. I was reminded of a significant historical incident on the route to this globalisation, when I visited Kappad, a beach on the Malabar coast on the south western shore of India.kappad-beach2
In 1453 Ottoman Turks, under the leadership of Sultan Mehmed II, conquered the city of Constantinople, after a siege that lasted 50 days. With the fall of Constantinople (the city was renamed Istanbul), the Ottoman Turks cut off the overland caravan routes that were essential to the spice trade between Europe and countries in Asia that produced spices like cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, and turmeric.
Meanwhile, the demand for spices which were scarce and costly kept growing in Europe. In addition to flavouring food, spices were valued for their medicinal qualities and as a status symbol.
Finding a sea route to India became an immediate need. Tales carried by travellers, of the fabulous wealth of the East, also fuelled the quest. It was under these circumstances that King Manuel of Portugal commissioned an expedition to India under Captain-Major Vasco da Gama, who set out with four ships on July 8, 1497. After much hardship, Vasco da Gama landed at Kappad near Calicut (of Calico fame) on May 20, 1498. Thus was started an era of strife and competition and warfare among the European nations for mastery over the land and wealth of the East. At the same time, it also was the beginning of cultural and commercial interactions on a global scale.kappad-beach1
Calm, serene, peaceful… these are the words that best describe Kappad beach today.
The place is very beautiful and quite. Rocky formations extending into the ocean on either side of the sandy beach add an extra charm. The huge rocks can easily be climbed and provide wonderful views.
On a regular day, the beach is not crowded at all.
It is glorious to sit on the rocks and watch the sun setting in the Arabian Sea.

The old temple on one of the rocky formations is quite charming.temple
If you are an early bird and get to the beach, in the morning when the fishermen’s boats land, you can buy almost live fish, including the fabulous pearl spots.

Pearl spots taken through their natural progression (unfortunately, not from Kappad)

Pearl spots taken through their natural progression (unfortunately, not from Kappad)

A pillar near the beach commemorates Vasco da Gama’s landing at the Kappad, which used to be known locally as Kappakadavu. pillar

~Ria

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Interesting note
The early stories about the mysterious East were so full of fantasy… In the 7th century, Europeans believed that pepper grew on trees guarded by serpents. The only way it could be harvested was by setting the trees on fire, which would frighten the serpents away. May be that would have explained why pepper was black… 🙂divider-recipe-end

07 Feb 2014