E is for Easter

"Anything happening for Easter this year?" My neighbour sent me a message.

Two years ago, a couple of us had organised an Easter egg hunt for the kids. Last year, we attended the Easter party held in the community centre instead. This year, their party was scheduled at 4 pm and Xena would still be napping, so I didn't get the tickets. So yes, it looked like there was nothing happening for Easter this year.

However, that changed when my neighbour's message arrived. I decided to do something about it.

Though it was just days to Easter, I knew that this is how most successful small-scale events worked. If you plan things or send out invites too early, people are not sure of their plans and you really have to chase for the RSVPs because you need confirmed numbers. Then there are some who might say 'maybe', because they are waiting for something better to come along. Or sometimes, because of all the time there is, the whole thing balloons up into something big and then there is talk of catering and contributions and then someone has to go around collecting money, and there are accountability issues, and it just becomes a big mess. From my experience, if you plan stuff like this closer to the actual date and keep it small, only people who are genuinely interested will turn up, the RSVPs will be clear, and people will have a good time.

So I quickly booked a barbeque pit, and posted an invitation on the estate's Facebook page. I mentioned that it would be a small event, with an Easter egg hunt, some games and prizes for the kids and some pot luck snacks. As there were only a few days to the party, most RSVPs poured in within hours, and some neighbours even volunteered to sponsor some of the prizes for the games. This was great, because it meant that we could have a small prize for every kid who attended the party!

I bought some plastic Easter eggs and started planning the games. Easter egg and spoon race for the older kids and 'match the egg halves' for the younger kids. And of course, the actual Easter egg hunt for all the kids.

I'd also been thinking about making something Easter-related for the pot luck, and suddenly it struck me -- mini cupcakes with Easter eggs in nests!

I baked the cupcakes that afternoon, and just before the party, we sat down to decorate them. "You make the nests, Mama, I'll lay the eggs!" She said. LOL!

But she was a great help, because about 70 eggs needed to be 'laid'. 

I'd made the eggs with marshmallow fondant and they really did look like real eggs!

Some of them also went into her tummy during the decoration process!

Finally, we were all done!

Xena slipped into her Easter bunny costume (recycled from Halloween last year!).

I'd bought this bunny ears hairband for myself, but the woman just stole it, you know. "I'm just trying it on, Mama!", she said. But I never got to wear it. She ran off to attend the party like this. Young lady, wait till you're older; Mama will 'just try on your clothes'!

We had about 20 families and about 30 kids, and there sure was a lot of amazing food. Whoever came up with the concept of pot luck is a genius.

The Easter egg hunt was chaotic, but funny-chaotic. I actually had a whistle around my neck so that everyone could start the hunt together, otherwise the older kids would seek out everything, leaving nothing for the toddlers. Thankfully, every kid was able to find something or the other. 

The egg and spoon race was a riot too, and I was amazed at the honesty of the kids towards the rule that if your egg fell down, you could put it back in your spoon, but you'd have to go back to the start line and start all over again. 

Viv was away all day at cricket, but got back just minutes after the party had started. Armed with his DSLR with a new lens, he got some fabulous shots. 

The prizes for the kids included solar calculators from Daiso, the $2 Japanese store. The kids were thrilled to have them, but because it was dark-ish and the calculators wouldn't work, they sat around the lamps in the grass, trying to charge them. The sight was HILARIOUS!

While the kids played, the grown-ups also had a chance to mingle and catch up. And because our condominium has people from every single race and nationality you can think of, it truly was a multi-cultural event.

After we wrapped everything up, I was on a high, already feeling excited about next year's Easter party. And just then, Xena asked me what Easter was. I was stumped. What did I know about Easter? Ghanta. I only organised the Easter and Halloween parties for our condominium because there were tons of desis to take care of Holi and Diwali, but the truth is that I had no clue about what Easter was. To me, it has always been a celebration involving eggs and bunnies and hunts and food and family and friends and togetherness. In short, partayyyyy time!

Anyway, in order to answer Xena's question, I looked up 'Easter' on Wikipedia and almost fainted at the description.

Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial after his crucifixion by Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD. It is the culmination of the Passion of Christ, preceded by Lent (or Great Lent), a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance.

My head was reeling. There was no way I could explain all this to Xena. So in the end, this is what I told her. This should do. For now.

Easter is a celebration, involving eggs and bunnies and hunts and food and family and friends and togetherness. In short, partayyyyy time!

D is for dosa

One of the ways in which I try to emulate my mom is to make sure that I make something different for breakfast each day. She had a plethora of breakfast items up her sleeve, picked up along the way of dad's transfers to different places. But of all the things she used to make, dosas were my favourite. I used to love dosas so much, my mom would make the following joke all the time.

"Going by your love for dosas, you're gonna get married into a South Indian family. Mark my words! Hahaha!"

(If only she knew that it was not a joke she had made, but an accurate prediction...)

"Going by that logic, I think she should get married to the pani puri wala downstairs." My cousin remarked.

I wanted to fling the dosa on my plate at him, but it was nice and crispy and I wanted to eat it.

I still love dosas, the ones at MTR being my favourite. Yumzadooza!

Anyway, fast-forward many many years... Of all my failed attempts to make stuff for Xena to eat, I can say that dosas have been the least of a failure. I started off my making tiny heart-shaped dosas and sending them off in her school snackbox. They looked very cute and seeing her classmates' interest in them, she started nibbling on them too, and soon realised that they weren't too bad.

Take a teaspoon of batter, flick left, flick right on the pan, and you have a heart!

They were quite crunchy and yum, and always a hit at play dates.

Motivated by this, I made all sorts of shapes with dosa batter, and she took quite well to them. Here are some of my 'artisanal' dosas, made by putting some batter into a ketchup dispensing bottle and squeezing away.

Lollipop

Plant with a flower

Fruits and Christmas tree

Flowers

This, on hindsight, was not a great idea. It looked cool on the pan, but I realised that I had not thought it through. The eyes and mouth were independent of the face, and had to be flipped separately. Yikes. Disturbing. 

Soon, in spite of the tiny quantities she ate, dosa became her favourite food. You could ask her any day of the week what she wanted for dinner, and her instant reply would be 'dosa'. The big problem I have is that she eats her dosa without any filling, sambar or chutney whatsoever. I've tried real hard, but she absolutely refuses to eat anything at all with the dosa. And I'm not comfortable with the idea of a small plain dosa as a complete meal. Especially if said meal occurs on a regular basis.

So I decided to go all out to fortify the dosas I made for her, just to increase their nutrition value by a bit. One day, I had made some spinach puree to make soup for Viv and me, and I mixed some of the puree with batter to make green batter. I made green heart dosas, and she bought them!

Then, one day, she made a strange request. "Mama, can you make a pink gingerbread man dosa for me?"

Hmmm. 

Pink.

Gingerbread man.

Dosa.

I thought for a while about how to bring these three unrelated elements together. And then inspiration hit me. I didn't want to use artificial pink food colouring so I used some beetroot instead. I made two batches of batter -- one was white and the other was pink, dyed with beetroot. 

It ended up looking more Halloween-y than gingerbread-man-y, but she ate it happily. 

I also tried to make a whale. Please note how the water spout from the blowhole ended up looking like a duck. Sheesh. But she didn't complain. I guess that was because she can't draw whales either. 

I have now taken my dosa ventures to new levels by buying a grinder (I was not entirely happy with using a blender to make batter). I didn't even know there was such a thing as a grinder, until I saw one at Viv's aunt's place in Bangalore when we were there last year. "What on earth is that giant contraption and why don't I have one?" I asked myself the moment I tasted the idlis she had made. I'm not a fan of idlis, but that seriously was the most divine idli ever. My dad-in-law, who wastes no time when it comes to anything, promptly took me to a store and I got myself a grinder. It was almost 10 kg in weight, but luckily, we had enough baggage allowance to bring it here. Now I make industrial quantities of really amazing, fluffy batter, enough for the family, friends and the 'hood. 

Now that she's a little older, I have graduated to making regular dosa-shaped dosas for her, but I still add all sorts of things to the batter - grated carrots, grated beetroots, vegetable puree, etc. I continue to serve it with some kind of a protein, such as sambar, but she rejects it without fail. Every single time. 

