Terrible Dinner

My mom loved to cook. And as kids when we were all still staying under the same roof, she made sure she cooked for us every single day. And we loved her cooking. Dinners were special affairs. All of us sat together and ate. There was much animated discussions and laughter and licking of fingers and wolfing down of delicious food. One day, as usual I took my place on the table and reached out for the dinner. And I realized something was wrong. Very, very wrong. The food looked awful. The sabzi was all messed up, the rotis burned, the daal all gooey. Salad was missing. And I thought what in the heavens was wrong with mom. I looked at her, her eyes were down. I got upset. I looked towards dad and he was taking food in his plate as usual. What was he doing?. He was behaving as if nothing was wrong. He even began eating. I couldn't believe my eyes. I was so sure he would be upset with mom too. This dinner was terrible. But he just carried on eating. He even made the usual queries about our day and shared how his day was and all the usual stuff. I really wanted to yell at mom for ruining my dinner, but since dad was all normal and all that I too kept quite. Eventually the dinner was over and I raced away to the bathroom to wash, almost certain that I might barf all it out. However even as Ii raced away I did notice mom reach over to dad and quietly apologize for the bad dinner. Dad just smiled and said that the dinner was just fine. I had no clue why he said that.

Later at night as he came to wish me goodnight I brought his face close to mine and asked him in a whisper why he didn't get upset with mom for spoiling the dinner so badly. He looked into my eyes and gently said, 'Son, a bad meal has never really hurt anybody, but harsh words have killed many a spirit, broken many a hearts.    

Musings, Teenage Parenting

The moment a teen feels she is in control of her life, she will begin to be responsible. But sometimes just giving that control too is not enough.

My parents had given me immense control and freedom over my life and yet I remember how I kept pushing the limits of that freedom. Much later, as a parent myself, I often asked them how come they were so comfortable with me having all that freedom and clearly not making the best use of it. They would say its not that they were always comfortable, but when they were uncomfortable they just did two things very well. One, they persisted with their resolve to let me have the freedom and two, they hid their disappointment from me.

In our impatience, in our hurry to get things done, we are all too keen to let our disappointments show. And in that lies the reason why sometimes our teenage kids feel they don't really have the freedom we say they do.

Wind Talks

On a trek the one this that is almost always with you is the wind. It blows, it swirls, it swoops and it drags. Its also interesting how good a mimic the wind is. It makes all sorts of sounds. Last night as i lay in my tent it flapped my tent in such a peculiar way that i really thought someone was walking about just outside my tent. And the other day it rustled through the pine needles and all of us thought we had found the stream we were so desperately looking for. Then again sometimes you think someone far away is playing the flute, or whispering a love song or lamenting a loss, but if you listen carefully its just the wind blowing and doing mischief. The softer the wind the more the mischief. The stronger wind is loud but it had no range and no mischief. One night as i slept among the jacaranda trees the wind slowly blew thought the blossoms, tinkling lightly and singing me a sweet lullaby.

ForfeitingHappiness

There was this old man who had a large family and a larger circle of friends. They all lived well together and met often. While there was much happiness among them, things were always a bit tight, money was perpetually a little short and they all kept wishing things could get a little easier. One day the old man was walking in the forest when he met God resting under a tree. The old man was overwhelmed and immediately prostrated himself and sought his blessings. God gently patted his head and bade him to sit besides him. So the two of them sat and listened to the sounds of the forest. After a while the old man became restless and God asked him why? The old man asked God why he didn't give him more money. God told him tat he had given him enough and if he gave him anymore then he would have to take something away.
'take away what?' asked the old man.
'happiness' God said.
'Oh, I have enough of happiness' said the old man, 'I can spare some, so please give me some more money'
'it doesn't work that way' said God, 'I cant give you just a little more money. What I can do instead is give you lots of money'
'well, more the merrier', exclaimed the old man, 'with lots of money I can fulfill all the desires of my family and friends and then we will all be happy. So God, please give me lots of money'
'So be it', said God, 'but don't tell me later I didn't warn you'

So now the old man was immensely rich and he quickly went about trying to fulfill all those latent desires he had in him. And he enjoyed the joys it bought him, the delights, the way everybody was respectful to him and the way they all treated him as if he was some king. He loved the way he could solve all problems with his money. And so his life went on. But all the while the old man kept wondering what did God mean when he said he would take away his happiness. The old man had never been happier.