Well, at least the dosa is willingly going into that unwilling tummy and I'm really thankful for that. 

C is for captured

"Mama, when will my baby teeth start falling out?" Xena asked me some time last year.

"When you are six or seven..."

"Yayyyyy! My teeth will fall out! I'm gonna get new teeth!"

Her excitement and enthusiasm amused and also disturbed me. I don't remember being that thrilled when my first tooth fell out. I was never a big fan of the whole tooth-shaking-and-falling-out process. I had bawled my eyes out, not when my first tooth fell out, but when I realised that the process would occur nineteen more times!

My dad, on the other hand, thought it was a momentous occasion and had a picture taken of me, displaying a wide grin, but with a front tooth missing. He loved the picture so much, he had it framed and hung on the most prominent wall of the house. I didn't mind it all that much initially. In fact, I was quite proud of the fact that such a giant picture of me was up on the wall. My sister would sometimes play this ridiculous game she'd invented called 'How high can I fling my slipper up?' and one day, she flung it up so high it hit my picture. The picture didn't fall, but I was enraged and cried for a full fifteen minutes. That's how possessive I was about that picture. 

However, as I grew older, I soon realised how hideous I found the picture. I don't know if it was the missing tooth, or the lop-sided fringe (I'm pretty sure it was the handiwork of my sister again!), but I could say with confidence that it was the worst picture of me ever. And I only have like 10 pictures of me as a kid. I hated it. I would ask dad to take it down, especially when we expected guests, and he'd refuse, saying he had captured a special moment of my childhood and the world needed to see it. Sheesh.

Years passed. All my baby teeth had fallen out and new ones had taken their place. The photo and the frame hadn't budged from the wall, even though they were showing rather extreme signs of aging. One fine day, dad realised that it really was quite dilapidated, and it was indeed time to take it down. And he did. I was sure that even if he hadn't, it would have fallen down by itself; its condition was that bad. Anyway, the photo went away and I breathed a sigh of relief. I moved to Singapore and sent him better pictures of me to hang on the wall. He did, but somehow, he never printed any of them that big.

When Xena and I started discussing the fall of her first tooth, the first thought that struck me was that of my photograph. For some strange reason, I longed to see it. Was there a chance that it was somewhere? If not, was there a chance the negative had somehow survived my dad's multiple transfers? Was there a chance I could print it and show it to Xena, and perhaps even do a collage with her photo when her first tooth fell out? 

I didn't dare to ask dad because he'd have said, "Oh, now you like it? Now you want it??" So I casually asked my mom when I was there last year, "So what happened to that photo of me with my first broken tooth?"

"We took it down, remember? You insisted we take it down. I'm not sure where it is anymore."

"Erm, yeah. You wouldn't happen to have the negative, would you?"

"The negative??"

"Yeah... you know, for printing it again..."

"Why? I thought you hated it?"

"Erm, yeah. I'd like to show it to Xena..."

"Hmm... we definitely don't have the negative."

Oh, well.

So I gave up the hunt.

However, I was in for a surprise. Last week, my cousin sent me a message on behalf of my mom. There was no message actually, it was just a photo of a photo.

A photo of the photo.

So there it was, staring at me, that hideous photo of me with one tooth missing. I still hate it, I do. But I also cherish it. Dad had indeed captured a special moment of my childhood.

I had no intention of posting the picture, but I know that if I didn't, some of you would have been after my life, "Photo, or it didn't happen."

So here it is, that hideous photo of me, concealed behind the most extreme filter I could find, which just about gives you an idea of what it is, hopefully without giving you enough material to point and laugh. Hmmmph!

B is for bicycle

About two weeks before turning five, Xena expressed a very strong desire to get rid of the training wheels on her bicycle. So Viv and I said, "Hell, yeah!" and proceeded to carry out her wish. With her off-the-charts body weight and stick-figure legs, riding a bike, even with a parent handle or training wheels had always been a struggle for her. So we were quite thrilled at this progression.