One day his youngest son came up to him and bitterly complained that he was being unfair. That he was giving his elder siblings much more money. 'But that because they have bigger families' the old man explained. 'So what, I too will soon have as big a family, so you must give me just as much money as they get'

So the old man gave his youngest son as much money. But the moment he did that his elder children were very unhappy as they though he was overly favoring his youngest child. So little by little the old man felt things changing. He noticed that nobody now came just to meet him, they all came so that they could somehow sponge off him. What made him sad was that everybody pretended they were there just to meet him but soon they would start talking about some misfortune or some great idea they had to solve all their problems and all they needed was a little bit of money. Since nobody openly asked him for money, especially his friends, he would close to give it out when he felt like. When he gave it they would go away happy but if he didn't give them the money then they would promptly bad mouth him all over the place, that is was stingy old man or that he had a heart of stone and so on and so forth. All this made him feel very uneasy and that's when the old man finally realized what God had meant when he said that he would take the happiness away.    

Nightly Marauders

We had camped at the edge of Doditaal which itself abuts dense forest on all sides. The campsite was a nice large meadow with ample fresh flowing water. During season its common to find herds of sheep sharing your space and since our trek was in season, we were met with a large herd already settled there. During the day we had to constantly shoo away the sheep from our camping stuff. These sheep apparently will eat anything. I once had to rush towards a goat that was happily chomping on the guy-rope of my tenet and another time i had mistakenly left the outer flap of my tent unzipped and by the time i realized it, a sheep was practically half inside, eyeing my backpack rather meaningfully.

Actually, sharing your space with a herd is quite a nuisance, with things getting much worse at night. One is kept awake by the constant bleating and snuffling and to top it all the sheepdogs would keep barking and often set a part of the herd on a run just for fun. So my first thought when I reached the campsite and saw the herd was that i wasn't going to be sleeping much that night and i mentally prepared myself for a noisy night.

Surprisingly as i settled into my tent the herd was unusually quiet and i do remember thinking that it was odd thing. It was around 11 at night that the barking began.This herd was being guarded by three sheepdogs and all three seemed to have gone berserk all of a sudden. There was a flurry of movement outside my tent and by the sound of the barking i could figure out that one of the dogs had just ripped past my tent towards the forest behind and was barking furiously. I instantly knew that some wild animal was on the prowl. What could it be i wondered. Given the season it could either be a leopard or a brown bear. I was instantly up and out of my sleeping bag and was keenly following the sound of the barking. The dog behind me was incessantly barking but his tone did not change. On the other hand the other two dogs, who were much further away from my tent were alternatively barking and growling and seemed to be moving about much more than the dog behind my tent. Again from experience I knew whatever was happening was happening closer to those two dogs and for the moment i was OK. So i relaxed a bit but kept a sharp ear on what the dog behind my tent was doing. He kept up his monotonous barking. After a while things settled down, which basically meant that now all three dogs had switched to a monotonous barking. I knew that the wild animal had retreated and the dogs were now merely on alert mode. With the immediate danger of being collateral damage in a night hunt receding, i relaxed completely and thought to myself....yup just another noisy night.

Next day in the morning I was told that a wild cat had made away with a sheep during the night and i felt a thrill of having been so close to a kill and i silently congratulated myself on the reasonable calmness with which i had reacted.

Much later as i was having a cup of tea with my fellow campers I saw a shepherd hold up a baby goat and chase a mama goat. He then sat and made sure the mama goat suckled the baby. Later I was told that the wild cat had made off with this baby's mama during the night. I didn't feel all that thrilled about the kill anymore. And i was glad for the shepherd. Thanks to him, this baby goat will live and be healthy, even though its mama was gone.