I was amazed at how everything she said to Viv and me when training to ride was a reflection of everything I had said to my dad when I was a kid. "Don't let go! I will fall!" for a few days followed by "Don't hold! I can do it!"

(Of course, I never had a kiddy bike or training wheels. I started off at a relatively older age, straightaway on my red adult-sized Avon bicycle, which I used to take for a spin every weekend, all by myself. In a state like Bihar, where dad was posted at that time. But that's a story for another day.)

So last week, she was able to ride her bike without any sort of assistance for a considerable distance. It was a proud moment for us. And it made me think what a long way our little baby has come. And then a bell went off in my head -- photo post! I thought it might be fun to document in chronological order, Xena's vehicular journey -- from the humble ride-on toys to the tricycle to the scooter to the bike.

It all started in March 2012, when she got this ride-on toy for her 1st birthday. 

Of course, her main point of interest in the toy was the nose which made a funny musical sound if you pressed it. In fact, I think that if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still hear it. 

Soon, she got quite good at riding on it. 

And she could even do the repairs by herself. Daughter of two engineers, after all. 

After six months, she had put together her own helmet, by taking apart a shape-sorter toy. 

Safety is important, you see. She wouldn't take off her helmet even for putting on hairclips.

By the next month, she had gotten herself another helmet. You can never be too safe when it comes to riding. 

By the end of 2012, she was a pro at riding this thing.

She also tried her hand at this tricycle we found abandoned at the playground, that everyone took turns to ride. You can call it the village bicycle. 

Just before she turned two, I got her this lamb with wheels that flipped up, converting it into a rocking toy, She loved it, but as you can see, we still had to pull her along.  

At school, they used these two-seater bikes and of course, it was impossible for her to move the pedals, especially with someone sitting at the back. But her teachers reported that she tried real hard. 

Just after her 2nd birthday, she had a Hello Kitty scooter, complete with a helmet. This scooter never left the house. We simply started referring to it as the 'indoor scooter'. 

Meanwhile, the lion ride was still around and she'd take it for an occasional spin around the house. This was June 2013. 

She also tried at hand at other bicycle-resembling objects, such as my exercise bike. She was 2.5 years old in this picture.

In August of 2013, I bought her a second-hand trike with a parent handle just to see how she handled it. She could pose with it very nicely...

...but when it came to pushing the pedals, her legs didn't have the required strength, so I had to push her using the parent handle at the back. 

Rocking lamb was also still around, but she was approaching 3, and as you can see, she was getting a little big for it. 

Viv and I gifted her a proper 'outdoor' scooter for her 3rd birthday, and soon she got quite good at it. 

She would zoom away and I'd be running after her!

She even did 'stunts' on her scooter. She called this the 'flamingo on a scooter' pose. Sheesh.

By the age of 3.5, she was able to ride the school trikes well. 

In June 2015, right after her fourth birthday, we rented a bike with training wheels at the beach. 

She was comfortable on it, and even showed consideration for other road users by stopping at crossings. And we knew that she was ready to get her own bike. 

We checked out bikes at several shops, and while her criterion was a simple "Daddy, Mama, this bike matches my clothes. Let's buy it!", Viv had some stringent requirments. 

Finally, in August 2015, we found the bike that Viv approved of. The shop had this in 'ghastly pink' and 'ghastly green' and to the shop-owner's surprise, Xena chose 'ghastly green'. I was not a fan of either colour, but the ghastly green would surely make her more visible when biking in the late evenings, so we went with it. I was secretly happy that she had not picked up anything in pink when she declared that the helmet would be pink. Sigh. Fine. 

September 2015 -- Xena at the beach with her bike

We took the bike everywhere we went, but Xena still didn't have enough strength or energy to ride it for more than a few minutes. This is the face she'd make to tell me she couldn't pedal anymore.

Notice the skipping rope in the basket? Yup, that was for me to tie to her handlebar and drag her back home after she got too tired to continue riding. 

And finally, we get to the present day, where she zips about on her bike so fast, Viv dons his marathon T-shirt and runs after her, while I run after both of them with my camera. 

Way to go, baby, way to go!

A is for anniversary

"Today is the day, Xena! Did you wish him?"

"But Mama, why is it his first anniversary and not his first birthday?"

"Hmm... Because we don't know when he was born. But we do know that he came to our home exactly a year ago."

That seemed to satisfy her.

"Happy anniversary, Blue!" She leaned close to his tank, looked up and wished him. Then she trotted off to make a card for him. 

Sometimes I can't believe we have had Blueberry for a year. I remember the frenzy when he made his unexpected entry into our lives, catching us totally offguard. I remember the joy he brought us, once we were past the panic attacks, the confusion, the anxiety and the insane amounts of googling to keep him alive and well. I remember Xena's teacher telling me that every single fish the class had got during that excursion had died within the week, including the two that were at school, and I remember wondering what I'd do when ours did too. 

But somehow, he survived. He lasted through our move when our home was getting renovated (though he did get really really sick once and was saved only by the grace of Google devta) and he lasted through our 3-week India trip. We had left him with a friend, who I must say was incredibly courageous to agree to keep someone's fish for 3 weeks, in spite of not being a fish person at all. I had emailed her a loooong list of care instructions, which she sincerely followed. I was too embarrassed to add, "Please talk to him regularly." as it felt rather silly. Now imagine my joy and amusement when I received a message from her saying, "I know this sounds silly, but I talk to him every day." I think when she returned him, she must have felt the same separation pangs I had felt when leaving him with her. She had also been very gracious about the fact that I had dharm-bhrashtofied her Tambrahm household by taking Blueberry's food (he's a strict carnivore) there. 

In the days leading up to his anniversary, I was very very nervous. A friend of mine, who knows a thing or two about fish, had paid a visit, taken a good look at him and remarked that he was in his senior years and that I should be 'prepared'. And for the first time in almost a year, with trembling hands, I had googled "How long do betta fish live?" There were many answers but what I generally got was that these fish live an average of about 2-4 years. And oh, the fish may already be a year old, possibly more, when you get it from the shop because it takes about that long for the fish to mature and its colours to truly bloom and make it attractive enough to be sold.

So Blueberry is most likely at least 2 years old. And since Murphy is everyone's chacha, I worried that Blueberry might be gone before his first anniversary. In fact, sometimes when he sleeps, he really does look quite dead. He'd either go and sink all the way to the bottom or float in a corner at the top, or hide in his grey cave, showing no movement at all. It always makes my heart skip a beat. The thought that he might be really old troubled me so much that I even spoke to Xena to prepare her for the fact that one day he would be gone. After her initial indignation at the thought of her fish dying, she started asking very weird questions. If he dies, will we have to throw him in the dustbin or can we keep him in the storeroom? Oh dear lord. Flashes of Joey's dad's pet mortician girlfriend appeared in my mind. I didn't know how to answer that. I don't know what people do with dead pet fish. I didn't want to think about it. We will get there when we get there. 

For now, I want to celebrate the fact that we have managed to take good care of him and kept him alive for a year. That's a long time. He has been the delight of every young visitor to our house and a great conversation-starter. People are instantly interested when I say, "Our fish is very dhaarmik. He fasts on Saturdays and is a vegetarian on Sundays." It's true. Because betta fish have stomachs the size of their eyeballs, but appetites the size of Kumbhkaran's, it is easy for them to overeat. Actually, the top cause of betta deaths is overeating. So I starve him on Saturdays, and then give him a quarter of a finely chopped, blanched frozen pea on Sundays. Since he's a hardcore carnivore, this high-fibre vegetarian meal does wonders to clear his gut out and keep him healthy. (See how sarvagyaani I am, thanks to Google again.)

Xena made a card for Blueberry's anniversary and even stuck it on his tank with scotch tape. When I pointed out that it was facing outwards so he couldn't see it, she peeled it off and stuck it back such that her drawing faced him now. It really touched my heart. I'm not sure if it freaked him out though. 

Sometimes, I can't believe that such extremely non-pet people like us have had a pet for a year. I do know that we will never get a dog or a cat, and we may never get another fish, but having Blue around sure has made all of us, including Xena, a little more compassionate and caring. 

Happy anniversary, Mr. Blueberry Bubbles!