Animal Instincts

Getting a campfire relit from the previous night's embers is one of the most frustrating as well as satisfying of all camping tasks. One has to find the right dry twigs and do plenty of blowing and puffing and after much gentle coaxing one is rewarded with a few licks of flame that then has to be slowly built into a decent fire. All this takes plenty of focused attention and I was totally engrossed. When i finally had a fire going i looked up, very much self satisfied, and that's when i noticed that in all the time i was busy trying to get the fire going, a sheep had quietly delivered a baby no more than a few feet away. She was at that very moment gently licking the little bundle lying on the ground, all covered with placental fluids. I watched fascinated at the mother and the baby. The mother was diligently licking the baby, nibbling away the slime, and the baby was making equally diligent efforts to totter up on its gangling twiggly legs. The fascinating duet continued for many minutes and finally the baby was on its feet. I silently applauded the spirit of the little one and egged it on towards what i knew would be its first task. And sure enough, instinctively the little bugger searched for its mama's teats. But the moment the baby got near the teats the mama smartly twisted out of its way, all the while continuing to nibble at the baby's hide. I was disappointed and silently cheered the baby to try again. But again the moment the baby got near the teats the mom twisted out of its way. I was taken aback and getting a little cross with the sheep. Why was she not nursing the baby. That's what all moms do. I kept watching the scene for at least half an hour. The baby's efforts got stronger and more eager, yet every time it got anywhere near the teats, the mom would twist away. I was befuddled. Eventually i just turned away, thoroughly disappointed with the mom. Much later i was chatting with a shepherd and he explained. It seems that when a baby is born in cold weather the mom will instinctively focus all her efforts and attention on cleaning up the baby. She knows that the longer she takes to clean it up the higher is that chance that the fluid would freeze the baby to death. And as far as not nursing it was concerned, again she knew instinctively that if she nurses the baby before its properly cleaned up, the milk would instantly warm the baby from inside and the fluid on the outside would not allow it to cool off, effectively putting the baby's life at risk due to a thermal shock.     

Shepherd Thinking

Shepherds usually come across as simple minded folks, not at all given to any education of the formal sort. However I have never had any reason to think of them as a bunch of uneducated ignoramuses, even though, at first sight, given their weather beaten demeanor and their shabby attire, one would almost always end up thinking so.

For these shepherds their flock is all that they seem to care about. As they move from one graze land to another their biggest threat are the wild cats that often make a meal of the weak or the laggards. So shepherds often combine their flocks. Seeking safety in numbers, i guess. Up in the mountains it is a common sight to see a huge herd of sheep tended by a common band of shepherds. These herds can get as large as 2000 odd sheep and since a typical shepherd has about 250 - 300 sheep, its obvious that almost 8 - 10 shepherds have pooled in their flocks. A herd as large as that, tended by a common pool of the fiercely protective bhutias and the of-course the ever alert shepherds themselves, does have a much better chance of minimizing the losses. Very sensible, to say the least, but what amazed me most about this arrangement was what happens at the end of the grazing season. Once the herd is back in the plains its time to redistribute the herd back to the respective owners and since none of the sheep are usually marked, i assumed this would be a rather acrimonious task. To my utter surprise the way it is done is most amazing. A shepherd would wade into the herd and unerringly pick out his sheep, just on sight. Its amazing to see his roam about and seemingly randomly weaning away some sheep. It seems they know each and every sheep of theirs by face !!!

I feel that's damn intelligent.  

Bewra Magic

One night we camped at Bewra on our way to Doditaal. The campsite was next to a basic lodge which was also available to us and we chose to sit on its terrace and enjoy a cuppa. That's when my eye fell on this ball of fur, a bhutia pup, not more that 3 months old.. Bhutias are a ferocious breed of sheep dogs but this pup had none of that ferocity as yet, just a beautiful black nose, two beautiful grey black eyes and a nice thick green grey coat. It stood up, shook himself and looked at me, his head slightly tilted. I clicked my fingers and whistled, and as if on cue he toddled up to me and promptly put is paws into my extended hands and sniffed. My heart melted and i picked him up and brought him close to my face and whispered 'hello, beautiful'.

The next 30 minutes were blissful as i gently ran my fingers through his fur and held him up. I examined his cute paws, his ears, his snout and his bushy tail. Then we played, i swung his around, he licked my fingers, i tickled his nose and he snipped at my finger tips, i catapulted him over my shoulders and he dug his paws into my arms, he yelped and i giggled. At the end of the half hour he looked tired and quietly snuggled into the crook of my arm and peacefully went to sleep.

Souls travel, they say. And if you wish hard enough, they find you. Copper's soul had just found me.....